highly agree

> I frequently take many months off between jobs, sometimes a year or more.

Definitely speaking from a place of privilege. Single moms living in poverty don't have the luxury to care for her mental health. She probably can't take even a few days off, voluntarily, much rather months or years.

Let me ask you (caymanjim), in the months and years you take off, how do you subsist? The average American has, what, less than $500 in savings?

Privilege colors your views on reality, and I would love for all of us to get there, but let's not imagine that this "isn't hard to do". It is. It really is.

This sentiment expresses something I'm starting to see a lot in our discourse. I call it "third-party outrage", where you (bystander) get mad because you think some "aggressor" did something bad to some hypothetical "victim".

What cracks me up is that oftentimes, the victims don't even care or don't get nearly as mad as the bystandars. Same story with tech workers getting mad about how Amazon pays their employees. Is there any real harm being done here?

So I gotta wonder, why are the bystanders more mad than the alleged "victims" themselves? Do you realize how screwed up this is?

I don't think it's outrage, it's more so pointing out that "if you're poor and can't afford to renew the lease, just take a million or two out of your savings account and boom, you're wealthy" isn't good advice because it requires having a savings account with at least a few million in it.

And for anyone in that situation: how many of them are too poor to pay rent?

It only makes sense to do something if you expect results. The victim doesn't get mad because there is no point to it. (or they just feel that way) They just have to accept whatever is coming at them. (or they just feel that way) Are there labor laws if you cant afford legal action?

Would you still make the same statements if the topic was about whether the word 'blacklist' should be replaced?

Yes :) but that ship has sailed.

> So I gotta wonder, why are the bystanders more mad than the alleged "victims" themselves? Do you realize how screwed up this is?

Can you clarify, cause I'm not sure what issue you're addressing? Am I a "bystander" in this, or an "alleged victim"?

As a "bystander," you think, therefore, that I am not poor/in poverty? What gave you that idea?

Being single mom has often nothing to do with privilege but rather choices in life, at least if you are divorced... I think that was the point.

I disagree. The main point, at last my initial point, was that there are people in situations in life -- however they got to those situations -- that absolutely cannot afford that kind of "sloth" lifestyle.

And, sociologically speaking, sometimes single motherhood is connected to privilege, or a lack thereof.

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

There is a leisure class at both ends of the economic spectrum.

That's an interesting observation, although it does depend on the benefits landscape where you live.

I love the idea of benefits conceived of as a landscape. You have the slough of despond, the scorched desert, the arctic wasteland, the jagged windswept hellscape, etc.

The old pit

If it was sufficiently long ago, which it sounds like it was, they could. Minimum wage would be significantly higher now if it had kept pace with inflation and cost of living increases over the last few decades.

Yeah, minimum wage jobs mostly won't expect you to work beyond your normal periods and days, but they definitely won't want you working less than that.

The weirdest part, though, is voluntary taking several months or even a year between jobs. Now that is proper privilege.

Why though? You don't know in what conditions he spends that time. He might live in a way you would not like to live without a job so you think of not working a privilege.

> Why though?

Probably because we assume that when he wants a job he can get one, and one that pays for all the time of as well, at the drop of a hat. But it's not so for someone without in demand skills.

Because one of the big concerns of almost everyone who isn't in high demand is gaps in CV. For some reason it seems that - and it's definitely believed that - employers will look very unfavorably at you if your history of employment isn't continuous.

Not just that, being able to afford months and months without salary is quite a privilege, even on relatively high wages like a developer's. Not to mention if you can do that while on minimum wage jobs, you probably aren't a major source of income for the family.