Public attention from them and others is why she’s being gently handled. You should thank those who raised the alarm on her behalf, not Israel.

Yes I think “having to work” is definitely the boundary of upper class. We’re talking inheritances, investments, landlording, whatever.

I earn a great deal of money at my job - top 1%. But I live in a HCOL area and am raising two kids. We have no aspirations but to own our house someday and send our kids to college. If we go on a vacation once a year we are happy. I would lose absolutely everything were I to get laid off from my job. We still look for sales at Costco and cook at home instead of eating out, like everyone else. This still feels like “middle class” to me, whatever my wage is.

However I am seeing that even the basic components of the American Dream, a house and a family, are more than most can attain. I think that says that our working class is growing and perhaps getting pretty large. Certainly if you are living hand to mouth that’s working class. If you have no prospect of owning your home or sending your kids to college, that’s working class.

“Working class” has associations from when we were an industrial and manufacturing economy. People who work in an office don’t think “I’m working class” because they don’t wear coveralls and operate power tools. But we’ve transitioned to a services-based economy now for many years, so I think a LOT of people are working class without even realizing it.

And if you don’t even know you’re working class, how are you going to get fired up about a workers rights rally?

I’ll add one extra thing here: that no one in America identifies themselves as “a worker” or “working class.”

Perhaps Europe, with its historic class strata, is better prepared for this. Maybe people there know that they are working class and always will be. With that identity firmly held, they can find each other and agitate for their rights.

In America, if you are working class, first of all you’d never admit it. Everyone is “middle class” here, don’t you know. And even if in your heart you know you are working class, your aim is to get out of the working class, not make its life better.

No justifications here, just a description of American psychology on this topic.

I wonder if your food bank can set up some kind of relationship with farms in your region. Those farms may be open to taking lots of spoiled produce as animal feed and compost material. In exchange they might share their crops with you.

My workplace used to donate all its leftover food to a local meal service charity, daily. But they refused to take fresh fruits and vegetables because they just spoil too fast. It was sad because those are the foods people need the most but they are logistically very difficult to deliver, as you are witnessing.

I agree with everything you said. I’ll just add that the scientific method is not how we set policy in general, though perhaps it should be.

People dropping dead from black-sky coal pollution is the only thing driving developing nations to consider alternatives to it.

Well don’t make the mistake I did and point out that Indian and Chinese coal are going to push us over the brink no matter what western nations do. People will jump down your throat to “educate” you about how western nations already did their climate damage to become developed and we don’t dare tell others they can’t do the same. Of course this white guilt changes nothing about my statement. We should be bending over backward to help these nations industrialize on a cleaner path than others did. And yes I’ve seen the paper from the one gentleman who “foresaw” climate change in the 1800s but if we are at all honest we have to acknowledge that western industrialization happened in ignorance of the effects of carbon dioxide on global warming. Would it have gone differently if they’d known? Probably not. That’s what we’re seeing in India.

No we singlehandedly defeated Japan. We weren’t the ONLY ones fighting the Nazis, just the deciding power in that conflict. You’re welcome.

“Why isn’t someone doing it for me already? You all suck.”

—OP

Hey go be pro-labor without trivializing gay rights. There is absolutely no call for that bullshit.

I guess I’m a humanities guy so when someone writes about patterns of human behavior that could be survival adaptation, I think “hm that’s interesting, I’ll think more about it.”

I don’t think: but this theory can’t produce testable predictions!

It just seems like an anthropological concept, not a scientific theory we can write an equation for. But eh.

This is true. It’s also true that Europe needs to have the capacity to handle something like this on their own. The complaint that the US won’t save Europe THIS TIME, AGAIN, says as much about Europe as the US.

I’m not familiar with evolutionary psychology but I clicked the link and checked out the page. It seems… not an immediate and total brand of evil? It’s a very broad concept at the high level: that features of human psychology can be survival adaptations and say something about the conditions during our evolution. I read the reactions and criticisms section too and I can see how some sus claims about biological essentialism could be taken too far.

But I guess my point is that just invoking the term and posting the Wikipedia page do not seem to be the immediate character assassination you seem to want them to be. “Look at this guy! He believes our psychology is informed by survival adaptations during our evolution! What a bigot!”

I don’t get it. I think I would need you to say more about what specific cases he has made under this umbrella that you find objectionable. Because on the face of it, it doesn’t seem crazy to say that people have an instinct to be helpful to one another because that turns out to be a positive population evolutionary trait.

for cheap rice

But isn’t this just the definition of a shortage? The thing becomes scarce and so what IS available becomes incredibly expensive? I don’t see the differentiation you are trying to make. Wild price inflation happens when there is in fact not enough of the thing to go around.

Zero plastic doesn’t need to be a goal. There has rarely if ever been a more versatile and useful material. Delivering food and medicine to humanity would be impossible if we all woke up tomorrow without plastic.

So it’s more a case of judicious use:

1. use when no feasible alternative exists (not just because plastic is most convenient)
2. invest in effective recycling and recovery programs, including total incineration - AND (important) make sure the cost of this is shifted upstream to the manufacturers of plastics

There will be many cases where “no feasible alternative exist” and that will mean “it is prohibitively costly to do it with glass and steel.” I think that is really your questions. The answer is yes, sometimes plastic is actually best.

But I’d feel much more comfortable deciding that for a given use case IF #2 actually existed. Under current conditions, there may be no reasonable use of plastic at all.

Depression isn’t “feeling sad.” It has a lot of symptoms people do t commonly associate with it, including irritability and lack of motivation.

You’re asking why the state doesn’t exercise your rights for you instead of waiting for you to exercise them.

On the one hand, I see your point. Just make it all part of the process. On the other hand, I have no illusions that rights and representation are going to be brought to me on a silver platter and defended by someone else on my behalf.

They very least that any citizen must be prepared to do is invoke the rights they have. It would be great if we didn’t have to. But a lot of things would be great.

Normal journalism requires backbone.

I’m saying that references are more convincing than the condescending exhortation to “go read a book.” I’m also saying that if you persist in flogging people with the claim that you’ve read more than them, it won’t be long before you’re asked to show one bit of evidence for that. You can’t just run around saying “you’re wrong! I’ve read books that say so!”