40 is nice. That's when you're settled down and financially stable. Usually, you're in a good marriage and your kids are growing up nicely. Etc.

If only that were the way the world worked. You have obviously been very fortunate and grew up in a good home. The cold reality is that most people don't. I would say that the average 40 year old in America is either divorced or in a bad marriage, has debt, and kids that aren't "growing up nicely". In a lot of other places in the world it is far worse. /

Cole is just young and naive, let the kid stay in his dreamworld some more, he'll have enough time facing realities later

Cole and distajo can hang out!

not enough stuff happening on stars ldo
haven't seen beck, or mariakra for months, who are we supposed to be bashing

somebody remind me the purpose of this thread

My parents got divorced when I was 1 and a half years old and were 42 and 50 respectively when I was born. I don't know if that should be labeled fortunate.

Well, maybe I should rephrase. 40 has the possibility of being the best age, but then again, every age could be.

Brag garphs!


This is since August when I stopped being as big of a nit.

This may be true of the "average" family, but my wife and I are 43 and 38, with 3 kids that are all growing up "nicely" as you guys have put it. My daughters are in the band, and swim team, and drama club and are enjoying their HS years. My son is 8, so he is just a normal 8 year old kid. My wife and I were stubborn enough to make it through all of the petty arguments that cause most divorces, and now things are finally feeling good!

Not everyone is a statistic.

maria now multitabling(2) 2/4-3/6 TD tyvm. TD about 3 years behind lhe in sophistication. shhh. I've pretty much stopped lhe

I don't think you can barg a .84BB winrate.

Yep, that awesome. I don't intend to be a statistic either.

Side note, I am also a big LSU fan. I grew up in Shreveport and both my folks went to LSU. I have been to at least 1 LSU game a year every year of my life. I came to Atlanta to go to Georgia Tech and have been here ever since.

I'll be thankful to be in the minority, though it doesn't seem that way. Most people I know in their 40's are as Cole described. It could be the people that I know, but most got married later in life, had kids because they wanted them, and are correspondingly reaping the rewards of good decision making. That or the people I know are lucky or grouping. I'm either really lucky + thankful for that, or things aren't as bad as all that and I'm normal.

I wonder at the desire of people to think that they currently live in bad times. People selling newspapers would like you to think that we do. Two questions (though I'll admit to believing I know the answer to one)

1) Are you safer now than you were 40 years ago? i.e. is the crime rate, specifically the violent crime rate, higher now or in 1970?

2) How about hunger in the US? Sorry, I know a lot less about Europe. Per capita, are there more or fewer people in risk of starvation/dangerous malnourishment now or 40 years ago? Intentional malnourishment doesn't count.

How about each of the about 100 or 200 years ago?

The divorce rate came up. Higher now or in 1970? 1980?

I'd be particularly interested in what people think before the real answer comes out. If you had to guess, what would you say?

I wish, I'm 30.

I feel like the average SSSH age is probably around 25-30. Maybe even closer to 30. But, I'm probably wrong.

Like most things

First let me clarify: I think things are better now than they ever have been and will probably continue to improve.

However I do think there is a significant sample bias based on who we are exposed to. People who post on this forum are generally much better off than the average person. The sample bias is created simply by things that are true of the forum using population: you have a computer, internet access, are reasonably tech savvy, are literate, and have free time. Thus most people we are exposed to on a day to day basis are naturally better off than average. My wife teaches in a low income school and I have spent a fair amount of time with those kids and their families. It is shocking how different things are for them.

1. I felt safer in the 70's than I do now. I do think that is a product of being older and more cautious of what I do and what others are doing around me. When you are a kid, you are either playing or getting in trouble, there really isn't any place in between. I rode my bike without a helmet. We would ride 2 or 3 miles on a busy road to the mini-mart to buy baseball cards. We would jump out of trees with a plastic tarp testing the parachute theorem. We had BB gun fights with no eye protection and we would play tackle football and try to kill each other. When there wasn't enough people for football, we played Smear the Kikadell.

Judging by everything I just said, I should be safer now than when growing up, but I still feel like we didn't have to lock the front door at night and didn't have to lock the car when we went into the store. You could pick up a hitch hiker and not worry about him cutting off your head and stuffing it in a dufflebag.

2. I would say that hunger in the US is more of a problem now than in the 70's. I was born in 71, so I really don't have a good perspective on it because my cognitive reasoning skills weren't fully developed yet, but life seemed a lot simpler in the 70's than it is now. There are more people now than in the 70's, so it would stand to reason that more people would be starving.

This is a great point! It's nice to not have to work at McDonalds and Taco Bell for 16 hrs a day just make ends meet.

Those guys should just learn how to beat .25/.50 LHE and retire with twice the income!

That's just because all of those degenerate poker players in Washington are now out on the streets!

...bet seriously, I think more of that is due to the media. There were obviously pedophiles out there when we were kids, but Chris Hansen wasn't inviting them to some "girls" house on national TV.

Thats cause you had your dad bailing you out everytime you did anything wrong.

Life is always simpler when you are a pre-teen than when you are an adult...don't think that depends upon when you were born as long as you were born in a first world country.

But, the reason they are working at McDonalds or TacoBell could probably be explained by poor life choices.

I mean sure, you could grow up in a ****** neighborhood, but if you do well in school and don't join a gang and don't drugs and don't kill people, you can get scholarships to college and have a good life. Albeit, it is probably harder than I am making it sound..but still.

Anyways, who cares? We need these people. I don't want to have to work at Taco Bell. Emo would be devastated if there was no one to work at Taco Bell because they are all too smart and made good life decisions.

lol, this