mildtrepidation

You like being alone. Congratulations. So does he. That's great, and I never said it wasn't OK. I tried to make suggestions that people for some reason didn't appreciate; that doesn't mean I was condemning him or his lifestyle (or your lifestyle).

Anyway, this is past the point of productivity. I tried, no one appreciated it, and I'm not going to apologize for other people's uncharitable misinterpretations.

Then I went on to make what I considered a positive and constructive suggestion, that assuming I did not understand the person, he might look in places other than zero-population areas for suitable but more convenient habitation.

I'm sorry you see that as "not OK." I see it as ridiculous that this sort of well-meaning input should somehow be so awful as to be unmentionable. But I seem to be pretty much alone there.

The fact that it can't be reliably (more specifically, objectively) quantified is why we see so many nearly-worthless income comparisons instead: The content mill has to run, and less responsible journalists are often happy to print arbitrary crap masquerading as information rather than tackling hard topics with hard work (or just accepting that some things can't be accurately compared and moving on to things they can actually address in a meaningful way).

Granted, this is just my perspective, but that does suggest that this statement can mean various things depending on who you are and how you've been treated yourself.

Human interaction is not black and white (don't read into that). While this situation will never be totally transparent to the vast majority of us, the necessity of working within our limited knowledge does not imply our knowledge should necessarily be limited.

Don't get me wrong, this is interesting. But that as even a secondary motivation is fairly repulsive.

The vast majority of products simply do not cater to every demographic. Racism might at least be reasonably considered inappropriate unless you're marketing a product that specifically targets some races and not others, but ageism? It's highly likely that whatever it is you're advertising does have a well-defined audience in terms of age.

This is just another rung on the political correctness ladder. Expecting everyone to include every possible demographic in every conceivable advertising campaign is idiotic.

Making it about "what people want to be" (from GP) misses the point as well. If you're not aiming your advertising at your target demographics, you are failing either yourself or your client. That's not discrimination; it's business. Discrimination is "you're not pretty, you don't get a discount or aren't allowed to use this service."

It's obvious to all of us that these ideals don't reflect reality, but simply accepting that what the American government does is the ideal representation of values the American public actually holds isn't something most of us are willing to do.

I don't believe in "learn to code if you want to manage technical people," but it is definitely true that if you don't have at least a basic understanding of what your team is building and how, you should have someone who does informing your decisions and filtering your input.

The idea that getting a job, keeping it, and living responsibly necessarily result in sufficient savings and assets for retirement is pretty widespread and deeply flawed. Life just is not that simple, and there are plenty of ways to end up screwed (in varying degrees) without having done anything particularly irresponsible or stupid that would warrant it.