8 ms·

This would be a lot better if it were more realistic, it banks on you not being able to make smart decisions to ram the various factoids down your throat. It wo

by 0x12 15y ago

This would be a lot better if it were more realistic, it banks on you not being able to make smart decisions to ram the various factoids down your throat. It would be a much better experience if the basics were spread out over multiple months with the occasional clustering of events. This 'perfect storm' of trouble is just setting you up for failure, the deck is stacked against you much further than it is in real life. You are also not given the full picture up front, nor are you given the option on which services you subscribe to. Also, if you can't afford a mobile phone you probably shouldn't have one, and if your landlord does something illegal an alternative option is to tell him to go f*ck off rather than to pay or move out. Good luck evicting me if I'm up to date on payments and the contract stipulates terms that I've lived up to. That said, it's probably a useful tool to get people to put themselves in the shoes of someone that has it worse than they themselves do.

ljf 15y ago
When you are living on the edge, the perfect storm can come around far quicker and more often than you'd imagine.
- 0x12 15y ago
  - study loan: don't get one in a field where job prospects are bad, better to go do work instead - cell phone: don't get one if you can't afford it (ditto for a regular phone) - kids: if you can't afford them, use a condom (yes, that's harsh, but that is something that really beats my understanding, people already living on the edge that decide to have one, two or even more children) - in general: if you can't afford something, don't buy it. Your prior decisions will determine to a large extent whether or not you can survive on a very basic salary when hard(er) times hit. Getting a room-mate and sharing the cost of things that you are unable to afford by yourself are good tricks to get around some of the more practical limitations that a low wage job gives you. I used my low wage job (mailroom boy) to expand my knowledge about computers which eventually landed me a higher wage job. My typical meal back then consisted of plain macaroni with ketchup, because the rent took away 5/7ths of my income, and the electricity bill another 1/7th. That left me with a grand total of 100 'credits' to feed myself for a month. Not a whole lot. I made pretty sure that there were no kids, phone bills or debts to go with that, and I did whatever was within my means to cut short that phase of my life.
  - Jach 15y ago
    > - kids: if you can't afford them, use a condom (yes, that's harsh, but that is something that really beats my understanding, people already living on the edge that decide to have one, two or even more children) I totally agree. If you only make $9/hr, maybe you shouldn't have kids. If we ever get around to controlling reproduction in the US, income level seems like a great place to start to me. (The game also tried to make me feel like a bad parent because I 'let' my kid get teased for eating free lunch and 'risk my child going hungry'. Where's the "Eat your damn food and mock people who have to pay if they try to mock you" option? Also I didn't pay $15 for a field trip which forced them to stay at the school that day when I know kids at my elementary got their field trip fees waived.)
  - praptak 15y ago
    "kids: if you can't afford them, use a condom" It is totally possible to predict when you'll become poor and therefore decide not to have kids. It beats me why do people ever get poor when life is just a sequence of such obvious decisions.
    - 0x12 15y ago
      I'm talking about those situations where you are already poor and decide to have kids anyway.
      - dkersten 15y ago
        I personally know a number of people who are on social welfare and planning having a second or even third child. I find this is extremely irresponsible. They can barely afford the children they already have and want to get the state to pay for more? I'd much rather my taxes went to schools and hospitals and better public transport than for paying for these peoples stupid decisions. What kind of life will that child have? If you cannot afford it, do not have children. I can totally understand if you had the children before you, eg, lost your job or whatever. Things happen, situations change. The problem is the people who don't already have children. Also, if you cannot afford it, you need to be extra careful not to have an "accidental" pregnancy.
dkersten 15y ago
if your landlord does something illegal an alternative option is to tell him to go fck off rather than to pay or move out. Good luck evicting me if I'm up to date on payments and the contract stipulates terms that I've lived up to.* I have never ever experienced a landlord trying to raise my rent mere days after I moved in, like they seem to do in this game.
- _delirium 15y ago
  It's not uncommon if it's cheap housing that's only semi-legit to begin with. When I lived in Santa Cruz, I heard all sorts of this kind of shady behavior going on with sublets, which due to housing shortage was the only thing you could really get for <$1000.
  - hugh3 15y ago
    But what are they gonna do? They can't legally evict you under those circumstances, so just keep paying the originally-agreed rent.
    - _delirium 15y ago
      You might be able to prevail, yeah, but many people are a bit scared of finding themselves on the street, unable to find another apartment, so aren't willing to play hardball. With an unofficial sublet (no signed lease, etc.), landlords don't necessarily resort to proper court-supervised eviction proceedings; "eviction" can take the form of "change the locks and dump your stuff on the curb, and deny that you ever lived there", which probably rarely happens but seems to be a common worry of people renting irregularly with no paperwork. Then you'd have to find somewhere to live, and undertake the time/expense of suing. The best protection is probably a bit of a mutually assured destruction angle if the landlord is breaking the law through the irregular rental in the first place (in Santa Cruz many of the rentals are off the books because they aren't even legal rental units--DIY converted garages and attics and such). Not sure how big that "informal rental" section of the economy is, though, so maybe this isn't a common situation. I'd guess it's highest in NYC.
- 15y ago
scotty79 15y ago
Games are always rigged. Usually in favor of the player, this one is against. I think it supposed to illustrate this one month when problems cluster. I know a poor person who has 3 kids and car that falls apart. Some of the decisions she makes are strange. This game allowed me to take a peek at crazy world she's living.
brador 15y ago
If you had the education and forthought to read and comprehend a legal contract, you probably wouldn't be a low income worker. Don't look down on those who have difficulty in life, it's a roll of the dice with a little skill sprinkled on. I'd argue success is more due to your upbringing and factors outside your control than we give credit for.
- 0x12 15y ago
  > you probably wouldn't be a low income worker. I was one of those once, and I remember the time very well. The bigger problem underlying all this is that people are lured in to making very bad choices the downsides of which only become apparent once they're hooked. People that I employed were unable to do basic bookkeeping, balance their checkbooks, work out how much their various loans (for stuff they didn't strictly speaking need) were costing them etc. This is first and foremost an education problem, low wage people are created, they are not born that way. If you fail to educate a large portion of your populace to the point where they can do any of the above in their sleep then you will end up with people that are structurally in trouble in a country where wealth is potentially abundant. If you outsource all your labor to even lower wage countries then you end up creating an even larger problem for those lower on the totem pole and you make the rich much richer still. Problems like these don't just fall out of the sky, they systemic and single individuals have limited ability to influence the total picture, but they typically have a lot more control over their own life than they usually want to admit. I know some people that are currently downright poor, they both smoke like chimneys, and have health issues to boot because of that, which further cuts in to their ability to spend their money where it should be going. Beats me.
  - brador 15y ago
    No. You were a clever guy who fell on hard times. That's quite different from someone who is destined to be a low income worker for life due to early events they can never recover from, whether their own fault or not. That foundational education you received stays, whether good or bad. Having said that, yes it is an educational problem, but it's also the randomness of life events. Families breakdown without notice and without a childs control, lives end, jobs are lost, shit happens just like good things happen too. Some people get a string of bad events, others a string of good events. Don't look down on their lack of skills, you had the ability to comprehend them, they didn't, maybe you had access to facilities and the time to learn, maybe they didn't. In the end, who knows what the true reasons are, just do what you can to help a fellow out and enjoy your good fortune if that's how things turned out, but try not to judge and over simplify an exceedingly complex problem with one step solutions (although I agree, good education works).

by 0x12 15y ago

ljf 15y ago

When you are living on the edge, the perfect storm can come around far quicker and more often than you'd imagine.

0x12 15y ago
- study loan: don't get one in a field where job prospects are bad, better to go do work instead - cell phone: don't get one if you can't afford it (ditto for a regular phone) - kids: if you can't afford them, use a condom (yes, that's harsh, but that is something that really beats my understanding, people already living on the edge that decide to have one, two or even more children) - in general: if you can't afford something, don't buy it. Your prior decisions will determine to a large extent whether or not you can survive on a very basic salary when hard(er) times hit. Getting a room-mate and sharing the cost of things that you are unable to afford by yourself are good tricks to get around some of the more practical limitations that a low wage job gives you. I used my low wage job (mailroom boy) to expand my knowledge about computers which eventually landed me a higher wage job. My typical meal back then consisted of plain macaroni with ketchup, because the rent took away 5/7ths of my income, and the electricity bill another 1/7th. That left me with a grand total of 100 'credits' to feed myself for a month. Not a whole lot. I made pretty sure that there were no kids, phone bills or debts to go with that, and I did whatever was within my means to cut short that phase of my life.
- Jach 15y ago
  > - kids: if you can't afford them, use a condom (yes, that's harsh, but that is something that really beats my understanding, people already living on the edge that decide to have one, two or even more children) I totally agree. If you only make $9/hr, maybe you shouldn't have kids. If we ever get around to controlling reproduction in the US, income level seems like a great place to start to me. (The game also tried to make me feel like a bad parent because I 'let' my kid get teased for eating free lunch and 'risk my child going hungry'. Where's the "Eat your damn food and mock people who have to pay if they try to mock you" option? Also I didn't pay $15 for a field trip which forced them to stay at the school that day when I know kids at my elementary got their field trip fees waived.)
- praptak 15y ago
  "kids: if you can't afford them, use a condom" It is totally possible to predict when you'll become poor and therefore decide not to have kids. It beats me why do people ever get poor when life is just a sequence of such obvious decisions.
  - 0x12 15y ago
    I'm talking about those situations where you are already poor and decide to have kids anyway.
    - dkersten 15y ago
      I personally know a number of people who are on social welfare and planning having a second or even third child. I find this is extremely irresponsible. They can barely afford the children they already have and want to get the state to pay for more? I'd much rather my taxes went to schools and hospitals and better public transport than for paying for these peoples stupid decisions. What kind of life will that child have? If you cannot afford it, do not have children. I can totally understand if you had the children before you, eg, lost your job or whatever. Things happen, situations change. The problem is the people who don't already have children. Also, if you cannot afford it, you need to be extra careful not to have an "accidental" pregnancy.

dkersten 15y ago

if your landlord does something illegal an alternative option is to tell him to go fck off rather than to pay or move out. Good luck evicting me if I'm up to date on payments and the contract stipulates terms that I've lived up to.* I have never ever experienced a landlord trying to raise my rent mere days after I moved in, like they seem to do in this game.

_delirium 15y ago
It's not uncommon if it's cheap housing that's only semi-legit to begin with. When I lived in Santa Cruz, I heard all sorts of this kind of shady behavior going on with sublets, which due to housing shortage was the only thing you could really get for <$1000.
- hugh3 15y ago
  But what are they gonna do? They can't legally evict you under those circumstances, so just keep paying the originally-agreed rent.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    You might be able to prevail, yeah, but many people are a bit scared of finding themselves on the street, unable to find another apartment, so aren't willing to play hardball. With an unofficial sublet (no signed lease, etc.), landlords don't necessarily resort to proper court-supervised eviction proceedings; "eviction" can take the form of "change the locks and dump your stuff on the curb, and deny that you ever lived there", which probably rarely happens but seems to be a common worry of people renting irregularly with no paperwork. Then you'd have to find somewhere to live, and undertake the time/expense of suing. The best protection is probably a bit of a mutually assured destruction angle if the landlord is breaking the law through the irregular rental in the first place (in Santa Cruz many of the rentals are off the books because they aren't even legal rental units--DIY converted garages and attics and such). Not sure how big that "informal rental" section of the economy is, though, so maybe this isn't a common situation. I'd guess it's highest in NYC.
15y ago

scotty79 15y ago

Games are always rigged. Usually in favor of the player, this one is against. I think it supposed to illustrate this one month when problems cluster. I know a poor person who has 3 kids and car that falls apart. Some of the decisions she makes are strange. This game allowed me to take a peek at crazy world she's living.

brador 15y ago

If you had the education and forthought to read and comprehend a legal contract, you probably wouldn't be a low income worker. Don't look down on those who have difficulty in life, it's a roll of the dice with a little skill sprinkled on. I'd argue success is more due to your upbringing and factors outside your control than we give credit for.

0x12 15y ago
> you probably wouldn't be a low income worker. I was one of those once, and I remember the time very well. The bigger problem underlying all this is that people are lured in to making very bad choices the downsides of which only become apparent once they're hooked. People that I employed were unable to do basic bookkeeping, balance their checkbooks, work out how much their various loans (for stuff they didn't strictly speaking need) were costing them etc. This is first and foremost an education problem, low wage people are created, they are not born that way. If you fail to educate a large portion of your populace to the point where they can do any of the above in their sleep then you will end up with people that are structurally in trouble in a country where wealth is potentially abundant. If you outsource all your labor to even lower wage countries then you end up creating an even larger problem for those lower on the totem pole and you make the rich much richer still. Problems like these don't just fall out of the sky, they systemic and single individuals have limited ability to influence the total picture, but they typically have a lot more control over their own life than they usually want to admit. I know some people that are currently downright poor, they both smoke like chimneys, and have health issues to boot because of that, which further cuts in to their ability to spend their money where it should be going. Beats me.
- brador 15y ago
  No. You were a clever guy who fell on hard times. That's quite different from someone who is destined to be a low income worker for life due to early events they can never recover from, whether their own fault or not. That foundational education you received stays, whether good or bad. Having said that, yes it is an educational problem, but it's also the randomness of life events. Families breakdown without notice and without a childs control, lives end, jobs are lost, shit happens just like good things happen too. Some people get a string of bad events, others a string of good events. Don't look down on their lack of skills, you had the ability to comprehend them, they didn't, maybe you had access to facilities and the time to learn, maybe they didn't. In the end, who knows what the true reasons are, just do what you can to help a fellow out and enjoy your good fortune if that's how things turned out, but try not to judge and over simplify an exceedingly complex problem with one step solutions (although I agree, good education works).