This is another canary in the coal mine example of the rapidly shrinking middle class in the western world IMO
Not really, the locals in that area have never known good jobs.
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alexasmyths commented on Chef gives up a Michelin star, reflecting hardship of ‘the Other France’ nytimes.com/2017/12/27/wo... · Posted by u/SREinSF
" Such regressive developments can only be pauses in an ongoing forward movement."
Trashy globalist arrogance.
The 'Germanics' have been around for a few thousand years, it's not an issue of 'nation state' - if they believe that all that they are is more than some Federalist, unelected Bureaucracy, then so be it.
Sweden is in many ways more successful than many US states - so then why do they need a Federation?
Why do certain people think that the tendency towards global governance and the abolition of states, ethnicity (i.e. actual diversity) is a good thing?
And how do they somehow make it a moral issue?
For about 1000 years the borders of Europe have bounced around but somehow they almost always end up roughly along ethnic lines.
How many wars were fought over Spanish succession? By French, Habsbourgs etc? And yet, 'Spain' is pretty much 'Spain' even to this day (yes, an amalgamation surely, but most of them roughly 'Spanish' at least considerably more so than they are 'German' or 'French').
It's also a crazy paradox that those usually virtue signalling 'diversity' in specific locales, are the same one's pushing for policies which tend to break up and delegitimize ethnic groups, thereby decreasing ethnicity in the world.
alexasmyths commented on Who Are the Top 1 Percent in America? promarket.org/top-1-perce... · Posted by u/randomname2
Misleading. Likely intentionally so. Top 1% mostly comes from artificially scarce markets and pyramid schemes: lawyers (with intentional bottlenecks on supply at the associate level and a pyramid scheme to make partner), doctors (with intentional barriers in both requiring unrelated undergrad study and the hazing style apprentice model), elite university professors (pyramid scheme with grad students and post docs; salaries are now typically above $200k, reaching a million), executives (pyramid scheme based on connections and kickbacks), finance, etc.
The only domain requiring unique productive skills is doctors... The rest is all market manipulation.
Doctors and Executives are not 'pyramid schemes' in any sense of the word, and profs at elite universities represent a very small economy.
'Management' is a skill, not a 'market manipulation' and a very difficult skill at that.
Most of these 1% work huge numbers of hours, typically had to work pretty hard through school, and are smart and talented people - even if there is shifty stuff here and there, and a lot of 'born in the right family luck'.
I don't know any successful people who are fools who just lucked out through life. They're all pretty amazing.
I wish there was more info on the drivers of this.
Is it less demand from US firms due to slowdown? Market saturation? Shifting needs?
The irony is that while the words are stupid (“alignment”, “intentionality” and “end-state visions”) - this pretty good actually.
Most white collar jobs are full of 'waking sleep' - and if we focus on outcomes, and drive them forward with intentional work - we would be more productive.
"Bullshit jobs" - if you doing anything to move the ball forward - like working a checkout or pumping gas - your job may feel meaningless, but it's not BS by any means. Middle management tends to be the most BC. And many gov. jobs.
"US employee now spends 45% of their working day doing their real job. The other 55% is spent doing things such as wading through endless emails or attending pointless meetings."
This is part of the job. Communicating is work, and we can't be 100% efficient at all times.
alexasmyths commented on The Consumerist Church of Fitness Classes theatlantic.com/health/ar... · Posted by u/wallflower
"Spirituality and Religion are not quite the same thing."
Exactly. I've been saying this for years to anyone who asks me if I'm religious. I say "no, but I am spiritual". I reject the notion that God takes attendance every Sunday and doesn't like me eating meat on Fridays. I also find zero need for organized religion. Spirituality is something different.
But, hey, if the religious thing works for other people, then have at it. It doesn't work for me, but maybe it does for them.
Spirituality doesn't require religion, just as getting in shape doesn't require a gym membership or a group class.
"Spiritual but not religious"
Maybe you missed my point?
I'm kind of saying spirituality is easy, less practical part. :)
The 'work' of spirituality is hard. It's often done through religion.
Crazy point: those who 'religious and attend services' are least likely to commit crimes, but those who are 'spiritual but not religious' commit the most! Sorry no reference. Point being, we are creatures of habit, and action speaks louder than words.
I guess there is a lot of theological debate about whether or not it's more important to 'have faith' which is a matter of spirituality, or to 'go to church and be a good person' ...
alexasmyths commented on The Consumerist Church of Fitness Classes theatlantic.com/health/ar... · Posted by u/wallflower
My religion is Phish. It's a massive cathartic ceremony, and with the correct chemicals, I hear the angels.
I get what they're saying. It's dumb to restrict spirituality and even "religion" to certain institutions.
Spirituality and Religion are not quite the same thing.
Even hearing Angels is not necessarily very religious (and of course, we may hear a lot of things with chemical help ...).
Spirituality is a personal, intellectual, possibly experiential thing.
Religion often entails cultural overhead, community, and generally a lot of work: those who have had the opportunity to 'see angels' have the responsibility of then promoting their new understanding in the world, living as examples to others yada yada, i.e. it's mostly hard work and heavy cross-bearing, i.e. 1% inspiration (seeing angels) and 99% perspiration (being a good person, which is hard).
alexasmyths commented on Who will be remembered in 1,000 years? bbc.com/future/story/2017... · Posted by u/lohfu
> " Name a composer from 1300s or 1100s."
> There were no composers then ...
Of course there were. There was music, so someone had to compose it.
But since the bulk of the mankind was struggling somewhere at the bottom of the Maslow hierarchy, nobody really cared about the nice sounds.
> Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes - not Scientists
Every encyclopaedia calls them scientists and, quite frankly, there is no reason to claim they aren't. Although Plato might be an exception.
> There are 1000x more Scientists alive today than ever before, and the only one we're going to remember is from 300 years ago?
The titular question is, who will be remembered in 1,000 years. I'm saying, those who have things named after them.
Yes, technically there were 'people who wrote music' but we wouldn't really call them composers, and we were not attributing anything to them.
And it wasn't a 'maslow' thing - it was that we had yet to develop proper instruments, scales, etc. etc.
FYI Music during about that time was mostly Gregorian chanting and what not - and for a time music was banned by the church, at other times it was only allowed to be made 'for God' type thing. Come to think of it there are I think some composers and attributions but minimal stuff. We don't 'remember them' because what they did was not remarkable like Beethoven.