Dumbing of Age

Acts 2:44-45, by the way.

Late but, Whowho, the US sort of has anti-socialist sentiments built into its culture. I was raised very neutrally and I still had a negative view of socialism until I got to college.

Well we're past the point of no return. Jacob is falling for Joyce. And now it's his responsibility to think about his ongoing relationship and have some frank conversations.

whoop

Joyce, no

I'm sure you did

Has Radiah changed her hair?

That seems to be the case, yes.

It's a good look! Makes her look less menacing. (and is identical to mine)

Hmm... kind of makes me wonder if they're misinterpreting Jacob's longing gaze now. Was Raidah perhaps in line of sight?

“Joyce hates socialists? Her best friend is homeless.“

That means nothing. You can support more resources for the destitute without being socialist, and just because you’re socialist doesn’t mean you’ll help the homeless.

Indira Gandhi was a hardcore socialist, and she lead slum demolition campaigns and forced the poor to get sterilised.

Dorothy's face is matching mine right now

Joyce isn't calling for the government to provide a safety net for her friend, let alone strangers she has no way to know are deserving or not. There is actually a lot of respect for private sector charity in the culture of her background, but the thing about private charity is that the ones giving the money can be very discriminating in who gets it, and it's usually just between friends and family (technically charity but usually just thought of as being a friend or family member) or just donating to the church fund for community outreach.

Stupid Sexy Joyce.

Sometimes spite isn't always the best answer to a problem Billie

Well that's a new one

Raidah used "Put Down"

It's not very effective.

50 grand a year in the states would be 4 times the poverty threshold for Joyce's demographic. What kind of privelaged, isolated background has Radiah got?

Joyce wants kids for sure, but not until she's married with a man who also has an income. She's at no risk of being anywhere near poverty.

I think that the substantial point here is that some of us might have forgotten that Raidah is an amazingly shitty human being. The specific numbers are pretty much irrelevant; hell, a certain amount of "hands off my man" guardedness might count as understandable; but opening with this snotty, ultra-materialistic, blanket attack sneer is just plain ugly.

I do wonder how much Jacob is supposed to have noticed about her. He must have realised that her clique's attitude to Sal doesn't entirely correspond to the reality he's met, but he's usually written as a nice guy. Shouldn't he be dragging her aside for a "for fuck's sake what was that about?" talk about now? Or is he just emotionally clueless?

My read on him is that because Sarah also put up a defensive facade he decided not to dig, even if he likely figures the story he's got is biased. He isn't ignoring or shunning Sarah because of anything Raidah told him, he just doesn't want to fight against Sarah's own spikes.

Considering that he's just been shown focusing on pizza while two women fight over him, I'd go with "clueless".

...or at best, conflict-averse. Which I can understand, and which wouldn’t be evil — he is indeed perfectly decent to Sarah. But at the moment, he’s a bit of a cypher.

Note the eyebrow in panel 4...I hope that's an alarm going off in Jacob's head.

Whelp, I just went down the archive to check out all the strips that had Jacob tagged (please send help, I have no life), and I've come to the conclusion that Jacob is an all-around decent dude with a strong sense of self-discipline who is kinda burned out on the whole "sex" thing. That's the full extend of his personality, as far as I can see.

Haven't really seen him acting very affectionate towards Raidah either, besides putting a hand on her shoulder. Honestly, I kinda suspect that he isn't really dating Raidah, so much as going along with it because he assumed that's what he is supposed to be doing. He describes Raidah at one point as "A fully checked list of everything I wanted in a woman", which sounds positive and yet it's not what I'd expect to hear from a guy talking about a girl he loves.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, because fuck Raidah who is an awful person.