i am the demographic of the article, and while that's probably a part for the 25-35 year olds, it should have less of an impact on college students. even those with plenty of money aren't dating or marrying as much as they used to.
i actually have some first-hand thoughts on this. i'm in a bit of a bubble as many of my friends are engaged and some are already married (i am a young guy close to graduating college). i have a ton of scattered thoughts on this but the most salient bits are:
- men's expectations are distorted by use of pornography and social media, which nearly always degenerates into abuse and is disturbingly common amongst my age group. "she doesn't look like @PlasticFilter312 on insta so why would i want her." men are more susceptible to this problem than women.
- there is another group of men whose expectations are distorted in the other direction, seeing themselves as basically without value and unworthy of even trying a relationship. "i don't look like @RoidMonkey312 so why would anyone want me." men are less susceptible to this problem than women.
- men got shitty at dating with the death of chivalry. way fewer guys nowadays will pick a girl up for a nice dinner with flowers. this is partially due to dating apps (you need a "smell test" date first to see if it's worth investing in that) and partially because most guys (who fall into the first bucket of artificially raised expectations) don't see a normal woman as valuable.
- men are reminded more of women's past lovers. old insta pics, the ability for one to easily contact the other, the general milieu of promiscuity that pervades some young adult spaces, all wreak hell on a man's insecurities. we are basically wired to guard our mates so we know a kid's ours. the whole "i have a past" thing is a really, really bad start to a relationship, and that past is now much harder to push under the rug. so, despite the fact that zoomers are overall having less sex (though i suspect, but cannot prove, this is highly bimodal, and that the ones dating are having more), that past sex is more apparent and makes many women less attractive as girlfriends to young men.
- the young adult obesity rate is massively higher along with rates of various mental illnesses. this results in 1. a population that is less good at keeping itself groomed and maintained, and 2. a population that, when groomed and maintained, is overall less attractive.
- women's expectations are distorted by the sort of thing you see in romance movies or novels. "if he wanted to, he would." this is compounded by the before mentioned death of chivalry and drop in the perceived attractiveness of the average young women. despite the fact that arguably the trend is upward. "he doesn't look like @RoidMonkey312 so why would i want him." women are less susceptible to this problem than men.
- there is another group of women whose expectations are distorted in the other direction; their self-esteem is trashed and they basically believe they are without value and shouldn't even bother trying a relationship. "i don't look like @PlasticFilter312 so why would anyone want me." women are more susceptible to this problem than men.
- there are limited decent places for young people to meet. this has been hashed and re-hashed. i have advised friends to go to church even if they aren't particularly active Christians simply because upon moving to a new city, it's a bit harder these days to meet new people one's own age and with relatively similar values. i've moved around for internships and tried the strategy of "show up to a local bar, make a new friend group." it works, but they aren't lasting friends. even if she's wife material, she's not while there. i've tried going to run clubs. in some cities they're good, while in others they're filled with thirsty fob indians sort of creeping on women.
i've been lucky enough to have several good relationships in college. i've met girlfriends at a bar, in the library, on a roof at a party in another town, at church. only when i wasn't looking for it, funny enough. maybe that says something. my friend group is probably skewed, but even amongst them most guys either haven't had a relationship at all (even if they are quite handsome and personable) or have only had bad ones off dating apps. i think my refusal to use those has been what kept me sane.
we had a guy at our studio seriously into this. you have to train a lot: hit bags of rice, then beans, then sand, then steel shot. eventually yes it tends to cripple your hands though that can be somewhat mitigated by rigorous mobility exercises and basically PT. still do not advise.
note that almost any fighters knuckles will be more solid as the lattice structure of the bone gradually fills in. that doesn’t cause as many mobility issues, it’s when you get new growth on the outside that problems start.
This reminds me of a clip I saw of an older martial arts practitioner, like heavy-duty, far east, everything was translated. He had spent decades punching harder and harder things until he had to hit opponents at a small fraction of his strength, as his forearms on up were mineralized clubs on the inside. A full strike could kill.
I watched closely and his hands didn't seem to be much use for anything else.
it's not a collective per se but employees are certainly well paid. because they are highly skilled, are not easily replaced, and could take secrets elsewhere.
commodities trading houses tend to follow this model too though that is changing a bit.
i remember having this discussion with a friend after he sent me a richard wolff video. nothing about our system stops coops from flourishing. one of my favorite retailers, REI, is a member-owned co-op. publix, the beloved florida grocer, is employee-owned.
No, small states do not have the same rights as large ones. You may disagree with this but I don't see any point in pretending it's untrue. Large countries have more sway and matter more to everyone, including but not limited to operators of social platforms. Losing half your userbase hurts much more than losing a hundredth. I also doubt that the U.S. would force a sale of a social app based in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Turkey, Gabon, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Egypt etc etc etc.
I wouldn't particularly blame Gabon or Vietnam if they wanted their primary media outlets operated by nations that are at least vaguely friendly to their values. They are free to attempt to force a sale and ban it when those apps inevitably do not comply.
I think you are conflating "incomebase" and userbase. There are no "hard facts" on this but everyone seems to agree that the US is not even remotely close to 50% userbase for TikTok which makes sense (inverse Pigeonhole principle) if TikTok really has 1b+ active users. However, the US might be a bigger share of the "incomebase" because ads for US users are more valuable.
what? safetynet is absolutely a pain in the ass. i think there are some xposed and magisk modules or whatever that can work around it but that's a cat-and-mouse thing and can break. lot of bank and financial apps, lot of stuff with DRM will break.
> inconsistent to support consumer privacy except for joe six pack’s LLC
Those aren't the same at all. An LLC is a privilege created under state laws and it's perfectly reasonable for those states to require records that the public can access in exchange for that privilege and the benefits it offers.
Having consumer privacy is good for the American public. Having access to know who owns an LLC is also good for the American public. Perfectly consistent.
why do you believe that knowing who owns it is good for the public in all cases? business owners are also a part of the public, you know, while megacorps like google aren’t so much
All cases might be asking a lot, but more often a good for the public than not is enough. The vast majority of business owners are no worse off for that data being available. It's just another cost of doing business, and a fair one I think.
Megacorps like google shouldn't be able to hide what they do just by creating a LLC under another name.
respectfully, fuck that. it's not an "option" to verify with private companies because those companies make basically the sole decision about how ID and auth are set up. by making it easy, making it like a "sign in with google" button, the government spreads this further
we created unions because although employment is technically a free choice, a few companies hold huge power on negotiations relative to one tiny, individual worker. similarly, this may be a "voluntary adoption" but in practice is not. privacy has no value to companies and destroying it is worth 50% lower fraud
i don't have a good philosophical basis for this but am actually a strong believer in leaving open the possibility to commit crimes. so we should go back to circulating large-denomination bills, reduce the burden of KYC, and not create this non-falsifiable new ID regime
that's the main reason I stuck with sublimetext for soooo long. It's so fast and it can handle insanely huge files plus it can do column operations on text on insanely huge files. VS Code does seem to have been optimized since the first few years though and its not hardware related.
