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by 8f2ab37a-ed6c
1699 days ago
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Is the American Dream dead though? You can learn the basics of coding in a few months, score your first dev job, invest in your career and live a rather lovely rest of your life in some of the nicest parts of the country, working from either a cushy air-conditioned office with a big monitor, or from the comfort of your home wearing PJs. You don't even have to be that good, to be fair, the industry is infinitely hungry for people able to stitch a few paragraphs of javascript together while also having some basic fluency in English. You first job won't be at Google, but your second or third just might, and then you're practically set for life with that sort of luxury brand name on your resume. Yeah, you won't have it easy in other industries that have plateaued or shrunk over the years due to technological shifts, but social mobility towards a very acceptable lifestyle is still plenty possible in the US. |
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For example:
I have a computer science degree and I am far from bad off but I am one serious medical illness away from having to blow my retirement fund on medical bills or lose my house. And I pay $14k a year for that shitty medical insurance.
Coding for 20 years, 12 since my college degree... still no Google job.
And for the privilege of being in the top 10% I get to work 70+ hours a week and haven't taken a vacation where I haven't been called by my boss... ever... not even my honey moon.
And I'm lucky, most of the people I know don't own a house or have a retirement fund or safety net.
My father is in his 70s, has millions in savings but medical bills for his cancer will eat through almost all of that before he passes.
I'm pretty sure the American dream was not to rent for the rest of your life, work 60+ hours a week, retire at 80, never take vacation, be called by your boss all hours of the day, and leave nothing to your kids because your entire life savings got wiped out in your last 5 years of life by medical expenses.
And that is the life of an upper middle class family! 75% of the country has it worse.
And that is buying a house 7 years ago. No way in hell could I do that today.. my house is now "worth" $750k... I paid half that 7 years ago but my pay is barely higher than it was then so no way in hell I could afford it now. When I bought $750k would have been a literal mansion.