I-Like-To-Bike

Why? If you are that desperate for a meal perhaps you should look for a mission or Salvation Army kitchen.

10 Wheels

Star of Hope Men's Shelter is Better.

TiBikeGuy

Chuchi

I don't think they'd let me in there, I'm a woman.

10 Wheels

The 500 men would love to eat dinner with you.

I-Like-To-Bike

Probably offers better conversation and fellowship than breaking bread with characters making political statements by munching in a dumpster.

Chuchi

I don't have any political agenda and I'm not homeless, but thanks for your concern.

dynodonn 

For those that dumpster dive, more power to them, and to their effort in keeping more of America's refuse from making it to the dump.

I-Like-To-Bike

See the OP video for an example of a dumpster diner regurgitating political platitudes.

Roody

And thus stereotypes are born.

SmallFront

Some people enjoy fitting a stereotype. Or, rather, there is enough of the type to make it a stereotype. But that doesn't change what they are. It doesn't even have to something bad. There are positive stereotypes too. What do you think "a selfmade man" is, if not a particular type implying certain connotations? Yup, that is a stereotype as well as a description too. Saying that the dumpster diver serves platitudes is hardly stereotyping anything. He is a dumpster diver, and while he was doing it, he moralised about the way things should be, using clichés. The "stereotyping" of him is his own doing.

You might even have noticed that quite a few people even on here make it a political statement to "live car free". Not just something they chose for themselves, but something they can use to beat others over the head with, attempting to take the moral high ground.

It's the same sort of deal: Those people fall into various stereotypes, good or bad, depending on your view, but most are so singleminded/focused on that that they have a hard time not proselytising to everyone they meet.

This includes quite a bit of the dumpster divers: Spending so many hours a week to get something "free" (i.e. the work put into it is hardly "free"), often in the dark, while trying to tell parents and everyone else in society that what they are doing is wrong. Most people stop dumpster diving for food when they have to hold down a job that might take a lot of their energy, and have to do other things in their life (kids, renovate a home, take care of a loved one, take courses along with a full time job, or even hold down more than one job to make ends meet).

There's a reason that type has become a stereotype. It takes something different to not fit the type where the precedence is already set.

But, hey, if they get joy from going dumpster diving for food and feel that that is the smart way to spend their time: Have at it, Horse.

Roody

Stereotypes are just lazy thinking. Or did you actually go out and interview a sizable number of dumpster denizens before you decided to tell us what they are all about?

SmallFront

I never said "all". You're misrepresenting what I said in order to make an argument. Try again.

Even so, when a bloke makes a video saying exactly what one can expect from "the stereotype", then I don't need to interview others to see that that individual is indeed stereotypical, monochrome, two-dimensional, a charicature, an empty void, a willing idiot, a cliche, or whatever else one can use to describe the outlook he exhibits in that video.

But as I said, if you need to misrepresent what I say in order for you to make your point, you are the one exhibiting "lazy thinking" as you say. Otherwise you wouldn't have to resort to such tactics.

I explicitly stated that one has to be different to break from the precedent others have set. I don't see anything different there. With that said, if he likes it, he likes it. It's just not feasible for all of us, nor something all of us would enjoy. He has elected to eat the crumbs from the rest of society. Without them, there would be no dumpsters to raid for food. If he was homeless and had to do it, I would view it differently. But as a political standpoint I find it naive and narrowminded.

lenA

the battle against excessive packaging has been going on for 45 years

Ekdog

I'd say it's been a losing battle so far. I remember when soft drinks came in returnable glass bottles. We kids would go around and pick them up to get the deposit. Nowadays it's plastic, single-use bottles, which folks carry home in plastic bags. The result:

https://www.greenpeace.org/internatio.../trash-vortex/

gerv 

I'd agree it's a losing battle thus far. Those single-use bottles are theoretically recycled... but this means next to nothing. The environmental cost of single-use (ie, the container manufacture) has got to be enormous.

https://thewaterproject.org/bottled_water_wasteful.asp

Ekdog

Thanks for posting that link, Gerv. I've changed my avatar in your honor.

Skip the bottle. Save a life.

CbadRider

People have started finding insults where none existed so we're done here.

Closed.