It's that time of year again for the US-China reconciliation. In fact, I have a very deep impression of a post from the beginning of the year when many Americans joined Xiaohongshu.

Here I will first introduce the concept of the "killing line", which originated from World of Warcraft. It refers to the point at which a character's health drops to a certain critical level, after which receiving even 1 point of damage will lead to their demise.

It is now used to describe the situation in American society where an individual or family's financial status deteriorates to a critical point, which, once triggered, leads to homelessness with no way to recover.

The poster is a girl from the United States who once wandered for six years. She talks about her parents, who stopped going to school very early, and gave birth to her at nineteen. When she was just over a year old, her mother ran away, and her father worked while taking care of her. When she was sixteen, her father lost his job, and the family could no longer afford food for two people. As a result, she was "asked" to leave the house.

From the age of sixteen to eighteen, she wandered near the community, relying on neighbors for assistance, doing odd jobs, and living off luck. Her father would occasionally sneak her some food, but this was eventually discovered. After turning eighteen, she left the community and began a true form of wandering.

The United States is a credit society; without credit, you have nothing.
So once you enter a state of wandering, it means you have no fixed residence.

Without a fixed residence, it's hard to find a formal job, so you can only take on odd jobs, and the money earned from one odd job is not enough to buy food, so you have to work at least two jobs.

If you can't pay your phone bill, you won't even be able to find a gig.

An extremely cold but completely self-consistent cycle, with the average lifespan of a homeless person in the US being 3-6 years.

This girl is considered lucky because the gig colleagues she met were all very nice and often provided her with food. Relying on a "starve for a meal, feast for a meal" state, she barely managed to keep up with her phone bill.

Even so, it's just surviving.

Working during the day, sleeping on the street or in the park at night. She said winter is the most terrifying because it can really freeze people to death.

Thus her life became a periodic migration:
In the summer, go to a city with jobs to work and save money.
Wandering in warm cities during winter, spending all the money.

She met her husband while wandering.

In her fourth year of wandering, her father sent her 800 dollars. This 800 dollars was the money her father had saved for nearly two years.

She rented a house with her husband using this 800 dollars.
With an address, both of them found formal jobs.
She works in a restaurant, and her husband delivers food.

She later said that without this money, she and her husband would likely have starved to death. At that time, they had almost no options left and only contacted her father with a try-it-and-see attitude.

When she was young, her family was always very friendly to homeless people, which is probably why she has such good luck. Her father used to allow homeless people to stay in their home until they found work.
In those years, many people later sent her father thank-you fees.
But later, the economic environment in the United States deteriorated, and the quality of homeless individuals noticeably declined.

⸻

Let's turn back and talk about the kill line.

The so-called kill line does not mean that you are doing poorly, but rather that once you fall below a certain threshold, the system itself no longer allows you to return to a normal trajectory.

In the United States, this line is usually composed of several things:

No deposit
No stable address
High medical costs
Loss of credit system
Forced into gig and homeless status

Once the overlay is complete, the system will automatically clear you.

This is also why the news you see later will be:
American veterans can't afford medical bills and die on the streets;
The remains are legally cut and sold for medical teaching.
All processes are legal, but no one is responsible.

This was the first time the old Chinese was quite shocked to see this; actually, there is a very interesting phenomenon this year.

A large number of Americans are starting to flock to Xiaohongshu for communication.
Including professors, engineers, white-collar workers, and veterans.

People have found that the United States is not overall wealthy, but rather a society that is extremely unfriendly to the lower and middle classes. Many people in the past lived on domestic blood packages and return city vouchers.

In China, when we talk about the fundamentals, at least we still have the old house at home and land to grow vegetables. There are no high medical bills, and it won't easily lead to drugs and violence.

The lower class in the United States has nothing to do with being poor; they are directly abandoned by the system.

It is precisely for this reason that, to some extent, social mobility in the United States is not difficult to ascend, but once it declines, it is almost irreversible.

⸻

Speaking of which, we have to talk about social systems. We often have discussions that are quite polarized. Many people tend to simplify these stories as issues related to the United States.

But this is actually a social Darwinism issue.

The system relies heavily on credit, addresses, medical, and compliant identities to operate. When there is almost no buffer mechanism for disordered individuals, a killing line will naturally form. Once breached, individual willpower becomes nearly ineffective.

Then there are institutions like insurance companies and hospitals that do not serve people. This is why there are cases of insurance company CEOs being shot, indicating a heavy social resentment.

In fact, to a certain extent, the concept of the kill line reflects not only the problems of capitalism. I have always believed that human nature is inherently good, but when faced with such issues and without a social support system, it's quite absurd.

People have been completely alienated into tools.

A short story

According to reports from the Observer Network citing American media, last September, the University of North Texas Health Science Center was exposed for long-term sales of unclaimed bodies, including the body of U.S. Army veteran Victor Carl Honey (pictured), which was secretly cut up and sold.

According to reports, Victor's right leg was purchased by a Swedish medical device company for $341 for surgical tool training; the torso was bought by an American medical education company for $900 for students to practice spinal stimulator implantation in Pittsburgh; a part of the skull was acquired by the U.S. Army for $210 for military medical training.

According to reports, Victor became homeless and died on the streets because he could not afford medical expenses. He was quite proud and did not reach out to his ex-wife and children before his death.

As the scandal of the "Health Science Center" continues to unfold, it has come to light that the institution has sold over 1,500 corpses, including 32 that belonged to veterans.

Despite public opinion repeatedly fermenting, ultimately no one is held accountable for the matter. Reports say, "because all procedures are legal."

So you will find that there are still fallback options suitable for older Chinese.

Socialism is still good.

-----------------------------------
At the end, I present my favorite music.

Share playlist: Witness Little Tune, Ascending the Long Steps, Collection of Missing You (@NetEase Cloud Music)