I Have Lived in your Camp

You think you know me based on text on a screen. Within the context of a few blog posts, you believe to know my life history, my presumed entitlement, my naivety, my background, and my sum total of wisdom.

You do not know me, but I know of you. I know this, because I once lived in your camp.

It's the 1990s. I am in primary school most days, and a gifted school a few times a week. I am learning musical instruments, writing my first website, making my own paper, dissecting frogs, playing Magic The Gathering with classmates at the gifted school because my primary school doesn't have any players. I'm having a knife pulled on me on the school bus when I go to said school. I do not know why this boy is allowed to go with me; he doesn't seem gifted.

I share a bedroom with my younger sibling. My family belongs to the nearby Country Club, but we don't live within its gated community. I do not appreciate the difference of this, only lament having to dress up for dinner just to be sequestered in the kids' room upstairs with nothing to eat and nothing to do. The first summer of our membership, I believe I make friends with the other kids at the pool; turns out it's only because I was able to buy ice cream for myself whenever I wanted that they believed me to be in their social class. When that privilege was denied, they disappeared.

I wondered why I never got invited to their homes or birthday parties. Turns out it was because I was an outsider, and outsiders had to be invited in. They had to be on the list, and the list required work, and it was so much easier to only have kids from the gated community over instead of working to vet kids and families from the outside.

When my family moved away, I was devastated. I lost my best friend, all my friends; nobody else used the internet, or knew what it was. Postal letters weren't something we did, not really.

I looked some of them up a few years back. None of them are doing well, at least one has done jail time.

Maybe moving was a good thing.

It's the early 2000s. I'm in High School, acing my classes but failing to make friends. I've moved around a lot, and I fail to see the benefit of making friends with folks I'm just going to leave anyway. I spend a lot of time in the library, on the computers. I use a proxy to bypass the net filter and play games or watch videos on the iMacs; the Pentium4 Windows boxes had better security and weaker graphics capabilities than the candy-coated Macs, even if the hockey puck sucked as a mouse and the CPU felt anemic.

I have my own bedroom now, a private oasis to explore and reflect within. The sole family computer is in the basement, my siblings and parents sharing time on it. I convince Dad to get a new machine because I want to play Tribes 2; the old one goes upstairs, the new one stays downstairs. For reasons, I get tired of sharing time with my sibling. I use my new Driver's License to dumpster dive a local repair shop for parts, cobbling together my own custom machine.

It's mine. I am in my me phase.

I belong to a Country Club. I take golf lessons. I am in the marching band, I am first chair of my instrument section. I am gifted, destined for success, for greatness.

I am so fucking bored. I'm beginning to struggle in area-based mathematics: geometry, trigonometry, pre-calculus stuff. I'm pressured to take AP courses because I have C's and B's in math, but I refuse because I am struggling, and I know it, but I don't say that and instead lean into the laziness argument of adults by saying I want to enjoy my youth, my free time.

An English teacher sees through my bullshit. She connects me with the Cisco teacher. I'm told I can make a career out of my passion for technology.

I take CCNA courses in High School, because I go to the rich High School with a football field and a practice football field and a practice marching band field and a baseball diamond and a softball diamond and a soccer field and an indoor swimming pool. I am a tech nerd in a school for athletes, and I am bullied for my passion because I am in the wrong school. I take out my teenage anger by body-checking these "athletes" into the bleachers during floor hockey, because the teacher supervising our activity is either asleep or flirting at the female teacher across the hall.

It feels good.

I crank through classes to graduate early, so I can take some time off before university. It's why I don't apply to colleges, not yet, but also because nobody tells me how or when to apply; I am gifted, I am expected to know these things without help. We never tour a college campus. I spend my final half-year of High School in an extracurricular school-to-work program, applying my skills with a real video game company and real estate developer as clients. Me and some peers from other area schools put together a 3D model of the building and an energy assessment to show how efficient it is. I'm the Systems and Network administrator, cobbling together a network of ethernet cards built around Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. I setup Maya as a distributed renderer, then consolidate it onto a dual Opteron box I successfully pitched to the Chamber of Commerce (who held the purse strings for our endeavor). I show up early, go to High School in the afternoons to wrap up my last semester, then stay late back at the lab to keep working on the infrastructure.

I am the wealthiest of my peers, by far. I do not realize this until a classmate hears about my dumpster-diving exploits and asks me to build him a PC. I quote him $500, and he pays. I skimp out on the parts to inflate my margins, because I understand that's what a good business does. PC Chips motherboard, some shitty PSU, integrated sound in lieu of a basic Sound Blaster, and the cheapest patch of sheet metal I can find for a case. I make a 50% margin, and he spends another $300 replacing all my shitty parts with better ones when the motherboard and PSU conspire to detonate within the first few weeks of use. We do not speak further.

In that moment, I know I am not cutthroat enough for business.

I learn later about his living situation. I'm still haunted by my greed to this day.

Another peer in this project becomes a fleeting friend of mine. He goes to the "poor" high school which didn't trade its auto, wood, and metal shop classes for three additional weight rooms for the football team like mine did; I ask my Dad if I can transfer there, and am told my school is the better one because of its athletics department. He lives in a home about the size of my parents' three-car garage, with six siblings if memory serves. I learn this as I drop him off one night with my Dad, who seems visibly uncomfortable at the neighborhood since it's adjacent to the heavy food processing and manufacturing plant my Dad is a manager at; this is poor people territory, and I pick up on that vibe right away.

He's a Director now, by the way. I'm super proud of and happy for him.

I graduate a semester early. I am forcibly enrolled in community college by my parents because I am not permitted the downtime I worked hard for. I still have no idea how to apply for colleges I actually want to go to, but I can feel the burnout creeping in. For passions, I breeze through effortlessly; for anything requiring work or tedium, I fall on my face and don't understand why. I know something is wrong, because I am gifted, and I am destined for success, and successful people never fail.

It's the mid-2000s. We've moved again. Our home is valued at three-quarters of a million dollars, in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the area. Our neighbors are Doctors and Lawyers and Executives of smaller firms. Across the main road is the only neighborhood wealthier than ours, which houses a State Senator.

We now own four cars, one for each driver in the household. I have my own room, but I am now under constant supervision. Dreams of MIT or my Dad's alma mater are replaced with a forced liberal arts degree at a community college, classes chosen by my parents at first until I surreptitiously intercept the paperwork in subsequent semesters. The "promise" is that once I get my liberal arts degree at this community college, they will enroll me at a university of their choosing afterward for my Bachelor's degree. I am sick of liberal arts, and I struggle with most non-technical classes because I am bored. I fight with them to change my degree; it takes two years into a two-year degree for me to win that fight, and another two years to get my Associate's in Systems Administration. By that point, university was not an option; I was too old.

I'm gay, at this point. I want to meet guys. I want to kiss guys. Instead I am practicing OpSec on my home computer so my siblings and parents can't snoop on me as easily. I sneak makeout sessions with classmates in the college parking lot after classes, the roar of fighter jets overhead rattling my windows and rib cage. Every time I'm late, every deviation from my schedule, every dollar spent or instant messaging ping is scrutinized in detail by my parents.

I am forced into my first "real" job, because my Dad leverages his social network to get me it; he does not repeat this later in my life when I actually need it. I work at a bullseye retailer at one of the busiest stores by volume in the whole chain. I'm a good worker, too: I learn both food counters, electronics, hard lines, soft lines, warehouse, defect processing, truck unloading, the photo lab, media, planograms, cashiering, and even handle some computer repair. I make okay money, I work long hours, but I'm also in-demand to the point of being "bribed" with extra breaks, free DVDs, and gratis meals if I fill in for someone who called out. I wonder if maybe I could be a Store Manager someday, as they make six-figures easily at a time when that money meant wealth and status; they require MBAs, however, and that is not where my passion lay.

I leave for a game store as a Shift Manager - my first leadership role. I make less money, and work fifteen hour days, six days a week, on top of my college workload. I cannot afford rent on this paycheck and work effort, at least not in the safe neighborhoods; covering tuition on top of that was out of the question, as tuition depended on living with my parents. My colleagues who do stick it out on their own live nearby, in an area cops do not come to until the body is cold and the clues are gone. I'm serious: the next-door pizza shop was robbed at gun point multiple times, and the cops never showed up to collect surveillance footage or take statements.

Ever.

I fucking loved that job. It taught me the value and importance of community and mutual aid, things I didn't learn in rich-fuck neighborhoods like mine. I got to see how folks neglected or ignored by society still made shit work, somehow. I admired their perseverance in the face of a society that hated their guts, because I was only beginning to grasp the depths of hatred society held for queer folks like myself, and didn't know how to survive in the face of that.

It's the late 2000s, early 2010s.

We have moved again.

Things are bleak.

My parents, who did everything right, everything they were told, everything they were promised would lead to success, have lost everything. In that moment, I learn that society lies. The decades of absenteeism of my father in service to employers, the millions of miles of travel to solve their problems, the long nights and early mornings and lengthy commutes and consumed weekends, it left him with nothing during this time, not even a safety net during the Great Recession.

Hard work does not guarantee success. It didn't even guarantee survival.

I am definitely gay, but I now reside in a state where I can be fired for it, evicted for it, refused service for it. I quite literally sneak over state lines to visit friends half a day away, just to have the slightest opportunity to "be me" for a fleeting moment in a decaying trailer or a cramped hotel room. I think my job as a defense contractor is enough safety to buy a home, or a new car; I am blindsided when I find myself let go, a guard with a firearm demanding I leave and pointing to my face on the "persona non grata" posters after I had badged and retina-scanned my way inside like normal. I never find out the reason why other than "lack of available work", but I have my suspicions.

Fifteen months of unemployment. Months spent in suicidal ideation, the call of the void a sweeter option than living in hiding. Mercifully, I have the strength to resist its call.

By the end, I am technically homeless. I am packing up to move back in with my parents, and wondering how I'm not just going to slit my own wrists or jump from the only high rise in town because I just can't be myself. I have let down a friend of mine who moved in with me, who is now also homeless, again.

I take up another friend on their offer of help out of desperation. They promise me a job within two weeks if I just come up to visit them, and they'll even cover the train tickets. Seeing no other option, I take the opportunity.

I have a job within two weeks, and a bed in their apartment - if I remain discrete.

It's the early 2010s. My contract has come to an end, and my friend who has graciously hosted me has asked me to leave. I do not fault them for this, because I know what kind of insufferable asshole I was back then, and I am keenly aware I had wore out my welcome.

I am technically homeless, again.

I am driving back to my parents' place sixteen hours away when I get a call: another contract has come through, and I start on Monday. I have two days to figure out where the fuck I'm going to live.

I crash with a friend a state away overnight. He's cute, but married, and out of my league anyway. He treats me to a meal and introduces me to Community when we get back to his place; he goes on to do amazing things with his husband out west.

Dad is doing well enough to help cover part of a long-stay hotel room since I have a job offer - but I have to find said room, pay for it up front on my credit card, wait for him to pay me later when he can afford to, and find an apartment of my own, all within the span of a month.

Clock. Is. Ticking.

By the grace of the hotel staff's kindness and my own diligence in the apartment search, I succeed. I move into my current building, but a different apartment. I still don't feel safe, not for over a decade. I deficit finance basic needs for most of that time, living in the space afforded by the minimum payment on my credit card. I repeat the same mistakes of my Dad: long nights, consumed weekends, early mornings, lengthy commutes. I suffer bad bosses rather than seek other employment, and I remain devoutly loyal rather than ensure my own safety. What I thought would keep me safe instead saw me trapped in a cycle of use, disposal, and repeat.

I don't really date during this time, always tired from work or on-call for the next crisis. I'm in a place where I am legally safe being gay, but not financially stable enough to feel safe openly being gay. I don't drink, or smoke, but I eat. Boy do I eat.

It's the early-2020s. My hard work has finally paid off. I work for Big Tech now, doing three jobs and multiple governance councils and sometimes working eighteen hour days, but I am requested by name by people I've never met, my work is highly valued, and I'm debt-free with enough savings to get on the housing market.

Things are finally turning my way, it feels like.

I am still naive.

I look for starter homes, figuring my $160k base salary in 2022 would be enough for a very nice place. I set my budget to a top of $650k, so I'm not "house poor" or over-mortgaged; I have learned my lesson about over-extending myself financially in a society that will kill you for it. The homes in that price range aren't bad, but need work. Like, new roof and removing oil heat tanks kind of work, replacing electrical wiring kind of work, new kitchen and bathroom kind of work.

This is more than I expected, and so I look further afield since I work remotely. I find homes of similar quality but about a hundred grand less, since they're in "working class" towns. This does not bother me anymore; working class neighborhoods are too busy trying to make ends meet to give a shit if you like fellas, and their food is both tasty and affordable compared to the franchises littering suburbia. I make offers, but they're rejected by cash buyers over-bidding. Home prices increase by 50% in just a few years. I miss my opportunity to buy.

My employer posts record profits, and then makes it known I'm being laid off. Saving them multipliers of my total comp and juggling my glut of work across multiple roles wasn't enough to preserve my job.

I'd made the same fuckup my Dad did.

Fuck.

I have lived in your camp.

I have schmoozed with the wealthy elites in their private clubs, and understood they judge status by spending ability, by home size, by location, by title. I have seen how they abandon those they considered their own when times get tough, circling the wagons tighter and feasting on their flesh. If you cannot afford the yearly cruise with a balcony, the country club fees, the dinner plans, the gated community, the luxury cars, the green fees, the custom golf cart, then you simply aren't of their stature. They do not engage in mutual aid because that is for poor people, and they believe themselves superior because they do not need help.

I have worked alongside the technologists who have naively bought into the various "might makes right" arguments. Listened to their diatribes about how regulations are bad, workers are entitled, and that they succeeded through hard work, so obviously any failing is similarly the fault of the individual and not external forces. I have read their mocking words when my peers share stories of struggle, the sneering of "entitlement" when the ask is for survival, for assistance, for things they were lucky enough to never need themselves. They blithely ignore the same sword swinging over their own heads, believing that they will be spared its blade. Every round of AI layoffs somehow vindicates their beliefs that they are superior to the masses, they are indispensable in a post-AI world, they are somehow a better organism than the peer who just got RIFed.

I've weathered the fringes of homelessness, lucky enough to find the help and circumstances to pull myself out before things got bleak. I have never slept on a bench in the cold, or huddled in the doorway of an abandoned storefront to stay dry; in this, I am profoundly lucky. I empathize with their plight, knowing how the systems at work deliberately trap them there with few ways out, especially when family or friends can no longer offer support.

I've endured the American healthcare system, its surprise bills draining me of critical resources despite insurance coverage, of pre-existing conditions out of my control dictating the kind of employment I must find, the kinds of contracts I cannot accept, the quality of care I require to remain a contributor to society and the economy.

I was born into the middle class. I was raised into increasingly upper echelons of American society. I fell into the pits of poverty, climbed my way back out through the grace and kindness of others and a significant amount of luck, only to find myself confronted yet again with systems that threaten the hard work I've accomplished. I have seen the ladder from its base to its top, and every rung in between. I know which rungs are broken, and where those on higher rungs have been sawing away at those beneath them. I know hard work merely creates the opportunity for success, but never guarantees it; I also know that most folks do not consciously understand this, even if more increasingly recognize that knot in their stomach as costs increase, wages decrease, and layoffs ramp up.

I have lived in your camp. Have you ever left your camp to meet those in others?

The single most useless argument in human history might just be, "it could always be worse." This argument has consistently been wielded like a cudgel against those persons one views as beneath them in some way.

Didn't get that promotion? Well it could always be worse, you could be laid off.

Oh, got laid off? Could always be worse, you could be long-term unemployed.

Shit, four months unemployed? Could always be worse, you could be homeless.

Homeless? Could always be worse, you could be making less money in Africa, or enslaved in some Middle East construction site.

Enslaved? Could always be worse, you could lack accommodations and gruel, or be whipped by your owners.

Beaten by your owners? It could always be worse, they could've killed you.

"It could always be worse" is a phrase I seemingly hear from only two types of people: the naive and the oppressor. The former doesn't know just how bad things actually are, and lean on the argument as a means of excusing their own comparative success as divorced from the failure they perceive in you. The latter wields it to justify their own superiority and a system they benefit from, hoping to dissuade you or spectators from questioning events too deeply.

I mean, just imagine if hundreds of thousands of people started openly questioning layoffs of workers when companies are reaping huge profits. Someone might realize that hard work had nothing to do with the outcome, and that meritocracies are lies. And if they realize that, they might start asking other, more uncomfortable questions like:

• Wait a minute, how does a six figure salary not buy a house anymore?
• Hold on, how come Americans make more than we Europeans, yet have a lower quality of life?
• Excuse me, but why are employers paying wages that can't cover childcare and shelter but also demanding both parents work full-time and pump out kids? That doesn't really make sense, you know?
• So if AI replaces all the jobs, who will buy all the stuff when nobody is earning a wage?

These are what I consider next order questions. They go beyond the immediate concern and instead evaluate what subsequent impacts a decision or outcome might have. A lot of money has been spent beating this skill out of as many humans as possible, because asking that question has generally lead to deeply uncomfortable outcomes in the past.

Take the jobs question as an example. Companies who are posting huge profits - not just revenue, profits - are laying off workers as if they're deeply troubled or in dire financial straits. Most folks accept the face-value narrative: operational efficiencies, growth in artificial intelligence, streamlined workflows, overhiring from COVID, etcetera. The next-order question would be, "Okay, but what actually is incentivizing such outsized worker displacement across a single sector, and what are the effects of that systemic change?"

Asking that question might reveal that these companies depend on per-seat licenses for a bulk of their revenue, and enterprise technology estates generally scale with headcount. Yet these companies are also investing heavily in AI to displace workers in every sector, the same sources of revenue critical to those very profit margins. They claim that they can sell licenses to the very AI they're selling to other companies to make up for that revenue (or even grow it), but if the AI can also just make software tailored to individual companies, then there's not much need for a glut of licenses or seats anymore, which would rob those companies of revenue. Yet also because output is inconsistent, AI users are finding more of a need for humans to fix and triage AI in the workplace, and that labor - traditionally from tech - is some of the last decently-paid labor on the planet. Then you remember that AI, being a new technology, is still being heavily and artificially subsidized to drive growth and promote lock-in, meaning its true costs have yet to be seen - which in turn means current AI users will likely be forced between paying for the AI at a cost where the vendor can make a profit, or paying a human wages to allow them to survive in today's sky-high cost of living environment. So taken altogether, a potential theory of deliberate depression of tech wages by large-scale layoffs citing scapegoat causes (AI, interest rates, overhiring, efficiency gains) to avoid scrutiny could hold water, if one were so inclined to seek the evidence to support it.

In theory.

These are the next-order questions those of us who have engaged with the wider system learn to ask about, because it's how we fix large-scale problems that have significant impact on broad groups of people. Solving homelessness for one person is easy (buy them a fucking house); solving it for a populace requires understanding systemic incentives and interactions, and manipulating them in such a way that they change to solve the problem without breaking other positive systems.

So when someone retorts "it could always be worse" in the context of a post about how compensation rates that fail to cover human necessities are creating security vulnerabilities for employers, especially when they point to completely unrelated systems, situations, peoples, or countries from the subject of the questions being asked or theories being posited, and staunchly refuse to do even cursory research as to the detailed systemic state (costs, compensation, cost of living, regional differences, historic changes, etc), it's a very quick way to tell that this is a person either too stupid to understand large systems, or too dangerous to be allowed to control them.

One of the benefits of climbing and falling the length of the societal ladder several times over is the perspective one gets for what they need to actually live a decent quality of life, and just how little that figure is. The benefit of understanding systemic interactivity and long-term planning means you can place a firm number on how much you'd need, today, to quite literally fuck off entirely and donate your time, labor, and expertise indefinitely.

For me, in my current situation, that number is $5,000,000. $750k in cash for the home (~1500 square feet) and improvements (ethernet cabling, solar installation, batteries, insulation, water catchment and filtration, reversible heat pump, removing lead paints), and the remainder in a savings account yielding ~3%. That would net ~$105k in interest per year, which is enough for home repairs, car payment, health insurance, groceries, internet service, mobile phone, and supporting my found family of today and my partner of tomorrow (four adults in all), while also helping my biological family members (parents, siblings, and niblings), and accounting for higher future tax rates to pay down government debts or fund infrastructure.

That's it. I know that sounds like a lot, and for most of the world it most certainly is, but that's actually only 5x the median home price right now in my city. That is, by local definition, comparatively small, and that's a number that allows me to donate my time to others, gratis. If we're talking a number that would let me, say, take a teaching job for $50k a year with bennies, then it could be knocked down to $3 million since I can depend on outside wages. Five million is the fuck off forever figure, never having to work another day in my life ever again despite living in one of the most expensive cities on the planet, and having complete control of the entirety of my time for the rest of my life with zero outside obligations or needs.

Author's Note: I would be foolish not to include my donation address for any Bitcoin Billionaires who feel like paying me to shut the fuck up or want to help some queer people buy a home.

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Being homeless teaches you to never be above accepting unconditional help from others, no matter how big or small it might be, no matter what motivations they might have.

I bring this up to really illustrate the brazen greed on display right now. For every person climbing into comments sections and screaming "businesses/billionaires don't have infinite money you know," I can just thumb back at that figure as proof that while their statement is technically correct, these ghouls also have exponentially more money than is necessary to live a high quality of life and never work again. They have that money because they chose not to give it to others who could make better use of it providing for the needs of themselves or their community. That sort of greed is a conscious choice, one that should come with accountability in a society where so many people have it so much worse despite working so much harder.

I'm at a moment where I'm taking stock of the camps I find myself in. I got active in Hacker News around the time RTO mandates started cropping up and NFTs were on the way out. It's had its moments, but it's also pretty clear that - like everywhere else right now - it's become highly polarized and toxic. Nobody seems to want to entertain positions other than their own, nobody wants to learn something new that risks invalidating their beliefs, everyone wants to either ride or mock the current hypetrain to whatever wreck or station is coming up next. The "Show" section is full of vibe-coded slop from folks who remind me of my insufferable teenage self: destined for greatness, no struggle to be had, no effort to be given, and impossible to do wrong. YCombinator has similarly lost its luster, at least to folks who share similar principles and values to my own.

Put simply:

If my web browser autofill is any indication, it has already left my "loop" of site-checks that the little dopamine addiction machine iPhone tugs me into several times a day. While I'm still flattered enough other folks feel my writing warrants submission to its page, the comments within merely add stress and tug on my OCD's compulsion to mask, adapt, and satisfy the whims of others rather than remain authentic to myself.

In that context, I think I'm done engaging with it for the time being. I think it's for the best that I focus on myself and my needs instead of hanging out in pseudonymous comment sections with personality types I naturally clash against. I've been deriving substantially more joy rebuilding my own services on my eensy wittle NUC and sharing them with others than hanging out on social media in general, and I want to lean more into that joy, especially when times are dark and harsh.

I'm also looking back at what I've done thus far for my career, and the associated (lack of) payoff it's had. I sacrificed everything for my employers: relationships, physical health, my youth, my time. I am lucky enough to have no debt right now, but I also have none of the things that make life beautiful and vibrant. No home whose walls I can paint or decorate with shelving and mementos, no partner to share my trials and victories with, and a community I've failed to sufficiently invest myself into for the rewards I've sought from the experience.

Looking at the transactional balance of life, I find myself holding a check while those I devoted my life to have scampered off. If I'm going to be left holding the proverbial bag, if I'm going to have to struggle to find joy and survival in an increasingly hostile world, I'm at least going to engage with life on my own terms and in ways that bring me joy.

Perhaps it's fatalism, perhaps it's nihilism, perhaps it's a bit of both, but I find myself aligning more with my younger peers: if life is but a struggle with no guarantee of reward, then there is ultimately no harm in living an authentic life.

To those of you who have taken the pains to find me and message me: thank you. Thank you for the links to job roles, thank you for the well-wishes, thank you for the heartfelt stories and additional data points, thank you for charmingly mistaking me for a European based on my positions and principles. Your messages consistently brighten this American dinosaur's day and make the road ahead that much easier to walk. I promise I read them all, even if my OCD anxieties deter responding right away.

I'm not leaving this blog, and I'm not shirking away from my principles. This storm shall pass just like the others, such is the cycle of life. In the meantime, the best I can do is keep pressing forward, working on things that bring me and my friends joy, and help my communities weather the rough seas ahead.

Who knows what camp I'll end up in next.