1/10
The popular view of the Boomers, captured in a picture. This is not a “Defense of Boomers” thread, but an anecdotal account of things I’ve seen.
2/10
I am a member of GenX: the kids of Boomers who were lucky enough to have survived newly-legalized abortion and the shrinking of the nuclear family after mothers entered the workplace en masse. We’re known primarily for our cynicism and comprise the last analog generation.
3/ I was raised by Boomer parents in the Rust Belt. I saw Boomers struggle, badly, during the stagflation of the 70s, and all of the industrial offshoring of the 80s & 90s.
Boomers get no "credit" (for lack of a better term) for this.
4/10
Entire towns, and swaths of large cities, died from the 70s-90s. Some of this was via relocation elsewhere in the US, but most was because TPTB decided offshoring to foreign countries was a better option than employing their fellow citizens. carnegieendowment.org/2018/12/10/how…
5/10
Offshoring/relocation caused a chain reaction. Factory jobs left, and then the ancillary jobs followed: diners where workers ate closed, so waitresses and cooks were out of work. Stores, barber shops, gas stations, house builders, etc, all followed suit.
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On April 14, 1561, the people of Nuremberg saw what seemed to have been an aerial battle between flying spheres, crosses, and cylinders, and the appearance of a black, very large, arrow-shaped object.
2
According to a broadsheet written by By Hans Glaser, letter-painter of Nurnberg:
“At daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun, and then this was seen in Nuremberg in the city, before the gates and in the country – by many men and women"
3
“At first there appeared in the middle of the sun two blood-red semi-circular arcs, just like the moon in its last quarter.”
1/10
A young Kurt Russell starred with Charles Bronson in "The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters."
Russell liked Bronson and gave him a gift once. Bronson took it and walked straight to his trailer without a word. Russell was worried and the crew told him that Bronson was just "an unhappy guy."
2
A little while later, Russell was called to Bronson's trailer. Russell was worried that he'd done something wrong.
Russell knocked. Bronson opened the door, looked at him, and said, "Um, nobody's ever given me a present before, so thanks."
Then he shut the door.
3
Some background: Bronson grew up the son of impoverished immigrants in Pennsylvania, the 11th of 15 children. After his father died, Bronson, age 13, went to work in the coal mine.
"Bronson recalled going hungry many times. His mother could not afford milk for his younger sister, so she was fed warm tea instead. His family was so poor that he once had to wear his sister's dress to school for lack of clothing. Bronson was the first member of his family to graduate from high school."
1
"U Non-Immigration Visas are set aside for victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity... includ[ing] abduction, extortion, false imprisonment, felonious assault, hostage, and kidnapping, among others. [It] allows an immigrant to remain in the country for 4 years."
2
Nobody in FedGov seems to be familiar with... or else doesn't care... about the concept of unintended consequences, specifically "perverse incentives," also known as the (perhaps apocryphal) "Cobra Effect." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_…
3
"Cobra Effect" was coined by economist, Horst Siebert, based on stories from British India. The British gov't offered a bounty for every dead cobra to reduce the number of snakebites. Initially it succeeded and large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward.
However, some people began breeding cobras just to turn in for the reward. When the gov't discovered this, the program was scrapped. Cobra breeders then set their now-worthless snakes free, and the cobra population increased.
1
Today is January 6. I post this thread as a reminder to anyone on any side of any political aisle:
2
At the end of the Amer. Revolution, some army officers attempted a coup over unpaid wages, known as the Newburgh Conspiracy. Washington met the plotters and gave them a speech, the first words of which were: "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country."
1/9 🧵
I remember being a small child in the 1970s. At that young age, I was a sci-fi enthusiast, especially toward the predictive and futuristic settings of our world. I used to marvel at the things I saw in film and television.
2
All the “near-future” sci-fi of the 1960s and 70s was taking place now, in the 2020s, or had already taken place.
I took much of what I saw as predictive instead of fantastic: flying cars, Mars colonies, abundant nuclear power, advanced medicine, etc.
3
Sure, there was pessimism in sci-fi, but in that pessimism there was still a great deal of contrasting optimism.
Kubrik’s "2001" gave us a rogue, sentient AI, but it also gave us visions of a clean, orderly society with hi-tech conveniences and a better standard of living.
1/10
I think often about the effects of modernity on today’s society. In the past, absent any epic events, change was more like water dripping on a rock: the rock was reshaped, but it took a long time.
2
Today’s modernity doesn’t just continue – it accelerates at a pace undreamed of in previous eras.
In the 20thC, it went from dripping water to a pressure washer. In the 21st it’s a water jet cutter.
Change now seems exponential, and continues accelerating until we find a brake.
3
On a macro level, we cope with this accelerating modernity by living through and experiencing it, incrementally, day by day. A rapid change that happens in only a year, or over a few years, is mitigated by our seeing it daily.