Car prices are still insane.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

I still do not agree that "where there's a will there's a way" is truly valid.

Positivity doesn't guarantee any particular good outcome, it merely keeps the door open for when opportunity is within reach and overall results in better outcomes than the utterly destructive victimhood mindset, which shuts all doors for opportunity. Be Tigger, not Eeyore.

I assume you were born in the USA, in a country that's rich and has a lot of opportunity and antidiscrimination laws.

I always attribute being born in modern times, and not some miserable time in the past as quite the privilege. Living in an age where fossil fuels are mightily leveraged to the great prosperity of all people is a privilege. Living in the US where laws are favorable to commerce and innovation is a privilege. Finally, my biggest privilege was having 2 parents.

My genitalia and skin hue have no bearing on anything related to economic success whatsoever. Only racists and sexists push that narrative.

Sure, there are those stories of how some poor kid in Africa where people make $1 a day strives hard to make things better for himself and ends up working his way up to being a millionaire. But those kinds of stories are more about luck and coincidence than the actual hard work. There are a lot of people in this world who have worked extremely hard their whole life and tried to make as good of financial decisions as possible and still ended up poor and with nothing to show for all they did.

The wealthiest person in the world is African.

Hard work is only half the equation though, the other half is working smarter. Working hard but inefficiently is not a recipe for wealth. Part of the "smarter" equation is locating oneself where more opportunity exists.

My wife was accepted to school in Philadelphia, and in that moment I accepted that I might quit my job and move across the country, following opportunity. Fortunately she was also accepted to OHSU, so we stayed put.

Then she was offered a job in Silverton on a Wednesday, and we were moved into an apartment down there by that Saturday, following opportunity.

Another thing to is that every choice usually has a trade off. A single guy who doesn't work may have a hard time finding someone to marry him. But a guy who works too much and doesn't spend hardly any time with his family is also asking for a divorce.

Everything does have a trade-off, even an infinite opportunity cost. There's no excuse for a single guy to be poor though unless there's some severe cognitive dysfunction. I amassed 10's of thousands simply saving on a $17/hr paycheck working 40hrs/week, with no benefits. If I wasn't such a dummy, I'd have figured out how to do something even more profitable, not simply accept a job after meeting a guy at a bar.

[freebeard]

The wealthiest person in the world is African.

Mansa Musa? That was the 14th Century. Today it's an African-American. He had to follow your advise to move to where the opportunity is.

I attribute my lack of success to marrying a redhead feminist.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

I attribute my lack of success to marrying a redhead feminist.

Trade-offs.

It's all relative anyhow. You're wealthier than 99.99% of past humanity. Probably not too shabby on the global scale either.

[freebeard]

You're wealthier than 99.99% of past humanity. Probably not too shabby on the global scale either.

Quoting Bucky Fuller?

In the 1970s I was an operative in a lanscaping cooperative. We had a wealthy client named C. Gray, whom we liked because he insisted on no gas lawn mowers, just hand-push reel mowers. Then his wife left because he had an allergic reaction to all his money and gave it away. We lost touch, last I heard he was trying to live on the global average income.

In the 1980s, I'm looking at a bulletin board at a food bank and someone wants a room for a specific[ally low] dollar amount, and I thought to myself that he'd found a partner.

Sure enough, I rented a room to him. I went from being his gardener to his landlord.

Great guy, he trained anti-war protestors, back when that was a left-wing thing.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

My genitalia and skin hue have no bearing on anything related to economic success whatsoever. Only racists and sexists push that narrative.

That is a laughable notion when study after study shows that identical resumes with traditionally male and white names get more call-backs than resumes with female or traditionally minority names. You can't get the job if you can't even get in the door for an interview.

Just one of many well documented cases of bias.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

The wealthiest person in the world is African.

A white African born into a wealthy white family in Apartheid South Africa. (Who fled to Canada at 17 to avoid mandatory military service required of all white males at the time) Musk didn't rise up out of the slums to become the world's riches man. He started life in a family that commuted by private plane.

[freebeard]

Today, 11:25 AM

Simulpost!

[Isaac Zachary]

I'm a typical American white guy as in the kind of American white guy who's 6'1" and whose ancestors moved out west from New England in ox drawn covered wagons. Yet I felt very discriminated by a boss I once had simply because I'm bilingual and one day he caught me talking to someone in Spanish. He even asked me if I was illegal or had a green card and from that day on seemed like he didn't like me anymore. As you can guess I didn't last at that job for very long even though I knew the trade just fine and my workmanship didn't change just because I spoke Spanish to another worker.

I can't immagine what some people go through who are definitly not a typical white American guy.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by JSH

That is a laughable notion when study after study shows that identical resumes with traditionally male and white names get more call-backs than resumes with female or traditionally minority names. You can't get the job if you can't even get in the door for an interview.

What's laughable is I said genetalia and skin hue, and you started talking about names.

Even more laughable is that I've never applied for a job, so your "name on a resume" example isn't applicable.

Finally, there is institutionalized racism in the US, and it's against white males and Asians. Those who can check off the most boxes in the intersectional victimhood olympics go straight to the top.

That's why I now identify as a black, lesbian, trans, disabled woman. Anyone saying anything bad about me is a racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, sexist.

A white African born into a wealthy white family in Apartheid South Africa. (Who fled to Canada at 17 to avoid mandatory military service required of all white males at the time) Musk didn't rise up out of the slums to become the world's riches man. He started life in a family that commuted by private plane.

You're making my point about seizing opportunity rather than squandering it. If I'd have had all those advantages, you'd probably never know who I was because I'd have achieved much less.

I'd be like all the unknown siblings of folks like Bezos, Gates, Soros, Buffet, Musk... even playing fields are lumpy, it seems.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

What's laughable is I said genetalia and skin hue, and you started talking about names.

Even more laughable is that I've never applied for a job, so your "name on a resume" example isn't applicable.

Finally, there is institutionalized racism in the US, and it's against white males and Asians. Those who can check off the most boxes in the intersectional victimhood olympics go straight to the top.

That's why I now identify as a black, lesbian, trans, disabled woman. Anyone saying anything bad about me is a racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, sexist.

I doubt you represent how the majority of people find work. If not applying for a job is how people should get work maybe you need to write up a tutorial on how this is supposedly the way to get work.

I'm not saying that people don't use "discrimination" as an excuse to try to manipulate others to accept their choices in life. But there is also real discrimination where you can go from job listing to job listing looking for work, doing the best you can to get a job and no one will hire you. They'd all rather hire someone less qualified for the job than you because of your physical traits or family history.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

I doubt you represent how the majority of people find work. If not applying for a job is how people should get work maybe you need to write up a tutorial on how this is supposedly the way to get work.

I'm not saying that people don't use "discrimination" as an excuse to try to manipulate others to accept their choices in life. But there is also real discrimination where you can go from job listing to job listing looking for work, doing the best you can to get a job and no one will hire you. They'd all rather hire someone less qualified for the job than you because of your physical traits or family history.

I take that back. When I was released to post-prison supervision, I was required to apply to something like 9 places a week, or go back to jail. I've applied to every fast food joint, all of the "marts", etc. The way I avoided getting any of those jobs is a combination of being fresh out of prison, and listing a preposterous amount for 'expected pay'.

My 24 months of supervision was terminated in like 6 weeks. Mom told her friend I was looking for work, and that friend was part of a small "entrepreneur" group who mentioned I was looking for work. A brick mason in the group told me to show up on a job, and I started cutting bricks and hauling materials for him that day.

So my recommendation is to network. If you've got a good reputation among reputable friends and family, then work finds you. The best in an industry don't advertise, they turn away work.

I'm not denying that racists don't want to hire certain groups of people, just that you wouldn't want to work for them anyway, and there's high demand for qualified people who can check a 'victimhood' box.

When I was discriminated against in my application for an apartment due to being a convicted felon, I didn't cry about it, I went somewhere that wanted my money.