More often than not.

I work in industrial construction on massive unionized projects with tradespeople coming from all over the US and Canada and I can tell you for an objective fact that the number of guys --it’s almost always guys, which should tell you something-- who drive giant lifted obnoxious trucks as their daily driver vs the number who actually really and truly need them on a regular basis is like 100 to 1.

But even if it were only 10 to 1, that means we have 10 times as many of these giant gas guzzling dangerous trucks out on the road.

The industry has done such a good job at selling these trucks as part of a self-image, that a lot of guys are incapable of admitting that the only reason they drive one is because they think it looks cool.

I can easily do all of that and more with my non-lifted mid-sized long-bed pickup. It’s just a fact my dude; they are selling a self-image, not actual utility. Or what about a van with a roof-rack. In my professional experience that’s a lot more utilitarian if you’re a tradesman.

Again, it’s all about an image that’s been meticulously and brilliantly marketed and sold to very specific demographics.

To be fair, they are hugely popular in both Canada and Mexico as well. I’ll leave it to you to figure out why.

Hint; if marketing didn’t work, it wouldn’t be a multi-billion dollar industry.

None. My wife doesn’t know about tact, or the polite white lie or anything like that. She doesn’t have time for that bullshit. It’s one of her endearing qualities.

Is it not the case that kale, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage are all basically derived from the same plant?

This is what I’ve been told, but I am very ignorant of such matters and while you will say that I can simply Google the issue, which is true, it’s never been enough of a priority for me to do so, goddammit.

As for Sequoia sempervirens or Sequoiadendron giganteum being forms of broccoli, I do in fact know enough dendrology to know that it’s bullshyte.

I’ve worked for a lot of super rich people over the years in high-end construction. Most (not all) of them are deeply un-self-aware and have no idea how they are seen by regular people because it would never occur to them to ever think about it. The lives of most people are like some strange and exotic foreign country that they’re vaguely aware of but that they have no real interest in. They’re aware of poverty as a concept, but that’s as far as it goes; it’s not something they actually understand or have any desire to understand or even think about.

A lot of this, I think, is somewhat deliberate in that it allows them to ignore how unjust their hoarding of wealth and resources is.

So is yours, ambiguous I mean.

In other words, I think you’re being ridiculously over-generous in your interpretation of ancient knowledge.

If it were in fact the case that the ancients had any real notion of Darwinian theory, I think they would have stated it in unequivocal terms, as they did with so many other Platonic and/or Aristotlean concepts.

Vaguely suggestive biblical lines interpreted as somehow suggesting an understanding of Darwinian theory strikes me as wishful thinking.

It’s partially but not entirely true. Having correct technique in your upper body matters too, as does accuracy, timing and the ability to create collisions.

All else being equal in terms of technical skill and leg strength, the guy with the bigger arms, fists as shoulders will have a stronger punch.

I had a ton of muscular atrophy in my right upper body due to a bulging disk in my neck --since corrected by surgery-- and I definitely noticed a huge diminution in my striking power, as did my regular sparring partners at the gym. So it definitely does matter.

I’m doing better now, but still not back to 100 percent and probably never will be. But that’s OK since I’m pretty old anyway.

That’s a very generous interpretation. I don’t think anyone can be blamed for not taking it seriously.

Most of what society tells us will make us feel happy and fulfilled in life is bullshit. Living a good life is primarily about your personal relationships. Things like social status and personal wealth are far less important.

you can always just call them by their first name or something else

Well I didn’t know you were called Dennis.

TBF we use metric wherever it’s needed as in science, engineering and the military. Imperial is more for everyday use and at least some of it, like feet vs meters, is more intuitive than metric since it’s basically the length of a grown man’s foot.

But again, wherever it actually matters, we do use metric.

Yeah but neither of those are by choice, they kind of got forced on us through tradition and regulatory capture.

K

Describe your “aversion” to death any way you want to, if in the end it results in something that very much looks like fear, I think you’re making a distinction without a difference.

It’s not rational. Evolution has hardwired us and every other organism that has the necessary neural architecture to fear death and seek to avoid it. A species that didn’t have an instinctive and heritable aversion to death would not last very long.

Fair play. That said, please do look up Hanford. It’s way bigger than Westlake and is potentially a much bigger problem, though granted, Westlake is problematic as well.

Scarcely. This is the tyranny of small differences. Portland and Seattle have way more in common with one another than they do with any other big cities in the US. Sure, there are differences, but to the rest of the world they seem trivial.

It’s notable, for example, that even something so organic as Seattle’s “grunge” music scene actually had its roots in Portland with all of the proto-grunge bands, like Napalm Beach and Dead Moon that came out of Portland’s Satyricon in the 1980s.

Right, but that’s why people are talking about nuclear as a bridge technology, not as a permanent solution. Whether or not we can make it pencil out before smashing through all of the critical tipping points in global temperature averages is not something I’m qualified to have an opinion on, but I’m credibly informed that we might at least want to give it a serious look.