[jfarmer]

> As for the first article, as I've already said, I already knew (in an intellectual sense) that being poor is a disadvantage.

This is not the point of the essay.

> I'm in dire need of enlightenment it seems.

Heh. Ok, I'm out! :)

[Dewie]

> Heh. Ok, I'm out! :)

Well I've said what I wanted to say about my impressions. If you found my tone too hostile, which I'm guessing why you're saying 'bye', it might be because I found you to be too patronizing, which is just my impression. And from how you've engaged some other people in this thread it seems that you don't simply "bow out" because you're a gentleman that don't want to get tangled up in a messy argument, but because you don't find them to be willing subjects to be educated without protest. So gg I guess.

[jfarmer]

I don't find your tone too hostile. I think you're being insincere and aren't actually interested in having a conversation about any of this.

I wrote what I wrote in my original comment not as a preemptive "defense" — as if I was gearing up for a fight — but as a way to get whoever read those essay to hold back from replying reflexively and actually spend time trying to understand them as the author intended them to be understood.

Likewise, I'd ask you to do the same for my comments. Can you imagine a world in which what I am saying makes sense or would even be the "obvious" thing to believe? Can you imagine several? Are some of them more plausible than others? Why or why not?

I bow out when the conversation starts to feel like the Monty Python "Argument Clinic" sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y&t=1m18s