Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

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Wait, you want to include people with unreported income among the poor? How do you know that if we were to include the unreported income, they would still be poor?

You are correct. I don't have data to answer all your questions, though I do deal with children and the elderly here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2130441

Feel free to assume the one set of numbers I am unable to find in 5 minutes of google completely debunks me. After all, all the facts we do not know must support our preconceived notions, right?

And that doesn't even touch on the people who cannot get a job for any number of reasons.

Again: please read the first paragraph. It explains that "working poor" includes the unemployed (people looking for work, but who have not found it).

That is a huge assumption.

Please learn the difference between "definition" and "assumption". I don't know how you define "hardworking", so I chose a definition, explained what I meant, and presented facts concerning that definition.

I don't want to include people with unreported income, but you are.

Your last statement sums up the cognitive dissonance that your argument creates. You are creating your own definition of a word which already has one.[1] If you don't know anyone who is not hardworking, yet has managed to remain employed for at least a year, you're not paying attention.

1.http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=hardworking

Right - I'm using the best available data I can find. You seem to prefer ignoring the data we have, with the post-hoc justification that it isn't perfect in every way. Do you do this when the data supports your preconceived notions as well?

As for the "cognitive dissonance", your definition of hardworking is circular:

Hardworking: (adj) industrious, tireless, untiring (characterized by hard work and perseverance)

Industrious: (adj) hardworking, industrious, tireless, untiring (characterized by hard work and perseverance)

In a fact based discussion, one usually needs to construct a more precise definition of colloquial terms. There is no effective procedure for determining whether individual X is hardworking by the dictionary definition, and thus we cannot count the number of hardworking people. I constructed a definition which a) is measurable and b) which roughly agrees with my intuitive notion of what "hardworking" means. If you don't like it, replace "hardworking" with "Category H" in my previous post.

Sorry if my attempts at precision and use of facts interfere with your desire to confuse things and revert back to your preconceived notions.

Ok, my last post on this.

As much as I'd like to claim authorship, I didn't write the dictionary. If you'd like to argue about whether the terms mean what you want them to mean, or if they lead you into a logical endless loop, you're wasting your energy.

There is no effective procedure for determining whether individual X is hardworking by the dictionary definition, and thus we cannot count the number of hardworking people.

So we agree.

I constructed a definition which ... which roughly agrees with my intuitive notion of what "hardworking" means.

Ok. so who is reinforcing their preconceived notions again?

Believing in something doesn't make it true.

Reusing global variable names in your local scope can cause really insidious errors. Just sayin.

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