Jan 16, 2022 2:26:18 GMT KITN said:

Okay just a second here.

The fuck does it mean "Everybody wants free stuff for nothing"?!

It's MY fucking tax money! I'd like it to be used to give people healthcare and free tuition and a stronger public transit system instead of wasting trillions of dollars on planes that will never fly, ships that will never leave harbors, tanks that will never be driven, and missiles that will never be fired. The government's priority absolutely should be to better the lives of its citizens instead of financing a wasteful imperialist death machine that never wins wars.

Similarly, wages should absolutely be higher for workers, considering that profits come directly from the labor of the employee. People should have more vacation time and make more money working less hours so that people are able to actually live lives, since they're not working themselves to exhaustion and oiling the machine of capitalism with their blood.

That is not YOUR tax money.  We need to give that money to rich so they are motivated to work hard.  Give money to the poor and they become lazy and will not work without a hand out.  The US cannot just give people free healthcare or tuition like every other country does because that is communism.  Do you not want forced labor camps like Australia has?  First they gave people free healthcare, then there were bread lines and they have to ration toilet paper.  

Yeah, it's not-at-all suspicious that a policy practiced by every other modern society on Earth and makes all of their lives better is considered too dangerous and radical for the United States, the supposed greatest country in the world. 

Jan 16, 2022 2:50:07 GMT KITN said:

Yeah, it's not-at-all suspicious that a policy practiced by every other modern society on Earth and makes all of their lives better is considered too dangerous and radical for the United States, the supposed greatest country in the world. 

But you have freedom. 

Glorious, American freedom. 

There's a lot going on with college debt. When I was in high school and college (1995 - 2002), there was a big push for everyone to go to college because studies showed that college grads on average earned $1,000,000 more over their lifetimes. However, I assume they lumped all majors together so the low-income majors were propped up by the high-earning majors. So while the stat may have been true, it was not useful, and actually was probably harmful.

We do need many of those "low-income" majors, because despite the low pay, they play an important role in society. Teachers are an obvious example. But only a moron or idealist would take on $90,000 debt to get a job that pays $30,000.

I think one of the disconnects between people is disagreement on what the point of college is. To some people, college is a training program for a specific career - chemist, engineer, teacher, etc. To others, the point of college is less about a particular career and more about being broadly educated, "learning how to think," and "personal enrichment," as I've heard before. Both have merit, I think. College is such a huge institution that it can't be a single thing.

One of the other big reasons we're in this debt problem is states have been cutting funding to colleges for decades. As they do this, we lose cost-effective programs to replace the important lower-income positions as the workforce ages out. So, in order to save tax money on the front-end we're going to be paying for it on the back-end with either tax money to pay off the exorbitant loans, or from having lower service due to not having enough staff.

Oh, yeah, eliminate student debt, that's another thing that'd be super cool.

Jan 16, 2022 3:22:15 GMT Gyro LC said:

I think one of the disconnects between people is disagreement on what the point of college is. To some people, college is a training program for a specific career - chemist, engineer, teacher, etc. To others, the point of college is less about a particular career and more about being broadly educated, "learning how to think," and "personal enrichment," as I've heard before. Both have merit, I think. College is such a huge institution that it can't be a single thing.

As an Aussie outsider looking in, and what I understand of American College life from television and movies - college looks more about the "experience" and as you put it, "personal enrichment " - socially, as much as it is academically, thus the emphasis on fraternities/sororities, societies, social clubs, the cult like atmospheres around organised team sports. I'm sure a degree of this exists in Australia, but it feels like College in the US, is simply something you have to do, regardless of personal ambition or direction. Ie; ticking a box. 

Jan 16, 2022 3:22:15 GMT Gyro LC said:

There's a lot going on with college debt. When I was in high school and college (1995 - 2002), there was a big push for everyone to go to college because studies showed that college grads on average earned $1,000,000 more over their lifetimes. However, I assume they lumped all majors together so the low-income majors were propped up by the high-earning majors. So while the stat may have been true, it was not useful, and actually was probably harmful.

We do need many of those "low-income" majors, because despite the low pay, they play an important role in society. Teachers are an obvious example. But only a moron or idealist would take on $90,000 debt to get a job that pays $30,000.

I think one of the disconnects between people is disagreement on what the point of college is. To some people, college is a training program for a specific career - chemist, engineer, teacher, etc. To others, the point of college is less about a particular career and more about being broadly educated, "learning how to think," and "personal enrichment," as I've heard before. Both have merit, I think. College is such a huge institution that it can't be a single thing.

One of the other big reasons we're in this debt problem is states have been cutting funding to colleges for decades. As they do this, we lose cost-effective programs to replace the important lower-income positions as the workforce ages out. So, in order to save tax money on the front-end we're going to be paying for it on the back-end with either tax money to pay off the exorbitant loans, or from having lower service due to not having enough staff.

Yeah many do not get that if you want to do science or math related stuff, no amount of hard work or natural talent will get you a job.  The liberal arts for all stuff is total BS and I agree most would be much better off just not doing it, but if you want a job that requires a domain of knowledge, you will need college and no amount of self-teaching or hard work reading and independent learning will get you into some positions without that degree.  

I mean you can be born with a natural desire to know everything about the human body, get a perfect score on the MCAT and do years of reading and even do vet work for years with great skill, but you will never be a surgeon in the US without a med degree.  And frankly you will likely never get into med school without a pre-med degree even with a perfect MCAT score.

And like it or not, most jobs wanted people with some domain training.  The self-made investor is never going to get a job at Goldman Sachs no matter how much profit he does in a year if he does not have a master degree.  They will not even waste their time listening to that story.  Nor will any other major firm.  For every self-made investor that claims to be great at making money, they have a matching application of one who has a degree. 


This is what people do not really get about the labor market, is in the US it is extremely over skilled so people were often forced to take jobs beneath their pay grade for their education level.  Then over the last 20 years these degrees became the norm for that position.  And new positions were created with pay cuts.  This is why so many teachers now have master degrees, why you have PhD's doing data science work a master student can do at most places and why frankly, you need a two year degree now to even do shit like dig graves.  If you can be relied on to complete a two to four year degree many employers assume you were just too stupid for college and do not want to even continue having discussions with you.  You are the type of person we heard for a generation should be bagging fries or waiting tables, not doing a job that requires any type of independent work.

Jan 16, 2022 0:39:36 GMT NATH45 said:

I agree with iNCY, at some point college/university education needs to align with the job market.. and reality.

And if the Australian landscape is anything to go by, in many places 'blue collar' workers are out-performing their white collar neighbours in terms of income and financial independence.

The Arts degree is nice, as a the History degree. And I'm sure it would be super interesting studying either. But I'm not sure how the vast majority of those who study in these fields will ever utilise them fully. With vast opportunities in trade, and to an extent in business administration, leadership and development - and I'm sure countless other fields that only require an over average IQ - the energy should be spent directing young people to the realities of the real world.

A real world devoid of art and ignorant of history, yes!

This is how we get Virginia demanding people learn about the Lincoln vs Frederick Douglass senate debates where I presume noted black civil rights leader Frederick Douglass argued in favor of slavery, but Lincoln insisted they must be set free. Not really sure where the Virginia GOP is going with this really.

It also is how we get the modern GOP shares the same beliefs that set the slaves free in the first place with Lincoln as their leader.  Think about this one for a minute.  

Jan 16, 2022 1:25:05 GMT @ness said:

Although I didn't have lingering student loans, I do think paying them off is a mistake. You wanna clean the slate, fine, but make it across the board in the form of a stimmy for those that don't owe taxes. Otherwise fuck off.

I say that as someone who wasted daddie's money in college. Had I been forced to work to pay my way through school you'd better believe I would've either found something else or wouldn't have dicked around since the money was coming from me. I still waste hella money on food and stuff these days, but I also have a respect for it at least since I paid for everything.

I dunno if it has any relevance to anything but I often found because I lacked direction in any way that I opted to try paths that "guaranteed" me success. All throughout school (graduated in 03) they beat it into our heads we had to go to college. Basically only the disabled kids and those who weren't "book smart" were pushed towards the trades. I sensed a very high level of arrogance surrounding college vs. that type of work. So I went to college because it's what you do. Not because I wanted to do anything really... just knew it was necessary. And as such I floundered because I had no goal and simply wanted a degree to have one. Failure #1.

I also wanted to make a career of the military. Not because I had some respect or allegiance to my country or even surface level wanted to kill brown people... I just saw it as an "easy" path. Failure #2. Both of which I documented in FF wasteland.

The job I'm doing now I actually really enjoy. So much so that it's slowly becoming a serious interest of mine. Self teaching myself lots of handy man work and other minor maintenance stuff. Where I am today vs. 6 years ago is night and day. Most people in my spot don't care at all. And it shows. I just like being productive in this way and if I had this drive when I was 18, maybe I could've made something of myself. In this way it doesn't feel like work. I think a lot of people, especially dudes, are aimless and jobs are just gigs. And when the pay is shit and you have no future, yeah ain't nobody trying to do anything but minimum effort.

I haven't visited the sub or done any research on this stuff, but it's something I've always suspected of myself and those in this segment. No war, no purpose, just perpetually as Sam said... reading (watching) stories about better men. Seriously I've been contemplating taking side classes in HVAC and other things in that wheelhouse, not necessarily to do work... but to expand my current knowledge and perhaps if things don't work out here at the po in maint. maybe I won't be completely hopeless and can find something to do with myself rather than a Smith and Wesson exit strategy. I'm sure this posts is gonna make 0% sense though.

That palindrome post count only gonna last a minute

Because I feel the need to reiterate,

Which I even did out loud to Wife tonight,

@ness is me and my life if I never met Wife

So from what I am seeing pretty much the only people who think that the US is a merit based society are non-Americans? As are most people who disagree with forgiving US college debt, despite the fact that doing so will not affect them in any meaningful manner.

The college debt forgiveness push is because an entire generation for the last 40 years were told if they did not go to college they would be stuck doing menial jobs, and this was reflected in college requirements at jobs for unskilled entry level work. This was promoted by every educational group, and even our government. Also college used to be free until Reagan realized that college educated people do not vote Republican on average, so he attacked colleges viciously, ending free college and doing massive cuts to education to stop people from being turned away from the Republican party. In 40 years college went from costing nothing to nearly 100k funded on debt as the expense of throwing three generations into deep debt.

Also again, Millennials and Zoomers are not expected to pay off their debt and just make payments of 15% of income for 30 years until the rest is forgiven anyway. If the US is relying on that money getting paid back, then the US is in for a real bad time.

It is crazy we expected our future generation of scientists, who need 10 years of college, to go a quarter to half a million dollars in debt now to get the skills to continue bleeding edge research. Then again, each year more Americans believe the Earth is a flat disc so we reap what we sow. This is why China found water on the moon and is planning a sustainable lunar base, despite the US having a 60 year head start in lunar exploration. China values education, we do not.

China plans to throw a base down on the moon in 2027 well rushing projections ahead by 8 years.  They do not follow the international lunar accords, nor signed them, so that will be Chinese territory.  It is unknown how much of the moon they will be claiming as Chinese territory.

Jan 16, 2022 4:24:32 GMT 🤯 said:

Jan 16, 2022 0:39:36 GMT NATH45 said:

I agree with iNCY, at some point college/university education needs to align with the job market.. and reality.

And if the Australian landscape is anything to go by, in many places 'blue collar' workers are out-performing their white collar neighbours in terms of income and financial independence.

The Arts degree is nice, as a the History degree. And I'm sure it would be super interesting studying either. But I'm not sure how the vast majority of those who study in these fields will ever utilise them fully. With vast opportunities in trade, and to an extent in business administration, leadership and development - and I'm sure countless other fields that only require an over average IQ - the energy should be spent directing young people to the realities of the real world.

A real world devoid of art and ignorant of history, yes!

How many history graduates, then work in a field requiring a definitive knowledge of the last 10,000 years of human civilisation? Or even a sound knowledge of a portion of it? Probably few.

But for the majority that don't utilise this qualification, they may have been better off applying the time in another area. As potentially a lot of this anti work sentiment may deride from studying a particular subject or passion and never actually being required to call on it, need it, or use it in any significant, meaningful way.

I'd be shitty too, if my extensive knowledge of Babylonian text wasn't a meaningful, and useful skill set I could use in every day life punching numbers or polishing door knows.

Colleges and public institutions can employ arts and history majors if they want.
Not sure why everyone else should pay for it though...

I say defund the arts now though, not governments job to pay for that.

Socialism is the antithesis of a meritocracy and what always makes me so weary about these threads is that people are full of these unicorn and fairy bullshit ideas that completely ignore human nature.

The world is as it is because water finds its level, people for the most part and lazy and shit. I'm not moralising, it's the way the world is and any solution that seeks to solve issues that face the world must meet the world as it is right now.

Generally even at the undergraduate level in third year history majors move away from learning about history and instead learn about how histories are created. And there are a ton of jobs for history majors. Trump saw to this. One focus of higher level histories classes are the degree of trust that should be placed on sources as well as potential biases they may have. In a world for misinformation, people who went deep into studying history are now the best at separating fact from fiction and learning the truth from comparing competing bias accounts of events.

Not to mention the jobs in as archivists, documentarians, appraisers, teachers, political advising, historical consulting, curators, ect.

If the GOP of Virginia has a historic consultant they would not have demanded that students be taught that a black democrat in 1858 argued the for the good of the nation slavery needed to be expanded to more states.

Jan 16, 2022 6:20:28 GMT iNCY said:

Colleges and public institutions can employ arts and history majors if they want.
Not sure why everyone else should pay for it though...

I say defund the arts now though, not governments job to pay for that.

Socialism is the antithesis of a meritocracy and what always makes me so weary about these threads is that people are full of these unicorn and fairy bullshit ideas that completely ignore human nature.

The world is as it is because water finds its level, people for the most part and lazy and shit. I'm not moralising, it's the way the world is and any solution that seeks to solve issues that face the world must meet the world as it is right now.

But you live in a socialist country so is there no meritocracy in Australia? 

Jan 16, 2022 6:26:40 GMT c said:

Jan 16, 2022 6:20:28 GMT iNCY said:

Colleges and public institutions can employ arts and history majors if they want.
Not sure why everyone else should pay for it though...

I say defund the arts now though, not governments job to pay for that.

Socialism is the antithesis of a meritocracy and what always makes me so weary about these threads is that people are full of these unicorn and fairy bullshit ideas that completely ignore human nature.

The world is as it is because water finds its level, people for the most part and lazy and shit. I'm not moralising, it's the way the world is and any solution that seeks to solve issues that face the world must meet the world as it is right now.

But you live in a socialist country so is there no meritocracy in Australia? 

Not really, no.

Tell me again why you cannot have an AR-15? Are the rights of the individual not worth protecting? Does a man not have the right to protect their property? Sounds like socialism to me.

How does university work in Australia?

Jan 16, 2022 9:05:22 GMT c said:

Tell me again why you cannot have an AR-15? Are the rights of the individual not worth protecting? Does a man not have the right to protect their property? Sounds like socialism to me.

I'm saying we are not a meritocracy, not sure why you are going on about AR-15

Because in the US, banning guns is socialism.  

Jan 16, 2022 9:08:10 GMT 🤯 said:

How does university work in Australia?

Average college loans to go to school in Australia is a third of the cost of US schools and have no interest attached (US is about 4%) because the government helps fund college education.  More socialism in action.  They generally then have payments for 4% of their income for middle class wages and 8% as they become upper middle class, as opposed to the 15% that US students are expected to pay.  With the interest most US college graduates college graduates pay 2 to 3 times the loan amount over time, if they ever repay it.  Miss a payments in the US and they are entitled to take the cash direct from your paychecks.  Their minimum wage is twice that of the US as well, so their jobs start at considerably more income, while paying about the same for taxes with only a slightly higher cost of living.  After you account for health insurance costs due to their socialist healthcare you end up well ahead there in terms of income vs taxes however.

I'm convinced c, is just taking the piss now.

Jan 16, 2022 9:19:24 GMT c said:

Because in the US, banning guns is socialism.  

And we are a socialist country, I have always said this.

Jan 16, 2022 10:06:20 GMT NATH45 said:

I'm convinced c, is just taking the piss now.

You might be right.
I have travelled a lot and am familiar with different employment conditions.
As you know here we have a good society, but it maintained by controlling the spread of wages.
Heaps of my mates are on union jobs and the good workers cant get paid more because enterprise bargaining makes it illegal foran employer to pay anyone more than someone else.

That's the way it works here, high minimum wages but you have to do seven times the work of someone on the minimum wage to make 50% more.

I also think our university repayment rules are nonsense the way people don't have to repay until they earn a certain amount per year, creates full time students in dead end jobs.

do incy or nath even have any bootstraps left after pulling on them so hard? Do you even have an empathetic bone in your body?

I really enjoy the shift in bootstrap critical commentary of low wage work.. "If you don't like your job, quit and get a better job" so during the pandemic after people lost their jobs and educated themselves into higher paying jobs "why does it take so long to get my burger at MacDonals? where are all the workers? Don't they have some bootstraps" Except here in Canada usually you here the old people saying things like "Why can't these workers speak english" because english speaking canadians stopped working sht jobs long ago, and the only reason companies were able to continue paying low wages was to bring in immigrant temporary foreign workers.

I work at a mine, we are not fly in / fly out, so you have to live in an area that the cities all end up on "top 10 worst places to live in Canada" lists. I forge the point I'm getting at but power on. After christmas 30% of the engineers at the mine gave their two week notice at the same time. These are all people making at least 6 figures, making at least 25% more than they would if they did a similar job in a big city. And these guys all chose to leave for jobs either paying less or the same. And the reason is simply the morale of culture at my work is so terrible, it is not a positive place to work.

If your life is unenjoyable (many people have found the pandemic unenjoyable as fuck with all their fun actitivties being cancelled) then your shitty treatment at work is made worse. Top it all off with a ridiculous housing market and massive inflation, then you better not treat me like a shitty person at work.

When you look at it from a low wage perspective. Low wage workers get treated like shit. Verbal abuse from customers and managers. They don't get paid enough to live. If I was still a fast food e,ployee and my future prospects were bleak, I'd rather just quit and live of government subsidy. Why work abd barely get by when you can not work and barely get by?

The antiwork movement is not about bootstraps or whatever. It is a byproduct of the unafordability of life. Why work when life is still unaffordable while working? Society has made life futile for the non super rich.

Jan 16, 2022 10:34:50 GMT iNCY said:

Jan 16, 2022 10:06:20 GMT NATH45 said:

I'm convinced c , is just taking the piss now.

You might be right.
I have travelled a lot and am familiar with different employment conditions.
As you know here we have a good society, but it maintained by controlling the spread of wages.
Heaps of my mates are on union jobs and the good workers cant get paid more because enterprise bargaining makes it illegal foran employer to pay anyone more than someone else.

That's the way it works here, high minimum wages but you have to do seven times the work of someone on the minimum wage to make 50% more.

I also think our university repayment rules are nonsense the way people don't have to repay until they earn a certain amount per year, creates full time students in dead end jobs.

Unions are a product of socialism.

Everything the right in the US calls socialism you all already have.  Free healthcare.  Strict gun control.  High min wages.  Unions.  Welfare for abled bodied adults.  Green energy programs.  Living wages.  Publicly funded higher education.  The right to vote without impediment.  Worker rights.  Women's rights.  Taxes on the your rich and corporations that have to be paid.  Government mandated COVID response.  You literally let illegal immigrants live on islands.  Hell, you do not even elect an absolute leader and instead use a parliamentary system.

Your opposition party is the labour party, a socialist party.  How much clearer does this need to get.  To the American right, you are what will happen if we allow democrats to push their policies.

nazzer, I've just tried to understand where it stems from, as opposed to just banging a drum and screaming " capitalism bad! " which is what everyone seems to do on topics like this, in regards to the great resignation. Which I started a thread on.

And all in all, some degree of personal responsibility. If I've studied and obtained a degree in a somewhat niche field with limited options for engaging and satisfying employment and thus, value, I've got to consider maybe my individual choice wasn't the best, at least in regards to what is available in the job market. And trust, I've been there myself.

I've also promoted looking at "work" differently a number of times, particularly in response to the covid pandemic and what is largely 2 years of lost times, socially. And I've been critical of the hustle mentality that is incredibly toxic.

Really gonna be interesting to see the reaction if the May Day strike goes off. Wonder if management will just pull themselves up by their old bootstraps when workers start to not show up for two weeks and pick up the slack themselves. 

A lot of socialist minded people though want to party like it is 1886 when lazy Americans did a wildscale strike to demand to work a pitiful 8 hours a day instead of the traditional 12 hours they were expected to for the same daily rate.  Was said if we moved to 8 hour work days America would collapse due to a lack of means of production.

///

Also gonna be fun to see the reaction to all the businesses that close because they fail to adapt to a changing labour market.  No business is entitled to workers and if you want to push that whole meritocracy as a business attitude lifestyle, be prepared for workers to tell you to fuck off and work elsewhere they are more respected with more worker focused policies.

No renewal of socialism for business owners this year, they either figure out a way to get workers and become profitable or prepare to go under.

Jan 16, 2022 15:39:31 GMT nazzer said:

do incy or nath even have any bootstraps left after pulling on them so hard? Do you even have an empathetic bone in your body?

I really enjoy the shift in bootstrap critical commentary of low wage work.. "If you don't like your job, quit and get a better job" so during the pandemic after people lost their jobs and educated themselves into higher paying jobs "why does it take so long to get my burger at MacDonals? where are all the workers? Don't they have some bootstraps" Except here in Canada usually you here the old people saying things like "Why can't these workers speak english" because english speaking canadians stopped working sht jobs long ago, and the only reason companies were able to continue paying low wages was to bring in immigrant temporary foreign workers.

I work at a mine, we are not fly in / fly out, so you have to live in an area that the cities all end up on "top 10 worst places to live in Canada" lists. I forge the point I'm getting at but power on. After christmas 30% of the engineers at the mine gave their two week notice at the same time. These are all people making at least 6 figures, making at least 25% more than they would if they did a similar job in a big city. And these guys all chose to leave for jobs either paying less or the same. And the reason is simply the morale of culture at my work is so terrible, it is not a positive place to work.

If your life is unenjoyable (many people have found the pandemic unenjoyable as fuck with all their fun actitivties being cancelled) then your shitty treatment at work is made worse. Top it all off with a ridiculous housing market and massive inflation, then you better not treat me like a shitty person at work.

When you look at it from a low wage perspective. Low wage workers get treated like shit. Verbal abuse from customers and managers. They don't get paid enough to live. If I was still a fast food e,ployee and my future prospects were bleak, I'd rather just quit and live of government subsidy. Why work abd barely get by when you can not work and barely get by?

The antiwork movement is not about bootstraps or whatever. It is a byproduct of the unafordability of life. Why work when life is still unaffordable while working? Society has made life futile for the non super rich.

I am not anti-worker or anti-work... I am not sure why people see these things in such binary ways.
The last 50 years of human history is not typical and what we are finding now, not sustainable.

It is not even that I think that this is the way the world SHOULD work, it is only that it has been repeatedly demonstrated that this IS how the world works.

This is the point nazzer, it is not possible for to increase the average quality of life for all workers across the board.
To raise some, you have to take from somewhere... In c 's wet dream fantasies we roast Jeff Bezos over an open flame and share his wealth amongst the rest of us... Except it doesn't work like that.
To improve the average lifestyle, it means taking from the middle to give to the bottom, this is the only area left to play with.

This is one of my favourite quotes:



I wish it wasn't true, but it is...

When you carry these ideas further, as in forgiving all student debt and making college essentially free, you are not striking a blow for freedom.
All you do is devalue education, what is the point of a degree that anyone can have?

I am not saying that people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, I just know from experience that a world where someone increases in value without increasing in skill is a fallacy.

The more we focus on carving up the pie and the less we focus on growing the whole size of the pie.. The faster our nations slide into an economic wasteland.
No, I am not arguing for trickle down economics, I am arguing that the first rule is that the nation must survive and be viable.

No, again, fuck that. A degree shouldn't be some kind of holy grail that only the most special of boys can have the privilege of obtaining. Everyone should have the ability and the means to reach higher education if that's what they desire, and it should be attainable to them without having to drown in debt for the rest of your life, you sociopath.