“The lizard people, in a nutshell, are people whose wealth and/or circumstances have led to a real and serious distance in perception and behavior from normal Americans.”
This would appear to rather firmly establish that I am assuredly NOT a Lizard Person - or a Lizard Person Cargo Cult(ur)ist, for that matter - since I spent the first half of my life (to date) in Hooverville and keep in close contact with many people I have known for over 30 years: Fellow humble, hardscrabble hillbillies not unlike myself in origin.
“Our friend Sherman, who repeatedly fumbles through a sort of “Australopithecus Portrays Socrates” commenting routine in which he tries to mis-associate Powerball winners, YouTube clowns, incel inheritors, car-show operators, and the like with the concept of Lizard People, has a bit of Cargo Culture about him. His endless rants about how building anything in America amounts to “make-work projects” and “welfare by other means” are, I think, vaguely analogous to the harmless butterflies who attempt to emulate the poisonous monarch butterfly and thus avoid consumption by real predators. He’s acquired a Plato’s Cave version of these sociopathic attitudes from consuming the media made by other Lizard Cargo Culturists, and claims them as his own because he believes they confer status upon him.”
My rants about “make work” and “welfare by other means” and - yes - DEI for laborers is not constrained to manufacturing work. It applies to *all* “work” (by which I mean trading time for a paycheck, in this sense), since I strive to be consistent in the application of my beliefs.
Here’s a recent example:
-Last week, I bumped into a guy that I worked for earlier in my career; we share an alma mater, and he hired me a long time ago.
-He is now a group head at another investment bank, which means he has significant P&L responsibility (and oversight). As with any investment bank, his biggest expense is personnel costs.
-I asked him if that bank was using Rogo - an AI “agent” targeted toward investment banking - or any other similar tools.
-Yes, they are using them, but it hasn’t materially cut down on junior hires (yet); the market cycle still controls hiring and firing of execution bankers. The bank for which he works was burned badly during the post-COVID boom because they hired too many juniors, which led to them laying off 40% of their workforce when rates rose and deal volume slackened. The bank is a private partnership, so the partners have to eat first.
-He believes that, historically, the *only* reason that the junior grunt work was performed by highly paid Americans (or foreigners on sponsored visas) sitting in cubicles in expensive American office buildings was because the next generation of senior bankers learn those skills on the job, primarily through observation and indirect exposure to client discussions; you could outsource the work to India, but that kills the pipeline of people who will transform from a caterpillar into a butterfly and begin generating revenue after ~10 years of execution and learning. Which is why no investment banks materially outsource work done by people who could conceivably become revenue generators in the future. They do outsource middle- and back-office work.
-He said: “If it were up to me, I would fire everyone on my team and replace them with AI in a heartbeat, since I’ll be retired in three years - I don’t give a shit about training the next generation.”
I agree with him: No one is owed any sort of job, any sort of paycheck.
"I don’t give a shit about training the next generation"
the real american dream is entirely self serving and indifferent or hostile to anyone who might get in the way right. why bother continuing the method that allowed the firm to effectively operate anyway
the _only_ role of a manager is to help his / her team succeed. before you say "no, the role of a manager is to help the organization succeed," the former leads to the latter.
His job is to generate revenue himself and also hire other senior bankers who will generate lots of revenue. And then it’s to determine how much each and every person on the team gets paid at year end (within some goal posts - he can underpay someone who deserved more so that he can overpay someone else that he wants to keep, etc.)
The job of those who work under him is to execute his deals and anticipate his needs. If they do those things, they will learn quite a lot.
I have some experiencing managing teams of various sizes, though I concede I know nothing about investment banking. that said, if the only learning is coming from them observing the guy, then he strikes me as a bad manager and leader. how much more revenue might be made if the guy spent some time teaching and mentoring, rather than expecting those under him to pick things up through osmosis? how much more efficiently might they execute trades, identify problems and opportunities, contribute useful and actionable information, and anticipate his needs?
I'll offer an imperfect analogy - how much more, and how much sooner, would I learn about racecraft if Jack instructed and mentored me than if I just watched him?
To the extent he is a “manager” it’s his job to hire other senior bankers who will generate revenue.
To the extent he is a “leader” it’s his job to generate (lots of) revenue himself.
You learn the job by doing (and observing); if you can’t do that, then you should go do something else - that’s why he and anyone else in that sort of role would say.
Junior employees are not expected to generate revenue right away, they are expected to sit in a cubicle 15+ hours a day and execute their boss’s deals. IF a junior employee had the bright idea that they should be the one generating revenue, they’d get fired. Immediately. That’s because there is a finite number of potential clients, and any time they spent “prospecting” for clients would be time taken away from doing their actual job; if they somehow found a (good, by which I mean a client that you can reliably win who is creating frequent fee events) client, then the senior banker who theoretically would’ve, could’ve, should’ve covered that client would just steal them internally.
If you were PAYING Jack, I’d expect him to teach you; if he were paying you to do odd jobs for him around the race shop, it wouldn’t be incumbent upon him to teach you, right?
Early boomers even pulled up the ladders on late boomers like me. I’m technically a boomer by birth year, but by attitude I have nothing in common with them.
Yeah I have a work colleague like this and he is essentially Gen X. Very cool guy. He “gets it” if that makes sense in a way that true boomers seem to not…
My peer group has embraced this "sport" like they embrace everything else -- with a mania bordering on obsession. It will last until "The Next Big Thing" comes along to steal their (our?) attention. This is the generation, remember, that busted my dad's generation for playing shuffleboard bocce ball as they aged.
... and while It may be less harsh than tennis, I know of nobody who plays >3x/wk who hasn't torn a meniscus, ACL, or hamstring at least once.
If they're as serious about pickleball as they sound, your parents are going to end up on somebody's table -- guaranteed.
My foot surgeon friend tells me he gets to operate on a pickleball injury nearly every week. For his trouble he gets to drive an NSX TypeS and Giulia QF (both bought new). So the boomers' wealth is being redistributed (that, or it's why our health insurance premia are so usurious).
I graduated HS in 1981, having underachieved spectacularly and taken every shop class offered in a town and a time where/when shop classes were liberally offered to those students not being tracked into engineering, accounting, or nursing (where 85% of my classmates ended up). The idea of any of them as a vocation gave me hives.
Having been born into the family of some seriously smart people, my grasp far exceeded my reach. I was content to spend my 4 years at THS sitting on the hood of my Firebird and eating Dolly Madison "Donettes" during "Engine Testing" or some such, smirking at the brown-nosers sweating out classes to prep them to be worker bees in the corporate hive.
I took the required math (one year), the required science (two years), and English (3 years). The rest of my time was spent "finding my own" way in the parlance of the day, which involved a good deal of hood sitting and Donette eating. And lifting weights. And working on my Firechicken.
I learned to write in English 2, when Mrs. Evans basically dared me to apply myself. I rearranged my schedule to get her for English 3 and become the editor of the student newspaper, a position I used to mock the administration in thinly veiled terms.
And then it was over. I graduated into 20% inflation and >10% unemployment. My dad was a plumbing contractor (the smartest man in a family of college profs and medical Drs.), wildly successful in 1979 and near bankruptcy in 1981. I kept my HS job changing oil at the Mobil station for $4/hr. I didn't WANT to go to college because I didn't want to be an accountant or engineer, and didn't want to work for dad because I was a snot-nosed punk.
Good thing too, because there was zero money for me, even with a state scholarship (earned for testing well on my ACT). I wanted (in order) to:
1) stop striking out with pretty girls
2) crew for Big Daddy Don Garlits
3) play bass for a righteous rock band
I had no clue how to accomplish any of these goals.
Fast forward 44 years, and I've somehow found success owning and operating a union supermarket refrigeration contracting business, have been married for 40 years to BY FAR the prettiest girl who would ever have had me, and somehow fathered and raised 3 successful kids. I've got the cars I want, live in a home I built and own several others. I could retire tomorrow, but I don't want to -- I genuinely like what I do, and always have. The income is nice too.
The point? I'm not your guy. College was never for me, and I regret nothing. My generation sold your generation a bill of goods. There are a lot of roads to success. You do you -- nothing is stopping you.
Not for me, Nate -- but then I was always the throwback. Didn't go to college. Married young, had kids early (3 by my 27th BD). Wife never worked. Learned a trade. Started a business. Built a nice life in the town where I grew up. Raised God-fearing kids (2 out of 3 anyhow) who are all productive members of society raising their own kids.
My kids are all laying waste to their peers by every metric. They have great jobs, several kids of their own (each).
I was talkin' 'bout mmmmy geeenneeration. Generally, Boomers raised entitled snots in their spare time.
We have already determined that you are in fact, not a hillbilly. I’m unsure why you keep that charade up since hillbillies don’t go to W&L, brag about finance contacts and work in investment banks. Additionally, lizard cargo shorts people are the exact type of person who would claim some background to justify their behavior as not being that. I wasn’t expecting a Sherman McCoy stray, but here we are.
I am *actually* a hillbilly! I have another hillbilly friend (from comes from coal mining stock in Eastern Kentucky) who is now a lawyer at The Heritage Foundation. He has transcended his humble origins and done well for himself.
Unlike, say, JD Vance: He grew up in flat-as-a-board Middletown, Ohio, appropriated my culture, and used that appropriation to (metaphorically) fellate Peter Thiel.
Having a poor friend who makes good does not make you a hillbilly. I went to high school in the Bronx, with friends from the hood, I’m in no way shape from the hood.
I said he grew up in a coal mining family in the hollers of Eastern Kentucky.
I grew up in a copper mining family in far Northern Georgia; the area in which my maternal grandfather grew up is between “Devil’s Den” and “Hell’s Holler,” and it remains an exceedingly unpleasant location.
By that standard I guess I grew up in a junk dealing family because my maternal grandfather was a ragman, notwithstanding the fact that my father was a veterinarian.
Maybe recycling scrap is in my blood. With the amount of cardboard boxes that people get due to online sales, I've looked into leasing a cardboard compactor to set up at my grandkids' school. The idea being that families would drop off their scrap boxes at the school, the custodian or some staff member would run the compactor, and I'd split the proceeds with the school. The problem was getting the school to buy in to the idea.
Considering how easy it is to recycle cardboard, it's a shame how much gets thrown away.
My dad was a steel worker and union man. All my uncles were, too. I hung out in steel worker neighborhoods and went to the bars and bowling alleys.
I am not a steel worker or union man. While I have a slight understanding of the life my dad lived, I am so far removed from it, at my dad’s insistence, that I was but a mere observer to the life he lived. I did not come close to truly experiencing it. Just because I was there for part of it means next to nothing.
I guess I can’t add anything the other commentators have stated, but if your dad is truly a dentist, then you come from educated and wealthy stock in which you probably grew up without an accent. Adjacency does not mean reality. I’m sure you play up that hillbilly bs in board rooms right? Didn’t think so.
I don’t think I have an accent; people in Chicago thought I had an incredibly thick “Southern” (not “Appalachian”) accent.
I am happy to discuss my humble beginnings - when appropriate - in professional context. I met a guy earlier this year who grew up in the “Appalachian” portion of Nova Scotia before attending Middlebury, where I went to summer school. We had quite a lot in common, as outsiders from the middle of nowhere Appalachia who ended up on Wall Street.
Yes, if the hypothetical descendant of the billionaire forebear grew up in Appalachia and interacted with other Appalachian Americans on a daily basis (school, etc.); it’s a cultural thing that remains bounded by geography, even today.
Are you really so dense as to not understand that the reason he(Vance) and others ever talk about the "hillbilly" thing has everything to do with how uneducated the coasts and places of "culture" are now?
I grew up in the heart of the Ozarks and graduated with a prestigious degree for what I wanted to do. I can tell you right now that I was ALWAYS branded a straight up hillbilly outsider by the college elitists regardless of what my intellectual ability was. Hillbilly means many things to many people and is often slang for other things like trailer park people(as it is in OHIO).
And no, you are not a lizard person. It's super clear when you type that you aren't. But, as Jack says, you're often arguing as a lizard person adjacent. I often hate your arguments but I do like that you are very thorough in your explanations for things. My main issue is always that you are so far away from a normal person now (my perception) that you cannot see the reality for the majority of us hobbits living in middle earth. We just want to live in our holes and be left alone to raise our kids.
While this is mostly true about elitist people on the east coast, it doesn’t mean that that person thinks of himself as a hillbilly. In fact, one who does, tries to shed that label faster than anything. It’s utilized to sell sob stories or an insincere & shallow way of saying “I’m a normal person” when in fact, one has done nothing to keep it that way.
-Some people use “redneck” or “hick” or “hillbilly” interchangeably. I would be puzzled if someone called me a “redneck” or a “hick,” since I am demonstrably neither. It also amuses me when a smartypants refers to people, e.g., “hicks” as “hillbillies.”
-I am not so far away “normal” people. I have plenty of life experience interacting with them, and bear in mind that most of the clients we served as investment bankers operated rural community banks that served “normal” people.
I'm curious Sherman; I was born in a small 8 room hospital in Spencer, WV. I invoiced at $179.66 where my Father put $100 down and financed the rest. By the blessing of my parents and the Ford Motor Company I was moved to Akron at 5 months old and have lived in NE Ohio for most of the remainder of my life with frequent stays back in WV, even tomorrow night I plan on sleeping in the room my Mother was born in.
Hillbilly or not?
My brother, born in Akron 5 1/2 years following me in a proper hospital with a much larger invoice raised in the exact same environment.
Hillbilly or not?
PS. Every branch of my ancestry, both legitimate and not, settled in what is now WV in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
I am gratified that you consider me the arbiter of “hillbilly.”
I think if you spend your formative years in Appalachia, i.e., attending school in Appalachia would be the easiest way, then you qualify. Bryce is a hillbilly, in my definition.
It's a well known saying. Three of my great aunts came to Akron to work in the rubber factories and found husbands also from WV. One distant female cousin I found worked in the office where they were building Corsairs and then for Leo Mehl. I wish I had met her. A prominent history of the rubber industry devoted a entire chapter on the employees from WV that began with a description of the very town I was born in.
Sir, this sounds a great deal like what you believe:
"They believe, or pretend to believe, in a strict meritocracy that justifies their wealth and power. Consequently, they also believe that anyone who is poor or downtrodden deserves to be so"
cf
"-He said: “If it were up to me, I would fire everyone on my team and replace them with AI in a heartbeat, since I’ll be retired in three years - I don’t give a shit about training the next generation.”
I agree with him: No one is owed any sort of job, any sort of paycheck."
A simple "yes" would suffice as the two ideas of self-capacity for improvement and reinvention do not exclude the former.
There are issues around this belief primarily pertaining to individual ability and networks where leaving everyone to their own devices is not so much empowering the best it is sewing the seeds for anarchy.
I think people are recoiling to this sort of sociopathic relationship toward their fellows and subsequent generations for easy to understand reasons. An analogy to the experience is the biological phenomenon of cancer. Cancer is, ostensibly, a part of the body and shares the same DNA and cannot live apart from the body. However, people with cancer lose weight even if they eat more and more because it is the cancer receiving that energy and not the body proper. As the tumescent growth burgeons the body proper becomes increasingly ill and feeble. In your world, you are awash in possibilities and money, while an outsider looking in sees you proud to enable the sexual exploitation of the young and old, men and women alike, all to make money off their backs. Taking the energy of the body for your own good to the body's detriment. In your banker friend's world he give no fucks for the people of his actual corporate body (corporations naturally being composed of people) and only cares insofar as he gets remuneration. Ostensibly you and he share the same rough background and raising as Americans as the rest of us, but in reality it looks a lot like you're interested in killing the host and feeding while you can. I'm fairly certain Sir Morris Leyland sees the importation of labor, who will form nepotistic networks and lock out people who are better qualified, as one and the same. You might say he should have started his own business/built better contacts/etc but those things are also no guarantees of success.
We've touched on this before that stuff like fractional banking and other financial techne can be put to the good, we do seem to have big disagreements on both the reality of the "value stream" in the highly financialized world, and the external effects that it carries. I think banking and markets should work to serve the nation and not the reverse, which seems to be more what you think.
Excellent, thoughtful response; the best among many I have received today.
I don’t think that banking and markets, etc. SHOULD serve the nation (they often do, of course) or SHOULD NOT be served by the nation (which also happens sometimes). I don’t think we need any central planning.
I agree with both of your statements. What I do not think people understand is for a uneducated poor person to better their life. If they don't have an insider at a job the system is designed to keep it's foot on their neck. Now that can be overcome by motivation but it isn't easy to come by for someone doing physical labor 40 hours or more a week for minimum wage.
If you are selling 40 hours of weekly (physical) labor for whatever the prevailing rate is, it will be hard to get any financial traction going (even with hazard pay or incentives). I don’t think anyone ‘designed’ a system top-down to make it challenging for those people - we already have a generous safety net, a floor.
I agree and that is the problem. If you have a little ambition or brains you can live a decent if not gilded life but the floor is what keeps people down. Now I don't think we should kill the safety nets but if we could mentor poor people maybe they wouldn't be poor. Wishful thinking I would guess but the difference between 15 and 25 bucks an hour buys a lot.
Also, that man is the stupidest person in every room if he thinks he can replace everyone with AI. I’m assuming an Ivy League MBA which just means he only knows how to torpedo, not build.
He has been covetously eyeing high-spec, PTS 911 GTS Targas (used since the 992.2 Targa will be hybrid and not offer a manual). As if the hivemind here needed another reason to hate his ilk!
The attitude of "no one is owed a paycheck" is in my opinion, the justification used to eliminate job security over the past three generations. It's the same callous mindset that holds that a paycheck is all the thanks an employee has any right to expect, and the one uttered by those business managers who can't understand why good personnel are so hard to find.
I was motivated to pursue a career in banking for the paycheck, obviously.
If asked “are you motivated by money” in a job interview - even a Wall Street job interview - it’s smart to prevaricate a bit and talk about “opportunities” and “learning” and “exposure” and so on. So that’s naturally what everyone does, particularly undifferentiated college seniors with no skills (yet).
In retrospect, I got far more than just a paycheck out of my ~12 years in the trenches; I walked out with substantial domain knowledge and relationships to draw upon in the future. That was the true takeaway, as I have written many times.
I'd argue that when companies try to do something *other* than provide a paycheck, it can be bad. I mean, this is part of what DEI was about. Let's make work culture better through diversification. Let's "look good" instead of actually making money. Yes, making money. Usually that means making the best darn product or offering the best darn services. To achieve that, it means hiring the best darn people.
It's also an easy argument that job security can be just as bad. Look at where we are with tenure professors and teachers. Even in the private sector, I've seen companies crumble because so many middle managers had job security.
I'd argue that the social employee-employer has in fact become too complicated. At the same time, the customer-company contract has as well, and I'm not sure which came first.
To "owe" means to have an obligation. The employer has no obligation but he, presumably, is not stupid and understands meritorious performance on his (the firm's) behalf when he sees it, thus the paycheck and assurance, no guarantee, that the paycheck will continue to be provided. That is know as quid pro quo.
I was sitting at a wedding reception nearly a year ago. After a few drinks, I found myself - unfortunately - in libation lubricated conversation with a friend’s wife; she does not like me, has never liked me, and almost certainly will never like me.
She said: “You know, I’ve figured something out about you. I used to think you just had no self awareness, but that’s not true. You do have self awareness, you just don’t give a shit what people think about you.”
Why do you think you're expending so much effort justifying your parasitic existence here if you believe that you don't care what people think about you? You're a void of self-awareness raised to an exponential power. I'm sorry for pointing it out, since Jack asks us not to insult one another, but it would be nice if you learned something about yourself before you learn what accountability means.
-I am the ONLY person who is standing in opposition to the hivemind belief that finance = bad and the only virtuous or worthy jobs out there are engineering, blue collar labor, or sys admins (obviously).
-Among my few faults is that I enjoy arguing online!
Came here for this comment, and I was not disappointed. Quelle surprise, a head parasite cares nothing about the next generation of parasites. On the upside, less parasites.
No one is 'owed' a job. But we as a society should strive to ensure the next generation is left with more opportunities to have one, not less.
Oh, not speaking about the jobs in your example, more of a general trend overall that this attitude reflects.
For these jobs specifically, look, we all know printing debt forever is unsustainable, so careers that involve perverting the very meaning of the word 'investing' (from 'supporting the future with resources' to 'extracting a profit from the movement of others labor and assets') will go away, and should.
Hope your buddy enjoys his "This is the only 911 Targa in Harvestgoldmetallische over Blue Ostrich ever made!" bauble on his way out the door, we'll all be suitably impressed I'm sure when he drives by.
Your beliefs are consistent; I do appreciate that about you, as well as the fact that you are disagreeable, and that you dgaf about other people think of you. But what you wrote reads as a confirmation of Jack’s response.
Pinning this because I appreciate the response, as well as the breadth and depth of the thoughts within.
What interests me is the following:
'-He said: “If it were up to me, I would fire everyone on my team and replace them with AI in a heartbeat, since I’ll be retired in three years - I don’t give a shit about training the next generation.”'
One anecdote does not a sea of data make, but I can't help but contrast this with the obsession I've seen people display about other even vaguely meaningful businesses, careers, and products they've made.
Pilots will cry real tears on their final flight with an airline. When he was alive, Kalamazoo luthier Aaron Cowles would always stop what he was doing to look at any old guitar he'd helped make. Jimmy Page has spent thirty years obsessively remastering and reworking the music he made fifty years ago.
This fellow not only isn't sentimental about the future of his firm, he'd willingly destroy it for three years' worth of enhanced payouts.
Because he fully and completely understands that nothing he's ever done has led to anything good or worthwhile. The fry cook at McDonald's can say he's fed thousands of people, but this fellow has done nothing other than enrich himself by wetting his proverbial beak.
The only payoff was what he got paid. Therefore anything that increases that is worthwhile.
When you lampoon me for describing certain kinds of work as "GAY or UNMANLY or FAKE" or whatever... this is what I have in mind. Forty years of parasitic behavior. No actual good done for anyone. And memorable for nothing but the size of his paycheck.
You sound like his ex-wife. They were forced to spend more time together during COVID, which led to her to pursue divorce.
No one has ever cried on their last day of investment banking, unless they were tears of anguish (got fired unexpectedly with no money to walk away) or tears of jubilation (quit the millisecond their bonus hit their bank account).
The company I work for is owned by PE. The owners don’t give a damn about the future, they only care about exiting in 5 years at a profit. I am relatively young with a 20 year work life remaining (mostly due to not wanting to pay insurance out of pocket). These clowns know nothing about our business, spend small fortunes on CRM and data analytics tools, and think we are so stupid that we won’t notice they are screwing us for the long term. When I meet people who work in PE I know exactly what I am dealing with.
I don’t work in Private Equity, and I have never sold a company to PE, because PE firms - with rare exceptions - do not buy banks, because they would be forced to become (heavily regulated) bank holding companies in exchange, and that is the last thing they want to do.
Geez, Sherman, I don’t know whether a career in banking made your ex-boss that way or whether he was already like that (and therefore went into banking). Either way, aside from the financial rewards, I doubt he’s led an enviable life. Not by me, anyway.
He’s 48; I’ve known him for 12+ years. He has always been like that in my interactions with him.
Most career investment bankers are like that, because they are competing with each other, and they all realize that spending time on their own team of people is a poor use of the resource. Every junior job in the industry could be filled up dozens of times over by people who can and will do the job without warm fuzzies or rah rah in the office. Peers of mine who are still in the industry, who once groused about our bosses, now do the same things.
The "jobs" thing - make-work and otherwise - is an extension of the basic condition of human existence since the dawn of time, which at a basic level is, "if you contribute to the well-being of the group, you will at least not starve." Anything beyond that is far from guaranteed, but at least it was understood that you would eat.
In contrast this view appears to be more every man for himself, Yuval Noah Harari "useless eaters" theorizing.
While there are surely humans who do not contribute to the polis, the implication that universal non-capital-holding-man must (in essence; correct me if I'm polarizing your views) starve, or lower themselves to ditch-digging or prostitution, is pretty extreme.
(There are back of the napkin implications of this argument, of course, and in this era of high automation, one of them is "billions must die")
“If you contribute…” the argument I am implicitly making is that some “contributors” to society don’t contribute any value (and often contribute limited effort; effort being the input, value being the output).
My attitude often IS akin to “every man for themself,” because - again - I grew up in a small, rural, remote, isolated town, so I learned rather quickly that I was going to have to achieve my ambitions myself (if at all, obviously).
Notwithstanding what could happen with A(G)I, the government cannot, will not allow Americans to starve today. The same people in this comment section who bray endlessly about BANKSTERS and their BAILOUTS would want the taxpayers to put bums up in luxury hotels.
Stated with this level of granularity, it’s hard to argue with anything in the first two paragraphs.
If I had to guess I would say that your other assertions come off more harshly than simply “some people contribute little, no, or negative value, and some people don’t even put in any effort.” That’s a claim many(most?) here would stipulate to.
I do not think the people here would ask for bums to be put up in luxury hotels. Perhaps im missing some nuance in what you meant.
I am making light of the people here who HATE, e.g., “bankers” (this applies to everyone from the teller at your local branch to Jamie Dimon) because they are like piggies at a trough squealing for another bailout … but wouldn’t dare tell, say, this guy that he should’ve waited to have children until he was assured of being able to provide for a family:
Balance is tough. I’m sympathetic to your perspective but also sympathetic enough to admit that the fellow in that article is getting fucked.
Many will defend this system of exploitation until their dying breath, but a system that treats contributing workers this harshly obviously has problems.
But it would be beyond the pale to suggest that he might not be fit to be a father because he’s currently unable to provide for his family. Did he take any ownership, any responsibility?
If I were running this company and I had someone under me say that he doesn't care about the future in that way, I'd instantly fire him. I don't care what are his current responsibilities. He clearly is not helping to set up the company for future success and he should go.
Notwithstanding that it’s a private partnership, they don’t care about the future either. They fired about half of the junior staff in 2023 or so and loaded the remaining victims down with massive workloads.
So not a problem limited to him. Separate from the discussion on whether people deserve jobs and whether certain industries are evil, this place sounds like it has a dim future no matter what.
People would hate them a lot more if they knew firsthand what a typical day or week was like. But if they did the job for awhile, they would understand why it is beneficial long-term to do it for at least a few years.
Not only did Jack Baruth steal the show at MotoAmerica, Baggers competition is stealing the show for MotoGP next year with their official support class having a new name THE HARLEY-DAVIDSON BAGGER WORLD CUP*
*GET BENT INDIAN, I guess, even though their machines are clearly superior
This new premiere class, destined to replace all motorcycle competition at all levels; make women wet and men hard; is coming next year! https://www.motogp.com/en/news/2025/08/15/harley-davidson-bagger-world-cup/756437 The EUROSTANKS will finally know TRUE POWER and RACECRAFT as roaring American V-Twins finally put hair on their Eurochests.
Ahem.
Superbike competition at Mid-Ohio was good, actually, with Bobby Fong once again taking a win in race one but without the obscene gap that he had at VIR. In Race 1 Josh Herrin was a huge pussy about the oil dry on the track and, after riding over it, blew a turn and made a fuss before getting on with the race and finishing 7th. Cameron Beaubier kept Fong honest until the last lap where he blew turn 6 (where the oil dry was) and finished down in sixth. This left Sean Dylan Kelly on a GSXR1000 to secure second place while he fended off JD Beach and Hayden Gillum. Honda, on a Stock 1000 bike of all machines, was the third place podium with JD Beach and not Hayden Gillum standing on the step.
Race 2 had Herrin and Fong mixing it up into turn 6 (?) and contact of Herrin's front with Fong's rear sent them both off track. Herrin dumped his bike by the tire wall and then had a freak collision, which may have left him with a leg injury (unclear, couldn't find a press release) with another rider that he had already passed late in the race. Fong would perform an excellent recovery ride and claim the bronze, minimizing points damage and keeping him first in the championship. Cameron Beaubier took first place after Fong and Herrin were removed from the battle and Jake Gagne was back on the podium in second, though almost 4s adrift of Cam.
Supersport continues to be the fight between ex-superbike riders Scholtz, Jacobsen, and Petersen with the young Blake Davis being the least experienced rider giving them the most trouble.
King of the Baggers remains scrappy with a lot of crashes, mechanicals, and aggression compared with the other MotoA classes. Gillum wins race 1, Herfoss a (very) close second, and Kyle Wyman a distant third. Race 2 Herfoss and Gillum went at it again with Herfoss in the lead for much of the race. Gillum attempted last lap dive bomb into turn 6 and went wide off track which dumped him far back in the field. Herfoss takes race 2, Wyman far behind in second, and Tyler O'Hara, who has not been a force at all this season, finishes on the podium for third.
MotoGP at the Red Bull Ring!
Marco Bezzecchi puts the Aprilia on pole position with Alex Marquez a tenth of a second down for 2nd. Bagnaia, who has won repeatedly at the Red Bull Ring, qualifies in third. Marc Marquez missed pole position due to crashing out on a hot lap and has to start from the second row of the grid in fourth.
In the sprint Marc Marquez simply dominates again, jumping from 4th to second by turn one to follow his brother in second place. He would quietly sit behind Alex for half distance before passing him and putting on two tenths a lap for which Alex had no answer. Bez fell prey to Pedro Acosta, back on the podium, and a feather in KTM's cap at their home round. Where was Bagniaia? After horrendous wheelspin off the start he decided to retire after 3/4 race distance with complaints of no grip.
In the full length race the lead pack was 5 with Bez making a better start, Bagnaia behind him, then Marc, Alex, and Pedro. Bagnaia and Marc would go toe to toe for a short while before Marc passed on lap two to chase down Bez. Alex Marquez was looking good, but had a long lap penalty which put him down pack and from there he made no recovery. Bagnaia, having lost second to Marc, would hold on for much of the race until Acosta made it past him, whereupon he was quickly passed by Fermin Aldeguer who put on an amazing late show. Bagnaia faded down the field to 8th. Aldeguer, meanwhile, had .5s-1s of pace on Bez and Marc until Marquez responded to keep him at bay by a second. Bez had nothing for the rookie, however, and lost out to Fermin finishing two seconds down.
Baganaia almost looks sporting.
Jorge Martin did nothing of particular note except crash out of the race.
MotoGP is at a new venue where the initial turns after the start are quite tight and saw quite a lot of contact in WSBK superbike race 1.
silentsod's first paragraph consists of two complete sentences ("Baggers competition is stealing the show" and "Jack Baruth did steal the show at MotoAmerica") with a few prepositional phrases thrown in.
If you're going to be pedantic, at least be right.
I can’t diagram sentences anymore either (except that I try not to drop a preposition at the end of a sentence or phrase, because that embarrasses me). (And I get the use of “whom” versus “who” correct most of the time. I’ve noticed that I can’t spell for shit either as I’ve gotten into my fifties, or rather, that I question a spelling I know to be correct, but misspellings still jump right off the page at me, so take that as you will.)
But usually I can tell, just by reading a sentence, that something’s not right. And usually when that happens, it turns out that I’m correct.
Upon a more careful re-read, which I pride myself on doing and which I clearly did not do in this instance, I agree with you and furthermore, extend my apologies to
Upon further review, you are incorrect, amigo, the entire construction is only one sentence, not two. The first few words before the comma would be a sentence fragment if followed by a period. That's my pedant's view.
Here at ACF, you're free to make fun of me or any other public official, but we do require civility to each other. This fellow does a complete race report once a week, for free, so every one else can read it. We shan't require he be a prose stylist.
"*GET BENT INDIAN, I guess, even though their machines are clearly superior"
Word up- Cameo
Without a heel/face relationship ala pro rasslin', it's likely KOTB could just turn into IROC with HD dominating everything and whomever has the biggest checkbook getting the podium and smooches from umbrella girls.
On the upside, Indian may not need KOTB to sell bikes since the new Scout line has been updated to absolutely eat Harley's fucking lunch in the wake of the air cooled sportster being discontinued and what amounts to a great chassis with an unshrouded Johnson outboard zip tied and hose clamped into it. They are doing a ground n pound on HD right now with the Scout as well as the new Power-Plus touring/cruiser bikes.
Having a foil for HD might wind up being the secret sauce they lose with Indian, not unlike when the Vienna Sausage plant was rebuilt and they lost that je ne sais quoi to a process streamlining.
Anyway, I'm thankful KOTB has grown to become a headliner event from being an exhibition just a few years back. I'm nostalgic about Indian and HD racing, even though I haven't owned or flipped a Harley in years and my 54' Indian is in pieces. It's all about the sizzle, not the steak.
-Diversifies payment processing stream; would lower payment processing scrape (biggest expense by FAR for OF)
-Improves brand perception
-Reduces friction associated with purchasing content for everyone who is already a Substack reader with a card on file
-OF is orders of magnitude larger than Substack, but they could unite and offer a competitor to YouTube and social media slop: Real people creating real content for real people (without ads)
Logan Karnow is a privateer motocross racer who is sponsored by OF. He started being sponsored by some of their creators but picked up a sponsorship form the company itself.
I believe he posts a lot of behind the scenes content to his OF account.
'You don't need more batteries for more power. More batteries are for more range.'
I kind of want to go nerd-pedantic with you here. Of course you need more batteries for more motor power. The voltage is fixed.
That being said, I understand the point you're making: the ID3 could develop the same horsepower with fewer batteries. That hasn't always been the case with EVs.
"I actually ruined two sets of Continental ExtremeContacts"
gotta petition them to get a set of cup 2s or something becuase thats gotta be cheaper in the long run
"My top speed at Mid-Ohio is 156-157 but even the 600cc Supersports can knock on the door of 170 down the back straight, with the Stock 1000 and Superbikes doing another 10-15mph above that"
motorcycle downforce is still a strange thing to me becuase of all the leaning and whatnot
"The media outlets who breathlessly prattle on about Crazy Stuff The Prole Trash Actually Think are revealing more about themselves than about “Qanon”"
qanon was catnip for tragically unaware boomers. im shocked at its lifespan frankly
the numbers are wild except for the horsepower but thats all the little flat four can make (although a few people have produced some custom porsche 4cyl engines that are far more powerful but of course this one doesnt have the cool bits) and its really not that far from a hotrodded beetle engine and between the two im taking a restomodded beetle over this. at least that comes across as being more honest in your desires. i have a friend that kinda wants a 912 and im convincing him the 308 he is also interested in is a better idea.
"I feel compelled to point out that it’s possible to get this level of performance for less money. Like a K-swap Honda Fit, or a Fox Mustang with $800 worth of spray on it."
i still want to see what a 1500lb porsche can do even with that power because thats almost half the weight of a fox (and hundreds of pounds lighter than the fit despite being down a few dozen hp or so).
"Legend has it that not even William Calley looked as mellow after killing innocent people as Harjinder Singh did when a minivan struck his trailer during an illegal freeway U-turn."
and people say america isnt influenced by canada. how are you enjoying your taste of bramptons finest? this is only getting worse as more and more of them filter out onto the roads with zero knowledge of how to operate motor vehicles safely. the solution is to never hire them but the schools and companies they work for get shut down and just pop back up under other names. its absolutely maddening. eventually people will start dealing with companies based on what the people look and sound like becuase that might be the only way to make sure somebody isnt killed on the road delivering their packages. my thoughts go out to the family and all those affected.
A few minor issues at 131K but in general I'm happy. Still on the first clutch, only had to do the brakes once. After the recent discussion of low viscosity oils I switched to 5W-20 on the last oil change.
Sir, I'll have you know that even I, the least of commenters here, graduated SUMMER-COME-LOUDER with several advanced degrease from one of America's TOP PRESTIGE INSTITUTIONS the venerable and well-regarted DeVry University!
We don't have no time for this high-falutin' grammarlarian noncents.
I think we need a reality show (stay with me here) in which we pay for leftist Americans to travel to foreign countries and do the things there that they think illegals should be allowed to do here in the USA. It would be fun to watch what happens when they are arrested and imprisoned for things that millions of illegals get away with here every day. I’ll add driving semi-trucks to my list of challenges.
Thanks! It's both very exciting and extremely stressful! I cannot wait for this part of it to be over (I never want to make a decision involving table cloth colors ever again), the honeymoon to start, and this chapter of my life to close.
RE: kids... not yet. Would like to knock out a couple bucket list things first while we're both young, mostly stable, and fit enough to do them. Year or two sounds about right. We got a kitten a couple weeks back, and seeing her interact with the tiny thing has opened up the Wants a Child portion of my heart a bit more.
I’ve basically sworn off weed. I didn’t do it much before, but it wasn’t doing me any favors and so why bother. And same with booze, it just destroys my sleep now that I’m old. I stopped recreationally drinking for the most part aside from a glass of wine with certain meals. However I’ll still socially drink for the right occasions, of which I have two coming this weekend (40th bday party at a bar Friday, block party on Sat). RIP my sleep cycle until mid next week.
Since my wife is invariably pregnant or breastfeeding I do major fasts and some of the two week fasts alcohol free. This, along with the standard Wednesday/Friday fasts, means I am alcohol free about a third of the year by default with no real effort.
I also won't be drinking once the baby is here for a month or two.
To find the required simpleminded candidates you would likely need to recruit influencers or wanna-be influencers, so some payment would be necessary, could be like the Amazing Race where you cover their expenses and promise large cash winnings to whoever completes the challenges. Of course that is unlikely to happen since other countries enforce their immigration laws ruthlessly. I think this is TV ready, just need Mark Burnett to produce it.
This is a great idea and I’d watch every episode. The only downside is that the show probably will only run one season once the pool of potential participants sees what happened to the first batch of volunteers.
I am not so sure- the American left thrives on the idea that bad progressive ideas (socialism, communism) that have failed every time they have been tried have failed because they were not implemented properly. American progressives are nothing if not arrogant and believe they can do it “smarter”. They would see season 1 contestants get locked up for decades in foreign prisons and think” I am smarter and can do it right!”
I guess I'm Nobody because I've always liked/wanted 912s since I became aware of them as a young teenager back in the 80s. I like the simplicity of their power plants and always thought they'd be fun to drive. But then again, I like pre-'68 Bugs too. 912 pricing though in the past few decades has all but assured me that I'll never own one.
If I had to put my own definition of the Lizard People, it's the modern American Left power class... i.e., they don't just brand progressivism, they have the power to force the implementation of progressive policy, all while - *and this is the important part* - diabolically fortifying their personal position to ensure they'll never face the progressive edicts they've mobilized...
Examples would be climate activists flying on private jets while pushing legislation to curtail oil production... White male CEO's who implement DEI hiring/promotion policies at their companies... essentially the entire Democratic Party who pushed Defund the Police initiatives from 2020-2024 while substantially increasing the funding for the Capitol Police force in DC...
I personally knew a climate activist who not only advocated on behalf of electric cars but did not own a car, electric or otherwise, he rode a bicycle.
...and such an individual would not be the "Lizard People". I think virtually everyone here respects each individual's choice in lifestyle. Some people choose to minimize their carbon footprint, others choose to race cars on the weekend...
Notice I specifically highlighted "and this is the important part"... which is sort of what completes the point.
There are no liberal or progressive policies that have positive outcomes, that’s why they don’t follow their own edicts. It would make their life worse, they know it, so they don’t do it.
As Glenn Reynolds said, “I’ll believe it’s a problem when the people who say it’s a problem start acting like it’s a problem.”
When the people who tell you the polar ice caps will melt and drown us all go out and buy $10 million beachfront mansions in Malibu, you can bet your paycheck on them being full of shit.
Eerie parallel (and by this I mean "easily foreseeable") between this latest truck driver incident and the license-for-bribes crash that sent former Illinois governor George Ryan to prison. In that crash, part of the truck's taillight assembly fell off which then punctured the gas tank of a trailing minivan, causing it to catch fire, severely injuring the driver and his wife and killing their six children. Apparently the taillight assembly was dangling long enough that several passing motorists noticed and tried to signal the driver. Unfortunately the driver did not speak English and did not comprehend their warnings.
This particular incident was the impetus for the feds investigation into George Ryan’s administration at the IL Secretary of State. My recollection is that the feds got really interested when they learned that the IL driver didn’t speak English and wondered how on earth he got a CDL.
I've been traveling and unable to reply, but your low-down PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE SLANDER is completely out of bounds.
Starting with your second shit-sentence, "Its not like her father actually achieved anything." That is exactly the type of caste-based dismissal that the Indian brain uses about 90% of its cycles on. Nobody cares and that's completely beside the point. The point is that {{{ Harmeet Dhillon }}} is an ENEMY FOREIGN AGENT, whose loyalty is to India, not the country that pays her salary.
To your first shit-sentence: yes, I HAVE weighed evidence and reached CONCLUSIONS. The SAME conclusions that the JURY in the Cognizant case reached:
Your denials are merely conclusory statements, which have no value in terms of the pursuit of truth. And they're self-serving: a large part of the Indian strategy is to operate in stealth and discourage any self-protective measures taken by host countries.
Over 3 MILLION pieces of EVIDENCE has been piled on top of the MOUNTAIN of existing evidence in the past few days: one of your so-called "Best and the Brightest," who recognized only 2 of 14 street signs on a test, has accumulated over 3 MILLION supporters:
Read what you wrote and see if you can understand the irony.
Not everything is someone else’s fault - at least not in my life.
I haven’t seen or heard any current administration appointee express loyalty to any nation other than the USA. But you probably know more than anyone else.
I don’t care what lawsuits are brought against some random company or what results or outcomes they get from it. I have not advocated on behalf of any company or program. I don’t get why this straw man is necessary for you to vent.
The US isn’t at war with any country last I checked. Take care of yourself sir!
"I don't care [about facts proven in a court of law]"
The Cognizant case is an example of the Indian war on American workers. It shows a pattern of behavior which millions of Americans across the political spectrum have observed: whenever an Indian gains a scintilla of power in any organization, he/she uses all of that power to benefit Indians at the expense of Americans. I don't think you even know what "strawman" means.
"The US isn’t at war with any country"
China and India have been at war with the US for a generation. It's beyond time to exercise our right to self defense (or really just stop aiding and abetting the enemy). A few steps in the right direction have been taken:
"Perhaps a commenter or two will pop up to decry the hiring of American citizens to drive trucks as “make work programs” or so on, along with a commentary on how lazy Americans think they are entitled to make a living wage for something as trivial as operating a 50-ton vehicle on recapped tires in all weather and road conditions while surrounded by vehicles to which it is a constant and deadly menace. Anyone who truly believes that has a chance to “own some outcomes” here. Three innocents dead."
There is no truck driver shortage and it is 100% correct that there are lots of foreigners, who probably aren't legitimately licensed, operating under shady contracts for shady companies all to save a buck and enrich a few. x.com/supertrucker where it is his pet peeve the ongoing propaganda campaign of the "driver shortage."
I just heard about the student visa scam in Canada wherein strip mall "colleges" operated by Indians provide documentation for tens of thousands of folks who aren't exactly the intellectual cream of the subcontinent.
Perhaps, while some studies show an average IQ of 75, which is below that which the U.S. will accept recruits because they're not considered trainable, with a cohort of over a billion people, you're still going to have some exceptionally smart folks.
From Grok: "Without more robust data, a conservative estimate based on a mean IQ of 85 (a commonly cited middle ground) and SD of 15 suggests about 0.02% of the population, or roughly 280,000 individuals, might have IQs over 140."
There's a privately operated kosher food pantry around the corner from my house. It's set up to augment the official Jewish Federation supported food agency for people who are officially below the poverty level (besides folks who are actually poor, even if you're making a decent salary if you have 8-12 kids, you might be below the poverty line, at least according to the government). The private food pantry gets so much food from food recyclers like Forgotten Harvest and via private donations that regular folks have to show up one day a week or else they'll be throwing away food.
If I wanted to be frugal, I could probably survive on stuff I get there.
I'd hazard a guess that with the number of food banks and food pantries that exist, if you're an adult going hungry in America, it's your own damn fault.
while that does sound like an excellent food bank and a good justification for that the ones im referring to in canada are frequented by indians making above average wages who see these places as a way to get free food rather than a resource for the less fortunate
theyre also stupid enough to record themselves doing it and to make tutorials on how others can scam the system as well
"I'd hazard a guess that with the number of food banks and food pantries that exist, if you're an adult going hungry in America, it's your own damn fault."
Kinda depends.
I'm from the sticks and there was no food pantry AND no public transportation AND a lot of poverty... wouldn't say perople starved per se, but I would also say that those free school breakfasts and lunches were a god send to many.
grrrr. you had to hit a sore point - I've been hearing the "engineering shortage" BS for 40+ years. its infuriating. and what it really means is "there is a shortage of engineers willing to work for very low salaries"
Or they filed the asylum form that then allows them to get a work permit while they wait for their asylum case to process. There are lots of NGOs that coach how to do the process, which is how you get illegal kids working in meat packing plants. They were coached on what birth date to use on the forms.
Even better is the fact that many states make it illegal for the potential employer to do a significant check to see if the future employee is of legal status. Apparently checking on the immigration status of the guy who can't speak English proficiently is racist or something.
Exactly. While I am a great 2A proponent its perfectly correct for parents who irresponsibly let kids get guns face the music in criminal court when said kid does something stupid or bad with the gun.
Juts put the companies and individuals who hired these guys on trial. But therein lays the rub, the sate of comifornia gave him a ldv license and he prob even has a soc security number. Maybe we can arrest Newsome and the cal legislature for this one.
I mean we sent our governor to prison (one of many) for allowing illegal truck licenses to be sold by the IL sec of state. Several kids were killed which spurred the lawsuit and sure something similar could happen here 🤷🏼♂️
My FIL was an over the road trucker for 25 years, and he says there is not a trucker shortage, there’s a SKILLED trucker shortage. We have a bunch of pump-and-dump driving schools pushing bad drivers out into companies that are terrible to work for, so they move on to other careers. Rinse and repeat.
Obviously recruiting illegals is only compounding this problem.
Have had a cdl license since 1986, not a truck driver though, it was just a requirement for working in a class 8 truck shop, there was a time when long haul truck driving was a respectable career, it hasn’t been that way for three decades now, immigration law has brought people into this industry from abroad who will work for far less than what Americans will, they basically live out of their cabs, shops that I know will refuse to work in or under these trucks, because they would rather work on maggot encrusted garbage scowls, no driver from any country would make a u-turn on a divided freeway, the physics are the same in any country, this driver deserves prison time in Mexico.
With regards to automotive subscriptions for more power, or heated seats, I think it’s criminal, you own the hardware, I think the capabilities should stay with the vehicle, my 23 Mazda has from purchase date, 3 years of remote start, after that time period, I will have to pay a subscription to utilize it, I don’t think I need remote start that badly.
Audi, like so many others now, is all app and subscription based. Why build it on the key when they can charge you $200/yr for AudiConnect or whatever they call it.
Shouts to my Dollar General brand sports sedan for being ancient enought to still have it hardwired though.
My pickup truck at work was always parked just across from the shop at work, but on the other side of the fence that secured the work area, was nice walking out to a warm truck to go home after a long day at work.
I always wait a minute after I start the car from cold to let the fluids start to circulate, and the idle to slow as the car goes into closed-loop.
With the remote start, I can hit that as I’m getting ready to go downstairs into the garage, or when I’m on the other side of the parking garage at work. By the time I get into the car, that initial period has elapsed, so all I have to do is get in, belt up, and drive off.
Based on experience with my wife's '24 Mazda, remote start is the only way to prewarm the vehicle while locked. The car will not lock after the engine is manually (non-remote) started, with or without the fob inside the car, and having two fobs doesn't help. If this is common across manufacturers, learning this helped me understand how people get their cars stolen from their driveway in the winter around here.
If you take the fob apart and retrieve the key, you can lock the car while it is running with the door lock cylinder….no one in their right mind is going to do this for obvious reason.
I’ve had a “practice” key cut at delivery of my last few cars just so I could lock the door from outside with the engine running, which is especially helpful since I keep my fob in one of those protective cases that attach to my key ring.
I tend to agree with this definition of Lizard People, but add the possibility of supernatural influence as a contributing element to their Uncanny Valley look/countenance/behavior, which seems to be a nearly-invisible current that I detect in others' recollections and videos. I believe the supernatural is very real, but like many, I believe and talk to God but do my best to not imagine or investigate all the forms and actions the devil and his demons take part in throughout the world, both in the past and present. It gets very uncomfortable pretty quickly--not a bad thing, just a reality of acknowledging that realm exists.
Regarding the deaths in the trucking incident and every other similar occurrence, along with the very intentional implementation of this scenario, there is going to be a very real and very brutal day of reckoning when it is realized what must truly happen to make this sort of thing go away. I have said for years that "humans seek homogeny [instinctively]" and that is increasingly true as the years go by. Those that lean right of center will have an easier time digesting this, but the Christian Right will have a hard time. Those left of center will have a hard time with it, if they choose to engage with that reality.
Completely unrelated: the desire to learn to ride and own a motorcycle has made its latest round into my mind. This remains a low key interest and is brought about this time (again?) by the desire to go fast and have authoritative passing power, because I don't have that presently, which is such a first world problem. Financial allocation to this endeavor would be imprudent at this juncture, which is a hindrance. I am happy to start on a humble bike, because I am here to learn and build towards a goal. Do a different kind of wrenching. Having proper gear is paramount as it's easy enough to do real damage at *bicycle* speeds (ask me how I know). Which leads to a second hindrance and chance to ask the experienced: at 6'5", many bikes that are built for as many sizes as possible are not going to accommodate tall riders well. Does a sport or sport touring type bike suit tall riders well enough, or is it a case of making the best of it? Or am I/are we relegated to more upright architectures? No hate for a Gold Wing over here--beautiful bikes!
At 6'5" I think you will have to try some for size. Proper sports bikes of the GSXR 600 type will probably feel very cramped, but I think you should be OK on a sports tourer. The problem, I suspect, will be that you need a larger bike and they come with larger engines and, I fear, too much power for a novice. There's a lot to learn before turning up the wick on any bike with more than 100bhp!
Agreed! Yeah, cool looks and speed are draws for many of us, and I am no different. But the machine must always be respected, and I am not here to seek validation from other drivers or bikers. I have found that the larger engine'd bikes are often a part of a larger bike.
Yes, tall folks have a regular litany of nameplates from which they choose a suitable mount.
There are the usual suspects like sport tourers and adventure bikes, but also some elder models that work for the lank suffused and can be found cheap and ready on the used market.
One of my former friends (he died of the cancers, we didn't get in a fight over which chicken sandwich is best at which franchise) tracked a hayabusa and he was like 6'6" and 350. That was mostly because it was all that fit him and the resulting power:weight was more or less a wash with an average guy on a ZX10 or whatever liter bike was there that day.
My best piece of advice is to hunt around in the used sporty bike market while focusing on the ones with one piece seats. Then you can scooch back all you need for leg and arm room. Later bikes with two piece seats are much more difficult to adapt for the lanky. For example, the Honda CBR600F4i- the fuel injected successor to the elder carbed see-bee-arruh 600 F, F2, etc.
As you move your pelvis farther toward the rear wheel axle, you'll get some weird dynamics, but you can sort it out or pay a chassis shop to do some valving. You won't be the first guy to track a sports bike while tall, but you will be the next tall guy to have to pay for real suspension that works. Traxxion Dynamics and folks like them love a challenge when making or modding dampers and choosing rates, so they're not scared.
Another good choice is a touring bike, ala KOTB. You can track something like an Indian Chief, which has way more clearance than a Harley Big Twin thanks to not having that dumb primary case on the right side. There were a bunch of power cruisers built with USD forks and kind of good suspension like the Yamaha Warrior and Kawasaki Mean Streak, etc. Then there's the long and deep bench of adventure bikes like BMW GS, a motarded big single or a factory built tard like the Kawi 400, or even a GoldWing based bike like the F4B ( but you'll run out of shin room on a wing). The Vstrom 1000 has a very good sportbike engine under the tank and seat, and can be hopped up a bit, plus it has a one piece seat and big aftermarket on top of being very affordable in the classifieds.
I'd stay away from exotic (read: Not Japanese) brands, even though I currently ride a Moto Guzzi (hand gestures).
Getting a cheap older bike will also allow you to allocate more cash for safety gear, for example if you want to do track days and need a tailored set of leathers and a really good helmet from Arai or other maker that fits your head shape and offers top protection stickers on the rear.
Awesome suggestions, thank you! I am saving yours and all of these for further research. I do like Indians, primarily from an aesthetic standpoint--some really classy, iconic designs. My brother had a couple of HD's, one being a Sportster. He wasn't into it for the sound or the flash, just enjoyed riding it. At 200 or just south, I thankfully won't tax too many bikes too hard, but like needing to go for base models without sunroofs or trucks, I have made peace with fitting best on larger, less go-fast-only bikes. Happy to keep things Japanese or American, and more affordable, especially to give more budget for good gear.
A good tool I always link for tall folks is cycle ergo. You can use the tools to do a kind of CAD layout of your knees and elbows to see if a bike fits or nah. Then you can narrow your choices to how the bike fits in a range for you. https://cycle-ergo.com/
Awesome resource! For my bicycles, I have a pretty dialed in fit for my knees and lower back's sake, so this will be a gold mine for analyzing various angles and heights. Handlebar height relative to saddle, lean-over angle, etc, all important. Thank you!
I dunno about recommending any sort of sports bike to a really tall (presumably middle aged) guy, especially if the height is in the legs. Maybe it's my banged up knees talking, but even test-sitting on Jack's Blackbird (a relatively roomy "hyper sports touring" bike in the same vein as the Hayabusa) had my joints aching. Vee/Wee-Strom is 100% the most straightforward route I'd say. Roomy/comfy, cheap to buy and own, reliable, usable performance that won't scare a beginner but plenty enough to not get bored with any time soon.
41 and approaching it or whatever that age range is. Definitely not a bike for long trips, so we come back to that timeless question: what are your intentions for my daughter? My knees are hanging in there, and regular cycling has me used to leaned-forward positions, but still, your perspective is valid and worth considering. If I want to road trip the thing, well, a 'Busa will be a trial.
Sport tourers will work, I can personally recommend the Honda ST lines MY96+ (I have a 1995 and when the alternator kicks it I will be SOL, not so for the next year which runs a different one). There are Concours 1000 and 1400s aplenty but the C14s run more expensive, the FJR was being made until a couple years ago.
Buy the newest you can and as a new rider I recommend ABS.
I came here to recommend a used Wee-strom as well. Roomy, cheap to buy and a ready market for it when you're ready to upgrade. Enough power to be fun (0-60 in a bit under 4 seconds, quarter in 12.5ish), but not going to be too much for a novice either. Heck even a DL1000 like what Jack offered to test ride isn't too much to handle for a big guy. They have a decent bit of torque but it's not gonna loop over on you or anything and you really have to wind them out to feel the 100hp they're rated at. Something like a KLR650 fits big guys really well but they are just too damn gutless.
Thank you for the suggestions and additional context! I am 195-200, so more giraffe than wooly mammoth, but weight is weight. I'm happy to do gutless at the start. Plenty of basic and 'bike dynamics' education to be had first!
Within the world of 650 "thumper" (single cylinder 650cc) dual sports, my personal favorite is the Suzuki DR650. a bit lighter, no fragile radiator to worry about cracking, easier to do maintenance on (screw and locknut valve adjustment that's easier to access), and they feel a bit peppier than the KLRs. KLRs are more common and therefor a bit cheaper on the used market. But there's an ongoing motorcycle sales apocalypse going on at the moment so $2-3k can buy a decent one of either of the above. I still would lean towards the Wee-Strom as the better overall machine in terms of being much more highway capable. But if you have gravel roads near you to explore, a DR650 would be high on the list.
You've received useful advice from others here. If you are willing to try a cruiser, I think you'd have many more options that are comfortable to you. Anything with floor boards is going to be a big plus. Harley and Indian sell many cruisers with those standard or as options. Think Softail Slim. Bikes like the Breakout or pre 2018 Fat Bob are also good for long legs (very stretched out forward controls). I'd avoid sporty anything. Even touring bikes with mid controls/pegs are going to feel cramped at your size.
So you mean my not-so-secret affection towards '60s/'70s American land yachts will manifest on two wheels??
Jokes aside, cruisers do appeal to me, albeit specific ones at this point. We had the Portland, er, Oregon Auto Show earlier in the year and I got the chance to hop on a few bikes there. Granted it's an everything-is-so-new scenario, the peg height on a few of the sport bikes was considerable--considerable knee (bend) angle, almost to squatting level(!).
I haven’t looked at this video. But did that piece of shit start his illegal turn from the center lane, with the minivan to his left, unable to avoid it? Or was the van driver not paying attention until it was too late, hitting the slowing truck from behind? (Which is going to lead to decapitations in the smaller vehicle!)
All of this is why I try to avoid semis like the plague!
Having just yesterday almost been run off the road by a semi truck as it carelessly decided it needed to be in my lane more than me, among the near-infinite other almost-tragedies I see coming from them as I trundle up and down 95, I too avoid them at all costs. My most reckless driving and/or speeding comes from trying to get around them. No matter the ethnic background of the driver, they are a PROFOUND danger for everyone else unfortunate enough to share the road with them.
I hate people who are 'afraid' of semi's, so they drive next to them for FIVE minutes as they slowly pass them.
I once reached over with my foot and pushed the accelerator to the floor when driving with one of them. I told them 'if you're afraid either pass them quickly or stay behind them. All you're doing is asking to be killed'.
I almost (but not quite!) dislike those people more than the tractor trailer that decides it needs to take up the passing lane for 12 minutes becuase it is going 61.5 mph, whereas the truck it is passing is going 60.75 mph.
In the speed-governor era , this has become commonplace.
On the other hand, I think about all the times I saw big rigs doing 85mph twenty years ago, and think about today's class of truck driver.... maybe I'll take the governed snail race.
On the other, OTHER hand I'd prefer truckers to not have their wages swing on the virtues of a mile per hour here or there and thus not have to deal with this at all. They shouldn't be allowed to leave the right lane pretty much ever imo.
If I’m right behind the rig in the left lane, I’ll straddle it such that the boneheaded driver can see my brights that come on, and maybe even hear me leaning on my horn, until they finally pass. (I actually fried a horn on my first car doing that. I recall one time on the Ohio Turnpike, I was behind a three-truck rolling roadblock for ** twenty miles! ** 🤬🤬🤬🤬)
I’ve also used an empty onramp to get in front of rolling roadblocks like that before! The acceleration lane of said onramp is more than enough room for such a maneuver, at least in more rural areas.
A buddy of mine spent some time as a volunteer firefighter several decades ago, and after he saw the results of a crash where a third-generation Trans Am ended up twisted around a tree about halfway up, after aforementioned vehicle had pole-vaulted off a rise in the adjacent road, with two fatalities the end-result, he compensated for that by resolutely. Never! Exceeding! The! Speed! Limit! By one iota!
There were more than a few times when he parked himself in the left lane, and I could see a line a half-mile behind him! A few times, if there wouldn’t have been a console in the way, I would have done that, saying “will you please go 70 in this 65 and let these people go by??!!”
He got his comeuppance when someone in line behind him literally vaulted onto the right shoulder, got around the vehicle he was “passing,” and managed to run him off the road! When he came over and showed me the grass and mud caked in his wheelwells, I said “you get no sympathy from me—unless you have a gun and a badge, or nail marks in your hands or some other connection to an Almighty, it’s not your job to enforce the speed limit!”
I hate people who think it’s their job to make everyone else drive slower.
I used to drive an ambulance when I was in college. I’ve seen some very nasty accidents. I just make sure not to exceed my abilities and try to watch out for those people who are exceeding theirs.
Historically, I considered them Professional Drivers, the Knights of the Road, and felt safer among them than the general population. Reality has changed considerably.
I expect most industries to adopt a profit-maximizing strategy (if only to survive in competitive pressures). Sometimes laws / regulations are the least bad option. Enforcing sane, pro-citizen immigration laws solves millions of other problems.
From what I understand and other images/videos I have seen and other reports, the truck was well into the turn. Meaning, the minivan wasn't right next to the truck. The problem is there is a slight bend to the right and up on the turnpike and going at speed around that curve, you wouldn't see a truck blocking the road until its too late.
Part of it could’ve been that the minivan driver had too long of an “oh shit!” moment and took too long to start reacting.
I know that if I see something like that ahead, I’m on the brakes as hard as they’ll go, and I’m into the grass median if necessary; I’ve had enough lesser incidents happen over my 30+ years of commuting, plus almost 40 years of driving.
Having interacted with them extensively lately on an anonymous professional networking site, I cannot comment directly on that, but I have noticed that the caste mindset ABSOLUTELY permeates every aspect of their thinking.
All problems are compartmentalized and away as a only a problem of the lower castes (without saying so explicitly).
I love when a simple request turns into 5 layers of “do the needful” emails before it gets to the last guy who has no idea what he’s doing so he just ignores it.
The Nepalese nincompoop in my office (whose job “performance” started clouding my judgement about folks from the subcontinent—government office with omnipresent union, so no way to get rid of the useless fuck), as an example, was always bragging that he was going to demand that his teenage son become a doctor in order to make him rich! Uhh..no, doofus, your kid’ll be lucky to have his loans for medical school paid by the time he’s forty!
Shhh! Don't you know that non-Indians aren't allowed to discuss the caste system because we just don't understand it. Regarding understanding other cultures, I'm with Sir Charles Napier.
"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."
After years of experience with Indian vendors, customers, co-workers, and neighbors, my observation is they've mostly operated on the "chalta hai" principle, basically that shoddy work is good enough if it looks acceptable upon casual glance, and if it isn't, it's someone else's fault. It colored everything they did and I learned never to trust their judgement or commitments. Yeah, I guess I'm a bigot.
I'm not saying its the same as Chabuduo or its not, without context it would be impossible to qualify. But its the same expression as when your kid scrapes his knee and you tell him it'll be alright.
AI-like people that want to take stabs based on half baked 'knowledge' can guess all they want.
I don’t trust them either, in general. (Present company of ACFers excluded.) It’s my having to deal with them in endless customer-service situations that drives my distrust, along with their horrible exclusion of others when in a hiring position, as I’ve heard on here.
I know that I'm merely a simpleton gora, but apparently it's a serious enough question to have been the subject of academic study.
From Grok: "several academic studies explore the connection between belief in reincarnation (often tied to concepts like karma and samsara) and fatalistic attitudes in India, particularly within Hindu cultural and philosophical contexts. These studies generally suggest that reincarnation beliefs can foster a form of fatalism by attributing current life circumstances, misfortunes, or social hierarchies to actions from past lives, leading to greater acceptance of events as predetermined."
Why do so many Indians think westerners have no standing to discuss Indian culture while they feel free to criticize western cultures? To be fair, it's not the only culture in Asia that's like that. Are any Asian cultures as self-critical as those in the West?
I tried to answer your question earnestly. You can take it or leave it.
I'm not referring to you or anyone else using any epithets.. you sound like a woman who seems to know what everyone else is thinking.. and if you do, good for you.
There are a number of historians from the west who study India/South Asia who publish avidly and speak worldwide and yes, even in India. Uchicago and UPenn have particularly robust depts. I guess I don’t know how you reached the conclusion non Indians have no standing in this research or get pushback…
As for the grok summary it actually doesn’t link to any journals or specific studies…
In my mind chalta hai meant it would be fine and was an attitude to persevere through a setback, it wasn’t to justify poor performance. I guess I find all this interesting because growing up the high performers academically in high school were mostly Indian and Asian kids. I remember seeing the AMCAS stats for med school applicants and South Asians specifically had the highest MCAT scores of all applicants/matriculants.
There's a dichotomy here. Many of you believe all/most Indians to be caste obsessed lazy job stealers. Growing up, caste wasn't something discussed among Indians. If a self identified simpleton gora wanted to somehow dissect the caste system inserting their own biases to judge me I'd be a little annoyed/irritated. There's Bengali I follow who jokingly refers to his Dalit heritage as it in the past won him brownie points with ignorant leftist academics lol.
As for being fine with average performance or mediocrity...
This is laughable to me. Leftists in NYC are currently trying to dismantle the high school admission system where poor working class Indians and asians have used to get themselves ahead. The town I grew up in has one group of parents saying academics are becoming too rigorous...
So Ive heard both stereotypes at this point and you can't really reconcile them...
I'm sure one could cherry pick from any ethnic group, but stories like this don't help.
">
>
> Aesthetica
> @Anc_Aesthetics
> An Indian Walmart VP was making $30,000 a day in illegal kickbacks by discriminating against American applicants in favor of indian h1b applicants who were paying him the kickbacks for hiring them.
> Ever click the button to cancel your order in Walmart, but it didn't work and you got the item anyway?
>
> Well one Indian engineering team programmed that button, and another Indian engineering team forgot link APIs to make that button work for third party orders.
>
> So every time that button got clicked, for every marketplace order, the seller was never informed the customer didn't want the item anymore.
>
> Hundreds of thousands of people, for years, clicked that button thinking their order would get cancelled, but then they got the order anyway And had to bring it to UPS.
>
> I was the first to discover this, among many other things, And both engineering teams didn't want to fix it because their bosses didn't want marketplace revenue to seem lower, even though most of these items would be returns.
>
> I just had my team run a query and cancel these orders everyday to fix the issue within days. I could never get anyone to sign off on it, so I just did it.
>
> I assume that the long-term fix has been sitting on some Indian engineering team's road map for years at this point.
>
> We uncovered dozens of major issues like this that Indian engineering teams were sweeping under the rug."
Ronnie, do you want me to start cherry picking stories/anecdotes on Jews? In the year 2025, I assure you I can find enough. In all honesty thought you were a bit better than this...
Can you elaborate further about how you think no one can comment on Indian/Hindu culture?
Universities have actual departments with decades of publications to refute this absurd accusation. I studied under an anthropologist who devoted her life to studying the Harappa civilisation...
You talk about Hindu and Buddhist ethos in regards to a Sikh truck driver not caring about the consequences about his illegal u turn...
Maybe maybe dig a bit more to see how Sikhism originated...
Maybe maybe look into the Khalistan movement and how this fucktard gained asylum....
This is wikipedia level research. But if you want to promote hate against the pagan browns, I guess your posts suffice.
This is a low level discussion. I respond because your shit promotes hateful discourse. I sadly expected more from you.
"Ronnie, do you want me to start cherry picking stories/anecdotes on Jews? In the year 2025, I assure you I can find enough. In all honesty thought you were a bit better than this..."
I'm the one who said it was cherry picking. I will note that it doesn't surprise me that an Indian executive exploited other Indians. When they first came to America, the Irish were exploited by other Irish, and the Jews were exploited by other Jews. Nobody else would hire them.
Why would you ignore that exploitation and instead get angry with me for bringing it up?
As for who may discuss Indian culture, while you may be fine with academic scholarship on the topic (I'm sure that somewhere around here is a box with my textbooks on Hinduism and the start of Buddhism), I've found that many Indians get a little prickly when non-Indians discuss aspects of Indian culture. We get told that we don't (perhaps can't) understand. It seems to me that there's an aspect to that in your comments.
As for your implied allegation that I'm a racist and religious bigot, after the horse you rode in on gets dealt with, there's a rolling donut waiting for your enjoyment.
The question that I have about service by subscription is if jailbreaking the software voids your car's warranty. Someone will eventually figure out how to get around the subscription locks.
Outside of voiding a warranty, unless they've agreed to some kind of license, I doubt that VW could legally prevent people from figuring out how to get their own hardware to do something it was designed to do.
If that’s the case, makers of software have more control over what you do with their products than makers of physical goods. That’s almost like GM telling you that you can’t modify your car. I wonder how long it will be before some automaker decides to license the use of their products instead of leasing or selling.
Makers of software have always had more control over what you do with their products than makers of physical goods. It comes from the distinction between buying something and purchasing a license to use something. You just paid for a license to use it as described in the license contract. So you don't own it and never did. It's how software has worked from day 1. When you buy hardware on the other hand the most the manufacturer can do is void the warranty for not using it as intended. Which is why anything they want to market as a service needs to be controlled by software as it is licensed (as opposed to the hardware that they sell).
So for something like the heated seats mentioned... Hacking the software to make it think you have a subscription to enable the heated seats violates the software license and leaves you open to legal penalties. Bypassing the software controls and wiring in a switch on the dash to send power to the seat heaters already installed is probably fine legally. Of course the software could be coded to note a lack of communication with the seat heater control electronics and decide to throw a check engine light and put the car in limp mode. Just because they are evil doesn't mean they are not clever.
VW's diesel emissions test cheating was pretty clever - have the emissions system work when there are conditions that only exist in the EPA lab. From discussing things with people working in engine development for the Big 3, I'm convinced that everyone in the industry knew they were doing it.
I'm sure everybody knew that their numbers didn't match. No other manufacturers squealed because small car diesels are just such a small market in the US it wasn't worth being a rat. Better to play dumb and hope everybody else will for you next time you push boundaries.
*Cracks knuckles*
“The lizard people, in a nutshell, are people whose wealth and/or circumstances have led to a real and serious distance in perception and behavior from normal Americans.”
This would appear to rather firmly establish that I am assuredly NOT a Lizard Person - or a Lizard Person Cargo Cult(ur)ist, for that matter - since I spent the first half of my life (to date) in Hooverville and keep in close contact with many people I have known for over 30 years: Fellow humble, hardscrabble hillbillies not unlike myself in origin.
“Our friend Sherman, who repeatedly fumbles through a sort of “Australopithecus Portrays Socrates” commenting routine in which he tries to mis-associate Powerball winners, YouTube clowns, incel inheritors, car-show operators, and the like with the concept of Lizard People, has a bit of Cargo Culture about him. His endless rants about how building anything in America amounts to “make-work projects” and “welfare by other means” are, I think, vaguely analogous to the harmless butterflies who attempt to emulate the poisonous monarch butterfly and thus avoid consumption by real predators. He’s acquired a Plato’s Cave version of these sociopathic attitudes from consuming the media made by other Lizard Cargo Culturists, and claims them as his own because he believes they confer status upon him.”
My rants about “make work” and “welfare by other means” and - yes - DEI for laborers is not constrained to manufacturing work. It applies to *all* “work” (by which I mean trading time for a paycheck, in this sense), since I strive to be consistent in the application of my beliefs.
Here’s a recent example:
-Last week, I bumped into a guy that I worked for earlier in my career; we share an alma mater, and he hired me a long time ago.
-He is now a group head at another investment bank, which means he has significant P&L responsibility (and oversight). As with any investment bank, his biggest expense is personnel costs.
-I asked him if that bank was using Rogo - an AI “agent” targeted toward investment banking - or any other similar tools.
-Yes, they are using them, but it hasn’t materially cut down on junior hires (yet); the market cycle still controls hiring and firing of execution bankers. The bank for which he works was burned badly during the post-COVID boom because they hired too many juniors, which led to them laying off 40% of their workforce when rates rose and deal volume slackened. The bank is a private partnership, so the partners have to eat first.
-He believes that, historically, the *only* reason that the junior grunt work was performed by highly paid Americans (or foreigners on sponsored visas) sitting in cubicles in expensive American office buildings was because the next generation of senior bankers learn those skills on the job, primarily through observation and indirect exposure to client discussions; you could outsource the work to India, but that kills the pipeline of people who will transform from a caterpillar into a butterfly and begin generating revenue after ~10 years of execution and learning. Which is why no investment banks materially outsource work done by people who could conceivably become revenue generators in the future. They do outsource middle- and back-office work.
-He said: “If it were up to me, I would fire everyone on my team and replace them with AI in a heartbeat, since I’ll be retired in three years - I don’t give a shit about training the next generation.”
I agree with him: No one is owed any sort of job, any sort of paycheck.
At least the eventual hand behind the pillow will be a diverse one; no one will accuse him of racism.
"I don’t give a shit about training the next generation"
the real american dream is entirely self serving and indifferent or hostile to anyone who might get in the way right. why bother continuing the method that allowed the firm to effectively operate anyway
fuck that guy
To clarify: He was like that when I worked for him. There’s no “teaching” or “mentoring,” only observation.
so you're saying he's a lousy manager.
the _only_ role of a manager is to help his / her team succeed. before you say "no, the role of a manager is to help the organization succeed," the former leads to the latter.
His job is to generate revenue himself and also hire other senior bankers who will generate lots of revenue. And then it’s to determine how much each and every person on the team gets paid at year end (within some goal posts - he can underpay someone who deserved more so that he can overpay someone else that he wants to keep, etc.)
The job of those who work under him is to execute his deals and anticipate his needs. If they do those things, they will learn quite a lot.
I have some experiencing managing teams of various sizes, though I concede I know nothing about investment banking. that said, if the only learning is coming from them observing the guy, then he strikes me as a bad manager and leader. how much more revenue might be made if the guy spent some time teaching and mentoring, rather than expecting those under him to pick things up through osmosis? how much more efficiently might they execute trades, identify problems and opportunities, contribute useful and actionable information, and anticipate his needs?
I'll offer an imperfect analogy - how much more, and how much sooner, would I learn about racecraft if Jack instructed and mentored me than if I just watched him?
To the extent he is a “manager” it’s his job to hire other senior bankers who will generate revenue.
To the extent he is a “leader” it’s his job to generate (lots of) revenue himself.
You learn the job by doing (and observing); if you can’t do that, then you should go do something else - that’s why he and anyone else in that sort of role would say.
Junior employees are not expected to generate revenue right away, they are expected to sit in a cubicle 15+ hours a day and execute their boss’s deals. IF a junior employee had the bright idea that they should be the one generating revenue, they’d get fired. Immediately. That’s because there is a finite number of potential clients, and any time they spent “prospecting” for clients would be time taken away from doing their actual job; if they somehow found a (good, by which I mean a client that you can reliably win who is creating frequent fee events) client, then the senior banker who theoretically would’ve, could’ve, should’ve covered that client would just steal them internally.
If you were PAYING Jack, I’d expect him to teach you; if he were paying you to do odd jobs for him around the race shop, it wouldn’t be incumbent upon him to teach you, right?
A rising tide lifts all boats. 🤔
The boomer boats don’t do that.
Early boomers even pulled up the ladders on late boomers like me. I’m technically a boomer by birth year, but by attitude I have nothing in common with them.
Likewise.
Likewise x2
There was an attempt to call those born in the early 60s something like Gen Jones because some Boomers are really not.
Yeah I have a work colleague like this and he is essentially Gen X. Very cool guy. He “gets it” if that makes sense in a way that true boomers seem to not…
That attitude explains a lot of (all of?) why Things Are Like This Now
"The real American dream is entirely self serving....."? Amigo, you are divorced from reality!!
i was being a smartass to make a point
im aware the american dream is literally not that
“Siri, how do i turn my sarcasm detector to the “on position?”
I know that jerk is technically an American, but he needs to be deported.
Not all who hold United States citizenship are American.
I think it's called "pulling the ladder up after you"
The #1 Boomer pastime, even more than pickleball!
Boomer here (barely- 1963).
My peer group has embraced this "sport" like they embrace everything else -- with a mania bordering on obsession. It will last until "The Next Big Thing" comes along to steal their (our?) attention. This is the generation, remember, that busted my dad's generation for playing shuffleboard bocce ball as they aged.
... and while It may be less harsh than tennis, I know of nobody who plays >3x/wk who hasn't torn a meniscus, ACL, or hamstring at least once.
If they're as serious about pickleball as they sound, your parents are going to end up on somebody's table -- guaranteed.
My foot surgeon friend tells me he gets to operate on a pickleball injury nearly every week. For his trouble he gets to drive an NSX TypeS and Giulia QF (both bought new). So the boomers' wealth is being redistributed (that, or it's why our health insurance premia are so usurious).
No, the number one pastime was raising entitled snots, then complaining about them when they entered the workplace.
I say it was their pastime, because they didn't really make child rearing their vocation -- it was sort of a spare-time thing.
TV: "It's 10 pm. Do you know where your children are?"
Homer, after Maggie wandered off: "I told you already, NO!"
Or, telling my generation a college degree was the ticket to a good life.
Considering those who signed my paychecks were typically all college / university graduates, why not ? .
-Nate
Yeah, so about that--
I graduated HS in 1981, having underachieved spectacularly and taken every shop class offered in a town and a time where/when shop classes were liberally offered to those students not being tracked into engineering, accounting, or nursing (where 85% of my classmates ended up). The idea of any of them as a vocation gave me hives.
Having been born into the family of some seriously smart people, my grasp far exceeded my reach. I was content to spend my 4 years at THS sitting on the hood of my Firebird and eating Dolly Madison "Donettes" during "Engine Testing" or some such, smirking at the brown-nosers sweating out classes to prep them to be worker bees in the corporate hive.
I took the required math (one year), the required science (two years), and English (3 years). The rest of my time was spent "finding my own" way in the parlance of the day, which involved a good deal of hood sitting and Donette eating. And lifting weights. And working on my Firechicken.
I learned to write in English 2, when Mrs. Evans basically dared me to apply myself. I rearranged my schedule to get her for English 3 and become the editor of the student newspaper, a position I used to mock the administration in thinly veiled terms.
And then it was over. I graduated into 20% inflation and >10% unemployment. My dad was a plumbing contractor (the smartest man in a family of college profs and medical Drs.), wildly successful in 1979 and near bankruptcy in 1981. I kept my HS job changing oil at the Mobil station for $4/hr. I didn't WANT to go to college because I didn't want to be an accountant or engineer, and didn't want to work for dad because I was a snot-nosed punk.
Good thing too, because there was zero money for me, even with a state scholarship (earned for testing well on my ACT). I wanted (in order) to:
1) stop striking out with pretty girls
2) crew for Big Daddy Don Garlits
3) play bass for a righteous rock band
I had no clue how to accomplish any of these goals.
Fast forward 44 years, and I've somehow found success owning and operating a union supermarket refrigeration contracting business, have been married for 40 years to BY FAR the prettiest girl who would ever have had me, and somehow fathered and raised 3 successful kids. I've got the cars I want, live in a home I built and own several others. I could retire tomorrow, but I don't want to -- I genuinely like what I do, and always have. The income is nice too.
The point? I'm not your guy. College was never for me, and I regret nothing. My generation sold your generation a bill of goods. There are a lot of roads to success. You do you -- nothing is stopping you.
For _you_ maybe, I took the raising up of my son very seriously indeed, he's never had unemployment, food stamps etc.
-Nate
EDIT : nor bastards, drugs, tattoos, I never bailed him out of jail, so on and so forth.......
Not for me, Nate -- but then I was always the throwback. Didn't go to college. Married young, had kids early (3 by my 27th BD). Wife never worked. Learned a trade. Started a business. Built a nice life in the town where I grew up. Raised God-fearing kids (2 out of 3 anyhow) who are all productive members of society raising their own kids.
My kids are all laying waste to their peers by every metric. They have great jobs, several kids of their own (each).
I was talkin' 'bout mmmmy geeenneeration. Generally, Boomers raised entitled snots in their spare time.
Inheriting from their “greatest generation” parents and then spending it to 0 on themselves.
But they’re on a fixed income!
I wonder how many here live on as little as I do and you don't hear me complaining .
-Nate
Zoe dig nit to 38 trillion of debt and counting. Not just them but their spawn too
Actually it's the following generation now and has been for a while but don't let me interrupt your bullshit rant =8-) .
-Nate
Wait, what about calling young people lazy and ungrateful?
And, yelling at clouds ! . =8-) .
-Nate
I was in Arizona a few years ago and some youngsters referred to the local pickleball courts as “the old people’s cages!”
The wisdom of youth!
There you go again, I will not let the youth and inexperience of the commentator become an issue in this thread.
We have already determined that you are in fact, not a hillbilly. I’m unsure why you keep that charade up since hillbillies don’t go to W&L, brag about finance contacts and work in investment banks. Additionally, lizard cargo shorts people are the exact type of person who would claim some background to justify their behavior as not being that. I wasn’t expecting a Sherman McCoy stray, but here we are.
I am *actually* a hillbilly! I have another hillbilly friend (from comes from coal mining stock in Eastern Kentucky) who is now a lawyer at The Heritage Foundation. He has transcended his humble origins and done well for himself.
Unlike, say, JD Vance: He grew up in flat-as-a-board Middletown, Ohio, appropriated my culture, and used that appropriation to (metaphorically) fellate Peter Thiel.
Having a poor friend who makes good does not make you a hillbilly. I went to high school in the Bronx, with friends from the hood, I’m in no way shape from the hood.
I didn’t say he grew up poor.
I said he grew up in a coal mining family in the hollers of Eastern Kentucky.
I grew up in a copper mining family in far Northern Georgia; the area in which my maternal grandfather grew up is between “Devil’s Den” and “Hell’s Holler,” and it remains an exceedingly unpleasant location.
A dentist with a multi-million dollar wooden boat collection, IIRC.
Do you know how hard it is to make a living as a dentist in an area where people do not GO to the dentist? 😉
By that standard I guess I grew up in a junk dealing family because my maternal grandfather was a ragman, notwithstanding the fact that my father was a veterinarian.
Maybe recycling scrap is in my blood. With the amount of cardboard boxes that people get due to online sales, I've looked into leasing a cardboard compactor to set up at my grandkids' school. The idea being that families would drop off their scrap boxes at the school, the custodian or some staff member would run the compactor, and I'd split the proceeds with the school. The problem was getting the school to buy in to the idea.
Considering how easy it is to recycle cardboard, it's a shame how much gets thrown away.
My dad was a steel worker and union man. All my uncles were, too. I hung out in steel worker neighborhoods and went to the bars and bowling alleys.
I am not a steel worker or union man. While I have a slight understanding of the life my dad lived, I am so far removed from it, at my dad’s insistence, that I was but a mere observer to the life he lived. I did not come close to truly experiencing it. Just because I was there for part of it means next to nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Yin_(entrepreneur)
I guess I can’t add anything the other commentators have stated, but if your dad is truly a dentist, then you come from educated and wealthy stock in which you probably grew up without an accent. Adjacency does not mean reality. I’m sure you play up that hillbilly bs in board rooms right? Didn’t think so.
I don’t think I have an accent; people in Chicago thought I had an incredibly thick “Southern” (not “Appalachian”) accent.
I am happy to discuss my humble beginnings - when appropriate - in professional context. I met a guy earlier this year who grew up in the “Appalachian” portion of Nova Scotia before attending Middlebury, where I went to summer school. We had quite a lot in common, as outsiders from the middle of nowhere Appalachia who ended up on Wall Street.
Would you consider the billionaire great grandson of some coal mining company founder to be a hillbilly if he was raised in Appalachia?
I'd say that most people outside of the region consider the term to connote a certain socio-economic standing more than mere geographical origins.
Yes, if the hypothetical descendant of the billionaire forebear grew up in Appalachia and interacted with other Appalachian Americans on a daily basis (school, etc.); it’s a cultural thing that remains bounded by geography, even today.
Are you really so dense as to not understand that the reason he(Vance) and others ever talk about the "hillbilly" thing has everything to do with how uneducated the coasts and places of "culture" are now?
I grew up in the heart of the Ozarks and graduated with a prestigious degree for what I wanted to do. I can tell you right now that I was ALWAYS branded a straight up hillbilly outsider by the college elitists regardless of what my intellectual ability was. Hillbilly means many things to many people and is often slang for other things like trailer park people(as it is in OHIO).
And no, you are not a lizard person. It's super clear when you type that you aren't. But, as Jack says, you're often arguing as a lizard person adjacent. I often hate your arguments but I do like that you are very thorough in your explanations for things. My main issue is always that you are so far away from a normal person now (my perception) that you cannot see the reality for the majority of us hobbits living in middle earth. We just want to live in our holes and be left alone to raise our kids.
While this is mostly true about elitist people on the east coast, it doesn’t mean that that person thinks of himself as a hillbilly. In fact, one who does, tries to shed that label faster than anything. It’s utilized to sell sob stories or an insincere & shallow way of saying “I’m a normal person” when in fact, one has done nothing to keep it that way.
-Some people use “redneck” or “hick” or “hillbilly” interchangeably. I would be puzzled if someone called me a “redneck” or a “hick,” since I am demonstrably neither. It also amuses me when a smartypants refers to people, e.g., “hicks” as “hillbillies.”
-I am not so far away “normal” people. I have plenty of life experience interacting with them, and bear in mind that most of the clients we served as investment bankers operated rural community banks that served “normal” people.
-And now some humor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f2kGHcdJYU&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2F&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE
Wahoo! I’m from the hood. I got the n-word pass from Sherman!
youre basically 50 cent now
I'm curious Sherman; I was born in a small 8 room hospital in Spencer, WV. I invoiced at $179.66 where my Father put $100 down and financed the rest. By the blessing of my parents and the Ford Motor Company I was moved to Akron at 5 months old and have lived in NE Ohio for most of the remainder of my life with frequent stays back in WV, even tomorrow night I plan on sleeping in the room my Mother was born in.
Hillbilly or not?
My brother, born in Akron 5 1/2 years following me in a proper hospital with a much larger invoice raised in the exact same environment.
Hillbilly or not?
PS. Every branch of my ancestry, both legitimate and not, settled in what is now WV in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
I am gratified that you consider me the arbiter of “hillbilly.”
I think if you spend your formative years in Appalachia, i.e., attending school in Appalachia would be the easiest way, then you qualify. Bryce is a hillbilly, in my definition.
Is dating a stripper better or worse than a Hooters waitress?
Thought Bryce was dating weird artist types.
Since the capital of West Virginia is Akron, Ohio, yes to both.
That is hilarious, lol.
It's a well known saying. Three of my great aunts came to Akron to work in the rubber factories and found husbands also from WV. One distant female cousin I found worked in the office where they were building Corsairs and then for Leo Mehl. I wish I had met her. A prominent history of the rubber industry devoted a entire chapter on the employees from WV that began with a description of the very town I was born in.
Indeed. Sherm is unaware of the cultural influence of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky on Akron and other industrial towns in Ohio.
Much of my mother's family is from Appalachia. The only people who really ever made it out did so by moving to Akron.
“King of corn and porn from way back in the holler.”
https://youtu.be/jRiSl8G077g?si=OFwUZxa2kH__Adlu
You wear hillbilly when it suits you, like Leatherface wore people’s faces
I have never claimed to be otherwise (or bristled at the negative connotations the term might entail).
He's like every politician that starts with, "I'm from a blue collar lower middle class background..."
Except - for me - it’s true!
It might be but they're going to hate on you, nonetheless.
They persecute me.
You do egg it on, at least sometimes.
Sir, this sounds a great deal like what you believe:
"They believe, or pretend to believe, in a strict meritocracy that justifies their wealth and power. Consequently, they also believe that anyone who is poor or downtrodden deserves to be so"
cf
"-He said: “If it were up to me, I would fire everyone on my team and replace them with AI in a heartbeat, since I’ll be retired in three years - I don’t give a shit about training the next generation.”
I agree with him: No one is owed any sort of job, any sort of paycheck."
I do believe in meritocracy; I “own” my personal outcomes, good and bad.
I also believe that the poor and downtrodden have capacity for self-improvement and reinvention.
Well, if that were to transpire BECAUSE of something I did, then it would be deserved.
Right. If I got run over by a MARTA bus tomorrow it would be bad luck. I’m sure some of my “opps” would love it, but that’s life!
A simple "yes" would suffice as the two ideas of self-capacity for improvement and reinvention do not exclude the former.
There are issues around this belief primarily pertaining to individual ability and networks where leaving everyone to their own devices is not so much empowering the best it is sewing the seeds for anarchy.
I think people are recoiling to this sort of sociopathic relationship toward their fellows and subsequent generations for easy to understand reasons. An analogy to the experience is the biological phenomenon of cancer. Cancer is, ostensibly, a part of the body and shares the same DNA and cannot live apart from the body. However, people with cancer lose weight even if they eat more and more because it is the cancer receiving that energy and not the body proper. As the tumescent growth burgeons the body proper becomes increasingly ill and feeble. In your world, you are awash in possibilities and money, while an outsider looking in sees you proud to enable the sexual exploitation of the young and old, men and women alike, all to make money off their backs. Taking the energy of the body for your own good to the body's detriment. In your banker friend's world he give no fucks for the people of his actual corporate body (corporations naturally being composed of people) and only cares insofar as he gets remuneration. Ostensibly you and he share the same rough background and raising as Americans as the rest of us, but in reality it looks a lot like you're interested in killing the host and feeding while you can. I'm fairly certain Sir Morris Leyland sees the importation of labor, who will form nepotistic networks and lock out people who are better qualified, as one and the same. You might say he should have started his own business/built better contacts/etc but those things are also no guarantees of success.
We've touched on this before that stuff like fractional banking and other financial techne can be put to the good, we do seem to have big disagreements on both the reality of the "value stream" in the highly financialized world, and the external effects that it carries. I think banking and markets should work to serve the nation and not the reverse, which seems to be more what you think.
Excellent, thoughtful response; the best among many I have received today.
I don’t think that banking and markets, etc. SHOULD serve the nation (they often do, of course) or SHOULD NOT be served by the nation (which also happens sometimes). I don’t think we need any central planning.
I agree with both of your statements. What I do not think people understand is for a uneducated poor person to better their life. If they don't have an insider at a job the system is designed to keep it's foot on their neck. Now that can be overcome by motivation but it isn't easy to come by for someone doing physical labor 40 hours or more a week for minimum wage.
If you are selling 40 hours of weekly (physical) labor for whatever the prevailing rate is, it will be hard to get any financial traction going (even with hazard pay or incentives). I don’t think anyone ‘designed’ a system top-down to make it challenging for those people - we already have a generous safety net, a floor.
I agree and that is the problem. If you have a little ambition or brains you can live a decent if not gilded life but the floor is what keeps people down. Now I don't think we should kill the safety nets but if we could mentor poor people maybe they wouldn't be poor. Wishful thinking I would guess but the difference between 15 and 25 bucks an hour buys a lot.
I’m on a limb here, but I think that for some (unsure the %) people, experience is the only real teacher, not book learning or mentoring.
And by the time you have learned (through experience) what to do or not to do, it could be challenging to get another at-bat.
"Owed" is the operative word here and you, sir, are 110% correct!!
Also, that man is the stupidest person in every room if he thinks he can replace everyone with AI. I’m assuming an Ivy League MBA which just means he only knows how to torpedo, not build.
He said he WOULD do so if he could.
No MBA.
He has been covetously eyeing high-spec, PTS 911 GTS Targas (used since the 992.2 Targa will be hybrid and not offer a manual). As if the hivemind here needed another reason to hate his ilk!
Not sure what the Porsche part has to do with anything, but ok.
Only that Jack HATES the sort of person who would covet a modern Porsche 911.
Well he should drive a modern targa with the top down. The effect is as if a leaf blower is pointed at each ear above 50 mph. He'll change his mind
The attitude of "no one is owed a paycheck" is in my opinion, the justification used to eliminate job security over the past three generations. It's the same callous mindset that holds that a paycheck is all the thanks an employee has any right to expect, and the one uttered by those business managers who can't understand why good personnel are so hard to find.
I was motivated to pursue a career in banking for the paycheck, obviously.
If asked “are you motivated by money” in a job interview - even a Wall Street job interview - it’s smart to prevaricate a bit and talk about “opportunities” and “learning” and “exposure” and so on. So that’s naturally what everyone does, particularly undifferentiated college seniors with no skills (yet).
In retrospect, I got far more than just a paycheck out of my ~12 years in the trenches; I walked out with substantial domain knowledge and relationships to draw upon in the future. That was the true takeaway, as I have written many times.
I'd argue that when companies try to do something *other* than provide a paycheck, it can be bad. I mean, this is part of what DEI was about. Let's make work culture better through diversification. Let's "look good" instead of actually making money. Yes, making money. Usually that means making the best darn product or offering the best darn services. To achieve that, it means hiring the best darn people.
It's also an easy argument that job security can be just as bad. Look at where we are with tenure professors and teachers. Even in the private sector, I've seen companies crumble because so many middle managers had job security.
I'd argue that the social employee-employer has in fact become too complicated. At the same time, the customer-company contract has as well, and I'm not sure which came first.
To "owe" means to have an obligation. The employer has no obligation but he, presumably, is not stupid and understands meritorious performance on his (the firm's) behalf when he sees it, thus the paycheck and assurance, no guarantee, that the paycheck will continue to be provided. That is know as quid pro quo.
Ladder pulling.
All I gleaned from this is that Lizard Cargo Culturists don't have any self-awareness.
I was sitting at a wedding reception nearly a year ago. After a few drinks, I found myself - unfortunately - in libation lubricated conversation with a friend’s wife; she does not like me, has never liked me, and almost certainly will never like me.
She said: “You know, I’ve figured something out about you. I used to think you just had no self awareness, but that’s not true. You do have self awareness, you just don’t give a shit what people think about you.”
She’s right.
Please tell you stood up during the ceremony, pointed at the bride and in a horrified voice cc uttered, "Oh my God, she's wearing a WHITE dress!"
I had no problem with the bride
Why do you think you're expending so much effort justifying your parasitic existence here if you believe that you don't care what people think about you? You're a void of self-awareness raised to an exponential power. I'm sorry for pointing it out, since Jack asks us not to insult one another, but it would be nice if you learned something about yourself before you learn what accountability means.
-I am doing this entirely anonymously.
-I am the ONLY person who is standing in opposition to the hivemind belief that finance = bad and the only virtuous or worthy jobs out there are engineering, blue collar labor, or sys admins (obviously).
-Among my few faults is that I enjoy arguing online!
'I’ll be retired in three years - I don’t give a shit about training the next generation.'
This, is why you fail.
Came here for this comment, and I was not disappointed. Quelle surprise, a head parasite cares nothing about the next generation of parasites. On the upside, less parasites.
No one is 'owed' a job. But we as a society should strive to ensure the next generation is left with more opportunities to have one, not less.
The “opportunity” of doing that job is what you learn, what you take out of it yourself.
It doesn’t come pre-packaged, but anyone who does the job for any length of time will earn that reward, which lasts a lifetime.
Oh, not speaking about the jobs in your example, more of a general trend overall that this attitude reflects.
For these jobs specifically, look, we all know printing debt forever is unsustainable, so careers that involve perverting the very meaning of the word 'investing' (from 'supporting the future with resources' to 'extracting a profit from the movement of others labor and assets') will go away, and should.
Hope your buddy enjoys his "This is the only 911 Targa in Harvestgoldmetallische over Blue Ostrich ever made!" bauble on his way out the door, we'll all be suitably impressed I'm sure when he drives by.
the 911 registry is basically a gentrified marti report at this point
the reason nobody else has one like that is becuase its ugly and undesirable (they dont like that probable explanation)
Your beliefs are consistent; I do appreciate that about you, as well as the fact that you are disagreeable, and that you dgaf about other people think of you. But what you wrote reads as a confirmation of Jack’s response.
Pinning this because I appreciate the response, as well as the breadth and depth of the thoughts within.
What interests me is the following:
'-He said: “If it were up to me, I would fire everyone on my team and replace them with AI in a heartbeat, since I’ll be retired in three years - I don’t give a shit about training the next generation.”'
One anecdote does not a sea of data make, but I can't help but contrast this with the obsession I've seen people display about other even vaguely meaningful businesses, careers, and products they've made.
Pilots will cry real tears on their final flight with an airline. When he was alive, Kalamazoo luthier Aaron Cowles would always stop what he was doing to look at any old guitar he'd helped make. Jimmy Page has spent thirty years obsessively remastering and reworking the music he made fifty years ago.
This fellow not only isn't sentimental about the future of his firm, he'd willingly destroy it for three years' worth of enhanced payouts.
Because he fully and completely understands that nothing he's ever done has led to anything good or worthwhile. The fry cook at McDonald's can say he's fed thousands of people, but this fellow has done nothing other than enrich himself by wetting his proverbial beak.
The only payoff was what he got paid. Therefore anything that increases that is worthwhile.
When you lampoon me for describing certain kinds of work as "GAY or UNMANLY or FAKE" or whatever... this is what I have in mind. Forty years of parasitic behavior. No actual good done for anyone. And memorable for nothing but the size of his paycheck.
You sound like his ex-wife. They were forced to spend more time together during COVID, which led to her to pursue divorce.
No one has ever cried on their last day of investment banking, unless they were tears of anguish (got fired unexpectedly with no money to walk away) or tears of jubilation (quit the millisecond their bonus hit their bank account).
This is the difference between money changers and people who produce something.
We do “produce” - or, really, “create” - something:
Value.
As much as I'm MORE in line with your beliefs on the general economy, this is where you lose me.
Hard disagree, at least on the meaning and the depth of said ‘value’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f2kGHcdJYU&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2F&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE
He must mean imaginary numbers on a page.
The company I work for is owned by PE. The owners don’t give a damn about the future, they only care about exiting in 5 years at a profit. I am relatively young with a 20 year work life remaining (mostly due to not wanting to pay insurance out of pocket). These clowns know nothing about our business, spend small fortunes on CRM and data analytics tools, and think we are so stupid that we won’t notice they are screwing us for the long term. When I meet people who work in PE I know exactly what I am dealing with.
I don’t work in Private Equity, and I have never sold a company to PE, because PE firms - with rare exceptions - do not buy banks, because they would be forced to become (heavily regulated) bank holding companies in exchange, and that is the last thing they want to do.
Geez, Sherman, I don’t know whether a career in banking made your ex-boss that way or whether he was already like that (and therefore went into banking). Either way, aside from the financial rewards, I doubt he’s led an enviable life. Not by me, anyway.
He’s 48; I’ve known him for 12+ years. He has always been like that in my interactions with him.
Most career investment bankers are like that, because they are competing with each other, and they all realize that spending time on their own team of people is a poor use of the resource. Every junior job in the industry could be filled up dozens of times over by people who can and will do the job without warm fuzzies or rah rah in the office. Peers of mine who are still in the industry, who once groused about our bosses, now do the same things.
The "jobs" thing - make-work and otherwise - is an extension of the basic condition of human existence since the dawn of time, which at a basic level is, "if you contribute to the well-being of the group, you will at least not starve." Anything beyond that is far from guaranteed, but at least it was understood that you would eat.
In contrast this view appears to be more every man for himself, Yuval Noah Harari "useless eaters" theorizing.
While there are surely humans who do not contribute to the polis, the implication that universal non-capital-holding-man must (in essence; correct me if I'm polarizing your views) starve, or lower themselves to ditch-digging or prostitution, is pretty extreme.
(There are back of the napkin implications of this argument, of course, and in this era of high automation, one of them is "billions must die")
“If you contribute…” the argument I am implicitly making is that some “contributors” to society don’t contribute any value (and often contribute limited effort; effort being the input, value being the output).
My attitude often IS akin to “every man for themself,” because - again - I grew up in a small, rural, remote, isolated town, so I learned rather quickly that I was going to have to achieve my ambitions myself (if at all, obviously).
Notwithstanding what could happen with A(G)I, the government cannot, will not allow Americans to starve today. The same people in this comment section who bray endlessly about BANKSTERS and their BAILOUTS would want the taxpayers to put bums up in luxury hotels.
Stated with this level of granularity, it’s hard to argue with anything in the first two paragraphs.
If I had to guess I would say that your other assertions come off more harshly than simply “some people contribute little, no, or negative value, and some people don’t even put in any effort.” That’s a claim many(most?) here would stipulate to.
I do not think the people here would ask for bums to be put up in luxury hotels. Perhaps im missing some nuance in what you meant.
I am making light of the people here who HATE, e.g., “bankers” (this applies to everyone from the teller at your local branch to Jamie Dimon) because they are like piggies at a trough squealing for another bailout … but wouldn’t dare tell, say, this guy that he should’ve waited to have children until he was assured of being able to provide for a family:
https://www.thefp.com/p/my-family-lives-in-the-shadow-of-the-american-dream
Balance is tough. I’m sympathetic to your perspective but also sympathetic enough to admit that the fellow in that article is getting fucked.
Many will defend this system of exploitation until their dying breath, but a system that treats contributing workers this harshly obviously has problems.
He is suffering, to an extent.
But it would be beyond the pale to suggest that he might not be fit to be a father because he’s currently unable to provide for his family. Did he take any ownership, any responsibility?
If I were running this company and I had someone under me say that he doesn't care about the future in that way, I'd instantly fire him. I don't care what are his current responsibilities. He clearly is not helping to set up the company for future success and he should go.
Notwithstanding that it’s a private partnership, they don’t care about the future either. They fired about half of the junior staff in 2023 or so and loaded the remaining victims down with massive workloads.
So not a problem limited to him. Separate from the discussion on whether people deserve jobs and whether certain industries are evil, this place sounds like it has a dim future no matter what.
It is one of “the best” middle market investment banks out there.
EVERY investment bank is like this, to be clear.
As an outsider, I think that statement is part of why people hate them.
People would hate them a lot more if they knew firsthand what a typical day or week was like. But if they did the job for awhile, they would understand why it is beneficial long-term to do it for at least a few years.
Not only did Jack Baruth steal the show at MotoAmerica, Baggers competition is stealing the show for MotoGP next year with their official support class having a new name THE HARLEY-DAVIDSON BAGGER WORLD CUP*
*GET BENT INDIAN, I guess, even though their machines are clearly superior
This new premiere class, destined to replace all motorcycle competition at all levels; make women wet and men hard; is coming next year! https://www.motogp.com/en/news/2025/08/15/harley-davidson-bagger-world-cup/756437 The EUROSTANKS will finally know TRUE POWER and RACECRAFT as roaring American V-Twins finally put hair on their Eurochests.
Ahem.
Superbike competition at Mid-Ohio was good, actually, with Bobby Fong once again taking a win in race one but without the obscene gap that he had at VIR. In Race 1 Josh Herrin was a huge pussy about the oil dry on the track and, after riding over it, blew a turn and made a fuss before getting on with the race and finishing 7th. Cameron Beaubier kept Fong honest until the last lap where he blew turn 6 (where the oil dry was) and finished down in sixth. This left Sean Dylan Kelly on a GSXR1000 to secure second place while he fended off JD Beach and Hayden Gillum. Honda, on a Stock 1000 bike of all machines, was the third place podium with JD Beach and not Hayden Gillum standing on the step.
Race 2 had Herrin and Fong mixing it up into turn 6 (?) and contact of Herrin's front with Fong's rear sent them both off track. Herrin dumped his bike by the tire wall and then had a freak collision, which may have left him with a leg injury (unclear, couldn't find a press release) with another rider that he had already passed late in the race. Fong would perform an excellent recovery ride and claim the bronze, minimizing points damage and keeping him first in the championship. Cameron Beaubier took first place after Fong and Herrin were removed from the battle and Jake Gagne was back on the podium in second, though almost 4s adrift of Cam.
Supersport continues to be the fight between ex-superbike riders Scholtz, Jacobsen, and Petersen with the young Blake Davis being the least experienced rider giving them the most trouble.
King of the Baggers remains scrappy with a lot of crashes, mechanicals, and aggression compared with the other MotoA classes. Gillum wins race 1, Herfoss a (very) close second, and Kyle Wyman a distant third. Race 2 Herfoss and Gillum went at it again with Herfoss in the lead for much of the race. Gillum attempted last lap dive bomb into turn 6 and went wide off track which dumped him far back in the field. Herfoss takes race 2, Wyman far behind in second, and Tyler O'Hara, who has not been a force at all this season, finishes on the podium for third.
MotoGP at the Red Bull Ring!
Marco Bezzecchi puts the Aprilia on pole position with Alex Marquez a tenth of a second down for 2nd. Bagnaia, who has won repeatedly at the Red Bull Ring, qualifies in third. Marc Marquez missed pole position due to crashing out on a hot lap and has to start from the second row of the grid in fourth.
In the sprint Marc Marquez simply dominates again, jumping from 4th to second by turn one to follow his brother in second place. He would quietly sit behind Alex for half distance before passing him and putting on two tenths a lap for which Alex had no answer. Bez fell prey to Pedro Acosta, back on the podium, and a feather in KTM's cap at their home round. Where was Bagniaia? After horrendous wheelspin off the start he decided to retire after 3/4 race distance with complaints of no grip.
In the full length race the lead pack was 5 with Bez making a better start, Bagnaia behind him, then Marc, Alex, and Pedro. Bagnaia and Marc would go toe to toe for a short while before Marc passed on lap two to chase down Bez. Alex Marquez was looking good, but had a long lap penalty which put him down pack and from there he made no recovery. Bagnaia, having lost second to Marc, would hold on for much of the race until Acosta made it past him, whereupon he was quickly passed by Fermin Aldeguer who put on an amazing late show. Bagnaia faded down the field to 8th. Aldeguer, meanwhile, had .5s-1s of pace on Bez and Marc until Marquez responded to keep him at bay by a second. Bez had nothing for the rookie, however, and lost out to Fermin finishing two seconds down.
Baganaia almost looks sporting.
Jorge Martin did nothing of particular note except crash out of the race.
MotoGP is at a new venue where the initial turns after the start are quite tight and saw quite a lot of contact in WSBK superbike race 1.
Your first PARAGRAPH is a sentence fragment. Do you ever re-read what you have written or do you even care?
silentsod's first paragraph consists of two complete sentences ("Baggers competition is stealing the show" and "Jack Baruth did steal the show at MotoAmerica") with a few prepositional phrases thrown in.
If you're going to be pedantic, at least be right.
Yes, it's a "comma splice," probably from forgetting the conjunction ("but").
Oh God, “Schoolhouse Rock” just started in my head: “Conjuction Junction! (What’s Your Function?)”
Must! Purge! From! Brain!
Before I look it up on YouTube and start it on continuous repeat! 😂😂
Some of us simply don't "get' proper english......
-Nate
I can’t diagram sentences anymore either (except that I try not to drop a preposition at the end of a sentence or phrase, because that embarrasses me). (And I get the use of “whom” versus “who” correct most of the time. I’ve noticed that I can’t spell for shit either as I’ve gotten into my fifties, or rather, that I question a spelling I know to be correct, but misspellings still jump right off the page at me, so take that as you will.)
But usually I can tell, just by reading a sentence, that something’s not right. And usually when that happens, it turns out that I’m correct.
Upon a more careful re-read, which I pride myself on doing and which I clearly did not do in this instance, I agree with you and furthermore, extend my apologies to
Silentsod.
Apology accepted.
I wasn't particularly concerned until you did something similar to Speed, for what it's worth, hence laying it on thick in that reply.
Upon further review, you are incorrect, amigo, the entire construction is only one sentence, not two. The first few words before the comma would be a sentence fragment if followed by a period. That's my pedant's view.
I don't care, and I am thrilled that you took the time to complain over the opening which was painstakingly crafted to maximize enjoyment.
It was a great opening, sucked me in and I am not a race fan.
"erm ackshully"
bro shut up
Here at ACF, you're free to make fun of me or any other public official, but we do require civility to each other. This fellow does a complete race report once a week, for free, so every one else can read it. We shan't require he be a prose stylist.
Some commenters are, as Omar said in "the wire", in the game. Others aren't, and take criticism unhappily. I want to protect the latter.
on that note, sorry for contributing to @Alan's self-banning
That was always going to happen. I give him a lot of credit for sticking as long as he did.
Should be a comma between “written” and “or” please, thanks very much.
GOT EEM!
"*GET BENT INDIAN, I guess, even though their machines are clearly superior"
Word up- Cameo
Without a heel/face relationship ala pro rasslin', it's likely KOTB could just turn into IROC with HD dominating everything and whomever has the biggest checkbook getting the podium and smooches from umbrella girls.
On the upside, Indian may not need KOTB to sell bikes since the new Scout line has been updated to absolutely eat Harley's fucking lunch in the wake of the air cooled sportster being discontinued and what amounts to a great chassis with an unshrouded Johnson outboard zip tied and hose clamped into it. They are doing a ground n pound on HD right now with the Scout as well as the new Power-Plus touring/cruiser bikes.
Having a foil for HD might wind up being the secret sauce they lose with Indian, not unlike when the Vienna Sausage plant was rebuilt and they lost that je ne sais quoi to a process streamlining.
Anyway, I'm thankful KOTB has grown to become a headliner event from being an exhibition just a few years back. I'm nostalgic about Indian and HD racing, even though I haven't owned or flipped a Harley in years and my 54' Indian is in pieces. It's all about the sizzle, not the steak.
I had a meeting with one of their leaders where I basically BEGGED him to let me join the company and fix this stuff!
It’s a unicorn now.
I think Onlyfans should buy substack, personally.
Account federation is what we need here.
"Sign into Substack with your OF account".
Now that's a Venn I'd like to get a look at.
-Diversifies payment processing stream; would lower payment processing scrape (biggest expense by FAR for OF)
-Improves brand perception
-Reduces friction associated with purchasing content for everyone who is already a Substack reader with a card on file
-OF is orders of magnitude larger than Substack, but they could unite and offer a competitor to YouTube and social media slop: Real people creating real content for real people (without ads)
"Pay for an annual ACF subscription and get a FREE subscription to Jack's OnlyFans account!"
Being a courteous man, the OF would just be pictures of watches, guitars, and custom shoes.
Perhaps we could be paid in this arrangement for what it will do to our psyches.
i hate onlyfans but being able to see onboard lap footage would be neat
The idea of OnlyFans being taken over by a legion of fans publishing their race footage amuses me.
too bad its lousy with simps and losers who want to give women money
Logan Karnow is a privateer motocross racer who is sponsored by OF. He started being sponsored by some of their creators but picked up a sponsorship form the company itself.
I believe he posts a lot of behind the scenes content to his OF account.
its happened about five times in the hour ive been on here
they hell did they do
(it happened again while i was typing this)
'You don't need more batteries for more power. More batteries are for more range.'
I kind of want to go nerd-pedantic with you here. Of course you need more batteries for more motor power. The voltage is fixed.
That being said, I understand the point you're making: the ID3 could develop the same horsepower with fewer batteries. That hasn't always been the case with EVs.
It's not the voltage sir but the current that matters in this context. I'll give you a pass for missing something basic.
"I actually ruined two sets of Continental ExtremeContacts"
gotta petition them to get a set of cup 2s or something becuase thats gotta be cheaper in the long run
"My top speed at Mid-Ohio is 156-157 but even the 600cc Supersports can knock on the door of 170 down the back straight, with the Stock 1000 and Superbikes doing another 10-15mph above that"
motorcycle downforce is still a strange thing to me becuase of all the leaning and whatnot
"The media outlets who breathlessly prattle on about Crazy Stuff The Prole Trash Actually Think are revealing more about themselves than about “Qanon”"
qanon was catnip for tragically unaware boomers. im shocked at its lifespan frankly
"$460,000, 1540-pound, 182-horsepower carbon-fiber Porsche 912"
the numbers are wild except for the horsepower but thats all the little flat four can make (although a few people have produced some custom porsche 4cyl engines that are far more powerful but of course this one doesnt have the cool bits) and its really not that far from a hotrodded beetle engine and between the two im taking a restomodded beetle over this. at least that comes across as being more honest in your desires. i have a friend that kinda wants a 912 and im convincing him the 308 he is also interested in is a better idea.
"I feel compelled to point out that it’s possible to get this level of performance for less money. Like a K-swap Honda Fit, or a Fox Mustang with $800 worth of spray on it."
i still want to see what a 1500lb porsche can do even with that power because thats almost half the weight of a fox (and hundreds of pounds lighter than the fit despite being down a few dozen hp or so).
"Legend has it that not even William Calley looked as mellow after killing innocent people as Harjinder Singh did when a minivan struck his trailer during an illegal freeway U-turn."
and people say america isnt influenced by canada. how are you enjoying your taste of bramptons finest? this is only getting worse as more and more of them filter out onto the roads with zero knowledge of how to operate motor vehicles safely. the solution is to never hire them but the schools and companies they work for get shut down and just pop back up under other names. its absolutely maddening. eventually people will start dealing with companies based on what the people look and sound like becuase that might be the only way to make sure somebody isnt killed on the road delivering their packages. my thoughts go out to the family and all those affected.
My '15 6MT Fit weighs about 2,400 lbs, almost exactly what my dad's '84 Accord hatchback weighed.
thats not bad but i am a bit shocked its 200lbs heavier than my miata though i doubt dumping a k series in it would inflate the weight much
is the car still treating you well?
A few minor issues at 131K but in general I'm happy. Still on the first clutch, only had to do the brakes once. After the recent discussion of low viscosity oils I switched to 5W-20 on the last oil change.
A word to the wise, try tailoring your remarks to just a few sentences. I guarantee you will garner more attention.
Excuse me, who are you?
🧐
Sir, I'll have you know that even I, the least of commenters here, graduated SUMMER-COME-LOUDER with several advanced degrease from one of America's TOP PRESTIGE INSTITUTIONS the venerable and well-regarted DeVry University!
We don't have no time for this high-falutin' grammarlarian noncents.
yeah im not doing that
i garner plenty of attention if for no other reason than volume and absurdity
Bro won't be prepared for when I have thoughts on something again lmao
Who the hell are you?
That driver had the "look what those idiots did to my truck" look.
I pay, up front and in American money and yes, I am a newbie.
Welcome to the asylum.
Good to have you but remember, you walked into this with your eyes open.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go beat up those midgets who fucked up my mailbox.
GET THOSE BASTARDS!
they couldnt have run far
or fast
They're at the wrestling ring practicing being tossed.
That tracks. Hustler Club Detroit is hosting midget wrestling in October.
Now how, exactly, did you find out about this?
I wish I had a cooler story, but it was from a Facebook ad. They used to hold them at the Toy Box on Ford Road.
WELCOME Sir .
-Nate
I think we need a reality show (stay with me here) in which we pay for leftist Americans to travel to foreign countries and do the things there that they think illegals should be allowed to do here in the USA. It would be fun to watch what happens when they are arrested and imprisoned for things that millions of illegals get away with here every day. I’ll add driving semi-trucks to my list of challenges.
Time to return to how things were in Americas Golden Age -- that's right every guy hammered drunk after work and their stay at home wife on benzos
Hear hear!
Wedding is next week and I've been trying to drink less in advance of that. It's been successful. I have some visible definition on my stomach.
I would also kill for a negroni right now.
or in 9 months ….
Thanks! It's both very exciting and extremely stressful! I cannot wait for this part of it to be over (I never want to make a decision involving table cloth colors ever again), the honeymoon to start, and this chapter of my life to close.
RE: kids... not yet. Would like to knock out a couple bucket list things first while we're both young, mostly stable, and fit enough to do them. Year or two sounds about right. We got a kitten a couple weeks back, and seeing her interact with the tiny thing has opened up the Wants a Child portion of my heart a bit more.
I’ve basically sworn off weed. I didn’t do it much before, but it wasn’t doing me any favors and so why bother. And same with booze, it just destroys my sleep now that I’m old. I stopped recreationally drinking for the most part aside from a glass of wine with certain meals. However I’ll still socially drink for the right occasions, of which I have two coming this weekend (40th bday party at a bar Friday, block party on Sat). RIP my sleep cycle until mid next week.
Since my wife is invariably pregnant or breastfeeding I do major fasts and some of the two week fasts alcohol free. This, along with the standard Wednesday/Friday fasts, means I am alcohol free about a third of the year by default with no real effort.
I also won't be drinking once the baby is here for a month or two.
Every weed store acts as the Batman sign for degenerates.
One of my greatest disappointments of the COVID lockdowns was realizing how many of my neighbors had no other hobbies other than smoking the stuff.
Oh, I GOTTA use that!!!
So what’s your view on an individual that kills a couple of glasses of wine or a six pack of beer every night? Are these people degenerates as well?
My dad made me watch Midnight Express as a kid. That kind of thing sticks with you. I don’t know if this country takes any crime that seriously.
That is some good parenting.
what if we dont pay them and just deport them to a third world slum for the lolz
To find the required simpleminded candidates you would likely need to recruit influencers or wanna-be influencers, so some payment would be necessary, could be like the Amazing Race where you cover their expenses and promise large cash winnings to whoever completes the challenges. Of course that is unlikely to happen since other countries enforce their immigration laws ruthlessly. I think this is TV ready, just need Mark Burnett to produce it.
Sort of like a real world survivor game: “if you can survive 10 years as an illegal in _____ then we will give you an early pension.”
Starting with a lot of media figures!
I’ve always thought it would be hilarious to see the Japanese response to someone taking a crap in the train…”well, straight into the ocean for you”.
Along with repercussions for their family.
theyre gonna reopen unit 731 for those people
It’s the dead kennedy’s song of “holiday in Cambodia” in real time. Some things never change.
I will pay to watch this. Any amount short of a full months paycheck.
This is a great idea and I’d watch every episode. The only downside is that the show probably will only run one season once the pool of potential participants sees what happened to the first batch of volunteers.
I am not so sure- the American left thrives on the idea that bad progressive ideas (socialism, communism) that have failed every time they have been tried have failed because they were not implemented properly. American progressives are nothing if not arrogant and believe they can do it “smarter”. They would see season 1 contestants get locked up for decades in foreign prisons and think” I am smarter and can do it right!”
If that ends up being the case season 2 should be even better—I’ll be watching.
I guess I'm Nobody because I've always liked/wanted 912s since I became aware of them as a young teenager back in the 80s. I like the simplicity of their power plants and always thought they'd be fun to drive. But then again, I like pre-'68 Bugs too. 912 pricing though in the past few decades has all but assured me that I'll never own one.
Buddy of mine brought a 912 to a recent autocross. He had more fun than anyone else there.
If a 912 cost the same as a Beetle I would get a 912.
They once were affordable!
Re: The Lizard People
If I had to put my own definition of the Lizard People, it's the modern American Left power class... i.e., they don't just brand progressivism, they have the power to force the implementation of progressive policy, all while - *and this is the important part* - diabolically fortifying their personal position to ensure they'll never face the progressive edicts they've mobilized...
Examples would be climate activists flying on private jets while pushing legislation to curtail oil production... White male CEO's who implement DEI hiring/promotion policies at their companies... essentially the entire Democratic Party who pushed Defund the Police initiatives from 2020-2024 while substantially increasing the funding for the Capitol Police force in DC...
I personally knew a climate activist who not only advocated on behalf of electric cars but did not own a car, electric or otherwise, he rode a bicycle.
You found the unicorn. He's the exception that proves the rule.
Willing to bet he's a "foot soldier" advocate. None of the leaders practice what they preach.
Like those black churches where the minister has a 10,000 square foot house and a Bentley.
That’s his reward for being so close to God.
But the carbon dioxide from the sweat and the materials used to make the bike!
Bike probably made in China as well. Lots of bunker-c to get it across the Pacific
which is why the last 2 bikes I bought have frames made in the USA.
...and such an individual would not be the "Lizard People". I think virtually everyone here respects each individual's choice in lifestyle. Some people choose to minimize their carbon footprint, others choose to race cars on the weekend...
Notice I specifically highlighted "and this is the important part"... which is sort of what completes the point.
Moron, but an honest one.
There are no liberal or progressive policies that have positive outcomes, that’s why they don’t follow their own edicts. It would make their life worse, they know it, so they don’t do it.
As Glenn Reynolds said, “I’ll believe it’s a problem when the people who say it’s a problem start acting like it’s a problem.”
When the people who tell you the polar ice caps will melt and drown us all go out and buy $10 million beachfront mansions in Malibu, you can bet your paycheck on them being full of shit.
Or knock down the Magnum PI house.
Eerie parallel (and by this I mean "easily foreseeable") between this latest truck driver incident and the license-for-bribes crash that sent former Illinois governor George Ryan to prison. In that crash, part of the truck's taillight assembly fell off which then punctured the gas tank of a trailing minivan, causing it to catch fire, severely injuring the driver and his wife and killing their six children. Apparently the taillight assembly was dangling long enough that several passing motorists noticed and tried to signal the driver. Unfortunately the driver did not speak English and did not comprehend their warnings.
I thought the load was falling off a flatbed
It would not surprise me if there were another horrendous incident where something fell off a flat bed, killing a family in a minivan as a consequence of licenses-for-bribes. The incident I’m remembering involved the Willis family and a taillight/mudflap assembly: https://www.npr.org/2007/11/06/16051850/former-illinois-gov-george-ryan-heading-to-prison
This particular incident was the impetus for the feds investigation into George Ryan’s administration at the IL Secretary of State. My recollection is that the feds got really interested when they learned that the IL driver didn’t speak English and wondered how on earth he got a CDL.
You must be correct, I heard the story second hand.
I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU ALL ABOUT THE WAR THAT INDIA/INDIANS ARE WAGING AGAINST THE US AND EVERY CIVILIZED COUNTRY.
The all caps made me think of the “WE’VE BEEN TRYING TO REACH YOU…” spam calls.
which incidentally are typically indian
Hahaha
I must congratulate you on this impressive ratio, Speed.
swing enough times and youll eventually hit the ball
You'll love this
https://bluewaterhealthyliving.com/news/national-news/ohio/hindu-group-buys-former-our-lady-of-the-elms-motherhouse-in-akron/
And I've been humbly denying it.
99.9% give the other 0.1% a bad name, I'm afraid.
Within the past week, Trump official {{{ Harmeet Dhillon }}} has slammed the US medical education system and praised H-1Bs like her father.
Since you’ve already concluded what you want to, it shouldn’t matter. Its not like her father actually achieved anything.
I've been traveling and unable to reply, but your low-down PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE SLANDER is completely out of bounds.
Starting with your second shit-sentence, "Its not like her father actually achieved anything." That is exactly the type of caste-based dismissal that the Indian brain uses about 90% of its cycles on. Nobody cares and that's completely beside the point. The point is that {{{ Harmeet Dhillon }}} is an ENEMY FOREIGN AGENT, whose loyalty is to India, not the country that pays her salary.
To your first shit-sentence: yes, I HAVE weighed evidence and reached CONCLUSIONS. The SAME conclusions that the JURY in the Cognizant case reached:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-cognizant-h1b-visas-discriminates-us-workers/
Your denials are merely conclusory statements, which have no value in terms of the pursuit of truth. And they're self-serving: a large part of the Indian strategy is to operate in stealth and discourage any self-protective measures taken by host countries.
Over 3 MILLION pieces of EVIDENCE has been piled on top of the MOUNTAIN of existing evidence in the past few days: one of your so-called "Best and the Brightest," who recognized only 2 of 14 street signs on a test, has accumulated over 3 MILLION supporters:
https://www.change.org/p/free-petition-plea-for-fair-sentencing
Conclusory denials carry no weight, and you should stop insulting and slandering everyone else here simply for believing the truth.
Read what you wrote and see if you can understand the irony.
Not everything is someone else’s fault - at least not in my life.
I haven’t seen or heard any current administration appointee express loyalty to any nation other than the USA. But you probably know more than anyone else.
I don’t care what lawsuits are brought against some random company or what results or outcomes they get from it. I have not advocated on behalf of any company or program. I don’t get why this straw man is necessary for you to vent.
The US isn’t at war with any country last I checked. Take care of yourself sir!
"heard any current administration appointee"
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/h-1b-row-trump-aide-harmeet-k-dhillon-says-us-medical-system-is-broken-my-father-was-a-foreign-medical-graduate/articleshow/123223003.cms
"I don't care [about facts proven in a court of law]"
The Cognizant case is an example of the Indian war on American workers. It shows a pattern of behavior which millions of Americans across the political spectrum have observed: whenever an Indian gains a scintilla of power in any organization, he/she uses all of that power to benefit Indians at the expense of Americans. I don't think you even know what "strawman" means.
"The US isn’t at war with any country"
China and India have been at war with the US for a generation. It's beyond time to exercise our right to self defense (or really just stop aiding and abetting the enemy). A few steps in the right direction have been taken:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-halts-issuing-worker-visas-for-commercial-truck-drivers/
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/27/economy/trump-india-tariff
I hope that soon a similar 50% tariff will be imposed on so-called "skilled labor."
"Perhaps a commenter or two will pop up to decry the hiring of American citizens to drive trucks as “make work programs” or so on, along with a commentary on how lazy Americans think they are entitled to make a living wage for something as trivial as operating a 50-ton vehicle on recapped tires in all weather and road conditions while surrounded by vehicles to which it is a constant and deadly menace. Anyone who truly believes that has a chance to “own some outcomes” here. Three innocents dead."
There is no truck driver shortage and it is 100% correct that there are lots of foreigners, who probably aren't legitimately licensed, operating under shady contracts for shady companies all to save a buck and enrich a few. x.com/supertrucker where it is his pet peeve the ongoing propaganda campaign of the "driver shortage."
was hoping someone else would mention this because its true
some might even be so bold to say that there isnt really a labour shortage too and the genuine reasons for infinity browns is basically nil
I just heard about the student visa scam in Canada wherein strip mall "colleges" operated by Indians provide documentation for tens of thousands of folks who aren't exactly the intellectual cream of the subcontinent.
I thought most of the subcontinent wasn’t the intellectual cream of anything!
Perhaps, while some studies show an average IQ of 75, which is below that which the U.S. will accept recruits because they're not considered trainable, with a cohort of over a billion people, you're still going to have some exceptionally smart folks.
From Grok: "Without more robust data, a conservative estimate based on a mean IQ of 85 (a commonly cited middle ground) and SD of 15 suggests about 0.02% of the population, or roughly 280,000 individuals, might have IQs over 140."
there are plenty more scams of differing flavours here but they are very often perpetrated by the same people
raiding food banks for one
There's a privately operated kosher food pantry around the corner from my house. It's set up to augment the official Jewish Federation supported food agency for people who are officially below the poverty level (besides folks who are actually poor, even if you're making a decent salary if you have 8-12 kids, you might be below the poverty line, at least according to the government). The private food pantry gets so much food from food recyclers like Forgotten Harvest and via private donations that regular folks have to show up one day a week or else they'll be throwing away food.
If I wanted to be frugal, I could probably survive on stuff I get there.
I'd hazard a guess that with the number of food banks and food pantries that exist, if you're an adult going hungry in America, it's your own damn fault.
while that does sound like an excellent food bank and a good justification for that the ones im referring to in canada are frequented by indians making above average wages who see these places as a way to get free food rather than a resource for the less fortunate
theyre also stupid enough to record themselves doing it and to make tutorials on how others can scam the system as well
"I'd hazard a guess that with the number of food banks and food pantries that exist, if you're an adult going hungry in America, it's your own damn fault."
Kinda depends.
I'm from the sticks and there was no food pantry AND no public transportation AND a lot of poverty... wouldn't say perople starved per se, but I would also say that those free school breakfasts and lunches were a god send to many.
You should see the trucks and “drivers” (using that term loosely) here on the SoCal freeways.
Many entertaining videos attest to this .
-Nate
Trucker Shortage: As Valid as the "Engineering Shortage" or "Programmer Shortage" or "STEM Shortage."
There are no shortages in a free market.
There are no shortages when the paychecks are sufficient.
_THIS_ .
-Nate
I think that’s what Sir Morris said.
grrrr. you had to hit a sore point - I've been hearing the "engineering shortage" BS for 40+ years. its infuriating. and what it really means is "there is a shortage of engineers willing to work for very low salaries"
"you kids are just greedy and want too much money"
day of the pillow cant come soon enough for some
Homer: "Shut up, or we'll put you in a home!"
Grandpa: "You already put me in a home!"
Homer: "Then we'll put you in that crooked home we saw on '60 Minutes!'"
Grandpa: "I'll be good..."
ICE should hang out at weigh stations and rest stops for the next month.
Impound every rig with an illegal driver and the problem will go away pretty quickly.
It will go away even faster if you threaten to sue or arrest whoever hired them.
Agreed but part of the problem is that these illegals have fake social security numbers that give the crooked employers plausible deniability.
Or they filed the asylum form that then allows them to get a work permit while they wait for their asylum case to process. There are lots of NGOs that coach how to do the process, which is how you get illegal kids working in meat packing plants. They were coached on what birth date to use on the forms.
Start arresting the NGO members for this stuff too
This is why we have inflation and low wages....and riots.
Even better is the fact that many states make it illegal for the potential employer to do a significant check to see if the future employee is of legal status. Apparently checking on the immigration status of the guy who can't speak English proficiently is racist or something.
Many states need their federal funding cut.
My grandfather died in 1978. I'm pretty sure his Social Security number's been used by at least 10 Mexicans by now.
"So your name is Ernest Grosser?"
"Si."
Exactly. While I am a great 2A proponent its perfectly correct for parents who irresponsibly let kids get guns face the music in criminal court when said kid does something stupid or bad with the gun.
Juts put the companies and individuals who hired these guys on trial. But therein lays the rub, the sate of comifornia gave him a ldv license and he prob even has a soc security number. Maybe we can arrest Newsome and the cal legislature for this one.
I mean we sent our governor to prison (one of many) for allowing illegal truck licenses to be sold by the IL sec of state. Several kids were killed which spurred the lawsuit and sure something similar could happen here 🤷🏼♂️
This, the employers and the facilitators and the landlords need to be gone after, and the existing law provides for it.
It seems they're going to.
My FIL was an over the road trucker for 25 years, and he says there is not a trucker shortage, there’s a SKILLED trucker shortage. We have a bunch of pump-and-dump driving schools pushing bad drivers out into companies that are terrible to work for, so they move on to other careers. Rinse and repeat.
Obviously recruiting illegals is only compounding this problem.
Have had a cdl license since 1986, not a truck driver though, it was just a requirement for working in a class 8 truck shop, there was a time when long haul truck driving was a respectable career, it hasn’t been that way for three decades now, immigration law has brought people into this industry from abroad who will work for far less than what Americans will, they basically live out of their cabs, shops that I know will refuse to work in or under these trucks, because they would rather work on maggot encrusted garbage scowls, no driver from any country would make a u-turn on a divided freeway, the physics are the same in any country, this driver deserves prison time in Mexico.
With regards to automotive subscriptions for more power, or heated seats, I think it’s criminal, you own the hardware, I think the capabilities should stay with the vehicle, my 23 Mazda has from purchase date, 3 years of remote start, after that time period, I will have to pay a subscription to utilize it, I don’t think I need remote start that badly.
Is that sub using the key fob, or a phone app?
Phone app, I think it’s all Mazda offers.
Why would you need it (remote start) at all?
Audi, like so many others now, is all app and subscription based. Why build it on the key when they can charge you $200/yr for AudiConnect or whatever they call it.
Shouts to my Dollar General brand sports sedan for being ancient enought to still have it hardwired though.
My pickup truck at work was always parked just across from the shop at work, but on the other side of the fence that secured the work area, was nice walking out to a warm truck to go home after a long day at work.
I always wait a minute after I start the car from cold to let the fluids start to circulate, and the idle to slow as the car goes into closed-loop.
With the remote start, I can hit that as I’m getting ready to go downstairs into the garage, or when I’m on the other side of the parking garage at work. By the time I get into the car, that initial period has elapsed, so all I have to do is get in, belt up, and drive off.
Very cold winter mornings, no other use.
It gets extremely hot and humid here in the Mid-Atlantic, so I use it for those days as well.
After spending 8 hours arguing with retards at work, the last thing I want to do is get into a truck that is 20/120 degrees inside.
Based on experience with my wife's '24 Mazda, remote start is the only way to prewarm the vehicle while locked. The car will not lock after the engine is manually (non-remote) started, with or without the fob inside the car, and having two fobs doesn't help. If this is common across manufacturers, learning this helped me understand how people get their cars stolen from their driveway in the winter around here.
If you take the fob apart and retrieve the key, you can lock the car while it is running with the door lock cylinder….no one in their right mind is going to do this for obvious reason.
I’ve had a “practice” key cut at delivery of my last few cars just so I could lock the door from outside with the engine running, which is especially helpful since I keep my fob in one of those protective cases that attach to my key ring.
I tend to agree with this definition of Lizard People, but add the possibility of supernatural influence as a contributing element to their Uncanny Valley look/countenance/behavior, which seems to be a nearly-invisible current that I detect in others' recollections and videos. I believe the supernatural is very real, but like many, I believe and talk to God but do my best to not imagine or investigate all the forms and actions the devil and his demons take part in throughout the world, both in the past and present. It gets very uncomfortable pretty quickly--not a bad thing, just a reality of acknowledging that realm exists.
Regarding the deaths in the trucking incident and every other similar occurrence, along with the very intentional implementation of this scenario, there is going to be a very real and very brutal day of reckoning when it is realized what must truly happen to make this sort of thing go away. I have said for years that "humans seek homogeny [instinctively]" and that is increasingly true as the years go by. Those that lean right of center will have an easier time digesting this, but the Christian Right will have a hard time. Those left of center will have a hard time with it, if they choose to engage with that reality.
Completely unrelated: the desire to learn to ride and own a motorcycle has made its latest round into my mind. This remains a low key interest and is brought about this time (again?) by the desire to go fast and have authoritative passing power, because I don't have that presently, which is such a first world problem. Financial allocation to this endeavor would be imprudent at this juncture, which is a hindrance. I am happy to start on a humble bike, because I am here to learn and build towards a goal. Do a different kind of wrenching. Having proper gear is paramount as it's easy enough to do real damage at *bicycle* speeds (ask me how I know). Which leads to a second hindrance and chance to ask the experienced: at 6'5", many bikes that are built for as many sizes as possible are not going to accommodate tall riders well. Does a sport or sport touring type bike suit tall riders well enough, or is it a case of making the best of it? Or am I/are we relegated to more upright architectures? No hate for a Gold Wing over here--beautiful bikes!
At 6'5" I think you will have to try some for size. Proper sports bikes of the GSXR 600 type will probably feel very cramped, but I think you should be OK on a sports tourer. The problem, I suspect, will be that you need a larger bike and they come with larger engines and, I fear, too much power for a novice. There's a lot to learn before turning up the wick on any bike with more than 100bhp!
Agreed! Yeah, cool looks and speed are draws for many of us, and I am no different. But the machine must always be respected, and I am not here to seek validation from other drivers or bikers. I have found that the larger engine'd bikes are often a part of a larger bike.
Yes, tall folks have a regular litany of nameplates from which they choose a suitable mount.
There are the usual suspects like sport tourers and adventure bikes, but also some elder models that work for the lank suffused and can be found cheap and ready on the used market.
One of my former friends (he died of the cancers, we didn't get in a fight over which chicken sandwich is best at which franchise) tracked a hayabusa and he was like 6'6" and 350. That was mostly because it was all that fit him and the resulting power:weight was more or less a wash with an average guy on a ZX10 or whatever liter bike was there that day.
My best piece of advice is to hunt around in the used sporty bike market while focusing on the ones with one piece seats. Then you can scooch back all you need for leg and arm room. Later bikes with two piece seats are much more difficult to adapt for the lanky. For example, the Honda CBR600F4i- the fuel injected successor to the elder carbed see-bee-arruh 600 F, F2, etc.
As you move your pelvis farther toward the rear wheel axle, you'll get some weird dynamics, but you can sort it out or pay a chassis shop to do some valving. You won't be the first guy to track a sports bike while tall, but you will be the next tall guy to have to pay for real suspension that works. Traxxion Dynamics and folks like them love a challenge when making or modding dampers and choosing rates, so they're not scared.
Another good choice is a touring bike, ala KOTB. You can track something like an Indian Chief, which has way more clearance than a Harley Big Twin thanks to not having that dumb primary case on the right side. There were a bunch of power cruisers built with USD forks and kind of good suspension like the Yamaha Warrior and Kawasaki Mean Streak, etc. Then there's the long and deep bench of adventure bikes like BMW GS, a motarded big single or a factory built tard like the Kawi 400, or even a GoldWing based bike like the F4B ( but you'll run out of shin room on a wing). The Vstrom 1000 has a very good sportbike engine under the tank and seat, and can be hopped up a bit, plus it has a one piece seat and big aftermarket on top of being very affordable in the classifieds.
I'd stay away from exotic (read: Not Japanese) brands, even though I currently ride a Moto Guzzi (hand gestures).
Getting a cheap older bike will also allow you to allocate more cash for safety gear, for example if you want to do track days and need a tailored set of leathers and a really good helmet from Arai or other maker that fits your head shape and offers top protection stickers on the rear.
Awesome suggestions, thank you! I am saving yours and all of these for further research. I do like Indians, primarily from an aesthetic standpoint--some really classy, iconic designs. My brother had a couple of HD's, one being a Sportster. He wasn't into it for the sound or the flash, just enjoyed riding it. At 200 or just south, I thankfully won't tax too many bikes too hard, but like needing to go for base models without sunroofs or trucks, I have made peace with fitting best on larger, less go-fast-only bikes. Happy to keep things Japanese or American, and more affordable, especially to give more budget for good gear.
A good tool I always link for tall folks is cycle ergo. You can use the tools to do a kind of CAD layout of your knees and elbows to see if a bike fits or nah. Then you can narrow your choices to how the bike fits in a range for you. https://cycle-ergo.com/
Awesome resource! For my bicycles, I have a pretty dialed in fit for my knees and lower back's sake, so this will be a gold mine for analyzing various angles and heights. Handlebar height relative to saddle, lean-over angle, etc, all important. Thank you!
I dunno about recommending any sort of sports bike to a really tall (presumably middle aged) guy, especially if the height is in the legs. Maybe it's my banged up knees talking, but even test-sitting on Jack's Blackbird (a relatively roomy "hyper sports touring" bike in the same vein as the Hayabusa) had my joints aching. Vee/Wee-Strom is 100% the most straightforward route I'd say. Roomy/comfy, cheap to buy and own, reliable, usable performance that won't scare a beginner but plenty enough to not get bored with any time soon.
41 and approaching it or whatever that age range is. Definitely not a bike for long trips, so we come back to that timeless question: what are your intentions for my daughter? My knees are hanging in there, and regular cycling has me used to leaned-forward positions, but still, your perspective is valid and worth considering. If I want to road trip the thing, well, a 'Busa will be a trial.
DL650 and easy on the gas!
(Used Vstrom 650)
Sport tourers will work, I can personally recommend the Honda ST lines MY96+ (I have a 1995 and when the alternator kicks it I will be SOL, not so for the next year which runs a different one). There are Concours 1000 and 1400s aplenty but the C14s run more expensive, the FJR was being made until a couple years ago.
Buy the newest you can and as a new rider I recommend ABS.
I came here to recommend a used Wee-strom as well. Roomy, cheap to buy and a ready market for it when you're ready to upgrade. Enough power to be fun (0-60 in a bit under 4 seconds, quarter in 12.5ish), but not going to be too much for a novice either. Heck even a DL1000 like what Jack offered to test ride isn't too much to handle for a big guy. They have a decent bit of torque but it's not gonna loop over on you or anything and you really have to wind them out to feel the 100hp they're rated at. Something like a KLR650 fits big guys really well but they are just too damn gutless.
Thank you for the suggestions and additional context! I am 195-200, so more giraffe than wooly mammoth, but weight is weight. I'm happy to do gutless at the start. Plenty of basic and 'bike dynamics' education to be had first!
Within the world of 650 "thumper" (single cylinder 650cc) dual sports, my personal favorite is the Suzuki DR650. a bit lighter, no fragile radiator to worry about cracking, easier to do maintenance on (screw and locknut valve adjustment that's easier to access), and they feel a bit peppier than the KLRs. KLRs are more common and therefor a bit cheaper on the used market. But there's an ongoing motorcycle sales apocalypse going on at the moment so $2-3k can buy a decent one of either of the above. I still would lean towards the Wee-Strom as the better overall machine in terms of being much more highway capable. But if you have gravel roads near you to explore, a DR650 would be high on the list.
Thank you for the suggestions!
You should try my V-Strom. In fact, you CAN try my V-Strom. Stop by.
A Busa might fit you, but your wrists will be unhappy in the long run.
Thank you! Gotta get my butt on over from Portland, OR's Kuiper Belt is all!
You've received useful advice from others here. If you are willing to try a cruiser, I think you'd have many more options that are comfortable to you. Anything with floor boards is going to be a big plus. Harley and Indian sell many cruisers with those standard or as options. Think Softail Slim. Bikes like the Breakout or pre 2018 Fat Bob are also good for long legs (very stretched out forward controls). I'd avoid sporty anything. Even touring bikes with mid controls/pegs are going to feel cramped at your size.
So you mean my not-so-secret affection towards '60s/'70s American land yachts will manifest on two wheels??
Jokes aside, cruisers do appeal to me, albeit specific ones at this point. We had the Portland, er, Oregon Auto Show earlier in the year and I got the chance to hop on a few bikes there. Granted it's an everything-is-so-new scenario, the peg height on a few of the sport bikes was considerable--considerable knee (bend) angle, almost to squatting level(!).
" the aircooled community has disappeared so far into its own belly button"
Ruf just announced their own new air-cooled flat six that they claim is emissions compliant.
Well that’s pretty sick.
A Ruf is high on my Powerball Dreams list. Fascinating little company.
I wonder how much Hindu and Buddhist belief in reincarnation contributes to a fatalistic attitude among Indians.
I haven’t looked at this video. But did that piece of shit start his illegal turn from the center lane, with the minivan to his left, unable to avoid it? Or was the van driver not paying attention until it was too late, hitting the slowing truck from behind? (Which is going to lead to decapitations in the smaller vehicle!)
All of this is why I try to avoid semis like the plague!
The former, unfortunately.
Having just yesterday almost been run off the road by a semi truck as it carelessly decided it needed to be in my lane more than me, among the near-infinite other almost-tragedies I see coming from them as I trundle up and down 95, I too avoid them at all costs. My most reckless driving and/or speeding comes from trying to get around them. No matter the ethnic background of the driver, they are a PROFOUND danger for everyone else unfortunate enough to share the road with them.
I hate people who are 'afraid' of semi's, so they drive next to them for FIVE minutes as they slowly pass them.
I once reached over with my foot and pushed the accelerator to the floor when driving with one of them. I told them 'if you're afraid either pass them quickly or stay behind them. All you're doing is asking to be killed'.
I almost (but not quite!) dislike those people more than the tractor trailer that decides it needs to take up the passing lane for 12 minutes becuase it is going 61.5 mph, whereas the truck it is passing is going 60.75 mph.
Yeah, that’s when you start looking around the dash thinking “I thought I ordered the Sidewinder option, now where is the fire switch?”
Or any driver, for that matter, who clearly doesn’t intend to actually pass!
In the speed-governor era , this has become commonplace.
On the other hand, I think about all the times I saw big rigs doing 85mph twenty years ago, and think about today's class of truck driver.... maybe I'll take the governed snail race.
Well yeah if the choice is that binary.
On the other, OTHER hand I'd prefer truckers to not have their wages swing on the virtues of a mile per hour here or there and thus not have to deal with this at all. They shouldn't be allowed to leave the right lane pretty much ever imo.
If I’m right behind the rig in the left lane, I’ll straddle it such that the boneheaded driver can see my brights that come on, and maybe even hear me leaning on my horn, until they finally pass. (I actually fried a horn on my first car doing that. I recall one time on the Ohio Turnpike, I was behind a three-truck rolling roadblock for ** twenty miles! ** 🤬🤬🤬🤬)
I’ve also used an empty onramp to get in front of rolling roadblocks like that before! The acceleration lane of said onramp is more than enough room for such a maneuver, at least in more rural areas.
A buddy of mine spent some time as a volunteer firefighter several decades ago, and after he saw the results of a crash where a third-generation Trans Am ended up twisted around a tree about halfway up, after aforementioned vehicle had pole-vaulted off a rise in the adjacent road, with two fatalities the end-result, he compensated for that by resolutely. Never! Exceeding! The! Speed! Limit! By one iota!
There were more than a few times when he parked himself in the left lane, and I could see a line a half-mile behind him! A few times, if there wouldn’t have been a console in the way, I would have done that, saying “will you please go 70 in this 65 and let these people go by??!!”
He got his comeuppance when someone in line behind him literally vaulted onto the right shoulder, got around the vehicle he was “passing,” and managed to run him off the road! When he came over and showed me the grass and mud caked in his wheelwells, I said “you get no sympathy from me—unless you have a gun and a badge, or nail marks in your hands or some other connection to an Almighty, it’s not your job to enforce the speed limit!”
I hate people who think it’s their job to make everyone else drive slower.
I used to drive an ambulance when I was in college. I’ve seen some very nasty accidents. I just make sure not to exceed my abilities and try to watch out for those people who are exceeding theirs.
Historically, I considered them Professional Drivers, the Knights of the Road, and felt safer among them than the general population. Reality has changed considerably.
Rather than blaming immigrants or licensing or whatever, I'll blame an industry that prefers to suck the soul out the people who participate in it.
The paid-per-mile standard alone is enough to cause otherwise decent people and drivers to act dangerously.
I expect most industries to adopt a profit-maximizing strategy (if only to survive in competitive pressures). Sometimes laws / regulations are the least bad option. Enforcing sane, pro-citizen immigration laws solves millions of other problems.
Dave Dudley’s trucker is long gone.
Exact same thought, I used to trust being around them.
From what I understand and other images/videos I have seen and other reports, the truck was well into the turn. Meaning, the minivan wasn't right next to the truck. The problem is there is a slight bend to the right and up on the turnpike and going at speed around that curve, you wouldn't see a truck blocking the road until its too late.
Part of it could’ve been that the minivan driver had too long of an “oh shit!” moment and took too long to start reacting.
I know that if I see something like that ahead, I’m on the brakes as hard as they’ll go, and I’m into the grass median if necessary; I’ve had enough lesser incidents happen over my 30+ years of commuting, plus almost 40 years of driving.
Having interacted with them extensively lately on an anonymous professional networking site, I cannot comment directly on that, but I have noticed that the caste mindset ABSOLUTELY permeates every aspect of their thinking.
All problems are compartmentalized and away as a only a problem of the lower castes (without saying so explicitly).
I love when a simple request turns into 5 layers of “do the needful” emails before it gets to the last guy who has no idea what he’s doing so he just ignores it.
I'm really glad that earlier generations of immigrants wanted to become Americans, not turn the U.S. into eastern Europe or Ireland.
ASSIMILATE OR PERISH .
-Nate
They ASSIMILATED! Who knew?
The Nepalese nincompoop in my office (whose job “performance” started clouding my judgement about folks from the subcontinent—government office with omnipresent union, so no way to get rid of the useless fuck), as an example, was always bragging that he was going to demand that his teenage son become a doctor in order to make him rich! Uhh..no, doofus, your kid’ll be lucky to have his loans for medical school paid by the time he’s forty!
Please. Stop. You are triggering me.
Shhh! Don't you know that non-Indians aren't allowed to discuss the caste system because we just don't understand it. Regarding understanding other cultures, I'm with Sir Charles Napier.
"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."
After years of experience with Indian vendors, customers, co-workers, and neighbors, my observation is they've mostly operated on the "chalta hai" principle, basically that shoddy work is good enough if it looks acceptable upon casual glance, and if it isn't, it's someone else's fault. It colored everything they did and I learned never to trust their judgement or commitments. Yeah, I guess I'm a bigot.
Chabuduo is another expression of this mindset.
I spent half an hour cleaning my calipers when I had the forks off and that still wasn't sufficient to get them perfect. It haunts me.
So “chalta hai” is the Hindi version of China’s chabuduo?
From the examples I found online, chabuduo sounds similar, but the Chinese folks I've encountered don't exhibit it.
The literal translation would be 'it works' or 'it's okay'.
I'm not saying its the same as Chabuduo or its not, without context it would be impossible to qualify. But its the same expression as when your kid scrapes his knee and you tell him it'll be alright.
AI-like people that want to take stabs based on half baked 'knowledge' can guess all they want.
I don’t trust them either, in general. (Present company of ACFers excluded.) It’s my having to deal with them in endless customer-service situations that drives my distrust, along with their horrible exclusion of others when in a hiring position, as I’ve heard on here.
None. It's a dumb correlation.
I know that I'm merely a simpleton gora, but apparently it's a serious enough question to have been the subject of academic study.
From Grok: "several academic studies explore the connection between belief in reincarnation (often tied to concepts like karma and samsara) and fatalistic attitudes in India, particularly within Hindu cultural and philosophical contexts. These studies generally suggest that reincarnation beliefs can foster a form of fatalism by attributing current life circumstances, misfortunes, or social hierarchies to actions from past lives, leading to greater acceptance of events as predetermined."
Why do so many Indians think westerners have no standing to discuss Indian culture while they feel free to criticize western cultures? To be fair, it's not the only culture in Asia that's like that. Are any Asian cultures as self-critical as those in the West?
I tried to answer your question earnestly. You can take it or leave it.
I'm not referring to you or anyone else using any epithets.. you sound like a woman who seems to know what everyone else is thinking.. and if you do, good for you.
Grok can kiss my ass.
"It's a dumb correlation," is an earnest answer?
Immediately after saying you don't use epithets, you insult me and demean my masculinity.
Thanks for confirming some of the attitudes discussed in these comments.
You resorted to putting words in my (metaphorical mouth), and I'm not demeaning your masculinity by merely making an observation.
Apparently his Indian education taught him that conclusory statements coupled with insults are the highest form of debate.
There are a number of historians from the west who study India/South Asia who publish avidly and speak worldwide and yes, even in India. Uchicago and UPenn have particularly robust depts. I guess I don’t know how you reached the conclusion non Indians have no standing in this research or get pushback…
As for the grok summary it actually doesn’t link to any journals or specific studies…
In my mind chalta hai meant it would be fine and was an attitude to persevere through a setback, it wasn’t to justify poor performance. I guess I find all this interesting because growing up the high performers academically in high school were mostly Indian and Asian kids. I remember seeing the AMCAS stats for med school applicants and South Asians specifically had the highest MCAT scores of all applicants/matriculants.
There's a dichotomy here. Many of you believe all/most Indians to be caste obsessed lazy job stealers. Growing up, caste wasn't something discussed among Indians. If a self identified simpleton gora wanted to somehow dissect the caste system inserting their own biases to judge me I'd be a little annoyed/irritated. There's Bengali I follow who jokingly refers to his Dalit heritage as it in the past won him brownie points with ignorant leftist academics lol.
As for being fine with average performance or mediocrity...
This is laughable to me. Leftists in NYC are currently trying to dismantle the high school admission system where poor working class Indians and asians have used to get themselves ahead. The town I grew up in has one group of parents saying academics are becoming too rigorous...
So Ive heard both stereotypes at this point and you can't really reconcile them...
I'm sure one could cherry pick from any ethnic group, but stories like this don't help.
">
>
> Aesthetica
> @Anc_Aesthetics
> An Indian Walmart VP was making $30,000 a day in illegal kickbacks by discriminating against American applicants in favor of indian h1b applicants who were paying him the kickbacks for hiring them.
https://x.com/Anc_Aesthetics/status/1959923234016580079/photo/1
https://x.com/honestpollster/status/1960046154751652136
>
> Mark Mitchell, Rasmussen Reports
> @honestpollster
> Funny story:
> Ever click the button to cancel your order in Walmart, but it didn't work and you got the item anyway?
>
> Well one Indian engineering team programmed that button, and another Indian engineering team forgot link APIs to make that button work for third party orders.
>
> So every time that button got clicked, for every marketplace order, the seller was never informed the customer didn't want the item anymore.
>
> Hundreds of thousands of people, for years, clicked that button thinking their order would get cancelled, but then they got the order anyway And had to bring it to UPS.
>
> I was the first to discover this, among many other things, And both engineering teams didn't want to fix it because their bosses didn't want marketplace revenue to seem lower, even though most of these items would be returns.
>
> I just had my team run a query and cancel these orders everyday to fix the issue within days. I could never get anyone to sign off on it, so I just did it.
>
> I assume that the long-term fix has been sitting on some Indian engineering team's road map for years at this point.
>
> We uncovered dozens of major issues like this that Indian engineering teams were sweeping under the rug."
Ronnie, do you want me to start cherry picking stories/anecdotes on Jews? In the year 2025, I assure you I can find enough. In all honesty thought you were a bit better than this...
Can you elaborate further about how you think no one can comment on Indian/Hindu culture?
Universities have actual departments with decades of publications to refute this absurd accusation. I studied under an anthropologist who devoted her life to studying the Harappa civilisation...
You talk about Hindu and Buddhist ethos in regards to a Sikh truck driver not caring about the consequences about his illegal u turn...
Maybe maybe dig a bit more to see how Sikhism originated...
Maybe maybe look into the Khalistan movement and how this fucktard gained asylum....
This is wikipedia level research. But if you want to promote hate against the pagan browns, I guess your posts suffice.
This is a low level discussion. I respond because your shit promotes hateful discourse. I sadly expected more from you.
"Ronnie, do you want me to start cherry picking stories/anecdotes on Jews? In the year 2025, I assure you I can find enough. In all honesty thought you were a bit better than this..."
I'm the one who said it was cherry picking. I will note that it doesn't surprise me that an Indian executive exploited other Indians. When they first came to America, the Irish were exploited by other Irish, and the Jews were exploited by other Jews. Nobody else would hire them.
Why would you ignore that exploitation and instead get angry with me for bringing it up?
As for who may discuss Indian culture, while you may be fine with academic scholarship on the topic (I'm sure that somewhere around here is a box with my textbooks on Hinduism and the start of Buddhism), I've found that many Indians get a little prickly when non-Indians discuss aspects of Indian culture. We get told that we don't (perhaps can't) understand. It seems to me that there's an aspect to that in your comments.
As for your implied allegation that I'm a racist and religious bigot, after the horse you rode in on gets dealt with, there's a rolling donut waiting for your enjoyment.
The question that I have about service by subscription is if jailbreaking the software voids your car's warranty. Someone will eventually figure out how to get around the subscription locks.
Outside of voiding a warranty, unless they've agreed to some kind of license, I doubt that VW could legally prevent people from figuring out how to get their own hardware to do something it was designed to do.
The law on that has already been written, and it favors the licensor.
Try "unlocking" a version of Microsoft Windows Server into a Datacenter edition and using it.
has flashbacks to Windows Me …….
If that’s the case, makers of software have more control over what you do with their products than makers of physical goods. That’s almost like GM telling you that you can’t modify your car. I wonder how long it will be before some automaker decides to license the use of their products instead of leasing or selling.
Didn’t used to.
Tried that once before.
Makers of software have always had more control over what you do with their products than makers of physical goods. It comes from the distinction between buying something and purchasing a license to use something. You just paid for a license to use it as described in the license contract. So you don't own it and never did. It's how software has worked from day 1. When you buy hardware on the other hand the most the manufacturer can do is void the warranty for not using it as intended. Which is why anything they want to market as a service needs to be controlled by software as it is licensed (as opposed to the hardware that they sell).
So for something like the heated seats mentioned... Hacking the software to make it think you have a subscription to enable the heated seats violates the software license and leaves you open to legal penalties. Bypassing the software controls and wiring in a switch on the dash to send power to the seat heaters already installed is probably fine legally. Of course the software could be coded to note a lack of communication with the seat heater control electronics and decide to throw a check engine light and put the car in limp mode. Just because they are evil doesn't mean they are not clever.
VW's diesel emissions test cheating was pretty clever - have the emissions system work when there are conditions that only exist in the EPA lab. From discussing things with people working in engine development for the Big 3, I'm convinced that everyone in the industry knew they were doing it.
I'm sure everybody knew that their numbers didn't match. No other manufacturers squealed because small car diesels are just such a small market in the US it wasn't worth being a rat. Better to play dumb and hope everybody else will for you next time you push boundaries.
John Deere is already going down this path, damn the torpedoes. As is Caterpillar.
Good luck everyone!