Discussing "that" dilemma in Starfield (warning: spoilers)

 So just a heads up, this has starfield spoilers. You have been warned.

Anyway, I just got to "that part" of the campaign, where the game got strangely philosophical. We're talking the hunter and the emissary. I havent completed the campaign yet, but at a certain meeting, you meet up with two members of the "starborn" who seem to be the main antagonist of the main quest. Both of them have attacked you at different points in prior quests, and both have different motivations. 

Essentially, the goal of the campaign is to acquire all of these artifacts in order to join "unity", which basically throws you into a parallel universe and where you go into new game plus in the game itself. Starborn are people who have passed through unity, and are looking to do so again. And people will fight over the artifacts. 

The hunter and the emissary are two of these starborn who have passed through, and quickly learn they don't see eye to eye. if anything, they very much are enemies. The hunter is the more violent of the two. He will point out that all morality is just human opinions backed up by force, and he just does what he wants to do. he also has no compulsion about killing people in order to acquire artifacts and does kill other people in the campaign. 

The emissary is a bit more complex. They (gender can vary based on choices the character makes) basically believe that the unity should be protected from those who are unworthy. And this actually does set up an interesting dilemma that I feel like I should run my moral system though.

In some sense, the hunter is right. The hunter admits that all morality is fake, it's just peoples' opinions backed up by force, and he sees it as hypocritical. he's the ultimate libertarian and anarchist. he rejects all laws, all rules, all morals, and just does what he wants to get to his ends. He effectively rejects the social contract and says that the emissary is just doing what they do, but they're less forthcoming about it.

In a sense, I guess all morality and all rules are just collective opinions backed with force. However, that does not mean they arent useful. The hunter is right about morality, but at the same time, there is a flaw in his thinking. That the point of establishing morals and enforcing them with force is to create cooperation between humans. it's to come together in safety and security, so we can enjoy the rest of our freedom. A statist would see the hunter as dangerous since his lawlessness leads to him just killing as he sees fit. The hunter isnt wrong, he has a point, but at the same time, I do have to say that the point of social contracts and human cooperation are to protect us from people like the hunter who want to violate our "rights" like life, in order to achieve their goals.

Still, the emissary....they have a point in saying they're doing the same thing. The emissary is one individual who simply says that they want to protect the artifacts, and also use violence to protect try to take them from people and acquire them. They tell themselves they're doing the right thing, trying to protect other people as others can be too dangerous with this power, but in effect, they're doing the same thing the hunter is doing, using violence on others in violation of their will in order to sieze the artifacts for themselves.

Even if you can sympathize more with their civility, the hunter is right in that they're both the same. 

However, here's the thing. What makes the emissary no better is, in my opinion, that they act alone. They just decide no one else is worthy. They are willing to use violence to get their goals. They basically act similarly to the hunter. Their morality isn't based on a sense of collective defense against violence, it isn't based on some sort of mutual contract with others. They dont represent some sort of larger group or society. You are the third party, and you are given the choice to side with either.

I guess if you decide to side with the emissary against the hunter, recognizing the hunter's wanton violence (and admittedly, he is more violence prone, being honest about his intentions) you could somewhat justify their morality and basically form a social contract against the hunter. But you can also side with the hunter, who will say that they will never tell you what to do, and that they're more honest and straightforward here. Either decision works, because of the weird both sidesism that comes into play here. And that's the thing. The one weakness of this whole dilemma is that in the context of only a few people, it really is a matter of them both being similar, one acts violently for selfish interests and is up front about it, the other acts violently for high minded principles but basically isn't much different than the hunter in practice.

If we had a much larger social contract to form with more people, we would see a much stronger case for the emissary, but the emissary didnt introduce themselves pointing out what the artifacts were and saying this is why you cant have them, they just decided to give cryptic warnings that didnt make sense and then open fire on you. I mean, without full knowledge of the situation, the emissary and the hunter are the two sides of the same coin. Of course, the emissary is more moral and principled in theory, but again, does it matter here? This is why i see this debate as interesting.

For as much crap as this game gets, i didnt expect it to get so philosophical, and I don't even know what choice I'll eventually make, although I'm leaning toward the emissary as I'm more a fan of social contracts and banding together against psychos like the hunter who just wanna do what they want even if it hurts others.

Discussing Palestine protests, parallels to Vietnam, and what that means in 2024

 So, I've been seeing a lot of comparisons between the Vietnam protests and the Palestine protests in general. I even made a few myself, explaining my dad's experience with protesters spitting on him in the early 70s. 

I've seen parallels made both ways. I've seen pro palestine people post videos of people responding to Kent University's shootings and showing that the conservative response to the protesters then is the same as it is today. That these people are crazy, out of hand, and when police used violence they probably deserved it for being unruly. The message was that they were on the right side of history, and that conservatives gonna be conservative and they just hate principled individuals who make a stand.

On the flip side, I've seen people who are more moderate of conservative make parallels too. I've seen people say "remember when they drove the "silent majority" into the arms of Nixon in 1972? Remember, the protesters during Vietnam were a very loud and vocal minority. They screamed, they threw tantrums, but Nixon decided to say "look, we know the majority of the country isn't this, and I'm asking for the votes of the silent majority." And he swept. The democrats nominated McGovern who was too far left and hated by the political establishment, and between getting ratscrewed by his own party and Nixon's silent majority message working, Nixon SWEPT. It was a total blowout for the republicans, and a complete condemnation of the democratic party  at the time. 

It was also, effectively, the end of the New Deal coalition. That was actually in 1968, because the protesters were protesting back then when Johnson was in office, and THAT has a lot of parallels to Biden. And you know what? Johnson was a great president, i dont care what anyone says. Yes vietnam was a bit of a blight on his legacy, but unlike the far left, I can overlook something like that, given how this dude delivered on the war on poverty. 

In my opinion, the left threw decades of progress away here. Was it worth it? No. By the 80s, we had the counter movement of we need to be STRONG on foreign policy and invade MORE people. We had reaganomics undermining the new deal. We had the moral majority that was against everything the left was for. We had a full on party realignment away from the left, and while I cant just blame the left. A huge part of it was the dixiecrats defecting to the right over civil rights, but these guys threw away the best economy we ever had, over fricking foreign policy. And honestly, looking at the past, I'm not particularly charitable to the left here.

The fact is, the left IS annoying. They ARE offputting. And to resonate a theme in a recent Bill Maher clip I've seen, "no one likes you" (them). People, dont, like, these, guys. Get this in your head. We got half the country that's conservative. We also got a lot of people on the left who also aint fans of these guys. The actual far left is a very small sliver of the population. This doesn't make them irrelevant. I think they exist in just the right quantities to potentially screw Biden out of a second term. All you need is 1-2% of people in just the right states to throw the election. And they seem to be gunning for that, calling Biden genocide Joe.

Me, I see Biden like a modern Johnson and Carter wrapped up in one. I see him trying to appeal to his leftist base, although because these guys are so extreme and unreasonable, and he's just floudering with them. And now we're heading toward a convention in chicago, much like in 1968, with anti war protesters likely to ruin it, just like in 1968. And this isnt a good place to be. We're also reminding me of 1980, where Biden has been ineffective in passing legislation just like carter, and dealing with unrelenting inflation, just like carter, and an angry voter base that's leaning to the right. I'm scared for the future of the left here. I really am. This election is like 1968 and 1980 all in one. And it scares me. This is one reason I'm being so ride or die on Biden. He's not the best candidate, I didnt even vote for him the last time, but we're in a position where this is the best we got and the best we're getting, and if he loses, the country is gonna shift right.

If you asked me in 1968 if I'd vote for johnson, I'd say hell yes. I'd also think the anti war left was stupid and ruining it for all of it. In 1980, even if I felt like Carter was a wet blanket, I'd say yes, defending the left and the dems from the rising tides of the right was essential, and knowing what i do know, I'd know we were in for a bumpy ride.

And the same thing applies here. Foreign policy, I dont care a ton. I would say i generally support Biden. I think his policies and actions are reasonable, the protesters are unreasonable, but understandable, and to defend the left, YES, Netanyahu is committing war crimes and should be castigated for them. Im not defending israel too hard here. I still prefer them as a faction over palestine, but let's face it, i dont like EITHER of these guys. And I  find it perfectly reasonable to criticize Israel while still  supporting Biden. Many people have done it. bernie has done it. Heck even chuck schumer and biden have done it. 

But the left is  going too far. Im going to be honest, full stop, not a huge fan of the protests. I understand them and the anger, I can't say that I don't think they should have a right to do it. I know reading my past article, I do think i mightve come off as TOO critical, and too in favor of police. I just understand first amendment rights dont always cover protests on private property, nor are they warrants for violence. And if columbia or another university has to cancel classes because they fear for their students' safety, that IS a problem. It just is. People have a right to protest, but there are reasonable limits there and other concerns. This isn't the "public square" per se, and of course, safety comes first. 

And honestly, electorally, voters have every right NOT to vote for Biden. BUT, I would say this, be mindful what the consequences of such a decision are. Think of the big picture. is this worth a second trump term? Is this worth the potential political destruction of the left. is it worth driving the rest of the country to the right, and AWAY from the democrats and TO the right? 

In my mind, the answer is clear. I studied the last time this happened, and I believe those who dont learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. And I know the last time we were here, it didn't end well for us. I honestly view the protests as largely politically ineffective, the war went on for YEARS after it started, the democratic coalition imploded, and we got decades of neoliberalism out of it. Was it worth it? NO. NO IT WAS NOT. 

As I see it, I'm here to clean up THAT mess. 2016 was the start of a new realignment, the left has a hand to play here. But it's throwing it all away over a pair of twos so to speak. And I can't in good faith support what the far left is doing here. I just can't. Biden 2024. Defend our position, hold our ground, don't let the right make progress or we're screwed. 

 EDIT: Actually Vietnam was WORSE.

 There is one difference between Vietnam and Gaza that someone has pointed out though. In Vietnam, we had a draft. We had boots on the ground. Our troops were dying in what seemed like a pointless and unnecessary war with no real end goal. Think of Iraq but worse. 

Gaza is half a world away, and honestly, none of us have skin in the game. One positive thing was the protests ended the draft, we have an all volunteer military, and it's not OUR troops dying.

In that sense I actually have far more respect for the Vietnam people. As I see it, the gaza people are throwing this away for nothing. I just wanted to add that addendum as it's a good point.

The Christian nature of the modern welfare state and why religion isn't always a good way to approach morality

 I had a pretty interesting debate last night with a friend about whether religious morality was a good thing or not. He was a fan of it, whereas I'm not. I don't want to go too deep into details about that, but the core of my argument is there's nothing from religion you can't get elsewhere, and rather than producing the same result or better you get the same result or worse. Anything good from religion can be discerned from reason. Anything bad from religion is often a result of being dogmatically stuck on a fixed, outdated version of morality. Morality is only as good as the code it's derived from and religions are often based on divine command theory and make an argument from authority. Their views are based on the views (or "character", to avoid a common attempt to bypass this argument) of their deity, and are fixed on them no matter what. Sometimes you can get good out of that, sure, sometimes you get bad though. You get people stuck on outdated moral codes that no longer produce good results, and often times adherents to those religions oppose further progress believing their outdated codes are the end all be all of morality. I'm not saying that these laws may not have made sense in the time and context they were written in, but times change, we discover new and better things, and sometimes old stuff deserves to be left to the museum. The Bible is one such moral code for me. Sure, the love your neighbor stuff is great, but did you read all the crap about stoning people to death over minor infractions? Or the genocides of joshua? (Which are, ironically relevant to the modern Israel situation). Or the whole hell thing? Yeah. 

Anyway. Again, I'm not interested in dwelling on that, but I do want to put a human centered capitalist spin on it, since my economic views stem from my humanist views. One argument this guy made was in favor of charity. And how Christians do charity and that makes them moral. They'll also say atheists don't do charity. Which Im not even sure is true. But I digress. But here's the thing. While charity does some good, it's one of those things that's outdated and inefficient, and I don't value charity that much. I feel like charity helps people in limited ways at best, and it often serves to stroke the ego of the privileged person participating in it, where it makes them feel like they're doing something, even when they're not. 

My own views on charity vs say, state action, actually go back to Thomas Paine. In his essay "Agrarian Justice", he argued for a fixed grant of money to be paid to each citizen when they reach adult age, calling it a "citizen's dividend". I see it as a precursor to UBI, something that kind of talks about giving people money, but yeah, he saw it primarily as a one time grant at the age of adulthood for which to do whatever they want. I think UBI is better because it provides a constant stream of payments over one's life, and is more resilient to being sabotaged by outside sources (like predatory educational institutions looking for their piece of a windfall, looking at you colleges), or the peoples own incompetence, but it was an idea. Anyway, to argue for this vs charity, Paine argued the following:

There are, in every country, some magnificent charities established by individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do, when the whole extent of the misery to be relieved is considered. He may satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he has, and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pulleys, that the whole weight of misery can be removed. 

 I believe that, and I agree with that. The Bible said the poor are always among us, and as long as we rely on charity, we're never gonna get rid of poverty. We literally need to organize the resources through the state in a directed way to fully resolve the problem. As such, state action solves this problem in a way charity never will. Because the state can address the problem systemically, whereas charity is just a bunch of individuals doing things within a flawed system. 

So...is arguing for charity being inspired by christianity a good thing if secularists want to use states to address the issue more systematically? No.

But the argument goes further, this guy thinks the origins of the modern safety net came from Christianity. He cited luther's catechism as influencing for example, the nordic states and their direction with safety nets. However, this is where he starts treading into my pro UBI and anti welfare policies.

I mean, charity, better than nothing. Welfare, still flawed, better than charity, which is better than nothing. How do we do better still? Well, by organizing that system of pulleys via a UBI, or universal healthcare. Something that removes the weight off of individuals entirely. 

But, sadly, our entire approach to safety nets, warts and all, is based on christianity. And I'm going to post another quote. This one is lengthy and it comes from Phillipe Van Parijs "Basic income: A radical proposal for a free society and a sane economy" (p. 51-54). 

In Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), the fictional Portuguese traveler Raphael Hythlodaeus, who allegedly visited the island of Utopia, tells of a conversation he had in England with the Archbishop of Canterbury. “Petty larceny isn’t bad enough to deserve the death penalty,” he told the Archbishop. “And no penalty on earth will stop people from stealing, if it’s their only way of getting food.” He suggested an alternative to the gallows: “Instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody is under the frightful necessity of becoming, first a thief, and then a corpse.”1 When the conversation was suddenly interrupted, he had just started sketching how this objective might be achieved: “Revive agriculture and the wool industry,  so that there is plenty of honest, useful work for the great army of unemployed.”2 An economic revival might do the trick, but More might well have had in mind another, more direct way of “providing everyone with some means of livelihood.” It was articulated for the first time just a few years later by one of his close friends and fellow humanists. In 1517, one year after having arranged for the publication of Utopia in the university town of Louvain, Desiderius Erasmus founded there the Collegium Trilingue and recruited in this connection a young scholar called Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540). Born in Valencia, Spain, to a family of converted Jews, Vives studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and was then living in the booming harbor city of Bruges. In a letter to More, Erasmus described him as someone who “despite his youth, has a knowledge of all branches of philosophy far above the bulk of the scholars.” In the spring of 1525, on his way back from a teaching stint at Oxford, Vives was hosted in More’s house in London. He was then working on a book which he believed could get him into trouble. Even just the title and the outline had to be kept under wraps. Vives wrote to his friend Francis Craneveldt in October 1525, “I do not dare entrust them to a letter, even to a dearest friend, for fear that it would fall in the wrong hands.”3 The book was published in Antwerp the following year under the title De Subventione Pauperum. What was so new in Vives’s book and what was so subversive about it? De Subventione Pauperum was the first developed plea for a scheme of public assistance, the first form taken by what is now called the welfare state. The first half of the book consists of a theological discussion that anchors the scheme in the Christian duty of charity. The obligation to help the poor is an old theme in the Christian tradition, sometimes expressed with great vigor. Thus, Vives appeals to a famous statement by Saint Ambrose (340–397), bishop of Milan, to the effect that refusing to succor the needy when one is well-off is on a par with stealing: “It is the hungry man’s bread you withhold, the naked man’s cloak that you store away, and the money that you bury in the earth is the price of the poor man’s ransom and freedom.”4 Vives agrees: “If it is a crime to take something from a rich person, how much more wicked is it to take it from the poor? From the rich person one is only taking money, but from the poor person one is taking life itself.”5 It is in the second half of De Subventione Pauperum that novelty shows up. There, Vives argues for a direct involvement of civil authorities in poor relief, using, among others, arguments reminiscent of More’s Raphael: “When people’s generosity is at an end, those in need do not have anything to eat. Some of them will find themselves virtually obliged to become thieves in the town or on the roads.” Once his scheme is in place, “there will be fewer thefts, crimes, robberies, murders, and capital offences.”6 Vives does not only argue for the principle of public assistance. He spells out the form it should take: unambiguously a scheme strongly conditional in the sense of targeting the poor, taking their household situation into account, requiring willingness to work, and preferring kind over cash. “Above all, we must recognize the law imposed by the Lord on all humankind: that is, that each person should eat bread got through his own work. When I use the words ‘eat’, ‘feed’ or ‘subsistence’ I understand them to mean not just food, but also clothing, shelter, fuel, light and everything that is needed to keep the human body. No poor person who can work, according to his age and his health, should remain idle.”7 The work condition, in particular, is stressed with great force. For every poor, there will be something to do: For example, someone who cannot sew clothes can sew stockings. If he is of an advanced age, or slow in thinking, he should be taught an easier trade, which can be taught in a few days, like digging earth, drawing water, carrying a load, pushing a cart. . . . Even blind people should not remain idle. There are many things they can do. . . . Sick and old people should be given easy things to work on, according to their age and their health. No one is so ill that he lacks the strength to do anything at all. In this way, occupied and focused on their work, the thoughts and bad practices which would otherwise be born in them will be restrained.8 The scheme does aim to cover all the poor, whatever the source of the poverty, but the work condition can be differentiated accordingly: “Those who waste their fortune in bad and stupid ways, like gaming, whoring, by luxury or on gluttony, still have to be fed because people cannot be left to starve. For those, however, the most unpleasant work should be reserved. . . . They must not die of hunger, but they should be limited by a frugal diet and hard work.”9 The objective of the scheme is to reach all the poor and only the poor. As some who have been “honorably educated” may be reluctant to reveal their neediness, “they need to be traced with care and relieved discreetly.” On the other hand “special care must be taken to protect against fraud by idle people and malingerers, so that they do not have the chance to cheat.” The level of subsistence guarantee to the poor must remain frugal: “they should not receive any luxuries, because they could easily form bad habits.” But a top-up may be required over and above what they earn through their work: “For the poor who live at home, it is necessary to procure work or employment in public works; other citizens have no shortage of work to give them. If it turns out that their needs are greater than what they happen to earn by work, one can add what is judged they lack.”10 How is all this supposed to be funded? Partly from the product of the work performed by those conscripted as part of the scheme, but above all from voluntary donations by the better off. “People cannot be forced to do good, because otherwise the very idea of charity and welfare will perish.” But people will give generously if they know the money is well used. Indeed, “it is to be hoped that in other towns, where the same care is not taken for poor people as it is here, many rich people will send their money, because they know it will be well distributed to help those most in need.”11 Crowdfunding for charitable purposes, one might call this today

I know, that's a mouthful. So let me break it down.  Yes, the modern safety net was borne out of the Christian worldview. It did believe in giving charity to people in order to help alleviate poverty. 

However, virtually every flaw I have with the modern safety net is present in here. I'll quote a few more things from the above passage individually to make my case:

Vives does not only argue for the principle of public assistance. He spells out the form it should take: unambiguously a scheme strongly conditional in the sense of targeting the poor, taking their household situation into account, requiring willingness to work, and preferring kind over cash

 So....here we start seeing the problems.

First, means testing. It has to target the poor. It cant be universal. I like universal safety nets. 

Second of all, require a willingness to work. Basically, putting work requirements on it.

And third, giving people stuff over giving them money. After all, common christian logic is the poor are too stupid to spend the money as they want, as poverty is a moral failing on their part, or alternative it's intended to limit their freedom. But I wanna go further. 

. “Above all, we must recognize the law imposed by the Lord on all humankind: that is, that each person should eat bread got through his own work. When I use the words ‘eat’, ‘feed’ or ‘subsistence’ I understand them to mean not just food, but also clothing, shelter, fuel, light and everything that is needed to keep the human body. No poor person who can work, according to his age and his health, should remain idle.”7

 And here we are, the origin of the work fetish. According to Christianity, God imposed a law on all humanity that they must WORK and WORK HARD for their bread. We can't just let people sit around because original sin and because some dude ate an apple after listening to a talking snake, we need to make them WORK FOR IT! 

And thus, we get the common weird shuffle that Christian morality imposes on people. The shuffle that, sure, we need to care for the poor, Jesus told us to, and think of all the benefits that might have, BUT...we must balance this with HARD WORK. We can't just let people be left alone with the money to do what they will or they might not develop the right work ethic. We need to MAKE them work. And it's not just work, but HARD work, as we'll see with this quote.

The work condition, in particular, is stressed with great force. For every poor, there will be something to do: For example, someone who cannot sew clothes can sew stockings. If he is of an advanced age, or slow in thinking, he should be taught an easier trade, which can be taught in a few days, like digging earth, drawing water, carrying a load, pushing a cart. . . . Even blind people should not remain idle. There are many things they can do. . . . Sick and old people should be given easy things to work on, according to their age and their health. No one is so ill that he lacks the strength to do anything at all. In this way, occupied and focused on their work, the thoughts and bad practices which would otherwise be born in them will be restrained.8 The scheme does aim to cover all the poor, whatever the source of the poverty, but the work condition can be differentiated accordingly: “Those who waste their fortune in bad and stupid ways, like gaming, whoring, by luxury or on gluttony, still have to be fed because people cannot be left to starve. For those, however, the most unpleasant work should be reserved. . . . They must not die of hunger, but they should be limited by a frugal diet and hard work.”9

 Basically, the more character flaws you express as per their moral system, the more miserable you need to be made to be. We can't let them starve, we have to teach them the joys of HARD WORK and give them the MOST MISERABLE jobs in order to teach them to be good workers in their eyes. Like really, these christians have a literal fetish with this stuff. As I read stuff about the protestant work ethic and what we did to people of generations past, it really is sickening. The weirdo protestant work ethic people are really responsible for a lot of the misery that we still see in modern societies on this issue.

Again, they can't just give a universal grant and leave people alone to their own devices. No they have to means test stuff and work requirement stuff, and make sure the aid is in kind aid rather than money. And we need to forced them TO WORK.

” The level of subsistence guarantee to the poor must remain frugal: “they should not receive any luxuries, because they could easily form bad habits.” But a top-up may be required over and above what they earn through their work: “For the poor who live at home, it is necessary to procure work or employment in public works; other citizens have no shortage of work to give them. If it turns out that their needs are greater than what they happen to earn by work, one can add what is judged they lack.”

 This seems to explain why they cant just be given money. They cant be in charge of their own lives, they need to be made miserable and given no luxuries because they're the pieces of crap they are. And we need to put good habits in these people.

Again, okay. Christianity has charity. Cool. It has the flawed modern safety net. Cool. My system is better. I just want to give people money and NOT impose an entire moral system onto them. Thats the problem with these christians. They can't just leave people alone, they have to fricking lecture people, and control people, and to make them miserable in order to make them into the character they want them to be. And they're only given what they deem them to get, and they're only gonna get something for free if it's deemed by some authority that they deserve it. 

Again, this is the entire logic behind the current cruelty of our safety net. 

Oh, and to come back around into the charity thing.

How is all this supposed to be funded? Partly from the product of the work performed by those conscripted as part of the scheme, but above all from voluntary donations by the better off. “People cannot be forced to do good, because otherwise the very idea of charity and welfare will perish.” But people will give generously if they know the money is well used. Indeed, “it is to be hoped that in other towns, where the same care is not taken for poor people as it is here, many rich people will send their money, because they know it will be well distributed to help those most in need.”11 Crowdfunding for charitable purposes, one might call this today

 So basically they're just being forced to work for their own benefits.

Also, charity. We can't just have the government do it, that will stop people from giving willingly via charity? WHO CARES?! Seriously, we should WANT to end charity. Remove the NEED for charity. But again, Christians have this moral system where morality isnt just about consequences. It's about character building. It's virtue ethics. Charity is a virtue, and we need to keep people poor so that people know the virtue of giving to charity. Like what the actual fricking heck? And it's the same with the work ethic. people need to know the joys of hard work! No they don't. 

Here's the thing. it's the same logic as their backwards mindsets toward sex ed. As we know, christians often dont like sex ed. Sex ed might encourage people to have sex, which is a sin. So we need to have abstinance only education which encourages them NOT to have sex. And if they still have sex, then we lecture and moralize them about the consequences when they get STDs or need an abortion.

And this...creates worse results. But they don't care. Morality isn't necessarily about consequences to a christian, it's about virtue. Virtue in what context? What's the point of virtue? Like, if you dont need charity, and you have a system that JUST does away with poverty, why do we need charity. Charity makes sense in a world with poverty with no better solutions but if we have a better solution, so what? let them. Let them be as selfish as they want. I mean, that christian friend said i sound like ayn rand. Let me put it this way. Ayn rand wouldnt have a bad ethical system if people didnt suffer from it. The problem with ayn rand's egoism is the fact that it leads to poverty and people suffering. If we can create a system where people don't need to give to charity and can be selfish, why not? It's a huge moral burden off of everyone's shoulders. 

If we can create a world where everyone had access to all of the contraception, abortion, and STD treatments that they want, why do we care how much they have sex? Again, it's because in the christian worldview, chastity is a virtue. And we need to preserve the moral choice to be good because that's what god wants...or something. We can't just solve the problem and the very moral dilemma. No, we need to live in a worse world where it forces these moral quandries on people where they have to suffer for making the wrong choices.

And it's the same with welfare. We could just solve poverty and be done with it. But oh then we wouldnt have charity, and poor people wouldnt have work ethic. What is the point of virtue? All it does, is make us virtuous in a world where such virtue is necessary to minimize suffering. We cant just remove the moral dilemma because then people wouldnt need to be as virtuous and maybe they wouldnt be. So what, I ask. Well, for them, morality IS about the internal person, NOT the consequences. It IS about the character of one's heart. And for them, suffering builds character. We cant have a world with nice things, because we need people to suffer, so they know how to behave...in a world where if they don't they suffer. They care more about the behavior modification and virtue than about the result.

I'm about the result, and to this guy, he seems my ethical system as deeply immoral. He's said as much to me. He thinks charity makes his moral system better and compares my system to something ayn rand would write. Well, maybe so, I mean, I do encourage ENLIGHTENED self interest, but I think that's needed. i dont value character building, or this weird collectivist sidehug he seems to be a fan of. Like here's the thing. I wanna make a world where people can be ayn rand, and no one suffers for it. And that's okay. Why shouldnt that be okay. if people are selfish, and they're not hurting anyone by being selfish, then who cares?

But that's the thing. my views are based on individualism, secularism, minimizing suffering, and just getting the best results. His morality seems to be about character building and mild authoritarianism (the idea that we need to be repressed for our own good) and virtue for its own sake, and collectivism, and i just find his worldview stifling. I mean, if he wants to live that way, fine, but i tend to resent when people try to make others live according to their weirdo authoritarian moral systems. 

As such, I really don't see the value in the christian or religious worldview. I flat out see it as an inferior, regressive, and authoritarian worldview that makes people suffer in order to make them do the right thing according to the whims of their control freak authoritarian that they call a "god." Sorry, not sorry. Screw Christian ethics, secular ethics ARE better, they minimize suffering and negative consequences while giving them freedom to live as they want. What's so wrong with THAT?! 

That's not even getting into how people often keep bad ideas and rules around just because the Bible says so or whatever. And that happens A LOT in christianity and religious worldviews. Progress is always slow, and we have to be held back to allow these guys to integrated modern morality into their increasingly dated worldview based on the texts of an ancient culture from thousands of years ago. I'm sick of it, man. 

I'll concede the fact that maybe atheists arent always more moral. And that yes, sometimes atheists tend to internalize work ethic BS too and don't tend to work through the indoctrination like they should. But ultimately, those views ARE old, they ARE based on religion, and I would probably argue that we should have an easier time convincing secularists of something than people with dogmatic morality based on an old moral system full of flaws.

I admit, not everyone buys this stuff. I know the pope came out in favor of UBI, so credit where credit is due. Christianity is admittedly pluralistic and some people do have different approaches. Still, the pope is criticized for dragging his feet on abortion and homosexuality, and other issues, because again, he still has to lead this 2000 year old organization. And generally speaking religious people are late to the party when it comes to progress. So yeah, I'd still argue secular morality is better. I'd especially argue my own specific humanist morality is better.

Discussing the problems with institutions, and Jill Stein's candidacy

 So....there's a bit of some leftist infighting between those who support Stein, and those who support West.

I've discussed some of this before, and I'm generally on Cornel West's side where if I was going third party, i'd vote for him, but I am going for Biden as democracy and other concerns pulled me more in that direction. Still, I feel like enough of a leftie to have an opinion on this subject.

But, I got into a bit of an argument for a Stein supporter, who was very dismissive of West. He basically implied West isn't a serious candidate and that Stein is better because we can grow the green party, which is the only left wing party with ballot access. And I feel like this argument is kind of slimey. Because, as you know, the democrats are the only party that can beat donald trump, and we need to vote for them or get trump.

If you don't get what I did there, I just equated this logic of supporting the greens because they're in a larger and more privileged institutional position as similar to the democrats' idea that you should vote democrat because they are themselves in a larger, more privileged institutional position. 

Now, I'm not gonna bash Stein too hard. i think she's okay. I voted for her once before. I ain't too keen on her this time though for various reasons I've discussed before and I'll get into here, but I do wanna call out the logic of supporting an institution just because they're an institution.

 Even if I decided I'm voting for Biden, in part because the dems are an even bigger institution that is needed to defeat an anti democratic psychopath, if I WERE going third party, supporting the institutions, or the party for its own sake, is not attractive to me at all.

If anything, my desire to vote third party is born out of a failure of those institutions and the need to correct them from the outside. 

If we wanna be serious about supporting a third party, why not support the largest one currently? Which party is that, you ask? The forward party! As a Yang ganger, I have some choice words to say about the forward party. I have some choice words to say about Yang. And let's start with the fact, that Yang through UBI and human centered capitalism under the bus in order to grow his party by merging it with two other parties. 

They're the biggest, because Yang sold out his original ideals in a sense, in order to grow his party. And yes yes, Yang basically still supports UBI and human centered capitalism in his heart, but for the sake of growth, he basically tabled his ideals and limited his ability to speak on the subject for fear of angering his new constituents.

From the moment yang stepped into the political arena, he's always faced these kinds of discussions. Like, he mentioned once he supported a certain candidate but due to the currency of politics being social relations, and not wanting to alienate people, he endorsed someone else. These are questions you have to ask in politics, do you support the candidate your heart wants? or the one that best preserves your social relations? And this is the trap yang set for himself with forward. Institutions like growth. They like to protect their own interests. They become entrenched in social relationships and past compromises that make them inflexible and unable to shift to appease new trends.Their leaders grow old and don't want to relinquish power to the next generation, and as rifts form, institutions are unable to right themselves and often times we need to resort in external pressures from other factions in order to right that ship.

What happened with forward is a tragedy of what happens when people put institutions over ideals. And growth over ideals. The ideals have no chance. And suddenly you're left with an institution that people have to ask, who is this for and what goals does this serve to reach? And that's the problem with forward.

This is also the problem with the democrats. The democrats are an institution that's existed for 150 years, and it has, throughout the ages, been more concerned with its own power and ideals rather than doing the right thing. During the new deal era, it took a strong willed reformer like FDR and several serious crises to force the democrats to do the right thing with the new deal. They resisted calls for say, a 40 hour work week or minimum wages or workplace safety laws for decades, it took the great recession and the need for immediate swift action in order to make them do the right thing. 

And since then, they've been at odds with their voter base. Even as early as 1948 we saw the rifts of the new deal coalition as the dixiecrats wanted to go one way and the left wanted to go the other. In the 1960s, the coalition imploded, with the dixiecrats leaving the party outright over race issues and the left getting uppity over vietnam and other issues (sound familiar?). In 1972, the democrats ran george mcgovern, but not because the party establishment wanted him, but the people did. And the institutions and insiders hated him and sabotaged him at every turn. The unions hated him. The insider politicians hated him. He was a product of what the people wanted and they didnt wanna listen to the people. They wanted what they wanted. So, they started using the loss to call for things like superdelegates, and by the 1990s they were able to push the party in a more centristy direction.

Which it remained until 2016. In 2016, we had Bernie Sanders, an outsider, an independent. The reason people like outsiders and independents is because they know they're not subject to the same old insider political machine that produces the same old cookie cutter candidates. They offer something new, something different, something exciting. Bernie had the perfect resume. he was in office for decades, an independent who constantly fought an uphill battle against the democrats and the republicans. He was his own guy, he had integrity, he had a platform, and people liked him, precisely because he WASNT a democrat. He was someone who thought like a democrat in a way, but was his own guy. And he ended up working more and more with the democrats as the dems cornered him. he couldnt exactly run on the democrats' infrastructure without promising to support the eventual nominee, so he did. But his supporters were under no such obligations. And many of us didnt back hillary. Because we saw what was happening clear as day. Clinton was an insider, the establishment wanted her, they mightve even struck a deal back in 2008 to that effect after THAT contentious primary, and it seemed like the party was this den of insiders doing insider things to support insiders. Clinton even had this obnoxious insider mentality acting like she deserved the nomination, and how she put in years to the party and now the party is supposed to reward her. Her smug entitled perspective came from basically being democratic party royalty. Her husband was president in the 90s, she was basically brought up like a princess to one day become queen after that, and 2016 was when the party was to give her what she was OWED.

Except it didnt work that way because we live in a democracy and the voters have final say. 

Which brings us to where we are now. I am largely affiliated with "the left" in this alignment, and the anti establishment left. But...here's the thing. When I look at this stein vs west debate, I see HRC all over again. A lot of lefties wanna give it to stein simply because she's on the green ticket. And they're the only ones with ballot access, and that we need to grow the party so they can fight the democrats.

But...as I see it, the greens represent me no more than the democrats do. Seriously, the greens, they seem to have their internal politics, and I can tell you, having dealt with them in discords and the like before, I don't always get along with them. They're TOO left for me. They go too hard into identity politics, and socialism, and being full on anti war. On my likert scale, the greens are a 2, I'm a 3, the democrats are 4s, and the republicans are 6s with some bordering on 7s, which is why im getting scared by them (I tend to reserve the 1 and 7 designations for the actual extremists who tend to become threats to society). As you can tell I'm more of like a social democrat, or a social libertarian. My politics are a mix of Bernie Sanders' and Andrew Yang's, with my actual ideological roots closer to Yang, ya know, before he sold out and limited his own advocacy to grow his organization. 

And honestly? I DONT CARE about the greens as an institution. I care about ideas. If I'm gonna vote third party, I'm gonna vote for the guy who conforms most with my ideals and ideology. I'm gonna set up distinct policy preferences and go with that. And I actually do judge candidates in part by their commitment to certain goals. Ideally, youre gonna be like a Bernie, the dude who pushes things as far as they reasonably can. The dude with consistency and who isnt afraid to do the right thing in the face of pressure. What you dont wanna be...is like Andrew Yang, who will throw the ideals under the bus in order to grow your support. Because if you dont support the ideals, then why the heck am I supporting you in the first place. 

And as I see it, the greens are another institution like everything else. And they got commitments to certain stakeholders and individuals who they don't wanna piss off. They're just as fake as the dems push comes to shove, and if anything the Cornel West stuff to me demonstrates that. he said in his interview with tim black that i covered that the greens were telling him he cant say this and cant say that, and blah blah blah, and he was like who TF are they to tell me what I can and can't say? If I wanna eulogize navalny, im gonna do it. For some reason, the greens didnt want him to do that. West said they told him it was because he was a nationalist. I suspect it might be because maybe the Russians are funding and supporting these guys and there's more of a relationship there than we think. Maybe the dems are right on that for once. I don't know. But it does come off as shady to me.

So Stein is someone who is talking about building the party, and who plays the role of fake politician putting on a friendly face for all of these stakeholders and power people she doesn't wanna piss off, and west is....basically saying what he wants to say and doing what he wants to do. Who is better? If it were up to me, and if I werent just voting for Biden, i'd want west, full stop. I ain't leaving the democratic party and voting for a third party unless that third party is gonna meet my ideals better than the democratic party is. The whole point in leaving the dems is because they arent doing it for me. I want someone who IS doing it for me instead. I want someone with ideals and integrity, who will actually deliver on what i want delivered. Who won't just stop advocating for what they believe in to please some INSTITUTION. 

Honestly, West gave me a peak at what being in the greens is like and I don't like it. it's too restrictive, and runs into many of the same issues as being a democrat. Sure, the greens have a different set of ideals, but my own views are in between those two institutions. The democrats are too moderate for me at times, but the greens are too extreme, and we differ on top priorities.

I admit I did look at the green platform today and maybe im a little harsh, they support an NIT and oppose workfare, but I just cant help but believe that given their emphasis on the job guarantee and given how "wish list-y" their entire platform is, that they likely won't support a UBI. Even if they have nominal support, they can only realistically support so many things at once, and their priorities are going to override any UBI support they have. This isn't a battle to worry about now, it's something to worry about IF they had a serious grab for power, but let's face it, as such, my support for the greens is, and always has been fair weathered. I support whatever organization or individual I believe best furthers my own goals at any time. Sometimes that's the democrats, sometimes that's the greens, sometimes that's an independent. if I'm willing to vote third party, why WOULDNT i consider the independent? After all, the whole appeal is that the current institutions arent doing their job and we need OUTSIDERS willing to change things. Change the culture in the institutions, replace one institutions for another, or maybe just...screw institutions and support the best person for the job regardless of institutional backing like the founders intended. 

Ya know? As such, I'm not really inclined to be in favor of supporting the greens just because they're the greens, any more than i support the democrats just because they're the democrats. if anything the democrats have a much stronger argument to be had, as their organization is even bigger. The only reason i really have any desire to operate outside it at all is because of their own internal culture and politics being hostile to the outsiders i support who offer policies mainstream democrats don't. 

Why would i care about some third party and their institutions if their platform doesn't even fully align with mine? This aint my institution, theyre just another competitor trying to earn MY vote. And MY vote IS a statement of MY values and MY policy preferences. When I support ANYONE, it's not like i support every single thing they do or support. I am the customer, they are the business trying to earn my piece of currency, ie, my vote. I dont give my currency away for no reason, i give it to those i believe deserve it. 

I admit, on policy itself, Stein and West are about the same as each other. And I would agree that maybe under such circumstances it makes little sense to go independent over a green. The differences arent enough. Still, again, Im not personally huge on the greens. I never have been. They were just an option that happened to earn my vote in previous election cycles. They're no more entitled to it than the democrats are, not should they get complacent or start talking crap on West. 

If anything in that argument, I respect West. His independence is an ASSET, not a liability. His desire to buck the trends is an advantage, not a disadvantage. His lack of affiliation with a party and all of the baggage that comes along with it, is a PLUS for me. Meanwhile after listening to west's side of the story, I can't help but see the greens as...another institution, and stein as...another hillary. I admit in this case there's nowhere near as much of an ideological difference as there is between bernie or yang and the dem establishment candidates like hillary or biden, I mean, west is virtually identical. But again, if youre not already going democrat, since when do we care about institutional support first and foremost? I dont care about the institutions. Give me the most honest candidate who best reflects my ideas and ideology that you got. And idk...for me, that would be west. 

So if I werent going for Biden, I would likely just endorse West. 

I'm not saying Stein is all bad. Again, there's not much of a difference between the two. Vote for who you want, i think you CAN argue about raising up a left wing alternative to the dems, just be aware that institutions tend to have issues, and lead to them losing touch with the people and voters as a response. And to be fair, the greens arent a good match for my politics in the first place. I mean, all things considered, given where the dems and greens are right now, outside of economics, i prefer the dems. I do admit i favor greens on economics, but the greens arent exactly what i want anyway. Too much into socialism and the green new deal and their support for UBI seems...nominal at best. Like it's in there, but they barely talk about it, and it's clear that they prioritize other things that might leave little money left over for a real UBI. So yeah. I admit, West aint really a UBI stan either. He mentioned supporting more trials, but we dont need more trials we need to implement this thing already. 

So...lets be honest, that's why im kinda lukewarm on the left. I dont feel aligned with them at all outside of economics relative to the democrats, and vs the democrats it's like...they're better on economics but not great. The 30% vs 60% metric is about accurate. And overall, so is the fact that leftists and dems kinda tie each other until I decide to favor the larger institution who has the only actual chance of beating the fascist, which throws it to the dems, and yeah.

Anyway I just wanted to go into this since i saw some leftists bashing west and supporting stein because the greens have more institutional support, and I was just like WTF, it's one thing if you PREFER the greens for that reason, but attacking west seems uncalled for. Especially when there's value in a principled, independent candidate who don't need no party. Acting like he's a joke or his campaign is a vanity project while the greens somehow arent is extremely hypocritical and literally just dem establishment style talking points punching down to smaller, more independent candidates. They should know better since they're not exactly the big fishes themselves.

Uncomfortable fact: you're voting your values no matter what

 So, this is a pet peeve of mine. I ended up dealing with weirdo voter shamers again, and they're pulling the same BS argument that voting isn't just a matter of self expression or about voting for values, and how you have an obligation to support the side that can win and blah blah blah. And....I'm going to shut this one down. 

Look, voting is ALWAYS an expression of your values. The thing with blue no matter whoers is that they have a specific value system that colors their voting calculus. It's "pragmatism". It's "okay I can't win if I just vote for what I actually want, so let me vote for this candidate who i dont like as much but who can win." And....that's a fair point if you wanna play it that way, but that IS your value system. You ARE valuing so called pragmatic concerns over more ideological or policy oriented concerns.

There is a debate to be had about this, but let's face it, most blue no matter whoers don't want a debate. They want to loudly and obnoxiously push THEIR values on everyone else, and act like people who don't have the same calculus as them are objectively wrong.

And they're not. Ultimately, democracy DOES belong to the voters. Our electoral system wasn't designed in a certain way where our founders were like "okay, theres these two parties, republicans and democrats, and you have to vote for one of them." If anything, they HATED parties. Their entire system was designed to counter parties and "factions" as they called them in federalist #10. And they basically thought that the idea that we be organized under two parties voting for one out of fear of the other was "the greatest evil" that could occur under our system. I am not 100% sure that that's true given that Trump winning in 2024 and overthrowing said system is even worse, but yeah, pretty close. And we're in this situation of having to vote against trump in order to avoid that, because we got a psycho wanna be tyrant who wants to potentially undermine the entire system. 

And that's literally the only reason I'm ceding the argument in 2024 to these guys. I guess, when you are in a system THAT dire, and that unprecedented that it was well beyond the founders worst nightmares, maybe ceding to pragmatic concerns is the right thing to do.

BUT....let's face it. The blue no matter whoers have been doing this with every election. They did it in 2020 before Trump committed January 6th. They did it in 2015 before Trump was even the nominee. The dems went into 2016 wanting to prop up hillary, and bullying the democratic voters into voting for her. 

And at that moment, would I argue there was ANY constitutional emergency that would warrant a moral requirement to vote blue no matter who?

NO!

It is up to parties to convince voters to vote for them, and if they can't, the ultimate responsibility for that typically falls on the party. They have to appeal to voters. They can do that through positive policy. Or they can do that through negative campaigning, which is generally considered slimy and unethical (although very effective, which is why they do it) itself. And Clinton chose negative campaigning and bullying voters rather than appealing to them. That's her fault and her loss. it's not the fault of the voters, that implies that the voters have a moral responsibility to vote for a certain party, and that the candidates cant fail, they can only be failed, an anti democratic sentiment in itself. 

Ideally, I would say, we all vote for our positive sentiments, pragmatic concerns be darned, and we all get what we want. That's the best, ideal way to practice democracy. If we do compromise, we should be doing mild compromises. Like ok yeah, this guy isnt 100% of what i want, but he's 80% or 90%. If someone doesnt represent you or your ideals much at all, or it's only a very flawed partial match, and a third party matches you far better, or the policies the third party emphasizes are the policies that you care about most, I think voting third party is well justified. 

I just dont advocate for doing it when the alternative literally wants to undermine democracy itself.

We've discussed my logic behind voting for Biden several times. But the arguments keep coming down to this.

1) Trump represents a constitutional emergency that requires the suspension of my normal ethics.

2) Biden has shifted the dems just left enough to actually earn my vote

3) The left is kinda losing the plot and not really appealing to me in a significant way this time.

4) I see Biden losing as counterproductive to my long term goals and there really is no one else. 

It's not a good position for voters to be in, but I'm reading the room and I'm making a calculated decision based on my own values.

And honestly, when you vote, you're gonna have to think about what you value. Unlike what blue no matter whoers say, you vote is a statement of your values and who you are, for better or for worse. if you vote third party, you're probably doing it because you value something the two party system isn't giving you. Maybe it's ending the genocide in gaza. Maybe it's UBI or socialism. Maybe you're an RFK stan and you're still really mad about vaccines and lockdowns for some reason (2020 called, they want their issues back). Maybe you're a libertarian who cant support the GOP but thinks the dems are too statist. Whatever it is, you are making your values known.

Same if you vote for Biden. if you vote for Biden, you either like milquetoast neoliberalism, are a social justice warrior who does the privilege thing, or maybe he's doing something good for you with unions or student debt forgiveness (a fine, positive reason to vote for him), or maybe you are more left wing but really dont want trump to win. There's a lot of good reasons, but just be aware, you're sending a message that speaks to certain values too. You're not value free just because you vote "pragmatically", that is a reflecting of your value system.

And if you vote for trump, well, you're lost. Either you're a fundie christian or wrapped up about immigration, or you want to overthrow democracy. Not all reasons to vote for trump INHERENTLY mean you hate america, although some do. And either way, the values that come with voting trump are not values i want to be associated with at all, so let's just say I have nothing nice to say about the values that push people that way. 

Anyway, with that said, choose wisely. Your vote is a reflection of your ethics. Normally i would say you're under no ethical compulsion to vote democrat. To say that is a violation of a core principle of democracy IMO.

BUT, i would say that democracy is facing enough of an emergency where I would actually argue that. So please vote Biden, democracy should be our #1 concern since none of us can do anything or get anywhere without it, but to the blue no matter whoers? YOU ARE voting your values too, so stop pretending you're not. I'm just going to say that in my value system, dedication to preserving democracy should override literally every other concern we have. If you're not convinced by that argument, you do you, but I'm not gonna pretend it isnt value laden in itself.

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.