It’s very true, but I think it is quite funny.
Seriously. Is it really?
Since I’m not sure if you mean “it’s definitely political” or “it’s definitely not”, my thoughts are unchanged. It obviously is more consistent with one party/candidate, but I don’t see it as about a party or candidate
George Carlin
"Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money!".
When I heard Carlin say that, it resonated deeply. Granted, I was not religious by any stretch growing up - probably something to do with mom getting pissed off at the church we went to for some utterly frivolous thing, like she did at a lot of people across her life - but the idea that “God loves you, he always loves you … and if you don’t do exactly what he tells you to do, he’ll send you to burn in the fiery pits of hell … because he loves you” was weird.
And then the money part. We just … want money. Oh yeah, I guess we could use clothes and food and such to help the poor - but … we really prefer the cash. And then it wasn’t helping the poor here. It was helping the poor in faraway places. I mean, yes people in Latin America and the Carribean and in Africa are poor, and they need help, but there are people here who are poor and need help - but, you didn’t get to take trips to foreign lands at whatever expense to help the poor while trying to convert them to your religion if you do that in the local community or the next town over. That’s not nearly the bragging point over others as we went to Sierra Leone and helped dig wells and build a hut for people to live in, and on the last night I personally converted two parents, 7 kids, a hyena and some wild bird!
In case there was any question outstanding about Newsweek being clickbait these days:
I’m old enough to remember 1980. In August, the unemployment rate was 7.7%. It peaked at 10% in Jan 1983.
I bailed out of a PhD program in 1975 when my office partner got his degree and sent out a huge stack of paper applications. He ended up with a one-year contract at Cleveland State University. I expect it was worse by 1980.
No, getting a job wasn’t as simple as getting any degree.
There are more people with 4-year degrees competing today, so I’m willing to believe it is harder. But the past isn’t the pleasant rose shade that some people imagine.
After graduating with a non-vocational degree in 1993 (music composition), it took me 3 years to get a full-time job that wasn’t minimum wage (such as working night-shift in an inconvenience store, cleaning toilets or working in an Italian salami netting factory). Topped up my qualifications in IT by mid-2000 and it took me another 2 years of temporary data-entry work to finally get a full-time IT job (a lot of jobs went away after Y2K).
Fortunately my student debt was fairly small and I didn’t become interested in wine until 2002.
Was that written by ChatGPT?
“Create a rant from an old man against AI.”