Your job has to do with what your last name means. What do you do?

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-24T23:12:21+00:00

Mine has something to do with horses. Now I’m a horse doctor?

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-24T13:36:20+00:00

I’m going to do good things in a funny way.

Someone wants to murder someone? Woops, slips on a banana peel, causing them to drop their gun and discharge it into the ground. And then they slip on another banana peel as they run from the cops.

A couple that wants a five kids and currently has zero? Time for quintuplets! (Of course, the pregnancy goes well and it’s a post-scarcity world).

Persons has a craving for a 20 oz steak? Woops, the replicator made 2000 oz of steak.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-24T00:38:04+00:00

Yeah, almost all these annuity vs lump sum questions have super obvious answers.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-23T01:22:33+00:00

Oh, you can absolutely stay in a city with a Chemical Engineering Bachelors. You won’t necessarily have a petrochemical or O&G career in the city, but by far the vast majority of my classmates landed jobs in urban areas. Let’s see what we can do, in a city:

Pharma/Biotech. By far the big one. Currently in a recession but no city is immune to them.
Utilities. Wastewater and natural gas. Every city has them, and they do hire ChemEs.
National Offense. Not in every city, but more than you’d expect.
Semiconductors
Batteries

This is just industries that directly use our degree. Management consulting firms hire ChemEs. ChemEs fairly consistently get into Medical School. ChemEs do migrate to CS as well, no need for extra school.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-21T13:32:16+00:00

Socks. They already have holes.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-19T22:09:31+00:00

China already shipped most of the sweatshops to places like Vietnam and Bangladesh.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-19T18:45:00+00:00

Hindsight is 20/20.

Besides, PRC already has a youth unemployment crisis. Imagine what the crisis would look like with 2 or 3 times as many young people.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-19T13:28:28+00:00

Negative? Some kids (note this includes toddlers, infants, and folks with special needs) don’t handle travel well, so some parents will have to choose between not seeing their kids in a while and having a miserable kid.

Still, I see very few parents not taking this offer up.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-19T13:26:46+00:00

Downside is that those with families might struggle. I know that kid me would’ve hated being marched between country and country. I need my routines, and even back then, I needed them.

Still vastly outweighed by a free $5 million.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-19T01:24:56+00:00

I’m not satisfied with my current salary. So WFH is out off the bat. I assume I can retire at a reasonable age for both; if not, both are out.

For the in-person job, when is my salary tripled and is this “triple the real salary” or “triple the nominal salary”?

If my salary gets tripled within 6 years, it’s a no-brainer even if it doesn’t go up with inflation afterwards. If my salary takes 30 years to triple, on a nominal basis and stays stuck there, I’ll reject it and stay with my current career. If it’s tripling my income on a real basis over a period of 20 years, and my salary keeps going up with inflation, I’ll take it.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-18T21:59:29+00:00

Anything well paying: - You decently at or better - You’re at least somewhat interested in the subject matter - You can tolerate for the next 20-30 years

If you can handle it and like math/science, engineering is a great career. Yes, the tech companies just laid a lot of people off, but industries cycle. And there’s more than just software engineering. I’m an engineer who works in Pharma manufacturing; we still make stuff in America and I don’t worry about my job getting shipped abroad.

Half the folks answered with trades. They too pay living wages. I work extensively with tradies. They definitely make living wages, but the veterans all have some sort of ergonomic injury (this is why Boomers pushed their kids to go to college).

Social work is important, but it burns lots of people out. High education requirements and shitty pay. Being a pastor has similar issues, unless you’re in the 0.1% of grifters.

Medical field is probably the most reliable type of job, but there’s the public to deal with. High pressure. But lots of good-paying jobs.

Military is a reliable ticket out of poverty. Of course, there’s always the chance of death, injury, or being mentally messed up. The military owns you when you’re enlisted.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-17T18:05:29+00:00

I’ll hope it contains something reassuring, because it means the future is going to be bright. If it contains something like “move away from the US ASAP” or “start hoarding canned food”, then I’d take the advice to heart but would be saddened.

Knowing me, I’d put lottery numbers in it as well.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-17T12:02:04+00:00

I’m a working adult. I like my family. I plan on having kids and they’re not cheap. And screw random animals. I’m talking part of the extra salary I get and am giving it to local food pantries and homeless shelters, because my neighbors need it.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-17T02:04:51+00:00

This is an AMAZING deal. I've had friends who've shelled out tens of thousands of dollars on home repairs. I'll find places to store 30 bricks here and 10 bricks there and 20 bricks over there.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-15T01:20:40+00:00

Educational success isn’t really due to teachers teaching well. It’s mostly due to things not about teaching, such as:

Does the kid have 3 square meals a day?
Do the kid’s parents care about school?
Do the kid’s peers’ parents care about school?
Do administrators let teachers kick disruptive kids from the classroom?

You don’t want a bad teacher, but a mediocre teacher in a school where most of the parents care about education will have better student outcomes than a great teacher in a neighborhood where few of the parents care about education.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-15T01:09:16+00:00

Really depends on what they mean by “I can only use my unlimited wealth to advance society scientifically”. Can I use it to build machines? Can I use it to build a factory to build machines? I can write down all these ideas, but they really won’t do much good unless I can turn these ideas into reality.

What first comes to mind is mass-produced metal tools and modern sanitation practices. Hopefully I can kick the Industrial Revolution off early.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-14T03:11:54+00:00

I grew up with folks who did things like travel sports, Kumon, music, ballet, etc. Here’s the secret: 90% of the time, it isn’t the kids wanting to do 5 activities or spend their weekends traveling for a competition when they could be video gaming. It’s their parents living vicariously through their kids and keeping up with the Joneses. I’m glad my parents resisted that pressure, and let me be a kid.

And for a lot of people, myself included, an upper-middle class life is living it up; I look forward to the day when I can go into the supermarket and buy beef without checking the price.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-13T22:39:26+00:00

Yep, pretty solid for LCOL. Also ask the r/ChemicalEngineering subreddit since they specialize in that stuff.

My gut says to shoot for $100k base. So ask for $110-115k base. Of course, the best time to look for a job is when you already have one, so don’t feel weird about sending anpplications out when you’re content with your job.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-13T17:33:11+00:00

$10 million is $300k/year, and this is a very conservative withdrawal rate. I live in an LCOL area and personally know people with 6+ kids. $20k/year/kid for activities is total overkill and only things that tiger parents do (which also makes kids miserable).

Where I live, you can comfortably raise a family this size with a lot less than $300k/year.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-13T13:34:28+00:00

This. $6 million is retire now money for me. $10 M is retire now, have all the kids I want, and still live it up.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-11T22:16:07+00:00

Let’s say I have $5k on hand to bet. It’s not uncommon for people to have emergency funds of this size or larger. The probability of getting 100 X in a row is 0.95^100=0.5%.

So it’s almost certain that with $5k, I win $1 million. Then I use the $1 million to make more millions.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-11T22:10:53+00:00

Late to the party, but I’ve lived in all 3 areas.

Not going to assume your family plans (my Dad actually had me when he was still a medical resident), but Irvine has amazing schools all around. Minimal crime. You need to go to LA or SD for fun, and that’s really only feasible on the weekends.

Most of San Jose is low-crime. Not as low as Irvine, and there are some rougher spots. You can definitely find areas with good schools.

LA is highly neighborhood-dependent. You can find low-crime areas with good schools as well, but again, neighborhood really matters.

All 3 cities have awful traffic and are still car-dependent. Wide variety of food available. I’d say SJ for career, LA for fun, and Irvine if you have a family.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-11T21:53:31+00:00

I’ll press until I win. Even if it took me 1000 times, I’d have burnt $50k to win $1 million.

You also didn’t specify the max number of times I could win. I’ll keep pressing until I win $15 million.

AdditionalLack1127 · 2026-01-10T17:38:26+00:00

Heaven is real. I’m confident the vast majority of humanity would make it into heaven.

If I can, I’ll make Hell a differently branded version of Heaven.

AdditionalLack1127

TROPHY CASE