Yeah, exactly. It's the difference between expecting passive income and thinking you'll get a work-from-home job and make a ton of money.

I think women don't lash out politically in the same way that men do when those eventually fail. They're often predicted on their labor, thus they blame themselves.

You're very right that it is largely a legitimized ponzi scheme, in some ways.

By putting the weight of investing for the future into the hands of normal people, we've normalized risk-taking to achieve financial security. This also perpetuates the idea that so many in America are planning for the day they'll be rich instead of planning for their lives as the are now.

It's not that women are immune to scams (they aren't), but I think men are willing to take more bets because they feel the traditional patriarchal weight of traditions telling them it's their job to support their family. So, they keep trying to strike it big and strike out instead.

And for young men, who see no way to get ahead through jobs but see money as a way of gaining status and relationships, they're willing to keep taking risky bets in hopes of hitting a jackpot that can never be achieved through traditional employment.

It ends up being a self-perpetuating cycle, too. Use your 401K to help through a crisis, then you feel extra pressure to recoup the time and investment you lost by taking riskier bets with the money you do have left.

Yes! And the ability to express something deep with brevity beyond what can be easily captured with prose.

Yep, it's as though they don't realize we adapt to deal with them.

The thing that's sad about this to me is that it's been a threat leveraged against me so often that my heart is calloused. I used to love the farm with my entire heart, but the constant emotional manipulation about it means I just feel nothing.