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You don't need money to have a happy and interesting life-- if you're willing to forgo having a family, quite likely for good. Then schools and spouses and maki
by michaelochurch 13y ago
You don't need money to have a happy and interesting life-- if you're willing to forgo having a family, quite likely for good. Then schools and spouses and making sure your kids get to make decisions instead of being affected by them... all of those responsibilities go away.
The shitty thing about it is that it's too competitive, these days, for people who decide to slum it in their 20s to get back on the career track. The people who think they can fuck around while living on a shoestring are going to face horrendous age discrimination when they decide that the career thing is actually important.
In a morally decent society, people wouldn't be shut out of having a family (properly, which means giving your kids the chance, should they have the talent, of being owners rather than mid-grade meat for society to devour and destroy) based on decisions they made at 22-23. But we don't live in a morally decent society, so scratch that line of thought.
- null_ptr 13y agoSo unless you're already an owner yourself, you'd better hurry up to be mid-grade meat lest your children will surely become mid-grade meat themselves. That's quite a decision for a 22 year old.
- a8da6b0c91d 13y ago> mid-grade meat This is laughable urban yuppie status anxiety stuff, which I guess is kind of michaelochurch's schtick. There is life outside of the Bay Area, ya know. As it stands it's practically advantageous to be broke and have kids. There are a million programs and subsidies and scholarships to milk. You pay virtually no taxes. It's the middle class that gets milked.
- ForHackernews 13y agoYeah, being so broke you don't pay taxes is awesome! Lucky duckies![1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Ducky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Ducky
- aestra 13y agoBelieve it or not, many of those programs childcare programs are for anybody regardless of income. Yeah, I'm speaking as someone who has gone to MANY of them. We had one that was completely free for anyone who lived in the county and there was tons of middle class people who lived in the county, probably more middle class than poor people. The well off don't want to send their kids there, they want to spend time on a waiting list to send their kids to an expensive but "good" childcare place. Same as they want them to go to a "good" school, so they spend twice as much in housing.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> As it stands it's practically advantageous to be broke and have kids. There are a million programs and subsidies and scholarships to milk. Most of those programs don't make up, even in their domain, for not having moderate income, not to mention that several of them are either time limited (both in consecutive terms and lifetime terms), or require you to be actively seeking improvement in your financial situation, or both.
- username223 13y ago> if you're willing to forgo having a family, quite likely for good. Kids you have now will die around 2100 or so. Even if we avoid nuclear annihilation, as seems increasingly likely, the world will be a pretty awful place by then.
- mitochondrion 13y agoBarring total catastrophe, I simply don't see how a relatively stable population with incredibly advanced automating technology and biotechnology would be incapable of "fixing" the world.
- username223 13y agoA small minority will be perfectly capable of "fixing" their bit with multi-billion-dollar storm surge protection, desalination, etc. Given that the rest of humanity will be motivated by the threat of death, I wouldn't rule out total catastrophe. There are levels of survival you should not be willing to accept.
- Natsu 13y agoI'd worry more about the problems we can't see coming than the ones we can, personally.
- judk 13y agoNot everyone is barring total catastrophe.
- gfodor 13y agothat's the spirit
- herokusaki 13y agoYou state a controversial opinion (as evidenced by the responses) that the world will be a pretty awful place by 2100 as fact. Can you justify it?
- parasight 13y agoI wonder how someone really believing this can go on being motivated to do anything.
- a8da6b0c91d 13y agoBroke people have kids that turn out fine all the time.
- judk 13y agoAlso, broke people have kids who have miserable lives all the time.
- markyc 13y agoas do rich people
- jessedhillon 13y agoStatistics suggest the poor kids will be worse off, and that on average, they're starting with a setback they won't ever recover from.
- saalweachter 13y ago1.2% of households in the US (463,000 households) had "very low food security" for both adults and children in the household in 2012. That is to say, some children went hungry at some point during the year. (In a far larger number of households, adults were able to shield children successfully while going hungry themselves.) Missing meals as a child is correlated with poor outcomes later in life.
- knieveltech 13y agoWith all possible respect, pffffft. I've seen 75 year old men get hired for entry-to-mid-level network administration gigs. Age discrimination? Get away from the Valley.