The economic realities of Baby boomers versus Millennials.

White Boomers, at least. The difference in those two vaults, though. The first one I could maybe learn how to do if you gave me a few years and a few hours a day of practice. The second one seems superhuman. It’s something, even if I were 12 again, I could never learn how to do. Not even a rough approximation. I don’t understand how anyone can ever learn to do something like that.

That is a good analogy, though, for the substantive change in the bare minimum required for a shot at good job and a decent life. The Boomers (again, the white ones) just had to show up. Now just showing up consists of four years of college, a few internships, and 2-3 years of experience despite being straight out of college, and all for an “entry-level” job with worse health coverage and no pension. And all of this in a world where the basic necessities of life are vastly more expensive and the possibility of retirement is near zero.

But hey, computers and TVs are cheaper!

For the first time since I was 23 years old, I did six full-hang overhand pull-ups tonight.

I’m getting there.

The conservatives have long had their Big Sky Daddy that presides from above in patriarchal splendor. Lately, though, the liberal side for their part has carved from unyielding marble the Scolding Cold Mommy whose job is to tell us we’re living our lives incorrectly and that whatever it is we’re doing, we’re definitely doing it wrong.

The latest instance of this is the ridiculous Lancet diet that would have us all choking down nutritionally-deficient near-vegetarian fare for most meals.

This Scolding Cold Mommy is what I also mean when I refer to the liberal dream of having us all dwell in featureless, artless (art makes global warming worse for no purpose) concrete boxes chewing on turnips and moaning on about how our micro-aggressions have affronted this or that group which in reality hasn’t even noticed any such thing.

The Scolding Cold Mommy that many liberals crave and yearn for is an excuse for self-abnegation and diminution rather than seeking out better alternatives. As with the Big Sky Daddy of the conservatives, it’s a way of ceding responsibility, of outsourcing one’s emotions and prerogative as a free human to some other determining agent. “No, it’s not that we didn’t try for better alternatives, its just that Scolding Cold Mommy told us that we have to eat barn scraps and live in a lean-to. It’s what She wants to help the planet!”

This Scolding Cold Mommy won’t be appealing to most, though, which is why this sort of messaging should be anathema to any true progressive. It’s not a path forward — it’s just another way of avoiding actual transformative and difficult changes necessary on the way to finding a truly better future, instead settling for the prison of the now.

It’s a very strange idea indeed that it is racist to want to control immigration to your country. Very odd and worrying to see in such a short time many Democrats shift from fairly reasonable immigration policies to, “If you’re not for completely open borders, you’re a huge racist” in such a short time.

Any electoral wins will be despite this, not because of it. I wish “racism” weren’t thrown around like a playground insult. It hurts the cause, not helps it.

Just wanted to point out that it’s supposed to be impossible for someone to get as fit as I have as quickly as I have at my age, especially sans personal trainer and really specialized diet.

Yet here I am. No injuries, no issues, no drugs, kicking ass every single day. It’s amazing how many problems are amenable to just getting it done, and how often the standard narrative is completely wrong. I spent a little over $1,300 in funds and 7-8 hours a week in time and it’s been so very worth it.

Sure, this might not work for you. The point is, though, that you’re supposed to believe it won’t work for anyone, or that only highly-paid celebrities can do this with $2,000 a day personal trainers.

Wrong. Again, here I am. I have none of that and am doing just fine.

Plan to eat a lot of meat today because I’ve not been getting enough protein while weightlifting still, and that’s the easiest way to get it.

Doing my part to fight the ridiculous and moronic Lancet diet. When you pick hundreds of pounds up off the floor repeatedly you can’t subsist on a handful of nuts and bumblebee tears.

Many foreign tech works living in the USA have a new business plan: ‘Moving to Canada’

They're uneasy about potentially changing visa rules in the Trump era.
They're finding a welcome mat in Canada.https://t.co/YESEHUL1Fs via @emilyrauhala

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) January 11, 2019

Good. Less competition, less exploitation. The H1B program is how many companies get away with paying $50K a year or less for jobs that should pay $100K+, and it keeps many workers trapped (they can’t move elsewhere easily or at all).

Seeing all this neoliberal swill in the guise of being anti-Trump is pretty disgusting. I’ve lost respect for so many people over the last few years despite how much I despise Trump myself.

Being overweight is not an impediment to strength and my even be helpful. This is 705lb beltless for 5. Which is crazy. https://t.co/xMYMZJCmr0 pic.twitter.com/d7qxcOy6Yw

— James Marsh (@JamesMarsh79) January 18, 2019

True. It can help with some strength exercises where you have to shift a lot of weight using your own body weight. However, it is still more unhealthy than being slimmer.

I’d rather be able to deadlift 350 pounds at a weight of 165 pounds rather than 500 pounds at 200 pounds, and I’ll live longer, too. I am quite certain that if I ballooned past 200, I’d be able to deadlift and squat a whole lot more. But it’d be bad for my longevity and my joints.

I don’t need to be strongest person on earth. I just need to be healthy in the time I have, and hopefully live longer than someone who can lift a lot but is not really that healthy. Optimizing for the wrong thing is just hurting yourself, but in a different way than sitting on the couch snarfing Ho-Hos.

I've never had a computer problem I couldn't solve with googling. I'm convinced I could be an IT person just with the power of Google.

— Luke Nogueira ☭ 🇵🇹 🇨🇷 (@orphanboy_emoji) January 16, 2019

Yes, you could probably be a support person. A level one or two support person. Not beyond that. Even when I was just doing support, I often solved problems that whole teams of people had been working on for days because I had lots of background knowledge and experience and they didn’t have a single clue even what to search for or what was relevant. Being a level one or two support person is all that most people are familiar with IT-wise and so they, as this person does, think that’s all the IT staff there is.

This person also reminds me of the people who think they because they can, for instance, click “next, next, next” on a SQL install on their personal computer that it makes them experts on SQL optimization and design, or that because they know what an IP address is (vaguely) that they are network architects and designers. I can tell you these people are so extremely and ridiculously incompetent in these areas that they don’t even know how incompetent they are and often their “solutions” are so terrible that it’s all I can do to avoid laughing out loud when I am forced to discuss with them.

So, yeah, a person like this can probably do a google search for “how do I fix my Dell printer” and get the right answer, much of the time. But I can also tell you if they Google “how do I configure BGP multi-site failover” that what they get is going to be 80% wrong, and/or inapplicable to their situation, and that furthermore this person would not understand 90% of what they do find if not more. And if they tried to set this up, it’d fail and fail so hard it’d be utterly laughable (I’ve seen this in person). By the way, this is something I can and have set up in less than an hour in the real world because I know what I am doing and have spent many, many, many hours studying this and related topics.

Another case of not knowing what they don’t know. In a way, I like that these people exist because I spend a whole lot of time and get paid a whole lot for cleaning up their messes and fixing the consequences of their enormous and easily-preventable mistakes.

#EatLancet recommend we eat only 7 grams of red meat per day. Here it is, 7 grams of beef mince on a plate. Are these people stupid! #Yes2Meat pic.twitter.com/PaAVlVYilq

— ActivatedNutJob (@ActivatedNutJob) January 17, 2019

That EAT Lancet report seems to be pure corporate propaganda from what I can tell, in the guise of helping with climate change (haven’t read it all, will later).

I could not meet any of my fitness goals eating 7 or 14 grams of meat a day. In fact, I’d become gravely unhealthy and probably be unable to continue.

Here's what the global bureaucrats want you to eat (from The Guardian)

A feast of sugar, seed oils, and grains.

Guaranteed to make you weak and depressed with a low sex drive.#Yes2Meat pic.twitter.com/YX4kHoW6na

— P. D. Mangan 🇺🇸 (@Mangan150) January 17, 2019

Fuck that noise. I’d be weak and starving on that diet. Which, I guess, is part of the point. I will continue to eat meat if I have to raise the chickens or whatever else myself. I’d rather be fit than whatever the hell that corporate malarkey is.