2024 is only a decade away -- are you a gimme, or a dim?

[JirinPanthosa]

We're coming up on 2024. Sanctuaries in every city are just around the corner, anybody who doesn't have money and is in desperate need is about to be herded into a walled off district.

So what side are you on? Are you a gimme, a dim, or are you a privileged person with a good job, thinking all the gimmes and dims belong there?

 

[Tosk]

Chances are, whichever one you'll be you already are right now.

 

[robau]

God I can't wait for all the trash to be moved out of my view.

 

[T'Girl]

... or are you a privileged person with a good job ...

Well it not really a matter of being "privileged," having a job and being able to handle your own affairs just makes you a normal everyday person.

My father was a jet engine mechanic and later in management. But he alway maintain a commercial drivers license (truck driver) just in case he ever was out of work in his primary field. That way he would be able to care for his family without taking handouts.

Seattle does not have sanctuaries in the form seen in the episode, but the homeless are encouraged by the city police to stay in certain areas. We have a "tent city" too.

I have worked in church volunteer kitchens and you could alway tell which of the homeless guys were going to get back up on their feet in a short period of time, taking charity made their skins crawl. They would look at the jobs board before coming for the food.

Many of the people in the Trek sanctuaries would have been individuals with substance abuse and psychological problems. And there would be people who simply don't want to provide for themselves. But there would also be people for whom the sanctuary would be a brief stop, a place to catch their breath, before re-entering normal society.

 

[Phily B]

I was reading a few weeks ago about how the police have made an area where they're going to hide all the drunks and beggars from the tourists every evening. Pretty awesome episodes, especially with the way society is moving.

 

[R. Star]

I like how the mindset today is that being able to provide for yourself and not mooch off others makes you "privileged"... just shows what direction our society is heading in.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I like how the mindset today is that being able to provide for yourself and not mooch off others makes you "privileged"... just shows what direction our society is heading in.

Sadly, you're indeed quite privileged if you have a dependable job and self-sufficiency. Suddenly losing your job when the company goes under and then being unable to find a new one for months is extremely common, at least over here. After graduation it took me a year to find any work at all; I finally got a job only for the company to go under a few months later. The shop where I performed my voluntary work went under too. The store managers from both took months to find new work, and they (naturally) had far more experience than I. And for the younger generation, living out of the parent's house (council house in my case) is a necessity, not a choice. I don't know if it's different in the US, but from what I've heard I don't think it is. Self sufficiency is, sadly, a distant dream for a lot of people. That said, I consider myself rather fortunate in that my family do receive benefits, I live with my mother so I have guaranteed housing regardless, and there are graduate programs in place that (hopefully) will help me find work, and maybe even work suited to my level of qualification, if I'm lucky. In many cases, people both work and receive benefits, because neither a salary or benefits alone can support them.

Providing for yourself is indeed a "privilege", one many of us look forward to with great anticipation...assuming we ever get there. After all, being from a working class background means you're surrounded by people who never achieved it, despite many of them working hard their entire lives.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I like how the mindset today is that being able to provide for yourself and not mooch off others makes you "privileged"... just shows what direction our society is heading in.

You are of course correct. But not in the way you think you are.

Working isn't a privilege. It's a right.

 

[RandyS]

I'm a dim gimme.

 

[robau]

Seattle does not have sanctuaries in the form seen in the episode, but the homeless are encouraged by the city police to stay in certain areas. We have a "tent city" too.

I recently read about Portland having this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity_Village

 

[R. Star]

I like how the mindset today is that being able to provide for yourself and not mooch off others makes you "privileged"... just shows what direction our society is heading in.

You are of course correct. But not in the way you think you are.

Working isn't a privilege. It's a right.

Sure it's a right. Everyone has the right to go out and get a job. It gets silly when people start thinking they should have jobs handed to them on a platter.

 

[Avon]

a decade is 10 years. 2024 is 11 years away.

can we pospone this thread for a year?

 

[E-DUB]

Well, 2024 is when the ep was set, but the districts were an esablished fact by then. We have a lot of factors at work here, demography and changing economics principally. You have a lot of people who have been working in certain industries all their live that all of a sudden are disappearing. It's not just that their jobs are gone, but that the entire range of jobs for which they're qualified are gone. Any useful retraining program takes longer than unemployment lasts. And then there is the reality of age discrimination. People who are too young to retire but too old to start over. And politicians talk about "raising the retirement age" as if it were no more involved than adjusting the thermostat.

 

[T'Girl]

Providing for yourself is indeed a "privilege"

I would have to disagree, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that providing for yourself is a personal choice, or a personal philosophy. The willingness to do it.

There no "special right or advantage" involved. When I started at a package delivery service, I possessed a drivers license and no experience. I told them I could start immediately and was working there the same day.

About a year and a half ago, in a conversation with a young homeless man, I mention that in the eastern section of the state the harvest was starting. I was curtly informed that such work was beneath him, and that he had a MBA.

Fast food is usually hiring, and (if you're under 26 years) the military is alway recruiting.

It's not about being privileged, it's about not being "picky."

 

[R. Star]

Providing for yourself is indeed a "privilege"

I would have to disagree, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that providing for yourself is a personal choice, or a personal philosophy. The willingness to do it.

There no "special right or advantage" involved. When I started at a package delivery service, I possessed a drivers license and no experience. I told them I could start immediately and was working there the same day.

About a year and a half ago, in a conversation with a young homeless man, I mention that in the eastern section of the state the harvest was starting. I was curtly informed that such work was beneath him, and that he had a MBA.

Fast food is usually hiring, and (if you're under 26 years) the military is alway recruiting.

It's not about being privileged, it's about not being "picky."

 

[Phily B]

I like how the mindset today is that being able to provide for yourself and not mooch off others makes you "privileged"... just shows what direction our society is heading in.

It blows my mind that there are people out there on a good wage, myself included at the moment, who protest against a rise in tax because money is needed to help people who are less well off than me, couldn't otherwise afford medical care etc.

Seriously, what could you need MORE money for? It blows my mind when people on incomes in the hundreds of thousands want more.

 

[R. Star]

I like how the mindset today is that being able to provide for yourself and not mooch off others makes you "privileged"... just shows what direction our society is heading in.

It blows my mind that there are people out there on a good wage, myself included at the moment, who protest against a rise in tax because money is needed to help people who are less well off than me, couldn't otherwise afford medical care etc.

Seriously, what could you need MORE money for? It blows my mind when people on incomes in the hundreds of thousands want more.

It blows my mind that people consider being successful a vice. That we villify the people that make something of themselves because they work hard and have "more" than someone else. We should celebrate everyone being successful and the great country we have that lets them do that.

But this constant call to tax and punish the rich? What is that even about? Just people pointing their finger at someone else as if they're to blame for their lot in life. Nevermind the logistics of taxing the rich has never been a reliable way to raise revenue, stop and think about this for a moment. You start taxing the rich, putting punitive regulations on them, you know who you're hurting? The middle class.

It's the successful people who open businesses and hire dozens of people and provide jobs. Overtaxing them is just going to stifle businesses, lose jobs and you have less money. It's a novel concept, but the less you infringe upon them, the more jobs they make and the more people you have paying into the system, thus you have increased tax revenue. To say nothing of less people taking handouts.

You think the government is a reliable job creator? They can't even control their own spending because they're too busy putting getting elected over the good of the country.

 

[Avon]

rich people should stop finding ways to dodge tax, then the middle class would be taxed less.

 

[robau]

rich people should stop finding ways to dodge tax, then the middle class would be taxed less.

Government should quit creating such a grossly complex system that dodging is capable.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

There no "special right or advantage" involved. When I started at a package delivery service, I possessed a drivers license and no experience. I told them I could start immediately and was working there the same day.

You were lucky, then. Usually you can't just get a job nowadays by walking up and saying "I've got no experience but I want to work, give me a job". Even if you have a lot of experience and qualifications, people won't hire - or they'll say you're "overqualified". Hence why my old manager took half a year to find a new job.

My mother and uncle both tell me that you used to be able to find reasonable work without much trouble. Indeed, they bemoan how much harder it is for everyone now. My uncle, when he was in school, was offered his first job (a reasonable entry level position) without having to qualify for it - he was told that regardless of his exam results, when he left school the next year he'd have the job. My mother says you could leave a job on a Friday, walk in to a new one on Monday, and if it didn't work out, you moved on. I don't know if my family's experiences back then were typical, but if they were then I can understand entirely why it used to be the case that long periods of unemployment or being unable to rent your own apartment, etc, were seen as signs of laziness or "mooching". But that paradigm doesn't work anymore, or so I'd suggest. If you have a steady job, you're lucky. No-one should begrudge anyone that luck. I think part of the problem here is that "privilege" has come to be rather a dirty word, and I'm not trying to say for a moment that successful people are benefiting unfairly. Only that the economic situation sucks and that relying on the old "if you work hard you'll prosper" argument doesn't quite cut it.

Many people are poor, out of work or even homeless because the economy sucks (which is largely government's fault, I agree). But no matter what the President says in his speeches, not everyone can succeed "so long as they try"...

Fast food is usually hiring

But does it pay enough to actually support someone or be worth it?