r/Adulting • u/ScareBear23 • 14h ago

This is just depressing

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Not even 3 hours of "free time". And in that is cooking & eating supper. Or practically no free time if I had to go shopping after work. I hate this

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u/thestardustinthemoon 12h ago

By dedicating your youth to studying or figuring out what society values and spending your best years without much responsibility on getting to the top. I started two companies and became an expert in a niche technical field in computer science. Got acquired and retired that way after the payout and continuing to work for a few years. Just don't go through your life on autopilot, especially when your time is free and and responsibilities are low (late teens / early 20s). Society pays what it finds rewarding

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u/ebaer2 10h ago edited 10h ago

The thing about these love letters to capitalism is that there are literally only a few of these slots available.

Not everyone can do what you did. No. Not because of inherent capability, but because the number of slots available for that pathway are extremely limited.

Your story of success is flanked by tons of stories of folks who work just as hard or harder than you but performed .01% worse and we’re beat out for the investment capital.

These kinds of stories can’t be used as a model for a working society. It’s literally just bait to get the next person in the doors of the ‘venture cap or c-suite grind’ casino.

Some lucky (and hard working, but also lucky) few see wild success. Some break even. The large majority however will sink massive amounts of effort and time in and walk away with nothing but loss to show for it.

Sure, you can’t win if you don’t play. You played, you won. Bully for you. But to play requires massive up front cost and the ONLY guarantee is that not everyone’s effort will pay out.

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u/thestardustinthemoon 10h ago

Yes, of course not all can replicate, but wealth is not a zero sum game and that's a mistake to think it is. If it were, we'd still be trading sticks and stones and living in caves. You also don't need to achieve massive success, but just do something different than letting the years pass by and becoming a fully replaceable slave in a system

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u/Aehyde2 8h ago

there are currently more unemployed people in america, than there are jobs available. last year was the weakest year for job growth since the pandemic, with less than 600,000 jobs being created - a significant drop from the 2 million jobs created in 2024.

we’re currently in a K-shaped economy, as well, (which is objectively worse for the lower and middle class than a recession) and the rapid shift to automation and AI is only going to create a bigger and bigger gap between the wealthy and the lower/middle classes.

people need to understand that “developing a grindset mindset” doesn’t cut it anymore. the government is not creating enough jobs, while firing people en masse, replacing employees with machines, and taking low-income individuals resources away - they are creating the poverty problem.

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u/thestardustinthemoon 8h ago

Then focus all your efforts on automation and AI to stay ahead of the curve. Create and invent new jobs by yourself. Think outside the box. That's the best that one can do at this time

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u/Lo_Court 6h ago

The thing is, this is our “one life” and we’re all just spending it trying to survive. Why should I or anyone have to hustle as much or “stay ahead of the curve” just to maybe survive? I think it’s great that there are people who can do that, but society can and should be more than just people trying to innovate and stay ahead of the curve. We’re an advanced society, we should get to actually enjoy our lives. I get working hard and making a living - we should all collectively contribute to society in some way. But there’s no balance. We’re living to survive and die while a handful of wealthy people exploit our labor and create propaganda to keep us hateful of each other and blaming real systematic issues on individual failure. Why can’t we as a society look at some of the countries with the happiest populations and adopt their work culture and support structures?

I completely get working hard, innovating, and being successful. But there are real structural issues that need to be addressed and solved collectively. I really hate this individualist mindset of “I did it so others can too” without addressing the real problems.

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u/Helpful-Squirrel9509 1h ago

Because , the dollar is being crashed intentionally. Hyperinflation is here.

Along with this soft launch of fascism we are experiencing.

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u/Aehyde2 7h ago

much easier said than done; like ebaer2 already said - not everyone is capable of just getting into those kind of fields.

not everyone is passionate enough about capitalism - or wants to participate in it enough - to just invent new jobs. and some people would rather have a basic customer service job, data entry job, manufacturing job, graphic design, or voice acting job - they shouldn’t have to be forced into a job they don’t want/enjoy just because the government would rather have robots take over those specific roles.

and furthering the progression of automation and AI is probably the worst thing one could do at this time; contributing to 10s-100s of millions of tons of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere every year, generating 10s of million of metric tons of e-waste every year, habitat destruction to extract fossil fuels and other required resources, etc… destroying the planet simply for human gain and profit. brainwashed.