> Some of the comments posted before this one express puzzlement about his "homelessness" when, after all, he had immediate relatives who still had a house to live in. Many cases of people living on the street are cases of people who have untreated behavior disorders that make them very hard to live with, even for their immediate relatives who have living space. The case of the author here is a case of a man who was brought up (as I am sure, having come from the same generation) to feel that it is his responsibility to provide for his children, and not their responsibility to provide for him.
If you want to call something stupid, it's likely to go over better if you can provide a coherent justification for saying so, instead of linking to a gigantic page of Harry Potter fanfiction and expecting everyone else to reconstruct the argument you had in mind.
Also, "wrong" is not necessarily the same as "stupid", and "disagrees with Eliezer Yudkowsky" is not the same as "wrong".
I thought I linked to the chapter. It's chapter 19 if you're interested.
I agree that wrong isn't the same as stupid, but in this case I meant to say stupid.
I thought it would be apparent that it was a stupid decision but maybe I should have justified it.
One way to look at it is that rules (like "parents don't depend on their children") are just guidelines used to achieve desirable outcomes. In choosing how you act, you should aim to achieve the outcome, not to follow the rule. It seems that in his "not depending on his children", he acted to follow the rule, instead of to achieve the outcome.
edit:
It might also have gone over better if you had said "irrational" rather than "stupid", or perhaps "foolish". You were (if I understand right) saying that if he was unwilling to call on family for help, he was unwilling to lose face, unwilling to lose.
I believe differently. I'm sure part of it was hubris, and the shame of being homeless must sting, but I saw it more as trying to save face for his children. THEY knew he was homeless, but whenever he visited them near school of friends, he dressed in business dress so as to disguise his situation from THEIR friends. That sounded more like someone that was trying to ensure his kids have a smooth trajectory despite his own mistakes.
That said, you may still be right: it's possible that he never _asked_ for the favor of staying with a child's friend's family. (His kids were in school, I gathered, rather than adults -- did I miss that?) Had he done so, finding a job might have been easier ... though I am pessimistic enough to wonder how much, given the trouble he had once people saw the "gap" in his employment.
That's a good point about him potentially wanting to save face for his kids. However, I don't want to speculate on what his thinking was. I don't know what his thinking was, and don't have enough information to infer what it was.
My point is only that IF he was doing it to save face for himself, that it's a stupid decision. His pride is less important than his well being (in terms of his happiness, his chances of bouncing back, his family and friends' happiness etc.).
Regarding my use of the word "stupid", I stand by it. I don't mean to be contentious at all. And I don't mean that he is a stupid person. I just mean that that decision is a stupid one (IF he in fact made it).
As far as stupid vs. foolish vs. irrational goes, I don't understand the meanings and connotations of these words well enough to really say, but I get the sense that 'stupid' does a better job of "calling someone out" and emphasizing the fact that a bad decision was made. I think these tasks needed to be accomplished, and so I think 'stupid' was the right word.
Sorry, but that's stupid. You have to be able to lose (http://www.hpmorpodcast.com/?page_id=56 - chapter 19).