Live and let live

[Brian Roth]

Minor correction:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/TANSTAAFL
I was a huge Robert Heinlein fan when I was a kid <g>.

Bri

 

[JohnRoberts]

Minor correction:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/TANSTAAFL
I was a huge Robert Heinlein fan when I was a kid <g>.

Bri

I recently watched the remake of the Dune movie... a great sci-fi book (Herbert), and finally a movie that doesn't totally discredit the book. The first movie was a bit of a joke, but movie technology has improved over the decades since.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

My first Heinlein book was "Tunnel in the Sky." I've enjoyed many more, but haven't read them all. Also read the first three Dune novels. The 80s movie was weak...Sting and Toto soundtrack did not work.

Where I lived in CA was only a few miles from where Heinlein built his custom home in Bonny Doon. Not sure it survived the fire in August 2020.

 

[Tubetec]

I'll play catch up on the inputs later ,
seemed like as good a place as any to say this as I set the frame of reference initially ,

Im getting sick and tired of using emotes to show if Im joking or serious so no one become mortally offended ,Im both joking and serious at the same time,an A/I has a hard time with regional dialects until you submit to voice recognition via dupe (not smart) phone . Look at Sky's new smarter than smart TV's , they've been steadily shoving their pinnochio noses further and further up where it doesnt belong since the days of Robert Maxwell , company policy .

What was the projected date for A/I take over in the original Terminator again 2025? might not be so far off target as we'd like to pretend to ourselves , mind control/slavery via intel always existed on earth locally , 'online' is the biggest corral invented by far ,put um together you have world domination by an elite class of people with pinnochio noses and a combined bank reserve/back hand dealing ability that turns fledgling countries into despoteries , nice card game int' it ? its like playing with a deck stacked in your favour until it all comes crashing down around you.

 

[JohnRoberts]

So this somehow allows you to ignore the actual data? Things like housing, education, and health care have risen faster than income over the decades. So these costs were a lower fraction of income decades ago. On top of that you had decades of falling interest rates inflating asset prices. Any reasonable person would recognize that combo to be an easier life path than the reverse. Perhaps your ideological hack viewpoint is preventing you from seeing clearly.

Opinions vary no reason for name calling.

JR

 

[john12ax7]

Opinions vary no reason for name calling.

JR

I'm not sure I understand.

There are others, but your ideological hack viewpoint won't allow you to see clearly.

This is considered acceptable?

Perhaps your ideological hack viewpoint is preventing you from seeing clearly.

But this is considered name calling?

 

[Matador]

But this is considered name calling?

Sokath, his eyes opened!

(Bonus points to whomever gets this reference)

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Sokath, his eyes opened!

(Bonus points to whomever gets this reference)

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

 

[pucho812]

Wrong on both counts. I started work as a janitor at the middle school for two hours a day after school when I was 14 or 15 making $2.65 an hour in the very early 80s. My parents were state employees (public school teacher and small department manager at state highway dept of a small state).


Having lived it for a few decades tells me more. Fewer teens and young adults work anything like my parents did or my generation did, both for money and to better ourselves. There are still some go-getters around, but on average the work ethic and dedication to improvement is sorely lacking. TANSTAAFL

that's because now days their number one fixation is to be a social influencer or tictok star

 

[AnalogPackrat]

So this somehow allows you to ignore the actual data?

Where did I say I ignored the data? I simply stated that my decades of work and life experience tells me more than some distilled data that does not include every variable that can be observed. Do you live your life by "expert" statistical analysis alone or do you employ your personal experience and hard-earned life lessons?

Things like housing, education, and health care have risen faster than income over the decades.

In many places, yes. Housing in "flyover" and rural/small town America has not grown at the same rate, for example. And what are the root causes of these increases? Greed? Corporations? Bad government policy? Poor personal choices (eating habits, exercise)?

So these costs were a lower fraction of income decades ago. On top of that you had decades of falling interest rates inflating asset prices.

Again, what are the root causes of these phenomena?

Any reasonable person would recognize that combo to be an easier life path than the reverse.

Really? So my parents, who were the first generation of their family to go to college and worked their tails off to make something of themselves had it easier? Or maybe it was my grandparents who grew up in the rural south during the depression when these cost ratios were more favorable. Bottom line: life isn't easy. If you want something, go work for it. That includes changing bad government policy.

Perhaps your ideological hack viewpoint is preventing you from seeing clearly.

Perhaps. Or maybe it's the reverse.

And for the record, I could care less about these little verbal jabs. Also part of life. In my opinion the whining about every little offense is just another symptom of inability to handle even the smallest obstacle to "an easy life."

 

[JohnRoberts]

I'm not sure I understand.


This is considered acceptable?


But this is considered name calling?

two wrongs do not make it right...

everybody stop name calling.

Rule #4

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Here's my go-getter anecdote for today. Our annual termite inspection and crawlspace dehumidifier service call was today. The young man who came out is an example of the American mindset that is slowly (or rapidly) receding.

He worked summers and part time for this local family owned business while he attended the local university. He graduated with a business and finance degree and got a good job at a local manufacturing plant (they make janitorial supplies). Then he was laid-off during the lock downs. Instead of taking unemployment or "free" stimulus money he went back to the termite business and asked for a job. He's still there.

Last year he bought a 1959 fixer-upper house and remodeled it with help from family and friends. He paid for materials out of pocket. Now he's 26 with a nice starter house with equity. No college debt. All while working a blue-collar job crawling around under houses all day. He wants to get a better job, marry his girlfriend, raise a family, but is disciplined enough to do it the right way. This is the can-do attitude that once exemplified America.

 

[JohnRoberts]

It's nice to hear good news stories... I worry they are in the minority.

Mike Rowe has a foundation mike rowe that supports practical job training as a viable alternative to expensive college degrees.

JR

 

[Recording Engineer]

The reality is, the “old man” mindset, that this new young generation is lazy and has no ambition, is nothing new. That view point has been with us since the beginning of human existence. It will never go away. Everyone goes through it. Enjoy!

But this one is different this time… Uh huh. I know.

 

[JohnRoberts]

The reality is, the “old man” mindset, that this new young generation is lazy and has no ambition, is nothing new. That view point has been with us since the beginning of human existence. It will never go away. Everyone goes through it. Enjoy!

As an old man, I don't reject my personal "mindset" based on 7+ decades of life experience. I vaguely recall being young, but only vaguely, more vaguely every day.

We all develop filters or stories to explain how the world we interact with works, based on our personal experience. This should be objective fact based, but opinion leaders work very hard to influence how the masses perceive the modern world. The victim/grievance lobby is very active these days.

I have long been a student of advertising and marketing. I have read multiple books on the subject of "persuasion". This is a mature discipline but being adapted to work in a modern media world.

Caveat Lector (reader beware).

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

It's nice to hear good news stories... I worry they are in the minority.

They are. This same young man recognizes it and is as frustrated about it as I am.

Mike Rowe has a foundation mike rowe that supports practical job training as a viable alternative to expensive college degrees.

He does good work and deserves support for it.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

The reality is, the “old man” mindset, that this new young generation is lazy and has no ambition, is nothing new. That view point has been with us since the beginning of human existence. It will never go away. Everyone goes through it. Enjoy!

I enjoy the company of people from all age groups. The consensus among most of them is that it's different and worse. So I'll disagree with your weak ageist argument.

But this one is different this time… Uh huh. I know.

It absolutely is.

http://opportunityjobsfoundation.or...w-labor-problem-fewer-teens-time-summer-jobs/
If you don't learn the relationship between work (effort) and money (results) as a teen, you're much less likely to get it as an adult. Not knowing how to budget and live within your means, postpone unnecessary luxury purchases until you can afford them, and the power of compound interest leads to lifelong struggles with debt and dependence (on others in society).

 

[Matador]

That view point has been with us since the beginning of human existence. It will never go away. Everyone goes through it. Enjoy!

“[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances. They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.” - Aristotle, 41BC

"Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'. We, their sons, are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt." - Horace, 20BC

"Whither are the manly vigor and athletic appearance of our forefathers flown? Can these be their legitimate heirs? Surely, no; a race of effeminate, self-admiring, emaciated fribbles can never have descended in a direct line from the heroes of Potiers and Agincourt…” - Paris Fashion 1771

“Never has youth been exposed to such dangers of both perversion and arrest as in our own land and day. Increasing urban life with its temptations, prematurities, sedentary occupations, and passive stimuli just when an active life is most needed, early emancipation and a lessening sense for both duty and discipline…” - Granville Hall 1904

"Probably there is no period in history in which young people have given such emphatic utterance to a tendency to reject that which is old and to wish for that which is new.” - Portsmouth Evening News 1936

 

[JohnRoberts]

Hey you kids get off my yard....

JR

 

[john12ax7]

Lots of baby boomers have left the work force after covid. They would rather retire early than work to the normal retirement age. What a lazy generation!!