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0 pointsslumpt_5y ago0 comments

sounds like the answer is "no."

see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26033031

not everything is about getting seasonal fruits year round. there is a lot more to life.

and you have not lived in the shoes of the poor in america, so maybe when it concerns issues of poverty you should listen more than talk.

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3 comments · 1 top-level

WalterBright5y ago· 2 in thread

> not everything

I didn't say or imply that. Please stick with what I wrote.

> maybe when it concerns issues of poverty

Maybe you'd prefer statistics. Modern poor people today are much taller than medieval kings (I've seen Henry 8's armor). Height is a strong indicator of having been well fed with good nutrition throughout childhood.

American poor children grow tall and strong. They don't work. They get 12 years of free education. They have good clothes (not rags). There are plenty of government programs to give them free medical care, housing, indoor plumbing, and electricity. They can visit a free library with vast resources available for the asking. They likely have a phone in their pocket with instant access to anyone in the world and a pretty large chunk of all the world's information. They don't suffer from smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, polio, typhoid, diphtheria, tuberculosis, typhus, rickets, scurvy or cholera.

They live longer than medieval kings did, too.

slumpt_OP5y ago

> and you have not lived in the shoes of the poor in america, so maybe when it concerns issues of poverty you should listen more than talk.

or just keep talking. wealthy boomer has opinions. world keeps spinning.

the point has entirely evaded you and i don't expect that to change. may your void screaming bring you joy in your retirement.

have a good weekend, bud. i'm glad you never had to experience real modern poverty.

you clearly have no fucking idea what it's like to live it, and that's great. read some more pinker.

sershe5y ago

Well, let's start with the important stuff, establishing my standpoint-theoretical credentials. I grew up in Russia during its economic collapse, in a "lower-middle-class" family. Food stamps were not a thing, but my mom definitely spent a lot of time e.g. taking transit to some far-away store to buy chicken cheaper... and when my grandma would visit she would report smth like "tomatoes and potatoes were cheaper on Kievsky market today, and oranges were cheaper on Izmaylovsky market, I can buy you some so you don't have to go all the way there". We couldn't afford even to replace a TV, forget e.g. a car. The first cellphone I ever had was purchased from my first full-time paycheck.

Still, the other guy is absolutely right. The penny-pinching food we ate was luxurious compared to the vast majority of people throughout most of history.

Moreover, most American poor live the life of royalty. The only unique real problem (a subset of) the American poor has is housing insecurity; if you don't have that (or frankly if you have that in an expensive city and don't move out), the rest of the complaints I hear are, from my "lived experience", a joke.

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