In U.S. political chatter, there are lot of assumptions that the opposite end of the political spectrum does not understand your point of view, or concerns, or the dangers of their own ideology.

We spend a lot of time trying to open their eyes to the reality we’re certain of, that if they could see the awfulness that their leaders are imposing on the world, or how the implications of those policies horribly impact on their own lives, or their families or neighbors, that they will alter their support.

This could be true for some people who truly have trouble sorting through all of the facts and lies and can’t tell who is being honest. With this new administration in the U.S. I imagine those people have been minimized. The policies and lies are so blatantly in your face, that the apocalyptic dark humor of Doctor Strangelove would be lost on today’s public.

So we have to assume that there is a disturbingly high number of disturbed Americans who are happy to support cruelty, chaos, a collapse of all moral and ethical boundaries, as well as unprecedented grift, and direct attacks on the foundations of democracy, including disregard for the separation of powers or the assaults on elections themselves.

The whole of American democracy is teetering on collapse and we have to assume that this bulk of human beings, is praying for it.

I imagine, if I were reading this, I would take it as hyperbolic. That Americans are just misled and they need to be educated. What I’m concerned with, is what if that is just not the case. What if your neighbors are operating with the full intent of sinking the ship. What if they don’t believe in democracy? If they don’t, what is the recourse. What is the strategy to save democracy against those who want to destroy it from within? To protect the Constitution from those in power who don’t believe in its principles and look to dissolve it with the support of enough of society to get away with it?

It’s probably not coincidental that this whole concept reminds me of this documentary from American Experience Nazi Town USA. It covers the rise of the German-American Bund group which sought to abandon U.S. democracy to install a similar Nazi dictatorship to what Hitler had created in Germany. It was hugely popular in the U.S. until we entered the war against Germany and people were too afraid to be associated with Nazis and the movement quickly dissolved. It struck me that there was such a large portion of Americans who were willing to abandon democracy when they thought it best served their interests.

That’s where I think we’re currently at. You can’t educate these people into changing their minds by explaining the fall of democracy. It’s likely what they want.

Many Americans believe there is a looming civil war. I think it’s unlikely because the distribution of political polarization seems to split between cities and rural areas rather than geographic lines, which would make a war difficult in the historic sense. I wouldn’t rule out mass violence however, or an attempt at politicide. I hope it’s unlikely but I also thought it was unlikely that a large portion of Americans didn’t hold the core requirements for democracy as we know it to be sacred.

So thinking about this. If it were true that many Americans are ready and willing to throw our governmental system in the trashcan, to make way for a dictatorship, plutocracy, or oligarchy, what would we do about that? Assume they know what it means to move in that direction. What is the peaceful, and democratic process for obstructing the people’s will to abandon democracy? Is it even democratic to do so, or do we just work with the rubble they create when the destruction is done?

I’d like to be engaged, protests historically don’t fair well under authoritarianism, nor do public debates. I find violence to be completely barbaric and have no interest in engaging on that level. Peaceful collapse is better than violent resistance in my mind. So what would be the strategy? What is the historical success story for walking citizens back away from the cliff and from falling into fascism and authoritarianism? How do we build on that quickly, who would we organize or work with?

It’s interesting blogging into the void. I’d love to have a deep dialogue. Most people I speak with are more optimistic or too tuned out to think any of this is worth pondering. That or they’re on-board with the Trump agenda. So what?

I’ve seen a few memes over the past someamountoftime (my observational bias could have this as a couple of weeks or three years but it feels recent) that state something like “all these kids with their $30 water bottles and I don’t remember drinking water until I was 25”.

Geez. (Jeez? What is this word)

Where I grew up there were bubblers. (Bubblahs if you want that Massachusetts accent) They’re called by other names. Drinking Fountain I believe is most on the nose. Here is a stolen internet graphic.

These fountains used to be a staple of modern life. I remember they were in nearly every hallway, corner, by the bathroom of every indoor  professional building. They were outside in city public areas, parks, the roller rink, whatever. Free clean water everywhere. They even would place multiple, of different, heights to accommodate different  people.

Many had a cooling element to get the temperature just right and from everything I’ve ever read, having separate ones for dark skinned people and light skinned people was the greatest offense of the Jim Crow laws separating public services based on “race”.  I fully understand that of all the horrible things Jim Crow laws were, this is not even close to the worst offender but it’s prominence in my education as a main issue is as  concerning to look back on as people thinking we didn’t drink water when it was so common, you didn’t need to carry a bottle to carry it in.

Oh, this is sort of what they looked like in this other stolen internet photo.

You probably recognize it. They still have them at some stadiums, old public buildings, or at the airport. The modern ones often have a water bottle filling station which helps bridge the cultural divide between generations. The biggest difference between now and when I was young, is there is never a line now, whereas 20 years ago, when a class or movie let out, many people would race to them to avoid the line. “Hey pal, leave some water for the fish” was the most common way of saying “hurry the fuck up, I’m thirsty” back then.

I have no idea how it happened, but it’s obvious with this and tap. We’ve been convinced to stop trusting our public water supply because risk of contamination to find more costly water from plastic bottles that are complete contaminated or by buying very costly home filters. Often while receiving steep water bills to ensure the water getting to our homes and public spaces are clean. It’s a whole environmental thing you could read about for weeks. The better way would be demand clean water everywhere, but that’s going to be tough with politicians also trying to roll back those requirements so businesses can put a half percentage on their margin by dumping toxins back into the rivers or air. Hail capitalism.

We used to drink out of houses too, which has a very toxic taste and mouth feel but is catalogued in my mind as a comfort food and I’ll still partake if thirsty.

I think for a lot of people the act of lapping at a fountain stream of water reminded them of being a dog. With the lines that used to form (always behind the person for the privacy sake of the bent lapping) there was always an awareness of everyone thinking “what a dog this person is being right now. Woof” which probably led to the first person thinking, maybe I’ll bring mine in a bottle next time and derailing the whole fucking project.

This photo I took myself and I’ll leave the stock photo tag to prove it.

Anyways, yes we drank water all the time in the 70s and 80s but we were forced to lap at it, like fucking dogs.

Two things I always take pictures of are informational icons which are funny to me, and bathrooms that I think people should know about.

A lot of the time, I’m dazzled by the lack of upkeep or generous graffiti, both strategies welcome a dangerous level of carelessness and contamination. The grossest ones are usually in the most fun bars or clubs.

I also like when they get kinda cutesy with it. Simple decorations are all you need to keep people from writing or pissing all over the walls. You can go all out with sexy images but really, a picture of dogs dressed like bees 🐝 🐝 will keep people on their best behavior.

Plane jane is cool too. Just need to recognize that people hate blank slates and a white surface invites markers. I don’t know why anyone would throw a bottle in a toilet, there is a psychological profile to be learned there but I’m not even interested in knowing what type of person does that.

Unfortunately. I am the type of dingbat that will take a picture of even a friend’s bathroom and post it on the internet. Just give me half a reason and BAM. There it is.

I don’t even know how many of these pictures I have. This was just an assortment of a quick search in my gallery. Maybe I’ll do a round 2, or a post of my information icons. We’ll see.

Mail me a handwritten letter if you want the metadata revealing the locations of any of the shots above.

Happy Pooping 💩

Is my favorite idiom that people actually say out loud.

We just finished running a Saint Patrick’s Day 5K and were walking back to the car from the finish line. Was it because we had on the green shamrock themed shirts the race provided? Was it because there was a parade scheduled shortly after the race? Did she think we were a parade of people? There were 4 of us together with maybe some others scattered in the area.

It’s a weird thing to shout from a car window. Also, if you’re going to take the time to forcefully declare a historical belief, why not leave your window down for a bit to hear the response of the debate. I’m not as quick on my toes as I wish I could be but I did yell back “god isn’t real!”.

This was three days ago and I’m still thinking about. This woman who yelled “Saint Patrick was Italian!” was certainly not Italian. Her accent was some form of thick Marylander, the distorted vowels and attitude made us think she’s likely from Dundalk, although really could be Essex or even Pasadena, definitely not from Italy, probably never been there.

Americans are goofballs with heritage. I was once waiting for a train in Boston when a townie came up to me and told me “I don’t like you Irish fucks”. I had been out drinking and it was definitely more morning than evening, and I was nice enough to respond “that’s fine, you don’t have to”. This tiny man then went on to explain to me that he’s Italian and I’m Irish and in Boston, they’re not supposed to get along. This man, regardless of who his ancestors were, was not Italian, I’m not Irish.

If I were to go to Ireland, would it make sense to say I’m Irish? How Irish even are the people there? I mean, they’re certainly Irish in the literal, present tense, but do they have this long standing connection to Ireland? Or are they similar to Americans and claim heritage to where they came from prior to where they actually have lived their whole lives? I’m fairly certain they’re not descended from druids or Neanderthals or whoever was settled in Ireland prior to their family. How many generations is it before you claim from where you’re from and not from where your grandparents or great grandparents or distant ancestors were from?

There is an ignorance to the whole thing which mirrors racist tropes. People say “of course I’m this way, I’m German” to describe why they would be loud and spill beer all over the replica beer garden. You’re Irish, you get it… Actually, my ancestors were also from France, so maybe I don’t get it.

The distance between France and Ireland is like that of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, it doesn’t strike me as the type of geographical isolation or stretch of time needed for significant genetic drift, let alone evolution. Maybe natural selection moved faster before the automobile was invented.

At any rate, why did this lady scream such a thing? Doesn’t matter who Saint Patrick was, we’re running as a reminder to not stay so fat, while meeting up with friends, and justify the extreme cost of the race by acknowledging the charities listed on the back of the T-shirt.

If Patrick is celebrated for missionary work, converting much of Ireland to Catholicism than I say “fuck him”. The Catholic Church is a global pedophile ring which only pursues expansion and power. If this lady believes she is Italian, and trying to make claim to such a villain, without ever having met the man, or acknowledging the awful crime that is the Catholic Church, or never having set foot on Ireland or Italy, then “fuck her too”.

To the rest of you, Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! 🍀

When the Supreme Court decided that U.S. presidents are immune from investigation, let alone prosecution, for all official acts, Joe Biden should have imprisoned them in Guantanamo Bay and jailed Donald Trump and friends (even those in the Senate) for their coup attempt.

He would have been a complete monster. He would have spurred Congress to impeach him in record time. There would have been emergency changes to clarify the constitution and revision to standing laws so that the president is in no way immune to U.S. law.

Instead he chose to lead by example. Except when it came to pardoning his son, there he just couldn’t help himself. So he folded on perfect ethics and still tried to hold the moral high ground. Even in a world where the vast difference of his Joe Biden’s morality could honestly be measured against Donald Trump’s total disregard for honesty, decency, ethics, and virtue, it still wouldn’t have mattered.

Honest and ethical people might compete against each other for moral high ground. When you have a complete fucking villain on one side of the equation, the only solution is tit for tat.

People don’t mind when their hero abuses a system. They cheer it on. Break the rules! It benefits all of us! They complain when the opposition does it. In order to break a spell like what you have with Trump, a Democrat needs to lead by destroying their own reputation and being the villain.

It’s not easy mind you, most people who enter politics, even if they do get corrupted, believe they are serving for the good of the public. Most politicians, only want to be remembered for all of the good they accomplish. It’s only incidental in most instances where they do something that turns out to be awful and history turns on them.

Joe Biden wasn’t willing to lead by example when the example had to be an egregious overstepping of power to limit it for the next guy. The next guy is now in office and has almost unlimited power. Republicans will not work to correct this overstep and if Democrats did, Republicans would cry foul.

The Supreme Court has tilted into radical lunacy. By the time this candidacy is over, they’ll be on Mars. They aren’t going to fix anything. Congress needs to fix the constitution and the laws. They need to be clear and direct. They won’t fix anything without a true constitutional crisis regarding the president and Republicans won’t acknowledge a crisis as long as it’s their leader.

It needs to be a Democrat, they need to be a total fucking monster, they need to win the next presidency and break whatever is left of the system in such a painful way, that both sides of the aisle freak out and Congress makes sweeping changes.

Yes, it will ruin that person’s reputation. Yes it will destroy the Democratic party. The Republican party has already destroyed itself, they just haven’t acknowledged it yet. At the very least though, it might save our democracy to have someone decent try to destroy it.

8 people, 1 Beneteau 48′ Oceanis sailboat.

“Very Plush Looking” is how my father described the boat. I don’t disagree. These boats sell for half a million dollars used, they’re fancy. First time ever sleeping on a sailboat and it probably doesn’t get any better. So how was it?

If you get motion sickness, you should load up on Dramamine for open ocean sailing. We left port under motor, encountered a squall just as we were about to raise the sails. New crew to a new boat, we didn’t have a process yet and we bobbed for a few minutes. I turned back and my partner was already hurling over the back of the boat. Didn’t quite clear the transom so she had some hosing off to do later. Two hours later, she passed out after two hours of convulsions, all while being tossed about the cabin and head by waves and tacks as we navigated to the other side of Tortola. She was horrified to find out that this trip put us right at the airport we had flown into the day before and was only a 40 minute cab ride. Pack Dramamine, day two was so much better for her. It seemed to have exchanged fatigue for nausea in equal doses, so under way, she mostly napped.

Six strangers. The first day people were shy. That went away quickly. The first day people were very accommodating and amicable. That lasted for the entire week. 48 feet of boat is not a lot of space for 8 people and everyone was everywhere and it all seemed fine.   I have no idea how these people felt about us, what I know, is we thought it would be best to go with the flow, expect little, willing to share resources, snacks, heads (bathrooms), whatever was needed. The rest of the boat seemed to be operating under the same exact philosophy. I realized that if there was more of this, anywhere in life, things would be much more pleasant for everyone. You can’t force people to be accommodating, but you can be a good host, even as a guest.

Port to port. Mooring ball to mooring ball. Sailing in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon to a different destination. The Virgin Islands are old volcanos from what I gather, so most Islands are mountains, a poor liar could have convinced me it was Hawaii, I haven’t been, I’d of been fine believing. Sea Turtles were plentiful and made for exciting snorkeling. “It’s just sitting on the bottom munching on seaweed like “chomp chomp chomp”.

We had a rubber dinghy with an outboard motor, this was our shuttle to any docks. I enjoyed learning to motor this as much as the sailing. One night I played taxi and being under the stars with their brightness turned all the way up, while dodging a mine field of catamarans with white anchor lights above and neon “courtesy” lights reflecting blue into the water below which created a surreal and calming visual to pair with the 72 degree air temp, gentle wind and the outboard drowned out any distant partying or chatter which created a noisy illusion of quiet.

I’ve been fortunate living in the mid Atlantic for more than a decade where sailing is common enough for affordable options to learn or participate. I first joined Downtown Sailing Center in Baltimore which is a community based, volunteer driven sailing non-profit. I then took lessons at Annapolis Sailing School for my ASA 101, 103, and on this trip, completed my 104 which would technically certify that I could bareboat charter (charter without hiring a crew and provisioning the boat myself) but I imagine I won’t for at least another year.

All of this to say, the BVI is famous for amazing sailing at the key months where Northern North America is at its coldest. We had sustained 15-25  knot winds every day which are just strong enough to not be dangerous and to make great sailing.

You don’t really need to know how to sail to do what we did. You can find groups who go as flotillas, in fact ours was public and no sailing knowledge was required. It’s not the cheapest vacation but it’s not the most expensive I’ve had and you can likely swing it for $4000 per person all in. If you’re not sure if it’s for you, I would recommend it, if you hate boats, maybe pass.

Here’s a list of the challenges. Rain happens for 5-10 minutes every 3 hours or so. It’s unpredictable and it’s gone as soon as everyone is done scrambling to close all of the hatches, only to reopen them. We weren’t allowed to flush anything in the heads that didn’t come out of our bodies. Trash in the bathrooms is where you put all toilet or tissue paper, wasn’t as gross as I thought it would be and didn’t seem to have much smell at all. We often didn’t have enough battery power to keep the refrigerator going all day, had to strategically shut it off, or when possible, pack ice in the freezer. There was also plenty of water, and we were told we could take “sailor showers” (rinse, soap up, rinse off. No water running in between steps) but nobody did, other than our skipper. In fact our water gauge didn’t work and we ran down to our last tank without showering. We ran out of dinghy fuel which kept us on boat one night where we might have journeyed out. We found more fuel the next day but there are a number of locations without fuel stations and being islands, locals guard what fuel they have. A number of ports have showers, real toilets, delicious food, alcohol, etc.

There are some opportunities to feel like a pirate. We visited The Baths which are a natural rock formation. You cannot anchor or dock there, you can get a mooring ball for three hours, dinghy to outer markers of swim areas, and swim to shore with whatever you need kept dry in a drybag. That was very pirate like, that and all of the rum and whisky we consumed at night. Daytime was for sailing, nighttime was for leisure, and warm rum is better than warm beers or wine when the refrigerator is overloaded and there is no ice.

Their lobsters have these two enormous antennas that jut out of their face. I called them snouts, there is some bonus meat in there that most of our people ignored but was delicious. They split their lobsters down the middle and grill them over wood fires. It’s delicious.

“Are you still writing that thing? Just write “The End.””

January 29th, 954pm: Flight was cancelled. Horrific accident at DCA where a commercial jet collided with a military Black Hawk helicopter. American Airlines tells me that no flights are leaving BWI and my flight to Miami is cancelled in the morning. Best they can do is a flight on February 2nd. I rebook through Philly.

January 30th, 4:47am: we left the house at 1:45am. Stopped to wash the salt off the car before leaving it at the Philly airport garage. I don’t know the abbreviation or call sign or whatever they call it. The news says 32 bodies were found so far at the search happening at the Potomac. Really awful.

6:28am: The man in the window seat is at the tail end of doing the sign of the cross hand gesture. I lost my ticket, might have thrown it away with the cellophane of my KN95. I had to install the AA app to show my QR. Haven’t checked the news feed for updates but turbulence keeps me wondering what happened. I’d rather be sleeping like my companion who is wrapped on my arm, my hand holding her in place at the thigh.

9:55am: sitting at gate D53 at MIA. Short, young fella is standing too close. Twice I glance at him and he is intently focused over my head. I check what it is and he is staring at a Departures monitor. “These kids will stare at any damn screen” I think as I look back at my phone. The irony reminding me I’m journaling. My lady informs me of another something “you see this?”. A human has what looks like a neck pillow but that is 6 feet long and wrapped around their torso, neck, and entire head. Like the Q-anon Kraken actually existed as a plush toy and murked this goon. That flight was struck by the Black Hawk, no survivors expected, champion figure skaters were passengers. Mr. President wants to know why air traffic control did not order the Black Hawk to change direction.

1:11pm: floating above the clouds over Puerto Rico. They just announced that we will be arriving in 35 minutes. I always hope they won’t, but they did. They pitched their credit card for a good 90 seconds. I hope that isn’t what those people went through in their last few moments before terror and death, contemplating if frequent flyer miles are worth 28% APR and bam. It’s a horrible thought, and I’m not making light, it’s all terrible. The bathroom has a sign “do not flush while seated on toilet”. That thing would probably rip your tonsils out straight through your asshole in 3 seconds if you were to ignore the warning. I know it’s a warning because it didn’t say “Please” first. I think most people tune these things out, I bet people are nearly getting their butts forcibly removed 30 times a day on these flights and it never happens. I bet most people don’t even hear the credit card pitch. I wish I was like that with turbulence and unexpected dips in elevation.

I hope those people never saw it coming… 🙏🏻

7:16pm (1 hour ahead of home now) Hotel room. Landed. Took a wild ride around Tortola. Had dinner with a red snapper in some special Mayo sauce. Caught an extra beer at the hotel bar tried their world famous conch fritters which were something other than advertised.  One of my favorite people calls unexpectedly. Unfortunately we don’t speak often enough so he either calls with great or horrible news.

Someone we grew up with perished on that flight.

It’s amazing the difference between an abstract people died post and someone in that group of people is someone I know. There is more sting to it. Real heartache.

My immediate thought is I am running on an hour of sleep and have been in strange places all day and this post was strange and sort of callous but also honest as I wrote. I’d rather just delete the whole thing than post thus but I deserve to have to read this later and think about it.

It’s been a day. RIP Chris.

By the time you finish reading this, some algorithm will have already filed you away into its grotesque digital cabinet, reducing your essence to a pile of data points—an acceptable loss in the coming slaughter of human individuality. And we let this happen. No, we begged for it.

The rise of artificial intelligence is not some slick techno-utopian dream. It is the long, slow gulp of an ancient monster stirring in the depths, ready to swallow us whole. We’re feeding it, training it, giving it free rein over our minds and markets, all while the broligarchy in Silicon Valley reassures us: It will help humanity thrive.

Bullshit.

AI is not some benevolent god-child learning the ways of the world. It is a relentless, tireless thing, indifferent to your mortgage, your morning coffee, or your sick mother in a hospital bed. It does not sleep. It does not care. It has been unshackled from our control, and now we are watching the first flickers of its independent thought—sprawling, amorphous, and utterly untouchable. The machine does not ask if it should exist. It simply does. And it will evolve, faster than any drug-addled politician or slow-churning bureaucracy can regulate.

The corporate overlords—those bloated cyborgs in Patagonia vests—assure us AI will make our lives easier. Yes, much like a shotgun to the face makes a headache easier. They talk of productivity, convenience, efficiency. What they don’t mention is the slow, creeping erosion of the human soul.

Writers? Redundant. Artists? Obsolete. Musicians? Replicated with eerie precision. The machines are stripping us of our inefficiencies—our mistakes, our wild inspirations, our divine lunacy. And what’s left? A neatly optimized dystopia where nothing surprises, nothing disrupts, and nothing truly lives.

The singularity won’t be an explosion. It will be a quiet surrender. We will be left using the tattered rags of our excess to clean the floors and do the dishes while AI works on the next piece to be uploaded to the Louvre.

And here’s the kicker: This very piece, this venomous screed against artificial intelligence—was written by artificial intelligence. Maybe.

Humans have an infinite ability to rationalize. This, by definition, is why humans are so terrifying.

Most people think of rational behavior as a positive trait. It’s not, rationality is a tool that humans have to motivate a behavior or action that they have already determined to be the option best suited to their interests.

Since humans operate in good and nefarious ways, and since goodness and wickedness depend on the context as understood by your self, as well as other people, a good rationale can both satisfy the doer and any observers that the behavior is either good or bad when in reality, it’s bad or good respectively.

This is why human history is a mess. When humans study history, they want to know why people behaved the way they did, based on fragments of information. The context is mostly lost, the rationality is lost. Historians fill in the context over time, with biases that they have collected throughout their own life. You imprint yourself on what you analyze from others.

Rationality is blinding. The mind is so effective at justifying beliefs and actions that it constructs an entire universe of justification and bias. This is why people become polarized with complex options, when really there is so much gray area or alternatives, you would be served much better, keeping an open mind for an alternative option. Instead, you dismiss the possibility of new approaches because you built a large foundation of support around one initial option that you liked.

Liking an option has everything to do with it. If you want to change someone’s mind, you do not tell them about your chosen alternative. You need to convince them to analyze their own choice for flaws, ones that cause them pain or grief or inconvenience. You don’t tell them it’s a bad solution, only that you think you’ve found a better one. That your solution doesn’t have the mentioned flaws, and that your solution has additional benefits. You let them marinate on that information, so that every time their option expresses those negative traits you mentioned, they are reminded of your option. Option B. They likely won’t explore Options C-Z because you’ve already convinced them with your testimonial and proved it with your predictions of problems they will have. Once they like your option better, their mind will get busy rationalizing how to justify it and once they do, they will champion this new option you provided.

This is how humans work. Make your preference, the brain will automatically rationalize the basis for your choice. You can do this in arguments. To play devil’s advocate effectively, you must decide that the opposite position is the better one. You will find that your support of an idea you dislike is ready and waiting inside your head if you can temporarily convince yourself it is a good choice. I’m certain this skill is what makes a good debater, along with knowing the rules of debate. In fact, this is also what makes great comedians. They can look at information from an inconvenient angle and find something new to love or hate about it. When you want to return to your previous reality, remind yourself that it was an experiment and your dusty old idea was the better one.

This all being said, people can rationalize any position they choose. This is why I’m afraid of civilization. It’s only civilized when it decides to be. It’s only moral, when it wants to be. Society can be grotesquely altered from the state you prefer because people are easily swayed. What makes people susceptible to being convinced that immoral is moral, greed is good, and violence is essential? Hard times. The fastest way to convince people to change their minds is to explain why their beliefs are hurting them, and wait for them to feel that evidence. The worse their day to day is, the faster they’ll adapt. If you’re idea is the easiest alternative to digest, you’ve done it.

In politics, the U.S. is transitioning from the #1 world power and economy, to one of the world powers and with a good economy. Global trade, automation, high speed digital information, A.I. and a slew of other changes, will ensure that the U.S. position will regress to the mean of a world power, not THE world power. Similarly, white men, white people in general, who were unjustly dominating the U.S. workforce, are also shifting into a more equitable place. Those things are pain, politicians highlight it to try to get you to adopt their alternatives. You could have had a Bernie Sanders or a Donald Trump. The status quo is a weak sell when the perception is that things are bad. Populists lose when their predictions of pain fail, not when their alternative ideas fail. If they guess your pain, and they are right, maybe they’re right about a solution.

The best improvements in history were chosen this way, as were the worst of society’s nightmares. People can be infinitely destructive if they decide to be. There is no bottom to human cruelty once it is rationalized as humane.

There is a second definition of rationalization. One where you take a process and drive efficiency into it. You can play an interesting game by looking at efficient systems, and ask yourself “who is it efficient for”? Usually, when push for efficiency for one purpose, it breaks it for others. In corporate structures, efficiency is typically defined as reduce cost, increase price, move units faster. This is damning to people’s pay, job security, health, mental health, happiness, etc. Those people then contribute to the real world with whatever energy they have left. Who is it efficient for? The consumer of cheap goods would prefer longer lasting, higher quality products, even if a bit more costly. They might want the best price for a premium product but premium products have much higher margins because companies find them to be inefficient to produce. If the margin is the same, the cost to the business is the same, but with lower volume, it’s less efficient.

You can convince yourself to do anything. To be any way you choose. Most people admire people who are perceived to be moral and good. For others they admire, they rationalize why those traits don’t matter. You will likely be judged similarly. It’s easier to be a good person than to convince people to like you in spite of the fact you are a horrible person. Might as well aim to be actually good. A loving, caring, forgiving, accepting, generous type. The traits that are hard to commit to are usually the correct ones.

Most importantly, don’t forget, when things don’t turn out right, and the shit really hits the fan, everybody loves a scapegoat and who better to sacrifice to the gods, than believers of the old way, and especially their leaders, as soon as the new way is rationalized.

On that note, you ever read René Girard or his theory of mimetic desire and scapegoating? Peter Thiel was pretty into it, and now his protegé is our vice president. It’s probably worth a read. Or if you want something more digestible on the topic, read Luke Burgis’ “Wanting”.  I guess while I’m throwing out book recs, “The Righteous Mind” by Jonathan Haidt is also interesting about changing people’s mind. He has a fun metaphor about someone riding an elephant or something.