[hn_throwaway_99]

I downvoted this comment, but I'll take the time to explain why I despise comments like this, and why I think HN should remain an oasis without these types of comments.

I see this everywhere on places like FB, Twitter and Reddit where people take a single sentence or two and blatantly disregard its most obvious intended meaning, instead focusing on the words alone, with no context. I'm assuming you're imagining faces from the "first world problems" meme, crying that they don't have a college degree. Where a simpler and more generous explanation would be that people without a college degree have little hope of advancement in much of the US, and are stuck in dead-end jobs just at the time these jobs are becoming more precarious and lower paying, with a small health crisis all that is needed to drive one into bankruptcy.

So I think we should interpret the most obvious intended meaning, "deadly despair that arises from the lack of opportunity and stability from not having a college degree", instead of making a lame non-joke joke.

[WilliamEdward]

Thanks for explaining and not just downvoting them. This is a serious socioeconomic issue.