Quote: (10-30-2014 02:52 PM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:
Quote: (10-30-2014 03:01 AM)la_mode Wrote:
Lower class, grew up not knowing what school district you'd be in next year. Food stamps were there sometimes. Kids knew you shopped at Goodwill or Salvation army. You had generic food at home. You didn't have the latest technology, and having a computer was a big deal at home, where the middle or upper class kids had their own separate from the family.
Some of the families I know don't have a household phone line or internet connection. If they have a video game console, it's an old one, like an original Xbox. They still have CRT televisions and listen to audio cassettes. If something breaks, it's patched. Your bed is a mattress on the floor. Furniture is from charity stores, and sixties in design. If a window breaks, you patch it with cardboard. Sometimes there is only 2 meals a day nearing payment day. Maybe two families in their street have a lawnmower, which everyone borrows. There's no airconditioning, so the front yard and steps become another 'room' of the house. A lot of the time, there's no car.
This is the reality of many of my friends in 2014. They could still be existing in 1976 or 1991. I vaguely remember a song I heard that said "The year 2000 will make no difference around here," and it's spot on.
Every single cause a privileged social justice warrior will champion, such as microaggressions and representation of women in gaming, will make no real-world positive difference in their lives whatsoever. The recent 'double the minimum wage' fight is most likely going to automate the service industry and leave them without jobs.
If there is a will, there is a way.
Let me repeat myself here, there is always a way. Even if it is not easy.
If we are really going to talk about cold hard reality.
It sounds to me like your friends have given up and simply accept their lives as they are.
I would rather feel the cold steely grip of death than to accept being impoverished or at the bottom rung of society.
Edit: I will say that is probably just me though. I am the kind of person who enjoys running towards personal anguish and discomfort. Some sick part of me enjoys suffering and going to bed with nightmares running through my head. Every single time I have embraced some sort of pain, I always have come out stronger.
Most people just like to give up, shake their fists at the sky, and say "if only I was lucky like that other guy".