Air Quality (空气质量, 空気の質, 공기질)

 I've lived in LA for most of my adult life, so I understand problems with air quality: the first thing I heard about LA from locals upon arriving were jokes about the smog around the downtown area; yup, there's definitely smog. This year has really challenged my limits on air quality: I usually walk blissfully unaware of the air and just walk outside and breathe murky air, but even I have been a little alarmed of the air quality around the U.S. this year, especially this summer. MJ is especially aware of the air quality problems and has a daily tracker of the air quality in our area;

When running around, I can feel the brisk morning area if it's fresh; it makes me want to run and give me more energy. When it's murky or dusty air though, I feel suffocated and my feet start dragging, like I don't want to be outside any more. And this is from a guy who craves going outside after a long day sitting at home working indoors; I'm like a dog whose owner hasn't walked him for a while, I start pawing at the door and looking outside frequently marveling at the outside world ready to step out of the cage......until it's revealed that outside the cage is what looks like poison gas almost as thick as fog, covering up almost everything, with even the sun struggling to break through the congestion. I haven't routinely worn a mask for awhile since Covid has cooled off a bit, but even I had to wear one (at MJ's urging) to wear a mask OUTSIDE (and take it off inside my home). This was of course the original purpose for wearing masks in some Asian countries like Beijing or Shanghai due to the pollution of such large urban centers, and only in the last 3 years did we associate it with a worldwide pandemic and wearing them indoors. Does it have a noticeable effect on my lungs as I'm breathing it microparticles? Not really, I don't feel it coursing through my airways or lungs or anything, but there's just a faint feel of throat itchiness and just that uneasiness of not feeling quite right. 

The suffocating feeling I get is kind of similar to watching the TV show The Bear, now airing Season 2 on Hulu. It's a great show, but watching it causes stress because everything in the restaurant seems dirty and unruly, like I'm living in a unkempt room that no matter how much I try to clean up, there remains dirt and grime and something. MJ is definitely the one in our relationship who values things being clean in the sense that there are no germs or things touching the floor (I'm not as hung up on those), but I've found based on how I react to things that I'm actually the one who values orderliness and putting things away, or at least not "leaving them out." It's definitely caused a little friction in our relationship, as it's one of those things that has to be dealt with daily, it's not something like changing the engine oil (every several months) or taking a plane trip (every couple months) that can be forgotten for awhile, orderliness and cleanliness is an EVERY DAY, almost every hour issue. Just as much as I grimace and push back sometimes on the idea of having to use hand sanitizer after touching anything that's a solid object outside the home (doors, handles, clothing, everything), I'm sure MJ is tired of hearing me ask her to put away some of the items that she's not using or left out because she fell asleep and forgot about it. 

What were we talking about again? Ah yes, the Bear, which is a great show which gave me the 789th reason never to own a restaurant, but also gave me nostalgia for living in downtown Chicago with mentions of River North and things only Chicagoans talk about. Never thought about air quality living in suburban Chicago, that's for sure; usually the freezing cold from the lakefront ice makes the air bitter cold enough to forget about what "air quality" is. And in the summer? Thunderstorms would hopefully blow away any of that residual dust lingering around after a heat wave. 

Night at the Museum (博物馆之夜, 美術館の夜, 박물관의 밤)

 Tired of going to the same old movie theater in your local area on Friday nights? Not big on spending beaucoup bucks on fancy dinners? Does the thought of spending hours in line to get into a nightclub only to be served overpriced drinks and have loud music beating into your head repulse you (like it does me)? Just couldn't get Taylor Swift concert tickets this summer? Well, MJ and I did something offbeat last Saturday night: We spent a night at the museum. No we didn't go see the Ben Stiller Museum (filmed at the Natural History Museum in New York) nor the sequel, we actually went to various museums along the National Mall that opened until midnight for the Summer Solstice. It was free, we got matching temporary tattoos, we saw the giant blue whale model in the center, we learned about Egyptian gods like Horus (with a hawk head), Thoth (with an ibis head) and Anubis (with a dog/jackal head). Right up my alley: no alcohol needed (although some people seemed to have had multiple drinks before entering), no admission fee needed, and even some knowledge sprinkled in. It was also a hot summer night, so retreating into the air-conditioned museums was just what the date night doctor ordered. 

MJ and I also spent "a night in the basement" at one of her friends' birthday parties, a twenty-something friend who had a beautiful home in the suburbs.....that belonged to her parents, which meant upstairs and various other rooms in the house were off limits, but the prime hangout spot was the basement. Yup, it felt exactly like a high school basement party. I was lucky enough to be invited to co-ed gatherings back in the day despite being one of the nerdiest guys in the school, just by being mildly funny and helping other people with homework and group assignments. I hadn't thought much about those get-togethers for a long time, but our "Night in the Basement" reminded me how much I missed those nights, where I felt like I was accepted as part of a group, where I could get out of the house and be with people my own age, to just be living life as a teenager. For my generation at least, the basement was the best place for adults to let kids just hang out without causing too much noise (or at least it would be drowned out) and where there were all kinds of cool stuff lying around like video games, board games, hula hoops, more space, and most importantly, lack of expensive and fragile furniture. And basements are like 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the house, at least in suburban Chicago where I grew up, ideal for young teens to cool out their raging hormones. Of course I didn't know how to act back then in these basement parties, so I didn't take advantage of them as much as I should have, and my 36-year-old self (man I feel old just saying that number) didn't really enjoy the basement activities as much as my 16-year-old self would have, but it was just enough to bring back the nostalgia. Oh and we didn't have alcohol back then neither; that's a game changer. I wonder if the new generation of teenagers still have these nights in the basement, or if they do they just sit in a circle looking down at their phones. 

Science Non-Fiction (科学非小说类, 과학 논픽션, 科学ノンフィクション)

 Here I am, still reading about the Oort Cloud, balance of matter and anti-matter before the Big Bang, scary robots in the future, and the science of the little-known 2016 movie "Passengers" with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. It's still Michio Kaku, and I wish I had read him 25 years ago, when I was a kid in my formative years looking for an identity and a career path. I call Kaku's writing "science non-fiction," the perfect medium between hardcore science fiction like Robert Heinlein or Frank Herbert of "Dune" fame and just straight raw science facts in textbooks and encyclopedias. One is riveting and entertaining but not real, the other is real and exactly what surrounds us in our lives, but as riveting as, well, watching water boil. I can see why 11-year-old Robert got past the animals portion of science books but couldn't digest all the physics and astronomy stuff that came after; it just didn't resonate, as hard as my parents tried to push me in the science category. (Like what you see in Asian TV shows, they kind of nudged me towards the science books when I was picking out things to read back then, but I settled instead on books about baseball, teenage sleuths like Encylopedia Brown and the Hardy boys, then fictious worlds like the one in Brian Jacques's Redwall series. 

But I could have been a reader of science books, if I had just been given the right book! Just like I have an aversion towards dogs that's mostly unexplained except for getting one bad experience as a kid that I barely remember and hearing about how my kid neighbor got bit by one, I just never liked dogs and never petted them or tried to get close to them, even nowadays shrinking away when I get stuck in an elevator with a dog owner and his or her pet. Just one bad science book and I got turned off for half of my life, I guess. Still got time though! And according to a few "radical" scientists out there, I might have the rest of time to get to know science, because in just a few decades, mankind might find the secret to living forever. Immortality- a strong word, I don't imagine that kind of living forever would entail always having a clear mind and keeping one's mind sharp, but that's still a powerful idea of being alive forever. As a kid of course I wanted to live forever (and got really sad when my grandpa told me he would pass away and that I would one day pass away too) but I'm not so sure that'd be the best; Michio Kaku does a great job of cautioning humans "be careful what you wish for," like King Midas's folly. 

Do I really want to live on distant planets like Mars or suns of Jupiter like Io or Europa? That's where Kaku says humankind might be headed, first to Mars (after we deplete Earth of all its resources) then to places where water can form like in the gas giants, where heat isn't the thing that creates water, it's friction and moving of the tides. Beats me, but I do recognize the importance of water in developing life. It's all fascinatign stuff and the genius of Kaku's writing is that he can "Explain it to me like I'm 5," not using any fancy equations or quoting different theorems or laws, he just gets into the basics and then the implications in a way I can understand, using plenty of real-life examples like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos's space race and how billionaires (maybe eventually trillionaires) like them have taken over space exploration after the U.S. government basically ran out of money and Obama declared the space program over, challenging private entrepreneurs to finance the next leg of exploration. (Well, them and possibly China, who has the most momentum right now with their taikonauts). It's all fascinating stuff and makes my petty squabbles over how much to spend on a haircut, fantasy baseball trades, and even Covid-19 outbreaks seem so insignificant in the long run. Space exploration: It's not just science fiction anymore, it's a non-fiction of ever-growing likelihood. 

Crossing Borders (跨越边界, 国境を越える, 국경을 넘다)

 All humans cross borders every day, from crossing from the bedroom to the bathroom in the morning, to crossing the street to get to work, to crossing from the waiting area in airports to inside the actual plane right before a flight, at which point you have no choice but to take that flight (I've changed flights before literally as I was waiting in line to board because I found a better one), but seldom do you have to go through a border patrol to cross a border, which is what you have to do when you go from one country to another. MJ and I have crossed into various other countries in just the last calendar year so, mostly European countries, where we've been greeted nicely or (even better) sometimes seldom at all, where we basically just walked into the Netherlands seemingly without anyone checking any identification whatsoever (an attitude that seems to fit with the Dutch). 

I have come to a definitive conclusion when deciding which direction of crossing the border between Canada and the U.S is better: crossing into Canada from the US is always better. The border agent we bumped into greeted us with a mixed-language "Hello" and "Bonjour!" took our papers immediately, glanced over them briefly, asked us where we were going, and let us go with a "have a nice trip." Almost as if Canada were a resort destination that was trying to satisfy its customer base and allow them the best experience possible, and MJ and I were the subject of a "Explore Canada" tourism ad campaign. Contrast this with the experience coming back home to the U.S. (this has happened multiple times) with border agents that seem like they watched an instructional video titled "how to do the bare minimum possible for the job and offend people through microaggressions." We drive up, the border agent is on his computer typing something, not looking at us at all. After about a full minute of random typing and staring at a screen as if there's not a 20-car-deep line behind us that's waiting for this one person to stop what he's doing, he starts the conversation by gesturing for our passports, without any verbal communication. First question: "What passports do you have?" followed by "what was the purpose of your visit?" Then where we lived in the US, all said in the worst body language and tone that made it sound like we were getting in his way of a fun time, which was him clicking away at his computer and staring at the screen some more. Not once during the entire exchange did he make eye contact with us, and after he was done he kind of shooed us away with a dismissive, "OK fine." Sometimes US border agents will at least give a "welcome home" to me due to my US passport, but nope this guy could not be bothered. Does the US government skimp on paying their border patrol agents too? I chalk it up also to Canadians just on average having a more cheerful disposition, but just because you're a border agent and have a reputation for being a jerk, doesn't mean you have to play the role perfectly and act like a jerk too. 

Maybe it's because Canada provides all citizens with universal healthcare? Apparently it's not all flowers and balloons, though, as one radio station mentioned Canadian hospitals are going through a huge issue with emergency room staffing (hey American hospitals too!) Apparently MJ's hospital and many hospitals around the world have this expectation of their nurses that they didn't become nurses to make money, one of the most brainwashy cult-like things a profession can do, not to mention the guilt trip. Most everyone works to make money, that's why it's called "work" and a "job" and not "volunteering." There can be other motivations to doing one's job but money, almost by definition, has to be one of the motivations. That's something the nursing profession has crossed the border from being just stingy (trying to pay less for better quality, a rational method) to being irrational and unfair. 

MJ had considered living in Canada before in her life, and I like visiting but never gave it any serious thought, especially since I'd have to go through a whole different process to become licensed as an attorney there. If we did, we might try Toronto, one of the most international cities I've ever visited. So many different nationalities there and as a consequence so many different languages I hear on the street, but especially ones where I can understand: French and English, of course, but also Mandarin and a surprising number of Cantonese speakers (maybe because of Chinatown) and plenty of Japanese and Korean. Big enough to have its own NBA and MLB team, and big enough to have a big art museum (the Art Gallery of Ontario) with its own Kusama infinity room (you know you've made it if your city has a Kusama infinity room), seemingly vary vegan conscious, many more options than say.....Texas or something. Something calming about living on a city next to a big lake (that'd be Lake Ontario, geography buffs) because it's not like the big waves crashing onshore like L.A. or the coasts, it's a calm stay-awhile kind of vibe. 

Did I mention there was universal healthcare? 

O by the way, check the exchange rate between US and Canada/ EU before you go; there's been years the Canadian dollar was worth MORE than a US dollar, but usually it's around 1.2 or 1.3; makes the prices seem more palatable. 

The Sputnik Generation

 I'm reading a book right now by Michio Kaku- if you know who that is, congratulations on knowing one of the best scientific minds of our generation- called "The Future of Humanity," which is fascinating because human beings have been around for about 1 million or 2 million years or so (depending on how long ago "Homo Habilis" or "handyman" was around, but in the next 100 years humanity can accelerate so quickly that we totally fizz out, let AI take over, run out of natural resources, destroy the Earth so that it becomes uninhabitable, any number of pessimistic-sounding scenarios. Michio Kaku accounts for all of this as the natural course of a species: 99.9% of living things on Earth have gone extinct, and we're likely to be as well, at some point. But maybe human beings are the exception, and we can evolve to combat all the challenges we face, develop a way to get to other planets, other galaxies, or even.......other universes. That's right, Kaku considers the idea of living in a... wait for it......MULTIVERSE that's not even of this universe, if the laws of physics allows humans in the future to travel to it. What a concept. 

Kaku also described the history of space exploration and that in the 1950's and 60's there was a generation of young people in the US who were affected by the launching of the Sputnik, the Soviet space program that sent the first rocket into space. Americans were so disturbed after winning WWII but then letting the Soviets take the first step in the space race that many vowed to study physics, astronomy, and math just to defeat the Soviets and win the Space Race for the U.S. Talk about OK Boomer. The previous generation was sent to battle in World War II, and then the next generation was fighting to fight the intellectual battle. Inspiring stuff.....and now we have the Youtuber generation, the ones fighting to get the most likes on their Youtube channel or social media platform, the Me generation, the internet generation. I often wonder what it must have been like growing up in Michio Kaku's generation as a young kid hearing about all these scientific advances, that the world is changing for the better, and being a part of the zeitgeist, that feeling of infinite possibilities, of upward movement. Nowadays, young people seem so complacent or resigned (probably a better word) of humanity's eventual trajectory to let AI pass us and just let the Earth's doom happen, as long as we can keep our Iphones and our social media accounts. I think the Sputnik generation, if it traveled in time to this decade, would recognize the problem as rapidly expanding AI but then try to fight for humankind like studying up on how to control AI, how to take control of our addictions to our smartphones and get smarter, not more dependent on the AI to do everything for us. It's kind of the genius of AI: first give us petty humans everything we need to feel satisfied so we don't feel threatened by AI, (as Gene Hackman said in the movie Runaway Jury, "let the cable TV wash over us") then gradually invade our lives and eventually control us. Just the fact that I go to the library and "The Future of Humanity" book by Kaku remained relatively untouched (open the pages and it feels like a new book, despite being available starting in 2018) kinda tells me about this generation. 

Hey but the stock market is benefiting form the AI boom- a few of the biggest AI players (Microsoft, Oracle, Nividia) have been way up in the stock market this year, lifting all other stocks too. I guess if the thesis is that AI is going to take over, might as well be invested in it and profit while they're taking away your job, your life, everything. 

My pessimism about our generation is not mutually exclusive with desire to have a child and aim to allow that child to lead a fruitful and happy life; I'm optimistic about plenty of things in the future like better medical advances, (technology can slow down aging- will I be in time for that?) faster travel (beat traffic and go on vacation much quicker)

Peeing my pants (尿裤, おもらしパンツ, 오줌 누는 바지)

 I'm ashamed to say one of my first memories in my life is coming home from pre-school (or some sort of educational institute) by myself but suddenly feeling something in my stomach like I couldn't hold it, walking while fighting the urge to go but slowly losing the battle and feeling the pain, then next thing I remember I was at home and our family's babysitter was cleaning me off due to having "lost control." That memory is a blur, I can't remember any people or any faces, any streets I took, or even the moment when I lost control, but the embarrassment and urgency of the situation apparently was so vivid that it stuck with me forever. 

I've luckily been able to avoid repeating that childhood episode now that I'm an adult, but barely. There's been plenty of times I've been very close, and felt the pain and urgency, and No. 2 is really hard to fight off....who's to say some didn't leak out a little bit one time when I was desperately searching for a restroom? (It's a losing battle because walking usually coaxes the urge, compounding the problem). I've also been proud to say I've never peed my pants.....that is, until today....barely. 

I've recently started donating platelets, but the first time I did it I apparently didn't drink enough water the night before leading up to the donation, so it took much longer for me to complete the process than other people, so the nurses suggested I make sure to do that next time. I heeded their advice this time.....but they didn't tell me that drinking all that water comes with a cost: remember platelet donors also have to sit still without getting up until the entire process is over. Therein lies the rub. The first hour went off swimmingly as I caught up on Disney+ shows (the one streaming subscription service I don't have, it seems like) with Avatar 2: The Way of Water and Marvel Comics introducing their newest ultra-villain of the MCU (Marvel Comics Universe) with the multiverse-traveling "Kang" in Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantamania, where I had an epiphany about how old I've become after seeing Kate from Lost (Evangeline Lilly) looking pretty old, although she still plays Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas's daughter in the movie, as opposed to Paul Rudd who never ages. (Oh except there was an "infiltration" event where the needle for my right arm went through my vein and didn't connect to the blood source, so it caused a bruise in my arm and extreme pain for a few minutes, but that didn't end up being the most unbearable part of the experience). 

Like most bathroom emergencies, this one snuck up quietly, like a slow crescendo as my brain acknowledged that I needed to pee, but it wasn't desperate and I tried to block it out of my mind as they say it's worse if you keep thinkin about it. Five minutes later, I had no choice but to think about it: the pain wasn't going anywhere, and it was starting to get urgent. The screen at this donation center was spun away from me so I didn't know the amount of time left, but my internal clock told me I probably wasn't going to make it. On screen, Michelle Pfeiffer was explaining to her family why she had to lie to them about what she left behind in the quantum realm. Big mistake! Of course that lie is going to come back and bite you in the butt, haven't you ever watched thriller movies? That extra glass of milk I drank in the morning was also coming back to bite me in the butt too, apparently. I asked the nurse how much longer it was going to be......28 minutes. I wasn't going to last 28 minutes, so I "tapped out" proverbially, asking if I could just be released from my inner torture. "Well, it takes us 10 minutes to wind down the machine so that we can actually use what you donated, otherwise it will be a complete waste." OK, so 10 minutes. I can do 10 minutes right? The next 10 minutes were some of the most excruciating for just one part of my body (everything else felt fine), but my bladder was on fire. Thoughts of "what happens if I pee now here, how bad would it be" crept into my mind against my will. Luckily, the nurses I was assigned were friendly, (whereas the other millennial/Gen Z looking nurses helping the other nurses looked like they didn't want to be there on a Sunday) and I feel like they've probably seen someone on the verge of peeing their pants, so they braced for impact, shall we say, let me go right when the machine stopped, and directed me, stumbling and half-crazed, towards the nearest restroom. 

I hope to never be in that sort of situation ever again. Public service announcement: Always know where your closest restroom is, and....if incapacitated, know when you can be freed to use your restroom. I can't imagine what would have happened had I let the dam burst today, I don't know if I could have looked anyone in the eye, there were blankets covering my whole body, I didn't have a change of underwear or anything, and there were about 10 or 11 women around me either as nurses or donors. I don't know how Antman and the Wasp beat Kang in the movie, but the obstacles they must have overcome were probably not as hard as the urge to pee obstacle I had to get through today.  

石の上にも三年 (Perserverance Pays Dividends)

 There's an old Japanese proverb about sitting on a stone for 3 years, it will become warm. A different version of the American phrase: "good things come to those who wait" but hard work and perseverance is added to the formula to adjust the phrase to "good things come to those who work hard and persevere." I often view my life in different chunks of time, like what I was doing last year at the same time (recovering from a trip to Italy) or 2 years ago (buying a new home) and 3 years ago (right smack dab in the summer of quarantine, stuck inside during a pandemic). It's crazy how the news shapes our daily lives in dramatic ways, where 3 years ago every top headline in the news would be about Covid and number of deaths, number of cases (interspersed with the Black Lives Matter movement after George Floyd) to the point where you think this will be the only thing in the world that happens, until it doesn't.... and 3 years later, Covid is literally yesterday's news, with news agencies figuring out people don't care as much anymore and moving on to other stuff. It kind of validates my theory (pretty generally accepted) that the news is just another business entity trying to get our attention, which nowadays is more valuable than getting our money because you can monetize the attention into money, and better than an instant hit of money it's a steady stream of money and income. Which makes it all that more important to have perspective during a certain time in one's life, realize in a few months or a few years everything might change, it won't always be like that (especially stock market stuff! All the fearmongering about stocks going down last year have been replaced with headlines of Nividia and other stocks surging up in 2023!) 

The "3 years" in the Japanese proverb is important too to emphasize that hard work takes a long time to reap benefits from, it's not like you can just sit on a rock for 3 minutes, 3 hours, or 3 days even, it takes a while for good things to happen, good habits to develop, good projects to materialize. More and more in our society (me included) we're looking for a shortcut to our goals, whether it's fame, wealth, or status. If someone gave me enough money so I could retire and not work for the rest of my life, I'm sure I would take it. But is that likely to happen? Not at all. And would I even be satisfied for that to happen? The financial stress would be gone, but the feeling of accomplishment and having earned the money would not exist. The "Moonwalking with Einstein" book taught me that no one necessarily has a "bad memory," it's just up to you to train your own memory to be a good memory. Too many things are blamed on naturally being bad at something, which in some cases is true: some people have bad health, are shorter, have brown hair, etc., but memory is something you can control and train to get better, that anybody could do. 

Nepo Baby (富二代, 친척 편중, 縁故主義)

 As much as I have been against affirmative action throughout my life (it usually doesn't do me any favors), I am equally or maybe even more strongly against nepotism, which admittedly isn't the exact opposite. Actually, both affirmative action and nepotism lack an essential component that I think is required for selecting candidates and giving coveted positions to those seeking it: merit, and putting in the work to get the position and being the best candidate. Nepo babies seem to this generation's proof that the world isn't fair, the best person doesn't always win. It's better to be related to someone who's done something with their lives than actually be someone who's done something with their lives. 

One of the best TV shows out there, Succession, just had its series finale this past week and was the main theme of the show was about nepo babies, where 3 children (or 4, if you count Connor, whom everybody usually forgets, even his father) are vying for the successor position at the multimedia conglomerate that their father built, but the 3 kids have forever lived in the lap of luxury and silver spoons, never having to fight for what they want but instead believing they have a birthright to it. This is the kind of thinking that destroyed kingdoms from Asia (China) to Europe (the Romans, the monarchies, the Russians), pretty much everywhere in the world except the United States, this crazy idea that just because someone is born to the leader/ruler of a country that their children should naturally be the next ruler/leader. Why did that myth originate in the first place and why does it still persist into modern day? It's like some weird cult message or superstition that it's true, when often times it's not true at all, or worse, the child of a great person is a terrible candidate BECAUSE their parent was such a strong leader; pressure to the same as that parent, entitlement, knowing before you've earned it that you're going to get it.... all seem like pretty bad ideas to give a child before they've developed their own sense of the world. Sure, family bonds are important and you want to give your son or daughter the best life you can, but that doesn't even necessarily mean give them the keys to the corporation, kingdom, whatever organization you've created. The best life could be to just go live your life around the world without having to take over this thing they didn't have any part in except for the fact they're related to you. It's bad for both the child and the thing you built by installing this random person in as the leader. If there's anything MJ and I agree on about childbirth, it's that our child could be any number of different personalities, and we shouldn't force that child to become something that he or she is not. There's an old saying in Asian cultures, the first generation goes out in the world and tries to succeed; the second generation messes up everything that the first generation did; the third generation makes amends for what the third generation does. I'd rather skip that step of the second generation, thank you very much. Human history has shown that nepotism doesn't work; why do people keep insisting on it as a guiding principle in jobs/promotions/ British royalty line of succession? Is there no other way? 

I have the privilege of not working for anyone (as far as I know) who is a nepo-baby, but I'm sure somewhere up the food chain, one of my clients (mostly corporations) has at least someone in the system who is appointed that position just because he or she is the president's kid, or relative, or whatever. Heck, I lived in a country that for 8 years was led by Nepo-baby George W. Bush. Now sometimes nepo-babies can be good at their jobs, but I think that's just coincidence and not at all because they were related to anyone, it's just that's who they were. I can only imagine what it's like working under incompetent people who acted like they were my boss or my superior, but knowing they only got the job because of family connections. I of course am not completely innocent of getting certain benefits due to who my parents are; I was able to become a US citizen before I was 18 and never had to worry about immigration issues; I never worried too much about going to college and paying for tuition; I live in a steady 2-parent household with food always on the table and safety and security. I NEVER, however, used my parents as a resource for finding a job or in my career, and in fact their lack of connections in society or in the fields that I was interested in getting a job in likely put me at a disadvantage, since so many people have an advantage because their parents or their uncle or a cousin, somebody knew somebody who knew something. That's the unique challenge a lot of immigrants have in the U.S., just not knowing enough people, and this vague concept of "networking" as an active skill is likely totally eclipsed by the natural network of one's relatives who know someone who can help get them a job. It's really an unfair system, and if we want to talk about systemic racism and/or certain groups of people being left behind by society, we should look immediately to the nepotism that still exists today. It's hard to imagine any laws that can ban it, but at least make it a societal norm to denounce it, reform it, and maybe there will be some changes. Until then, there are a lot of corporations and businesses in the world today that look exactly like Waystar Royco in Succession, with bumbling idiots at the helm with no actual abilities whatsoever, and I'd be okay with that being the legacy of the TV show when we look back on it. (Even though the show was really good in other qualities because Jessie Armstrong, the showrunner, is not a nepo baby and earned his right to be the head guy).