Haha, funny saying but never actually said. Dumb saying.
Stupid world true story -- grew up on Army posts where we lived in converted WWII barracks. Actually quite roomy and pleasant.
One of my assignments when I was in the Army (combat engineer) was to burn WWII barracks for Reserve fire units to try to extinguish at Ft Dix, NJ as part of their summer training.
Also they wanted to get rid of those barracks, so any we didn't burn down, we had to bulldoze and haul off.
The soldiers had cleaned those barracks floors (sheet linoleum and cheap tile) with GASOLINE for years and years. That gas got into the bones of those buildings.
We would light them up and they would burn down in 5 minutes. Ancient, dry pine with gasoline. No Reserve unit ever, ever, ever got there fast enough to even put water on the fire.
We probably burned down 500 of those barracks. Boy did they burn.
Maybe the village didn't embrace me? Never actually noticed.
A single mom/ artist/ lesbian here. Raised my Male/ Female twins who are now 43 - hard to believe - on a performing artist's income. I still work internationally, although my practice has organically evolved - less performance, more visual/ media based work that may include performance. Attended grad school late in life, and now lecture internationally to artists, designers, architects, scholars, etc. All from following the early threads of a profession that my parents did not encourage, but I stubbornly stuck to. All this back story to say my adult people are lovely, successful in thier professions, partnered, kind, and freaking funny as hell. I did not push them to money carriers, but passions. Grounded in the practice, the benefit, of learning new things. Being able to switch gears, and directions. Learning to LEARN. I took a few things forward from my childhood, one being no t.v. Sunday through Thursday. We didn't have a computer until they were in Jr. high, so the socials were not a thing. However - they traveled with me, toured with me, even attended rehearsals and classes with me throughout thier formative years. I say this, because my lighting designer who toured with me, and who raised dogs, would laugh with me when we discussed how raising children up to a certain age, and training dogs are remarkably similar. Both species look to thier alpha being for a job to do (win attention), and to be in the alpha presence, which leads to modeling behaviors. Pretty simple. The drive for more and more kills this relationship. You've seen dogs chained in the backyard endlessly. This, THIS is social media. Zuckerberg, Musk, Besos can all suck my whole asshole. These WHITE STRAIGHT GREEDY MEN continue to ruin our human relationships, to say nothing of our planet. Yes, Scott - your writing and citations are worthy, and correct in my view. And, like head lice- the cause needs to be cleaned. I would assume that our governments are the shampoo - but they too are woefully greedy and weak. I'm not nihilistic, I'm optimistic and live with my eyes, ears, mind, and heart open. You've read "If They Build it, Everyone Dies" I'm sure. Bigger than social media I think. Machine learning - when I was exposed to this years ago, Stephen Hawking was still among us. Anyway - I ramble. My point being - I appreciate your analysis. And, I suggest parents, gaurdians, the adults in the room so to speak, hold your young people tight, and keep them with you as long as you can. Screw the board meeting protocol. Not just the 1 day a year - take your kid to work day. Make this effort 365. It's not too long before they have thier own careers - starting with pre-school.
Just seems that what must be done is unlikely to be done and youth frustration morphs into mass nihilism, triggering a more widespread urge to dispense with democracy in favor of full-on autocracy
I think the most salient comment I read this week was that for all the billionaires claiming that socialism = communism = bad for people finally rejecting their BS… those people just want their money back. The billionaires are looting the country. Tax Wealth, Not Work.
Thanks for your thoughts on younger people. I suppose they are the "soon to become rich" since they will be inheriting all that old person wealth in the next 10 years.
I put the following question to ChatCPT: "What are the most important TED talks in the last decade?" The answer did not come back with your name. Instead I got the following: "1. Tim Urban – Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator (2016)" Should I upgrade to paid ChatCPT to get the right answer?
Doc, What was Alan Garber's (Prez of Harvard) response when you called him demanding that Harvard gives up its 501(c)(3) tax exempt status? You, of all people, can give them a shrewd estimate of how large their endowment "should" be. What other schools did you call? Many solutions you pose require capital, like U- pre-K. Where does that money come from? Why not demand the big endowments fund this solution? I'm sure you got them running down the aisles with their hair on fire wanting to give you "their' money. Ha!! I started a painting company in high school, and painted summers in college. We painted buildings the big, union painting companies would care less to bid on. We made good money, learned a trade, even lost money on a couple homes/buildings. THAT is learning what business is about! Term limits?!!!! Ha Ha. What was the answer from the five most influential politicians when you asked them? Why not abolish all benefits Senators and Congressmen/women get? Why should they get a pension? WTH?!! You say raise the minimum wage. Well, you do that and businesses just raise their prices (that's fabricating inflation!). Because of that, I pay more Sales Tax. Why don't you abolish Sales Taxes? I get to save some of my hard earned money. Get this, I agree with some of your ideas! Identity verification, hand in hand with a national service requirement makes sense. How 'bout this..every able bodied male and female that came across our border illegally under Biden has to serve in our military for 4 years.
What do you mean "you digress"? -- your need for attention is the perennial subject of this blog. The digressions are the actual things you say about things that aren't called scott. Which are often interesting.
I agree with a lot of this, which is annoying because now I have to be fair.
Young people have been handed a garbage bag full of debt, rent, algorithms, climate dread, and told to make a vision board. So yes, something seems kinda broken.
But as an Old who remains inconveniently alive, I start twitching when the solution begins to sound like: maybe the Olds have had enough.
That may play well in a TED Talk, where “fairness between generations” sounds noble and nobody has to say “Grandma’s Social Security check” out loud. But some of us can hear the machinery underneath: the young are being monetized more than ever, and the old are being quietly reclassified as a budgetary inefficiency, waiting for HAL to turn off the life support.
Some people used to call these death panels, and everyone got oh so upset. Now we call it rebalancing intergenerational capital flows, and apparently the rebrand is going great.
Just a comment on minimizing educational expenses. The comment does NOT apply in all cases, but potentially does apply to a large fraction of the student population:
Start pushing math hard in middle school.
Do Running Start / College in High School while in high school.
go to / transfer to the state university system, hopefully as a commuting student while living at home.
Potentially the student can get their BS for the cost of roughly 2 years of tuition, fees, and books + plus some transportation costs. This is roughly a 75% savings on a traditional on-campus education at in-state rates, let alone out-of-state or private schools.
You need to push the math early because you have to have the student ready for STEM calculus no later than 11th grade, as that is when they will start taking their STEM coursework - if they are going that track.
My son did this path, my daughter planned to but dropped out of high school and did early admissions - so I had to pay ~ 4 years of tuition. Both commuted so they avoided the campus housing costs.
My daughter did Engineering, my son did Business - MIS. They also get out ~ 2 years younger.
Many of the STEM jobs will be eliminated by AI or outsourced overseas. The smart tech companies here are looking for creative engineers who can actually problem solve. Lately seeing many degreed engineers who cannot think creatively.
There's an old saying, “The child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”
Haha, funny saying but never actually said. Dumb saying.
Stupid world true story -- grew up on Army posts where we lived in converted WWII barracks. Actually quite roomy and pleasant.
One of my assignments when I was in the Army (combat engineer) was to burn WWII barracks for Reserve fire units to try to extinguish at Ft Dix, NJ as part of their summer training.
Also they wanted to get rid of those barracks, so any we didn't burn down, we had to bulldoze and haul off.
The soldiers had cleaned those barracks floors (sheet linoleum and cheap tile) with GASOLINE for years and years. That gas got into the bones of those buildings.
We would light them up and they would burn down in 5 minutes. Ancient, dry pine with gasoline. No Reserve unit ever, ever, ever got there fast enough to even put water on the fire.
We probably burned down 500 of those barracks. Boy did they burn.
Maybe the village didn't embrace me? Never actually noticed.
Cool story bro
A single mom/ artist/ lesbian here. Raised my Male/ Female twins who are now 43 - hard to believe - on a performing artist's income. I still work internationally, although my practice has organically evolved - less performance, more visual/ media based work that may include performance. Attended grad school late in life, and now lecture internationally to artists, designers, architects, scholars, etc. All from following the early threads of a profession that my parents did not encourage, but I stubbornly stuck to. All this back story to say my adult people are lovely, successful in thier professions, partnered, kind, and freaking funny as hell. I did not push them to money carriers, but passions. Grounded in the practice, the benefit, of learning new things. Being able to switch gears, and directions. Learning to LEARN. I took a few things forward from my childhood, one being no t.v. Sunday through Thursday. We didn't have a computer until they were in Jr. high, so the socials were not a thing. However - they traveled with me, toured with me, even attended rehearsals and classes with me throughout thier formative years. I say this, because my lighting designer who toured with me, and who raised dogs, would laugh with me when we discussed how raising children up to a certain age, and training dogs are remarkably similar. Both species look to thier alpha being for a job to do (win attention), and to be in the alpha presence, which leads to modeling behaviors. Pretty simple. The drive for more and more kills this relationship. You've seen dogs chained in the backyard endlessly. This, THIS is social media. Zuckerberg, Musk, Besos can all suck my whole asshole. These WHITE STRAIGHT GREEDY MEN continue to ruin our human relationships, to say nothing of our planet. Yes, Scott - your writing and citations are worthy, and correct in my view. And, like head lice- the cause needs to be cleaned. I would assume that our governments are the shampoo - but they too are woefully greedy and weak. I'm not nihilistic, I'm optimistic and live with my eyes, ears, mind, and heart open. You've read "If They Build it, Everyone Dies" I'm sure. Bigger than social media I think. Machine learning - when I was exposed to this years ago, Stephen Hawking was still among us. Anyway - I ramble. My point being - I appreciate your analysis. And, I suggest parents, gaurdians, the adults in the room so to speak, hold your young people tight, and keep them with you as long as you can. Screw the board meeting protocol. Not just the 1 day a year - take your kid to work day. Make this effort 365. It's not too long before they have thier own careers - starting with pre-school.
Peace.
Just seems that what must be done is unlikely to be done and youth frustration morphs into mass nihilism, triggering a more widespread urge to dispense with democracy in favor of full-on autocracy
Amen Brother
I think the most salient comment I read this week was that for all the billionaires claiming that socialism = communism = bad for people finally rejecting their BS… those people just want their money back. The billionaires are looting the country. Tax Wealth, Not Work.
Thanks for your thoughts on younger people. I suppose they are the "soon to become rich" since they will be inheriting all that old person wealth in the next 10 years.
I put the following question to ChatCPT: "What are the most important TED talks in the last decade?" The answer did not come back with your name. Instead I got the following: "1. Tim Urban – Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator (2016)" Should I upgrade to paid ChatCPT to get the right answer?
Doc, What was Alan Garber's (Prez of Harvard) response when you called him demanding that Harvard gives up its 501(c)(3) tax exempt status? You, of all people, can give them a shrewd estimate of how large their endowment "should" be. What other schools did you call? Many solutions you pose require capital, like U- pre-K. Where does that money come from? Why not demand the big endowments fund this solution? I'm sure you got them running down the aisles with their hair on fire wanting to give you "their' money. Ha!! I started a painting company in high school, and painted summers in college. We painted buildings the big, union painting companies would care less to bid on. We made good money, learned a trade, even lost money on a couple homes/buildings. THAT is learning what business is about! Term limits?!!!! Ha Ha. What was the answer from the five most influential politicians when you asked them? Why not abolish all benefits Senators and Congressmen/women get? Why should they get a pension? WTH?!! You say raise the minimum wage. Well, you do that and businesses just raise their prices (that's fabricating inflation!). Because of that, I pay more Sales Tax. Why don't you abolish Sales Taxes? I get to save some of my hard earned money. Get this, I agree with some of your ideas! Identity verification, hand in hand with a national service requirement makes sense. How 'bout this..every able bodied male and female that came across our border illegally under Biden has to serve in our military for 4 years.
Can you make this part of your platform when you run for office? Or at least inform the Dem candidates of these issues? They are in such a bubble.
What do you mean "you digress"? -- your need for attention is the perennial subject of this blog. The digressions are the actual things you say about things that aren't called scott. Which are often interesting.
I agree with a lot of this, which is annoying because now I have to be fair.
Young people have been handed a garbage bag full of debt, rent, algorithms, climate dread, and told to make a vision board. So yes, something seems kinda broken.
But as an Old who remains inconveniently alive, I start twitching when the solution begins to sound like: maybe the Olds have had enough.
That may play well in a TED Talk, where “fairness between generations” sounds noble and nobody has to say “Grandma’s Social Security check” out loud. But some of us can hear the machinery underneath: the young are being monetized more than ever, and the old are being quietly reclassified as a budgetary inefficiency, waiting for HAL to turn off the life support.
Some people used to call these death panels, and everyone got oh so upset. Now we call it rebalancing intergenerational capital flows, and apparently the rebrand is going great.
Such a great post! This should be required reading for Boomers.
Just a comment on minimizing educational expenses. The comment does NOT apply in all cases, but potentially does apply to a large fraction of the student population:
Start pushing math hard in middle school.
Do Running Start / College in High School while in high school.
go to / transfer to the state university system, hopefully as a commuting student while living at home.
Potentially the student can get their BS for the cost of roughly 2 years of tuition, fees, and books + plus some transportation costs. This is roughly a 75% savings on a traditional on-campus education at in-state rates, let alone out-of-state or private schools.
You need to push the math early because you have to have the student ready for STEM calculus no later than 11th grade, as that is when they will start taking their STEM coursework - if they are going that track.
My son did this path, my daughter planned to but dropped out of high school and did early admissions - so I had to pay ~ 4 years of tuition. Both commuted so they avoided the campus housing costs.
My daughter did Engineering, my son did Business - MIS. They also get out ~ 2 years younger.
So to Scott's point, one must be exceptional and/or have wealthy parents?
Many of the STEM jobs will be eliminated by AI or outsourced overseas. The smart tech companies here are looking for creative engineers who can actually problem solve. Lately seeing many degreed engineers who cannot think creatively.
Beautiful article. American decadence will come home to roost.
Hey Professor, we'd love to have you on our podcast, Men Talking Mindfulness!