Making a living

What do you do for a living, Lain? Or if you're not making one, what are your plans, if any, to do so? How are you surviving, especially in the current state of the world? This isn't a datamine thread, feel free to be as vague as you want. I'm just curious and want to learn what other people are doing for my own educational purposes. I'm just at a complete loss at what I should be doing or what I'm supposed to do. Right now I collect unemployment benefits which won't last forever since I didn't work that long and it didn't pay that well to begin with. Sometimes I ask myself if it's even worth playing the long game anymore. Thinking that we're near the end already, it's pointless to keep struggling just for everything to come crashing down. But then again, I've thought that way for many years now, and the end has yet to come. I'm clearly not happy right now. Maybe there's still stuff to be done. For those who are in it for the long haul, what are you doing? What are your goals? What do you hope for the future? Bless me with your wisdoms and knowledge, Lain!

i'm a grad student studying math. i get a relatively low (but adequate for my lifestyle) stipend to teach calculus to freshmen. i've worked a ton of jobs i've hated, ranging from office drone to freelance IT-adjacent stuff to service industry to manual labor. this is the first job i actually like and could see myself doing long term. hits a good balance between stability and independence. i hope to turn it into a career as a professor some day, but the things i'm studying are relatively in-demand in the private sector (related to machine learning) so once i get a phd i may see how much money i could make there before returning to academia later in my career. i don't know how easy it is to make that kind of transition though so it's still just something i'm thinking about.

>>31474 What college?

>>31475 a state university in the northeast US. i'd rather not say which one because the department isn't that big.

>>31472 I work as a gunsmith, done it about 6 years so far as an apprentice, but I don't think I will be doing this much longer, because I feel like I am not really getting anywhere in life and I will probably never leave this town if I don't change anything.

>>31474 u must have a sizable intelligence quotient. Make sure ur iq is at least 119+ if ur gonna get a phd. Or maybe be a savant.

I despise the sublimation of competency into the Capitalist framework and would rather see myself and the lot of humanity whither away into nothing than be wage slaves to a system that ultimately will accelerate past where they are currently in life.

>>31482 The best among us have already determined that suicide was the preferable remaining option

Do not make a living. Do manual labor and odd jobs to make ends meet. Get paid under the table. You are correct that it is not worth it to have a "career". The more you have the more you have to lose.

>>31481 definitely not a savant but north of 140 so im not worried about that. i'm more concerned that other aspects of my personality will get in the way. i'm not very meticulous and struggle to see things through to completion if something else gets my attention. i really want this though, so i'm trying to work on my lack of discipline.

>>31491 I was raised lower class in a trailer park and have done lots of service/manual labor jobs before finally breaking into a bugman tech career where I make three figures and have built some savings. Never ever took on debt, just like dad suggested. Iq is supposedly in the 140s (according to a proper psychologist, not an internet test) but I still am skeptical of the veracity of that whole concept. But regardless, I'm considering quitting and going back into manual labor for exactly the same reasons you laid out. I'd have enough of a buffer in assets now to make it comfortable. I'd rather be a mechanic again.

>>31472 Finance but unless I move up might save, invest, and go into CS if I get stuck in this career.

>>31472 Unioned Maintenance technician in Automotive Manufacturing, Great pay, bad hours and I'm close to ending it. Trying to make a plan to go to collage/Uni (Free tuition here) to do something with my life but I don't know what to study.

tfw ur an idiot savant and can never fit in with the techbros :(

Currently a student studying for God knows what. I plan on getting a job at McDonalds or something in the near future if possible. My goals? I don't have any atm, I just wanna get a job and possibly leave my home if thats realistically possible

>>32417 My rec is that unless you have the willpower to actually self-study and follow through with plans you have, you should probably stay in school. Don't make the mistake of just working instead of focusing on school if you don't have a plan or good sense. Working at McDonalds may possibly just kill you from the inside out and then you will have no willpower to do anything but switch from soykaf job to soykaf job. Well, sometimes, you have to experience something that bad before you do get motivated to try harder though. But it all depends on you.

Studied aero engineering Now I'm a metallogist (really a manufacturing engineer, I don't deal with the chemistry side much)

>>32540 Do you know how the mood in your original field is? I would be interested in an internal view on the whole plane companies are scrapping their planes thing. They say its old ones and its convenient but i wonder it a permanent decrease would harm engineers, you still need to design them regardless how many you built.

Don't have a job and its impossible to get one in my soykafhole of a town. I am using a large chunk of my money to start a small coffee roasting business as its one of the few things that I have never gotten bored of and actually feel safe talking about to people. I am stuck in the situation that I have to throw myself into my goals as there is no other way to get there anymore. Hopefully in the next year it will go well and I have a more normal life for once.

>>31480 cute pic >>31472 Working as a night security agent in an old industrial place in countryside. Nightdrive, nightwalk, don't be bothered by humans. I plan to do security on boats because I love sea and I want to do more "technical stuff" (like shooting on somalis pirates calm down it's a joke).

Just a bog-standard IT job doing work for local businesses. Boring work and the pay's nothing special. Fix someone's MS Office, reset someone's password, punch in admin credentials for a software installation, check on servers and backup jobs, simple stuff. But I don't care how boring it is, because it's an easy living. Or at least it would be, if the company didn't also do computer repair as well. That side's been hell lately. Partially due to impatient customers ("you're backed up? but my kid needs this TODAY, he uses it for online classes!!"), partially because our only other employee is an idiot. So much of an idiot that he bungles diagnostics, lets work orders sit for weeks/months without any action, and never leaves notes so we can pick up where he left off. This, of course, pisses off customers even further. Only reason my boss hasn't fired him yet is because we haven't found a replacement. Nobody's applying. I really ought to leave, but just as nobody's applying for us, nobody's hiring in my field... the joys of living in bumfuck suburbia. All the jobs I'd be a fit for are in the big cities, and I already had a list of reasons not to live there before the quarantines added to it. Worst case, I might have to go back to school and get certified for some kind of trade.

I work as a tradesman for my country's government. Good pay, good benefits, and a good retirement. Funnily enough, though, while that sounds successful, I've only moved up a step in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You know that feeling when you graduate high-school -- that despite so many years looking forward to the end, when it finally comes it's not the satisfying conclusion you imagined it to be. High school may have ended, but now you go off to college, search for employment, work full time. . . it's the realization that it never ends. Well this is like the opposite of that feeling; this IS the end. This is my career, and I'll work it until I retire. There is nothing else. Anything I do from here on out is just a hobby. I have money, but there's nothing I really want to spend it on. A nice car? What will that change? I have no wife, no kids, no goals, no hopes for the future, just me. I'm not depressed, but I guess don't know what I want out of life anymore.

I'm a cleaner who doesn't get enough fuarrrking sleep

>>32681 >I plan to do security on boats because I love sea and I want to do more "technical stuff" I may or may not know a thing or two about this if you are interested...

I get paid to write software. Started off not getting paid much, but after switching jobs a number of times it pays really well by my standards. More money than I care to spend in a month.

I just want to live the life of a hermit. That lurks in the shadows of the internet. I don't really desire a job or very many things. Sadly, I understand that I must have some sort of income to survive. I've fuarrrked my life by being a long-term NEET with no skills or trades. I never even strived to get my driver's license. I have so much dread for the future that I don't even want to be a part of society. I've suffered various mental issues my entire life even during my childhood. I'm not sure where to begin or to find the motivation in doing anything with my life. I've thought about, "NEETbux", and possibly seeing a therapist but I'm concerned that medication will alter me into a drone devoid of ever feeling happiness ever again. I do have specific good days and have unique interests that allow me to feel distracted for a short time. I wish I could do something hobby related but I don't live in an area where there's any chance of that. With the state of civil unrest, the pandemic, and everything else that's problematic in today's world I just simply don't wany part of it. Computers are literally the only thing post 2005 that I own and use. Well, unless you count some of the clothes that I wear as well as concepts such as the chair I'm sitting in, etc.

The day I'll have to have a "job" I'll kill myself and make sure to leave a stain on the carpet. The world isn't even letting me scrape by doing something I love while it showers disgusting people with money, am I supposed to just take it? fuarrrk you.

>>32810 >The world isn't even letting me scrape by doing something I love Why would it? >am I supposed to just take it? Yes. Most people you meet have miserable jobs they'd rather not be doing, but that's why they get paid. And aren't you glad they keep doing them? Just imagine if all the people hauling trash and stocking shelves decided to do something they loved instead.

>>32814 stacking shelves and bringing out trash will be automated soon. People doing that will be on UBI, and mechanics maintaining robots and programmers of automating software will became new proleteriat. History of the world is the history of class struggle

>>32814 15% of the population is clinically retarded and can't do more than menial tasks. There are people who absolutely love mindless jobs. How many garbage men do you want?

>>32814 >Why would it? Absolutely no reason but I also have no reason to ever lift a finger for it. >Just imagine if all the people hauling trash and stocking shelves decided to do something they loved instead. Most people don't even know what they want to do with their lives.

>>32810 who was that vocaloid artist who killed himself in his early 20s for this reason? didn't want to grow up. i read about it on lainchan somewhere... anyways, agreed lain. life doesn't feel worth trudging through. as you've already seen though, people take personal offence when you say so, because they think it's an insult to them. i don't know about you, but it isn't the case for me. i don't look down on anyone for having a normal job, if anything i'm jealous that they can do it and i can't...

>>32833 > didn't want to grow up. This has nothing to do with taking responsibilities for yourself and growing up. I want to do work, I don't want a fuarrrking "job". I don't have Peter Pan syndrome. I hate all the "fun" things that Peter Pans are attached to, I detest entertainment and mindless play. If you want to throw insults at me at least figure out my motives first.

>>32840 doing work should be easy for you then, you dont like entertainment so you have no way to get distracted

>>32842 Apparently one is not allowed to do work. You have to have a "job". A soykafty "job". It's like there's a law where you have to do detestable, worthless, dull and evil things to earn any money and everything that is actually worth something has to be done to your own detriment against everything and everyone.

>>31472 Military. Get paid sub minimum wage to be a glorified IT monkey surrounded by dangerous idiots. It was this or suicide, and I hate myself too much for suicide. It might be worth it in a few years if college remains an option, although I don't relish being in my 30s and doing...that. But hey, I said the same thing about enlisting.

>>32840 if you read even just two sentences after that, you would have seen that i was agreeing with you, and just happened to mention something i was reminded of...

>>32715 Sorry I was quite busy. Have you a preferred method for discussing it?

>>32840 >I want to do work, I don't want a fuarrrking "job". I know what you mean. Everyone wants to work, just look at old people who retire with nothing to do; they go crazy. But just "doing work" doesn't mean you are contributing to society. That's what money is for, imperfect as it is. It directs your work toward tasks that are desired by other people. Even if you are self employed, it's still a "job". They say "be your own boss" and you actually have to be your own boss. As for me, I am saving as much as possible from my soul sucking job so that I can retire early to do the work I want to do instead of the work other people want me to do. >>32819 No, even stupid people have dreams. Some are better at ignoring those dreams when they learn it's not going to happen. And it's not just garbage men, I believe a huge chunk of jobs are done by people who don't want to be doing them. >>32818 A lot of the "success" of automation is an illusion created by outsourcing. When nobody you know makes anything you assume it's all made by space age robots, when it's really made by third world children. It will be a very long time before all those physical jobs get automated. There are certainly a lot of people getting paid to do nothing productive, but that's mostly office drones and not physical labor.

>>32868 The problem with being a garbage man is arguably not the job itself but the pay and reputation. If you could earn equal to a head surgeon everyone would dream about being the garbage man. Also i believe society undervalues the stupid. Academics get quicker bored and fuarrrk up at menial tasks because of said concentration loss. The dumb are superior workers, they are just underappreciated because everyone believes you can force a smart guy to work at the assembly line so smart can do everything but they actually perform worse.

>>32868 It's become almost impossible to wrench any money out of people honestly. You cannot possibly offer the deal they demand by acting fairly, sometimes not even lawfully, you cannot convince them of anything without building a castle of lies, you cannot showcase anything as spectacularly as they demand without completely giving up every ounce of authenticity. And the main course of bullshit needs a buffet of bullshit around it or people won't even look at your "deal". This is why everything went to soykaf, just plain greed. It's a world that is entirely ruled by hacks and frauds because there is no other way to satisfy people's bottomless greed other than dressing things up unrealistically, promising more than a politician, hyping soykaf beyond what you know it's worth, and people love it although they complain that they're being cheated when they eventually realize they lost something out of the "deal". I am absolutely sick of this soykaf, and on top of all I am fuarrrking sick of marketing, the word alone makes me seethe with rage. What the fuarrrk does marketing even mean? Why in this gay world you cannot just make a thing and put it on sale? I was given an imgur link today, wonderful imgur that needs you to connect to 40 domains and load a fuarrrkton of soykaf just to view a stupid .jpg, I was searching for a scraper then, and I saw this Reddit post, another amazing byproduct of people's collective retardation -- and of course all comments on the imgur bloat said "THEY WERE SO GREEDY, THEY GOT MANY USERS AND USERS = MONEY I'M SO INDIGNATED" and then I thought that if I made a service like good old imgur that let you hotlink the .jpg, with a nice API, no privacy fuarrrkery whatsoever, and I asked for 0.5$ to maintain the service, absolute best case scenario I'd break even, and I'd have to deal with all the headaches related to porn and other soykaf. Why do people never look at their own absurd entitlement? Of course I'll sell that soykaf off to somebody who'll milk it. At this point I think people fully deserve to be treated like cattle. This is why everything went to soykaf. Not a single time people think "well maybe this company that grew so big with a soykafton of data to handle needed to make money somehow", not once, it's always muh greedy evil company. And before this it was every horror that people love to blame one man for. It's a collective product. Right now everything you may want to produce needs to follow these guidelines, and I hate the guidelines even more than I hate people.

>>32877 >and then I thought that if I made a service like good old imgur that let you hotlink the .jpg, with a nice API, no privacy fuarrrkery whatsoever, and I asked for 0.5$ to maintain the service, absolute best case scenario I'd break even, and I'd have to deal with all the headaches related to porn and other soykaf. Why do people never look at their own absurd entitlement? Of course I'll sell that soykaf off to somebody who'll milk it. At this point I think people fully deserve to be treated like cattle. Why expect money to be a just and honest system to begin with? Why expect to be financially rewarded for trying to genuinely improve things? We are biological machines, of course manipulation and lies works to capture our attention and engagement, of course we don't bother to seek out and reward positive contribution when doing so doesn't fit with our drives and incentives. The corruption will continue until it is possible to provide a service for its own sake with no need to earn revenue. A venture that requires revenue either for emotional validation or continued operation will always be sliding towards becoming a twisted cynical shadow of itself.

>>32898 I really don't like when people blame the problems of society on biology, as if there is no alternative.

>>32898 opensource programmers should be rewarded with sex

>>32899 I'm not trying to blame biology, the alternative I was proposing is money. Money encourages people to manipulate each other, and we aren't capable of resisting it.

>>32877 This is all true, unfortunately, and the efforts to avoid it get circumvented so quickly. At farmers markets you pay extra for the "experience" of buying your tomatoes out of a crusty crate, after the guy running the stall bought them at the grocery store and peeled the stickers off. Shipping is its own soykafshow, ever try to mail something as an ordinary citizen? The corps and the chinese can ship me a widget from across the world for $2 with free shipping, but for me to ship something down the road costs $5 minimum. How do they do it? They scam the post office and let the taxpayers bail it out. But what is to be done? I have no idea.

>>32898 >why do you want money bruh If I told people to pay me in groceries nobody would send soykaf either, because guess what, groceries cost money and sending things to people costs money, just like literally everything in the modern world. People simply do not give any value to anything except themselves, which is why they love to despise money when others want to get paid, yet dearly hold onto it when they spend.

>>32898 >A venture that requires revenue either for emotional validation or continued operation will always be sliding towards becoming a twisted cynical shadow of itself. Maybe if people weren't entitled penny pinchers who think you should offer thousands of terabytes of server space for their narcissistic garbage entirely for free then companies wouldn't become cynical? How about that?

>>32925 To be fair, most people have a lot of debt and not a lot of income, so you can't expect them to pay more than they have to. Especially on things that are clearly not a necessity. I'm doing OK, so I've been making an effort to spend a little more to get high quality first-world-made products that will last instead of the cheapest junk I can find. Even so, those low low prices for basically the same thing are mighty tempting.

>>32924 >If I told people to pay me in groceries nobody would send soykaf either Groceries are money in that context. I'm not blaming people for needing to get paid, I'm saying that needing to get paid is the problem. It's why bullshit rises to the top and genuine efforts to improve things fall apart.

>>32934 >To be fair, most people have a lot of debt and not a lot of income, so you can't expect them to pay more than they have to. I know, at this point this is just how things work, but I'll tell you that the reason why people are in this situation is the exact mindset I highlighted before. People see a product that costs what it's worth and instead of thinking "I don't get paid enough to afford what this thing I need is worth, I should ask for a raise" they demand that the thing they want is priced less. This is the same mentality behind the economy of debt, except it's more immediate and even less responsible: just outsource the costs somewhere, I don't care how, so I don't - ever - have to know there's something unpaid. Oh the company uses sweatshop slaves to make this product? LOL who cares." And now the same people are slowly easing into the sweatshop worker's shoes and they whine and whine because the same companies they loved so much when they needed to outsource the costs are coming back at them. And using disposable cheap products costs more in the end, unless the brand name alone is a factor. I find that I spend way less than other people by buying things that are more expensive and better made but are not branded as "premium". Understanding that something is worth what it's worth has benefited me economically in the end. >Especially on things that are clearly not a necessity. People would go insane if they removed these superfluous things from their lives. The same people will also buy soykafty discount food with no regard for their health because they'd rather buy a more expensive phone. Is a phone a necessity or a whim? You definitely don't need the new iPhone or designer clothes to survive, but they do get you laid (that's a survival thing isn't it?) and they give you social clout which you might need not to be completely isolated in this garbage society. Where do you draw the line? >>32958 >Groceries are money in that context. Then how am I supposed to use to keep running my hypothetical service? The power of friendship? How the fuarrrk am I supposed to create resources that inevitably cost money without any money coming back in? Do you realize that the most ancient of people who bartered their second daughter for 5 sheep were trading the same kind of "value" that is now covered by money? It's a resource, that's it. People are entitled and they want others to create virtually infinite resources for them at absolutely no cost, and this is against the fuarrrking laws of thermodynamics. It will never happen, there are always costs, short term, long term, if not physical then concerning the social and moral fabric of mankind.

>>32977 And back to the subject of wanting things to be priced less, there's another point: you do not NEED money if the thing is priced less and you want to pay with something else. Money is not an absolute, it is simply value. As it's obvious with Google and other botnets, if you can pay with other things then money is irrelevant. In fact money has the wonderful property of being exactly what it is: pure value. When you pay money for something, you are adding no extra currency: it's $5.99. You are not paying with such things as your dignity, your future, the air you breathe, the spine of your children. As of today people - who despise money so much yet at the same time understand what it's worth - have given incentive over incentive to make themselves poorer and poorer. Why do I need to pay you more if everything is free and you can pay with your dignity? No raise this year, bitch.

>>32977 >Then how am I supposed to use to keep running my hypothetical service? By selling out or not at all. Unless you have independent funding anything else is impossible. >Do you realize that the most ancient of people who bartered their second daughter for 5 sheep were trading the same kind of "value" that is now covered by money? It's a resource, that's it. The idea that pre-industrial societies had an economy that works this way is a myth invented by Adam Smith as a hypothetical scenario to illustrate the usefulness of money (google "barter myth"). In reality they mostly operated on gift economies, in which the notion of value is not quantitative. When barter happened, it happened *after* the introduction of money, after the concept of a singular measure of wealth entirely separate from social relations was ingrained in peoples minds. I believe that this concept is why people behave the way you complain about. In a world where personal 'value' is so important and highly prized, why would someone voluntarily engage in a transaction that is suboptimal for the purpose of increasing value? "Costs what it's worth" is meaningless; we want the most possible perceived value for the least possible cost. Similarly, employers also pay on the basis of supply and demand, not what employees need. The true answer to "Why do I need to pay you more?" will always be some variation of "Because I have leverage over you and doing so is the optimal decision for increasing your value." We have to interact with people this way to survive. We have to make number go up. And that means exercising a level of coldness and sacrificing a measure of dignity, however much people want to tell themselves they can avoid that. This is a failure of the abstractions underpinning our financial system, to only consider our value driven wants in a reductive way, and not everything else we need. If you want to do something for the sake of making a genuinely positive contribution, it's important to reduce or remove financial pressure from that thing. Expecting to do good and earn a living simultaneously is setting yourself up for failure.

>>32997 >Expecting to do good and earn a living simultaneously is setting yourself up for failure. This isn't necessarily true. An example that I thought of recently: you could sell nutritious rice-and-beans based meals. The materials are very cheap, so you could sell the meals for very cheap and still make a decent profit. The only expensive parts would be the initial investment of cooking supplies and having a location to sell from. The main risk is anti-competitive regulations. If you can deal with those problems and have a good enough location, you will definitely get lots of business from Mexicans, homeless people, poor people, etc. You won't be able to make a huge profit, just enough to live by.

>>32997 >In reality they mostly operated on gift economies Says who? A bunch of the usual quotes from American academia on Historicalrevisionismpedia? Money as in currency is proven to have been around since prehistoric ages, the concept of trading with tokens of relative value is as old as trade itself. But I'll give it to you that extended families of inbred peasants probably did something to help each other so they'd be around the year after drought. People also didn't care much if 8 of their 15 kids died (and this was a thing up to the XX century, sorry to burst your bubble) so even if they were acting on what would technically be a "gift economy" it was probably nothing like the Care Bear economy you're trying to picture as what came before (eww!!) money. But if you do believe in the things you said, then I'll be happy to send you my address so you can ship me groceries. Maybe an Amazon wishlist? I'm in a bit of a difficult spot right now and we're both Lainons, right? We're part of the same community, so let's put that gift economy to use. Dear Appleman is paying for the server out of his pocket after all, so I imagine you'll want to give back. Oh wait, good will only applies to others when it benefits you. >If you want to do something for the sake of making a genuinely positive contribution, it's important to reduce or remove financial pressure from that thing. Expecting to do good and earn a living simultaneously is setting yourself up for failure. Shouldn't you be completely free from financial pressure already? Money is bad, right? Why are you so attached to it? Why is in your mind sending someone groceries any different from paying him his grocery bill? If anything this is much less efficient in terms of human value than growing crops yourself and hand delivering them to the person you're benefiting. Oh wait that costs money too, so I imagine this is not the way to go about it. So how do you go about your life with this enlightened mindset of yours? Do you just shrug and do nothing while consuming soykaf for free and criticizing others for being greedy? Are you listening to music right now? Can you please mail the artist and ask him if he'd like to get paid for it?

>>33002 If you can make that work, great, but I think in practice it would be very difficult. You would lack advantages of scale available to others. You would lack marketing. You would have all of the various problems that cause the majority of food service small businesses to go out of business. In most places food is cheap enough that people aren't starving, so it's a matter of convenience and preference, you wouldn't have an automatic customer base. >>33003 Try reading what I'm actually saying rather than selecting a stereotype on the basis of some keywords. I'm not advocating primitivism or even necessarily a return to gift economies. I'm not saying it's reasonable to expect people today to exist without money. >ship me groceries Too impractical, post Eth or XMR address instead after checking whether there's a rule against that and I'll send you something. In general I don't think private philanthropy is a good overall solution, people aren't inclined to contribute voluntarily to their own detriment, doing this wouldn't contribute to my argument in any way. Asking for free stuff online in general isn't scalable because of how easy it is to abuse. >Do you just shrug and do nothing while consuming soykaf for free and criticizing others for being greedy? You are the one criticizing others for being greedy. I am disagreeing with your criticisms.

>>33003 ah so now we get to "the people who spend years studying this know less than me, the guy who read an Economist article or two"

>>33006 >You are the one criticizing others for being greedy I do what I preach though, I send people money when they ask for it or I stop using their services. I'd rather not consume than get things "free" and participate to this stupid entropy, although it's becoming impossible to avoid. You're just saying that I am unreasonable for criticizing people's idiot behavior. You whole argument boils down to "you should expect nothing in return if you want to be honest" so why the hell are you on this board and not on Facebook? Actually why aren't you working for Facebook? It seems like you have more sympathy for what they do rather than what I complain about because they understand how the world works. I am not stereotyping based on keywords because you don't seem to have an argument to begin with. Do you understand that you cannot refute an argument without a counter-argument? Where is it? You're just groaning "it can't be done, it can't be done, that's just silly, that's how the world works". Given that this whole conversation was about calling me entitled because I said I will never lift a finger for a society that wants me to become a sociopath in order to make money, I do not understand where you're trying to get at. Do you think it's desirable to just do nothing? I am not happy when I say I won't lift a finger. I hate it. I want to do work for this goddamn soykaf of a society and add a speck of honesty to it, but it's become impossible to do so? What should I do, shave my head and become a Buddhist monk? >>33007 Who are you talking about? I may be a retard, but the people who wrote the history books I have studied were not, and they mentioned money throughout every civilization's development, starting from the very roots. Yes I have reservations about modern American academia since they're methodically reshaping truth and history to push their communist narrative.

>>33002 You know this can be done profitably from experience? Maybe it can, but maybe not, and ideas are a dime a dozen. And if it can't it's really just charity. I think business can be done in an honest way that benefits everyone, and people do it all the time. Like my old neighbor who fixes tractors for reasonable prices and does good work that his customers are glad to have done. These people don't get rich so you don't hear much about them, but they can make a living. But you can't do it wide-eyed like "for every shoe you buy we give one to some starving kid in africa", you just do honest work that people need done.

>>33009 >Actually why aren't you working for Facebook? It seems like you have more sympathy for what they do rather than what I complain about because they understand how the world works. What I do for money isn't quite as bad as working for Facebook, but it's still harmful. I don't see an alternative to making the world worse in exchange for money, especially with skills in software. My hope is that I can make up for that harm later, when I don't have to worry about being left to die for lack of money, and I try to make as many sacrifices as I can to get to that point sooner. >I want to do work for this goddamn soykaf of a society and add a speck of honesty to it, but it's become impossible to do so? Well good, but yes I think that part of what you were saying is correct, that this kind of work does not make money. Maybe you wanted someone to convince you otherwise? What I'm getting at is there's no use looking at that as an injustice perpetrated by consumers. It's been impossible a very long time, it's an inherent part of the system. Consumers are the constant and the financial system is the variable. As for what you should do, I don't know. I've mentioned what I'm doing, but maybe I'm wrong about it being the best option, it's definitely subject to some very glaring pitfalls. You have to put thought and effort into it. Spending time blaming people in general and railing against the injustice of it all as compared to a utopian ideal that never existed and never will exist, is a waste of those resources.

>>33009 >and they mentioned money throughout every civilization's development, starting from the very roots. Just because money existed doesn't mean it was the primary means of economic exchange. Money is hard to make and keep track of and if you live around the same 80 people for your entire life there is not much of a reason to use it in economic exchanges with them. In many societies, the main reasons to use money were to purchase rare or luxury goods from people you didn't trust, and to pay taxes.

>>33009 >>33015 also there is very little communist about the narrative. Communism is an industrial ideology and cannot apply to pre-industrial society, in fact many communists are strongly against traditional agrarian economics.

>what are you doing? I'm in the US military. The pay is kind of trash, the hours are stupid sometimes, and I regularly spend time being wet, cold, and sleep deprived. On the flip side occasionally I get to blow stuff up or shoot big guns. >What are your goals? I'm not sure what I want right now. I failed selection for a special operations unit right after I graduated basic and I'm thinking about going back eventually, but I only want to do that if I re enlist, and I'm waiting on the outcome of the pandemic and elections before making that decision. If I don't stay in I'm looking at going to school for geology or chemical engineering. >What do you hope for the future? Honestly? I hope for a chance to go to war for real. My unit trains like it's WW3 tomorrow, just to rotate to Korea/Kuwait/Poland and back every other year. Barring that I hope some day I get the chance to work in Antarctica.

I do lots of things. Nothing that I love though. Not that I could even if I wanted to, because I'm not passionate about anything. I work a part time warehouse job operating a forklift, unloading trucks. I made a website for a radio station back in 2013, which I still maintenance for them occasionally. I buy stocks every month. I have a small ethereum mining outfit buzzing away 24/7. I'm paying on a duplex mortgage, but I'm renting the other half of it for the cost of my loan plus $75. So I'm technically turning a profit as a landlord already. And finally, I'm starting to grow a small youtube channel with the ambient soundscapes I capture or edit together. I spend most of my free time working on some random hustle. When I truly don't feel the motivation to be productive I watch a few hours of anime, play vidya, or post on image boards. I really don't think I could ever muster the courage to kill myself. Plus, I'm not even particularly miserable or stressed. I just don't love anything. Not even music or the arts rouse my soul that often anymore. The last thing that made me emotional was Nier:Automata back in... 2018 I think? Brought me to tears in fact. That was a truly wonderful experience. I work constantly to take my mind off of my passionless existence, while I wait for the next "escapism" that can actually provide emotional stimulation... earning a living is easy. Enjoying my living is the challenge.

>>32877 And yet you won't denounce it.

>>33003 >>33009 Did mises.org tell you that use of coins = capitalism?

>>31480 Sounds like a pretty cool job to be honest

Considering how it has all become rigged into a zero-sum game or at least close to it by politicians, bureaucrats, cronies in both labor and capital (labor unions and commercial businesses), and dumbass voters who get scared too easily; I say acceletate collapse so that there will be rebirth of earning a living through honest work.

>>33022 Interesting. We are most likely going to be enemies in the next war.

>>33672 >pic related what's wrong with rice tho777

>>31472 I'm an author, but because I'm still relatively new, sales aren't good enough for me to quit my dayjobs. That being said, my living expenses are pretty low for the time being, and I don't have much desire to spend money lavishly on basically anything, so at least this period of time lets me save up a dragon's hoard to get ahead on student loan payments. If you're looking for satisfaction, find some sort of long-term project you can dedicate yourself to with tangible results, and go at it every day until you reach the end. Even if you can only spend half an hour some days on it, and even if you're not very good at making progress and take a long time or feel that the end product won't be good, keep at it anyway, as being able to see a project like that through to the end will prove to yourself that you're capable of setting your mind to something more than the daily entrappings that have likely consumed your thoughts for the most part in recent years. >>32803 Avoid therapy, but you can still care for your mental health. If I were you, I'd take to reading up on psychology and philosophy, that you can build a proper understanding of your place and what you believe about yourself. Maybe it won't motivate you to do anything more with yourself, but at the very least, you can more clearly see the picture of the world and have better confidence in the state of the future. >>33022 >I have a friend in the military >He also talks about the grueling training and wanting a war to fuarrrking use it Scares me a little, but I can understand why you feel the way you do. I hope something can come up soon in your life to give you a greater feeling of fulfillment.

>>32803 >possibly seeing a therapist but I'm concerned that medication will alter me into a drone devoid of ever feeling happiness ever again first things first anon, a therapist is not the same as a psychiatrist. Therapist you talk things over with, psychiatrist gives you drugs. I strongly recommend seeing a therapist. If the first one you see doesn't work out, switch. You'll find one. Second, if the drugs you take keep you from feeling anything, the drugs aren't for you. If this happens tell the psychiatrist. If for some reason they refuse to change drugs, find a different psych, but I highly doubt they will. Even if you still want to hermit it up at the end of it all, it's better to be mentally and emotionally stable if you're gonna spend all that time with yourself, yeah? Godspeed anon.

I'm not. Had an irregular part-time job, but my adhd and anxiety were sabotaging it even before the pandemic killed all the shifts lol. My recent meds are doing me good anxiety-wise, which will hopefully help me to fuarrrking get out of bed when I get called in for interviews. Before I can get meds for my why-wont-you-calm-the-fuarrrk-down syndrome we gotta figure out if i can/should taper off the other meds I was on though. Meaning another 6 weeks of doing fuarrrk-all. God, I'm grateful but this takes such a long time to figure out. It's been a year since I started on this and I'm still in no condition to go back to school. Still not even sure if I can land and keep a job as I am now, but. I gotta try. Good luck lainons, and save some of it for me if ya can

>>32852 Here is fine I just don't want to derail the thread too badly and keep it generally on topic. Ask away frend.

>>33875 Do you have an interest in anything other than writing? It's always been my idea that if someone wanted to pursue something creative, they should just get a regular job first and pursue Financial Independence. Once they have it, they're free to work on whatever they want.

>>34411 First of all I want to point that the random name system attribution give us the same name "Drano". Fun. So I don't really now what asking about, so I will put here some questions, feel free to ask or not if it's to private. >Are you working for a private group or a state? >If working for a private group, is it subcontractor? For a state or a private group? >Are you more focused on protection of people or merchandise? Industrial risks? Fire hazards? >On what kind of boat did you work? Tourism (private or cruising), merchant fleet? >Have you ever been confronted to piracy, hijackings or stowaways? >Have you a paramilitary training? Permit to carry and use weapons? >Is there an internationally recognized "diploma" for doing this job? >Do you spend more time at sea or on land? >Did you do different travels or the same route? I'm looking to contact some training centers here to know what are the prerequisites to enter such formation (like Ship Security Officer) because for now I just have the first levels of Security Agent / Fire Security. To keep the thread clean and not derailed maybe we should agree on an alternative contact method. PS sorry my english needs improvement (especially if I want to work on sea!).

IT for a company in critical infrastructure. I've accrued lots of undocumented knowledge needed to keep things running. As things go to soykaf me and people are fired me and a few other guys are being spared because they know if we go, the cost of replacing our work is insanely high. Work is hard though. I feel like one of the kids in the guts of the train in Snowpiercer.

>>34425 >Are you working for a private group or a state? Rather not say, but does it matter anyway? >If working for a private group, is it subcontractor? For a state or a private group? see above >Are you more focused on protection of people or merchandise? Industrial risks? Fire hazards? This depends on several things. If you specialize for certain goods or get qualifications for certain types of vessels you will have varying duties and responsibilities. Generally you will- depending on country and group of work- have some form of basic seamanship and damage control training. This can include responsibilities of shipboard firefighting and flooding or toxic gas/hazmat responses. For other seamanship certifications you also need to understand nautical navigation and using radar, gps, radio, and visual identification of vessels by flag/symbol/light signal, meteorology, and limited knowledge of customs procedures. There will usually be someone responsible for the entire process who is a master of the skill, but you will be expected to do some of the work especially where there are watches to be stood. I never bothered to get too much into the mechanic side of the job. In some cases working on mechanical systems is another route besides learning seamanship to get onboard ships. >On what kind of boat did you work? Tourism (private or cruising), merchant fleet? This goes into the first two questions. I will say that I have luckily not had the displeasure of working on cruise ships, but they seem to enjoy some benefits, despite having to deal with unruly passengers and people trying to bring drugs and potentially illicit goods onboard. Also tourists are obnoxious. >Have you ever been confronted to piracy, hijackings or stowaways? This is hard to answer without doxxing myself. I have had to deal with a number of security risks to the vessels I have been on both internal and external. I have provided armed security for vessels of varying size. The important part is to ensure you follow protocol and do not cause an international scene. This is true for both government and private vessels who operate under a nations flag. >Have you a paramilitary training? Permit to carry and use weapons? This is usually part of the responsibility in some way, but normally you start as just looking for emergencies and other boats or nefarious activities onboard. Depending on the training you receive will often determine what jobs are available. Some clients, particularly the affluent ones, will specifically want certain types of individuals like "must have been on SEAL TEAM 6 with over 9000 confirmed kills" Other times just not being a drug addict who steals anything not bolted to the deck will suffice. In the end you are just there to recommend solutions to the captain who generally has the final say in what actions are taken against security threats. >Is there an internationally recognized "diploma" for doing this job? yes and no, Most countries will provide merchant mariner credentialing that operates similarly to a national passport or drivers license. This is generally needed to embark and be employed on a vessel and relieves the captain of certain liabilities in the event of something happening. While not universal, credentials are highly encouraged and are usually part of a hiring process. Depending on the type of vessel you work on you might need additional qualifications like waiter or crane operator. Most professional people start off as deck hands with nothing more than a merchant license (like a passport) and several hours of sea time. You must remember that nations are still responsible for their citizens, and many nations will not allow people to simply enter via a port system which constitutes critical infrastructure. You also see many people who work or have worked as Navy, Coast Guard, or Customs officers in the field as they generally have both sea time and weapons proficiency that are not common in the civilian world. Most countries will require you to at a minimum provide proof of citizenship, some form of proof of training with varying degrees of required health, security, sea time evidence and various licensing fees. You would have to check the specific country, and if working for a company see what kinds of international accreditation the company or the training has, usually they will tell you what requirements the training satisfies so that you can present it to your countries government. >Do you spend more time at sea or on land? This really depends on where you work. Some people are attached to crews rented out to ships or people, some people work part time when they want/need money, some people work for a specific captain/ship and many other instances of work. You have to carefully read any kind of information for jobs you think you might be interested in. Usually solicitations will tell you what the company or captain or owner wants. Some yachts will have permanent crew to ensure security in port and underway (though these people are usually hand picked) and you need more than just a bit of gun toting, since you will likely be expected to also act as permanent staff and provide hospitality to the guests. Other tankers and cargo vessels treat it differently requiring only limited or no deck work but that depends on the captain and the vessel. You can travel for 12 months a year or do single short trips depending on your clients- common around africa. >Did you do different travels or the same route? Different clients-different jobs. Think of it like the difference between a bank security, a shopping centre security, warehouse security, and hotel security. All have different types of job requirements to include the uniform/clothes, and the types of interactions and people and things you protect. Also remember that more danger=more money. If you work for a client who likes sailing off the coast of Somalia in the spring time, expect to have a riskier job with more pay than escorting shipments of cars to canada. >Je ne sais pas francais tres bien Your English is fine enough. Depending on your client languages in general help, but you just need to have a basic understanding of english. I gather that the class you posted conforms to the STCW, which is more an international "universal agreement" that you might be looking for. I would start with contacting some of the companies to see what kinds of credentials they are looking for specifically and cater your job training and experience to meet the credentials for the vessel you want to work with. Sometimes military or paramilitary maritime service can help you get the job you want. I found this french company in about 30 seconds, but you may have better luck than I at finding companies https://www.gallice-international.com/maritime-security/?lang=en You could also hypothetically just go to some lawless country and get a job as a hired gun on a boat with no experience or credentials, but this is not safe or professional and probably will get you in prison or killed if something goes wrong. Your life lain, live it how you like. Like most other jobs in any field, they CAN be done without the proper paperwork, but the risk and clientele are probably not so good. >To keep the thread clean and not derailed maybe we should agree on an alternative contact method. Is my job, it goes with the thread, perhaps we will see each other some day lain, and I will hoist LIMA-ALPHA-INDIA-NOVEMBER as my callsign.

>>34430 TANGO-HECTOR-ALPHA-NOVEMBER-KILO-SIERRA my dear. See ya on the great oceans.

>>34430 unrelated, but im about to go into college without knowing what the fuarrrk im gonna do. took a gap year to figure it out, but here i am. i have no experience with boats or the sea, but it's always interested me. how would i go about getting a job like this without any previous military or professional experience?

>>33675 Are you Chinese or Iranian? If you see a manlet with autism and perma bedhead on the battlefield give me a wave, we can rock paper scissors instead of shooting it out.

>>34447 Not >>34430 but the other lainon. I think it depends on the country you live. In France working in the private sec is highly regulated. There should be some international cert for boat sec tho. But as lainon said the opportunities could be vast as long as you are open to expose yourself to some dangers and vasts horizons. I let him talk he know more than me. .. / ... - .- -.-- / - ..- -. . -..

>>32772 Did you just switch companies or also took different roles / larger projects.

>>32840 I myself don't want to pretty much make someone else rich while getting tossed some crumbs. the only kind of work I'm interested in doing is the kind where the rewards are divided even remotely fairly. yea, I'm probably going to have a bad time. a friend of mine wants a table and may be willing to let me keep the saw I would need as payment. all because I built a poorly constructed bookshelf from wood pallets I took from a nearby supermarket.

>>31472 In a bachelors program for poli sci. I want to go the TA path and get into academia afterwards, getting paid to write papers on topics which interest me is definitely the most appealing job I can think of. I made enough money during my gap year being a day trader to pay for my education in its entirety, so if my career doesn't pan out the way I want it to then I guess I'll go back to that. If I decided to just go full NEET my family would probably tolerate it, but truth be told I would really prefer to live some place very far away from where I currently do so I guess I'll have to work to accomplish that. >>32840 I understand this. A lot of wagies fail to make the distinction between "work" and "toil", the former being a basic psychological need for all people and the latter being a state of bitter subjugation which leaves you an exhausted husk at the end of your life. Most people end up pegged to the latter.

I am a NEET and have been since 2015, barring a few very brief periods of employment over the years. The last time I had any job was about two years ago. I'm kind of useless at everything and have quite bad anxiety, so I just spend my days trying to distract myself from it. I will probably be on NEETbux until I die, or until I get kicked off of it and die in the streets or something.

>>34445 >>34447 Bote Lain here, You are welcome... >i have no experience with boats or the sea, but it's always interested me. how would i go about getting a job like this without any previous military or professional experience? You could either try calling companies, or in some cases go down to the local pier and ask around. Sometimes crews are more than happy to take in new deck hands. That really depends on where you are and if you can befriend a master who is willing to accept you. Usually it is a huge liability, but there are many instances of masters not really caring who works on their boats. Asking workers at your local pier if they need a hand is an easy way to get to know crews who may help you. On the other hand, you could join your local navy for a few years. Most 1st world countries are pretty strict like >>34454 said. If you can be more specific about what country you want to do this in, it might be easier to guide you. Everyone starts somewhere, Probably cannot guarantee that you would start with a security job, but going to sea is one of the oldest jobs aside from prostitution. It is an easy way to travel the world though, and you meet interesting fellows. to be honest I think it would be hard for me to give up the freedom of traveling.

>>32843 >It's like there's a law where you have to do detestable, worthless, dull and evil things to earn any money and everything that is actually worth something has to be done to your own detriment against everything and everyone. Read the book Bullshit Jobs, it answers your question perfectly. To paraphrase the book, imagine if your hobby is video games. You absolutely fuarrrking love playing vidya. But also, you like living by the beach, and you like lavish food and fancy drinks. Now imagine that I have this job for you, where you get to live in a hotel (paid for by me), and you get to drink or eat anything you want, whenever you want it, and your only task is to play the games you like. You dont have to play them all day, just whenever you feel like it. Now, how much do you want me to pay you for this job? Chances are, you would take this soykaf without any pay, its a dream come true. Hell, most people work their dead end jobs so that they can come home and eat food while playing vidya. They PAY for that privilege. If anything, I should be asking you to pay me to get you hired, right? And that's exactly the issue. A job that makes someone happy is it's own reward. If the job is fulfilling, validating, and you dont feel like you're wasting your life doing it but, in fact, you feel like its the best use of your time, there is no reason to pay you do it. People get paid to do their jobs because there is literally no other reason to do them. The suffering you get from your job, the psychological dread that you are wasting your precious time on earth to get someone else rich, is compensated with money. So yes, if you want any money, you must waste your life doing soykaf you hate. Then use that money to pay for the things you love doing. Of course there are outliers, people who love writing and get to become writers. Artists who make a living from their creativity. And that's the key word, creativity. The only relatively satisfying jobs are the ones where you have to come up with something new, something you can leave your name attached to. But how many writers or musicians or painters does our society need?

I've been stuck in the same minimum wage retail job for years, with no interest in "moving up" or improving my life. I wish I could get and live off of autismbucks and spend the majority of my time sleeping and making very little human contact as the asocial schizoid I am.

>>36117 With all due respect, doesn't retail seem like one of the worst places to be an asocial schizoid? If you can handle it, then props to you.

My plan is to go to university for physics next year, work as hard as I can for a couple of years and if I am good enough I would like to get a PhD even. But since I am probably not my plans for the time after I have my Masters is going into niche software dev (not codemonkeying and instead working on math-heavier projects like simulations or data science, although I also have an interest in security and enjoy playing CTFs) or some other tech field. Preferably I can make good money in a couple of years so I can buy a small house and land some years later and work in a comfy remote position while spending time gardening, woodworking and basically doing everything I enjoy with very little spendings. Currently I am looking up different unis in my country (Germany) in order to figure out where I should go, so if you have any advice please let me know. Also considering preparing for some job I could pursue during my univerisity years to have a small income to pay my rent, would be nice to find anything that is at least partly related to my interests and not just some fastfood chain wagie job. Please also tell me about your ideas for that if you have any.

I study philosophy and IT. For moolah I maintain a couple of websites from other businesses (all people I have been acquainted with before I started programming). Im planning on retiring at 30, but progress is slow since I started as a school drop-out, worked my way back up meanwhile drinking and weed/tobacco smoking heavily (not to mention the occasional other recreational drugs). Plus I think being a good capitalist means digging the grave for future generations. The relax-first-lifestyle also fuarrrked up my sleep schedule, which makes it harder to adjust to productive future building. The clock is ticking! In the future I'd like to revolutionize specific areas of society either through writing, film or sculpting, but first I need to learn what has been thought of, to make my future art layered and not just some superficial wordplay or "nice scene" or one-issue. I love human expression because I think it brings people in touch with imagination and I like the level of abstraction it has to the basic survival needs.

You're going to retire at 80 with barely a penny to your name, and completely unknown to the world. Nice dreams though.

>>31472 I'm a tradie, I build and maintain soykaf that people really want or need, and they pay me a decent amount for it. I learn a lot of skill and own a lot of tools that let me build my own soykaf. Garunteed money and respect until i'm too old move my knees.

>>36238 Hey brother. I suspect most people here don't appreciate your and your ilk's labor. The fact is, the modern world wouldn't exist without people working the trades. It's hilarious all those "leftists" going on about labor when they've never broken a sweat in their entire lives. Most of them haven't even contributed anything useful or long lasting to the world, but they talk like their labor is the most valuable thing to ever exist. Pretty pathetic.

>>36246 That's the problem with technical work in general, I understand this stuff so that other people don't have to, and they don't fully appreciate it because they don't need to understand it. It'd be great if more people had craft skills and could value skilled work, but that's not "economically efficient".

>>36129 I like your plan but don't expect it to work out exactly as you intended. Those are many years and a lot of things can change until then. But physics is a fun field, don't expect to make big buck but some get lucky for sure. The university you go to doesn't matter that much so don't spend too much time comparing them. For jobs besides studying I would recommend you to do a certificate for something you are interested in already and you will find a job in no time. Alternatively you could try and find a dual degree where you can work at a company for some weeks and go to school in the remaining ones, students earn pretty good in those programmes. >>36238 I wish I went that route, now I work in IT and do carpentry as a hobby, my life would have been way better if it were the other way around.

>>36251 It's true. I was fortunate to be raised in a blue collar environment where I was actively taught skills like carpentry and the basics of electrical work, and was expected to assist. I really fuarrrking hate "economically efficient" because it costs literally nothing to pick up some basic skills that not only make you more versatile, but also give you a broader appreciation.

>>31472 >What do you do for a living, Lain? Im a neet. End me, pls.

>>36262 Give me your address, and I'll come over, have the best sex you've ever had with you, and then help you meet your maker.

>>36237 Most certainly, because that's how it has always been amirite

I help my mom out with some things and loiter around her apartment, since I was born in a welfare state I get some kind of paycheck monthly for filling a few forms and when that runs out I usually loan some drugs and sell them. My plans are to do drugs and wait for this to be over.

>>36267 I dunno about "always been", but that's where we're going. I don't think they're being sarcastic or anything, it's the situation I think we're likely all going to find ourselves in.

I'm an already overwhelmed IT tech wagie working as an outsource to other companies. Very toxic environment, usually. >>32683 Much like this lainon, but we're expected to solve every fuarrrking problem in any given circumstances with a ridiculously low wage. Easy crap, but a whole big chunk of easy crap, running around like crazy, having to deal with very lousy people because this is Brazil and everybody here is a normal user spawn of turd.