Arete31415

Yes. Talk about blaming the victim. We're putting 800,000 out of work for no reason and it's their fault? Give me a break.

As a fellow Gen Xer, I think we've got a healthy approach to our glory days. Did I like Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers? Yes, yes I did. Do I insist that the world stop so I can indulge in early 90's nostalgia? No.

Yes, we have all heard of Led Zeppelin. That is not my point -- my point is that I've seen roughly one million "Music from 1968/1969 is The Best!!!!111" articles / essays / etc in my life, and zero "Music from the 1970's changed the World!" articles, even though Led Zeppelin 4, Joni Mitchell's Blue, Songs in the Key of Life, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, and a bunch of other amazing stuff all came out then.

Unpopular opinion: The music of 1968 is so enduring because Baby Boomers have had an outsize influence on culture for decades, and are obsessed with their youth. Plenty of other musical periods were also important, but we almost never hear about those.

Led Zeppelin? Joni Mitchell's Blue? Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder? These are all incredible cultural touchstones from the 1970's, and we almost never hear about them as "the sounds that evoked a generation" or whatever.

Another one person data point:

I've had OCD since childhood, and even when I was a kid I noticed that sometimes my symptoms would flare up for a few days, right before I came down with the flu.

As an adult, I contracted Lyme Disease, and one lingering symptom was that my OCD got a lot worse. After 1 month of IV antibiotics (rocephin), my OCD went from a "10" down to maybe a 7 in severity.

I work in a technical field in the US, and my few female co-workers are supposedly in a great position compared to other women in the US. They've got good educations, and make good incomes. However, when it comes time for them to have kids, they still have to scramble around and cobble together a solution that is tedious and expensive and stressful. Every family in America has to figure out how to arrange childcare, as if this whole "people have children" thing is just a brand-new concept that no one else has tried out before.

When government decides that it has zero responsibilities towards helping the next generation, and when the cost of living (and the cost of educating that next generation) is so darn high, women make the completely rational choice not to have children, or to have fewer than they would otherwise like.

America found a way to offer childcare during WWII, when keeping women in work was a priority. But somehow we've forgotten how to do it in peacetime.

When I lived in NYC, there was a program where you could collect full unemployment benefits -- all 6 months' worth -- if you were enrolled in school at least half time. I found it tremendously helpful, and it basically got me through 2 semesters of school.

It would be great to have similar programs for welfare, etc. Instead of the work requirements that that are often onerous, and keep folks in dead-end jobs rather than getting an education that will both help them and eventually, get them to be self-sufficient.

Considering the number of GoFundMe's I see for basic medical care, staking one's self-worth on social acceptance is not some weird psychological delusion. In this economy and country, social acceptance is the difference between life and death.

Good for you!

FYI for all dating folks out there: women do not want you to approach them in the street. Like, let's say, 99.5% of the time.

The ACES study really backs up what you're talking about. Adults with high ACE scores (Adverse Childhood Experiences) have a much higher rate of multiple diseases than adults with low scores. https://acestoohigh.com/

Seconded. Try to get on the "REPAYE" plan, I feel that's the best one. Only downside -- when they forgive your loans after 20 years, you pay taxes on that as if it's income.

I've had both experiences. I had very difficult home circumstances, and I "overcame" them at a challenging boarding school. Then I "couldn't handle" them in a challenging Ivy League environment, where I felt isolated and developed depression.

I have a few takeaways from these experiences:

1. The difference for me between "succeeding in spite of" and "failing because of" was in a few areas. One, good help being available if I sought it out. Two, being able to find a few niches - academically or in extra-curriculars -- where I could excel and feel mastery. And three, having involved, concerned adults around who cared -- even if they weren't "yours" (not your family, not teachers in your major -- they're still there and they still care).

2. Other peoples' judgments about whether you are "succeeding" or "failing" are, in fact, part of the problem. That's why I put those terms in quotes. Sometimes leaving a bad situation to take care of yourself is success. Sometimes forcing yourself to look good on paper but ignoring your insides is failure. Who knows what's really going on with other people? Not me.

3. Good health care, especially good mental health care, especially good mental health care that looks at the whole body -- these are extremely important.

4. Focusing on resilience is important, but it's only half the story. The truth is, most kids who experience hardships are affected by them, often quite seriously. It's better that we as a society figure out how to reduce poverty and misery to help most kids, rather than figure out how to help a few more kids be the exception to the rule.

We need to get back more to a group mentality, rather than an individualistic rising-from-the-trash-fire mentality.

Try running an ozone generator in there. It will break down the compounds much more quickly. The ozone itself breaks down pretty quickly, but don't run it when people or pets are in the house.

Not the only one for sure, but A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The plain-spoken honesty in that book contains multitudes.

I had a very The Alchmist experience while I was reading The Alchemist. I was reading the book on the bus and and was so engrossed that I missed my bus stop. Then I decided that since it was a nice day, I'd take a walk around the neighborhood I ended up in. At the guitar store, there was an amazing Martin guitar that I couldn't put down. I still have it 15 years later. Kismet.

She's one of those actresses like Jeanne Moreau...she could read the phone book and I would be entranced.

I like what you have to say about having the failure stage young, with one caveat: too many heartbreaks and setbacks can kill the spirit. It's good to be tempered, rather than shattered.

As a frequent patient, I see such incredible need for "disruption" in healthcare, both in terms of transparency/ empowering the patient, and in terms of cost suppression. However, anyone who tackles this space has to be aware that there are some huge entrenched interests who like the current inefficiencies and cost opacity very much, thank you. Breaking into this space would be 1 part technical know-how to 10 parts legal jujitsu.

As an example, look upon the bloodied corpse of the failed startup Remedy, which was actually doing something really good -- helping users find billing errors and getting money back for them on bad charges. But incredible amounts of pushback stymied them:

https://www.fastcompany.com/40483774/remedy-wanted-to-cut-pe...

FYI, when orchestras started doing blind auditions, the numbers of women hired skyrocketed. Even though you'd think music would be the one area where what a person looked like & whether they were male or female would be irrelevant.

I think this is a great idea.

Look, statutory rape laws are not new. I remember being a 16 year old girl. If a 40 year old man had approached me in that way, I wouldn't have thought, "Oh it's the 90's! This is fine!" I would have been creeped out and appalled...which is why predators have to start out subtly and groom their victims over time.

This behavior has not been "fine" or "legal" for quite some time, but it was tolerated by individuals in a community, especially if the perpetrator had influence. The culture of tolerance has changed, that's it. And it hasn't even changed that much. R. Kelly is known to groom and abuse underage girls, and he's not currently in prison where he belongs.

I get the folks who are upset because this kills a piece of their childhood. But imagine being one of those girls who grew up with stars in their eyes about animation, or some other art form. And then imagine having had this experience. It would be so hard for the entire art form not to feel tainted afterwards.

Yes, nowadays none of us can watch and enjoy The Cosby Show like, ever again, but maybe that's ok if it means a predator is no longer able to be a predator.