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This certainly seems a lot better than e.g. the Uber simulator which came out a while back. As I recall that one, it was trying to argue that driving for Uber

This certainly seems a lot better than e.g. the Uber simulator which came out a while back. As I recall that one, it was trying to argue that driving for Uber was unsustainable, but the fundamental position was absurd. It started you off living in a not-cheap town with low Uber demand, buying a not-cheap car solely so you could drive for Uber, and pretended that was a fundamental indictment of the business. Nothing here strikes me as that kind of flawed. The details might be arguable, but the broad strokes are completely reasonable. Honestly I'm a bit disturbed to see people leap to "oh, this doesn't count, credit card debt means I lived beyond my means!" Partly because "I screwed up in the past and want to work hard to make up for it" is something a healthy society makes possible, but more urgently because it makes me worry people have no idea how common issues like "oh, I have a $7,000 hospital bill after insurance" really are.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>but the broad strokes are completely reasonable. "completely reasonable" is one of the last ways I'd describe broad strokes that do not approximate the average or median case. All the bad stuff that happens in a year or three happens within a month in this simulation. Certain good options (if my washer is broke I'm doing my laundry in the sink thank you) are unavailable or neutered (the whole point of renting in BFE is the low cost of living but groceries are still city prices). If you're making $1k/mo your healthcare is free (thanks Obama, no really). Etc. etc. The picture being painted here is definitely not quite reality. I have relatives who's income is on the order of the simulation. Life generally trends upward for them so long as they don't make particularly dumb decisions.
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  Hm, this encouraged me to run some more playthroughs, and I want to take back some of my praise. I had initially gone for a longish commute to save money, but now that I look harder at living close (and find out that the car is mandatory regardless), the savings are bizarrely low. Presumably the character lives in a smallish town since parking a car isn't expensive, but living distant to work isn't a major savings? Other options I hadn't picked initially were shockingly bad: applying for a scholarship for the student gifted program got me a job strike, because the player (unlike the character) doesn't get to find out that it'll require an unapproved absence from work until after the fact! And then I tried to look up some stats on the 2011 ACA rules. You're right: even at $18,000 (40 hr/week, 52 weeks/year pre-tax at the warehouse job) I can't reconcile the options listed. In Medicaid-expansion states the plans should be vastly cheaper, and even in those that declined it the mandatory coverage fee should be absent or waived. For that matter, the lack of an offer to buy paired health insurance (mandatory to offer under the ACA) is a pretty manipulative thing to pair with a major dental bill. It looks like I got substantially lucky with my initial choices. I understand that the game is trying to show a typical case, not an ideal one, and that being poor can mean a lot of unexpected expenses and setbacks. But things like "oh, surprise, that option actually meant taking off work without permission!" don't represent the difficulties of poverty, they represent the difficulties of a game made to punish sensible-looking choices.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

>but the broad strokes are completely reasonable. "completely reasonable" is one of the last ways I'd describe broad strokes that do not approximate the average or median case. All the bad stuff that happens in a year or three happens within a month in this simulation. Certain good options (if my washer is broke I'm doing my laundry in the sink thank you) are unavailable or neutered (the whole point of renting in BFE is the low cost of living but groceries are still city prices). If you're making $1k/mo your healthcare is free (thanks Obama, no really). Etc. etc. The picture being painted here is definitely not quite reality. I have relatives who's income is on the order of the simulation. Life generally trends upward for them so long as they don't make particularly dumb decisions.

Bartweiss 8y ago
Hm, this encouraged me to run some more playthroughs, and I want to take back some of my praise. I had initially gone for a longish commute to save money, but now that I look harder at living close (and find out that the car is mandatory regardless), the savings are bizarrely low. Presumably the character lives in a smallish town since parking a car isn't expensive, but living distant to work isn't a major savings? Other options I hadn't picked initially were shockingly bad: applying for a scholarship for the student gifted program got me a job strike, because the player (unlike the character) doesn't get to find out that it'll require an unapproved absence from work until after the fact! And then I tried to look up some stats on the 2011 ACA rules. You're right: even at $18,000 (40 hr/week, 52 weeks/year pre-tax at the warehouse job) I can't reconcile the options listed. In Medicaid-expansion states the plans should be vastly cheaper, and even in those that declined it the mandatory coverage fee should be absent or waived. For that matter, the lack of an offer to buy paired health insurance (mandatory to offer under the ACA) is a pretty manipulative thing to pair with a major dental bill. It looks like I got substantially lucky with my initial choices. I understand that the game is trying to show a typical case, not an ideal one, and that being poor can mean a lot of unexpected expenses and setbacks. But things like "oh, surprise, that option actually meant taking off work without permission!" don't represent the difficulties of poverty, they represent the difficulties of a game made to punish sensible-looking choices.