You’re not supposed to hurt your friends.

A firehose in the sky that sucks the rain back in.

But it does describe the control of resources and to an extent force, which is “political” in addition to economic.

That’s a valid point, though I still wouldn’t call it a pyramid scheme.

You’re not forced to take on that debt though, nor is the debt unpayable unless you take on more debt. Some people put themselves into a ponzi-like situation either through poor financial decision making or circumstances so shit that they can’t do any better, but the average person doesn’t need to take out a loan on a freaking pair of nikes or even a car or house. It’s a cultural norm to get a mortgage, but if you do the math it often doesn’t make sense to and isn’t anywhere close to mandatory. At most you could argue that the US government debt works that way, but even that’s iffy and depends on your geopolitical outlook.

How so though? This sounds like a statement that’s meant to be flashy but doesn’t actually hold up. Pyramid schemes are characterized by a) an eventual lack of ability to recruit more people, b) recruitment rather than a product or a service being the driver, and c) a person at the bottom left with nothing, including recourse. Capitalism, even completely free capitalism, doesn’t work like that unless you specifically rig it to do so. That’s called “corruption”.

I think there’s two subsets of these people.

One subset is actually really smart, book smart even, but just doesn’t have a personality that aligns with the format of the education system. Those people tend to do really well in a different environment where they have more intrinsic motivation to succeed. For example, I know someone who didn’t do well in school even though he had the ability to because he just didn’t really see any reward, so he had no motivation. He went into finance and got through uni and his first few job with flying colors, because there was a reward at the end of the tunnel to pursue.

The other subset just doesn’t do well with any sort of “bookish” stuff - math, sciences, finance, engineering, etc. just don’t really fly. A lot of them I find feel a bit lost because they feel pressure to find a passion or orient themselves around a career when they just don’t have anything that sparks an interest. I find that those people tend to do well when they pursue “active” jobs that don’t feel like school. A person I know in this category struggled with school throughout his life, but was really good at working with people and interacting on that emotional plane. He went into social services and now works as a crisis counsellor. Most of the “schooling” was basically just situational training, and the job itself is so intuitive to him. Honestly if he didn’t have bills to pay I swear he’d do that job for free. Other people in this category are ok with a job just feeling like work, so any high paying trade tends to work well because they can go to work, do their hours, and then enjoy life.

I’m sure this isn’t the biggest thing, but I used to work at a big chain grocery store and “accidentally forget” to scan certain items. Old woman with a food stamp in her hand vs. u/spez-level arrogant billionaire CEO? You pay me $10/hr you fuckers, if you want me to notice the toilet paper in the bottom of the cart you’d better up my pay or help that chick out. I was far from the only one.

Why could “getting you” not be a person’s most important to-do item? Would Putin not benefit greatly from getting Zelensky? Would the person up for a promotion not benefit from sabotaging their competition? Would a drug lord not benefit if his competition accidentally slipped and fell and died? There are so many instances in which a person would very logically (not to mention emotionally) benefit from targeting you personally - that’s basically the foundation of politics and resource distribution.

I also lost weight, mostly out of stubbornness. We were sitting at the dinner table and people were making fun of my “mathleticism”, I responded by jokingly saying that I could be super athletic if I chose to, and my sister then said she’d give me $1000 if I ever became “athletic”. She still hasn’t paid me. They still make fun of me, except now for going “from mathlete to athlete”. So really I didn’t accomplish much.

That’s a political view though, not a philosophical one, unless it has a philosophical underpinning.

If that happens I’m going to see it as an opportunity to go no-social media for a year. I’ve done this with other things, for example not buying clothes for a year, and my habits have changed permanently with each exercise. I’m convinced that if you can do it for a year, it starts to become part of the fabric of who you are, and if that’s preferable you’re unlikely to backslide.

It depends on the growth curve. Right now it’s exponential, which means it will keep growing. When you see it stay linear for a while, it’ll probably start to flatten. At that point, it’s either big enough to stick or it’s not.