Existentialism – Page 4

December 6, 2023December 5, 2023

Pander to Me

While I consider myself to be inter-generational, my year of birth does place me into the Millennial bracket, technically. Consequently, I’m no stranger to the accusations of snowflake-dom by the older crowd. It gets a little irksome, considering the now well-studied economic disparity between the age ranges. To be labeled as sensitive and possessing an intangible need to be acknowledged for my individuality as compensation for a presumed overly-comfortable upbringing and fragile ego shows a very limited viewpoint. Also perpetuated is the false notion that Millennials are poor because we lack motivation, which is of course the result of these stereotypes. If I worked harder and didn’t whine so much then I would have money I guess.

And yet – call a Boomer out on any argumentative fallacies and all too often the backlash is exactly what would be expected of one with such a fragile ego themselves. Even my father, who’s in comparison not overly Boomer-y and seemingly rather self-reflective, throws down awfully quick if poked too hard in generational jesting. As a whole, they do love to cast the gauntlet, but respond in outrage if someone picks it up, as if they never expected anyone younger to defend their own honor. I would hazard to guess this is because they’re used to being customers to a Millennial-staffed service world who weren’t allowed to defend themselves on threat of losing their already meager financial situation.

But just as Boomers couldn’t fathom a world in which Millennials could stand up for themselves, I, who for his adult lifetime has been part of this marginalized age-based demographic, couldn’t fathom what the counterattack represented: the power dynamic had shifted – where significant financial assets were now in the possession of a younger generation – a world that began to pander to me. When did that happen?

I think it began a long time ago, but with subtle change: with Apple’s iTunes store and Netflix’s video streaming service. With music albums and bundled cable packages being cost-prohibitive to the financially disadvantaged, Apple saw an opportunity for an a la carte option, and Netflix for what was essentially an on-demand bulk movie rental service. There was a market opening for cheaper ad-free curated media devoid of time slots, built for a customer base that couldn’t commit to penalty-laden contracts, daily prime time TV-watching availability, and with an unwillingness to buy more than what was wanted. The industry in its raw Capitalism indirectly gave power to those it sought to exploit – by giving them what they wanted. Intentional or not, they acknowledged Millennials.

And then things got even better once Millennials acquired money and property – another change that Boomers couldn’t mentally digest. I’ve noticed a trending alignment between what I want and what the world around me wants, and I can only assume that this means that the people in control have an increasing motivation to give me and my generation what we want (again, because we have money now). Some things are more observational than measurable, so this is far from scientific. But the general feeling is there. Here’s some recent local developments:

Increasing closure rate of local big box chain stores.
Increased pressure to improve city aesthetics.
Influx of independent restaurants and bars.
City veto to approve a new gas station builds.
Failed passing of state amendment increasing majority vote to 60%.
Successful passing of state amendment protecting right to abortion.
Passing of municipal park levy.
Marijuana regulation and decriminalization.
…And a sidewalk was installed in my neighborhood.

These items correspond exactly to my last cast ballot, but they also demonstrate a significant shift away from the world I knew just 20 years ago. Back then, the ethos was more big business, more cars, bigger roads, and being tough on crime. Not to mention the constant excuses to budget cut anything in the public sector. Boomers love budget cuts.

Now it would appear that we’re moving away from a philosophy of authoritarianism, uncontrolled growth, and monetary pursuit; and into a world that’s more aligned with improving the general quality of life for everyone, rather than fetishizing Reagan-ism and Gekko-ism.

The shift itself has increased Boomer hostility, and it’s not that younger generations are being sensitive. It represents what they can’t accept – impending Boomer obsolescence, and Millennials finally getting a say in shaping the future. It’s a power dynamic that Boomers are losing, and few have ever been eager to relinquish that power willingly, least of all the Boomers.

But at long last, I can sit silently and smugly watch the inevitable.

“You can’t stop what’s coming. It ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”

–Simon

November 18, 2023November 14, 2023

Squirrel Hunting, Kid Edition

I’ve often joked that hunting is a hobby with a tough selling point to those who weren’t exposed to it in their youth. The pitch starts to sound a little psychotic not far in, for how would one try to convince an associate to join them in uncomfortable environmental conditions with the end goal of killing wildlife? But I’ve also argued that a lack of violent release is part of the problem behind mass shootings. Human physiology hasn’t changed much since the time that we needed to be ruthless for survival, and it won’t just go away simply because we don’t need it. Were that the case, I would have disabled my libido in high school, too. But we can’t so we need to cope.

And it’s also important that anyone who eats meat understands its source and the cost in terms of animal suffering. Life’s a bitch and nature doesn’t favor us any more than the rest of Earth’s creatures. But we should feel a little guilty.

Guilt and violence. Ailments of the human condition.

So I took the kid hunting for these lessons. To my surprise, she didn’t have too big a problem with it. She isn’t old enough herself to kill, so that’s part of it, but she also wasn’t under any delusions and was genuinely curious about the process. Go figure. Dad was right (as in, me-the dad).

The unusual hunting party now consisted of Joe, my dad, and the Kid.

Joe and the kid trying to flush out rabbits without success

Alas I was the only killer that day.

I can’t find the exact quote, but my overwhelming success reminded me of A River Runs Through It, when the dad compliments his sons’ fish catches and mentions that God had truly blessed them…before laying down his own much bigger fish and commenting that God blesses some more than others.

I win.

Pan-seared. Still the best way I’ve found to cook squirrel.

And the kid wants to go hunting again. Double win.

–Simon

November 7, 2023November 7, 2023

Life Expectancy and Weighted Voting

Today, as with all election days, I waited in line and internally judged all the decrepit husks of barely-living people around me and wondered why they should have a hand in forming government policy when they probably wouldn’t live through the term. Many of them couldn’t walk, hell-several of them couldn’t even breathe on their own without compressed oxygen. Yet they get a say in how future generations will live.

Why? I don’t presume to know, so I’ll defer to a historical political precedent for a reference point: age requirements for political offices. Specifically, the POTUS, which maintains a minimum age of 35. Apparently when this rule was enacted, it was done so on the grounds that an unquantifiable degree of experience that could only be obtained through living long enough should be in the candidate’s background.

Conversely, while minimum age requirements remain in effect, maximum age restrictions for political office remain primarily absent. Apart from the fact that people eventually die.

So I’m going to call out a number of inferred points:

Life experience is needed to make good political decisions
18 is the minimum age requirement to officially make any political decisions
18 is therefore the publicly-accepted minimum life experience requirement for politics
35 is the minimum age requirement to hold the office of the US Presidency
35 is therefore the minimum age requirement to officially make political decisions of the greatest import
43 is the age at which a president will enter the last year of a second-term presidency (assuming they’re sequential, which they usually are)
43 is therefore the maximum age at which we expect the president to be fully competent to make the most important political decisions
Death is the ultimate limiter for making any political decisions
79 is the current American life expectancy

Therefore 18 to 79 is the age range in which we can make political decisions, with 35 being the age at which we are qualified to make the most important political decisions.

Next point to consider: does this mean that 35 to 79 is the period in which we are fully suited to making the most important political decisions? Cognitively-speaking, the jury is out on that. Without citing specific sources, I’ll say that from the studies I’ve seen reported, peak intelligence occurs earlier in life, with some mental decline thereafter, but long term memory stays intact and contributes to total intelligence until dementia sets in. So rather than argue for a specific age limit on voting or holding office, which no one has agreed on yet, I’ll make a simpler point:

Who is most impacted by our voting decisions?

Or rather: younger people have to live longer with a political decision unless a future vote changes the policy.

More pragmatically: if we all vote in our own self-interest, we have less time to benefit from doing so as we get older, and any such policies enacted in this space of time will be of greater impact to those who are younger. Once we hit the age of average life expectancy, it’s a crapshoot how long we’ll live to see the results of how we vote.

Now to the point. I will offer a final formula that weighs an individual’s vote based on age, with the following criteria (that’s right-it’s a Quantitative Philosophy post!):

18 and under: static weight of 0% since you can’t legally vote yet.
18-35: increasing weight to account for increasing experience, culminating in a maximum weight of 100% at age 35, the age we decided as a country that you have sufficient life experience to hold the highest political office and make the most impactful decisions.
35-43: the tenure period for a sequential two-term presidency, which assumes this is the age range during which someone is most qualified to make the most impactful political decisions-therefore a static weight of 100%.
43-79: decreasing weight to account for the decrease in time that we have left alive, corresponding to how many years we potentially have left to live under any new political policy changes.
80+: static weight of 50%. At this point you’re still entitled to vote, but the uncertainty of living to see the impact of your voting should greatly limit how much your vote counts.

Formula (in Excel format, because I work in finance and that’s the format I know):

For: age = X

=IF(X<18,0,IF(X>79,50,IF(X<35,100*(X+35)/70,IF(AND(X>=35,X<=43),100,100*1/((X+35)/70)))))

I’m 39 and my vote should count as 100% of one vote (for now). The kid in highschool gets counted as 76% of a vote. A new retiree is counted as 69% of a vote. And that old geezer on oxygen and living on Medicare and Social Security gets counted as a half vote.

Live in the present and shape the future, but then abdicate it to those who follow.

(Oh, and no one’s using abortion as birth control…whatever the fuck that means.)

–Simon

August 16, 2023August 17, 2023

Twisted Metal Black

I reached into my pants and pulled it out. Gripping it firmly, I held it out to the her. She wanted it.

Then she motioned to the contactless tap to pay terminal in front of her. I obliged, bringing my Amazon Prime credit card into RFID range, completing my transaction at Whole Foods and earning 5% back.

It was the first new credit card I had applied to in years, solely on the grounds of the Amazon and Whole Foods rewards rate. It was enough, I had decided, to offset my harsh judgment of private labels, as was the Lowe’s credit card. Unlike the Lowe’s card, however, the Amazon card is a cool steel-grey black and laminated metal. It seemed odd, considering the modern switch to pay methods that induce less physical stress on the material, or no need at all for the physical card itself, for a bank to choose a more durable construction.

The industry shift of course was a direct result of the first metal card, the Amex Centurian card–that invite-only heavy black metal card with no spending limit; mentioned in rap songs and business executive stories involving consort services and cocaine. I admit that I haven’t tried to buy either with my Amazon card, but I’m just not feeling like a badass when I drop down my own heavy metal card.

I was outdone from the start anyway. At a family gathering, my sister-in-law produced her expired Venture card, equally as amused at its metallic nature. But it seems there’s no standard, as her card was significantly heavier. She lamented on how she was to dispose of it – a conundrum I hadn’t yet considered, as my own card was still valid. Up for the challenge, and confident in my beefy commercial-grade shredder at home, I offered to dispose of it for her.

The machine kicked to life and gave it a solid effort, then jammed. I had to employ vice grips and a prybar to, thankfully, save my shredder.

Banks now say to not use shredders. Don’t ignore this advice.

My next attempt what somewhat less graceful: a propane torch.

That worked, but couldn’t have been very good for me to inhale burning plastic fumes. I suppose I could have used my metal shears, but that strikes me as a little too much effort to forever scatter the printed numbers. So I checked some bank websites for official instructions, and they say to mail the card back to them. That’s even sillier than making a metal card in the first place.

I’m open to other suggestions, but all the disposal methods I can think of involve more work than a shredder. I guess that’s the price we have to pay for trying to feel like millionaires.

–Simon

July 26, 2023July 24, 2023