> Their wealth is more contingent on our consumption than employment status.
Is it? Or is it dependent on the consumption of someone much greater than you.
For example: I was reading something the other day about dining experiences in Las Vegas. Really though, the video was about how recently Vegas has abandoned the traditional middle class patrons in favor of providing experiences to a smaller, but much wealthier clientele. This seems to be a trend across many industries. In some cases your consumption is even a cost center to be eliminated in favor of a more successful customer base.
lol well the majority of the top 1% globally didn't make their fortune serving food, to other wealthy patrons no less (how's that for circular reasoning). We're in a consumer society, B2B sales is a thing but it's a side-effect of that.
Meanwhile as a young man the financial aid system told me I was a dependent solely because I was under 24 (I paid my own bills, rent, worked and filed my taxes, and relied not at all on my parents, but hey) and that any aid would be calculated against the wealth of both myself and my family. My father isn’t exactly a wealthy man, but combining the wealth of late career man would have certainly made it seem like I was in some great economic position I was not.
They make it hard to be considered separate from your parents because if it was easy, every student would do it upon reaching age 18.
What I found wild was that they felt entitled to 1/3 of my assets every year. The lesson is: spend your money before college or keep it under the mattress, because your college will take essentially all of it over the course of 4 years.
> You’re going to have to figure out new things to care about, but you can do it, because you found it the first time!
I have found many interesting things to care about. The problem is they all lack a single quality that allowed me to succeed in the realm of computers and technology: accessibility.
3D printers, CAD, CNC, all affordable and IMO accessible (and will run on cheap old kit). No matter what people say, LLMs are not coming for real world adaptable parametric designs any time soon.
ETA: whether there is a way forward for a replacement career I don't know. But there is a way forward for a replacement interest and there are ways to use this to help people. I'm sure this is true for other things. The terrible adjustment is moving to "work-to-live" in a job where you used to find some belonging.
One negative thing I’ve heard about Boise and some other smaller western cities is that they have awful air quality due to the geography settling all the exhausts and particles in a sort of bowl. Not sure how bad this is in practice though.
As you said, Boise is in a sort of bowl (more of a valley), in the winter, a cold air system can get trapped in the valley by warmer air in the mountain area. This can lead to some pretty bad air (not nearly as bad as wildfires, just not very fresh). To me, the bigger complaint is about not seeing the sun for days. Idaho has a lot of sun throughout the winter, so it's noticeable. It isn't all winter, just a week or so at a time a few times per winted, depending on weather.
> I would write to my congress person rather than commit a crime and destroy someone's property.
Your congressman is having a nice steak dinner with representatives of the company while some poor staffer pastes the generic response in the letter sent back to you.
I’ve never been hit by a stoner because they were high
I’ve never been abandoned by a stoner because being high was more important than their children
I’ve never had a stoner so high and out their mind they reach for the most vile, demeaning ways of speaking to me
I’ve never looked into the eyes of loved one who was really high and not been able to recognize them as the person I know.m, but as a Mr Hyde sort of figure.
I’ve never watched family die from a lifetime of smoking weed.
> Look how the populist right has failed its primaries so hard.
From my bubble (we’re all in bubbles), it seems that the populist right are in bed with the technocrat authoritarians, e.g. the Vance-Thiel connection. Losses in primaries would indicate to me that the technocrat authoritarians are not succeeding in purchasing politicians.
I read it as technocrats Vance-Thiel successfully bought populist MAGA politicians. Those then failed in primaries, because electorate including portion of maga base rejects them. The "buying politicians" step was successful.
Now they need to buy new politicians and will definitely try.
Massie is kinda interesting. Because he’s a sort of libertarian who ran as a republican when the right was a bit more united
But it was a strange election. The “establishment” candidate was a no name who refused to do any debates. Rarely ever seem to say much, and when he did, it was mostly just empty parroting of Trumps agenda. Maybe that’s truly what that district wanted.
What was interesting was how Massie seemed slated to win until the very end. Suddenly at the last minute, all sorts of smear ads and all kinds of (honestly very mild) accusations of personal impropriety were being slung left and right and days before the election, polls swap showing Gallrein in the lead, a complete reversal from the months before. A man I’ve never heard speak anything that wasn’t just party lines or something about being a SEAL.
Now I understand that polling isn’t always accurate. But I’ve seen the same exact thing play out nearly the same way in other recent primaries. Feels fishy.
I don't think it's just recent primaries. Our electoral system is heavily influence by the highest bidder and has been this way for a long time. There are always exceptions, like Massie, but the overall trend is that the majority of candidates who are elected at the federal and state level support and are supported by a few big monied interests. This includes the big healthcare industries, the war machine, the pro Israel lobby, etc. It's why we do things like the war in Iran that are vastly unpopular with the general public. And don't do things that are popular like single payer healthcare.
> From my bubble (we’re all in bubbles), it seems that the populist right are in bed with the technocrat authoritarians, e.g. the Vance-Thiel connection.
Interesting, in my bubble “populist” right refers more younger more paleo conservative types who feel betrayed by MAGA. Many of these people hate Thiel and Technocrats as much as my Marxist friends.
I’m gonna guess (and tell me if I’m wrong) the disconnect is that you may be referring to the Trump admin itself which is indeed in bed with Thiel types. Personally I don’t really bother considering them populist anymore. They seem to mostly be interested in enriching their little circle.
Interesting. MAGA no longer being populist feels like a bit of a bleeding edge take. I don’t disagree necessarily, but I’m not going to put any eggs in that basket until there’s a massive swing at the voting booth both this November and in 2028.
Tea Party gave the blueprint for 21st century populist rightwing politics, eschewing much of the baggage of Bush neoconservativism. Then Trump turned the volume up to 12. I’d be surprised to see more novel populist rightwing political dynamics as it feels like the movement is running out of gas after a 16 year run (since 2010 primaries). The disillusionment is at a peak.
> Presumably miners get a high wage to offset the negatives of the job and attract people.
A common thread I see when these types of topics come up too is that the high pay in many of these jobs (trades, policing, nursing, etc.) is dependent on working large amounts of overtime.
> In hindsight, I realized it was b/c I hadn't found subjects in high school that really resonated with me
My most frustrating experience was barely lazing my way through calculus I could not care about only to be working on a personal project years later where I really wish I paid attention.
And yet this distant possibility doesn’t seem to happen very often to citizens, as long as we still have courts. Not that actual abuses should be trivialized.
This comes across as fearmongering to keep people from protecting themselves.
Is it? Or is it dependent on the consumption of someone much greater than you.
For example: I was reading something the other day about dining experiences in Las Vegas. Really though, the video was about how recently Vegas has abandoned the traditional middle class patrons in favor of providing experiences to a smaller, but much wealthier clientele. This seems to be a trend across many industries. In some cases your consumption is even a cost center to be eliminated in favor of a more successful customer base.
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