Wage Slave or NEET Failure? /biz/ Debates Life's Worst Option

Users on the board squared off over whether employment or unemployment is the greater hell, with former NEETs warning of ruin and wagies lamenting lost time.

A heated philosophical brawl erupted on /biz/ this week when users attempted to settle one of modern capitalism’s central questions: is it worse to work a wage job or exist as a NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training)?

The OP posed the binary starkly. What followed was 165 replies of competing misery narratives, each faction convinced the other had chosen the more catastrophic path.

The Wage-Posting Defense

Several commenters, predominantly self-described former NEETs, mounted an aggressive case for employment despite its indignities. One respondent wrote that waging enabled him to afford a functioning PC, quality games, and basic social participation: “Now I can go out, and dance, and go buy a some outfit from thriftshops. I am still making shit, but now I can LIVE.”

Another user framed employment as a prerequisite for romantic access, claiming a wage job had transformed his ability to attract women and escape an incel-adjacent existence. “It’s a fucking testosterone shot straight into your brain that wakes you up to what a fucking lie you been living,” the commenter wrote, alleging that he had wasted years as a NEET listening to social media.

The most brutal warning came from a respondent allegedly in his early thirties: “The unfortunate truth is that being a NEET is basically the ultimate way of fucking yourself over, unless big inheritance is guaranteed…Reality will hit you like the Malaysian Airlines flight 370 Boeing 777 hit the Indian Ocean.” Users on the board claimed that long-term NEETdom without family support creates inescapable destitution.

The Wagie Blackpill

Opposing voices painted employment as soul-crushing drudgery. One user countered that four weeks of annual leave is “such a small amount of time I cant even stand to use it because im psychologically cucked.” Another allegedly noted that modern job applications via automated platforms like Workday represented a humiliation ritual, demanding applicants meticulously copy-paste information into “dogshit boxes.”

Several commenters argued wages fail to accumulate wealth at working-class levels, with one writing: “You are labor and no laborer ends up like Trump or Musk…50% of all baby boomers are broke and destitute that’s proof enough waging isn’t the correct path.”

The Synthesis

A few voices attempted balance. One respondent argued both paths demand intentionality: “NEET + discipline (learning, building, training) = rare but viable. Wagie + skill-building / saving = actually opens options over time. Most people in this thread are arguing about comfort vs discomfort, not outcomes.”

Another identified the ideal compromise: “WFH wagie,” allegedly offering structure, income, and time autonomy without commute hell.

By thread’s end, users had not resolved whether being a wage slave or a dependent failure was civilization’s greater indignity. Most appeared to agree only that the modern economy offers no genuinely palatable options.