Aspies For Freedom

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $40,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping -- they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Bill Gates :lol:

I hate bill gates as much as the next geek, but he had some points here.

I'd rather make money in a legitimate way (microsoft are well known for illegal business practices) not by becoming the next Bill Gates.

There are several good points about how life really is here though - real life does indeed have very few breaks and you won't be given many second chances when you screw up like you get at school. This doesn't mean there's nothing good, just that you do have to actually put up with some crap to get the good stuff.

So you think it's unrealistic to say that you won't make $40,000 per year straight out of high school, that refusing to flip burgers due to counterproductive pride (resulting in being unemployed instead) is stupid and in the real world you don't get as much time off as in school?

And what do you propose become the new currency after you get rid of the need to make money? Or do you think that everyone regardless of how hard they work should get the same rewards?

No system is perfect, but to suggest that nobody should be allowed to earn more is quite reprehensible. Under a communist-type system, everyone would be given the same even if they were incredibly lazy or worked constantly. Under capitalism, you can earn your way to higher income through hard work. All the people who are never given a chance to put in this hard work are a shame, but this does not mean that the right to trade freely should be stripped.

Who said flipping burgers has anything to do with morality? The basic point is if you have to choose between unemployment and flipping burgers then flipping burgers is better as you actually get income from it.

Doh!
Still some very good points in there (and i could imagine Bill Gates following these rules himself).

If you couldn't afford a computer and were unemployed you wouldn't be capable of doing that. Refusing a burger-flipping job and choosing total poverty instead is foolish.

Why could you not work on an open-source project if you were unable to afford a computer? Or why would it be foolish to refuse a burger-flipping job?

The answer to both seems rather obvious.

My point on unemployment was that letting pride get in the way of your income is completely foolish. Those who are unemployed but never even attempt to do anything about it and are perfectly capable of doing something are total parasites.

I recently got my results for my assignments at uni last year - 2 merits and 2 passes. With some harder work (i.e starting straight away instead of pulling so many last minute jobs) I could have got at least 1 distinction and upgraded the passes to merits. Who is to blame for this but me? When I finish my education I intend to go job hunting - if my education is not up to scratch due to not working hard enough on my assignments that'll be my own fault (discrimination at interviews are something else which I do not have so much control over). If I screw up in other ways - still my fault. People who screw up and then complain about how unfair everything is when they could go and do something instead of complaining annoy me.

Parasites have dignity?

haha

Seriously - how do people who are perfectly capable of working and yet don't even attempt to get a job and instead live off benefits for life have dignity?

My point was that people who are perfectly capable of working yet choose not to and instead rely upon benefits for life are essentially abusing the system.