I faced a great annoyance.
After switching Asshole Consulting to a new server my e-mails started ending up in people's spam folders. This is of obvious great concern because if people don't get my e-mails, how is the Captain supposed to make money pimping harsh truths to the brainwashed and propagandized masses? So after some rookie trouble shooting - and consequential failure - I decided to go forth and find an IT guy who specializes in e-mails and e-mail filters.
But something interesting and depressing happened.
After talking to two of my IT buddies to see if they could refer a specialist, they informed me they would unlikely be able to find anybody because of my site and its politics. When I said, "Why, is it too extreme for them?" They said, "No, all the IT guys I know are extreme leftists and would either refuse to work with you, or, sabotage your e-mail."
At first I couldn't believe this. IT GUYS?? The ones making all the money? The six figs guys who worked hard, majored in STEM, pay 50% taxes? They're LEFTISTS? And not only leftists, but radical leftists to the point they'd bigotorially refuse service, perhaps even sabotage my e-mail?"
Yep.
Thankfully my friend found a colleague who was only a "moderate leftist" and had enough of a moral compass that he would help me out and NOT sabotage my e-mail, but it still stung as much as it confused me. How could one of the hardest working and highest-compensated group of people in the US be leftist AND so radical that half the population can't trust them simply because of politics?
We could ask about how this came about, but I think the point is moot. Yes, no doubt, despite being highly intelligent, like all other young people, they were brainwashed and indoctrinated in school. Some probably wanted to "get da gurlz" and thought espousing the same leftist beliefs women did would inevitably get dem "da gurlz." But a much more interesting thought is the price they're going to pay going forward when their leftist ideology becomes reality. Because if there is an instance where one's politics is diametrically opposed, even destructively so, it is IT guys subscribing to radical leftist politics.
"Too Rich STEM Men"
The reason why can be found in what I like to call "Too Rich STEM Men."
For the most part the Millennial generation is a spectacular failure. It's a train wreck, a nuclear blast site, an abortion of a generation. It will be the first generation as a whole that will never achieve the American dream, let alone get out of debt and have a positive net worth upon death. But in addition to brew pubs another silver lining to this generation is their contingent of highly successful and well-compensated "IT guys." Be you a programmer, an engineer, a software developers, or just your standard ol' IT guy, there are millions of young men and women who did major in the right thing, paid off their debts, worked hard, and are now making 6 figs with 6 figs in savings.
The problem is, despite developing a hard work ethic and owning higher-than-average intelligence, they did not escape the purposed brainwashing where leftist politics was installed as part of their core, ethical and life-philosophy "moral code." Despite aluminum being (about) the only thing environmentally and economically worth recycling, they all recycle. Despite women predominantly choosing worthless degrees, they all believe in the wage gap. You can slap on a sticker claiming something is "organic" and they will buy it. And the fashy (or is it "fasc-ist-y?") trend of corporate virtue signalling indicates the millennials (6 figure earning or not, STEM or not) will part with their money over this pre-installed religion of leftism...because they were simply told to.
What these high income earning "STEM Men" don't realize is that there is a financial component to their leftist politics. One I don't think they consider because (like most people) they never bother to look at the difference between "gross" and "net" pay on their paychecks. I also think they've been successfully brainwashed to value status of their life/time, being willing to sacrifice years in terms of commutes and overpriced rents to live in "hot" places like "Silicon Valley" or "Austin" or "New York." But regardless of how they're being blinded to it, they essentially turn themselves into "Silicon Valley Slaves" where the majority of their time at work is NOT invested in themselves, but merely used as a socialist trough to support parasitical others.
Again, I don't know how you can work when 50% of your income is simply given to others, when you are slaving away half your working days to support others, but they do.
Here Comes Da
Like a leech, democrats and socialists numb their hosts first before sucking out the blood. Leeches do this with a topical numbing agent, democrats do it through pay-as-you-go taxes, sales taxes, and rationalizing why their constituents are entitled to your money. But the day is coming where 50% of "Rich STEM Men's" money is not going to be enough. And with the new AND MILLENNIAL generation of politicians, they're not going to numb you up before they make a claim to more of your money.
Enter AOC.
Not that AOC personally is going to make a grab for more of "Rich STEM Men's Money," but she epitomizes the generation, the psychology, and the politician who will. And it is here the diametrically opposed (and destructive) leftist politics of IT guys will ram head first into their own financial interests.
To be short, you "Rich STEM Men" just make too much damn money. I've seen it through my clients and other (non-leftist) STEM Men who majored in the right thing, worked hard, saved their money and make six figures with six figures saved up. As time goes on and you accrued more in wealth and income, your non-STEM millennial counterparts will have their student loans grow exponentially, not make any tangible economic progress in life, and will start to look at your small cabal of successful "Rich STEM Men" with increasing envy. And as per the way your generation was programmed to vote with politics, they will demand "Too Rich STEM Men" pay MORE than the already 50% you're already paying now. You will have "benefited unfairly," and "owe it to society" by the mere fact you busted your ass off, learned to code, learned to subnet, learned calculus, and didn't go out and party, showing up hungover to your "sociology classes."
Worse, I cannot emphasized the "MEN" part of this enough.
I don't know if you young STEM Men have noticed this in the working world, but employers, government and media sure do place a lot of emphasis on women, women's empowerment, the wage gap, me too, etc. etc. And while there certainly are some highly compensated, successful women in STEM, the VAST majority of the field is still populated by men. Whether you've realized it or not, that is a political sin unto itself in leftist politics, and will only redouble the case for taxing "Too Rich STEM MEN" because again, you benefited unfairly with male privilege.
The question is how much do you want your leftist politics to bite you in your current and future ass? What percent a slave to others do you want to be? What percent of your life:
Going to school
Getting certifications
Commuting
Overpaying rents
Getting masters degrees
Studying hard subjects
Putting in 40 hours a week
Putting in overtime
would you like to dedicate to other people who simply didn't want to work as hard as you, let alone work at all?
It will be a curious world for those of you "Too Rich STEM Men." By my libertarian values you have every right to refuse service to whoever you want, vote however you want, and slave away your personal and finite life as much as you want. But I will find it very interesting watching you vote yourselves and your freedoms away for your politics, especially in light of the fact you're smarter than that and at anytime you can start to study economics if you wanted to see just how much of a slave you already are.
Oh well, Enjoy the Decline.
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Check out Aaron's other cool stuff below!
The non-leftist ones of us made our money and got the hell out. We also kept our mouths shut while we were working among the psychopaths. In my personal experience, most of the actual technical talent lies to the right of center. Lefty IT guys tend to learn a couple things then stagnate.
ReplyDeleteThe Schwartz is strong with these Too rich STEM men. It is also just as strong with the GEN X women in IT I work with. I can hear the bitching and moaning day in and out about how tough it is to raise kids, be on-call, work strange hours, be married, and pay some very outrageous bills. They seem prime for some Red Pill wisdom. But the programming goes so very deep. The nanosecond you give the female version of Neo a common sense argument about why the finances are so tough, she jumps to attention and re-swallows the Blue Pill programmed in by her feminist overlords. Time to read "Enjoy the Decline" one more time...
ReplyDeleteIT is not that difficult to learn. If you're an independent operator, its better to learn to do it yourself than to relay on IT guys who are leftists. My guessing is that the IT guys who are leftists are probably not very good and you would want to avoid using their services for that reason alone. This, of course, brings up another issue with the IT industries. One of the lesser known facts about the IT world is that there are a lot of people in it who are lazy, don't do much work, and have a generally careless attitudes towards customers. This is something I began noticing about 15 years ago, and has become worse in the time since.
ReplyDeleteI will always be baffled how people with real skills and ability vote for sacks of sub human waste like Obama, Hildebeast, Beto, or whatever leftist dork you can think of at the moment. I've met those with engineering doctorates, nurses, and what have you actually express admiration for such absolute human garbage.
ReplyDeleteGuess on the email, Cappy. Web server DNS lookup requires a zone file from you or your Internet Service Provider. Email servers getting your emails can check your zone file for source email server identity to stop spam. If you're email is so are rejected, there could be a log message for your email server with the info. Always check logs (for Linux/Unix/BSD anyway, try /var/log/), though I expect you know that. You could need or have needed a reserve DNS lookup with a PTR record in your zone file. If there is no way to explicitly add a PTR record, there may be an indirect way that adds the PTR 'automatically'. Depends on the Web hosting provider.
ReplyDeletekurt9, I don't think IT is easy, or I would be one of those STEM guys. Cappy got stumped, and he is not slow. Maybe the IQ has to be three standard deviations above. I find the culture and mindset gap in trying to read open source documentation. Foreigners and normies write English technical documentation that is technically incorrect, poorly structured for human navigation, etc. Ain't nothing like having someone show you in person. The Left has that advantage of numbers. The will go too far, and I can't wait. Sick of the structural unemployment. I just can't communicate effectively with narrative-based life forms.
The same stuff happened to the old fogies who learned coding during the Reagan years, made big bank until they couldn't or wouldn't update their training, and suddenly got replaced by Sudhir from India.
ReplyDeleteThese guys will red-pill when they are older. But usually only after the first divorce, or after they're told they need to go back to school to learn the hot new code, or after they piss off HR and get kicked out the door.
Then they'll be Ex-IT guys used to make and bank six figures annually.
"...
ReplyDeletePutting in 40 hours a week
Putting in overtime"
First most IT jobs are salaried so there is no concept of 'overtime'. Worked IT for 40 years and 50hrs was the norm and 60hrs at times was not unheard of. For those IT dinks on contract overtime is unheard of as well as most companies walk them off after 40hrs a week. The employer does not want to pay the rates.
Second, is your problem email or an app that rides on email? If it is the former be looking for a guy with 20yrs experience and over 50. He will know SMTP protocols and mail routing backwards and forwards. If its the latter, scour a charter HS or two looking for the 16yo nerd. He might be a leftist but he has not been 'enabled' to act as a leftist. Their world is an app world and will probably already know how to hack your problem.
"... how is the Captain supposed to make money pimping harsh truths to the brainwashed and propagandized masses?"
ReplyDeleteLEMME SEE YOUR PIMP BACKHAND
*slap*
YOUR PIMP BACKHAND DOES NOT SCARE ME
WORK ON IT
:-)
As usual, the producers are killed, then everyone starves.
ReplyDeleteBest path forward = Minimalism. They can't outright steal what you DO NOT MAKE.
ReplyDelete> First most IT jobs are salaried so there is no concept of 'overtime'. Worked IT for 40 years and 50hrs was the norm and 60hrs at times was not unheard of. For those IT dinks on contract overtime is unheard of as well as most companies walk them off after 40hrs a week. The employer does not want to pay the rates.
ReplyDeleteIf you work 40-50+ hours a week without being compensated for it, you are a sucker. If people in the industry followed Aaron's advice and didn't get over leveraged in debt, they would be able to push back.
You have described the son of my girlfriend Cappy. Works long hours, pulls down some major cash, and just benefitted immensely when his employer went public. it was interesting to observe him at dinner one night talking with a fellow traveler about the (legal) ways to minimize his taxes. Seems like he'll spout the leftist bullshit, but he doesn't want to pay the bills.
ReplyDelete"We also kept our mouths shut while we were working among the psychopaths."
ReplyDeleteThis. I used to work with a bunch of leftists. During the last presidential election, the leftists would constantly bray about the bad orange man. But I noticed that a lot (and I mean a lot) of other folks (including myself) kept our mouths shut, knowing that it was not only pointless to argue with them, but could end up being hazardous as all it would take was a phone call to HR with a false accusation and you would be fired. In the end I had the last laugh as all of my narrative spewing colleagues were laid off, every single one.
"If you work 40-50+ hours a week without being compensated for it, you are a sucker. "
ReplyDeleteThe compensation is taking a month of comp time off paid. In IT its you meet the deadline or you are in the bread line. Once the project is finished most IT orgs don't care what you are doing till the next project shows up.
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteBest path forward = Minimalism. They can't outright steal what you DO NOT MAKE."
Then you NEED to avoid marriage or begetting children. The biased Family Court system doesn't have to abide by the Bill of Rights or even common sense, if you're male.
They have a feature called "Imputed Income" -- which is 'your income is what you're SUPPOSED to be earning (WRT your education and skills)' instead of what you are currently able to earn...and your "Child Support" (which is, as we all know, just 'alimony' under another name) is based on this figure.
It doesn't matter if you've been laid off or been unofficially blacklisted because your personal politics aren't 'politically correct'...your 'income' is what the court says it is, and your "Child Support" will be based on it. And woe unto you if you can't pay it.
Just another reason why MGTOW is growing while marriage is dying out (as it should).
My husband is a rich STEM man and he's definitely not a leftist. Neither are most of his friends in his field. He would probably agree with a lot of the stuff on this blog, except the parts bemoaning the career woman. He made it clear when we met that he expected me to work (at least until we have kids) and wasn't looking to be a sugar daddy. He also values a woman who can hold her own intellectually more than he values a woman who can cook. But he is very libertarian and agrees with a lot of what you say about millennials (to be honest, even my Democratic feminist self agrees with some of what you say about (at least some) millennials)!
ReplyDeleteUm, women in STEM (or any other field) who make high incomes pay as much as their male counterparts in taxes. There is no tax adjustment based on gender.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, even though I am a Democrat, I don't think well-paid programmers, engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc. need to pay more in taxes. Honestly, the upper income W-2 earners get squeezed the hardest and end up paying a greater share of their income in taxes than the uber-rich who have a lot more options for avoiding taxes.