The whole "Unprepared" series is fuckin' bleak and fuckin' important. The WSJ is on this whole "boomers be fucked" thing.
Anybody got some good suggestions as to how to let people see this? 'cuz the graphs are more than worth it.
Psst there's a secret passageway through the paywall: https://outline.com/ZkS7h4
My guess is that WSJ exposes the whole article to the crawler that Outline is running (and other crawlers as well) so that they can have high SEO / discoverability. However, that can be exploited to get the article from out behind the paywall. Sometimes they catch on (archive.is used to be a reliable way to do this but it's no more, eg http://archive.is/MhLCX)
What has been shown is that happiness is positively correlated with community. As a society, we has placed consumerism higher on our lists of priorities than engaging with one another. So much so, that as we've grown, the places where community exists have closed down and out-competed by restaurants and shopping while further development is choked out due to suburban sprawl. We have spaces for work, shopping, libraries for learning, sports centers and movie theaters for entertainment. We must invest in our cities by creating spaces for community to sprout roots and grow. We need to build spaces for where the encounter of unfamiliar individuals allows us to be confronted by unfamiliar worldviews and new ideas. When you're told to "get out more", where do they think that we can go? From what substrate does community and thus culture and innovation grow upon? Solving this predicament is my overall goal. The polarization and animosity pervasive in our society, our inability to come together and collaborate with those who may have opposing views or who are of foreign characteristic in some way, is I think massively dependent upon our inability to physically encounter others, and thus their beliefs, wisdom, and creativity. I think that if we can achieve that, meaning in life takes care of itself.
That rings way too true. With many of my friends living busy lives, it's hard to be spontaneous so you have to plan out every meeting. Meeting places like restaurants, bars, cinemas become the default because you want to do SOMETHING. Some friends of mine are building out a makerspace and they've been having "chores" up to 4 times a week where anyone can just show up and lend a hand. And it's been so great! It's so nice to know you don't really have to plan anything, show up on a whim and reliably find a bunch of cool folks to share a beer with while stripping some concrete flooring. I only knew about 2 people at first, but over the last few months of helping out I met so many more! And all that without the strangely daunting and complicated task of "making plans".When you're told to "get out more", where do they think that we can go?
That could be interesting. A group devoted to communion while creating something that benefits others.
- one of my friends died alone in his apartment. Ketoacidosis, maybe. They didn't find him until days after they could have done something about it. He was 41. - Another one of my friends nearly died alone in the basement gym at his apartment complex. Turns out he has a heart defect. He'd halfway stroked out before someone found him. He's 55. - One of my wife's friends died alone in her apartment. Nobody is sure why. She was 46. - I got a Lyft from a lady whose ex-husband had died of ketoacidosis. He'd moved for work, was in between insurance plans, was conserving his insulin and fuckin' died. So did her alimony. So did her kids' after-school care.