#but the current prospects are looking about 30-50 so we are not balling

[thecranewivesrpf]

school system sucks. wdym the expectation is that I spend 4 hours studying after school. what the fuck. how am I supposed to play games and play guitar and sew and draw and write and rest and

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

September 6, 2020

My weekly view of things I am up to and thinking about. Topics include the future of Earth, housing in California, the national debt, carbon pricing, and software complexity.

Earth’s Future

The funder is interested in developing a timeline of Earth’s past and future and placing human history in the geologic context. It’s a bit off the beaten path for us, but a fun project, and I spent some time this week on it. It got me thinking about Earth’s long term future.

We all know, in at least a vague sense, that Earth’s days are numbered. I think most of us know that we expect the Sun to go nova some billions of years from now (about 7.6 billion I think is the best estimate), and barring intervention from a future advanced civilization, no life will be able to survive that.

I found this paper by O’Malley-James et al. to be an interesting read. It discusses the future of life from an astrobiological perspective, asking what biosignatures a distant civilization might observe from Earth in the distant future. Plant life that depends on C3 photosynthesis, and by extension most animal life, has maybe 500-600 million years left, beyond which point carbon dioxide is too depleted. Plant life based on C4 photosynthesis might make it 900 million years. From then on it’s only microbes. Eukaryotic life might last 1.2 billion years before the oxygen is depleted. Prokaryotic life was here first, and it will probably be here last. The paper estimates 2.8 billion years as an upper bound for any microbes at all to survive in caves or underground. For the remainder of its existence, Earth is a sterile, lifeless world without oceans, an atmosphere, or geological activity.

Before all that, Earth’s biosphere may go into an irreversible decline after the formation of Pangaea Ultima, about 250 million years from now. At that time, the combination of merging of continents, cooling of the Earth’s core, and increasing of solar luminosity will result in a falling of carbon dioxide to the point where today’s biological productivity cannot be sustained. Earth is now 95% of the age it will be when this happens.

It is an unspoken and open question of how this general picture might be altered by a civilization that is capable of effecting meaningful change over geological timelines. Human civilization is not at this level presently, and it is unclear if we will attain it.

I wonder too how contemplation of the biosphere’s mortality influences how we think of environmentalism and sustainability. Perhaps 250+ million years is so vast a time that it cannot be distinguished from infinity in our minds. For my part, I can admit that the prospect genuinely bothers me.

Housing in California

California’s legislative session expired at the end of August, and with it, another opportunity for statewide zoning reform. Scott Wiener’s SB1120 would have allowed duplexes on single family lots. It is a modest but valuable proposal which had majority legislative support, but some last minute parliamentary shenanigans from the party leadership ran out the clock.

I continue to think that the housing issue in California is intractable, and that with its current strategy, the YIMBY movement will not be able to attain any but the most marginal victories. The Bay Area needs to increase its housing supply by at least 50%, maybe 100%, to really solve the problem. To achieve those kinds of numbers, allowing duplexes and ADUs is not going to cut it. The region needs to be open to horizontal as well as vertical expansion. Something must be done to break the dysfunction in the construction industries that prevents buildings and infrastructure from being delivered at a reasonable time and speed. The movement should also stop diddling around with measures that feel good but will backfire, like rent control and vacancy taxes.

Meanwhile, the tech industry is continuing to make tentative moves toward remote work. I continue to be hopeful but skeptical that widespread adoption of remote work can finally get housing costs under control.

My suspicion is that the YIMBY movement has succumbed to the Shirky Principle, which posits that “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” An ever-growing share of its energy is devoted to playing the Reds vs. Blues game, which is more than redundant in California. They have no vision of what an affordable California or Bay Area look like, no credible plan for getting there, and ideological blinkers that foreclose many important aspects of the solution.

As I’ve done several times before, I go back to Citizens Climate Lobby, which I see as the gold standard for political advocacy done right. They have a clear vision of passing a federal carbon fee and dividend plan. They don’t dilute their efforts on ancillary priorities or play partisan games. They have commissioned detailed economic modeling of the plan and have made every effort to insure it works from both a technical perspective and from a range of value systems. I don’t know if CCL will succeed, but at least they can succeed, unlike most activists, and CCL is one of the few major organizations I feel good supporting.

Red Ink

The Congressional Budget Office released an unsurprising but grim report on the national debt. The debt-to-GDP ratio stands at 98%, the highest ever except for a brief time at the end of World War II. It should cross the 100% mark next year and reach 109% by 2030.

Deficits are a classic gnarly problem. They are harmful but not catastrophic, and the harms are mostly at some indeterminate point in the future and are not clearly visible. This makes them easy to ignore, and ignoring the debt, or at best using it as a partisan talking point, is now an established bipartisan tradition.

Japan somehow continues to function with a debt-to-GDP ratio exceeding 230%. I don’t know how high the US can go on this metric and hope not to find out. We’ve seen debt crisis in Europe and Argentina recently. What I think is more likely is that debt service will be another ball and chain, along with population aging, stagnant productivity, and broken housing, health care, and education markets, on the American economy.

Carbon Pricing

Resources for the Future has a new carbon pricing calculator tool out, evaluating several proposals from the current Congress.

At the $52/ton level, four of the eight proposals stand out as having a positive benefit/cost analysis when economic costs are weighed against CO2 reduction alone. In all eight cases, “secondary” health benefits exceed the CO2 benefit as well as economic costs. As economic intuition would suggest, benefit/cost ratio goes down the higher the carbon price goes, since as the price goes up, we move down the ladder from most cost-effective emissions reductions to less cost-effective.

For my own part, I’ve generally been using a social cost of carbon of $50/ton. A few years ago, that seemed like a reasonable median estimate. At some point I want to review the literature again to see if I should be using a different figure.

The large health benefits are good for making the case for carbon pricing, but they raise some questions. The numbers strongly suggest that we should be thinking about air pollution reduction as the primary goal with CO2 reduction as a secondary goal. But if we do that, is carbon pricing really the most effective policy on air pollution?

Software and the Collapse of Civilization

I found this talk from last year by the game developer Jonathan Blow. He details ways in which the software industry is unable to deliver fast, reliable products and analogizes to historical failures of technological reproduction that are associated with past civilizational collapses. The talk is about an hour. I have to say it is a bit odd, but I found it worth watching.

Several time throughout my life, I have made attempts to get into the software industry, and at other times such as now I have programmed on a hobbyist basis. While I don’t see bad software as a major existential risk to civilization, there are clearly problems. Blow identifies what could also be called the bloatware problem: programmers tend to reach for libraries and abstractions in their code, needlessly inflating size, complexity, runtime, and bugs. He worries that abstraction has become so pervasive that the industry is not even capable of delivering reliable software at this point, and the knowledge of machine code programming has been largely lost.

Blow’s argument is reminiscent of the success problem, as described by Samo Burja, or the notion of social reproduction.

I’ve toyed with the idea of trying to develop the analogy between software bloatware and policy bloatware, a term to describe the phenomenon of public policy being designed in ever more complex manners. An overly complex policy environment increases the difficulty of coordinating the entities required for a solution, and it causes solutions to look more like patches and kludges over problems rather than actual solutions. An example is the attempt to address housing affordability problems by developing complex, multi-government affordable housing subsidies. Kludgeocracy is the best term I’ve seen for this phenomenon so far.

Casey Muratori identifies the same problem, which he called the 30 million line problem, so named because he estimates that to write the most basic “Hello World” web app requires, between the server and the client, at least 30 million lines of code and probably far more, with present technology. He proposes a solution based on a universal CPU instruction set and restoring root access to developers. Ironically, the talk (excluding Q&A) is over an hour when I think 10 minutes would have been sufficient to convey the key points without loss of essential detail.

[schroedingersk8]

15. Let Me Draw You A Pie Chart

Or  Why I Refuse To Date For Free. 

I have written this post as a personal opinion, but I think it would be of tremendous use to my fellow Dommes and International Women of Mystery, as a read and perhaps a thought experiment, too. If you have any questions, please contact me via K8Morgan.com

I have woken up today, and have decided to dedicate my inaugural 2020 dating blog post to what is bound to become a very a prickly subject -- remunerated dating. Thing is, that yesterday, before going to bed, I have posted a three-line response to an anonymous question, and woke up to an anonymous answer in a scandalised line of “how dare I?” :)

And I laughed to myself, but also thought that, in this day and age of #mansplaining and with my work as a Dominatrix shrouded in all kinds of myths, maybe I ought to do a bit of #dommesplaining (I am very proud of this hashtag, btw!) and show exactly how, and why I dare. So, my dear, let me draw you a pie chart: 

This is my pie chart of life. 

Are you with me so far? Am I condescending enough? 

You can read it as a day, month, year, etc -- this is an entire life-flow, and I have organised it, for myself, in in the following manner:

There is “Me time” -- a pleasant tea on a sunny bar terrace, a visit to a SPA, upkeeping my good looks -- manicures, haircuts, meditation, just 20 minutes of quiet nothingness to myself. Then there are “Vanilla Life Obligations”-- doing a food shop, waiting for deliveries, arranging household needs, plumbers, boiler revisions, own health check up, cat health check ups, getting paperwork done, etc. Then we come to “Active Hobbies and Social Obligations” -- things I enjoy doing outside of the house -- maybe an opera visit, a museum stroll, a theatre performance, a gallery opening, gym, walk in the park, an excursion, a friend’s birthday party, or crisis counselling, or just a few beers with gossip et al. We also have “Passive Indoor Hobbies” -- things I usually do in the comfort of my own home -- reading classics by the fireplace, covered in Feline Overlords, watching some telly, taking a bath...you get the drift. And then, there is “WORK”. Want to venture a guess and pick which one is which? 

How well did you do? It is, of course, a very rough estimate. But this is how I have arranged my life. 

As you notice, there is no pie slice for “romantic relationship” because for me it is not a necessity. I am very happy with my current life, and 2020 will mark 9 years of me being “emotionally single” and “self-partnered”. Would it be nice to have a relationship? Maybe. But at this point it will be coming at the cost of other things. And I am not willing to surrender those things. Should I skip a visit to El Prado because you want your knob polished for free? Should I stop seeing my friends and family, who have been with me for years, because your ego needs continuous attention for the following 3 weeks, every time you come home from work? Should I banish my cats to an animal shelter because your balls need free shining? No? Then the only thing that has to give is my work time allocation.

“Pah, you dedicate too much time to work!” -- I hear you scoff. Now, have you met many self-employed/entrepreneurial people? Do they spend 30 min a day, only, on their projects? Let me remind you that DOMMEWORK IS WORK. S#X WORK IS WORK. If I were doing a PhD, would you whinge about my time allocation to studying? 

My work is something that brings me joy, my work is something that I find challenging, stimulating and fun. My work is something that pays my bills. All those things are already more than what I can say about your contribution to my life so far. 

And, as any work, it gets even more detailed:

I do not know if you can see it well in the picture, but my work currently consists of seven parts:

Research and Development -- studying marketing and pricing trends, consumer behaviour, strategies, new BDSM fabs, new media tendencies.

Implementation -- with the results of research and development in mind, making website updates, skill updates, new inventory and alike.

Analytics -- establishing what worked, what worked best, and what did not work at all, and changing things accordingly.

Work Admin -- reading and answering all your emails and inquiries, about sessions, pricing, availability, and about chances to date me for free.

Business Admin -- taxes, forms, rebates, etc etc etc.

Social Media Maintenance -- social media is the pipeline from where I get my clients, and no maintenance = no new clients.

Actual Sessions or Tours -- the time actually spent in sessions or preparing for sessions.

This, above, is a VERY rough estimate of what currently goes into my work. This does not even include the work I do for my fan sites. This is just the most basic task allocation in the most basic idea that you might have of my work. 

Yes, I am self employed, but the world these days places same requirements on the one-person-flying-circus as they do on corporations. Everybody expects me to post pretty pictures a few times a day. Everybody expects me to provide customer service. Government expects me to pay taxes. Anyone with a New Year’s Resolution to “date me this year” expects a reply, and then an even longer reply of “why not?” Clients expect me to look my best. To succeed in industry I need to be on top of the tendencies. And to be proud of my work I expect myself to do my absolute best. 

And yes, I HAVE to do everything myself. As such, I employ a cat nanny/cleaner so I can spend few more hours per week learning and studying. Yes, I do as well as I do because I DELIVER on most expectations. And I am able to DELIVER on them because of meticulous hard work that I put in, today and every day, into my business. (Tumblr is part of my Business Profile, by the way, otherwise I wouldn’t be spending time on it. For example, I deemed Instagram no longer cost effective after 3 years as it was not worth the time I had to put into it in terms of prospective client growth, so I stopped using it, at 50K+ followers.) 

As I hope you understand (I simply cannot draw a more basic pie chart!), any reduction in time I spend doing my work results in less income for me. Now, DommeWork, in terms of my age, and in terms of my looks, is an enterprise limited in time. Whatever I save is my future pension, it is my future cash flow, it is my nest egg, for when I retire. Why should I deprive myself of that, so that you could get your knob polished for free? Why SHOULD I make less money for myself just so you can save YOUR money??? 

“Oh, you only have dollar signs in your eyes, you do not value me as a person and as just an cash machine!” -- No, my dear, my stance on “free dating” has absolutely NOTHING to do with you, or how I view or value YOU. But it has EVERYTHING to do with how I view MYSELF, how I VALUE MYSELF, and how I VALUE MY TIME.  Even to give you, a man from the Internet who thinks I owe him free dating, a try for a month, and dedicate 20% of my work time, to you, instead of work, will result in a 20% reduction in MY income the following month. Now, 20% of my average monthly income is roughly my monthly rent. So, I should give up my ENTIRE month’s rent in order to see whether you are worth it? While you do not think you should be paying for dating?

And, what exactly is “it”? The funny thing is that in the “best case scenario” of us moving in together and living happily ever after, you would occupy at least half of my time, ever pushing for more, costing me a 50% reduction of income (that’s TWO ENTIRE RENTS) to then just have to contribute “your fair share” of HALF THE RENT!!! 

So, you are down HALF the rent, while I am down TWO RENTS AND A HALF! And when you yelp “but what about love, love should be free, it is priceless, a relationship should be about two equals!” this is exactly how much YOUR priceless love, by the roughest estimate of the projected loss of earnings based on time allocation is going to cost ME, per month. TWO AND A HALF RENTS. While you insist it should be FREE for you because it is priceless! Show me the equality in that relationship, you equal rights champion you! Where is it? Or is it like in Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, some pigs should be more “equal” than the others? I mean, really???

Do we need another chart to explain to you the “bigger-smaller, up-close or far-away” concepts? Because your parents should have explained it to you when you were about 4 years old... 

“Yeah, well, other women do not expect me to pay them to date them!” -- I do not know what to say to that  -- maybe they value themselves less. Maybe they have too much free time on their hands and are bored. Maybe they cannot entertain themselves. Maybe they need help watching Netflix. Maybe their rents are so high in relation to their overall income that half a rent or half the mortgage for them is worth the trouble. Maybe the contribution they think you will make to their life is worth it for them. Or maybe they need to take a look at my pie charts themselves? In any case, if free dating is what you want, you should address your needs towards them, not me. 

So, my dear, as I dash to my drinks and tapas with friends, as it is a beautiful Sunday afternoon -- and I had to push back my attendance by an hour to finish writing my work blog post to address the topic raised too many times this week alone -- let me give you a word of advice. Before you get your panties in a knot and get thinking of what you can get from me for free -- ask yourself a very hard question: what can you really contribute?

No one, under the penalty of the EU copyright laws, is allowed to use or reproduce my blog or individual posts, or even passages, in any way, shape or form, be it for Netflix series, Amazon books, or anything of the kind, regardless of the credit given. If you have any questions, you may contact me via K8Morgan.com

[falloutdialogue]

Logs from the Railroad’s Leaders

After completing the main storyline with the Railroad ending, the PAM mainframe terminal will allow you to access terminal entries from the Railroad’s past leaders, revealing some more backstory. Wyatt was leader from 2266-2273, Pinky was leader from 2273-2277, Desdemona has been leader since 2277. Desdemona claims Wyatt’s reports are the ‘earliest surviving records of the Railroad's history.’ 

Wyatt (66-73)

2266 Nov

Gathered surviving runners, held an election. I lost, or won, depending on how you look at it. After the HQ massacre, most people simply left the Railroad. Only one person survived HQ, a runner named John D. He called out for volunteers to get some of the old files. No one stepped forward. My job is to rebuild the Railroad from scratch. I think where Agamemnon went wrong, is that HQ was known by too many people. I'm theorizing here, but once the Institute hit a safehouse and leaned on anyone the HQ would be easy to find. But how could Agamemnon know just how deadly those damned Coursers are? Current count: 13. 0 synths. How the hell do we rebuild from here?

2267 Feb

Got our first synth out of the Commonwealth last month. Threw one Hell of a party. What people don't know is another runaway was recaptured by the Coursers before we even got to them. John D has been finding tourists at a pretty good clip. But he keeps their identities to himself. Operational security he calls it. It makes me grind my teeth, but he's probably right. I think our whole organization needs to be more like a pyramid. A broad base of tourists that help out, mainly with information. Then the runners and safehouse owners in the middle. Then agents. Then HQ on top of that.

2273 Mar

A whole work crew of synths escaped together. Five synths at once. We're scrambling to keep them hidden. Coursers have been spotted looking for them. They found one of our safehouses, but no one there knew where our HQ is. John developed a dead drop system we've been using. Some vocal elements (Toby) say we should shut down. But that's a year and a half worth of synths.

Pinky (73-77)

2273 Dec

I just found Wyatt's journal. For whoever runs this outfit in the future, I figure you should know how we messed up. We were running the Workgroup Five out of the CW when Coursers found our HQ. Total shitstorm. Deacon (that's what he's calling himself now) had an escape route planned, and most of the survivors owe him their life. Wyatt didn't make it past the first hail of bullets. Something everyone should know: if one safehouse goes down assume that all Hell's coming for your ass, because it probably is. Always, always, ALWAYS assume the Institute has resources beyond what we can imagine. From now on only the heavies leave HQ. And we got to move our packages fast. This slow crap hurts more than it helps.

2275 Jun

Damn it. We got two synths, or packages as we're calling them now, out of the CW. Running the 3rd and a Raider gang caught them. Total blood bath. P.K. almost lost his package near Danvers, too. I kicked Deacon out of HQ, got sick of the lying, face-changing son of a bitch. That month he spent as a Ghoul freaked a lot of people out. Going to keep running hard.

2276 Jan

Lesson: move all packages outside the Commonwealth. Lamda 8 homesteaded off Parsons. She got married to a farmer. Coursers found her and it got bloody. Lost Lamda 8. Her wife almost bit the bucket, too. Courser spotted heading south (with company). Watts volunteered to track them.

2276 Sep

Desdemona is a real pain in the ass. Keeps harping on every little damned thing. Worse than Deacon and Carrington combined. We lost a safehouse and went to ground. SOP. Desdemona says I'm being sloppy. I'm getting sick and tired of leading these misfits.

Desdemona (77-)

2277 Dec

After we lost Trinity, Pinky Thompson stepped down. It took some persuasion. We held a vote on who should run the Railroad. It came down to me and Carrington. Might be a problem there. The doctor, Deacon, and I have been analyzing the many, many mistakes of Pinky. Our "batting average" is roughly 50/50. Only a few synths a year make it out. It's hard to keep motivated when failure is so epidemic. We're going to hit the fundamentals: operational security. Look outs, counter-intelligence, and compartmentalization. We need to reduce the response time to find a new synth runner.

2279

2 escapees. 1 loss. 2 reclaimed before interception. Added a new member to core HQ. Thomas Weatherby. An Institute grenade did a number on his family farm. He's rattled but very, very smart. Hoping he can arm us with something better than pipe pistols. Organization grown. Devised rail signs and improvements to dead drops. No Coursers spotted all year. Merry Christmas.

2280

One of our rescues, G7-81, took a strange turn. Most synths are traumatized and go through the procedure with Doc A. G7 opted out. Begged to join. Did some crazy stunts with High Rise at Ticon. Called her into the HQ. Promoted "Glory" to heavy. She's well suited for the role (perhaps too much so). Been working with Tom. Brilliant, but he's getting increasingly eccentric. Carrington says the stress is causing severe psychological problems. But he's too damned essential. God help me, I'm keeping him on. 2 escapes. No losses. 1 reclaimed. Quiet year. Less chrome domes in the field than the last two years. No idea why.

2281

Where to begin? Year started like shit. Coursers came out of nowhere. They found the Farm, lookouts only gave us 30 seconds of warning. Torched what we could, casualties light. Relocated to the Beast. Then one of the B team scouts, Tommy Whispers, made the find of the century. An old DIA facility, "Switchboard." Called him up to HQ (overdue), Glory's taken him under his wing (God help him). Tom relocated to the Switchboard or Facility X as he calls it. Then he sent an urgent message. My first meeting with P.A.M... Can't describe. She made some predictions, frighteningly accurate. Asked for data. Started feeding it to her. Very reluctant to help the cause. But after a long talk with Glory she's on board. No one knows what Glory said to PAM. Deacon jokes that PAM has a crush on Glory. Certainly PAM acts different when she's around. But there's nothing emotional about PAM. With PAM's prediction managed to anticipate a run-away. Year ended badly. We had a synth infiltrator at Mercer. Deacon caught her before P.A.M. But damage done. Blew the Beast and moved to Bolthole. Only an hour to spare before the coursers came. 2 escapees, 1 loss, 0 reclaims.

2282

Promoted Tommy to be our second heavy. Tom made him a custom pistol, the kid's frightening with it. P.A.M. has us running strange ops for data. She's not always right, but right enough to be a trap. Too tempting to rely on her predictions. One day Deacon recommended moth-balling her. Took an hour to talk him down. 2 escapees. Not many runners this year.

2283

One word: PATRIOT. Our second package of the year was different from the start. Didn't behave lost. Ran in a straight line to Diamond City. Old Man Stockton caught her before she caused too many waves. She wasn't supposed to be on the work detail and had a care package: a map, instructions, and a coded holotape. Tom's been useless all year trying to decode the damned thing. Third package sent straight to Diamond City again. Set up Old Man Stockton as the gatekeeper. Then a fourth came in after a week. All with care packages. All with more codes. Someone on the inside is helping us. Code-name PATRIOT. All told 5 escapees this year.

2284

An incredible year. Everything's coming together. Tom broke PATRIOT's code, said it was designed to be broken (whatever that means). Just two words, "Mass Fusion." Sent some recon there and found nothing. Found out later why. PAM's been trying to find the location of the Institute in earnest. Failing. Deacon's convinced the solution lies in the past, not future. Deacon already knows the big secret - we know nothing about the Railroad before Wyatt was in charge (or is Deacon Johnny D???). Deacon's been digging into Institute sightings from years, even decades before. Or at least, that's what he says. Getting really tired of all his lies. Coursers caught Package 7. Almost nailed Old Man Stockton, too. One of our scouts found Package 8 heading to Mass Fusion. The coded message he carried was another location, Prospect Hill. 8 escapees this year, 1 loss, 1 reclaimed.

2285

Busy. We're in Switchboard now. Bolthole went down on fire. Coursers getting very active. But, by God, we're rescuing synths. 9-2-1. Both of those 2 were from goddamned lynch mobs.

2286

A dry year. Coursers, work crews, and synths vanished for three months. No idea why. Worked on fortifying Switchboard. Deacon was barely here all year. Chasing ghosts. 4-1-0.

2287

PAM's errored out on trying to find the Institute. Took a good month to get her to run without crashing. Her being down hurt the numbers. We now have 12 safehouses and I don't even know how many people. Carrington worries we're getting too big. But in order to move all the synths PATRIOT's sending us we need places to hide them. Deacon working on secret project. Code-name Wanderer. Deacon has a wild theory and an even wilder plan (Tea Party). I agree there's something strange there, but I'm withholding judgment. 9-1-1.

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #142

Tues Jul 30 2019 [06:49 PM] Wack'd: So Ben, having decided to quit the Fantastic Four, finds himself at a loss [06:50 PM] Wack'd: Thankfully, Alicia's left him a telegram, and so he follows her to the Balkans [06:51 PM] Wack'd: Buckler's doing a pretty good job, I think

[06:51 PM] maxwellelvis: Ooh, a collage [06:52 PM] Umbramatic: oooooh [06:53 PM] maxwellelvis: Ben's blaming himself [06:53 PM] maxwellelvis: Not unexpected but it is worrying [06:55 PM] Wack'd: Alicia and Dr. Hans Stutgart meet up with Ben at the airport and as they walk through the city the pedestrians flee [06:55 PM] maxwellelvis: Ben's used to that. [06:55 PM] Wack'd: Ben takes it personal, but Alecia reassures him that it's just local legend about a Death Demon that comes out after dark [06:56 PM] Wack'd: So this is Marvel in "Eastern Europe = superstitious idiots and Hammer tropes" mode [06:56 PM] Wack'd: Got it [06:57 PM] Wack'd: I give Marvel during this era shit for being racist and sexist but least they're bigotted against white people too 🙄 [06:59 PM] Wack'd: So Medusa's sticking around, looks like

[07:00 PM] Wack'd: Medusa in general has been fairly anti-self-pity, which makes her an interesting fit for the Four [07:00 PM] Wack'd: That said jeez give Reed a little time to digest? The thing he's beating himself over happened earlier this same day [07:00 PM] maxwellelvis: Probably something about how being a ruler means putting the needs of others above yourself or something. which, hypocritical when you remember that not a year ago the Inhumans were still using slave labor. [07:01 PM] Wack'd: Anyway by startling coincidence Medusa finds an invite for Reed to a college alumni dinner [07:01 PM] Wack'd: And insists they go [07:02 PM] Wack'd: Look, a dinner for two, to get out of the house and cool off--I can get that [07:02 PM] Wack'd: Why send Reed somewhere where he's going to have to do constant social labor [07:03 PM] Wack'd: "So, Reed, how're you doing? How's the wife and kid?" "I lobotomized my kid so my wife left me" "Hahaha! Oh Reed, you're such a card" [07:04 PM] Wack'd: Back to the main story! Alicia's at the hospital and Ben is wandering the streets sadly because he thinks once Alicia can see him she'll leave him [07:05 PM] Wack'd: Quel shock! The Death Demon is real [07:06 PM] Wack'd: Who saw that coming [07:06 PM] maxwellelvis: I did. [07:07 PM] maxwellelvis: But mostly because a British monster book from the 70's used a panel of the Death Demon punching a civvie-clad Ben as an illustration for its entry on "The Thing", which was split between *The Thing From Another World* and Ben Grimm [07:07 PM] Wack'd: We're in an interesting place of Buckler copying Buscema copying Kirby

[07:07 PM] maxwellelvis: As a matter of fact, it was that EXACT panel [07:07 PM] Umbramatic: KA-BAM! [07:07 PM] maxwellelvis: I'd show you but I don't have the book at my current location and I doubt it would survive the journey over. [07:08 PM] Wack'd: This guy has big *Dragon Ball Z* vibes

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/452938861807403018/605899530222698496/image0.png

[07:08 PM] maxwellelvis: He does kinda look a bit like a mutant Namekian, yeah [07:08 PM] Umbramatic: heck [07:11 PM] Wack'd: Fight fight fight until the Demon...blows himself up?

[07:11 PM] Umbramatic: "coin operated self destruct. not one of my better ideas." [07:12 PM] Wack'd: Ben decides that since the demon knew him someone must somehow know he's here [07:12 PM] Wack'd: Which is not good [07:13 PM] Wack'd: Johnny goes to Metro U to talk to one of Reed's old college buddies and tell him what happened [07:13 PM] Wack'd: But the Metro U guy sides with Reed, irritating Johnny, who really just wants someone to validate his anger [07:14 PM] Wack'd: Sue returns to the farm [07:15 PM] Wack'd: And back in the Balkans, Ben waits in the hospital for Alicia--but after three hours of absolute silence from the operating room, he loses his patience, and bursts in, to find no one there but the waiting Death Demon [07:17 PM] Wack'd: A struggle leads Ben back to the Demon's master, who has Alicia--and who is presumably the doctor, let's be honest [07:17 PM] Wack'd: Said master says he's gonna use Ben as bait to lure someone else here, but before we tell you that story-- [07:18 PM] Wack'd: You know the second the prospect of a college reunion was brought up I really should've expected this

[07:19 PM] Umbramatic: this image amuses me greatly [07:19 PM] Wack'd: Buscema and Buckler both clearly have some issues with Kirby masks [07:19 PM] maxwellelvis: The later artists haven't decided to just make it stationary yet, I see. [07:19 PM] Bocaj: I like the idea of doom actually being a good alumni [07:20 PM] Wack'd: Maybe the mask would look slightly less doofy if it wasn't, like Annihilus', colored as though it had teeth [07:20 PM] maxwellelvis: Wasn't he expelled for blowing up a dorm? [07:20 PM] Bocaj: Yes [07:20 PM] Bocaj: Which is why it’d be funny [07:20 PM] Wack'd: Oh boy "The Final Solution" sure is a cliffhanger hook [07:21 PM] Bocaj: Not a great title

[waynelizzie]

The Tattered Prince took a sip of wine and said, “A vexing question.

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[shirlleycoyle]

A Data-Driven Guide to Whether a Machine Will Be Doing Your Job By 2025

The World Economic Forum's ‘Future of Jobs Report’ has become somewhat of a divining rod for WTF we’re all going to do for a living. Considering the current employment/everything crisis, the 2020 edition arrived this year with a little more heat on it than usual. It surveys corporate executives in 35 countries around the globe about workforce transformations they anticipate in the next five years. The 291 responses come from companies that collectively have more than 7.7 million employees. The primary objective is to map the jobs and skills of the future.

As one might only expect out of 2020, the exhaustive document is a tour-de-force bummer. It contains fairly crucial insights though. So we wrestled the 163-page beast down for you. Spoiler alert: COVID’s a wrecking ball, automation is coming faster than greased lightning, remote work isn’t going anywhere, inequality is worse than ever … but everything might also be fine.

 Let's get COVID Out of The Way First

The unemployment numbers are in and unsurprisingly staggering. Comparing the financial crisis of a decade ago to current day figures is as revealing as it is scary. In 2010, unemployment in the OECD (which encompasses 37 countries around the world) peaked at 8.5 percent, only to drop to an average of 5 percent across global economies in late 2019. The International Labour Organization (ILO) predicts figures could peak at 12.6 percent by the end of 2020 and persist at 8.9 percent by the end of 2021.

The resulting numbers paint an even more alarming picture. The IMF estimates that 97.3 million individuals, or roughly 15 percent of the workforce, are at high risk of being furloughed or made redundant in the current context. Shifting our gaze forward a few months, the International Labour Organization (ILO) projects that by the second quarter of 2020, 195 million workers will have been displaced. The double-roundhouse to any sense of security? All this is going down at a time when jobs are transforming at greater speeds than ever before.

So what are businesses doing to adjust for COVID-19’s pressures? Well, 1 percent plan to increase their workforce, 14 percent plan to permanently reduce their workforce, 28 percent plan to temporarily reduce their workforce, 30 percent plan to temporarily reassign workers to different tasks, and 83 percent plan to accelerate automation of tasks.

On that…

The Machines Aren't Messing Around

The movement towards widespread automation is more deeply evident in the workforce than anywhere else. One of the central findings, repeatedly shared in the report, is that by 2025 the time spent on tasks at work by humans and machines will be equal.

Among the business leaders surveyed, just over 80 percent report that they are accelerating the automation of their work processes. 50 percent also indicate that they are set to accelerate the automation of jobs in their companies.

This transition will result in unprecedented labor market upheaval. By 2025, 15 percent of the global workforce will be disrupted by the shift in division of labor between humans, machines and algorithms. That’s 85 million displaced jobs.

This does spell opportunity for some 97 million workers. Automation tends to wipe out some jobs while generating others. The new landscape will be inhabited by Data Analysts and Scientists, AI and Machine Learning Specialists, Robotics Engineers, Software and Application developers as well as Digital Transformation Specialists, Process Automation Specialists, Information Security Analysts and Internet of Things Specialists. You get the idea.

Let’s take a look at some winners and losers of the automation revolution.

Here is a line-up of jobs at highest risk of being automated.

A look at other technologies likely to be adopted by 2025 reinforces the inexorability of increased automation.

Remote Work Is Only Sort of Working, But It's Staying Put

If you’re considering purchasing that brand new home fax machine, by all means proceed because the chances of returning to work life as we once knew it are: remote.

By mid-April, nearly 55 percent of economies (about 100 countries) had enacted workplace closures which affected all but essential businesses. 84 percent of employers are set to “rapidly digitalize working processes,” with the potential to move 44 percent of their employees to operate remotely. 80 US companies have announced either a fully distributed or remote-first workforce from here on including Basecamp, Nationwide, Square, Coinbase, Hims, Dropbox, Shopify, and Twitter. Curiously, even the National Transport Authority is in the mix.

Yet business leaders remain skeptical about the productivity of remote working. 78 percent expect some negative impact of the current way of working on productivity, with 22 percent expecting a strong negative impact.

So, a lot of head-scratching, a lot of savings on office snacks.

Existing Inequalities are Set to Deepen

All this change brought on by COVID-19 lockdown measures is snowballing inequality. According to the report, the people most adversely affected are depressingly familiar—it’s those living in neighborhoods with poor infrastructure, with poor employment prospects, and whose income does not equip them with a comfortable living standard, healthcare coverage, or savings.

Across the board, jobs held by lower wage workers, women, and younger workers have been more deeply impacted in the first phase of the economic contraction. In some countries those affected have been disproportionately women. This is certainly the case in the United States where, between December and April 2020, women’s unemployment rose by 11 percent while the same figure for men was 9 percent.

Meanwhile, higher-paying industries have a lower share of workers at risk of unemployment. The industries with the largest opportunity to work from home are the Information Technology and Insurance industries, with 74 percent of workers reporting having access to remote working. Fields like Finance, Legal work and Business Services could, in theory, perform more remote work.

More sharply defined, folks recalled into the labor market—meaning they got their job back—tend to have the highest average wage; those displaced have the lowest average wage. Let’s play this out in a couple industries: Retail workers who were displaced earn on average a low $17.80/hour while those recalled are earning $27.00/hour. In Information and Media, those displaced earn $28.70/hour while those recalled earn $61.20/hour.

Slicing the data regionally, the current theoretical share of jobs that can be performed remotely in any given economy is around 38 percent of jobs in high-income countries, 25 percent in upper-middle income economies, 17 percent in lower-middle income economies and 13 percent in low-income economies. And that’s before adjusting to account for the uneven distribution of internet access.

Around 60 percent of workers in high-income countries such as the United States and Switzerland are unable to fully work from home. This figure rises to more than 80-90 percent for the workforces of Egypt and Bangladesh.

 The Arguments for Cautious Optimism (AKA It May All Be OK)

At the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a glance in the rearview mirror offers some glimmers of hope. Historically, innovation has resulted in short- and mid-term compile errors but long-term upgrades. Trades based on old technology get replaced by machines, birthing new ways of work and new skill sets. Theoretically those new professions generate more prosperity. So maybe this is an awkward moment before things get super chill? Maybe.

The current job destruction will most likely (read: sort of has to) be offset by the growth in ‘jobs of tomorrow'—the surging demand for workers who can fill green economy jobs, roles at the forefront of the data and AI economy, as well as new roles in engineering, cloud computing, and product development will need to form a collective saving grace of vocational substitution.

Public policy is also showing signs of taking on the responsibility not only of temporary relief but also long-term effectiveness. The IMF estimates that  almost $11 trillion has been deployed through direct fiscal impulse and liquidity measures aimed at supporting households and businesses through the crisis. Data from the ILO shows that more than 1,000 different policy measures have been implemented in more than 200 countries since the onset of the pandemic. Not too shabby.

This openness to transition to new job opportunities, matched with new reskilling opportunities, can help place young professionals back on track, finding routes out of affected and into new, growing opportunities.

Ultimately, countries are owning the challenge of keeping humans relevant. That is—unlocking the value of human potential in tandem with profitability, halting the erosion of wages, making work meaningful and purposeful, expanding employees’ sense of growth and achievement, promoting and developing talent on the basis of merit and proactively designing against racial, gender or other biases.

Businesses too are moving towards owning the challenge. This is evident in the commitment to employee growth. There has been a five-fold increase in employer provision of online learning opportunities to their workers and a nine-fold enrollment increase for learners accessing online learning through government programs. 66 percent of businesses believe they will see a return on investment within a year of funding reskilling for the average employee. This doesn't just mean "learn to code," but that the development of new industries will hopefully create a wide spectrum of jobs.

The Competitive Advantage of Being a Human

Perhaps the rosiest conclusion of the report is that our very humanity is our key to workforce viability.

There will be continuing emphasis on human interaction in the new economy, with increasing demand for care economy jobs; roles in marketing, sales and content production; as well as roles at the forefront of people and culture.

Even more encouraging though, major emerging emphasis is being placed on distinctly human skillsets. Those in employment are hitting the personal development courses hard, which have seen 88 percent growth among that segment.

In contrast to the more technical skills highlighted in 2019, the top 10 focus areas of those in employment include self-management skills such as mindfulness, meditation, gratitude, flexibility, resilience, stress tolerance and kindness.

So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.

Thobey Campion is the former Publisher of Motherboard and the Co-Founder of Lost & Found.

A Data-Driven Guide to Whether a Machine Will Be Doing Your Job By 2025 syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[bomberlandia]

Part I: Ranking Every Bomber Since 2015

Welcome to Bomberlandia’s first ever look at every Essendon player that pulled on a jumper since 2015, featuring historian and lifelong Bombers diehard Dr. Dan Eddy. As far as I can tell, there’s never been an undertaking where someone has ranked every Essendon player for a period of time. In 2002 Simon Matthews wrote a book and ranked the 60 greatest Bombers players of all-time. I’m sure there have been other variations of that. But those books don’t include every player for a period of time. And some of those books need to be revised or revisited.

This is what got me curious about looking at the last five years of Essendon players and who sits where and who has made an impact. Also, apart from being something to read during the postseason I think these rankings will help explain Essendon’s story from 2015 until now by taking stock of who’s come and gone, who’s been able to stay the journey and which players failed to deliver.

I could never do these kind of rankings on my own. It’s an unreasonable task. For this I enlisted the help of prolific book writer Dan Eddy, someone who has analyzed Essendon through an historic lens and someone who really knows his AFL stuff.

The hope with this first initial crack is that it becomes an annual postseason tradition, where rookies and current players can improve their ranking or if things don’t work out, they can potentially fall. These rankings come at a time where the Bombers haven’t had a lot of success. But there’s a lot of players that have had opportunities to prove themselves since 2015. We’re now starting to see some of the kids step up like Andrew McGrath, Jordan Ridley, Kyle Langford, Darcy Parish, Sam Draper, Brandon Zerk-Thatcher, Irving Mosquito. These developments have been intriguing to observe.

Quite often with rankings they can get bogged down in statistics, and sometimes that’s the only way to separate one player from the next, but numbers sometimes don’t tell the whole story of what a player means to a football team. What we’re looking for are things like longevity and service to the team, elite skills, and sure, accolades. But we’re coating all of that with gut feels. And to be frank, this list is not perfect or definitive but it’s a start and most of all it will be fun to digest. We acknowledge there’s certainly some players too high and too low but we’re ok with that.

Here’s Part I of Ranking Every Essendon Player Since 2015.

Players ranked from 85 to 39

85. Nathan Grima 84. Tom Jok 83. Jonathan Giles 82. Jonathan Simpkin

JR: This quartet feels like the right way to kick off this list at the back end. Giles, Simpkin and Grima were top-ups for the 2016 season. Jok is the most interesting “what could have been” talent. Bombers picked him with their first pick in 2018 and called him an “exciting and raw prospect.” He played one game and was then delisted. What happened to Jok? I wish I had an answer.

DE: I realise Grima was taken at a time when we were desperate for players, but we should never have picked him up. Ranks with our worst ever selections, in my view.

81. Ned Cahill 80. Mitch Hibberd

JR: It’s early days for Ned but he shows promise. He could evolve and become a household name. Mitch Hibberd, with limited opportunity, looks more at home as a solid VFL contributor (saying that based on very small looks).  

DE: I agree on both fronts. Wait and see with Ned. As for Mitch, nothing wrong with his size but not sure he will be capable of holding down a senior spot over the long-term.

79. Sam Michael 78. Alex Browne 77. Tom Cutler 76. Sam Grimley 75. James Polkinghorne 74. Andrew Phillips 73. James Gwilt

JR: Browne was one of the banned supplement saga players who only managed 11 games in five years and was entering his prime in 2015. Browne injured his ACL in the 2014 pre-season and never fully got back into the mix. Probably had the most promise and potential in this section of players.

DE: I had high hopes for Cutler when we recruited him from Brisbane, as I felt his size could be of advantage to our list. But his first season was a disappointment. Hopefully in year two he can have more impact. Gwilt was another, like Grima, who we should never have recruited.

72. Jake Long 71. Kobe Mutch 70. Brandon Zerk-Thatcher

JR: Long and Mutch failed to take the next step but BZT had a season of growth and should progress to be a Top 40 player.  

DE: Tough gig for Jake Long, trying to emerge from his famous father Michael’s long shadow (pun intended). I’m glad he got to wear red and black, though, even if his time at the club was brief. If BZT keeps improving his fitness and builds on his strength, will be interesting to see how far he can go.

69. Jason Ashby 68. Ariel Steinberg 67. Elliott Kavanagh 66. Josh Begley 65. Mark Jamar 64. Brayden Ham 63. Nick O’Brien 62. Ben McNeice 61. Craig Bird 60. Tayte Pears

JR: I really thought Josh “Fridge” Begley was going to be something at Essendon. I watched a pre-season game against the Suns in his rookie year and he was clobbering blokes, laying tackles and kicking goals. He kicked the sealer against the Crows during a comeback win at Etihad in Round One that same year. His departure was perhaps more about list balance or not developing as quickly as the Bombers hoped. Tayte Pears was a very solid player. Unfortunately he was decimated by injuries which prevented his development. He could never get to that next level he needed to be at to cement his spot in the team. Ultimately his ailments curbed his progression

DE: Lots of players here who had impacts, but unfortunately were unable to sustain levels of consistency. I liked Pears, so was disappointed that injury cruelled him as he was entering his prime. Wasn't quick, but gave his all. I agree with your summation of Begley. When I first saw him, I was super excited about the possibilities. But, for whatever reason, didn't come on as hoped.

59. Mathew Stokes 58. Shaun Edwards 57. Nick Kommer 56. Irving Mosquito 55. Matt Leunberger 54. Will Hams 53. Jacob Townsend 52. Ryan Crowley 51. Jackson Merrett 50. Michael Hartley

JR: Like Chapman, the Cats got the best out of Mathew Stokes. In 2016 he came in as a top-up player for a “one-time only” season. He kicked 6.5 which was better than his previous year at Geelong. If we’re nickel and dime’ing here, Townsend’s 9.5 in his first year with Essendon nets him a higher ranking. I can see his position improve with a retooled forward line that will include a fit Stringer, Stewart and Peter Wright.

DE: Wasn’t a Crowley fan before he came to Essendon as one of those famous ‘top-up’ players. But have great admiration for him for what he did for our club during its time of need. Same with Stokes. Townsend has been disappointing in terms of his output, but too much was probably expected of him in our ineffective, underperforming forward line this year. Mozzie promises plenty, so hopefully he keeps improving year on year.

49. Dylan Clarke 48. Josh Green 47. Jayden Laverde   46. Will Snelling

JR: A former Essendon coach once told me that Laverde should be a lot better than he is but the Bombers haven’t done enough to develop him. This makes me curious then: what’s Laverde’s ceiling? Of all the Bombers’ peripheral players, Laverde stands out with his contested work. Inconsistent? Sure. And he’s not a no.1 key forward. But there’s something there. I think he has more to offer than McKernan. He could be a Mihocek. 

DE: Great to see Snelling receive another contract, as he was one of few shining lights during the car crash that was the 2020 season. Laverde has plenty of potential, just needs to become more consistent. That we haven't had a stable forward structure for some time probably hasn't helped him, but I see good upside if we keep a full list on the park.

45. Matt Dea 44. James Stewart 43. Aaron Francis 42. Matt Guelfi 41. Paul Chapman 40. Jason Winderlich

JR: Chapman was thrown a life-line and bagged 30 goals in two seasons. That’s pretty special. It’s not Michael Long’s run down the wing and goal in the ‘93 Grand Final special, but that’s a solid output from a then 34-year old when the club needed it. Winderlich was plagued by constant injuries – back, ACL, and more back troubles. His leg speed was phenomenal when fit.

DE: Thought Dea was terrific for us, and Chappy provided important leadership during dark times. Francis has such potential, but lacks consistency and impact. Wish Stewart got more of the ball, as that would help us up forward where we desperately need a couple of dominant key pillars. 

39. Jake Carlisle

JR: So, we end Part I of this journey with an anti-climatic Jake Carlisle. A guy who could take contested marks with ease, yet, could make you loathe him in an instant with his off-field “theatrics” My final memory of Carlisle was when he shouted “this club is f – ‘ed” in a match against the Giants in 2015 and that’s not a good memory to have of any player. I’m glad he no longer plays for the Bombers. 

DE: Carlisle could have been an all-time great defender at Essendon, but his final season was a major let-down and I was really disappointed in how he departed. In the end, I was glad to see him go. Like you JR, I lost total respect for him after that comment, and wasn't surprised with what happened a few weeks later at St Kilda.

________________________________________

Historian Dr Dan Eddy is the author of 12 books, including “King Richard” and “Always Striving.” A life-long Bomber supporter, you can follow him on Twitter @DanEddyBooks35 and read his sports books at www.daneddybooks.com.  

[yourlifeinsurance411]

New Post has been published on http://www.lowestpricetermlifeinsurance.com/index.php/2019/11/26/how-much-life-insurance-should-you-have/

How Much Life Insurance Should You Have?

How Much Life Insurance Should You Have?

(Alain Lacroix/Dreamstime)

By Bryan Kuderna Monday, 25 November 2019 05:48 PMCurrent | Bio | Archive

Honey, I think it’s time we start looking into life insurance.”

This is a common conversation for a married couple shortly after giving birth to their first child, once the dust has settled and some normalcy, and sleep, has resumed. However, many other situations prompted the purchase of over 27.8 million life insurance policies in the US in 2018, according to Statista.

Popular concerns typically revolve around covering any perceived need to fulfill a financial obligation, such as getting married and protecting your spouse, the amount of student loans Mom or Dad cosigned, the balance of your mortgage, assumed costs of college for the kids, business loans, buy/sell agreements, legacy goals, and the list goes on.

When to Buy Life Insurance

If consumers recognize the likelihood of one, more, or all the above scenarios playing out, a fair question would be, when is the best time to buy life insurance? Simple answer- right after birth. If we gauge “best” from an economic standpoint, one will never be younger than at birth.

Amidst all the technological innovations of the new millennium, we’ve yet to figure out how to get younger.

The contrarian could argue the correct answer would be- the day before you die, but sadly techies haven’t evented the crystal ball yet either. The product inevitably becomes more expensive as you age, and perhaps more importantly, harder to obtain as the human body deteriorates and becomes one day closer to final sleep.

Many prospective buyers realize the hard truth that when you NEED it, you usually can’t get it. This may seem grim, but we’re talking about medical underwriters that base decisions strictly off science. Now that we know buying a juvenile policy on a zero-year-old is most cost-effective, we can move past what warrants only a subtitle and address more complex matters.

How Much!?

Consumers often become puzzled and eventually trapped in talking about specific products. “I think I want some Term, no Whole Life, actually Universal Life, I mean Indexed Universal Life, or maybe Yearly Renewable Term.” Jumping to this discussion is like shopping for a race car long before you got your driver’s permit. If the need, or expected need, has been established, the next logical determination should be how much death benefit to acquire.

As a CFP® serving clients across the country for the past decade, I can share some common conceptions I hear- enough to pay for a funeral, 10-12x earnings, just the mortgage, $1 million because it sounds good, and none because I’ll be gone and it’s not my problem. From a more prudent standpoint, I believe there are two schools of thought that deserve consideration.

The first practice is up to all possible liabilities and obligations. Mr. 30-years-old projects his widowed spouse will pay $273,750 for food ($5 meal for 50 years, the kids can starve), $80,928 for his two kids college educations ($10,116 average in-state tuition over 4 years, they’ll be commuting), $201,811 for the mortgage balance , $67,002 for utilities ($111.67 monthly average over next 50 years), and assumed no inflation ever again and that the family will ride their bikes everywhere. In total, his insurable interest is $633,607. These gross assumptions are often the framework of a life insurance decision.

The second and more condoned professional method is the calculation of “Human Life Value”, designed by Dr. Solomon Huebner. This formula states an HLV of 20x income in your 30’s, 15x income in the ’40s, 10x income in ’50s, and circumstantial thereafter. This method seeks to replicate the cashflow of a breadwinner during his/her working years if death had not occurred.

So as you join the ranks of the 57% of American adults who own life insurance, first think of how much coverage may be necessary.

Always remember, the best form of life insurance is the one that plays when you’re not here. Product design can come next based on overall goals and budget, but adequate protection takes priority.

Please tune in to “The Kuderna Podcast” for more insight.

Bryan Kuderna is a Certified Financial Planner™, Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow, an Investment Adviser Representative with Kuderna Financial Team. He is also the author of the best-seller "Millennial Millionaire."

  Mike Sheehan

[gadgetsrevv]

Sergino Dest could be U.S. Soccer’s ‘Next Big Thing’ but even if he’s not, he’s proof of progress

Gregg Berhalter speaks highly of new USMNT first team members Sergino Dest and Paxton Pomykal, after naming his 26-player squad for upcoming friendlies.

Gregg Berhalter previews USMNT vs. Mexico and how Josh Sargent used missing out on the Gold Cup as a positive.

The list of American soccer’s Next Big Things extends back further than you might think, at least all the way to Steve Snow.

Uh, who?

Snow was the Parade Magazine High School Player of the Year in 1988. In suburban Chicago, he scored a goal in 49 consecutive high school games and earned a place on the 1989 U.S. Under-20 World Cup team. Snow scored five goals in seven qualification games and then another three more at the tournament in Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. came in fourth, still their best-ever U20 finish. After attending Indiana University for a year, he turned pro in 1990 and signed Belgian outfit Standard Liege.

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How good was Snow? Former USMNT midfielder Chris Henderson told MLSSoccer.com in 2014 that, “From 1985-1989, he was the best forward in the country. He was the best goalscorer I’ve ever played with.” However, Snow soon struggled with injuries and had a falling out with U.S. Soccer at the 1992 Olympics. He was benched for the tournament-opening 2-1 loss to Italy, and told reporters after the game, “This team cannot play at all without me. This team wouldn’t be here without me.” He played and scored in both of the side’s remaining group games, but never made another appearance for the full national team. After a couple years of professional indoor soccer, Snow was out of the sport completely by 1995.

This, of course, is a cycle that American soccer fans are by now all too familiar with. There’s a savior identified at a young age. Then there’s a brief period of initial senior-level excitement. Then the impossible expectations are never met, for one reason or another. And then the cycle starts over again, and the U.S. men’s national team remains in the same spot it’s been in for the last 30 years: somewhere between, say, the 15th and 40th best team in the world.

Could 18-year-old full-back Sergino Dest be U.S. Soccer’s ‘Next Big Thing?’

John O’Brien, Freddy Adu, Juan Agudelo, Bobby Convey, Santino Quaranta, Julian Green, etc. — there’s a starting XI and a full bench worth of prospects who failed to live up to the hype. But the reality is that most youth prospects globally don’t become high-level professional players, and a microscopic sliver of them go on to become what one might consider “world class”. Case and point, in 2007, World Soccer magazine published a list of the 50 most exciting teenagers on the planet. On the cover were Giovani dos Santos, who’s currently playing in Liga MX with Club America, Alexandre Pato, who’s back in Brazil with Sao Paulo after two years in China, and Anderson, who once played for Man United but now plays for Adana Demirspor, a club in the Turkish second division.

“Everyone has their own progress,” USMNT manager Gregg Berhalter told the media on Monday, ahead of the team’s upcoming friendlies against Mexico and Uruguay. “The speed in which they continue to progress is unpredictable.”

The goal for any national soccer federation is to simply create more top-level talent, and the way to do that isn’t to hope for one player to appear and suddenly change a country’s fortunes. Rather, it’s to build an environment where there isn’t just one top prospect in a generation, but 10, so when seven of them don’t pan out, you’re still left with three more. In other words, the more raffle tickets you have, the better your chances of winning.

The U.S. still isn’t close to reaching the kind of talent production seen in France or now England, but things have slowly started to change. Perhaps that’s why there’s an 18-year-old American starting for a team that made the Champions League semifinals last year, and it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.

—

Sergino Dest was born in Almere, Netherlands in 2000. He initially played for a local club before joining Dutch giants Ajax in 2012. After six seasons in what might be Europe’s premier talent-development factory, Dest was promoted to the Amsterdam club’s second team, Jong Ajax, last year. He made 17 appearances in the Dutch second division and then went on to star for the U.S. at this past summer’s U20 World Cup. Come August, he was starting for Ajax, as they overcame Cypriot power APOEL, 2-0, in Champions League qualification playoff-round. And this week he earned his first USMNT call-up.

Sergino Dest has broken into the starting XI at Ajax and now must decide between playing internationally for the U.S. or Holland.

“For him, he got his opportunity, he seized his opportunity, and now he’s a starter for Ajax, a semifinalist in the Champions League,” Berhalter said. “That’s an unbelievable story. You can never tell when it happens, who it’s gonna happen to, but Sergino’s in a good moment now, and we wanna capitalize on that.”

Dest, whose mother is Dutch and whose father was an American serviceman stationed in the Netherlands, has all the outlines of a top-tier modern full-back. He’s rangy enough to get up and down the sideline without throwing a team’s defensive structure out of whack, but he’s also comfortable coming infield and functioning from more traditional midfield positions — whether it’s progressing the ball up the field, maintaining possession, or play-making around the opponent’s goal.

He’s got the kind of slick, 360-degree range of movement that’s rare among players who spend most of their minutes cramped up against the sideline. It’s only a couple games, but the youngster completed 90 percent of his passes and won a higher percentage of 50-50 duels than any other full-back during UCL qualification. In the final match against APOEL, a 2-0 home win, he created two chances, in addition to completing a higher percentage of his passes and winning a higher percentage of duels than any other player on the field. Not bad for an 18-year-old.

Ajax were then drawn into a Champions League group with two other Americans: Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic, and Lille’s Timothy Weah. Another, Tyler Adams, will also participate in the competition with RB Leipzig. Not one of those players is old enough to buy a beer in the States yet, and they represent a growing trend within U.S. Soccer: there are more Americans playing in professional academies than ever before.

According to US Soccer, the 2017-through-2018 cycle of youth national team players featured around 50 international-based players called in for the U14 through U20 teams. For the 2018-19 cycle, that number jumped up to about 70.

“We have continued to expand our talent identification structure both domestically and abroad, with the goal of locating and developing the best players wherever they are,” said Earnie Stewart, U.S. Soccer’s sporting director. “The results of those efforts are reflected in the makeup of our youth national team rosters, and will ultimately benefit the senior team.”

At the 2009 U20 World Cup, 10 of the U.S.’s 21 players were either playing college soccer at the time or were associated with American clubs below the MLS level. Only three guys on that roster were playing for European teams at the time. Fast forward 10 years, and every player on this past summer’s team was either with an MLS side or a European club. In fact, more than half of that roster came from Europe. Thanks to globalized scouting networks at most top clubs and an increasing interest and investment in American players, just about every big club in Europe now has at least one American somewhere in its pipeline.

Stateside, every MLS club now has its own academy, and all but two of them (Minnesota and D.C. United) are free. One added side effect of MLS’s continued expansion is the growth of affordable, high-level training in a sport that has tended to weed out lower-income, non-white kids due to high participation costs or lack of a nearby club. The U.S. remains humongous and 24 MLS clubs aren’t close enough to cover it, but the current situation is better than the one where Clint Dempsey‘s parents had to completely rearrange their lives just so their son could get to and from practice.

On the most recent USMNT roster of 26 players, 10 spent time in an MLS academy and another 10 were at a European club before their 21st birthday. Tyler Adams, who isn’t on the current roster due to injury but is expected to be one of the team’s stars over the next decade, came up through the New York Red Bull academy and then signed with RB Leipzig when he was 19. Weston McKennie came up with FC Dallas and joined Schalke when he was 18. When healthy, both of them are already starters for two of the better clubs in the Bundesliga. While Christian Pulisic has shown enough to suggest that America’s Next Big Thing might finally actually become The Big Thing, he’s also going to be flanked by a collection of young talent that exists, in part, because of a developmental environment that never existed for a prior generation.

Whether that group actually includes Dest isn’t a sure thing yet. Although he’s represented the US at U17 and U20 levels, he is still eligible to play for the Netherlands. If he does end up representing the country in which he was born, that could end up being a big blow the USMNT. Long-term, though, the goal should be to finally get to the point where the future of a single player isn’t so closely tied with the future fortunes of the team. The numbers aren’t there yet, but they’re moving in the right direction.

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