Speaking only for myself, I have zero interest in hearing this from you, because it's clear you were eager to drop this anecdote in a thread with even minimal relevance to the topic. This is not a story about poverty.
Makeda, the subject of the piece, clearly has a high school education because was a legal assistant for the city before she was incarcerated. She educated herself further during her sentence, and after. While working.
You and the politician are making a strange yet unsurprising assumption about the direction of the causal relationships between poverty and these other socioeconomic factors.
What's the rate of high school graduation from families living in poverty?
What's the full-time employment rate for people without a high school diploma?
This captures a real person's experience going through a challenging time. Real life is messy, and long form writing in a documentary style doesn't need to make a point so long as it leaves you with an impression.
On one hand I empathize, on the other hand - she made the poor choices that wound up getting herself incarcerated. There are long-lasting consequences to their actions. When society has to choose between spending a dollar on re-entry or spending it on other more (perceived) worthwhile causes - we know how that goes. Before you all get mad at me for saying that, we don't live in a fantasy world with infinite resources that can do X and also do Y.
You'll have to forgive me for not believing that you empathize, since most of your thoughts here are about rationalizing why there's nothing be to done.
There are other ways of thinking about this problem than as a zero-sum matter of where to allocate tax dollars.
I don’t really give a shit whether you think I’m sincere or not. Lots of people are in shitty situations of their own doing, or not of their own doing - I can emphasize with them and still prefer not to prioritize tax dollars on their situation over others that benefits society more in my opinion.
> we don't live in a fantasy world with infinite resources that can do X and also do Y.
Right, for instance in this world, we have to choose between, say, Jeff Bezos renting Venice for the weekend and school lunches for kids, or Elon Musk buying a presidency or programs to reduce prison recidivism. It’s a tough problem, and we’ve all gotta make sacrifices and make do.
she made poor choices but 8 years for assault where no one was permanently injured seems excessive. She served a year before an appeal had her out, before it was reversed and she went back for another 8 years, I'd call that excessive and as the article entails, really serves no one's best interest, not her daughters, not societies and not the victims.
That's not even budgeting back the costs associated with housing and caring for this person in prison nor the time and energy that's going to go back into reintegrating this person into society.
I read it as a human interest story. I would have liked more citations but it's a magazine article not a research paper so that is not a reasonable expectation.
I suppose it's pointless nonsense unless it's "optimized" for maximum information density?
You do know that there's this thing called a human interest story, and part of its point is to capture something of a narrative for its own sake yes? Stories like this cane make for very interesting reading. They don't have to include technology and hacks.
No hacking was to be found here
A few years back, a politician outlined some simple steps to avoid poverty:
Graduate high school
Have a full time job
Marry before having children
The politician was heavily criticized for his comments. The advice seems timeless, but people don’t want to hear it.
Speaking only for myself, I have zero interest in hearing this from you, because it's clear you were eager to drop this anecdote in a thread with even minimal relevance to the topic. This is not a story about poverty.
Makeda, the subject of the piece, clearly has a high school education because was a legal assistant for the city before she was incarcerated. She educated herself further during her sentence, and after. While working.
You and the politician are making a strange yet unsurprising assumption about the direction of the causal relationships between poverty and these other socioeconomic factors.
What's the rate of high school graduation from families living in poverty?
What's the full-time employment rate for people without a high school diploma?
Was the politician suggesting everyone should do those things or just observing one way to do things?
I don't get it, what point(s) is this article trying to make. It seems to be all over the place.
This captures a real person's experience going through a challenging time. Real life is messy, and long form writing in a documentary style doesn't need to make a point so long as it leaves you with an impression.
I think the goal is to understand someone else’s situation
What I took from it was her points toward the end about how the re-entry process needs to be vastly improved.
On one hand I empathize, on the other hand - she made the poor choices that wound up getting herself incarcerated. There are long-lasting consequences to their actions. When society has to choose between spending a dollar on re-entry or spending it on other more (perceived) worthwhile causes - we know how that goes. Before you all get mad at me for saying that, we don't live in a fantasy world with infinite resources that can do X and also do Y.
You'll have to forgive me for not believing that you empathize, since most of your thoughts here are about rationalizing why there's nothing be to done.
There are other ways of thinking about this problem than as a zero-sum matter of where to allocate tax dollars.
I don’t really give a shit whether you think I’m sincere or not. Lots of people are in shitty situations of their own doing, or not of their own doing - I can emphasize with them and still prefer not to prioritize tax dollars on their situation over others that benefits society more in my opinion.
Fine, you're sincere. But you didn't actually read my comment.
> we don't live in a fantasy world with infinite resources that can do X and also do Y.
Right, for instance in this world, we have to choose between, say, Jeff Bezos renting Venice for the weekend and school lunches for kids, or Elon Musk buying a presidency or programs to reduce prison recidivism. It’s a tough problem, and we’ve all gotta make sacrifices and make do.
she made poor choices but 8 years for assault where no one was permanently injured seems excessive. She served a year before an appeal had her out, before it was reversed and she went back for another 8 years, I'd call that excessive and as the article entails, really serves no one's best interest, not her daughters, not societies and not the victims.
That's not even budgeting back the costs associated with housing and caring for this person in prison nor the time and energy that's going to go back into reintegrating this person into society.
I read it as a human interest story. I would have liked more citations but it's a magazine article not a research paper so that is not a reasonable expectation.
I suppose it's pointless nonsense unless it's "optimized" for maximum information density?
You do know that there's this thing called a human interest story, and part of its point is to capture something of a narrative for its own sake yes? Stories like this cane make for very interesting reading. They don't have to include technology and hacks.