On cultivating genius

 So...my dad has some show on at dinner about genius and about how to cultivate it, and a lot of people don't understand what genius is, and where it comes from, and how to cultivate it. 

I personally have mixed views, but regardless, i do have a few things to say on this and what NOT to do. 

It's possible it's biological in part. Some brains might be better at utilizing information than others. There might be other factors there that influence it. 

A lot of it is probably cultivated. Many geniuses aren't born that way, rather, their skills are cultivated. People from better environments that are allowed to cultivate it are probably better off than those who aren't. You know, the whole privilege thing. In the olden days, most geniuses were from the upper class. They were the noble class wealthy who didn't have to work. You didnt have many geniuses from the lower classes, because they were put to work from an early age and never given an education. I will be obviously coming back to this later as you know where I'm going with that if you read my stuff and know what I'm about.But before I do that, I wanna finish this train of thought. in a more modern context, you're STILL going to have more geniuses coming from the middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy, than you are the poor. Heck, if anything, our society of ultra wealth might sometimes prop up the most mediocre of people, like, ya know, George W. Bush and Donald Trump. But if you're a black kid from inner city baltimore born of a single mother who isnt around because she's working all of the time, and you go to this bad public school, well, you might not have a chance. 

And some of it, i think, may be spiritual. Like the show was talking about random savants with skills like world class pianoing. Do people just...acquire those skills naturally? not from any naturalistic explanation. But if you look at it from the perspective that souls reincarnate and are "recycled" so to speak, it's possible someone who had some skill from a previous life, could have it unlocked in this life under certain circumstances. Just a view of mine. You dont have to believe that. But keep in mind what I often say about "volunteers" and the advancement of the species from a spiritual perspective. Some of us here on earth are here to advance the species, to use certain "gifts" to make it a better place. I believe I am one of them. And as I see it, a lot of these so called "geniuses" are too. 

The show was about identifying geniuses and getting them on the right track, but to go back to my own message and ideas, I have one up on THAT. As I see it, the big problem isnt the cultivation of geniuses directly, it's about the fact that our system lets so much genius go to waste. The geniuses who rise to the top, and who put their savant skills to good use, are relatively rare and often come from the upper classes. in other words, the biggest cultivator is...privilege. Economic privilege, racial privilege, blah blah blah. But I'm not here to go all "woke" on you guys, as you guys know, I dont like to play identity politics. But...let's face it, a lot of geniuses who have those skills would more naturally rise to the surface, if...there weren't so many barriers to success.

And what do we mean by success? Do we mean a job? No. If anything, I think work dulls the mind and gets in the way. Our society is so focused on productivity and economic success that we think peoples' skills are based used in raising GDP. In reality, our economic system could get in the way. People too busy working to survive dont have the ability to cultivate their skills. People whose parents are too busy to care for them, and who go to failing public schools, might not be able to cultivate their skills.

It's been said in the basic income community for years that if you really want to unlock genius, you need to give people a UBI and let them figure out life themselves. They'll get where they need to go. But if most of the geniuses that bring society forward are from the upper crust of society, imagine how many more have languished in the factories and the mines over the years. Who were never allowed to develop their skills, or get to where they needed to get. Imagine how much wasted potential there is in our society because we value forcing people to work and be in a constant state of survival where they can never focus on improving themselves. 

I would argue that what we do to many of our geniuses is messed up. They're not allowed to develop in ways to unlock their skills. 

As someone who considers myself among these kinds of people, I'll say this. While I do believe I'm guided by something beyond this world, for the most part, I don't think I'm special. I don't think that my story is unique. You could probably put anyone in my place and they'd end up similarly. I dont know how much the uniqueness of the soul has to do with it, but I think a lot of my skills were acquired and cultivated in this life, and that if my life went differently, ie, born of different parents, in a different city, in a different culture, with different circumstances, I would not be me. So yeah. And for me, what did it was giving me an education and then giving me the time to actually put things together. I admit, being autistic i always saw through social BS at a level most other humans seem to lack, so many they never would end up quite like me. And on the flip side, I just seem to lack certain skills no matter how hard I work at them. I'm kind of one of those book smart autistic geniuses who...imploded in life because beign gifted doesnt mean success in our society. I never had street smarts or social skills. if life were an RPG, my intelligence stat would be a 10 and my charisma is a 1. My reflexes, agility, and strength would also be like 1-3. Im good at certain things but terrible at others.

The point is though, that in order for people to figure out what they are good at, and get to where they need to get in life, you need to give them the tools to thrive, and freedom. Our society doesnt do that. While everyone gets a K-12 education, that doesnt get many people very far. You need everyone to have access to a higher education in order to be able to reach their full potential. You need economic stability so you're not basically in a constant state of wage slavery. I mean, the worst thing you can do to a genius is force them into the work place IMO. Because most work doesnt cultivate their skills, it dulls their mind. Any "gifts" they might have end up being beaten out of them over time. Our society doesnt really allow genius to thrive. Imagine how many more artists, and inventors, and innovators we would have if everyone was just allowed to pursue what they wanted to pursue. Sure, maybe some people would waste their talents too. But unlike what christianity seems to think, with its work happy mindset, its their talent to waste. No one should be forced to be productive or to use their stuff to advance society, people should CHOOSE to. The fact that our society is so coercive in the first place is one of the worst things about it for many reasons. The point is though, overall, I think coercion a la the protestant work ethic hurts more than it helps. Not everyone should be forced to be productive all the time just to survive. It's a horrible model if youre trying to cultivate genius. And we should. One genius and their breakthroughs could change the world. We could come up with an infinite power source based on solar panels or something, that gives us more than enough energy to do anything. We could develop our skills in robotics or AI or automation to allow one person to do the work of 100 people. heck, we DO do that and we STILL insist on forcing people to work like it's ye olden days where everyone needs to work from match until october constantly or we all starve come winter. The point is, the less we focus on pointless busy work, and forcing people to participate in pointless busy work the better. We're getting in our own ways at this point and shooting ourselves in the foot.

Ya know, a friend of mine mentioned this at one point, but some have argued that a lot of british rock and roll like the beatles got started because of the dole. Because they had a generous welfare system that didnt force people to work. So some people put their talents to music and became rock stars. Now we dont have that because "well we cant just allow these people to sit around, they should get out there and get JERBS!" Okay, yeah you can have that stupid conservative mindset, but in the process, youre destroying genius and subjugating people to a capitalist system that works to enslave them and make them the cog in someone else's machine. 

As it is, if youre rich and a genius, they call you eccentric. Like elon musk. If youre poor you're crazy or entitled, or stupid or blah blah blah. Basically, they dont like people who are a little different, they like conformity, because our system has had a wicked history in enslaving people to others. It's sickening. Genius shouldnt just be a privilege of the rich, it should be for everyone. And for it to be for everyone, we need a society that is for everyone. And a UBI would allow us to make a society for everyone.

I know some people will be like "well that's why we need SOCIALISM", uh...shut up. Socialists wanna coerce people to work too. They want to force people into conformity too. They destroy genius too. Capitalism, if anything, gives people more freedom to survive and thrive, but only if we give people the tools to operate within it properly, and don't just expect people to participate in the social darwinistic death games we call "the job market." Keep in mind, a key aspect to cultivating genius is giving people freedom to pursue their own ends. Socialism doesnt do that, it just replaces one mode of production with another and one coercive oppressive system with another. Extreme collectivism and conformity is just as destructive to the human spirit as capitalism under wage slavery is. We don't need socialism, we need human centered capitalism.

Anyway, I just wanted to get this idea off of my chest since it's actually relevant to a lot of my own views and near and dear to my heart.

Wading into the toxic cesspit that are the university protests

 So I've been wanting to discuss this, but at the same time, I just....haven't gotten around to it, mainly because everything seems so charged and biased. Western media seems to be portraying the protests as a bunch of violent hamas sympathizers, and leftie media is like "oh no we're poor innocent babies who wouldnt hurt a fly and the cops are being mean." And....like always, the truth is in between. 

First of all, the protests. People have a right to  protest and assembly in this country. But at the same time, if the protests are becoming violent, or are occurring on private property (like an elite college campus), or are obstructing stuff, then I could see why some would want them shut down. And honestly, I think when Columbia wants to shut these protests down, they're doing it for good reason.

I have to admit, most protests I've seen have been relatively peaceful in and of themselves, with nothing going on, but at the same time, there are moments. Random protesters chanting vile things in support of hamas, or calling for a genocide of israel, or someone getting poked  in the eye with a flag pole or something, or fighting with the cops, and I can see why Columbia would deem these protests unsafe, cancel their classes, or encourage Jewish students to go home. The culture surrounding them is kinda dangerous, there is a powder keg there, and there are....issues there.

I have no doubt most of these protesters are relatively peaceful. MOST. But not all. And some protesters seem to have bad motives and are ruining it for everyone else. And let's face it, this is how i characterize the pro palestine movement in general. Most mean well, but the weirdo radical leftists come off as kinda dangerous and seem to be trying to incite crap. And we all know they exist. I bash them regularly on here. Their concern for palestine goes well beyond the current military operation overstepping its boundaries, and into support for hamas, and palestinian nationalism, and antisemitism. And let's not deny this. We all know some people are like this. And I think people have a right to be concerned. Still, as long as this stuff remains PEACEFUL they should largely have a right to do it, the problem is it's getting borderline, there are bad actors, and the crowd seems to be getting out of control.

Now, police response. I also have mixed views here. Columbia itself, idk, I kinda think the protesters are screwing around and finding out. I see videos of people being asked to leave, getting all militant and in the cops faces like "dont tell  me to leave i have a right to be here" and then the protesters get arrested. I mean, that's screwing around and finding out. If youre asked to disperse, first by the college and then by law enforcement, and you dont, and you argue with the cops, don't be surprised when at some point they start wrestling people  to the ground.

At the same time, some police responses seem grossly disproportional. I know I've seen videos out of...I think it was Emery university in Georgia? Anyway, the imagery looked different there and they were brutally throwing peaceful protesters to the ground and hauling away college professors. That's NUTS. I mean, here's the thing. Im not sure police always makes the situation better. Sometimes they make it worse. They're rough, they're brutal, they should only act as a last resort IMO. But....sometimes police overrespond. That's how we got the george floyd stuff in 2020 with defund the police, and obviously, many of the protests there were like WTF as they were throwing old people to the ground, shooting people in the face with teargas cannisters, and generally acting violently toward protesters who seemed reasonably peaceful. So, yeah, it happens. And it's happening here too. The NYPD in Columbia doesnt seem to be acting as out of line, but the ones in georgia? yeah, overkill.

Here's the thing. I've been hearing some of this being compared to like, Kent state university. There was a really bad anti war protest there in 1970, and it devolved into the cops shooting protesters. And I do wanna give some  warning here. 50 years later, no one remembers the protests as much. What they remember are the dead bodies on the ground and that girl screaming. So....police response, dont overdo it. It makes the situation worse and makes law enforcement out to be the bad guy. Of course leftists are gonna say law enforcement are always the bad guy, but yeah I'm not ACAB here. Police serve a vital role in society, but sometimes they do make things worse. 

It's all contextual. Ideally, people should protest as they want, as long as they're peaceful. The cops should only step in when the benefits of their actions outweighs the risks of them overreacting, and yeah. Law enforcement should be somewhat restrained here. Still if you willingly violate a cop's orders, I'm just gonna write that up as FAFO. Ya know?

As far as free speech, well let  me put it this way. I never seen anyone get arrested for posting pro  palestinian sentiment online. In person  protests should absolutely happen, but if they go on for too long to the point they start obstructing people of their use of private property, or the crowd gets dangerous, then I can see some reasons why police would step in. It's a balance. People have a right to protest but if youre on private property, that's not gonna have the same protections as a public square. And if the crowd causes people to feel reasonably unsafe (reasonably being the key word), then that's not justifiable either. 

Still, protesters should be given as much leeway as reasonably possible here. And I do think that police are sometimes overstepping their bounds. At the same time, FAFO still applies. It's like those famous last words "what are you gonna do, shoot me?" You provoke cops and get all up in their face, and dont me surprised when your face meets the pavement pretty fast. It's a pretty simple principle. 

Above everything, stay safe. If an environment feels dangerous, leave. If the cops are telling you to leave DEFINITELY leave because crap is gonna get real if you don't. Focus on self preservation. Everyone has their rights, I'm not saying they don't, but there are reasonable limits here that need to be enforced. This isn't worth dying or getting injured or arrested over. And that's my view. 

Oh yeah, one more thing. To Bibi Netanyahu, SHUT THE HECK UP! Seriously, he's doing what he's doing over in Israel and then he's calling people protesting him hamas? Again, i dont doubt theres a minority of protesters who actually support hamas, but seriously, I don't think that war criminals have a right to bash the people protesting them. 

Discussing the 88 felonies commercial and Kyle Kulinski's reaction

 So I was gonna do an article on this ad at some point as it's a really good ad, but Kyle beat me to the punch, and also had an interesting debate with himself about whether felons should get jobs and I found it interesting and figure it would just be better to respond to his video directly. Ive been kinda trying to break responding directly to kyle as i feel like half my blog is just discussing stuff he does as he's one of my favorite commentators, but again, he had that interesting discussion on a subject I have some choice words about, so I might as well kill two birds with one stone here.

First of all, the commercial. I've been seeing this all week, and it's a REALLY GOOD commercial. Basically it has random job applicants applying to retail jobs claiming they had 88 felony charges that they're facing and when asked they basically cite the charges trump is facing. And in interview after interview, they're told they're not gonna hire felons. The point of the commercial being that if Trump isn't even qualified for a retail job these days, why should he be commander in chief.

And you know what? They're RIGHT. Trump should not, given the charges and gravity of them he's facing, and how many of them are DIRECTLY RELATED to his last tenure in the job at hand, be seriously considered for president. he's damaged goods, no one should take him seriously, and why the F isn't Biden up by 20-30 points already? 

Now, without a criminal conviction and possibly the conviction being related to an insurrection a la the civil war (not just jan 6th as that's been debated recently), Trump is unlikely to ever be formally barred from the position. BUT....something is seriously wrong with this country if we're seriously considering him again. I admit Biden aint perfect. I didnt vote for him in 2020, I could rip him to shreds if i really wanted to, BUT....I kinda feel like he hasnt been bad, and most criticisms arent his fault, and at this point him getting a second term is...well...it's our best option. Let's just leave it at that. 

But TRUMP? Like come on, even putting aside the mere political differences, this dude is NOT qualified at this point. He was horribly incompetent in his last stint with it, and he's done various things that are now why he's facing those 88 charges. And...come on guys. Really? This guy? Even fricking vivek would've been better since at least he's not facing Trump's rap sheet. And given how much i despise that guy, that's saying something.

Like, on top of everything else, the horrible conservative positions, the gross incompetence, January 6th and other criminal activities kind of put trump on a different level altogether. heck thats also why im treating him differently in 2024 compared to 2016 and 2020. In 2016 he was that demagogue who was an idiot but eh i understood why people liked him given hillary. In 2020, it's more, really? You want 4 more years of THIS GUY?! But....okay. 

2024, it's like....OKAY, CAN WE NOT?! CAN WE FRICKING NOT?! This guy IS facing criminal charges, some of which are related to attempting to overthrow the results of the last election, which he LOST, and we really wanna give this guy the reins again when he talks like he wants to become putin or xi? Really? This is scary.

And yeah, he's not qualified to run a hot dog stand at this point and given how many of his former enterprises were scams, i literally wouldnt buy a hot dog from this guy. Why are we trying to make him president AGAIN?!

So...good commercial. Shows the double standards he's facing. And yeah he is facing double standards. i didn't write about this but he is doing a trial this week, and honestly, im pretty sure if this guy was ANYONE ELSE he would be in jail for contempt of court. Yeah he's that bad. But because he's the former president with a literal lynch mob backing him up, he's being treated with kid gloves. It's sickening. This guy is basically real life eric cartman, and he needs to be told no and punished already. But instead we keep spoiling him, and enabling him, and not letting him face the consequences of his actions, and at this point, it's like, yeah, he's gonna keep it up until things get real for him. And if he were some black dude who didn't have millions of dollars, he'd be in jail for life, if not beaten to death by police violence already. Like holy crap. There really is a sickening double standard in this country as far as justice goes. 

But, now, to get to Kyle's point. Kyle had an interesting discussion on his program about this, and he basically asked if we should be denying felons jobs. His argument is this, like okay, they did their time, paid their debt to society, why do we still punish them by denying them jobs? He didn't seem comfortable denying people jobs just over a criminal record. 

As a leftie, I kinda understand where he's coming from. I mean, everyone needs a job to survive, we tend to stigmatize felons by making them ineligible for most jobs, and shouldnt they be eligible if they paid their debt to society?

Well...there's no formal prohibition against hiring such people. And businesses tend to have valid concerns with hiring such people. Would you wanna hire a shoplifter if you were running a retail business? Is this guy a danger to himself or others if he's a sexual assaulter? Should a pedophile get a job around children? You gotta ask these kinds of questions, and I don't really blame businesses for not wanting anything to do with these guys.

heck, to go further, let's apply some human centered capitalism a la my own approach. Jobs dont exist for the purpose of employing people. We have this weird idea that everyone should have a job, but then we have a society that is explicitly discriminatory against hiring certain people, and a society in which not everyone can even sustainably get a job. 

But, most jobs are made by the private sector. And they're not made for the purpose of employing people. They're made to get work done. And that's why our society is so unjust in the first place. We have this idea that everyone should work and we deny them resources so they can get by by working, but then this puts them at the mercy of employers who just focus on the product. They dont care about workers, they hate hiring workers, and when they do, the cheaper the better. They want slaves. They want people who people who will do tons of work cheaply. Heck it's why slavery was historically allowed in the US and other countries. For a while it literally was okay to just fricking own people outright. And we needed to fight a war just to end this practice. 

And now wage slavery is what has replaced it. It's ironic, apologists for slavery literally argued in favor of literal chattel slavery by arguing the conditions of wage slavery were worse. And for a while, maybe they were. There was no guarantee after all that employers would treat employees well or pay them well. And without labor regulations, they wouldnt. So, let's face it, our society works people until they cant work any more and then it throws them away. Thats why they allow retirement btw. you retire at just the right age where you cant actually work any more. Your body goes to crap after that and you develop all kinds of issues in your late 60s and 70s. So yeah. 

But yeah, that's what jobs are. And sure, we can try to regulate them, but employers will find ways around the regulations. I mean we have rules against discriminating against black people for example, and yet minorities still face harder times getting jobs and generally make less money. You cant prove it a lot of the time, but yeah, that's because a lot of businesses don't wanna hire those people. Thats why SJWs push affirmative action, but that's like discrimination to fight discrimination, but I digress.

Then you have stuff like the government with job guarantees, which sound good on paper until you realize it's the government just making work for people to do to justify this system of working and make it fair. After a while, and again, this is why I'm so beyond this stuff, it's like, why bother? Why dont we just focus on freeing people from work? is work so great in the first place? I dont think it is. So yeah, I'm just to the point of saying "forget jobs, let's just give people money." I mean, given we still need work done, yes, some people will work on top of their UBI and that will solve the problem of who does the necessary work for society, but this idea of employing every single person? It's something that's impossible to reasonably accomplish and in my opinion even desireable. 

So...should felons be given some guarantee to work? Eh, I dont think so. I'd rather just give them a UBI and let them sink or swim in the free market. if they cant work, they can't work, oh well, at least they can do whatever otherwise. LIke that's my solution.

Because the idea of making a job just so a felon can work seems silly to me. And the idea of making employers hire felons is also kinda silly. I mean, it sucks if youre a felon. But....if people dont want you, and they have a good reason for it in this case, well....what more can you do? You are owed the right to a decent minimum living standard, which UBI would provide, but productive work? Well, again, if youre not qualified youre not qualified. I dont really think theres much we can reasonably do for felons here. There are legitimate reasons to discriminate against them given their past actions, and i dont like the idea of creating jobs just for felons to do because jobs are the things to do.

The thing I learned the hard way when i entered the job market after college is no one is owed a job, there is no perfect job for every person, jobs exist to benefit employers more than the workers, any worker benefit is secondary, we spend so much time trying to get employers to give poor people money in exchange for work even though they really dont want to, because they want slaves, so why bother? Why do we keep up this facade? it feels like what the soviets used to say, "I pretend to work and they pretend to pay me." We need to move on from jobs, and move on from work, and while there's still a place for productive work in our society, i think its importance and centrality in our lives should be questioned and lessened. Work exists to make things, let's not glorify work, if anything let's admit it sucks and try to move away from it, and yeah. So that's my view on THAT.

Discussing shaming of rural/central PA voters

 So, I had a weird discussion today. Not something that I would consider unexpected, but normally I don't run into people who are so shameless on this. Basically, the discussion was about rural voters in PA. There was some discussion on the poverty, and how democrats haven't done anything for the area for decades, and how we've heard about job retraining and programs for months, and then some smarmy neolib comes in and starts calling central PA voters "lazy" for not wanting to take the newer jobs available (most of which are crappy retail jobs that pay minimum wage that no one wants) and blah blah blah.

And...I'm going to be honest, this really got me going in terms of a "fighting words" impact. Because let's face it, I'm the epitome of one of these "lazy" people. I live in what can vaguely be called central PA (assuming we just mean anything north and west of King of Prussia is central PA, because that's around where the economic prosperity that is philly stops and you start getting into the dead zones) and I've been putting up with this my whole adult life.

Really, this post kind of really summed up how I feel about the economy. Not in the exact terms as I am more intelligent than most who ended up going for Trump, but I get the whole "there's no jobs here any more" thing. It's a common sight up in "central PA". Lots of rural mining towns that have gone dry. Lots of blight, lots of people doing meth. Even cities like Allentown, Reading, Lancaster, York, Harrisburg, Scranton, and Wilkes Barre arent what they once were. And those kinds of cities are more what I'm familiar with. I know when I graduated from college I watched the job listings day after day only to be dismayed by how dismal they were. Oh gee, another opening at walmart, another opening at starbucks. Another opening that demands I have years of experience for an "entry level" job that doesn't even have a college degree, or requires open availability meaning I have no life and I'm on call 24/7, or the job pays like $8 an hour. Or the job requires me to be passionate about something as mundane as...selling shoes. And we should jump through hoops for these jobs, fighting with hundreds of other applicants, trying to prove we're the best, while the "winner" goes on like "YEAH I GOT THE JOB! WOO!" and then they're expected to be "grateful" for the "opportunity". 

It's BS. I really is. You can clearly see what motivated me to go in the political direction I did, and what basically radicalized me economically. And then you got these smarmy neolibs, the clinton supporters who live down near philly, and have their nice little corporate jobs, in their nice little offices, and make 6 figures, and go home to their nice little suburban homes with a white picket fence and a freshly cut green lawn. And these guys have the gall to start talking crap on us. They tell us that we gotta "learn to code", or learn a new skill. or we gotta move out of the hellholes we live in, and move to a better area, like the solution is as easy as "just moving". 

And then these idiots wonder why people up here vote for Trump. I mean, I dont support Trump, but I get why, at least back in 2016, people voted for him. I kind of think if you STILL like the guy youre a lost cause, but i get why, at least in 2016, people voted for him. He talked about bringing the jobs back, and Clinton's campaign just abandoned us. She was the neolib who told us to "JuSt MoVe" and talked about job retraining and blah blah blah. And while we didnt have andrew yang to back it up with data in 2016, let me tell you something, job retraining doesnt work. basically, we're making people stop getting jobs in factories and mines and get jobs in fricking retail and food service. That's basically what this retraining is. And a lot of us, quite frankly, arent happy with these "opportunities". We dont have the actual middle class stuff we used to have. We really are dealing with a war on normal people, where the normal people's jobs are getting worse and worse, and the suburban and urban areas in the bubble have most "opportunities" (while simultaneously being unaffordably expensive). And yeah. 

It's enough for me, that it radicalized me out of jobs where I started developing my own rudimentary form of human centered capitalism years before Yang even ran for president. "The economy exists for man, not man for the economy" (changed to humans to fit the more "human centered theme, and politically correct language of the 2020s, yeah, it goes back far enough I was using dated politically incorrect language). Basically, it's this exact phenomenon that made me come up with that. Seeing how we need to keep contorting ourselves into this economy that doesn't work for us, it just came off as cruel and socially darwinistic for me. I mean, that's what makes capitalism so efficient. The invisible hand is just natural selection at work. It's what is most adaptable survives, and those that don't adapt...don't. And while this is great for products and services, it's not as great when applied to people, as it means we keep this weird institutionalized struggle to survive within capitalism going even if it fails tons of people and makes life difficult and miserable for them. We should make the economy adapt to us, recognizing it only exists....to serve us. We shouldnt serve it so much. We shouldnt have to jump through hoops and learn the right skills and move to the right locations JUST TO SURVIVE. obviously , due to the nature of competition, those who are most tenacious and most willing to sacrifice and adapt will do the best, but clearly, there should be some dignified bottom for people to just survive. And this would greatly help these rural PA voters.

And of course, my second tenet, "jobs are a means to an end, not an end in itself." I developed this after we had all the "job creation" arguments around 2012 into the 2016 election. Mitt Romney talked about the glorious "job creators" who if only we give them more money and lower their taxes they'll create more jobs, while at the same time corporations were reporting record profits and STILL laying people off. And then you had obama talking about shovel ready jobs doing construction jobs on some crappy interstate project or something. And both sides seemed to argue about job creation and who does it better, but it seems to me that expecting people to work jobs to survive is the source of this whole problem. The jobs themselves are undesirable. They're hard, they dont pay well, the bosses are egotistical petty dictators who wanna run your life and treat you as slaves, and nothing about this leads to a happy existence to me. The more I look at jobs the more I realize that I don't even really want a job, or want to work at all. Rather, it's a matter of "having to", it's a matter of the economy forcing people, and we just keep insisting on creating jobs when unemployment happens rather than actually asking if jobs are what we need.

Of course I dont expect most trumpers to be intelligent enough to realize this, or smart enough to admit it, so they keep romanticizing the past notion of jobs of generations past through rose colored glasses, going on about how great the mines were or the factories (although I understand they sucked too). Honestly, they live in this weird mix of understanding the present is crap, while also thinking that the past of decades ago was somehow better. Even though it actually wasnt if you look at it objectively. Well, maybe it was, the new deal era seems romanticized with all of the union jobs with high pay and decent working conditions, but life just was...work 40 hours a week. It wasnt great. And that's what separates me from the trumpers, I fully recognize that even if there are elements of the past more attractive than today, I dont wanna actually go back to the past. And I kinda realize that maybe the answer isnt jobs. Maybe the real issue IS work itself. Maybe it's the fact that we insist on centering our lives around it. Maybe it's the fact that we treat a job as "more than a paycheck". I know even Biden says that. "A job is more than a paycheck, it's about dignity, blah blah blah." yeah yeah yeah, F your dignity, F your jobs. Jobs aren't the answer. Jobs just exist to make things and serve people. They arent great things in and of themselves, the idea, when one thinks about such an idea objectively, without our weird culture around it, actually kinda sucks. Why do we do this in the first place? Well, in the best case scenario, it's because we need to in order to make the goods and services we want and need. And in reality, it's in part because that's what we've always done and we fear change. But I don't, because I think the status quo sucks, I think the fixation on jobs is irrational, blah blah blah.

And yeah, that's why my "central PA" identity actually contributed to my human centered capitalist mindset. I put together a lot of what yang ended up saying in the war on normal people, separately from Yang, and came up with very similar solutions and a very similar philosophy.  I just didn't write a book on it, but that's also why I say his war on normal people is the book I wish I wrote, because I understand the issues, I understand the trends, and I understand that we need a new way forward and obsessing with jobs isn't gonna solve these issues.

And this is, btw, why Hillary was as popular as a lead balloon here. Because she talked the same nonsense obama had been saying for years about job retraining, and not really offering any solutions that resonated. Trump was a demagogue in 2016, he still is now and an increasingly DANGEROUS one, but I can see why the uneducated were drawn to him like moth to lamp. Because he was talking about bringing back the past glory of the past era of the economy, and appealing to people in a way hillary didn't. Because Hillary and her supporters seemed to look down on these voters and tell them to "just move" and "learn to code" and all this other BS. 

And yeah, it's shaming. As we know, the democratic party is leaning toward the so called "brahmin left", very educated suburbanites who make like 6 figures and who live picturesque lives, while they're kinda abandoning white working class voters from the middle of the state. I mean, they said so much in 2016, "for every working class voter we lose in the middle of pennsylvania, we can pick up two moderate republicans in the suburbs of philadelphia". Basically, the democrats, the so called party of labor and the little guy, are trying to abandon their working class voters to trump. And it's disgusting to me. because trump offers no solutions, but the dems are struggling to maintain working class coalitions. I think biden did make some efforts to win them back, but idk how successful he'll be. He isnt bad on policy, but he is lacking, and obviously we need someone whose views arent stuck in the 1950s in order to actually fix things. 

I guess, for no, Biden is triangulating and trying to win back both the obama coalition while expand the clinton one. And we can see the results of that. He's not really doing a good job. He's kinda losing both groups right now and the democratic coalition is on the verge of collapse as trump becomes more and more openly fascist. it's really scary to see. But yeah. 

All of this started in part because clinton and the dems had to abandon working class voters. They were tone deaf to them, they didnt understand their problems, they were big city centrist libs who didn't understand the problems of the rust belt, or care. We were little people. "just move, learn a skill." Sounds like the same skill shaming republicans do.

Speaking of which, let me talk a bit about that before closing this. Here's the thing. Conservatives, and for the purpose of this, neolibs are basically conservatives, are gonna blame the people no matter what they do. Didnt go to college? Shouldnt went to college. Went to college? Shouldve gone to trade school rather than get a useless degree. Live in an area with bad jobs? Just move. Why do you live there? Cant afford an area that's nicer? Well, that's your fault too somehow. I've kinda realized this, reading some of the more recent books on work ethic and meritocracy that my friend suggested to me, but yeah, the point of shaming behavior isn't really to have a valid point. Often times, shaming behavior under capitalism serves no legitimate purpose, but to blame the individual and absolve the system.

You see, it's never the systems' fault in these guys' minds. The system is perfect. The people are always at fault. And they'll even throw conflicting arguments in your face suggesting if only you did SOMETHING DIFFERENT, that you wouldnt be in the sorry state you are now. Rarely this is valid, and most of the time, it just puts the onus on the individual to change and adapt.

But, as you know, being a humanist, I dont see the system as this hard and fixed thing that cant be changed, I see it as a system humans created that can be adapted to human needs. And we SHOULD change the system. if you learn anything from my humanist perspective, let it be that. That all of this we created and we can change it to achieve different outcomes. And in my opinion, the system should change to serve the individuals. ANd how do we change the system to serve the individuals? By giving people a UBI, and universal healthcare, and free college/student debt forgiveness, and housing, and trying to achieve more work life balance from shorter work weeks, etc.

Our system just...enslaves people. it really does. And those it cant adapt to fit its needs, it ruins and makes them miserable. Our system is not designed for our happiness. It's designed to subjugate us to maximize productivity. We are slaves to this system. And we should change the system to serve us. 

And that's what human centered capitalism is all about.

Stop making me defend Hillary, guys (also, a history of climate change plans and how we got here)

 Okay, so idk what's with the left lately, but the fact that they're making me defend Hillary not once, but more than once, is concerning. We already discussed how they keep shouting down the poor woman any time she speaks at a college or something and calling her a war criminal. I didn't discuss how they went after her when she was with that Afghani human rights activist who got shot in the head as a kid, but that was apparently a thing. And now they're going after her for posting this chart on climate change. 

So what's the issue with this chart? Basically, Biden isn't doing enough, Biden bad, we need to vote for the candidate to get us onto the line. Except....we kinda need to explain what these lines are and what our options were and are, and because I did study some climate change legislation on this blog and am well informed enough to develop my opinion on it, I feel like I need to explain the situation a bit.

The yellow target line is basically the IPCC's guidelines on climate change. it's the target all climate change plans are trying to comply to. Basically, to avert the worst aspects of climate change, we need to halve our CO2 emissions from 2005 levels by 2030, and we need to be carbon neutral by 2050. 

Biden's line is what his legislative accomplishment, the inflation reduction act accomplishes. I discussed it on this blog, basically it reduces emissions by 40% by 2030, being 80% compliant with the 2030 deadline for halving emissions. It's...not ideal. I'll discuss how we got here a bit later, but it's better than nothing. The red line with Trump is basically what would happen if we repeal the inflation reduction act. Basically we get nothing. 

Anyway, to defend Biden here, I think it's time we do a history of the past 5 years on climate plans.

Bernie 2020, the green new deal, and the climate debate

Bernie is the big one who spearheaded the call for a climate emergency. He basically sold it as we got 10 years to get our crap together, and we need a green new deal to help us reach carbon neutrality by 2030. Notice the issue with Bernie right off the bat? We only need to get half way by 2030, but Bernie wanted to go all the way. But bernie and the left's alarmist rhetoric worked. It succeeded in pulling the democratic party to the left, and virtually all democratic presidential candidates had their own plans. And I analyzed these plans on my blog. I won't link them all but you can find them back in august 2022 on this blog. I discussed Build Back Better, Bernie's plan, and several other plans of different sizes and scopes. After looking at them all, I then summarized my opinions on all of them. Mainly, I was looking at two things, cost, and compliance with IPCC guidelines. I am someone who wants to minimize costs. Unlike the left I dont romanticize the idea of the green new deal and massive government jobs programs. I see climate spending like defense spending, necessary....but unsexy and not really sparking joy. We need to get the goal, so let's do what we need to, without overspending, but also while achieving it. And in that sense, two plans stood out as the best for me. Biden's build back better, which i was originally critical of but warmed up to after seeing the alternatives, and Yang's plan.

Biden's Build Back Better plan was designed clearly with bernie's input in mind. Bernie lost the primary, but Biden actually did put the work in to appease Bernie and while his plan was around 1/5 the cost of Bernie's, it was still IPCC compliant. And I actually warmed up to it, as being one of the best plans of the bunch. 

I admit I didn't know this in 2020, I kinda bought into Bernie's climate emergency rhetoric and figured Bernie wanted to solve the problem and we need to do this and UBI can wait, while moderates didn't wanna do enough and just wanted half measures, but after studying the policies, I realized Biden's "half measure" was actually a full measure and Bernie's plan was gross overkill.I mean, just for reference, going back to HRC's chart, build back better actually was that yellow line. Biden had a plan going all the way to 2050 of how to ramp down carbon emissions. Yang also had a decent plan that I liked, that I slept on in 2020, and I kinda wish I actually looked at it more as it did influence me to vote for Bernie at the time, but I digress.

What Bernie's green new deal would've done was make another, fourth line, going down to 0 by 2030. It was overly ambitious, overly expensive, and again, too extreme. But again, leftists be leftists, they basically wanted this to push their little socialist agenda of a job guarantee, and yeah that's one of the reasons I cooled on leftists. Not only does this conflict with my UBI but it's not necessary IMO. I'm fine with a plan that reaches that yellow line.

So view that yellow line as build back better. What happened then?

 EDIT: here is a fixed version of the chart that explains what I'm saying.

Congress, Joe Manchin, and the ####ening

Well, to put a long story short, Joe Manchin happened. Biden wanted to pass build back better, which wouldve gotten us down 50% by 2030, and down to 0% by 2050. He wanted to put that framework in place. That's exactly what his original plan delivered on. But, he won the house by a narrow margin in 2020, and we had a 50/50 senate, with 2 democrats, Joe Manchin, and Kirsten Sinema, holding everything up. Joe Manchin himself was ranting and raving about entitlement societies and he basically forced Biden away from everything, tanking just about everything that he wanted to do. So we got nothing.

However, after tons of compromise, we got the inflation reduction act, a half measure compromise that we were able to push through with the help of Manchin and Sinema, who basically held the entire process hostage. 

And with that, we got 40% by 2030, and no framework for further reduction. 

Hence the blue line. 

Dont blame the mediocrity of the blue line on Biden, that was fricking Joe Manchin's fault. Biden's original plan WAS the yellow line. Bernie's original line would've gotten us to 0 by 2030, an insanely ambitious goal. 

So what now?

Well unless we can fix congress and get enough seats to pass build back better, this is what we're stuck with until 2028. BUT IT'S SOMETHING. And right now our choices are to reelect Biden, who will keep the framework in place getting us at least 80% of where we need to be by the end of his term, elect Trump who will basically repeal the stuff because he and republicans are dangerous idiots who seem to wanna see the world burn, both figuratively or literally, or protest vote for greens whose plans are so extreme they exceed the yellow line. And I admit, if youre into protest voting, that might be a good thing to do in principle. I'm not opposed to that, I can kinda respect that, but i honestly think staying the course with Biden is the better strategic move.

Even if we elected Jill Stein or Howie Hawkins or Cornel west or whoever the fudge, they still gotta deal with congress. The house will likely be republican, the senate, if i had to guess, will lean democrat, but I really don't know, I dont wanna even begin predicting that until we're out of the primary phase of the election cycle (so basically June/July). I mean early numbers im seeing seem relatively favorable for democrats, like for as bad as Biden is doing electorally right now, the down ballot dems seem to be doing MUCH better, but we really don't know what the outcome is gonna be. But it's gonna be close, if dems win their margins will be narrow, and we'll only need a couple random turncoats to tank everything.

Basically, if BIDEN can't pass his agenda through congress, good luck getting the green party candidate to do so. Their agenda is gonna be DOA. We literally dont have the support or wherewithal to pass anything. The buck doesnt stop with Biden, it's primarily a congressional issue. The whole reason why the blue line that represents Biden is so milquetoast instead of that yellow line isnt even Biden in the first place, Biden's original plan, which was based on Bernie's overly ambitious and aggressive plan, WAS that yellow line. Leftist plans are so aggressive they're off the charts, they wanna hit 0 by 2030, or maybe by this point 2035. 

So....the plan? Elect as many democrats as we can to congress, reelected Biden, and then in 2028 and later, we reorient, maybe getting another candidate in the future, with another congress in the future, to pass a more aggressive plan to get us to the finish line. Biden just bought us some time. It's not the best plan, it's not gonna accomplish everything on our own, but he passed what he could, and we at least are getting somewhere. This ins't to say that we don't have more to do. We're gonna need to revisit this issue in 2028, and 2032, and 2036, etc. All the way to 2050. And then we'll have to keep defending against republican idiots and their stupid "drill baby drill" mentality and "god wouldnt make a world we could destroy" and other nonsense like that. 

So yeah. I'm gonna once again endorse Biden. I'm gonna support democrats down ballot. If we want to hit that yellow line, we need more dems in office. We need them to keep the presidency, and we need them to expand their lead in congress. We need more blue seats, period.

So, that said, i'm going to actually agree with Hillary. I dont think we can afford to protest vote. it's a meaningless circlejerk this election cycle. Even if by some remote chance jill stein got elected, she still needs congress to pass her plans. And we couldnt even get biden's passed. Again, BIDEN'S ORIGINAL PLAN WAS THE YELLOW LINE. The blue line is what we got instead, the inflation reduction act. I keep repeating myself because people NEED to understand that. You NEED to get that to understand what HRC posted. 

So let's stop circlejerking, we all know Biden didnt do enough. It wasn't his fault, though, it was congress's, and yes, we need to do better. But let's just focus on reelecting Biden now. We can still take further action after 2028 and get us closer to that yellow line. Although admittedly, the more we delay, the more aggressive we will end up needing to be long term in order to make the 2050 deadline. With biden's plan we were talking $200-300 billion a year. Bernie's 10 year plan was $1.5 trillion a year. See the problem? THe more we delay and mess up now, but more aggressive the action we will need to take in the future. And unlike some leftists im not a fan of accelerationism here. I just wanna get it done and would PREFER the moderate action, because i dont like the idea of spending trillions and trillions on this if we can spend hundreds of billions instead.

Conclusion

So yeah, TLDR, vote for Biden, Hillary is right here. 

PS, leftists, stop getting so far off base you make me defend HILLARY. You're doing that a lot lately, and it's like, wtf, how much do you have to screw up if you're making me defend Hillary of all people. But you guys keep doing it all the time lately. It's maddening. It makes me feel like I'm becoming a centrist when Im actually not. Well, I guess on THIS issue I am if "the left" represents bernie sanders overkill level of action. But keep in mind, I just wanna get this solved and spend the rest of the money on UBI.I dont wanna spend a metric crapton of money on climate as it comes at the cost of not being able to afford UBI, and clearly, I have my priorities in order.

Biden bans noncompete agreements

 So, in a rather based move, Biden bans most noncompete agreements in the US. And of course, the business interests are salty.

"NO! YOU CAN'T JUST BAN NONCOMPETES, MUH FREE MARKET" (wojak crying face)

"Hahaha labor regulations go brrrr." (based Biden licking an ice cream cone with sunglasses on)

Yeah I could make the actual meme but I'm too lazy. You get the idea.

Anyway. Here's the thing about noncompetes, they're bullcrap. As a condition of employment, you give up your ability to be hired by many competitor at all. And of course, most people accept such agreements, because, well, despite the right acting like this laissez faire free market is a real free market at work, most workers basically don't have much of a say in taking a job. We like to act like work is voluntary, but it's not, so of course people will accept whatever terms the employer sets because it's not like they have a choice, funny how that works. And then the government steps in and says "no, you can't do that" so then businesses get salty over government regulation. But yeah, people just accept these agreements, that lock them into a job, and stop them from being able to leave and go somewhere else, because they have to work somewhere to survive, and if all the businesses do it, then people dont have a choice. I mean, they do, but they really don't. This favors businesses, drives down wages, worsens working conditions, and basically makes employment more like an actual slave contract by making it harder to leave. It's nonsense. people shouldn't be able to just give up their rights like that, but here we are, and predatory capitalism be predatory, so Biden did the right ting, stepped in, and said no more of this.

I admit, it is a band aid. We should be trying to liberate workers from having to work in the first place, but let's face it, biden is the "work has dignity" guy so he'd never come around to my point of view (a huge reason i hated him in 2020), but eh, he's at least been a decent pro labor president for the most part. And let's face it, his one weakness (breaking the railroad strikes) is something New Dealer Truman did too. heck, truman was worse, he threatened to draft the strikers into the military. So Biden is LITERALLY a more pro labor president than FDR's vice president. He ain't bad.

It's little things like this that make me wanna vote for him. See? You can earn my vote, even if you fall short of my insanely high standards. 

Anyway, apparently because business interests are salty, this is likely gonna go to court and because we got a right wing supreme court, it might be shot down. Still, I respect Biden for trying.

Discussing the difference between "tolerance" and "promotion"

 This is an addendum on the Bill Maher article, but he did mention at one point that tolerance becomes promotion, and that what SJWs are doing is taking tolerance to a level that they're promoting weird uncomfortable sexual topics around children. And...I'm going to differentiate a bit. 

The thing is, I wrote an article on tolerance before, and tolerance is, as simple as the word says it is, it means to TOLERATE. It means to put up with. it means, you dont have to like something, but you have to accept that because the alternative of INtolerance is much worse. 

What makes SJWs SJWs in the first place, and what makes "woke", woke, is the fact that they aren't just tolerating something. They are promoting. They're shoving stuff down peoples' throats, their aggressively and evangelically promoting a set of values, and they're being actively intolerant to any dissent or pushback they get from it. 

If SJWs were JUST about tolerance, I wouldn't crap on them ANYWHERE near as much. Because that's how I view my own viewpoint on these issues. We all have our differences in opinion, we might not like each other, we might not get along, but as long as we stay out of each others' way, then people have a right to do whatever they want. What SJWs do and what sets them apart, and earns them my ire is the fact that they DON'T just leave it at that, they DO promote stuff, actively, and they DO tend to be intolerant of others' opinions. 

They are weirdo evangelical culture warriors who don't know how to say no for a reason. There is a reason I compare them regularly to the christian right. It's literally the same energy, and my beef with them is the same, the fact that they are intolerant of others and wanna shove their views down everyone else's throat. That's the common thread there. Tolerance is great, I'm all for tolerance. But SJWs and fundie Christians are for aggressively and evangelically shoving their perspective down everyone else's throats and making the rest of society conform to their values. There's no tolerance with these people, and that's where, I, the secular libertarian, tell both of these groups to screw off. 

And yeah, that's also why I agree with Bill maher somewhat in the previous article. Because as he said, drag queen story hour isnt so much about the kids, it's about the adults, it's about promoting an agenda. And maybe the agenda is to normalize this stuff at a young age to make them more tolerant of homosexuality as they get older, and that isn't necessarily a bad goal, but it is weird, and I do think that critics have a point in pointing out how creepy this is and how it could lead to a situation where children might be put in danger to bad faith actors who are predators. This isn't to say that every drag queen looking to read to kids is a pedophile, the majority probably aren't. But the same could also be said of catholic priests, and we KNOW how that stereotype goes.

The fact is, I know a bit about this kind of abuse from a class I took for my criminology side of my undergrad (keep in mind im political science AND criminology, with criminology being seen as a subset of sociology), and we actually did study these kinds of predators in those classes. And they're everywhere. It's disgusting. Like 1/4 girls are sexually abused at some point, 1/6 boys are. It's terrifyingly common, and often respected people like family members, or pastors, or teachers are the ones doing the abusing. And then you introduce this overly sexualized stuff to minors in the name of "tolerance' (but by this point it is active promotion) and i dont think people are too out there for thinking that this could be a problem. Because it CAN. Even if the vast majority of participants are in good faith. And comparing it to the nickelodeon issue that's been a hot topic as of late, I fail to see a difference. This crap happens in straight communities too, and a big lesson from the nickelodeon things is that child predators can be attracted to institutions and occupations, etc., that allow easy and trusted access to kids. This is why if you wanna work with children you really do need a squeaky clean record. We dont want people who could threaten them. Ya know? 

So...I don't think Maher is out of line here. And I do think that the difference between tolerance and promotion is relevant here. Tolerance to me has a negative implication, the duty to stay out of each others' way. Promotion is kinda ramming it down peoples' throat, and that is what SJWs do, and that is the problem here. And I wanna point that out.

You need to be dealing with some serious leftist brainrot if you CANT at least admit there's an optics issue here. I'm not saying you can't disagree with it, even I admit the overwhelming majority of drag queens that read to children are probably benign. BUT, it is weird, I see where the other side is coming from, and maybe we shouldn't be promoting this sort of thing. Just saying.

Pushing back against the left's narrative against Bll Maher's latest segment

 So, I  noticed Kyle Kulinski covered Bill maher's latest segment on transgenderism and stuff like drag queen story hour, and I kinda was gonna let it slide as i cover enough stuff from Kyle, but then Mike Figuredo covered the same segment and was even more shrill about it and calling him a right winger and stuff. So I wanted to give my input here.

Look, unpopular opinion, but I think Bill maher had a point. It's fine to be gay, it's fine to be trans, i dont generally support the right, especially legislatively, but uh....yeah, let's talk about the drag queen story hour thing and this stuff around kids. It's weird. It's really weird. I understand why some people think it's kinda creepy, and think maybe kids shouldnt be exposed to this stuff. Anything to do with sex is considered an "adult subject" and we generally try to hold off talking about this stuff until they're old enough. How old is old enough? Eh, anywhere from maybe 10-13? That seemed the norm for sex ed in my generation. And that's just starting to talk about it, explain how it works, explain it more scientifically. Im not saying we need to overcorrect all the way over to the right, I dont support desantis's position and think it's TOO restrictive, but uh....can we at least not give the right ammo that ALLOWS them to push for that stuff in the first place?

Like, teaching kids about drag queens and having them twerking under signs that say "it's not gonna lick itself" is....kinda creepy. And I understand why some adults would push back against that. And yeah, I'm fully aware of some of the stuff that went over my head as a kid. The macarena was big in the 90s and was actually about some chick cheating on their boyfriend with the infamous dance being kinda like acting it out, and...of course...and this is what brought this subject up, the nickeleodeon thing. And obviously nickelodeon is actually a hot topic right now because of how creepy some of the stuff was, and how dan schnieder seemed to be doing really creepy stuff that probably played into certain fetishes he had. So...I'm not opposed to discussing that stuff too. And while we (millennials who watched that stuff) mostly turned out fine, yeah maybe you dont wanna lean into that because at some point you are just enabling child predators. Like dan schneider. 

And yeah there's talk within the straight community of stuff like say child beauty pageants being creepy and potential pedo material too. So this isn't just discriminating against lgbtq+ in saying this. But yeah maybe we shouldnt be exposing kids to this stuff. Maybe we shouldnt normalize it. I have no doubt some within the community mean well, they're trying to teach tolerance, and that's why the left gets so NUTS when people push back against this. And I noticed this with mike's video in particular. He seems to take all of this stuff personally being LGBT+ himself and saying that the right doesnt want people like him to exist so he fights against this stuff as if it's for his own existence. 

But again...maybe some stuff goes a bit over the line? Maybe we should sometime  push back against this stuff? And maybe, just maybe the SJW community needs to stop treating everyone as a pariah for checking them once in a while. it's a problem they have. And this is why they've gotten so unreasonable and radical in the first place. The antidote to group think are nuanced individuals who largely agree with the mission of the community, but who will sometimes put a check on it like uh...yeah maybe we need to back off a bit. It's like asch experiment. People  will sometimes suppress their own views if they feel like they'll face negative feedback for expressing them. But if even ONE PERSON expresses dissent, then sometimes that kinda encourages others to speak up about their true feelings. 

But that's the issue with SJWs, and the growing extremism we're seeing on all sides really. Any time someone slightly more moderate checks the community for stepping out of line, they get treated as a pariah and eventually bullied out or thrown out. Which is where I am with social justice causes. They treat everyone who mildly disagrees with them as a right winger, when no we're still on the left. I myself probably still agree with SJWs on substance like 80% of the time, I just think their extremism and zeal makes them batcrap insane. And while more lately I am noticing more ideological differences between myself and "the left", thats really  more a result of the radicalization of these guys, and not the dissenters, WE remained the same, it's the left that changed, and that's the problem. Im not saying that lefties arent sometimes right on bill maher. He IS kinda becoming more moderate. But the thing is, a lot of people today who are being thrown out of the left wing movements of the day are people who were on the cutting edge 10-20 years ago. That's what Bill Maher is. He's a "brian griffin" liberal. Ya know, atheist, thinks hes smarter than anyone else, but not crazy. Same with richard dawkins, who faces increased criticism from the left and rightly points out that the modern left acts like the religious right. And of course, I've made similar observations. The commonality here really comes down to, to some extent, age. A lot of these people being thrown out of modern left wing movements are older. Often boomers or gen x, but sometimes millennials. People who have long and distinguished lives of being progressive and then suddenly they're not, because "it" changed, and they're not longer "with it" to make that simpsons reference again. 

Now, im not always saying that old centristy version of liberalism is always right. I am a millennial, and I kind of am like in that weird middle ground zone between the old world and the new. I was conservative, i became  liberal because i realized liberals werent the crazy militant america haters i thought they were, and now they're turning into rush limbaugh's worst strawmen. And thats where I am kind of more moderate or "conservative". Socially and foreign policy wise, I AM just a liberal. I AM just aligned with the likes of bill maher, or richard dawkins, or that old school liberalism that's quickly being treated as a pariah. I'm just more progressive on economics. And even then I'm not a SOCIALIST. I mean, I might flirt with market socialism from time to time, but i dont feel an affinity to literal leftism, if anything i spend a lot of time criticizing them and calling them crazy because they are too far left. I shifted into being more like a socdem, not a leftist, not a socialist, or communist, or anarchist. Just a more progressive iteration of liberalism. But again even that's getting people thrown out of the modern left where we have little choice but to go back to the democratic party and settle for Biden, because bernie's movement is going full on socialist and being obnoxiously gatekeepy about it. 

This isn't healthy. it's actually quite toxic. And its dangerous long term. We saw the right do this and now a lot of us in normieville are genuinely fearful this guy might try to overthrow the constitution. And now the left is doing the same. Sure we need to move left, but we need a more mild sane left thats still left of the dems, but not TOO insane. We need like that social democratic middle ground or equivalent like human centered capitalism. 

But again, the left is just going too far on stuff. And we need to check them to bring them back to sanity. But sadly, they dont want sanity, and they're, much like the MAGA movement, purging any dissenters and getting more and more extreme until it gets dangerous. 

Im sorry, I dont think bill maher was out of line here. I dont think hes always right. His latest segment on single payer was cringe for example. BUT, on stuff like drag queen story hour or israel? He has a point. And he's going after the same batcrap insane left i criticize and making fun of them at their expense. And he makes good points. Deal with it. 

Discussing the new appropriations bill and why the left needs a reality check

 Okay, so there were some bills passed in congress lately, and the left is kind of mad over them. I kinda understand the Israel thing, which even I have mixed views on, but Kyle Kulinski went into it today and ranted about how we treat this stuff as an emergency while we just let normal people languish with poverty and medical debt and stuff. As someone who is partial to ending poverty, let me put a stop this this argument right now. 

We know how much UBI would cost. It would cost $4 trillion. Even a negative income tax would probably cost $1-1.5 trillion these days. Medicare for all would cost, by my last estimate, $2.4 trillion, although we can debate the numbers. Even my public option alternative would cost $250-500 billion to implement properly. 

I totally get it, we're spending money on defense and for every warship or bomb we make, it represents an opportunity cost, but let's face it, we're spending $100 billion or so combined on Ukraine, Israel, AND Taiwan? PUHLEASE! That's nothing. That's an investment.

I get it, foreign policy isn't sexy. Much like the left, I'd rather not do anything foreign policy related and just focus on the home front and improving the lives of Americans. I wanna emphasize that, I get the isolationist desires some Americans have. But...I also understand that we kinda need to fund defense spending. It's not sexy, it's not inspiring, it doesn't spark joy, but...the world isn't a nice place, and national defense is literally one of the state's first priorities. Before we evolved where we did consider using taxpayer money to fund social programs and healthcare, we needed an army to defend ourselves with. And given the size of the US, and the fact that we're a global empire, that doesn't come cheap. We spend $900 billion total, as much as the next several countries combined. but we do that...to be able to take on russia and china, the next couple countries, at the same time. We live in a world where there are some that are hostile to our values and way of life, and if we dont put money into defense and these military ventures, we're just strengthening our adversaries and putting us in a position where we're less safe and secure and to be able to enjoy things like UBI and medicare for all IN PEACE. 

Seriously, the fact that we can have talks about this kind of precludes a system in which we're secure enough to focus on these higher needs from a state perspective. If a country cant defend itself, its game over before we even get that far. And our refusal to act is our enemies gain. 

Ukraine....we need to fund Ukraine, and that's where the lion's share of the spending went. By funding Ukraine, we dont have to fight russia ourselves, we let Ukraine fight them. And for all of Kyle's talk about how we should just negotiate with putin, you do realize that emboldens putin to attack on the future right? We cant afford to sit around like fricking neville chamberlain here making peace in our time. NO! We need to be like winston churchill who understood just what kind of man hitler was. We need to understand the same about putin and have a zero tolerance policy on this. Our funding of Ukraine should largely be above question from a moral and pragmatic standpoint. 

Taiwan, similar thing. Taiwan is China's Ukraine. China didn't invade, but by dumping money into it, we're hardening it as a target and discouraging China from trying anything. That PREVENTS a potential war. I mean thats why i support us spending this money. We spend this money, we let other countries do the heavy lifting, and we dont have to do anything. We're letting them deal with our adversaries. This is an INVESTMENT. This shouldnt be questioned, and honestly, us funding this stuff isnt enough to really threaten our ability to meaningfully fund other programs. I say this as proponents of those other programs. The idea that 4% of our GDP going to military stops us from reining in our 18% GDP healthcare spending is just a bunch of bullcrap. Other countries spend around 9-13% on universal healthcare and are better off for it. Defense spending barely factors into that. So let's stop this insane idea that we can't do both.

Israel....now this is the controversial one. We've beaten it to death. Israel is de facto committing genocide, and us funding them is not a good look. But I myself have lacked the moral courage to refuse to fund them in part because of the same logic behind me supporting the other two. if we didn't support Israel, it might embolden countries like Iran to attack them. And maybe without our help, those massive drone swarms they tried would actually get through and do anything. But because we give them fancy missile defense and stuff, that crap got shot down and their attacks were futile. And maybe if we didnt have a military commitment to support them, Iran, or other countries would swoop in and try to take them over. And THAT would cause a genocide in itself, AND the loss of an ally. So...even if the left has a point about the MORALITY, and I admit, they DO have a point, from a pragmatic perspective, is this really the best move? Idk, it might be best to just hold our nose and support them, i dont give a strong opinion either way. 

Given all three of these bills appear to be separate, Ukraine and Taiwan are definitely thumbs up for me. Israel....eh....you could argue either way, and if I were in congress I'd be looking for my constituents for their opinion on that one and probably just voting in line with public opinion. In the abstract I'd probably still give it a thumbs up, but I'd be holding my nose A LOT more here, but if I had a bunch of angry leftists willing to throw me out of office over this, I ain't willing to go down over this. Nor would I be willing to go down if a bunch of angry jewish constituents would be pissed if i DIDNT pass it. Again, I'd just make the most advantageous move for my career honestly in this situation, and listen to what my voters say. 

Now...the tiktok ban bill. We discussed this before, and yeah, after talking myself through it last time on here, I concluded I would be against the ban, and given these are, again, all separate bills, I'd oppose a tiktok ban on the basis of supporting freedom of speech. I dont like the idea of banning tiktok, I dont like the idea of setting up a precedent of blocking websites. That's what countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, and China, and Russia like to do, and how many of those countries do I wanna emulate? Heck I just spent most of this article arguing for defense spending in order to contain the threat of the above countries. As such, in line with my ethics and commitment to western values like freedom of speech, even when inconvenient, I would oppose such a ban. So I'd shoot that down, and I am dismayed that that passes. The libertarian in my is both internally and externally screeching over that one. 

So...that said, of the 4 things...I support 2 whole heartedly, I'm mixed on one, and I'm opposed to one.

If this were all one bill, I'd likely just go thumbs up. Mainly because supporting Ukraine and Taiwan are causes I deem necessary and worthy of our tax money. Israel is more controversial but I still begrudgingly support keeping them safe from foreign threats. The tiktok ban is just a full on NO from me though. No one should be okay with that, even if they have a point about it being filled with foreign propaganda and elevating questionable anti west narratives. What makes the west better than these countries is the ability to tolerate dissent and allow free speech. If you don't support that, then we risk turning into the same enemies we're spending so much time and effort trying to fight against in the first place. So that's my stance there. 

But still, I would like to reality check the lefties. They really need to get with the program on national defense. It's not just military contractors getting fat off of tax payer dollars. it's defending ourselves from our enemies...while those guys get fat off of taxpayer dollars. I honestly wouldnt be opposed to like auditing the pentagon at some point, I do get the impression there's a lot of waste in our military. BUT....we're the best for a reason, it's because we spend this much money, and it's because we're the only ones with this level of competency, both from those small foreign wars we hate, but also observing our allies like Ukraine using the money we give them to fight russians. 

Really, we have the largest professional fighting force on the planet. We have the most expensive military, but we also have the best. We're basically kanbei in advance wars. And that's a good place to be. BECAUSE of that, we can have a safe environment to have nice things. And we should keep fighting for nice things. We SHOULD push for things like UBI and healthcare and stuff. But keeping our military's lights on...is keeping our lights on. No one likes the bills that keep the lights on. But they're necessary, and if you don't pay them....well have fun with your new PS5 in the dark. Ya know what I'm saying?

Am I evil?

 So, someone asked me this today, and I thought this would be an interesting discussion, given my opinions about subjective and objective morality.

The answer I gave him is this. Some people might think I'm evil because I don't conform to their value system. I also might think they're evil because their value system sucks. And round and round it goes...

It's true. I've had debates with right libertarians who think I'm evil because I wanna tax them (aka "steal" resources from them to redistribute to others), whereas I think they're evil for wanting a world where people are forced to work for others to survive. I think work, especially forced labor is evil. They think redistribution is evil. We can debate all day, and I used to do this with libertarians back in the day like 10 years ago, and we wouldn't come closer to agreeing.

The same can be said with Christians. Christians think I am an unrepentant sinner and that I constantly defy god with my views. I think they their divine theory inspired morality is regressive and violates my proto-utilitarian principles. Keep in mind, for me, the first goal of morality should be to reduce suffering and death. But, as I said today, many people with such moral systems don't care about such things. Their views are based on divine command theory, period. They think I'm evil for disobeying their god, I think they're evil for trying to force people to embrace such a regressive and harmful moral system. 

The same can be said of leftists. I don't care enough about certain causes, like feminism, or palestinian rights, what have you, and think I'm evil for being "selfish" and not checking my privilege. I think that a lot of leftists are straight up psycho morally. I know some of them still act like violence is the way to achieve goals, and a lot of them also arent particularly amenable to my own causes.

The fact is, while I would argue there is some level of objective morality in the sense that failure to at least make a good faith attempt to reduce suffering and death is counter to the very goal of morality, and that some behaviors are so messed up that they can't be justified by ANY reasonable moral standard, and that those behaviors and mindsets are objectively "evil", in large part, morality is going to be somewhat subjective. Even if we did all agree on at least the above basic premise, and sadly, some don't even get that far, there's still a lot of debate about how to best get there. That's the whole reason so many different political ideologies exist. Do we favor safety and security or liberty? Do we favor individualism or collectivism? Negative duties or positive ones? Do deontological moralities do better than purely consequentialist ones? There's debate, and we're gonna heavily dispute each others' systems. 

To some people, I might be a "bad" person. I wrote an article about this recently and said I don't care. because ultimately I dont feel bound to their morality. And I might even embrace the black marks they try to make against me and fully own my own morals. They might think I'm evil for that. They're free to do so. And I don't generally care. Alternatively, I might think they're evil by my standards.

I kinda think looking at things purely as good or evil is kinda immature. I admit the person who asked this question kinda has a more virtue ethics approach to things, and does have a fixation on this topic as a result, even if I see it as unhealthy. He also has said he dislikes my morality on many occasions. I dont really care. 

The fact is, this isn't even a productive way to view things. Unless you're out there killing people and torturing them and harming them actively, or doing things that are actively harmful to them, you're probably not OBJECTIVELY bad. Beyond that, it's all subjective. And even then, some might be able to justify negative actions in some contexts. Like, I just got done running around remote planets in starfield offing mercs and space pirates and stuff. By the game's own rules, I face no negative consequences for doing so. After all, those guys are "the bad guys" and they arent very nice people, they'll kill decent civilized folk in a heart beat, and if I run around killing them, some might see me doing the universe in that game a favor. But at the same time, those guys probably have their own way of looking at things too and they might see me as bad for raiding their bases and stuff. Still. 

Keep in mind what i said about foreign policy too. I mean, I kinda believe to operate effectively in that field some moral flexibility occurs. Is it justified to give israel money if they're causing a palestinian genocide? What if failing to do so could spark a broader war and cause other harm? What if all of these issues are one big trolley problem where we have to debate who lives and dies? I mean, under such rules, even actions that aren't really good in and of themselves can be justified in some larger moral context. Even the most black and white stuff isnt always black and white, and there are exceptions and nuance. 

As such, this topic doesn't seem really worth discussing from someone who is more morally advanced, as defined by someone who is more knowledgeable of morality and doesnt have that same old black and white religious system that often serves as one's first morality, that most never grow out of. The more advanced you get, the less black and white things become to some degree. And while I would argue there are some lines that shouldnt generally be crossed, most stuff is subjective, and even among those lines there are trolley problems and tradeoffs. 

And yeah. As far as I go, I dont really see any reason to consider myself evil. I dont particularly harm people. Definitely not physically. Emotionally...maybe I can be a cold person, but all in all, I fail to see any reason to consider myself evil. Although others might think so because I fail to abide by their moral systems.

No, wokeism isn't about "human rights", it goes WAAAY beyond that

So I finally got to use my definition of wokeness in an actual debate, and the response I got was basically:

I mean who isn’t when it comes to certain values, particularly human rights? You either care about them or you don’t, there’s not a lot of wiggle room in between ya know?

 I know a lot of woke people love to pull this on me, acting like, it isn't a big deal, we're just for human rights, what, aren't YOU for human rights? But I wanna put a stop to this right now.

Virtually everyone in western society, outside of some genuine bigots, is generally for human rights. These battles had been won like 50 years ago now. We for civil rights in the 60s, womens' rights generally around the 70s (although i admit the republicans wanna go backwards on abortion). Gay marriage we got in the 2010s, and we're working on the trans stuff, and largely I suspect we're gonna win there long term. 

And anyone, especially liberals, has been for this stuff mostly for decades, maybe not the trans stuff, that's kinda new. But homosexuality has been a steadfast liberal position for a good decade now. Minority and womens' rights for again, like 50+ years.

So what's the problem? it's the circlejerking. Like you're the ONLY ONES who care about this stuff. Like...stop making a martyr out of yourself, my god, or acting like you're the only ones who care. Stop the superficial bullcrap. 

Like really, this is whats annoying, these guys hyper fixate on these topics and act like they're the only ones who care, and then get so pissy when people push back against them. 

Even worse, the debate isn't even about peoples' rights mostly. Critical theory stuff goes WELL beyond that. At this point the debates are getting so abstract that it's not even funny. We're not talking about civil rights for black people, for example any more, we're talking stuff like policing, and reparations, and affirmative actions and stuff. With women, the only "right" we're really still debating in society is abortion, which, I'm progressive on. Beyond that it's complaining over who does the house work, and pay gaps in work (even though equal pay for equal work is MOSTLY a thing...), whether consent is consent (see the rammstein thing), and some weirdo feminists wanting to ban porn for whatever reason. And it's like...ugh. 

Like, critical theory is literally a theory that says that you can have legal rights on paper, but that isn't good enough. We need to actually make these guys equal in effect, we need equal representation in employment, we need to reduce economic inequality, we need to focus on all of this subtle stuff that might not be able to be addressed without really getting in there in the nitty gritty of everything and upsetting the balance of everything, including the nominal legal rights argument. 

Really, keep in mind what I always used to say. "You can be for social justice, without being a social justice warrior." Most in the liberal left are. We just don't loudly scream at the top of our lungs about it constantly and virtue signal how much we care and blah blah blah.

Like here's the thing. These people, will never be happy. To them, it's not about the result, it's about the struggle. Because movements tend to dissolve when they get what they want. Because why continue them? You won. Go home. No. They gotta keep fighting. They gotta keep creating new fronts in a never ending culture war to fight over. And this is why i hate these people. Because as far as I'm concerned, we already won most of these battles, or we were winning. No, they gotta fight new battles. They gotta end up getting so annoying they end up pissing off the populace and then after they actually do inflame the conservatives and make them gain strength, they gotta push for unity around their issues in an eternal battle against them.

Again, if we win, they disappear and move on to the next thing. Maybe people wont be motivated by say, feminism any more if the feminists win, get everything they want, etc. No. So they gotta keep the big bad enemy alive by creating new grievances in order to keep people motivated and distracted. 

And that's where we are now, post 2016. Keep in mind, I honestly believe wokeness was used as a psy op to distract us from economic causes. We already won this crap but because that's the one aspect of left wing politics clinton could actually outflank bernie on, she HAD to go into the grievance stuff in order to shift rhe narrative away from the economic problems and back toward social ones. Again, keep in mind to me, this stuff is a trap. It's a massive waste of time intended to keep us fighting amongst crap that doesnt matter so that we dont fight over stuff that does. 

And that's where we are. Don't get so self righteous like you guys are the only ones who care about human rights. Again, for you guys its all about the struggle, not the result. We had already won this stuff mostly decades ago. You guys just gotta keep the grievances alive so that we dont focus on anything else. 

I noticed this in germany too when the rammstein thing was going on. Their left has even MORE cultural power there to the point the right barely existed, but they gotta keep fighting against an imaginary boogeyman and creating new fronts to fight in. Which is what we ended up with the Rammstein thing. Rammstein didnt do anything wrong, but feminists HAD to turn it into a massive culture war over consent and groupie culture and sexual relations because it's like they HAVE to create a cause to be invested in and they have to create something to fight against. Because, again, if they don't, maybe they'll lose their relevance. The problem is it's backfiring and leading to the alt right because people ARE pushing back against them and most of them arent as progressive as I am. So...in some ways despite them winning we're bringing the nazis back just so they can keep fighting the same old good fight they won. It's kinda sickening when you think about it.

But yeah, don't let anyone tell you differently. The left has been winning for a while. We're regressing if only because the left is becoming so overbearing it's actually creating opposition that wouldnt otherwise exist. And that just digs them in further since now they have an enemy to fight. They cant not have an enemy to fight, because they would stop being relevant if they did. They would lose their cultural power, as everyone would agree with them and people would move on to the next divisions within society. So they gotta keep these divisions artificially open while going on about how they're the only ones who care about human rights.

It's BS man. Don't fall for it.

Explaining the pro life position to pro choicers

 So, I saw a discussion online in which some pro choicers don't seem to understand what the right's game is when it comes to banning abortion, pointing out the obvious negative consequences to that like thousands of orphans or unwanted children being born, etc., and I feel like I need to really explain some of the differences between the left and right, as the left seems to be focused too much on practicality and consequences.

You gotta understand, pro lifers often come from a different worldview, with a different approach to ethics very much unlike our own. We on the left DO care about things like consequences and the like. The right...often doesn't.

The right tends to get its morals from "God" and divine command theory. Most people pushing the pro life perspective are fundamental Christians who believe at their very core that God is the source of all morality, that without God, we'd all go around doing "whatever we want", acting like we'd be in some Hobbesian state of nature if not for God and his commands, and they think, based on their interpretation of the Bible, that God forbids abortion. They do this often by taking Bible verses out of context, like the one about how God formed "you" (specific person) in the womb and blah blah blah. They think God has a plan for all individuals, that abortion interferes with God's plan, and that it's terminating a life, which is murder under God's laws. There's little point in trying to reason with these guys. This is their view. They think they are doing the right thing for God and that God's morality supercedes human morality.

As such, most of these people also aren't very interested in things like consequences. They aren't interested in things like "gee, this child might grow up unwanted, unloved, and contributing to the crime rate." They are just like "I guess you should've thought about that before having sex" (with them being judgmental toward the act too outside of marriage). Seriously. They don't care about consequences. We've known this for decades now. Remember abstinance only education? Data shows it doesnt work and most southern Bible belt states actually have higher rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs as a result. Do they care? No. Because to them "well you shouldn't have had sex". To them, morality is an abstract law established by God, and while there is arguably some logic behind it, they generally view morality as something to conform to, with humans needing to adapt themselves to these commands or laws, and failure to do so being to bring down judgment on themselves. They think if society allows "sinful" practices like abortion, or say, homosexuality, that God will smite us or something, and that we should do our best to conform to God and his morals. 

And that's that. End of discussion. They don't care about consequences, they don't care about logic or reason. it's just "that's the law according to God, conform to it or be punished by him." Their whole worldview is based on religious authoritarianism and they want that to infect our government. 

And before anyone asks (since I know some people will), yes yes, I know "secular pro life" exists, but let's face it, it's a project, mostly by religious people, trying to argue their perspective without directly appealing to god, and it kinda sucks. And no one is actually convinced by that. Well, maybe I shouldn't say "no one", but really, almost no one. Like that's the thing. it's one of those cringey "hello fellow kids" kind of things where they're trying to adapt their morals to another moral worldview, and it just kinda fails miserably and is awkward as a result. So yeah. Not big on it, i think I looked at the topic before, I really found no reason to consider it.

The fact is, abortion, and most culture war issues, ultimately come down to religion these days. Yes, postmodernism is making its force felt too, even in this issue with most SJWs being ardent feminists, but keep in mind, secularism walked so postmodernism can run, and while we don't always see eye to eye, we do have a common enemy in the religious right. You guys are just taking things a step further while seemingly forgetting your roots in secularism in the first place. But I digress. The point is, the big division from left and right is still over religion and tradition vs reason and consequentialism. And that's how I'd encourage people to view these kinds of culture war issues. You literally are dealing with religious zealots here. If these guys had a secular stance on the issue, you could watch this become an 80-20 or 90-10 issue overnight. Because I think the data is clear, I think the evidence is clear, and I dislike the idea of giving "both sides" equal credence here. I think that on most issues, the right is wrong objectively, which is why I don't really delve into their perspectives very often on this blog. Why deal with trying to untangle the views of a bunch of insane people? And as I said, when i DO go into it, I basically just end up writing an article explaining "yeah these people don't care about reason and rationality and evidence, they just have an overly dogmatic worldview based in religion that they don't care if they're wrong on, because from their perspective, they're right by default just by making an argument from authority."

So why spend more time than i have to dealing with them? Well, that's the thing, I don't. It's boring, it's intellectually unstimulating, I'd rather discuss topics that actually challenge me. But it is good to explain how the other side thinks because for all the left wing infighting we see between liberals, and leftists, blah blah blah, at least we're both based in some sense of reality and dealing with some sense of wanting what's best for people from a material and consequential point of view. The right...doesn't these days. It's literally just...God said so, therefore X. And abortion is no different. Seriously, anyone who actually cares about consequentialism and human well being should generally be pro choice. Even if they have a personal dislike of abortion, they should understand that banning it would be highly destructive and undesirable. Even I learned that before fully leaving Christianity, although that shift toward consequentialism in my mindset did have a lot to do with me leaving Christianity about a year later. Because I did understand I was going against the actual commands of the bible, and understood that my ethics were based on the real world and not just "God said so" at that point. And that tension in morality between what was right in front of my face and what a 2000 year old book said really did end up causing me to question the entire religion. Wasn't the only reason, it's never one sole reason, but it was a reason. And it's actually kinda common among former believers to go through that process. 

But yeah I just wanted to explain it since a lot of lefties don't really seem to understand how people on the right think about things. It might seem irrational to us...because it is, but there you go. my best attempt to actually explain it.