Yeah standard of living overall is factually better than at any other point in the last few hundred years.

Medicine alone has made getting to or living past your mid-30’s far less hard or filled with pain - even for those in poverty.

And hell I’d argue that if the original commenter really believes it’s a dystopian shit-show…it’s crystal clear how to make your own lot better.

One of the best actors of his generation.

Don’t see him ever being allowed on a set again. Too many people don’t care that he was found not liable in the civil lawsuit in the US and was acquitted of all 9 counts of assault in the UK.

But mob mentality already decided he was guilty and he’s done a spectacularly poor PR job in response.

Sure!

No serious plans. We’ve currently been focused on our kids first, but are donating time to local food banks and have donated money to some proposed measures and our local Blanchet House.

We aren’t well off enough that pursuing the next step in what people normally put donated time towards is an option; just our 5-10% of our time and money is a lot larger than it was before we hit this point. Neither of us have serious plans to grind for more money again, so this likely wont change.

Paid it off the third year after we got some consistent business in the industry(food software and logistics). Paid about $400 in interest over that time.

Yep, it was so they could give me far more than the limit on gifts per year and not get taxed.

I sold my half of the business to my cofounder about 2 years ago. Been retired and just raising my kids while my wife is getting back into her field(she was stay at home while I built my business).

“Anyone who had/has rich parents”.

Worked my ass off moving up through food industry - from retail to operations manager of a manufacturing plant.

Didn’t get rich until my folks gave me a 6-figure loan to start my own business, with an interest rate so low+generous it was basically free money. That enabled us to take risks in the first 2 years that we never would have attempted otherwise. Some of those paid off.

Hell I wouldn’t have been able to grind out 65+hr weeks in my mid-twenties getting experience if I didn’t have such a great support system, largely enabled due to not having to truly worry about bills or food until I “got on my own feet”.

Yeah, I put work in. But I could’ve done the exact same amount of effort and made many times less money, essentially guaranteed if not for randomly being born to the right situation.

Behind every early retired person is someone who gave them some kind of resource most others likely will never have access to.

Truth!!! Lord help yah if you wear cargo shorts and the wrong pair of boxers.

“Yeah, the faucet sprayed everywhere.”