Dogyote
@Dogyote@slrpnk.net
- Comment on This 81-year-old still works at Home Depot to support herself and her 90-year-old husband 6 hours ago:
I get where you’re coming from, but I don’t think it holds up the way you’re framing it. Pinning the root of their trouble on a decision made in 1994 is a bit of a reach. You’re talking about a 30-year-old choice—one that may not have panned out financially, sure, but let’s not act like anyone who steps off the traditional path is just writing themselves into a future of failure. People take risks. Sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don’t. That doesn’t make someone reckless or undeserving of support three decades later. You’re applying hindsight like a hammer, and it oversimplifies everything that likely happened in between.
And honestly, the “$200k job to start a band” line feels a little too convenient. Maybe he quit for health, burnout, family reasons—we don’t know. Framing it as a dumb, selfish move is an assumption dressed up as fact. Life’s not a spreadsheet. People don’t always make optimal economic choices, and pretending everyone has the foresight, stability, and circumstances to do so just isn’t realistic.
As for the $37,000 car—yeah, that’s not ideal. But again, you’re pulling one purchase out of what’s probably a complicated financial picture and using it to write off their entire decision-making process. Have you priced reliable vehicles lately? Even used ones? You don’t know if that was their only option after a breakdown or if it was financed under pressure. It’s easy to diagnose “bad choices” from the outside when you’re not in the thick of it.
And about “doing what you have to”—I agree in principle. Life is about hard choices. But let’s not pretend that “just move to a cheaper state” is some silver bullet. Moving costs money. Leaving behind your doctors, your social support network, everything familiar—that’s not nothing. It’s not just a matter of pulling up Zillow and hopping a U-Haul to West Virginia. The fact that you think that’s a simple fix kind of underlines how disconnected this solution is from the reality of aging in poverty.
You say they have no Plan B. That’s fair, maybe. But they also don’t have many cards left to play. Working at 81 isn’t ideal—but it’s what they’ve got. And instead of asking “why didn’t they plan better 30 years ago?” maybe ask why we expect any 81-year-old to be keeping a job just to afford rent. That’s not a personal failure—that’s a systemic one. The fact that they’re still working shows grit. The fact that they have to shows a breakdown in the system we’re all supposed to be able to rely on someday.
You’re focused on their past decisions like they were filling out a retirement strategy on a clean whiteboard. But most people aren’t living with that level of control, especially over decades. You don’t know their full story, just some snapshots, and you’re building a moral framework around it. That’s fine if you want to play armchair financial advisor, but don’t pretend it’s empathy.
And yeah, they’re in a bad spot. But treating them like a cautionary tale instead of real people facing a brutal system isn’t going to help them—or anyone else headed in the same direction.
- Comment on This 81-year-old still works at Home Depot to support herself and her 90-year-old husband 10 hours ago:
I would argue that they were in fact victims of circumstance. The 2008 mortgage implosion seems to be the root of their troubles. I doubt they thought they were making subpar choices in the aftermath. Putting the blame on them really shifts focus from the elephant in the room, that our society should provide a baseline level of dignified existance for the elderly and infirm no matter the quality of their life choices.
Suggesting they move to west virginia because it’s cheaper is a ridiculous idea that only someone who lacks life experience would propose. I’m calling out a kid, aren’t I?
Your writing is too verbose and lacks tact.
- Comment on This 81-year-old still works at Home Depot to support herself and her 90-year-old husband 23 hours ago:
Why is it that every comment chain about an unfortunate event has at least one callous person who is obviously victim blaming but trying their best to downplay it?
I’ll ask you directly, why are you doing this, partial_accumen? Are you trying to convince yourself that this couldn’t happen to you? Are you perhaps trying to convince yourself to stick with your soul-sucking yet decent paying job? What’s your motivation?
- Comment on This Tiny Radio Lets Me Send Texts Without Wi-Fi or Cell Service 1 week ago:
Then what is it?
- Comment on How come nobody does anything about North Korea? 3 weeks ago:
but to blame the entire state if the country on the bombing campaign of the 1950s is to…
Nobody said that.
- Comment on How come nobody does anything about North Korea? 3 weeks ago:
If you read the previous comment more closely you’ll realize that the commentor wasn’t comparing today’s NK to Gaza, but Korea during the Korean War to Gaza. That is a reasonable comparison, as nearly every standing structure was bombed.
- Comment on Financially rewarding and you will always have a job 3 weeks ago:
If they’re proper student loans then interest doesn’t accumulate while you’re a student.
- Comment on Financially rewarding and you will always have a job 3 weeks ago:
People typically get paid to earn a PhD, so this person’s debt likely came from elsewhere, unless they grossly overpaid for their undergraduate education.
- Comment on YSK about StopICE.net to send and receive alerts about ICE raids in your area 3 weeks ago:
Why aren’t any raids being reported in Texas?
- Comment on We Live In Public 4 weeks ago:
I believe Santa Claus has already done this
- Comment on Fairphone announces the €599 Fairphone 6, with a 6.31" 120Hz LTPO OLED display, a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, and enhanced modularity with 12 swappable parts 5 weeks ago:
I can’t help but detect some passive hostility in your response.
- Comment on Fairphone announces the €599 Fairphone 6, with a 6.31" 120Hz LTPO OLED display, a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, and enhanced modularity with 12 swappable parts 5 weeks ago:
Not in the US apparently
- Comment on Fairphone announces the €599 Fairphone 6, with a 6.31" 120Hz LTPO OLED display, a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, and enhanced modularity with 12 swappable parts 5 weeks ago:
I didn’t know sony made phones
- Comment on Fairphone announces the €599 Fairphone 6, with a 6.31" 120Hz LTPO OLED display, a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, and enhanced modularity with 12 swappable parts 5 weeks ago:
Alright what phone are you using with a jack?
- Comment on Fairphone announces the €599 Fairphone 6, with a 6.31" 120Hz LTPO OLED display, a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, and enhanced modularity with 12 swappable parts 5 weeks ago:
That’s not simple. That’s very specific, and you really listen for 10 solid hours? Also if you’re dropping 10 hour flight money… I feel like there’s a wireless solution in your price range
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
I bet if your parents seduced him he’d probably be more open to having sex in their house.
- Comment on Fairphone announces the €599 Fairphone 6, with a 6.31" 120Hz LTPO OLED display, a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, and enhanced modularity with 12 swappable parts 1 month ago:
The battery? Mine last at least 8 hours and charge in two.
- Comment on Fairphone announces the €599 Fairphone 6, with a 6.31" 120Hz LTPO OLED display, a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, and enhanced modularity with 12 swappable parts 1 month ago:
Okay, I’m going to ask… why don’t you use wireless?
- Comment on Remember the car jacking scene in Terminator 3? 1 month ago:
Get an old leaf with a new battery?
- Comment on Remember the car jacking scene in Terminator 3? 1 month ago:
How can an attacker control the steering?
- Comment on A cuppa Jill 1 month ago:
Shhhh! Do you want bears? That’s how you get bears. The name was lost, never type it again.
- Comment on Reddit in talks to embrace Sam Altman’s iris-scanning Orb to verify users 1 month ago:
I agree. We obviously need to make huge changes to how we live asap, but it seems so profoundly stupid to let a few unelected people break things without a collectively agreed upon plan in place.
- Comment on A cuppa Jill 1 month ago:
Go on…?
- Comment on A cuppa Jill 1 month ago:
Water is the nickname. We forgot its real name
- Comment on Reddit in talks to embrace Sam Altman’s iris-scanning Orb to verify users 1 month ago:
I can’t believe you’ve done this to me
- Comment on Reddit in talks to embrace Sam Altman’s iris-scanning Orb to verify users 1 month ago:
So this guy helps create a technology that turns bots up to 11 and then he turns around to sell us a privacy invasive solution to the problem he created? What a fucking asshole.
- Comment on Candies from US company could damage DNA and increase cancer risk, UK agency warns 1 month ago:
So is this a new ingredient, or has it always been in jolly ranchers?
- Comment on US | Pentagon Has Been Pushing Americans to Believe in UFOs for Decades, New Report Finds 1 month ago:
the Air Force developed an exotic electromagnetic generator that simulated this pulse of disruptive energy without the need to detonate a nuclear weapon. When activated, this device, placed on a portable platform 60 feet above the facility, would gather power until it glowed, sometimes with a blinding orange light. It would then fire a burst of energy that could resemble lightning.
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is that technically possible?
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what would it take to build one?
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- Comment on Kinda fucked up tbh 2 months ago:
Pssh, those are only the humans we know of.
- Comment on On trees... 2 months ago:
Didn’t those trees become coal, not oil?