Comment by Mz
10 years ago
What happened to create all those homeless people that exist today?
They have no income whatsoever.
I am currently homeless and I previously had a class on homelessness. Not all people on the street "have no income whatsoever." Not having enough income to afford a middle class lifestyle and no income whatsoever are not the same thing.
Just to be clear: I am not for basic income and I blog about that and I intend to blog more about it -- when I have the time. At the moment, I am busy trying to do more paid work so I can try to get myself off the street in the near-ish future, now that some of the underlying problems that caused my homelessness are nearly resolved.
You make some great points from personal experience which some might take as anecdotal but I'm grateful for you sharing something I haven't dealt with personally.
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
This statement unnecessarily weakens your comment as it comes across as an attack and uncivil, regardless of the context. Your comment is very strong—and makes this very point—without it.
Thanks again for sharing your personal experience here. I trust you'll continue to do so!
Thank you for the feedback. I have deleted that piece -- not intended as shenanigans -- and ... maybe I need more opening lines or something. It certainly wasn't intended as a personal attack. We all have areas of ignorance -- aka simply not knowing.
I think I'd just remove it. An alternative would be to elicit in a charitable way what they're basing their comment on, or what their experience with homelessness is. That can be a tough to do (speaking from my own personal experience in online discussions). If I can't figure out a way to do that, I just leave it out.
For me the goal is reaching greater understanding. If someone were to tell me "You have no idea what you're talking about" I know my knee-jerk reaction would be to get defensive, and that wouldn't put me in a good place for continuing the discussion constructively. Granted, it's not a perfect reaction, but it's a very human one.
In any discussion I choose to participate in, I've tried my best to determine if I'm adding something purely factual/informational or trying to reach understanding of where the other person is coming from (not necessarily agreement), or sharing my own understanding. That sharing word is important to me right now. Some might choose teach or show or correct (which is where I hear "You have no idea where you're talking about" coming from), but I think words like these put up a barrier (or at least a speed bump) to understanding.
Like I said, that's where I'm at right now. Still trying to figure this stuff out.
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