If your income has stagnated after 10 years of experience, the root cause is that you have stagnated your own career

I'll try to explain what I think the grandparent means. Say I am a mechanical or electrical engineer at a large company. Here are the requirements for promotion:

Level 1: Starting (college grad)
Level 2: Minimum 2 years experience.
Level 3: Minimum 5 years experience.
Level 4: Minimum 9 years experience.
Level 5: Minimum 14 years experience. Also needs a "business case" to justify promotion. These are typically technical lead positions, but are not management.

The numbers above are real numbers from a large US company. As you can see, once you've reached Level 4 you've reached the end of your career advancement if you want to stay a grunt, and you can easily get there in 10 years from college. Many Engineers stay at this level for the rest of their career. Level 5 is doable if you don't mind being a lead, but still that's only 14 years in and then you truly have reached the end of your career advancement. Beyond that, the only options for advancement are:

* Go into management.
* Company hop to increase your salary.

This has nothing to do with whether or not you keep your skill set up to date. If you do that you may get higher yearly merit salary increases (which hopefully exceed inflation), but no more promotions. The salary grades just don't exist.

there are three ways to establish trust. Something you have , something are , something you know.

This is incorrect, there are only two. "Something you are" (fingerprints, retinas, etc.) is really just another kind of "something you have". The only differences between biometrics and something like a physical key or access card is that biometrics are horribly insecure (how many objects have you left your fingerprints on today?) and nearly impossible to replace if they get compromised.

It's about doing something simply to show that it can be done, like the explorers of centuries past.

Most exploration in centuries past was primarily motivated by monetary gain (new trade routes, new sources of natural resources, etc). Just sayin'...

Every security briefing I've been to they say don't write your password down on a piece of paper.

Bruce Schneier disagrees with you and your security professionals.

along with a reasonable shell

Have you tried the native Windows port of zsh? It was unmaintained for several years but has recently been picked up again, might be worth checking out.

But as cops I know tell me, they can't use ANY hitting force for compliance unless they are being hit or are planning on charging the person in question. What this leads to is the only two tools left are the taser and the gun, and we know where this story goes.

I find the part in bold disturbing. Are you saying that it used to be okay to hit people you had no intention of charging with a crime (and were therefore presumably not doing anything illegal), and that now it is okay to taser them instead?