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You can pick on examples, and have, without challenging the central point that young people are correctly recognizing the default assumptions of how American li

You can pick on examples, and have, without challenging the central point that young people are correctly recognizing the default assumptions of how American lives go as, A, a scam set up to funnel money to people who already have far too much, and B, so utterly rigged that even if that was what you wanted to do, it's next to impossible even to make a decent start. They see it and they're calling bullshit, as yet not in a very coordinated way, but calling bullshit still.

scarface74 6y ago
If that’s true, there would be some type of longitudinal evidence. I suspect that this is like the “no one use Facebook anymore” meme where statistics show otherwise. Are you working in a technology related field? If so, probably a number of the 70-80% of the people who make less than you do probably think you make too much.
- adammunich 6y ago
  Go out on the street and talk to some young folks in Oakland, Richmond, Los Angeles... You won't find their story in some academic journal or news article.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    I could read posts on r/cscareerquestions where the attitude is “I must work for a FAANG or my life is over” and come to a completely different conclusion.
    - throwanem 6y ago
      Yeah, no, I get that. Student debt doesn't care how much you're making; if you're making anything, it belongs to a bank before it belongs to you. If that doesn't leave you enough to live on, the bank doesn't give a shit. And it was already hard to make a start without taking on decades of debt when I did it twenty years ago. It hasn't gotten easier in the interim. I mean, I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people, and here's pretty much where I give up trying. But in a time when more and more people are saying that all the old advice on how to build a good life in America has stopped working and they can find nothing left for them but to barely scrape by or just outright fail entirely, you should maybe consider the possibility that they are not wrong about that. You probably won't. But you should.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        I’m not arguing from a value judgment stance. I’m saying your anecdotal experience doesn’t jibe with reality that today’s youth is less materialistic or focus on consumerism. BTW, I graduated 24 years ago from a state college and stayed at home. My total college cost was less than $10 grand. Of course my living cost were subsidized. But how many students think they are too good to go to a local state school or go to a two year program locally and then transfer? The same school I went to is now about $7K year including books. If you live in the state and graduate with at least a 3.0, that costs goes down by 80% automatically because you qualify for a state (lottery) sponsored scholarship. Yes a better college can get you more connections. But if I could get noticed in the mid 90s by uploading my own freeware via ftp to the info-Mac archives, how hard would it be today?
        throwanem 6y ago
        I don't know anything about any of that; I never went to college, and made my start with what was effectively an apprenticeship and a hell of a lot of good fortune. I don't know anything about what it's like to be young and trying to make a start today, either, because I haven't done it. Neither have you. So I don't really see much reason to weight your totally unsupported, entirely anecdotal just-so story, about how all the kids today want is to get rich in five minutes, more heavily than I weight the things people actually living in that situation say about what it's like. They at least have a firsthand perspective to speak from, which is more than what you do. I don't know. Maybe spend less time on Reddit? Or consider that like, it's not the 90s any more and you need to market the hell out of yourself to get noticed from scratch at all? I mean, my first post-apprenticeship job I got 100% thanks to connections of the sort that a random kid at a random state or community school would never get the chance to make. Since then I've leaned on third-party recruiters which, again, how do you even do that if you aren't in a city big enough to have a real industry scene? And how do you afford to live in a city like that, these days, if you aren't already making tech money? The ladder I climbed isn't there any more. I know you want to believe the ladder you climbed still is. But have you checked any time lately?
        6y ago
- throwanem 6y ago
  Is this the part where I'm supposed to feel some ethereal kinship with Jeff Bezos and his literal dragon's hoard, because of some theoretical sense in which we work in the same industry? I mean, we really don't, though! I'm in the tech industry, he's in the being a billionaire industry. I see no reason to believe that people wanting to take away his dragon's hoard should make me fear for my salary. And if it does - well, what the hell? Those people you cite are correct. I do make too much, and so do you. Even an ex-tech-industry billionaire will tell you that, or did you think it was by accident that people feel the need to worry their jobs will get exported to India or somewhere? I know I'm not going to make any friends talking about a salary bubble in tech, but we all know - or we better know - there is one, and sooner or later something is going to pop it.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    Is this the part where I'm supposed to feel some ethereal kinship with Jeff Bezos and his literal dragon's hoard, because of some theoretical sense in which we work in the same industry? Just like becoming a billionaire seems unattainable to you, someone living in the MiddleOfNowhere Omaha probably doesn’t see a way to make $200K in a year that a CS grad working on the west coast can obtain within two years. When they are talking about “taxing the rich”, it’s going to come as a surprise to a lot of the techie liberals that “they” are talking about them and not just the billionaires.
    - throwanem 6y ago
      What a shame for those who haven't been paying attention, then. It seems like there's an implicit claim here, with which you expect me to implicitly agree, that such taxation would be unjust. The thing is that I don't agree. If you'd like me to, you need to convince me. As long as you don't, I'm going to keep calling out that assumption for what it is, and asking how you justify it.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        I’m not making a value judgement either way. Yes I now work for $BigTech and make somewhere around the salary of an SDE2. But I work remotely in the burbs of a relatively low cost of living area. I can take a hit. But how will people feel making the same salary and living on the west coast? A lot of them think they are “barely middle class” because they can’t afford to send Timmy to a private school, have the house, max out their 401K and save for their son to go to a top ten college?

scarface74 6y ago

If that’s true, there would be some type of longitudinal evidence. I suspect that this is like the “no one use Facebook anymore” meme where statistics show otherwise. Are you working in a technology related field? If so, probably a number of the 70-80% of the people who make less than you do probably think you make too much.

adammunich 6y ago
Go out on the street and talk to some young folks in Oakland, Richmond, Los Angeles... You won't find their story in some academic journal or news article.
- scarface74 6y ago
  I could read posts on r/cscareerquestions where the attitude is “I must work for a FAANG or my life is over” and come to a completely different conclusion.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    Yeah, no, I get that. Student debt doesn't care how much you're making; if you're making anything, it belongs to a bank before it belongs to you. If that doesn't leave you enough to live on, the bank doesn't give a shit. And it was already hard to make a start without taking on decades of debt when I did it twenty years ago. It hasn't gotten easier in the interim. I mean, I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people, and here's pretty much where I give up trying. But in a time when more and more people are saying that all the old advice on how to build a good life in America has stopped working and they can find nothing left for them but to barely scrape by or just outright fail entirely, you should maybe consider the possibility that they are not wrong about that. You probably won't. But you should.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      I’m not arguing from a value judgment stance. I’m saying your anecdotal experience doesn’t jibe with reality that today’s youth is less materialistic or focus on consumerism. BTW, I graduated 24 years ago from a state college and stayed at home. My total college cost was less than $10 grand. Of course my living cost were subsidized. But how many students think they are too good to go to a local state school or go to a two year program locally and then transfer? The same school I went to is now about $7K year including books. If you live in the state and graduate with at least a 3.0, that costs goes down by 80% automatically because you qualify for a state (lottery) sponsored scholarship. Yes a better college can get you more connections. But if I could get noticed in the mid 90s by uploading my own freeware via ftp to the info-Mac archives, how hard would it be today?
      - throwanem 6y ago
        I don't know anything about any of that; I never went to college, and made my start with what was effectively an apprenticeship and a hell of a lot of good fortune. I don't know anything about what it's like to be young and trying to make a start today, either, because I haven't done it. Neither have you. So I don't really see much reason to weight your totally unsupported, entirely anecdotal just-so story, about how all the kids today want is to get rich in five minutes, more heavily than I weight the things people actually living in that situation say about what it's like. They at least have a firsthand perspective to speak from, which is more than what you do. I don't know. Maybe spend less time on Reddit? Or consider that like, it's not the 90s any more and you need to market the hell out of yourself to get noticed from scratch at all? I mean, my first post-apprenticeship job I got 100% thanks to connections of the sort that a random kid at a random state or community school would never get the chance to make. Since then I've leaned on third-party recruiters which, again, how do you even do that if you aren't in a city big enough to have a real industry scene? And how do you afford to live in a city like that, these days, if you aren't already making tech money? The ladder I climbed isn't there any more. I know you want to believe the ladder you climbed still is. But have you checked any time lately?
        6y ago
throwanem 6y ago
Is this the part where I'm supposed to feel some ethereal kinship with Jeff Bezos and his literal dragon's hoard, because of some theoretical sense in which we work in the same industry? I mean, we really don't, though! I'm in the tech industry, he's in the being a billionaire industry. I see no reason to believe that people wanting to take away his dragon's hoard should make me fear for my salary. And if it does - well, what the hell? Those people you cite are correct. I do make too much, and so do you. Even an ex-tech-industry billionaire will tell you that, or did you think it was by accident that people feel the need to worry their jobs will get exported to India or somewhere? I know I'm not going to make any friends talking about a salary bubble in tech, but we all know - or we better know - there is one, and sooner or later something is going to pop it.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Is this the part where I'm supposed to feel some ethereal kinship with Jeff Bezos and his literal dragon's hoard, because of some theoretical sense in which we work in the same industry? Just like becoming a billionaire seems unattainable to you, someone living in the MiddleOfNowhere Omaha probably doesn’t see a way to make $200K in a year that a CS grad working on the west coast can obtain within two years. When they are talking about “taxing the rich”, it’s going to come as a surprise to a lot of the techie liberals that “they” are talking about them and not just the billionaires.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    What a shame for those who haven't been paying attention, then. It seems like there's an implicit claim here, with which you expect me to implicitly agree, that such taxation would be unjust. The thing is that I don't agree. If you'd like me to, you need to convince me. As long as you don't, I'm going to keep calling out that assumption for what it is, and asking how you justify it.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      I’m not making a value judgement either way. Yes I now work for $BigTech and make somewhere around the salary of an SDE2. But I work remotely in the burbs of a relatively low cost of living area. I can take a hit. But how will people feel making the same salary and living on the west coast? A lot of them think they are “barely middle class” because they can’t afford to send Timmy to a private school, have the house, max out their 401K and save for their son to go to a top ten college?