[johnchristopher]

> Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone.

Not once in my life have I heard anybody saying life is unfair because they can't afford an iPhone (or a ps5 or whatever expensive but dispensable good), except from children or teenagers.

But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids. Or from people who couldn't afford an education at the right time to get their adult life on tracks.

[meiraleal]

> But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids

And I have seen people in this same situation spending all their money in booze, drugs, parties, food, unnecessary gadgets, iphones...

[johnchristopher]

> > But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids

> And I have seen people in this same situation spending all their money in booze, drugs, parties, food, unnecessary gadgets, iphones...

I don't think people who don't have a job have much money to spend on booze, drugs, parties, food, unnecessary gadgets, iphones (hey ! at least they don't complain how unfair life is because they don't have one !)... I also don't think people who work two jobs to barely make rent have much money left either for said activities and consuming...

[meiraleal]

Have you ever been poor? That's exactly what I saw more often than not when I was poor. Many times what makes people poor is exactly this "irrational" behavior of spending money they shouldn't.

[johnchristopher]

> Have you ever been poor? That's exactly what I saw more often than not when I was poor. Many times what makes people poor is exactly this "irrational" behavior of spending money they shouldn't.

Yes, I have been poor. That prevented me from going to parties, buying drugs or alcohol (well it would have, had I been a user but I am not), paying tuition in time, paying the rent in time, sleeping in a bed because the rent wasn't paid in time, etc.

I am sorry but I won't continue this conversation. I lack the energy today to deconstruct the fucking argument that "poor are poor and it's on them and if only they wouldn't buy an iphone they would have it easier".

We obviously didn't live around the same kind of poor people and I don't have the energy today to put into arguments and words the Venn diagrams of the whole debate and why it's not relevant at all.

I still hate poor-blaming and rich/people-who-made-it pissing on the poor to stroke their ego and ignore the larger situation though.

> Many times what makes people poor is exactly this "irrational" behavior of spending money they shouldn't.

Yeah, no. Not "many times". That's just vague blanket statements to comfort a certain world view. Not buying.

edit: just clicked with the "when I was poor" part.

There's a lot to be said about the context. For instance, squatters, hoboes, etc. are poor and spend money on booze/drugs and food if there's money left but that's all they have and if they have been in the system long enough they know about bank food and other kind of charities that can feed and house them when needed and incite them to keep on spending money on what is now something very close to addiction. All we would see from the exterior is how they spend money on drugs/gadgets/alcohol and complain but we are missing the spiral that led there.

I know poor people with jobs who still have to go to bank food to make rent and they are not in debt and they are not in any party/drug scene.

They don't have iphones though but they have smartphones (which is something you definitely need to navigate modern society).

edit 2: I hope I didn't come too harsh, not my intention.

edit 3: Anyway, what rich people buy and now what I complain I don't have is not an iphone but a vertu phone ! https://vertu.com/

edit 4: interesting thread from HN about poor people and iphone https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13831763

edit 5: i was wondering why the conversation went from people complaining life is unfair to poor people buying unnecessary gadgets when I specifically didn't mention or stated that the people I described were poor (or described themselves as poor) but you actually conflated both (people spending money on unnecessary gadgets and the hard-working poor without money left for that):

> But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids

> And I have seen people in this same situation spending all their money in booze, drugs, parties, food, unnecessary gadgets, iphones... > > Have you ever been poor?

It's on my for not catching that sooner and letting the conversation crumble into the usual iphone-poor-blaming conversation.

[meiraleal]

> I am sorry but I won't continue this conversation. I lack the energy today to deconstruct the fucking argument that "poor are poor and it's on them and if only they wouldn't buy an iphone they would have it easier".

You seem to have continued the discussion (alone) to points that were way far from the initial conversation. It seems like you want to prove that the reality you see is the only truth in the world?

You seems to enjoy the monologue type of discussion with so many edits. No, you didn't come too harsh, you came too confused. There are many poor people out there that for lack of more information they have no idea how to do their budget and succumb (as easily as rich people) to carnal desires. Don't hate on people that think like that, if you wanna help them, do something to teach people how to budget.

> There's a lot to be said about the context. For instance, squatters, hoboes, etc. are poor and spend money on booze/drugs and food if there's money left but that's all they have

Alright. Why are we discussing by the way? Ah, you are discussing alone. You should check your mental health, john.

[johnchristopher]

> It seems like you want to prove that the reality you see is the only truth in the world?

Bam, uno reverse card.

> Alright. Why are we discussing by the way?

Because you moved the goal post from my example of hard working people having no money but not complaining how life is unfair because they don't have an iphone to poor people partying and spending money on drugs and how life is unfair because they don't have an iphone (even though in your example they spent money on an iphone but hey, I get it, honest mistake, people do it all the time when they want to trash poor people. Just let chatgpt write your arguments next time.) and because of this:

> > Many times what makes people poor is exactly this "irrational" behavior of spending money they shouldn't.

> Yeah, no. Not "many times". That's just vague blanket statements to comfort a certain world view. Not buying.

> Alright. Why are we discussing by the way? Ah, you are discussing alone. You should check your mental health, john.

Fuck you too, Alan :).

[DoesntMatter22]

Oh I've heard it from adults before. Were they acting like children? Sure. Even so, in the past, children were working pretty hard themselves to try to eek out an existence with their parents and the concept of life being unfair because you couldn't have a device wasn't even a thought.

[johnchristopher]

> Even so, in the past, children were working pretty hard themselves to try to eek out an existence with their parents and the concept of life being unfair because you couldn't have a device wasn't even a thought.

Damn Fair Labor Standards Act and that pesky National Child Labor Committee and that man, am I right ?

edit, because it scratches me:

> Sure. Even so, in the past, children were working pretty hard themselves to try to eek out an existence with their parents and the concept of life being unfair because you couldn't have a device wasn't even a thought.

Don't know which specific past you are referring to but I'd venture to guess that there were far fewer of such inaccessible goods though.

Anyway. I'd rather live in a present where children (and adults ?) think life is unfair because they can't have an iPhone than a present in which children are forced to work in coal mines or plants so their whole family don't die from starvation.

That's not what's wrong with the world today.

[DoesntMatter22]

Never once did I say that that is what is wrong with the world today.

[johnchristopher]

Either I misread you or you at least implied it's a problem though:

> This sums up so well the current state of the world. Quality of life is relatively high so people expect a lot.

> [..]

> Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone.

Or maybe you agree life is unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone, I don't know.

Apart from that... what's with the fixation on iPhones from people who bash on the poor and the supposed entitled ? Reading other threads iphones are the best bang for bucks (resale and quality, costs less per day than an android equivalent flagship or something) and then there's that TP quote "A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”" that is brought a lot... wouldn't that justify people complaining about not being able to buy quality stuff ?

Or is an iphone quality stuff for rich people but extravaganza for the poor ?

> Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone. Not a criticism of OP, because indie startup stuff is very hard, relativly.

Or life is unfair for people who tried indie startup stuff but not the other people.

Is this a tribal thing ? A peer thing ?

Whatever.

[johnnyanmac]

I mean, spoiled people are spoiled no matter what year. It's not the best representation of an entire population.

I think it's more about how the current generation can't afford a lot of what the previous one had or even took for granted. Housing, education, the process of procurring a career; a few things that changed so radically that it creates a generational divide among contemporaries.

[DoesntMatter22]

I think there was a very short time in human history where it was "the good life" where it was affordable and that was basically the 50s to the early 90s.

Other than that in human history things have been extremely hard.