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One if the worst parts of poverty is that it steals all of your time! All your time is devoted to just surviving, so you can never really better you situation.

One if the worst parts of poverty is that it steals all of your time! All your time is devoted to just surviving, so you can never really better you situation. You want to improve your situation? Not happening, you gotta work 60 hours this week so you cant study for that AWS cert or medical coding cert. Then the job you work is most likely dead end with no advancement or fake advancement. So you live pay check to paycheck with no hope of escape. Then if you dont have parents or luck... to help one catastrophe and youre doomed. And luck is not a strategy. You literally are trapped by capitalism. Then even if youre able to scrape together some time every week to better yourself... so many artificial walls have been erected to prevent smart hardworking people from entering professions. That includes jacking prices on universities and industries requiring university education for licenses instead of a test/apprenticeship. Things you used to be able to do without formal schooling: law, cpa, PE, teaching, hair dressing, and more. Basically massive friction has been added to smart hard working people trying to skill up instead of supporting people skilling up to their potential. Tech is one of the few actually meritocratic middle class industries left but is now getting watered down by the entire world entering the industry. As a side note, think of all the wasted potential that could be bettering the human race who are trapped in the cycle of poverty. There could be a Mozart out there whose parents can't afford a fucking keyboard.

corobo 3y ago
Amen to stealing time, especially if you get yourself into debt. The amount of hours I've spent on calls with the bank or filling out their damn budgets when I could have been spending the time working and earning.. I'd have probably been able to pay them off lol Never mind all the paperwork and appointments and journaling you have to do if you need to claim benefits. Luckily I managed to get freelancing off the ground in the 6 or so weeks I was waiting to see if they'd give me food money. One day I'll earn enough to get to £0, then imma start helping everyone else in this situation. Being poor fucking sucks.
- hasty_pudding 3y ago
  I don't know how you got into debt but a lot of people do it to survive. lol Student loan debt is massive simply people trying to better their skills to participate in the economy. Housing is massive debt people trying to get shelter. Just some types of debt. And big banks are at the top just profiting off of every single person trying to function in society. lol We used to be able to pay for university with a summer job. Used to be able to pay a house off in under a decade. Modern society has kind of turned humans into cattle to pay bank interest rates.
fwip 3y ago
Wage slavery is the reality for far too many Americans. The freedom to choose whether you're working at Starbucks, McDonald's or Amazon's warehouse doesn't matter much when all of them pay juuuust enough to make rent, as long as you let them treat you as an interchangeable, disposable cog. And just as an addendum, tech is more meritocratic than many fields, but even tech has long-standing issues with gender, race, and age discrimination. Whether it's a pipeline problem or not, it's clear that many things besides talent close people off from working in the field.
wins32767 3y ago
> You literally are trapped by capitalism. I'm not sure that capitalism is the creator of poverty. There have been poor throughout history and nearly all of them living in vastly worse material conditions than the poor in modern capitalist societies.
- NoGravitas 3y ago
  Every oppressive social and economic system has mechanisms to ensure that most people have to work to produce value they don't get to enjoy. Whether that's slavery, the estates of feudalism, or structural unemployment and low wages under capitalism. It's just that the system that OP is specifically trapped by is capitalism.
gristleous 3y ago
This is all just so true. I managed to get into law school while struggling and ended up dropping out the first time around because I worked too much. I made it through the second time, but was crushed by $100-$700 fees for random required things. For example, some test required access to special computers for $300, or some trip that you're 'really supposed to attend' but it's $250. They just expect you to have this cash on hand to go through the program. Obviously a gatekeeping method for the poorer students.
zackmorris 3y ago
What you said has been my lived experience since I graduated from college in 1999. I'm coming up on 25 years of living month to month, with nearly all of my hopes and dreams dashed by the necessity of having to pull the yoke in the workaday world. I was one of the gifted kids who probably should have worked at NASA, but nobody warned me that I'd grow up to be a people-pleaser due to ADHD symptoms. I didn't know how important it was to set boundaries to protect my mind and body, because as a geek, I didn't value my own time and had no real need of money if I could just be left alone. But see, that's the thing: poor people can't get left alone. Borrowing money makes one a slave. Working as a wage slave at a low-paying job makes one a slave. Not having the money to afford to live alone, much less date or travel or do middle class things - destroys mental health and makes one a slave. Despite periodic financial stability and healthy relationships, I know deep down that I've mostly lived as a slave. The big epiphany came for me during the pandemic. I hit such a rock-bottom low after developing food sensitivities and chronic fatigue from stress that rendered me unable to work for 6 months in 2019, that I left logic-based reality when COVID hit in 2020. I had to shift laterally through meditation into a neighboring reality where magic returned (where we are now at the time of this writing), in order for my soul to want to continue in this incarnation. TikTok was the gateway drug to Alan Watts, Terence McKenna and Dolores Cannon (among a great many others). Now I view Big Tech as a clear and present danger to world peace, especially with the arrival of AI. All creative work will lose its value within 5 years. Even the security of our programming jobs isn't something that can be counted on, as AI will perform better than us at all problem solving within 10 years. Nearly all projections for environmental health, wealth inequality, the rise of authoritarianism, etc etc etc predict collapse between 2040 and 2050. We're either going to defeat the status quo or all be enslaved. The fix is so easy and obvious that most people can't see it: tax the uber rich. Start undoing all of the trickle-down legislation passed since Reagan and put the new tax revenue towards automating the work that slaves must perform to acquire the resources to survive. Specifically: fund universal healthcare, affordable college, low-cost housing/staple foods/natural monopolies like internet service, and most importantly - UBI. Unfortunately about half of thought leaders have either never been poor, or been poor but arrived at a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps worldview through survivorship bias (why billionaires usually subscribe to right-wing ideology). A vanishingly small number of people go on a healing and growth journey, eventually experiencing a spiritual awakening and arriving at a leftist or trans-political worldview based on the dignity of all living things, valuing conscious awareness most of all. I've let go of expectation that things will get better through practical application of logic, as it's probably too late for that. But I've put conscious effort into manifestation and witnessed how outer reality improves as inner reality heals. Now I lead a life of service, often sacrificing what might have been in this life to improve the lives of others, in recognition that I may be them in my next life, because we are all one. As above, so below. And so it is. Edit: I forgot to make my point: it only takes 1% of the population waking up to cause a shift towards world peace. That's why the wealthiest 1% wield ego-based tools like fintech to suppress awakening and build empire. But the rise of the dark side is always balanced by the rise of the light side through natural law. So I believe that the meekest among us - the poor, the infirm, the light workers - are our best hope for healing and eventual peace as we transition into the New Age.

corobo 3y ago

Amen to stealing time, especially if you get yourself into debt. The amount of hours I've spent on calls with the bank or filling out their damn budgets when I could have been spending the time working and earning.. I'd have probably been able to pay them off lol Never mind all the paperwork and appointments and journaling you have to do if you need to claim benefits. Luckily I managed to get freelancing off the ground in the 6 or so weeks I was waiting to see if they'd give me food money. One day I'll earn enough to get to £0, then imma start helping everyone else in this situation. Being poor fucking sucks.

hasty_pudding 3y ago
I don't know how you got into debt but a lot of people do it to survive. lol Student loan debt is massive simply people trying to better their skills to participate in the economy. Housing is massive debt people trying to get shelter. Just some types of debt. And big banks are at the top just profiting off of every single person trying to function in society. lol We used to be able to pay for university with a summer job. Used to be able to pay a house off in under a decade. Modern society has kind of turned humans into cattle to pay bank interest rates.

fwip 3y ago

Wage slavery is the reality for far too many Americans. The freedom to choose whether you're working at Starbucks, McDonald's or Amazon's warehouse doesn't matter much when all of them pay juuuust enough to make rent, as long as you let them treat you as an interchangeable, disposable cog. And just as an addendum, tech is more meritocratic than many fields, but even tech has long-standing issues with gender, race, and age discrimination. Whether it's a pipeline problem or not, it's clear that many things besides talent close people off from working in the field.

wins32767 3y ago

> You literally are trapped by capitalism. I'm not sure that capitalism is the creator of poverty. There have been poor throughout history and nearly all of them living in vastly worse material conditions than the poor in modern capitalist societies.

NoGravitas 3y ago
Every oppressive social and economic system has mechanisms to ensure that most people have to work to produce value they don't get to enjoy. Whether that's slavery, the estates of feudalism, or structural unemployment and low wages under capitalism. It's just that the system that OP is specifically trapped by is capitalism.

gristleous 3y ago

This is all just so true. I managed to get into law school while struggling and ended up dropping out the first time around because I worked too much. I made it through the second time, but was crushed by $100-$700 fees for random required things. For example, some test required access to special computers for $300, or some trip that you're 'really supposed to attend' but it's $250. They just expect you to have this cash on hand to go through the program. Obviously a gatekeeping method for the poorer students.

zackmorris 3y ago

What you said has been my lived experience since I graduated from college in 1999. I'm coming up on 25 years of living month to month, with nearly all of my hopes and dreams dashed by the necessity of having to pull the yoke in the workaday world. I was one of the gifted kids who probably should have worked at NASA, but nobody warned me that I'd grow up to be a people-pleaser due to ADHD symptoms. I didn't know how important it was to set boundaries to protect my mind and body, because as a geek, I didn't value my own time and had no real need of money if I could just be left alone. But see, that's the thing: poor people can't get left alone. Borrowing money makes one a slave. Working as a wage slave at a low-paying job makes one a slave. Not having the money to afford to live alone, much less date or travel or do middle class things - destroys mental health and makes one a slave. Despite periodic financial stability and healthy relationships, I know deep down that I've mostly lived as a slave. The big epiphany came for me during the pandemic. I hit such a rock-bottom low after developing food sensitivities and chronic fatigue from stress that rendered me unable to work for 6 months in 2019, that I left logic-based reality when COVID hit in 2020. I had to shift laterally through meditation into a neighboring reality where magic returned (where we are now at the time of this writing), in order for my soul to want to continue in this incarnation. TikTok was the gateway drug to Alan Watts, Terence McKenna and Dolores Cannon (among a great many others). Now I view Big Tech as a clear and present danger to world peace, especially with the arrival of AI. All creative work will lose its value within 5 years. Even the security of our programming jobs isn't something that can be counted on, as AI will perform better than us at all problem solving within 10 years. Nearly all projections for environmental health, wealth inequality, the rise of authoritarianism, etc etc etc predict collapse between 2040 and 2050. We're either going to defeat the status quo or all be enslaved. The fix is so easy and obvious that most people can't see it: tax the uber rich. Start undoing all of the trickle-down legislation passed since Reagan and put the new tax revenue towards automating the work that slaves must perform to acquire the resources to survive. Specifically: fund universal healthcare, affordable college, low-cost housing/staple foods/natural monopolies like internet service, and most importantly - UBI. Unfortunately about half of thought leaders have either never been poor, or been poor but arrived at a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps worldview through survivorship bias (why billionaires usually subscribe to right-wing ideology). A vanishingly small number of people go on a healing and growth journey, eventually experiencing a spiritual awakening and arriving at a leftist or trans-political worldview based on the dignity of all living things, valuing conscious awareness most of all. I've let go of expectation that things will get better through practical application of logic, as it's probably too late for that. But I've put conscious effort into manifestation and witnessed how outer reality improves as inner reality heals. Now I lead a life of service, often sacrificing what might have been in this life to improve the lives of others, in recognition that I may be them in my next life, because we are all one. As above, so below. And so it is. Edit: I forgot to make my point: it only takes 1% of the population waking up to cause a shift towards world peace. That's why the wealthiest 1% wield ego-based tools like fintech to suppress awakening and build empire. But the rise of the dark side is always balanced by the rise of the light side through natural law. So I believe that the meekest among us - the poor, the infirm, the light workers - are our best hope for healing and eventual peace as we transition into the New Age.