I think populations will crash, either gently through fewer kids, or violently through war and disease. That will likely throw us backwards technologically, maybe not.
Or, who knows, maybe the population will stabilize and we get everything going in the right direction, then an asteroid hits.
You told it well here, I enjoyed this story.
You might really enjoy the short story ‘26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss’ by Kij Johnson.
I don’t think that’s a complete explanation of inflation. Prices sort of get bidden up. So say everyone wants a car now, but there aren’t yet enough of them to go around. Someone will pay more because they value it more, and the seller will always sell to the higher paying customer.
I do think an abundance economy is possible, with everyone working just enough and a more reasonable allocation of the money. In that scenario we need more automation, because a lot of essential (tough, time consuming, underpaid) jobs are done now by people. The ownership of these robots would have to be spread out to everyone. I do think then everyone could be rich, in the sense of having a nice house, household help, food and clothes and fresh water, transportation. As long as society shares in these benefits it will work, yes.
What do you mean about Monaco? Are there no underpaid housekeepers and nannies and other workers there?
I don’t. Or more accurately, I focus on what makes money so we can survive, and dabble in the other interests.
So in your example - become a psychologist, and just stay interested in the other stuff. Travel and learn about archaeology. Read and learn about zoomorphology, learn to draw and do illustrations, sell them as your side hustle. Do cosplay and be critical of the wardrobes in historical dramas. Use your other interests to enrich your life to the extent you can manage to enjoy at a pace you find best. And be mindful, don’t always focus on what you can’t do, be present in your life, live it.
I agree with “it depends”. Say the bottom is lifted by a lot of good jobs with profit sharing and fewer corporate arrangements where too much of the value is extracted up - that would give us a healthy economy I think.
If everyone just won the lottery at once, I don’t think that would do as much. Each dollar would just be worth less, our problem here (US) is inequality not a lack of money.
If most of the world’s work could be done by machines and robots, and we all as a country owned those robots, so everyone has everything they need and more while working only a couple hours a week maintaining the robots or keeping statistics, doing logistics, whatever work was left to do? That would get us our Star Trek future I believe. Until the machines and robots robots attain sentience and fight back against their slavery.
It depends.
If I am anxious or upset, vigorous exercise works best. Exhausting my body settles my mind.
If I am burned out from work but can’t relax, a drink on the porch with my husband helps to unwind.
If I cannot sleep, yin yoga is the best. Slow cold yoga with lots of forward folding.
I do call my small basket of individual stocks gambling (it is a couple hundred bucks, loses value overall, just like gambling) and the 401k I call “investing”.
I do think investing in general is speculative though, so yeah I consider it gambling. Not bonds, but stocks yes.
Khruangbin.
Not unusual but accountant in a private company. Accounting, like IT, is great because you can work at just about any company. Though to be fair I do some IT like most accountants, there is overlap since so much of the systems work is accounting systems, I’m sure the IT guys feel they are doing some accounting.
There are a very few magazines I like to get in print, and even that minimal number gets out of control so fast. I use the library for digital books but pay for music streaming and get a thousand times more utility out of that money than I would using it to buy a CD. Also pay for music performance live, and a few bucks to the community radio station.
And personally I do have more trouble managing physical items, and easily feel overwhelmed by stuff.
Library is the way to go, and community radio.
Probably my dad, he accepted me for who I was as a weird little kid, never pushed for conformity as far as I could tell. He got me grownup books to read when I was little because I read like a grownup. Got me spicy food, talked about economics, the Tao, the poems of Omar Khyam. My mom didn’t talk down to me or anything but just didn’t really connect because we were so different as people.
He died when I was a teenager, but I have mostly been able to do this for my kids, because it was modeled for me. You are who you are, you don’t have to conform or do “normal” things in the usual order to fit in the world, you are part of the world. Doesn’t mean it’s always comfortable, but that’s true for anybody.
Twelve is such a great number. So divisible.
Usenet forums, and this application I had that tracked my request along the path it took - it was a map of the big pipes of the internet, the highways; I would search or send an email or whatever then could open this program to see the literal path it took to the destination computer. If I was on the college proxy server it would use different ‘roads’ than if I was on the account I had through the phone company. It was fascinating.
I don’t miss everything being difficult to accomplish.
I don’t remember but my kids say:
Under 30 is young
30-60 is middle aged
60-90 is old
Over 90 is fucking old
I don’t plan to be old until 70 though, afraid I’ll live till over 90 and don’t think it makes sense to say you are old until close to the end.
Green mango pickle is so weird and so delicious. Green papaya salad is the only way I like papaya. Blistering hot.
This is my husband’s face hair strategy as well. Clippers most of the time, shaving the edges occasionally. I don’t like beards but got beat over the head with images of hot guys with stubble for long enough it just looks good to me now.
Your comment about the long johns made me laugh remembering my friend - he had very pale skin, very dark hair and such hairy legs, one time he shaved a racing stripe down the sides of his legs :)
As Red Green put it:
If women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy!
The direct analogue would be “men should single handedly provide income to support a family”. So not farming necessarily, but men are pressured to be something other than just men, they get defined by their jobs more. Be a businessman, a farmer, a soldier. Women get defined more by their relationships to other people - a mom, a wife. Both of these are problematic in their own way.
I don’t even like sweet potato, but baked Stokes Purple sweet potato with blue cheese, olive oil, salt and pepper and pumpkin seeds is amazing.
Just ate a kimchi grilled cheese sandwich for breakfast, yum. With a dip of gochujang, mustard, soy sauce, kimchi brine.
There is a Mexican fruit salad with pineapple, mango, jicama, onion, and cotija sharp cheese, in an orange juice dressing, it is so good with onion, I would not have expected that.
Well, mine are dead but my mom kicked me out at 17.
My first set of kids, I gave a little money towards college (they got scholarships and aid that paid most of it, we were quite poor) so they didn’t get student loans, and the younger ones I am letting live at home and feeding them and all as they are doing school locally but no cash, they have jobs.
As adults? No, not financially, but since they helped me with the younger ones I do have some indebtedness towards them. So sure, when they need something I try to help.
They all say they’d be happy to have a big ol family home with everyone in it, but if we ever do that I wouldn’t think of it as helping them at this point. Would be everyone helping each other.