431–440 of 715 posts
I know that for 99% of people its about money. This sort of discussion isn't even up for debate. Morality (doing the right thing, even if it means a personal loss) is a secondary consideration.
We're on the road to hell, and most of us are working very hard to make it a reality.
Every morning, I get up at 5, and go for a two-mile walk. Often, my walk coincides with the route of the garbage collection truck. Man, those dudes work hard . It makes my shoulders ache, just watching them. They are fast, energetic, efficient, and precise. Around here, they are generally Latinos, and they have quite high-paying jobs, compared to a lot of their peers. It's a dirty, dangerous job, and the benefits are…
This is the first I've heard of tipping trash collectors. Apparently it's a thing? How, logistically, does one even accomplish that?
I don't routinely tip, but we do give a gift card at Christmas. Since our garbage guys never get out of the truck, the only way to give it to them is to run out there when I hear the truck and hand it to them directly.
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Starting conditions help tremendously, and I'm not doubting that in the least. One other thing which helps, significantly, is how much the parents value education. Most of the people I know who grew up very poor but now have money had parents that valued education, and pushed their kids to learn. They didn't have shelves of books at home, but they did visit the library weekly. It has to be extremely difficult to focu…
This is pretty much what I came to say. Both of my parents came from very poor families, but they both valued education very highly. My brother and I may as well been born into a wealthy family since we both got every educational resource we needed, but up until I was 10 years old my parents had to make huge sacrifices to achieve that. In these poor communities I'm seeing a tendency to stigmatize education... that's…
Do you mean the materials available online? There's definitely lots of great material online, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that schools and universities have gotten any better (despite becoming much more expensive).
Working hard but doing so for someone else can often not lead to significant gains. Many services like Uber or InstaCart or even McDonalds or Amazon Warehouse or Walmart or Retail Sales or call center, you can work hard but there is no where to progress to. Your rewards are capped. You need to find a way to work hard such that your rewards are not capped artificially. Startups were you get equity. Large companies whe…
Watching people get a bunch of money over and over for no work starts to make you question things. All these people get a bunch of money by gaming the system so why not try that instead of working? It does make me a bit salty and that's someone who in the grand scheme of things gets a lot of money for not much work. I can only imagine how a wage-slave busting their hump feels.
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I'd disagree about "not necessary". Cellphones are a necessity now because payphones have gone the way of the dinosaur, there go 100 dollars for a family plan, internet is a necessity, there go 50 dollars more, and especially the expenses for the second car because no one can make do on one income, especially at the lower end of the income scale. And childcare expenses, of course. Especially childcare.
Big difference between a 5 year old $50 Android smartphone and the latest $800 iPhone. I know a lot of people who own the latter yet claim to struggle financially.
Also, when your cellphone is how you access the Internet because you can't afford a decent laptop, at some point it makes sense to go for a more powerful phone.
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In 2019, immigrant entrepreneurs made up 21.7 percent of all business owners in the United States, despite making up just over 13.6 percent of the population and 17.1 percent of the U.S. labor force. As an immigrant I can assure you that my starting position was not that great. It is super sad to see the west being turned into an epicurean type world.
It's because immigrants proactively make their lives better while average Americans reactively complain about why their lives aren't perfect
Many take risks to start businesses, make big purchases, pursue a novel career and so on. These are often fairly large financial risks, many with bankruptcy as an option, and I often ask what their backup plan is should their risky endeavor fail. I often hear some quick poorly thought out plan and after a few more questions, the real backup plan emerges: or I'll just go back home.
If you're not fleeing dire conditions, many immigrants come to the US to gamble for an opportunity to great success. If they succeed, they stay, if they fail, they go home. I had several immigrant friends that did just this. The vast majority now live back in their home countries and based on their social media, they seem to be doing quite well there. The few who have stayed are doing markedly better than they did in their home countries, jumping several socioeconomic brakets.
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Why would it be nihilism? A person's purpose in life doesn't have to be tied to working hard (especially if that strategy has diminishing returns).
I was raised to believe certain truths, such as hard work and sacrifice pays off. It's guided much of my life, from pursuing education, building a career, settling down and starting a family. I couldn't imagine what my life would be if I had believed that I am incapable of changing the circumstances of my being. It would be incredibly hard to live in an arbitrary society. That would likely lead me to the idea of nihi…
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> It makes my shoulders ache, just watching them ?? Are they not using wheelie bins with trucks that do the lifting? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUA_gB5SuPc These have been the norm in West Europe for easily a decade plus.
I am in the US and I have always seen these kinds of trucks being used. Not sure where OP is that they don't use these.
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> You have very, very, good odds of doing better than your parents if you manage to get to age 25 without incurring a felony record, addiction to something that will likely kill you or too many child support payments. That is a laughably low bar, and it is unlikely for the trend you are describing to continue past the move from poor to lower middle class. In a fair society, with equality of opportunity, it should be…
> In a fair society, with equality of opportunity, it should be equally likely for a child born in a trailer park to become high income earner as it is for Bill Gate's child. I don't agree with this. You are measuring equality of outcomes, not of opportunities. They are different.
If you believe in a strong genetic component, than you can complicate the formula a bit.
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It's because immigrants proactively make their lives better while average Americans reactively complain about why their lives aren't perfect
Or it’s because a fraction of immigrants does do with means and for the express purpose of this, essentially self-selecting for the task? Immigrants also make up a disproportionate portion of poverty population.