ajey.space
Utility energy analyst building a crystal ball
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42 following
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RIGHT I forgot his name—good point about his MO though
I still think his shift is indicative. I get the sense that the 2010s culture war was driven by Millennials who are now in their 30s and increasingly are married with kids…which moderates woke/anti-woke tendencies
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I’m reminded of that article about a white nationalist moving to the midwest, realizing he hated, and moderating his politics into something more forward-looking
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So I’ve collected a LOT of beautiful objects across multiple domains that mostly elude notice until someone asks “Is that __?”
And I get to smile and say, “Yeah. U get it :)”
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An addendum—the core idea in my head (that has translated into my dress overall) is that I’m a social butterfly.
I’m a civil servant, and an artist, and an athlete, and a serial rabbit-hole-explorer. I am a little bit of everything, but I won’t tell you that upfront.
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I’m an amateur athlete from Boston, but I also have artistic tendencies and a penchant for “if u kno u kno”—by wearing these two pieces together, I _think_ I’ll be able to harmonize these ideas into a long-shot reference that’s still legible.
I’ll confirm when I try it :)
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The idea I have in mind is pairing these pants: acrnm.com/P15-DS_FW2324
With this sweatshirt: www.tracksmith.com/products/m-t...
Tracksmith is Extremely Boston prep athletic gear, and Acronym is _the_ techwear brand
The fit will juxtapose two kinds of niche athlete’s-day-off clothing
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It seems like both “Japan is poorer than the US” and “Inflation is down” both attract…inflation truthers, for lack of a better term
“Well no, Americans are actually POOR, damn your numbers!”
Maybe it’s some combo of “grass is greener” and personal pessimism?
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Broadly, Russia was distracted with Ukraine, Hezbollah was decimated by Hezbollah, so Assad’s support fell away. From what I understand, Türkiye nudged HTS to move to Aleppo.
I don’t think even HTS expected the thunder run to Damascus.
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Morbidly, I look forward to Elon and Co starting fires all over the public sector—as someone who works in the public sector—because at the very least it would cause a crisis large enough to motivate, say, procurement law that doesn’t drive me to madness
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I’d be curious about how daily life has gone for civilians—in particular, life in Idlib could provide a preliminary test to how HTS handles governance.
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Was it “Everything was Forever, Until It Was No More” by Alexis Yurchak?
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Have you seen the sex negativity stick into offline behavior? Like, has the rhetoric converted into people (esp. young millennials/old gen z) marrying and having kids and moving away from cities?
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These accounts of your kids confirms that also want kids someday
The process of watching a personality coalesce sounds amazing
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One potential benefit of consolidation is reprieve from algorithmic feeds.
If you’re paying for a steady volume of work that feels like a pulse check on the world, that’s one less reason to be on a doomscroll venue
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Nothing has alleviated my doomer tendencies more than making a career out a social challenge. Not only do I make decarbonization my Literal Life’s Work…it pays the bills too.
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Btw Cox Automotive reported the average sale price of an EV in 3Q2024 as $56,361…vs an industry average of $47,335.
That upfront price gap is still larger than the federal EV incentive.
But anyone complaining about high EV prices should try buying a spec’d up RAV4.
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…well how do you now if the citations are good?
Recognizing fallacious reasoning and poor epistemic hygiene helps, but my middle school English curriculum didn’t have a unit on “did you know you’ll be lied to at scale from all directions?”
No one knew that would happen.
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As an example, I’m one of those Zoomers. I had to build my bullshit filter from scratch, at the cost of holding TERRIBLE opinions in college.
Books didn’t help—anyone can write a book now.
School didn’t help—no one assigned me Harry Frankfurt.
So we’re all in the lurch.
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“Well one is correct and one isn’t.”
But how do you know? Just today, I’ve read right-wing yahoos who sound erudite and a journalist covering a coup with drunk typos.
The established signals of Truth are easy to fake, and the Established institutions have lost trust. See: NYTimes hate
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I’m not sure if accuracy is an asset so much as it’s hard to signal unless you have a well-trained bullshit filter.
Short of actually reading the content, what differentiates a trustworthy vs. an untrustworthy voice on a tweet, podcast, or blog post?
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Credit to Welch, leveraging an otherwise-anonymous meme interaction into a genuine media career in six months (!!!) is genuinely impressive
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But neither of these reasons explains why wholesale electric prices stayed high through the night, peaking at over $200/MWh at 4AM this morning…because cleared demand was WAY higher than actual demand overnight.
ISO is pretty good about providing reports on things like this…here’s hoping
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Bizarrely, reserve prices didn’t tick up.
What did happen from 10AM to noon-ish yesterday
1. Demand in New England exceeded what the day-ahead market had cleared
2. Natural gas production dipped by TWO GIGAWATTS for ??? reasons
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Oh absolutely, fuel oil has a limited future in the New England grid.
…But the price of natural gas is terrifyingly low versus alternatives, and applying an abstract carbon cost to demonstrate an equalized cost between gas and renewables does not convince ordinary customers.
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To me, the pro-climate talking points often read as “they can’t do math”
It’s one thing to insist “We should pay the costs to do the right thing.”
Vs. “The costs even out if you add an economic modifier X.”
To people who don’t parse depreciation, that talking point reads as lying
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I think there’s also a lack of honesty around the tradeoffs
Like right now, at least in New England, the renewable electricity costs more than the natural gas baseline, and climate activists are often reticent to just say “Yeah, that’s true, and I think it’s still important”
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In a way, it’s gratifying that there’s a prominent voice on the conspiracist right called “Catturd.”
It just makes plain the refusal to even pretend to be measured or polite
“No, here’s a dude with a willfully vulgar meme name, on my podcast!”
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I suspect because Trump makes for good TV. Even past his peak, he remains an EXCELLENT wrestling heel.
Keep in mind that most liberals aren’t intellectually curious either—Jimmy Kimmel gets numbers too.
There are just *more* readers on the left
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That metaphor is quite similar to one I’ve been giving to people about my job (I work in electric utility power supply)…I’m preparing to be a firefighter for when the institution starts burning
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How will these shifts affect what homes get (re)built? If the storms keep coming and the infrastructure fails to keep up, how does this affect home construction?
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What I find challenging is finding opinions from people who aren’t loud about them—the people who quietly go to work, get married, have kids, and barely consider their politics, much less post about them.
I have NO idea what they think or how much it swings policy.
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And the Gen X story isn’t just grunge! It’s also building the Internet as we know it and voting Trump in 2024!
We could see a similar reversion with Millennials—the story won’t just be about growing up with the Internet. There’s more to it than that.
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We’re used to the stereotype of Millennials being narcissistic, but one thing Strauss and Howe note is that the things that define generations aren’t necessarily teenage/young adult experiences.
The Boomer story wasn’t just about young hippies—it’s also about middle-aged yuppies
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I think this is also happening politically, as Millennials and older Zoomers (whom Strauss and Howe would consider Millennials) lay down their political arms
Note how the initial pugilists of GamerGate are nowhere. Even Ben Shapiro has simmered down.
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Would it make sense for me to go to a clothier with a set of outfits I would usually wear (or pictures) and ask them to suggest improvements or things I’m missing?