Thursday, February 13, 2020
Honest Truth
I left college not because the classes were challenging, not because of any existential questions about my future. I left because of the cost. Once my student loans became uncomfortable, meaning I didn't know if I could pay them off with a year's worth of hard work at my usual jobs, I called it. I have been a "pay your way" kind of person for most of my life. I paid for community college by working night shift at a concrete plant.
But like anything in a capitalist society, the expenses will always be poured on. The idea isn't about the best and the brightest, or even the hardest working coming to the top, no its about nepotism. The idle rich are paying for new library wings to push mediocrity into the highest offices. Ultimately money can buy a lot of things, but success just is never going to be one of them.
You just can't buy smart. Just because your grandfather had a good idea, does not make you a genius. Inter-generational wealth and the protectionist lean of the inherited riches has caused more damage to society than any war. Its fine to be born rich, but know your place. Understand how wealth is generated, and realize that nothing really separates your basic needs from anyone else's, besides a false wall of pointless gilding. The same chicken might have laid the egg of a brioche or an omelet.
Now as I look to spend the rest of my working life as a heavy equipment operator. Facing the cold of a January morning with nothing more than a cup of coffee to keep me warm. I dare anyone to say I am less worthy of a comfortable retirement. less worthy of medical coverage. less worthy sick days and vacation. I doubt anyone who works to deprive us working men would have have the courage to say it to our faces.
We have to stand up for what we want. In a capitalist society, that means forming a union. In a civilized society, that means being a citizen.
Sunday, November 17, 2019
capitalism has its place
When you want to buy a new television, water heater or automobile, you have a choice. You can choose from the Ferrari, Cadillac, or Toyota. But when it comes to healthcare, credit, or education, consumer choice is pre-limited. Anyone who decides it is necessary for them, can choose to make a Ferrari their first car choice. If they didn't happen to be born into particular wealth, it might take them significantly longer to realize this need. But it is not beyond realization.
However all the hard work and drive in the world will never bring malignant or predatory systems into sustainability. No one fighting cancer has the ability to also fight into higher tax brackets. Often their illness is the result of some corporate malfeasance. If your credit struggle is the result of some predatory banking practice, you can bet the bank has long ago paid their "fine" or got their bailout, and absolutely nothing has been done to ensure your future. Maybe you are smart, but you have to be dumb enough to sell your self into debt encumbered servitude to participate in modern education.
Capitalism has ruined most of what is great about american society. Cancer patients asking for money on GoFundMe, Predatory banking, automakers forced to profit on volume and designed obsolesce. Is this the promised land of unfettered capitalism? If you don't believe in participating in creating a brighter future for america via paying your taxes and voting for real leaders. yes. yes it is.
So I counter. Paying taxes to support and build on the systems we all live with is evolution. Hunter-gatherer groups are limited to about 70 individuals, beyond that you must have some form of agriculture. Agriculture implies a social construct, that includes civility. civility includes respect for those who produce agricultural products, as well as those who protect civility. From here a civilization can expand, but it must adapt to changing demands and limitations.
As much as weaker minds strive to generate differences within our society (the entire human race) in order to justify some tenuous controlling influence they happen to have over some diminishing sect, I can assure you we are all one and in this together. We must act to create a better world for the future. It is the one cause that is actually beneficial at a genetic level for all humans.
However all the hard work and drive in the world will never bring malignant or predatory systems into sustainability. No one fighting cancer has the ability to also fight into higher tax brackets. Often their illness is the result of some corporate malfeasance. If your credit struggle is the result of some predatory banking practice, you can bet the bank has long ago paid their "fine" or got their bailout, and absolutely nothing has been done to ensure your future. Maybe you are smart, but you have to be dumb enough to sell your self into debt encumbered servitude to participate in modern education.
Capitalism has ruined most of what is great about american society. Cancer patients asking for money on GoFundMe, Predatory banking, automakers forced to profit on volume and designed obsolesce. Is this the promised land of unfettered capitalism? If you don't believe in participating in creating a brighter future for america via paying your taxes and voting for real leaders. yes. yes it is.
So I counter. Paying taxes to support and build on the systems we all live with is evolution. Hunter-gatherer groups are limited to about 70 individuals, beyond that you must have some form of agriculture. Agriculture implies a social construct, that includes civility. civility includes respect for those who produce agricultural products, as well as those who protect civility. From here a civilization can expand, but it must adapt to changing demands and limitations.
As much as weaker minds strive to generate differences within our society (the entire human race) in order to justify some tenuous controlling influence they happen to have over some diminishing sect, I can assure you we are all one and in this together. We must act to create a better world for the future. It is the one cause that is actually beneficial at a genetic level for all humans.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
The War Of Ideas
In modern society we struggle with misinformation on a daily basis. Sadly hard won science faces the opinion of short term analysis. Cherry picking, a way of distorting science by using a strong bias in research has often presented its self on equal terms as, and often opposed to, the findings of actual researchers. Draw up or exclusion has become the result in some cases, where the publishing body has worked to place pay walls or credential endorsement checks as a method for vetting access.
Sadly this has only worked toward further strengthening the divide between the "general public" and the researchers submitting works for "public" review. The gap between pubic knowledge and the scientific cutting edge has grown so substantial that general public's distrust of science is openly discussed. I could point to the burgeoning "Flat Earth" movement, or the myriad of climate change denialists, or "hollow earth" adherents, but the are all one and the same.
These are people who lack a substantive science background, who are looking for some form requiem. They have decided part and parcel what the "objective reality" is. Often they subscribe a viewpoint without weighing the entire body of evidence and have made conclusions unafraid of the data. furthermore they expect their opinions to be treated with equal weight against even actual experts in the field they are commenting on.
Meanwhile the best and the brightest of us are harnessed to debt and in some cases forbidden from sharing their opinion publicly. Punished and forced to answer to profit motivated superiors, its no wonder the educated doesn't have time to correct all the disinformation running roughshod over the american psyche.
Its almost as though this was a calculated effort to pervert american progress for some digressive gain.
Sadly this has only worked toward further strengthening the divide between the "general public" and the researchers submitting works for "public" review. The gap between pubic knowledge and the scientific cutting edge has grown so substantial that general public's distrust of science is openly discussed. I could point to the burgeoning "Flat Earth" movement, or the myriad of climate change denialists, or "hollow earth" adherents, but the are all one and the same.
These are people who lack a substantive science background, who are looking for some form requiem. They have decided part and parcel what the "objective reality" is. Often they subscribe a viewpoint without weighing the entire body of evidence and have made conclusions unafraid of the data. furthermore they expect their opinions to be treated with equal weight against even actual experts in the field they are commenting on.
Meanwhile the best and the brightest of us are harnessed to debt and in some cases forbidden from sharing their opinion publicly. Punished and forced to answer to profit motivated superiors, its no wonder the educated doesn't have time to correct all the disinformation running roughshod over the american psyche.
Its almost as though this was a calculated effort to pervert american progress for some digressive gain.
Sunday, May 12, 2019
A ceo who doesn't work
Has the manager you work with done your job? Has their boss? Or their bosses boss? Welcome to the new capitalist structure. Capitalists are breeding at an unsustainable rate. In order to feel like they contribute to an organization they will generate countless fruitless complications, bureaucracy is their comfortable shield.
The question to always ask is "have you done this job".
Most managers lack the skills to actually complete the tasks required of any skilled position. This is not the norm, in-fact this is far from normal in traditional work environments. Sure they might "add value" through efficiency, but if they don't really understand the work process, more than half the time they are just creating more work for those they don't value (the people who actually do the work).
Further more if you are told they are "engineering out the risk" that means someone once got hurt furthering their cause, and they don't really care about the specifics of that situation, they just want to "toddler proof" your work environment.
Fact is for most corporate vocations, they want you to do dangerous jobs, but by putting a thin veneer of "controls" for safety they want to bring in less skilled labor. And if anyone has an experience where manager who has never done your job, pulled you aside and corrected your behavior in a way that saved your life, please tell me. Because it will be a first for me.
The question to always ask is "have you done this job".
Most managers lack the skills to actually complete the tasks required of any skilled position. This is not the norm, in-fact this is far from normal in traditional work environments. Sure they might "add value" through efficiency, but if they don't really understand the work process, more than half the time they are just creating more work for those they don't value (the people who actually do the work).
Further more if you are told they are "engineering out the risk" that means someone once got hurt furthering their cause, and they don't really care about the specifics of that situation, they just want to "toddler proof" your work environment.
Fact is for most corporate vocations, they want you to do dangerous jobs, but by putting a thin veneer of "controls" for safety they want to bring in less skilled labor. And if anyone has an experience where manager who has never done your job, pulled you aside and corrected your behavior in a way that saved your life, please tell me. Because it will be a first for me.
Monday, March 4, 2019
wealth diminished
Think about money as a dynamic force. Cash is king! It is the ability to leverage a position or buy outright that makes having money useful. Hoarding it and stowing it away is antithetical to the purpose of money. The next million to a person who has ten million is no more useful than the 17th kitten or a 6th month old news paper is to any other hoarder.
Money can just sit and rot in the hands of the money hoarder.When money is fresh it flows through the economy, driving change and developing systems. People benefit both directly and indirectly, hence the concept of economy. but when wealth is sot and hoarded, it pulls energy from the system. Imagine money like water: it can be used to drive a mill, or generate electricity, or fill a river and lead to a lake, or fill an entire ocean, but it can also form a tsunami or freeze into a avalanche.
The sooner money is moved the healthier and safer it is. The longer money sits in one place, the more likely it will be entangled in improper dealings. When money sits in the same lake too long, it will likely become tainted, with the side effects of oil, or consumerism, or politics. It needs to be sent back to the ocean where it will be evaporated back into rain and distributed once again.
You want to support the banks, support the wages of those the banks prey upon. If you just pour the water into the ocean without even taking a sip yourself, it will change nothing, the water will still run down hill and make it to the bottom, the only difference is, it wont have the chance to drive any mills or generate any power on its way down.
Money can just sit and rot in the hands of the money hoarder.When money is fresh it flows through the economy, driving change and developing systems. People benefit both directly and indirectly, hence the concept of economy. but when wealth is sot and hoarded, it pulls energy from the system. Imagine money like water: it can be used to drive a mill, or generate electricity, or fill a river and lead to a lake, or fill an entire ocean, but it can also form a tsunami or freeze into a avalanche.
The sooner money is moved the healthier and safer it is. The longer money sits in one place, the more likely it will be entangled in improper dealings. When money sits in the same lake too long, it will likely become tainted, with the side effects of oil, or consumerism, or politics. It needs to be sent back to the ocean where it will be evaporated back into rain and distributed once again.
You want to support the banks, support the wages of those the banks prey upon. If you just pour the water into the ocean without even taking a sip yourself, it will change nothing, the water will still run down hill and make it to the bottom, the only difference is, it wont have the chance to drive any mills or generate any power on its way down.
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Limitless Growth
I was re-reading Paul Roberts' "The End of Oil" the other day, mostly out of morbid curiosity regarding how many of his predictions came true or seem just as plausible fourteen years later. And something stuck out to me. His take on American Capitalism and its need for perpetual growth is that it is at odds with the finite natural resources we all rely on.
Then it dawned on me. There is a way to have perpetual growth, a permanent growth based economy is possible, but we have to address certain glaring market distortions in order to bring it about. At first they will seem harsh or unbelievable but stick it out and think it through on your own, and it is nearly impossible find a flaw due to the inherent simplicity.
The first market distortion is the idea of corporation, the notion that a logical entity greater than the sum of its parts is created and grows independent of the human actors involved is problematic. A company fills a market niche, but once the original owner/creator of the company is no longer able to carry on, that company should be liquidated. That would open the segment of the market up for innovation and healthy competition from new business seeking to grow into that niche. Carrying on towards monopoly a company that no longer has the heart and soul of the original creator or initial investors is doing so heartlessly and soullessly.
The second market distortion is the idea of inheritance. For healthy competition and real growth, the marketplace of ideas needs a level playing field. How many times in history has a world changing idea been lost to obscurity, simply because the originator couldn't gather the funds to pursue it? We may never know. But one thing we DO know is how many times sub-par or down right ineffective concepts have been shoved into the market because someone was born with deep pockets. This kind of distortion is dangerous because it allows antithetical motivations to control systems we have all come to rely on.
Furthermore both of these types of market distortions generate an entitled minority and lead to unhealthy levels of inequality. When a person doesn't have to put in the effort and ground work for a hard earned place in the market, they more easily devalue the contributions of others. Often this is because they feel a deep insecurity over their own inherent fraud. Striving to shut the door behind them; as it were, is the only option they see as a way to legitimize their grasp on their unearned stature. Today, the best and the brightest are no longer calling the shots, just those who lucked into the right family or company.
This explains not only the anti-intellectual trend of pop-culture, but also the idolization of the idle rich. This has lead to the wholesale squandering of the amazing resources we all should be sharing provided by the natural world. Other benefits would include a more resilient economy, as no corporate entity would become "too big to fail". As well as stronger, smarter adaptation as the entrenched complacency personified with "we've always done it this way" would no longer maintain its stranglehold on ingenuity and resourcefulness in a constantly changing world.
Then it dawned on me. There is a way to have perpetual growth, a permanent growth based economy is possible, but we have to address certain glaring market distortions in order to bring it about. At first they will seem harsh or unbelievable but stick it out and think it through on your own, and it is nearly impossible find a flaw due to the inherent simplicity.
The first market distortion is the idea of corporation, the notion that a logical entity greater than the sum of its parts is created and grows independent of the human actors involved is problematic. A company fills a market niche, but once the original owner/creator of the company is no longer able to carry on, that company should be liquidated. That would open the segment of the market up for innovation and healthy competition from new business seeking to grow into that niche. Carrying on towards monopoly a company that no longer has the heart and soul of the original creator or initial investors is doing so heartlessly and soullessly.
The second market distortion is the idea of inheritance. For healthy competition and real growth, the marketplace of ideas needs a level playing field. How many times in history has a world changing idea been lost to obscurity, simply because the originator couldn't gather the funds to pursue it? We may never know. But one thing we DO know is how many times sub-par or down right ineffective concepts have been shoved into the market because someone was born with deep pockets. This kind of distortion is dangerous because it allows antithetical motivations to control systems we have all come to rely on.
Furthermore both of these types of market distortions generate an entitled minority and lead to unhealthy levels of inequality. When a person doesn't have to put in the effort and ground work for a hard earned place in the market, they more easily devalue the contributions of others. Often this is because they feel a deep insecurity over their own inherent fraud. Striving to shut the door behind them; as it were, is the only option they see as a way to legitimize their grasp on their unearned stature. Today, the best and the brightest are no longer calling the shots, just those who lucked into the right family or company.
This explains not only the anti-intellectual trend of pop-culture, but also the idolization of the idle rich. This has lead to the wholesale squandering of the amazing resources we all should be sharing provided by the natural world. Other benefits would include a more resilient economy, as no corporate entity would become "too big to fail". As well as stronger, smarter adaptation as the entrenched complacency personified with "we've always done it this way" would no longer maintain its stranglehold on ingenuity and resourcefulness in a constantly changing world.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
The Wake
It has been less than a week since Donald Trump became president elect. The country is still deeply divided and along the west coast and several "liberal" areas, protests are being held. The internet is on fire with both supporters and detractors alike. But it is the supporters that I am intrigued by. Some expect to be excused for voting for Trump claiming it was some sort of protest vote against business as usual political parties full of career politicians.
Another common thread from what I've read is based on a backlash narrative. Claiming to be tired of being called racist or bigoted, working class white males voted for an outspoken and unafraid mans man. When the real truth is more like neither the republicans or the democrats managed to rally their base, and of the Americans who have actually registered to vote, a dismal 47% of them actually turned out.
Now I am basically a single issue voter. Progressive response to climate change is the single biggest issue we face. Sorry, but gender neutral bathrooms, gun control, tax revenue or employment, is not going to matter much if we fail to protect the natural systems that provide our food and drinking water. I can understand how a person well versed in the nuance of the business world with all of its complicated systems could be wholly ignorant of the equally if not more complex systems that make up our natural life support system.
There is only so much a single individual can really understand completely. In the sciences this is the specialization that makes so much of the most important research difficult for someone with out years of dedication to fully comprehend. Now, before I'm accused of being elitist, keep in mind that it is not isolated to sciences. Lawyers, mechanics, accountants, and many other professions seem to have a language all of their own.
Many Americans have found them selves in quite a bit of financial trouble after a tax audit, often times due to a mistake that could have been avoided if they consulted a professional. Not everyone knows how to tinker with the right parts or even where to look in the event of car trouble. The legal system is so complicated, we have mandated that anyone accused of a crime be provided with a lawyer. So when scientists who have been carefully collecting and analyzing data for decades of their lives deem it necessary to influence policy, giving equal voice to business interests, is akin to asking your doctor to replace the timing belt in your car, or having your mechanic attempt heart surgery.
We are at a critical junction collectively as a species, we have done amazing things throughout the world, mostly with the jump-start of fossil fuels. Now it is time to harness the core of the creativity that made that happen, and redirect it towards creating a sustainable future. Trump is 70 years old. He will not likely be around long enough to feel the most dramatic effects of the problems we face, but his influence at this pivotal time will be responsible for the severity and scope of them.
Another common thread from what I've read is based on a backlash narrative. Claiming to be tired of being called racist or bigoted, working class white males voted for an outspoken and unafraid mans man. When the real truth is more like neither the republicans or the democrats managed to rally their base, and of the Americans who have actually registered to vote, a dismal 47% of them actually turned out.
Now I am basically a single issue voter. Progressive response to climate change is the single biggest issue we face. Sorry, but gender neutral bathrooms, gun control, tax revenue or employment, is not going to matter much if we fail to protect the natural systems that provide our food and drinking water. I can understand how a person well versed in the nuance of the business world with all of its complicated systems could be wholly ignorant of the equally if not more complex systems that make up our natural life support system.
There is only so much a single individual can really understand completely. In the sciences this is the specialization that makes so much of the most important research difficult for someone with out years of dedication to fully comprehend. Now, before I'm accused of being elitist, keep in mind that it is not isolated to sciences. Lawyers, mechanics, accountants, and many other professions seem to have a language all of their own.
Many Americans have found them selves in quite a bit of financial trouble after a tax audit, often times due to a mistake that could have been avoided if they consulted a professional. Not everyone knows how to tinker with the right parts or even where to look in the event of car trouble. The legal system is so complicated, we have mandated that anyone accused of a crime be provided with a lawyer. So when scientists who have been carefully collecting and analyzing data for decades of their lives deem it necessary to influence policy, giving equal voice to business interests, is akin to asking your doctor to replace the timing belt in your car, or having your mechanic attempt heart surgery.
We are at a critical junction collectively as a species, we have done amazing things throughout the world, mostly with the jump-start of fossil fuels. Now it is time to harness the core of the creativity that made that happen, and redirect it towards creating a sustainable future. Trump is 70 years old. He will not likely be around long enough to feel the most dramatic effects of the problems we face, but his influence at this pivotal time will be responsible for the severity and scope of them.
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