What are non intelligent people like me supposed to do for money?

Move. You’re describing a local disequilibrium.

(We need subsidised economic mobility vouchers for citizens in America.)

I find reducing expenses is much easier. I manage to live on about 20% of my net income, and I could make more than two of me live while earning minimum wage. Since the amount of savings needed for retirement is directly related to your expenses, by reducing them you need to save even less.

Make a budget, see where you can save the most. Move to a low cost-of-living area, get rid of your car, learn to cook, and in general learn to be content on less.

Sure, we can't dream for the standard of living our parents and grandparents had anymore. But this standard was in no way realistic. It was fueled by an era of cheap energy and a booming, young population. It was never environmentally sustainable. Nor would it be even with renewable energy. We have to adjust our standards.

The tragedy for me is not on an economic level, it's on a social level. The fragmentation of ideologies, the loss of community, the loneliness, the atrophy of real life interactions. Not that I have known much of what it was like before. Yet this is also a choice we make collectively. Rebuilding community takes time but it's definitely doable. And from my experience it starts by moving aside from technology.

Look at history and read about the union fights around 1900, to me that is the place were young people are now. You will need to fight and more fight for your life.

Just... gahh... what is the point of this.. I feel the same way minus roomates... funny enough, I'm actually considering moving back in with housemates because living by myself is so uneventful.. I've been on the dating app hamster wheel for years.. Something is so broken here.. I'm not so sure wealth is even the answer..

I've been researching "intentional communities"

But otherwise, if you're poor you should do what other poor people do. Get married(dual income), live with family(more income and economies of scale), accept a long commute, and only shop at Costco. All of these can bring the cost of living down significantly. That's what most poor / lower class people do. Also doing all of this doesn't mean you have to be unhappy.

Apprentice as a lineman, tons of jobs doing that paying well here. All you have to do is show up to work every day and not quit.

1. It's the union jobs that pay well.

2. You might not get a full 40 hours of work per week.

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In any case, I think the big non-white-collar job category worth investigating is trucking. "But YellowApple!" I can already hear you retort, "self-driving trucks will put truckers out of a job!" Yeah, I'll believe that when robots are able to put chains on tires, deal with asshole cops nitpicking log books, and otherwise reliably handle the bullshit truckers put up with as part of their job descriptions. AI might be able to automate the driving part, but I don't see human operators being absent from the cabs anytime soon.

p.s. Those do take intelligence though, so maybe that doesn't count?

Start your own business, hustle, and bust ass

For smart people, average people, and below average people we often fall into the same problem that they're describing. What do we do? How do we take advantage of opportunities? How do we get ahead? Even to the point of how do you get to a normal middle class lifestyle. I struggled with this for a long time. The first answer is to adjust your expectations and align them more with reality. Learn how to do without, learn how to live at an income level lower than what you have regardless of what that income level is. Then take the blinders off to opportunity. Because you talk about the income in labor fields not being what is advertised. The problem is you're looking at the labor fields in a given area, or with a given set of restrictions. People often look for their opportunities only where they're at and not at the opportunities they have in other places or or other fields. We're often afraid to take risks that allow us to take advantage of those opportunities. Sometimes we have burdens that we have assumed such as a spouse and family that prevent us from taking advantage of opportunities. More often, in my experience, we have burdens that we have placed upon ourself artificially that allow us not to take advantage of the opportunities. Once you can get out of the mindset that you are tied to an area or a location or a field where all of these burdens that trap us the opportunities are there and you're willing to take the risk to take advantage of them.

It took me many years to understand this and realize all of the opportunities of my youth that I didn't take advantage of because I was blind to them at the time. Worse yet I can remember the specific instances where people told me of the opportunities and told me specifically what I needed to do but I made excuses and found reasons why I couldn't do it. Hindsight shows me that was all just an artificial barrier I put in my head. What held me back for a long time was myself. People were there they pointed out what could be done, career paths to opportunities that were available. Oftentimes these were the older people that young people so often dismiss. When you're young it's easy to dismiss saying, you don't understand what it's like today. I can tell you I made that same lame excuse and when I try and help out younger people now I get the same lame excuse from them. It's a total excuse and they are holding themselves back. Then they blame everyone and everything else around them saying they are not able to achieve a modest level of success.

Yes it's incredibly difficult to become the next Jeff bezos or any of these other mega billionaires. It's possible, but it's difficult, it requires something inside of you that most people don't have and it requires some luck. To achieve a middle class lifestyle doesn't require luck doesn't require high level of intelligence or highly skilled things it requires simply not being afraid to take advantage of opportunities. While those opportunities may seem risky in the moment because you've never done them before hindsight says they're not risky at all. The more things you do the more comfortable you get doing things and knowing that you can accomplish those things.

The labor field has amazing income potential, but don't just focus on the most basic form of the labor field. In any industry the most basic beginning levels will always be the lowest pay and the worst work. There are many people who are comfortable framing a house all day and drinking beer all night and complaining that they never get ahead and never change. Labor markets have a whole range of things to do and the more rare something is to do the more money you make. There are a lot of jobs in the labor market that pay incredibly well you just have to be motivated to go and get them because it's difficult to find people to do them. They are either risky jobs or they're very intensive jobs that take you away from everything you know for long periods of time. They mention oil wells Yes absolutely that's one it's not near you, the bus leaves from where you're at to where the jobs are everyday. Get on the bus and go. There is a massive electrical grid in this country you can be an electrician that services homes and small businesses or you can learn to do commercial work or you can learn to work for the power company and string wire and do high voltage systems. Workers that deal with waste treatment systems make a really good living. Become a welder become a fantastically good welder but instead of just staying in the job where you're just welding in the shop all day, become the welder who's willing to travel to different locations to do things on site to do highly specialized work. That's where you get the money. The opportunities are there who just have to not be afraid to let go of what you have to get what you want. There are so many labor jobs that take people of average skill level in their field but those people are willing to go to exotic locations or be gone for weeks at a time and it's those people who really can make bank at labor jobs. Because they're doing the job that nobody else wants to do and while your buddies are punching their clock from 9:00 to 5:00 at the shop complaining that they're not getting ahead you'll be working your ass off but we'll be making bank and properly managed you can retire early.

That is the greatest thing that holds back any of us being afraid to let go of what we have to grab what we want.

I have a good job as a software engineer but I'm in the later stages of my career. If I knew in my youth when I was 20 or 30 what I know now, or if I just actually listen to what people have told me I'd already be retired by now. The problem is we all think the prior generation had it easier than the current generation. The prior generation is trying to help you out and tell you the secrets to success the problem is they can't do it for you. I can't even get my own children to listen to me about the massive opportunities they have in front of them because there's always an excuse why they can't do it.

The only hope, if there is one, is when people will become collectively enraged and dismantle the govt to a large extent (similar to the current attempt in USA) and not rely solely on fiat currency (another way the govt controls the populace).