[flax]

I dunno. I feel pretty confident in my measure of "making it" for myself. I will have made it when I no longer need to work to maintain my lifestyle indefinitely.

Note, that doesn't mean I'll be satisfied. But I will have made it.

I was struck by the author's suggestion that "making it" could mean anything less. "Being able to buy a house without going broke". How could that mean you've made it? If you still have to work, you're still a wage slave.

[bluGill]

Do I have to work? I could retire now to a greatly reduced standard of living. By the most absurdly optimistic predictions I could retire to the same standard of living. How will I know when those predictions go from absurd to reasonable to pessimistic?

Part of this is I have no idea how long I will live. Family history gives me anywhere from 3 more years to 50 more, and medical science can improve the upper range.

[paulpauper]

If you still have to work, you're still a wage slave.

Google, Facebook, etc. employees technically still have to work (if they cannot work from home) but I think they are doing alright. Wage slave is more like retail work.

[cs137]

No, 'flax is right, and wage slave is the right way to put it.

Those Google and Facebook workers are one bad boss from their lives going to shit. And, whether you like to believe it's the case or not, bad references do happen sometimes and, if word (or rumor) gets out that you were fired "for cause" (which doesn't actually mean anything, but sounds bad) you are basically fucked.

"Middle class" is an illusion. The cultural armor you think you have is paper-thin in a real conflict. If you're a worker, you're on the side of the proletariat; there's no honor in persisting in delusion to the contrary.

[paulpauper]

Tom Cruise and Will Smith are technically workers. I think there are degrees to proletariat status

[swader999]

Naw, we're all pretty much done when the nukes fly.