It's easy to shit on everything, so I'll try to avoid doing that.

I do genuinely not understand the blind "minimum wage should be this" angle. All raising the minimum wage does is raise expenses for everything. It's pretty much like fuel costs: price of fuel goes up - your bakery, pharmacy, grocer, etc all raise prices and in the end it is those on the lowest income that get impacted the most.

A bit of a mind dump:

• Most of us live in a capitalist system. You can dislike it all you want, but as someone who's seen what happens when ownership is shared, everyone is equal, a cook should be able to run a country - fuck that. I'll take bad capitalism over that nonsense any day.
• Everyone should strive to improve themselves. Every day. Doesn't have to be monetarily driven improvement - it's the mindset of constant improvement that I want. And when that happens - aiming for minimum wage becomes a thing of the past.
• Everyone is not equal. Everyone must be given equal opportunity. We're good at different things, we absolutely suck at different things. Doesn't mean we're bad/wrong/mistreated if we try those things. What is wrong, however, is someone claiming they deserve something (great salary) when they suck at doing whatever they're doing. Just go do something else; preferably something you're good at.
• Deep inside - we're apes. We need to keep ourselves busy as otherwise brain starts overcompensating for lack of activity and we end up being idiots on the internet. Given enough time that leads to us being idiots outside the internet as well.
• Mental health issues are real. They're abused waaaay too much as an excuse to rot in the basement. Been there, done that. Start small, increment daily. Small, iterative steps. Everything takes time. Your choice on what gets your spend.