new favorite ai “workflow” I’m very good at saving articles to read later and then never reading them… now I’m using notebooklm to generate podcasts for each article in the backlog and making my way through them while I shower

it's hard to overstate how good this period was for the average worker compared to today fearful capitalists are generous capitalists

wtf happened in 1971? well, among other things, US leaders began realizing that the soviet economy was stagnating and that communism wasn't the threat they previously feared

honestly I think the cold war was a huge part of what kept quality of life high for many working americans post-ww2. capitalism had to win hearts and minds against communism. once capitalism became the only game in town (a monopoly, if you will), why care about workers?

hypothesis: smart people procrastinate because “thinking about it more” actually has a high ROI

this was a worthwhile summer project

the problem is growing dire. since 1985, social scientists have asked a representative sample of americans, "how many confidants do you have?" in 1985, the most common answer was three by 2004 the most common answer was zero journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades - Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, Matthew E. Brashears, 2006

Have the core discussion networks of Americans changed in the past two decades? In 1985, the General Social Survey (GSS) collected the first nationally represen...

i'm probably stating the obvious, but the workplace doesn't serve this function for adults. it may offer repeated encounters, but a place where your behavior determines if you can put food on the table isn't generally going to offer psychological safety and freedom

the seminal text here is Putnam's Bowling Alone, which charts this decline but even outside voluntary orgs, we've literally created more distance between ourselves and our neighbors: the average american of 1970 lived in a neighborhood over 30% more dense than in 2013 www.kaseyklimes.com/maps-1

Goodbye Neighbor: A Historical Portrait of Sprawl in 51 US Cities — Kasey Klimes

friendship is built through repeated encounters in a psychologically safe and free environment, regardless of your age kids have this in school. adults once had it in civic orgs, fraternal clubs, and rec leagues, all of which have been eroding for decades