Maybe I'm missing some nuance to this line of questioning since I'm skimming too quickly for my own good...

But my read is that Scott is simply opposing the NYT's absolute policy of posting his real name in their article. His decision to delete the blog is because there were other non-coronavirus posts which he feared could lead to all kinds of IRL reprisals if his real name were to be known publicly.

Hence the repetition of "No doxing random bloggers for clicks". He seemed to be willing to bring everything back if that policy changes, and went so far as to ask people to mail the editor and be polite and specific about it.

Anyhow, apologies if I'm just restating the obvious here.

Interesting. I know a lot of the statistics have been discussed elsewhere here, so I'll add two weak speculations -

Cars are pretty expensive to own and operate. Mr. Money Moustache is constantly railing against them - https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/04/22/curing-your-clown.... Agree or disagree with his approach to things, his blog is very much about high social mobility.

Secondly, walking is a pretty good way to force yourself to get exercise. I'm fortunate enough to work for a big tech company with a shuttle; I recently realized that taking the shuttle forced me to walk more than 500 miles a year just between the stop and my apartment. That's huge when I'm pretty unreliable about going to the gym. The shuttle also strongly encourages me to stay on a reasonable schedule - in before the last morning shuttle, out before the last evening one. I have to imagine that over time, this is also a pretty huge health benefit.

Edit: typos

I was thinking recently about whether it would be useful for people to start thinking of things in terms of $/mi instead of mpg. Would make it much more explicit that it costs money to go places.

Also as a bit of a side tangent, one of my big pet-peeves is people who state their mpg in best case scenario and not day to day. "Oh my SUV gets 45mpg cruising down the interstate." Yea sure it does. but overall you're still getting low 20s if you measure fill up to fill up.

That depends on the current price of petrol which changes often.

And the price of travel changes as the price of gas changes.

I was taught to check my mileage every time I fill up the tank. It would be just as easy to divide `cost / trip meter` vs `trip meter / gallons`, and would arguably give a more interesting number.

Mostly just an idea I had that I thought may be worth trying.

Er - I'm not a proponent of UBI, but there's an important, but subtle distinction here.

UBI is not "paying people not to work." That's more like typical unemployment - when people find jobs, the benefit goes away, creating a disincentive. With UBI, the benefit remains, (theoretically) encouraging risk taking.

I suspect that it's "normal intergenerational gripes" except amplified by our modern super inflammatory media...

It seems like every generation can be viewed as heroic or decadent, depending on which lens you use - the Boomers lived through the Civil Rights mivement, stagflation and the end of the Cold War, but then the hippies ran up enormous debts and turned into greedy 80's business men. Their parents (the "Greatest Generation") survived the Great Depression and turned the US into an economic powerhouse for WW2, but also were horrifically racist and sexist by modern standards. Now Millenials are shifting to this modern world where you need to be hyper educated to get a job, they've been somewhat helicopter-parented (so they have all the anti-fragile problems) but on the other hand they tend to save more, they're better educated and more culturally sensitive...

I appreciate the response, but this is exactly the viewpoint I'm trying to evaluate. Yes, every generation has good/bad. That in no way means that each generational conflict is roughly equivalent. I mean, I don't think MY generation faced this level of hostility and blame from the older generations, so at least one example is subjectively/anecdotally different.

But ultimately, anecdotes != data. I want data.

I remember the 90s when GenX could do no right and worse things were blamed on GenX than Millenials have had to deal with.

Those are not my recollections. Yes, we GenXers had "oh, what will we do with them" articles, but the tone and acrimony were different, and faded quickly once GenXers hit 30, whereas the Millenials are definitely into their 30s and the tone is only getting more bitter, not less. YMMV, of course.