How many people made it on their own ?

2021-04-14 09:25:49

#1

GREYDOG: Member; +1|1408

I left home at a pretty young age and for one reason or another never had any contact with my family.
I moved pretty far away to another state and did everything on my own.
My brother is very wealthy but he took over the family business and it probably was a lot easier than the way I did it. So I was wondering how many people consider themselves successful, and didn't have any help.
Be in this city is about 20 years old now I think the people a used to read about in college and high school should be fairly well on their way Be in this city is about 20 years old now I think the people a used to read about in college and high school should be fairly well on their way

2021-04-14 09:35:56

#2

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +640|3937

On a serious note, every "self made man" should thank God for not giving them down syndrome or a mother who smoked pot while pregnant. Do you know how little we know about developmental disorders?

Last edited by SuperJail Warden (2021-04-14 21:20:59)

2021-04-14 11:03:43

#3

RTHKI: mmmf mmmf mmmf; +1,741|6954|Oxferd Ohire

And now he hates freeloaders like himself

2021-04-14 14:07:16

#4

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,053|6989|PNW

"Made it" on a group effort. Helped build up the business in its infancy doing some stuff solo, now have a pretty solid team going. Definitely still not proof against the whims of the economy, though.

I think "making it on your own" can sometimes be a misnomer. Jay might find himself in a bit of a pickle if the HVAC industry collapsed.

2021-04-14 16:39:27

#5

uziq: Member; +493|3669

the myth of self-success is one of the more pernicious, and occasionally pathological, aspects of america. a lot of people seem to have a huge chip on their shoulder over this self-made success thing.

getting along with your family, gelling in your community, being a regular person and continuing the family business in a quiet and unassuming manner is just as much 'being a success' as anything else; it has just as much potential/pitfall for success or failure, with just as much capacity for obstacles, challenges, personal tragedies, etc. you might have gone a different path but it's just that: different.

Last edited by uziq (2021-04-14 16:42:13)

2021-04-14 20:01:17

#6

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,053|6989|PNW

Taking over a family business could be somewhat of a task of dread, if you're just seen as "the boss's kid" despite education or work experience. You may have to overcome the notion that you were able to take over as an act of nepotism. Completely different sort of challenge and anxiety than striking out on your own in a different part of the world, and it's not a straightforward thing to weigh.

"On your own" is practically a myth. Even basic services that you pay for have Other People behind the controls. Even mountain men from the frontier days came to town now and then to sell their furs and get a shave. A poor urban kid who studies hard and goes to college to become a surgeon will still do so with the help of (and training from) other people.

2021-04-14 21:00:10

#7

uziq: Member; +493|3669

yes the political undertone of 'self-made men' is often way too uncomfortably close to ayn rand.

2021-04-14 21:16:56

#8

KEN-JENNINGS: I am all that is MOD!; +2,978|6849|949

I think Obama tried to capture that idea with "you didn't build that". It went over exceptionally well

2021-04-14 21:20:21

#9

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +640|3937

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:
I think Obama tried to capture that idea with "you didn't build that". It went over exceptionally well

It was Liz Warren and her point was in regards to corporations using public infrastructure. There is a video of it in fact. But yeah, a lot of right wingers were like "I BuILt My LiFe".

2021-04-14 21:24:19

#10

KEN-JENNINGS: I am all that is MOD!; +2,978|6849|949

Sarcasm?

2021-04-14 21:28:28

#11

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +640|3937

You referenced the wrong person.

2021-04-14 21:52:10

#12

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,053|6989|PNW

I remember that backlash. It was probably an unfortunate utterance. Reeeally easy to spin into a callous diminishment of individual efforts and sacrifices at business and life building, and so it was done.

e:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_didn%27t_build_that

"You didn't build that" is a phrase from a 2012 election campaign speech delivered by United States President Barack Obama on July 13, 2012, in Roanoke, Virginia. In the speech, Obama stated, "Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that." The sentence "If you've got a business, you didn't build that" was publicized by his political opponents during the 2012 presidential campaign, as an attack by Obama on business and entrepreneurs.[1][2][3] The Obama campaign responded that the criticisms were taking the phrase out of context, and the word "that" in the phrase was referring to the construction of "roads and bridges" in the previous sentence.[4]

Fact-checking organizations reported that Obama's remarks were used out of context in order to criticize the president.[4][5] The Washington Post commented that the president's remarks reflected the belief, common among Democrats, that successful citizens owed their success partly to public infrastructure and government spending, and that they should contribute to finance public goods.[6]

The Republican Party used the phrase to criticize Obama throughout the 2012 presidential campaign.[7]

2021-04-14 22:08:51

#13

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +640|3937

Looks like I was wrong. I remember people being angry at Liz Warren for a similar statement. I still see people reference Obama's "cling bitterly to guns and religion" thing.

I don't think Biden has said anything that has become an anger meme yet.

2021-04-14 22:11:05

#14

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,053|6989|PNW

It was fun hearing people say "malarkey" for awhile.

2021-04-14 22:29:47

#15

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,053|6989|PNW

Anyway I don't think it's valid to accuse the criticism of being 100% out of context. Sometimes some of the responsibility of being understood lies with the speaker, and that barely needed a turn on the spin cycle to take advantage of. It's not hard to see how the "if you've got a business, you didn't build that" headline would miss the point and stick in the craws of small business owners who legitimately have sacrificed a lot to remain viable. That one's really on Obama, I'm afraid.

Mac, you're partially right about Warren. She said something similar (and earlier), though in a way that it didn't gain as much traction with conservative commentators looking for an angle.

2021-04-14 22:49:28

#16

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +640|3937

unnamednewbie13 wrote:
Anyway I don't think it's valid to accuse the criticism of being 100% out of context. Sometimes some of the responsibility of being understood lies with the speaker, and that barely needed a turn on the spin cycle to take advantage of. It's not hard to see how the "if you've got a business, you didn't build that" headline would miss the point and stick in the craws of small business owners who legitimately have sacrificed a lot to remain viable. That one's really on Obama, I'm afraid.

Mac, you're partially right about Warren. She said something similar (and earlier), though in a way that it didn't gain as much traction with conservative commentators looking for an angle.

This is the Warren video I remember that people were upset about. Some dummy spliced the Obama quote into it (I do now remember the Obama quote after seeing it again.)

I do agree that Obama did have a sanctimonious streak in him after going back and watching some older videos. I can see how people who only saw that and didn't pay attention to anything else got the idea that the guy hated Republicans/white people/conservatives/yadda yadda. I am willing to acknowledge my own fault in that whole thing as long as people also acknowledge that personal animus towards whatever Democrat is on stage doesn't justify hanging onto stupid ideas and even worse sense of self (self-made man/conservative ubermensch).

And of course liberals did the same thing with Trump. I agreed with some of his policies in spirit (broken clocks) but it was a no win proposition to voice support for him. Of course that man made it easy to hate him.

2021-04-14 22:58:07

#17

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,053|6989|PNW

I don't think a day went by without Trump putting something out there that made it easy for people to hate him. The man's a cartoon villain. Physically imitating the disabled in mockery, for example, is lowkey Disney evil (though with none of the dignity).

Perhaps someday we'll have Luke/Vader reveal where Don Jr. takes off his old man's orange mask and reveals him in full form as a pasty, worn out TV celeb lost in his own persona.

2021-04-15 00:33:47

#18

uziq: Member; +493|3669

it's still funny to me that families are being 'torn apart' in america over trumpism/qanon/etc. a reality-tv star and a conspiracy theory cooked up by sniggering nerds on an incel image-board are now the harbingers of a cultural civil war. son against father! brother against brother! all against the boomers!

2021-04-15 00:46:30

#19

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,053|6989|PNW

I'm of the opinion that the feelings were always lurking there to be capitalized on in this century. If Trump/qanon/etc. weren't the catalyst for some of these family schisms, something else would have likely been. Talks about Obama, Bush, in years prior had already been creating rifts.

Of course it doesn't help when people have internalized politics so much that they can't have a nice political discussion without it becoming fight or flight. Public schools didn't really teach people how to argue that I remember.

The river of muck is probably nicer (if horrifying) to view from the banks than while you're scrabbling for footing in three feet of dookie rapids.

2021-04-15 01:23:06

#20

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +640|3937

I am not going to reiterate my thesis that homosexuality drives American politics but I will just argue that these political/cultural war debates have real effects on people's lives. If I had a kid who is a queer but also had relatives who were fundamentalist Christians, I am going to cut off the fundamentalist if I ever witness them mistreating the kid for being queer for example. Christian fundamentalism is pretty much only a thing for Republicans in the American context.

2021-04-15 02:08:08

#21

Dilbert_X: The X stands for; +1,813|6323|eXtreme to the maX

On topic:

I of course made it on my own.

Assistance from family, the govt and employers is irrelevant.

It was all me.

Fuck Israel

2021-04-15 02:09:00

#22

Dilbert_X: The X stands for; +1,813|6323|eXtreme to the maX

unnamednewbie13 wrote:
I'm of the opinion that the feelings were always lurking there to be capitalized on in this century. If Trump/qanon/etc. weren't the catalyst for some of these family schisms, something else would have likely been. Talks about Obama, Bush, in years prior had already been creating rifts.

Its been building for ages, everything is becoming more extreme and people are becoming less educated.

Fuck Israel

2021-04-15 10:23:24

#23

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,053|6989|PNW

SuperJail Warden wrote:
If I had a kid who is a queer but also had relatives who were fundamentalist Christians, I am going to cut off the fundamentalist if I ever witness them mistreating the kid for being queer for example. Christian fundamentalism is pretty much only a thing for Republicans in the American context.

I think on that, I would be tempted to cut them off from the start. Perhaps a more reasonable approach would be to have a talk with the kid about them first, and if they're ok with maintaining contact have a one-time talk with the fundie relatives that they are to in no circumstances push their agenda.

2021-04-15 11:37:41

#24

Larssen: Member; +99|2105

It's interesting to me that I can't think of a translation for 'self made man' in either German, French or Dutch. The notion even has a wikipedia article, it's as uziq stated a distinctly American invention. I'm proud of my successes but would never think of saying that all of it resulted from 'my own greatness', everyone has had help along the way, in many forms.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:
I'm of the opinion that the feelings were always lurking there to be capitalized on in this century. If Trump/qanon/etc. weren't the catalyst for some of these family schisms, something else would have likely been. Talks about Obama, Bush, in years prior had already been creating rifts.

Of course it doesn't help when people have internalized politics so much that they can't have a nice political discussion without it becoming fight or flight. Public schools didn't really teach people how to argue that I remember.

The river of muck is probably nicer (if horrifying) to view from the banks than while you're scrabbling for footing in three feet of dookie rapids.

The American political system is antithetical to the ideas of compromise or consensus-building. As long as you are dominated by two-party politics where winner takes all, your political landscape can and will only be a warzone, and that will seep into the attitudes of the general poblic. The dawn of outrage politics is only making this worse because it pushes the extremes within the parties to centre stage.

2021-04-15 12:02:49

#25

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +640|3937

American politics has always been crappy. Even the 80's and 90's were bad since that was when organized labor most got throttled. There was just a consensus of taste and belief among middle class Americans and the few major media groups that catered to them. After 40 years of cultural dominance the Reaganites/Boomers are going into the dustbin of history and are trying to make everything in life a little worse on their way out to confirm their belief that they lived in the end times because they can't imagine a world without themselves.

BF2S Forums How many people made it on their own ?

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

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