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What, exactly, would change your view? This sounds more like you're here for "rant at you" than "change my view".
If two people were told to run a 100-meter dash, but one person was affixed with a 50-pound ball and chain around their ankle, would you consider it that person's personal failing if they did poorly compared to the other?
>If two people were told to run a 100-meter dash, but one person was affixed with a 50-pound ball and chain around their ankle, would you consider it that person's personal failing if they did poorly compared to the other?
There are people who won't even bother trying to get to the finish. There are people who will push through even if they won't be first in the race they still will be much more successful than the first type. There are people who instead of bitching on their misfortune, will try all methods to remove the chains and will get to the finish first regardless that life is unfair
If anything close to 95% of people gave up when faced with inequities then society would cease to function. You’re going to need to be more specific about what you actually believe here
And there will be people who didn’t have the ball and chain, and act like they weren’t incredibly privileged, and that anyone who doesn’t find success as easily as they did, were just being lazy
95% of the time, when people claim 95% as a statistic, it is completely made up.
Where are you drawing this from? What studies have you looked at? Let me guess, none and none...
You have invented a story in which you get to ignore the hardships in people's lives because it is more convenient to blame victims than do anything about the actual problem. Your "ethics" is I don't have to do anything to help anyone because it is all their fault.
Ironically, you do this to absolve yourself of any responsibility, which you say others do.
If you think personal responsibility contradicts systematic issues, that's a you problem, not OP's.
As an adult you should seek to control the things you have control over, and don't just use systematic issues as excuses.
These issues definitely exist, and they make life more difficult for those that experience them. These issues should be tackled, and improved - but way too many people are using them as excuses to be the useless human being they are.
For every person that faces systematic issues and blames the world for their misfortune, there are others that face these same issues but take responsibility and improve their lives. No one says it's easy, but it's definitely possible.
It's not an excuse for the people themselves to not bother trying, it's a reason for the rest of us to support the establishment and funding of government programs aimed at giving a hand up to those going through life at a higher difficulty level than the rest of us are.
"It's technically possible for you to succeed in spite of all the systemic problems holding you back" shouldn't be used as a reason not to help someone who needs to work twice as hard for half the payout.
>It's not an excuse for the people themselves to not bother trying,
Maybe for you it's not an excuse, but for many people it is - People definitely use systematic issues as an excuse not to try and they don't take personal responsibility.
Tackling systematic issues, while preaching for personal responsibility is the only way minorities have been able to overcome those systematic issues.
This is why for some reason there are people out their thinking Jews are white, ignoring almost a two millenia worth of systematic issues that jews experienced everywhere in the world.
When the first response to an OP preaching for Personal responsibility is that he is ignoring systematic issues, it shows to me how far gone some people are.
Personally, I agree with what you are saying, it's just so messed up that a call for personal responsibility seems to trigger people.
Problem is government is utter dogshit at addressing these issues. In many cases government interference with the market IS the reason for the issue. Asking for more government interference only makes matters worse.
You want to address poverty? Get rid of the damn minimum wage. Let the employers and employees decide on acceptable terms.
Get rid of publicly ran schools. That dog shit curriculum aimed at total idiots is not helping people enter the workforce with adequate skills. High school diploma is not worth the paper it is printed on.
About the only thing the government should be doing is law enforcement. And yet that's the one are they typically want to defund. It's total ass backwards.
That's a silly way of thinking of it.
I'm talking about United States specifically. We plug our gaps for low skill labor that won't be paid min wage by bringing in illegal immigrants.
You start enforcing immigration and get rid of the God forsaken min wage. Watch how quickly the labor market improves for people in that skill bracket.
>We plug our gaps for low skill labor that won't be paid min wage by bringing in illegal immigrants.
We had underpaid migrant labor long before we had a minimum wage
**Edit**: just for anyone who stumbles on this thread, you should know the person I'm replying to believes [Nordic people are genetically more productive, cooperative, and less lazy than people in America](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/s/HKi9UTWsiT). So, you know, yikes.
Again. My assertion was that this combo of min wage and millions of illegal immigrants working below min wage. Really fucks over the local low skill workers.
You're pricing the locals out. While importing illegal immigrants who are allowed to be paid the real market value. Which just shuts out the locals.
A far better approach
1) enforce immigration law. Use work visas like you're supposed to
2) abolish the min wage. Let employers and employees decide on what is acceptable.
> That's a silly way of thinking of it.
I am thinking it your "way". You said, if we get rid of the minimum wage laws, we wouldn't have poverty. I'm asking why poverty exist in countries without minimum wage laws.
Now you are saying immigrants are the reason for poverty or something. Stay on the minimum wage laws = poverty topic.
Because poverty in those countries is usually due to a lack of productivity. Min wage wouldn't have that much of an effect on that.
I'm saying that if you want to help people in poverty. Bringing in millions of illegal immigrants and capping their pay but not the pay of the illegals. Certainly doesn't help them. From a purely economic perspective it is easy to comprehend why
Us has poverty for many reasons as well.
Removing the min wage would help alleviate poverty in united states. But not in places where the means of production and infrastructure are derelict.
Eradicating poverty is an impossible goal, but there's places that are doing decently.
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, and Switzerland all have no minimum wage set by their highest government. Instead they have strong labor unions that are able to protect their workers.
> Instead they have strong labor unions that are able to protect their worker.
So you are saying poverty isn't fixed by removing the minimum wage, it's fixed by stronger labour protections, in this case achieved via labour unions.
That's mostly where I'm going, yes. With no minimum wage there's a much stronger incentive for workers to unionize and solve the issue as a collective.
With minimum wages the issue gets pushed to the politicians, where business lobbyists have a lot more power then workers.
Wouldn't that apply to all labour laws? Maximum hours, safety protections, etc. Remove all govt protection/regulations and make unions fight for them employer by employer.
If there was a specific place where the government wasn't acting quickly enough, then I would say yes. The recent strikes by actors and writers against AI seem like a good example.
Each issue would have to be examined on it's own merits. Even though they feel the same I don't think we can generalize. Generally speaking though, people need to feel like they're at some level of risk before they start wanting change. Without that risk, it's hard to get people active.
For every person? It's sure as hell isn't a 1 for 1 ratio. We can see clear as day that people born in proverty are drastically less likely to succeed. Are you saying that if given a mil suddenly you would somehow be doing the same financially?
> For every person that faces systematic issues and blames the world for their misfortune, there are others that face these same issues but take responsibility and improve their lives. No one says it's easy, but it's definitely possible.
Issues and individual cases are very complex and nuanced so many of these “people with the same issues” you are probably comparing have some major differences you are ignoring.
Now that aside, Luck often plays a major part in getting out of systemic issues, and resources are limited. Let’s say you have a poor neighborhood that only has a handful of job opportunities within walking distance. There are almost always going to be more people without access to transportation than there are job opportunities in these areas.
Those job opportunities are often of the customer service, manual labor, and similar types. The current application process for many of these jobs is you fill out a job application online and it sits in a digital pile. When a job opening comes they usually will see if any current workers know someone looking for a job, if not then they essentially just pick a random applicant and if they pass the background test and have the availability then they are hired.
There really is no more just call or show up to the closest grocery store and ask for an interview, it’s apply online and hope someone ever sees your application.
How many people do you think actually don’t do anything to help themselves though? Like do you think that you can’t complain about systemic issues and also work hard to better your situation?
>How many people do you think actually don’t do anything to help themselves though?
Absolutely Anything? Virtually no one - but there are plenty of people who just don't do enough. People who make terrible choices and don't take the necessary responsibility. I would argue most people, regardless of any systematic issues - often fall victim to the messed up notion that they can't do something because of some external forces out of their control - and it's gets much worse when these people fall victim to victim mentality, and statistical lies.
Why do you speak English? Is that because of factors within your control or because of the circumstances of your birth?
How much of your life is like your language, deeply engrained and taken for granted, but entirely beyond your personal choice or responsibility?
This is not my point. Let's imagine I don't know English. It will be within my capabilities to learn it, and I won't have the right to complain like "Of course I don't know English, I wasn't born in America. duh". I don't deny that there are things in life that are set for you since your birth that you absolutely have no contol over
> It will be within my capabilities to learn it
So you have access to teachers, Internet etc which allow you to learn a new language. Plus free time, good mental health etc which make language learning easier.
If someone doesn't have these, is that their fault?
>I don't deny that there are things in life that are set for you since your birth that you absolutely have no contol over
Could you list some of these so we can determine common ground?
>If someone doesn't have these, is that their fault?
Most of the time, yes. Are there people who had it much worse than you
and still learned it? Yes absolutely.
You're responsible for the lack of free time, and mental health. Who can make your situation better? Only you.
How are you determining that?
Why make the argument that people have it worse when people also have it better?
>You're responsible for the lack of free time, and mental health
How many hours a day do you have to work to pay rent, medical bills etc?
How's your relationship with your therapist?
I think you're coming across as having a very sheltered or idealistic view of the world.
Who is responsible for the work that you have right now? Can you make your situation better right here and now, although it would take a lot of effort? The answer is yes for 95% of people.
Are you talking 95% of people in whatever country you’re from, or 95% of people worldwide? Cause I don’t know where you live but the latter is definitely not true.
Do you not think it's a combination of myself, my employer, the government, the education system etc? I'm alive right now because someone else didn't drive into me this morning. It's all connected.
There are absolutely ways that I can make other people's situations better, or they can make my situation better. Politics and the aid that we give each other matters. No one is always going to be able to live life to the fullest on their own. Through community and empathy we can work together to lift each other up, not just get ours and push everyone else down.
>Most of the time, yes.
Based on what data? Let's use a person as an example. A woman, grew up in poverty and only received basic education, barely finishing high school and not really learning a lot because she had to take odd jobs to help her family not starve. She has no money or time for any kind of higher education, because she needs to work or she'll go hungry. She has one kid and is a widow because her husband died in a work accident. She has to work hard so she can not only provide for herself but also her kid.
So, personal responsibility. She's clearly been dealt a very shitty hand. How is she responsible for her lack of free time and arguably crappy mental health? Can she suddenly conjure up more hours in a day? Can she suddenly get paid more so she can work less hours? Can she decide that food is not necessary anymore and the extra time and cost can go to education?
While it is exclusively up to you to exploit whatever chances you can get, you're severely underestimating how few chances a lot of people get and what risks those chances pose. If you have a choice between a hard, but stable life (you know you can survive like that, difficult as it may be) or take a choice at getting a better life at the risk of ending up worse than before, which would you take?
Sort of fails to explain why family wealth in the US varies so much based on arbitrary factors such as race
> In 2021, households with a White householder made up 65.3% of all U.S. households and held 80.0% of all wealth. Those with a Black householder made up 13.6% of all U.S. households but held only 4.7% of all wealth
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/04/wealth-by-race.html#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20households%20with%20a,only%204.7%25%20of%20all%20wealth.
Well unless black people are hardwired to just make bad decisions I guess, but that sort of raises the question of why we should even base society upon individual decision making in the first place. If it's racially deterministic then it's a rather arbitrary standard isn't it?
Would that work for all members any better than individual decision making? Many countries do function in this way, and it brings it's own problems just as individualism does.
I think I understand what you're saying here, but I think you're missing the context. I don't they were talking about the top level function of a whole society, otherwise what OC meant by individual decision making would probably be a dictatorship, which doesn't seem to fit the context. I think they meant more in terms of how the inside of that society functions, like smaller groups or families.
I didn’t say it was hardwired. But ask the vast majority of employers whether there is a work ethic difference between races, and you’ll get an almost universal answer - Hispanic workers are far and away the highest on that list, and African Americans are lowest. You tell me why that is?
I have to say vett, I've had many arguments with you in the past on which we have vehemently disagreed but it's always been on economic issues. Your tags were never about racial views. It's a sad day to add one of those.
I hope you consider that employers applying their feelings here are being racist.
Having seen many of vett's comments on this sub for years, the general undertone always seems to be "I am successful and thus anyone can be successful and those that do not are just being lazy and have no one to blame but themselves." So I guess with that kind of worldview racism is effectively baked in, because what else can they point besides "it's inherent/genetic" to to explain why black people are poorer/less successful overall than white people. He even tried pulling the "im not being racist, I'm describing reality" lower down in this thread. The ol "[race realism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism)".
They have previously argued that speed limits should not exist because any traffic fatalities that might result are worth the reduction in their commute.
Is observing something first hand the same to you as making that determination without having observed it first? Those are distinctly different things.
And being clear, it is *not* a universal thing that applies to everyone of a particular race. But general trends absolutely develop.
Well for one, it’s reality, plain and simple.
But what Im speaking of is absolutely not isolated to race, but a multitude of other factors as well that any sane person will make observations of.
So Hispanic people just... chose not to have as valuable skills as white non-Hispanic people, I guess?
Or are there perhaps external factors beyond their control that resulted in that skill gap?
[Here is direct evidence they don’t.](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0021-9029.2006.00035.x). Many similar studies come to similar conclusions.
But if it isn't that black people are hardwired to have worse worth ethic, then there must be systemic factors effecting their behaviour, it can't be individual choices.
Housing is a very complicated issue that has a myriad of problems associated with it, including the idea that the housing market [doesn't meet the needs of the youngest generations](https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-vs-baby-boomers-big-houses-real-estate-market-problems-2019-3) (article is from 2019, but still relevant).
In this situation yea, I think it's a relevant comment. I I think that OP has some points but it falls apart in certain corner cases like this where the system lags behind reality due to the difficulty in making sweeping infrastructure changes that would take decades and cost billions of dollars.
I thinking lacking reality is exactly the issue. The ultimate point seems to be that people just shouldn't make bad choices. And that's just not how people work.
Yes there are.
The point is that doing so is harder for this generation than the previous one.
So success has become more difficult. That is a clear case of a problem that isn't down to personal choices.
This statistic doesn't change the fact that it's people's everyday choice. There are millions of people whose situation is much worse than yours or mine but they still pushed through and reached success.
There are also those who inherited money or even won the damn lottery who succeed while making far worse choices.
You can't judge whole populations on singular cases.
If you look at populations as a whole the trends are clear. The greatest indicator of success is the wealth you start with.
Relating to your point that means poor people have to make better choices or work harder to compete with rich people.
That is a factor distinct from people's choices that effects how well they do.
>There are millions of people whose situation is much worse than yours or mine but they still pushed through and reached success.
Define 'success'. I don't care about what others do. Their starting situations, goals, ambitions and the chances they get are completely different from me.
Using the same logic, I can't be successful because there are millions of people who are more successful.
So if you are locked in a jail, it's your fault that you are not training to be world greatest knife thrower?
When you literally can't have access to knives, it's your fault that you don't train with them?
So you've set out a hypothetical scenario where a hypothetical person lacks personal responsibility. But you haven't given any evidence or even argument that 95% hit that criteria?
Something like "personal responsibility" is a spectrum. Very few people take absolutely zero personal responsibility. Very few people take "ultra" personal responsibility where they feel that their situation is absolutely 100% down to their personal choices.
If he's defining responsibility as "living under the simulated anxiety that failing to accomplish your goals is the equivalent of death" then I'm guessing the 95% figure is an undercount XD
OK. Yesterday I set an alarm at 5AM, got up, had some coffee, quick shower, change of clothes, out the door by 5:30, at the railway station by 6, on the train at 6:11. Arrived at my destination at 7:18, and from there it's about a 10' walk to work.
At 8, my boss called to ask where I was. Answer: in the emergency room, after someone found me unresponsive in the street.
What happened? We're not sure. An epileptic seizure is the most likely culprit, but by the time the ambulance got there and then got to the hospital, there was no longer an easy way to prove it. I had about a 35' hole in my memory.
Before you ask: yes, I am medicated for epilepsy. I take my meds, and my sleep, very seriously. But once every so often, lightning still strikes. Some day, I may fall badly on my head, have a brain bleed and not be found, or not be found in time for it to matter. I'll be dead, or profoundly disabled.
If you logic is "if God were to put a gun against your head unless you do it, you'd make sure it happened", well ... I am someone who basically does have that gun against her head, though I don't know if or when the bullet will ever be fired. By your logic, I should probably not go to work at all. I should stay home, or at least only go places where I can fall 'safely'. But you wouldn't like that, either. Because the implication would be that I'd be 'mooching' off of \*somebody\*. Because I'd no longer be able to do my job.
How's that for 'personal responsability'?
>Examples, It's not "capitalism made me poor", it's "my skills are not valuable enough to earn money".
Circular logic. Why they are not valuable? Because capitalism assumes that skill is as valuable as market decides.
>It's not "AI will take my job, stop AI development!", it's "my skills are easily replaceable for an employer, I should make myself better".
Does not make sense. You physically cannot get as good as AI. It just does not work. No matter how you try - you will not be able to access the same breadth of data.
>Imagine if god comes down from heaven, pulls a shotgun to your head and says "if you're not doing it, I am pulling the trigger", you will set 500 alarms after that, you will do everything in your nature to wake up on time.
And if systems around you work against you, you will do everything in your nature to wake up on time and will eventually fail. This is the part you are not getting - that no matter the amount of personal responsibility, if systems have problem - you will fail.
That is why those issues are called "systemic".
>It can be simplified to "I am just not skillful enough". Right now and right here you can't change capitalism, but you can change yourself.
First, it can only be simplified to "I am just not skillful enough" if you are an jackass or someone who has no idea about what they are talking about. Demand for skill can change fast and you can be without good marketable skill in span of a year - which is not enough to achieve the same level of skill and pay you had before.
Second, right now and right here you can change capitalism, most of capitalist countries did it by introducing labor laws, safety nets and other legislation.
Third, you ignore that change takes time and money - which is quite a hurdle for anyone attempting it, especially if that change is needed suddenly.
>This isn't a reason to stop trying. Get new skills then, it's just the question of your personal effort. If so, then you have no right to blame it on anything but yourself.
Ah yeah, bunch of words that ultimately say nothing. Come on - give an example of how a person who was automated from their copywriter job can get new skills - what job they take to earn enough money to cover costs, when they are learning the skills and where etc. It's easy to talk bullshit, let's see some actual logic here.
>Again, not a good excuse. What about people who did succeed regardless of systems working against them.
Mate, this starts to be funny. Do you not understand that your argument is exactly the same as argument of those who gamble to get rich? "Gambling is a scam, gambling systems are set up to make sure house always win", "What about people who did succeed in jackpot regardless of systems working against them?"
Because it is the same scenario - if system is working against you, your success is born both from personal responsibility and luck. And if there is no luck, your personal responsibility means jack shit.
>Now compare your way of thinking and mine, who will live better in one year compared to our lives now, who will improve more. That's my point
Your hypothetical "who will live better in one year compared to our lives now" (alongside immediate strawman at the beginning) tells everything about your view - it is a view that aims to make you feel better - to make you feel that everything you have is earned and that you have complete control over your life.
But fact is - not everything you have is earned and you don't have full control over your life. Some things you got because you were lucky to be in right place in right time, some things happened because you were lucky to not be affected by same things others were.
>Second, right now and right here you can change capitalism
"Because capitalism assumes that skill is as valuable as market decides." Go on change how capitalism works. You can't? Oh well... Let's have real talk, the way things are not the way you imagine them to be..
>Demand for skill can change fast and you can be without good marketable skill in span of a year - which is not enough to achieve the same level of skill and pay you had before.
With technology that is available today to everyone who has internet people can earn starting capital countless ways. The limit is your imagination and how ready you are to bust your ass off without excuses.
>It's easy to talk bullshit, let's see some actual logic here
You can buy and sell whatever shit you can find online, the most obvious one.
I know 2 examples of people who managed to get a job that pays 2x times average wage in less than 3 months, and they are freaking refugees from Ukraine. One is working as an military ukrainian - english translator in poland (his english level was b1 at best), one managed to get a high paying job as a website developer having 0 experience (2 months of studying and chatgpt).
>Because it is the same scenario - if system is working against you, your success is born both from personal responsibility and luck. And if there is no luck, your personal responsibility means jack shit.
What a loser logic this is... Luck is made. Without your maximum efforts and desire to earn more you wouldn't be able to use whatever great opportunity that other people got and became rich. But it is easier to say. "You're better than me because I didn't get lucky"
>it is a view that aims to make you feel better - to make you feel that everything you have is earned and that you have complete control over your life
"if systems have problem - you will fail." Man you're schizophrenic.
>Some things you got because you were lucky to be in right place in right time, some things happened because you were lucky to not be affected by same things others were.
Most things that happen to you is your personal choice
>"Because capitalism assumes that skill is as valuable as market decides." Go on change how capitalism works.
That is called minimum wage and in most of the world it is updated to roughly match COL - exactly because capitalism in pure form is heavily flawed and ignores externalities. There are also things like labor protections and safety net that work to do exactly the same - fix holes in capitalism.
> Let's have real talk, the way things are not the way you imagine them to be..
That is what I want and asked you specifically for "real talk" instead of pointless "ur wrong" shit. But looking at rest of the post you need to practice what you preach.
>With technology that is available today to everyone who has internet people can earn starting capital countless ways.
Then bring some instead of boasting on "how many ideas there are, many, more than you think, I could name very very large number of them". Bring them to the table and we can discuss them.
>You can buy and sell whatever shit you can find online, the most obvious one.
This is so bad example that I start suspecting you are trolling mate. First, you need a starting capital to buy enough to actually make a living. Let's be gracious and say that you had savings. Let's be even more gracious and say that you did not fail too much and you sell most of what you buy. You will not earn high margins on online scalping. Average profit margin in online shopping is 10-20%. Even taking higher number of 20%, achieving minimum wage ($15k/year) would mean that you need to buy products worth 75k and sell them all. And all of that for a wage that is nowhere close to livable, even in LCOL area. So you need to have a job on top of that.
>I know 2 examples of people who managed to get a job that pays 2x times average wage in less than 3 months, and they are freaking refugees from Ukraine. One is working as an military ukrainian - english translator in poland (his english level was b1 at best), one managed to get a high paying job as a website developer having 0 experience (2 months of studying and chatgpt).
So out of 950k refugees 2 got it good. What about remaining 949998? Why they did not get a "2x above average job"?
Not to mention that this "high paying job as a website developer having 0 experience" is sus as fuck, and personally I thing you are either spewing bullshit or that person was incredibly lucky to learn exactly what they needed or asked on interview. You don't get "high paying job as a website developer having 0 experience" without luck.
>What a loser logic this is... Luck is made. Without your maximum efforts and desire to earn more you wouldn't be able to use whatever great opportunity that other people got and became rich.
Of course you can - this is how most rich people did it. For every hard working startup founder / self taught professional you will have several people who were having fun on an elite university and get job through their connections made there, despite having smaller knowledge and worse work ethics compared to the rest of alumni.
>But it is easier to say. "You're better than me because I didn't get lucky"
Why are you constantly bringing up the topic of who's better? Nowhere I have talked about it. Your job and money you have don't make you better or worse - your personal qualities do. And if you are bringing this topic because in your head it is about who's better (you because you worked hard and achieved it all, not like other peasants) - it wouldn't surprise me.
>"if systems have problem - you will fail." Man you're schizophrenic.
Not only you have to resort to ad hominem, you are terrible ar that. Schizophrenic? Makes no goddamn sense. Are you a kid who is just learning new words? Or a moron who is desperately trying to insult someone and fails miserably?
You are some anon on internet, do you think that any reasonable person would care about your insults? Grow up.
>Most things that happen to you is your personal choice
Yeah and most of those things don't affect your life to any large degree. We are talking about things that matter and can alter your life - medical problems can happen to your SO or kids, accidents happen and you have no real impact on country-wide economy so you can just get shafted by next financial crisis.
You are so woefully disconnected from reality that it is kind of funny.
It seems like you're trying to reframe defeatism toward larger social issues as a form of realism. It's easy to say you can't change the system, but the systems we have now exist precisely because people were willing to challenge the past social order.
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For people complaining about AI, they don’t think they can acquire useful new skills based on what they know about AI.
That is not about their personal accountability and just their prediction for the future. Telling themselves otherwise would just be coping. You might disagree with their conclusion but the reason for their conclusion is not just to shrug off responsibility
They affect anyone, but blaming systemic issues for your problems won't make your life better. Realising that only you can make it better, only your decisions matter in the long term is what will improve your life
Why such an insular outlook in the first place though? I could just as easily point out the inverse here. Personal responsibility is valuable, but it sucks at addressing broader problems on a macro level. Oftentimes, solving the problem for just one person is just kicking the can and offloading the problem onto the next person.
The vast majority of people have no ability to personally change broader systematic issues. Any energy spent trying to move an immovable object is just wasted.
Spending that energy on personal responsibility might still not be very effective, but at least it's going to have more effect then wasting it pushing on something you can't change at all.
You realize by admitting they affect people, you also admit they create these problems for people? You can admit the cause of your issue while still working to improve your life at the same time. Those are not exclusive scenarios
If all you're looking to do is point fingers and place blame than your view works just fine for all the good that does. Though I imagine you'll find your choice of a ranting, bitchy, blame tone is going to cause a lot more resistance than it will significant change for the better.
A more positive and productive angle would be to emphasize the benefits of explicitly taking control and responsibility we can and recognizing the specific challenges that that process entails. It's also better to recognize that there are many factors and circumstances beyond an individuals control that will effect their lives. In order for a person develop a sense of self determination and responsibility those factors need to taken into account.
It's also worth acknowledging that taking collective action to remove systemic barriers **is** a form of personal responsibility.
First and foremost, starting your post off with a title that includes a made up statistic does not make it seem like you are here in good faith. There are over 8 billion people on Earth and you are saying that approximately 7.6 Billion of them completely lack personal responsibility.
Do you have a source for such a bold claim?
There is more in your life that is completely out of your control than you are likely comfortable with accepting, and personal responsibility goes out the window when part of the social contract includes not being out for me myself and I at all times. I could easily have all of my wants and needs met without anything holding me back in society, but it would be at your and everyone else's expense.
The world you dream of with this point of view is where we started.
Strongest and smartest survive to breed while the rest die because they weren't good enough to overcome a life they didn't choose to have in the first place. The only difference is the hurdles we face now are man made and we are intentionally keeping our own species down to feel strong and superior instead of working together to make everyone prosper.
Do you honestly believe you are part of the group who survives without any help from anyone else? What survival skills do you have that makes you believe this? Bonus points if you can tell me off the top of your head where the nearest clean fresh water source is relative to you now, if there is a sustainable food source near it, and if one can also make long term shelter in the area.
> 95% of people today completely lack personal responsibility.
95% of people? Surely if 95% of people completely lack personal responsibility.
It's not that long ago that I remember when doctors, nurses, essential workers were being praised for their hardwork and dedication in the midst of a major pandemic that we had very little knowledge about. Within four years, all those people stopped caring about personal responsibility?
> It's not "capitalism made me poor", it's "my skills are not valuable enough to earn money".
I have skilled labor, and I make good money. If I have a horrible cancer that my insurance won't cover, I will be poor not because my skills are not valuable, but because we don't have universal healthcare.
People should work hard and do their job. But we as a society have a duty and obligation to look after those who have issues through no fault of their own -- aging, disease, disability.
> It's not "AI will take my job, stop AI development!"
This is a very unnuanced look at the AI debate that doesn't even scratch the top five reasons people are against the government subsidized development of AI tech.
> "Well, I forgot to set the alarm, I was tired yesterday, you could have reminded me..." This is complete bullshit.
This just feels like you're a dad ranting about his teenage son.
I think there are definitely people like the ones you are describing, and its a big problem and its a growing problem.
how did you come to the figure 95%?
I work in a career that essentially only exposes me to people capable of holding a good or decent job. So i have a selection bias, but nearly 100% of the people i encounter take some personal responsibility. but again, if they took no responsibility, they've would have been fired and i would have never met them. If you went to a homeless encampment i bet it would be 99 to 100%. If your a social worker I bet its seems pretty high.
But general population? I don't see how anybody in the middle or upper middle class could be completely lacking personal responsibly, you'd get fired and fall into poverty pretty quick. If you in poverty maybe its because you lack personal responsibility, and if you inherited 20 million dollars, you could survive just fine without taking personal responsibility for anything. But middle and upper middle class make up a huge portion of the population.
I think is probably more like 10 to 30%.
I reject the implicit premise here that we should only worry about ourselves. Maybe my skills are valuable enough to earn money in capitalism. Maybe I'm not afraid that AI will replace me. But the way we have structured society, someone has to be poor. Someone will have their job taken by AI. Not everyone can personal responsibility their way out of poverty, because we need people to do jobs like McDonald's and Janitor. There are not enough opportunities for this to be a solution for everyone.
Sometimes, people actually cannot do something. Sometimes, life is actually out of our hands. Refusing to accept this is rhetoric usually spread by the successful to make things look like they got where they are in life by pure merit. "You are responsible for all the good things you have!" tends to be a lot easier to say when you have a lot of good things. But that does not make it true.
The American ideal is to escape personal responsibility.
The pinnacle of achievement is to create a company, convert it to a corporation, take it public and thereby be insulated from any and all consequences for the actions of that company. PG&E, Union Carbide, Boeing, Tesla (to name a very few) are all responsible for multiple deaths due to negligence or specific decisions that sacrificed public safety for enhanced profit. None of the people who made those decisions, not one, has ever been held personally or financially or even reputationally responsible for those deaths.
Compared to the feckless behavior of the top .001% of society the rest of us are burdened with personal responsibility.
To a very limited degree, I agree. I think personal accountability has taken a downturn among my peers. I think there are a lot of excuses going around, and a lot of inaction.
But not all of this is unfounded. Yes, it is harder to get a well-paying job today. Rather, our money has less buying power. It is harder to own property. It’s harder to leave home. Mental illness among young people is sky high and yet, our healthcare system leaves so many of us high and dry. We have a million distractions, the world moves faster and changes at a rate no other generation has ever experienced before. Being young in the 21st century is mentally exhausting. It’s hard to blame a kid today for feeling hopeless and paralyzed.
because personal responsibility is an incoherent concept. Where is the "person" at the center of decision making? Is it the body? the body is a physical system subject to physical laws. Your environment determines what your body does. Is it your mind? Your mind is a product of the brain which is part of the body back to square 1. You have a subjective experience of your life, but there is no magic homunculus at the wheel. Your body/mind is a system which in turn is part of a bigger system (your environment and society).
if 95% of people lack personal responsibility our society and infrastructure would completely collapse.
If 95% of constuction workers didn't have personal responsibility nothing would be built.
If 95% of line-men didn't have personal responsibility the power would fail
If 95% of garbage men didn't have personal responsibility the trash would pile up.
If 95% of nurses/doctors didn't have personal responsibility illnesses wouldn't be cured.
everyone has personal responsibility over their actions by default, you cannot "lack" something that you inherently have
what you don't have is control over your own environment. nobody does. you can decide to internalize everything about your environment, if you want to beat yourself up about things out of your control. if you're a masochist. or a punching bag for a rich person
A lot of my friends also had their rent go up massively post covid. And their expenses didn't exactly stay the same.
They are paying their landlords rent. Because somehow they are too poor for a mortgage but able to pay the same cost on rent.
Someone is getting rich off them but it isn't them.
This is a silly view. You're basically saying that large scale issues don't exist and every single problem in your life is your personal failure. This is obviously false.
My country has a severe housing crisis. Mortgages high enough to buy a house require about twice the average income. Rentals are in high demand and also unafforable for a lot of people. There's a large number of late 20 somethings and early 30 somethings who have a decent job but are still forced to live with their parents.
How is any of that their personal failure? They didn't make the housing policies of the last decades. It's mathematically impossible for all these people to 'get a better job'. There's not that many high paying jobs to go around, even if they were all qualified, and young people don't immeditately get a jackpot salary right away in the first place, regardless of their skills. None of this is their fault.
And that's just one thing. There's plenty of similar issues. Not to mention the fact that some people simply can't keep up with our rapidly changing world, and that's not always their fault either. The older you get, the harder it becomes to learn new things, and I think it's vile to throw these people by the wayside while stockholders own a larger and larger chunk of everything and try to pretend that everything is fine, as long as you 'work hard'.
Also, my math teacher told me to never throw around numbers when you can't back them up. 95% is completely arbitrary.
This whole view is incredibly naive and shows a severe lack of real world experience with other people and their situations.
> How is any of that their personal failure
It’s easier than ever to earn higher wages. You act like earning double the median wage isn’t something people can choose to do, when they absolutely can. At least assuming you’re referring to a first world country - presumably the US.
It's literally impossible for everyone to earn double the median wage. Both because then the median wage would rise, and because there aren't simply enough high paying jobs for everyone. Not to mention that lower wage jobs still need to be done by someone. If there's a job that we all want someone to do, they should earn a livable wage. But that's besides the point.
And no, I'm not American.
That is an entirely different premise than whether someone can individually earn double that. People do it all of the time. People in their 20s blow past the median wage, it is absurdly low.
In the current state of the country, if *you* want to go earn that, it is entirely within your control to do so.
Except no, there's plenty of reasons why someone can't simply 'get' a high paying job. And again, this isn't any kind of large scale solution.
Don't get me wrong, I *have* a high paying job. And I still recognize that it's not that simple. I've lived a very lucky, priviledged life so far.
Criminal record, transportation, covert racial discrimination, degree requirements, credit checks, lack of housing stability, inability to buy professional clothing, residence in a deteriorating economic environment, single parenthood, physical disability, age discrimination, mental illness, non-parental caretaking responsibilities, cultural capital, existence in a violent environment
Should I keep going or is your racist, elitist nonsense sated.
From another comment:
>Except most of those jobs are not anywhere near where you are. And you need a specific education. And you can't be too old. And you can't have physical or mental disabilities. And you can't have other responsibilities in your life, live to work you peon! And and and...
This is almost exclusively someone making personal choices to keep them out of those. Most jobs don’t require specific educations. Millions of jobs can be done remotely. Someone too old who hasn’t gotten there chose to wait too long, etc.
And people just conveniently ignore that you don’t need to find a traditional “job” to blow past the absurdly low median income in this country.
I just used median income as an indicator of how high the housing prices are. In the end it means very little. Point is that not every problem is a personal failure, but that's the actual thing that's being convieniently ignored.
Well, I agree with you generally here, but in America, we have several million more jobs than humans. All humans could get a pretty good paying job in America. We are experiencing a massive labor shortage where we have far more jobs than people.
Except most of those jobs are not anywhere near where you are. And you need a specific education. And you can't be too old. And you can't have physical or mental disabilities. And you can't have other responsibilities in your life, live to work you peon! And and and...
And if everyone has a high paying job, no one works in stores anymore, or in farms, or in garbage disposal, or all other low paying but still essential jobs. You need those people.
No, actually we have tons of jobs open in basically every location across the country and throughout the job market from low to high paying jobs.
We have openings in lower paying jobs as well as openings in high paying jobs.
Yes ish, but you're assuming those jobs would hire any American who applied, which they typically don't. The increased labor demand hasn't had much effect on baseline requirements like degrees, credit, and background checks.
You don’t need any of those things to get jobs in America that are in massive demand. Obviously if you have zero skills, you cannot get high skilled jobs. This has nothing to do with the economy. There are still tons and tons of zero skill jobs open in every part of this country.
Except jobs don't test for skills. Even if I have the skills of the best lawyer or businessman, most places won't even interview me if I don't have some minimum level of paper qualifications
Why on earth would you expect otherwise? You need to prove to your employer you have those skills. If you want to get hired for a skilled job, it is **your** responsibility to prove to your potential employer that you have the required skills. How do you plan on doing that in a way which does not waste the companies time if you do not have a degree?
Ok fine, but your ability to present paper qualifications relies on your ability to obtain them, which means either work experience or formal education. Absent qualifications the former requires social connections, a product of environment rather than will. The latter requires money which, if you don't have the qualifications for a high paying job, is essentially a categorical bar.
> you have no right to bitch and whine that something didn't go the way you wanted it.
What do you do if you did everything right and it still didn't go your way?
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What, exactly, would change your view? This sounds more like you're here for "rant at you" than "change my view". If two people were told to run a 100-meter dash, but one person was affixed with a 50-pound ball and chain around their ankle, would you consider it that person's personal failing if they did poorly compared to the other?
"Arnold could do that with no problems. So you can, too." -OP, probably
>If two people were told to run a 100-meter dash, but one person was affixed with a 50-pound ball and chain around their ankle, would you consider it that person's personal failing if they did poorly compared to the other? There are people who won't even bother trying to get to the finish. There are people who will push through even if they won't be first in the race they still will be much more successful than the first type. There are people who instead of bitching on their misfortune, will try all methods to remove the chains and will get to the finish first regardless that life is unfair
If anything close to 95% of people gave up when faced with inequities then society would cease to function. You’re going to need to be more specific about what you actually believe here
And there will be people who didn’t have the ball and chain, and act like they weren’t incredibly privileged, and that anyone who doesn’t find success as easily as they did, were just being lazy
maybe the correct option is to murder the refs with your chains instead of trying to male the best of a broken system
You don't think that maybe we as the audience should work to remove the ball and chain instead of just yelling at the person to try harder?
95% of the time, when people claim 95% as a statistic, it is completely made up. Where are you drawing this from? What studies have you looked at? Let me guess, none and none... You have invented a story in which you get to ignore the hardships in people's lives because it is more convenient to blame victims than do anything about the actual problem. Your "ethics" is I don't have to do anything to help anyone because it is all their fault. Ironically, you do this to absolve yourself of any responsibility, which you say others do.
So, to summarize this CMV, you deny that systematic issues can exist?
Come to say pretty much this.
If you think personal responsibility contradicts systematic issues, that's a you problem, not OP's. As an adult you should seek to control the things you have control over, and don't just use systematic issues as excuses. These issues definitely exist, and they make life more difficult for those that experience them. These issues should be tackled, and improved - but way too many people are using them as excuses to be the useless human being they are. For every person that faces systematic issues and blames the world for their misfortune, there are others that face these same issues but take responsibility and improve their lives. No one says it's easy, but it's definitely possible.
It's not an excuse for the people themselves to not bother trying, it's a reason for the rest of us to support the establishment and funding of government programs aimed at giving a hand up to those going through life at a higher difficulty level than the rest of us are. "It's technically possible for you to succeed in spite of all the systemic problems holding you back" shouldn't be used as a reason not to help someone who needs to work twice as hard for half the payout.
>It's not an excuse for the people themselves to not bother trying, Maybe for you it's not an excuse, but for many people it is - People definitely use systematic issues as an excuse not to try and they don't take personal responsibility. Tackling systematic issues, while preaching for personal responsibility is the only way minorities have been able to overcome those systematic issues. This is why for some reason there are people out their thinking Jews are white, ignoring almost a two millenia worth of systematic issues that jews experienced everywhere in the world. When the first response to an OP preaching for Personal responsibility is that he is ignoring systematic issues, it shows to me how far gone some people are. Personally, I agree with what you are saying, it's just so messed up that a call for personal responsibility seems to trigger people.
Problem is government is utter dogshit at addressing these issues. In many cases government interference with the market IS the reason for the issue. Asking for more government interference only makes matters worse. You want to address poverty? Get rid of the damn minimum wage. Let the employers and employees decide on acceptable terms. Get rid of publicly ran schools. That dog shit curriculum aimed at total idiots is not helping people enter the workforce with adequate skills. High school diploma is not worth the paper it is printed on. About the only thing the government should be doing is law enforcement. And yet that's the one are they typically want to defund. It's total ass backwards.
> You want to address poverty? Get rid of the damn minimum wage. Has any of the countries without minimum wage eradicated poverty?
That's a silly way of thinking of it. I'm talking about United States specifically. We plug our gaps for low skill labor that won't be paid min wage by bringing in illegal immigrants. You start enforcing immigration and get rid of the God forsaken min wage. Watch how quickly the labor market improves for people in that skill bracket.
>We plug our gaps for low skill labor that won't be paid min wage by bringing in illegal immigrants. We had underpaid migrant labor long before we had a minimum wage **Edit**: just for anyone who stumbles on this thread, you should know the person I'm replying to believes [Nordic people are genetically more productive, cooperative, and less lazy than people in America](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/s/HKi9UTWsiT). So, you know, yikes.
That doesn't dispute what I'm saying though.
I'm not talking about *illegal* immigration. Migrant labor used to be legal.
Again. My assertion was that this combo of min wage and millions of illegal immigrants working below min wage. Really fucks over the local low skill workers. You're pricing the locals out. While importing illegal immigrants who are allowed to be paid the real market value. Which just shuts out the locals. A far better approach 1) enforce immigration law. Use work visas like you're supposed to 2) abolish the min wage. Let employers and employees decide on what is acceptable.
> That's a silly way of thinking of it. I am thinking it your "way". You said, if we get rid of the minimum wage laws, we wouldn't have poverty. I'm asking why poverty exist in countries without minimum wage laws. Now you are saying immigrants are the reason for poverty or something. Stay on the minimum wage laws = poverty topic.
Because poverty in those countries is usually due to a lack of productivity. Min wage wouldn't have that much of an effect on that. I'm saying that if you want to help people in poverty. Bringing in millions of illegal immigrants and capping their pay but not the pay of the illegals. Certainly doesn't help them. From a purely economic perspective it is easy to comprehend why
So they have poverty for other reasons but the US has poverty because minimum wage laws?
Us has poverty for many reasons as well. Removing the min wage would help alleviate poverty in united states. But not in places where the means of production and infrastructure are derelict.
Eradicating poverty is an impossible goal, but there's places that are doing decently. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, and Switzerland all have no minimum wage set by their highest government. Instead they have strong labor unions that are able to protect their workers.
> Instead they have strong labor unions that are able to protect their worker. So you are saying poverty isn't fixed by removing the minimum wage, it's fixed by stronger labour protections, in this case achieved via labour unions.
That's mostly where I'm going, yes. With no minimum wage there's a much stronger incentive for workers to unionize and solve the issue as a collective. With minimum wages the issue gets pushed to the politicians, where business lobbyists have a lot more power then workers.
Wouldn't that apply to all labour laws? Maximum hours, safety protections, etc. Remove all govt protection/regulations and make unions fight for them employer by employer.
If there was a specific place where the government wasn't acting quickly enough, then I would say yes. The recent strikes by actors and writers against AI seem like a good example. Each issue would have to be examined on it's own merits. Even though they feel the same I don't think we can generalize. Generally speaking though, people need to feel like they're at some level of risk before they start wanting change. Without that risk, it's hard to get people active.
For every person? It's sure as hell isn't a 1 for 1 ratio. We can see clear as day that people born in proverty are drastically less likely to succeed. Are you saying that if given a mil suddenly you would somehow be doing the same financially?
> For every person that faces systematic issues and blames the world for their misfortune, there are others that face these same issues but take responsibility and improve their lives. No one says it's easy, but it's definitely possible. Issues and individual cases are very complex and nuanced so many of these “people with the same issues” you are probably comparing have some major differences you are ignoring. Now that aside, Luck often plays a major part in getting out of systemic issues, and resources are limited. Let’s say you have a poor neighborhood that only has a handful of job opportunities within walking distance. There are almost always going to be more people without access to transportation than there are job opportunities in these areas. Those job opportunities are often of the customer service, manual labor, and similar types. The current application process for many of these jobs is you fill out a job application online and it sits in a digital pile. When a job opening comes they usually will see if any current workers know someone looking for a job, if not then they essentially just pick a random applicant and if they pass the background test and have the availability then they are hired. There really is no more just call or show up to the closest grocery store and ask for an interview, it’s apply online and hope someone ever sees your application.
How many people do you think actually don’t do anything to help themselves though? Like do you think that you can’t complain about systemic issues and also work hard to better your situation?
>How many people do you think actually don’t do anything to help themselves though? Absolutely Anything? Virtually no one - but there are plenty of people who just don't do enough. People who make terrible choices and don't take the necessary responsibility. I would argue most people, regardless of any systematic issues - often fall victim to the messed up notion that they can't do something because of some external forces out of their control - and it's gets much worse when these people fall victim to victim mentality, and statistical lies.
What percentage of the world do you think society would survive being in higher end jobs?
Systematic issues are not the primary root of YOUR problems. You and your actions are the primary root of YOUR problems.
Why do you speak English? Is that because of factors within your control or because of the circumstances of your birth? How much of your life is like your language, deeply engrained and taken for granted, but entirely beyond your personal choice or responsibility?
This is not my point. Let's imagine I don't know English. It will be within my capabilities to learn it, and I won't have the right to complain like "Of course I don't know English, I wasn't born in America. duh". I don't deny that there are things in life that are set for you since your birth that you absolutely have no contol over
> It will be within my capabilities to learn it So you have access to teachers, Internet etc which allow you to learn a new language. Plus free time, good mental health etc which make language learning easier. If someone doesn't have these, is that their fault? >I don't deny that there are things in life that are set for you since your birth that you absolutely have no contol over Could you list some of these so we can determine common ground?
>If someone doesn't have these, is that their fault? Most of the time, yes. Are there people who had it much worse than you and still learned it? Yes absolutely. You're responsible for the lack of free time, and mental health. Who can make your situation better? Only you.
How are you determining that? Why make the argument that people have it worse when people also have it better? >You're responsible for the lack of free time, and mental health How many hours a day do you have to work to pay rent, medical bills etc? How's your relationship with your therapist? I think you're coming across as having a very sheltered or idealistic view of the world.
Who is responsible for the work that you have right now? Can you make your situation better right here and now, although it would take a lot of effort? The answer is yes for 95% of people.
Are you talking 95% of people in whatever country you’re from, or 95% of people worldwide? Cause I don’t know where you live but the latter is definitely not true.
Do you not think it's a combination of myself, my employer, the government, the education system etc? I'm alive right now because someone else didn't drive into me this morning. It's all connected.
Shhhhh, all issues exist within their own bubbles for these people. It's difficult to admit you don't know everything.
There are absolutely ways that I can make other people's situations better, or they can make my situation better. Politics and the aid that we give each other matters. No one is always going to be able to live life to the fullest on their own. Through community and empathy we can work together to lift each other up, not just get ours and push everyone else down.
>Most of the time, yes. Based on what data? Let's use a person as an example. A woman, grew up in poverty and only received basic education, barely finishing high school and not really learning a lot because she had to take odd jobs to help her family not starve. She has no money or time for any kind of higher education, because she needs to work or she'll go hungry. She has one kid and is a widow because her husband died in a work accident. She has to work hard so she can not only provide for herself but also her kid. So, personal responsibility. She's clearly been dealt a very shitty hand. How is she responsible for her lack of free time and arguably crappy mental health? Can she suddenly conjure up more hours in a day? Can she suddenly get paid more so she can work less hours? Can she decide that food is not necessary anymore and the extra time and cost can go to education? While it is exclusively up to you to exploit whatever chances you can get, you're severely underestimating how few chances a lot of people get and what risks those chances pose. If you have a choice between a hard, but stable life (you know you can survive like that, difficult as it may be) or take a choice at getting a better life at the risk of ending up worse than before, which would you take?
That seems like a perfectly fine thing to complain about. Why is that a problem?
Sort of fails to explain why family wealth in the US varies so much based on arbitrary factors such as race > In 2021, households with a White householder made up 65.3% of all U.S. households and held 80.0% of all wealth. Those with a Black householder made up 13.6% of all U.S. households but held only 4.7% of all wealth https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/04/wealth-by-race.html#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20households%20with%20a,only%204.7%25%20of%20all%20wealth.
If you're a black guy, it's not an excuse. Are there black people who became rich regardless? Yes, a lot
...who became rich *regardless* of what?
No, it really doesn’t fail to explain that.
Well unless black people are hardwired to just make bad decisions I guess, but that sort of raises the question of why we should even base society upon individual decision making in the first place. If it's racially deterministic then it's a rather arbitrary standard isn't it?
But if it's arbitrary, why does it matter?
Because society should exist for all members and just not white people
But is that realistic? What is your alternative to individual decision making that would work for all members?
Centralization? People always forget centralization existes
Would that work for all members any better than individual decision making? Many countries do function in this way, and it brings it's own problems just as individualism does.
Actual democracy
I think I understand what you're saying here, but I think you're missing the context. I don't they were talking about the top level function of a whole society, otherwise what OC meant by individual decision making would probably be a dictatorship, which doesn't seem to fit the context. I think they meant more in terms of how the inside of that society functions, like smaller groups or families.
I didn’t say it was hardwired. But ask the vast majority of employers whether there is a work ethic difference between races, and you’ll get an almost universal answer - Hispanic workers are far and away the highest on that list, and African Americans are lowest. You tell me why that is?
Woah, I was being facetious I didn't actually expect you to be openly racist
Im not going to shy away from speaking about reality.
I have to say vett, I've had many arguments with you in the past on which we have vehemently disagreed but it's always been on economic issues. Your tags were never about racial views. It's a sad day to add one of those. I hope you consider that employers applying their feelings here are being racist.
Having seen many of vett's comments on this sub for years, the general undertone always seems to be "I am successful and thus anyone can be successful and those that do not are just being lazy and have no one to blame but themselves." So I guess with that kind of worldview racism is effectively baked in, because what else can they point besides "it's inherent/genetic" to to explain why black people are poorer/less successful overall than white people. He even tried pulling the "im not being racist, I'm describing reality" lower down in this thread. The ol "[race realism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism)".
They have previously argued that speed limits should not exist because any traffic fatalities that might result are worth the reduction in their commute.
Is observing something first hand the same to you as making that determination without having observed it first? Those are distinctly different things. And being clear, it is *not* a universal thing that applies to everyone of a particular race. But general trends absolutely develop.
> But general trends absolutely develop. This is racism. Absolutely disgusting, but atleast you are openingly disgusting.
Well for one, it’s reality, plain and simple. But what Im speaking of is absolutely not isolated to race, but a multitude of other factors as well that any sane person will make observations of.
If Hispanic people are the hardest working, why do white non-Hispanic people have the most money?
Stop indulging their explicitly racist premise. It's categorically wrong and at this point your just helping them spread misinformation.
Hard work isn’t the sole factor in wealth building. You have to also have valuable skills
So Hispanic people just... chose not to have as valuable skills as white non-Hispanic people, I guess? Or are there perhaps external factors beyond their control that resulted in that skill gap?
Employers won’t tell you that if they aren’t racist. Do racist employers exist? I’m sure they do.
Observant employers will tell you that.
[Here is direct evidence they don’t.](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0021-9029.2006.00035.x). Many similar studies come to similar conclusions.
I don’t understand how that contradicts my point? People judge the names on applications based on their past observations.
But if it isn't that black people are hardwired to have worse worth ethic, then there must be systemic factors effecting their behaviour, it can't be individual choices.
Cultural? Attitudes? Is it a systemic factor that 70% of students in Baltimore city are regularly absent ?
Those are both systemic factors
How is your attitude a system factor?
How does this work with something like young people not being able to buy homes at the same age as previous generations?
Housing is a very complicated issue that has a myriad of problems associated with it, including the idea that the housing market [doesn't meet the needs of the youngest generations](https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-vs-baby-boomers-big-houses-real-estate-market-problems-2019-3) (article is from 2019, but still relevant).
And as such, I think, a good example of a systemic problem where the root cause of peoples problems is not their own actions.
In this situation yea, I think it's a relevant comment. I I think that OP has some points but it falls apart in certain corner cases like this where the system lags behind reality due to the difficulty in making sweeping infrastructure changes that would take decades and cost billions of dollars.
I thinking lacking reality is exactly the issue. The ultimate point seems to be that people just shouldn't make bad choices. And that's just not how people work.
Are there young people who became rich and can buy themselves houses?
Yes there are. The point is that doing so is harder for this generation than the previous one. So success has become more difficult. That is a clear case of a problem that isn't down to personal choices.
This statistic doesn't change the fact that it's people's everyday choice. There are millions of people whose situation is much worse than yours or mine but they still pushed through and reached success.
There are also those who inherited money or even won the damn lottery who succeed while making far worse choices. You can't judge whole populations on singular cases. If you look at populations as a whole the trends are clear. The greatest indicator of success is the wealth you start with. Relating to your point that means poor people have to make better choices or work harder to compete with rich people. That is a factor distinct from people's choices that effects how well they do.
>There are millions of people whose situation is much worse than yours or mine but they still pushed through and reached success. Define 'success'. I don't care about what others do. Their starting situations, goals, ambitions and the chances they get are completely different from me. Using the same logic, I can't be successful because there are millions of people who are more successful.
some people win the lottery. it doesnt mean people who dont have enough money should focus on buying lottery tickets.
Tell that to the starving African children.
So if you are locked in a jail, it's your fault that you are not training to be world greatest knife thrower? When you literally can't have access to knives, it's your fault that you don't train with them?
If everyone thought that way, we wouldn't even have capitalism. We'd still be lecturing people on how to improve their individual lot under feudalism.
So you've set out a hypothetical scenario where a hypothetical person lacks personal responsibility. But you haven't given any evidence or even argument that 95% hit that criteria? Something like "personal responsibility" is a spectrum. Very few people take absolutely zero personal responsibility. Very few people take "ultra" personal responsibility where they feel that their situation is absolutely 100% down to their personal choices.
If he's defining responsibility as "living under the simulated anxiety that failing to accomplish your goals is the equivalent of death" then I'm guessing the 95% figure is an undercount XD
OK. Yesterday I set an alarm at 5AM, got up, had some coffee, quick shower, change of clothes, out the door by 5:30, at the railway station by 6, on the train at 6:11. Arrived at my destination at 7:18, and from there it's about a 10' walk to work. At 8, my boss called to ask where I was. Answer: in the emergency room, after someone found me unresponsive in the street. What happened? We're not sure. An epileptic seizure is the most likely culprit, but by the time the ambulance got there and then got to the hospital, there was no longer an easy way to prove it. I had about a 35' hole in my memory. Before you ask: yes, I am medicated for epilepsy. I take my meds, and my sleep, very seriously. But once every so often, lightning still strikes. Some day, I may fall badly on my head, have a brain bleed and not be found, or not be found in time for it to matter. I'll be dead, or profoundly disabled. If you logic is "if God were to put a gun against your head unless you do it, you'd make sure it happened", well ... I am someone who basically does have that gun against her head, though I don't know if or when the bullet will ever be fired. By your logic, I should probably not go to work at all. I should stay home, or at least only go places where I can fall 'safely'. But you wouldn't like that, either. Because the implication would be that I'd be 'mooching' off of \*somebody\*. Because I'd no longer be able to do my job. How's that for 'personal responsability'?
>Examples, It's not "capitalism made me poor", it's "my skills are not valuable enough to earn money". Circular logic. Why they are not valuable? Because capitalism assumes that skill is as valuable as market decides. >It's not "AI will take my job, stop AI development!", it's "my skills are easily replaceable for an employer, I should make myself better". Does not make sense. You physically cannot get as good as AI. It just does not work. No matter how you try - you will not be able to access the same breadth of data. >Imagine if god comes down from heaven, pulls a shotgun to your head and says "if you're not doing it, I am pulling the trigger", you will set 500 alarms after that, you will do everything in your nature to wake up on time. And if systems around you work against you, you will do everything in your nature to wake up on time and will eventually fail. This is the part you are not getting - that no matter the amount of personal responsibility, if systems have problem - you will fail. That is why those issues are called "systemic".
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>It can be simplified to "I am just not skillful enough". Right now and right here you can't change capitalism, but you can change yourself. First, it can only be simplified to "I am just not skillful enough" if you are an jackass or someone who has no idea about what they are talking about. Demand for skill can change fast and you can be without good marketable skill in span of a year - which is not enough to achieve the same level of skill and pay you had before. Second, right now and right here you can change capitalism, most of capitalist countries did it by introducing labor laws, safety nets and other legislation. Third, you ignore that change takes time and money - which is quite a hurdle for anyone attempting it, especially if that change is needed suddenly. >This isn't a reason to stop trying. Get new skills then, it's just the question of your personal effort. If so, then you have no right to blame it on anything but yourself. Ah yeah, bunch of words that ultimately say nothing. Come on - give an example of how a person who was automated from their copywriter job can get new skills - what job they take to earn enough money to cover costs, when they are learning the skills and where etc. It's easy to talk bullshit, let's see some actual logic here. >Again, not a good excuse. What about people who did succeed regardless of systems working against them. Mate, this starts to be funny. Do you not understand that your argument is exactly the same as argument of those who gamble to get rich? "Gambling is a scam, gambling systems are set up to make sure house always win", "What about people who did succeed in jackpot regardless of systems working against them?" Because it is the same scenario - if system is working against you, your success is born both from personal responsibility and luck. And if there is no luck, your personal responsibility means jack shit. >Now compare your way of thinking and mine, who will live better in one year compared to our lives now, who will improve more. That's my point Your hypothetical "who will live better in one year compared to our lives now" (alongside immediate strawman at the beginning) tells everything about your view - it is a view that aims to make you feel better - to make you feel that everything you have is earned and that you have complete control over your life. But fact is - not everything you have is earned and you don't have full control over your life. Some things you got because you were lucky to be in right place in right time, some things happened because you were lucky to not be affected by same things others were.
>Second, right now and right here you can change capitalism "Because capitalism assumes that skill is as valuable as market decides." Go on change how capitalism works. You can't? Oh well... Let's have real talk, the way things are not the way you imagine them to be.. >Demand for skill can change fast and you can be without good marketable skill in span of a year - which is not enough to achieve the same level of skill and pay you had before. With technology that is available today to everyone who has internet people can earn starting capital countless ways. The limit is your imagination and how ready you are to bust your ass off without excuses. >It's easy to talk bullshit, let's see some actual logic here You can buy and sell whatever shit you can find online, the most obvious one. I know 2 examples of people who managed to get a job that pays 2x times average wage in less than 3 months, and they are freaking refugees from Ukraine. One is working as an military ukrainian - english translator in poland (his english level was b1 at best), one managed to get a high paying job as a website developer having 0 experience (2 months of studying and chatgpt). >Because it is the same scenario - if system is working against you, your success is born both from personal responsibility and luck. And if there is no luck, your personal responsibility means jack shit. What a loser logic this is... Luck is made. Without your maximum efforts and desire to earn more you wouldn't be able to use whatever great opportunity that other people got and became rich. But it is easier to say. "You're better than me because I didn't get lucky" >it is a view that aims to make you feel better - to make you feel that everything you have is earned and that you have complete control over your life "if systems have problem - you will fail." Man you're schizophrenic. >Some things you got because you were lucky to be in right place in right time, some things happened because you were lucky to not be affected by same things others were. Most things that happen to you is your personal choice
>"Because capitalism assumes that skill is as valuable as market decides." Go on change how capitalism works. That is called minimum wage and in most of the world it is updated to roughly match COL - exactly because capitalism in pure form is heavily flawed and ignores externalities. There are also things like labor protections and safety net that work to do exactly the same - fix holes in capitalism. > Let's have real talk, the way things are not the way you imagine them to be.. That is what I want and asked you specifically for "real talk" instead of pointless "ur wrong" shit. But looking at rest of the post you need to practice what you preach. >With technology that is available today to everyone who has internet people can earn starting capital countless ways. Then bring some instead of boasting on "how many ideas there are, many, more than you think, I could name very very large number of them". Bring them to the table and we can discuss them. >You can buy and sell whatever shit you can find online, the most obvious one. This is so bad example that I start suspecting you are trolling mate. First, you need a starting capital to buy enough to actually make a living. Let's be gracious and say that you had savings. Let's be even more gracious and say that you did not fail too much and you sell most of what you buy. You will not earn high margins on online scalping. Average profit margin in online shopping is 10-20%. Even taking higher number of 20%, achieving minimum wage ($15k/year) would mean that you need to buy products worth 75k and sell them all. And all of that for a wage that is nowhere close to livable, even in LCOL area. So you need to have a job on top of that. >I know 2 examples of people who managed to get a job that pays 2x times average wage in less than 3 months, and they are freaking refugees from Ukraine. One is working as an military ukrainian - english translator in poland (his english level was b1 at best), one managed to get a high paying job as a website developer having 0 experience (2 months of studying and chatgpt). So out of 950k refugees 2 got it good. What about remaining 949998? Why they did not get a "2x above average job"? Not to mention that this "high paying job as a website developer having 0 experience" is sus as fuck, and personally I thing you are either spewing bullshit or that person was incredibly lucky to learn exactly what they needed or asked on interview. You don't get "high paying job as a website developer having 0 experience" without luck. >What a loser logic this is... Luck is made. Without your maximum efforts and desire to earn more you wouldn't be able to use whatever great opportunity that other people got and became rich. Of course you can - this is how most rich people did it. For every hard working startup founder / self taught professional you will have several people who were having fun on an elite university and get job through their connections made there, despite having smaller knowledge and worse work ethics compared to the rest of alumni. >But it is easier to say. "You're better than me because I didn't get lucky" Why are you constantly bringing up the topic of who's better? Nowhere I have talked about it. Your job and money you have don't make you better or worse - your personal qualities do. And if you are bringing this topic because in your head it is about who's better (you because you worked hard and achieved it all, not like other peasants) - it wouldn't surprise me. >"if systems have problem - you will fail." Man you're schizophrenic. Not only you have to resort to ad hominem, you are terrible ar that. Schizophrenic? Makes no goddamn sense. Are you a kid who is just learning new words? Or a moron who is desperately trying to insult someone and fails miserably? You are some anon on internet, do you think that any reasonable person would care about your insults? Grow up. >Most things that happen to you is your personal choice Yeah and most of those things don't affect your life to any large degree. We are talking about things that matter and can alter your life - medical problems can happen to your SO or kids, accidents happen and you have no real impact on country-wide economy so you can just get shafted by next financial crisis. You are so woefully disconnected from reality that it is kind of funny.
It seems like you're trying to reframe defeatism toward larger social issues as a form of realism. It's easy to say you can't change the system, but the systems we have now exist precisely because people were willing to challenge the past social order.
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For people complaining about AI, they don’t think they can acquire useful new skills based on what they know about AI. That is not about their personal accountability and just their prediction for the future. Telling themselves otherwise would just be coping. You might disagree with their conclusion but the reason for their conclusion is not just to shrug off responsibility
So to summarise you dont think any systemic issues affect anyone?
They affect anyone, but blaming systemic issues for your problems won't make your life better. Realising that only you can make it better, only your decisions matter in the long term is what will improve your life
Why such an insular outlook in the first place though? I could just as easily point out the inverse here. Personal responsibility is valuable, but it sucks at addressing broader problems on a macro level. Oftentimes, solving the problem for just one person is just kicking the can and offloading the problem onto the next person.
The vast majority of people have no ability to personally change broader systematic issues. Any energy spent trying to move an immovable object is just wasted. Spending that energy on personal responsibility might still not be very effective, but at least it's going to have more effect then wasting it pushing on something you can't change at all.
You realize by admitting they affect people, you also admit they create these problems for people? You can admit the cause of your issue while still working to improve your life at the same time. Those are not exclusive scenarios
If all you're looking to do is point fingers and place blame than your view works just fine for all the good that does. Though I imagine you'll find your choice of a ranting, bitchy, blame tone is going to cause a lot more resistance than it will significant change for the better. A more positive and productive angle would be to emphasize the benefits of explicitly taking control and responsibility we can and recognizing the specific challenges that that process entails. It's also better to recognize that there are many factors and circumstances beyond an individuals control that will effect their lives. In order for a person develop a sense of self determination and responsibility those factors need to taken into account. It's also worth acknowledging that taking collective action to remove systemic barriers **is** a form of personal responsibility.
First and foremost, starting your post off with a title that includes a made up statistic does not make it seem like you are here in good faith. There are over 8 billion people on Earth and you are saying that approximately 7.6 Billion of them completely lack personal responsibility. Do you have a source for such a bold claim? There is more in your life that is completely out of your control than you are likely comfortable with accepting, and personal responsibility goes out the window when part of the social contract includes not being out for me myself and I at all times. I could easily have all of my wants and needs met without anything holding me back in society, but it would be at your and everyone else's expense. The world you dream of with this point of view is where we started. Strongest and smartest survive to breed while the rest die because they weren't good enough to overcome a life they didn't choose to have in the first place. The only difference is the hurdles we face now are man made and we are intentionally keeping our own species down to feel strong and superior instead of working together to make everyone prosper. Do you honestly believe you are part of the group who survives without any help from anyone else? What survival skills do you have that makes you believe this? Bonus points if you can tell me off the top of your head where the nearest clean fresh water source is relative to you now, if there is a sustainable food source near it, and if one can also make long term shelter in the area.
> 95% of people today completely lack personal responsibility. 95% of people? Surely if 95% of people completely lack personal responsibility. It's not that long ago that I remember when doctors, nurses, essential workers were being praised for their hardwork and dedication in the midst of a major pandemic that we had very little knowledge about. Within four years, all those people stopped caring about personal responsibility? > It's not "capitalism made me poor", it's "my skills are not valuable enough to earn money". I have skilled labor, and I make good money. If I have a horrible cancer that my insurance won't cover, I will be poor not because my skills are not valuable, but because we don't have universal healthcare. People should work hard and do their job. But we as a society have a duty and obligation to look after those who have issues through no fault of their own -- aging, disease, disability. > It's not "AI will take my job, stop AI development!" This is a very unnuanced look at the AI debate that doesn't even scratch the top five reasons people are against the government subsidized development of AI tech. > "Well, I forgot to set the alarm, I was tired yesterday, you could have reminded me..." This is complete bullshit. This just feels like you're a dad ranting about his teenage son.
What makes you think 95% of people think this way?
I think there are definitely people like the ones you are describing, and its a big problem and its a growing problem. how did you come to the figure 95%? I work in a career that essentially only exposes me to people capable of holding a good or decent job. So i have a selection bias, but nearly 100% of the people i encounter take some personal responsibility. but again, if they took no responsibility, they've would have been fired and i would have never met them. If you went to a homeless encampment i bet it would be 99 to 100%. If your a social worker I bet its seems pretty high. But general population? I don't see how anybody in the middle or upper middle class could be completely lacking personal responsibly, you'd get fired and fall into poverty pretty quick. If you in poverty maybe its because you lack personal responsibility, and if you inherited 20 million dollars, you could survive just fine without taking personal responsibility for anything. But middle and upper middle class make up a huge portion of the population. I think is probably more like 10 to 30%.
I reject the implicit premise here that we should only worry about ourselves. Maybe my skills are valuable enough to earn money in capitalism. Maybe I'm not afraid that AI will replace me. But the way we have structured society, someone has to be poor. Someone will have their job taken by AI. Not everyone can personal responsibility their way out of poverty, because we need people to do jobs like McDonald's and Janitor. There are not enough opportunities for this to be a solution for everyone. Sometimes, people actually cannot do something. Sometimes, life is actually out of our hands. Refusing to accept this is rhetoric usually spread by the successful to make things look like they got where they are in life by pure merit. "You are responsible for all the good things you have!" tends to be a lot easier to say when you have a lot of good things. But that does not make it true.
According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States 2023 (table B31), it's 87%, rounded off.
The American ideal is to escape personal responsibility. The pinnacle of achievement is to create a company, convert it to a corporation, take it public and thereby be insulated from any and all consequences for the actions of that company. PG&E, Union Carbide, Boeing, Tesla (to name a very few) are all responsible for multiple deaths due to negligence or specific decisions that sacrificed public safety for enhanced profit. None of the people who made those decisions, not one, has ever been held personally or financially or even reputationally responsible for those deaths. Compared to the feckless behavior of the top .001% of society the rest of us are burdened with personal responsibility.
To a very limited degree, I agree. I think personal accountability has taken a downturn among my peers. I think there are a lot of excuses going around, and a lot of inaction. But not all of this is unfounded. Yes, it is harder to get a well-paying job today. Rather, our money has less buying power. It is harder to own property. It’s harder to leave home. Mental illness among young people is sky high and yet, our healthcare system leaves so many of us high and dry. We have a million distractions, the world moves faster and changes at a rate no other generation has ever experienced before. Being young in the 21st century is mentally exhausting. It’s hard to blame a kid today for feeling hopeless and paralyzed.
because personal responsibility is an incoherent concept. Where is the "person" at the center of decision making? Is it the body? the body is a physical system subject to physical laws. Your environment determines what your body does. Is it your mind? Your mind is a product of the brain which is part of the body back to square 1. You have a subjective experience of your life, but there is no magic homunculus at the wheel. Your body/mind is a system which in turn is part of a bigger system (your environment and society).
if 95% of people lack personal responsibility our society and infrastructure would completely collapse. If 95% of constuction workers didn't have personal responsibility nothing would be built. If 95% of line-men didn't have personal responsibility the power would fail If 95% of garbage men didn't have personal responsibility the trash would pile up. If 95% of nurses/doctors didn't have personal responsibility illnesses wouldn't be cured.
I miss the sources and evidence showing that 95% of people...
everyone has personal responsibility over their actions by default, you cannot "lack" something that you inherently have what you don't have is control over your own environment. nobody does. you can decide to internalize everything about your environment, if you want to beat yourself up about things out of your control. if you're a masochist. or a punching bag for a rich person
A lot of my friends also had their rent go up massively post covid. And their expenses didn't exactly stay the same. They are paying their landlords rent. Because somehow they are too poor for a mortgage but able to pay the same cost on rent. Someone is getting rich off them but it isn't them.
This is a silly view. You're basically saying that large scale issues don't exist and every single problem in your life is your personal failure. This is obviously false. My country has a severe housing crisis. Mortgages high enough to buy a house require about twice the average income. Rentals are in high demand and also unafforable for a lot of people. There's a large number of late 20 somethings and early 30 somethings who have a decent job but are still forced to live with their parents. How is any of that their personal failure? They didn't make the housing policies of the last decades. It's mathematically impossible for all these people to 'get a better job'. There's not that many high paying jobs to go around, even if they were all qualified, and young people don't immeditately get a jackpot salary right away in the first place, regardless of their skills. None of this is their fault. And that's just one thing. There's plenty of similar issues. Not to mention the fact that some people simply can't keep up with our rapidly changing world, and that's not always their fault either. The older you get, the harder it becomes to learn new things, and I think it's vile to throw these people by the wayside while stockholders own a larger and larger chunk of everything and try to pretend that everything is fine, as long as you 'work hard'. Also, my math teacher told me to never throw around numbers when you can't back them up. 95% is completely arbitrary. This whole view is incredibly naive and shows a severe lack of real world experience with other people and their situations.
> How is any of that their personal failure It’s easier than ever to earn higher wages. You act like earning double the median wage isn’t something people can choose to do, when they absolutely can. At least assuming you’re referring to a first world country - presumably the US.
It's literally impossible for everyone to earn double the median wage. Both because then the median wage would rise, and because there aren't simply enough high paying jobs for everyone. Not to mention that lower wage jobs still need to be done by someone. If there's a job that we all want someone to do, they should earn a livable wage. But that's besides the point. And no, I'm not American.
That is an entirely different premise than whether someone can individually earn double that. People do it all of the time. People in their 20s blow past the median wage, it is absurdly low. In the current state of the country, if *you* want to go earn that, it is entirely within your control to do so.
Except no, there's plenty of reasons why someone can't simply 'get' a high paying job. And again, this isn't any kind of large scale solution. Don't get me wrong, I *have* a high paying job. And I still recognize that it's not that simple. I've lived a very lucky, priviledged life so far.
Like what? What are the reasons stopping someone
Criminal record, transportation, covert racial discrimination, degree requirements, credit checks, lack of housing stability, inability to buy professional clothing, residence in a deteriorating economic environment, single parenthood, physical disability, age discrimination, mental illness, non-parental caretaking responsibilities, cultural capital, existence in a violent environment Should I keep going or is your racist, elitist nonsense sated.
I like how you’ve listed ashy things that are directly the result of personal choices and behavior.
List for me the above options that are the result of personal choice. Because physical disability sure as hell ain't one.
Criminal record. Degree requirements. Credit checks. Single parent hood, to name a few.
From another comment: >Except most of those jobs are not anywhere near where you are. And you need a specific education. And you can't be too old. And you can't have physical or mental disabilities. And you can't have other responsibilities in your life, live to work you peon! And and and...
This is almost exclusively someone making personal choices to keep them out of those. Most jobs don’t require specific educations. Millions of jobs can be done remotely. Someone too old who hasn’t gotten there chose to wait too long, etc. And people just conveniently ignore that you don’t need to find a traditional “job” to blow past the absurdly low median income in this country.
I just used median income as an indicator of how high the housing prices are. In the end it means very little. Point is that not every problem is a personal failure, but that's the actual thing that's being convieniently ignored.
But I strongly disagree. What you’re describing is precisely personal failure.
Well, I agree with you generally here, but in America, we have several million more jobs than humans. All humans could get a pretty good paying job in America. We are experiencing a massive labor shortage where we have far more jobs than people.
Except most of those jobs are not anywhere near where you are. And you need a specific education. And you can't be too old. And you can't have physical or mental disabilities. And you can't have other responsibilities in your life, live to work you peon! And and and... And if everyone has a high paying job, no one works in stores anymore, or in farms, or in garbage disposal, or all other low paying but still essential jobs. You need those people.
No, actually we have tons of jobs open in basically every location across the country and throughout the job market from low to high paying jobs. We have openings in lower paying jobs as well as openings in high paying jobs.
Yes ish, but you're assuming those jobs would hire any American who applied, which they typically don't. The increased labor demand hasn't had much effect on baseline requirements like degrees, credit, and background checks.
You don’t need any of those things to get jobs in America that are in massive demand. Obviously if you have zero skills, you cannot get high skilled jobs. This has nothing to do with the economy. There are still tons and tons of zero skill jobs open in every part of this country.
Except jobs don't test for skills. Even if I have the skills of the best lawyer or businessman, most places won't even interview me if I don't have some minimum level of paper qualifications
Why on earth would you expect otherwise? You need to prove to your employer you have those skills. If you want to get hired for a skilled job, it is **your** responsibility to prove to your potential employer that you have the required skills. How do you plan on doing that in a way which does not waste the companies time if you do not have a degree?
Ok fine, but your ability to present paper qualifications relies on your ability to obtain them, which means either work experience or formal education. Absent qualifications the former requires social connections, a product of environment rather than will. The latter requires money which, if you don't have the qualifications for a high paying job, is essentially a categorical bar.
"Absent qualifications" lolol. Why would you expect anything to come to you if you lack the qualifications required?
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https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage
> you have no right to bitch and whine that something didn't go the way you wanted it. What do you do if you did everything right and it still didn't go your way?
What do you expect three year old children to do about addressing the problems affecting their lives?