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Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by toomuchtodo on Saturday March 26, 2022 @01:27PM (#30813619)
Because poverty and lack of economic options. There’s a reason trucking turned into a race to the bottom after the decline of unionization and deregulation of the industry.
Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by ransom1538 on Saturday March 26, 2022 @01:33PM (#30813676)
Sure, but this isn't 1956. I could walk into an AppleBees TODAY and walk out with a job - easily crush $25 an hour -- and my car will be Turo'ed at work.
Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by toomuchtodo on Saturday March 26, 2022 @02:14PM (#30813987)
Applebees and renting your car on Turo is the bar? Peak HN. Go talk to more people living paycheck to paycheck. The struggle is shared and legitimate.
Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by renewiltord on Sunday March 27, 2022 @12:41AM (#30817767)
I don’t know anyone living paycheck to paycheck but it appears you do. Care to share what they would say?
Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by toomuchtodo on Sunday March 27, 2022 @11:21AM (#30820919)
I can share detailed portraits of the people I’ve spoken with, I will make time to put something together. In the interim:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30820753

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/03/20/intergenera...

https://archive.ph/bNEAc

The above story is not an outlier.

Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by renewiltord on Sunday March 27, 2022 @04:10PM (#30823615)
I finally got around to reading this. Must the poor people in these stories always be cast so unsympathetically? I found it sadly depressing because, despite my means, I can’t imagine supplying anything that could unspiral these people.

It’s perhaps a big lesson in avoidance. And how cheap it is for society to prevent bad outcomes relative to undoing them.

Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by toomuchtodo on Sunday March 27, 2022 @04:12PM (#30823639)
> It’s perhaps a big lesson in avoidance. And how cheap it is for society to prevent bad outcomes relative to undoing them.

I could not agree more, and this is where the largest gains at the least cost are to be found imho.

Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by renewiltord on Sunday March 27, 2022 @04:38PM (#30823864)
The actual machinery of this bothers me, though.

The straightforward stuff we can all agree about: (or perhaps not, and I’ll change my mind gladly with evidence)

- Build dense homes in poor places adjacent to places of economic activity so that private transport is cheap and public transport makes sense for the state

- Provide baseline medical care at cost from the state

But there is so much stuff that is trade-offs. Here’s some stuff I would want which others won’t:

- Baseline medical care should be MD-free and be purely NPs. Rationale: the state can boost NP production as needed / it has no control over MD production

- Leverage access should be limited but it should be possible to lie on the forms and face the music in the downside case. Folks like me should have access, but folks like this guy in the story shouldn’t. He’s going to spiral but I’ve weathered six figure losses with equanimity

- I want to control addictive substances but clearly prohibition doesn’t work and clearly many incapable people use them whereas also many capable use them. Ideally, people like me (smart, easy de-addiction) should have access and the remainder should furnish some sort of bond before they are permitted but that’s impossible

Also, I looked into the homelessness situation a while back when the COVID pandemic was in full swing and it is full of people who are not outcomes-oriented Gish Galloping their way to nonsense interventions.

The GiveWell.org of American poverty interventions would be nice, I think.

Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by renewiltord on Sunday March 27, 2022 @01:20PM (#30822005)
Appreciated. Which RSS feed / newsletter do I subscribe to to ensure that I get your story once it’s done.

Also thanks for the link.

Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by toomuchtodo on Wednesday March 30, 2022 @03:24PM (#30859711)
Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by toomuchtodo on Sunday March 27, 2022 @02:05PM (#30822460)
I will email you directly.
Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by MikeTheGreat on Saturday March 26, 2022 @02:51PM (#30814268)
> my car will be Turo'ed at work.

I'm curious - what does it mean to "Turo" a car?

I'm assuming it means "parked in the parking lot" but I've never heard the expression before.

Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by FigureTheGreat on Saturday March 26, 2022 @03:07PM (#30814408)
Turo is a service that lets you rent out your car when you aren't using it, so it could provide a 2ndary income stream while you are at work
Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by leetcrew on Saturday March 26, 2022 @04:55PM (#30815280)
to be clear, it's kind of absurd to suggest that renting out the car you need to get home for the duration of your shift is a reasonable thing to do.
Re:I Am a Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are... by ransom1538 on Saturday March 26, 2022 @06:53PM (#30816079)
Curios why? If someone wants it for an extra 3 days/nights, shoulder shrug take uber home = more money. Someone cancels, drive to work. Someone has it? Uber = more money. Someone cancels during work, drive home like normal. Not following why this is absurd. I think it would be absurd to just sit it in the lot for 10 hours (2 extra hours since I am sucking up those sweet tips) - or take buses home and have a 2 hour commute?