I promise to not use the word "praxis" in a sentence until I have a better idea of what it mean.
Not giving up "nuance." (Fucking pop media covering the Kerry campaign in 2004. The spotlight on the term- and the mockery that followed- ended up exiling a perfectly good word to the outer limits of The Discourse.)
"Nuance" is a favorite of the Front Row Kids who run interference for Team D, usually when they have to explain how the law doesn't really apply to Team D politicians like the text of the law says it does. Trying to tell us that Bill Clinton committing perjury wasn't really perjury was a prime example.
Since much of elite education comprises of learning symbol manipulation, it makes sense that the PMC love them this "black is really just white" type Squealer shit.
The matter of who is said to be most fond of using the word "nuance" does not concern me. I'm also aware that the word can have its definition twisted, typically for the purpose of temporizing.
That is not an indictment of the word itself. It carries a legitimate meaning.
If you know of a word that can serve as an effective replacement for "nuance", tell me what it is.
I hate that people like the above poster have trashed nuance because it's an inherently valuable concept. Many, maybe most things, work or can be explained in a simplistic fashion. But those simple explanations almost always break down and don't work in edge cases or at close levels of details. See classical physics and quantum mechanics as examples from the physical, scientific and mathematical world. Arguably its even more common in ethics and other fields of human life as there are more edge cases.
The clinging to universal truth, simplistic explanations and decrying "nuance" as some kind of heretical hypocritical doublespeak seems to me to say more about the motivations and perhaps even cognitive abilities of people who hate nuance than it does nuance itself (the concept or the term).
But I'm willing to suspend most judgement. Because you know, it's nuanced.
Robinhood was robbing the crooked tax collector (over-collecting) in a feudal kingdom. People want to say he was robbing the rich, when he was robbing a crook.
Listening to these people reminded me of the statement by the partner of Renee Good that she couldn’t believe that ICE was using real bullets. It’s all performance to these people. They don’t live in the real world and do not care about the consequences of their advocacy.
"I can't believe that truck ran me over when I jumped in front of it! I thought it was an inflatable joke truck!"
Like OK, I guess you can see the world through the eyes of a 6 year old if you prefer, but your incredulity says nothing about anything or anyone other than yourself.
"I can't believe those guns had real bullets in them!"
...are you stupid? Do you think getting into confrontations with law enforcement of any variety - predicated on the notion that surely those guns are fake - is a smart, responsible thing to do?
I'm sorry, but what is the argument here? Renee Good died because she "didn't know the guns were real"? Where are you getting that? What are we even talking about at this point?
Here is what I believe, if you need it spelled out: Law enforcement officers should not shoot and kill protesters. If for some reason they think they need to use force, it should not be deadly force, which is very obviously what Renee Good's GRIEVING WIDOW meant, even if she didn't say it in the perfect way that would sufficiently convince you and the other very serious grown ups here that she isn't an "adult child." (Because "fuck around and find out" is a very grown up thing to say.)
I think Good’s wife earnestly thought they were not putting themselves at real risk by confronting, per her wife’s comments immediately afterward. I think it is naive to think they ‘should not have real bullets’. Yes that likely is the way it ‘should’ be, but not the way it actually is here in the real world.
This is not about FAFO , this is about having sober understanding of what you are getting yourself into
Some people are adult children. Whether you think ICE should have real bullets or not, or even guns in the first place, is irrelevant.
Life isn't a cartoon, did you expect their guns to shoot out a big red boxing glove on a spring? Of COURSE they were using real bullets, are you fucking stupid? I get that it was an avoidable tragedy but holy shit grow up.
Have you never heard of a baton round? It is pretty common when dealing with protesters for police to use non-penetrating, less-lethal baton rounds (also called "rubber bullets"). That was obviously what Good was talking about, she was asking why the cop used "real" bullets instead of "rubber" ones (which still might have been deadly, but at least had a little more of a chance of not being so). I am not sure if Good meant that she had expected ahead of time for the agent to not use "real" bullets, or if she was simply asking why he didn't do one of the many, many things he could have done to avoid killing someone.
I expect she didn't expect to be killed after slowly performing a 3 point turn to leave the way the officers were yelling at her to do. I imagine if she was a black man she would have been more wary.
I have been searching and can't find evidence of such a statement.
I have noticed that after the killings in Minnesota there has been a concerted effort to portray the protesters as deluded and out of touch. I think what is going on is that MAGA, like all bullies, are cowards at heart, so they can't imagine having enough courage to engage in such protests while fully knowing the possible consequences.
Apparently Laura Powell has never heard of baton rounds (colloquially called "rubber bullets"). That is clearly what Good was referring to. She is justifiably angry at the cop and asking why, when dealing with protesters, he chose to load his gun with normal bullets instead of less-lethal baton rounds, which are often used against protesters by law enforcement (although such rounds can still be deadly if they hit in the wrong place).
This is a pretty common response to shock and grief, to go through every scenario that possibly could have prevented your loved one's death and ask why it didn't occur. It doesn't mean she necessarily expected the cops to be using baton rounds, just that she was going through every possibility that could have prevented the death in her head. When I lost a loved one in a car accident I can tell you that I went through a lot of "whys" that were considerably sillier than wondering why cops didn't use less-lethal rounds against protesters.
I googled the phrase "Why did you use real bullets" and the results are full of MAGA commenters who do not seem to understand this and instead think that Good thought the gun wasn't loaded or was full of blanks. I am not sure if they are just too dumb to have heard of baton rounds (which I thought were common knowledge), or if they are so desperate to deny the protester's courage that they are grasping for ridiculous explanations. Either way, it's pathetic.
once instacart had an issue and i had to drive to the grocery store and interact with a human being (this is basically the same thing but worse because i have to live in america, the objectively worst place on earth)
(I hope it is abundantly clear at this point that I am doing a bit.)
or just, like, use your social barometer? maybe work out those satire-detection muscles a bit? it really isn't that hard. context, tone, etc. it was an obviously ridiculous statement to make in context.
no, I don't need people holding my hand through their jokes by signposting THIS IS JOKE
My point is that when you have two clowns like Piker and Tolentino make your cause a laughingstock you don't help matters by glossing over it. If the author wishes to elaborate on his point he is free to do so.
I read your whole back-and-forth here and I still have no idea what point you were trying to make with your post, or what point you think FdB was making in his post
The point as I read it was that what Piker and Tolentino did was an exercise in performative retardation. Because OF COURSE absolutely nothing that they do or advocate doing carries any tangible benefit whatsoever to the allegedly poor, impoverished, exploited workers they claim to be fighting for.
It's all performative bullshit only possible from people who have never had any contact with the real world. They're LARPing as revolutionaries because their lives have no meaning otherwise.
Everyone else in this comment section besides you read Freddie's essay as "this is so incredibly stupid; let me shut it down with less than 100 words as a sign of how stupid it is."
nope, they aren't poor. They're just looney, getting paid by the NYT. I think Piker mouths off to a crowd but would be too chicken to actually kill anyone. He might steal grapes from a Jewish owned grocery & feel like he's rebelling against the rich, but stand behind a crowd & shout "Kill the Jew".
I'm not sure exactly why Jia holds that position. Maybe because it's considered cool in her circles? Piker, on the other hand, seems to lack empathy completely. His answer was not surprising.
it is indeed considered cool in gentrified brownstone Brooklyn to advocate for anti-social behavior of the sort that could plausibly result in jail time or worse if the perpetrator didn't look like Tolentino, Piker or the NYT lady.
I find it really weird how much I need to stress this but we are not living in a time where Jean Valjean must steal a loaf of bread to feed his family. I am a public schoolteacher in Maryland and I live better than any King 200 years ago. I have a home, I have anti-biotics when my children get infections, I can take a big trip or two every year to a foreign land, I can eat exotic foods from around the world every day at low cost. I have infinite entertainment, summonable with the push of a button.
Now I am not arguing that we are *spiritually* better off than in any time in human history because I think a lot of people are lonely, have mental health issues, etc. That's not my point. My point is that I am in a profession that is famously underpaid and yet I live a life which would be unimaginable to the majority of human history. And yet we need to, uh, I dunno, take down the capitalist pigs or something? Have some perspective, people.
Maryland teachers are paid well, which is not the case everywhere.
That abundance you enjoy isn’t benefitting all of us. Not remotely.
Your statement doesn’t land well for the majority of us, who do not have your privilege. I’m not going to drop a link here, but I literally wrote a piece with a headline refuting the idea that the poor live like kings. And you’re far from poor.
I do. Those are (or can be) cheap items and I live in the U.S.
This does not make me middle class, you know.
Disclaimer: I also own a microwave! OMG, the lavish existence I live as a writer!
As a writer, I absolutely require a laptop and phone to make a living.
Incidentally, my son bought the laptop for me as a nice surprise gift because I was using a very old, very cheap model that was barely hanging on. You sound like a person who takes a look at the person using SNAP and decides they are not poor enough to deserve it because they have on non-tattered clothing that probably came from a thrift shop.
Median disposable income in the USA (Median - not skewed by Bezos and Musk) is the highest in the world or second highest, give or take a Luxembourg.
I grant that if you're a writer, you're in a tough field. Obviously not everyone is doing amazingly but that's true of literally any statement about wealth. There are poor people in Switzerland, but it doesn't change the fact that Swiss people are much wealthier than Eritreans, right?
At the end of the day, Michelle Teheux is still living an amazing life compared to 99% of people who live or have ever lived
The difference is I understand my relative place in the world. The disposable income of the median American has little to do with me, since I'm not in that bracket.
I'm a working class woman. I'm not destitute but I live in a manner that the majority of Americans would find unacceptable. I'd be living much better had I been born in most of Europe.
I’m married to a European. The lives his friends and relatives live are, without exception, more comfortable than mine. I’m including a woman living on public assistance. Her home is better than mine.
They have quality, affordable healthcare. Good public transportation. Excellent work-life balance. Better food. If I hadn’t had minor children when I married him, I’d have moved there.
Well, anecdotal data is anecdotal data. Mine or yours. But end of the day, France and Italy trail the US in median GDP, median disposable income, and overall happiness rankings.
Some wealth rankings have France higher than the US.
I bag groceries for a living at a place that deals with microlooting on a daily basis, and all of those apply to me too, minus the kids and homeownership part. (But not for being a net worth slouch either. Some things non-fuck-you-money can't buy, for everything else there's San Francisco.) If I can afford to max out two retirement accounts annually, without resorting to a, uh, 100% employee discount, what's their excuse? That 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, just like Bernie says? IYKYK.
I understand: You believe all writers, artists, photographers, journalists and more should work for free because more privileged people like to do it on the side.
I dedicated my life to journalism. Earned a degree in it. Worked as a journalist for three decades. Honed my skills. Did good work. Served democracy.
Now, however, I am to fuck off and die because others like to dabble in it. Leaving journalism entirely to the dabblers and propagandists and marketers is part of how we got Trump.
The newspaper world imploded just as I hit an age that made me look like a poor bet in the other industries I tried to break into. Tough luck for me. Oh well.
I mean adding work requirements for SNAP, while tanking the economy and job market, will mechanically create more Jean Valjeans. I support generous SNAP benefits, housing vouchers, etc, because I support punishing things like shoplifting and vagrancy.
I have never written something like this on the internet but I think it is really telling that there is a photo of a barefoot child with gauze on his head in the middle of a river that is literally more trash than water--and that he is all alone--and your first thought is to write in all caps that we are in unprecedented abundance.
I don't think that you, or I, or a lot of people reading this blog are not living in a time of abundance. I am not saying that you personally need to take a carbon neutral sailboat to wherever that boy is and personally write him a check.
But Freddie is talking about that boy, not about this audience. There is a very concerning lack of non-American middle class perspective in these comments, and I think it's really ugly, honestly. Because that boy and the literally hundred of millions of other people in his exact same situation are being ignored even when they are right in front of our face. And the real evil thing about 2026 is that we ARE living in a time of abundance AND that is a real photo that was taken on planet Earth, and we think that's acceptable.
Well first of all, my comment was about the United States in reference to the Hassan Piker/Jia Tolentino brouhaha that prompted this article. Where we are living in a glorious time from a material comforts perspective, as I think you agree with.
But Henry, it's not just in the USA: extreme poverty around the world has dropped staggering amounts since I was born in 1986. We're talking ~75-80% in percentage points) and with over a BILLION fewer people in absolute terms, despite world population growth.
These people have NOT been ignored. We've gone from maybe 40% of the world living in extreme poverty to 10%! That's insane!
There has literally never been a time in human history with better standards of living, material comfort, or life expectancy. Life expectancy! In AFRICA we've gotten it over 62, continent-wide. Across the entire globe it's 70+.
And you think this is...not acceptable. ACCEPTABLE? Henry, we should be shouting from the rooftops. So yes, have some goddamn perspective.
I am sorry that I wrote what I said that implied that you didn't or don't care about people in extreme poverty. None of what you are saying is untrue. I think that the more abundance there is, the crueler the poverty is, and I do think while it is worth mentioning that a huge chunk of the decrease of global poverty has been from China, it has fallen in some other parts of the world too, and we obviously both want it to fall to zero. People who have a lot who think it's cool for them to steal are not mature adults and I am sorry that I came at you a bit and hope you have a good day.
Lol, "microlooting." It's just a little looting, just a quickie, it's okay. But still looting, so, y'know, pretty radical and stuff. But little, micro, not too radical, chill. But *pretty cool,* right?
It's in the name! If micro- is the prefix for a 1/1,000,000th, then one would need to shoplift literally a million times to amount to one single metric looting. A dollar here, a dollar there, and sooner or later you're talking about real lunch money.
This is precious, I intend to use it. As I've never heard of this before, it seems wrong of me to use it and attribute it to Ghandi. I guess the thing to do is attribute it to Ghandi as quoted by Freddie.
Otherwise it would be stealing. Or maybe microplagiarizing.
Exactly as long as it needs to be.
I am allergic to the word "praxis". "Nuanced" is another.
I promise to not use the word "praxis" in a sentence until I have a better idea of what it mean.
Not giving up "nuance." (Fucking pop media covering the Kerry campaign in 2004. The spotlight on the term- and the mockery that followed- ended up exiling a perfectly good word to the outer limits of The Discourse.)
"Nuance" is a favorite of the Front Row Kids who run interference for Team D, usually when they have to explain how the law doesn't really apply to Team D politicians like the text of the law says it does. Trying to tell us that Bill Clinton committing perjury wasn't really perjury was a prime example.
Since much of elite education comprises of learning symbol manipulation, it makes sense that the PMC love them this "black is really just white" type Squealer shit.
The matter of who is said to be most fond of using the word "nuance" does not concern me. I'm also aware that the word can have its definition twisted, typically for the purpose of temporizing.
That is not an indictment of the word itself. It carries a legitimate meaning.
If you know of a word that can serve as an effective replacement for "nuance", tell me what it is.
I hate that people like the above poster have trashed nuance because it's an inherently valuable concept. Many, maybe most things, work or can be explained in a simplistic fashion. But those simple explanations almost always break down and don't work in edge cases or at close levels of details. See classical physics and quantum mechanics as examples from the physical, scientific and mathematical world. Arguably its even more common in ethics and other fields of human life as there are more edge cases.
The clinging to universal truth, simplistic explanations and decrying "nuance" as some kind of heretical hypocritical doublespeak seems to me to say more about the motivations and perhaps even cognitive abilities of people who hate nuance than it does nuance itself (the concept or the term).
But I'm willing to suspend most judgement. Because you know, it's nuanced.
So Robin Hood ok, Winona Ryder less so. Driving retail from Chicago not so great, but Jean Valjean may remain a conflicted hero. Sounds about right.
Robinhood was robbing the crooked tax collector (over-collecting) in a feudal kingdom. People want to say he was robbing the rich, when he was robbing a crook.
Tax farming was the rule, not the exception, until not so long ago.
And it could very well return.
Robin Hood was literally just taking back the excess taxes the tax collector took and giving it back to people who overpaid.
Perfect!
It's such a nice thing to get inspired first thing in the morning. And, yes, I get up late so this is first thing in the morning
Listening to these people reminded me of the statement by the partner of Renee Good that she couldn’t believe that ICE was using real bullets. It’s all performance to these people. They don’t live in the real world and do not care about the consequences of their advocacy.
I... also can't believe they were using real bullets.
Has it occurred to you that the man firing a gun into a car as it passed was also performing? Personally, I liked her performance better.
"I can't believe that truck ran me over when I jumped in front of it! I thought it was an inflatable joke truck!"
Like OK, I guess you can see the world through the eyes of a 6 year old if you prefer, but your incredulity says nothing about anything or anyone other than yourself.
"I can't believe those guns had real bullets in them!"
...are you stupid? Do you think getting into confrontations with law enforcement of any variety - predicated on the notion that surely those guns are fake - is a smart, responsible thing to do?
Seriously grow up.
Indeed. Those 30,000 Iranian protestors had it coming, too. Fuck with the bull, you get the horns.
No the Iran protestors didnt have it coming. But uh, they were smart enough to know the guns were real
I'm sorry, but what is the argument here? Renee Good died because she "didn't know the guns were real"? Where are you getting that? What are we even talking about at this point?
Here is what I believe, if you need it spelled out: Law enforcement officers should not shoot and kill protesters. If for some reason they think they need to use force, it should not be deadly force, which is very obviously what Renee Good's GRIEVING WIDOW meant, even if she didn't say it in the perfect way that would sufficiently convince you and the other very serious grown ups here that she isn't an "adult child." (Because "fuck around and find out" is a very grown up thing to say.)
What, exactly, do you believe?
I think Good’s wife earnestly thought they were not putting themselves at real risk by confronting, per her wife’s comments immediately afterward. I think it is naive to think they ‘should not have real bullets’. Yes that likely is the way it ‘should’ be, but not the way it actually is here in the real world.
This is not about FAFO , this is about having sober understanding of what you are getting yourself into
Some people are adult children. Whether you think ICE should have real bullets or not, or even guns in the first place, is irrelevant.
Life isn't a cartoon, did you expect their guns to shoot out a big red boxing glove on a spring? Of COURSE they were using real bullets, are you fucking stupid? I get that it was an avoidable tragedy but holy shit grow up.
Have you never heard of a baton round? It is pretty common when dealing with protesters for police to use non-penetrating, less-lethal baton rounds (also called "rubber bullets"). That was obviously what Good was talking about, she was asking why the cop used "real" bullets instead of "rubber" ones (which still might have been deadly, but at least had a little more of a chance of not being so). I am not sure if Good meant that she had expected ahead of time for the agent to not use "real" bullets, or if she was simply asking why he didn't do one of the many, many things he could have done to avoid killing someone.
I expect she didn't expect to be killed after slowly performing a 3 point turn to leave the way the officers were yelling at her to do. I imagine if she was a black man she would have been more wary.
I have been searching and can't find evidence of such a statement.
I have noticed that after the killings in Minnesota there has been a concerted effort to portray the protesters as deluded and out of touch. I think what is going on is that MAGA, like all bullies, are cowards at heart, so they can't imagine having enough courage to engage in such protests while fully knowing the possible consequences.
Here is the video: https://x.com/LauraPowellEsq/status/2010913250783772931?s=20
Apparently Laura Powell has never heard of baton rounds (colloquially called "rubber bullets"). That is clearly what Good was referring to. She is justifiably angry at the cop and asking why, when dealing with protesters, he chose to load his gun with normal bullets instead of less-lethal baton rounds, which are often used against protesters by law enforcement (although such rounds can still be deadly if they hit in the wrong place).
This is a pretty common response to shock and grief, to go through every scenario that possibly could have prevented your loved one's death and ask why it didn't occur. It doesn't mean she necessarily expected the cops to be using baton rounds, just that she was going through every possibility that could have prevented the death in her head. When I lost a loved one in a car accident I can tell you that I went through a lot of "whys" that were considerably sillier than wondering why cops didn't use less-lethal rounds against protesters.
I googled the phrase "Why did you use real bullets" and the results are full of MAGA commenters who do not seem to understand this and instead think that Good thought the gun wasn't loaded or was full of blanks. I am not sure if they are just too dumb to have heard of baton rounds (which I thought were common knowledge), or if they are so desperate to deny the protester's courage that they are grasping for ridiculous explanations. Either way, it's pathetic.
By not real bullets they mean less than lethal rounds not cap guns you dork.
> "Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest person that you have ever seen..."
omg thats literally me (i have anxiety and student loan debts)
How many miles do you have to walk carrying water on your head in a recycled motor oil jug to care for your children?
once instacart had an issue and i had to drive to the grocery store and interact with a human being (this is basically the same thing but worse because i have to live in america, the objectively worst place on earth)
(I hope it is abundantly clear at this point that I am doing a bit.)
what a cringe response to an obviously joking comment lol
Its hard to determine snark on the internet. There are people who think that way.
Use a "/S" to indicate snark or sarcasm.
or just, like, use your social barometer? maybe work out those satire-detection muscles a bit? it really isn't that hard. context, tone, etc. it was an obviously ridiculous statement to make in context.
no, I don't need people holding my hand through their jokes by signposting THIS IS JOKE
For just about every Palestinian in Gaza: too many.
Snort-laughed at this. thank you
Are Hasan Piker and Jia Tolentino poor and weak though?
Did you see the picture of young master Hasan riding a fancy horse and sporting a ribbon from a jumping event?
...The fact that you're focused on the first half of that statement and ignoring the second kind of shows you missed the point.
The point of my comment is that I disagree with the point in the article. This is different from missing it.
What do you see as the point?
My point is that when you have two clowns like Piker and Tolentino make your cause a laughingstock you don't help matters by glossing over it. If the author wishes to elaborate on his point he is free to do so.
I read your whole back-and-forth here and I still have no idea what point you were trying to make with your post, or what point you think FdB was making in his post
Okay ... it is probably then beyond my abilities to explicate it to you.
...no?
The point as I read it was that what Piker and Tolentino did was an exercise in performative retardation. Because OF COURSE absolutely nothing that they do or advocate doing carries any tangible benefit whatsoever to the allegedly poor, impoverished, exploited workers they claim to be fighting for.
It's all performative bullshit only possible from people who have never had any contact with the real world. They're LARPing as revolutionaries because their lives have no meaning otherwise.
Did you in fact read that?
Yes.
Everyone else in this comment section besides you read Freddie's essay as "this is so incredibly stupid; let me shut it down with less than 100 words as a sign of how stupid it is."
I did not read any other comments or what I wanted the essay to mean, I read what it actually said.
nope, they aren't poor. They're just looney, getting paid by the NYT. I think Piker mouths off to a crowd but would be too chicken to actually kill anyone. He might steal grapes from a Jewish owned grocery & feel like he's rebelling against the rich, but stand behind a crowd & shout "Kill the Jew".
Baldrick: "They say The Shadow is halfway to being the new Robin Hood!"
Blackadder: "why only halfway?"
Baldrick: "well, he steals from the rich, but he hasn't got round to giving it to the poor yet."
I'm not sure exactly why Jia holds that position. Maybe because it's considered cool in her circles? Piker, on the other hand, seems to lack empathy completely. His answer was not surprising.
it is indeed considered cool in gentrified brownstone Brooklyn to advocate for anti-social behavior of the sort that could plausibly result in jail time or worse if the perpetrator didn't look like Tolentino, Piker or the NYT lady.
Yet Piker's history of animal abuse doesn't seem to bother them at all!
NYT delenda est
...I would've turned off comments on this one. Really nail down the succinctness.
But that's just me.
Ha, ha. When's your standup night?
? I think that person was just making a normal comment lol
WE ARE LIVING IN A TIME OF ABUNDANCE.
I find it really weird how much I need to stress this but we are not living in a time where Jean Valjean must steal a loaf of bread to feed his family. I am a public schoolteacher in Maryland and I live better than any King 200 years ago. I have a home, I have anti-biotics when my children get infections, I can take a big trip or two every year to a foreign land, I can eat exotic foods from around the world every day at low cost. I have infinite entertainment, summonable with the push of a button.
Now I am not arguing that we are *spiritually* better off than in any time in human history because I think a lot of people are lonely, have mental health issues, etc. That's not my point. My point is that I am in a profession that is famously underpaid and yet I live a life which would be unimaginable to the majority of human history. And yet we need to, uh, I dunno, take down the capitalist pigs or something? Have some perspective, people.
YOU are living in abundance.
Maryland teachers are paid well, which is not the case everywhere.
That abundance you enjoy isn’t benefitting all of us. Not remotely.
Your statement doesn’t land well for the majority of us, who do not have your privilege. I’m not going to drop a link here, but I literally wrote a piece with a headline refuting the idea that the poor live like kings. And you’re far from poor.
YOU have a PC or a smartphone. I know because you posted this.
I do. Those are (or can be) cheap items and I live in the U.S.
This does not make me middle class, you know.
Disclaimer: I also own a microwave! OMG, the lavish existence I live as a writer!
As a writer, I absolutely require a laptop and phone to make a living.
Incidentally, my son bought the laptop for me as a nice surprise gift because I was using a very old, very cheap model that was barely hanging on. You sound like a person who takes a look at the person using SNAP and decides they are not poor enough to deserve it because they have on non-tattered clothing that probably came from a thrift shop.
Would you trade places with the boy in Freddie's post? I didn't think so.
I would probably trade places with you.
Ya, probably. But I think that's beside the point. That boy would surely trade places with YOU and think he's living like a king.
Median disposable income in the USA (Median - not skewed by Bezos and Musk) is the highest in the world or second highest, give or take a Luxembourg.
I grant that if you're a writer, you're in a tough field. Obviously not everyone is doing amazingly but that's true of literally any statement about wealth. There are poor people in Switzerland, but it doesn't change the fact that Swiss people are much wealthier than Eritreans, right?
At the end of the day, Michelle Teheux is still living an amazing life compared to 99% of people who live or have ever lived
The difference is I understand my relative place in the world. The disposable income of the median American has little to do with me, since I'm not in that bracket.
I'm a working class woman. I'm not destitute but I live in a manner that the majority of Americans would find unacceptable. I'd be living much better had I been born in most of Europe.
Maybe? A lot of Europe is way (relatively) poorer than people think. You'd have better healthcare or labor protections for sure
I’m married to a European. The lives his friends and relatives live are, without exception, more comfortable than mine. I’m including a woman living on public assistance. Her home is better than mine.
They have quality, affordable healthcare. Good public transportation. Excellent work-life balance. Better food. If I hadn’t had minor children when I married him, I’d have moved there.
Well, anecdotal data is anecdotal data. Mine or yours. But end of the day, France and Italy trail the US in median GDP, median disposable income, and overall happiness rankings.
Some wealth rankings have France higher than the US.
"but I live in a manner that the majority of Americans would find unacceptable."
By your own choice, if I recall your story.
Yes, I chose to never be paid fairly. Sure.
You chose to try to get paid to do what many gladly do for free.
I live in a gritty red area. I know exactly how he won. I’m not in any bubbles.
I bag groceries for a living at a place that deals with microlooting on a daily basis, and all of those apply to me too, minus the kids and homeownership part. (But not for being a net worth slouch either. Some things non-fuck-you-money can't buy, for everything else there's San Francisco.) If I can afford to max out two retirement accounts annually, without resorting to a, uh, 100% employee discount, what's their excuse? That 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, just like Bernie says? IYKYK.
I understand: You believe all writers, artists, photographers, journalists and more should work for free because more privileged people like to do it on the side.
I dedicated my life to journalism. Earned a degree in it. Worked as a journalist for three decades. Honed my skills. Did good work. Served democracy.
Now, however, I am to fuck off and die because others like to dabble in it. Leaving journalism entirely to the dabblers and propagandists and marketers is part of how we got Trump.
The newspaper world imploded just as I hit an age that made me look like a poor bet in the other industries I tried to break into. Tough luck for me. Oh well.
I mean adding work requirements for SNAP, while tanking the economy and job market, will mechanically create more Jean Valjeans. I support generous SNAP benefits, housing vouchers, etc, because I support punishing things like shoplifting and vagrancy.
I have never written something like this on the internet but I think it is really telling that there is a photo of a barefoot child with gauze on his head in the middle of a river that is literally more trash than water--and that he is all alone--and your first thought is to write in all caps that we are in unprecedented abundance.
I don't think that you, or I, or a lot of people reading this blog are not living in a time of abundance. I am not saying that you personally need to take a carbon neutral sailboat to wherever that boy is and personally write him a check.
But Freddie is talking about that boy, not about this audience. There is a very concerning lack of non-American middle class perspective in these comments, and I think it's really ugly, honestly. Because that boy and the literally hundred of millions of other people in his exact same situation are being ignored even when they are right in front of our face. And the real evil thing about 2026 is that we ARE living in a time of abundance AND that is a real photo that was taken on planet Earth, and we think that's acceptable.
How's that for perspective?
Well first of all, my comment was about the United States in reference to the Hassan Piker/Jia Tolentino brouhaha that prompted this article. Where we are living in a glorious time from a material comforts perspective, as I think you agree with.
But Henry, it's not just in the USA: extreme poverty around the world has dropped staggering amounts since I was born in 1986. We're talking ~75-80% in percentage points) and with over a BILLION fewer people in absolute terms, despite world population growth.
These people have NOT been ignored. We've gone from maybe 40% of the world living in extreme poverty to 10%! That's insane!
There has literally never been a time in human history with better standards of living, material comfort, or life expectancy. Life expectancy! In AFRICA we've gotten it over 62, continent-wide. Across the entire globe it's 70+.
And you think this is...not acceptable. ACCEPTABLE? Henry, we should be shouting from the rooftops. So yes, have some goddamn perspective.
I am sorry that I wrote what I said that implied that you didn't or don't care about people in extreme poverty. None of what you are saying is untrue. I think that the more abundance there is, the crueler the poverty is, and I do think while it is worth mentioning that a huge chunk of the decrease of global poverty has been from China, it has fallen in some other parts of the world too, and we obviously both want it to fall to zero. People who have a lot who think it's cool for them to steal are not mature adults and I am sorry that I came at you a bit and hope you have a good day.
Appreciate you saying. Have a nice day yourself
Lol, "microlooting." It's just a little looting, just a quickie, it's okay. But still looting, so, y'know, pretty radical and stuff. But little, micro, not too radical, chill. But *pretty cool,* right?
It's in the name! If micro- is the prefix for a 1/1,000,000th, then one would need to shoplift literally a million times to amount to one single metric looting. A dollar here, a dollar there, and sooner or later you're talking about real lunch money.
It's bad on purpose to make you click.
This is precious, I intend to use it. As I've never heard of this before, it seems wrong of me to use it and attribute it to Ghandi. I guess the thing to do is attribute it to Ghandi as quoted by Freddie.
Otherwise it would be stealing. Or maybe microplagiarizing.
I’m a paid subscriber but I can’t see this article. Why you no love me anymore ;)
You just aren't believing Freddie could post anything so short. You don't have to scroll down to read the entirety.
I guess the joke’s on me then!