This System Can Go Fuck Itself and Burn in Hell

SirensOfTitan

A heartbreaking story about a man's attempt to break out of generational poverty that feels relevant as we consider how AI changes labor and who it empowers. A lot of us are excited about AI, but economic displacement can cause generations of trauma, and our safety net in the US is wholly inadequate toward that end.

rayiner

What do you want the government to do when your parents decide to abandon civilization and then live out without plumbing in the Oregon wilderness and then your dad abandons the family to do drugs and alcohol? How can you blame “the system” for that? My wife is also from Oregon. Her grandma was “marry a random truck driver at 14 for a ticket out of town” poor. The guy abandoned the family and drank himself to an early death. And her dad was similarly situated to this guy—my wife lived part of her childhood in a converted barn. Her takeaway from her family history was the opposite: people are often incredibly self destructive and you can’t help those people. The problem isn’t that lawmakers were never poor. Many were. The problem is that all the ones who were were high-functioning enough to escape poverty. So our systems for helping poor people assume a level of competence and administrative capacity that’s simply beyond the capability of a lot of poor people. For example, a third of uninsured people are actually eligible for Medicaid. Someone in my wife’s family racked up 50,000 in medical bills because they didn’t sign up for Medicaid despite being eligible the whole time.

frizlab

I’m probably gonna be downvoted to hell but I was rebutted by the part where the guy just throws away food because it was not vegan (and stopped reading after that). He did mention health issue concerns, so maybe it was on good faith, but AFAIK if you’re hungry, and I mean really hungry, you don’t care. You just eat what you have as long as it is edible.

candiddevmike

The irony of living in poverty and then owning a house that you list on Airbnb "for extra income". And deluding yourself into the key to financial success is being a bag holder for rich people, yikes. This guy sounds like another "everything sucks but I got mine and everyone else should figure out how to get theirs". I get the struggle but I didn't really see him demonstrate empathy for others in his situation.

xvxvx

An excellent essay. Very grim but honest and likely resonates with most people on some level. America has been a cruel place to be poor since day one. I encourage everyone to read Howard Zinn’s ‘A People's History of the United States’ as it shows a more grounded history of this country. The US needs a workforce of starving, ill, desperate people in order to work. That’s how the system was built: on the backs of African slaves and the European poor. The unspoken rule of this society is that everyone should rely on their family for help and not the government. This is why life is especially cruel for those with little to no family. Those who embrace and celebrate AI when there’s a chance it could lead to mass unemployment and suffering should take a long hard look in the mirror.

renewiltord

I think a lot of people who are eager for The System to die will have a rough reckoning to face when The System dies. In fact, The System doesn't even exist in most of the world in any meaningful way. The majority of the world's population does not live under conditions of great peace and rule of law. And even grasping that concept is alien to the majority of Americans: one of the 3M P100 filter cartridges of which he has two on his mask would provide a family in many places with food for a month. I'm not saying "be happy for what you have; it could be worse". I'm specifically saying "when you're advocating for what you have to end; go see what it looks like in the world that doesn't have it". Having moved to the US, I see a lot of people here have this strange Every Man Is An Island mentality combined with a view that Society Has Failed Me. For these people it is actually harder to cram 3 people to a room and just grind it out than to go buy a van and deck it out so you live by yourself and so on. Something I realize is a superpower a lot of successful people have is that they can do the things that are tough for them but nonetheless blockers to their success. They don't indulge their instincts like this (as he finds out after doing it that it doesn't save him much). People don't like to hear this kind of thing because it seems like punching down. But don't imitate the guys who tried and failed if you want to succeed. Imitate the guys who tried and succeeded. You can look at the ones who failed to see what not to do. There's a lot there of trying to get one over everyone. "I'm going to do X and then I'm set for life" kind of reasoning. If you play that specific game you have to face the fact that loss is possible. It's a gamble. If I just buy the right crypto coin, I'll make it. I'm done. Then you post the loss porn on /r/wallstreetbets or whatever and everyone gives you props and upvote karma or whatever and then what. No money. They forget you. Next guy. If you read the book Evicted you'll see this. The characters do all sorts of crap. One gets a windfall of a few hundred dollars. Chance to delay rent and eviction for a while. What does she do? "I deserve a treat after all this". When I moved here to the Bay, 3 men to a room, beds against the wall, rice and eggs every day, milk in the morning. Cheap. A few hours at min wage if necessary. I only realized many years later why people say "It's a marathon not a sprint". Neither metaphor made sense to me until I saw the guys who failed. Always with a scheme. "once I pull this one off, I'm done. I've made it". So that's what a sprint looks like. Success for them is 3 houses, one Airbnb'd, one for the mum, one for myself, leveraged 5x 3 times over. Live there by myself. Made it. Grinder. Hustler. Success. Actually, the majority of people who are successful are the opposite. Did the hard thing. 3 men to a room, rice and eggs, milk in the morning. Not resoundingly successful. No 3 houses. No Airbnb. But kids one rung higher on the ladder. Those kids, 2 to a room, rice and eggs sometimes pork, milk in the morning. Not resoundingly successful. No 3 houses. No Airbnb. But kids one rung higher on the ladder. Those kids, 1 to a room, good food. Other guy sees that "born with a silver spoon in your mouth; born on third base think you hit a homer" etc. etc. Truth? If you're not this one, you have the chance to be the first guy. Your kids be the guy envied by the other guy. But if Every Man Is An Island then you can't do something for the ones who come after. You never step on the ladder. Just scheme at the bottom to invent trampoline to the top. Then complain when you bounce and land on ground instead of top of ladder.

ZPrimed

I don't disagree with much of what the author wrote here, except for the part about "I'm starving, but I'm vegan so I won't eat SPAM and I won't eat the peanut butter because it is 'processed' and has 'chemicals.'" Humans are omnivores, veganism is a choice. You don't get to complain about how rough it is when you yourself have chosen to play with hard mode turned on. Obviously if there are health issues that require an altered diet that's a different story, but if that was mentioned I missed it somehow. Everything else about the story has merit though, the rich are too rich and the US's "safety nets" are awful. Nobody should go bankrupt due to health problems they can't control.

999900000999

Confusing. You own 3 houses, including an airbnb and your conclusion is how unfair society is ? Your doing better than most people. The weird moral grandstanding against Peanut Butter had to be the strangest part. Anything less than organic whole foods produce is simply barbaric. This isn't to say the system is good, our criminal justice system is a nightmare of indefinite detentions and human rights abuses. But I'm not seeing much struggle in this post. OP kept that making weird choices. At a point you need to sort yourself out.

petermcneeley

The author probably does not understand how radicalizing this text is.

mmh0000

Wow. It’s scary to think this person votes. A dude makes a series of terrible decisions. Decides to not learn from any them. Then blames society. Okay. But my early story is eerily similar to his. Expect instead of just my dad dropping out to do drug, so did my mom. I grew up constantly moving between women’s shelters, random peoples couches and storage units. And while he was in rural Oregon, I was in rural Idaho. I ditched my parents as soon as I could. I worked basic non-silicon valley tech jobs. Moved from help desk ticket closer to actual IT career. No college, no money or time for it. Did alright. Yeah life would have been a fuckton easier if I had supportive parents. But I’m in a good place and what I did wasn’t magic or luck. It was simply get basic job. Get shit apartment. Get slightly better job. Repeat. This dude is deep in incel territory, which you can tell from the incel words he drops throughout his rant. This dude says he never expected or needed any hand outs but several paragraphs earlier was complaining that the food bank didn’t provide vegan food. Ooohhh Kay. I have a lot of thoughts about both those statements. But dang dude. Maybe if you’re starving you should take any food you can get and deal with the rich people virtue signaling once you can afford to eat. (To clarify on the above, being vegan is fucking great. It’s good to not kill animals… but you gotta take care of yourself before you take care of a cow.) Yeah parts of the system are screw up. Yeah some people get a really unfair hand. But this guy was in generally good health, should have had health insurance through these crap jobs he was complaining about for his skateboard thing. (Which is another wtf that shows total lack of risk analysis. Who choses skateboarding as a hobby when you can’t afford a doctor. Jeez. Take up running.)

dial9-1

the OP probably is not telling the whole story and must have some kind of drug addiction going on that sucks up all of his wealth, because how do you even end up on a van when you split rent with a girlfriend/roommates? also the part where he refuses non-vegan food. yikes. and skateboarding as a hobby sounds great when you are uninsured

kaycey2022

This was rough to read. No wonder a growing number of people in your country hate immigrants so much. Although, rationally speaking they are not be the cause of so much misfortune. People should do whatever they can to get ahead. No one should accept poverty. As long as you don’t cut the throat of other innocents, it’s all fine. One thing I would say is don’t put yourself down - like good things aren’t for you. I wouldn’t frame it as you don’t deserve. Everyone deserves a good life. Deserve takes you down a self destructive path. But because of the circumstance if your birth, you can’t have it - now.