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America: So great or not so great?

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Mic_128

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With the 4th of July arriving, a lot of people love being patriotic, talking about what they love about their country. However a lot of people find it's a sore spot with how they see the US as getting worse and finding little to celebrate.

What do you think? What's your thoughts?
 

MSmariosonic

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I like the United States

Sure the US had a more than shady history but every country has had one I'm sure.

Western countries are just such good places to live in compared to others places in the world imo
 

Gentlepanda

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y'all ok

leadership's a bit wack at the minute but it goes in cycles

americans are generally the friendliest people i know
 

MSmariosonic

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America has such beautiful landmarks.

One day i'll go across the Atlantic ocean to visit the golden gate bridge, grand canyon, statue of liberty, etc.
 
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I'm just happy to live here with my friends and family. Roof over my head, food on the table, video games on the side, bed under my head, all of that. By all means, this country ain't perfect, but you wont see me move out any time soon.
 

ZaneHitsurugi

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Its not perfect, and never will be, just like every other country on the planet. One of, if not the greatest country on earth. You can be who you want to be, within reason. Patriotism for one's country is not a denial of the dark parts of the past, but a celebration of the good ones.
 

Dr. Jojo Phantasma

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As some have said patriotism doesn't mean you have to think your country is perfect or the best in the world, it is about wanting better for it and I think we can start by ejecting the most awful and incompetent presidential administration ever in the history of our country next year for election day. Still, regardless of which side of the political aisle you are in, I hope everyone can enjoy a nice 4th of July with fireworks, hanging with family or whatever you do to celebrate this day.
 

Noipoi

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America is kinda **** sometimes, especially to a guy like me who’s as black as a milk chocolate Hershey.

But at the end of the day there’s no place I’d rather be. I’m pretty sure my shenaniganery would land me in prison in any other country.
 

ZaneHitsurugi

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As some have said patriotism doesn't mean you have to think your country is perfect or the best in the world, it is about wanting better for it and I think we can start by ejecting the most awful and incompetent presidential administration ever in the history of our country next year for election day. Still, regardless of which side of the political aisle you are in, I hope everyone can enjoy a nice 4th of July with fireworks, hanging with family or whatever you do to celebrate this day.
Talk about a hyperbole.
 

Klimax

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I'm not American but I still have an opinion from what I see living far from there.

The American Dream is what made it great and also what killed it.

Basically, when America was that country where you could become someone without anything as long as you were dedicated or talented, it was great (it was also possible in other countries though). Of course, everyone wanted to live the American Dream. But most of people don't have what it takes to go to the top.

People without any talent imposed new standards, basically, it's something that Nietzsche said many times. There's a majority of weaks and sadly, they have more power that the strong people, since these ones are a minority. The losers imposed their standards, saying that everyone could become someone, EVERYONE. You didn't need talent or dedication anymore. That's what went wrong with America, the country told too much to everyone that they're special and can become someone, not with hard work or talent but just because "wE aRe aLl sPeCiAl".

The result is that you have people "at the top of the mountain" who are just clowns and morons, ready to do everything for their 15 minutes of shame. Sadley, they end up being models for the new generations and that's basically a never ending cycle of mediocrity. And since American culture is the dominant, this cancer infected the rest of the west. Basically, now, only some parts of Africa, the Middle East, Russia and some parts of Asia are respectable. The rest is just trying to emulate the mediocrity cycle that America is stucks in.

That's a shame because America was once inspiring. And you know what's the worst thing in that ? No election is going to change that, because insulting Muslims or shaming white people 24/7 is not going to change anything. It's not a political problem, it's a mentality problem.

So it was once great, it's impossible to deny it but it became like the rest of the west... a ****hole (at least you're not alone in it). I don't know if things can be changed, I don't want to say that it's too late but I really think it's bad, really bad. People are more depressed than ever, more enraged than ever, they need to exist more than ever and it says a lot about what's going on.
 
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remilia

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I'm not American but I still have an opinion from what I see living far from there.

The American Dream is what made it great and also what killed it.

Basically, when America was that country where you could become someone without anything as long as you were dedicated or talented, it was great (it was also possible in other countries though). Of course, everyone wanted to live the American Dream. But most of people don't have what it takes to go to the top.

People without any talent imposed new standards, basically, it's something that Nietzsche said many times. There's a majority of weaks and sadly, they have more power that the strong people, since these ones are a minority. The losers imposed their standards, saying that everyone could become someone, EVERYONE. You didn't need talent or dedication anymore. That's what went wrong with America, the country told too much to everyone that they're special and can become someone, not with hard work or talent but just because "wE aRe aLl sPeCiAl".
I take issues with this claim because how do people impose new standards like this? What policies are in place that are enforcing what you are claiming?
Also, "weak" and "strong" are subjective terms. Weak in what sense? Strong in what sense? A powerlifter can look at a skinny man and think "Bah, what a weakling, such a shame people are weak nowadays" but that skinny man might be a computer genius who thinks "Such a shame this man thinks he's strong based on his body and not his brain."
Generally speaking yes, America is an individualistic country and as a result ideas like "Everyone is special" come up, because uniqueness is valued here.
But again, I disagree with your claim. People nowadays work harder than they did decades ago. It is more common for people to work multiple jobs or to work overtime just to get by. And these people putting in all this hard work (farmers are a good example)? They are not succeeding like that would have decades ago.
People aren't failing because they were told they were special. People are failing because the systems in place are restricting social mobility.
This rings true for talent as well. How many people out there are brilliant artists, or profound philosophers, or physically very capable for competition yet have found no opportunities to explore and make a living off of those talents, so instead must work in meaningless sectors like retail just to get by?
The problem isn't that the country said "You're all special." The problem is that is said that when systematically there were not avenues for people to make it DESPITE being special be it thru hard work or talent. And people are suffering through intense disillusionment as a results. Something's gotta give.

The result is that you have people "at the top of the mountain" who are just clowns and morons, ready to do everything for their 15 minutes of shame. Sadley, they end up being models for the new generations and that's basically a never ending cycle of mediocrity. And since American culture is the dominant, this cancer infected the rest of the west. Basically, now, only some parts of Africa, the Middle East, Russia and some parts of Asia are respectable. The rest is just trying to emulate the mediocrity cycle that America is stucks in.
That's a shame because America was once inspiring. And you know what's the worst thing in that ? No election is going to change that, because insulting Muslims or shaming white people 24/7 is not going to change anything. It's not a political problem, it's a mentality problem.

So it was once great, it's impossible to deny it but it became like the rest of the west... a ****hole (at least you're not alone in it). I don't know if things can be changed, I don't want to say that it's too late but I really think it's bad, really bad. People are more depressed than ever, more enraged than ever, they need to exist more than ever and it says a lot about what's going on.
Please do tell me about the many cities you've visited through the globe where you made the conclusion that they are respectable. Or cite the studies you used to make this claim. This is a sweeping generalization and the concept of "respectability" is subjective in the first place. The entire world has its problems.
I do agree that people who are wealthy or powerful model very poorly for younger generations (think instagram influencers, high profile socialites, etc). But I think it's a problem of wealth inequality which is not a mentality thing as you claim. These people are rich and powerful mostly because they were born into it. Think Kylie Jenner for example. You value hard work and skill, yes? Well, she has none, but she made it to the top not because she was told she was special but simply because she was born into the Kardashian namesake.

I think you are catching onto a systemic problem in the United States but you are making flawed assumptions as to the mechanisms by which the problems came up. You think it's a mentality problem based off of people believing they are special and not working hard enough, but I think the reality is that people who actually are special whether it be through dedication or hardwork are not achieving what they should because of policies in place and structures that perpetuate lack of access to success such as wealth inequality. Regardless, I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this matter, so feel free to respond.




Anyways, onto my unique post-
I generally like living in the US because it's what I know and it's where I feel best. I was raised here and although I love traveling to other countries, this is my home. I'm someone who wants the best for the people of the world and that includes the people in my country, and it's why I try my best to push the country into a positive space both as an individual and someone who is part of a larger picture. I think we have a lot of work to do in making the US a great place as over time specific problems have gotten worse here but I'll do my best to help fix em.
 

#HBC | Acrostic

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Klimax Klimax R remilia He's referring to Nietzsche's distaste of Platonian egalitarianism and his insistence that mankind should push for the creation of an Übermensch. Nietzsche in his writing on the master-slave morality dynamic thought that slaves were to blame for being slaves because they outnumbered their masters and could easily overthrow them at any point. He thought that slaves gained power by guilt-tripping their masters and utilized that as a psychological tool of manipulation rather than actually bothering to man up and throw a rebellion to secure their own freedom.

Nietzsche's philosophy is actually rife with contradictions, it's likely because his sister had significant influence in rewriting and reformatting his work to suit her own political ideology and affiliation with Nazi party. At many times Nietzsche appears to be writing the process out as an existentialist, only to come to a nihilistic conclusion that I think was shaped or blatantly written by his sister in support of the notion that there was a need for a super race or a great savior to save humanity (referencing Hitler and his push for an Aryan race).

I also think that Nietzsche is flawed for the purposes of this conversation in the sense that he wasn't a pragmatist, he was a philosopher and liked to comment and critique on Greek lifestyle and philosophy (notably Plato). I find it weird that someone brought up Nietzsche sporadically in a US government conversation because he doesn't really have commentary that relates to present America that's pertinent. His biggest disillusionment with Western philosophy was its egalitarian values stemming from religiosity, both of which are highly contested topics and arguably more diminished (e.g. national church attendances on the decline per annum basis, increase in people having agnostic/atheist perspectives).

In addition, if anything the past ten years have arguably produced Übermensch like human beings who have greatly changed the landscape of what can and cannot be done. Individuals like Elon Musk are exploring both frontiers outside of the realm of the planet (SpaceX), deep inside the core of the planet (Boring tunnel project), and even attempting to come up with deep and complex problems that concern the human mind (Neuralink). All three of these areas: space, roads, and modern neurology/psychiatry are areas that have taken decades to centuries to show any signs of progress. The fact that these are frontiers which we are seeing bridged and gapped by notable men leading private industries should be an indicator that there is no longer a need to adopt an abstract or even a eugenics interpretation to the Übermensch.
 
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#HBC | Acrostic

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R remilia There is undeniably an increase in wealth disparity among the 1%, however the effect of wealth is that it will create disparity. The initial premise of wealth itself is that its essentially an investment of income that will generate more income through its existence as an asset. The first principle to this is that an individual who has the ability to maintain such an asset likely has a disproportionate income and the second principle is that these assets will only be maintained if they continue to produce additional income. On the other end of the equation, a consumer will likely need to pay into such an asset whether it is an apartment or building complex and also by paying into such an asset will a portion of income that they could potentially use to purchase their own wealth asset in the future.
remilia said:
People are failing because the systems in place are restricting social mobility.
Is this really the case? I think that the current systems that are currently in place from the past decade are promoting social mobility. Think about how you evaluated popularity or who you gave attention to on the internet. Most of them before the advent of the internet were actors/actresses that you saw on television or movie stars who premiered in big movies. Them landing opportunities resulted in them gaining more screen presence, media attention, and then gaining more television/movie opportunities. Even in a venue like Broadway with play stage actors there are a large amount of people who never get cast in leading roles and spend their entire time on stage being someone else's understudy. With the advent of websites like YouTube, Twitch, or Instagram you are no longer isolated to needing to be in NYC between 40th to 50th street. Buy a camera or a webcam and do it from your own home.
remilia said:
This rings true for talent as well. How many people out there are brilliant artists, or profound philosophers, or physically very capable for competition yet have found no opportunities to explore and make a living off of those talents, so instead must work in meaningless sectors like retail just to get by? The problem isn't that the country said "You're all special." The problem is that is said that when systematically there were not avenues for people to make it DESPITE being special be it thru hard work or talent. And people are suffering through intense disillusionment as a results. Something's gotta give.
The starving artist has always an issue plaguing artists like van Gogh or musicians like Debussy. The nature of art itself is that its a methodical process with the transaction payout being an end product. What this means is that artists often have periods of big payouts, but then long periods of having nothing in the interim period. I disagree with the standpoint that artists and philosophers are poor in today's age because they don't have avenues available to them. As I stated before, there are more avenues to gain presence and attention then there were ten years ago. Doing a live stream of a painting a la Bob Ross style or coming up with a philosophical bent on a modern television series (Wisecrack) can net you a sizable income if you are truly talented. People are attracted to talent and have become more amorphous in the people they are willing to donate to based on my experience watching live performances. I worked a retail job part time in the morning on top of a full time job and still allocated freed time.
remilia said:
I do agree that people who are wealthy or powerful model very poorly for younger generations (think instagram influencers, high profile socialites, etc). But I think it's a problem of wealth inequality which is not a mentality thing as you claim. These people are rich and powerful mostly because they were born into it. Think Kylie Jenner for example. You value hard work and skill, yes? Well, she has none, but she made it to the top not because she was told she was special but simply because she was born into the Kardashian namesake.
Wealth inequality is disproportionate not because someone was born into wealth, but because the way wealth acquisitions work is fundamentally meant to be unequal in terms of how transactions are processed. I also disagree with the notion that instagram influencers can be categorized into a poor influence for younger generations. I think that its a reflection of the moral agnosticism of where we stand today and the more younger generations are aware that they need to hustle to get their slice of the pie then the better off they will be. The issue comes when we continue to perpetuate a lie that seems morally conscious in nature e.g. go to a 2 year community program or a 4 year university because that is the safest path to success. There are many ways to put bread on the table that wasn't available 5 or even 10 years ago. If instagram starts making kids realize that there are alternative revenue streams even if it's at the cost of another girl posting booty shots then I think that it's worth the moralistic drop in the ambiguous bucket of hedonism.
 

remilia

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Is this really the case? I think that the current systems that are currently in place from the past decade are promoting social mobility. Think about how you evaluated popularity or who you gave attention to on the internet. Most of them before the advent of the internet were actors/actresses that you saw on television or movie stars who premiered in big movies. Them landing opportunities resulted in them gaining more screen presence, media attention, and then gaining more television/movie opportunities. Even in a venue like Broadway with play stage actors there are a large amount of people who never get cast in leading roles and spend their entire time on stage being someone else's understudy. With the advent of websites like YouTube, Twitch, or Instagram you are no longer isolated to needing to be in NYC between 40th to 50th street. Buy a camera or a webcam and do it from your own home.
Yes, social mobility is declining in the US. This trend seems to have started in the 80s and gotten worse up until now. There also appears to be an intergenerational factor to it. In other words, the amount of people who are likely to be worse off than their parents is rising. Again, this is on an increase since the 80s. Paired with a record high of income inequality in the past 90 years, this is very troubling.
I understand the point you are trying to make with the internet and how it has been a tool for people to get out there and try and make a name for themselves. However, the chances of that happening are extremely low especially for people just trying to break in now. I can explain this point more if you'd like. But really bar a few success stories of extraordinary people with millions and millions of views, it is something that is very hard to make a living on even with maximum work put in.

The starving artist
has always an issue plaguing artists like van Gogh or musicians like Debussy. The nature of art itself is that its a methodical process with the transaction payout being an end product. What this means is that artists often have periods of big pay outs, but then long periods of having nothing in the interim period. I disagree with the standpoint that artists and philosophers are poor in today's age because they don't have avenues available to them. As I stated before, there are more avenues to gain presence and attention then there were ten years ago. Doing a live stream of a painting a la Bob Ross style or coming up with a philosophical bent on a modern television series (Wisecrack) can net you a sizable income if you are truly talented. People are attracted to talent and have become more amorphous in the people they are willing to donate to based on my experience watching live performances. I worked a retail job part time in the morning on top of a full time job and still allocated freed time.
"As I stated before, there are more avenues to gain presence and attention then there were ten years ago."
The problem is highlighted in this statement, I think. People don't get paid in presence and attention. They get paid in money. And while of course the two can go hand in hand, just because someone has avenues to gain popularity doesn't mean they have avenues to gain income.
And yes, artists do have periods of ups and downs, the problem is that today the "downs" are worse than they've been in a while. Holding a part time job to support your art is not as sufficient as it once was. Hell, some people can't even make it on a full time job.
And again, the fact that some people are making good money does not mean it is representative of the total population. It is easy to look at a successful few and think "See, it's all fine" but we have to acknowledge the reality for most people.

Wealth inequality is disproportionate not because someone was born into wealth, but because the way wealth acquisitions work is fundamentally meant to be unequal in terms of how transactions are processed. I also disagree with the notion that instagram influencers can be categorized into a poor influence for younger generations. I think that its a reflection of the moral agnosticism of where we stand today and the more younger generations are aware that they need to hustle to get their slice of the pie then the better off they will be. The issue comes when we continue to perpetuate a lie that seems morally conscious in nature e.g. go to a 2 year community program or a 4 year university because that is the safest path to success. There are many ways to put bread on the table that wasn't available 5 or even 10 years ago. If instagram starts making kids realize that there are alternative revenue streams even if it's at the cost of another girl posting booty shots then I think that it's worth the moralistic drop in the ambiguous bucket of hedonism.
Well then, it looks like you and I have different opinions on what a "poor influence" is. Yes, I think having different pathways to success out of the standard school system is a good thing. But instagram influencer culture represents and promotes unhealthy trends in our society. For example, higer use of instagram is associated with increased rates of depression and anxiety. There's also something known as "snapchat dysphoria" a new phenomenon where people have lowered body images due to increase use of filter, some even going so far as to request plastic surgery based on the beautifying filters found in snapchat and instagram. Instagram influencers often edit their photos and promote unrealistic standards of beauty and displays of lavish lifestyles... And they get paid for it, often because they're willing to sell a product for money and not due to their investment in that particular product. How could this be a good influence on the youth? Why should the youth think "And you could do this too!" especially when the chances for monetary success from instagram or social media is so abysmally low?
Kinda tying back to the topic of hand in the thread of being America... To me, one of the things that America has that I like is the idea that anybody can work hard and make it. The reality is this is not the case for so many people, unfortunately.
I'd love to continue talking about this though, if you disagree.
 

#HBC | Acrostic

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Yes, social mobility is declining in the US. This trend seems to have started in the 80s and gotten worse up until now. There also appears to be an intergenerational factor to it. In other words, the amount of people who are likely to be worse off than their parents is rising. Again, this is on an increase since the 80s. Paired with a record high of income inequality in the past 90 years, this is very troubling.
The article and the research is slightly more nuanced than what you typed. It does have the basic premise that:
Carr & Wiemers said:
... our results show that increases in equality since the 1980s have been coupled with declines in lifetime earnings mobility...
However, this is with respect to the following:
Carr & Wiemers said:
Across all subgroups, declines in overall mobility over time are largely the result of a decreasing likelihood of moving from the middle to the top of the earnings distribution over a working lifetime.
Carr & Wiemers said:
Across the distribution of educational attainment, the likelihood of moving to the top deciles of the earnings distribution for workers who start their careers in the middle of the earnings distribution has declined by approximately 20% since the early 1980s.
Along with this consideration to their methodology:
Carr & Wiemers said:
To best capture an individual's typical earnings early and late in life, we use a seven-year average of annual earnings centered on year t. To be included in the sample, an individual must be 25 to 59 years old during the entire seven-year period over which earnings are averaged. To reduce the impact of individuals with very marginal labor force attachment, average earnings over the seven-year period must be above a minimum threshold of... ($3770)... and individuals must have positive earnings in year t. The sample includes data on well over 700,000 individuals, and has yearly cross-sectional samples ranging from 250,000 to 450,000 observations.
There are issues with this approach. To reduce error the rule out parameter is to exclude students who are younger than 25 and also have an annual income of less than $3,770. However, this parameter is ineffective especially for a report published in 2014. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has seven parameters for what makes a nontraditional student, however an article published by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) in 2010 states that according to a report from a consulting firm (Stamats) that 47% of students currently enrolled in colleges & universities within the United States are older than 25. As a comparison factor within the same consultation, it was reported that as few as 16% of college students fulfill the criteria for being traditional students between the ages of 18 to 22 years old. Most nontraditional adult learners are working close to full time hours and are likely earning more than the $3,770 stipulated to a minimum barrier to eliminate dedicated students in the Carr & Wiemers report.

A seven-year average is too short a time period to conflate to it being equivalent to a working lifetime. Middle to top earnings distribution can very rarely be captured in a seven-year data period. The age demographic of 25 to 59 years old varies too much and poses far too much variability even with a sample size of 700,000 individuals. It is disingenuous together someone from both ends of the spectrum e.g. someone who is 25 to 32 years old by their SIPP GSF related income and someone who is 52 to 59 years old within the same overall demographic for any evaluation of income growth. The rule out factor being earnings below $3,770 is too low to be a rule out factor to differentiate between someone being a full time worker. It makes no practical sense to use such a low rule out value unless the researchers intentionally wanted people from a lower income demographic in order to substantiate a preformed conclusion that they had before performing the actual research. I earned much more than $3,770 per annum as a full time student taking over 20 credits so this metric is absolutely absurd to me and can't help but feel that it was used intentionally in the research.

Note: A lot of my notes were deleted thanks to a lack of active capture and hitting the backspace outside of the post. However, the methodology to the research covered in the Atlantic article poses a number of problems that contribute to its conclusion that there is a lack of mobility from middle income to high income. First of all, the research states that initial earning income is higher for graduates than it was in the past with the issue being stagnation or diminishing return after initial income earned. The issue with this approach is that SIPP GSF data is not a longitudinal study of the same cohort and does not extend over a seven year period. In addition a seven year period considering how student age has shifted towards 25 could account for why Carr & Wiemers see higher initial payout as that would be the boost from having a diploma. Then again, the Carr & Weimer report does not include a regression study on variance or relationship of R when it comes to compiling a data set of 700,000 which is odd considering they are published economists.

Note 2: A major issue with research is when the conclusion directs the data rather than data directing the conclusion. If p then q, does not necessitate q then p. The most disappointing thing about the article from the Atlantic is that Alana Semuels is a Harvard grad with a masters from the London School of Economics. She has won journal related awards for publications related to a series on "The Diminishing Power of Employees at the Workplace" and more recently "The Problem With Rolling Back Regulations." I have a major issue when Ivy League grads attempt to play the system to push their own agenda rather than actually using the small percentile of their Ivy League brain to actually call out bull**** research that is regularly published in academic journals.

Note 3: I actually do attempt to source read research when it comes to an article summary review of the research. Especially when it concerns a topic like intergalactic mobility in a time space continuum.
 
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#HBC | Acrostic

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I understand the point you are trying to make with the internet and how it has been a tool for people to get out there and try and make a name for themselves. However, the chances of that happening are extremely low especially for people just trying to break in now. I can explain this point more if you'd like. But really bar a few success stories of extraordinary people with millions and millions of views, it is something that is very hard to make a living on even with maximum work put in.
remilia said:
"As I stated before, there are more avenues to gain presence and attention then there were ten years ago." The problem is highlighted in this statement, I think. People don't get paid in presence and attention. They get paid in money. And while of course the two can go hand in hand, just because someone has avenues to gain popularity doesn't mean they have avenues to gain income.
remilia said:
And yes, artists do have periods of ups and downs, the problem is that today the "downs" are worse than they've been in a while. Holding a part time job to support your art is not as sufficient as it once was. Hell, some people can't even make it on a full time job. And again, the fact that some people are making good money does not mean it is representative of the total population. It is easy to look at a successful few and think "See, it's all fine" but we have to acknowledge the reality for most people.
So real talk. This really boils down to, "Is the glass half empty or half full?" You think that you understand the value of the internet, but if you've never had to work through command prompt, dial-up, or hell, PUNCH CARDS then it's the equivalent of telling someone they're really complaining about the greatest resource that has finally self-actualized itself within the past five to ten years. I think that the process is so streamlined that now you don't even know how to appreciate a GUI interface, wireless streaming services, or really any technology in its current form. There is almost no trace of janky Angelfire or Geocities websites that looked like absolute garbage and took ten minutes to load on a dial-up connection because it had a single image. Also, a lot of interest that I began to develop in html started when websites like Xanga became very popular and people wanted to know how you put this element on your page and asked you for elements of CSS. There was no formal computer science or intro to Basic/Java in school, but at this stage we were all sort of watching how the internet grew along with us literally from its infancy to what it has become today.

If you really think that the only monetary value can be through websites like instagram as an influencer, then you don't understand all the revenue streams that you can look for if you're desperate enough to make some money. You've been typing that the social mobility is down and there is inequality in economics, but you don't realize that the internet has enabled start-up businesses to have a means of production that is independent from those in power. If you came up with a new food product for instance that you wanted to debut in a grocery chain, then that chain would put various restrictions on you. First of all, you would gain limited shelf space for a limited time. Second, they got a cut of the markup on your product that you often couldn't compete against. Third, your product launch would likely be local and stay local unless you really attracted the eyes of someone in upper management. Finally, chain stores would stipulate how much product you had to make for them and often had you absorb the costs if the product was returned. This relationship is completely one-sided and also requires heavy front-end investment from a person with a brilliant product. So many of those barriers e.g. forcing you to keep set inventory, absorbing losses on cost, maintaining a brick and mortar store, and controlling initial start up exposure are just some of the many advantages that has opened up with an e-commerce business.

For people in this generation, you're telling me that they can't blow-up in terms of popularity. Fine. You don't need to have presence or attention in order to get paid in money. There are kids who are so desperate to get out of poverty that they start with simple markup like html and CSS then transition into elements of javascript like angular and jasmine. You can't tell me these kids don't exist, because I still know almost nothing about front end programing aside from some of the discussions on Discord that I have with these kids who were so hungry to succeed that they just started making website after website after website and then created their own portfolio for the work that they did. And this is the part I hate. I've seen this so many times from pathetic people who complain that the game is rigged and the system is systemically oppressive. They tell me that it's great that they overcame the adversity in their diversity, but they were an exception to a rule. Then they argue that establishing them as the normal is insulting all the people who are oppressed because they can't sit down and utilize the free resources available to them in order to escape their current lifestyle. I am on a medical student subforum where the most bizarre discussion has unfolded with students who identify with being from low-SES arguing for a pass-fail Step 1 because the test is biased towards people from higher income brackets. It's ****ing absurd. There's a low-SES student who scored in the top percentile and told them how he did it, they told him he was bigoted, insensitive, and promoting the narrative of the oppressor. I don't know if you're that type of person who is out there to reinforce the victim narrative that if you come from a poor background as an ethnic minority then you will always be oppressed, have less functional brain matter than your peers, and will always need a handout from what you perceive to be your bourgeoisie ruling class. But I think it's disgusting that when someone who has MADE IT is sharing advice but it gets dismissed as being bigoted, then there is no reason to continue having a conversation with someone who wants to play into being the poor victim for their entire life.

As for the last part, again it's really ridiculous because you can find work on an app. You can find work on an app. You can make $15 an hour working as an Amazon Flex driver. You can do Uber Eats or Uber. You don't need a skill set, you just have to drive your goddamn car. Are you really stating that you guys have it as hard as someone who works a job making $7.25 an hour, living out of a car, still has to wear a dress shirt & slacks, and needs to work multiple jobs/hustles for 60-70 hours a week just in order to survive? Is it really that hard, because if it is still that hard then you must really not want to work at the Amazon plant that's always running and always hiring. The internet is as free a commodity as it is ever going to be. Do you think that chilling at McDonald's for their wifi when you know it's in an area so bad that their parking lot is being used by gang bangers and hookers is a thing that's exclusive to your times? Tell me, I'm actually curious about this systemic oppression that is somehow invisible to me. I really think that with how college campuses are using liberal arts classes to teach students how to be helpless and victims of the institution that students are coming out actually believing that their lack of a functional skill set is completely independent of losing out on using their time to hustle, learn, and get ahead in life. It's not easy and it never was easy. But jesus, you type as if it's now the apocalypse and successful people were gifted with an opportunity of a lifetime.
 
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StoicPhantom

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Not remilia, but generational posturing and appeal to anecdote rub me the wrong way, so as an older Millennial who has lived through the advent of the internet, I'm going to interject here.

ut you don't realize that the internet has enabled start-up businesses to have a means of production that is independent from those in power.
Not necessarily no. Take a look at this video and this one. The first is the primer and the second is the meat of the story, including a Youtube wide study. Essentially, independent news media and political talk shows have had a substantial hit to their views from the recent Youtube algorithm change. Simultaneously, their direct competitors, corporate media, have seen a substantial increase. The new changes are suppressing independent media, while recommending corporate media.

This is very bad for independent media, because the algorithms function as advertisement for their shows and let people who may be interested in them, find them through the recommendations list. I have personally confirmed that the related videos feed is now full of MSM channels and videos, where before it was other independent news channels. There is a clear bias towards their larger competitors that Youtube now has and is unfairly tipping the scales here.

This is another development in an ongoing issue that independent news and political talk shows are having with Youtube, where Youtube has been increasingly censoring the topics they can speak on, including demonetizing videos that talk about "sensitive" subjects like terrorism or war. Obviously those aren't topics you can avoid when talking about current events and politics, but that has been the case for awhile now.

In short, this is a clear case of "those in power" doing exactly what that grocery store analogy you made does. Youtube is unfairly propping up their direct and more powerful competitors and actively hampering independent media. While this specifically is about news and politics, there are plenty of other cases in the Youtube realm that have similar issues with how Youtube manages their algorithms.

Now you might then say "Why don't they make their own video platform?" and to that I'll say: they have. Not these Youtubers specifically, but there are other alternatives to Youtube that have popped up, such as Vimeo or Dailymotion, but they haven't achieved anywhere near the same success. Why? Simply because advertisers haven't adopted them. Advertisers have stuck to Youtube and haven't touched other platforms, so there is no money to be had switching to an alternative. No incentive for content creators to adopt these platforms, means no audience, which gives further incentive for content creators to not bother. So in other words, Youtubers are locked to Youtube. And thus are at the mercy of Youtube's whims.

It's not even just Youtube specifically though. Access to the internet is managed by the cable industry. Said industry happens to be direct competitors to internet companies like Netflix and Youtube. Having your competition manage access to your business is obviously not good. There have been plenty of cases where the cable industry has used this power to hamper their internet competition, such as when various cable companies throttled their video competitors or when Verizon throttled important public emergency services like the California firefighters. That's before even getting into Net Neutrality and the proposed "fast lane" that would further the gap between large and small internet companies.

So no, just because the internet was once a wellspring of opportunity, doesn't mean it hasn't been overtaken by giants like Facebook, Amazon, Google, or doesn't have gatekeepers that are often direct competitors. And that still isn't even getting into how Amazon Web Services control a large amount of cloud server share and how a lot of their potential competitors are using their services, meaning Amazon has information on these competitors.

I've seen this so many times from pathetic people who complain that the game is rigged and the system is systemically oppressive. They tell me that it's great that they overcame the adversity in their diversity, but they were an exception to a rule. Then they argue that establishing them as the normal is insulting all the people who are oppressed because they can't sit down and utilize the free resources available to them in order to escape their current lifestyle.
And this here, reveals your argument to be an entirely emotional based one. It's not that you have anything substantial to say to remilia's reply, but that his reply runs counter to whatever echo chamber you reside in, that tells you that you are oppressed by Twitter and pink-haired college kids. The first half of your post was shaky, but this next half is pure ideology and tribalism and one of full of anecdotes that aren't indicative of a trend.

If successful people are telling you that they are an exception to the rule, maybe you should sit down and listen? Maybe the resources available to people aren't universal?

I am on a medical student subforum where the most bizarre discussion has unfolded with students who identify with being from low-SES arguing for a pass-fail Step 1 because the test is biased towards people from higher income brackets. It's ****ing absurd. There's a low-SES student who scored in the top percentile and told them how he did it, they told him he was bigoted, insensitive, and promoting the narrative of the oppressor. I don't know if you're that type of person who is out there to reinforce the victim narrative that if you come from a poor background as an ethnic minority then you will always be oppressed, have less functional brain matter than your peers, and will always need a handout from what you perceive to be your bourgeoisie ruling class. But I think it's disgusting that when someone who has MADE IT is sharing advice but it gets dismissed as being bigoted, then there is no reason to continue having a conversation with someone who wants to play into being the poor victim for their entire life.
Maybe the students in this anecdote are a small subset and aren't representative of all people who hold certain views on social mobility? And most of them might find what was said here equally ridiculous? And "handouts"? Really dude?

As for the last part, again it's really ridiculous because you can find work on an app. You can find work on an app. You can make $15 an hour working as an Amazon Flex driver. You can do Uber Eats or Uber. You don't need a skill set, you just have to drive your goddamn car.
Do tell how those of us in the Midwest are supposed to run an Uber service or other driving service and still turn a profit. When having a car is almost mandatory and the distances will be long thus expensive to drive and people who can't afford a car in the first place, wouldn't be able to afford the prices necessary to turn a profit.

Needs are based on region as well, so not every job is viable or available. This is what is meant by factors such as birth, location, and social factors limiting social mobility.

Are you really stating that you guys have it as hard as someone who works a job making $7.25 an hour, living out of a car, still has to wear a dress shirt & slacks, and needs to work multiple jobs/hustles for 60-70 hours a week just in order to survive?
This is more likely for younger generations than older ones, so lets lay off the privilege card, ok? Millennials have the lowest standard of living in American history after all.

s it really that hard, because if it is still that hard then you must really not want to work at the Amazon plant that's always running and always hiring.
Nobody does. It's born out of necessity, not desire. And again only available in certain areas.

Do you think that chilling at McDonald's for their wifi when you know it's in an area so bad that their parking lot is being used by gang bangers and hookers is a thing that's exclusive to your times?
Nobody has ever said this was the case nor is that what poor social mobility means. Wealth inequality has always been a thing and bad areas have also been a thing. I say this a someone who's lived in them most of my life. Stop making this about your generation, you aren't relevant in discussing modern issues.

Tell me, I'm actually curious about this systemic oppression that is somehow invisible to me.
Try getting off the internet, out of your echo chamber, and coming down to the Midwest, Bronx, slums, projects, or even the poor areas in the south. You'll get all this in heaps and spades.

I really think that with how college campuses are using liberal arts classes to teach students how to be helpless and victims of the institution that students are coming out actually believing that their lack of a functional skill set is completely independent of losing out on using their time to hustle, learn, and get ahead in life.
And what you think is really dumb and out of touch with reality. Part of poor social mobility, is the inability to afford or otherwise go to college in the first place, so no liberal arts brainwashing. I say this as someone who didn't go to college and has seen the effects of what's been discussed, before people were even able to consider going to college.

The idea that people could be taught to be "helpless and victims" by optional classes is not only incredibly insulting, but incredibly dumb and shows how people who hold this idea do not live in reality. Like gotdam, I really love seeing armchair academics tell people like me, who have watched their communities decline and deteriorate into abject poverty and methamphetamine addiction and seen the struggles and poverty of their Millennial peers working several jobs and going without essential things like health insurance, that liberal arts classes have made us "helpless and victims" and that all that suffering we were born and grew up in, wasn't actually reality. That our current struggles are all due to the influence of liberal colleges, that somehow got to us even before we graduated high school.

Like seriously **** off with that nonsense.

But jesus, you type as if it's now the apocalypse and successful people were gifted with an opportunity of a lifetime.
It is and they did. Especially when they were born into it.


Your entire thing here, basically boils down to: you don't experience it, so it isn't real. That's just not true. People's experiences and what resources they have access to, are based on where they were born, what economic state their families or communities are in, what they were born with, and outside factors completely out of anyone's control. I say this as someone whose family rose from poverty and then fell back into poverty over the span of my childhood and currently lives in poverty. I saw how the Bush economy destroyed our finances through layoffs among other things, how various other unforeseen factors like cancer and bankruptcy played a role in our fall, and the areas we were forced to move to, had significantly deteriorated and the people that lived in them had pretty much no way out of their predicament.

Next time you see those college kids whining about privilege, know that they are talking about you. People who go on about how others lives are and how they personally had no problems, are those who are very fortunate and privileged to not now about true suffering. You don't necessarily need to be the one percent to have a privileged life, you could simply not be that kid that had to sell drugs to their school to get by. When you start talking about things like "handouts" and college, you already are speaking from an entirely different world.

Fun fact: the guy who got routinely laid off and stricken with cancer in my story is a die hard conservative who believes welfare and social benefits are "handouts" and given to the lazy and that if you work hard and follow the conservative script you will have a successful life, even as he's been on and off those benefits, would have died of cancer without them, and has currently been out of work for months and barely has a penny to his name.

Even if you actively reject reality, that doesn't mean you aren't still subject to it.
 

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S StoicPhantom Yo, real talk, do you want me to actually write a response to your post. I don't know if you're actually interested in having a discussion if you're going to type for me to "**** off with that nonsense" or if you want to read someone's post who you think came from a "privileged life". Actually curious what the value add is from you if I actually spend my time responding to your post e.g. what do you gain from reading a post from someone like me who is "privileged", "dumb", and "out of touch with reality".
 
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StoicPhantom

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Messages
618
Yo, real talk, do you want me to actually write a response to your post.
You may do whatever you wish.

I don't know if you're actually interested in having a discussion if you're going to type for me to "**** off with that nonsense" or if you want to read someone's post who you think came from a "privileged life".
It's not like there wasn't entire other sections of my post outside of those quotes or that those quotes weren't made as specific points, to specific topics.

Actually curious what the value add is from you if I actually spend my time responding to your post e.g. what do you gain from reading a post from someone like me who is "privileged", "dumb", and "out of touch with reality".
Well, the Debate Hall rules had a quote that you can see here, that I think is still relevant even if this topic is now split from it. For reference: "The debate process is more for those reading than it is for those actually participating in the debate." -AltF4Warrior

See the thing about "information" in the modern age, is that sources are so abundant that you can pretty much exclusively subscribe to whatever you want to believe at the time. The term "alternative facts" which was once used to mock those trying to discredit science, facts, and objective reality, is now being taken seriously as a legitimate alternative. Unscrupulous actors have taken advantage of this and have setup various propaganda "bubbles" that strictly regulate and control outside information. This leads to one narrative becoming the dominant one in people who subscribe to these "alternative facts" and they tend to try to spread it elsewhere.

As someone who strongly opposes the spread of misinformation and nonsense, I have taken a personal interest in trying to counter this spread, by presenting a rebuttal in counterarguments to the best of my ability. Not necessarily just to convince the people spreading it, but to prevent people listening from buying into it. Not necessarily saying that I'm trying to "correct" peoples thought, but merely to offer another perspective and one that deals exclusively in facts and objective reality, where applicable.

As someone that has politics as one of their main hobbies, I spend a lot of time studying, researching, listening, and occasionally debating everything that encompasses it, including things that aren't strictly politics, but are relevant to it, like history, economics, sociology, and even the average person. As such, I've seen what I described above manifest and how it has essentially killed any objectivity and turned things into a tribalism frenzy, that renders a lot of people not only incapable of seeing things from other perspectives and looking outside themselves, but actively resisting doing those things.

So my goal first and foremost is to bring things back to an objective standpoint and out of the realm of "alternative facts". Given my experience and knowledge of the subject, when I hear things like liberal arts classes are brainwashing people into being victims and that they're not experiencing their own objective reality somehow, I know exactly where and who this talking point came from, but most importantly, I know why it was created and who is profiting from it and what types of people are most prone to believing it.

When you think critically, you realize that these problems have been going on for decades, nay centuries, the ability to even go to college isn't universal nor have people always been required to take those specific classes. So the idea that these classes have caused large amounts of people, over long periods of time, to believe that systemic oppression and lack of social mobility is the sole cause of their problems and it's not their own objective experiences, is just not logical. That's similar to how Fox News tries to peddle the idea that black citizens don't actually suffer oppression and poverty and that it is all a media fabrication, even though said citizens actually live those experiences.

Not of course, taking into consideration the hilarious irony of a media organization peddling a conspiracy of the media fabricating social experiences by telling viewers how they live their lives, by telling them how they actually live their lives.

But this talking point isn't taking such logic into consideration, because the real thing it is addressing isn't the conspiracy it's peddling, it's the underlying tribalism that it stimulates. Specifically one of race and one of generation/age and wealth. There's a reason why the backlash to these concepts is done primarily by people who are some combination of old, white, and (relatively) wealthy. There's a reason why angry reactions are almost always prefaced by things that amount to "Back in my day..." or "You're just jealous because __". Things that don't actually address the point or offer any substantial rebuttal, but try to belittle the maker of the point.

This is dangerous to discourse, because it puts things in an entirely subjective frame and ignores the objective realities of history, science/trends, and observable reality. It's one that constructs narratives and alternate realities in order to hide and run from inconvenient truths. All to protect one's ego and absolve them from any accountability or responsibility.

This is why I posted and why I debate. To protect objective and reasonable discourse. To illuminate falsehoods and bad faith, so that we may have an honest and open discussion on the actual issues and points, not the perceived and false ones. We can disagree on solutions and methods to solve problems, which is what debate should mostly be for, but we have to actually acknowledge the real problems and issues in the first place. You can debate on the best and most efficient way to fix a broken faucet, but you can't debate on whether it's broken in the first place, if observable reality shows that it won't run.

So in short, you may choose to offer a rebuttal or you may choose to disengage altogether. It makes no difference to me, since I wasn't solely addressing you in that reply, but also those who read it, in accordance with that quote I posted at the beginning.


I also want to make a quick point that I didn't refer to you as "dumb" but specific ideas you brought up as "dumb". Anybody can say, do, or think dumb things, but being inherently dumb is more of a significant trend in those things.


I'd also like to make a final point that I realize needs addressing, that is relative to the discussion, but not the post I'm replying to.

There's a conflation on the subject of social mobility, that seems to conflate lack of access to resources and tools to further oneself and the desire, ability, and motivation to work hard and use those tools. This isn't true. I fully acknowledge that there are "lazy" people in society, people who have no desire to work hard or improve themselves. I am also cynical enough to believe that this is a significant portion, perhaps most, of the population and that even if we achieve universal access to tools and resources, we won't be seeing a huge boost in "successful" people, however you measure "success". Including much of those who lament "lazy people".

What I personally want to see, is universal access to resources, all basic needs taken care of, so that those who desire it, may pursue success in whatever field they may choose and aren't bound by their birth, location, or class/wealth. I am of the firm belief that those who love and have passion for their job, are the best at it and that material incentive will always be inferior. However, it is the case that not everyone who has a dream or passion can pursue it, because of factors outside of their control and economic realities. See: the difference between becoming a rock star and getting a "real (office) job".

There are indeed those who have achieved their dreams despite those realities, but there also those who haven't, even when they had the potential to realize them. If we can get the people who love doing what they do, in those professions, we will ultimately have a much happier and much more efficient and productive society.
 
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J.I.L

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S StoicPhantom Yo, real talk, do you want me to actually write a response to your post. I don't know if you're actually interested in having a discussion if you're going to type for me to "**** off with that nonsense" or if you want to read someone's post who you think came from a "privileged life". Actually curious what the value add is from you if I actually spend my time responding to your post e.g. what do you gain from reading a post from someone like me who is "privileged", "dumb", and "out of touch with reality".
I like a lot of what you said. I’m not sure it’s most credible to get your information from online forum commenters but I can see how you believe with the advent of technology, it brings a large swath of mostly positive oppertunties for people. But you must concede that too much social media for young people is detrimental.
 

Sucumbio

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With the 4th of July arriving, a lot of people love being patriotic, talking about what they love about their country. However a lot of people find it's a sore spot with how they see the US as getting worse and finding little to celebrate.

What do you think? What's your thoughts?
I'm happy for my part. I have a good job fair debt to income ratio and a loving wife of 16 years.

I went from super cushioned and dependent to literally homeless and back. I've been through abortions, addictions abject hatred due to prejudice, crises of faith, of health...

But after 4 decades of sentient life I can honestly say I'm satisfied with life.

With the US? Well......... Ugh. There's enough wrong with the US so that anyone and everyone can complain about whatever thing it is that they perceive as an issue but honestly it's mainly irrelevant.

No matter how well you play along in America and insulate yourself from the daily perils of living in a particular geography anything can and may happen to pull the rug out from you.

So in America the most important goal ends up rightly being about survival.

I'd take surviving in America over just about anywhere else save the UK (birthright citizenship for me so why not) Canada (Ottawa is a great place to work and live Toronto too), and maybe Australia (personal friend moved there and fell in love been there over 20 years)...

But I don't know about anyone else truthfully. The deck is stacked for sure but it's not insurmountable by any means otherwise we wouldn't have success. The hip hop industry is a glorious example of putting America to work for You. Cash in on OTHERS. Bank.

But as one of my favorite scenes in film reminds us we don't need money if all you want is to lounge around. If you really want to excel the first thing you need is drive and that mentality is absolutely not exclusive to America. Nor exploitation, really.

Uh... Ha well as for the previous discussion about success and odds etc my only suggestion would be to one not patronize it's... Ugly.

And I suppose maybe restate your viewpoints more succinctly? I'm not sure what the argument even is lol but I think it revolves around some axiomatic declaration that X people - can't - do a thing in America because of their birth... placement? Am I even close?
 

StoicPhantom

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Uh... Ha well as for the previous discussion about success and odds etc my only suggestion would be to one not patronize it's... Ugly.

And I suppose maybe restate your viewpoints more succinctly? I'm not sure what the argument even is lol but I think it revolves around some axiomatic declaration that X people - can't - do a thing in America because of their birth... placement? Am I even close?
The origin of the discussion is that "losers" and the "weak" have essentially forced new standards based around egalitarianism and have ruined the "American Dream". That was initially rebutted by remilia then debated by others including myself. The topic is whether there are certain systemic factors outside an individual's control that limit their ability to achieve success or whether that's all just excuses by the younger generations.

If you are referring to me, my point is that there are factors that may limit one's ability to achieve success. If you are asking for further clarification on that point, allow me to give you an analogy based on what this site was originally made for: Smash.

Unlike say traditional sports, Smash was done at a grass roots level, because it didn't have support from anyone or anything. Traditional sports have large private entities that run it, but Smash relied on the players themselves, using what means they had at the time. Eventually, that grew into something giant, something that has greater success than other fighting games, even though they had corporate support and Smash didn't. This is a good example of what you can achieve if people come together and work towards a common goal.

And due to that, it's much easier for someone to achieve success and prove themselves at Smash, as opposed to the corporate dominated traditional sports, where your potential is decided on by a third party. Some random guy from his basement can play alongside a professional with decades of experience and even beat them, so long as they pay the entry fee. This is a good example of a system that allows those who have the ability to achieve success, do so without corporate and third party interference.

However at the same time, it is also true that one needs to attend lots of tournaments, and big ones at that, in order to achieve any sort of recognition of their abilities. Not just recognition, but even the experience needed to contend with the best. It's no secret that our top Smashers are constantly going to tournaments and playing other skilled players that allows them to maintain their skills.

But the catch is that you have to travel and travel is expensive. Some are blessed to live in certain areas that have frequent large tournaments and skilled players and others aren't and live in areas that have sparse scenes. Our top Smashers are sponsored and have an income from tournaments, but even then it's difficult to maintain a profit and those travel expenses eat a lot of their income.

Those who do not have sponsorship are then limited by how much they can travel, which in turn makes them limited on how much recognition they have and how much experience they have in playing at a top level. And to get sponsored, you need to prove to the sponsors you have what it takes to make it worth their while, which can be difficult if you don't have the ability to frequently travel. This is before getting into familial and societal obligations.

I once had a goal to become a top Smasher, but had to abandon it, because of the chronic health issues I have and the location I am at requires several hours of travel to even get to a scene in the first place. Said health issues make it very difficult to travel and I have very little money due to them. In short, it's impossible for me to even make it to a tournament, let alone travel across the country to the big ones. That's before getting into whether I'm physically able to handle long, intense tournaments in the first place.


The point I was trying to drive home, is that other factors, sometimes systemic, sometimes unfortunate, can dictate the heights you can achieve. While it is true that some have achieved great things despite adversity, there are many factors involved in something this complex that can make people in seemingly similar situations have very different outcomes, even with the same drive, talent, and motivation. I don't think it's fair to describe all of this as "axiomatic". I think if you so desire, you can find any and all examples and information with some research. Starting with farmers. As someone who was born, raised, and still lives in farmland, with many relatives that are farmers, I can attest that literal back breaking work producing rampant poverty is a perfect example of how hard work doesn't always lead to success.


The other thing I was trying to address, was that personal success or experience is not indicative of potential success of others or of reality on the whole. There's a lot of "I did it, so you should be able to as well" or "I don't personally see it, so it doesn't exist" in topics of this nature. One's viewpoint is colored by one's own experiences. You may not see various issues complained about, because they don't happen in your vicinity.

A certain poster took specific quotes out of context and tried to paint me as someone dealing in only insults and like one of their college kid boogieman caricatures, while ignoring the refutations I made on the idea of the internet being a wellspring of opportunity free of corporate power and how luck isn't major factor in success and not addressing my points or adding anything of substance. I then answered his question of what I was expecting to gain from this and let him know.

If you need further clarification, let me know and I can do so, but I feel like I've typed enough on this particular post.
 

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Sucumbio Sucumbio It's a troll. Hence, NWMFT = not worth my ****ing time. Also why I'm not addressing the troll directly. Used ad homs throughout each paragraph to instigate an emotional response, then refused to respond with whether or not they wanted an actual response. More or less they thought that I'm the type of person who engages in paragraph long format discussions if I know that the other person is trying to instigate me or is a ****ing nut case. In either case, it's a firm no. Even if they were serious about painting their intrinsic interest in counter-argumentation or an explorer of inconvenient truths, then they are delusional about their own self-worth or my interest in actually debating anyone who has such a blatant disregard that they can't admit that they were trolling. I don't feed users who use the internet to be literal human garbage.
 
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Sucumbio

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If you are referring to me, my point is that there are factors that may limit one's ability to achieve success.
Well, sure of course there are. But they are definitely not insurmountable. They may be difficult, and you may have to change your idea of what "success" is., but that's a personal decision, not a necessary reality that one -must- face or be delusional. We all have goals, and desires and we all need to feel successful in life or risk becoming depressed - suicidal even. I mean, why live if there's nothing to gain from it, in other words.

Taking your smash example, I think it's far less likely that someone who sets out to become a pro player will actually achieve that goal if they aren't 1.) located in a good place with lots of exposure to the scene 2.) have some innate talent that others would pay -them- to come out and play 3.) some other mitigating factor that provides them with the "normal" path to success.

HOWEVER! That doesn't mean joe-one-arm can't give it a shot. And who knows, maybe they actually do it. In general, trying to achieve the SAME goal as others because -you- perceive that as "success" and yet your starting factors are NOT the same, is kind of asking to be defeated. The better alternative is to not covet what others have or have achieved, but rather look inward to determine your own self worth. And as it happens, by doing so, you will often find others congratulating you on your achievement, and you'll feel better about it, because you did it without being expected to.

The other thing I was trying to address, was that personal success or experience is not indicative of potential success of others or of reality on the whole.
I honestly don't understand why you believe this. It doesn't make sense to me. If you're driving a car towards a wall, and you don't break, you hit the wall. Are you saying that this happening is not indicative of the potential for the next person to drive into a wall without breaking to also hit the wall? To say nothing of the fact that maybe person 2 can't afford a car. That's not important in your distinction. You're literally saying that every success story is a 1-shot, one-off that... just so happens to coincide with others of a similar (almost identical) nature?? Tying in with what I was saying earlier, by simply having a goal the same as others does not mean that goal is necessarily attainable by all. Agreed. But the goal itself, having been achieved by at least one other person, becomes a potential goal for others to try and achieve. And once they do, it approaches a Standard.

Hence, graduating high school, for instance. It's a goal, it's achievable... and we know it is achievable because others have done so in the past. Yes it's harder for some than others. Yes some actually don't achieve it. But that's not to say that one's expectation to graduate should not be influenced by the success rate of prior attempts. Especially when you consider that these success rates are used in the education process itself as a means to gauge participation and effectiveness.


Sucumbio Sucumbio It's a troll. Hence, NWMFT = not worth my ****ing time. Also why I'm not addressing the troll directly. Used ad homs throughout each paragraph to instigate an emotional response, then refused to respond with whether or not they wanted an actual response. More or less they thought that I'm the type of person who engages in paragraph long format discussions if I know that the other person is trying to instigate me or is a ****ing nut case. In either case, it's a firm no. Even if they were serious about painting their intrinsic interest in counter-argumentation or an explorer of inconvenient truths, then they are delusional about their own self-worth or my interest in actually debating anyone who has such a blatant disregard that they can't admit that they were trolling. I don't feed users who use the internet to be literal human garbage.
Fair enough.
 

StoicPhantom

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Joined
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Messages
618
HOWEVER! That doesn't mean joe-one-arm can't give it a shot. And who knows, maybe they actually do it. In general, trying to achieve the SAME goal as others because -you- perceive that as "success" and yet your starting factors are NOT the same, is kind of asking to be defeated. The better alternative is to not covet what others have or have achieved, but rather look inward to determine your own self worth. And as it happens, by doing so, you will often find others congratulating you on your achievement, and you'll feel better about it, because you did it without being expected to.
Yeah, but that was kind of my point, is that starting factors are pretty important for achieving success. I was pushing back against the notion that systemic oppression and other factors outside one's control are all made up by liberal arts classes and the real problem is that young people are weak and are taught they can't help themselves. Not only is that notion highly offensive, but it's one born on ignorance of the plight of others. That's why I originally responded and have yet to see a rebuttal by the one I responded to.

Adjusting your goals is indeed a valid approach to life, but ultimately you're just changing goals to shift away from the unfortunate reality. Sometimes you have no choice, but sometimes things need to properly be called out. Obviously my health issues aren't something I can change and would at least be very difficult for society to change, but lack of affordable and quality transportation is a failure of society and should be addressed. Those artificial constraints can be fixed and allow those who want to be the best at Smash, a better shot at doing so. It might not be perfect in that regard, but it will be much easier than before.

As far as self-determination goes, it really depends on why you would have the goal at being the best at something. If you are in it for fame and fortune, and because you were told that was what you are supposed to strive for, then yeah you could do as you said and look for your own determination of worth. But if you want to be the best to prove to yourself and to everyone that you can achieve those heights, that's another story. If Smash is about competition, then the highest form of play is being better than everyone else. Because we have no higher measure of success once you achieve that level. And it should only be about your play, not whether you can afford to travel or stay at hotels or were born in better areas for that.

You're literally saying that every success story is a 1-shot, one-off that... just so happens to coincide with others of a similar (almost identical) nature?? Tying in with what I was saying earlier, by simply having a goal the same as others does not mean that goal is necessarily attainable by all. Agreed. But the goal itself, having been achieved by at least one other person, becomes a potential goal for others to try and achieve. And once they do, it approaches a Standard.
I am, because things aren't as simple as your car analogy makes them out to be. Other people achieving a goal is irrelevant, because they had different circumstances that allowed them to do so. I linked to this article earlier, about the role of luck in success and how those who are successful are biased in their hesitance to acknowledge its part in their success. If it was simply about writing a good book, we would probably be seeing a lot more successful authors. We're not, because it's a little more complex than that.

You can write a good book, but you still need people to know of and read your book. A new or poor author doesn't have the means or capital to reach a large audience. The amount of time and money printing and advertising your book, is ultimately far beyond such an individual. You could potentially achieve some local success, but as an author you ultimately want people to read your book and the more, the better. This is where publishers come in and an entire industry was built to address these issues.

However, publishers also need to make a profit. Not just make a profit, but maximize them. This might mean that you are rejected, not because you didn't write a good book, but because your book didn't conform to an arbitrarily decided cookie cutter formula, that publishers decided is necessary for mass appeal. Or you might be accepted, but told you must change parts or elements in your book to conform to that formula, which will then call your integrity as an artist into question. This is all of course, assuming they take note of your existence in the first place.

In that article, was an example of someone who achieved success as an author. Not because he just wrote a good book, but because he happened to sit next to the wife of an influential figure. He was able to form a connection with her husband through her and got a job at Wall Street. All of this shows that connections are the most important thing for these endeavors, not talent.

You could appeal to these influential figures directly, but they probably have hundreds, if not thousands of others doing the same thing. Getting your foot in the door becomes a job unto itself. That's where happenstance comes into play. Lots of these successful people when asked how they got into the industry, often just say that they literally bumped into the right person at the right time. That's how these important connections are formed.

That's the point I'm trying to make. Connections aren't gotten through talent, they're made through happenstance and chance. And they are important if you want to succeed. Those who are born rich, aren't just born with capital and wealth, they also have the connections their family has made and forged. They are born with all the tools they need to succeed. Conversely, poor people are born without wealth or connections, so they don't have the tools they need to succeed and must acquire them. Which is often done so through happenstance, because capital and connections aren't things you can necessarily get through talent, unless that talent is acquiring them.

Hence, graduating high school, for instance. It's a goal, it's achievable... and we know it is achievable because others have done so in the past. Yes it's harder for some than others. Yes some actually don't achieve it. But that's not to say that one's expectation to graduate should not be influenced by the success rate of prior attempts. Especially when you consider that these success rates are used in the education process itself as a means to gauge participation and effectiveness.
I think you may be misunderstanding my point a little. I'm not talking about personal feelings of worthlessness or lack of talent or ability, but external factors such as circumstances outside of your control. Yes it's true you can graduate high school. But can you do so if your single mother has fallen ill and can't afford to pay for healthcare and you have younger siblings to feed? That's a reality some teenagers have had to face and were forced to drop out of school in order to work to feed their family. My point isn't that it is impossible to ever achieve success, but that it's more dependent on variables and circumstances than some people would like to admit and failure isn't always the fault of the individual.



But honestly, what I was originally addressing wasn't even just about luck, society and the powers that be also play a part in these things. And depending on what generation and what class you were born into, it could determine your views on success and why others aren't achieving it. There seems to be a fair amount of polarization between Millennials and Baby Boomers for instance. And that's because Boomers grew up in the post war prosperity that saw the strongest middle class in American history and had things like their mortgages and debts eaten by the banks and inflation during the the inflation period that lead up to the financial crisis in the 70s.

In contrast, Millennials have grown up in the era made by neoliberal decisions post financial crisis. One of wage stagnation, price inflation, and endless greed by the rich. College tuition has skyrocketed in price, is no longer mostly subsidized by the Government like with Boomers, and student debt has been made impossible to be bankruptcy filed. If loans are borrowing from the future, on the assumption that you'll have greater wages to compensate, then the rising costs of living and wage stagnation has made such investments impossible to pay back. High rates of interest and no ability to file bankruptcy, means no way to ever break from that crushing debt. You're essentially guaranteeing that Millennials will never be able to acquire capital and wealth, start a business, buy a house, or even raise a family.

Boomers had everything handed to them on a silver platter, Millennials got royally screwed by the politics and policies of the previous generations, including and especially by Boomers. Boomers got to enjoy the trade jobs created by the New Deal, Millennials have seen those jobs be outsourced and become increasingly irrelevant as technology now dominates society. And in order to work in tech, you need to have a higher education. Said education is locked by a monumentally huge paywall. One that that can ensure people will spend their entire lifetimes paying back.

And with all that in mind, you can probably see why Boomers criticize Millennials for being "lazy" or complaining about their predicaments, while somehow being completely unaware of all the stuff that said Boomers had going for them.

It's a troll. Hence, NWMFT = not worth my ****ing time. Also why I'm not addressing the troll directly. Used ad homs throughout each paragraph to instigate an emotional response, then refused to respond with whether or not they wanted an actual response. More or less they thought that I'm the type of person who engages in paragraph long format discussions if I know that the other person is trying to instigate me or is a ****ing nut case. In either case, it's a firm no. Even if they were serious about painting their intrinsic interest in counter-argumentation or an explorer of inconvenient truths, then they are delusional about their own self-worth or my interest in actually debating anyone who has such a blatant disregard that they can't admit that they were trolling. I don't feed users who use the internet to be literal human garbage.
You know, if you wanted to disengage, you could have done so without making up wacky conspiracies or crying troll. Impugning my character in this tantrum, isn't a good look for you nor is it good for discourse. If you have an actual rebuttal, then do so, instead of complaining about "ad homs" while calling me delusional about my self-worth, a troll, and "literal human garbage". You know damn well that I used everything I said in proper context, made proper points, and gave you detailed reasoning on whether you should respond. Don't pretend or try to portray my posts as anything other than what they are, when people can literally just scroll up and read them.
 
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Sucumbio

Smash Giant
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...

Adjusting your goals is indeed a valid approach to life, but ultimately you're just changing goals to shift away from the unfortunate reality.
Not necessarily! It's accepting that reality, your "luck", your ... position in the grand scheme of things, has left you needing to approach achieving a goal differently than others.

Health is... difficult. I have known many of the years, myself included, whose health has limited them. For instance I was born with weak arches and broke both feet trying out for track, lol. I could have had pins put in, but what was my goal? To be a star athelete? An Olympian? No... I wanted to join the track team cause there were hot chicks everywhere. Goal attainable with surgery, but determined to be not-worth-it. Moved on (but didn't have to).

Can I join the Army? No... too old. If I set that as my goal, obviously I'm faced with the reality that I can't go back in time, or reverse-age myself.

What I -can- do is offer my services as a civilian contractor.

So continuing with this analysis.. why did I set that as my goal? Was it to contribute to our national defense? Check. Was it to be authorized to go to war zones around the world to shoot people? Check! PMCs absolutely carry out weapons-hot missions.

Obviously I'm not doing that cause it's not a real goal of mine. My point is that adjusting a goal doesn't mean you've accepted defeat. It means that you've realized there's more than one avenue to reach the same destination.

If Smash is about competition, then the highest form of play is being better than everyone else. Because we have no higher measure of success once you achieve that level. And it should only be about your play, not whether you can afford to travel or stay at hotels or were born in better areas for that.
Well... I suppose e-sports just need to catch up with other sports? At least a talented ball player can still be scouted. But I see where you're going with this. Like I said, I agree some factors will limit your choices.


Other people achieving a goal is irrelevant, because they had different circumstances that allowed them to do so.
Surely you don't mean EVERY other person? Millions of people graduate high school every year. They all had "different" circumstances, sure but they also had MANY shared circumstances. These commonalities are not only important, but are what is used to standarize the education rubric. And it is what allows the individual within the group to gauge their own success.

A new or poor author doesn't have the means or capital to reach a large audience.
Actually, not true. Anyone can submit their work for free to thousands of publishers. If none of them are interested? Put it online for free. Making money as an author when you've never been published or even read beyond yourself and family/friends is kinda delusional.

https://www.amazon.com/Writers-Mark...riters+market&qid=1565218984&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Awesome book. Comes out every year and can be purchased for 20 bucks. Has every publisher under the sun and how to reach them, and all their business details, along with pointers on how to get published.

And for the artists such as myself, I understand getting "known" is important. I have an album on i-Tunes, for instance. In fact an American Idol contestant once joked "oh yeah, we ALL have an album or two on i-Tunes" because the reality is even when you do things right, or for yourself, no one really cares unless you make them care. Me, I didn't bother. My goal was simple, record an album and have it available for sale (it's also available for free, lol).

Connections aren't gotten through talent, they're made through happenstance and chance.
Depends on the connection, really. But I see your point. I agree that opportunity, which is different than success because it doesn't automatically lead to success, can and does come and go like the wind, or so it appears. But you can also MAKE opportunities arise and with nothing but pure talent.

How did I get my album on i-Tunes?

I submitted a track to a songwriting contest that happened to like it and awarded it a prize. The prize was exposure to 200 industry persons from various camps.

Why I am not a rock star?

Cause the extent of the opportunity was to basically give me reason to put -myself- out there to be heard. I could have paid 10 grand to a firm in Seattle for some airplay. No? hell no, lol. I didn't want all that. BUT CD-baby way back then was running a special and so I got my album on i-Tunes and a bajillion other internet spots... got interviewed by some ezines and had a website for a while. I think I sold 10 copies hahaha.

My point? It was the track that got the attention. Not the contest, not the payola that I didn't pay, or the 200 people who heard it... It was the track. Because without that, none of the rest would have happened. The ... opportunity, would not have existed.

Now on the flip side. I got to write a track for a Spiderman commercial. It was a local airplay on television but it was cool! I got to go down to the set and hang out with tv people. This opportunity definitely happened by circumstance. My friend happened to be working for the ad agency handling the spot and solicited a track from me. But then again, had the music I was writing not been interesting to these people they'd have said no....

Those who are born rich, aren't just born with capital and wealth, they also have the connections their family has made and forged. They are born with all the tools they need to succeed. Conversely, poor people are born without wealth or connections, so they don't have the tools they need to succeed and must acquire them. Which is often done so through happenstance, because capital and connections aren't things you can necessarily get through talent, unless that talent is acquiring them.
Rich and poor people alike face the same potential costs in daily living. The attack on 9/11 did not discriminate... everyone that died had one thing in common, their proximity to the attack. Their financial status was irrelevant. The same can be said of their opportunities. They may appear on the outside as completely off from one another. But having a ticket to Harvard doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things if the person going doesn't have the desire to use that connection to succeed. It could very easily be a waste of money for the parents.

In fact I'm now reminded of a reality tv show in which the music producer's step kids were basically just living off his wealth and when asked what they wanted to do... "write music." The response, okay well you have 100k studio in the other room, go for it! Nothing. No music. Because they don't really want to do that. They don't -need- to do anything! They're already rich, what's the point in not recreating 24/7?

I think you may be misunderstanding my point a little. I'm not talking about personal feelings of worthlessness or lack of talent or ability, but external factors such as circumstances outside of your control. Yes it's true you can graduate high school. But can you do so if your single mother has fallen ill and can't afford to pay for healthcare and you have younger siblings to feed? That's a reality some teenagers have had to face and were forced to drop out of school in order to work to feed their family. My point isn't that it is impossible to ever achieve success, but that it's more dependent on variables and circumstances than some people would like to admit and failure isn't always the fault of the individual.
I agree with your example, it's one I had in mind as well.

But honestly, what I was originally addressing wasn't even just about luck, society and the powers that be also play a part in these things. And depending on what generation and what class you were born into, it could determine your views on success and why others aren't achieving it. There seems to be a fair amount of polarization between Millennials and Baby Boomers for instance. And that's because Boomers grew up in the post war prosperity that saw the strongest middle class in American history and had things like their mortgages and debts eaten by the banks and inflation during the the inflation period that lead up to the financial crisis in the 70s.

In contrast, Millennials have grown up in the era made by neoliberal decisions post financial crisis. One of wage stagnation, price inflation, and endless greed by the rich. College tuition has skyrocketed in price, is no longer mostly subsidized by the Government like with Boomers, and student debt has been made impossible to be bankruptcy filed. If loans are borrowing from the future, on the assumption that you'll have greater wages to compensate, then the rising costs of living and wage stagnation has made such investments impossible to pay back. High rates of interest and no ability to file bankruptcy, means no way to ever break from that crushing debt. You're essentially guaranteeing that Millennials will never be able to acquire capital and wealth, start a business, buy a house, or even raise a family.

Boomers had everything handed to them on a silver platter, Millennials got royally screwed by the politics and policies of the previous generations, including and especially by Boomers. Boomers got to enjoy the trade jobs created by the New Deal, Millennials have seen those jobs be outsourced and become increasingly irrelevant as technology now dominates society. And in order to work in tech, you need to have a higher education. Said education is locked by a monumentally huge paywall. One that that can ensure people will spend their entire lifetimes paying back.

And with all that in mind, you can probably see why Boomers criticize Millennials for being "lazy" or complaining about their predicaments, while somehow being completely unaware of all the stuff that said Boomers had going for them.
Baby Boomers reaped the benefits of and were victims of increased commercialism. This steam-rolled right into today. I mean, even looking at people who are 100 percent on welfare, they still have a big screen, a surround sound... internet, yada yada. They still live "better" than I ever did growing up. Or do they? My belly was always full... because that was important to my folks. They grew up KNOWING that the only important things in life are Food, Clothing and Shelter. You have those 3 things, everything else is luxury. That mentality slips by today's younger adults because ramen. Because I can go without eating today if it means I can get the new iPhone 100xyz tomorrow. Priorities. Totally shifted from post WWII America. Kids grow up -expecting- a level of comfort that frankly didn't exist 30 years ago. Nor did the information technology industry really mean much other than who to pick for long distance phone calls. Or getting your grand kids to set the VCR to record your soaps while you're at the doctor's office.

Add to this, as you've pointed out, the total racket that is Higher Education. Do you know what my degree got me? An extra buck an hour on my paycheck. I was fortunate, my education was free because my father worked in construction for the university. My wife, not so much. She actually only graduated a few years ago despite her being much older, and yet her debt is now way higher than could ever be reasonably paid back short of winning the lottery.

Is that OUR fault? To many, yes. We should have picked better majors. We should have tried to get involved in work placement programs offered by the universities we attended. on and on and on. Just didn't work out that way. Instead we work day jobs completely unrelated to our majors and benefit from ... a buck an hour.

I won't defend the college tuition insanity. It's criminal and that's why there's been push from some candidates in the new election to either greatly reduce or altogether erradicate those debts. They're basically trying to avoid another buyout crisis like when the housing market crashed. It will be interesting to watch. Meanwhile,. we're in economic forbearence on her loans, so, haha not even paying on them they're just growing interest.





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Guys, take this to PMs or hit ignore on each other cause this is really not going to fly here. Thx.
 

StoicPhantom

Smash Ace
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
618
Not necessarily! It's accepting that reality, your "luck", your ... position in the grand scheme of things, has left you needing to approach achieving a goal differently than others.
Sure and I made the caveat that some can't be changed. I'm speaking more to specific goals. If just contributing to defense is your goal, then yeah you can work around your issues like you laid out. But if your goal was to become an elite, like a Navy SEAL, then you would run into problems there. I'm talking more about goals like that, where you have a specific position or field of work you want to do, but lack the resources to get there.
Surely you don't mean EVERY other person? Millions of people graduate high school every year. They all had "different" circumstances, sure but they also had MANY shared circumstances. These commonalities are not only important, but are what is used to standarize the education rubric. And it is what allows the individual within the group to gauge their own success.
I'm talking about it being irrelevant to the individual, what others have achieved, because their circumstances would be different. For example, I had to be home schooled in fifth grade, because my health issues prevented me from being able to attend. I was too sick to even get a GED after I "graduated" high school, so as far as society is concerned, I haven't completed a high school education, even though I completed the same curriculum as others. Yeah, my situation is well out of the norm, but this was the point I was making, when I said what others have achieved is irrelevant to the individual. High school is a low bar to set in the first place, so lots of people do end up completing it. But it's under the assumption that you can attend it for that length of time. That's true for most, but there are circumstances like mine and others, that prevent us from being able to attend. The fact that others have successfully done so, is ultimately irrelevant to our current situation.

Again, my original point was to say that failure isn't always the fault of the individual, there are other factors in play.


Actually, not true. Anyone can submit their work for free to thousands of publishers. If none of them are interested? Put it online for free. Making money as an author when you've never been published or even read beyond yourself and family/friends is kinda delusional.
Sure, but you gotta eat as well, don't forget. If you're doing these things as a hobby, putting your work online or simply submitting it to publishing isn't that big of a deal, that's not your main job. But if you're trying to do these as a career, it's paramount that you get established as quickly as possible. Places like iTunes or Amazon is a very cost effective way to do so, but you are essentially planting your tree in a vast forest. There's no guarantee your work won't be lost in a vast sea of others, doomed to obscurity.

You can get a temporary job in the mean time, which is often how artists have survived, but don't forget the wage stagnation. These kinds of jobs don't pay a living wage anymore, so you often need to work multiple ones. And if you're working multiple jobs, you don't have the time or energy to network or work the publishing system.

J. K. Rowling managed to write the best-selling series in history from her first book and become a billionaire from it. A story of success surely, but the thing is, she was on the UK's welfare system while she was writing the first one. And she was rejected by twelve publishers and spent a year before one hesitantly agreed to publish her book, telling her to get a day job. Now stop and think about that for a minute. She was presenting gold, but all those publishers were convinced it was dung. Had the publisher that finally agreed, not shown it to his little girl who requested more, we may have never seen all this happen. Mere chance produced a $15 billion franchise.

Now could she as a single mother manage to pull the same off in modern day America, with its poor welfare system? Would one of the publishers here have agreed before she gave up? I can't really say for sure, but I'm going to guess not likely.

Rich and poor people alike face the same potential costs in daily living. The attack on 9/11 did not discriminate... everyone that died had one thing in common, their proximity to the attack. Their financial status was irrelevant. The same can be said of their opportunities. They may appear on the outside as completely off from one another. But having a ticket to Harvard doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things if the person going doesn't have the desire to use that connection to succeed. It could very easily be a waste of money for the parents.
I guess, but 9/11 is a rather extreme and rare example. I think a better one would be all the mass shootings and how (un)likely it would be for a white collar worker to get caught up in them.

And sure, if someone rich doesn't desire it, they can coast off of their wealth, although that's a pretty common measure of success by America in the first place. I'm talking about poor people that have that desire versus rich people who also have that desire. If we all recall Trump's "small" loan of a million dollars from his father to start a business versus the scratch poor people start with. Yes, I know Trump managed to **** things up business wise even with all of that, but the fact that he's now President despite all that, should tell you how much that wealth gets you in life.

Not to mention how all of our greatest innovations, from the automobile to the smartphone, were all developed by the Government and funded by taxpayers, then handed off to various rich people like Jobs and Ford, with no strings attached. The same doesn't seem to happen for poor people.

Baby Boomers reaped the benefits of and were victims of increased commercialism. This steam-rolled right into today. I mean, even looking at people who are 100 percent on welfare, they still have a big screen, a surround sound... internet, yada yada. They still live "better" than I ever did growing up. Or do they? My belly was always full... because that was important to my folks. They grew up KNOWING that the only important things in life are Food, Clothing and Shelter. You have those 3 things, everything else is luxury. That mentality slips by today's younger adults because ramen. Because I can go without eating today if it means I can get the new iPhone 100xyz tomorrow. Priorities. Totally shifted from post WWII America. Kids grow up -expecting- a level of comfort that frankly didn't exist 30 years ago. Nor did the information technology industry really mean much other than who to pick for long distance phone calls. Or getting your grand kids to set the VCR to record your soaps while you're at the doctor's office.
Yeah, this is what I was pushing back against. Technology gets significantly cheaper quicker, compared to other things. It's not particularly fair to say things weren't as good before, but are "better" now because everyone has big TVs and smartphones. What's in a smartphone currently, costed tens of thousands decades ago. That's not really comparable to investments such as education and houses, which are significantly more expensive than before. Yeah, you may not have had internet or digital music, but you had affordable housing, education, and the ability to support a family. All things that I think we can agree impact your life more than surround sound.

Hell, I have all that stuff and I live on a limited income. And without scrimping on food, my health issues wouldn't allow that. It's called living frugally, so you can afford shiny things once in a while. But even if I still had every penny I've ever acquired, I still wouldn't be able to afford healthcare, a house, an education, a family, etc. And that's the real difference between the older and younger generations. Thinking your quality of life has improved because you have more shiny stuff, is a very materialistic mindset.

That's why I brought up Milliennials and Boomers in the first place. Boomers lived in the best time for investment and acquiring wealth. Having all of the opportunity the post war boom afforded, having a society and Government wiling to subsidize and invest in their healthcare and education, plus having an inflationary crisis that ended up eating their debts later on in life. Once the crisis had passed and the neoliberal era began, they had already acquired their wealth and are now on top in a system that was designed to cater to them. By virtue of their birth, they managed to avoid being drafted in all the wars, grew up in the strongest middle class in American history, had their debts paid off by a major inflation crisis, and got to create the new system we see today. That is utterly stunning, how lucky they've been and how uplifted their success has been by sheer happenstance.

Millennials on the other hand, got to be born in and grew up in times of massive cuts to public education and infrastructure, became an adult in times of wage stagnation, rampant price inflation, all of the previous opportunity long since plundered, and in a system designed by Boomers to sustain themselves while eating the Milliennials. It's no surprise that all the cuts to investment is for younger generations, with education, preventive care, public infrastructure, social and welfare benefits, etc, all have been cut and are in the process of being further cut. And those are being cut for things like tax breaks for the rich (Boomers), funding more wars, and bailing out the assets of the rich banks that ****ed up when committing fraud in the trillions.

These two generations could not be more different in terms of the circumstances they were born in, external factors that influenced their lives, and the opportunity they've had. Yet the success of Boomers is attributed to hard work and struggle, the failure of Millennials is attributed to their love of avocados and iPhones.

Bottom line is, there is a fundamental difference between commodities and wealth. What shiny toy existed in what era is completely irrelevant to the issues today. What issues previous generations faced is completely irrelevant to the issues today. If we wanted to take the "Back in my day..." to its logical conclusion, we would pretty much undo all of human civilization's achievements and return to being a primitive society. Because anyone who uses such a phrase/sentiment, always starts it conveniently at their generation, ignoring how they had it better than the previous generation or that by virtue of being born in a first world country, they enjoy certain privileges and amenities that are gotten by the exploitation of third world countries. Those aspects are ignored, because this is a way to feel superior or resist change.


Is that OUR fault? To many, yes. We should have picked better majors. We should have tried to get involved in work placement programs offered by the universities we attended. on and on and on. Just didn't work out that way. Instead we work day jobs completely unrelated to our majors and benefit from ... a buck an hour.
Even doctors and other STEM graduates still have these issues as well. Degree shaming is just another way society attempts to shift the blame to the disadvantaged for its failures. What you studied was never an issue before, given that these courses exist in the first place. This is all only done after the fact of rampant greed and deregulation causing this debt bubble. And business owners refusing to pay a living wage, while enacting unreasonable degree and experience requirements for said poor pay. There seems to be this delusion in business, where they think they can hire skilled labor for minimum wage.



Remember though, my original point and reason for posting in this topic, was to push back against the notion that all failure is through the fault of the individual. I definitely wasn't saying success doesn't exist or that it can't be done under bad circumstances. It really depends at the end of the day, what your circumstances are, what you have to work with, what unforeseeable events occur, good or bad, and how the current state of society plays into your life. I merely want to ensure that blame isn't shifted on those that don't deserve it and away from those that do. And make sure that the actual problems are acknowledged for what they are, not excused as something else.
 

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Sucumbio

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Sure and I made the caveat that some can't be changed. I'm speaking more to specific goals. If just contributing to defense is your goal, then yeah you can work around your issues like you laid out. But if your goal was to become an elite, like a Navy SEAL, then you would run into problems there. I'm talking more about goals like that, where you have a specific position or field of work you want to do, but lack the resources to get there.

I'm talking about it being irrelevant to the individual, what others have achieved, because their circumstances would be different. For example, I had to be home schooled in fifth grade, because my health issues prevented me from being able to attend. I was too sick to even get a GED after I "graduated" high school, so as far as society is concerned, I haven't completed a high school education, even though I completed the same curriculum as others. Yeah, my situation is well out of the norm, but this was the point I was making, when I said what others have achieved is irrelevant to the individual. High school is a low bar to set in the first place, so lots of people do end up completing it. But it's under the assumption that you can attend it for that length of time. That's true for most, but there are circumstances like mine and others, that prevent us from being able to attend. The fact that others have successfully done so, is ultimately irrelevant to our current situation.

Again, my original point was to say that failure isn't always the fault of the individual, there are other factors in play.



Sure, but you gotta eat as well, don't forget. If you're doing these things as a hobby, putting your work online or simply submitting it to publishing isn't that big of a deal, that's not your main job. But if you're trying to do these as a career, it's paramount that you get established as quickly as possible. Places like iTunes or Amazon is a very cost effective way to do so, but you are essentially planting your tree in a vast forest. There's no guarantee your work won't be lost in a vast sea of others, doomed to obscurity.

You can get a temporary job in the mean time, which is often how artists have survived, but don't forget the wage stagnation. These kinds of jobs don't pay a living wage anymore, so you often need to work multiple ones. And if you're working multiple jobs, you don't have the time or energy to network or work the publishing system.

J. K. Rowling managed to write the best-selling series in history from her first book and become a billionaire from it. A story of success surely, but the thing is, she was on the UK's welfare system while she was writing the first one. And she was rejected by twelve publishers and spent a year before one hesitantly agreed to publish her book, telling her to get a day job. Now stop and think about that for a minute. She was presenting gold, but all those publishers were convinced it was dung. Had the publisher that finally agreed, not shown it to his little girl who requested more, we may have never seen all this happen. Mere chance produced a $15 billion franchise.

Now could she as a single mother manage to pull the same off in modern day America, with its poor welfare system? Would one of the publishers here have agreed before she gave up? I can't really say for sure, but I'm going to guess not likely.


I guess, but 9/11 is a rather extreme and rare example. I think a better one would be all the mass shootings and how (un)likely it would be for a white collar worker to get caught up in them.

And sure, if someone rich doesn't desire it, they can coast off of their wealth, although that's a pretty common measure of success by America in the first place. I'm talking about poor people that have that desire versus rich people who also have that desire. If we all recall Trump's "small" loan of a million dollars from his father to start a business versus the scratch poor people start with. Yes, I know Trump managed to **** things up business wise even with all of that, but the fact that he's now President despite all that, should tell you how much that wealth gets you in life.

Not to mention how all of our greatest innovations, from the automobile to the smartphone, were all developed by the Government and funded by taxpayers, then handed off to various rich people like Jobs and Ford, with no strings attached. The same doesn't seem to happen for poor people.


Yeah, this is what I was pushing back against. Technology gets significantly cheaper quicker, compared to other things. It's not particularly fair to say things weren't as good before, but are "better" now because everyone has big TVs and smartphones. What's in a smartphone currently, costed tens of thousands decades ago. That's not really comparable to investments such as education and houses, which are significantly more expensive than before. Yeah, you may not have had internet or digital music, but you had affordable housing, education, and the ability to support a family. All things that I think we can agree impact your life more than surround sound.

Hell, I have all that stuff and I live on a limited income. And without scrimping on food, my health issues wouldn't allow that. It's called living frugally, so you can afford shiny things once in a while. But even if I still had every penny I've ever acquired, I still wouldn't be able to afford healthcare, a house, an education, a family, etc. And that's the real difference between the older and younger generations. Thinking your quality of life has improved because you have more shiny stuff, is a very materialistic mindset.

That's why I brought up Milliennials and Boomers in the first place. Boomers lived in the best time for investment and acquiring wealth. Having all of the opportunity the post war boom afforded, having a society and Government wiling to subsidize and invest in their healthcare and education, plus having an inflationary crisis that ended up eating their debts later on in life. Once the crisis had passed and the neoliberal era began, they had already acquired their wealth and are now on top in a system that was designed to cater to them. By virtue of their birth, they managed to avoid being drafted in all the wars, grew up in the strongest middle class in American history, had their debts paid off by a major inflation crisis, and got to create the new system we see today. That is utterly stunning, how lucky they've been and how uplifted their success has been by sheer happenstance.

Millennials on the other hand, got to be born in and grew up in times of massive cuts to public education and infrastructure, became an adult in times of wage stagnation, rampant price inflation, all of the previous opportunity long since plundered, and in a system designed by Boomers to sustain themselves while eating the Milliennials. It's no surprise that all the cuts to investment is for younger generations, with education, preventive care, public infrastructure, social and welfare benefits, etc, all have been cut and are in the process of being further cut. And those are being cut for things like tax breaks for the rich (Boomers), funding more wars, and bailing out the assets of the rich banks that ****ed up when committing fraud in the trillions.

These two generations could not be more different in terms of the circumstances they were born in, external factors that influenced their lives, and the opportunity they've had. Yet the success of Boomers is attributed to hard work and struggle, the failure of Millennials is attributed to their love of avocados and iPhones.

Bottom line is, there is a fundamental difference between commodities and wealth. What shiny toy existed in what era is completely irrelevant to the issues today. What issues previous generations faced is completely irrelevant to the issues today. If we wanted to take the "Back in my day..." to its logical conclusion, we would pretty much undo all of human civilization's achievements and return to being a primitive society. Because anyone who uses such a phrase/sentiment, always starts it conveniently at their generation, ignoring how they had it better than the previous generation or that by virtue of being born in a first world country, they enjoy certain privileges and amenities that are gotten by the exploitation of third world countries. Those aspects are ignored, because this is a way to feel superior or resist change.



Even doctors and other STEM graduates still have these issues as well. Degree shaming is just another way society attempts to shift the blame to the disadvantaged for its failures. What you studied was never an issue before, given that these courses exist in the first place. This is all only done after the fact of rampant greed and deregulation causing this debt bubble. And business owners refusing to pay a living wage, while enacting unreasonable degree and experience requirements for said poor pay. There seems to be this delusion in business, where they think they can hire skilled labor for minimum wage.
I appreciate your candor. In fact my wife being a true Millennial has allowed me a unique perspective into straddling the generational gaps between us. Whereas I lived for a significant portion of my life before there was even an internet, she really doesn't remember a time there wasn't a computer in every classroom, in the home, etc.

I do need to point out that a lot of the "prosperity" that surrounded me as a child was definitely not "easy" to attain. I lived in a purely white suburb of Boston, where forced busing still took place (even though now apparently that program is being hailed as a success - but back then it was a nightmare). And yet the majority of my classmates came from average lower middle class families. Single parent families. Families who had to pool their resources to afford living and providing for their kids. Me, it took 5 parents/incomes! My mother had worked for a time before marrying and quitting her career - she STILL has savings from 50 years ago, lol... my dad was a construction worker, in and out of work, and fell victim to the Credit Card boom. Fortunately, we had my grandparents and grand-aunt who came from the "silent" generation. They saved every penny they had while they worked for the Boston Naval Shipyard during the height of WWII. They were immigrants from China. The three of them lived in a tiny apartment on Beacon Street, crammed into a living space meant for 1, because living that way for a few decades while saving up for a real house in Arlington was their goal. They didn't starve but they didn't live lavishly, either. And when they had a child, my mother, it was time. Time to get a real house so that their child could have a BETTER opportunity. That's the goal of any good parent. To provide a means for their children to NOT have to go through what they went through in order to "make it."

So what did my mom end up doing? Marrying my dad, quitting her career and becoming a house wife, because back then in America - that's what you did if you were a woman. In fact her situation multiplied by the millions of other boomer children really culminated in the social movements of unrest and change that marked the 60's and 70's. Hippies! Yay. Free love, long hair, drugs sex and rock and roll... a perpetual party running 24 hours where you could focus on "the man" and changing the status quo. Where was that going to end up? THEIR kids, the "yuppie" generation... MY generation... we had to literally figure out which was more important. We couldn't go back in time and find that die-hard core existence like my grand parents had. I mean, a pig farmer from Guangdong comes to America, takes night classes at the YMCA while working in a laundry during the day, gets a job as an engineer while his wife and her sister work 12 hours days as secretaries... they were fortunate that it paid off. They had connections through family being Chinese like most immigrants from China back then. Networks that were established back in the 1800s during the railroad boom. Boston's own Chinatown - a miniature China. So even then... opportunity still was important and definitely not a guarantee. Unfortunately we have so many more Americans, and no WWII to focus everyone...

Your situation with High School is definitely a minority, but it's no less in need of attention. Kids with health problems that are forced to become home schooled have a serious disadvantage going into the work force and as such your perspective is like mine - colored... I cannot speak to the ways in which you or your parents may have done things differently to escape your situation, to better it. There's no doubt in my mind that welfare programs could be better especially when you take into account the giant swaths of populations who have basically been born into a system that's designed to keep them where they are because it's more profitable to do so. And the workforce is just as bad. There's tons of boomers now snaking jobs from the young because their golden parachute turned out to be a concrete block and they have to work until they're 75.

Remember though, my original point and reason for posting in this topic, was to push back against the notion that all failure is through the fault of the individual. I definitely wasn't saying success doesn't exist or that it can't be done under bad circumstances. It really depends at the end of the day, what your circumstances are, what you have to work with, what unforeseeable events occur, good or bad, and how the current state of society plays into your life. I merely want to ensure that blame isn't shifted on those that don't deserve it and away from those that do. And make sure that the actual problems are acknowledged for what they are, not excused as something else.
I can't disagree, here. Even as I type this I'm reminded of how I coasted through the majority of my early life due to the fact that those 5 incomes set me up to not have to worry about anything until I was well into my 20's. It actually messed me up. I had to lose everything and get cut off from the nest in order to learn the valuable lessons I learned so that I could truly become a contributing member of society - to afford a place of my own, to provide for a family of my own. I blame no one but myself, but I also agree that my successes and failures were dependent on more than just me. With that said, I again appreciate your input. And I hope that your personal situation will make a turn for the better.
 

StoicPhantom

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I appreciate your candor.
There's no shame in the truth.:)

It can help to put a personal link in the discussion and help others better understand one's intent and motivation/reason for being.

I do need to point out that a lot of the "prosperity" that surrounded me as a child was definitely not "easy" to attain.
That was an interesting background, I can appreciate the difficulty of immigration. I should clarify that I was speaking in relative terms, not meaning to imply that everyone in the previous generations just coasted. More so that the chances of total failure were lower than the current era. If we think chances of success in a probability perspective, the variables of lack of healthcare, the job lottery, the massive costs of personal investment such as education, and the major decline of social and welfare programs, all contribute to a much higher chance of failure. If you have to go without health insurance because you can't afford it, then you're only just one accident/illness away from bankruptcy. Same thing with jobs, they are dependent on region and may have unreasonable requirements. For example, one of the more common complaints I hear from my Millennial peers, is that there is often a 5-10 year experience combined with high degree requirement on entry level jobs. It makes finding jobs difficult and ones that don't have those requirements, don't pay much or have benefits.

Most of my ire is on the Boomer generation though, I can appreciate the struggles of the ones before them. It's just being in the generation with the greatest obstacles, I can only see this generation as being worse off regardless. As I said before, the issue is one of investment. Most people in any one generation aren't starting out as millionaires. Income inequality is present in every generation. But taking a look at this timeline, we see a bizarre situation where Millennials are much more educated than previous generations, but have lower income and wealth than most of the previous generations or only slightly higher. Especially notable is the income gap between college educated and non, showing the importance of a degree, despite the trade job thumper claims to the contrary. Combine that with student loans and other debt and you have a significantly lower standard of living.

It's not that previous generations never struggled or had to work multiple jobs, it's that the payoff for doing those things is much smaller this time around. Keeping above water, not accruing savings essentially. The above points to major structural issues in society, that weren't really present before. So I'm not necessarily speaking about individuals, more about generational trends.

Kids with health problems that are forced to become home schooled have a serious disadvantage going into the work force and as such your perspective is like mine - colored... I cannot speak to the ways in which you or your parents may have done things differently to escape your situation, to better it. There's no doubt in my mind that welfare programs could be better especially when you take into account the giant swaths of populations who have basically been born into a system that's designed to keep them where they are because it's more profitable to do so. And the workforce is just as bad. There's tons of boomers now snaking jobs from the young because their golden parachute turned out to be a concrete block and they have to work until they're 75.
My problems are more "systemic" in that they affect every aspect of the body. It isn't that I have a disability in specific areas, like partial paralysis, that would allow me to still perform other tasks. It affects everything, from mental cognition, to physical ability. As such, I have no consistency in competency or function, and need massive down time in order to regain any sort of energy or mental clarity. Sleep is poor and I'm very susceptible to outside elements like weather/temperature or stress, so my ability to perform varies greatly from day to day. It's also why I can dip from Smashboards for long periods of time. It's as far as I know genetic, so I was ****ed from the get go. There wasn't anything that could really be done at the time. And those are just the diseases I know of, there's potentially more that are currently unknown.

I consider myself a lost cause, so my focus is more on those who don't suffer like that, but need some assistance in order to be productive. It doesn't have to be in the physical sense either, those who are poor/born poor, those who have suffered from bad incidents/luck, etc. That's why I posted in this thread and why I call out issues that aren't the fault of the individual and debate those would excuse them.

I can't disagree, here. Even as I type this I'm reminded of how I coasted through the majority of my early life due to the fact that those 5 incomes set me up to not have to worry about anything until I was well into my 20's. It actually messed me up. I had to lose everything and get cut off from the nest in order to learn the valuable lessons I learned so that I could truly become a contributing member of society - to afford a place of my own, to provide for a family of my own. I blame no one but myself, but I also agree that my successes and failures were dependent on more than just me. With that said, I again appreciate your input.
I think we agree in general, just may have had some misunderstandings in the nuances. Everyone has their problems, both self-inflicted and not, just as everyone has their privileges, both earned and not, so don't think I'm being dismissive of or talking down to anyone. Just as you had to acknowledge that you were pampered and had to struggle to learn how to stand on your own, I also struggled with things out of my control, but acknowledge that I too have a (relatively) wealthy grandparent to lean on and live in a country that has a welfare system, no matter how poor, where others do not.

My beef is more with people who excuse systemic issues and oppression and seem to have isolated themselves from the suffering and plight of others. The first step in fixing problems is acknowledging them in the first place, so anybody that tries to ignore and dismiss them, while blaming the victim no less, tends to grind my gears and hurts progress overall. So I tend to call these people out when I see them, if a bit aggressively, in order to hopefully help prevent the continuing obfuscation of already complex issues and offer perspective of one who lives and has seen these issues.

You don't seem to be one of these types and seem to generally understand these issues and the plight of others, so I don't think we have any real disagreements or issues here.

With that said, I again appreciate your input. And I hope that your personal situation will make a turn for the better.
Thanks for that. While we've been talking about regression over the generations, the one thing that always improves over time is science. What ails me is still largely a mystery, which is part of why there has been no effective treatments. However, dna testing has improved greatly since the five or so years I last had it done. I just recently got funding approved and sorted out for another one and this one now tests hundreds of genes, instead of the dozens I had before. It's not a guarantee and I won't be hearing back for potentially months, but it is possible new things will be discovered which might potentially lead to more effective treatment.

Not holding my breath due to the nature of genetic diseases and past experience, but just getting answers is more than I've had in a decade, so there's a bit of optimism to look forward to. Wackier things have happened to me before, in this regard, so anything could happen with this.
 

Another Player

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Do you want specifics? For someone living here for over 30 years there's these things about it. You can get punished for doing good and rewarded for being bad. Since most of the people are capitalist you have to pay for pretty much everything. Even water has a price tag. Though I am ignorant of the details of other places since I don't live there. You can google details yourself on what I said. Or simply experienced a charge to your credit card?
 

StrangeKitten

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It's not the best country, not by a mile. It has a multitude of problems, but people are finally waking up and trying to fix those problems.

It's also far from the worst country, with better freedoms and quality of life than many other countries.
 

Ben Holt

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As far as quality of life, we're certainly in the upper quartile, but we've been steadily fading since the 1970s.
But as far as effect on the world, no country has done more damage since World War II than the United States.
Almost all geopolitical problems today can be traced back to the United States' open hostility toward the Communist Revolution.

Islamic Extremism? WE put a stop to Iran's Communist Revolution in 1953. We armed Osama bin Laden against the Soviets. We propped up the Saudi Arabian monarchy because they sell us oil.

World Hunger? WE starved developing nations out of resources by offensively attacking them so they couldn't set up Socialist states.

Climate Change? WE ignored scientists warning us of the dangers of excessively burning fossil fuels and hid the evidence from the public so that we could keep the Capitalist machine going.

Dictatorships? You think the United States is altruistic and supports freedom worldwide? Ha! We financially support 73% of the world's dictatorships. Hell, we even set many up after we toppled developing Socialist governments so that these dictators could keep global Capitalism running. And the few Socialist dictatorships were set up simply to protect their country from us, as dictatorships are the fastest and most efficient way to protect a small country from large invaders.

So yea, I say as an American that I love all my people, but I loathe my government. We have been the most oppressive force against world peace and progress since World War II, but there is a silver lining:
The United States is very clearly on the brink of a massive movement. It could even manifest as a Civil War should something major happen such as Donald Trump refusing to accept the election results.
But when the Communist Revolution comes to America, the government that suppressed it worldwide will cease to exist. There is that hope.
 

Phoenixio

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I think that one of the issues is that there's so much patriotism in the US that they don't see that there are tons of others countries in the world with super high quality of life, like Canada, Western Europe, United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and so on... They do things differently, but succeed anyways, and there's much less of a "capitalism first" mindset in those places. More social programs. Healthcare. Of course countries as big as the US or Canada will have various pockets of people wishing for different things, sure, but the average seems better elsewhere, overall.

To add to Ben Holt's statements, their foreign policy is completely mental. Why do they feel the need to meddle with others so much? And WW2 was a thing because of the atrocities committed, but since that, it's like they use that virtue to go places, when the goal is clearly politico-economical. And even then, they act like they were the sole winners of WW2, when tons of other countries helped as well.

And what to say of their super polarized political system? It needs a major reboot, to let more political parties rise to power and mix things up a bit.

So yeah, not a bad place to live at overall, but if I had to go to a first world country, I'd probably pick elsewhere first. It seems to me like there are better opportunities than in the so called land of opportunities.
 
D

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I really hate my country, like I legit want to move out.

And yes, American foreign policy is horrible. They just won't leave the Global South alone.

America is built on genocide and slavery. Today the police still treat people of color horribly.

People should be more furious at America and understand its brutal history. There are a ton of examples of America messing up non-Western countries.

Take Latin America for example. Even recently in 2019, they supported a coup that removed the democratically elected president Evo Morales. Now Bolivia is a fascist state.

I think we can make change in the correct direction, but it will take a long while.

Honestly, I'm conflicted. I want to move to another country like in Europe, but I don't want to leave behind the people that are fighting really hard for change right now.
 
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Sucumbio

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Provides an interesting comparison of countries. The US has fallen dramatically over the last few years while other countries have seen significant improvement. We're akin to developing nations (3rd world) in many categories.
 
D

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A thing that concerns me about MLs is that they will agree with any country just because they are "Anti-America".

For example, China. I don't see how China is socialist at all. They have billionaires and corporations that pander to them.

Also the Uyghur genocide is happening right now. And this image says a lot.
 
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Doc Monocle

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It is a noteworthy observation that many who call themselves patriotic say their country is great, but exactly what does this mean? For a moment, let us focus on definitions:

Country- A people (of which x is a member) subject to one government.

Government- The authoritative body of a country, which takes upon itself the duty of executing laws (and may or may not contain x).

Patriot- A resolute loyalist x of the country to which x considers themselves subject.

Great- Good; constructive; yielding a beneficial result (to x, y, AND z, all under one government).

If the reader would agree on these, then let us proceed to compose the meaning of the introductory statement.

We have an individual (x) who calls themselves a resolute loyalist of people (x,y, and z) who are good, constructive, and beneficial to themselves and each other and bound by a single, law-making body to which they consider themselves subject. This looks alright at a glance...

However, there is a problem: What if y and z were removed from the parentheses? Would the 'patriot' then cease calling it a good country? On the grand scale, does this patriot care enough if a random stranger (but fellow citizen) dies or is alienated, that they no longer call the country good? Realistically speaking, the answer is 'no,' so logically, the patriot x only considers their country good if it benefits x.

We may, therefore, conclude that as the world is truly, there can be no sincere patriot unless 'great' is used to mean 'beneficial to oneself.'
 
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