@solowingpixy's banner p

solowingpixy

the resident car guy

0 followers   follows 0 users  
joined 2022 September 05 02:43:31 UTC 

				
User ID: 410


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
solowingpixy


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
the resident car guy

				
				
				

				

					0 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 02:43:31 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 410


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					Month
					Year
					
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for November 4, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My big gripe with so-called "therapy culture" is that it trivializes trauma and dysfunction in a way that isn't particularly helpful to anyone, including a massive proliferation of therapists who IMO aren't really equipped to deal with serious shit (At least, this is what I've seen in my local area, a big college town.).


With that, I have a younger sister (currently late 20s) who came of age in that milieu and, I don't have a polite way to put this, seems to have taken her trauma as something of an identity in a way that isn't really conducive to getting over it, moving on as much as is possible, and living a better life instead of being stuck wasting her time suffering.


She's no contact with our mother and middle sister and to be clear that is her right and our mother more than earned it. Mother was an awful parent, remains a bad person, and I have no doubt that her teens being stuck as Mom's de-facto only child were unenviable in ways that I did not experience even if there was less of the outright domestic violence and dead pets that was typical of mother in her 20s/early 30s that our middle sister and I experienced (Again, to be clear, I left home before she was 10, don't know all of the story, and what I do know was bad enough.).


That said, I still feel that to justify her own suffering and dysfunction (while being academically successful, albeit at the cost of crushing student loan debt) she has our mother built up as this Agent Smith tier villain that she remains so reflexively terrified of as an adult that I am forbidden to disclose what state she is attending school in instead of seeing her as she is now, which is a mostly pitiful middle-aged malingerer obsessed with being "disabled" (She is not, but it was good enough to draw 100% from the VA.), capable of half-hearted stalking at best (She did manage to find her LinkedIn, at which point she called me crying and hysterical, afraid I'd told Mother where she is.).


Setting aside the question of whether no-contact is entirely prudent (Morally, I won't argue against her, but low-contact may be easier in the sense that in my experience Mom can be assuaged with remarkably little contact. I may be wrong and this may not be the case for my sister.), Mom is not a special forces operative and lacks the energy or competence to hunt her down and find her, and I would prefer that my sister not go on living her life as if that's the case.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for November 4, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I am personally unaware of any instance of someone visiting a (mainstream) mental health professional and being unable to walk away with at least something, whether that be a medical diagnosis of some sort and/or medication.




FWIW I saw a licensed counselor (because I did not want to be put on drugs; Mom doctor shopped when I was a kid and had me put on an SSRI for OCD when I was nine in addition to the usual Ritalin for ADHD. I don't and didn't have OCD. I was sad about our house burning down, the story was that our dryer had caught fire, so I was checking lint filters to prevent that. In retrospect I'm fairly confident that the fire was arson; mom wanted a bigger house.) who specialized in PTSD and Borderline Personality Disorder (He was my second choice; the first was booked.) in my early 20s and while I walked away with a few somethings that I had mixed feelings about he did not attempt to refer me to a psychiatrist and did say that he saw no signs of Cluster B behavior in me. He did say that my veteran coworker who'd armchair diagnosed me with PTSD was correct (BTW, Tumblr is wrong. This doesn't make you cool or special. It fucking blows and I'm grateful that I've recovered enough that it isn't totally crippling in my 30s like it was in my early 20s.), that my mother almost certainly would be diagnosable with ASPD in addition to BPD, that I was "talented and gifted" (I despise this term, both because I feel awful for being put on a pedestal for this at my middle sister's expense, and because I resent the implication that I'm obligated to do or be something special when what I'd really like is a normal life where I feel loved.), and that "this is going to be difficult" (Gee, thanks!).


He (a right-wing presenting older guy) recommended that I go no-contact with my mother for my own safety (This struck me as ill-advised and overly dramatic. I had/have a functional enough low-contact relationship with her, she would've stalked me had I attempted to go no-contact, and I had a then-minor sister who I was very interested in protecting.) and stated that I needed to abandon the idea of saving my sister (Technically correct, and he did correctly predict that Mom would win the custody battle with my former stepfather, but I was never going to be able to live with myself if I didn't do what I could to help my sister survive/get out of there.).


He wound up recommending inpatient rehab for alcoholism (I did have a serious drinking problem, but I didn't and don't think that rehab was the correct answer, nor could I particularly afford it at the time. That problem declined over time.) and firing me as a patient (I very much respect this, even if I think rehab was a bit of a throwaway recommendation.) some number of months in once it was clear to both of us that we'd made as much progress as we were going to make. To his credit, we did quickly fix the acute problem that had forced me into counseling (PTSD symptoms interfering with my ability to drive safely; I was a delivery driver at the time and had been in a few car wrecks, the last of which was fairly serious.) with some EMDR and I don't think he was necessarily wrong with his diagnosis of my situation, but he went so over the top in trying to be validating that it made me feel like a poser and/or feared that I'd shocked him and was beyond help.


Overall, I'd score him a 6 or 7 out of 10, with high marks for terminating things quickly once it became apparent that we'd ceased making progress. I feel like he had a decent understand of what I went through but less concerning where I was on the other side of it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's not just that, but the fact that California wasn't that solid of a red state to begin with and the fact that conservative whites have been migrating out of California and vice versa for generations now such that the GOP doesn't win the non-Hispanic white vote there now and hasn't for a while.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IMO it's less a realignment and more a reflection of how very fragile the Trump '24 coalition was in the first place.


Running up the numbers with high school educated whites and (again, mostly non college) minority men (while still being stomped by minority women and thus minorities as a whole) is a terrible long term plan for coalition building. Said voters are fickle populists who don't show up for midterms in the best of times (See: Reagan Democrats and the 1986 midterm) and the sort of chud populism that wins their votes is repulsive to the college educated voters who actually matter.


Make no mistake, if high school educated minorities look like high school educated white Midwesterners and college educated minorities look like college educated whites but even more liberal the GOP as it currently exists are fucked.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In my experience working at a bar, not really.


Undesirable men (who mostly aren't spending their time blackpilling online waiting to die alone) don't get the hint. They do go out, far more than their single female counterparts, such that any attractive woman who presents herself as approachable (Most millennial/Gen Z women go out of their way not to be approachable.). will be bombarded by the attention of literally every single man in said bar.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If Aria is right, then we're soon in line for a marriage boom. Watch this space, folks!




Nah, IMO the elephant in the room in regards to sex ratios is median age. There isn't so much an oversupply of 23 year old zoomer males as there is one of their millennial cousins and divorcee Gen X fathers remaining active in the dating market (Women over 40 are much more likely to be "single, not looking" than their male counterparts.), and that's before you get to the married onlyfans subscribers. With that, social media/smartphones have made male attention easier to cultivate than ever for women (probably hard to avoid, if we're being honest). In short, male attention has been devalued into something less than worthless.


To be clear, I don't see an epidemic of zoomettes actually shacking up with the divorcee Gen Xers, but they'll sure as shit let the guy old enough to be their uncle buy their drinks and spend their time talking to him instead of the 23 year old zoomer. Hell, one of the Gen X attorneys that frequents my local bar paid a semester's tuition (something like 5 grand) of one of the zoomette bartenders. She didn't even fuck him! How is the 23 year old zoomer supposed to compete with that!? (On that note, in my experience being a pretty 23 year old boy can get attention, but said attention comes from 40 year old women looking for hookups who intentionally avoid men their own age because they don't want another relationship.).


Young women are rarer/in demand more today than they ever have been and are overwhelmed by male attention, be it solicited and wanted or otherwise, while the men they actually want either have endless options themselves or can't find a way to make themselves found in a sea of male attention (I'm at least partially convinced that it's more the latter than the less charitable hypergamy explanation.).


As the nation ages this will only get worse, especially with the proportion of millennial men who never married in the first place.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That "someone" is a former appointee of the incumbent Republican Governor of Ohio.


Given that the Ohio GOP is almost certainly going to retain the legislature and the limitations of what a Governor actually does (Maybe I'm missing something and Ohio has a uniquely strong executive, but I doubt it.) I'm not convinced there's some major policy outcome at stake here. Ramaswamy can't seem to find one worth campaigning on, anyway, and there's nothing in his record to suggest to me that he's some kind of right wing dream candidate.


There's almost certainly an election with high enough stakes to make me hold my nose and vote for the scumbag I agree with, but I don't think this is one of them. I don't think that anyone would care that much about this election if not for the fact that the GOP losing in Ohio of all places is an embarrassing reflection of how they are presently viewed at the national level.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I guess that I'm going to have to roast JD Vance and Hillbilly Elegy at some point because as someone whose background could be described as "Hillbilly Elegy, but maybe a bit worse" such that the book was an ugly trip down memory lane I wanted to like the guy and vaguely share his reactionary streak but this is taking the "sell myself for Trump" act too far and IMO in writing that book he came to a wrong "moral of the story" concerning his life.


I'm aware that Vance and Vivek are friends with shared connections but at some point one has to pull rank as VP of America, say "no, and stop this" or disavow attacking a woman who by all circumstantial/anecdotal/documented evidence appears to have suffered a worse upbringing at the hands of her mother than he or I did on those grounds. It's great that he was able to reconcile with his mother and trot her out during the '24 campaign but not everybody has that luxury and Vance of all people should know this. I am horrified by that ad on the behalf of Acton and her brother and if I lived in Ohio would vote for her without hesitation in spite of disagreeing with her Covid policies (BTW, I seriously doubt that Ramaswamy or the rest of the Ohio GOP were much better in that regard.).


I'll start by saying this: One thing I seriously doubt that Vance will ever understand is how convenient his narrative as an unconditional victim was by being the youngest sibling. I was the oldest and, well, it's not that easy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Combine this with a large drop in the foreign born population and the US is likely now growing whiter for the first time in probably at least 100 years.




Not really. There is no "huge drop" in the foreign born population, just a drop in illegal immigration. Very few of the Bidenwave and before have left/been deported. Likewise, a tiny positive differential in white American fertility now doesn't change the fact that white Americans as a whole are disproportionately post-fertility (aka. Boomers and Gen X) and is almost certainly undone by legal immigration alone.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IMO the war was never winnable for the South. Yes, they had favorable terrain in the east and the Army of Northern Virginia did a respectable job of operating in that theater, but the western theater was a wide open disaster and it's hard to think up a counterfactual in which Grant and Sherman wouldn't be able to break it open sooner or later with superior manpower and materiel, not to mention near total naval supremacy.


More to the point, even if the South were to "win" in some fashion, what's to stop the north from licking their wounds and gearing up for another invasion in a few years? The US was never going to tolerate a competing power on the continent if it didn't have to and I seriously doubt a European power would've been willing to spend the resources required to credibly defend the Confederacy given their other global commitments.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, cooking for one, maybe a few times a month. For context, I don't eat breakfast and get free lunch a lot at work, so often dinner is a snack. I consider myself a mid-tier cook that make a few things well if prone to certain culinary sins (oversalting my food!), but my friends and family tend to like what I cook. As for boring, I get just as bored with the restaurants in my area and have the same ability to eat pretty much the same thing or at least same theme if prompted. I cook because I'm a cheapskate and like to make an at least nominal effort to eat healthy.


The crock pot and freezer are my best friend, as can be the oven (Oven roasted chicken and vegetables doesn't take much skill and in my experience usually turns out good.). If I like something I cooked (Usually, what I cook turns out decent Sometimes it's great, and sometimes it's mediocre, but it's rarely bad enough that I don't like it.), I have no problem eating the same thing multiple times a week, supplementing with eating out or frozen convenience food for the sake of variety. I gravitate toward soups and stews and usually don't care for pasta. I tend to stick to a set of recipes and techniques that I've been using for years and with experience one gets an intuitive grasp of "this can be substituted for that". Some things just aren't hard, and some convenience foods aren't that bad. Mashed potatoes are not challenging to make from scratch. On the other hand, "just add water" sausage gravy is good enough that I've never felt compelled to learn to make it from scratch.


I also like to meal-prep multiple entrees to help with variety. In my freezer I have 15 bean soup (This recipe checks all the boxes. It's idiot-proof, cheap per serving, nutritious, and tasty. I like to add spinach and okra for some greens, and maybe carrots.), Brunswick Stew (My latest batch turned out over-seasoned because I didn't account for using pre-cooked barbecue pork instead of raw, but it isn't bad.) and a chicken and lentil curry abomination (I wouldn't serve it to guests, and it turned out spicier than I intended, but I like it.).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Err, not really. The California State Assembly has been controlled by the Democrats since 1970, barring '94-96, and the same has been true of the California State Senate without interruption since 1973. The GOP was competitive in California in a way that it wasn't in much of the US at the time, but I'd hardly have called it a "solid red state".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was in grade school, in rural Alabama. We were put in the library and then a TV was wheeled in and turned on, showing the two towers burning. I was good friends with a pair of twin boys. I don't remember which was in the room with me, but he was crying. Both brothers wound up doing tours in Afghanistan 10+ years later. I could talk about how insane the Courtesy of the Red White and Blue era was, from 9/11 to invading Iraq, but when I think of 9/11 I think of the veterans.


Mercifully, most of the guys I know who spent time in the sandbox made it out more or less alright. But then there was Zach. Zach was a coworker of mine at a pizza place circa 2010. I didn't know him super well, only knew that he'd had a five alarm meltdown over a minor fender bender on the job and that was the last I saw of him. Another driver I was closer with explained: They'd grown up together, done Boy Scouts together, and so on. Apparently he'd done two tours in Iraq. The first was a cakewalk. The second was Fallujah, and he'd survived in body but not in spirit, lost his best friend in rather graphic fashion (The driver who told me this, an Air Force brat who'd been kept out of the service by a bad back, used to drive me nuts in how he'd get guys fired up to tell their war stories but not really listen to them.).


The last I heard Zach was on drugs and in and out of jail. I have no idea what happened to him. I hope that he's found peace, in this life or the next.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What interests me about this is that for all of the retrospective mocking of Paul krugman's comparison of the internet to a fax machine, in terms of economic growth it didn't really change much.


For all the promise of computers, the internet, smartphones, etc. first world economic growth has been stagnant since the 2000s. Even for the US, a relative success story, real GDP per capita growth has been slower in the last 25 years then it was from 1950 to 75 or 1975 to 2000.


What do we do if AI changes much of our lives, but doesn't produce anywhere near the promised economic growth?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IMO it's classic Trumpian style over substance bullshit that makes me loathe the man.


Setting aside the fact that starting a trade war with Canada was a stupid idea that nobody asked for (see also: Greenland, "51st state", etc.), renaming a body of water accomplishes nothing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Short term: Nothingburger.


Long term: War, or to quote Victoria Nuland, "Fuck the EU." Let us not forget that it was turning down a trade agreement with the EU that set off Yanukovych's downfall in Ukraine.


It's not a perfectly clean comparison (Canada is a lot more united, and the US less so, compared to Ukraine and Russia respectively circa 2013.) but I don't see any future US administration being overly tolerant if Canada seriously orients itself to the EU (because military alliances follow economic ones) or China, and "fighting for sovereignty" can be used to excuse any number of bad outcomes of antagonism with the US for Canadian politicians.


To be clear, I do not advocate this. I doubt anyone in Russia or Ukraine expected to be in a shooting war back in '04 either, though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IIRC it was Emmet Till's father Louis who was executed for rape/murder of Italian civilians during WWII.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It depends on the bar, but if I'm at my regular place during happy hour or the other place that can make it, a Hugo 75.


If it's my regular bar and the night bartenders are on (neither one knows how to make a Hugo 75, but then the happy hour bartenders can never get my house Collins right either), usually their house take on a Tom Collins (a Tom Collins with St. Germain instead of sugar and a few dashes of orange bitters).


If I'm a bar I don't know and/or at a work event where everyone else is drinking martinis I'll go for a Manhattan, fancy enough but hard to screw up. See also: the Negroni or Boulevardier.


Really though, it depends on context. If the bar is slammed or just a dive I'll order something easy like a shot and a beer.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would say all of the above, plus the fact that non-domiciled CDLs/chameleon carriers were much less of an issue in Trump's first term.


Like many things to do with immigration, it seems that non-domiciled CDL requirements were systematically not enforced by certain states post-2020, resulting in rapid growth of a previously obscure category of license (A non-domiciled CDL is a CDL issued to someone who doesn't live in the issuing state.). Illinois, for example, went from issuing 300 non-domiciled CDLs in the year 2020 to issuing 5,000 of these per year in 2024 and 2025, with non-domiciled licenses comprising 40% of all licenses issued in 2025.


Toss in the vibecession and a handful of viral fatal accidents involving non-domiciled CDL holders and you suddenly have enough people aware of the issue and angry about it to lobby for a crackdown.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


My guess is old people doesn’t cut racial lines at all and every race has old people.




Not really. Old people are far whiter than the US as a whole and even the median black American is 12 years younger than their white counterpart. For Hispanics, that median is 19 years younger. One would expect the whiteness of 55+ communities to face DEI's ire, but then there's the argument that Boomer and Gen X whites were mostly exempted from DEI in the first place in exchange for cooperation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
FWIW I went with Reta from a semi-sketchy source (I'll share in message, though the site I bought from has different sources now.) and it went fine. I picked a supplier that had respectable (but not the most amazing/expensive) reviews and COAs (too cheap and lazy to test the batch that I received) and it's been fine. If anything, the only issue I've had has been with inconsistent dosing (This was noted in the COAs; purity tends to be good from batch to batch but the suppliers have a habit of overdelivering on dosage.) and my own overly aggressive dosing schedule (I was aggressive and it worked, but I felt like shit a lot of the time before I reached a dose that I've stuck with. Most of that "feeling like shit" was just the result of a very aggressive calorie deficit. I didn't want to eat but I was tired AF and constantly cold.).


As for results, I lost 60lbs in 5 months and going on/off have hit a sort of plateau and not really been trying since then. I might go for another 10-15lbs but beyond that (and maybe then) I'd be venturing too far into "skinny nerd" territory. For reference, I'm currently 175lbs at 6'1.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In my experience once you age out of college/grad school finding new roommates is hard. It's like dating but with a harder cutoff. After 30 they either can't pay or are intolerably insane.


I live by myself in a big two bedroom apartment and wouldn't mind a roommate but my luck with the last few has been bad and rent has gone up so much in the last 5 years (I'm grandfathered in with an old lady landlord.) that I wouldn't save any money downsizing to a smaller place (plus I'd have to spend time and money moving), so I have a spare bed and bath that collects dust.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Speaking as a millennial who was out and about in the mid 2010s I ate out more then because I had a lot more free cash. I was kind of a loser and kind of broke but my base expenses were low.


Gen Zs today have a right to complain because in my experience a lot of base cost of living stuff is more expensive. I make more money than I did back then but I shop for groceries at Walmart now and mostly only eat out if the boss is paying for it because I'm somehow still broke.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The "why" is relatively simple. "Old" at the time of Medicare's passing meant the Lost Generation, which was A. generally quite poor thanks to having spent their prime earning years in the Great Depression and B. didn't live all that long (My great grandfather of that generation died at the age of 70. His son, my grandfather, lived to see 86.).


Meanwhile, aside from free public education (which is in fact a large socialization of childrearing, albeit one done for the purpose of producing productive adults) I don't think childcare was something specifically on the radar at the time (as opposed to poverty in general) in large part because the standards of childrearing were quite a bit lower at the time (Another interesting question: Which has been subject to more expectation inflation? Parenting or eldercare?).


In the long term, this has become a problem due to demographics, inflation of expectations (in terms of Social Security benefits, but most acutely healthcare expenditures), and the emergence of a mass affluent upper-middle class of elderly capable of lobbying on its own behalf that arguably didn't exist before, say, the Silent Generation's retirement.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It feels like we broke something that was working perfectly fine, and now we're trying to fix it with band-aids.




Low fertility and increased lifespan probably would've broken it on its own. Mass divorce and familial dysfunction just poured salt on the wound, transforming "part of life" into a potentially Sisyphean burden. What happens when it's not "sweet grandma" but a malingering, toxic trainwreck that the children have spent years doing their best to avoid?