2 ms·

>I do not understand Well, that's an easy fix. Ask your employer to cut your salary to ~$20k-$30k. Tell them that you're going to be in the office at 7 on-the-

by yterdy 4y ago

>I do not understand Well, that's an easy fix. Ask your employer to cut your salary to ~$20k-$30k. Tell them that you're going to be in the office at 7 on-the-dot, and he can write you up if you're 5 minutes early or late; you're going to be there for 8-10 hours, w/ a 30-minute lunch and two 15-minute breaks (again, write-ups for taking even a minute longer than alotted). Sell your car, get a used one (financed, of course), model year before 2012, 80k miles minimum; give the profit away (give away any savings you have, too; you can't access any of your retirement or investment accounts, either). Insist that any credit you have access to be cut severely and the rates jacked up. Sell anything you own other than your car that's worth more than $2k, give the money away. You are also now limited to going 20-30 minutes out of your way to the "good" grocery store, since you are moving to a food desert. Your mattress now comes in a box from Wal-Mart; get rid of any sleep or wake-up aids other than your cell phone. Hard mode: separate from your spouse, if you have one, and adopt as many kids as you need to get to 2 or 3. People are not making poor individual choices. They are, collectively, subject to perverse incentives that are imposed by a regulatory-industrial complex that profits from the ill health they develop when behaving as might be expected of any normal human being of the past two centuries. Thank you for being frustrated at the state of the world; it means that you recognize that there are improvements to be made. First step: stop blaming the wrong people.

ryandrake 4y ago
I don't see how any of that stops someone from "making stir fry with chicken breast/thighs, frozen veggies, and rice" as OP put it. Maybe the chicken is the most expensive part of that. What does your retirement account or mattress have to do with taking a few minutes to cook some veggies and rice?
- yterdy 4y ago
  Because it's not "just a few minutes". It's the time to learn how to make it well; it's the cooking equipment to make it well, consistently; it's the navigation of an ever-shifting retail environment with way too much choice and featuring the kind of sensory input meant to overload your decision-making abilities, just to get the ingredients; it's the way that poor sleep (mattress) also affects those decisions; it's the way that financial precarity means juggling concerns of the now with concerns of the future (retirement), and how that kind of anxiety also short-circuits your decision-making; it's knowing that eating "chicken and frozen veggies and rice" for every meal is going to leave you malnourished in short order, too, but that because the internet rando who's more focused on balancing a silver spoon on his nose than the points of discussion at hand will ALWAYS find fault in what you do (if he cares at all), maybe throwing all of that stress out the window and ordering Subway is the right call after all. Your inability to "see" doesn't preclude what I talked about from being there and material and true. And they are. And for the record, I cook, but I only have time to because I'm unemployed.
throwawayfear 4y ago
So much of what you described happens because people intentionally make those bad decisions. That being said, you can still feed yourself well in the above scenario. What the parent described is nutritious and not expensive, and people get food stamps to cover food if they cannot pay for it. The actual problem is that people refuse discipline and don’t want to give up their vices and bad decisions. People hide behind blaming large ephemeral “complexes” and industries because they want to hide from their own irresponsibility and because some just want to have more control over other people including over other people who don’t choose bad decisions.
- yterdy 4y ago
  Ironically, this kind of post is your own attempt to hide from your responsibility as a member of a community and society that is setting up the wrong structures and incentives for people to naturally make the right decisions.

by yterdy 4y ago

ryandrake 4y ago

I don't see how any of that stops someone from "making stir fry with chicken breast/thighs, frozen veggies, and rice" as OP put it. Maybe the chicken is the most expensive part of that. What does your retirement account or mattress have to do with taking a few minutes to cook some veggies and rice?

yterdy 4y ago
Because it's not "just a few minutes". It's the time to learn how to make it well; it's the cooking equipment to make it well, consistently; it's the navigation of an ever-shifting retail environment with way too much choice and featuring the kind of sensory input meant to overload your decision-making abilities, just to get the ingredients; it's the way that poor sleep (mattress) also affects those decisions; it's the way that financial precarity means juggling concerns of the now with concerns of the future (retirement), and how that kind of anxiety also short-circuits your decision-making; it's knowing that eating "chicken and frozen veggies and rice" for every meal is going to leave you malnourished in short order, too, but that because the internet rando who's more focused on balancing a silver spoon on his nose than the points of discussion at hand will ALWAYS find fault in what you do (if he cares at all), maybe throwing all of that stress out the window and ordering Subway is the right call after all. Your inability to "see" doesn't preclude what I talked about from being there and material and true. And they are. And for the record, I cook, but I only have time to because I'm unemployed.

throwawayfear 4y ago

So much of what you described happens because people intentionally make those bad decisions. That being said, you can still feed yourself well in the above scenario. What the parent described is nutritious and not expensive, and people get food stamps to cover food if they cannot pay for it. The actual problem is that people refuse discipline and don’t want to give up their vices and bad decisions. People hide behind blaming large ephemeral “complexes” and industries because they want to hide from their own irresponsibility and because some just want to have more control over other people including over other people who don’t choose bad decisions.

yterdy 4y ago
Ironically, this kind of post is your own attempt to hide from your responsibility as a member of a community and society that is setting up the wrong structures and incentives for people to naturally make the right decisions.