• tiramichu@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    There’s no confusion. People like this just don’t think a homeless person deserves anything.

    I imagine they take it as an affront, that a homeless man could have the “gall” to take charity from them, while he has a phone “hidden” in his pocket, as if that means he’s a con-man, and not really in need at all.

    In their mind, if a homeless man owns a phone, then he can’t be genuinely destitute. If he was then he should sell that phone to afford his next meal, instead of begging on the street.

    Never mind that a phone is probably the single most important tool to in modern life to stay informed and connected, not to mention and entertained and sane.

    Never mind that a phone could be the difference between staying homeless for ever, or finding work.

    No - if you are homeless then you certainly aren’t allowed to own any tools that would help you get out of it.

    • PunnyName@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      When people say, “beggars can’t be choosers”, my response is always, “how do they stop being beggars, then, Karen?”

      • thesporkeffect@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        The conservative mindset believes social class is preordained. Karen believes people who have become homeless are destined to remain that way and it’d be a waste of resources to try to help them.

        If you look at it through this lens, the phone is just prolonging their thrashing before they accept their fate and starve to death.

    • gila@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Besides, phones are incredibly cheap now. I dropped my pixel 7 in a river a few weeks ago so I went to Walmart and asked for the cheapest android burner they had. For $100 it has a 90hz display, snapdragon 680, 5000mAh battery. I don’t need any upgrade from this

      • weeeeum@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Used phones are even cheaper, dirt cheap. I don’t think he could sell his phone if he wanted to.

        • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 month ago

          Smart phones are free when you open a line at places like meteopcs. All it costs is like 30-40 bucks. Not to mention in my state we have what they call Obama phones. Free cellphones with lines for people who are low income.

    • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      There’s a lot more info on this when you relate it to an older analysis that says many people are seemingly in search of the ‘deserving poor’ as an excuse to never help anyone.

      • primrosepathspeedrun@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        they do not see and interpret reality.

        they have their idea of what is, and then use visual input (for example) only as a muse to further develop that idea. you can’t argue with them, because anything that doesn’t support them just passes through (and if you trojan horse this, you are now the devil).

        they’re solipsists, and its by choice. not human beings, not entities in the same world as us, sharing the same context and world and connectedness and shit. in a very real way, these fuckers are taking the world from us, in a very real way, these fuckers are invaders from another world (a world they made up and does not exist, but which their consciousness occupies, which ours infringes upon).

        that’s why your uncle or whatever getting taken by fox news feels like such a loss. they are genuinely lost, the person is gone. no longer here. bricked in an unrecoverable manner.

    • refalo@programming.dev
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      1 month ago

      or they’re just trolling. this is the kind of shit people on 4chan say to bait people with, and then make fun of them for even responding to it.