Th3 Core

Historically, fertility is highly influenced by the economy. There is good data on this for late medieval Tuscany based on tax and census records.

One of the big economic shifts has been the participation of women in the workforce. That may be the biggest change globally. In the US, the insane cost of housing in large cities is probably a big factor. You could speak to this better, but I always hear of downtown SF as essentially a child-free zone.

Personally, I’d be hard-pressed to say why exactly I did not want kids, but frankly it was a decision I came to during my years of deep depression in my 20s. I decided I didn’t want to be responsible for that. I am not saying that is a good reason (if true, why not adopt?)  or that my mind was working well at that time (definitely was not), but that was the root of it. Then as I felt better in my 30s, I just never changed my mind. I think if I had been happy in my 20s, I would have felt very differently about having kids. I’ve actually always liked kids and gotten on with them well.

That's awesome. When I worked from home all alone my wife wanted me to get a dog, but since they are not allowed on the vast majority of trails here, I never did.

But having someone who is thrilled to go outdoors and run around with you and perturbed when you are feeling too tired is a great means to regular outdoor time.

You are assuming he's a rational actor.

Ha ha! I’m certain he is a “very stable genius.”

I do like to see people, unstable or not, raise the idea of alternatives to a “free with ads” model.

I know Musk is not the person to do it and the hope itself that is ridiculous and the horse long ago left the barn.

Still, Buckworks (if she’s reading) will know what I mean when I say that fundamentally the “free with ads” model for these big platforms was a bargain with Mammon that has had toxic effects.

As for Musk, I really don’t care if he destroys X. It would be a shame if he destroyed Tesla and a problem for me personally if he tanks Starlink with his antics. I hope these companies can move past Musk who seems to have some level of clinical mental health issues.

The red neck version was a test dummy not a real human (according to commenters who looked at it frame by frame)

Okay, that looks fun. The red neck version needs a little calibrating though

As often as possible, I use fake DOB. And I use my Rick Deckard alter ego if a website has no real reason to ask my name. So my spamcatcher email is full of "Hi Rick," emails.

But it's all a drop in the bucket. The credit card companies and credit reporting agencies know pretty much everything there is to know about me. What they don't know, Google knows.

The flip side is all of this does add real convenience. There was a time I traveled with a stack of cash and, maybe, traveler's checks. In 1985, I hitchiked down the west coast of the US after a summer in Alaska with no credit card and $3500 (about $10K inflation adjusted) in saved wages in my pocket in hundreds and twenties.

I didn't leave much of a trail. The flip side is I could have lost a whole summer's wages and I was pretty nervous a few times but, strangely, not with the guy who's first words to me were: "You f### with me and I'll kill you." ;-)

For me, it's not the privacy, but the manipulation. And that's where siphoning my browser history is a concern - it's not that they *know* because there's nothing there I am not willing to share, it's that it can be combined with other data and deployed to manipulate my behavior without me understanding that.

So that's why, even though it's a losing game, I run tracking blockers just to make it that much harder for them and to at least reduce ROAS across the system if possible (easier for me to say now that I don't buy ads). But admit the truth - if you're buying ads, you always wish you knew just a little bit more about the people seeing your ads.

Nice explainer. I knew they were using proof of work methods, but didn’t kmow that it was also based on browser history. That would explain why tracking blockers kick you to the puzzle solver methods.