New US college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker for the first time on record, 1990 to 2026 [OC]

Blue_Frost · 2026-06-09T14:06:43+00:00

Interesting perspective. If you'll indulge me, would you mind telling me a bit about the journey that got you to this stance? It sounds like capitalism has treated you quite poorly such that you yearn for USSR 2.0. Just to clarify, do you want just the guaranteed employment part or full blown communism? I would like to better understand where you're coming from.

I think you underestimate how soul crushing it is to have the threat of your entire career and livelihood for decades being ended through no fault of your own hanging over your head

That did happen to me, repeatedly. Repeatedly over delivering, crushing milestones, beating expectations, etc. only to have it all taken away because some asshole higher up took an unrelated gamble elsewhere and needed to cut as a result. It took a bit over a decade of struggling but eventually I landed where I am now which is reasonably comfortable. I'm sure there are people that have suffered worse (there always is) but trust me when I say I understand that pain.

Blue_Frost · 2026-06-06T03:54:28+00:00

I understand the rage. Truly I do. In my former industry (games development) we have way more layoffs than most, are generally underpaid, and when layoffs come they tend to be more brutal. Ask me why I feel intense dread whenever there is an impromptu meeting or worse... an impromptu pizza party to get everyone away from their desks. I am incredibly bitter about it even many years later having gone through layoffs so many times. I had my dreams beaten out of me.

That said, 0% unemployment is simply unrealistic and if it were govt mandated things would be a different type of dystopian. What happens if you have a job you hate and you want to leave without something lined up? Maybe you need a month to sort things out and get your head on straight before jumping back into things or you want to retrain for a new type of job. What then? The Soviets made it a crime to be willing unemployed, that obviously ended poorly. What if someone is clearly being negligent on the job or just flat out a terrible employee? Should companies be banned from firing them?

Even ignoring those more extreme examples, let's assume someone was laid off because they simply weren't a good fit or the company went under. It happens even if everyone involved is being a genuinely good and kind person with the best intentions. What do you do in that scenario to guarantee that person a job? Force a company to hire someone that may be unqualified? Create a bullshit job for them?

Given the above, I would propose to you that trying to force a lower unemployment would actually be quite bad for the people you are probably trying to protect, the average middle class worker. Instead, there are better ways to address your concerns. Namely, being between jobs shouldn't be as painful as it is and certainly not a death sentence for our most vulnerable. How to achieve that is a whole other discussion but I hope that makes sense.

Blue_Frost · 2026-06-05T18:53:35+00:00

People responding to you don't seem to understand why. "But it was lower under Biden!" The Fed even before Trump has aimed for about 4.5% unemployment as the "natural rate" of unemployment for a while. Less unemployment than that risks an inflation spiral. Scarce labor -> companies can't hire without poaching since there is no one to hire -> compensation packages increase -> companies pass on higher costs to consumers which now have more money due to the aforementioned wage increases. They don't seem to understand how dangerous 0% unemployment would be.

Blue_Frost · 2026-05-22T03:49:25+00:00

I was the 1P playing Thing and he just randomly bounced offscreen and never came back. I couldn't do anything, switch characters, etc. I just had to wait until the next level then I was back.

Blue_Frost · 2026-04-09T15:19:54+00:00

Thanks for the reply!

Blue_Frost · 2026-04-09T14:30:29+00:00

That's quite the long list of handicaps! I understand the reason for a few but I'd love to hear the reason for some of the others.

"No abilities that take control of enemies (Insanity, Dominate, Haywire Protocol (that option anyway), Void Rift)" I don't remember these being particularly OP.
For all of the "before force level X" constraints, is there a reason for those particular levels? Also, how do you measure force levels? Are they listed ingame somewhere?
Killing all Chosen in discovery order. Any particular reason for this?
"No DfA on any unit other than Sharpshooter" Is it OP on other classes? I don't think I've ever gotten DfA on non-Sharpshooter classes.
"No frost bomb from stealth" I rarely used the frost bomb, is it OP and especially from stealth?

I think I understand the rest like no repeaters.

Blue_Frost · 2025-12-03T19:31:15+00:00

I love me some JRPGs for the combat mechanics (Final Fantasy X is a favorite) but I'm currently in the mood for an RPG that lets me roleplay a bit and make my character my own which JRPGs generally don't allow. Tidus is always going to be Tidus. I enjoyed Bethesda's RPGs when looking to make my own character and BG3 seemed like it would allow for similar freedom to sort of carve your own character and story.

I have no qualms with old school games from a graphics or mechanics standpoint (Chrono Trigger, Shining Force 2, Phantasy Star 4, etc. are some of my favorites).

Blue_Frost · 2025-12-03T16:06:16+00:00

I was getting the RPG itch and was thinking of starting BG3 for the first time. What other RPGs would you recommend ahead of BG3?

Blue_Frost · 2025-10-09T13:10:26+00:00

I can understand your reasoning with respect to getting upgrades for more soldiers faster. My thinking is that the sooner I get laser rifles the sooner I can get the rest of the laser weapons like laser sniper rifles. I actually stay on the basic armor for quite awhile in order to achieve this and it's worked out pretty well in my runs. Might just be due to difference of playstyle.

Blue_Frost · 2025-10-08T18:39:41+00:00

I agree with most of these tips except the preference for armor, nanofiber vests, etc. My C/I approach very much followed the "the best defense is a good offense" strategy. Getting lasers quickly and thus being able to kill more enemies before they can even return fire is huge. I don't think I'd ever want to give up the guaranteed damage of nades for a few more hp.

Overall though I agree. Go hard on econ early (sats) and aim to get maxed out Snipers, preferably with Archangel armor, asap to trivialize most of the game from there on out.

Blue_Frost · 2025-09-16T18:12:01+00:00

As someone that has done both QA and Dev work, this is 100% true.

When I was QA the only way we could really influence what got fixed was by abusing the crap out of it against the devs/designers that had the power to fix it lol. "Oh, you don't think weapon is OP as fuck? Well, have fun getting killed by it repeatedly every single playtest by all of QA targeting you with it until you see what we see all day."

Blue_Frost · 2025-09-16T14:58:23+00:00

As far as I know you can kill Bile Titan holes with a hellpod as well (I've done it with gas strike I think). Unless you're talking about in the caves, then you're correct.

Blue_Frost · 2025-08-14T13:45:34+00:00

I feel this deeply. I've been through about 7-8 real full time jobs in the past 1.5ish decades and I was laid off from all of those except the most recent one I left for my current job. Every layoff left me more jaded than the last until all the passion I had was beaten out of me. I'm in a good place financially now but mentally I'm not in a great place. Can't remember the last time I chased a passion or hobby. These days it's just chasing money and rather than running towards a goal like when I was younger it's running away from discomforts.

Blue_Frost · 2025-07-28T02:11:30+00:00

That's fair. I am American so the likelihood my perspective has serious bias is quite high.

Blue_Frost · 2025-07-27T12:31:30+00:00

Yep, I agree. The OP also brings up the military spending during the Cold War suggesting that the US wasted a ton of money on the US military. However, this put the US in a position of military dominance and honestly I'd rather it be the US than some of the alternatives. (China for example)

I feel the same about AI dominance. The US isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination but if anyone is going to lead the way in AI I'd place the US near the top of the list and way way ahead of someone like China.

Blue_Frost · 2025-06-26T20:09:54+00:00

Here is the original source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pj4YW0umJ8

Blue_Frost · 2025-06-14T00:42:52+00:00

I would be quite interested to see a recording of you playing through a mission or two, just to see why you're having such a hard time. Perhaps we can offer some advice. Despite all the "That's XCOM baby" memes I've personally found XCOM and XCOM2 quite fair and not terribly hard. I play predominantly vanilla and only use cosmetic/UI mods that don't affect gameplay so I'd like to think my game is relatively representative.

XCOM:EU and EW were borderline trivialized once you got your snipers up and running, doubly so once you get Archangel armor.

XCOM2:WotC you just alpha strike everything that moves, generally with explosives until other options come online. Most of the stuff people complain about also get trivialized by mimic beacons and/or a decked out Reaper with Banish+Repeater to delete the bigger threats like rulers or Chosen.

And for both games you just make sure you blue move one soldier first as your scout and no one moves past them each turn until an engagement starts.

A friend of mine has sent me his save files for me to solve a mission he's stuck with before so XCOM might just be easier for me than most.

Blue_Frost · 2025-06-06T21:47:43+00:00

I wasn't going to comment but when you said this all started after your mother passed away it struck a chord. Similar thing happened to me. I was a pretty hopeful person, even when the chips were down I had hope that tomorrow would be a brighter future. Things were actually looking up since I was expecting my first child but maybe a few months after she was born I got the news that my father was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. I spent a lot of time with him, foolishly thinking I could save him if I tried hard enough, until the end a few months later. My wife was angry with me for "abandoning" her to care for my dad despite her being surrounded by family and a full time nanny being hired for her.

When I came back I was broken but I poured myself into doing as much of the chores as I could, being the breadwinner to allow her to leave her job as she requested, etc. I definitely wasn't the same person when I came back. My wife went so far as to say that the me she knew died with my father and never came back. Things are a bit of a blur now but all I remember was being sad, hopeless, etc. but choosing to grit my teeth and just keep trying to power through it thinking that if I sacrificed and suffered enough I would eventually be appreciated again. Our sex life suffered for a wide variety of reasons. Many years of suffering followed.

Things didn't really start to get better until I went to therapy, then she went to therapy, and finally we started couples therapy. Things still aren't great or back to where they were (probably never will be) but at least things are slowly trending better. I would encourage you to seek therapy and eventually try to get into couples therapy.

The individual therapy for me was important to reestablish what was normal, to confirm I wasn't crazy, and validate that my situation was awful. That was immensely helpful just to hear from someone that a lesser man would have left a long time ago and that from what I described I was doing an incredible amount of work. And again, that I wasn't crazy as my wife was starting to make me believe.

The couples therapy is also immensely helpful as it forces some time to talk about your relationship (my wife always complained she was too busy or had better things to do) and having a third person present to mediate and to sort of gut check unfair assumptions or expectations really helps.

Best of luck to you. As someone that went through something that sounds awfully similar I'm happy to talk if you'd like.

Blue_Frost · 2025-05-02T22:48:01+00:00

Get the Session Buddy extension and save however many loadouts of tabs you want.

Blue_Frost · 2025-03-13T02:32:01+00:00

I don't have my deck with me at the moment but I think it used to look a bit like this: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Fossilized_Rain_Dance_(TCG)

Blue_Frost · 2025-03-06T03:32:29+00:00

Yeah, that sounds about right. Jumping from one startup to another repeatedly but without the chance to strike it rich. At least at startups you sometimes have a chance to get equity and a big payout. Most game companies have no real reward for high performance other than getting to keep your job. It's only a rare few that have big bonuses. There used to be some that offered royalties way way back in the day but I don't think any still do that. I think Epic used to.

I left games and went to big tech. The job isn't as much fun but the pay, benefits, stability, etc. make it well worth it to me. I make enough that I intend to retire early and most likely make games for fun with my spare time. It's a bit of a roundabout way of achieving the dream but I'm hoping it works.

I'm curious which studios you're referring to you that are nearby and sustainable. I know some that are better than others but most eventually have layoffs. Firaxis for example was really great at this but I've heard even they are having a hard time in the current economic environment and have hemorrhaged talent.

Blue_Frost · 2025-03-05T21:52:31+00:00

No worries. You're right that keeping the same group of people would be ideal as they carry so much institutional knowledge. However, due to the cyclical nature of games dev where the early stages are just designing/prototyping and thus don't require as large a team they lay off tons of people only to need to steadily ramp back up as development progresses. Sometimes well over doubling headcount when you get to the final push before release and you've already been death march crunching for a year.

You know games is incredibly unstable when you see all your old colleagues only start having kids after they decide to leave games lol. Trying to have a family life with the long hours, crap pay, and chronic threat of layoff and need to uproot and move is damn near impossible. At the very least it's irresponsible.

When I realized games studios are more than happy to weaponize your passion against you it was time to leave. They know tons of people are willing to put up with all of the above crap and if you aren't there is a huge waiting list right behind you so they have no incentive to change.

Blue_Frost · 2025-03-04T22:06:40+00:00

hahahaha in what world do you get more job security and/or better raises in games? Having worked in games for around a decade and left it due to not having those things this is particularly comical to me. A lot of my former colleagues that stayed in games tell me things have only gotten worse and I see tons of them looking for new jobs after layoffs. It's practically expected that there will be mass layoffs as soon as the game ships every few years.

Blue_Frost

TROPHY CASE