See this related article and discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47051546

I have $1,000,000,000 and an insatiable appetite for both material and domination. My 9 neighbors, stupid naive fucks that they are, only have $100,000 in total and do not have imaginations sufficient to even begin to want all materials and power in the world.

So of course, when the sole owner of water comes along and offers to sell it, I buy it all for $100,001. I can really never have enough water, especially as I need to power wash my driveway everyday. (I absolutely cannot stand the sight of grime.)

Anyways I guess my point is, I’m glad we all understand that price determines efficiency. Once my 9 neighbors die of dehydration, I’ll be able to gather more materials and power with less obstruction and competition. Hooray!

Personal time is a highly constrained resource: finite, non-renewable, non-storable and mutually exclusive. You can’t simply value someone’s personal time based upon their paid time. (Though people love to do this anyways…as if a poor person’s life time is objectively worth less than a richer person’s.)

Poor people often have less time available, less supply, than others due to longer transportation times as well as having more chores that they must complete by themselves.

For example, a person can be making $15 / hour and only have 4 hours of available waking personal time per day. If during those 4 hours they must complete all personal and household chores, as well as find some time for recuperating, then they would likely value those 4 hours as much more than $15 each.

Or considered another way: the value of the first hour in a day is not worth the same as the last hour. That last hour is valued according to the tasks that must be accomplished during that time and what is lost if the tasks are not successfully accomplished. And when under stress, the value can change drastically.

https://www.ursulakleguin.com/lao-tzu-the-tao-te-ching

Some… Most…

You’ve made some broad assumptions here. I’ve lived in various neighbordhoods in one of the largest cities in this country and near and far suburbs of the same. Only when I’ve lived in ritzy or trendy areas have I had no issue eating healthy (according to my definition of healthy), and always at significantly greater financial cost.

My guess is either your concerns are less restrictive than mine annd others’ on this thread. Or you’ve been privileged enough to not have a clear perspective on just how large, dispersed and discontinuous, the American “food desert” truly is.

So the nutrition facts and ingredients list doesn’t convey any new information? The designers managed to cram all that info into an appealing front facing label? And the marketers refrained from soft deceptions and convenient omissions, prioritizing truth and clarity over sales numbers? Sure.

Also, you’re probably right, the signal will likely pass right over Burger King’s crown.

“The signal isn’t to pay white hats more, instead…”

And perhaps an addendum such as:

“…which will then, indirectly and in the long run, create the signal you were replying to.”

This is flat-out wrong. (And the comment you replied to is also wrong.)

He mentions tomatoes only 6 times in about 1500 words. These words appear half-way into the article, in only 2 of the roughly 16 paragraphs. Three of those instances are in direct reference or comparison to the wild ancestors of tomatoes.

While not specifying, the article also mentions high-altitude, tropical plants and cacti.

A missing dot over the “i” in the Latin alphabet is unambiguously a mistake (depending on the font or script style). But if you missed the horizontal crossbar within the letter “t”, you would read it as an “l”. For example, confusing “mate” as “male”.

Or perhaps, marketing aside, it is just human nature to conjure implicit meaning rather than be confronted with ambiguity.

Additionally most immigrants don’t vote, so it doesn’t account for the current circus. When they do vote, they’ve become citizens by passing a test that many native Americans couldn’t pass.

Uneducation is a problem in general. Doesn’t matter who it is, immigrant or native. But uneducation is fixable problem if we as a society/culture wanted to fix it. We are currently working towards the exact opposite goal and doing it faster than ever.

PISA is not the only measurement. And it is not used by many countries, particularly Asian countries. It isn’t hard to look up other stats on US reading levels.

And again, comparing education levels outside of a historical context of politics and economics is not helpful, to say the least. And it says nothing about an individual’s ability or willingness to become educated once the opportunity presents itself, especially if they’ve already self-selected by making the effort to enter an environment that offers said opportunity. That should be obvious to a person who values and desires to protect American individualism, as you claim to be.

Suggesting uneducated immigrants are a major problem is a common trope of racist discussion even if the word “race” is not specifically used. Especially in the context of a system that is currently trying to kick out immigrants who have voluntarily entered our educational system.

And our population is among the most educated in relation to which countries? Half the country is below a 6th grade reading level. A quarter is below a 3rd grade level. Abysmal for a developed country.

It’s inappropriate to compare the US education level to countries that have historically struggled economically and politically, especially when their struggles have been only exacerbated by self-serving US interference. And when enforced illiteracy is often used as a weapon to keep people down. Granted, GP made the first mistake there it seems, and you responded in kind. (Though I’m not sure because he is specifically comparing the lower percentiles. I haven’t seen data on that.)

But more to the point, you’ve previously claimed that your passion for these topics is due to a belief that ethnic identity and DEI is a threat to your children and to the American individualist culture. Yet, here you are bashing immigrants when neither ethnic identity, DEI, nor American individualism are being discussed.

And you’ve internatilized an American racism that’s not so shocking to see, unfortunately.

Less than a day later, and you’re back at it. Not even a DEI specific post, but the racism still seeps out.

If it’s due to a lack of clarity, I’ll gladly elucidate here. (I can’t directly edit the comment at this point)

Edit: Haha thanks for the extra downvotes HN. So predictable.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43731948

Points: 29

# Comments: 3

> So you make assumptions about peoples' "culture" and "life experiences" based on their ethnicity?

When dealing with people, to understand the meaning behind their actions and words, one needs to have some understanding of their perspective (including their intent). Their perspective is informed by their culture and life experience, amongst other things (but life experience is broad, so mentioning anything else is just redundant). Life experience is informed by their ethnicity and the environment in which they exhibit that ethnicity. I don't say "hey this guy looks to be [...], therefore he definitely is/experienced [...]", but if they are clearly not of the ethnic majority, then I know they have experienced things that the ethnic majority has generally not experienced. That's a helpful start to understanding their perspective and relating to them. I also can ask questions to understand them better, and express insight or interest in them if my "guess" is right and if I have some background knowledge (of history/culture) to avoid misteps, at which point they are nearly always much more receptive and expressive, seeing that I am curious and open rather than uncurious and closed.

If one could somehow be "blind" to ethnicity, then it would only be a disadvantage to effective communication and relations, for both sides. (As evidence, one need only observe the general state of discourse online.) No one is that blind though, at least subconsciously.

> The differences that you posit exist--are these differences necessarily "advantageous" or can the differences be disadvantageous as well?

I'm a little uncertain as to what you mean here. Advantageous to the population or to the individual?

In either case, both exist, depending on the goals.

Individual advantages and disadvantages are probably obvious, especially the disadvantages given the amount of discussion they receive and the human propensity to identify personal threats rather than potential gains.

For populations on the otherhand, for basic long-term survival in a competitive landscape, diversity is an unequivocal advantage.

But, populations may have particular goals rather than pure real survival. For instance, they may prioritize maintaining their particular culture or ethos, beliefs and perspectives, and as such they view diversity as a threat because beliefs/perspectives are too easily transformed by the introduction of new beliefs/perspectives. Or simply because they are false goals, hiding the real goal of maintenance of power or maintenance of a subpopulation (usually a power-holding subpopulation experiencing decline). We are now experiencing the effects of that goal, as have many other cultures in the past. Always to ill-effect for the population as a whole in the long-run. And especially detrimental to individuals who are not part of the favored subpopulation.