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How young can you be when you irrevocably mess up your life? and How? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Artemis_Mystique@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Just a thought I had, like what can a ten year old do(besides mass murder & accidents) that messes up their life so badly that it is unrecoverable?

It has to be something that is self inflicted and not something that is the cause of others around them.

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[+] mke_geek@lemm.ee -17 points 1 day ago (5 children)

If you're not born rich you can become rich (or "comfortable") later in life. It doesn't mess you up forever.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Oh gee, I hadn't thought of that. I'll go tell the African children. /s

Just eyeballing the life stories I know, and looking at the actual statistics on social mobility, if you do everything right you can expect to climb up like a single rung of the socioeconomic ladder. On average. There's a great deal of luck involved there, even, and it's possible to do everything right and go down the ladder if, for example, something unexpected cripples you.

[–] NuraShiny@hexbear.net 5 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Quite frankly, the idea that it's likely that you can get rich through your own work/intellect/ingenuity is more and more false. Social mobility is not at all on the up and up.

You can also easily fuck up your life by failing at the attempt to become rich, or by ordering your life around that attempt. See crypto bros etc.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 hours ago

I'm confident it was never true. Case in point, for America: Most people are either black or female. Even looking at white men, "mysteriously", the vast majority of the great men of the past came from fancy backgrounds.

[–] Scubus@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No, sorry, we actually just sold out of upward mobility. Our next shipment comes in never though, maybe you can come back then?

[–] 13esq@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Despite declining social mobility, mke_geek makes a fair point, being born poor isn't absolutely guaranteed to mean that you won't be able to have a meaningful or fullfilling life. I'm sure that many people who are born in remote villages with a subsistence lifestyle, that we would view as living in poverty, are happier than many people who are born in "first world" countries.

Anyway, OP is asking about choices, not situations that are inflicted upon them.

[–] jlow@beehaw.org 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I think the changes of that happening are statistically neglible, though (comfortable maaaaybe if you're really lucky but becoming rich is probably a one digit change, if that).

[–] mke_geek@lemm.ee 1 points 11 hours ago

It takes work, and if people don't want to put in the work then they will never get there.

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Socioeconomic mobility over a lifetime in the U.S. has always been dramatically overstated, but in the past 20 years its gradually gotten worse

"In the US only 32% of respondents agreed with the statement that forces beyond their personal control determine their success."

"According to a 2012 Pew Economic Mobility Project study[24] 43% of children born into the bottom quintile (bottom 20%) remain in that bottom quintile as adults. Similarly, 40% of children raised in the top quintile (top 20%) will remain there as adults. Looking at larger moves, only 4% of those raised in the bottom quintile moved up to the top quintile as adults. Around twice as many (8%) of children born into the top quintile fell to the bottom.[24] 37% of children born into the top quintile will fall below the middle. These findings have led researchers to conclude that "opportunity structures create and determine future generations' chances for success. Hence, our lot in life is at least partially determined by where we grow up, and this is partially determined by where our parents grew up, and so on." -Per Wikipedia

2012 was 12 years ago, mind you.

Also found this 2021 Guardian Article that claims

"What about rising from rags to riches? In the US, 8% of children raised in the bottom 20% of the income distribution are able to climb to the top 20% as adults, while the figure in Denmark is nearly double at 15%. Equality of opportunity is also much less viable in the US than in other OECD countries..."

[–] jlow@beehaw.org 2 points 1 day ago

Thanks for that! So my hunch seemed to be oretty right, unfortunately (not sure if it should be everybody's goal to become rich, that seems unsustainable but I wish it would be possible for more people to live a happy life ...)

[–] GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Hey now, that sounds like a lot of work that'll get into the way of my doom scrolling and being a miserable bastard time