I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

Ditto. I actually actively don't look at peoples qualifications when it comes to hiring, as I fervently believe that the ability to get a degree does not correlate to, well, anything in real life, other than what your tolerance to debt is, or how rich your parents are, or how compliant you are. None of those are really endearing qualities in a potential employee.

It usually comes out conversationally months down the line, and we therefore are mathematicians, school & college drop-outs, physicists, chemists, geographers, and marine biologists - and all developers.

In no small part this stance comes from my own experiences when I first set out into the world as a naïf graduate, thinking that a masters (Desmond - didn't let my degree get in the way of my education) in Physics from [redacted] was somehow valuable. Turns out that a first in urban forestry management counts for more with most employers, because HR witches don't actually understand the skills they're supposed to be assessing, and therefore just get told "throw everything that's not a 1st in the bin". Which is a despicable waste of talent, and why I therefore do not give two hoots what you studied or where, if at all.

Yeah, I lost all sympathy when I read this:

'why i didn't seek job all these years? well, i can only say i procrastinate and is ok living on a dime.'

Maybe it's not that he doesn't interview well, its that he would be horrible employee.

You say you believe that your ability to get a degree doesn't correlate to anything other than your tolerance to debt or how rich your parents are.

But you clearly believe that your 2:2 in Physics (for Americans, a 3.0 GPA) is worth more than someone else's 1 in Urban Forestry Management (for Americans, a 3.7 GPA) so presumably you think that there is some variation in difficulty among degrees, and presumably you believe that smarter people will be able to get better degrees?

> It's not like being socially awkward has to be an innate thing; they're called social skills for a reason, you can learn them.

It doesn't have to be, true. But in the same way that a tone-deaf or rhythmically-challenged individual can probably never be even a decent musician, there are plenty of people who can probably never become 'socially skilled'. Consider autism, for example (in all it's degrees), and also the fact that it's probably quite a bit more prevalent in our profession.

> I get what you're saying, but I also tend to think: if they're so smart, why not learn some social skills?

Why are so many very intelligent people alcoholics? Why are so many doctors smokers? Why do so many psychologists have psychological issues?

There's a massive gap between knowledge and practice, and I've become increasingly convinced that not being aware of that gap is one of the primary reasons people have trouble turning 'saying/thinking' into 'doing'. We underestimate the difficulty.

For example. As a student, me and a friend of mine were living rather unhealthy lifestyles. Then a few years ago she suddenly 'got serious'. She started working out, implemented a healthy diet, and applied herself more to her studies.

A month ago I remarked that I really admired her strength, as I still struggle with these things (to a degree). Her answer? She'd been raised with a strong emphasis on health, her family was always into sports and they're all over-achievers. From her perspective, she merely 'dropped' a habit that was deeply instilled in her, and had little trouble picking it up.

I've found that most of the 'changes' and personal development that I see are not a result of mind of matter, but more a result of upbringing, social environment, and being in the right place at the right time. It's not just that, and I think it should't ever be used as an excuse, but it's much more that case than we often suspect.

A socially awkward person who doesn't 'value' time spent with others more often than not 1) just hasn't proper experienced the value of this, 2) has been actively shunned or bullied socially, or 3) just hasn't found the particular people that they can enjoy time with.

tl;dr: the value we place on things is often a result, not a cause. Or at least it goes in both directions.

I did read the whole thing, several times.

His situation sucks, I'm not denying that. But why would his likelihood of homelessness be any greater than anyone else working minimum wage? Can he not do what everyone else with a shitty job does and get a shitty apartment with a bunch of roommates for a few hundred a month? Can he not get food stamps like everyone else with minimal income?

I'm not trying to criticize his current feeling of hopelessness. I'm just saying that his situation isn't, in fact, hopeless and that the only way it's ever going to get any better is if he realizes that it isn't hopeless and starts working his ass off to make it better.

And I'm not criticizing him for not having already come to that realization either. It's hard. It takes times. It probably takes help from others who have been there. But it is the only way forward.

It's wrong to be unsympathetic to his plight, but I think it's just as wrong to withhold the truth that many other people have faced the same situation and gotten through it by persistently working their asses off until things got better. He can do this. Anyone reading this in a similar situation, you can do this. It will suck. There's no point in being coy about that. But if you do what it takes to keep working, and work and save smartly, you can get through it. Don't give up hope.