"Examining the fortuitous circumstances that separate the haves and have nots is a scary endeavor. Why do we have the jobs and cars and apartments? Are we smarter? Maybe more educated, but not smarter. Harder working? Not a chance. Do we possess some specialized skill absent among the droves of desperate job seekers? Probably nothing that couldn't be learned within a couple weeks."

I think the appropriate cliche to insert here is "[citation needed]."

In fact, I'd take the entire article and flip it around on the author -- is the reason he needs to assert that it's mere circumstance that separates the homeless from the middle class that it's uncomfortable for him to confront the reality that many are not capable of living "normal" lives?

That's unfounded and it's unfair to pop-psychoanalyze a stranger, but it's exactly the same exercise he's engaging in. Not really insightful or relevant.

If you work with the homeless you find a large number of them have mental issues and or addictions. So you could just say it's their problem and move on.

But, it’s somewhat scary to think mental issues and addictions might be fairly random. The largest part of what separates you from being homeless could be random differences in your DNA, and who you happened to have for parents. Which you had zero controwl over.

Yeah, I tried hard to word my comment to be the 'my company went under' kind of luck rather than the genetic lottery kind of luck, but I couldn't do it and be succinct.

If you see the quote I included, it's clear the author wants us to think the homeless are 'just like us,' but to me that seems dangerously counterproductive. If I were homeless, you could give me a laptop and wifi and I could get back on my feet. That won't help someone who's schizophrenic or drug-addicted.

This raises the question - is addiction and mental issues a cause or an effect? How many came from homes where they learned poor social/societal skills. How many were forced to self-medicate (drugs) to staunch the pain?

There is a lot of evidence that stimulant abuse is a highly-correlated indicator of ADHD/ADD.

Scary that the breadline could be a lot closer than you think and but for some better pre-natal through pre-K care millions would be more productive members of society. We share in the cause when we do nothing useful to help.

I don't think i really understand the article. Why is he blasting the lady for helping out at a Soup Kitchen and having a nervous habit? I don't see how her saying, "Y'all hungry tonight?" would be any different than say, playing with her hair or biting her nails. She was obviously out of her element while trying to help out. Instead of ranting about her on the intertubes, why not try to help her feel more comfortable? That way she may feel more inclined to help out again.

Agreed. I don't see where this guy even gets off criticizing her. I'd wager that she is there regularly helping out which is better than most people. If you don't ever say something even a little stupid then maybe you can get off saying something but if he's like the rest of us and says stupid things all the time I'm not sure he has a leg to stand on here.

> I don't see where this guy even gets off criticizing her.

Because she says "y'all", which indicates that she is a southerner, and thus a Republican, and thus is not NEARLY as good a person as the commenter, who is a decent respectable Democrat.

That's the level of discourse that you get at Salon.

I no more want to see left-wing Salon crap here at HN than I want to see right-wing screeds from Little Green Footballs.

Totally NON hacker related.

This is an emotional screed accusing people who think there may be a limit to what welfare is actually called for of being "uncaring". An essay knocking over a straw man isn't worth HN's time. Flagged.

"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sometimes you need to explain why. If everyone naturally realized they were being yanked about by their emotions and having that used to bypass their rationality, nobody would ever use that technique. This is especially true if you happen to agree with the point being emotionally made. But sometimes when it is pointed out, it is easy to see that you are being manipulated after the fact. It's easy to see why spam should be removed; seeing why this article should be removed is harder.

Flags are supposed to make the article go away. You end up with a dead thread with your comment, which is just noise.

I think calling all non-hobos (or all conservatives? I'm not really sure who he's so angry at here) Social Darwinists is a little extreme.

Social Darwinism is an ideology, not a process. We can make observations from a sociocultural evolution standpoint, but we can't really label all the winners in whatever situation as Social Darwinists. I think hardly anyone that votes the way they do does so from a Social Darwinist standpoint; it's more or less an extinct ideology in popular politics.

So I can say that Bob Republican votes against welfare because he's greedy. I can say that greed is an element of evolution. But I cannot say he's a Social Darwinist until he says something like "I'm voting this way so my race/class/gender lives, and theirs dies out."

Furthermore, calling someone a Social Darwinist is right up there with calling someone Hitler. Let's not water down the terminology by putting the label on some ignorant woman in a soup kitchen.