Will Joe Biden Drop Out of the Presidential Race
- Thread starter gorfias
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Actually, that's exactly a common complaint: it's poor people's own fault for having kids they can't afford.
Of course, the same people who make that argument also often oppose abortion, and sometimes even also contraception: in other words, poor people are automatically irresponsible and morally degenerate just for having sex.
Don't conceive of the conditions? In a bubble? Yet you talk about the people who can work as though that's poverty below my vision. Go help out people who can't work and can't care for themselves and get back to me about bubbles.
You must have missed the part about me working whilst studying full-time. I also participate in unions, strikes and demonstrations for better job conditions. I also take care of family who have terminal illnesses, and I'm doing that right now during quarantine. Your presumptions shine through as well as they did when you claimed Ewok was lying. If you're so keen to throw people who work multiple jobs under the bus as either not existing or fitting into some stereotypical overconsumptive impetus, then that is a tell-tale sign that you do not know what it is like to work as those people do. If you had empathy for them, you would not hide behind stereotypes, and if you were serious and committed about the examples you came up with when you worked manual labour, then you wouldn't be telling me to 'go help people who can't care for themselves'.
I'm pretty sure Biden is trying to lose.
I think it might be a good idea to set aside this conversation for a few days and then reread it with some humility.
I don't believe you understand the word empathy. If you have to share the experience of another to understand them, that doesn't mean you have more empathy, that means that you lack empathy. Empathy is compassion and understanding the people who's experience you don't share. You want an empathetic view:
There are people who cannot care for themselves. That doesn't make them bad people.
There are people who work two jobs. That doesn't make them bad people.
There are people who don't work two jobs and get government support. That doesn't make them bad people.
There are people who meet their needs with one job. That doesn't make them bad people.
There are people who have income beyond their needs. That doesn't make them bad people.
There are people who are supported by others without working. That doesn't make them bad people.
I'm not throwing anyone under the bus. But when the government statistics have a single digit percent of people working multiple jobs, and my experience matches well with that, and the people I've seen with multiple jobs more often do so out of desire than necessity, it would be dishonest of me not to question the legitimacy of the claim that there are entire facilities full of people who have to take on second jobs to make ends meet.
He's saying openly what people behave as though is the case. I don't see the big deal.
People who are republican and black are often called coons and uncle Tom and so on. What is that if not this thought process? Can't they just be greedy or ignorant? Must they be some kinda traitor to the whole? Is that treating them equally to their white grifter counterparts? I don't think so.
This also is no different to the case where I think Albright said there's a special place in hell for women who don't vote for Hillary, the implication being they're not really women fully as much as those who do.
When people claim that black people don't want to be treated as a monolyth, they only refer to the bad things some black people do, which they don't want to be spread to everyone. If it's something good (or percieved-good in the case of voting from Biden) these same people very much do treat the community as though it's monolythic.
People who are republican and black are often called coons and uncle Tom and so on. What is that if not this thought process? Can't they just be greedy or ignorant? Must they be some kinda traitor to the whole? Is that treating them equally to their white grifter counterparts? I don't think so.
This also is no different to the case where I think Albright said there's a special place in hell for women who don't vote for Hillary, the implication being they're not really women fully as much as those who do.
When people claim that black people don't want to be treated as a monolyth, they only refer to the bad things some black people do, which they don't want to be spread to everyone. If it's something good (or percieved-good in the case of voting from Biden) these same people very much do treat the community as though it's monolythic.
Me and Ewok pointed out personal experiences of people who work multiple jobs to make ends meet. You don't believe us, and claim that our experiences aren't real. By your own definition you don't extend empathy to the people who's lives we described, and when we point that out you either accuse us of being liars or in my case assuming I don't take care of people who can't take care of themselves. That already shows a closed mentality, and closed mentalities are tantamount to being in a bubble.
You're also now derailing to talk about the nature of empathy and about the veracity of statistics, which were already provided by Agema if you were to read them. You literally contradict yourself in your own quote as you lack empathy by your own standards!
I'm not unempathetic to people in bad situations, I'm doubtful of unlikely claims. You might notice, I had no disagreement with your personal anecdotes, you said nothing that seems unlikely. My doubt is directed at the person who says "Every. Single. Other. Person. In that plant, had another job or gig." Who claimed a third job almost killed a woman and they were ready to do CPR thinking it was a heart attack. That a man regretfully missed out on his family and DJ'd events just cause he needed the money. It's not that I don't empathize with people who are overworked, it's that every one of those specific claims is exaggerated at best. Seriously consider those, do you personally think those are accurate statements?
Your strawmen or the actual stories of real people that have been related here?
You haven't provided any logical argument for why they're unlikely other than you personally not believing them. It's your word aganist his, and you simply saying 'it can't be real' isn't an argument. So yes, they are accurate statements barring evidence to the contrary, which you haven't provided, you just defer to normative claims instead. I think taking people at their word is the bare minimum for civilised discourse.
If someone can just state a bunch of personal anecdotes and we must accept them as fact and that's the argument, there is no discourse. But I also think you don't believe them either. Particularly the "every single other person" claim, since it would require every person in the plant be capable of multiple jobs, have successfully acquired multiple jobs, and told the person claiming that about their circumstances. I've never worked anywhere where I knew what every one of my coworkers did outside of work, more or less something that would be categorized as a plant. Plants often have multiple shifts, there could be people they didn't even know worked there. It's such an extreme claim, and it just happens to perfectly align with the political argument being made, doubting it is so unavoidable.
Seeing as we were tangentially discussing in another file Biblical literalism, it would be good to apply the same sort of "Catholic" approach here. To not assume people's casual discussion comments as the absolute literal truth, as if written with the forethought, planning and precision we'd of a PhD thesis, but often more somewhat loose, metaphorical or representative.
Yeah, but it was said while comparing me to Ebenezer Scrooge. Do I respond to the literal words and how they're dishonest (looking back, the post even says they only worked one shift. There is no doubt at all that the period emphasized sentence was some cavalier exaggeration.) Or do I acknowledge the loose metaphor that is calling me Scrooge and suggesting I'm insensitive to poor workers and dying children for the crime of saying the US has safety nets. It's not going good places either way, and I'd much prefer the user have a chance to come back and say "ok, those weren't exactly accurate" and formulate their argument better.
What Ewok proposes isn't outlandish relative to actual statistics and work done by sociologists regarding social phenomena -- multiple jobs as a social practice have been documented across countries and across the history of capitalism. Poverty also is seldom spread out, but is concentrated, so if a factory primarily employs low-skilled workers, then if there's incentive for people to look for secondary jobs to survive, then it's likely that they will do it, and so too will multiple people, comprising a whole group. The simple fact that you worked places where that didn't happen isn't substantial enough to contradict Ewok's observations, since we're not talking about natural science (and even there, contradictory observations are cause for evaluation and discourse based on good faith and assured by peer review). Once again, all your claims are purely normative and where you assume everyone is literally the same as you. That's exactly what we call a bubble. If conceiving a) workplace solidarity and b) multiple jobs is too much for you, then I'd hate to see you read any scientific or philosophical work. Considering the census bureau confirms a significant amount of Americans have more than one job, your claim that Ewok's account is extreme just shows your own narrow worldview and understanding of modern labour conditions.
Women More Likely to Have Multiple Jobs
More than 8% of workers have multiple jobs and the majority of them hold two jobs for the entire year. Women are more likely than men to have multiple jobs.
www.census.gov
If someone who works just to early morning shift says that every. single. person. at the plant had multiple jobs, they aren't being accurate. 0% chance.
You gonna be honest yet and admit that?