Corrupts Absolutely

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

- Upton Sinclair

The truth about money is, while it may have been "just a tool" in the past, not only does it fail to accurately represent "value"...but it has become a fundamentalist ideology.

All sides of the political spectrum are in this cult, some believing too little money is the problem, some believing too much money is the problem, and most believing that we should strive for a large "middle-class." The reality is, money has become a disastrous tool that measures nothing; it is so removed from environmental constraints, human need, and even sustaining itself systemically/stably, that it is completely broken. It corrupts you if you have too little, it corrupts you if you have too much, but it even corrupts you if you have this -supposed- "right amount"; it just continually corrupts.

Culturally, we must get away from seeing each other as economic units: customers, consumers, employees, servers, donors, soldiers, "content creators," bosses, professionals, "unskilled labor," or even the concession of "essential workers"... boxes within boxes of humanity destroying categories. Serving your fellow man is a great thing, but the bulk of your human worth shouldn't depend on your ability to generate profit for a corporation.

We must move towards a Resource-Based Economy, one where "value" has a relationship with sustainability, meeting needs, and solving problems. Where any abstractions, widgets, or liability limiting entities are there to serve the PEOPLE and planet, not the other way around.

Codification Of Wisdom

As we have seen with the Supreme Court striking down women's reproductive rights, we can't continue to leave laws to be endlessly interpret-able. When societies were less complex, having ambiguous and flexible laws that could be shoehorned to fit the time (like the U.S. Constitution) more or less worked. Now, with an ever more globally interconnected society (and with plenty of documented history about the intricacies of power, corruption, manipulation, and intentionality), we must begin a phase of civilization in which our laws are JUSTIFIED, not just proclaimed and "interpreted." We must agree that laws are there to do something VERY specific, and they must prove through reason, evidence, and in PRACTICE, that they achieve their stated purpose. We must make Government a tool of the people, not special interests. It must be mandated to, and empowered to, serve the good of the people... not corporations, not the rich and powerful, not a certain ethnicity, gender, or religion... but the greater good of all people.

But until we can do complete reform...

The Courts and the lobbyists behind them won't stop at changing social laws... the Corporatists have had their eye on one particular change for ages, that is destroying the "Commerce Clause." It is the foundation from which the Government derives its power to regulate private (i.e. Corporate) powers.

As it stands now, everything is on the chopping block... and the obvious solution, Constitutional change, has serious roadblocks... but however difficult, a few things that we definitely need to work on CODIFYING into law are:

    -Voting Rights, publicly funded, fair elections

    -Our ability to protect the Environment

    -Our ability to Regulate private powers when they have adverse effects on our institutions or large populations

    -Extreme punishment for Corruption

    -Universal Free Speech (not just government)

    -Explicit Freedom FROM religion (no favoritism, tax exemptions, or special privileges)

    -Publicly funded, but Independently operated Media, transparently audited for strong journalistic standards by third parties

Religion Is Not Benign

First, just to vent a little, I want to translate what a reasonable person (i.e. Atheist) hears when a religious person says something like: "I'm being serious, I believe Jesus is my lord and savior, and through faith I hope to be judged worthy of heaven"
WHAT WE HEAR:
"I'm being serious, if you spank enough naughty leprechauns, someday you will be able to ride the magical unicorn to OZ"

You may think I'm just being facetious, but in terms of how ridiculous it sounds to us... it's an accurate account of the "feel."

Okay, so on to why this matters... reality matters. If you believe that nothing in the physical world matters, only the "spiritual," maybe you don't care about Climate Action. If you believe that God will judge and sort people out in the end... creating fair and just societies don't matter. If you believe "faith" is the most important "lesson" to teach children... you don't teach them to think critically, with evidence and reason; worse, you teach them that learning "from authority" is the only way to learn. ("from authority" meaning from an authoritative text [like biblical scripture] or an authority figure [like a pastor or anchorman from your favorite mainstream news station])

Being someone who's run in secular circles at points in my life, I can tell you, even IF people can break out of their religion... the breaking out of the "learning from authority" part is MUCH harder and many tend to replace religion with other self-indulgent identities... like "q-anon believer" or "white nationalist" or "elite professional-managerial class-member" or any other number of identities that are popular and acceptable in the social sphere they exist in. Leaving a religion is hard, but thinking independently, and becoming your own person, is even harder.

Bottom line, I'm tired of people treating religion as neutral... the whole "oh there are good people and bad people in religion"... NO, religion IN AND OF ITSELF is harmful. They indoctrinate children, they often have lobbyists and authoritarian political agendas, they espouse nonsense, they insulate you from other ideas/communities, and they teach you how NOT to learn.

The Establishment Vision For The Future

I've recently been exposed to Establishment "perspectives" of the future, and knowing them allows us to understand what they do and why; this is especially useful for those of us who don't believe in their vision(s). First of all, their visions are not people focused... they don't care about dreams, about suffering, about equality... they are based on POWER. Now, there are two "camps" of their vision, we'll call them the "optimistic" and the "pessimistic" versions for simplicity.

The "optimistic" version goes something like this: the world mostly works well right now, but we're moving towards an entangled and completely globalized world with Corporate structure as its basis. Nations will become less and less relevant as they simply become too economically dependent on one another to war on one another, and eventually we'll all just fracture into regional units of consumption defined by our natural resources and human capital. Eventually, all human organization will boil down to their usefulness to the supply chain and our God, the "market." Of course all "externalities" such as pollution and climate change will magically be averted, or substantially mitigated, by "innovation."

Now, there are some things in there that are appealing... I, too, believe in a world that is "interconnected," but not in the dystopian and exploitative way they envision. I, too, believe we can end war, but I believe that it should be based on cooperation, progress, and preservation, more than just fear and desperation. I, too, believe that we will evolve into more elemental regional units of human organization, but based on carrying capacity of regions and sustainability, rather than resource extraction and quantity/quality of labor. I would also point out that "innovation" isn't something that our current system produces... it happens IN SPITE of our current system, largely due to the natural understanding that education, technical and ethical progress are important for everyone... and we try to fund/grow those things despite corporate forces trying to destroy/co-opt/privatize them.

The "pessimistic" version goes something like this: we are comfortable the way things are and aren't willing to change the system in the drastic ways needed to stop climate destabilization. Therefore, we will hoard money and resources, pull away as many "ladders" behind us, because there will only be a limited number of inhabitable places in a world of 4+ degrees Celsius increase. Instead of investing in sustainability, we will invest in, and recruit for, a strong military, in anticipation of water-wars, mass migration, and massive unrest that will come due to climate change. We will glorify the military, suggest that military service is preferable to higher education... in fact we will suggest that higher education is completely useless and that seeking knowledge for its own sake is a fools errand... finding "employment" and serving your tribe is the only acceptable use of time and effort.

The biggest problem with this vision is the complete disconnection from reality; the idea that we can just continue to retreat from the destruction of our planet and ecosystem, and never really address it. It also fails to understand the horrors of war and empire... or acknowledge that perhaps we shouldn't use a "hammer" to try to fix all our problems.

Just a couple of last points: I'd like to point out that these are "visions" for those that even have them. Many of the "elite" are largely just selfish and greedy sociopaths, looking for the easiest buck, with no real ideology or vision at all. The good thing is, the latter can largely be defeated with simple legislation/policy changes; banning private money from elections/governance and heavily penalizing bribery/corrupt activities will be enough to drive them to find profit through easier means. The difficult fight is against the truly ideological Corporatists... the ones willing to buy media empires and change the narratives for generations. We must have a sound vision of a healthy society, so we know where we want to go. We must also "know thine enemy" and the narratives they want to indoctrinate everyone with, so we can fight them effectively.

How The "Culture War" Can Exist

The Mainstream Media is unreliable, we get nuggets of facts without proper context, at BEST, and complete propaganda (usually corporate, but sometimes government) on the regular. The "alternative" is usually Social Media, which has a few truth tellers... but mainly a mix of corporate censorship/social manipulation, self-inflicted Echo Chambers, propaganda, and lots of ego. Take all of this together and we get a world where the public has no reliable source of facts... so what is left to inform our decisions, to prioritize actions on... feelings. When facts become too hard to access, the world becomes a "choose your own adventure" of beliefs, conspiracies, and heavily biased/manufactured priorities. Nothing and everything is real.

So what do we do?

1) We need News/Media that is Publicly Funded and has no profit motive.

2) We need a new "Public Square", it can be digital but it must be free from Big Tech censorship/manipulation. We must create a space where robust discussions can take place with a focus on actual Problem Solving, not virtue signalling, not manufactured crises, not selling clicks.

3) As a Civilization, we must prioritize Scientific Consensus. We are always in a state of learning, but we must go on the BEST data/evidence, the HIGHEST state of understanding we have access to. We must all adopt a Bayesian Worldview, learning to live with uncertainty, but accepting that some things are more likely than others.

Evolutionary Law

We live in an age of Constitutional law. While it improved upon prior systems, we are now seeing the problems that arise from static and somewhat arbitrary proclamations. The contexts in which those laws were written are often completely different from modern concerns. Also, laws then and now are arbitrarily decided by powerful people with no requirement of true justification of why they need to be laws (although I will say the federalists and anti-federalist papers were a fairly robust discussion at the time of the creation of the Constitution, but it's rare at best). Couple all this with the fact that change is coming ever more swiftly as time passes, and we find ourselves in need of a modified/different system.

I suggest we layout the more static parts as our broad aspirations... health, freedom, safety, sustainability, reduction of suffering... or whatever we agree upon, and the rest of the laws must serve those ends, our Premises and Aspirations. As for the more everyday/practical laws, I think they need to 1) be justifiable to some level of standard we create (and perhaps sunset when no longer needed), 2) be adaptable to the variety of ways one could interact with the law, 3) be in alignment with science and evidence; that is they must be proven necessary, be context aware, and be in alignment with reality. Laws have always been interpreted, and to some degree will continue to be, but we need to ground as much of it as we can in reality, science, and public good. Laws might also need to be compounding; for instance if certain patterns of criminality are expressed, we adapt the sentencing accordingly. Let me be clear, I use the term "adaptable" in regards to the categorization and contextualization of the crime, the enforcement must be clearly pre-defined and unambiguous.

We cannot continue to let religions, corporations, and nefarious organizations use the law as simply a tool to give themselves undue advantage. Laws must be a part of a system; a discussed, debated, evidence-driven, and reasoned system... not arbitrary rules created by power-hungry authoritarians. It must become a science itself, evolving, improving our lives and itself with each iteration.

Under-Representation Cannonized

I was reading the Anti-Federalist Papers (a fascinating discussion, in document form, about the strengths and weaknesses of the Constitution), and in Section 23 Brutus 3 they make a number of good points. They note that a fixed number of representatives per state in the Senate is nonsense, especially since the powers of the Senate are so immense; also that the amount of representatives in the Assembly (i.e. House of Representatives) is sorely insufficient (even at that time, when population was MUCH lower) to represent a country as large and diverse as the United States. Furthermore, they mention that this dynamic makes the system likely to produce an elite aristocracy... who will in short order control the whole thing.
Note: They did not even know that later the U.S. would pass the Permanent Apportionment Act which locks the number of representatives at 435.

Think about that, the founders said there should be one representative for each 30,000 citizens (which was only half the representation the English at that time enjoyed)... we are now at over 767,000 citizens per house representative, and the Senate grows ever more powerful. We were warned all the way back BEFORE the Constitution was even made law, that UNDER-REPRESENTATION and CORRUPT ARISTOCRACY would likely be outcomes... nothing was done... in fact laws to WORSEN the problem were enacted.

We now exist in a state where under-representation is codified and worsens every year... and wealthy elites can easily buy the few "representatives" allowed to exist. This cannot be allowed to continue, we MUST AMEND THIS.

"They should be satisfied that those who represent them are men of integrity, who will pursue the good of the community with fidelity; and will not be turned aside from their duty by private interest, or corrupted by undue influence; and that they will have such a zeal for the good of those whom they represent, as to excite them to be diligent in their service; but it is impossible the people of the United States should have sufficient knowledge of their representatives, when the numbers are so few, to acquire any rational satisfaction on either of these points. The people of this state will have very little acquaintance with those who may be chosen to represent them; a great part of them will, probably, not know the characters of their own members, much less that of a majority of those who will compose the foederal assembly; they will consist of men, whose names they have never heard, and whose talents and regard for the public good, they are total strangers to; and they will have no persons so immediately of their choice so near them, of their neighbours and of their own rank in life, that they can feel themselves secure in trusting their interests in their hands." 

-Brutus IV

A Case Study In Failing Systems (Police)

Let me first preface this with a disclaimer: I'm gonna talk trash about police, but I don't want to imply that all police officers are bad, some are true heroes. Let me also say that society puts FAR TOO MUCH BURDEN ON POLICE, they are tasked with dealing with every problem that slips through the cracks... from poverty and homelessness, to mental illness, to domestic abuse, to drug addiction... it is TOO MUCH for them to handle when the larger system is so fundamentally flawed that these "externalities" are incredibly ubiquitous. That said, it's also not "one bad apple," the INSTITUTION of policing is definitely trash, and the institution is what we are mostly concerned with.

If you're middle-class+, the most likely interaction you've had with the police is reactive... that is a crime took place (ex. a break-in, property theft, etc.) and AFTERWARDS the police came to fill out a report, etc. If you're poor (i.e. you look poor, or are a minority the police don't like), it's likely you were stopped/pulled-over when no crime was taking place and wasn't even likely to. Why does this system never seem to actually CATCH criminals but regularly puts a police presence in positions to harass/fine you?

Let's start with MONEY issues, how are police funded? Some comes from known taxes (i.e. property tax, etc.), but there is an uncounted tax...FINES. Whenever you get a speeding ticket, parking fine, etc., you are being "taxed" again, and sometimes this "revenue stream" is FAR GREATER than the money they get from any other source. There are whole towns/STATES, who desperately rely on these fines just to have functioning budgets... think about that, they MUST FIND people to fine to function... it's not based on the amount of danger presented, or harm to society, or harm to the ecosystem, or "out of control speeding"... it is required for them to exist. So much of the "policing" that is going on is actually fund-raising in the form of fines... so when they say they don't have enough police, what they really mean is they are too busy fining you.

Addendum: Civil Asset Forfeiture

What is that? That is when they police are allowed to steal anything you have when you are in the process of committing a crime. Your kid sells some pot out of your garage, they can steal your house and vehicle; uncle Joe borrows your car and picks up a prostitute, they can take your car; in fact Civil Asset Forfeiture STEALS more money than the value of all the actual reports of theft in some years.

So bottom line, we need to fund police appropriately for what they need to do, and stop with the fining nonsense. We must eliminate the perverse incentives and make sure money goes into activities that FUNCTIONALLY prevent crime.

Let's move on to "danger" issues, that is, how much danger are police willing to put themselves in? As we've seen with cell phone videos of blacks/protesters being shot... it has nothing to do with danger, it is completely up to the officer how they want to apply this term. A huge group of assault-weapon carrying terrorists groups can march down the street (even threaten to kill politicians and storm capitol buildings), and as long as they wear khakis and are fair-skinned, the "danger" seems to be assessed as low... but get "unruly" during a protest for blacks/environment and all of a sudden you are "reaching for their weapon" and eligible for execution. None of this NEED be the case, if there were clear procedures for what level of lethality of equipment should be brought into certain situations, and the APPLICATION of that force was clearly predetermined and ENFORCED, we could hold officers accountable. Officers should be required to put themselves in harms way, but ONLY when it's necessary and within strict protocols. After such protocols are clearly defined, Qualified Immunity needs to either be abolished or have clear limits, so that abuse cannot be institutionalized. As far as regulation, a third party needs to be involved in "policing the police"; they cannot be allowed to self-police (that applies to the prosecutors they work with also).

I'll just add one more point, and that's the problem of Authoritarianism. We have to CLEARLY define how much privacy we want, what are the bounds of police action, and which tools are available to police. If we want police to catch people BEFORE they commit crimes, they need to have the ability... that could mean officers in the field, patrolling the neighborhood; that could mean cameras on streets, that could mean DNA databases, but it is a slippery slope to authoritarianism and we must decide, as a society, how to balance this.

Note: Recently in the news, a rape victim had her RAPE KIT used to identify her DNA so they could arrest her for an unrelated property crime... meanwhile, rape kits are piling up and are going uninvestigated; sometimes we live in a dystopia Lex Luthor would blush at.

We need to carefully meter out powers to the police and there needs to be checks and balances put in place to ensure they use the power given to them and nothing more.

Right now policing is an industry, not a public service... it protects the property of the wealthy, it oppresses minorities for the majority, and it raises funds for the budgets of elites. Only as a side concern does it do we all WANT, that is to ensure public safety and prevent crime. In order for institutions to do what we want, they have to be DESIGNED to do so and the incentives have to reflect those goals.

Comfort With Ambiguity, Conspiracy, And COVID

It is not coincidence that many people have lost their minds over COVID-19, nor that a lot of the unwillingness to comply with certain precautions fall, largely, along party lines... and a lot of this has to do with "comfort with ambiguity." Researchers have found that being comfortable with ambiguity can be tested in young children and is heavily predictive of future beliefs and political inclinations (i.e. those that are usually become "liberal", and those that aren't usually become "conservative").

I'm not here to judge whether having this trait is necessarily "good" or "bad"... but when it comes to having an "accurate" view of reality in a time of chaos, comfort with ambiguity is usually a necessary trait. The reason is, for something like a novel corona virus, and the first pandemic in which we have the technology to sequence the genome of strains, etc., we are necessarily not going to know a lot, both in identifying what is happening and prescribing solutions for societal action.

For a person who is deeply uncomfortable with ambiguity, this is maddening... they want to know where it came from, who is to blame, what is the government doing about it, are masks effective or not, is this all some kind of plot... and you can see how the thinking goes, searching for every conspiracy that might explain what is happening and ease their discomfort. To be fair, this is completely understandable, and is exacerbated by the fact that our mainstream media outlets/government responses are complete garbage. When people are given no, or inconsistent, information, they are going to be anxious and they are going to speculate.

On the other side, people who are comfortable with ambiguity can juggle, sometimes seemingly conflicting views, such as that pharmaceutical companies are both hugely economically predatory AND that they sometimes create life-saving vaccines. Or that vaccines can be incredibly effective on one strain, and pretty ineffective on another. Or that masks slow infections, without being 100% effective, and vary with the transmissibility of the strain and with the type of mask worn. Or that vaccines may not prevent getting covid for some strains, but can greatly reduce hospitalization and death. Or just generally... be able to say "I don't know" and/or "I will reserve judgment until more is known."

I'm sure I've already alienated many people reading this, but it was not my intent, but rather to get people to understand WHY there is so much conspiracy and frustration going around at this time... and hopefully, for people to be able to reflect about which type of person they are, and understand the people on the "other side" of our human condition.

An Age Without Heroes

    It is quite ironic that we live in the disney-superhero era of media, when it's precisely the time when we should be evolving beyond heroes. For all of recorded history we've lived with this story of "the hero's journey"... it infects every social identity and institution... from military glory-seeking-battle/metal-tested-character-building warriors, to risk-taking entrepreneurs, to holy prophets, to pop icons. Heroes are a myth, a fictional archetype we can not and should not strive to mimic.

    So, am I saying that nobody should strive to go that "extra mile"... obviously not, I'm saying what we REALLY need is to accept the idea that we are ALL part of society, we are not watching from afar while good and evil battle... WE make this society and WE need to start working together to get it back to a sane state. We need an AGE WITHOUT HEROES. We must stop seeing ourselves as powerless, to be ruled over, to exist at the whims of the rich and powerful... but also, not as the hero of our own narrative... not victims, nor martyrs, nor conquerors.

    In order for a prosperous civilization to exist, we need everyone to do their part, we need wise teachers, compassionate doctors, truth-worthy administrators, honorable officers... all working together to make sure we are progressing, preparing the next generation, and minimizing suffering. A truly functioning society should have no heroes; it should create healthy humans and its systems should incentivize and facilitate healthy outcomes.

    We all want to be inspired, but life is exciting enough if we create a world where we don't have to constantly escape reality. We shouldn't have to retreat to books, or tv shows, or movies, or internet memes. We have an actual Universe to explore if we can get out of our way, stop letting a minority few create the dystopia we are in. Start getting involved, start improving your knowledge, start participating in our systems. We must collectively "become the change we want to see in the world."