3/4 - No Surprises

By Jacob Rosenbacher — 04 Mar 2025

We live in a new era, it's time to be ready for it. This video is a beautiful dark metaphor.

This week we have a long form essay about the importance of community
1. Long Form Essay from Community

If you feel like the world is becoming a harder place, you are not alone. A record number of people are on anti depressants and anti anxiety medications (maybe not for long, thanks RFK jr, (Executive Order, Feb 2025)) (NPR, Feb 2024). Gen Z is not having sex (Economist, Feb 2025), and many Millennials are choosing not to get married or marrying later than previous generations (Pew Research Center, Feb 2024). No one reads any more (the Atlantic, Nov 2024).

How did we find ourselves here and what is the result?

There are, obviously, many complex reasons for the above, including a decreased stigma towards mental health treatment, the me too movement’s lingering effects on 20 somethings, a woman’s access to capital and greater economic opportunity, and our education system’s emphasis on test taking over deep learning. That said, I think the collapse of community, at multiple levels, may also be to blame. At the family level, extended ties, namely cousin relationships, have frayed (The Atlantic, Dec 2023). Within schools, middle and high schoolers report that they do not talk to their friends about even the most basic moments in their life, their goals/aspirations, or their fears. Instead, they rely on guidance counselors and therapists (Bad Therapy, Feb 2024). Even the arguably most reliable source of community in history, the place of worship, has dropped in popularity (though this may be changing) (The Economist, Feb 2025).

Without these traditional sources of guidance, learning, discipline, and support, how can we expect the United States to flourish? We can’t.

I want to be clear: I’m not advocating that we return to a time in the not so distant past when women did not have control of their own destinies and the church enforced a rigid set of values. But I do believe we desperately need to nurture our communities. I’ll leave you with a couple of ideas:

Volunteer at your nonprofit of choice
Coach the AYSO soccer team (shout out to Hyde Parkers who read this)
Become a regular at a local cafe/bar/restaurant in your neighborhood
Join the run club
Invite your neighbors over for dinner (or if you’re really organized, host the next block party)

The consequence of not cultivating community is a broken populace, more divided than ever, which brought about this current political moment.

Recommended Long Read: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

"I first read this in 2017. Snyder wrote the book in response to Trump’s first presidency and it’s even more relevant today than it was then. Snyder’s summary is better than mine ever will be: “The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.” In 20 short chapters, Snyder provides a guidebook for concern citizens."
Death of Software Engineer
1. Jacob's Opinion: AI is already doing its thing in technical industries. The great engineer is enhanced, and sales person is leveled up. Many are now left behind. The mid-level has completely lost it job and its way.

Zelensky on Fox

Farm Taxes Inbound

Imperial Presidency from Economist

https://archive.is/UbMEd

Being Held in Detention indefinitely

Film Recommendation: DEAR KELLY

Channel 5 and Andrew Callaghan produced a film on the radicalization of people, how someone becomes so adamantly attached to political candidates. In his standard fashion, wildly follows a man who goes through severe personal life trauma and shows that there is a lot more depth to his character (than the very scary surface) but also a lot more to his radicalization than a simple trauma.

Canada Mexico Tariff really happened