<story><title>Occupying Wall Street</title><url>http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2011/10/wall-street-york-police-bridge</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>exit</author><text>to whoever responded with:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;But anyways. Like most of us, I am also very fortunate to be in tech, and have a passion for programming. But I do not pretend that my good fortune some how means I work or harder or am smarter than other people in our society.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;,&lt;p&gt;but then deleted their comment:&lt;p&gt;you really should repost it. it captures my feelings too and i wanted to thank you for putting them into words.&lt;p&gt;again and again, i encounter people in my circles of well-employed colleagues who do not realize how lucky they are to have interests coinciding with aptitudes coinciding with particular economic demands in their productive years.&lt;p&gt;and it makes them sickeningly self congratulatory.</text></item><item><author>rick888</author><text>&quot;We are getting kicked out of our homes.&quot;&lt;p&gt;..and why is that?  I want to see how many of these people protesting actually got kicked out of their homes and why.&lt;p&gt;&quot;We are forced to choose between groceries and rent.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Do you have a cell phone?  Do you have cable?  Where do you live?&lt;p&gt;&quot;We are denied quality medical care.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Interesting how this is somehow wall street&apos;s problems.  Can I blame them for tax increases too?&lt;p&gt;&quot;We are suffering from environmental pollution.&quot;&lt;p&gt;lol?&lt;p&gt;&quot;We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we are working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything.&quot;&lt;p&gt;If you can&apos;t find a job..you need to ask yourself why.  I lost my job a little over a year ago and then started my own company.  Since then, I&apos;ve had tons of recruiters and other companies emailing me because they want me to work for them.  There are still plenty of jobs out there.  You just need to bust your ass to get them.  Most people aren&apos;t willing to put in the work.&lt;p&gt;I saw the start of this entitlement mentality with music and software piracy.  Many people from this generation feel it&apos;s their &quot;right&quot; to be able to download these things for free.  Now they are entitled to a home, a college education, and a job.&lt;p&gt;They want equality, but the problem isn&apos;t we aren&apos;t all equal.  I work 12 hours a day.  As a result, I have more money in the bank than someone that works part-time.  Why should I be limited or penalized for this?&lt;p&gt;&quot;So far, it&apos;s pick-your-own cause, with grievances ranging from bank bail-outs to animal testing, and yet what most of the mainstream media seems to have missed is the fact that the occupation itself is its own demand&quot;&lt;p&gt;This is why I find the entire &quot;occupation&quot; to be a joke.  Every left-wing asshole with a grievance against big business is out there protesting.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>abalashov</author><text>&lt;i&gt;again and again, i encounter people in my circles of well-employed colleagues who do not realize how lucky they are to have interests coinciding with aptitudes coinciding with particular economic demands in their productive years.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;and it makes them sickeningly self congratulatory.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s one of the things that delayed my entry into the technical profession.  I grew up a passionate and involved hobbyist, but seeing this kind of self-aggrandising Randian narrative played out over and over in forums and bodies of knowledge that I considered proxies for the values of the profession (i.e. Slashdot) nauseated me.  For a long time, I was determined not to go into tech out of loathing for the idea of working with such people.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, I went anyway, and realised--as teenagers are wont to do once they grow up--that any world is more diverse than meets the eye.  But I can definitely say that the mythos of the well-earning &quot;self-made&quot; IT man was a major blemish on the idea, not an asset.</text></comment>
<story><title>Occupying Wall Street</title><url>http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2011/10/wall-street-york-police-bridge</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>exit</author><text>to whoever responded with:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;But anyways. Like most of us, I am also very fortunate to be in tech, and have a passion for programming. But I do not pretend that my good fortune some how means I work or harder or am smarter than other people in our society.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;,&lt;p&gt;but then deleted their comment:&lt;p&gt;you really should repost it. it captures my feelings too and i wanted to thank you for putting them into words.&lt;p&gt;again and again, i encounter people in my circles of well-employed colleagues who do not realize how lucky they are to have interests coinciding with aptitudes coinciding with particular economic demands in their productive years.&lt;p&gt;and it makes them sickeningly self congratulatory.</text></item><item><author>rick888</author><text>&quot;We are getting kicked out of our homes.&quot;&lt;p&gt;..and why is that?  I want to see how many of these people protesting actually got kicked out of their homes and why.&lt;p&gt;&quot;We are forced to choose between groceries and rent.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Do you have a cell phone?  Do you have cable?  Where do you live?&lt;p&gt;&quot;We are denied quality medical care.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Interesting how this is somehow wall street&apos;s problems.  Can I blame them for tax increases too?&lt;p&gt;&quot;We are suffering from environmental pollution.&quot;&lt;p&gt;lol?&lt;p&gt;&quot;We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we are working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything.&quot;&lt;p&gt;If you can&apos;t find a job..you need to ask yourself why.  I lost my job a little over a year ago and then started my own company.  Since then, I&apos;ve had tons of recruiters and other companies emailing me because they want me to work for them.  There are still plenty of jobs out there.  You just need to bust your ass to get them.  Most people aren&apos;t willing to put in the work.&lt;p&gt;I saw the start of this entitlement mentality with music and software piracy.  Many people from this generation feel it&apos;s their &quot;right&quot; to be able to download these things for free.  Now they are entitled to a home, a college education, and a job.&lt;p&gt;They want equality, but the problem isn&apos;t we aren&apos;t all equal.  I work 12 hours a day.  As a result, I have more money in the bank than someone that works part-time.  Why should I be limited or penalized for this?&lt;p&gt;&quot;So far, it&apos;s pick-your-own cause, with grievances ranging from bank bail-outs to animal testing, and yet what most of the mainstream media seems to have missed is the fact that the occupation itself is its own demand&quot;&lt;p&gt;This is why I find the entire &quot;occupation&quot; to be a joke.  Every left-wing asshole with a grievance against big business is out there protesting.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>srdev</author><text>I am fully aware that I&apos;m &quot;lucky&quot; that I have an interest in computer programming --  a highly marketable skill.  But when people harp on that fortune, it really comes across as trying to devalue the effort I put into developing those skills.  Just as an idea has no value without execution, luck is worthless unless you put in the hard work to exercise it.  People are emphasizing the former at the expense of the latter to make others feel guilty about their successes and obligated towards the &quot;less fortunate,&quot; and that&apos;s why people push back.</text></comment>