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Author Topic: AmeriPol thread  (Read 3532726 times)

Frumple

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32205 on: September 11, 2019, 11:33:16 pm »

I... like, I kinda' totally agree with what you're saying, but that is nearly impossible. There aren't exactly many folks like AOC that's managed what AOC has, heh. Though that it was an easier time in their particular situation to reach congress than claw through education debt is, indeed, basically a bloody farce.
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SalmonGod

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32206 on: September 12, 2019, 01:55:52 am »

I guess my reaction was because it reads like "The only way to pay off your loans is to win the job lotto and get a $175k a year job".  Or maybe that's the point - the claims that really the only way to get out of debt is to win a lotto or be super-well connected so you can get elected to Congress?

My opinion is probably clouded because when I graduated college in 2000 I had a debt to income ratio of about 50% - that is, my student loans the day I graduated was about 50% of my annual salary, and at 6.5% interest rate.  Also, I got scholarships so only had to pay for 1 year (out of 4) of college.  So my brain rationalizes that prices today are lower, if the average is only paying twice as much for four times (or more, since average students take more than 4 years now) as many years of school.

So when I hear complaints, about debt burden - I guess I just can't relate, because I worked to not need a lot of debt, and then I worked to pay off the debt I had.  I'm also in that weird demographic age right at the end of Gen X; I remember growing up even noting that the worldviews and lifestyles of the kids as few as 2 years younger than me were very different than mine and my peer groups'.  That still holds - my worldview in general is more optimistic and "if you work hard you will probably get ahead" (opposed to today's sentiment that even if you work hard, you probably won't get ahead).

So I'm sad all around - I feel on one hand that there's something wrong that people can't figure out how to plan and make things work.  I'm sad that conditions have changed such that it is in fact more difficult (in sheer numbers, if not on a percentage basis) for students to get consistent employment to support their debt.  I'm sad that society has done something to education in general, such that it feels like for the first time in a long time, we have a generation where people say "education today is not better than it was when I was a student" (opposed to the past 2 centuries, where most people confidently said things were getting better).  I'm sad that the current young-adult generation is so disenfranchised and flat out fearful.

Born in '83 here.  A Xennial, if you will.  I've got a fair amount of Gen X in me.  But I was also an early adopter of internet and right in the thick of the cultural switch you speak of.

I've worked really hard.  Spent much of the past year recovering from severe burnout, because 2015-2018 I was basically working myself to death.  But I know people smarter and harder working than I who haven't done nearly as well.  I'm under no illusion that while my hard work and talents have been a valuable part of getting me to where I am today, they wouldn't have amounted to anything without a lot of privilege and luck.  I make more with a single job than most of my peers, and I own a home.  At the same time, I'm still buried in debt and live paycheck to paycheck.  I admit some of that is because I've been stuck in a toxic marriage with someone who's mildly irresponsible with money (mostly spends too much on soda and eating out).  But even without that, I don't think I'd be that much better off.  It's just as much to do with kids and medical expenses, which are burdens that very few millennials or zoomers can bear anymore.  My dad's sort of a big shot in his field and my parents are pretty financially secure.  If I didn't have their support, I would have been completely fucked several times over by various emergency expenses.  I don't know anyone with kids my age or younger who doesn't regularly get bailed out by older family, and those without such family support end up in horrible situations or more likely just don't have kids and accept that they'll never be able to responsibly afford kids even if they want them.  And my job fortune has been just as much about receiving valuable tip-offs and good words from friends and being in the right place at the right time as it has been about hard work.  I think I still have a shot at making it to a place of relative security before my parents are gone, but I've enjoyed very little of my life so far and don't know that I ever will because having to work all the damn time, so it's often difficult to see the point.  I sincerely doubt I'll ever be able to afford a comfortable retirement... and that's if environmental collapse hasn't de-stabilized everything in the next 40 years.  My retirement plan and only hope for the future, like much of youth today, is the death of capitalism.

I also graduated college in 2008.  There's a really sharp line there between the experiences of those who "made it" before that cut-off, and those whose financial and career journeys began after the crash.  Seriously look at the numbers and testimonies about how the experience of working up from entry-level has changed after 2008.  The experiences simply are not comparable.

I think an even bigger part of the generational difficulty in sympathizing is that older generations did have their own struggles, and when we talk about our struggles, it feels like we're marginalizing yours.  But it's not like that.  They're just not comparable.

My dad's dad died when he was 15.  His mother made him pay rent to continue living with her through his teen years.  He did hard manual labor.  He went to college, met my mom, and had me when they were 20.  My mom dropped out of school and worked at McDonald's to support the family while my dad finished his Masters degree.  They lived in a little 3-room shack with sections of floor missing about the size of your average 2-car garage.  They feared the electricity being cut and me freezing to death in the Wisconsin winters when they were late on their bills.  I get it.  They struggled through genuine hardship.  And they look at my life, and don't see the same.

But the difference is the things they did were possible back then.  It was a hard path, but it was a path that was there.  A single McDonald's income won't even pay rent for a studio apartment in many places anymore.  They didn't even have to take out student loans to live on it (if barely) and afford school.  My dad got a good job immediately after graduating, and the types of advancement opportunities that were available to him are not around today.  For example, he was a computer geek in the 80's, and without any formal tech training or certification, he was the de facto network admin and IT expert at the global headquarters of a multinational corporation in the mid-90's.  I'm also a computer geek and that's created some opportunities for me, but none nearly so grandiose, as corporate I.T. isn't that kind of wild frontier anymore.  Nothing is.  The world's population has literally doubled in my parent's lifetimes.  Almost every job market is saturated, and dominated by middle-aged people who got knocked down a peg during the recession, forcing youth out completely.  Desperation has everybody hyper-vigilant for a hole to fill, such that glaring voids like the one my dad filled as de facto I.T. don't exist for more than a year or two.  When I started studying what I focused my degree on, the job market was starving for the skills I trained in.  A couple years later when I graduated, I was already a dime a dozen and would have struggled to find a job even without the crash.  And I never did end up doing anything with my degree, and instead settled for work I hate that I fell into mostly by luck.

We're drowning in shallow luxuries, which gives off the appearance of being spoiled.  But luxuries are cheap, while necessities are expensive.  Ten years ago, I was renting a two-bedroom apartment in the cheapest, trashiest complex in the city, and I live on the outskirts of Indianapolis where cost of living isn't very high compared to the rest of the country.  I can build a capable gaming computer today for half of what a month's rent cost there ten years ago, which I'll get at least 5 years use out of.  Giving up stuff like that would make almost zero difference in the struggle.  It doesn't matter how much we sacrifice.  We can subsist on ramen and spend our 2 hours a day not working staring at a wall, and if we didn't kill ourselves first, maybe that would get us to a place of financial security in our middle ages instead of never.  The same opportunities and paths simply do not exist which did up until 20 years ago.

Meanwhile big brother is bigger than Orwell's wildest dreams, so it's ever in the back of our minds that we can't truly relax... ever.  State governors ship their police forces across state lines to invade sovereign territory as if they're soldiers with blatant disregard for state, federal, and international law so they can maul protesters with dogs and shove them naked into dog kennels in winter temperatures for wanting to literally prevent apocalypse, and a Democrat president mostly pretends it's not happening for months (Standing Rock).  Suicide is the leading cause of death among young men, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone under 35 who hasn't lost someone they cared about to it.  I'm not a very social person and don't have a large circle, but I still see expressions of suicidal thoughts or severe depression from someone I know every single day.  Corporations can openly kill massive numbers of people to make a buck and face zero consequences (opioid epidemic as just one example).  Whistleblowers publish smoking gun evidence of massive high-level corruption and war crimes with regularity, and they face horrendous consequences while the wrongdoers exposed face none, because Boomers frankly seem to just admire that stuff.

Everything's damn bleak and absurd, and there is absolutely a generational reckoning coming.  I just don't know when.  There have been so many lines crossed that had me thinking "Surely this is the moment.  Surely this won't be tolerated."  But I've been continually disappointed.  I've stopped looking for it.  But it's definitely coming, and it's going to be a volcanic release of pressure and transformation of landscape.

I think Muse sums it up best...
« Last Edit: September 12, 2019, 02:02:31 am by SalmonGod »
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JoshuaFH

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32207 on: September 12, 2019, 02:57:17 am »

Excellent piece Salmon, I loved reading it. Right now I'm pinning all my hopes on joining the military, and if I get rejected for joining, I honestly don't even know what I'm going to do; I just don't see another viable path for advancing out of the "Hopeless Plebeian Trash" caste of the economy, and by extension getting any of the things I really want out of life.

You mentioned suicide, and I think the rash of mass shooting throughout America is just another extension of that, just another way to commit suicide while also dealing damage (however futile) to the society that created them to be so miserable in the first place. That's my theory.
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McTraveller

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32208 on: September 12, 2019, 07:44:17 am »

I think Salmon's piece fits in with the stereotypical generation divide:  Born in '83 is in Millenial.  I'm a mere 5 years older, born in '78, right at the end of Gen X.  My take on societal disrepair isn't that it's bleak - it's an opportunity for doing something great.  It's that subtle generational outlook that, even with the same hardships, the views are different.  Graduating college in 2008 definitely is losing the random lottery - that was right during an economic downturn. I lucked out in graduating in 2000, right before a peak.

But that said - I never remember a time in my life when working at McDonald's (say) was enough to live on your own in an apartment.  The only people I know who were working in such jobs and living on their own all had shared living arrangements.  So I don't honestly know where the idea that "every job should be enough for someone to live on their own" originated - it definitely feels like something in the past 15-20 years.

Corporations have definitely changed though - when I was growing up there was always the image of working for a company "for life" and getting a pension, etc.  Then somewhere that changed to people changing jobs very often, 401(k) instead of pension - basically the erosion of loyalty.  This went both ways though - employees bounce jobs to get raises, rather than being loyal to a company.  Companies lay off employees for short-term gains even though in the long run it has societal costs due to employee churn.

My "generational influenced" approach is that a way to avoid getting caught in a mindset of worrying about the huge societal things is to instead look local: how can I improve my local community, to make it a better place, even if some other place is going downhill.  This can be a simple as just getting to know neighbors, etc.  Those local social ties solve a lot of the cultural malaise - a big part of the modern sentiment (as shown by numerous studies) is a sense of lack of connection to other people.  This goes all the way up to the big faceless governments and corporations.

Start working to restore connections, even small ones, and much of this stuff will resolve - and if it takes a generation, it will take a generation.  Do I like it, not really, but I can accept it.
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Iduno

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32209 on: September 12, 2019, 08:07:56 am »

I guess my reaction was because it reads like "The only way to pay off your loans is to win the job lotto and get a $175k a year job".  Or maybe that's the point - the claims that really the only way to get out of debt is to win a lotto or be super-well connected so you can get elected to Congress?

My opinion is probably clouded because when I graduated college in 2000 I had a debt to income ratio of about 50% - that is, my student loans the day I graduated was about 50% of my annual salary, and at 6.5% interest rate.  Also, I got scholarships so only had to pay for 1 year (out of 4) of college.  So my brain rationalizes that prices today are lower, if the average is only paying twice as much for four times (or more, since average students take more than 4 years now) as many years of school.

So when I hear complaints, about debt burden - I guess I just can't relate, because I worked to not need a lot of debt, and then I worked to pay off the debt I had.  I'm also in that weird demographic age right at the end of Gen X; I remember growing up even noting that the worldviews and lifestyles of the kids as few as 2 years younger than me were very different than mine and my peer groups'.  That still holds - my worldview in general is more optimistic and "if you work hard you will probably get ahead" (opposed to today's sentiment that even if you work hard, you probably won't get ahead).

So I'm sad all around - I feel on one hand that there's something wrong that people can't figure out how to plan and make things work.  I'm sad that conditions have changed such that it is in fact more difficult (in sheer numbers, if not on a percentage basis) for students to get consistent employment to support their debt.  I'm sad that society has done something to education in general, such that it feels like for the first time in a long time, we have a generation where people say "education today is not better than it was when I was a student" (opposed to the past 2 centuries, where most people confidently said things were getting better).  I'm sad that the current young-adult generation is so disenfranchised and flat out fearful.

You got paid to work during college? Unpaid work (internships, mostly) is a requirement more and more. It helps keep people down, so I assume it will become more common.
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Reelya

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32210 on: September 12, 2019, 08:27:51 am »

You got paid to work during college? Unpaid work (internships, mostly) is a requirement more and more. It helps keep people down, so I assume it will become more common.

They seriously don't think that far ahead, that internships are "keeping people down" in some sort of class warfare sense. Internships exist purely because they can get away with it. It's a labor supply and demand thing. If there's a shortage of people with the right diploma they'll start paying you for your internship, or just skip to locking you in with a job.

EDIT: also to the point: there's a supply of people willing to do it. If nobody was willing to take the unpaid internships, you'd find the practice abolished almost instantly. It's only a thing because you and fellow workers let it be a thing. It's only a "requirement" because there are people willing to do it, the companies cannot enforce the existence of unpaid internships.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2019, 08:39:17 am by Reelya »
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Doomblade187

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32211 on: September 12, 2019, 08:44:16 am »

You got paid to work during college? Unpaid work (internships, mostly) is a requirement more and more. It helps keep people down, so I assume it will become more common.

They seriously don't think that far ahead, that internships are "keeping people down" in some sort of class warfare sense. Internships exist purely because they can get away with it. It's a labor supply and demand thing. If there's a shortage of people with the right diploma they'll start paying you for your internship, or just skip to locking you in with a job.
Well, yeah, they do it because they can, but a strong shortage of people with the right diploma, etc. ain't stopping anyone from still running unpaid internships. They're less popular yes, but I'm pretty sure game devs are still preying on people new to the industry with that BS.

What I'm saying is we should criminalize wage theft, especially unpaid internships (maybe a carve-out for non-profits or small business.
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McTraveller

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32212 on: September 12, 2019, 11:55:37 am »

Another example at the sort of things that prevent people from "getting ahead".
I think the only way, ultimately, that you can get rid of corruption and abuse of power is by instilling in people mutual respect.  I don't think you can do it by laws alone.  Yes, we can have laws that say you can't discriminate, but you can't make a law that causes people to actually respect and value each other.

We do have laws that try to prevent expression of disrespect (banning hate speech, etc.) but those laws don't address why that sentiment was there in the first place.
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Hanslanda

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32213 on: September 12, 2019, 12:16:09 pm »

Excellent piece Salmon, I loved reading it. Right now I'm pinning all my hopes on joining the military, and if I get rejected for joining, I honestly don't even know what I'm going to do; I just don't see another viable path for advancing out of the "Hopeless Plebeian Trash" caste of the economy, and by extension getting any of the things I really want out of life.

You mentioned suicide, and I think the rash of mass shooting throughout America is just another extension of that, just another way to commit suicide while also dealing damage (however futile) to the society that created them to be so miserable in the first place. That's my theory.

This. If I don't get in the Navy I can stay at my trashy job, get marginalized and overworked more and more, then eventually fired or quit, or I can try to get a job pipelining or welding or something.
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Iduno

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32214 on: September 12, 2019, 12:48:34 pm »

You got paid to work during college? Unpaid work (internships, mostly) is a requirement more and more. It helps keep people down, so I assume it will become more common.

They seriously don't think that far ahead, that internships are "keeping people down" in some sort of class warfare sense. Internships exist purely because they can get away with it. It's a labor supply and demand thing. If there's a shortage of people with the right diploma they'll start paying you for your internship, or just skip to locking you in with a job.

EDIT: also to the point: there's a supply of people willing to do it. If nobody was willing to take the unpaid internships, you'd find the practice abolished almost instantly. It's only a thing because you and fellow workers let it be a thing. It's only a "requirement" because there are people willing to do it, the companies cannot enforce the existence of unpaid internships.

People tried that. That's why they're now mandatory. Of fucking course there's a supply of people willing to do it when their choices are 1) take unpaid work to finish your degree so you can get a job or 2) go work at a below-poverty wage elsewhere. The only people who can afford to work without pay are already doing well financially, and have families who are doing well enough to cover for them.
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Doomblade187

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32215 on: September 12, 2019, 03:05:24 pm »

Hmm, apparently the Supreme court has allowed a Trump administration policy to take effect that says the US won't honor asylum applications if the applicant hasn't applied to the countries they traveled through already.

The policy is still in court, but it can now go into effect.
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Zangi

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32216 on: September 12, 2019, 03:40:37 pm »

Watch those countries make a fast track passthrough asylum classification.
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smjjames

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32217 on: September 13, 2019, 12:07:24 am »

I saw something about Uber (or maybe it was Lyft) refusing to do that despite the law.
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Doomblade187

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32218 on: September 13, 2019, 12:58:07 am »

"Uber is a technology company" is their excuse there.
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