
Best, Brightest – and Saddest? - jacinda
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-best-brightest-and-saddest.html?ref=international
======
Mikeb85
This is symptomatic of our society at large (actually many societies, maybe
even modern 'global' society). The middle class is being squeezed by rising
costs, so your two options are to be perpetually poor (basically limiting you
to a life of indentured servitude), or to out-compete your rivals and achieve
an upper-middle class to upper class income, and all the perks that come with
it.

My wife and I struggle with this constantly - income and ability to acquire
resources vs. quality of life. While I'm struggling through University while
working full-time (and trying to find time for vacations, and time with the
wife) and looking forward to a life of working 9-5 (more like 8-7 these days),
we also think about the toll this takes on people.

Not going to lie, we've been looking at various locations where the cost of
living is low (actually, more like where you can get by and start a business
with a more reasonable amount of capital), and we can basically live a
simpler, higher-quality life. The 'grind' as it is in North America is
gruelling, I know many people trying to plot their escape, though it's tough
when its all you know...

Nothing like studying your ass off for 16+ years, only to work your ass off
for another 40+ years, taking on debt that you wind up spending a large
portion of your life repaying (while often paying more than double the
original price just to service your debt), only to finally retire - old,
broken and in poor health, and never enjoying much more of your life than 2-4
weeks every year...

~~~
bsbechtel
>>Nothing like studying your ass off for 16+ years, only to work your ass off
for another 40+ years, taking on debt that you wind up spending a large
portion of your life repaying (while often paying more than double the
original price just to service your debt), only to finally retire - old,
broken and in poor health, and never enjoying much more of your life than 2-4
weeks every year...

With all due respect, and I can tell from your other posts you are grateful
for what you have, but this needs to be put in perspective. That 16+ years of
studying your ass off is an investment someone else made in you, hoping you
become a productive member of society that makes life a little bit better for
someone else while earning a living for yourself along the way. There are
roughly 3 billion people on this planet who are desperate to get any sort of
education, let alone the education you were given, for free (before college).
I get your complaints, but a 9-5 gig (or even an 8-7 one) would be considered
a life of leisure and luxury for most of the world for pretty much all of
history. In fact, the only time a life you are wishing you had has been common
has been in the last 50 years or so in the developed world. I'd say we're
pretty damn lucky. If you want to get ahead, instead of thinking you need to
out-compete your rivals, I would instead focus on ways to make someone's life
significantly better, then figure out how to do it for 10 people, then
1000....see where I'm going with this?

~~~
rquantz
_If you want to get ahead, instead of thinking you need to out-compete your
rivals, I would instead focus on ways to make someone 's life significantly
better, then figure out how to do it for 10 people, then 1000....see where I'm
going with this?_

This is a profound failure of imagination. The problem the GP is decrying is
the late capitalist devaluation of humanity, and your solution is to suck it
up and find a business model.

~~~
ChuckFrank
Thank you for calling this out. This is not only a profound failure of the
imagination, but it's the terrible source of the problem that we find
ourselves in. In many ways it is the box itself, just take another pull at the
slot machines of casino capitalism, and remember nothing was every promised to
you, not through your education, nor through the debt that you accumulated -
it's all on you, and your inability to scale fro 10 to 1000, see where I'm
going?

~~~
bsbechtel
Both of you complain about a lack of imagination and then fail to offer any
sort of alternative, just further complaining.

Figuring out how to make someone else's life better and make a living off of
it isn't a roll of the dice. It's a process of observing and learning about
the world around you, coming up with ideas of how to improve something (using
what you learned in your education), and offering to take action on those
ideas in exchange for money. This doesn't have to be done at scale or by
starting your own business. It can easily be done anywhere, but instead of
scaling (starting your own business), just continuing to come up with new ways
to make your boss's life easier. This doesn't have to be super innovative or
use technology either. Sometimes just simple words of encouragement are all a
stressed out boss may need.

Higher education is an investment and comes with risk, it's not a promise to a
better life. And on the other side of that coin, accumulation of debt is a
promise that you are going to earn more money in the future to pay the money
you borrowed back. You don't need to make more money, and you don't need to
pay back your debt, just your standard of living will go down because you
can't buy nice things, but you can live the life of leisure you so desire
then.

edit: I should have clarified, you don't need to pay back your debt by going
through the process of filing bankruptcy. Yes, this affects your ability to
secure further debt and buy stuff, but if you want a life of leisure earning a
low income and having lots of time off, then theoretically bankruptcy is a
path to your land of milk and honey.

~~~
rquantz
Head -> desk

 _Figuring out how to make someone else 's life better and make a living off
of it isn't a roll of the dice. It's a process of observing and learning about
the world around you, coming up with ideas... etc._

It is all the things you list _and_ a roll of the dice. It is working very
very hard and also getting lucky.

 _just continuing to come up with new ways to make your boss 's life easier._

This is getting back to my original point: you are thinking incredibly small.
We are talking about a societal problem. The GP wrote:

 _your two options are to be perpetually poor (basically limiting you to a
life of indentured servitude), or to out-compete your rivals and achieve an
upper-middle class to upper class income_

You do realize that what you're describing falls on the "out-compete your
rivals" side of that scale, right? It isn't a rebuttal to what GP was saying,
because it's just an example of it.

 _Higher education is an investment and comes with risk_

And who is making that investment? In most developed countries, the state has
determined it has an interest in an educated populace, and pays for people to
go to college. Young people graduate debt-free, and are able to do all this
innovating you're talking about. For some reason in the United States, we look
to private institutions to fund education.

 _you don 't need to pay back your debt by going through the process of filing
bankruptcy_

You realize that student loan debt is incredibly hard to discharge through
bankruptcy? And Congress has made it even more difficult in the last decade.

So, to clarify, in most developed countries, the state takes on the risk from
education (just like health care!). In the US, who takes on the risk? Not the
bank that does the lending - the government guarantees the debt! But not the
government, either, because they've made it nearly impossible to discharge the
debt. No, the risk falls almost entirely on the borrower, the individual in
that trio that is least able to absorb the risk.

 _but you can live the life of leisure you so desire then._

This is not about leisure, it's about having the freedom to have a role as a
human being separate from your role in the capitalist system. It's about not
having to live your life in fear of losing what little you have, and being
able to make choices that maximize factors that have nothing to do with
capital.

 _Both of you complain about a lack of imagination and then fail to offer any
sort of alternative, just further complaining._

This is the same argument I heard from people who supported the Iraq war
during the worst of its quagmire phase. My response was that there were no
good options (other than not having gone there in the first place), but that
doesn't mean we shouldn't point out the problem.

In this case, there isn't much an individual can do to change a society that
has been withered and corrupted by corporate control. We have to live in it.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't also point out that there are better ways
to live.

~~~
bsbechtel
>>This is the same argument I heard from people who supported the Iraq war
during the worst of its quagmire phase. My response was that there were no
good options (other than not having gone there in the first place), but that
doesn't mean we shouldn't point out the problem.

>>In this case, there isn't much an individual can do to change a society that
has been withered and corrupted by corporate control. We have to live in it.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't also point out that there are better ways
to live.

Huh? Comparing a capitalist system that has raised the standard of living to
every individual who participates in it to the Iraq War makes no sense at all.
Also, you haven't pointed out any better ways to live, you've just complained
about the status quo. Again, you've offered no alternatives, just complaining.

~~~
rquantz
Oh my goodness. I was comparing the argument you were making to the arguments
of those who supported the war. I was not comparing the Iraq war to
capitalism.

 _Again, you 've offered no alternatives, just complaining._

Yeah, that argument. This isn't kindergarten, every criticism does not have to
come with some uplifting solution. I'm pointing out the system is broken.
That's a necessary prerequisite to making something better.

Also:

 _a capitalist system that has raised the standard of living to every
individual who participates in it_

Come now, capitalism destroys plenty of lives. It may well be the "least worst
system," but claiming it doesn't have casualties is either propaganda or
survivorship bias. Still, the complaint, as you put it, is not about
capitalism itself, but that in its current form it reduces our lives to a
monetary "standard of living." I am not necessarily advocating the end of
capitalism, just the end of its deification.

~~~
bsbechtel
>>I was comparing the argument you were making to the arguments of those who
supported the war.

I should have been more specific. Yes, the arguments made by those who
supported the war. What are those arguments? Are you saying that there were no
better solutions to the Iraq War? Really? Not invading, withdrawing troops
sooner, there were plenty of other options. I don't see how this is analagous
to an argument about capitalism.

You said:

>>But that doesn't mean we shouldn't also point out that there are better ways
to live.

My point is, what are your better ways to live that you are supposedly
pointing out?

~~~
rquantz
_What are those arguments?_

The one I keep pointing out you're using over and over. The one where you say
"You're just complaining, not offering a better solution, therefore your
criticism should be ignored." People said this over and over again when the
war was in full throttle. It was too late to not do it in the first place.
You'll notice I mentioned that option before:

 _" My response was that there were no good options (other than not having
gone there in the first place)"_

Withdrawing was not a good option, look how we just had to go back there again
a year later! We were between a rock and a hard place, and there was no good
solution. But that does not mean that criticizing the war was an invalid
endeavor.

My point is, it doesn't matter that I'm not giving you an example of better
ways to live. The issue at hand is that the system as it stands is broken.
Whether or not there are better options (I contend that there are, but that's
not the conversation we're having right now), that does not make my criticism
invalid.

Feel free to respond, but at this point this conversation is going in circles.

------
1971genocide
This article resonates with me.

My dad is an successful electrical engineer who people look up-to. I on the
other hand hated physics and was never good enough for it. I took an alternate
path to do Computer Science which I feel terrible about since I am not sure if
I love it because I hated Physics or I choose it because I found it easier.

The cost of failure is really high, not because I will end up in the streets
which I personally do not have a problem with but I would have to live with
the fact that I would have let down what is expected of me. I would have no
excuse since biologically I should be able to do it. There are no
disadvantages or excuses I can point out to.

I have noticed this among many of my white male friends. They seem to have a
higher burden when it comes to proving themselves in society. White male
problems do not compare to everyone else's problem but its still something
that needs to be addressed since mental stress is no joke.

~~~
malvosenior
I wouldn't say that white male problems don't compare because there are a
bunch of very poor and struggling white males.

That being said, I think even the wealthiest most privileged people are often
under a great deal of stress. They may have more pressure to marry someone
from another wealthy family, there's the stress of expectations you mention...

I'm a hispanic male and often it can be easy to look at people from more
economically privileged backgrounds and think to myself "they have it so
easy!", but it's not really true. Maybe they have some things easier but they
almost certainly have others harder.

I've worked myself up a few rungs on the socioeconomic ladder and each time I
go up, I feel as if I gain some things and lose others. I never felt more free
than when I was a poor person, but I would never go back :)

~~~
rndn
I read somewhere that stress before and during exams is commonly as extreme as
war and near death experiences. In some cases there isn't that much of a
difference biochemically, so I think there is certainly some 'social
relativity' even if the first world is very privileged.

------
alexashka
This is actually an even more extreme trend among some of the asian immigrant
folks I've been in school with - their parents can be incredibly close-minded,
overbearing and abusive.

The pressure kids feel is largely fictional, in the sense that the world ISN'T
going to end if they 'only go to college'. For example when I graduated
highschool and went straight to college and some of the folks I knew stayed
behind for an extra year to get their grades up - my parents in unison with
me, thought they were failures.

Looking back - it was smart. I am not working in the field that I studied, so
the joke is on me :)

Another thing to realize is that there are a number of jobs that are not
intellectual that can be quite fulfilling, honestly.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVdiHu1VCc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVdiHu1VCc)

This guy is a big proponent of more down to earth careers and I agree with
everything he says, even though I'm a programmer.

In short - the pressures are due to having a narrow view of the world and what
success means. If you widen it to include working construction or going to
college to become an ultrasound technician - it's not so bad all of a sudden.

Parents just have to stop pushing their lack of achievements and phobias on to
their kids - easier said than done of course. Solution? Incentivize
intelligent people to breed more and try-hards and ignoramuses to breed less
and the problem will be solved, in some number of decades :)

~~~
mwcampbell
> Another thing to realize is that there are a number of jobs that are not
> intellectual that can be quite fulfilling, honestly.

But won't the non-intellectual jobs continue to be automated away?

~~~
en4bz
Electrician and Plumber won't be automated away any time soon. Both require
more dexterity than any robot currently available and would probably require a
'true' AI as each situation would be significantly different. This is a
problem where humans will be both cheaper and more efficient than a robot.

Manufacturing (by humans) is definitely on its way out though.

~~~
Jack000
it's possible that as robots become more commonplace homes would be
constructed with robotic/remote repair in mind, I hope that's the case
anyways, plumbers and electricians are expensive.

Kind of like how mass produced products have structural/design compromises to
allow for easier manufacturing. We'll then reminisce about the olden days when
you didn't need amazon prime to replace the waste decomposition module every
few weeks.

~~~
xamuel
Notice how increasingly nowadays, if your laptop/desktop/mobile breaks, you
just buy a new one. Maybe that could be the future of houses eventually. Ah,
the circuit breaker keeps tripping out for some reason, time to call the 3D
printers and have a new house built here

------
Animats
I used to keep a horse at the horse barn on the Stanford campus, and I've met
many Palo Alto high-achieving high school kids there. I asked a group of high
school students, mostly from Palo Alto High School, who were discussing grades
"What's considered a good grade point average now", and was told, in a bleak
voice, "4.5".

Some of them thrive on learning. They show up back at the barn, years later,
after graduating from a big-name college. It's tough on the ones who aren't
quite bright enough for the selective colleges but have parents who expect
that level of achievement. I've seen the pain in some who know they're just
not bright enough.

It's getting worse. Suicides for Paly and Gunn students (those two high
schools are the closest to Stanford) have been climbing since about 2009. I
knew about the five suicides from Paly, but didn't realize it had reached the
point that there are now guards watching the railroad tracks behind the
school.

------
stegosaurus
As a young person living in the UK, it seems to me as if 'social mobility' is
the zeitgeist, for lack of a better term. Everyone's talking about it.

There are two main issues I have with the idea. The first is that it
presupposes a system in which some people are poor, and as long as it's
possible for some of those poor people to climb out, we're doibg okay. I don't
think that the issues surrounding that are worthy of further comment.

The other problem is that under capitalism it's fundamentally impossible
outside of limited cases of entrepreneurism.

In order for a working class person to have the same lifestyle as a higher
status person, they must not only match, but exceed the expectation placed
upon an otherwise equal higher status person, because they have a head start.

Take homeownership in the UK. A 20something that has had a leg up into the
housing market via parental donation or loan has an entrenched advantage
forever. I could earn 60K GBP whilst my middle class (via birth) friends earn
40K and forever be 'behind' them in wealth terms.

I don't really have much more to say on the topic because I'm not sure how it
could be fixed or what that even means, but it's been a central theme in my
life since attending University.

~~~
scalesolved
This is so very true, I earn more than a lot of my friends and save more but
I'm one of the only ones that doesn't own a house as I never came into a lump
sum.

I guess you just need to work with what you've got!

~~~
stegosaurus
Indeed, I've found a way to come to terms with it, but what does bug me is any
sort of political discourse that seemingly ignores it entirely.

The idea seems to be that poor kids go off to University, get well paid jobs,
and that's the end of the story.

Except it's not, because my 'well paid' is far higher that of someone who
isn't paying rent.

Income inequality is a non issue to me. Wealth inequality is the problem.

------
thelogos
I think depression may stem from the feeling of helplessness.

Being forced to perform meaningless tasks (because that's high school), having
absolutely no power and control over your own life, and probably vitamin D
deficient too from being cooped up inside all the time studying.

You could say many teenagers are already predispose to depression during these
turbulent years. Their mind isn't completely prepared quite yet and having
tyrants run your life doesn't help.

This trend of overemphasis on STEM education and grueling test prep in an
effort to game the system started with Asian societies and it's slowly
spreading to upper-middle class in western society.

I don't think the true upper class ever cared much for STEM education (legacy
admission, "donation", MBA, ...).

This is not really a good path to go down. Not all of us were meant to be
engineers and doctors.

Just look East and you will catch a glimpse of the future. Massive youth
unemployment, many of them overeducated. Japan is dominated with contract
workers. Korea has their "880000 Won generation".

Yea, their suicide rate is high. The problem is, everyone wants a piece of the
dream and we can't all have it (or maybe we can?). They import manual labor
from SE Asia just like we do with illegal immigrants here in the States.

With no hope of moving out on such meager wages, you'll have resentment and
withdrawal from society. Is it any wonder that their birthrate is going down?

I feel like any technological advancement we come up with would still not be
enough to overcome this problem. Mainly because the people with the power to
make the change have every incentive not to do so.

Humans are imperfect. Human society will always be imperfect. The rift is a
part of our genetic and the majority of humans will always be chained to
indenture servitude. In a way, all this madness will always be a part of us.

~~~
guard-of-terra
"Massive youth unemployment, many of them overeducated"

Maybe we just have a population bubble that bust? We complain about low birth
rates but don't really have use for even that dwindled number of young people.

------
sidek
As a student in my last year at an `elite' high school, I can confirm
anecdotally that many kids are near breaking point because they feel it is
`Ivy or bust'.

I think this is an inherent problem with the American university system, where
the top tier is so small and so universally desired. I think Canada does it
very well. Expectations to get into top Canadian schools are grade-based and
their undergraduate enrolment is much larger. If you can pull a 90%+
average,you can be sure that you can go wherever you want in Canada for
university. Certainly an undergraduate education at University of Toronto
might be not quite as good as Harvard's, but it seems to do wonders for the
mental health of Canadian children; none of my friends in Canada have even
really stressed about university admissions.

For me personally, the Canadian `safety net' also helped a lot: although I am
going to Harvard next year, I knew from day one that if anything didn't work
out I had myriad wonderful options in Canada.

~~~
interwho
I feel compelled to respond to this, as I know from first-hand experience it
isn't true. The pressure is definitely there for Canadian high school
students, and 90 isn't enough for some schools anymore. Programs like
University of Waterloo's Software Engineering and Mechatronics Engineering and
University of Toronto's Engineering Science all require 95+ AND
extracurriculars. Same goes for the "best" schools in other categories -
Queen's Commerce for business, McMaster's Health Science for premed, etc...

~~~
lewisl9029
I haven't really kept up with Waterloo's new requirements, but this definitely
wasn't the case when I was accepted to their Computer Engineering program 6
years ago with mid 80s average with no advanced placement type courses except
2 IB certificate courses (CE was my first choice so I have no idea how SE or
ME requirements would compare). They definitely do take extra-curricular stuff
into account as well since some of my friends who had averages in the low 90s
ish were rejected from the same program.

It's hard for me to believe they've since added a hard cutoff of 95+. It's
next to impossible to get grades like that unless your highschool is handing
them out like hotcakes at the eventual expense of their own reputation.

That said, the university application process is by no means a stress-free
experience for students up here. Getting rejected from Waterloo would have
been a huge blow to me at the time because I _really_ wanted to experience
their mandatory co-op program and understood the value it would bring to my
professional career over the lackluster alternatives at other universities.

~~~
interwho
There isn't a hard cutoff, those are the recommended grades to receive an
offer. I'm currently in the Computer Engineering program here and I can say
out of my class, most had around a 90. That said, CE is one of the less
competitive programs.

Here's a chart of the number of students rejected from Waterloo Engineering
with averages 90+:
[https://profbillanderson.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/unadmit...](https://profbillanderson.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/unadmittednumbers.png)

------
fredfoobar42
I was told from a very early age that I was going to be something special. I
tested into Gifted Education in elementary school. I tested into the best
public magnet school in Philadelphia.

The whole thing began to unravel in High School, really... got a "No Credit"
for an extra-curricular college course, had to retake a year of Geometry,
barely made it through High School Trig. But, I went to college to study
Computer Science. And failed out. Failed the same Intro to Pre-Calculus class
seven fucking times in three semesters. (Half-semester course.)

I took a semester off, and enrolled in a local community college. Changed my
major to English. Graduated with a BA in 2008, in the middle of the economic
crisis. I didn't have any Internships... couldn't afford to take one as I was
working to pay my way through college part-time in the evenings. Got a shitty
telemarketing job for the benefits, got fired, spent a year out of work,
worked for the Philadelphia welfare office for a year and a half, and quit.

I lucked into a startup job as a Community Manager, but the environment was
borderline abusive, and beyond the border unethical (buying lists of email
addresses for their target market to add to their mailing list and calling
them active users in fundraising presentations). After getting fired/quitting,
I found a decent job doing Web Production for a speciality publishing company.

I'm 31, in debt up to my eyeballs with student loans, barely making ends meet,
and working a job that offers no challenge and little opportunity for
advancement. I have personal projects where I can get some joy, but it's hard
to find the time to do those when you're working forty hours a week, with an
hour commute each way, and seeing a huge chunk of your cash go towards paying
off the creditors for your borderline useless degree. If I didn't have my
self-taught HTML and CSS skills, I'd never be where I am, so that's something.

I still feel like I should be further along because of all the pushing I was
given as a kid. They told me I'd change the world. Instead, I'm just some
underemployed schlub. I'm not about to jump in front of a train, but for those
kids with more pressure, I can't blame 'em.

Wow, that got long.

(I kept the names of the companies I worked for silent, because I try to keep
this account semi-anonymous. The startup I worked for loves to threaten
lawsuits against former---and current---employees who piss off the founder.)

~~~
littletimmy
Honest question: Why don't you leave?

If you leave the US, you can bail on your student loans, and you can start a
new life with a similar/better standard of living.

~~~
rquantz
Tell me more about this. Where can you go to "bail on your student loans"? I
would think there would be hurdles to this, but I don't really know anything
about it.

~~~
littletimmy
Haven't tried it myself, but I know for a fact that you can discharge student
loans in bankruptcy in Canada. It is also pretty easy for an American to go to
Canada, and there's minimal cultural difference.

------
tim333
While it's obviously sad, and in some ways more surprising when the best and
brightest kill themselves it's not the most common group. From the Samaritans
UK based research:

> Men from the lowest social class, living in the most deprived areas, are up
> to ten times more likely to end their lives by suicide than those in the
> highest social class from the most affluent areas. Men in mid-life are the
> age group most at risk.

I hope more can be done to reduce suicide and make life more cheerful in
general - I'm a member of 'Action for Happiness' for what it's worth that
campaigns for the latter. In the past suicide and the like has been a bit
ignored partly because there were worse things to worry about - death from
war, car crashes, disease and the like. Now it's starting to become the
biggest cause of death in younger age groups as the other causes get fixed.

[http://www.samaritans.org/sites/default/files/kcfinder/files...](http://www.samaritans.org/sites/default/files/kcfinder/files/Samaritans_Men_and_Suicide_Report_web.pdf)

------
AndrewKemendo
I think most people are underanalyzing this as being another instance of
"keeping up with the joneses." I think however it's more fundamental than that
about someone's place in society.

From what we can tell of recorded history, our societies and influence has
grown exponentially. Several thousand years ago it was likely uncommon to be
exposed to anyone who wasn't within a few hundred miles of you - at the most.
Today every person on earth has the potential (if not necessarily the means)
to be seen by thousands or millions of people.

This shifts how we view ourselves. It makes you think that if you aren't
personally impacting the lives of millions of people - in a profound and
reasoned way - you are worthless. Where as in previous years having an impact
in your small community was good enough, now you need to be globally
recognized just to be anyone.

It's quite an interesting time for the ego.

------
ryandrake
I know it's going to be difficult, if not impossible, for me to not be that
overbearing, demanding parent. If current trends continue, when my daughter
enters what's left of the workforce in 20 years, she's going to be living in a
world where 95% of us are in abject poverty, fighting each other over the last
few remaining jobs not already automated away, while the remaining 5% own the
automation and means of production and are permanently, insanely wealthy.
There will be nobody left in what we'd today call the "middle class".
Education will be one's last (even if improbable) chance at class mobility--
and in such a world, only the best grades and best educational institution
will do.

We're moving rapidly towards extreme class polarization--in 20 years, you'll
be either an Ivy League graduate or eating dog food to survive.

~~~
seesomesense
" she's going to be living in a world where 95% of us are in abject poverty"

Whining excessively is a rich world problem.

" abject poverty is "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic
human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities,
health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but
also on access to services"

The income level for abject poverty is defined by the World Bank as $1.25 at
2005 purchasing-power parity .

Are you really saying that 95% of the world is going to be earning less than
$1.25 at 2005 purchasing-power parity

------
griffinmahon
I've thought about this before, and its left me with a pretty anxiety-inducing
idea: that in poorer countries people suffer for their lack of food, water,
and medicine, and in the developed world - better off in terms of nutrition
and safety - societies as a whole suffer from depression.

------
littletimmy
One solution is simply to GTFO the USA. Countries like Germany, for example,
have a much better work-life balance.

The US is going down a very dangerous route into a class-stratified winner
take all society. The only solution is strengthening social security nets and
redistributing wealth.

------
feynmanistheman
As a high school student in the Bay Area, from what I see the problem lies
within the system as a whole. Tiger moms and ridiculous amounts of APs aren't
the cause, merely the symptoms. I'm not sure what you can do in Silicon
Valley, when a bunch of parents who achieved success try to force their
students down the same path they took. It makes logical sense for it to be
Stanford or bust, when so many alumni live so close together.

------
BruceM
Someone (anontime) posted something here and then deleted it before I could
reply. Hopefully they see this..

It sounds like you might find
[https://www.google.com/webhp?q=suicidal%20exhaustion#q=suici...](https://www.google.com/webhp?q=suicidal%20exhaustion#q=suicidal+exhaustion)
interesting.

Good luck! There are plenty of people out there who feel like you do. Just
survive a day at a time at first.

------
blueskin_
[https://archive.today/P6BhP](https://archive.today/P6BhP)

------
dismal2
we need more psychedelics

------
enupten
What never fails to surprise me is our proclivity to think of things in terms
of a simple order.

Surely, the there is enough diversity in humanity to disallow for so one-
dimensional a topology.

(I say this after having been subject to years of down-nosery.)

