There is a government bureaucracy (the "Bureau of Lies and Scams") to track employment and release fictitious employment numbers each month, which becomes a basis for many things like how the market does or the Fed's planning policy. Often the reports are revised downward again and again, long after the headline has been reported. Some Boomer tried to feed me the absolute bullshit that "there's so much data, this is hard work, it's very hard to get it right the first time". Which I'd be tempted to believe -- except that somehow the government keeps meticulous and up to date records for the purpose of taxation. They know exactly who's employed, what their income is, and how much they owe and they get very upset if not received in full. That implies that all of this is in a database and in today's world the information is very easy to retrieve and make sense of for any competent dev. So the BLS has no excuses for their incompetence because the government has all the real numbers and there is no guesswork. The same Boomer did admit that BLS was garbage on two points though: 1/ the way they calculate health care costs and how that is reflected in CPI (anyone who's had a medical bill recently knows this one) 2/ they were lazy and used total labor pool numbers that they got from the Census Bureau, which didn't take into account the 10MM+ immigrants that came into the USA during Retardo-Joe's residency, so the employment figures were fictitious as well They still can't tell me how you can claim 4% unemployment with 61% labor force participation either... Anyway the BLS is shit but we go through the same song and dance pretending they have something meaningful to say every month. "I know that you know that I know" it's fake and gay.

As bad as the world is today, I actually think the 2020s are better than the 2000s or 2010s. In terms of convenience that is certainly true, there are still lots of opportunities, we are at the dawn of AI, and so on. Things that make for the good life are widely available. My biggest hurdle of late has been laziness, not lack of opportunity. That's not to say that "they" won't try to make things worse, but that at least has never changed in all my life. The only thing that made those old decades better was that I was younger. America really was better in the 1990s at least from a societal perspective, but the world was so different then that it's an apples and bowling balls comparison.

What made me realize this was that I was looking for certain tools last summer and then the same tools again now - and there are many more, and better, available now versus then. Also many of the offerings that were available then have been considerably upgraded in that time as well. View quoted note →

AI tools are evolving so fast that there's a night and day difference in what's available to the consumer as compared with just 1 year ago. It's frightening how quickly it's moving now.

Since we've @Dissident Sound been on the subject of "things that are socially unacceptable" like age gaps, porn, video games or not being married. We may as well also mention hedonism - it's not socially acceptable if you are socializing to not drink or party. It's another thing that subtly puts you in the "untouchable" category and everyone is full of shit about it. It's why I spent several years basically as a shut-in because everyone I know who has a social life has to drink and party. Anyplace where you have the "oh I work so hard" culture also has the "I also play hard" to balance it out, it seems. Very annoying. After all I can do hedonism without ruining my health - but those are the very "low status" things you can't ever do (video games, porn, social media addiction). PS I actually DO think social media addiction can be harmful and especially for women it always is but they do it to themselves.

I totally forgot about this dancer chick I met in April, I've only seen her about 1x/month since then. She should be @Dissident Sound approved - she is: -hapa -young -cute -nice ass -athletic/former gymnast -a great dancer Unfortunately, she also: -already has a competitive partner -is moving out of state before the end of the year This is the garbage you have to put up with when you're trying to create art today.