Monday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "study shows how 42M recipients spend their food stamps" and posted in the "Political Discussion". The original poster quotes from a recent study conducted by The Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) regarding the use of food stamps. The report shows that junk food, especially soft drinks, are the leading purchases with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds. The original poster asks whether the program should be modified so that soft drinks and junk food are no longer covered. EPIC is a fairly new "think tank" formed less than a year ago by Paul Winfree. Winfree served in the administration of former President and current cult leader Donald Trump. As such, EPIC clearly has an agenda. Even so, their findings are consistent with other studies of the use of SNAP benefits. As posters point out in the thread, this reflects deeper societal issues. One poster puts things very succinctly, writing, "Junk food is cheap. Healthy food is expensive." Moreover, poor people who rely on food stamps often live in food deserts where healthy food is not readily available. Many posters argue that junk food is promoted by extensive marketing and the use of SNAP benefits for junk food is encouraged by corporate lobbying. Some posters go even further and claim that the government and private equity investors actually want to encourage unhealthy lifestyles in order to kill people off. One poster is especially fixated on Blackrock and "Globalists" who he insists have a "depopulation" agenda. Several posters argue, however, that junk food is actually expensive and provide examples of healthy food being cheaper. In response, another poster points out that even in cases where healthy food costs less, it takes longer and requires more effort to prepare. This can create unwanted stress in families that are already struggling. There are two distinct points of view in this thread. One, which is basically represented by the original poster, suggests that poor people are intentionally choosing to spend tax payer money on junk food, creating more problems for both themselves and society, and the solution should be to simply prohibit this. The other point of view is that poor people face significant constraints that discourage them from eating healthy, some built right into the SNAP program, and that the solution is to provide more accessible healthy alternatives. The second group doesn't necessarily oppose prohibiting junk food, but simply doesn't view prohibition as addressing the actual problem. Some posters made an effort to create grocery lists that showed how a healthy diet could be achieved on a budget. Other posters responded by pointing out what had been missed in those lists and where the lists were not practical. However, one poster who actually bothered to read the report suggested that much of this discussion missed the point completely. I'll quote that poster at length:

In looking at the data from the report, soft drinks top the list, but they are followed by milk, beef, cheese, bread, cereal, chicken, water, etc. Candy is at no. 11. At least half of the list are "normal" foods. But also, many items on the list can be bought for cheap.

This point was largely ignored in the thread, perhaps because it did not serve either of the primary viewpoints being debated.

The next most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Family Relationships" forum and titled, "In-laws and their kids eat all our food". The original poster says that his family will host his brother and his family for Memorial Day. He is dreading this event because the family traditionally eats everything in sight. They not only devour food such as hotdogs and hamburgers that are prepared for meals, but they also raid the pantry and refrigerator and consume anything on which they can get their hands. The original poster says that his family is not wealthy and these visits wipe out an entire grocery run. He asks whether there is a tactful way to suggest that his relatives pitch in for food. I have no idea why this thread reached 17 pages in less than a day other than it seems the most mundane topic in the family forum can generate that type of traffic. The original poster was not trolling and barely contributed to the thread after the initial post. It's not like there was a plethora of original advice. Answers basically broke down to "if you can't afford it, don't host" and "don't go grocery shopping ahead of time so that there is nothing for them to eat." For some reason, posters felt the need to repeat both  of these suggestions ad infinitum in as many variations as possible. The third argument was to make sure that enough food was served during the meals to keep the others from being hungry later. The original poster insisted that he provides enough, but this suggestion caused a huge debate among posters about what amounted to sufficient food. Parents of young children had vastly different ideas than the parents of teens. In some cases, a single hamburger per kid might be considered enough, but parents of athletic teens didn't think three hamburgers for a single person would be excessive. There were also different cultural or traditional attitudes towards food among posters. While some posters take a very strict approach about what guests are allowed or not allowed to eat, others ridicule this approach as "WASPy". The second group would be horrified if guests were raiding their pantries because the food they had prepared had not been sufficient. In their view, if there are not leftovers, they did not provide enough. Other posters agreed that a host who left guests hungry had failed, but they also thought that it was rude for guests to search pantries and refrigerators for additional food. As such, the original poster did have his defenders, though they were mostly few and far between. In the end I don't think the original poster learned anything that he couldn't have figured out for himself, and given his very limited participation in the thread, that was likely his own conclusion.

Next was a thread titled, "Word of caution for aspiring CS majors" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a Wall Street Journal article and said that the article reported that the job market for computer science majors is saturated. It is unfortunate that the original poster didn't put a bit more effort into his post. The Wall Street Journal is famously pay-walled and most DCUM users, including me, don't have a subscription. I was able to read the article via Apple News, but I am not sure how many readers would know about that option, have it available, or even be willing to go to the effort. The result is that this thread has very little to do with the article. Instead, posters simply provide their own opinions or experiences. Nobody denies the general contention that jobs for computer science majors are increasingly hard to find. But there is little agreement other than that. Some posters note that colleges such as the University of Maryland College Park have decreased the number of students accepted into their computer science programs, both because the need for such graduates is no longer as strong and because too many kids who weren't qualified were pursuing the major. Some posters attribute the job shortage to the overall economic situation that they consider to be pretty dismal. Others agree that the computer science job market is tight, but they argue that it is better than other majors, or at least pays more. As is normal in threads of this sort — and there have been many — posters warn about the impact of artificial intelligence. I am still doubtful that AI will end up replacing a significant number of programers — outsourcing abroad is probably a more significant threat — but if employers base hiring on the expectation that it will, that will be enough to impact the job market. A good point that some posters make is that the companies that are thought of as "technical" companies and the natural employers of computer science majors have matured and now hire a number of non-technical employees. As such, computer science degrees might not be the best path to such companies. For instance, many posters suggested that project management of technical projects might be a more promising option. The Wall Street Journal made a similar argument, saying saying that computer science majors should broaden their horizons and look beyond the traditional tech companies. In the midst of all the pessimism, several posters were able to report that their children with computer science degrees had been able to find desirable jobs, though often it hadn't been easy. So, all is not lost for today's computer science majors.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Health and Medicine" forum. Titled, "A word of warning about this round of COVID", the original poster warns that the current stain of COVID has not only made her very sick, but rapid tests show as positive well past 10 days. She is concerned that given the latest guidance, many who are infected will not be aware that they may still be infectious. COVID threads on DCUM all follow the same pattern anymore. Some posters are very concerned about COVID, take many precautions themselves, and are upset that others don't take the disease seriously. Others don't want to hear anything about the disease, are not willing to take the slightest precaution, and basically plug their hears and hum in reaction to any suggestion that COVID might be a problem. Needless to say, these two groups don't get on well. This unwillingness of some to acknowledge anything having to do with COVID goes beyond absurdity. One poster confidently posted, "No one cares about covid anymore." I am not sure how to explain this, but the thread that poster was reading was created by a person who cares about COVID and many of the previous responses were written by people who care about COVID. Obviously there are people who still care about COVID. But, like that poster, many have adopted the attitude that since they don't care about COVID, nobody else should either. This is not good news for those who are vulnerable to infection. As a society, it seems that we have simply accepted a certain number of COVID deaths. It is the sort of thing about which most people don't seem to want to hear and don't want to acknowledge. As long as people are dying quietly, the majority if fine with it. The COVID cautious crowd is increasingly frustrated with this reality and pretty scornful of those who are not concerned about possibly infecting others. One poster made the point that if she is possibly infected with COVID, she is careful to mask around others because she doesn't want to kill anyone. This was interpreted by a COVID-denier as suggesting that those who don't take precautions are "murderers". The poster was extremely offended by this allegation, despite that not being what was said. Moreover, the idea that it is not those who are getting ill due to the negligence of others who are the victims, but rather it is the poor, downtrodden, COVID-infected individuals who refuse the most basic of precautions that are the real victims, is an interesting take. I really don't know how bad COVID is these days because there is very little information about it. If, as the original poster says, it can still be quite bad, that is not good. As this thread shows, many posters simply don't care and won't do anything about it. We are not getting very helpful guidance and many people would ignore it if we were. The impact of COVID tends to decrease over the Summer, so at least we probably have a few months during which it will be less of an issue.