It must be said: Our country is a nightmare right now. I hope things are good for you locally, because they are a disaster at the national level. Thus far, Trump 2.0 has been worse than I was anticipating, and I was already anticipating things would be quite bad. I knew he would be terrible when it comes to things like upholding democratic norms, uniting the country, and maintaining strong international relations with our allies. (The Zelenskyy meeting was an utter embarrassment.) But he's fucking up even the things that he's supposed to be good at, like the stock market. It plummeted earlier this week and didn't rebound much. And even if you don't care about stocks,* you probably care about having a job, and Elon is gleefully, maniacally slashing government jobs and government funds that pay for a lot of NGO jobs. It's all being done in the name of efficiency, and it will be very efficient in leading us to the brink of recession. If Trump actually follows through on his plan to impose high tariffs on pretty much all imported goods, it might just push us over the edge.
*I don't really care much about them, to be honest. Like most people with a retirement plan, I have some money in the stock market, but it's just a number on a screen until it's time to withdraw, which won't be for many years, and I'm sure conditions will be different by then. But it does matter to some people now and not necessarily just rich people. I'm sure even, like, retired teachers have investment accounts that rely somewhat on stocks.
And we're only in month two. We can't even call it "our long national nightmare" because it hasn't been very long yet. We've got another 3.8 years of this bullshit.... *Sigh*
Alright, enough about that. Let's focus on more positive things for the rest of the post.
White Lotus! I mentioned in my last post that I resubscribed to Max just to watch it, and I was lamenting the fact that I didn't wait until all the episodes were out, so that I could binge watch it and then quit my subscription after only a month. But now I'm actually very glad that I didn't do that. There's something to be said for watching only one episode a week like we used to. I like that feeling of watching something with everybody else around the country. I miss the shared TV experience. Of course, relatively few people are actually watching it with me, compared to the old days, so there's no one really to talk about it with. If I brought up the show to a colleague at lunch (assuming I'm eating lunch with a colleague and they have Max, neither of which is a guarantee) they would probably be like, Oh yeah, is that the one at the resort? Haven't seen it. Everybody is watching their own things on their own schedule.
But that's where podcasts come in. I've really gotten into the White Lotus coverage on The Ringer's The Prestige TV podcast. They point out little things I missed, give background on the actors and writers,* and toss out theories about what will happen next. It's not as good as having an actual conversation that you can participate in, but it's the next best thing. It's the technological solution to a problem technology created in the first place. It's not quite adequate, but given that it's impossible to unring the technology bell, it's better than nothing.
*Or writer, rather, singular. I believe Mike White writes and directs every episode by himself.
Actually, it kinda reminds me of dating apps. They came along after I was already off the market (although I did very briefly do Match.com, back in the day), but from everything I hear, they're pretty much the only way people meet anymore. But the only reason we need them is because technology has so isolated us that young people, who never experienced the "before times," don't have the opportunities, nor the social skills, to pursue potential romantic partners IRL. Again, dating apps are a technological solution to a problem technology created in the first place. And also from everything I hear, they are not quite adequate. In fact, most people seem to hate the apps. I know a few married couples who met on the apps, but I know an equal number of people who have sworn them off completely. They would rather be alone than play the swipe game. I mean, dating was never easy (not for most of us, anyway). It was a top complaint among twentysomethings when I was a twentysomething, twenty-something years, but I think it's even worse now.
Anyway...
I've mentioned before that Lil' S2 is really good at math, and he's continuing to demonstrate it. Lil' S1 is pretty good too, but he's good in a more conventional way, where he will learn the methods and apply them appropriately and mostly get the problems correct. But Lil' S2 has this spark that I just don't see in many other kids. He's not necessarily a whiz at calculating things -- he's probably better than average for a kid his age, but he makes silly mistakes and messes up basic arithmetic sometimes, like most people -- but he has this uncanny knack for understanding and solving the broader problem. For example, the other day we were eating dinner and finding ways to entertain ourselves without using our phones (much to the kids' chagrin), so I started giving everybody math quizzes, and I posed the following problem:
You are in a circle with a bunch of people and a bunch of chickens. It goes person, chicken, person, chicken, person, chicken, all the way around. When a bell rings, each chicken turns and randomly pecks the person to its left or its right. What is the probability you don't get pecked at all?
Lil' S2 immediately yelled out "25%", which is the correct answer. He got it before Lil' S1 and S. When I asked him how he got it, he couldn't explain it very well. It seemed like he just kinda intuited it. Thinking that maybe he just got lucky I asked him another question:
I roll a die over and over again. Every time it's 1 or 2, I'll pay you a dollar. Every time it's 3, 4, 5, or 6, you pay me 50 cents. Is this a game you would want to play?
He thought about it for a few seconds and then said, "I think I'd just about break even," which again is correct. I asked him to explain, and again he couldn't really do it -- he gave a 9-year-old-word-salad response (although he did correctly know that the probability of rolling a single number is about 16.7%) -- but somehow he figured it out. It was pretty cool. I hope he keeps it up. I've been trying to get him to take coding classes -- I know he could be a really good programmer -- but he doesn't want to. That's his biggest weakness. He doesn't like to come out of his comfort zone. Well, he's still just a little kid, so hopefully this is something he grows out of, because it's a mindset antithetical to success. As a wise person once said, "Half of life is just showing up."
Alright, that's all. Until next time...
