Creates cyborgs for a living.
Joined November 2011
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It’s a humbling thing to have been part of the last generation to have experienced adolescence and early adulthood in a way that the evidence can’t be reliably reconstructed decades later.
I need to make a very PUBLIC announcement on behalf of younger GenXers and older Millennials.
If you see someone in their 40s or 50s who seems a little boring now, I need you to understand something...
We already got it in.
Like...GOT. IT. IN.
We are not sitting home on a Friday night because we never knew how to have fun.
We are sitting home on a Friday night because we have seen enough.
We went to parties in houses that should have been condemned and were almost certainly owned by the local drug dealer.
We saw police lights and RAN and not across a nice, flat field.
INTO THE WOODS.
Do you understand the athleticism required to hurdle uprooted tree roots in platform shoes while simultaneously trying to keep your low-rise jeans from sliding completely off your ass?
And somehow...we never spilled the Zima. We never spilled the Boone’s Farm.
That was TALENT.
We slept on floors in strange houses because the designated driver either never showed up or, in a shocking turn of events, was drunker than everybody else.
There was no Uber, Life360 or Find My Friends.
There was just somebody named Mike saying, “I know a shortcut.”
And we FOLLOWED MIKE.
We closed down bars and then decided the night was still young, so we drove to Atlantic City, where we somehow managed to get drunk, sober up, get drunk again, sober up again and then get drunk a THIRD TIME before breakfast.
And according to our parents? We were at Michelle’s house.
Eating pizza and watching movies.
Michelle’s mother unknowingly covered for approximately 17 people every weekend. If there even was a Michelle.
We drank things called Purple Passion, Mad Dog 20/20 and whatever somebody mixed inside a giant plastic garbage can. Nobody asked what was in it. You grabbed a red Solo cup and trusted the process.
We went to clubs until the lights came on. Do you know the psychological damage of seeing a nightclub with the LIGHTS ON? Nothing good happens after those lights come on.
We danced for four straight hours in shoes that permanently altered the structure of our feet.
We made entire plans without cell phones...no texts, dropped pins or group chats...just an extremely questionable sense of direction.
We rode in cars with 11 people when the vehicle legally seated five. Someone was always sitting on someone. Someone was always in the hatchback.
And there was always one friend yelling, “DUCK!” when we passed a cop.
So yes...now we like being home.
We like sweatpants.
We like cancelling plans.
We like saying, “That sounds fun!” with absolutely no intention of attending.
We like restaurants at 5:30 because we can get a good table.
We like being home by 8:17.
And if someone texts at 9:30 PM and says, “What are you doing?”
Sleeping...we are sleeping.
Because this is not boring my friends...this is retirement.
We already played, partied and danced on the bar.
We already ran from the cops through a wooded area dressed like a Spice Girl.
We have stories that cannot be posted because there are still people with careers, marriages and reputations to protect. And thank GOD there were no camera phones.
So kids, when you look at your Gen X and older Millennial parents sitting peacefully on the couch watching Dateline at 8 PM and think:
“God, you guys are boring.”
Sweetheart...oh sweetheart.
You are looking at retired legends.
Put some respect on our names. We're probably the reason Life360 was invented.
xoxoxo (posted from someone else on FakeBook) 🤣 #genx #oldandtired
RhythmDoc retweeted
I reread this every year.
I cry like a baby every year.
Todd Beamer died a father, husband, and hero.
Todd: Hello… Operator… listen to me. I can’t speak very loud. This is an emergency. I’m a passenger on a United flight to San Francisco. Our plane has been hijacked.
Lisa: I understand. Can they see you?
Todd: No. There are three that we know of. They have knives — razor knives, like box cutters. Someone announced from the cockpit there was a bomb. It sounded fake.
Lisa: Your name?Todd: Todd Beamer. United Flight 93.Todd: They killed one passenger in first class. They forced most of us back. Fourteen of us here. Five flight attendants. The guy with the bomb ordered us to sit on the floor.
Lisa: Are you okay?
Todd: We’re going down… wait. No. We’re leveling off. We changed directions. We’re flying east again.
Todd: A guy named Jeremy called his wife. She told him two planes hit the World Trade Center. Lisa, is that true?
Lisa: I have to tell you the truth. It’s very bad. Both towers are gone. A third plane hit the Pentagon. Our country is under attack. I’m afraid your plane may be part of their plan.
Todd: Oh God. Lisa, will you do something for me? Call my wife and my kids. Promise me you’ll call.
Lisa: I promise.
Todd: Our home number is… You have the same name as my wife. Lisa. We’ve been married ten years. She’s pregnant with our third child. Tell her I love her. I’ll always love her. We have two boys — David, he’s 3, and Andrew, he’s 1. Tell them their daddy loves them and he is so proud of them. The baby is due January 12th. I saw an ultrasound. We still don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy.
Lisa: I’ll tell them. I promise, Todd.(Lisa patches in the FBI.)
Agent: Todd, your plane is on a course for Washington. Best guess is the White House or the Capitol.
Todd: I understand. I’ll be back.
Todd: Everyone knows this isn’t a normal hijacking. We have decided we will not be pawns in their plot.
Lisa: What are you going to do?
Todd: Four of us are going to rush the one with the bomb. Then the cockpit. A stewardess is getting boiling water. We’ll take them out.
Todd: Would you pray with me?They pray the Lord’s Prayer. Then: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
Todd: God help me. Jesus help me.Are you guys ready? Let’s Roll.
Various crazy aspects of this story aside, even the *gang members* are having their parents drive them to work these days?
Scandal over NY police bigwig linked to son's gang shooting has Dems running for the hills even as White House chimes in trib.al/wkDsi1g
RhythmDoc retweeted
Imagine waking up in the Europoor Union this morning:
No ice
No air conditioning
No health care
No job
No internet
No in-unit laundry
No car
No college football
Yikes
This seems like a pretty sane take. (Massachusetts law, however, is stupid.)
I don’t really understand who pays $20 million for a three bedroom apartment in Nashville. Like…why?
$19,900,000 | Nashville, TN
3 bd, 5 ba | 5,431 sq ft
Photos: Kayla Beatty Photography
zillow.com/homedetails/160-2…
Dude is just out there inventing new mental illnesses.
In many ways, I am 18.
If an alien encountered me, they’d struggle to distinguish me from my son.
I know this seems impossible.
I also know I look my age, 49.
But here are the ways I am indistinguishable from an 18 year old:
> Sleep quality
> Erection function
> Fertility
> Resting heart rate
> Vascular health
> Cardiovascular health
> Blood pressure
> Metabolic health
> Blood glucose control
> Bone mineral density
> Muscle
> Fat
> Inflammation (undetectable)
> Shitposting
And here are some ways I am my age:
> Hearing
> Somatic mutations
Friends, I think I’ve done something no one else has ever done: I am more 18 than I am 49.
This is the first rep and we are still figuring things out, but it points toward our inevitable future: better technology and therapies will make youthful vibrance the default.
If you’re in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and wondering if you can do the same, the answer is yes.
If you’re a teen or in your 20s and feel awful, you can too.
These results only took me 5 years to achieve. The most powerful things are free, and gated only by choice.
It feels amazing.
I feel nimble, and spry, and excited by the world.
I hope you join me in saying yes to life and no to die culture.
RhythmDoc retweeted
I win again!
Newly-released Swedish data shows that the rise in autism between 2001 and 2020 was...
ENTIRELY attributable to an increase in cases WITHOUT intellectual disability—less severe cases than used to be the norm!
The autism epidemic is not real: we just diagnose more.
In a couple of thousand years, some archaeologist is going to write a bestselling book on how the aphorisms of Donald J. Trump guided life in the early to mid XXI century, right?
In which Raymond Chandler makes a startlingly prescient SFictional prediction about the future while slamming pulp age SF, and predicts…the existence and function of Google.
RhythmDoc retweeted
I'm upper end Gen X and I am glad to see kids in their 20s learn the lesson it took me to my 40s to learn.
Get paid. It can be something other than money, lieu time, remote work, less stress, whatever it is, but get paid.
I do think sometimes the Zoomers overstate it, and life consists of recognizing what’s going on around you and responding appropriately.
That said, if your employed doctor seems distracted because he has to get to his side hustle hawking supplements on TikTok…this is why.
(long tweet warning)
This. Not only this, those on the Right sneering at Gen Z in particular need to truly consider and internalize this.
There are no guarantees in life is as true as it it trite. Of course there's not. I spent years working for a plaintiff side PI firm where the business model required awful things to happen to people unexpectedly. There are no guarantees is simply true.
There are, however, supposed to be actions that a person can take to hedge against the vicissitudes of life. Those hedges appear to have been set on fire intentionally in order to be sure that Line Goes Up.
The trite part is this - there are no guarantees in life is, far too frequently, being used to hand wave away people making legitimate objections to having done what there were told would lead to success and then that success does not come despite those people doing nothing wrong. People went to college and put in the extra time and were loyal to a company and did all the things they were told would lead to success and the reward for that was getting fired while the company is making record profits and the CEO is getting a huge bonus because, hey, labor is just another line on the spreadsheet to optimize.
Actions are supposed to have consequenes. Working hard is supposed to be rewarded with something other than more work. When people mock Gen Z for asking about work life balance because when you start a career, you have to be prepared to put your time in to get ahead, those people are ignoring that putting the time in no longer has any rational connection to getting ahead.
Why on earth would a human being donate time to a for profit company, which is what working extra hours without extra pay is, when said for profit company will turn around and fire that person at any time? There has to be some financial reward that will materialize in this mortal plane on a rational time scale for someone to work extra hours and telling Gen Z that look just slog through and, in three years, you'll get that promotion makes Gen Z, justifiably, laugh in the face of the person saying that because more likely than not in three years that company will be firing people wily nily.
A job is a job and it is what a person does to make money and when the money will not be there, it is insane to tell people they should do the work anyway.
Does a company owe a person a job no matter what? No. However, neither do human beings owe their labor to a company. It is supposed to be a mutual exchange. Human being gets compensated, company gets labor. The hoary old joke of a company wants to pay as little as possible for the most work while a person wants the most pay for as little work as possible was also true and trite. There was never going to be a perfect balance there because this all involves humans and thus perfection is impossible. Yet, people muddled through.
I stayed with the Psychopaths for as long as I did because I was paid enough, both in direct pay and in benefits, to make it worth it. Psychopaths had to pay about 25% over market rate for employees due to having the earned reputation of being a horrific place to work. That was the balance, Psychopaths were horrible bosses and thus quite literally paid the price for that. Those of us who stayed there knew, to the penny, how much our dignity and pride were worth. The market corrected.
The problem is that there now seems to be a fundamental break in that marketplace correction. Working longer hours does not result in promotions, it results in headcount dropping because, see, the remaining staff picked up the slack. Credential creep drives up the entry cost for even being considered for a job in the first place. Line Goes Up is looking at the line on a quarter by quater basis, not with any kind of longer term plan as to what will happen next year when headcount is down and now there aren't enough people to do the work.
Crony corporatism is parasitical and anti-human. I despair.