The Way We Live Now

Discussions

• Amecrica is so boring?

  Life is a whole package and don’t just look at one aspect and conclude which one is better.

• UK bans under-16s from using social media, should US follow?

  As a parent, I fully support the ban!

• Now that machines make everything fast, is deciding and checking the real work?

  Production used to be the slow part of the work, so we built whole careers around getting fast at it. Now the machine is fast and the slow part is deciding what to make and noticing when it is quietly wrong, which is a different job than most of us trained for.

• Are airlines betting you'll never redeem that travel credit?

  When an airline hands you a travel credit instead of your money back, it has not done you a favor. It has converted a refund it owed in cash into a coupon it controls. The money stays on the airline's balance sheet. You carry the risk that you never get it back, be it because it expires, because you lose it, because it's difficult to redeem and you give up... Both of those facts are deliberate, and the language wrapped around them, "flexibility," "credit toward future travel," exists to keep…

• Are Bulgarian split squats far superior to back squats?

  If you are not a powerlifter, stop training legs like one. Actually, stop training everything like one. That is the argument. It took me years to realize that I didn't need to keep on lifting more and more on squats, since my legs didn't change after anyway. lbs would go up, muscles would stay pretty much the same. And the rest of my body paid the bill, less volume on arms, core, chest... Due to the focus on maintaining strong squat numbers. The problem is that seriousness, exhaustion, and...

• Should you really be drinking raw milk?

  I think a person who sleeps well, lifts regularly, eats decent food, goes outside, and keeps real social ties is doing some of the most evidence-supported things available for long-term health. I have noticed that a surprising number of people learned that from communities that also push raw milk, seed-oil paranoia, and other nonsense. The problem is not that medicine is wrong. The problem is that medicine left a prevention gap, and the cranks moved in.

• Is a giant sequoia's size enough to make the whole park worth it?

  Look, the trees are huge. Credit where it’s due. They are extremely huge. The first time you see a giant sequoia, it genuinely messes with your sense of scale. You feel small in a meaningful, almost spiritual way, like you’ve briefly been reminded that human beings are basically decorative ants with opinions.

• Do you actually train muscles, not movements?

  Most people do not have a movement problem. They have a weak-link problem. I am not talking about elite athletes, that's a minority and they're not on the internet reading me anyway. I am talking about ordinary people who want a body that can handle hard things without something dumb failing first. If your arms, shoulders, or grip give out before the job is done, I do not care what your squat and deadlift numbers look like. The body tells the truth fast.

• Did Chromebooks make Gen Z hopeless with actual computers?

  The current panic says AI is making people worse at thinking. Maybe. But if you want to know why so many younger workers are fluent with apps and so shaky with computers, AI is not the first place to look. The deeper break happened earlier, when schools and institutions decided that students should interact with managed appliances instead of actual machines, like Millennials did.

• Is Death Valley just an environmental hazard with signage?

  Death Valley feels less like a national park and more like an environmental hazard with signage. It's in the name and Europeans still book flights to the US to go and die here.

• Are most 'advanced' lifting techniques just ways to make light weights feel heavy?

  After about a decade of lifting, something stops looking clever and starts looking familiar. All the “advanced techniques” begin to rhyme with each other. Drop sets. Giant sets. Blood flow restriction. Mechanical drop sequences. Myoreps. Rest-pause. You can rotate the names, but it ends up just being entertainment. You take a weight that is not particularly challenging, then you stack constraints or fatigue tricks on top of it until it finally feels like something is happening.

• Are the humanities more needed than ever in the AI age?

  No parents encourage their kids to study Humanities. By default, recommended options are STEM related. Engineering (Computer Science), Finance, Medicine...The argument against the humanities in the AI age makes it even less compelling to dedicate 4 years to study a Humanities degree. Language models can write passably, summarize quickly, and produce research-shaped text on demand. So the old humanities skills are supposed to matter less. Learn to code, learn to prompt, and stop pretending close.

• Is Yosemite only great because it's in California?

  Yosemite Valley is stunning. Unfortunately, it is also a traffic simulator. You spend half your visit inching forward behind rental SUVs while trying not to sideswipe a cyclist dressed like they’re competing in the Tour de France. Then you finally get out of the car and, yes, okay, El Capitan and Half Dome are unbelievable. You see them, you will NOT climb them*

• Is the Grand Canyon actually overrated?

  It looks exactly like the pictures. Great, now you’ve seen it. I’m not denying it’s impressive. It’s obviously impressive. There’s even a plaque there basically admitting: “Okay, fine, it’s not the biggest canyon in the world in any measurable category, but spiritually? Emotionally? Vibes-wise? It’s the grandest.” Sure. Why not.

• Do conservatives actually own the Church?

  I am tired of conservatives acting like they own the Church. They do not. The Church is older than the political right, older than trad nostalgia, older than the American culture war, and older than the faction that keeps trying to turn its own instincts into orthodoxy. If you look at Christian history instead of clinging to one preferred snapshot of it, the record points the other way.

• Can you admit what you're actually training for?

  When I started training seriously, the goal was to look like Christian Bale in Batman Begins. It was simple, I wanted to look good and I wanted to get laid. I was 20 years ago, when I was 14. I didn't over-complicate it, I didn't want athletic performance, cardiovascular health, longevity, mobility or any of the fitness buzzwords from 2026. I just wanted to look good. I feel the majority, if not practically all of us want the same, but now we go through complicated rituals to mask it...

• Is Rocky Mountain only worth visiting during a pandemic?

  Rocky Mountain National Park is gorgeous in the same way a 4K television demo is gorgeous. Everything looks fake. The lakes are too reflective, the mountains are too dramatic, the elk wander around with such perfect timing they feel computer-generated.

• Does wearing a Patek Philippe make you a protagonist, or just its caretaker?

  Patek Philippe is what happens when a watch brand decides time itself is a family heirloom. Most watch companies sell you a product. Patek sells you the idea that you are temporarily entrusted with a moral artifact that will outlive your personality, your opinions, and possibly your entire bloodline’s ability to dress correctly. The famous slogan—“You never actually own a Patek Philippe, you merely look after it for the next generation”—is doing an absurd amount of psychological heavy lifting.…

• Is Denali a national park, or an appointment a mountain refuses to keep?

  Denali feels less like visiting a national park and more like attempting to schedule an appointment with a mountain that does not respect you.First of all, there’s a very high chance you simply won’t see the mountain at all. Denali spends most of its life hiding behind clouds like a celebrity avoiding paparazzi. We're the paparazzi. People will visit, wait three days, spend thousands of dollars, and leave having technically experienced “weather near a mountain.”...

• Does 'no days off' actually mean you're training hard enough?

  “No days off” is one of those phrases that sounds tough right up until you think about it for more than five seconds. Because what is the sentence actually saying? If you genuinely train hard, really hard, with enough intensity to force adaptation, your body will demand recovery. Not emotionally. Biologically. Tissue damage, nervous system fatigue, glycogen depletion, inflammatory response. The entire point of hard training is that the body cannot fully maintain itself without rebuilding…