Andrew Yang formally leaves the democratic party...it's happening people!

 So, yang is officially out of the democratic party. Good. I would be following but as Yang points out, you're kind of disenfranchising yourself in 83% of the country that doesn't have open primaries if you do. I still might do it, because screw the dems.

The fact is, the democratic party is a mess, and it's quite clear its internal politics make winning a primary on issues very hard. There are too many special interests and rich suburbanites there who don't want to rock the boat and don't want real change. There are too many people obsessed with identity politics to the point is blasts out discussion on other issues. And while progressives mean well and are policy oriented, they pretty much have a mindset these days that anyone who isn't bernie is a sell out, and that even bernie is a sell out. These guys are particularly hostile toward yang, someone who has a different approach to issues that make him more independent.

The twitter and reddit (and i would include facebook but that's been down all day) reaction has ultimately been very hostile. Which, at this point, i just welcome their hatred.

Some of them are like "andrew who" and "dont let the door hit you on the way out" and "well hes not a REAL democrat anyway", which is par for the course among some of the most smarmy libs who say the quiet part out loud. They don't care, they dont like the guy, leave. Cool. We're not welcome anyway. 

Some of them on the other hand are freaking out about vote splitting and why won't he work in the party. Uh, because working within the party is a dead end. Idk why people are so obsessed with OMG LEAVING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY MEANS YOU DISENFRANCHISE YOURSELF when jokes on you, we're disenfranchised anyway and the party doesn't care about us. Also, if we take votes from the democrats, those are votes you didn't earn, and votes you quite frankly neglected. 

Some are enraged at the idea of Yang even daring support a third party. Their attitude is OMG WHEN WILL THIS GUY JUST GO AWAY, WE DONT LIKE YOU, YOU LOST TWICE, TAKE A HINT. Uh...why should we stop caring about issues we care about because we lost elections? I admit yang's entrepreneurial mindset of not taking no for an answer comes off as delusional sometimes, but in this political environment, I'll support it. We shouldn't take no for an answer, and I really resent these people who just expect us to go quietly into the night because Biden won. I don't care if Biden won. Screw Joe Biden. I never wanted him, I never supported him. And I believe we should keep pushing our ideas until they are reality. 

Some other people scream that he's a grifter for this. Some do this because he's trying to make money off of his book. I mean, bro, you realize people need money to live right? Until we have a UBI (and maybe even after a UBI), trying to make a profit off of a book isn't evil, and he's trying to promote ideas, I'd rather he do this than take some pro establishment job in the biden administration doing nothing of use. 

Some scream he's a grifter because he's not a real progressive. Some attacks are more honest, but annoying, like screaming about his support for Israel (can I just emphasize how little I care about Israel either way?). But others are more dishonest, screaming he had a right libertarian UBI and how he wanted to gut the safety net for ideological reasons. I mean, bro, he wanted to replace it with something better, maybe he didn't do it the best way, I covered this on this blog already, but the dude had good intentions.

I'm just kind of laughing at all of this while feeling annoyance. I not some dude who cultishly defends yang, i've criticized him before on this blog, but the attacks are just...lol. People get so salty over this guy. And having reached the end of my rope with the democrats, and who supports his party, I'm just laughing at this. Here's the thing democrats. You want to win us back, then earn our votes. until then stop crying about us splitting yours. We don't like your politics, we feel disenfranchised within your party, so we're leaving and starting our own. And as far as the progressives go...while I'd be happy to work with them on mutual issues, if they're gonna be so purity testy they unfairly attack him, they can get screwed too. I'm tired of putting up with them screaming over minutae and assuming the worst in the dude. Yang isn't perfect. No one is perfect, but he's doing more to challenge power and fix the system right now than even Bernie. I WISH bernie would pull such a move. But, he didn't have the balls for it. And look where it's getting him. 

The fact is, I want change. I'm sick and tired of democrats who stifle progress, and the GOP, well, screw the GOP. And Yang is pushing an ideology not much different than my own, and his trajectory post 2020 mirrors my own. So flaws and all, I support him. Won't mean I'll fall on my sword for the guy and not be honest about him, but I support him for now.

It should go without saying: republicans are BAD

 Okay, so, liberals often criticize me, when I attack the democratic party all of the time, asking why I don't focus on the republican party more? Well, because if you are reading this blog, it should go without saying that I don't agree with republicans. I find the party abhorrent and a force of evil in the 21st century thus far. Heck, one of the things 2012 refers to in this blog wasn't just a spiritual awakening that made me an atheist, but also a political awakening that made me stop being conservative. So I have strong opinions on the GOP, and I believe they are bad. And I also want to discuss this because when liberals were criticized for identity politics earlier, their constant go to was "but the republicans do it too!", to which I answer, no crap, but that doesn't mean that the democrats should too. That said, I would like to discuss the republicans briefly.

When I was growing up, I was raised republican. I was a strong christian and I believe that the republicans were the moral party and democrats were immoral. On social issues, republicans stood for God and what he wanted on stuff, while the democrats stood for sin, like abortion and homosexuality. I also looked down for the democrats on racial issues. I believed that we shouldn't be just letting people into the country as they take our jobs and go on welfare and get crap for free on our tax dollars, and I believed that welfare incentivized laziness and bought minority votes. This led into the economics, which was similarly selfish. I believed that democrats wanted to give people, normally minorities, crap for free, while middle class white republicans pay for it. I may not have been as hard line with the racial perspective on it, but let's be honest, that's a lot of the white republican mindset, and I'm expressing these views now in order to attack them later on. It's resentment politics. The republicans get middle class whites who are relatively self sufficient to punch down on poor people, people of color, etc., while pushing low tax small government policies that involve eviscerating the safety net. THese guys pride themselves on self reliance, and paying your own way.

The problem is, none of this works, and all of this is a huge scam to give more money to rich people. The fact is, welfare isnt a huge part of the budget. Social security is, but that's seen as cool by even a lot of republicans as you "earn" it. But other than the healthcare portion, which is part of a broken system as I understand now, welfare is actually quite small. And it's condition. And hard to get on. And hard to stay on. And illegals don't get it. And it actually stops people from working due to perverse incentives, while simultaneously punishing them for not doing so, and it's a mess. And then the recession happened, and I understood, gee, there are no jobs, we need to give people unemployment until they get back on their feet. And then instead these guys just wanted to cut that to give tax cuts to rich people to create jobs, while at the same time, these guys were reporting record profits and laying people off anyway. My dad was laid off permanently in 2011. They basically told him thank you for helping us make record profits but in order to keep them, we gotta lay you off. Yeah. All that small government garbage, it's a grift. None of it is real, and none of it is in good faith. Government with no safety nets leads to a dystopia and as i witnessed the aftermath of the great recession, I understood this more and more. So by 2012 I moved left enough to essentially be a moderate democrat who voted for Obama. The GOP just lost its appeal. I became an atheist and that moved me left on social issues as I understood there's no logical reason to be against social permissiveness as people didn't exactly harm others, and I moved left enough where on economics I understood that yeah, we needed safety nets.

And then I as I developed my views through 2013 and 2014 I shifted toward what we now would call a yang style human centered capitalist. Cut from the same cloth as yang, inspired by the same people, like Scott Santens. I became pro UBI as it not only did a better job at solving poverty than a broken safety net, but it also rebuffed a lot of conservative complaints about welfare. it got rid of perverse incentives, removed the whole "i work so hard why should i pay money for other people to live?", uh so lets make it where we all pay ourselves. We all get money, there's no shame, or stigma, or reason to be resentful.And on race, I shifted left too. I understood critical theory enough to understand there are issues there. I never emphasized it though and largely focused on the economic side of the equation, and largely on shielding POC from the unfair attacks from the GOP. I understood by this point the GOP was playing with racism behind a lot of dog whistley stuff, and I'm largely like, yep, let's set the record straight and make these guys look like the stupid racists they are. And that's where I was with that. I wasn't an SJW, I wasn't trying to change "culture" by shoving inclusivity and all of the crap the dems do today down peoples' throats, I was just like, yeah okay, let's debunk these lies and falsehoods.That's how you win against the GOP. By being right and making them look like idiots.

I mean, at the end of the day, that's all the GOP is. It's a giant smokescreen. It basically tricks people into resenting other people and being afraid of them taking their jobs and their paychecks, all while the rich sneak in, set progress back, and reduce their own taxes and make people more desperate. It's a huge grift. It goes without saying, but that's what the republican party has been since nixon and reagan. And Trump is just more of the same. Just a bit more unhinged. 

 The GOP is evil to the core. Its very ideals are rotten, its ideology is rotten. There's nothing good about it. It's also a laughing stock, and I believe if we just took the moral high ground on the left and relentlessly mocked them and called them out on their lies, while pushing progressive policies that help people, that that's the winning strategy.

So knowing all of this, why do I focus on the democrats? Well,you see, I never really adjusted to democratic party culture. Even if I moved left on race, i never got into the circlejerk. All HRC did by making idpol so mainstream and weaponizing it was demonstrating what i thought was a conservative strawman...wasn't a strawman. I mean, the democrats did such a bad job on that, that it actually shifted me back right somewhat. Not because I agree with the right and its racism, but i become an exhausted independent who just sees both sides as children. And on economics, i started understanding that liberal policies, while better than conservative ones, suck. The ACA was a pathetic band aid. Welfare sucked compared to UBI. I mean, when I said we needed a new new deal based on UBI, M4A, and free college, I was focusing on addressing what I considered the biggest problems America is facing. it's facing a poverty and a jobs crisis, with the great recession laying bare how broken the economic system is. Healthcare was broken and the ACA wasnt doing it so I was for medicare for all. And being overburdened by student debt for no real financial reward, I decided that we needed to make college free and forgive student debt. On these three pillars, we solve america's most pressing problems. 

But that's where I started going against the democrats. They started the idpol circlejerk and pushed for more status quo policies, and shot down the few people who actually did have solutions and I just got turned off. So now I focus my wrath on the democrats. Because let's face it, they're not much better than the GOP. On policy, sure, but their role within the system is a lot like the GOP. They use identity politics and politics of resentment to keep things the same and keep rich people happy. They're just nicer about it and significantly less evil. But that doesn't make them the good guys. At the end of the day, they're anti progress too, and their idpol is just about keeping people trapped in a feedback loop of infighting over stupid BS instead of focusing on real issues.

Anyway, this is yet another reason I wanna join the forward party. I'd rather focus on solutions than deal with this petty garbage. But just remember, no matter what i think about the democrats, yes, the GOP is bad. It goes without saying. I have nothing good to say about it. I might occasionally praise the democrats if they suck a little less. Thats the difference between them.

Is too much empathy a bad thing?

 Another question discussed on forums that I would like to discuss today. 

I did have a draft of a post on this subject, but I came off sounding like a raging jerk so I deleted it. But now I feel like this framing of the topic finally nails it.

In short, YES. It is. Empathy in moderation is a good thing, but if you just empathize too much with everything, you shut down. Given the sheer amount of the suffering in the world, if you focus on every single cause where there's suffering all at once, you would not be able to function. or prioritize. I also believe people who have too much empathy often lack philosophical principles. They have stage 3 thinking in kohlberg's stages of morality, and this leaves their worldviews undeveloped and unprincipled. Without a guiding ethical system or set of principles, you simply cannot use empathy properly. You will be like a beast subject to their passions. You will jump from cause to cause to cause and be unable to prioritize or understand anything within a logical framework. This also leaves one open to people who are more cynical abusing these empathy based moral agents. Which is what we see with SJWism. The democratic party, for example, is willing to use empathy and their little cult of caring to bully people into supporting their causes, often at the expense of one's own. You're asked, "don't you care? unless you vote the way we tell you you dont care and that makes you a bad person". And the obvious goal of such behavior is to bully people into supporting them and their positions.

This is why I tend to be a bit less empathetic these days in politics. I'm just so exhausted from the BS that I just turn empathy off to some extent. I'll be the kind of person who says I don't care, and that I care about my principles and issues more. It isn't that I really don't care AT ALL. It's a strategy of prioritizing. I overcome the idea of empathy overload by looking at what I consider important and I focus on that. And then I block out the background noise. Oh noes, but Trump will undo all of these gains for X group. Not my problem. Oh noes, Israel is mistreating Palestinians, eh, not my problem, etc. The way i see it, I focus primarily on a handful of issues I really care about and I block out the rest. Now, most of the time, if my issues dont conflict with those issues I block out, I'm more than happy to be a passive supporter. But when cynical agents or these empathy driven do gooders try to pressure me in a way that does conflict with other, higher ideals, well, that's when the problems start. And I will turn off my empathy like a light switch, just to prove a point. So don't try to do that.

On the flip side, is too little empathy a bad thing? Sure. Some people are the total opposite. I notice this a lot among right wingers, for example. Some people have this set of principles that they just deem so important that they ignore all human suffering in order to push their ideals. And their ideas aren't that good and don't work. Like gay marriage again. Christians will push their moral code without thinking about the real effect their policies might have on peoples' lives and how that's negative. Well being and suffering simply don't calculate into their views at all. And it's scary. You can get pretty sociopathic ideologues pushing ideals that do nothing to help people this way. While I value principles over empathy, my principles are also guided by my own sense of empathy. I at least try to tie them to a form of consequentialism or utilitarianism where I believe, in their own way, that they maximize well being, and minimize suffering. Are they perfect? probably not, again, I don't try to solve all of the world's problems at once, but I do focus on a handful of problems I consider pressing, important, and that would help millions of people and improve their lives. If we had my way, there would be virtually no poverty in America, and people would be freer of oppression than they are today. And I believe I can do it without a societal collapse, gulags, and significant reductions in personal freedom or well being. Isn't that a good thing? 

That said, i guess the answer is balance. Obviously if you are this unguided ball of empathy, you run the risk of burning yourself out and being taken advantage of by others. if you have no empathy, you might be a dangerous ideologue who doesn't care about the suffering of others. Achieving a happy medium somehow is important.

Liberals are clueless on identity politics

 So, a forum I go to recently discussed whether identity politics helps or hurts the liberal brand, with focus on whether it hurts. And of course, as always, liberals were clueless as fudge. The format of this post is going to be a little different and unique. I would like to focus on quoting stuff that posters said there, and explain why I find their views so objectionable. Without further ado, let's begin.

A big myth that conservatives have managed to get into the general public consciousness is the thought that "identity politics" is a thing that only minorities can engage in. Black people wanting equality is treated as "identity politics", but the white nationalist "Great Replacement Theory" is not. White is considered the "default", so white people's concerns are treated as just standard politics rather than "identity politics".

The fact of the matter is that everyone engages in some form of identity politics because everyone has an identity and that identity informs what you believe, for whom you feel an affinity, what you prioritize, etc. You can't just "not do identity politics". American vs. foreign is identity politics. Rich vs. poor is identity politics. Et cetera.

This is just deflecting the issue with "but but but the republicans" nonsense. Yes, the great replacement theory is identity politics. A lot of trumpism is based on white identity politics. And most of the party...is white. And while that stuff might deflect nonwhite voters, the same can apply to identity politics on the democratic side in reverse. The difference is that while whites are a majority of the population, minorities are not. 

It should also be noted I abhor all identity politics as far as race goes. And honestly, great replacement theory and explicit "im afraid for the future of the white race" nonsense is fairly niche even among republicans. Not that that stuff isn't appealing to SOME voters, but trump's coalition is much more diverse than just white supremacists. Liberals don't get this. They get so high on their own BS, going on about how anyone who isn't actively turned off of that stuff is "okay with racism" when in reality i just think most conservatives don't care.

Either way I will agree with the point that republicans have a nonwhite voter problem. There's a reason 90%+ black voters and roughly 2/3 of Hispanics and Asians vote for democrats. Because republicans suck at appealing to nonwhite people. At the same time, democrats suck at appealing to white people in my opinion at times. It's almost as if, identity politics just sucks no matter who is spewing them. Either way this guy seems to be ignoring the problem.  

As far as the second point, we all know identity politics is normally amount immutable characteristics like race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc. We're not talking class here and stuff. This guy is just denying the problem.

The same people who whine about identity politics and virtue signaling have Twitter bios like: Red-blooded GOD-fearing CHRISTIAN family man who loves freedom

 Really? Because I'm a progressive ex christian who had a very long atheist/antitheist phase and is now spiritual. And I'm not right wing virtue signalling at all. I hate these politics from the left primarily. Because I feel like we can't get anything done on economics because they just dominate all discussions. Thats my problem.

Or, put another way, how can I NOT be fed up with identity politics when the democratic establishment repeatedly weaponized them against candidates I supported while decrying people like me as racist, sexist, etc. for the past 5 years? Every primary it's the same crap. I'm called sexist for not voting for a woman or racist for not voting for a black person. The neolibs circlejerk about the black vote and all of these other niche votes that vote as a bloc for establishment candidates, etc. I mean, why would I be pro identity politics after it's used in such a  crappy and cynical way? I despise those politics. And I'm on the "left". 

I can't remember the quote, but it was something like:

In America, there are two races: White and "controversial".

There's two religions: Christianity, and "controversial".

There's two sexes: Male, and "controversial".

There's two sexualities: Straight, and "controversial".

  More deflection and projection. I admit privilege is a thing, but ramming the concept down peoples' throats doesnt make any friends. For me at least it's about how it's pushed rather than the concepts. I consider myself tolerant toward all honestly. Just dont shove that stuff in my face and expect me to be part of the circlejerk. And dont weaponize the circlejerk against me. I'm put off because this crap is pushed on me, and then these guys gaslight me by denying it's happening in the first place. Common thread here.

I think there is this myth some people want to buy into that engaging in identity politics is something the left is choosing to do and that they are somehow frivolous and unnecessary. I think in practice the left is being forced to engage into them in response to the right's near open appeals to racism and nationalism against any sort of outsiders. While I tend to agree that the strawmen version of identity politics would be frivolous the actual issues being addressed are not.

I don't want to come across as suggesting we're not making some mistakes in our messaging that could be improved upon without actually altering out positions and thus giving something up, but I think short of actually abandoning those important positions the right is going to characterize and malign what we're doing as "identity" politics so it won't change the fundamental problem to the extent it exists.

 No one seriously wants to abandon "important positions", just tone down the rhetoric a lot. It's a rhetorical problem. Democrats have a horrible time of pushing stuff in the most obnoxious ways possible. Let's go back to what made the victories on gay marriage possible.

The right wanted to ban gay marriage, pushing their religion, and claiming their position had the backing of "God." Whereas, we are supposed to be a secular republic with separation of church and state, and there's literally no serious arguments against the concept that don't rely on religion. Once I dropped religion, I abandoned my opposition toward gay marriage. Hell, recognizing the split between my political views based in consequentialism and the religious approach to the issue caused a bit of cognitive dissonance long before hand, and this played a role in my deconversion too. 

The fact is, once religion is removed from the equation, the real question comes down to "what's the harm"? Seriously, once I shifted from divine command theory to a more consequentialist framework, my support for gay marriage grew immensely. And I moved left on all sorts of issues.

Amazing how that works. This isn't an abandonment of gay marriage, but if you ram homosexuality down everyone's throats and circlejerk about it constantly and weaponize it against other voting blocs, that's when the fights start. And that's where I'm at this stuff. I have nothing against anyone inherently really. I want people to live whatever lives they want. But the second you try to force me to care and force me to change my views and force me to take part in your circlejerk, I'm gonna have a fight. 

And that said, I would argue the opposite. I'm not sure if trump would've won regardless, but I do think what hurt hillary was identity politics. That's what she hinged her campaign on. Attacking her political enemies as sexists and deplorables. She burned so many bridges with people. And then those people turned on her.

Honestly, pre 2016, I didn't even think a republican could win the presidency any more. It seemed clear to me after the failed mccain and romney candidacies that the GOP had no path in the electoral college. What led to the rise of trump was a realignment regarding widespread resentment toward liberals and liberal culture. And a lot of that had to do with this. Remember how I said not a lot of people care about white identity politics? Well, a lot of those apathetic people are gonna back trump when the democrats make that the front and center issue. The fact is, trump won, because of the focus on these issues. They chose the worst framing possible and undid all of the progress they made during the obama era. I never would have become a liberal, if i were a conservative now. I came over because a decade ago the battle lines were different. There was more focus on economics. Obama at least cared somewhat about the working class. Social issues werent about wokeness, they were about "look at these crazy fundie christian".

All the democrats really have to do on these issues is watch the GOP fall flat on its face as it argues against a massive strawman. What you don't do is literally egg them on and make the strawman real. I didn't even think SJWs were much of a real force when I ebcame a liberal. Sure, they always existed, but the majority of democrats seemed sane. Now SJWism is a dominant force, and it actually makes the right more palatable. I want to repeat, as a former right winger, the democrats' current strategy is what drives right wing support, not the other way around. There's no need to fight the trumpers head on. All they need to do is point and laugh at how stupid these people are, while having a good platform, and they'll win elections in a landslide. 

Identity politics is the central focus of the right. They are 100% a white identity / white grievance party and have been by design for a long time. They wouldn’t be doing it if it didn’t work for them.

The issue like so many others is that we suck at messaging and they don’t. So we find some dumb phrase and they amplify that and frame a message around it and chip away a few people here and there until they swing the 2-3% they need to win.

 More deflection to the right. You know, "the right does it" doesn't excuse you. Again, you can't use the same strategy as they can, because you're literally comparing a white majority party appealing to a white majority electorate vs niche issues that impact minorities of the electorate. Either way, focusing primarily on this front sucks as other issues are abandoned. 

I acknowledge the right is dumb. That's the thing. I crap on this stuff, but i acknowledge, yeah, the right sucks. That doesn't excuse the left.

As far as "dumb phrases", it depends. White fragility is kind of a losing battle. So is privilege. But the issue is deeper. It's the tone, it's the abrasiveness, it's the attempt to intentionally create division within politics. As a white dude, I'm turned off. I don't care about trump's white identity politics either. That crap is just a ruse to distract people from the economics. I'm not gonna base my politics on resenting brown people. That's stupid and unhelpful. I want to actually push solutions that are divorced from this stupid infighting altogether. 

Really, a reason I hate politics right is is everything on both side is getting taken over by identity over policy and ideology. We can't get our crap together because trumpers are fighting with idpol people, and here I am in between like OMG ALL OF YOU SHUT UP. I just come down harder on the democrats, because well, im kinda more pissed at the democrats. The republicans have been dead to me for a decade. Them sucking goes without saying.

Both, although it's worth noting that Republicans have been playing identity politics for decades and are often the progenitor of specific "culture war" issues. For example, when Southern states entertain Bathroom bills by conjuring mental images of predatory trans women from thin air, I'm not sure how Democrats are supposed to respond to that except by taking preventative measures in the states they control. Otherwise, they abandon the LGBT demographic they've promised to support.

(Probably also worth noting that pro-gay sentiment plays well with a lot of independently-minded non-LGBT peoples' sympathies at the polls, but that fact is often missed in favor of treating bigots as the only "real" voters.)

 Look, nothing is wrong about playing defensively against the GOP. As long as its defensive. Frame it as "protecting individual liberty" or something. Because that's what it is. Again, the democrats get the moral high ground when they can point at the GOP and go "look at how stupid these people are". Theres nothing wrong with laws that protect gay rights. The problem is when democrats shove that stuff in an insufferable way come campaign time, while neglecting other issues.

I feel like liberals really don't understand the problem here. 

I mean, I could go on and on, but it's the same crap. Liberals seem to suck at acknowledging there's a problem here, and even worse their big thing is "so what the right does it too". YALL SUCK FOR DOING IT. While I acknowledge they make good points about the right pushing their explicitly racist and jingoistic version of those politics, this is just such an immature approach to the problem. It's like two kids flinging food at each other and one of them pointing to the other and saying they started it. Being the adult, I don't care who started it, I just want it to stop. 

Seriously, identity politics is dumb in general. We need to stop being so tribalistic about crap like skin color and homosexuality. I really don't want to see politics in this way. I would rather be focused on other stuff, like UBI and healthcare. But sadly we cant even seriously discuss those issues because the two parties are bickering over this crap. And the democrats, rather than being the mature ones and stopping it simply by mocking and deriding the right (which would be my strategy), they end up becoming insufferable in pushing it themselves. And they end up pissing off allies because they end up weaponizing it against progressives who DO care about other issues. It's frustrating. Liberals are clueless.

Advice for businesspeople trying to attract help during a labor shortage

 So, CEOs and other business leaders seem baffled at how to actually attract help for their companies. I mean, they seem to love capitalism, until capitalism forces them to make lifestyle changes that they don't like. Then it's WHAA NO ONE WANTS TO WORK ANY MORE and degrading passive aggressive comments about how lazy people are. Listen, here, snowflakes, we're sick of your crap, and in a real market dynamic, you can't really get away with treating people like slaves. That works in a situation where everyone is forced to work, and has little say in the manner, but when people have true freedom, as they would have under indepentarianism, then things change quite a bit. So I'm going to offer some suggestions I think would help.

1) Pay people more

It's basic market economics. Lower supply of something with higher demand means prices go up. You can't get away with paying people $8 or $10 an hour just to survive, it just doesn't work like that. People need a living wage, you should be offering $15 an hour or more ideally. Of course, some businesses do this and they still have problems. As it turns out it's not as simple as paying more money.

2) Make the application process easier

Remember how back in the 1970s everyone said you could just walk in somewhere and get a job? Yeah, now we spend hours filling out forms and applications and then we don't get call backs. A lot of places either don't read our applications or just throw them out. Uh, you want people to apply make it easier to do so.

3) Stop expecting the perfect fit

Employers love to hold out the perfect employee, normally someone with years of experience who will work for entry level wages. Often the requirements are absurd, but for the most part because pre corona the workers were so desperate, someone would fit the bill. Well, people still have these insane standards while simultaneously complaining people aren't apply. Uh, yeah, lower your standards a bit. be willing to train people. Especially if you advertise yourself as an "entry level position". Too many times I've seen "entry level positions" that require 2+ years of experience and then we're told "well it's entry level in the company." Uh, BS. Be willing to train people and let people in who aren't the perfect fit.

4) Offer medical insurance

On top of wages, a good healthcare plan would go a long way in attracting help. Too often employers don't even want to offer healthcare because of costs, forcing what should be a full time position into multiple part time positions just to avoid giving care. Speaking of which.

5) Have realistic scheduling demands

Employers these days seem to demand employees be available whenever. 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. You're expected to drop what you're doing and come in at a moment's notice. People end up taking shifts they hate, and often have little room for a life to themselves. Really, what I find most degrading about work is that you're basically a slave. I'm expected to be on call at your convenience 24/7. Give your employees realistic schedules and be flexible with them.

6) Don't bust their butts

To go further into the master-slave mentality that accompanies employment, employers are often rude to employees. You can see it just in the entitlement complex behind "no one wants to work any more". Yeah, all of those passive aggressive comments about "get your stimulus checks here" and "free sunshine and exercise" don't make me want to work for you. They make me wanna run the other way. Really, it does seem like employers these days expect slaves. And maybe what sucks most about your position is that you literally treat your employees like crap and they won't put up for that abuse for ANY amount of money. 

7) Enforce cultural changes

And I dont mean by this trying to brainwash people into company culture. I mean actually getting rid of that exploitative master-slave mentality in other aspects of work. Attitudes like "if you have time to lean you have time to clean" makes it seem like we're to perform ritual drudgery for your amusement just because we're on the clock. Dress code changes are in order in a lot of places. Some places should allow employees to work from home instead of wanting people in the office to keep them under their thumb. I mean employers really are desperate to keep any power despite not having much right now. And why can't cashiers have a stool? Really, American work culture is the worst. Not being able to sit or lean and needing to look busy and martyr ourselves for you make work even less appealing to us.

8) Maybe 40 hours a week is too much

Maybe 2 weeks of vacation is too little. Have you ever considered switching to a business model with more work life balance? Maybe your job, if its an office job, actually requires 15 hours a week of actual work and not 40? Maybe people want to be able to take weeks off and travel the world come summer? Maybe you should accomodate that?

9) Remember the human

This might come off as a foreign concept, but your employees are people. Despite what they told you in the job interview, their passion is most likely not what they're doing. They're just there to pay bills and earn money. But, because you guys have such high, unrealistic standards, they are often forced to work under your insane demands. Again, I refer to wage employment as de facto slavery a lot. I'm not kidding. These guys are contorting themselves to please you. Because you pay their check. The second your power is less than absolute, you freak out and act like you don't know what you're doing. Uh, remember you're hiring a person. This person has a life outside of your job. They want to do things with their life that isn't your job. And you are best to remember that. 

Honestly, for as staunch of an anti worker I am, theres a lot of good reasons I'm like that. It's because I view our economy as so degrading to individual dignity that people are reduced to slaves. For as much "freedom" as capitalism promises, it rarely delivers, as in reality we are slaves to your beck and call. We have to do what you say, and put up with all your crap, without any back sass, or any protest. Yes, you do basically want slaves. And so much of employment seems to be about breaking peoples' spirits to turn them into nice little worker bees for you, where any independence is hated on.

I imagine some people who come across this blog will think I'm an entitled little crap. Well, screw you, if that's your attitude. I'm telling it like it is. Maybe people SHOULD be like that? After all, if capitalism worked as the ideals act like it does in econ textbooks, work would be like this. You have buyers of labor, and sellers of labor. And people who buy and sell labor work out a fair price for that labor both sides agree to, under conditions that they both agree to. If both parties approached this as completely free agents, I wouldn't have much of an issue here, and I'd imagine most of the demands I have made in this post would already be part of the agreement. But capitalism doesn't work like that. People are forced, via propertylessness, to labor for others. And that makes a normal labor market quite exploitative and oppressive for the worker. And that's the environment people are used to. So when people gain just a tiny bit of freedom and aren't all piling in writing up hundreds of applications that basically sounds something like "please master, give me a job", well, all of the sudden the ruling class loses their crap. They complain, and they moan, and you know what? I feel not sorry for you one bit. I LOVE this current economy. heck, I wish it was always like this. It's great. I just wish we had a UBI so that people could be true free agents in the labor market and their work place and not coerced into servitude. Then you guys would have to implement these changes. 

Honestly, sink or swim, I don't care. If a lot of you go under because you can't figure it out, well, market dynamics are like natural selection, the strongest and most adaptable survive, and those who don't, don't. Great concept when applied to companies, not great when applied to humans themselves. Humans aren't expendable in my humanitarian perspective, but companies are. And you know what? You go out of business because you cant attract help? Well, tough crap, someone else will fill your shoes as long as there's some profit motive in it. That's the great thing about capitalism, and one of the reasons I prefer it over socialism. If there's a failure somewhere, it can easily be compensated for by the rest of that system. I mean, I'm pretty much convinced we can provide for all even if we lose like a third of the current economy (depending on what goes under of course). So, as far as I'm concerned, sink or swim, make my day. I long for a cultural revolution that makes work more palatable to me. I mean, for as anti work as I am, I'm really just anti forced servitude. I have no issues with work if the arrangements are truly voluntary. While I seek a post work future, it's primarily to make the idea of needing to force everyone to work obsolete. Of course, if no one TRULY wants to work, I'm fine with automating everything. bring it on. I just want to end this paradigm of forcing people to work because it's the source of our misery in my opinion.

Discussing Dero Goi and the downside of spiritual awakenings

 So, I don't expect people to know who Dero Goi is, so I'll provide some context. Dero is(was) the lead single of the German metal band, Oomph!. Essentially, my niche music tastes make me really into German metal, with me being pretty much perpetually obsessed with Rammstein. And Oomph is another similar band I sometimes listen to. However, Dero Goi has recently left (or was potentially kicked out) of the band. This has to do with his crazy right wing beliefs, and the fact that he recently converted to Christianity and now sees his former music as "demonic." This isn't the first time this guy has faced controversy. I remember a few years ago he was criticized for posting some crazy alt right stuff on social media and was forced to apologize. It did kind of hurt my opinion of the band, as listening to German metal already has a weird irrational obsession with nazism in some peoples' minds because hurr durr loud german guys screaming, must be nazis. But this guy was essentially like alt right, which is nazi lite. And a couple songs on their album ritual did have some questionable themes on them in my opinion (although my understanding of german is limited so I could be misinterpreting the intent of the music). 

Well, now this guy was baptized into christianity, and from there, he devolved into full on craziness. Claiming his music was demonic, pushing anti vax conspiracies, supporting the AFD (alt right political party I discussed recently), etc. And I really just have to say, as someone who became spiritual a couple of years ago, thank GOD I did not go down this crazy path. If anything I feel saved from it. And, idk, I just wanted to talk about this. 

It disturbs me a lot to see people who convert and then go down crazy rabbit holes like this. Like, they claim that mainstream people, or spiritual people are often demonic, but really, which one of us is pushing conspiracies? Which one of us is pushing anti vax garbage? Which one of us is actively making the world a worse place? if I was still an atheist, this would've solidified me as being antitheist, once again, because it seems like religion poisons everything.

But now, idk. I mean, on the one hand, everyone has their own spiritual path. But I seriously have to look at the fruits this guy's spiritual journey is bearing and if anyone is possessed by demons (something I don't think actually happens), it's probably him. I mean, i get it, he made a lot of dark music as a catharsis of past abuse and other stuff, but take it from a fan, dark music does have spiritual meaning and is helpful to listeners. Heck, the reason I'm writing this is because I am a rammstein fan (competitor band), and I actually do ascribe some spiritual meaning to a few of their songs due to stuff going on in my life at the time. I've had several synchronistic events associated with their music, and quite frankly, it's helped me through some dark crap. Now, is that stuff really demonic? No. Even dark stuff can be spiritual in a positive way. And talking to other fans of german metal, I know many other people who have been helped by this stuff. A lot of the die hard fans of these kinds of bands love that music BECAUSE it got them through some dark crap. So, honestly, I have more respect for the old Dero, the Dero that gave us "labyrinth" and "god is a popstar" than this new dero, who became another far right religious nutter who is making the world an actively worse place. I mean, this guy is ruining his career. I know it's none of my business, but he is. He's alienating all the people he worked with, and is burning tons of bridges.

Whatever, maybe I shouldn't be saying this, we all have our path right? But I really have to wonder, when someone devolves this far, if it actually is a healthy spiritual awakening that raises their awareness and level of consciousness, or if it's making them worse. Again, I don't know what's going on internally so I cant say. In my own experience, I tend to approach spirituality with a grain of salt. I would still be an atheist if I did not experience some really weird synchronistic crap that just happened to get past my filter and can't deny as being significant. But, that's the thing. I tend to stick to my rational mindset to a fault, and it takes a lot to move me or change my mind on that stuff. Specifically because if you DON'T do that, you might end up going down the same path Dero is taking. And that is, in my opinion, fundamentally dangerous. 

Anyway, I guess that's all I have to say. I just felt like reflecting.

When the forward party becomes a thing, should I register as it?

 This is more just thinking out loud than a serious question to what audience I have. The thing is, I'm not really a democrat these days. I hate the democratic party, and my only role in it is to push through insurgent campaigns trying to propel progressives into government. I don't get along with the establishment of the democratic party. If anything, I hate them and despise them. The only thing keeping me tied to them is the lack of a better option, and the forward party is, quite frankly, the better option. 

The problem is, I'm kind of reluctant to give up my role within the democratic party. Being registered as democrat means nothing really, it just means I can vote in primaries. And I really only do this to push through progressives who I like and agree with. And even then, half the time I don't vote for them anyway. In 2020, for example, in retaliation for the democrats removing Howie Hawkins from the ballot here in PA, I refused to vote for any down ballot candidates. There is one progressive candidate I regret not supporting, but otherwise, I really didn't want to support any of them. I did vote for said progressive in the primary by the way. 

But that's the thing. The big issue with the party is the primaries. As Andrew Yang pointed out recently, the candidates we choose are chosen by a small number of partisans who dictate their will for the rest of us. Closed primaries lead to a selection bias where those who consider themselves democrats are the most willing and able to vote in primaries, leading to the candidates those types support winning. I register as a democrat primarily to counter that. I want to be the change I want in the world, and I want a say in who gets nominated. Not wanting to be part of the self perpetuating cycle, it makes sense to vote for democrats.

At the same time, it seems abundantly clear, having watched the primaries over the past 5 years, my vote means crap. I'll never have my voice heard over the silent majority of low information voters who simply vote the way the party tells them to. It doesn't matter if I, an intelligent voter living in a rust belt PA clusterfudge, want a progressive, I'll just be outvoted by all of those philly people. And the democrats made a strategic choice not to cater to me in the general, even going so far to say for every working class voter they lose, they'll pick up two more of these moderate dittoheads down there. So really, who am I kidding in voting for democrats?

I also gotta keep in mind the state of the party right now. Biden WON. He won the war for the soul of the party. The progressive movement is DECIMATED. Bernie has no clear successor. The party looks united behind Biden/Harris in 2024. And Bernie, he's batting for these guys, claiming we won and had our voices heard. Uh, no we didn't. No I didn't. Biden did move a bit left, but he's still offering us nothing on most major issues. Even this $3.5 trillion (really $350 billion, I hate how people use 10 year spending to make stuff sound big and scary) is a pathetic watered down compromise. The incrementalism people won, and that incrementalism sucks. 

Really, who will succeed Bernie? AOC? She's kind of young to run for president. NIna Turner? She seems to into her TYT gig and seems poised to run again in 2022. Yang? He's the one bringing me to this quandry. He wants to accomplish change on the outside, and I'm tempted to follow him. And even if we had a progressive, is it worth supporting over Yang? Progressives dont even support basic income half the time. Although they do have many other very good policies. But that's in the best case scenario. In the normal case scenario, The Biden/Harris dynasty's grip on the party means progressives are done. Most of them are either becoming mainstream democrats again, having progressive views but with a good dose of stockholm syndrome, and the ones that are leaving are mostly crazy. Really, that's what I've been talking about all year. How you have the moderates on one hand, and then you got the Jimmy Dore types who think AOC is a sellout and a grifter, and Bernie is a grifter, and Yang is a grifter, and Turner is a grifter. I mean, you can't win with those people either. They're becoming this weird mix of communist and trump supporter at the same time. They push anti vaccine BS and conspiracy theories, while claiming that anyone who isn't them isn't pure enough. I admit I can be purity testy, but I'm not that crazy.

Yang on the other hand, represents the middle ground. A sane alternative to both the democratic party and the socialist crazies. His platform actually reflects my values, and while I might have some disagreements with him on stuff like medicare for all and free college, he means well and his positives outweigh these negatives. my intellectual development post 2020 does not push me toward the progressives, but toward the Yang gang. 

So idk, all things considered, if the yang gang leaves the party, is there any reason for me to remain a democrat? Their internal politics without that island of sanity is pretty grim indeed. And I'm just not happy there. Even down ballot, I can only think of one person I would support in a primary. And I bet he'll win anyway. I'm talking about John Fetterman, PA's Lieutenant governor who is a Bernie style progressive but with a rough and tumble white working class bend. Other than that, I just feel...done.

 That said, is it worth changing my affiliation? For the reference, I dont really get much out of registering as forward, i dont know how their primaries are going to go. And I might not care as much because the ideological divide between them will likely be more minor. it's the sheer ideological differences that cause me to care about democratic primaries. If the choice is between harris and buttigieg i care a lot less than if Bernie or Yang is in the mix. Just the same, will forward have radically different ideologies in its tent? It might have some differences, but I'm not sure. 

Still, it would feel good to burn bridges with the democrats for good. As I said, I'm just done. I don't see any future in the party worth having. Maybe in 10-20 years. Maybe. If they dont just flat out roll us off the map with their suburban realignment. But yeah. I'm just done, if that's the future of the party, given its current trajectory.