The Homeless Experience (split-off)

Sadly, those veterans, who bettered themselves, have a higher chance of ending up homeless than the civilian population.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Trust you? Why? Because you have no cogent argument to make? Your opinion is just that, and no more.

Oh, my, an opinion on an internet forum! The horror!

Quote:

If a person can afford to go away for school, they should go away. It's a critical step towards self-reliance and independence. Living at home while in college night be financially the only way some folks can attend at all. But dorm living is a useful learning experience. So is having an apartment, even if your parents are in the same town.

For some it is, for others it is a disaster. I have worked several "mixers" for kids the first night or two of their dorm life. It is interesting because I could see how sheltered some of the kids were. A few were just marks, plain and simple, waiting to be taken advantage of. One of the biggest "they are not a grownup yet" things I remember was they had these little things that held your key and your ID that you wore on your wrists. Mostly the girls bought them. My mother wanted one for my sister in fact. I told my mother they were dangerous, lose it and a person has your key and your ID, easy to find the way to your dorm room. "Grown up" enough to be at the dorm, but not enough to have a keychain and a wallet?

I said it can be useful, but the usefulness is a coin flip. Some grow up. Some waste up to $10,000 or more on a little vacation while they fail out of a place they should never have been in the first place.

Quote: Rigondeaux

The military is def. a big part of America's version of the welfare state. That's one reason we keep a giant standing army when faced with no threats. I agree, it's cool that kids without direction, or support from home, can join up and be taught discipline and job skills.

It also sucks that politicians use them for cannon fodder and to create destruction and instability (not the soldier's fault). I don't see much contradiction between those sentiments.

It also sucks that if they are used for cannon fodder, and become mentally ill as a result, the politicians will dump them on the streets. Looping back around, certainly, a lot of people initially joined the military because they were vulnerable and/or came from bad backgrounds. Killing civilians, and even soldiers, watching their friends die, being wounded, etc... gonna mess a lot of them up.

Using the military to get away from a bad life is probably as old as the first military. No matter how bad it was some people would always think, "it has to be better than this!" as they looked at their life. I worked next to a woman who did just that. Awful family life, not stupid but just average IQ, lived in a moderate size town but as an uneducated female she would never get out otherwise. She went with her sister. Got out, got married whine in, ended up across the country. Rarely saw her parents.

Quote:

It would be cool if there were more military-like options open to more people (like older people). Especially if they could do something productive, rather than be used as cannon fodder. IDK what, precisely, off the top of my head. Say something like build a desalinization plant. Sign up, live in a dorm, etc. for a couple years. Get striaghtened out, make some friends, learn some skills, get some benies, have a nice chunk of change when you get out.

We'd rather pay $50k a year to put people in jail. It's pretty dumb, from our POV. Makes sense from the goldman sachs/clinton/bush POV though and they call the shots.

Some of what you propose pops up from time to time. Man camps in the oil fields, crab boats, etc. Problem is they attract edge of life types who keep clean while they work a few months and then party it up when they leave. Second problem is these things are almost all males, so the women have to keep trying to find a soldier to marry to get out. OTOH, we keep hearing we need more foreigners to work the resorts for the season, why can't we recruit here?

Quote: Rigondeaux

In state tuition is lower than I thought. I thought the google machine would contradict TigerWu, but it turns out the national average is about $10k/year. Not chump change, but I thought it was about twice that. Of course, add another $1k for books. There are other expenses as well.

I agree that going away to school is far preferable to staying at home. All that responsibility stuff is true. But I wouldn't dismiss the fact that it is extremely fun, either. You only live once. That could easily be the best time of your life.



The military is def. a big part of America's version of the welfare state. That's one reason we keep a giant standing army when faced with no threats. I agree, it's cool that kids without direction, or support from home, can join up and be taught discipline and job skills.

It also sucks that politicians use them for cannon fodder and to create destruction and instability (not the soldier's fault). I don't see much contradiction between those sentiments.

It also sucks that if they are used for cannon fodder, and become mentally ill as a result, the politicians will dump them on the streets. Looping back around, certainly, a lot of people initially joined the military because they were vulnerable and/or came from bad backgrounds. Killing civilians, and even soldiers, watching their friends die, being wounded, etc... gonna mess a lot of them up.

It would be cool if there were more military-like options open to more people (like older people). Especially if they could do something productive, rather than be used as cannon fodder. IDK what, precisely, off the top of my head. Say something like build a desalinization plant. Sign up, live in a dorm, etc. for a couple years. Get striaghtened out, make some friends, learn some skills, get some benies, have a nice chunk of change when you get out.

We'd rather pay $50k a year to put people in jail. It's pretty dumb, from our POV. Makes sense from the goldman sachs/clinton/bush POV though and they call the shots.

Shhhh! Quiet!.

We dont know if Trump lurks here. Next thing he will be sending soldiers to build walls

Quote: darkoz

Shhhh! Quiet!.

We dont know if Trump lurks here. Next thing he will be sending soldiers to build walls

Lets hope he is! The border is in crisis with people sneaking in.

Quote: AZDuffman

Lets hope he is! The border is in crisis with people sneaking in.

I would classify that as a border-line argument

Quote: Boz

Easiest way to get rid of junk by some of my rentals. Put it outside with free on it and it sits for days. Put a $100 For Sale sign on it and it’s stolen within hours.

My father taught me that when I was young. Put any amount on it and someone will take it.

Quote: AxelWolf

You grow up fast when you have to go over 500 miles away to some fancy college funded by mom and dad with a bunch of money and life lines, no doubt. (-;

I never had any money, no car, and no friends when I started. My freshman year I found a computer programming job and was fortunate because it paid way better that what others my age were making. That job I kept for two years and then found a better programming job and kept it for the next 3.5 years (yes, I was in college for 5.5 years). I then moved to Vegas with about $20k in my bank account and I had three motorcycles and a car. I was "rich" compared to most kids leaving school in 1989.

I've tested the theory of giving money (or refusing to give money) to these mendicants during gambling trips, whether it helps to move a winning streak along (or break out of a losing one). Of course it may just come down to whether you think doing a good deed (or not doing one) will affect your state of mind.

Quote: AZDuffman

Lets hope he is! The border is in crisis with people sneaking in.

And out. Maybe if our health insurance system gets bad enough, the number of Americans leaving will balance out the number of Mexicans arriving! Everybody just shift up one country....

Quote: TigerWu

And out. Maybe if our health insurance system gets bad enough, the number of Americans leaving will balance out the number of Mexicans arriving! Everybody just shift up one country....

Do the Canadians go to Russia?

Quote: Ayecarumba

Do the Canadians go to Russia?

Maybe they just reset back to the bottom and head to Chile.

“People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.”

C. Wright Mills

Quote: petroglyph

“People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.”

C. Wright Mills

I agree, but I think it's more extensive. Whatever comes naturally to us, and the positive things we like to do, we tend to count as virtues.

You don't have to be elite. e.g. reading books is good. But people who like to do it anyway will get on their high horse about it, even though they are just doing what they like. Same with being athletic/in great shape. Same with being organized and detail oriented.

A lot of political/social views can be distilled to "people like me are good and deserve more stuff. People different from me are bad and deserve less stuff."

I have been homeless for eight years and finally gotten an apartment it seems like a tuna catch. Still have to eat out the trash can, lost more money living in an apartment when I was on the streets or shelter ( I do online stuff), can't find any clothes or cleaning stuff. 2F

Quote: dkw868

I have been homeless for eight years and finally gotten an apartment it seems like a tuna catch. Still have to eat out the trash can, lost more money living in an apartment when I was on the streets or shelter ( I do online stuff), can't find any clothes or cleaning stuff. 2F

Do you have lots of socks? Socks are important at homeless shelters. Socks keep your feet healthy.

Quote: AZDuffman

Do you have lots of socks? Socks are important at homeless shelters. Socks keep your feet healthy.

Multi-colored socks I think.

Lots of puppetry as well