Stay In The Basement Joe

Nobody who is sane likes Joe Biden, but everyone on the Left is feeling the pain to hold their nose, vote neo-liberal, and not let Trump destroy what little rule of law remains. That said...Joe is creating alliances with every Neo-con he can find...the Lincoln Project is doing ads for him and GOP PACs are raising money for him. Meanwhile, he is getting tons of military talking heads to speak for him, and about him. He is giving nods to regime change in Venezuela...the guy is begging the Left not to vote for him. Please stop Joe.

FFS, stay in the basement and stop giving us reasons to question our nose-holding. I think I can do it if you just STFU and stop signalling that you will hand the government over to neo-cons the moment you are in power. If you keep signalling it, I'm going to have to assume it's not just a campaigning gaffe...at which time the onus will be upon me to prevent it.

Responsibility Austerity

We've long known that our politicians are captured by corporate interests and we are regularly subjected to economic austerity:
The first thing that was done for this pandemic was complete socialization of our banking and finance system (for corporations)...trillions of dollars given to corporations...public money was poured into private pharmaceutical and medical research companies...and what do we have to show for it? No testing, no tracing, still a huge shortage of protective equipment for our medical workers (no supply chain action), companies telling us they will charge us a fortune for treatments/vaccines (if they even create one)...even though public money was used and fast-tracking of testing was given to them.

But now the government won't even do common sense things like address a pandemic. The newest push is for them to put all responsibility on mask wearing. Let me be clear, masks are very effective and I'm for people wearing them, voluntarily or mandated for the duration of this pandemic. However, this signals the complete acceptance that our leaders are doing nothing...and we are going to let them do nothing. I'm not just talking about Trump either...we've known from the start we can't trust his leadership...but what about governors, mayors, senators...where are the meetings between all of them to get nationwide testing, tracing, and quarantining coordinated and implemented...nothing.

We've allowed the economic elite to impose economic austerity on us, and now we are allowing the political elite to impose responsibility austerity on us.

Hope Is Learned

Not only should we be mindful of OUR own political choices, but we should be mindful of how our tactics affect the next generation of like-minded people. Look at Trump's poor example...even though he was a complete failure (even by his own metrics), he energized racist right-wing fervor and indoctrinated a whole new generation into the cult of tribal delusion...infused with the hope of white nationalist uprising, glorified military conquest, theocratic culture, and trickle-down fantasy. Similarly, when the neo-liberals decided that they would reserve all their vitriol for crushing the next generation of "Progressives" so they could retain their corporate power...they destroyed the ability for the next generation to have hope; to believe the System could produce anything but the status quo. Thus, you see it in many policies of the "young left"...they are afraid to plan STRUCTURALLY, they rely too heavily on exhaustive protest, they want to scrape for patchwork in pockets that only affect the identities they have...their predecessors have created a generation of cynics, that will make too many concessions out of fear, who will be reluctant to participate in elections, and who will soon join the Right in "victim culture," learning to ignore/avoid power but incessantly complain that they have none.

Pragmatism is one thing, but you must always be mindful of your example too. The poisonous philosophy of "short-term gain" and "individualism" has destroyed every facet of society, and we must stop allowing it to destroy the future of our children.

Let's Play "Will The Grid Crash?"

Seeing as we're coming up on Summer weather...and everyone is trapped in their homes...it begs the question of whether the grid will be able to handle the massive amounts of A/C that will be used. I know in my area it's assured that blackouts are coming. All the problems we didn't address: healthcare, infinite growth economics, Climate Destabilizing...all coming home to roost. Sooo, what are your bets?

Radiolab And Free Speech

Radiolab recently did an update to an episode they made about Social Media and censorship...and they fell on the wrong side AGAIN. If entities like Facebook are going to determine what posts are seen and not seen, which pictures are okay and not okay, they are a PUBLISHER and should be subject to all the laws and liability that Publishers are. If they are going to claim they are only a "platform" and that "users" are in control...then don't elevate posts, don't hide posts, don't take money and distribute some posts more than others, don't censor images, ideas, or anything else...leave it exactly as posted, in the order it was posted, and allow it to distribute naturally.

I can't believe Radiolab has had time to think about this, are so famous they presumably have access to plenty of academics and ethicists...and yet have REAFFIRMED their belief in gross and completely arbitrary censorship. They are great storytellers, but terrible thinkers.

Life Expectancy And Progress

It is commonly believed that we've drastically improved life-expectancy...well, that is partially true. We are often told life expectancy used to be 40...and now it's 80...WOW GERM THEORY...right? The anecdotal data that tells us that life expectancy for certain areas/times were 30-40...weren't exactly true. Many times they were highly transitional periods like the Industrial Revolution, where a combination of slave-like working conditions, poisonous pollution, and high density/low hygiene practices were the norm...or Medieval periods where plague and inequality destroyed longevity. If we look at history holistically, we find plenty of healthy communities (even ancient ones) where life expectancy was very close to modern, post-industrial societies.

That said, Germ Theory is true, working/living conditions do matter...we have been able to stretch life expectancy to close to maximum...until now. We are forgetting the past; we are treating COVID-19 as if it doesn't exist; we are treating pollution and climate change as if they don't exist...and we WILL return to low life expectancy if we recreate the conditions that we've seen in the past where we accepted death and didn't proactively try to prevent it. We CANNOT keep delusionally pretending that uncomfortable things don't exist...we must accept reality, we must confront our challenges with courage and intelligence, we can't let 40 become the new 80 again.

"The System" and Climate Change Still Exists

COVID-19 is the equivalent to everyone being ultra-responsible, carbon footprint reducing, riding-your-bike-to-work heroes... did all our environmental concerns go away? We got a couple clearer-air-days...but NO. Now I don't want to discourage people from being their best, most responsible selves, but it also shows that many of our problems are deeper and STRUCTURAL. The dirty power plants didn't stop for COVID-19...the 1-use plastics didn't stop being produced (in fact they may even have ramped up production with all the shipping and deliveries)... and somehow the media still found time to quote every nonsense thing Trump said, while ignoring that we should be using this "isolating" period to reflect on how we live, what outcomes our System produces, and solving actual problems. The biggest revelation this period has shown to me...Personal Responsibility is NOT the answer. You cannot solve COVID-19 with it, you cannot solve Police Brutality with it, and you can't solve Climate Destabilization with it...we need Structural Change, we need to put Sound Policies in place...and we need to ENABLE that by putting people with Wisdom, Knowledge, and Principled Ethics in places of decision making power. We must get away from this idea that the world is merely a collection of individuals, whose actions only affect themselves, and whose individual moralities create the morality of the System...no, a System must be DESIGNED to be Just, designed to be efficient, designed to reduce suffering, designed to increase Understanding, designed to mitigate conflict, and designed to create Healthy Humans.

If I Close My Eyes, The Problem Disappears!

Oh, we can open up the economy now? Because we've done comprehensive testing, tracing, statistical monitoring, and we're systematically opening district by district with cautious regression fallback quarantining policies?

No? Oh, we've just decided that we've prayed a lot, isolation is inconvenient, the stock market is up, and the virus has gotten bored of spreading...got it.

AMERICANS ARE MORONS.

Protest Thoughts

The focus of this event cannot be black anger, or white guilt...it MUST be POLICY. Everyone can emote together, alone, or not at all...none of it matters if it doesn't translate into Structural Change.

I think Obama governed horribly and I have little love for him generally, but I agree with his message on this topic:
“We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will ACT on reform.”

“If, going forward, we can channel our justifiable anger into peaceful, sustained, and effective ACTION, then this moment can be a real turning point in our nation’s long journey to live up to our highest ideals.”

Important Side Note: The pandemic has not ended...please take it more seriously. It's not a matter of what's more important, civil rights vs fighting pandemic...they are both important, but one doesn't go away because we choose to emphasize the other. The virus doesn't care how righteous your cause...it is as Dawkins says:

"The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

"Teaching Moments"

Every time society is about to meltdown, a millionaire news host will go on and tell us "this is a pivotal and 'teaching' moment." Most of the time the "lesson" they tell us is horse shit, platitude salad...but aside from that...no, these can't be our teaching moments. EVERY conversation is a teaching moment...if you only learn important lessons each time the world is on fire (even assuming you perfectly absorb the wisdom of these moments) ...1) you are ignorant; 2) civilization is well on its way to extinction.

Everyone keeps playing this game of "magical thinking"...where we fantasize that some "teaching" event will come along, all the people who have no reasoning skills at all will magically "wake up," and we'll all start to make sound decisions. Guess what, that is nonsense and we will never become an enlightened civilization without doing the work. We need to communicate more often and better, eradicate corruption, improve our understanding, improve the mechanisms of society, improve our education system, improve our checks and balances...and none of it will come through osmosis or magical miasma.

You want a "teaching moment"? I got a lesson for you, START TODAY, stop wishing, organize, pool resources, communicate with the people immediately around you that you can reach, learn from history, and CONTINUALLY improve yourself.