You want more than that? Then you need the wealth the capitalist society generates, and you need the wealth you generate as a part of it. ... You can choose your level of participation in this horrible, nasty society of ours. Your trouble is you think you should be able to make that choice- how much to participate in what you lament- without giving ANYTHING up.

I don't think there is much opportunity to partially participate to a specific level you are happy with - until you've slaved for a number of years and managed some level of financial freedom.

You either drop out completely at an early age - and depending on your parents lifestyle you may already have dropped out before you were born - or you go to school, get a subsistence job at a fast food joint whilst working hard to be "better" at a college or some such (if you get that opportunity at all). And if you are really lucky you can "go all the way" to be a professional - ie a white collar slave.

And whilst you are working you need some of these "things of kings" that weren't around 100 years ago. Try living without a phone or a car (no public transport in 95% of cities in this world is woeful), a rented house or mortgage, electricity, water, gas, working clothes, a decent meal, and a few basic whitegoods. They are not luxuries in this world. You don't have them you can't get to work and earn anything, let alone as a professional. They take up quite a lot of disposable income.

So my choices are either drop out as a bum at 15 and skulk on the streets for my entire life, or load myself up with debt, work for 50 years fearing for my job and life, or step off the planet. Middle class is disappearing and so are the levels of participation as you put it.

I know for me at least, 'current job' would have to be really REALLY bad before it beat no job.

Then plan to be able to live for 6 months without a job and without losing your house if needed. Then you will have the option to leave if 'current job' only gets 'pretty bad'. If not, then plan to die working your arse off for somebody else without hope and fear every bump in the stock market.

Unfortunately this is a real predicament for a lot of people in the industry, neh the world. Demonstrates how capitalism is not that far removed from slavery for a large proportion of people. Indeed this ruthless efficiency of working every "cog" in the machine to death is considered an end goal of a successful pure capitalist society.

Cheer up. At least suicide is a way to get out of the machine.

I thought I read once that Antarctica was considered a desert because its precipitation levels were so low.

Correct. It's too cold for liquid water to form and evaporate into the atmosphere, so the air is dry and it does not rain. The definition of "arid" is less than 50mm of rain per year (I believe). As it doesn't rain, it is a desert. The definition is not connected to the degree of life present (deserts have life), nor by high temperatures.