
"What it's like to fail": David Raether giving signed copies of his memoir - ajaymehta
http://crowd.tc/1cWVwPf
======
Tzunamitom
For those of you that somehow missed the full story behind this, you can find
it here: [http://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-
fail/](http://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-fail/)

This is such a wonderful story that could warm even the coldest of hearts, and
I really hope lots of people get behind this crowdtilt campaign :-)

~~~
michaelochurch
He makes it uplifting (heartwarming, to use your depiction) because he's
desperate and no one will help him if he says, "Poverty fucking sucks and
there is nothing good about it, and it's a crime that I've had to deal with
all this". I don't doubt that he's had some positive moments amid the misery,
but I think that making light of bad experiences is at least 50% something
people do to make themselves more socially acceptable.

There's good in most things bad, but those things are still mostly bad. People
share the positive focus because it's more socially acceptable, and when
you're in dire straits, you need to be socially acceptable. (I don't, so I
don't fear addressing the truth with anyone who will hear it.)

The truth is that he bought into a dying society (Hollywood, about 5-10 years
further along the decline curve than VC-funded so-called "tech") and faced
severe age discrimination, because the old and young are the first to bite it
when shit goes bad. He also made some big mistakes (8 kids, shallow wife that
dropped him) but I still don't see how anyone could watch a man that capable
get fucked that bad and _not_ conclude that this is a failing society
approaching uselessness and abandon.

~~~
Tzunamitom
I don't see why the two are mutually exclusive. Yes, it is a crime that this
happened to him, but there are enough media outlets carrying the "Poverty
fucking sucks" message. Unfortunately that message is TBU (True But Useless -
[http://www.fastcompany.com/1514493/switch-dont-solve-
problem...](http://www.fastcompany.com/1514493/switch-dont-solve-problems-
copy-success)).

The thing that always strikes me about homelessness is not its remoteness, but
rather how it seems that any one of us are only a few unfortunate events and
wrong moves away being in the gutter, and how most people feel that it could
never happen to them. I find David's account brutally honest, enjoyable and
yes, uplifting because it shows that there is a real (albeit long and painful)
route out of the damning poverty of homelessness, not because of any
particularly joyful spin that he puts on his story.

Is he making it uplifting because he's desperate and he wants people to help
him? I don't think that's the overriding reason, but maybe, who knows? At any
rate, if he's managed to pull himself so far out of the lows that he's able to
adopt that strategy rather than just accept a life of homelessness that just
happens to him then fair play - he deserves every success he can find.

~~~
michaelochurch
I agree with you on all of this. I might have come off as somewhat cynical,
because the just-worlding of HN gets under my skin.

Decades from now, when the average age of the contemporary HN crowd is 50, if
people here are facing the age discrimination of the world that the current
VC-istan demigods created, I bet the current crop of HN libertarians will be
the first to be up in arms about it.

------
michaelochurch
There are a lot of high-profile themes here (age discrimination, the severe
penalties that college tuitions inflict on high-IQ people having children, et
al) but I'm going to focus on just one, because attacking all of them would
take too much time.

This is proof that the model of undergraduate, liberal arts education has
failed in this country.

What, you say?

The _whole point_ of college is to equip people with the skills so that,
regardless of market vacillations of trade-specific supply and demand, the
person can always find work. Not to find "a job", but to provide someone with
general-purpose skills so their careers are, at least, reasonably protected
from the market ups-and-downs that afflict the trades.

The market doesn't buy it. People like him-- educated, capable-- end up unable
to find appropriate work. Society has decided that higher education isn't
valuable anymore. (It might be right; I'm not going to attack that, either.)

That's a market signal that this $40,000-per-year process that the US calls
"education" has lost meaning and value.

~~~
rprospero
> That's a market signal that this $40,000-per-year process that the US calls
> "education" has lost meaning and value.

It's not that it's lost meaning, the meaning has just changed drastically.
Imagine that you're deciding between two candidates for a job opening. As
you're preparing for the interview, the reception mentions that the first
candidate isn't moving and doesn't seem to have a pulse. Are you going to
interview both candidates or are you just going to hire the guy who can fog a
mirror?

That's what the modern college degree represents. It's no longer a guarantee
of lifetime employment. Instead, it's now the bare minimum qualifier for even
being considered for employment. A degree tells future employers that you
won't soil yourself at work more than once a month. It's not a glowing
recommendation, but it's better than the guy with the high school diploma who
will soil himself weekly.

Of course, you can point to great counter example from the titans of industry
who don't have college degrees. On the other hand, we've had a vice president
who didn't have a pulse. However, they're both statistical anomalies and
you're far better off hiring someone with a pulse.

For the record, I'm not saying that this is a good system. Rather, that's just
the way I've observed it from watching my wife. She's been searching for work
for two years. She's had fast food restaurants request her college transcript
as part of the hiring process. Even below minimum wage baby-sitting gigs have
fallen through because she doesn't have a bachelor's degree. The simple fact
is that there's enough desperate people with degrees that there's not to
require one.

