
Avoiding Last Place: Some Things We Don't Outgrow (2011) - tnorthcutt
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/04/140116142/avoiding-last-place-some-things-we-dont-outgrow
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digitalsushi
When I was a teenager in the late 90s, I was working at an ISP and learning
bsd and Linux. I had accumulated a first tier of working knowledge - I could
just barely use the system but to my friends and family I was a unix god.
Being a kid with my first taste of authority, I remember how opposed I was to
tool improvements that made these systems more accessible. I was complaining
to my boss, a unix greybeard, and he got really annoyed with me and explained
that the system should be improved so that everyone can benefit from it.

I read this and I think I just understood a little better how petty I am.

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kdamken
It makes sense that people making just above minimum wage would be opposed to
raising it. I'd assume they had put in more time/effort than their coworkers
to make those extra dollars an hour and were rewarded accordingly. Let's say
they're making like 12 an hour as a shift manager. If the minimum wage were to
suddenly increase to 12 an hour, the only people who would benefit would be
those making less than that currently. The business would absolutely not give
raises to all of its other employees to keep the ratio as it was before.

So suddenly, all the hard work for the extra few dollars an hour have gone to
waste. It would feel like the people who benefitted got a raise for nothing,
while the other person actually had to earn it. Of course they would be
opposed to that.

It's a tough situation - how do you raise the minimum wage without everything
else increasing with it or people harboring resentment?

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huherto
May be another example of this. A lot of white people in the south didn't own
slaves. They were very poor but they opposed emancipation because they didn't
want to be equal to the freed slaves. I don't really know how historically
accurate this is though.

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michaelvkpdx
This is only new for people who did not grow up in poverty. For those of us
who were below the middle class, the daily competition to avoid last place was
a fact of life in school and in college, and those behaviors and scars don't
heal easily, even after you've escaped the pit.

Upward mobility is not completely a myth, but it's a dream akin in actual
probability to making it in professional sports, at least here in the USA (in
my case, growing up just across the Bay from Silicon Valley).

"Trickle down economics"\- aka "Reaganomics"\- the great dream of the
Republicans- has exacerbated the situation over the last 35 years. I wonder
how I was lucky enough to get out.

The rich don't need to keep the poor down, sadly. The poor do a good enough
job of keeping one another down.

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kelukelugames
Does this explain why some LGB hate the T?

Why marginalized groups will gladly marginalize other groups?

Humans are a sad bunch.

~~~
jcater
That brings up a question I've been asking myself a lot lately. While I fully
support transgendered rights, how did it become that transgendered became
lumped in with LGB? For the latter, we're talking (in general) love and
sexuality.

But transgendered brings on a whole new component that doesn't seem to have
much in common with the latter.

~~~
kelukelugames
They've been trying to unite since the Stonewall riots and have been turning
on each other too. Feminists also tried to exclude lesbians. Shit's been
flowing downhill since the beginning of time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots#Unlikely_commu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots#Unlikely_community)

I wish all the people of color would show solidarity too. Sadly I read a lot
of attacks again Asians in the black subreddits. Maybe one day.

~~~
mikestew
Interesting, if depressing, link. Thanks. It's as if folks of all sorts have
not the first hint of political savvy. "Oh, those gay men are too
patriarchal." Yeah, well, you better get over it for the sake of your larger
goal, 'cuz straight male whitey is your common problem. Sniping at each other
isn't going to help, assuming your goal isn't simply philosophical purity.

To use a less racially and sexually charged example, it reminds me of the
motorcyclist I knew who was always going on about bicyclists. Dude, we all
have a common enemy: the car (or rather, the car's idiot operator). What's
good for cyclists is good for motorcyclists. Yeah, the local club taking up an
entire lane three abreast is annoying. But it's not nearly as annoying as laws
and attitudes that dictate alternate means of transportation will only be
begrudgingly tolerated.

