You can measure an economy's actual, real life, concrete health by: are people able to do their own weird shit?
Do they have money to survive doing their weird shit? Do they have the free time to do that weird shit?
Fuck the metrics, just look for the dirtbags and artists and musicians and writers
Do they have money to survive doing their weird shit? Do they have the free time to do that weird shit?
Fuck the metrics, just look for the dirtbags and artists and musicians and writers
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An economy friendly to dirtbags is friendly to *everyone* with a weird cool hobby.
You don't know enough self-declared dirtbags, crustpunks, burnouts & stoners if you think this isn't a well-earned term of endearment.
Not once.
You're wrong.
Rural nowadays means $1,000/month for a two bedroom house, but the jobs still pay minimum wage.
Apples and oranges.
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops".
Downtown has gentrified, the suburbs are close and nice, so the rep and weather is all that’s suppressing the market.
- a society of extremely stratified social classes
- a large impoverished working class
- a ruling class plutocracy, composed of the business, political, and military elites
Debts incurred thereby are the financial responsibility of the public treasury.
The embers are cooling.
But at least I get 10 USD/month extra in reduced taxes and. So there’s a silver lining.
Same is true of dudes who like to just ride around on motorcycles for the hell if it.
There’s garages everywhere too but not really use of space or time for them as we (GenX) did. I lived in a lot of places over the years with many musician friends, but seems kids now stay w parents much longer. Not as many bands on elders’ grounds
According to Gilliam, the Pythons turned to rock stars like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin because no studio would fund the [holy grail] and the rock stars saw it as "a good tax write-off" because the top rate of UK income tax was "as high as 90%" at the time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UB40
It’s the same energy and “I’ve got big ideas!” personality types, just without the cultural benefits
These days, as a doctor, my bank would lend me just enough to buy what would’ve been a poor person semi-detached back then. The poor people are homeless 😞
Now that's just like... lower middle class pay here in the city.
I can rent a one bedroom apartment.
I cannot imagine how I would have survived had I not pivoted to healthcare.
we're not people to them, we're just replaceable cogs in the money machine
Asset inflation is suffocating productivity. Wealth inequality is destroying this country.
Most of my friends can't
i never considered i might be a dirtbag
So, exactly.
Maybe AI isn't just to replace artists out of simple corporate greed. Maybe corporations want it because they're killing the supply of artists and know it.
It tends to be extremely vulnerable to sudden shocks.
https://xkcd.com/2347
Non-english speaking cultures are oddly doing a lot better on housing affordability, which is why eg Tokyo has a better street fashion scene
Think of the explosion of new musical genres from the 60s to the 90s.
What was the last one we had? Grunge?
https://music.ishkur.com/
They want a whole movement revealed from on high, Created and Pure.
Tell them that surf music is metal without distortion, or that psychedelic is the blues, and they start to melt.
My kids’ music tastes are pretty wide and eclectic. My daughter listens to Japanese jazz fusion amongst others.
But nothing I’ve heard strikes me as really ‘new’.
Happy to take recommendations.
If you mean “entirely novel,” you’re going to be disappointed. By everything since “rhythmic grunting and clapping” was new on the scene.
If you just mean “new to me,” you still need to remember that all music evolved from something previous.
Still, I care share.
Otyken, a Siberian folkpop girl band
Fun little ditty, imo.
The video is cute too, if you liked Hanna Barberra!
I actually recommend “Neath” first.
This is their most recent.
Specifically recommend listening to “Whatever Comes Or Way” first.
Let me see…some things I’ve been into “recently…”
https://youtube.com/@caravanpalace?si=ZSsN7rT0fQg-FLN8
Because people actually have the social safety nets to just work on indie games and not die of unemployment.