Just Slow Down and Take a Breath

[pbrower2a]

(10-14-2021, 04:53 PM)nguyenivy Wrote:

(10-13-2021, 02:37 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(10-13-2021, 11:33 AM)tg63 Wrote: I equate this feeling to the sense of urgency that a 4T brings - the same drivers that require a response to the crisis of the day are the things that make us unable to relax & slow down at a personal level.
Really what you're asking for is a 21st century version of a Leave it To Beaver lifestyle ... it's coming ...

But not until the late 2030s.

Every time I hear future years anywhere nowadays I end up doing the maths: Late 2030s feels so long from now, especially with all the climate change talk going on. I'll be 52 in 2037, my parents almost 80. An extremely low number of people in my family remember the last 1T. Most who did already passed on over the last 20+ years. I'm an only-child and am not looking forwards to the 2030+ timeframe in my personal life. I have anxiety when thinking of anything beyond the current decade. I'm interested in what technological advancements are coming, given that comp sci is my field.

The 1T is nigh when few people remember the last one from personal experience... such is the same with a 2T (possible only after there were few people who remembered the Gay Nineties) for the Boom Awakening, with a 3T possible only when few people could remember the political, economic, and cultural depravity of the 1920's were still around, and a 4T is possible when the heroic figures of the last 4T are no longer present in large numbers. 

It is easy to believe that the late 2030's seem so far away, but such is because we see no evidence of their existence. They are closer than you think. The late 2030's are much closer now in time than the 1990's  that you probably remember well. You may have just watched a movie from the 1990's on your TV or listened to 1990's music on your car radio. You cannot have just watched a movie or listened to music from any year earlier than 2022. 1997 is 25 years away and 2037 is fifteen years away.

The clock and calendar go in only one direction, and memories or at least the reconstruction of the past go the other. I am satisfied that people will still recognize the greatness of Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Bach in 2037 as they do now. Wise people will still read Plato. Scientific truth and the potential in engineering will be no less then than now.  Americans will recognize the Silent comedians as offering some self-effacing humor necessary for people to not become excessively full of themselves. 

Imagine that you are on the California Zephyr headed west toward San Francisco, a place in which you have never been. While you are in Nevada you may still remember the farmland of Iowa and eastern Nebraska You may have a strong memory of seeing Cornhusker Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. You have yet to roll through the Sierra Nevada, let alone into the eastern Bat Area (the train gets to Emeryville, and not to San Francisco)... but you are by then closer to San Francisco even if you have no experience of it. Depending on where you are in Nevada, you may be closer to both (and certainly the Sierra Nevada) than you were to the Colorado Rockies and even the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Time, and the history that goes with it, is a journey. I take my age (66) in 2022 and I have a fair idea of what life was like in 1890. I was closer to the horse-and-buggy era when I was born than I was to this time. I knew lots of people born in the 1890's and even the 1880's. I remember a relative born in 1874 who told me of an attempt to settle in western Nebraska in the 1890's. That area, Arthur County, Nebraska, is too far west to have adequate water unless one drills deep into the Oglalalla Aquifer, and of course their effort to start a lasting life too far west in the prairies failed. They went by train out there (not covered wagon) and returned to Indiana by train. This family now lives almost entirely in southern Michigan and northeastern Indiana whence they started. The ones who went earlier by covered wagon got little farther west than central Nebraska or went all the way to the West Coast and could stay where they settled. 

Does this sound like a place with a remarkable future ahead for it?

Quote:  Arthur County is a county in the U.S. state of Nebraska. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 434,[1] making it Nebraska's third least populous county and the seventh-least populous county in the United States (behind only Loving County, Texas; Kalawao County, Hawaii; King County, Texas; Kenedy County, Texas; McPherson County, Nebraska; and Blaine County, Nebraska). Its county seat and only incorporated community is Arthur.[2]
In the Nebraska license plate system, Arthur County is represented by the prefix 91 (it had the 91st-largest number of vehicles registered in the state when the license plate system was established in 1922).
Arthur County contains the historic First Arthur County Courthouse and Jail, believed to be the smallest courthouse in the United States.[3]

Arthur County was established in 1913 from the western part of McPherson County following an effort to move the McPherson County seat from Tryon to the more centrally located Flats: rather than lose the county seat, the residents of Tryon, Nebraska agreed to have the county divided approximately in half, according to boundaries for sandhills counties originally proposed in 1887. The half which became Arthur County had been in the process of settlement by 1884, by ranchers seeking open grazing land. The placement of a post office at Lena in 1894 and the passage of the homesteading act in 1904 (which allowed claims of 640 acres compared to the previous 160 acres in this area) further influenced the county's founding and expedited the new county's establishment processes.

The new county was named after President Chester A. Arthur, and the village of Arthur, similarly named, was established to serve as the county seat.[4] Principal postal service moved from Lena to the village of Arthur in 1914, which also held the county's public schools, general store, bank and co-op, principal churches, newspaper and other businesses and services, all aimed at continuing and facilitating the county's rural lifestyle.

The 1920 United States Census counted 1,412 residents in Arthur County, which was then and has remained entirely rural, essentially ranching. Although the village of Arthur underwent electrification in the 1920s, most of the county did not see power or telephone services until 1950–1951. At that time also, highway construction and improvements facilitated transportation, which was especially dependent upon the north-south State Highway 61 and the east-west Highway 92: motor vehicles were the sole means of mechanical transportation throughout Arthur's history as it had no railroad or canal. Irrigation of the sandhills land started by 1900 and continued through the first half of the twentieth century, with center-pivot irrigation dominating. The population peaked around 1930 at 1,344 persons, but declined with the Great Depression. By 1950, the county population was down to 803, by 1980 down to 513.

According to the US Census Bureau, the county has an area of 718 square miles (1,860 km2), of which 715 square miles (1,850 km2) is land and 3.0 square miles (7.8 km2) (0.4%) is water.[5]

Historical population
Census
Pop.

%±
1920
1,412

—
1930
1,344

−4.8%
1940
1,045

−22.2%
1950
803

−23.2%
1960
680

−15.3%
1970
606

−10.9%
1980
513

−15.3%
1990
462

−9.9%
2000
444

−3.9%
2010
460

3.6%
2020
434

−5.7%
US Decennial Census[6]
1790-1960[7] 1900-1990[8]
1990-2000[9] 2010-2013[1]

As of the 2000 United States Census,[10] of 2000, there were 444 people, 185 households, and 138 families residing in the county. The population density was 0.618 people per square mile (0.239/km2). There were 273 housing units at an average density of 0.380 per square mile (0.147/km2). The racial makeup of the county was 96.40% White, 0.23% Native American, 0.68% Asian, 0.23% Pacific Islander, 0.90% from other races, and 1.58% from two or more races. 1.35% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 50.4% were of German, 13.1% English, 6.2% Irish and 5.7% Swedish ancestry.
There were 185 households, out of which 27.60% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 63.20% were married couples living together, 7.60% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.40% were non-families. 21.60% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.80% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.40 and the average family size was 2.80.

The county population contained 23.90% under the age of 18, 5.40% from 18 to 24, 29.50% from 25 to 44, 24.80% from 45 to 64, and 16.40% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 101.80 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 107.40 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $27,375, and the median income for a family was $31,979. Males had a median income of $21,544 versus $13,125 for females. The per capita income for the county was $15,810. About 7.90% of families and 13.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.10% of those under age 18 and 7.80% of those age 65 or over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_County,_Nebraska


Does anyone want to start a new life there? This looks like the sort of place in which adulthood means that one has started a life in Denver, Lincoln, Casper, or... 


You can't see the future, but if you don't end up in the graveyard first you will get there. You cannot go back.