Is America Really That Bad?
HTTP_404_NotFound @ xtremeownage @lemmyonline.com Posts 16Comments 353Joined 2 yr. ago
HTTP_404_NotFound @ xtremeownage @lemmyonline.com
Posts
16
Comments
353
Joined
2 yr. ago
Yup.
Suppose I am the youngest boomer ever.
Nearly a half of a century off too.
But, in either case, everyone has the opportunity to apply themselves, and seek out a better life. Can blame others, or bash on me for being a "boomer". But, in the end, the only one who can improve you, is you.
If, universal basic income became a thing, poor people are still going to be poor. The price of milk is just going to go up to compensate for inflation, and you wouldn't be much better off.
The same thing that happened when they made shipping nicotine through the mail illegal.
I stock up on a shitload of pure caffeine/nicotine, and store it.
Either that, or I start extracting it from other commonly available foods... (caffeine is present in quite a few foods naturally. )
Or, finally.... there would then just become a black market for caffeine.
The same stuff which happened during the prohibition period many years ago.
No. it's not that bad.
I grew up poor, without many opportunities. No free ride, college etc. I grew up in a small town, without much going on.
I was able to work hard, put myself through college, buy a house, and raise a family on my single income, and live comfortably. I have medical coverage, we have new-ish vehicles.
That being said, the opportunity is there. But, it is NOT given to you. You do have to work for it.
But, again, nothing has been "given" to me. I didn't have the advantage of having rich parents, or large inheritances (or- well, ANY inheritances). I didn't have a family member give me a 4,000sq-ft house they purchased in 1952, for 1,200$.
Every single thing I own, I have worked for.
Now, there are a few sides to this argument-
There are a lot of people who don't want to work. They see someone who is doing financially well, and believe they have some claim to someone else's fortune. I do not agree with this.
On the other side, we don't have universal healthcare. This is a touchy subject.
I do believe we need it, but, HOW we get that, is a different story.
Our government has proven time and time again, if you give them a simple task, they will fuck it up, royally, and hemorrhage money. Our medical system as a whole, is completely fucked. It's not the doctors getting rich. Its the damn insurance companies, and all of the bureaucracy and bullshit involved. Granted, doctors aren't living on sticks. But, do remember- they literally spent OVER two decades of their life in school, to learn how to be a doctor. Its expected they should have a salary greater then someone who works at your local fast food place.
I realize, lots of people will disagree with my post. And- for that, I don't give a shit. If you don't want to be poor, then take control over your life. Identify an in-demand profession, which has good compensation, and work for it. Quit blaming everyone else due to you working at McDonalds because your liberal arts degree, isn't marketable.
Also- OP- lots of the people you talk to on social media, are statistically younger, in the 20s, and still trying to figure out how to live life.
Edit- Also, one more thing. Drama sells news. News outlets are only going to show news, which people want to watch. People don't tune into the news to watch good things happening. They want to see the bad. As such, news and social media can give inaccurate vision of how things actually are. (Unless you live in Chicago or NYC. Then- it's actually even worse than the news shows)
I think I will work on setting it up again tomm.
I miss having a terminal window open with my irc client.
I'll just have to go re-remember how to setup federation, linked instances, and all of that jazz....
I feel like I am going to need to dig my old tmux/screen setup out, and my irssi terminal configurations.
irssi
Cloudflare recently added that in the last year or so. Very nice features. In the past, I ended up using amazon SES to replicate that functionality.
You know, that got me curious... I went back and found the contract.
#1- There is this questionablly illegal clause in it.
But, yea, absolutely nothing in the contract about this swap-a-roo.
On the plus side, I negotiated to work remotely for a few weeks, due to needing to relocate.
So- I was actually able to work both my current job, and the "new" job without losing time for either job.
So, on the plus side, I didn't lose anything, and got an extra paycheck for a few days. But, man, that would have been really shitty if I had relocated, and THEN got that notification.
As another interesting note, I discovered the other head-dev was only getting compensated 30-40k a year..... for literally managing a world-wide system. He doesn't work there either now.
Was a contractor for Walmart.
Got hired on as a lead dev, getting compensated 150k/yr.
2nd day, they told me I needed to switch contracts in order to stay on. New contract paid 50k salary.. with lots of required OT.
But, it's OK they said, you get benefits and PTO.
Fuck that.
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Probably America should not have put the homes 35 miles away from the everything else. Further, it should stop resisting efforts to put things closer together.
You do realize- the majority of America does live in towns and cities, right?
You are over-generalizing.
I mean, its not like some people in europe don't drive a long distance to work either....
Perhaps the UK shouldn't have homes 35 miles away from everyone else.
See how that works?
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After reviewing your profile, it appears you like to be the victim, and blame the world for all of your issues, instead of trying to actually make a difference and improve things.
For future endeavours, why don't you try to make a difference, instead of expecting everyone to cater to your desires.
Please, don't bother responding this this comment, I have blocked you from this instance. Better things to do then to conversate with negative nancy all day.
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Yea... I can pretty much promise you, if it was 43c and 60% humidity in europe, like it is where I live currently... they would have A/C units.
Then, everyone always fusses because we drive so much here in the US, instead of walking everywhere.... without accounting for, the US is drastically bigger. So, yes karen, I don't ride by bicycle 35 miles to work.
Texas (one of the many states/territories in the US), overlaid onto europe:
Seriously, fuck off with the America is bad insults, with poor apples to oranges comparisons.
There is a lot of stuff we do that can be drastically improved, but, saying Europe doesn't need AC and the U.S. does, because (insert US lazy / inefficient reason here...), is pretty dumb.
I can literally cook food in my car, or on my roof. Yes, I need A/C.
Cheaper or not, isn't a huge factor.
My really expensive sol-ark 12k cannot start my 110v air-compressor.
The issue is, the rated L.R.A. ie, locked rotor amps, how much current it takes to get it started.
My A/C motor, for example, uses around 20 amps @ 240v when running, ie ~5,000w. However, its L.R.A, is 112.0 amps @ 220v, ie- (24,640 watts). Which is more than the peak load my 12k inverter can handle. So- if you tried to start it on the inverter, well, it doesn't work.
https://static.xtremeownage.com/blog/2023/off-grid-ac/
The same principle applies to anything with a motor.
You have to evaluate the L.R.A. Remember, if you have say, a 5,000watt RMS inverter, which can handle a 10k peak- its not going to be able to start something that has a 14,000 startup draw.
Eh,
When you have 50+ feeds, it has a lot of handy features.
Like... blacklisting posts with keywords/regex, tracking things in categories, etc... And- it has a TON of options for configuring things.
The ability to whitelist/blacklist certain posts is quite handy itself. For example- taking a feed like This one and being able to only grab the "update / releases", and ignore all of the sales, giveaways, and other crap.
The uh, configuration options for the reader you linked are pretty limited in comparison.
Although, it does look nice, its missing the features to boot.
About a year ago.
The uh, irony.... is this:
And, finally, somebody actually gave some context for this video.
Thanks, lol.
Guess, I am out of the loop.
After Linus blasted people using ad-blockers (fucking hypocrite), I uh, just blocked his channel.
Not a huge deal, you can always transfer it.
yea... every modern IDE makes it extremely obvious of the unicode character.....
SO.... yea...
If you really wanted to be evil, zero-width space is the worst.
You don't see it.
I'm under 40.
I was in school when 9/11 happened.
I was a grunt in the military during the iraq war.
I was around when the market collapsed in 2008-ish.
I lived on a diet of Ramen noodles and crackers for years, in the early 20-teens.
My "college degree" is actually worth less then nothing now. I paid one hundred thousand dollars, to a fucking school, which was not accredited, and no longer exists. There were no bailouts for me. And, every so often, I get reminded of it, when I see another lawsuit ad against them on the news.....
For literally a decade, I also fought through those issues. Doctors will just give you lovely trazodones, and other drugs, to "make you happy". The worst part, is they make sure you know, it's YOUR fault.
I lived through the fun of trying to decide if I wanted to pay the bills, or get something to eat.
I recall, all of the wonderful.. insomnia which results from depression.
And, best of yet, the feeling of having all sorts of fun bills arrive.
It never really ends either. It just gets funner... and the risks get higher, especially when you have kids involved.
That being said- I might be doing OK now, but, life has not been rainbows and daisy's for me. Thanks... to a short stay in the armed forces, I am quite certain my emotions are beyond repair, and well. I can't hear worth a damn.
But, I did learn a few useful things in the military.
Edit, matter of fact, I still have issues with depression. Knock on wood though, my kids are fantastic at making me forget about it. But, life still has its ups and downs. Although, I generally do a pretty good job of hiding it. Although, it still takes a significant effort to want to "do things"