What does it say about society in general when younger generations collectively despise older generations to the point were they don't care, even find it funny that they are under threat from a deadly virus. For too long old men haven't planted any trees they wont sit under, instead they've harvested the trees for short term profits to invest in their property portfolios.
Sure. That's why I see hordes of young people trying to reverse the "damage" the old generation has infliced upon the world. What I see is that most young people are self-centered A##oles.
Young people shut down numerous cities protesting for action on climate change last year. Individually you have people like Boyan Slat. Young people do not have the political clout that the boomer generation has yet but they will in the next 20 or so years. That is why I'm hopeful for the future.
At my current work my main distraction is in my peripheral vision as I can see every move made by co-workers either side of me.
I'm seriously considering buying sunglasses with side shields or some type of goggle, similar to a race horse.
In the spirit of Cato the Elder, Open Offices must be destroyed!
>... so long as the bottom half are seeing improved living conditions.
What about western countries where people under 35 are dealing with high student debt, unaffordable housing, stagnate wages and "gig" economy jobs? Things look pretty glum unless you've got some form of inheritance on the horizon.
The high student debt and unaffordable housing are almost entirely due to policies of the Democratic Party, a.k.a. the party that is supposedly trying to reduce income inequality.
Interventions often don’t do what you wanted them to do.
I'm not a fan of Obama but one good thing he was doing towards the end was cracking down on fraudulent "higher education" programs milking students and the taxpayer. He was deliberately choking off the loan subsidy fraud game. Unfortunately, Trump immediately resumed the Bush policy of pumping up the student debt for worthless degrees bubble.
But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that the legitimate schools have been able to raise their prices tremendously because the students have all this easy money given to them for just that purpose.
Tongue in cheek it can't help that people take advantage of states by getting cheap state subsidized tuition and then flee to low tax states when it pays off.
Well, I agree, but that's definitely a totally bipartisan scam. It's not just the loan subisidies, though. A huge amount of federal policy building over 70 years shovels tax money towards "higher ed". Most major schools are de facto defense contractors.
Ah good old Wycheproof. They used have a race called the King of the Mount were racers would struggle up the "mountain" carrying a 63kg bag of wheat. They had to shut it down because after the race everybody would get blotto and trash the town, that and insurance costs I believe.
"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.
Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new."
That's just an appeal to nature. Just because something was an evolutionary necessity (and that is not even clear in this case) it does not follow that that thing should actually be desirable for us.
A plausible explanation of aging is for example the evolutionary shadow: From the perspective of your genes you don't matter (much) after you've successfully passed on you genes to the next generation. Thus there is no evolutionary pressure for longevity. The programmed cell decay of aging might be a way of multicellular organisms to fight cancer.
Even more, evolution is often 'ineffective' and also can't make big leaps without complete disasters. It is quick only when you die young, as you already mentioned. It could happen that aging became unneeded at some epochs/species, but there was no easy way and/or strong reason to "turn it off" again.
Our bodies are not well-designed, they are full of legacy. The whole idea of moving via contracting meat is... strange. For real, lower half of me exists only to move the upper half. That's crazy.
There is another aspect for which the longetivity could be selected by the evolution, besides passing on the genes: it's passing on the knowledge.
As a social species, in the development of humans it's not only the biological structures that are important (the body itself), but the informational, social structures. A tribe which works well socially (helping each other, keeping together etc.) will survive much better and longer than a tribe of individualists, and yet even better than individuals living on their own.
A big part of actually keeping a tribe structure alive is the knowledge than elders constantly pass on to the new generation. And that does not stop after the genes are passed.
Additionally, there seems to be some (deeper, philosophical) knowledge that is very hard to acquire before a certain age. It just takes that long to collect enough experience to be able to connect certain high level concepts.
It's very likely that a tribe with longer-living monkeys (metaphorically) would have more of these wise elders that have acquired the knowledge and could pass it on better to the rest, than a tribe with monkeys that would die off fast after making babies.
But this still would only mean that the evolution would not kill you off directly after passing on the genes, but instead some time afterwards, after you've already learned all important things about life and were able to quickly teach them to the new generation. It would still kill you off either way.
Well, good for Steve. I'm happy just rambling along and it would be nice if I had more time to do it. Maybe I wouldn't be as worried about status, money, pride or achievement if I didn't feel like I was in a race against time.
As someone living in a city where property prices and rent are sky high partly due to Chinese buyers, partly due to government incentives, lack of planning and a bunch of other reasons, I’ve given up on ever owning my own home in the city I grew up in.
Economically it’s all great, at least in the short term and for those who already own property, but for someone like me staying here is becoming less and less appealing, and this is the majority consensus of my social circle which consists mostly of young, educated professionals. We are all keeping our eyes open for greener pastures.
I started cutting my own hair a few ago to save money and because I also hated going to hair dressers. A started doing small trims, but after a while was confident to try whatever I felt like. Guys hair really isn't that hard to cut if your just doing the basics, and I've found it is really convenient to be able to do it myself.
