People jumped all over one poster for wondering what living on $2 per day meant

[LiberalLoner]

In terms of lifestyle - since prices do vary by country and region. I think it was a bit unfair to jump all over that poster, because I think it's a very normal thing to wonder exactly what that means. Living on $2 a day in the U.S. means one thing, but it might mean a slightly different thing in other countries. In any case, it is obviously extremely bad and heartbreaking that there are people living in such poverty. I think curiosity about what their lives are like, is a natural partner to empathy for others.
Seeking to understand is often part of caring deeply.

Anyway, I just wanted to say, I don't think there was any reason to shame the poster for wanting more information about the situation. I think we can just about guarantee that anyone who is here on DU, and not a troll, cares very much about injustice in the world and is a person who has fought for social justice in his or her life.

[Tunkamerica]

1. image related

[LiberalLoner]

2. LOL thanks :) n/t

[woo me with science]

3. Yup, there's a lot of knee jerk jumping around here.

I JUST got accused of being a creationist, and I am about as atheist/agnostic as they come. :rofl:

I support the poster's question. Keep them coming!

[Broderick]

15. lol

I got jumped on for not defending Dr. Laura against Howard Stern.... LMAO

[cynatnite]

4. DU is usually a place to help get informed...

I asked all sorts of stupid questions when I got here. If I had gotten jumped like that, I probably would have left and never came back.

[formercia]

5. Food is expensive, no matter where you go.

World commodity prices determine the cost, so someone trying to live on $2/day has to pay the same or more for a pound of rice than we do.
I have lived for a whole Winter in the National Forest on less than $2/day but it wasn't a picnic.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. In Brazil, it would be equivalent of living on $5 aday. Though the minimum wage is about $10 a day.

Which would be like living on $25 a day in the US.

[petronius]

37. Where did you find those comparisons? A table of such equivalents

would be pretty useful - I assume it's just multiplying a single US dollar by a purchasing power adjustment?

[SoCalDem]

7. People who have never traveled much, do not understand

Countries where "rich" tourists go, have TWO economies..

the tourista economy, where hotel rooms are hundreds a day & meals are $50+ affairs...where a villa/house/condo will cost an outsider a bundle... this economy is owned & operated by foreigners, for foreigners, and is separate from the indigenous economy.

and the local economy where the full-timers live.

They may work at a chi-chi hotel/restaurant/golf course/etc, but their real lives are rather sparse and often involve many family members sharing the same space & pooling their finances.

They probably do their own cooking & sewing and shop/barter with other locals in the same social strata, so a few bucks a day may be their real income... these are the worker-bees.

If you have not traveled beyond the boundaries of Club-Whatever, you won't see where these people live.

[somone]

13. Package tours are bad for this

The rigid itineraries and schedules do not allow for even a cursory look behind the curtains.

[SoCalDem]

21. truthfully, they are that way for a reason

poor people who happen to live in a beautiful place are a hindrance for the tour operators.. they prefer that those people are unseen.

[TheDebbieDee]

18. I had a co-worker that told me about a trip that she took

to Jamaica while doing missonary work with her church. She said that her group visited parts of Jamaica that were off-the-beaten path and the poverty in which the people live is unbelieveable and soul-crushing.

[SoCalDem]

20. Yep.. people all over the world live a "hand-to-mouth" existence

living in cardboard/scrap wood/tin "houses" with no services..they never have a vehicle unless it's a refurbished cast-off bicycle..their children have no shoes, and often never go to school.

they scavenge for food.

the "lucky" ones get jobs making beds & serving food to tourists, but they never make enough to bring their families up from poverty.

[CrispyQ]

24. I remember when I read that women in some parts of the world

spend a significant segment of their day - sometimes hours - collecting the domestic water supply. I remember being floored when I read that. It was something I never even considered.

What really impacted me, though, happened a few days later. I was changing my kitchen sink water filter & about 8-12 ounces of water went down the drain in the process. I remembered the article & realized how precious that amount of water would have been to one of those women & here I had never given it a second thought until that day.

Talk about a change in perspective on the 'ole Haves vs Have-nots. In America I am one of the Have-nots. Globally, I am undoubtedly one of the Haves.

[Scruffy1]

25. This is something I don't think about enough either.

Living i a fairly affluent city with the Mississippi running through it it's just hard for me to realize what real poverty is like. It seems to me water should be number one priority for the whole world. Every human should have the right to safe drinking water. Makes me want to do some research on what it would cost. My guess is less than the weapons we provide instead.

[CrispyQ]

27. I think Michael Moore has done that -

calculated the miniscule amount it would take to provide potable water to the world.

Yep, here it is - scroll down to The Water Project: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/last-minute-gifts-to-six_b_799350.html

[SoCalDem]

26. We are iin the throes of kitchen remodel & I went without a stove or sink

for 11 days:( Thanksgiving came within that 11 days:(

I still do not have my ice-maker hooked back up yet..since before thanksgiving.. but then we don't use much ice:) dishwasher's not hooked up since then either:)

[bluestate10]

31. That is why.

If tourist happen to pass the cleaning people that are cleaning the floor that their room is on, put $5 in each of their hands, typically there is not more than two for several floors. Be sure to put a tip directly into the waiter or waitress's hand after finishing a meal in a tourist hotel's restaurant. It is too easy for some to walk by servants at hotels and never see them, even as they serve meals or clean rooms.

[petronius]

38. Speaking of Jamaica (although perhaps a bit OT for this thread), the documentary

Life and Debt is a really interesting look at the forces helping produce that economy, despite being a few years out of date. The interview with Michael Manley in the bonus material is particularly good...

[Edweird]

22. That's part of why I never do 'tours'. I just pack my stuff and go.

Plus, I don't like anybody telling me what to do, LOL. I despise 'Disney-fied' and 'censored for your protection'.

[TBF]

30. One does not have to travel to read about and understand class warfare

worldwide. nt

[bluestate10]

32. You REALLY don't understand it unless you experience it eyeball to eyeball.

I tell you what. Next time you go on vacation try to convince a friend that is of the ethnic group or race that many of the indigenous people of the vacation locale are. Have that friend take excursions without you then talk about what that person learned. You will be floored by what you never hear from tourist agencies, resort staff, news reporters, et al. Your not getting information is not due to a conspiracy as much as it is due to people being more comfortable talking frankly to people that look like them.

[SoCalDem]

35. That is true, but seeing it up close & personal

has a more visceral effect than reading it in a book. Sometimes it takes a personal experience to spur action.

[Divernan]

41. Take the local workers' bus which brings them to/from the luxury hotels.

Then you'll see the local towns, churches, grocery shops, etc. which reveal the natives' standard of living. When I travel, I go to local movie theatres, bakeries, filling stations, grocery stores, churches and cafes. Even in crowded places like Cozumel, I was nearly always the only non-native there.

This is particularly true in islands in the Caribbean, where the cruise lines own and operate the souvenir shops and restaurants where the passengers go on their land excursions. My hair dresser was so excited when she and her husband made their first trip "abroad" to St. Martin's. They were staying at a resort which advertised that it was completely fenced in so no worries about locals robbing them. I told her I found it a very safe island and suggested they rent a car for at least a day and visit other parts of the island - told her about some beautiful beaches, great little bakeries, and good restaurants run by the locals. But they remained too scared/manipulated by the resort operators to ever venture beyond the fences. The resort owners/cruise lines are determined to keep all tourist profits to themselves. A local govt. official told me the island lost money on every cruise ship which docked there because none of the tourists went to locally owned shops/cafes.

Re travel, here are some of my favorite quotes:

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." -- St. Augustine

"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move." -- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have traveled." — Mohammed

"To awaken alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world." —Freya Stark

Hitler didn't travel. Stalin didn't travel. Saddam Hussein never traveled. They didn't want to have their orthodoxy challenged." — Howard Gardner

"Traveling is almost like talking with men of other centuries." -- René Descartes

"A man of ordinary talent will always be ordinary, whether he travels or not; but a man of superior talent (which I cannot deny myself to be without being impious) will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place." — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken." -- Frank Herbert

Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey." — Pat Conroy

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -- Mark Twain


"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open." -- Jawaharal Nehru"

[SoCalDem]

44. I have lived in a foreign country (Panama...for 8 years)

and have traveled a great deal, and except for the free trip to Tahiti in 2003, we book a place and rent a car and mingle.. We seek out the "local", and shun the "packaged", but too few Americans travel, and too many of the ones who DO travel, stay in the "compound", and miss out on the really interesting parts of the places they go.

[Turborama]

8. K&R I don't know the thread you're talking about but thoroughly agree with your OP.

Please don't lock this post for carrying on another thread, mods. A very important, constructive and positive point is being made.

[LiberalLoner]

9. Yikes! I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do that...I'm sorry! n/t

[madmom]

10. I too noticed more than one thread where a poster was "jumped all over" for asking a question. I was

always taught the only dumb question is the unasked one. If people don't want to answer or don't like the question for whatever reason , how about just ignoring it! It's not like there aren't plenty of other threads to be jumped on.

[1776Forever]

12. Right on! n/t

:thumbsup:

[riderinthestorm]

14. +1. And often the spirit of the question is overlooked, and DUers rush to castigate the OP

if they've phrased a question awkwardly or some such.

It's pretty unpleasant.

[1776Forever]

11. I have noticed a lot of people jump on posters in DU lately for no serious reason!

Makes one wonder if they are just here to make trouble on the site! I agree 100% with you!

[LiberalLoner]

16. I guess I just wish that we could be gentle with one another here, because

we are all so stressed out, watching what is happening in our country and around the world, watching our own lives fall apart in many cases...it just seems like the last thing we need is to be mean in talking with each other.

For me, DU seems like a lifeboat we are all in, with the insanity and hatefulness swirling all around us...we don't need any of that bad water getting in our boat....

[SoCalDem]

23. water? there are SHARKS in some of the lifeboats around here lately

:rofl:

[bluestate10]

33. There is some disagreement between DU factions.

When I see some handles posting, I know that I will agree with them without opening the posts. We seldom disagree. There are some DU members that I have little agreement with and will know that I am likely going to disagree with their post before opening and reading it, but I open and read anyway. Like the OP pointed out, anyone that is on DU and is not a troll is likely a person that has demonstrated a lot of caring and giving over their lifetime. If a person is being obnoxious in an assertion, that person must be confronted vigorously. But if a person is asking a question because their life has not exposed them to some world conditions, that person should be communicated to with courtesy.

[1776Forever]

39. Beautiful thought - let's both try to live it. At least we can start there. n/t

:fistbump:

[elocs]

17. Or there's the always popular DU putdown to shut people up: "Thank you for your concern."

There's lots of ways and methods I've seen used to bully people and shut them up, those who might have minority opinions or unpopular ones, or just asking an honest question.

[Liberal_in_LA]

19. Nice thread, Thanks for supporting the poster. I've been in her or his shoes

posting an innocent question and DU drops on you like a ton of bricks

[Patiod]

42. It's one of the reasons I rarely post outside the Lounge

Read through the comments on the greatest page, and see how often in each thread a poster is crucified for a neutral comment.

About the only thing you can be sure you won't be flamed for is 100% unlimited support for unlimited weapons for all in every situation with absolutely no restrictions. We're all too afraid of being mobbed by the Gungeon Dwellers to say anything else.

[Liberal_in_LA]

45. I hear ya

[TBF]

28. And sometimes "seeking to understand" is a ruse for spreading

right-wing propaganda ...

My personal feeling is that the responders showed great restraint in that thread.

[bluestate10]

29. Excellent observations. Big thanks. nt.

[seabeyond]

34. good for you liberal loner. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. Well let me show you what it means

I find images work best...

[canetoad]

40. In an age where the use

of stock, press and linked images is so easy and so prevalent, I would rather read the honest words of a fellow human grappling with the issues and complexities of life and fellow humans. Thumbs down to 'quickie education' with images. Thumbs up to this thread. Rec.

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. Ok so let me educate you from the POV of the residents at El Florido in Tijuana

Getting at four in the morning to get to the SINGLE water source to get a couple of buckets for your daily needs. Oh and you HOPE the feed works today. It is not running all the time.

So your first struggle is to get clean water.

Second priority, go get a job, for the day, which means you spend one fourth of what you wil earn in transport fees, and does not mean you will get that job.

If you do... that means that on the evening your family wil have enough for a bowl of beans and tortillas with green chilies.

If you do not... well you and your kids go hungry.

Look, some of us have seen this quite close up.

Oh I forgot, if somebody gets sick... general hospital for you (And they are lucky unlike other urban poor in other places at least there IS a hospital), which is expensive as hell given the income... or the Red Cross, if they are really that desperate and the Red Cross has space.

[Catherina]

43. I would have agreed with your thread if I hadn't seen the one you're talking about

and the ones before it n/t

[southernyankeebelle]

47. Well I am willing to bet none of us want to know what it is like. My heart goes out to people who

have to live on that kind of a wage. But I can tell you I have been so broke at times I had wished I had $2.00. People wonder how families live on an income of $20,000 a yr. It isn't easy. You do your best.