Hmm, I'm a Reagan-baby. We got told we weren't special -- we could be -- but first we'd have to get out of those diapers and get a job and work for a living!

If only we knew then that they were just trying to sell us into becoming drones to some slave-commercialist system called capitalism.

overweight: well, not morbidly or anything, but I could stand to lose a few pounds...just cuz...I am vain

emo: went through an emo phase back a little before and after it was popular. still like a lot of the music -- because it's terrible and nobody else seems to like it.

sexuality: hmm, quite confusing, really, been identifying as lesbian for a bit lately as I've been coming to terms with it, not out by any means though.

i don't know what this has to do with being otherkin.

also most of the emo/gays I knew would think we were a bunch of freaks and/or nerds.

this I can't deny.

So you would prefer not being productive for a living then? You aren't special until you make yourself special. Sorry, that's life not capitalism.

I think pretty much anyone could be otherkin . With this I mean I don't think they follow a particular pattern .

Who wants to be special?

There's a difference between working to make a living and working to make an existence.
Me; I'm on well-fare. I'm pretty much ruined, but that's my beef, my problem, and I can live with that. I can't get a job. There. Clear and simple. Interviews never went that well, and I'm sure you can all see why: As soon as I need to explain about the holes in my record, then it becomes obvious that I have large holes in my memory. Of course; I have to explain about that, and then... Either I lie, or I tell the truth, and the first option is never a good one, because you will be found out. The latter one... Makes me very unattractive to any good employer.
Coupled with that: Nearly none of the letters I send actually get a reply. Near to none. If I send four letters a day for a month, I won't get a single reply, and thankfully, that's not my fault, because I see that happening everywhere.
Times are tough.

Still; I do get by. I dó work. I craft, I write, but more importantly: I'm there for people. I work my behind off to be there for anyone who might need someone. And that's a lot of people. That's how I fill my days, and, often enough, my nights, as well.
It doesn't make me money, and the thought of even making a living out of that scares me. Not because I'd have to work harder, because that wouldn't happen. But because I would take money for something that should be given for free.
So I'm on well-fare. And let me tell you; that's a lowsy place to be. So I don't make a living.
I do make an existence. It's not commercial, but it makes my existence in society a valid one.

I'm not proud of me not having a job. I had countless of them, and everything went to dust. Countless of under-paid construction and demolition jobs, factory work, cleaning, farm-work, customer services... Basically anything that doesn't require schooling. Because my record doesn't allow for anything else.
And even then, sooner or later, everything went to rubble, because of shady employers, which I got, of course, because I couldn't be picky on who I worked for. Illegal hours, high accident risk, extortion of illegal immigrants, illegal drug cartels, maffia-business dealings.. You name it. I couldn't be picky on the people I worked for, because these people were the only people that would take me on.

You could say I'm the victim of ill luck. Perhaps I am. You could say I'm the victim of my own poor judgement. Maybe I am.
The way I see it is: I made choices based on what this society desires of me. And they might not have been the best, but what society desires is: Workaholic. And don't get me wrong; it has taken me a lot of time to even get into well-fare. I rolled that on the back-ground while doing odd jobs, illegal jobs, whenever I could, scraping just barely enough money to keep a roof over my head. I got by on boiled eggs and rice, because that was all the food I could afford. For years.
While all this was going on, I was a member of OK.com. And I've been here. Of course; I had a computer; bought in better days. My internet and electricity come with the place, so no need to cut on that.
I cut on everything. Health care most of all. I even stopped my education, because I did not have a scholarship. (NL doesn't work like that, and I attended a non-funded university, since they were the only ones who could offer an internationally accepted education.)
I worked twelve to sixteen hours a day, because the payment of my (borderline illegal) job was way below poverty standards, and I couldn't get financial support.
Due to these working hours, and the heavy cost of education, I had to abandon university after two years. That's two years of attending university ánd working day and night. Two years of getting only two hours of sleep every night, because work had to be done, and schoolwork had to be done, if I wanted any hope for a future.
I got some papers, from there. Got a diploma in translation for theology, psychology, philosophy and law. However, I did not graduate, and without graduation papers, I can kiss any job as a translator farewell.
The only reason I got the minors is: I skipped the first two years of university.
I had to make a choice. And that choice was to live just a little longer.
Of course I crashed. I was immensely sick for two weeks, meaning: I had a complete burn-out, and ignored it, and then got to work for a call-centre. I got in through knowing some people, from the past, but this call centre was in another city, and in order to make up for the costs of getting there, and back.. Well; that alone cost me two hours of wages. Yes; Dutch transportation is expensive.
So again; I worked my butt off. I made the longest days, but everyone else at that call-centre was doing it as an extra. Housewives and funded students, who wanted to work for a bit of extra pocket money. It was my entire livelihood, but the wages were, again, extremely low.
After a while, I crashed again.
I sought professional help. Even got commited to a part-time psychological treatment schedule. Meaning: I got to stay the days, not the nights. I finally got well-fare, but it was based on my former salary, and then with a 75% cut, putting me back on rice and eggs. I biked to a nearby town every day on nothing but a bowl of rice and an egg. Skipped lunch, and had rice and egg for dinner.
Two years.
I finally got more financial support, and can now finally live at least somewhat normally.
Result: I got clean from that one, but without anything. They're pretty sure there's something to me, as in: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but I could be manic depressive, clinically depressed, borderline, ADD... Or all of them combined. They don't know, I don't know, and nobody actually knows. Anything.

To get back to now:
I do work. Not for a company, and I don't make money. But I'm there for people. Most of the things I've described above were while I was a member of OK.com. I've been here. Sometimes more often than others, but I have.
In more of an active sense, I am there for the people around me. When someone needs someone, I am there. I am there when someone dies. I am there when someone gets severely ill, or injured. I am there after lovers break up, and I am there when people lose out on things they care about.
I am there.
And I'm on well-fare.

So sorry for going off-topic like this. It was just a side-reel from the capitalism thing.
Do continue.

Really sad and gripping story . Perhaps we should have a separate topic for the evils of capitalism . I always felt the best system would probbaly be kind of a mix between capitalism and communism . But even then greedy people always seem to ruin it somehow .

There is nothing wrong with capitalism. Parasites end up ruining it, not greedy people. You can't be greedy if you EARN the money you make. And that's what capitalism teaches you. Any compromise with GIVING people things instead of teaching them how to EARN them is death. It is backwards.

And I am done. This topic makes me...extremely upset.

The problem is these days our system is designed to make the rich richer and keep the poor poor . I mean just look at how much college/University costs . Sure there are government grants but even then it's crazy .

Yeah considering our current system is closer to socialism than capitalism, yeah, it would go that way wouldn't it. Poor people are easier to control. Socialism preys on ignorance.

Wynne: That would be wrong.

See; Liberalism tells us this:
Everyone has the same opportunities in life. It doesn't matter whether you were born poor, fell from grace, or anything. Everyone has the same potential.

Socialism teaches this:
While everyone might have the same potential, not everyone starts out in the same place. It is the duty of those who do well to protect those who do badly, and help them achieve their potential, so that, if everyone would adhere to this, everyone would do well.

Now; the idea of liberalism isn't a bad one, and, surely, when it began at the start of the Industrial Revolution, in England, it was the best one around.
However, it got used as an excuse to extort the factory-workers, make them work long hours, for extremely little pay, and this was according to the liberal code of conduct.
Among other circles, Socialism started to develop as a response. It gave birth to the first organized labour unions. It gave birth to insurance companies. It gave birth to funded education and medicine. It stopped child-labour in the Netherlands and Belgium. Yes; it also made the rich a good deal less rich, and the poor a good deal less poor.

Communism, now.. That's a different brand of socialism, altogether, and rather more extreme. Everyone should earn just about the same amount of money for their work, only getting perks for the stress or danger.
That's the way of communism.
That's not about control over the masses, either.
Leninism.. Stalinism... Maoism.. Those are, but they are nót communism.

So how do you EARN several million bucks a year?
The modern recipe is to come from a rich family that pays you anything in the way of education, get on a manager career, trash a few companies on short gambles for maximum money and on the way everywhere you are FIRED get some millions as golden parachute from the company you just wrecked.
That has nothing to do anything in the way of earning the money you get. It's pure greed. Having an income per year that any reasonable person is unable to spend in a lifetime is greed.
It's also bad for economy. Money is designed to go around. Economy is built on the principle that money has to flow. By becoming a roadblock in that flow you become a hazard to the very economy the shortcomings in intelligence you exploit.
I wouldn't mind that if at the same time there were not people working their backs off barely legal times to have an income that hardly, or in a lot of cases not at all, enables them to exist - that is, pay rent, pay utilities, pay to eat, pay to get clothed at all, pay for transportation. We're talking about the bare necessities of existence, not living.



Then pray you never come into the situation of being well educated, trained to do a productive job well and not getting one.
My own job right now is writing applications. I write 12 a month minimum. I am not choosy about what company, about where it is as long as I speak the language. The only thing I'm choosy about is: The job has to get enough in to pay the bills. But you know what? I'm not even getting answers to most.
And know what? For all the crying about how much this country here needs more qualified people, the statistic is that there are a lot qualified people unemployed who would gladly work - but won't be hired because they want a job at a minimum income to pay the bills. What is really wanted is qualified people who do the job for less money.

This comes straight from management theories whereby employees are easy to get, whereas investment capital is not. Employees only ever appear as COST to a company. Does that sound right? That is the state that "capitalism" as practiced has brought us into. Pure fixation on gain in coin. Which is, of course, what a company is there for, but as a player not only in economics, but also in social structures, there are responsibilities attached to that.
I say, let them do anything they want to do in economy. They're excellent at getting gain there. What obviously has to be regulated is the social responsibility. Which is nothing outrageous, really - a job has to be reasonably safe, a full-time job has to be paid enough to exist on at least for a couple and a kid, overtime or unusual working hours have to be paid a considerable bonus. In fact that bonus should be high enough to make hiring another employee is cheaper over an extended time.
The only player that probably has enough power to enforce these rather simple basics on an economy is the state.

Remember that people do not work to make a company prosper as primary goal, they work to pay their bills, and maybe live a little.

I know the bitternes of an unemployed educated person.
I was lucky enough to resolve this problem.

I would only like to point out the difference between an economic system and its application.
Communism failed. Was it a bad economic system by nature or was it hard to apply ?
Capitalism lives on. Does it mean it is a good system or that it is a system made to survive?
Does wealth accumulation by few people mean capitalism is inherently evil?

I think we should study each system in two levels.
In theory and practice.
And we should keep in mind that one system, however good and fair it may be in theory, it will not function the way it was meant to.
People will always try to find the loopholes, grasp the oportunities and use the system towards their own gain (and against other people).
I do not believe it is the fault of capitalism.
It is our fault.

I simply write this because I have the impression that Wynne is talking about the theoretic facets of capitalism, while Yarra speaks about practical reality.

At the same time, socialism is claimed inherently corrupt, which is a point of view I've only heard from US citizens, so far, and, with this being a much-addressed statement in US media, this seems to me to be nothing more than US anti-communism propaganda; an aftermath of the Cold War. (Which was silly, and extremely childish. Of both sides.)

Considering the US IS practically socialist.....:/.
I don't think anyone in this thread really realizes that CAPITALISM is not in practice anymore. It died a long time ago when people realized the easiest way to control people was by making is so they had to put as little effort into the system and get the most amount back(which in the end they pay for for lower standards of living).

I believe that any system which GIVES someone something without that person EARNING it just because they NEED it is immoral.