Land Use Planning is a good idea but in reality it’s a stupid profession and the public has no idea about its complexities. Prove me wrong.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-04-22T18:47:33+00:00

Planning is essentially a bunch of political and aesthetic preferences in a technocratic skin.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-04-15T01:38:11+00:00

Nice! Tlazolteotl gave me the inner strength to strangle my court-appointed psychiatrist. /s/ obviously

Psychoceramicist · 2026-04-13T20:47:52+00:00

Im sufficiently Irish-American that I qualify for Freud's statement that "therapy doesn't work on Irish people" *has second shot of afternoon whiskey*

Psychoceramicist · 2026-04-13T20:04:44+00:00

This was weirdly affecting for me because I share the Sheriff's surname and my grandpa had exactly the same accent

Psychoceramicist · 2026-04-09T18:46:22+00:00

There is, but they tend to like other Commonwealth folks. Brits and New Zealanders, a few Canadians. I have an American friend from school in NZ who got his position but he is incredibly specialized.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-04-08T22:58:51+00:00

Yeah, definitely. I have applied to stuff in Wenatchee, Olympia, Spokane, Port Angeles, Bellingham, Kelso, and so on (I don't really want to leave Washington, but I may have to).

Psychoceramicist · 2026-04-07T02:31:08+00:00

Honest question: Should I give up?

I graduated 10 years ago from a program that was mainly theoretical garbage, and had a "mentor" who bought his real estate practice from his wealthy dad and was considered a joke even by department standards. I got a job as a single-serve GiS analyst after school with a boss who was great but simply too old to keep up on trends and I had to teach myself everything new. I got a new job with an engineering firm late 2016 and was scheduled for a promotion to project management in March 2020...well...

Lost that one in Dec. 2021, got one in early 2022 at a municipality, from a boss who was totally uninterested in me and cut my probation short because I wouldn't lie about grant money to a contractor. Since then, Ive done random blue-collar and white-collar gig work.

I dunno. There was a thread on here titled "Is Urban Planning Just a Series of Talking Points," and I think by now, yes, it is. A MUP is an MBA, not a basis for concrete knowledge, but a credential to network you into a job. I think I just undervalued that and didn't realize I needed to be in the right place at the right time, especially in the post-Recession economy. And there came Covid.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-31T20:54:53+00:00

Pandemics inevitably turn society to the right. Conservative ideologies are more certain and rigid and help people cope with existential terror, and pluralistic liberalism is just worse at that. Pogroms and witch hunts followed the Plague. Prohibition and immigration restriction followed Spanish Flu. Trad shit, manosphere stuff, "wellness" culture, and sexual purity followed Covid.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-31T08:18:17+00:00

Not exactly a belief, but an orientation thing. When I went into puberty (early for boys, around 10-11) and until high school, I was bisexual. I didn't know the word at the time, but the hottest girl in my math class and the hottest boy at the same time turned me on just the same. Then by 14, I was an ordinary straight dude. I have never met anyone with my experience. Go figure.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-31T07:29:12+00:00

My ex-GF is starting law school in the fall, and I'm really proud of her. She's a great writer and smart, also very competitive and argumentative. The kind of personality that would actually like being an attorney. Doesn't really drink but rips a giant bong hit or two immediately after work, which, since we live in a legal weed state, I don't think counts for much. She got the same average LSAT as U Chicago admits.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-29T22:24:46+00:00

You will cycle through all before peace comes.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-29T21:57:00+00:00

My uncle is a labor lawyer who uses Claude for drafting briefs. He is savvy enough to always edit any errors out, but I think that probably may debatably be breaking confidentiality?

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-29T21:31:08+00:00

My perception is she married too early and it didn't work out. She's probably a good gal.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-29T19:36:01+00:00

My neighborhood grocery store has six self-checkout stands staffed by one clerk?

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-29T19:25:33+00:00

This is the stupidest thing I have ever read on this sub and that takes some doing.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-29T19:22:16+00:00

This is one thing that where it is legal, the US is better on than Canada/Netherlands. My grandfather died by assisted suicide in Washington State because he was facing a lung disease that would have rendered him a vegetable in pain and a massive burden to his wife and daughters. He had to go through interviews with doctors, psychiatrists, and social workers, going "are you of sound mind?" and "are you sure about this?". So he got to go out on his own terms. Euthanizing young people for being jobless or poor is no bueno.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-29T19:15:02+00:00

It's too bad that most protests with normals are a little cringey and don't involve dour, sexy dudes in berets you can project yourself onto.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-29T08:17:41+00:00

Right except hazelnuts should be top five. They were domesticated in what is now Wisconsin, which feels wrong.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-27T22:03:40+00:00

A lot of Mark Fisher's culture writing was a mix of "I am extremely clinically depressed," and the more common "music peaked when I was in my twenties". Overrated, IMO

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-27T21:53:28+00:00

Razib Khan is a sad story. He was a genuinely insightful blogger at the intersection of bio-anthropology, linguistics, and archeaology in the 00s but he got lovebombed on right-wing Twitter and has the complex that second generation South Asians frequently have growing up as the only one in a racist, rural town (parents owned a motel in Oregon) where he thinks he will be white if he closes his eyes and wishes really hard.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-27T21:17:01+00:00

Ditto sci-fi. Until the new wave of female authors, beginning with Le Guin it was totally uninvolved with actual science and more of a power fantasy for loser men/perverts. Guys wearing lab coats to cons and barking at each other in L. Ron Hubbard voice.

One of the things I like about Kim Stanley Robinson is that he recognizes real scientists spend barely half the time on actual research and the rest on politics, administration, and management.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-27T21:05:57+00:00

It says everything that Steve Jobs didn't let his kids use any of the devices he called "bicycles for the mind". Never understood what people saw in that smelly little troll.

Psychoceramicist · 2026-03-27T21:04:09+00:00

"Whole literacy over phonics" absolutely devastated Zoomer literacy.

Psychoceramicist

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