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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • That all sounds like it sucks, but I don’t think it’s as hopeless as I’m sure it feels.

    Obviously this is just a snapshot into your life, and I’m sure there are more details under the hood, like what exact “adult responsibilities” and stuff you’ve got going on. That said, even in this text I think you’ve outlined a good bit of good stuff you’ve got going on.

    First, I don’t know why you think conflict deescalation isn’t an absolutely in demand skill. Every job under the sun has conflict, and being able to manage that is huge. Even within Engineering, you could put that to huge use as a Sales Engineer or some other customer facing technical role.

    Second, you got your bachelor’s in an engineering discipline. You can poo-poo your grades all you want, but at the end of the day you succeeded. No mean feat my man. That’s worth celebrating.

    Finally, if you’re simply looking for a way out, there are institutions that are always looking for technical people. Obviously this is gonna vary a lot by country, so ymmv, but the government/military is always in need of people in technical roles, and rarely are able to fill them. It probably doesn’t pay nearly what a “normal” engineering job would, but it’d be more than an internship, and it would give you some of that structured camaraderie that you previously felt the lack of when trying to leave.

    All that to say, don’t give up hope my guy. I know I’m just some schmuck on Lemmy of all places, but I think you’re capable of breaking out and getting to a better place.

    You got this!



  • I feel like we’re abusing “historical” here. Is this something of particular note that’s going to be taught to future generations?

    Does the African American community know which president was the first to nominate twelve judges of color? Do women know which president was the first to nominate twelve women?

    This is a good thing, but like, it’s a good fun fact at best. I think saying it’s “making history” is overstating. It’d be like saying the person who has the Guinness World Record for longest handstand is “making history.”









  • No, I think that’s actually the beauty of this. The OP meme is a right wing meme. A national civil service is a right wing position.

    I think there’s a way to craft this program in a hugely bipartisan way. You get all the “patriotism, one nation, farms and country” stuff the right wants, and all the “infrastructure improvements, social safety nets, free college” stuff the left wants.

    I think there’s a real potential to get some solid bipartisanism here.




  • I’d be super on board for this. Treat it similarly to the military, where room and board are provided, and they ship you to an underserved part of the country to help.

    Especially if we extended the GI Bill to cover participating. Like, do 4 yrs and you get full tuition covered at any public university.

    I think it would really promote national unity and help to lift people out of poverty. You’d have people from all over the country working together, bridging a lot of our internal divisions. You’d get people out of their bubbles and echo chambers and have them actually seeing the country.

    If we could normalize it, where it’s just what people did after highschool, it would give people time to figure their lives out. Remove the pressure of having to choose a career right away. I know so many people who “had to go to college” because that was the next step, but didn’t have a clue what they wanted in life, so got useless majors and have dead ended. This would be perfect for people like that.

    Plus infrastructure in the US is a joke. And even as the OP implies, farming is a broken business in the US for a number of reasons. There are never enough people working soup kitchens and food pantries, or cleaning up our national forests to prevent forest fires. If we could mobilize our young people en masse, we could make a huge difference in this country.

    I’m 1000% on board.





  • I think the issue is that, while a country is certainly allowed to write it’s own laws, the idea that it is deeply fundamentally immoral for the government to prevent someone from saying something (or compel them to say something) is very deeply baked into the American zeitgeist (of which I am a part.)

    So in the same way that a country is perfectly within its sovereign rights to pass a law that women are property or minorities don’t have the right to vote, I can still say that it feels wrong of them to do so.

    And I would also decry a country that kicks out a company that chooses to employ women or minorities in violation of such a law, even if that is technically their sovereign right to do so.