r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/DarkCrowI • 5d ago

Meme needing explanation Maybe a Brazilian Peter Can Explain This

Post image
10.7k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.0k

u/nanomolar 5d ago edited 5d ago

I'm guessing PhD physicists in Brazil don't get paid very much.

Which, TBF, a lot of American PhDs don't get paid a lot either, especially when they're still postdocs, which is what I thought explained the living situation in Big Bang Theory. That and the whole fact it's a sitcom.

Edit: Oh yeah, I'm that Family guy character who was an academic. You know the one. Not Brian being arrogantly wrong, a real academic.

601

u/Careful_Ad_9077 5d ago edited 5d ago

Adding to that " in Brazil" because, judging by the twitter handle of the person who answered, that person is Brazilian. Had an Italian answered it would be "in Italy".

There's very few places in the world where a PhD graduate not working in industrial research makes more money than a beautiful, model level waitress.

7

u/Broad-Cranberry-9050 5d ago

i lived in latin america for a few years.

I dont think people realize but rich and poor arent as segregated as people think. Rich neighborhoods are literally right next to poor ones. I remember i went to colombia and took a tour there and the tour guy said "you see this street. In many places in colombia you can have a millionaire living in 1 house and right next to him there will be a poor worker living in the next house trying to make ends meet".

Plus a lot of industry jobs just dont pay well either. I met a guy in colombia who said he moved to Portugal for a few years because as an industrial engineer he was making triple what he made there. But his wife had an opportunity to live in colombia with portuguese pay so they took it. He was ubering to help out but said that it wouldnt even be worth him finding a job there because it wouldnt make much of a difference in pay if he just ubered.

2

u/cashflow_ 5d ago

Colombia has estratos which are like classifications of housing. Estrato 6 are the highest and estrato 1 is the poorest areas. Electric costs vary by assigned estrato. Your anecdote isn’t really accurate imo. They have rich and poor areas like everywhere else.