Snake Diggity

From your keyboard to god’s will.

Black, Williams, Umeozulu, Hudson, and Simmons are the 5 in-state must-gets from this class. If Texas gets 3 of those 5 it is likely a good year.

Meatball Ron is fucking hilarious. Especially considering it is likely that Trump has busted his ass to lose a bunch of weight JUST so he can use it without looking stupid. I mean, all that WOULD be hilarious, if it were an episode of The Office involving Michael Scott and Dwight, instead of the 2 men most likely to be the 2024 GOP nominee for POTUS.

What do you think happens when it becomes clear that Russia will be defeated? Putin just says “bummer, ok fall back” and everybody just accepts peace? Unless you think Putin will be taken out by rational, western-friendly Russians before then, how do you suppose Putin reacts to his ultimate defeat?

It’s impossible for me to see this ending without it escalating. There is no way Russia will ever agree to a negotiated peace that doesn’t include them keeping Donbas/Crimea and there’s no way Ukraine/NATO will agree to giving up Donbas. NATO is either going to eventually abandon Ukraine which means much higher odds of conflict with Russia later since there’s very little chance Russia stops at Ukraine for good, or NATO is going to put Russia into submission which means very high likelihood of nuclear exchange. This is bad.

Handicapping odds of each player signing an extension before 2023 opening day: Tucker 10% Valdez 12% Altuve 12% Bregman 8% Garcia 8% B Abreu 15% Pena 5% Brown 5% Y Diaz 8% McCormick 5% Leon 1% Lee 1% Urquidy 1% Stanek 5% Maton 2% Others 2%

Figuring out which societal changes to make to entice 1st world women to want to have more children is very very difficult. The bottom line is that children require a massive investment of time, energy, and money. Society can probably address the money part, but there’s really nothing that I can think of to address the time/energy part. Taking away the requirement for parents to actually spend time and energy on their kids kind of defeats the purpose of having them at all. And I cannot envision any scenario where the population depends on some kind of state-run foster-care-for-all system. I wonder how a significant reduction in working hours for ALL people would impact the birth rate. Would shifting to a standard 1500 hour work year, combined with financial assistance for parents (free childcare and healthcare and addl tax breaks) do it? If women (and men) had more “free time” would they be inclined to have more kids?

She couldn’t remember the melody, much less the words.

A lot of great discussion in this thread in the last few pages. I think a big part of birth rate decline is that raising children relative to expectations has become exponentially more expensive/difficult than in the past. It may not actually be more of a sacrifice to raise kids in the world today than in the 70s, but I think people certainly feel like it is. Anecdotally, my experience as a parent thus far (currently have a 7 yo and 4 yo) has been that the sacrifice in freedom and the intensity of pressure to be a good parent has been a lot worse than expected; I am relatively well-off, so the financial burden hasn't stung much, although shelling out $3000/mo for daycare didn't feel good. Anyway, I don't think I'm actually having a harder time raising my kids than my parents did, but it certainly feels like I am; that influenced our decision to stop at 2, and it certainly influences how I talk about the experience of having children to people who have not yet had children. I think that summarizes the cause of the drop in birth rate in the 1st world over the last 30 years. To change that, you have to change the perception of the experience of having children. My solution to address that would be similar to ideas that have been cited many times in this thread: paid parental leave (2 years per guardian per kid), free daycare (free starting at age 2), universal Pre-k, universal healthcare, and significant tax incentives for people having 3+ kids. I don't think that alone would get 1st world birth rates above 2.1, but it would make a difference. Many first world countries (primarily the US, Canada, western Europe, and Australia) can likely bridge the gap in the short term with immigration and by extending the working age. Longer term, increases in worker productivity is the answer. If robotics and software can make a 2040 worker as productive as 3 2020 workers, then the economy and standard of living will be better off. But obviously if there is a net decline in population, eventually the economy and standard of living won't matter (unless we cure aging/death). I personally am very optimistic on this issue. I think things will be done to address the problem. I do think Russia and China are proper fucked and that is risky for the world, but I think that risk will have either turned into reality or been mitigated within the next 10 years. For now I would predict the best years for humanity lie ahead and would guess world population stabilizes around 12 billion, accompanied by massive increases in standards of living worldwide. I for one really like the idea that we might finally be forced to treat every young person as the tremendously precious resource they are.

Oh. Hahaha ok I get it now. I mean, what you said is true, but I don’t feel like knowing the songs “Strawberry Fields” and “Scarborough Fair” automatically dates me; both were well before my time. But yes, she is stuck with my increasingly old ballsack.

Are you talking to me?

Talking about our daughter starting piano lessons. Mrs Snake Diggity: “You know I took piano lessons when I was a kid. But only for a year. Then I took a piano class in college.” Me: “Can you play any songs?” MSD: “Maybe. I had to do a recital for the college class. I played ‘Strawberry Fields’.” Me: “oh cool, I like that song.” *hums the chorus of Strawberry Fields by The Beatles* MSD: “Wait…no, not Strawberry Fields. ‘Scoberry Fields.” Me: *spends ten fucking minutes guessing song names and singing their chorus lines, then finally…* “You mean Scarborough Fair?” MSD: “Yes!!! ScarLborough Fair! Hahahahaha.” Me: “hahahah I love you.” MSD: “You’re gonna post this on that fucking website, aren’t you.”

I still believe Joe Biden is too old to be President. His age is inherently a national security risk. That said, he has far exceeded my expectations of him so far. I am proud to have voted for him in 2020 and will proudly vote for him again in 2024 assuming he is against Trump or DeSantis or any other turd that currently has a chance to win the GOP primary. Russia losing a kinetic war that doesn’t endanger American troops. Seeds of reform in Iran. China more vulnerable than they’ve been in 30 years. Lowest unemployment in history. And, most importantly, no daily fucking deluge of idiocy that undermines our democracy, promotes racism, and reduces the presidency to a fucking insane reality show.

Best pitching seasons in Astros history by fwar: 78/79 Richard, 86 Scott, 18/19 Cole, 69 Dierker, 18/19 Verlander, 02/04/05/06 Oswalt, 87 Ryan, 66 Cueller, 05 Clemens, 99 Reynolds Catcher: 77 Joe Ferguson (who?) 1B: Bagwell (97 was his best year but he owns most of the best 1B seasons in franchise history) 2B: Biggio (97 was also his best year; there is an argument for Altuve) SS: ‘21 Correa (83 Thon has the best season but Correa has the career mark easily) 3B: ‘19 Bregman (03-06 Ensberg was damn good tho) OF: 72/73 Cedeno, 00 Hidalgo, 01 Berkman, 98 Alou, 65/69 Winn DH: 19/21 Yordan https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2021&month=0&season1=1964&ind=1&team=21&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=1964-01-01&enddate=2021-12-31

That is definitely a logical theory. But my hope is that a higher standard of living (I.e. increased consumption per capita) can replace decrease in demand due to population decline. But that can only happen if it’s coupled with increased worker productivity.

18 months to 4 years has been my favorite age range so far. Prior to 18 months they’re too much maintenance and can’t interact all that much. After they reach school age they’re a lot less maintenance but they’re not as cute and can be annoying af.

Depressions aren’t a foregone conclusion with declining population. Avoiding depression requires worker productivity increases to outpace population decline. There are multiple ways of achieving that but the 3 primary ways are: increasing median education of existing workers, bringing 3rd world workers into the 1st world, and improving technology. There will almost certainly be some social discomfort related to population decline but I am optimistic the ultimate outcome can be good.

If we go worse than 10-2 thru that schedule then somebody fucked up.

Well Pinder just signed with the Reds, so crisis averted. I was surprised he couldn’t even snag a big league deal.

I think Pinder would have made more sense prior to signing Brantley (assuming they were going to add an offensive catcher instead). I have always liked Pinder and thought he was underrated. At this point signing him would displace Hensley or Dubon or Meyers (all of whom have higher upside than Pinder), so depending on price it is still worth exploring.

Was just thinking about this yesterday. Has there been a new musical genre since Grunge? Doesn’t seem like there’s been a new type of music since the 90s, when prior to that there were new genres at least every 5-10 years. There seemed to be a rush of what I would call “Xanax rock” a few years ago, but I never actually heard a term for it, and it didn’t seem popular enough to be generation-defining.

You know that article was from June, right?

For almost every 1st world country outside of the US (who can/will pull the immigration lever to supplement their working age population) and China/Russia (who are proper fucked because of their economic structure and unwillingness to embrace immigration), the next 30 years will be a very risky time as they go through an unprecedented societal experiment. Can Europe, Japan, S Korea, and Australia maintain their standards of living despite dramatic declines in working age population and economic activity? That’s something never before seen in human history. If that’s not possible, can those same countries somehow turnaround the population decline to at least eventually achieve population stability? Again, never before seen in human history. There will be a lot it things that can be done in the short term (extending what is defined as “working age”, fully embracing automation and robotics to replace human workers) to stem the tide, but those 2 questions will really determine the next phase of humanity. One thing that is interesting to me is that of all the books/articles I have read on this topic, none of them predict that the countries who currently project for continued population growth (S America, Africa, India) will rise to the top of world powers as other countries populations collapse.

No background/experience in scouting or player development. He’s totally unqualified to be an MLB GM by todays standards and if he is hired it’s pure nepotism based on his relationship with Bagwell, who seems like he kind of sucks when it comes to influencing the owner to veer back towards the old-school (eventual) loser way of doing shit.

The Astros don’t have any “bad” contracts. They have paid market value for a few players recently: Abreu, Neris, Montero, Brantley, but those deals have either panned out in early returns or looked better as the free agent market evolved. McCullers $85M contract is probably their highest risk deal but I still fully expect that deal to end up being good for Houston.