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Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: September 14th, 2024

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  • Exactly.

    I’m probably generally more optimistic about the future than the average Lemmy users, but even if I were pessimistic about the broad big picture questions, I’d still have plenty of local bits of local optimism. I really enjoy the company of my friends and family. I’m excited about my kids growing into cool adults who will do good things, from the tiny and mundane (a piece of artwork, a joke that makes me laugh) to the medium (taking an interest in my interests) to the big stuff (making big moves to change the world for the better).

    I can’t end poverty or hunger. But I can support the food bank in my neighborhood and volunteer/give to organizations that are doing good work at alleviating hunger and homelessness. And maybe feeding someone a single meal doesn’t change the systemic problem that made him rely on my charity, but you’d better believe that meal still makes a difference to him in that moment.

    Same with getting local kids their school supplies, helping a neighbor raise funds to pay off some medical debt, getting someone work clothes so that they can go interview for a job, teaching people how to negotiate and organize for better pay, etc.

    We have plenty of power, collectively. Let’s not waste it being miserable and unproductive.




  • Seems like there’s a way to analyze this in a systematic way, from social security name data. Any name that popped up as a newly popular name and fell back off within a decade or two would probably eventually become a marker of that generation.

    Gladys was popular between 1900 and 1920, and became known as an old lady name by the 80’s or 90’s.

    Karen was popular between 1945 and 1965, and is regarded a prototypical boomer name.

    The Baby Jessicas of the 80’s will be retirees in the 2050’s. Ashleys and Emilys will probably be that in the 2060’s. There will be Britneys and Emmas.

    But the methodology could probably be applied to the data in a systematic way.