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[–] 100 points 1 month ago (12 children)

I recommend woodworking or metal fabrication in anticipation of future guillotine demand.

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  • [–] 47 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Or the collapse of society in general. Being a craftsman is a valuable skill when your society loses the ability to buy the cheap products of slave labor.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    I'm building up a stache of niche tools for all sorts of little odd repair jobs. And rechargeable batteries, portable solar panels, etc.

    The chances of someone needing a watch battery changed in a post-apocalyptic world are slim, but hey if they've got the battery I've got the tools.

    Other thing like sharpening stones and soldering supplies could be useful more often though. And sewing supplies, leatherworking kits, etc.

    I hope I can get a forge and anvil before society collapses. They're not too expensive but right now the main thing is finding the space for it.

    Water purification is another big one. And random things like grain mill, oil press, brewing supplies, etc.

    The guy with the microbrewery in his basement will be a huge asset in a post-collapse world. He could barter for almost anything he needs (if anyone has it, at least).

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Working on shop space now. If I get laid off the plan is to take a precision machine degree at th local community college

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  • [–] 39 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    There are no laws against the masters organizing, only for workers.

    -Adam Smith

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  • [–] 21 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    "Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.”

    ― Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

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  • [–] 35 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    And also setting up a massive surveillance network to keep those poors (aka nearly everyone) in line.

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  • [–] 32 points 1 month ago

    Speedrunning empire decline at levels unimaginable to past generations. Bankrupt the rising generations to squeeze just a little more for the billionaires.

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  • [–] 35 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    This is your reminder that division along age or generation lines is as much of a distraction as division along race lines is. The real division is between who works for a living and who owns for a living. Simple as that. Sadly, the owning also includes owning the media and politicians (why yes, also most democrats), so there's not much you can do either way. Get used to not owning a home.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago

    Those entry level jobs not only provide pay/benefits, but also essential training and instruction for young adults. I would call this extremely short sighted if the US wasn't being run by the most evil people imaginable.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago (11 children)

    Not really complete. We did not shift the wealth from young to old. The old have money, because in their time, they still participated in the wealth they generated.

    Nowadays most of the generated wealth goes to the wealthy, not to those who generated it. This hits both old and young.

    The money that the youth is lacking went to the rich, not to the old.

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    The old have money, because in their time, they still participated had opportunities to participate

    Fixed it for you.

    Nowadays most of the generated wealth goes to the wealthy, not to those who generated it.

    🧑🏻‍🚀🔫🧑🏻‍🚀

    This hits both old and young.

    But the vast majority of the rich are old, and the vast majority of the young are poor.

    The money that the youth is lacking went to the rich, not to the old.

    Again, the rich are mostly the old.

    Far from all old people are rich, but the vast majority of rich people are old and/or have inherited wealth.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago* (4 children)

    The vast majority of the old are poor also. And the vast majority of the Rich would fit in a moderate concert venue.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Fact is that my generation, Millennials, are the first generation since the 1930s to grow up economically worse off than our parents and it's only gotten WORSE for the following generations.

    To the point that Boomer/Gen X middle of the middle class is rich by Millennial/Gen Z standards and will be considered economically obese by the time Gen A become adults.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Nah, I'm GenX, my mom had a pension, and was able to retire after raising 4 kids, 3 of them after my dad died (she kicked me out pretty fast).

    I also had lots of kids (so better off in that way than the next generation) but because of that, can't really hope to retire.

    Most of our kids are doing a lot better than we were at their age, the ones doing worse are more or less in the same economic situation I was, without the added step of having to claw up from homelessness, BUT I agree with whoever said old people were "able to participate" more - I felt more like if I sold out I could be well off, without ripping anyone off. Not as trapped as I think kids can feel now. The obscenely rich flaunting their wealth is so bad for society, they really are the worst people.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago

    Which may represent reverting to the norm of history where very few were rich and everyone else was a peasant. If you want to change this look to the governments after the Depression and World wars. What did they do? High taxation for real public good.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    The old and the rich are the same. People over 55 own 52% of the US which is one of the best examples of inequality. Boomers all together own 8x more than billionaires. Any old person with a decent 401k or otherwise stock/index fund based retirement is one of the shareholders living off the working class.

    After the billionaires are guillotined or otherwise disposed of, there would still be terrible inequality that needs to be taken care of. Put simply, the billionaires alone don't have enough assets to fix this.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Some few of the people over 55 own 52% of the US.

    You are trying to shift the blame from the rich to the pensioner.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    "The son of the worker, on entering life, finds no field which he may till, no machine which he may tend, no mine in which he may dig, without accepting to leave a great part of what he will produce to a master. He must sell his labour for a scant and uncertain wage. His father and his grandfather have toiled to drain this field, to build this mill, to perfect this machine. They gave to the work the full measure of their strength, and what more could they give? But their heir comes into the world poorer than the lowest savage. If he obtains leave to till the fields, it is on condition of surrendering a quarter of the produce to his master, and another quarter to the government and the middlemen. And this tax, levied upon him by the State, the capitalist, the lord of the manor, and the middleman, is always increasing; it rarely leaves him the power to improve his system of culture. If he turns to industry, he is allowed to work--though not always even that --only on condition that he yield a half or two-thirds of the product to him whom the land recognizes as the owner of the machine.

    We cry shame on the feudal baron who forbade the peasant to turn a clod of earth unless he surrendered to his lord a fourth of his crop. We call those the barbarous times. But if the forms have changed, the relations have remained the same, and the worker is forced, under the name of free contract, to accept feudal obligations. For, turn where he will, he can find no better conditions. Everything has become private property, and he must accept, or die of hunger." - Peter Kropotkin (The conquest of bread)

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    yeah , I don't think things look great across the board but I really struggle to see any light for the younger generations that are either in the education system or just coming out of it. With no real incentive to educate out side of a desire to just be educated I could see a strong dystopian future where those generations have less and less skills to critically judge information ... but also clearly the older generations can't critically judge information as well - which is how we got here. But , perhaps things will look dystopian enought that it will trigger change.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    I really struggle to see any light for the younger generations that are either in the education system or just coming out of it.

    Unprecedented wealth transfers are happening between the dying elderly and the much smaller Millennial / Zoomer / GenA cohorts. The problem isn't one of generation, its one of position within your labor cohort. Do you have rich parents? The last five years alone have likely added a digit to their net worth. Do you have poor parents? Huge mistake. You're going to inherit the "Own Nothing And Like It" lifestyle that was shoved down their throats.

    JD Vance's kids are set for life. Baron Trump and Joseph Kushner are going to be just fine. Dario Amodei's kids? Sam Altman's kids? Elon Musk's favorite kids? Anyone sitting on a big portfolio of tech stocks they bought in the 1990s? Anyone with real estate holdings in a major metro area? Anyone in the Epstein Files? They're on the golden path.

    But yeah, what's the value of a material education in a world that considers information a cheap commodity? Idk. I do know that I have a friend who was misdiagnosed with cancer in her 20s and went thousands of dollars out of pocket to discover the error. So, there's definitely some amount of value-add in education from that perspective.

    But , perhaps things will look dystopian enought that it will trigger change.

    Watched the Penultimate Episode of Bluey last night with my 2-year-old son. It's called "The Sign", and it plays out against an allegory of a farmer.

    Is the current manifestation of events lucky or unlucky? We'll see.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    The Great American Decline continues.

    This is going to be a very bleak nation to live in within another decade or two. I mean it already is for many.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    If you are a United States Citizen over 18 years old PLEASE make sure to check your voter registration and PLEASE vote!

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

    Voting is always worth it. Even if you write in "anyone else" it still shows that you're willing to get off your ass and vote unlike half of voting-eligible people for some reason.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Perhaps we're nearing the nadir. I'd map the slump from the 70s until today as a long descent into madness started by reaganomics and ending in literal trump madness.

    could be the conservatives will look at what their bullshit wrought and stay out of the process in the future.

    potentially, I could grow wings out of my ass and learn to fly....

    but I'm not gonna hold my breath.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    We need to vote these people out. We need to also vote with our wallets. And if it’s necessary then we riot for a change. People have rioted for less, tbh

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  • [–] 25 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Simple fix: just as there's a minimum age to be involved in politics, add a maximum one too (50). Can't be a representative either.

    Boom, done.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    Who would blame them if they rose up and …

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    This WILL backfire, manual labor creates angrier, stronger, more cohesive mobs

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago

    I see a lot of propagada on this thread, blaming older people for society's woes. Well shit! All we have to do to fix things, is abolish pensions, Social Security, and Medicare........just like the ruling party wants to do?

    You're buying bullshit. Getting angry at boomers, Zoomers, Xers, etc., while the ruling class laugh their asses off at the useful idiots who actually help further their agenda.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I'm not too worried about the entry level jobs. My current theory, which changes every few weeks this world is too fast now, is that businesses are going to start to worry about business continuity. It's a very real concern, and it's going to cause them to hire entry level people simply to have the next generation of management.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Yes and no. You may be right, but the MBA math doesn't agree with you. You're an investor and you can make an investment in one of two companies who are otherwise equal, except one acknowledges that it needs to invest in it's future work force and the other is only concerned with maximizing returns. The first company may be healthier long term but that value won't be actualized for many years. Whereas the second company can provide larger returns sooner. Which company is the safer investment?

    You may say it's company A, except that your money won't make money for much longer, a lot can happen in that time. With company B it may not pay off in the long run so don't. Invest, collect, leave, find another investment. Your money is vulnerable for less time and has a better chance of making money in the short run. Which company is the safer investment?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    While that's true, the flip side of that is rating agencies and auditors. If you go through an audit and get downgraded due to business continuity risk, that also can effect the price. So the question is, which one affects the price more?

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    So soon we'll need a major global conflict to cull a good portion of the disgruntled unfortunates that might be inclined to rise up against the system

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Unprecedented wealth transfer from young to old

    I mean, you lost me here. The notion that people are being distributed money based on their age is wildly off the mark. The US has an enormous population of impoverished elderly people and a tiny population of extraordinarily rich elderly people. The wealth isn't anywhere approaching evenly distributed.

    So much of this is just blaming "The Olds". Nevermind that much of the AI rollout is being performed by the cartel of mega-influential Millennials and Zoomers and a smattering of GenAs. How do you square this? The tech industry is dominated by folks under 50. The people coming out of college to join the tech sector are being paid salaries to perform this automation. The thing you're complaining about is people maybe 4-10 years your senior doing the work that you would be doing if you'd gotten there a bit earlier.

    Nothing in this bit implies any amount of class solidarity. It's all just crabs in a bucket.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Trying to get an internship around the time iPhones got popular was a nightmare.

    So much scut work and entry level work (i.e. assistant and basic secretarial) just didn't need a person any more.

    I can't imagine how bad it is right now.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    You remember that episode of ST:TNG "Too short a season"?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

    AI is just another fork of “moving wealth from young to old.”

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (10 children)

    I am typically against calls to divide the proletariat, whether it is because of race, gender, religion, or age. From the point of view of the capital class these are all good ways to keep us separated.

    I will note that retired people have some similarities with the bourgeoisie, in that they earn a living on savings and investments, so no longer work.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    Very few retired people "earn a living on savings and investments". They barely have enough savings to withdraw necessities before they die.

    Rich retired, yes, but the qualifier is rich, not retired.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    I don't think that this is true in the United States. People do acrue wealth over their lives. I don't know where you are talking about, so it is quite possibility true for there.

    This site breaks it down by age, and not as a simple average:

    https://wealthvieu.com/personal-finance/net-worth/net-worth-by-age-percentile/

    Anyway, if you are correct and retired people have no money then you disagree to the original post, since the whole thesis is that older generations are taking wealth from the younger generations!

    I basically agree with that interpretation, since I think the main divide is capital versus working class.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    I have several people in advanced age in my life who decided to retired because they can't physically work anymore, they have under $100k in retirement.

    How long do you suppose they can live off that?

    They saved their entire lives to have less than $100k, lived in the cheap parts of town, had shitty cars that constantly break down, never really spent much money on themselves, and what little they have to try to survive a few more years does not make them rich.

    Richer than those who have nothing, sure. It's enough money to cover 3 more years? and then what? Just die?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (4 children)

    I'm sorry that you have people you care about who are in a precarious financial position. That sucks for sure, and is a sign of how a capitalist society treats working class people who can no longer work.

    I would advise between generalizing though. Even one older person who is basically told they can freeze to death or starve is terrible! But that doesn't mean that it is common.

    It really doesn't matter either way though. All people should be able to live good lives, regardless of their age.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    That sucks for sure, and is a sign of how a capitalist society treats working class people who can no longer work.

    Totally. That's my point, just surviving capitalism and being able to "retire" doesn't mean you're suddenly rich or a capitalist who lives off interest on savings.

    I would advise between generalizing though.

    Yeah, that's the point of my original comment. I completely disagree that we should lump anyone who happens to have more than the bare minimum as part of the capitalist ruling class, who want for nothing and exploit others' labor for their benefit.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    Being in the capital class means living by renting your possessions to workers and living off of them, or living by owning businesses and living off of the profits that your employees generate.

    It doesn't mean anyone who has a nice life.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    That's literally what I'm saying.

    I was responding to this:

    retired people have some similarities with the bourgeoisie, in that they earn a living on savings and investments, so no longer work.

    In Marxist theory, bourgeoisie is the capitalist ruling class, and retiring doesn't make you a part of that club.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Why shouldn't he generalize about poorness when others here are generalizing about wealth. If I look at my parents Gen around 1940s, most of them barely manage retirement. I'd say 75% get by, 20% do better and about 5% could be considered rich. Many are trying to hang on to the family home so that they might have an inheritance to leave. My Gen 1960s is similarly stratified although I think we have a slightly higher middle portion. However people are losing their jobs before retirement so that will eat up more of their 'wealth' just to survive. Another thing to consider, if the people who have been saving and building some pocket of wealth for 40+years are condemned for it, why should anyone under 30 be aiming to do that same wealth build? I know that my sons' cohort, who long complained they were never going to get on the ladder, are now in their 30s and marrying, buying homes and having children if they want them. That doesn't seem to be any different than my rural (poorer) cousins except they seem to be having even more children on average.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago

    There is no difference between rich and retired.

    If you are fortunate enough to retire in this economy, you’re rich.

    You’re either rich enough to retire, or you work till you die.

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  • [+] -17 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    and to top it off people are using credit cards to pay for mcdonalds. This is a land of the low IQ

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  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago (6 children)
  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago

    Plus it builds your credit score. I just set up auto-pay and pretend that it's my debit card, never buying more with it than I can pay off immediately, that way it's impossible to end up in debt. Been doing that for almost a decade now.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Because the credit card companies get a bonus every time a customer buys some overpriced slop on their card, so they incentivise buying from these companies by saying 'you get cashback' (and the card company get a payout, the interest from your account, and all the associated data about your purchasing habits and location)

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Use the credit card for the rewards then pay it off daily

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    I had a credit card for years before I even realized you could just... not pay it off every month? I still don't understand why anyone would do that. Even when I had virtually no money I just bought the cheapest food I could with my credit card and continued to pay it off every month.

    Spending money you don't have just means you're spending more money with interest when you don't have money in the first place. Unless you know you'll be in a better place soon and you just need to make it there, you're just making things easier right now in exchange for making things even harder than now just a little ways down the line.

    Credit cards should only be used to spend what money you already have, so you can build good credit to have when you start being more financially stable. Like, sure, we all hate the system that judges us like that, but we can better fight to change it if we're not homeless.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    If you’re swiping your debt card for anything you’re a fool. Every single transaction goes through a credit card for easy cash back 2-5% depending on where I shop.

    Secondly I never use my debt card for security purposes. There are potentially card skimmers (especially at gas pumps) and it’s much easier to contest a transaction with the CC company than it is with banks.

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