> So what you end up with in this demo is a race against unsustainably high costs because you arbitrarily can't remove them.

Actually sounds pretty realistic to me. People tend not to have as much agency as we like to think.

Care to elaborate?

In this simulation you have a kid. What roommate is going to be okay rooming with a little kid? Then you have to consider safety concerns. Are you okay with your kid living in the same place as some stranger?

"Just get a roommate" is not always an option. This applies to lots of other "obvious" solutions people like to come up with when it's not them.

My home country has no social safety net. In my experience, people with kids just end up room sharing together with other families.

It is not common in the US because there are aid programs for people with children that suffice to let them get private housing, and at the very least pay for their childrens food.

I'm thinking of a "bad health simulator" that starts at age 50 after a lifetime of eating a terrible diet. Obviously there will be no good choices, everything will be limited.

It's not an interesting "simulation" because it's effectively just stating that you can run your life into a corner if you don't pay attention.

I see this attitude a lot when this type of discussion comes up. People seem to focus a lot on the idea that if you "run your life into the corner" then it automatically becomes acceptable that you're stuck with that lot in life or are somehow deserving of all of the consequences. I'm not arguing against responsibility for your choices, but mental health, upbringing, addiction and so much more play huge factors in determining lifestyle and outcome. Regardless, is it in society's best interest to attempt to uplift those in need and help them become more productive members for the greater good? I think so.

I don't mean to put words in your mouth or assume what attitudes lie behind your personal thinking, I'm just reflecting on my own thoughts about this.

I don't think that "acceptable/unacceptable" is a sensible way of thinking about it; it's just axiomatic that there are some irreversible situations that cannot easily be gotten out of - time moves forwards, not back.

We might be able to move the bar, and that might be a good idea (welfare programs, etc), but that's all we can do, and there is clearly a point beyond which trying to rescue people is throwing good money after bad.

There is no way of preventing a human from damaging themselves in the general case (whether that damage be intentional or unintentional; I'm not moralizing here.).

I feel both you and esotericn have simultaneously valid points. It would be valuable to students to have different scenarios where you have a kid, or don't. Even scenarios that occur in different countries, one with a safety net and one without would be a really valuable learning tool.

Agreed. This simulator seems to make a lot of near worst case assumptions and paint with a very broad brush.

For starters:

Lifting 20lb is not going to take a toll on your body unless your body is already beat to crap from something else.

Most people can replace a window. If you don't then you probably know someone who can. Poor people trade semi-skilled labor around as favors all the time.

You don't need to join a gym to stay in shape, especially if your job involves manual labor. You also don't need to stay in tip top physical shape, just don't let yourself get seriously out of shape.

Nobody is doing credit checks for lower end jobs or lower end housing. They care more about your criminal record or lack thereof. If your poor you're either not going to use credit or your credit will be crap. Good credit isn't going to help you dig a ditch or unload a truck so you'll get hired anyway.

The whole point of choosing housing on the rural end of the available options is to reduce the cost of living and not have someone siphon the gas out of your car. In the simulation the shopping selector reflects city prices and the crime happens anyway.

Doing laundry in a sink, tub or 5gal bucket is a perfectly fine option if your washer doesn't work. It also doesn't cost $30 to go to the laundromat. You don't just wear dirty clothes. That's what college kids who've never lived on their own and lose their laundry card do.

I get that the whole point of this game it to make a statement but it paints a picture that seriously undersells the resourcefulness of poor people. It's also very clear that the decision tree in this simulator was written using a set of assumptions about how certain problems be solved and those assumptions were either made in an ivory tower or were designed to mostly go unnoticed to those in ivory towers.

edit: Yes I have had jobs like this. I know exactly what they're like. I've been a janitor, I've worked in food-service, I've done under the table construction, I've worked for a temp agency. I've literally dug ditches and scrubbed toilets (not that bad on average, watch out for the edge cases though). If you expect me to have a lot of sympathy with people who lift 20lb in a 70deg warehouse then you will be disappointed. Yes it's a crappy job that pays poorly and I'm sure it's soul crushing but it's not the pyramid building slave labor that some people like to equate it to. The lack of advancement opportunities (advancement to better paying jobs) in some of these jobs are what I consider the primary reason that people in these jobs can't get out of poverty.

I’m curious as to whether you’ve ever had a job like this?

There’s a difference between lifting/carrying the occasional 20lb weight, and doing that continuously for 8 hours.

I used to have 8 hour shifts at a standing only checkout - it took about a month before my back started hurting continuously. This was just a standing on concrete job, not even lifting all day.

Low end housing does do credit checks, and does increase your “deposit”.

>I’m curious as to whether you’ve ever had a job like this?

Several. I edited my original comment to reflect this.

>I used to have 8 hour shifts at a standing only checkout - it took about a month before my back started hurting continuously. This was just a standing on concrete job, not even lifting all day.

Not imagine it being hotter, louder higher humidity, and having to bend over slightly to reach things all the time. Welcome to a dishroom.

I’m impressed you did that without back pain :)

Just to be clear though

1. I said I got back pain just standing on concrete, without actually lifting anything

2. People are super bad at lifting things properly, so I’m sure a reasonable number of injuries are “avoidable”

3. I’m not saying that everything in this was realistic (there are some questionable options), just that this particular case is super plausible. After all the equivalent in tech is RSI/OOS (whatever it’s called now), and that’s super common even though avoiding it is way easier than avoiding back problems when your job is picking things up.

> Lifting 20lb is not going to take a toll on your body unless your body is already beat to crap from something else.

Sure. Now do it for 8 hours a day without air conditioning.

Your body adapts - it's a workout. After a month or so it's easy.

You have a child in this 'simulation'.

What you need is a tradeoff between high rents and high commuting costs. You can get an affordable rent, but commuting eats 4 hours of each day and a big chunk of that money you were saving on rent.

I can't judge how true this is in the US, but in Europe the sane choice in this situation would be to rent a smaller flat, and maybe get a flatmate (more unusual with a child, but not unheard of).

The assumption you’re making is that you’re not already in a small shared flat (the amounts quoted are reasonable for a shared apartment in most of the Bay Area)