You don’t have to be privileged to live in the physical world. I quit programming to make candles for years, then apartment maintenance, now in the trades. I make 1/3 what I was making doing digital work, and I’d take a pay cut before returning.
The reasons I had for leaving were manifold, but the big two were wanting to quit Adderall and having read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It’s a hard road to live a life in which I want to maximize the /quality/ of my minute-to-minute experience. It involves being very honest with myself about what I want to and don’t want to be doing. I know I want to look at a screen for work like I want a hole in the head.
If you want to jump into the physical world, become a janitor. The work is surprisingly satisfying. You spend all day fixing tangible problems that increase everyone’s quality of life.
You may have missed that they're from the developing world, where menial labor is far less well paid and far more backbreaking and dangerous than in the US.
Korea is hardly the developing world, but they're from not-US, basically, which might as well be the developing world as far as the conversation is concerned.
Hmm, yeah I'm confused, they said "as a citizen of the third world" but then noted working in Korea and Japan.
Third world is historically outside the American (first world) and Soviet bloc (second world).
I don‘t think it‘s terribly relevant today, but why beat around the bush? Let‘s call it how we mean it:
Poor.
The point that is often misunderstood is this: Korea is a wealthy country, but that wealth is highly concentrated in Seoul. Once you leave Seoul, the quality of jobs often drops significantly.
Also why are we acting like Korean workers aren't actively being exploited upon? Long hours, no time off; hardly a society worth preserving unless you're an elite who disregards human life.