Is it Right to Homeschool?

I am a leftist and a homeschooling mom.  My mother was a teacher and librarian for decades. I have also been a substitute teacher.

I firmly believe that all children should have access to a high quality education. Public schools are vital to that. Having that universal base knowledge is important to our cohesion as a society. But they are failing. Everyone seems to agree on that. But we disagree on why they are failing and what to do about it.

In my estimation, they are failing because professionals with years of education into how to teach are not permitted to do it. Teachers are being told what to do by administrators who have never been in a classroom. No matter how good administrators’ intentions are, they don’t have the knowledge base to be controlling the professional teachers. And then the politicians telling the administrators what to do are not catering to the kids and listening to the professionals, but rather to their base.

This is all aside from the clear problem of teacher pay. I totally agree that only people who are passionate about education and the well-being of children should be teaching. But if teachers cannot survive on their low wages, they cannot do it. If teachers are constantly being disrespected and told to do things completely opposite to what their education, instincts, and individual classrooms need, they will get burned out. If they are required to do extra work for admin that is unnecessary for the education of students, they will not have time to dedicate to the kids.

As a result of schools failings, many parents, myself included, have chosen to pull their kids out of public schools. Is that a solution? It allows parents the freedom to educate their children as they see fit. I support that freedom. But I support it not only for the parents and children privileged enough to be able to homeschool. The children left behind are still in those failing schools. And if voucher systems are used, those children left behind lose even more.

Homeschooling also has the consequence of enabling indoctrination. This is the downside of that freedom that I am taking advantage of in my own children’s education. If there was a standard curriculum or tests it would undermine that self-directed part that I find so vital. But without some accountability, some parents intentionally limit their children’s exposure to ideas.

I hate that when I tell people that I homeschool my kids, they assume that I’m a Christian Conservative. This is the public view of homeschoolers. They have been the driving force behind having the legal right to do so. I’m glad I have the right to homeschool, because I want the best for my kids. But for many conservatives, the fate of the students left in public school classrooms is of little concern. Or if it is a concern, it’s about limiting the knowledge those students receive. (Critical race theory, Sex Ed, evolution, etc.)

For students that are given all the advantages that homeschooling can provide, whether from self directed learning or high parental pressure, there are some amazing homeschool success stories that show it can be a very effective model of learning. But how do we scale that?

Pulling kids out of schools is not a permanent solution. We need to fix the public schools. We need to make sure that kids have the autonomy to be engaged and pursue what interests them, while providing a standard level of education that everyone in the country has, especially regarding government and history. We need to make sure that the experts have the flexibility to do their jobs to the best of their ability.

There have been many solutions presented to solve the education crisis in this country. But the things that have actually been enacted have only served to exacerbate the problem. (Testing, punishing low performing teachers and schools, increasing professional development, universal curriculum, etc) Things that have been shown to work in other countries have, for various reasons, never been tried here on any mass scale. (Later start ages, later start time, shorter school days, longer recess, higher teacher pay, student led projects, etc)

For this reason, I’m starting a “school” type thing. The goal of my school is to create a model of a better school, where kids direct their own education. They learn things when it interests them. They are given the tools to study a subject, evaluate sources, understand the scientific method and evaluate the study accordingly, understand the math given, and communicate the results of their research clearly.

To make sure that this is available to all kids, teachers are paid by the sale of things made and donated by the community. Students do not pay anything. And students are not segregated by age. Adults can learn with kids, and kids can teach others. By allowing students to learn at their own pace, we encourage personal exploration. By combining ages we address some of the differences in gifted and learning disabled students. By allowing adults to learn with children we encourage lifelong learning. By allowing children to teach we are showing that their ideas and insights are respected.

Mental Health vs. The World

We have all heard it before. “Take care of yourself,” “You need to put your family first,” “Take some me time.” It’s good advice for our mental health. But there are consequences.

If I take ‘me time’, either my family struggles, my house gets to be a mess, or I don’t get any sleep. Any of these things end up with added stress in the end. Is it worth it? I don’t really know.

But in the same way that focusing inward means neglecting your family, focusing on your family means neglecting the larger issues of the world.

Obviously, we have to do the best we can for our families. And we can’t solve the problems of the world alone. But at the same time, if we only focus inward, the outside problems will only get worse.

The only way to solve the major problems in our world is if we do stay engaged and take action. We are facing so many major problems, we all have to do something.

We know that the big companies aren’t going to do anything. The responsibility keeps being shifted onto us. We are supposed to reduce our ‘carbon footprint’. We are supposed to clean up litter. We are supposed to drive less. We are supposed to buy the right appliances. We all want to make a difference. We all want to care for our families. We are told that by voting with our dollars we can move the industry in the right direction.

But does this work? Take environmental action for instance. So much stuff for sale is greenwashed. When you buy something that is wrapped in environmental imagery, it probably is just the same thing in a different package. So really, it’s just making you feel like you are making a difference, and ease your mind.

When you start to look into the problems and actual solutions, the world gets harder. The first thing you might find is political action. Starting with things like voting or calling your lawmakers, and continuing through to protest, direct action, mutual aid groups, etc. Each step up this ladder may make more difference, but it has a higher family cost.

And society tells you to cut things out of your life for your own health. Ironically, people with children have every reason to be the most invested in the outcomes of these actions, and yet the least ability to do anything about it.

Every person has to make a choice. We have to choose between caring for ourselves, our families, our making sure the world still exists for our kids when they become adults. For most people, the choice is obvious. Family comes first. After all, the world is really big, we have only ever seen it continue. If a few things change, we can face that when it comes to it. Other people are working on it. Humans always solve the problem in the end. And really, what’s once activist more or less?

But what happens when everyone makes that choice? What happens when a whole society chooses to favor the now of family and mental health over the future big picture?

We are already seeing what happens. If we don’t take action and make our voices heard, charismatic politicians can work to break down the fabric of our democracy, corporations continue to use fossil fuels at increasing rates, and the vocal minority keep recruiting.

I’m not saying that everyone needs to become a full- time activist. I’m not saying that you need to weigh in on every bill being discussed in your state. What I am saying is that picking up litter and buying green aren’t going to solve global warming. Even if everyone did those things.

Only by working together can we make a difference. The world is going to hell, and it’s speeding up. We can’t wait until the kids are off to college. Things need to happen, and they need to happen decades ago. We are way behind, and have a lot of catching up to do.

I propose that instead of getting a massage for your me time, maybe you go out and join an action group. Get together with some friends and write letters. Talk to a homeless person and see what it is that they actually need. Stay home and do some research (not just on the problems, because that is really depressing, but on the solutions too!) I think that using our collective me time pursuing solutions and working on so many ways, we might actually make a difference!

I starting writing this post in the midst of a depressive panic attack, and before I was able to finish it, I got in touch with a local action group. Just talking to them, and seeing a path to make a difference helped pull me out of that funk. We definitely need time to address our mental health, but maybe it would actually help our mental health to make a difference too.

Trash and Zero Waste

A lot of very smart, very influential people have talked before about trash. By now we all know that as a society we fill up landfills way too fast, and that they are filling up with all this single use plastic.

But is that all there is to it? Once upon a time the solution was recycling. Whatever happened to that? What is this Zero-waste stuff all about? Will it save the world?

Well, I guess, because it’s me, we will start with history. Humans have always made trash. Heck, every living thing makes waste of some kind of another. But, each waste product they make is of use for some other organism. For eons, humans fit into this system. Human garbage was still natural materials and still could be broken down. Until, that is, humans started to create new molecules that nature has no use for.

It only made sense for humans to figure out a way to reuse these new materials. So, yay recycling! But humans are really not very good at it. Some materials, like metal, and glass, can be recycled many times over, but our favorite, plastic, cannot. Each time it is recycled, it loses longevity. It degrades to the point where it is pointless, although it is still poisonous to the natural world.

So why did we settle on plastic instead of these other materials? Because it made more money for the people extracting the raw materials from the earth.

But even when the slogan, ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ was coined, they knew recycle was not the best option. There is a reason those words are in that order. Reducing how much you use is the first priority. And of what you cannot avoid using, reuse as much as you can. What cannot be reused, should be recycled. But that neat little system failed us.

Capitalism has several gifts to give us that have had grave consequences. One of the most obvious is single use plastic. Not just in to go containers, or necessary sanitary packages for food, but massive amounts of extra packaging for every item. The other is planned obsolescence. Every product seems to have a weak link. Something that turns this otherwise long-lived thing into trash. From kids toys that break easily, and the cheap plastic parts that hold together solar lights, to the choice to use gasoline engines instead of electric, everything seems to have an expiration date.

And very little of this can be recycled. Even when certain parts can be recycled, they are so intertwined with non-recyclable pieces, that it is impossible to separate them. Even when a person goes through the effort to recycle, the recycling system, as it has worked up until recently, is incredibly wasteful. The material that just got brought over the sea as products or packaging, gets sent back over the sea for recycling, using massive amounts of fossil fuels for each stretch of the journey. Today, most recyclables are just sent to the landfill too, because it is no longer profitable to recycle. Capitalism has determined that it is not worth it.

Reusing is not easy either. Most of what ends up getting thrown away does so because it is not able to be reused. Some things can: soup cans, egg cartons, cardboard boxes for instance. But so many other really can’t. Think about that vacuum formed plastic packaging, or those old Christmas lights, or torn up plastic grocery bags.

It is even terribly challenging to reduce. All this packaging is nearly impossible to avoid. If you have seen these supposedly ‘inspiring’ people who can fit all of their trash for years into a small container, it is not quite what it is cracked up to be.  First off, they do not count anything they were able to recycle, which, is basically trash these days.

Secondly, it does not count the garbage they didn’t see. What does that mean? These people say that you should buy bulk, which, even with what I am about to say is still the better option. Even bulk is not without waste. That food was in a package to get it to the store. I would guess a big plastic bag.

And third, the things they recommend are not possible everywhere. I am so glad that they are available in some places, but where I live, there really aren’t those options. I looked it up. There are a couple places in the area that do bulk food. And upon investigation they only do candy, nuts and dried fruits.

On that note, let’s talk about these zero-waste companies that are starting to pop up. I want to start off by saying that I am so glad they are doing this, it needs to be done. I am not trying to say not to participate in these things.

But there are weaknesses that mean they are not the solution. Yet. First off, they are few and far between. It might seem like a weird point, since we have the internet, and they are therefore available almost anywhere. But, waste doesn’t only come in the form of garbage. If things have to be shipped, there will be fuels used. On the plus side, if they are shipping dehydrated soaps instead of premixed things including the water, that is a whole lot less space used, and less fuel. The normal kind gets shipped all over the place anyway.

Another problem is that when you start with a company, they often require that you buy their soap bottles or whatever. I have always bought soap refills and reused the same pumps. So why do I need to buy those specific pumps? And what happens if I want to shop around? I have to commit to a company before I know if I like their soap, which has to far stopped me from taking the leap at all.

And, there is another issue. Opportunity. Only under capitalism do you have to be privileged to buy less stuff. These zero waste companies are not cheap. I totally get not wanting to be seen as the cheap option. No one wants to do something the cheap way if they have a choice. That has been the fate of the city bus. It is motivating to have something be a status symbol. But, this needs to move into the affordable section before it is going to be able to make any real difference. As long as sustainability is a status symbol for individuals, sustainability at the societal level will not happen. This needs to be as easy and cheap to access as the alternative before people who don’t have extra time or money can and will participate. Let’s face it. There are a lot of people in this category.

Most people want to do the right thing. But, for most people, the right thing is unattainable. If most people aren’t doing a thing, it isn’t working for the world. It just makes the people who can participate feel self righteous.

One way to avoid a lot of these transportation and packaging issues is to shop locally. Buy locally grown food, handmade toys at local artist markets, and locally made soaps. And it cuts out the big corporations to boot. Yay! But, it’s still not accessable to everyone. Strolling through a farmers market isn’t something that you can do if you have work while it is open, or if the vendors can’t take food stamps. Not to mention, handmade things are more expensive.

Ok. So that was a downer. Recycling is a lie, reusing is impossible, and reducing is elitist. What are we supposed to do??? Well, you may have noticed a running theme through all of this. I have frequently mentioned that capitalism has gotten us into this situation. It is not going to get us out of it.

If we were able to do the right thing without having to worry about not having enough to eat and pay bills, we could do the right thing. If organizations were not obligated to make as much money as possible, they could also do the right thing. But as long as money makes the world goes round, our motivations are at odds with one another. We need a system that can align our long term and short term goals, and our communal and individual goals.

That’s not to say that we can’t do anything now. Right now, we can work together to provide the things we all need to one another. There are lots of zero waste recipes online, and I would love to try them out, but I sure don’t have the time.

As I am writing this, it occurs to me that it would be amazing to start a zero waste club. A single family could not make everything they need in a month, but if everyone works together, it ends up as less work for everyone. Each member in the group takes turns making a huge batch of something. So say one month, someone makes all purpose soap, someone else cans extra veggies for the winter, another person makes reusable pads, etc The next month there is a different group of tasks, and they are assigned to a different group of people. The bigger your group gets, the less often each person will have a task, and the more people are helped! Ok, so there are probably problems with this idea, like I said, it just came to my head and hasn’t had a good think through yet. But it’s worth tossing around the ol’ cranium.

As you can see, we as humans have created a massive problem. But in order to solve it we are going to have to really change our thought process. We need to change the system and the incentives, in order to really fix the problem, but there are things we can do right now to address it.

The Future of Capitalism

The story of history that we are taught in school has a very simple narrative. Way back in the day, people struggled. They had to work long hours with only the simplest of tools. People were forced to work against their will. Life was miserable. And as time moved on, innovations happened. Life got easier. Machines did more work, so people did less. And people have become better and kinder, sharing their rights and privileges with the less fortunate. Now all the people have all the rights and everything is happy. And all the credit goes to Capitalism. Because earning money is the reason people innovate, and the reason that anyone can have a chance to succeed.

In case you couldn’t guess from the way I have presented that, I have to disagree with most of that narrative. Not that I’m going into each part of that now, but I would like a foil to work with (or against).

But there is a very important throughline to all of that history. Since the advent of agriculture, there have been the people who labor, and the people who benefit from that labor. Let me say that again. There have been people who did the work. And there have been different people who reaped the rewards of that work. Go as far back as you want, the people working the fields have never been the people showing off the latest fashions at court.

The specifics of the dichotomy certainly change. At some points, the farmers own the land, sometimes they are peasants tied to the land, other times, they are slaves, still other they are paid employees. But never are the people who produce the product, who actually plow the fields, forge the weapons, or manufacture the vehicles, ever in power. There are stories of people who came from that background getting out, but those are few and far between. There are times and places where the leaders let the workers think they have some power, but it’s just a minor role.

And the goals of these two groups are completely at odds. The powerful want to make as much money for themselves as possible, while the Laborers want to make as much money for themselves as possible. Because money is a finite resource, both cannot win. One must lose. And every time, it’s the people with the power. Sure there are brief moments when the workers gain the upper hand, say when the labor pool is small, or they have formed a union. But the powerful learn. Every time this happens, they learn from it how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

And so it goes. Sometimes a new technology is introduced, and there is some disruption to the system, but it balances out and keeps right on moving. Most of these disruptive technologies are labor saving devices. Great! That helps the people doing the labor, right? Not quite. It displaces some of the labor force. Some of the people who used to do the job, are replaced by machine. And suddenly have to find something else to do.

I will not deny that this has led to a massive diversification of types of labor, and career opportunities, which has been great. However, I am afraid that we are reaching a point where that trend will not continue.

As technology advances, we see a wider and wider variety of fields being influenced by labor saving devices. The reason is simple. The wealthy find that it is cheaper to implement technology than it is to pay people. For the same reason that slavery was chosen over a paid work force, and hypothetical employers would hire desperate immigrants rather than citizens, and minimum wage rarely increases. Jobs are being outsourced to the machines. And they will not come back.

And it’s not just manufacturing, cashiers and farming. It’s lawyers, doctors, and salespeople. It’s performers, artists, and bankers.

So what do we do about it? Should we raise the minimum wage? Certainly! People deserve to be able to support their family from their work. But will it help stop the robot takeover? No. It will probably hasten it. Just because the business can, and should pay, doesn’t mean they want to. Should we make laws limiting job replacing machines? Couldn’t hurt. Might stave off some of the worst effects until we can find a long term solution. But it won’t last. If the powerful want something, they will try over and over and over until they get it. It will eventually be overturned. Should we stop robotics research? No can do. The genie is out of the bottle. And it could be a great thing.

From here we have two choices. 1) We can let capitalism take it’s course. If we choose this, eventually there will be no work for people to do. I know some people say that there will be other jobs wet haven’t even thought of yet. And that might be true. But really, how long will those jobs last before themselves being replaced? Minimum Wage won’t help anyone if there are no jobs. This possibility is terrifying to me. If the powerful continue to show the type of blatant disregard for humanity that they have been demonstrating, the people who they used to rely on will be allowed to fall into a poverty so immense and unending that most of the population would literally starve to death or kill one another in a desperate bid for survival. I know that sounds extreme, and I seriously hope I am wrong and that their humanity would kick in before that happens. The thing that I thing might kick them into gear is actually their own greed. They only make money if people are buying what they are selling. It is actually in the best interests of the wealthy for the people to have spending money.

Or 2) We find an alternative way to support all people. One idea with growing support is a Universal Basic Income, or UBI. This is exactly what it sounds like. Everyone gets money just for existing. And if you work, you continue to receive the UBI. This means that people would have the opportunity to wait for a better job offer, or pursue their own passion without fear of failure. This would by necessity drive up pay, benefits, and working conditions. It would give people the spending money they need to allow the wealthy to continue to make money. But I could easily see this undone by an administration that opposes it, so even once passed, the fight would not be over. Just like with anything.

The other way to support people might be to make money superfluous. I know, this can sound crazy, but I have been bouncing these ideas around in my head for a long time. I would like to get them out of my head, and begin having discussions. Other people think of things I haven’t. But I will say that those I have discussed this with, have come up with problems they feel are insurmountable, that I see as only a problem from a perspective that already includes money. So I encourage you to keep an open mind.

We already have enough food for everyone on the planet. It just isn’t distributed in such a way to get it to everyone, because the money isn’t coming from everywhere equally. We could build the infrastructure to distribute it if we really wanted to.

There are enough vacant houses in the US to eliminate homelessness. I suspect that worldwide we could make that happen too, of it is not already true. What is stopping us? The fact that we expect money in exchange for shelter. It is the money getting in the way of solving this problem.

The last basic human need is water. This is the hardest to overcome. But humans are really smart. As a society we have made some amazing innovations. Many of the most transformational were motivated by heart not money. People who want money like to do things that have been proven to make money in the past. Bigger and better, sure, but not transformational. People who want to change the world work in transformational.

To get real innovation, you need motivation that comes from wanting to solve real problems. Capitalism doesn’t provide those motivations, being human does. And can you imagine how many new ways to solve a problem might be created if millions of people who currently have to spend their time working just to get by suddenly could spend their time doing the things they are driven to do? I’m not just talking about figuring out a solution to water scarcity. I’m talking about cures for cancer, solving climate change, and creating long term habitats on different planets for a start.

For a long of these big problems, capitalism not only doesn’t find a solution, but actively creates them. For instance, climate change. The biggest polluters know that they make their money by polluting. Capitalism has given them a vested interest in not solving the problem. And they work tirelessly to make sure that no one will get in the way of those short term gains. Blocking regulations, and actively convincing people that it’s all nonsense. You want a conspiracy? There’s one for you. A real one. And it’s not even very well hidden.

Even attempts to make Capitalist goals align with environmental goals don’t work out. Carbon Credits always seemed like a cop out solution to me, and organizations like Greenpeace are turning a critical eye to the system.

Another amazing thing that removing capitalism does for innovation is remove competition. Competition has long been heralded as the reason for innovation, but just like capitalism as a whole, I would argue that it causes, at best, incremental improvements. I would much prefer cooperation. If two people have the same goals about saving the world, and somehow manage to get hired at two different companies actually trying to make a difference, they will each find different solutions. More solutions are great, don’t get me wrong. But if there are two that are very similar, neither one will really be transformational. For instance, if two companies both have green concrete, and one allows for rainwater to soak into the soil, and the other doesn’t produce CO2 to manufacture, which one do you choose? But if those scientists worked together instead of competing, you could have one product that did both. But the engineer working on creating solar roads could work separately and then both things could work side by side. Or they could all work together as a team and create something that has all three properties.

Removing competition doesn’t only affect innovation. It also affects our personal lives. Racism is certainly fueled by hate. Sexism is fueled by a need to be better than someone else. But they, and other -isms are also fueled by competition and resentment. Throughout history any group that is new to an area is accused of taking jobs from those who were already there. It has happened, among others, to the Chinese, the Irish, and now Mexicans. Even women were treated with a different level of respect before entering the work force. Sexism certainly still existed, and kept them in the home, but when women chose to enter the sphere of the male workplace, that sexism changed form to something more vindictive. If we can limit the things that people need to compete for, we can make more progress towards ending hate.

So in short, we are at a crossroads. We have a choice to make: do we let the world continue on its path of separating haves and have nots? Or do we address those issues now while we still can? Do we let those in power dictate our path or do we take the reins and make sure that we have a place in the future? In the end, making sure we are all taken care of is in everyone’s best interest. Not taking action is a choice. Putting off the choice is allowing the problem to magnify in the meantime. We have seen what happened with Global Climate Change when we let it play out. It gets worse and more polarized. It gets harder to solve.

Capitalism and Democracy

Capitalism and Democracy. Two peas in a pod. They go together like a horse and carriage. Like a hand in a glove.
We have been taught that without one, we cannot have the other. But how do they really work together? And might a better match be made?
Democracy is about the people having power. Each vote having the same weight in a decision. People working together to make the world a better place.
Capitalism is about people having a reason and initiative to create things of value. Seems perfect. But that ignores the fact that Capitalism encourages individuals to act in their own self interest at the expense of the community. And that self interest extends to fighting any attempt at regulation, since that regulation limits the individual’s ability to enrich themselves in an attempt to protect the populace from the individual. This creates an inevitable antagonism between the people who act in their self interest and anyone left unprotected by the system.
People who are successful in this capitalist economy are necessarily the people who are willing to put their own interests first. It would seem that Democracy would be the perfect antidote to this harmful economic incentive, by allowing those who would be helped by regulating the successful to enact that legislation. However, inevitably the successful will fight against regulation. Although the people have the numbers with which to defend themselves, the successful have the money.
At first, the playing field may be equal (in a perfect world that never existed with no past history of power disparity). However, it will not be long before the successful take the lead (especially if they have a head start). If everyone has the same chances for success, some will succeed while others will not. Those with success will use that success to inch ahead, and for awhile, this will be fine.
Until a level of inequality is reached that puts the people at such a disadvantage that they cannot overcome. By that point, the people have to play catch-up to regulate the successful.
If the people are lucky, the successful will not have thought of this, and the people might have some success in crafting effective regulations.
But once the successful realize they cannot continue to freely exploit the populace, they will use their success to their advantage. They will use their money to influence the people who directly create these regulations. These lawmakers desire money, since that is the primary motivator of capitalism. And so, the regulations begin to be worn away. Sometimes by outright removing them, other times by making them ineffective or impossible to enforce. Once this happens, the people who have not become successful, loose any pretext of Democratic power. The successful own the regulators.
The balance is permanently shifted.
The people have to find other means of gaining power.
Ok. That was a little intense.
I said that we all start at a fair level. So (aside from the fact that because every society arrives with a historical context making truly fair and equitable opportunities unrealistic) what is stopping the rest of the people from becoming successful?
In the beginning of our fictitious perfectly balanced world, some people are motivated more than others, some have better ideas, some people have fewer obligations than others. This beginning sets off the future imbalances. But at this point, shuffling can still occur. These successful people may not be the ones still successful in the end. The people unsuccessful in the beginning still have an opportunity to rise up.
But the more this inequality spreads, the more set these classes will be. As the people have to work harder to fight the entrenched heirarchy, their time is spent more trying to just get by, the less regulation there is to protect them, the less likely they are to gain success. This equality of opportunity is a fiction by this point. It may be a long time when there are still the occasional success story to keep the opportunity myth circulating, but at some point, the people realize the world is stacked against them.
Well, that got dark again. Oops.
Let’s try something else. Democracy. If left to its own devices, Democracy will function well, giving voice to the people. When something comes up, the people will do what they need to do to address the issue. A Representative Democracy might take awhile though. The representatives aren’t necessarily in touch with what is affecting the rest of the population. So, these systems still have room for improvement, but will do right by the majority.
But that brings up an unfortunate part of Democracy. The Minority is not heard. In many cases, that is because the minority might support something that would hurt the majority In others, it might simply be because the majority are unaware of something that doesn’t affect them, but does affect the minority. The majority have a built-in defense against the minority. (unless the actual lawmakers get bought out by that minority that is) But what happens if the majority want to do something that would hurt the minority? The system does not address this. It would go through.
But there is a difference between hurting the wealthy minority by taxing them to help the majority, and hurting an underprivileged minority by taking rights away.
If we build a system which builds empathy then this type of problem can be overcome. We should encourage people to support one another rather than pitting people against one another.
But the most pressing, and longest lasting problem with democracy is the delicate balance it takes to maintain. One charismatic person can tip the scales from the betterment of the people to the betterment of themselves. Through the use of media, and personality, we have seen how it is possible to convince people to vote against their own interests.
This problem is very hard to solve once it has happened. Once people believe something firmly, it is hard to change their minds. It is easier to teach hate and distrust than it is to rebuild trust and empathy.
Once again, however, we can work to limit the things that motivate this type of takeover. If there is a massive financial incentive to power, power concentrated in one individual, or fame and clout associated with a position, then people who crave these things will manipulate the system to gain that prestige.
On the other side, people who are struggling; whether it is financial, physical, or emotional, can often be convinced to blame someone. People in this position are prime targets for a demagogue.
In order to maintain this delicate balance, making sure that people’s needs are taken care of is paramount. By making sure that separation between the advantaged and disadvantaged is minimal we can both discourage the power hungry to seek political power, and help to ensure that no one feels like they need to change others for an unfortunate situation.
That said, nothing is perfect. But the more problems we can prevent, the more stable a democracy we have.
So is there a better system? I don’t know. But I do know that we cannot keep espousing the virtues of a system that has so many weaknesses towards corruption. We cannot continue to overthrow other countries that decide to try something different. We need to implement caring and compassionate adjustments to our society if we want to hold off the rebellions. And we just might find that by taking care of our citizens we save our Democracy.

Wow

Two days ago I wrote a post where I ended by saying that the massive divisions in this country would, at some point come to violence. The next day, the capital building was taken over.

Yesterday was supposed to be dominated by Georgia’s election results and the counting of the electoral college. But we knew that there was a planned pro-Trump rally. This was the thing that made me write that post. I’m not a great prophet or anything. As many people have said, while this has been shocking, and sobering, it was not a surprise.

Many people have pointed out the extreme difference in reactions between this and when the Black Lives Matter demonstrations were going on in the capital. There was an immediate military response to BLM. Not just in the capital, but in cities all over the nation, while Trump supporters were welcomed inside by the police! BLM marches were demonized for a few bad actors damaging buildings. But the Trump rally turned into an actual invasion of our halls of government by, while I have not seen actual numbers, seems to be hundreds, if not thousands of people.

Now the people I listen to are calling for punishment. They are calling out leaders who encouraged this behavior. All of that needs to happen. But there is another thing that needs to be considered.

What are the Trump supporters thinking? They clearly see themselves akin to storming the Bastille, or throwing tea into Boston Harbor. They see themselves as victims. While we see them tearing down our democracy, they are being told that democracy is already dead. If we arrest then and impeach Trump, who they see as their only hope at salvation, what will they think? I don’t want to give Qanon any more traffic by looking to find out what is being said, but I have a pretty good guess.

They believe they are being oppressed and they must fight to take back their country. I suspect this was nothing more than a call to action for others that the battle has begun. Every attack we make to punish these bad actors, will make a martyr for their cause. They will only get more motivated in their right against what they perceive as tyranny. But if we let it slide, we are only telling future leaders to go ahead, there are no consequences for this action. We have to make sure that there are consequences for their actions. Go down the political line. Each congressman and governor that supported this needs to be held accountable too. But as we do this, we need to demonstrate that we show understanding and mercy. We need to do our best to show that we are not bullies. And we need to understand that our actions also have consequences. There will be fallout from our attempts to hold these people accountable. They will keep fighting. They have been told this story for so long that many have spent their whole lives waiting for the chance to fight to bring back what they feel they have lost. This did not start with Trump, nor will it end with him.

New Normal

Since March we have all been living under a drastically different ‘normal’. And we have all been asking “how long will it be until we can go back?” But what I have been asking is “can we go back?”

Between the biological virus rampaging the world, the bitter divide in my country, (and many others), and the political corruption, it is clear we are in strange times. But I want to explore how I think things got this bad, and what will happen next. Clearly, I cannot say with certainty, but I can tell you things as I see it, for what that’s worth. I’m just another person on the internet after all.

Let’s start with the ideological divide since that’s kind of where it all began. I first noticed it when George W. Bush was elected, but I was in middle school then. That’s the time when people start paying attention to these things, I guess. But it goes back further than that. Many people start it with Reagan or blame it on social media, but I think the roots go back much further than that.

White people who were bent on profit, fame, and power were the ones exploring the seven seas. It was easy for these people to convince other white people that they were better than the other peoples that were ‘discovered’ on these explorations. It’s only too easy to believe it when you are told you are better than someone else. This was the group that started settling this land.

They were followed by another group. This group is the one seeking freedom from oppression. But these people also believed they were better than other races. There is no escaping that.

This country was founded largely by the latter group. This is why freedom is so central to our constitution. But even in politics at that time, there was power hunger. When there are powerful people, there will be power hungry people. This group, so focused on their own freedom, had only a few people who had any thought for the freedom of other races. But there were some.

Eventually, the government was so full of power hungry men, they tore the country apart. This was hardly about abolishing slavery, but rather a fight for what states would have more power. Slave states had a disproportional amount of power to the number of voters. Non slave states didn’t like that, but slave states didn’t want to give it up. Eventually it became clear that while the south had the electoral power, the north had the military power. Abolishing the institution of slavery was kind of an afterthought.

Time marches on. The rich continue to get what they want from the government, while the poor are ignored. More people come to escape oppression, danger and hunger. The poor are told to blame the newcomers. People like the Irish are prevented from getting employed, adding to the existing racial struggles.

Native Americans have been massacred, Blacks are systematically murdered, Asians are left to be destroyed by plague, Hispanics are poisoned at the border.

The rhetoric of the power hungry gets better and better at convincing people who can vote (white men) they should blame minorities for their present misfortune.

When other people finally one by one gain the right to vote, the established technique won’t work as well, so blame starts to shift. Eventually the parties are blaming each other, and rather than each party holding a stance on a few issues while others vary within the party, every issue becomes aligned with a political faction. It becomes harder and harder to be in the middle.

The fact that one party shifted to political blame more and tried to court those minority voters, meant that the other party kept the people who still blame them. This is where we see the increasing division between the people who blame minorities, and the people who want to help minorities. All because one party didn’t actively blame them any more.

Meanwhile jerrymandering becomes so efficient that winning in these areas is less about competing with the other party, and finding middle ground, and more about catering to the extreme parts of the party.

Add into that firestorm the social media echo chambers, and you have a massively divided country. Each only listens to their own side, freedom and patriotism have been twisted to mean a very specific kind of opinion is considered American, and showing any sort of national loyalty is seen as having certain beliefs. This, in turn, means that some people avoid showing any patriotism at all even though they are, which fuels the opposing argument.

Because both sides listen only to their own sources and believe the other side cannot be trusted, it doesn’t matter to followers what atrocities their leaders commit. They probably won’t hear about them, or will only hear things blamed on the other side, maybe a defense here and there. Either side is primed to start a war. In traditional wars, each side controls its own media and spreads terrible stories about the other, during and often before actual fighting breaks out. Each side believes that they are on the side of right and will die to defend against tyranny, corruption, terrorism, and to protect their families, freedom, and beliefs.

This is the precipous upon which we stand. Both sides have been primed for war. Can we avert disaster? When will it start if we can’t? Will we even know in the moment when it began? Can we be sure it hasn’t already?

Today we have attacks by government employees on minorities nearly every day. These attacks are clearly racially motivated, but since these people also tend to be on the side that has been labeled as not patriotic, this also has a political component.

We have massive marches supporting or denouncing both sides in an endless parade. We have people on both sides literally taking up arms to defend themselves against the other side, who they have heard is stockpiling weapons. We have government officials stoking distrust in the very institutions and systems that make this country what it is. We have leaders deliberately spreading false information that costs lives.

This distrust will not go away after January 20th, just as it did not go away after the election. If we manage to avoid all out war, there will still be millions of people who will continue to believe that the election was stolen. Even if Trump does not set up a shadow government, these angry people will not trust the elections for many years to come. These election disputes may become a normal part of our elections. As we have seen, just because one side wins, it does not change the mind of the losers. The fallout from the civil war that has recently come to light shows these tensions can last generations.

Other people have explored what would happen if we devolve into open war. The short version? The people who have been training and stocking up tend to live in rural communities. Cities are very vulnerable because of all the systems it takes to keep so many people living in one place.

Is there any way to avoid this? I hope so. We need to find a way to make sure that people are hearing from both sides. But the government is not going to make that happen. That change needs to start with us. We need something to bring us together. The coronavirus had the potential to be that thing. But it was used to add to the division, to the point where walking out your door and what you wear when you do became a political statement. That unity will not come from the government. That change needs to come from us. In short, we need a drastic bottom-up transformation. We need to increase communication between people. By unfriending people you disagree with, you are increasing their isolation and your own echo chamber.

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Today we can a few more verses to this dark poem. The Muslims, the Mexicans, the Blacks, LGBTQ+, the homeless, the addicted. All of these groups, and more, have been incarcerated in some fashion in response to supposed threats.

I will fully admit that although I vehemently oppose these attacks, I am one of the many who has not done enough to help. I have many reasons, but in a sense they are all just excuses. This should be much higher on my priority list. Not the least of those reasons if because my time is so occupied. As I have discussed before, in a real sense we do not need to work 40 hours a week. But by keeping people underpaid, the government keeps us too busy. More recently, by keeping the pandemic out of control, fewer people are willing to protest for fear of falling ill. Note that supporters are told not to fear, so they are able to gather in support.

The other big reason I have not joined marches, is because I have never seen them create change. Something happens, people march, politicians pander to their supporters, make a few overtures at change, people lose interest and nothing really happens. But this could be its own post.

We have to remember that both sides are being told that they are the victims. We need to stand up. But not against the other side, against the system that has led us to this point. Republican and Democratic voters and people are not the problem. The problem is the power hungry puppet masters at the top. In both parties. For all the good they claim to do, those who need help are never getting it. Politicians agree on more than they let on. They agree to keep the people down. The people are on more than we are told. We all want to make sure our families are cared for and that we maintain our rights and freedoms.

The AI Will Steal Our Jobs!

They say that starting a post with a bolt statement is a good idea, so here you go: Artificial Intelligence will destroy our current economic structure. How’s that?

While that statement may seem like a gross overreaction and sound a little nutty, it is quite possibly true. As we move forward, AI will take more and more of the tasks we currently do ourselves. Right now they are mostly in highly repetitive tasks, such as manufacturing. These robots have already displaced many workers, they are cheaper and more accurate. But the presence of those robots have also opened up new opportunities in research and development as well as in maintenance. Here’s the catch: displaced employees cannot afford the new education necessary to go into these fields.

In the past, new technology has largely been geared towards making human beings more efficient at their jobs. If one person makes more stuff, the price of the stuff goes down and makes it available to more people. This has been the driver of our economic growth and high standard of living. Thus far technological progress has been the facilitator of our modern world.

But we are at a moment when this status quo is changing. Artificial intelligence is becoming better than we are at tasks we once considered exclusively the domain of human beings. This means that the jobs that were more nuanced and variable, are going the way of the dodo as those get replaced as well.

For awhile there will be new jobs created by this boom, but eventually those will be taken over as well. Eventually there will be very little, of anything, that human beings need to do.

So now it is not only the ‘unskilled’ laborers who will be out of jobs, but the more technical fields as well. The only people who will be able to make money will be those selling the products that the robots make, this will soon include such diverse things as health care and art to add to the products they manufacture today.

That won’t last long, if no one is earning, no one is spending.

So, now that I have completely depressed you; let me tell you why this could actually be awesome, and what we have to do to make sure that it is.

If you think about it, if robots are doing all the work and there is plenty of everything to go around, why should anyone ever have to go without? The only way this would happen is if we stay on our current economic course. If people need to trade their labor for money to trade for goods and services.

However, if we eliminate the need to pay for those goods and services, why do we panic over the loss of income? In other words, if we make those basic necessities available to all, it won’t matter if the robots do all the work.

Here we get a choice, how do we create an equitable system?

Option 1: Necessary goods and services are provided to all, and money is used to buy luxury goods.

This option is a good middle ground, and very likely to be the solution, but as I see it being implemented, it would be in a simple reactionary way. Like refugee camps, or homeless shelters. Necessities are covered, but living conditions are appalling with no visible path out of the situation.

If we plan ahead, we could create this as a positive way to keep everyone happy and healthy. But it would still leave the wealthy with power and influence over those who just get by on the basics with little upward mobility.

Option 2: Basic universal income.

The results of this option would be very similar to the plan ahead version of option 1. People would get some support, (although that income may not cover everything they need depending on health, implementation, and local economic variation.) but would still struggle to grow. Any growth would depend on the movement of currency to people from all walks of life. This would require that anyone attempting to improve their station from subsistence would have to advertise essentially, to gain the attention of those who do have money to burn. It would just be redistribution of the wealth between the wealthy.

Option 3: Preemptively create a non-monetary based system. No money means that all basic services would be available to all add needed. And anyone willing to grow would not need to convince someone else to part with their money, but only to show that they are providing some benefit to society. Without competition, the existing barriers of the economy would break down.

Everyone could be required to work a certain amount of time in service to community or society as we grow to reach the time of robots doing all of the work. As robots take on more of the workload, the required human workload would be readjusted and distributed equally. Less work for humans would not result in lost jobs creating starvation in a land of plenty.

As a bonus to this idea, if we got rid of money, there would be a huge number of ‘jobs’ that surround the redistribution of wealth that would disappear with it. This means that the starting workload for each person would be much less work than we currently do today. These jobs would include things like cashiers, loan specialists, stock traders, bankers, accountants, investors, and sales to name a few.

Even if we only eliminated that workload and required a lot less work to keep the status quo, I suspect that we would actually make progress toward a work-free future faster. Without all that time spent on the redistribution of wealth, the free time that people would gain would go towards hobbies.

Everyone has a few things they enjoy doing in their free time, and some of those have the potential to drive us to the future. Some people enjoy listening to music or watching movies. Some people enjoy creating neat things. Some people enjoy robotics and coding in their free time. Giving people more free time, and unlimited access to education (one of the most basic services provided) would spawn a massive outpouring of growth in many areas, including STEM. There are many people caught in the day to day grind of living paycheck to paycheck who could do so much for our world if we can unchain them from the money train.

This does require a whole new way of thinking. But in a world without scarcity, we do not need to create a system of artificial scarcity, which is how money works.

Thank you for your time and consideration.