As a percentage of population there are fewer and fewer people who know how things work. Think of all that is involved in manufacturing a computer, or a car, or even processing food. If we fail to maintain a critical mass of people who can keep it all working, it will all fail. Not just a little at a time, but all at once.
Completely....but I think it's further reaching than just what we're talking about.
I posted this a year ago and I think it fits in nicely with the point you're making:
I think the underlying problem is this last few generations have no idea how things are made. Therefore they have no interest in making things because they have no experiencing working with their hands - they wouldn't even know where to start. That being the case; they can't make shit happen.
You'd have to think curiosity is lost when the two body parts with the most nerve endings (finger tips and brain)become disassociated. They are meant to work together.
It is what separates us from all other beasts and was most certainly the driving force in the evolutionary emergence of consciousness. We could be literally losing consciousness - and by extension conscience.
Easy prosperous living and cheap products make just replacing them the way most go. But, those cheap products are barely reparable and the replacement parts are a major percentage of the total cost of buying anew one. The corporations built this principle into their products - all part of the plan. Yet we can still learn to use quality mad products and repair them if we decide to try. It is just that we might have to shop for them in the used, second hand, and thrift stores. How I wish cars and trucks would go back to roll down windows and dump most of the electronic wizz-bang crap. The radio in my 1960 Volkswagen beetle worked great and I just had to turn a dial for stations. It also got close to 40 mpg. so what have we gained. I could and did take apart the engine (in my '67 VW van and just order all the parts. The whole job cost about the same as having the AC refrigerant in my 2015 Chrysler 200 replaced at a dealer because they now have a refrigerant you can't replace yourself
Another part of the problem is that even the trades are being degraded.
Used to be that a good mechanic could diagnose what was wrong with a vehicle from various metrics - including sound. (Remember when your mechanic used to ask you what a problem sounded like when you brought your car into the shop?)
Nowadays, "mechanics" usually hook up your engine to a computer to get a diagnosis. And then instead of actually repairing things, they just switch out parts.
You can't be truly independent when you work at that level.
I'm a decent auto mechanic. I have a code reader. When my AC went out, I read the code, and it said the thermostat was faulty. I know enough to know that the thermostat has nothing to do with the AC. But I looked up an explanation, and it said the car's computer is programmed to turn off the AC if the car overheats. That takes some of the load off the engine and maybe keeps the engine cool enough. That made sense to me, except that I was sure the car wasn't overheating. So, I took the car to a mechanic I trust, and he also could see no way that the thermostat was the issue. He suggested that it was the temperature sensor that was faulty, and giving a false reading that the engine was overheating. Turns out, he was right. And that caused the computer to turn off the AC. There will never be a time when good, human experience and judgement is supplanted by software. Software does a lot for us, but we had best NEVER become fully dependent on it.
There are no more TV repairmen anymore because it is cheaper to go buy a new TV at Wal-Mart than to repair an existing one. Everything is made to be disposable.
In this case, I'm not just talking about 'working with your hands'. We're only a generation or two into a manufaturing economy. Yes, manufaturing has been around for a lot longer than that, but it's been a relatively short titme that people buy nearly everything rather than make/grow the majority for themselves. The processes have grown very involved and are more fragile than ,most people ever think about. The processes aren't on 'autopilot', they need to be seen to constatnly. As people have mentioned here, more an more people accept all this 'stuff' as their right. That goes for our 'leadeers', too. When there aren't enough people who can and will keep it going, it will collapse.
Agree. I’m watching a father and his two sons remodel our bathroom, and they are doers. Learning from their hands, discussing with each other and getting it done. The trades are where it’s at, but we devalued those professions decades ago and we are suffering the consequences with quickly declining stores of valuable, practical knowledge . To me, the failing can be partly attributed to the idea “I want my kids to have it better than I did”.
I was listening to a podcast (Louise Perry on Triggernometry I believe) and the topic of discussion was birth rate decline in the West (and elsewhere).
It was all the usual talking points, then Perry mentioned the impact on technology, something I hadn't thought about. She said technological progress will basically peak in the next 5-10 years and then decline, as there simply won't be a big enough pool of engineers and other highly qualified people.
And she rightly noted that it's not just a numbers game. You can't expect India and Nigeria to step in and train up enough of their people to the same standard achieved in Western universities. Even China is losing population and will not be able to replace its current crop of highly skilled workers one to one.
So Perry's prediction is that none of these advancements that we keep hearing about will ever come to fruition, or at least not at scale, and not it a way that can be sustained. The AI revolution, space travel to Mars, self-driving cars... it will all in the end amount to nothing. In fact, our use of technology will go backwards -- exactly as you state -- since fewer people will know how to maintain existing systems. At some point, there will only just be enough engineers to keep the electrical grid going and other "basics" but you can forget about living in some amazing Smart Home in the year 2050 or perhaps even having a smartphone.
Paradoxically, I think a collapse is what gives me hope. The current system is broken beyond repair. To begin anew we will have to rebuild from the ground up.
I'm not particularly apathetic, Ryan, or even down-hearted. Whatever happens here on Earth, the answers to life lie elsewhere. However, as someone says below, we are on the downward cycle and there's no point in denying it. As for trying to wake people up, I think that's a waste of time. Almost every day now there are (finally!) fresh revelations about how awful the lies behind Covid were. Same goes for the official narratives for Ukraine, Gaza, "Climate change". Yet the normies don't care. If they aren't awake now, they never will be. What's important is not to fret about the useless majority but to be part of the creative minority that will still be around when the brown stuff hits the fan. As you rightly say, being aware and getting prepared.
a wonderful approach, jimmy! powerful and action-driven, as well as detached from the outcome wrt other people’s responses. this takes courage and confidence, and you’ve got it!
Indeed. I'm not sure if you ever saw the videos showing the downfall of the Romanian dictator, Ceaucescu in 1989. It all began him making his usual speech to a massive crowd as he had done a thousand times before. Then suddenly a few guys start heckling him. Then some more. A week later he and his wife were shot by firing squad.
There's a literary example of this. The premise of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is that the galaxy is going to face a Dark Age one way or another -- the math says so -- but by the establishing the Foundation and its task, what is predicted to be 30,000 years can be shortened to 1,000 years. Here, the fall is also coming one way or another, but we likely can mitigate the severity of the carnage as you said.
I played baseball for 4 games with a broken humerus. My parents kept telling me let's see how it is in the morning. I knew they cared, but we didn't have the money.
While my mom was on vacation, my dad was looking after us kids. I was out skating outside and fell and fractured my wrist, but continued practicing piano the rest of the time my mom was gone. My dad claimed I was just trying to get out of practicing the piano.
Ouch! Hubs had to go to school with a collapsed lung after getting hit with a baseball during his weekend game. They eventually figured it out and he had the surgery thank goodness ⚾️
If only they would stick to what they're good at! Talked with an OBGYN this weekend who thinks the trans train is full on ridiculous but he knows the surgeons who turn penises into "vaginas" and they full on admit that it's because they enjoy the challenge.
Oh my God! I heard there is an inordinate number of surgeons who cut off one of their fingers so they get lifetime disability of 1/2 what they were making for the rest of their lives!
We told our kids when home alone they could call us for fire, flood, or broken bones. After an apple peeling gone awry incident that resulted in stitches, we added copious blood. That was it.
Same here. Both arms ripped off by an out of control combine harvester when I was 12. I just picked up the scythe with my feet and carried on working. :)
You laugh, but I swear there is a true story from the 60s or 70's where this teenage kid on a farm did lose both his hands in a machinery accident while alone. He walked to his house, dialed for help using the bone sticking out of one of his arms, and then sat in the bathtub until help arrived because he "didn't want to get blood on the carpert"! Both hands were reattached in one of the first limb reattachment surgeries.
Pellet guns? Luxury! Our father used to wake us up for work an hour before we went to bed then chase us around with a chain-saw and, having dismembered us, would dance on our graves.
When I was being taught how to swim, my dad (a former VA Beach lifeguard) threw me forward about ten feet and told me to swim to him. He did pull me up when I was going down for the third time.
I don’t think my dad was ever worried about me drowning in the shore break on the North Shore of Oahu during big wave season, but sometimes I wonder what he was thinking as he watched me get pulled out again for another pounding when I was literally 12 inches from his hand and he could have grabbed me if he wanted to. 🌊
Well, it turns out he wasn't too interested in maintaining a relationship later in life so sometimes I see this moment as an early sign of things to come, but in both cases, yes, it did make me stronger!
I wish it was a chancla, a soft one. My biggest problem was my brother would laugh which of course pissed her off even more so she moved a little further down not just him but me too and I never laughed I was screaming bloody murder.
Yes he does indeed... but there are lots of other truths that come out of this badcat post.
* I read recently some research that finds that experiencing a 'trauma' in early life is more likely to make you more psychologically robust than traumatised for life. (like it always is in tv/film dramas)
* people disappearing up their own ideological backsides is what Freud called "the narcissism of small differences"
" For any reasonably educated, reasonably sane, citizen of any Western nation....it would be curmudgeonly not to recognise that life for us is pretty good. The more reflective might ponder however whether the quantity of human happiness does actually expand to fit the quantity of propitious circumstance or whether happiness is more in the way of a self-levelling constant."
Thanks for calling out the "pursuit of happiness" BS. As I always tell my kids, happiness is something you get as a side benefit when you are busy doing something worthwhile.
These kids are the modern day equivalent of those who protested the Vietnam War.... the beginning of Electromagnetic/Weather Warfare which has been perfected via the Israeli government's weilding of Lavender AI against the Palestianians (mostly women and children.)
So, the bad cat is chastising college kids for protesting against genocide? A better example couldn't be found? Disaster Capitalism via military force is intentionally established using SHOCK THERAPY (Covid-19 is the new version.)
This ongoing pilfering is not the Keynesian compromise (public schools, healthcare, utilities, forests, mining) we had in Canada. These kids are morally courageous to protest the Palestinian massacre because that AI war machine is coming for us next.
Agent Smith is already everywhere including in our bodies using the nanotechnology biosensors for surveillance under the skin via the Internet of Bio-Nano Things and the WBAN (Wireless Body Area Network IEEE802.15.6 in the terahertz band.)
It doesn't matter how much money you have because we are all the enemy under the Friedmanian economics of unfettered capitalism.
To understand what is happening (Covid-19) you must read "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" by author, Naomi Klein.
"So, the bad cat is chastising college kids for protesting against genocide?"
No, these kids couldn't even define genocide, nor do they know which "river" or "sea" they are chanting about. It's all empty virtue signaling that will result in no change, no results, NOTHING. It's all social posturing - "Look at me! I believe in something!". It is the ultimate action to justify inaction.
Meanwhile, ethnic cleansing in Burma, chinese slow genocide of uighurs, Saudi Arabia's war in Jemen about to reach 500 000+ civilians killed so far, cultural genocide of Tibet, ministers of South Africa black governement openly talking about exterminating all whites, pakistani pogroms against anyone suspected of besmirching islam, slave trade perpetrated by AQiM in North Africa, and so on.
But none of their idols on social media has told them to be outraged about that, have they?
Possibly, the generation we are talking about is simply venting for having grown up in an environment where they haven't been allowed to be angry about anything, unless their anger was first authorised as valid and correct by authority.
I don't know Angie, as I was reading it I was envisioning the Jewish kids who were claiming they didn't feel safe going to class. Somehow they turned protests against the Israeli government into perceived threats against their personal security. And naturally the media amplified that message of alleged danger.
And the picture of the girl holding the sign saying "I'm mad about something I never researched" had me thinking of all those screaming about how Hamas started this because they have no idea what the Zionists did to the Arab Palestinians in 1948.
In his interview on Tucker, Thomas Massie said that he sent his kids to public school because he thought that 3 mile bus ride was an important cultural immersion experience.
My husband is an independent contractor but he does most of his work for one business, and so he's in that shop with the staff. The guy who owns the company is a dream to work for; he's honest, flexible, and laid back. There's a young guy that's been there a few years; he's bright enough but repeats mistakes, and then wanders off into self-reflection. Despite the absolute plum that is this job, he just quit so he can go swirl around in his thoughts and "find himself." It's been really interesting to watch. I like this kid, but I think his parents should probably kick him out for a while. I told my 18yo - you will always have a home here, but you have to leave before you can come back.
In the '50s and early '60s, the Beat Generation rejected the materialism of the post-war boom. I liked that. I left home as soon as I could support myself, and never looked back. I am now nearly 80 with a couple of full-blown careers and many experiments behind me. Most of what my life was was self-inflicted, both the good and the bad. I regret almost nothing since I needed all of it to become the person I am today. I'm nowhere near perfect, but I am comfortable in my own skin and don't need any one or any thing outside me to validate me as "OK". And guess what? This is one of billions of versions of the same story. How does it end? I guess I'll just have to keep living it to find out...
I used to work for a manufacturing company. We production workers labored on the ground floor while the managers and engineers worked on the second floor with a huge glass window overlooking the proles running the machines. It was like being in the gorilla exhibit at the zoo. I always thought it would be better in every way if the desks of the managerial professional class were interspersed on the shop floor amongst the machinery and the workers.
Not always. The key is to spend a good amount of time on the shop floor working out problems with the line workers. Professionals who spend all their time in their "glass room" are only doing part of their job. An engineer who is not hands-on is usually sub-par.
Ha! The definition of academic is never having to get your hands dirty. Why do you think they call it the "Ivory Tower". Determining if your theory actually works in the real world is a low priority.
One of mine was a total terror. Get them to move out indeed! Now works in construction often 10+ hour days. I laugh at them now, that if all they had to do for the day was: take the garbage out or, do dishes & that was too hard and unreasonable basically evil. Now they do 100 times that, :-)
I'd be curious to know how many of the ones on the street were well coddled.
Nothing wrong with taking the time to "find" yourself, as long as you do it on your own dime and in your own time. Too many kids these days want mumsy and pops to subsidise them while they do it.
I'm much gentler than the cat in my coaching work, but the goal is to get people *out* of their state and moving forward. Same thing with this process. I agree that the finding is important, but we find it during the doing, in my experience.
The best thing that happened to the relationship between my son and I was when he 'kicked' himself out of the house at 20 to go join a branch of the services. He came home from the first stint a mature man and now I have no problem with him staying close as a housemate. I suspect all young adults need that experience of independence and challenge to mature properly.
Spot on once again, badcat. Thank you. You did well to avoid this quote but I can't resist. Not because it's easy <grin> but because it's true. “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” ~G. Michael Hopf
This resonates with me on a very domestic scale. Back in the early eighties my wife and I had a couple of restaurants in London and as waitresses we used to mostly hire students or recent graduates looking to make some money with which to travel. This was in the days when waitresses kept their own tips before Blair decided, that like everything else, this was an area that needed regulation and to be improved by the wisdom of state intervention.
What I often found was that the recent graduates would find the lifestyle that they could enjoy on a basic wage plus lots of tips, (oddly, the harder they worked, the more charming they were with customers, the more tips they got) was so attractive that they stayed longer than the 8 months to a year they had originally planned.
Going to the 'hygiene hypothesis', they would find that the longer that they worked and delayed getting on with their life or travel plans the more they came to resent the system that was keeping them in place and would start to attack it. This led to unreliability and tiffs with colleagues and other minor infractions that would disturb the smooth running of the business.
Once we had figured out what was going on we would via staff appraisal point this out to the individual and it was extra-ordinary how often they would then see it for themselves. Some would leave and some would take an offer to train as supervisors or managers.
I'm not sure what we can offer today's graduates by way of a route out of the trap they and academia have set for themselves.
I am truly enjoying white pride month and whiteenth day on the 19th. Sorry I missed white history month in February. My calendar, my months and days. I am not racist, I'm whitest. Take that, you wokie jokies.
Great article. I am occasionally blessed with a moment of synchronicity. Reading this article was such a moment. Just yesterday I was considering the dilemma our world is facing politically and culturally (all of which feels personal to me) and the idea that scrolled across the bottom of my brain was "abundance"...the irony that all of this seems to flow from the fact that we are living in a time of such amazing abundance. And I wake up this morning and you have filled in the blanks on that very notion. Now I am not exactly sure what this says about the way human intelligence spreads, but I am sure that this "adds" to my feeling that indeed I am on the right path. And for that I am grateful. Thank you. I am also compelled to mention that all of what you wrote so eloquently on today is in line and in keeping with the theories of Rene Girard. "People don't know what they want...until someone else wants it first." Memetic Desire.
“Madison, oh muh gerd, did you read about ‘struggle du jour’?! We have to do something to help! Let’s make some signs, skip class and yell at our classmates! Riiiiight?!”
When this one was a young one, he and his friends sometimes got fed-up with the humourless didacticism of the self-appointed leaders of whatever movement and cause was the new hot.
Leading to subverting chants for sport.
Sadly, it doesn't really translate all that well, but one anti-police chant could be changed without loss of rythm, rhyme or cadence to instead mean "Sit down and light up".
I guess an american eq. could be "2-4-6-8-Let's go home and masturbate!"?
To quote an american student I met in my youth, name long forgotten:
"Fuck your revolution if I'm not allowed to crack jokes and have a laugh!"
Oh yeah? Well fukuyama you, too! All seriousness aside, it's true that our immune systems weaken if not used, and we can get rather dotty if not challenged to a certain extent. But I actually found the reverse in my own life. Too much news, too much politics, too much fighting against the tide, rushing about, and tsuris were seriously undermining my mental (and physical) health. I undertook a radical cure, reminiscent of John Prine's Spanish Pipedream:
"Blow up your TV
Throw away your papers
Move to the country
Build you a home..."
A quiet life in the country while regulating news input and exposure to nutty politics has worked wonders. I'm gratified to finally begin seeing some pushback against all the woke crap, and really heartened to see some of it coming from young people with a strong sense of right and wrong. (Ah, El Gato. You brought a nostalgic tear to these old eyes with the kid and the bike ramp. We even ran with scissors back then, too.)
I have some childhood ramp jumping stories that still make me smile. The pain is long gone, but the memories of the thrill that comes with overcoming fear and just going for it remain. And hey, chicks really do dig scars. 😁
The worst part is having to work harder at just maintaining current level...and knowing it's a losing proposition...and also knowing if you don't the decline will only accelerate!
You know what? I'm 60 and experiencing exactly that. Old pains are coming back to haunt me. I own a small construction business, so constantly up and down ladders, slinging heavy equipment around, etc. I've torn up every muscle and joint in my body. The injuries incurred in my 30s are the worst. Childhood injuries, not so much. But hey, maybe if I live to be 80 those will come back too. I can hardly wait! 😁
I work in a chiro office as a medical massage therapist and here’s my theory about it… The body is both constantly trying to minimize pain and be in balance. So when we injure ourselves, we naturally shift to avoid pain. Eventually that becomes our normal position of balance (it’s also why you hear ‘I hurt my left knee 3 weeks ago and now my back hurts on the other side!’). As we age those imbalances cause pain because they’ve maybe pulled a joint slightly out of position or kept a muscle in a shortened state and the body just can’t accommodate that imbalance anymore. So…. Mobilize your joints, be active, and see a chiropractor. 😉
My wife swears by chiropractors but I've never been. I jumped insane ramps and climbed 60' ladders, but... I'm scared, lol. I'm afraid I'll wind up paralyzed. Stupid, I know, and I'm actually working up my courage to go this week. Wish me luck!
Can confirm your theory, that's exactly how it works unless consciously countermanded: we will unconsciously shift loads and change posture to avoid pain, eventually causing something else to be overloaded.
I broke my leg at 18 mos falling off a fence, vividly remember jumping off the roof of the house we moved out of when I was 7 just to do it, routinely swam the mile across the river we lived on (and back) without telling anyone I was going, broke all kinds of bones and had many stitches... My mom said to go out in the morning, come back for food or darkness, so I did. I grew up in FL with alligators and diamondbacks and coral snakes and no one (apparently) was ever worried about it. Great childhood! I realized when I became a mom that my mom probably WAS scared sometimes, but she didn't show it. I did the same with my kids. Well worth it.
My kinda gal! 😁 My wife was a tomboy, grew up on a farm riding horses, working in the field, playing sports. I'm sure you're husband feels like I do that it's a good thing we didn't have society back then telling parents their children were transgender if they didn't fit the mold.
At nearly sixty, I’ve been working for almost 46 years, counting the part time jobs through junior and senior high school. I’ve never suffered depression or anxiety, never been particularly ill, worked as a firefighter in a large city for 27 years and seen the worst that can happen to people. I am retired from firefighting now, but working full time in a job that is physical and keeps me outside all day. I don’t remember where I heard this, it was when I was quite young growing up, but I have always agreed with it, “Life offers no greater reward than the opportunity to do work worth doing”. It may be anecdotal, but I have lived and continue to live it.
Children today need to work and to work hard at work worth doing. It is physical, spiritual and mental therapy, all day everyday. It is life worth living.
along a similar line, look at what free housing, food, etc has done for the "inner city poor". Nothing that full time jobs and a struggle to provide couldn't fix though.
No need to worry. The way things are going, life is going to get much, much harder. The system will right itself.
I don't doubt that you're right.
I take a slightly different view however. IMO the degree of the carnage can be mitigated by helping to wake people up before it's too late.
After all it's necessary to expand ideas in order to narrow for solutions/impact.
I'd rather not fall into a self fulfilling prediction limited to one "narrow" outcome.
I mean I just hate falling into the apathy trap. Personally I think apathy can be a "cousin" to self-contempt.
That's exactly what totalitarians rely on. And precisely why it works.
I do think you're right to a degree though. So prepare if you want to avoid despair.
Just my two cents.
As a percentage of population there are fewer and fewer people who know how things work. Think of all that is involved in manufacturing a computer, or a car, or even processing food. If we fail to maintain a critical mass of people who can keep it all working, it will all fail. Not just a little at a time, but all at once.
Completely....but I think it's further reaching than just what we're talking about.
I posted this a year ago and I think it fits in nicely with the point you're making:
I think the underlying problem is this last few generations have no idea how things are made. Therefore they have no interest in making things because they have no experiencing working with their hands - they wouldn't even know where to start. That being the case; they can't make shit happen.
You'd have to think curiosity is lost when the two body parts with the most nerve endings (finger tips and brain)become disassociated. They are meant to work together.
It is what separates us from all other beasts and was most certainly the driving force in the evolutionary emergence of consciousness. We could be literally losing consciousness - and by extension conscience.
Easy prosperous living and cheap products make just replacing them the way most go. But, those cheap products are barely reparable and the replacement parts are a major percentage of the total cost of buying anew one. The corporations built this principle into their products - all part of the plan. Yet we can still learn to use quality mad products and repair them if we decide to try. It is just that we might have to shop for them in the used, second hand, and thrift stores. How I wish cars and trucks would go back to roll down windows and dump most of the electronic wizz-bang crap. The radio in my 1960 Volkswagen beetle worked great and I just had to turn a dial for stations. It also got close to 40 mpg. so what have we gained. I could and did take apart the engine (in my '67 VW van and just order all the parts. The whole job cost about the same as having the AC refrigerant in my 2015 Chrysler 200 replaced at a dealer because they now have a refrigerant you can't replace yourself
And we call this garbage progress.
What a joke!
Another part of the problem is that even the trades are being degraded.
Used to be that a good mechanic could diagnose what was wrong with a vehicle from various metrics - including sound. (Remember when your mechanic used to ask you what a problem sounded like when you brought your car into the shop?)
Nowadays, "mechanics" usually hook up your engine to a computer to get a diagnosis. And then instead of actually repairing things, they just switch out parts.
You can't be truly independent when you work at that level.
Just like doctors are now doing. Instead of new parts they give you a prescription for new meds.
I'm a decent auto mechanic. I have a code reader. When my AC went out, I read the code, and it said the thermostat was faulty. I know enough to know that the thermostat has nothing to do with the AC. But I looked up an explanation, and it said the car's computer is programmed to turn off the AC if the car overheats. That takes some of the load off the engine and maybe keeps the engine cool enough. That made sense to me, except that I was sure the car wasn't overheating. So, I took the car to a mechanic I trust, and he also could see no way that the thermostat was the issue. He suggested that it was the temperature sensor that was faulty, and giving a false reading that the engine was overheating. Turns out, he was right. And that caused the computer to turn off the AC. There will never be a time when good, human experience and judgement is supplanted by software. Software does a lot for us, but we had best NEVER become fully dependent on it.
"so what have we gained[?]"
Windows you can't wind down when you're submerged?
I actually think about that occasionally!
No doubt they will crash as you try to roll them down and you will get the blue screen of death.
There is that!
Agree
Aaaand I’m back driving a stick shift. LOL. Beats a smart (spy) car.
There are no more TV repairmen anymore because it is cheaper to go buy a new TV at Wal-Mart than to repair an existing one. Everything is made to be disposable.
Learned that with my built-in microwave.
They built that model to make US the product.
That is spot on.
In this case, I'm not just talking about 'working with your hands'. We're only a generation or two into a manufaturing economy. Yes, manufaturing has been around for a lot longer than that, but it's been a relatively short titme that people buy nearly everything rather than make/grow the majority for themselves. The processes have grown very involved and are more fragile than ,most people ever think about. The processes aren't on 'autopilot', they need to be seen to constatnly. As people have mentioned here, more an more people accept all this 'stuff' as their right. That goes for our 'leadeers', too. When there aren't enough people who can and will keep it going, it will collapse.
Humans think they are superior. EVERYTHING is done for the convenience of the race.
We are not superior.
Exactly. Mother nature will "consume" us when she's well and ready.
And yet, here we all are. Despite not testing every animal under the sun for bird flu since the fall of the Roman empire.
"It is what separates us from all other beasts"
Reverend "Doc Brown" Jim Ignatowski posits a different hypothesis.
https://clip.cafe/taxi-1978/the-ability-of-two-men-put-on-gloves/
He would know. He was a Doctor _and_ a Cab Driver.
Agree. I’m watching a father and his two sons remodel our bathroom, and they are doers. Learning from their hands, discussing with each other and getting it done. The trades are where it’s at, but we devalued those professions decades ago and we are suffering the consequences with quickly declining stores of valuable, practical knowledge . To me, the failing can be partly attributed to the idea “I want my kids to have it better than I did”.
You nailed it
One of the reasons Covid targeted the “elderly” useless eaters…cuz we know stuff!
That, and you can see through the veneer of lies.
I was listening to a podcast (Louise Perry on Triggernometry I believe) and the topic of discussion was birth rate decline in the West (and elsewhere).
It was all the usual talking points, then Perry mentioned the impact on technology, something I hadn't thought about. She said technological progress will basically peak in the next 5-10 years and then decline, as there simply won't be a big enough pool of engineers and other highly qualified people.
And she rightly noted that it's not just a numbers game. You can't expect India and Nigeria to step in and train up enough of their people to the same standard achieved in Western universities. Even China is losing population and will not be able to replace its current crop of highly skilled workers one to one.
So Perry's prediction is that none of these advancements that we keep hearing about will ever come to fruition, or at least not at scale, and not it a way that can be sustained. The AI revolution, space travel to Mars, self-driving cars... it will all in the end amount to nothing. In fact, our use of technology will go backwards -- exactly as you state -- since fewer people will know how to maintain existing systems. At some point, there will only just be enough engineers to keep the electrical grid going and other "basics" but you can forget about living in some amazing Smart Home in the year 2050 or perhaps even having a smartphone.
"I mean I just hate falling into the apathy trap."
If you practice Apathy long enough, this is where you end up:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
"Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.”
― Martin Niemöller
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/65103.Martin_Niem_ller
--
We have to give a crap, as you say Ryan, before it's too late.
AMEN
From my perspective it is already too late.
The collapse is well underway. Not being a pessimist here. Just a realist.
Don't give up hope. There's a whole community right here who give a crap.
Spread the word.
Paradoxically, I think a collapse is what gives me hope. The current system is broken beyond repair. To begin anew we will have to rebuild from the ground up.
*ponders* Perhaps not so paradoxically. Maybe a rebuild is in order.
🔥 🔥 🔥 this is me at this point.
Oh, I haven't given up! I just don't believe we can right this ship. The damage is so extensive...
That said, I continue to have faith.
Cool. Because I was willing to remind you of some good things we still have, things still worth fighting for.
Yeah I hear you. I have youngish kids...so I'm gonna give it the ole' college try
And I have grandkids I need to hope they deserve better than this current administration and globalists
Amen. We need people with grown children.
I actually think it's the difference maker.
I'm not particularly apathetic, Ryan, or even down-hearted. Whatever happens here on Earth, the answers to life lie elsewhere. However, as someone says below, we are on the downward cycle and there's no point in denying it. As for trying to wake people up, I think that's a waste of time. Almost every day now there are (finally!) fresh revelations about how awful the lies behind Covid were. Same goes for the official narratives for Ukraine, Gaza, "Climate change". Yet the normies don't care. If they aren't awake now, they never will be. What's important is not to fret about the useless majority but to be part of the creative minority that will still be around when the brown stuff hits the fan. As you rightly say, being aware and getting prepared.
I'm not trying to wake people up. Just continuing to alert them that they are dreaming. And regardless if they wake up or not, there will be pushback.
This is the best way to say it
a wonderful approach, jimmy! powerful and action-driven, as well as detached from the outcome wrt other people’s responses. this takes courage and confidence, and you’ve got it!
well met, Steghorn.
except it's never taken a majority to change the tide. it always comes down to the few.
time will tell as you say.
Indeed. I'm not sure if you ever saw the videos showing the downfall of the Romanian dictator, Ceaucescu in 1989. It all began him making his usual speech to a massive crowd as he had done a thousand times before. Then suddenly a few guys start heckling him. Then some more. A week later he and his wife were shot by firing squad.
No I haven't...but I learned today!
Have you been reading the Margarette Anna Alice Substack? Because you sound awfully chipper today.
No. But my outlook could change by the afternoon
Reading MAA has been a fine find for me.
Haha, love MAA!
https://x.com/fft1776/status/1800412900529782806?s=42&t=8_Fkzw0qWzeGku3wM-ajTA
What a speech. Must watch
There's a literary example of this. The premise of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is that the galaxy is going to face a Dark Age one way or another -- the math says so -- but by the establishing the Foundation and its task, what is predicted to be 30,000 years can be shortened to 1,000 years. Here, the fall is also coming one way or another, but we likely can mitigate the severity of the carnage as you said.
Ooh. That is a good example...or we could end up in A Canticle For Liebiwitz world
Indeed, no one needs to hit rock-bottom to get out of a bad situation.
People been absorbing AA claptrap for too long.
Great two cents, Ryan
We are in the "weak men create hard times" period of the cycle. All that has happened before will happen again.
I'm not sure that the weak men in question are even men.
Kids today have it too easy. I died once when I was five and my mother made me walk it off. ;-)
For real, when my husband (I’m a woman) broke his arm, his parents told him to go lie down until dinner was over.
I played baseball for 4 games with a broken humerus. My parents kept telling me let's see how it is in the morning. I knew they cared, but we didn't have the money.
Eventually I got a cast for 8 weeks...
While my mom was on vacation, my dad was looking after us kids. I was out skating outside and fell and fractured my wrist, but continued practicing piano the rest of the time my mom was gone. My dad claimed I was just trying to get out of practicing the piano.
Or, maybe you were just "trying to get attention?" Remember that one?
lol. sounds like my dad.
It builds character!
Heck yeah 👍🏼
Ouch! Hubs had to go to school with a collapsed lung after getting hit with a baseball during his weekend game. They eventually figured it out and he had the surgery thank goodness ⚾️
Thank goodness is right.
Sometimes western medicine is needed in cases like this for sure
If only they would stick to what they're good at! Talked with an OBGYN this weekend who thinks the trans train is full on ridiculous but he knows the surgeons who turn penises into "vaginas" and they full on admit that it's because they enjoy the challenge.
Oh my God! I heard there is an inordinate number of surgeons who cut off one of their fingers so they get lifetime disability of 1/2 what they were making for the rest of their lives!
Haha yeah, if you’re not on fire, have not ingested any possible poison, or you were not blind, then you were probably good to go.
Not bleeding then can’t be too bad
We told our kids when home alone they could call us for fire, flood, or broken bones. After an apple peeling gone awry incident that resulted in stitches, we added copious blood. That was it.
Same here. Both arms ripped off by an out of control combine harvester when I was 12. I just picked up the scythe with my feet and carried on working. :)
You laugh, but I swear there is a true story from the 60s or 70's where this teenage kid on a farm did lose both his hands in a machinery accident while alone. He walked to his house, dialed for help using the bone sticking out of one of his arms, and then sat in the bathtub until help arrived because he "didn't want to get blood on the carpert"! Both hands were reattached in one of the first limb reattachment surgeries.
Great, but did he finish his homework too?
Here you go, not the 1960s but 1992. I remembered it because that stoy made headline all the way over here at the time.
https://www.agweek.com/business/whatever-happened-to-john-thompson-the-nd-farm-kid-who-had-his-arms-ripped-off-in-a-1992-farm-accident
Lmao
You poor thing 🤣🤣
Lolol
I am laughing so hard right now!!!
😂
I know. I had to stop reading more comments cause I can’t get my dinner eating from laughing at these
Wow you're so lucky. I only got shot and had to walk it off when I was 7. Wish I got to die.
Dying was easy. It’s the return that was a little rough. 😜
Shit. Our brothers used to chase us through the woods and shoot us with pellet guns.
was fun shooting my sister with a bb gun until she got to the house and told Mum.
Still, was a fun family story.
She recovered.
Our brothers had us dress in layers. It stung, but didn't leave as big of a mark. My friend and I still laugh about it.
I probably should've thought that through though. Was thinking that only one pump on the lever wouldn't be much velocity....
Pellet guns? Luxury! Our father used to wake us up for work an hour before we went to bed then chase us around with a chain-saw and, having dismembered us, would dance on our graves.
When I was being taught how to swim, my dad (a former VA Beach lifeguard) threw me forward about ten feet and told me to swim to him. He did pull me up when I was going down for the third time.
Well bless him for not letting it get too out of hand. 😊
I don’t think my dad was ever worried about me drowning in the shore break on the North Shore of Oahu during big wave season, but sometimes I wonder what he was thinking as he watched me get pulled out again for another pounding when I was literally 12 inches from his hand and he could have grabbed me if he wanted to. 🌊
I love this. You are stronger for this experience. God bless your dad.
Well, it turns out he wasn't too interested in maintaining a relationship later in life so sometimes I see this moment as an early sign of things to come, but in both cases, yes, it did make me stronger!
*Mother points to phone against head*
*mouths* "Rub some dirt on it - I'm on the phone!"*
Hahaha
My mom broke the paddle on the counter, you see what you made me do.
Mrs. Pi's Salvadoran. One of her college friends has this in their kitchen:
https://www.amazon.com/Beware-Chancla-Hispanic-Spanish-Panderia/dp/B0955Y3CJH
I wish it was a chancla, a soft one. My biggest problem was my brother would laugh which of course pissed her off even more so she moved a little further down not just him but me too and I never laughed I was screaming bloody murder.
I think Mamas and Abuelas have been able to strike fear in the youngins from way back.
It's not the Tool. It's the Craftsman.
If I was called by my full name without hearing the cat, dog or my brothers name before mine that's all it took to put the fear of God in me. LOL
Thanks for the LOL!
😜
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Shorter bad cat: The Devil finds work for idle hands.
Yes he does indeed... but there are lots of other truths that come out of this badcat post.
* I read recently some research that finds that experiencing a 'trauma' in early life is more likely to make you more psychologically robust than traumatised for life. (like it always is in tv/film dramas)
* people disappearing up their own ideological backsides is what Freud called "the narcissism of small differences"
* Yes struggle is essential to The Good Life
* and then there's that false goal "the pursuit of happiness" I wrote about this in this essay: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/are-we-making-progress
" For any reasonably educated, reasonably sane, citizen of any Western nation....it would be curmudgeonly not to recognise that life for us is pretty good. The more reflective might ponder however whether the quantity of human happiness does actually expand to fit the quantity of propitious circumstance or whether happiness is more in the way of a self-levelling constant."
Thanks for calling out the "pursuit of happiness" BS. As I always tell my kids, happiness is something you get as a side benefit when you are busy doing something worthwhile.
Stealing this 🙏
Sportsnet is playing the "ACE" (Adverse Childhood Experience) ad this month.
I recall ACE becoming popular with the social workers about 15-20 years ago, which required more SW's to stomp out the ACE's.
This is why I always thank my Savior for my many blessings, even when things ares rosy still better than many.
*aren’t
These kids are the modern day equivalent of those who protested the Vietnam War.... the beginning of Electromagnetic/Weather Warfare which has been perfected via the Israeli government's weilding of Lavender AI against the Palestianians (mostly women and children.)
So, the bad cat is chastising college kids for protesting against genocide? A better example couldn't be found? Disaster Capitalism via military force is intentionally established using SHOCK THERAPY (Covid-19 is the new version.)
This ongoing pilfering is not the Keynesian compromise (public schools, healthcare, utilities, forests, mining) we had in Canada. These kids are morally courageous to protest the Palestinian massacre because that AI war machine is coming for us next.
Agent Smith is already everywhere including in our bodies using the nanotechnology biosensors for surveillance under the skin via the Internet of Bio-Nano Things and the WBAN (Wireless Body Area Network IEEE802.15.6 in the terahertz band.)
It doesn't matter how much money you have because we are all the enemy under the Friedmanian economics of unfettered capitalism.
To understand what is happening (Covid-19) you must read "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" by author, Naomi Klein.
https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/shock-doctrine/
"So, the bad cat is chastising college kids for protesting against genocide?"
No, these kids couldn't even define genocide, nor do they know which "river" or "sea" they are chanting about. It's all empty virtue signaling that will result in no change, no results, NOTHING. It's all social posturing - "Look at me! I believe in something!". It is the ultimate action to justify inaction.
Exactly.
Meanwhile, ethnic cleansing in Burma, chinese slow genocide of uighurs, Saudi Arabia's war in Jemen about to reach 500 000+ civilians killed so far, cultural genocide of Tibet, ministers of South Africa black governement openly talking about exterminating all whites, pakistani pogroms against anyone suspected of besmirching islam, slave trade perpetrated by AQiM in North Africa, and so on.
But none of their idols on social media has told them to be outraged about that, have they?
Possibly, the generation we are talking about is simply venting for having grown up in an environment where they haven't been allowed to be angry about anything, unless their anger was first authorised as valid and correct by authority.
I don't know Angie, as I was reading it I was envisioning the Jewish kids who were claiming they didn't feel safe going to class. Somehow they turned protests against the Israeli government into perceived threats against their personal security. And naturally the media amplified that message of alleged danger.
And the picture of the girl holding the sign saying "I'm mad about something I never researched" had me thinking of all those screaming about how Hamas started this because they have no idea what the Zionists did to the Arab Palestinians in 1948.
In his interview on Tucker, Thomas Massie said that he sent his kids to public school because he thought that 3 mile bus ride was an important cultural immersion experience.
My husband is an independent contractor but he does most of his work for one business, and so he's in that shop with the staff. The guy who owns the company is a dream to work for; he's honest, flexible, and laid back. There's a young guy that's been there a few years; he's bright enough but repeats mistakes, and then wanders off into self-reflection. Despite the absolute plum that is this job, he just quit so he can go swirl around in his thoughts and "find himself." It's been really interesting to watch. I like this kid, but I think his parents should probably kick him out for a while. I told my 18yo - you will always have a home here, but you have to leave before you can come back.
In the '50s and early '60s, the Beat Generation rejected the materialism of the post-war boom. I liked that. I left home as soon as I could support myself, and never looked back. I am now nearly 80 with a couple of full-blown careers and many experiments behind me. Most of what my life was was self-inflicted, both the good and the bad. I regret almost nothing since I needed all of it to become the person I am today. I'm nowhere near perfect, but I am comfortable in my own skin and don't need any one or any thing outside me to validate me as "OK". And guess what? This is one of billions of versions of the same story. How does it end? I guess I'll just have to keep living it to find out...
What a great way to live.
I used to work for a manufacturing company. We production workers labored on the ground floor while the managers and engineers worked on the second floor with a huge glass window overlooking the proles running the machines. It was like being in the gorilla exhibit at the zoo. I always thought it would be better in every way if the desks of the managerial professional class were interspersed on the shop floor amongst the machinery and the workers.
Not always. The key is to spend a good amount of time on the shop floor working out problems with the line workers. Professionals who spend all their time in their "glass room" are only doing part of their job. An engineer who is not hands-on is usually sub-par.
And that goes double for academics and bureaucrats.
Ha! The definition of academic is never having to get your hands dirty. Why do you think they call it the "Ivory Tower". Determining if your theory actually works in the real world is a low priority.
One of mine was a total terror. Get them to move out indeed! Now works in construction often 10+ hour days. I laugh at them now, that if all they had to do for the day was: take the garbage out or, do dishes & that was too hard and unreasonable basically evil. Now they do 100 times that, :-)
I'd be curious to know how many of the ones on the street were well coddled.
I have been amazed to watch my kids make those shifts on their own terms and own incentives.
Nothing wrong with taking the time to "find" yourself, as long as you do it on your own dime and in your own time. Too many kids these days want mumsy and pops to subsidise them while they do it.
I'm much gentler than the cat in my coaching work, but the goal is to get people *out* of their state and moving forward. Same thing with this process. I agree that the finding is important, but we find it during the doing, in my experience.
The best thing that happened to the relationship between my son and I was when he 'kicked' himself out of the house at 20 to go join a branch of the services. He came home from the first stint a mature man and now I have no problem with him staying close as a housemate. I suspect all young adults need that experience of independence and challenge to mature properly.
I told mine "You will always have a home here, but you'll have to pay for room and board if you come back."
Spot on once again, badcat. Thank you. You did well to avoid this quote but I can't resist. Not because it's easy <grin> but because it's true. “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” ~G. Michael Hopf
"hard times create bad cats" would be a good title for a memoir.
Something tells me you don't really need hard times to be a bad cat...:)
Right now my cat is just giving me a hard time cuz I haven't shared any of my bacon from my BLT!
I mean, to a cat, that IS a hard time.
yeah and getting 10 hours of sleep, pets and treats all day...and hiding my socks!...and sleeping in my bed!
must be tough...:)
you have no idea the commitment that takes.
we just make it look easy.
lolol...i forgot the licks on my face to wake me up for breakfast.....big sloppy licks...
Love it mine is the same way, his head pops up looks around with a look of is that bacon?
I can see why the cat is upset. Under International Cat Law they own all they survey.
Lolol...so damn true!
I also enjoy BLTs.
I'm not sure life is worth living without bacon.
I've sometimes pondered the idea of becoming a vegetarian. Then I think: "No bacon!"
Agreed
Yep. I think I can guess where we are in that cycle right now.
Agreed but it's early yet. Give it time to truly blossom.
This resonates with me on a very domestic scale. Back in the early eighties my wife and I had a couple of restaurants in London and as waitresses we used to mostly hire students or recent graduates looking to make some money with which to travel. This was in the days when waitresses kept their own tips before Blair decided, that like everything else, this was an area that needed regulation and to be improved by the wisdom of state intervention.
What I often found was that the recent graduates would find the lifestyle that they could enjoy on a basic wage plus lots of tips, (oddly, the harder they worked, the more charming they were with customers, the more tips they got) was so attractive that they stayed longer than the 8 months to a year they had originally planned.
Going to the 'hygiene hypothesis', they would find that the longer that they worked and delayed getting on with their life or travel plans the more they came to resent the system that was keeping them in place and would start to attack it. This led to unreliability and tiffs with colleagues and other minor infractions that would disturb the smooth running of the business.
Once we had figured out what was going on we would via staff appraisal point this out to the individual and it was extra-ordinary how often they would then see it for themselves. Some would leave and some would take an offer to train as supervisors or managers.
I'm not sure what we can offer today's graduates by way of a route out of the trap they and academia have set for themselves.
Social Emotional Learning is grooming commissars for struggle sessions. Merrick Garland's son-in-law runs Panorama, which is harvesting SEL data from kids. Keep children away from SEL and Disney's agitprop: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/disney-stories-matter-dei-reimagined-agitprop
I am truly enjoying white pride month and whiteenth day on the 19th. Sorry I missed white history month in February. My calendar, my months and days. I am not racist, I'm whitest. Take that, you wokie jokies.
Great article. I am occasionally blessed with a moment of synchronicity. Reading this article was such a moment. Just yesterday I was considering the dilemma our world is facing politically and culturally (all of which feels personal to me) and the idea that scrolled across the bottom of my brain was "abundance"...the irony that all of this seems to flow from the fact that we are living in a time of such amazing abundance. And I wake up this morning and you have filled in the blanks on that very notion. Now I am not exactly sure what this says about the way human intelligence spreads, but I am sure that this "adds" to my feeling that indeed I am on the right path. And for that I am grateful. Thank you. I am also compelled to mention that all of what you wrote so eloquently on today is in line and in keeping with the theories of Rene Girard. "People don't know what they want...until someone else wants it first." Memetic Desire.
“Madison, oh muh gerd, did you read about ‘struggle du jour’?! We have to do something to help! Let’s make some signs, skip class and yell at our classmates! Riiiiight?!”
"And remember Tiffany, that, like, anyone who doesn't support us is, like, oh muh gerd, a racist!"
*Camilla leans over, whispers in Madeline's ear*
"Why are we here again?"
When this one was a young one, he and his friends sometimes got fed-up with the humourless didacticism of the self-appointed leaders of whatever movement and cause was the new hot.
Leading to subverting chants for sport.
Sadly, it doesn't really translate all that well, but one anti-police chant could be changed without loss of rythm, rhyme or cadence to instead mean "Sit down and light up".
I guess an american eq. could be "2-4-6-8-Let's go home and masturbate!"?
To quote an american student I met in my youth, name long forgotten:
"Fuck your revolution if I'm not allowed to crack jokes and have a laugh!"
Always liked that attitude.
Madeline; "To, ya know, support something. Anyway, all the cool kids are doing it."
Oh yeah? Well fukuyama you, too! All seriousness aside, it's true that our immune systems weaken if not used, and we can get rather dotty if not challenged to a certain extent. But I actually found the reverse in my own life. Too much news, too much politics, too much fighting against the tide, rushing about, and tsuris were seriously undermining my mental (and physical) health. I undertook a radical cure, reminiscent of John Prine's Spanish Pipedream:
"Blow up your TV
Throw away your papers
Move to the country
Build you a home..."
A quiet life in the country while regulating news input and exposure to nutty politics has worked wonders. I'm gratified to finally begin seeing some pushback against all the woke crap, and really heartened to see some of it coming from young people with a strong sense of right and wrong. (Ah, El Gato. You brought a nostalgic tear to these old eyes with the kid and the bike ramp. We even ran with scissors back then, too.)
Ok John Prine.
*burns one*
You were firing on all thrusters with this one! "...speed wobbles of empty lives..." what poignant imagery! Thanks gato!
Agreed!
Of course, it helps to have experienced speed wobbles. Disconcerting would be an understatement!
I have some childhood ramp jumping stories that still make me smile. The pain is long gone, but the memories of the thrill that comes with overcoming fear and just going for it remain. And hey, chicks really do dig scars. 😁
Are you sure the pain is long gone? All my childhood pain I thought I’d recovered from came back to haunt me in my 40s. 😂
wait until you're in your fifties! There are days I feel like I have to scrape myself out of bed.
too many sports injuries....and unfortunately a few fights when I was a young idiot.
I suppose that's the bargain for living...better than alternative....:)
I'm 60 and there are days when sleeping wrong injures me. 😂
At 59 I've found that trying picking up the ice cube I dropped on the hardwood a couple or three times a week is a solid cardio workout.
That's hilarious. I've cussed my ice machine out multiple times per week.
Biggest peeve.
lolol. sometimes those are the hardest to recover from!
Just wait until you pull your back sitting on the john. 😂
Let me guess: dropping the paper-roll and reaching for it too rapidly?
Done that, couldn't walk properly for two weeks.
Though the wife laughing at me hurt more.
Or picking up a piece of trash off the floor!
Oh goodness that's hilarious
And have to be hauled out by paramedics.
60 too. I get aches where I used to get urges.
I’m in my 50s too, and currently at the gym trying to figure out how to workout without aggravating my low back or my right shoulder. 😂
The worst part is having to work harder at just maintaining current level...and knowing it's a losing proposition...and also knowing if you don't the decline will only accelerate!
Amen!
You know what? I'm 60 and experiencing exactly that. Old pains are coming back to haunt me. I own a small construction business, so constantly up and down ladders, slinging heavy equipment around, etc. I've torn up every muscle and joint in my body. The injuries incurred in my 30s are the worst. Childhood injuries, not so much. But hey, maybe if I live to be 80 those will come back too. I can hardly wait! 😁
I work in a chiro office as a medical massage therapist and here’s my theory about it… The body is both constantly trying to minimize pain and be in balance. So when we injure ourselves, we naturally shift to avoid pain. Eventually that becomes our normal position of balance (it’s also why you hear ‘I hurt my left knee 3 weeks ago and now my back hurts on the other side!’). As we age those imbalances cause pain because they’ve maybe pulled a joint slightly out of position or kept a muscle in a shortened state and the body just can’t accommodate that imbalance anymore. So…. Mobilize your joints, be active, and see a chiropractor. 😉
My wife swears by chiropractors but I've never been. I jumped insane ramps and climbed 60' ladders, but... I'm scared, lol. I'm afraid I'll wind up paralyzed. Stupid, I know, and I'm actually working up my courage to go this week. Wish me luck!
Like everything, the few bad occasions are the ones multiplied by media. It’s really very safe. And effective.
As long as it's not mandatory. 😁
Can confirm your theory, that's exactly how it works unless consciously countermanded: we will unconsciously shift loads and change posture to avoid pain, eventually causing something else to be overloaded.
I broke my leg at 18 mos falling off a fence, vividly remember jumping off the roof of the house we moved out of when I was 7 just to do it, routinely swam the mile across the river we lived on (and back) without telling anyone I was going, broke all kinds of bones and had many stitches... My mom said to go out in the morning, come back for food or darkness, so I did. I grew up in FL with alligators and diamondbacks and coral snakes and no one (apparently) was ever worried about it. Great childhood! I realized when I became a mom that my mom probably WAS scared sometimes, but she didn't show it. I did the same with my kids. Well worth it.
My kinda gal! 😁 My wife was a tomboy, grew up on a farm riding horses, working in the field, playing sports. I'm sure you're husband feels like I do that it's a good thing we didn't have society back then telling parents their children were transgender if they didn't fit the mold.
That depends if you were the one riding the bike, or the one under the bike.
This is one of the most basic human truths. I’ve always said it more simply. “Those with nothing to worry about will come up with something.”
ooh. i like this
Me, too
At nearly sixty, I’ve been working for almost 46 years, counting the part time jobs through junior and senior high school. I’ve never suffered depression or anxiety, never been particularly ill, worked as a firefighter in a large city for 27 years and seen the worst that can happen to people. I am retired from firefighting now, but working full time in a job that is physical and keeps me outside all day. I don’t remember where I heard this, it was when I was quite young growing up, but I have always agreed with it, “Life offers no greater reward than the opportunity to do work worth doing”. It may be anecdotal, but I have lived and continue to live it.
Children today need to work and to work hard at work worth doing. It is physical, spiritual and mental therapy, all day everyday. It is life worth living.
Amen, sir, amen
I feel like I'm languishing in the digital economy. It's not fulfilling to work behind a screen, especially now that the office is dead.
Signed, disaffected millennial
along a similar line, look at what free housing, food, etc has done for the "inner city poor". Nothing that full time jobs and a struggle to provide couldn't fix though.