Tag Archives: politics

Book Review: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

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“The Wealth of Nations” is one of the most influential books in the history of economic thought. Written by Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith, this monumental work laid the intellectual foundation for modern capitalism and classical economics. Published in 1776—the same year as the American Declaration of Independence—the book reflects the growing importance of commerce, industry, and the division of labor in the rapidly changing world of the 18th century.

Smith’s work isn’t merely about money or wealth; it’s a profound exploration of how human self-interest, when channeled through free markets, can lead to collective prosperity. Despite being over two centuries old, many of its ideas continue to shape economic policy and debate today.

The Wealth of Nations is divided into five books, each tackling a major component of economic theory:

  1. Book I: Of the Causes of Improvement in the Productive Powers of Labour
    • Focuses on the division of labor, productivity, and how specialization enhances efficiency.
    • Introduces the famous example of a pin factory, illustrating how breaking tasks into components greatly increases output.
  2. Book II: Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment of Stock
    • Discusses capital, investment, and how savings drive economic growth.
    • Explores the concept of money, banks, and credit.
  3. Book III: Of the Different Progress of Opulence in Different Nations
    • Examines historical patterns of economic development in various nations.
    • Looks at the shift from agriculture to commerce and manufacturing.
  4. Book IV: Of Systems of Political Economy
    • A critique of mercantilism, the dominant economic philosophy of the time.
    • Introduces Smith’s argument for free trade and minimal government interference.
    • Discusses the “invisible hand” concept, where individuals pursuing self-interest unintentionally contribute to societal benefit.
  5. Book V: Of the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth
    • Focuses on public finance, taxation, and the role of government.
    • Argues that government has three duties: defense, justice, and public works.

🔹 The Division of Labor

Smith emphasizes that productivity improves dramatically when labor is divided into specialized tasks. This insight is a foundational principle of modern economics and production.

🔹 The Invisible Hand

Perhaps the most famous metaphor in economics, the “invisible hand” suggests that when individuals act out of self-interest, they inadvertently promote the welfare of society as a whole. Smith believed that free markets naturally regulate themselves without the need for heavy-handed government control.

🔹 Free Markets vs. Mercantilism

Smith sharply criticizes mercantilism, which focused on accumulating gold and maintaining trade surpluses. Instead, he argues that wealth comes from productive capacity—not just hoarding money. Free trade, competition, and open markets lead to prosperity for all.

🔹 Role of Government

Contrary to some modern misinterpretations, Smith did not advocate for a completely laissez-faire system. He recognized essential roles for government:

  • Protecting the nation (defense)
  • Administering justice (courts and law enforcement)
  • Providing public goods (infrastructure, education)

🔹 Labor Theory of Value

Smith proposed that the value of goods is derived from the labor required to produce them, a concept that would later influence economists like David Ricardo and even Karl Marx.

🔹 Wealth Through Productivity

A core message is that the true wealth of a nation isn’t its gold or silver, but its capacity to produce goods and services efficiently through labor, innovation, and investment.

At the time of writing, Europe was undergoing profound change. The Industrial Revolution was beginning to reshape economies, and the Age of Exploration had expanded global trade networks.

Smith’s work was revolutionary because it challenged entrenched mercantilist thinking and laid the foundation for classical economics. His ideas influenced:

  • The liberalization of trade in the 19th century.
  • The development of capitalist economies in Britain, the U.S., and elsewhere.
  • Modern economic disciplines, including microeconomics and macroeconomics.

Governments worldwide adopted policies that encouraged free markets, trade liberalization, and industrial growth, partly inspired by Smith’s arguments.

While The Wealth of Nations is a landmark, it has limitations:

  • Overemphasis on Rational Self-Interest: Modern behavioral economics shows that humans don’t always act rationally.
  • Labor Theory of Value Flaws: The labor theory of value has largely been replaced by marginal utility theory in contemporary economics.
  • Underestimation of Monopolies: Smith believed competition would naturally limit monopolies, but today’s economies show that large corporations can stifle competition.
  • Limited Focus on Inequality: Smith was more concerned with overall wealth than how wealth was distributed within society, though he does express concern for the welfare of the poor.

Despite being written in the 18th century, The Wealth of Nations remains highly relevant. Debates about globalization, trade tariffs, taxation, and the role of government often echo Smith’s principles.

In an age of growing concerns about wealth inequality, monopolistic tech giants, and globalization’s downsides, revisiting Smith’s balance between free markets and responsible governance is increasingly valuable.

The Wealth of Nations is more than an economics textbook—it’s a blueprint for understanding how societies generate prosperity. While some ideas have been revised or expanded upon, Adam Smith’s core insights about markets, productivity, and human behavior continue to shape the world.

For anyone interested in economics, politics, or history, reading The Wealth of Nations is not just educational—it’s essential for understanding the foundations of the modern world.

Book Review: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (3rd Edition) by John Perkins

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John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man has, since its first publication in 2004, stirred deep discussions about the hidden machinery of global economic influence. With the release of the 3rd edition, Perkins revisits and updates his now-infamous exposé, incorporating new examples and reflections that bring the narrative firmly into the post-pandemic world and the era of climate change and geopolitical realignments.

A Global Economic Thriller — with a Purpose

The book reads like a political thriller, except it isn’t fiction. Perkins recounts his career as an “Economic Hit Man” (EHM), a role in which he says he was tasked with persuading developing nations to accept massive loans for infrastructure projects. The catch: these projects were designed to benefit multinational corporations while leaving host countries burdened by unpayable debt — a form of neocolonialism masked as development aid.

In the 3rd edition, Perkins goes further than previous iterations, expanding his scope beyond the Americas and Southeast Asia to include insights into modern-day China’s Belt and Road Initiative, corporate-driven climate destruction, and the growing resistance movements that are emerging around the globe. He also connects the dots between economic manipulation and environmental degradation, calling out the role of what he calls the “Death Economy” in fueling both economic inequality and ecological collapse.

What’s New and Notable

The expanded chapters in the 3rd edition include:

  • Reflections on COVID-19 and how the pandemic exposed economic fragility.
  • Analysis of the climate crisis as both symptom and accelerator of exploitative global systems.
  • Updates on countries like Ecuador and Panama, with new stories illustrating ongoing economic subjugation.
  • A call to action: a blueprint for transitioning from a “Death Economy” to a “Life Economy.”

These updates make the book more than just a historical account — they turn it into a manifesto for systemic change.

Strengths

  • Firsthand Insight: Perkins’ confessional tone and detailed anecdotes provide a rare insider’s perspective on how global financial coercion works.
  • Relevance: By tying the tactics of the EHM network to current global issues like climate change and corporate globalization, the book remains timely and urgent.
  • Moral Reckoning: Perkins doesn’t just point fingers; he implicates himself, which lends credibility and complexity to his narrative.

Weaknesses

  • Lack of Independent Verification: Critics have long pointed out that many of Perkins’ claims are difficult to corroborate independently. Some names and entities are pseudonymized or generalized, which may raise questions for skeptical readers.
  • Repetition: Readers of previous editions may find some material reused or rehashed. While this can be helpful for newcomers, returning readers might skim these sections.
  • Simplistic Dichotomies: While the “Death Economy vs. Life Economy” framework is compelling, it sometimes oversimplifies nuanced geopolitical and economic realities.

Final Verdict

Perhaps more than any previous edition, the 3rd edition of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man serves as both a warning and a guide. Perkins doesn’t just tell us how the system works; he urges us to change it. The blend of memoir, geopolitical analysis, and moral call-to-action makes this edition essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how economic power is wielded in the 21st century — and what we might do to reclaim it.

Getting In Touch with My Best Friend from High School

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Mentally I was feeling quite depressed and hopeless for the last several days. Finally, last night, I had a decent chat with my best friend. She and I have been best friends since high school. We went to prom together one year but were never romantically involved.

My friend, who lives in Denver, has come to the conclusion that her city is getting bad enough with the crime, homelessness, drug abuse, unemployment, etc. that she’s getting her conceal carry permit. She already owns a pistol and goes to a shooting range every so often.

She works for a landlord who owns several properties in Denver. My friend often has to deal with repair orders, deadbeats, and forced evictions. Says that drug abuse is not even hidden in most of those properties. Trash is all over the facilities as are broken appliances and rampant vandalism.

She’s always having arguments with tenants who can’t or won’t pay rent, can’t or won’t vacate properties when the lease is up, rampant sanitation problems, people always wanting to fight, etc. She always carries a bottle of bear spray on her person when she’s visiting her bosses’ properties in case the tenants get too unruly or violent. She’s received lots of death threats from tenants.

Things are getting really bad out there, I’m sure almost everyone knows this. The assassination attempt on Former President Trump and President Biden’s declining health are making things even worse.

I’m so not looking forward to the November election. I’m preparing to bunker down and stay off peoples’ radars for a real long time. I think things will far uglier in the coming months and years. I don’t see any way out except batten down the hatches and plow through it with pure grit and guts.

Since I don’t go out in public much anymore, I might be able to blend in and disappear easier than some. As much as I dread living in a suburb of a large city for when social chaos does happen, I just didn’t see any other option if I was to stay in touch with my immediate family.

I used to live in Nebraska. All of my friends left that state years ago. I didn’t have much for extended family except for a few elderly aunts and some cousins that I’m just not sure I can count on when shit gets really bad. But, I never had much of a support system in Nebraska my entire life even when things were good.

Strangely, I saw a lot of this starting to develop when I was still in high school. Since I grew up in a predominately right-wing community, I was taught that those on the left wing were evil, hated democracy, hated small business, hated agriculture, and generally were not friends to the working class.

Ironically, kids growing up in left wing communities were told the exact same shit about right wingers. It’s like we were predestined to turn on each other.

I’m glad I heard from my best friend. She has the exact same concerns I do. I just don’t know how many more opportunities I will have to communicate with her until things get ugly, I’m talking collapse of nations type ugly. Nations rise and nations fall. It’s pretty much the story of history summed up in one sentence.

Possibilities of Mass Technological Unemployment

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This going to be a long post, but please bear with me. I have a series of questions as a bit of a thought exercise and discussion that doesn’t often get discussed in public, not even by futurists: How soon do you think it will be before we see mass technological unemployment and the 21st century version of The Luddites?

Only in the last few months has the mainstream media started even talking about AI replacing and augmenting human workers even though I first read about in on futuretimeline.net back in 2013. Read Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity Is Near and all the works of Peter Diamandis shortly after. Neither of these guys, nor any other techies I’ve read in the last ten years, have discussed in detail how we as a civilization manage this transition.

Every mainstream economist seems to think automation will create more jobs than it eliminates because that’s the way it’s always been. High rollers like Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger previously said AI will amount to nothing, at least publicly. But these are the same guys who missed out on the computer and internet revolutions years ago. Their investors missed out on a lot of profits by these two not putting even a few percent of their holdings into Silcon Valley firms like Facebook, Twitter, Tesla, and Google when they first went public. I was telling everyone I knew to buy a few shares of these companies back then. I would have but forums like robin hood didn’t yet exist. God forbid peasants like me make a few bucks through the stock market.

Been trying to tell everyone I know about this ever since 2013. Most people outside my facebook techie groups, until recently, thought I was a hopeless dreamer at best and a liar at worst. It’s only a matter of time before the mainstream media starts discussing technological unemployment as a daily lead story. And I am convinced the public at large will panic in unexpected ways, like people hording toilet paper during covid. But far worse.

Been recently reading about The Luddites in early 19th century England burning down textile plants and killing factory managers. These skilled craftsmen were suddenly without means to support themselves even though they spent years working on their craft. Imagine if college educated white collar workers with tens of thousands in student loans and hundreds of thousands in mortgage debts find themselves unemployed by the millions over the course of several years?

Half of Americans already have less than 500 dollars of emergency savings. Almost half of current retirees have zero saved up besides social security in my country. Social security is a “pay as you go” system. Has been ever since it was instituted in the 1930s. And it’s funding comes from taxing current workers to pay for the retirees and disabled like myself. There are US government projections that the social security fund could run dry by 2035 if massive changes to the tax system and funding aren’t implemented. Since congress seems determined to fight among itself and do nothing, this could become a reality.

If this industrial revolution we are currently living through destroys more jobs than it creates, like some in my techie groups on facebook have been predicting for several years, how do we get the displaced workers and fear driven public on board? In my country, debt to gross domestic product (think annual wages if nations were individual workers) is already over 120 percent. Granted this isn’t as bad as many places, but my congress already wants to massively cut programs. That’s why it’s very possible the US could default on its loans eventually.

Over half of this money is owed to US citizens. Only 2 percent is owed China anymore. They, along with dozens of other nations, have been slowly getting out over the last several years. So even foreigners know something is fishy about US money. Discussions on raising taxes haven’t gone anywhere for decades. We’ve actually been lowering taxes for years. My countrymen still complain about taxes even though are tax rates are lower than most developed countries. In theory, we can print money as long as people are willing to us it. Granted that’s how hyperinflation happens (meaning money becomes worthless). It happened even in the very advanced nation of Germany in the 1920s. Currently happening in Argentina, Turkey, among others. That economic collapse ultimately resulted in the Nazi Party taking power. Don’t think it can’t happen again in other rich and advanced nations. I’ve been scared of something like this happening in my own country ever since I read ‘1984’ and ‘Fahrenheit 451’ twenty five years ago. I’m more scared of it than ever now.

How do we handle the displaced hundreds of millions of workers who simply don’t have the skills to level up or self-educate? Do we try to institute a UBI system with our current economics and politics? Knowing my countrymen like I do, this will probably not be popular even if 50 percent of the workforce loses their jobs to automation. We can’t even get Universal Healthcare or High-Speed Rail even though most developed countries have had these for decades.

Do we drop the prices on everything so even people living on part time gig work and welfare can afford the basics? Do private foundations pick up where government can’t go? Do we just put 3D printers in every home, vertical farms in every town, and make money as unnecessary as possible?

The ‘Not In My Backyard’ attitude is strong in my nation. We’ve known we have a shortage in affordable housing for years and we still won’t build cheap housing in most places. Personally, I’d rather live next door to a nuclear power plant than a cattle yard or oil refinery. Can we solve homelessness with rapid 3D printed homes and just sell these homes for cheap or even outright just give them away? Knowing my countrymen’s attitudes towards the homeless and poor, this doesn’t look like that will fly either even though we already have the tech to make this work. Most people in my society simply have no empathy towards the struggle of others until tragedy effects them directly. It’s why we had over one million people die from covid even though we were among the first to rapidly produce vaccines and effective treatments. A significant chunk of the populace, including most people I personally know, still feel lockdowns and mask mandates were a violation of personal freedoms. This is the case even though most people in my social circle know at least one person who died from covid. Some people are epically heartless and soulless. And most people in my social circles are regular church attenders.

I don’t know the answers to any of these. I haven’t seen any of this discussed by the public at large. This isn’t even on most politicians’ radar. Andrew Yang discussed this in 2020 only to get one percent of the primaries votes and dismissed as a communist. I still remember the press and his political rivals dismissing him as Comrade Yang.

This isn’t the first time a fringe candidate was dismissed but years later proven right. In 1992, Ross Perot warned that globalization and free trade would destroy the middle class in America and most developed nations. He was dismissed as a crank by everyone from CNN to Saturday Night Live. Sadly, he was proven right years after the fact. We can’t count on most governments as they are decades behind the curve. It wasn’t until recently that the Biden administration appointed an “AI czar.” Remains to be seen if the incoming Trump administration will do likewise.

They are about ten years too late. I’m interested in hearing how other nations are planning on dealing with this. I truly believe we can have a great future as a species where even the poorest of poor people live well. But we seem to have no plans to manage the transition. Any thoughts? I always enjoy hearing from my readers.

Possibilities of Mass Technological Unemployment

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This going to be a long post, but please bear with me. I have a series of questions as a bit of a thought exercise and discussion that doesn’t often get discussed in public, not even by futurists: How soon do you think it will be before we see mass technological unemployment and the 21st century version of The Luddites?

Only in the last few months has the mainstream media started even talking about AI replacing and augmenting human workers even though I first read about in on futuretimeline.net back in 2013. Read Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity Is Near and all the works of Peter Diamandis shortly after. Neither of these guys, nor any other techies I’ve read in the last ten years, have discussed in detail how we as a civilization manage this transition.

Every mainstream economist seems to think automation will create more jobs than it eliminates because that’s the way it’s always been. High rollers like Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger previously said AI will amount to nothing, at least publicly. But these are the same guys who missed out on the computer and internet revolutions years ago. Their investors missed out on a lot of profits by these two not putting even a few percent of their holdings into Silcon Valley firms like Facebook, Twitter, Tesla, and Google when they first went public. I was telling everyone I knew to buy a few shares of these companies back then. I would have but forums like robin hood didn’t yet exist. God forbid peasants like me make a few bucks through the stock market.

Been trying to tell everyone I know about this ever since 2013. Most people outside my facebook techie groups, until recently, thought I was a hopeless dreamer at best and a liar at worst. It’s only a matter of time before the mainstream media starts discussing technological unemployment as a daily lead story. And I am convinced the public at large will panic in unexpected ways, like people hording toilet paper during covid. But far worse.

Been recently reading about The Luddites in early 19th century England burning down textile plants and killing factory managers. These skilled craftsmen were suddenly without means to support themselves even though they spent years working on their craft. Imagine if college educated white collar workers with tens of thousands in student loans and hundreds of thousands in mortgage debts find themselves unemployed by the millions over the course of several years?

Half of Americans already have less than 500 dollars of emergency savings. Almost half of current retirees have zero saved up besides social security in my country. Social security is a “pay as you go” system. Has been ever since it was instituted in the 1930s. And it’s funding comes from taxing current workers to pay for the retirees and disabled like myself. There are US government projections that the social security fund could run dry by 2035 if massive changes to the tax system and funding aren’t implemented. Since congress seems determined to fight among itself and do nothing, this could become a reality.

If this industrial revolution we are currently living through destroys more jobs than it creates, like some in my techie groups on facebook have been predicting for several years, how do we get the displaced workers and fear driven public on board? In my country, debt to gross domestic product (think annual wages if nations were individual workers) is already over 120 percent. Granted this isn’t as bad as many places, but my congress already wants to massively cut programs. That’s why it’s very possible the US could default on its loans eventually.

Over half of this money is owed to US citizens. Only 2 percent is owed China anymore. They, along with dozens of other nations, have been slowly getting out over the last several years. So even foreigners know something is fishy about US money. Discussions on raising taxes haven’t gone anywhere for decades. We’ve actually been lowering taxes for years. My countrymen still complain about taxes even though are tax rates are lower than most developed countries. In theory, we can print money as long as people are willing to us it. Granted that’s how hyperinflation happens (meaning money becomes worthless). It happened even in the very advanced nation of Germany in the 1920s. Currently happening in Argentina, Turkey, among others. That economic collapse ultimately resulted in the Nazi Party taking power. Don’t think it can’t happen again in other rich and advanced nations. I’ve been scared of something like this happening in my own country ever since I read ‘1984’ and ‘Fahrenheit 451’ twenty five years ago. I’m more scared of it than ever now.

How do we handle the displaced hundreds of millions of workers who simply don’t have the skills to level up or self-educate? Do we try to institute a UBI system with our current economics and politics? Knowing my countrymen like I do, this will probably not be popular even if 50 percent of the workforce loses their jobs to automation. We can’t even get Universal Healthcare or High-Speed Rail even though most developed countries have had these for decades.

Do we drop the prices on everything so even people living on part time gig work and welfare can afford the basics? Do private foundations pick up where government can’t go? Do we just put 3D printers in every home, vertical farms in every town, and make money as unnecessary as possible?

The ‘Not In My Backyard’ attitude is strong in my nation. We’ve known we have a shortage in affordable housing for years and we still won’t build cheap housing in most places. Personally, I’d rather live next door to a nuclear power plant than a cattle yard or oil refinery. Can we solve homelessness with rapid 3D printed homes and just sell these homes for cheap or even outright just give them away? Knowing my countrymen’s attitudes towards the homeless and poor, this doesn’t look like that will fly either even though we already have the tech to make this work. Most people in my society simply have no empathy towards the struggle of others until tragedy effects them directly. It’s why we had over one million people die from covid even though we were among the first to rapidly produce vaccines and effective treatments. A significant chunk of the populace, including most people I personally know, still feel lockdowns and mask mandates were a violation of personal freedoms. This is the case even though most people in my social circle know at least one person who died from covid. Some people are epically heartless and soulless. And most people in my social circles are regular church attenders.

I don’t know the answers to any of these. I haven’t seen any of this discussed by the public at large. This isn’t even on most politicians’ radar. Andrew Yang discussed this in 2020 only to get one percent of the primaries votes and dismissed as a communist. I still remember the press and his political rivals dismissing him as Comrade Yang.

This isn’t the first time a fringe candidate was dismissed but years later proven right. In 1992, Ross Perot warned that globalization and free trade would destroy the middle class in America and most developed nations. He was dismissed as a crank by everyone from CNN to Saturday Night Live. Sadly, he was proven right years after the fact. We can’t count on most governments as they are decades behind the curve. It wasn’t until recently that the Biden administration appointed an “AI czar.” Remains to be seen if the incoming Trump administration will do likewise.

They are about ten years too late. I’m interested in hearing how other nations are planning on dealing with this. I truly believe we can have a great future as a species where even the poorest of poor people live well. But we seem to have no plans to manage the transition. Any thoughts? I always enjoy hearing from my readers.

April 24 2022

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Finally got some rain. It’s been drought here for a long time. Seems like we have range fires every day somewhere in the state anymore.

Spending most of my at home these days in spite the warmer weather. I am just content to not socialize. Mentally I am still stable. Feeling less paranoid these days. I still sleep a lot. Eat usually only twice a day. Some days I eat only once. I think I’m still losing weight

I try not to pay attention to the news. Between the war, the number of covid cases going back up, and how hateful politics still are, it’s more than I can bear. I get overload so easily anymore. Makes me worry about the future. I’m glad I don’t have kids or a career as messed up as things have gotten. I just don’t see things ever improving.

Things I Don’t Understand

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I readily admit there are things about my fellow humans I don’t understand. And I never will. Of course having a mental illness makes it almost impossible to read people. But here is a short list of things I don’t understand (and likely never will). It is not meant to be a comprehensive list. Here goes:

Things I Don’t Understand

Celebrity worship

Obsession over designer clothes

Gender reveal parties

Beauty pagents for children

Little league parents

Parents giving participation trophies to kids and then complaining about kids receiving participation trophies

Teachers and adults who tell kids “Wait until you have a job, kids, etc.” And then never acknowledging the kids who learned from their elders’ mistakes as adults.

Too Big To Fail

Too Small To Succeed

Treating politicians like rock stars

Treating scientists and doctors like idiots

Prosperity Gospel

The belief everyone has to have an opinion on everything

Cancel culture

Most Tik Tok videos

Most Twitter tweets

Arguing over petty nonsense on social media with complete strangers

Prideful and willful ignorance

Being proud of having no compassion and empathy

The belief that apologizing when wrong means one is a weakling

People who think the world is more violent than ever when all the data says otherwise

Adults complaining about kids not supporting certain businesses or industries. It’s called voting with your money. People used to call that the free market

The appeal of the philosophy of Ayn Rand

The appeal of country rap

Vaping

Bragging about how much you work

Bragging about how much you hate your job

Bragging about how much you hate your in laws

Bragging about how bad your ex was

Believing there is virtue in being a victim

The acceptance and praise of mediocrity in all it’s forms

Reruns of Jackass and Beavis and Butt Head

The Bachelor and Bachelorette

Most reality tv

People complaining about how Hollywood doesn’t have any new ideas. That’s why Netflix and Amazon Prime are so popular these days. And there are thousands, if not millions, of people in youtube making original content on a daily basis, often on shoe string budgets and with just a smart phone or laptop

People who worry about dystopic futures yet refuse to acknowledge that the past was dystopic for most people, especially racial minorities, religious minorities, anyone not obviously heterosexual, slaves, women, and children.

Most print magazines

The belief that the internet is a luxury. Twenty years ago, it was. But now over 5 billion people (on a planet of almost 8 billion people) now have access to it.

The belief that the USA is the only country in the world with debt problems

The celebration of sociopaths and psychopaths in popular entertainment

Treating politics like religion

Treating science like a matter of opinion

Believing money is evil

Believing technology is evil

Most conspiracy theories

Caring more about your kids’ grades in school than if they are learning anything

The outdated belief that learning only takes place in school or has to be tedious and boring

Requiring college degrees for most jobs

These are just a few things I don’t understand. Once again, it’s not meant to be a comprehensive list. It was merely for fun and a change of pace

My Online Confessions

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I’m going off subject for this article.  It has been too long since I wrote a just for fun piece.  For this one, I’m going to disclose some facts about myself.  Some will be funny, some may be unpopular, but all of them are true.  So here goes:

  1. My three favorite hobbies are computer games, writing, and weight lifting.
  2. I love nonfiction science books.
  3. I can’t stand dystopic novels or movies (which, unfortunately, is most of tv in recent years).
  4. My favorite pizza toppings are pepperoni and Italian sausage
  5. I can’t stand most fast food.  I haven’t even had a Big Mac in over two years
  6. I get very irritated when people ask me “when are you getting married?”  Sometimes I want to retort to them, especially if they are older than I am, “when are you going to die?”
  7. I don’t like watching sports as much now as I did when I was in my teens and twenties.  But I do mainly so I can have something to talk about with family and friends.
  8. I can’t stand most cable news channels.  I like some business news channels, namely Bloomberg, because they report on things like science and tech breakthroughs more than politics and disaster.
  9. I don’t tolerate rudeness from others in my online interactions.  And I never give second chances to people I don’t personally know.  No exceptions.
  10. I often go out of my way to defend younger people, especially college age and those just starting out in adulthood.  I remember how bad it hurt being stereotyped as a “damn kid” even when I was in grade school.  When I was a teenager I promised myself I would never put anyone else through what I was forced to endure.  Certainly makes me unpopular with my elders and even people my own age.
  11. I don’t understand why it’s popular to be dumb.  Never have and never will.
  12. I don’t understand why it’s evil to be smart.  Never have and never will.
  13. When I write, I find writing in the first person point of view far easier than third person.  Always have.  My best material has always been with myself serving as the narrator.  Even most of my early poems and novel rough drafts were in the first person.
  14. I once had an outline for a science fiction series of novels.  It was mainly about humanity several thousand years with various human settlements declaring independence from an interstellar empire.  Pretty much think Star Trek, Dune, and a touch of the American Civil War.  Sadly I no longer have those notes.
  15. I once had the goal of becoming a best selling writer where half of all my writing and speaking profits would go to philanthropy, namely mental illness research and to the college I graduated from.
  16. High school was some of the toughest years of my life.
  17. College was one of the few places I felt that I wasn’t a complete outcast.  It was one of the only places I met people more eccentric than I am.  I loved college.  Kind of too bad I can’t live in a communal type setting with other researchers, academics, and eccentrics.
  18. One of the few parts I don’t like about being an adult is how tough it is just to spend time with friends.
  19. One thing I absolutely love about being an adult is that I don’t have to act like I care what other people think about me, at least as long as I’m not breaking the law.
  20. I don’t understand the whole ‘Oh God It’s Monday’ and the ‘Thank God It’s Friday’ nonsense.  I never thought it was funny.  Never will.
  21. I don’t understand why it’s funny to hate your in laws or argue with your spouse.  My two best friends I’ve known both for over twenty years.  I can count the number of major arguments I’ve had with the two combined on less than five fingers.  And it certainly doesn’t make our friendships sterile or lifeless or meaningless.  The only time I argue with my parents is during psychotic breakdowns, usually only a couple times per year.
  22. I absolutely despise the phrase “man up.”  I think it’s possibly the stupidest phrase in the English language.  I have never heard anyone tell a woman to “woman up” or an old grandfather to “young down.”  I don’t even hear adults tell kids to “grow up” very often.
  23. I get irritated when I present facts and statistics in a discussion only to be blown off or told I am a lair.
  24. My favorite ice cream is vanilla, simply because it goes good with most toppings and favorings.  It mixes with almost anything.
  25. I like poetry, particularly poems about war, struggle, and overcoming challenges.
  26. I don’t understand why many people can’t see that mental health problems are real.  I mean, the human brain is the most intricate and complex piece of machinery we know about.  Yet, too many people act like nothing can go wrong with it.  Shows a lack of critical thinking on many people’s part.
  27. I am extremely distressed by most education systems not teaching kids how to critically think or be adaptable.  We have known our schools weren’t adapting to the challenges kids would face as adults as far back as the 1980s (at least).  Yet we still teach our kids in 2019 like it was 1919.  I am convinced that is why so many people are anxious and depressed about their lives as adults, simply because they weren’t taught how to adapt to the current realities.  In short, we train kids and teenagers for a local and stable world only to dump them out in a global and rapidly changing world in their early twenties.  And then we have the gall to wonder why they are anxious and struggling in their lives.  We trained them for a world that no longer exists, often to the tune of many thousands of dollars in student debts that will take most of a career to pay off.  If that isn’t child abuse, then nothing is.
  28. I am sometimes lonely.  But I don’t socialize because I don’t want to hear my family and friends endlessly complain.  About the only people in my life who don’t unload their problems on me are my two best friends and my mother.  And it weighs on me and can cause me to be resentful.
  29. I hate being told I’m lucky.  I hate it almost as much as I do being told to “man up.”
  30. I don’t understand why the only manliness most people respect comes out things like war and violence.  Personally, I think Einstein and Newton were every bit as manly as George Patton and Napoleon.  Why is being a thinker considered a sign of weakness?  Hell, if it weren’t for thinkers, there would be no civilization and humanity would probably be extinct.  Think about that the next time you condemn someone for resorting to their brains before their fists or guns.
  31. I don’t understand zero sum thinking.  The idea that someone has to lose for me to gain a benefit is a load of crap.
  32. Don’t discuss politics with me.  Ever.
  33. I have never thought having lots of sex makes a man manly or a woman immoral.  Some people just like sex more than others.
  34. I have lost more jobs and friendships than I can remember because I never gave up on trying to think for myself.  Found out the hard way the world doesn’t respect original thinkers, at least not before they make major breakthroughs.
  35. I am convinced societies love their living tyrants but condemn their living benefactors only to reverse it once their children become the leaders of society.  So maybe there is a sense of justice, even if it’s only in history books and the minds of future generations.
  36. I don’t believe in most conspiracy theories. But I do believe that just enough of them have just enough truth to them to make the entire subject a dark, addictive, and dangerous one.
  37. I believe we live in one of the coolest times in human history, at least as long as you don’t watch the news channels.  News channels report only negative news precisely because that is what we are hard wired to pay attention to.  Good news sites fail, not because they are “fake news”, but because no one pays attention.
  38. I believe we as a human society can solve our problems (or at least adapt so to minimize the impact) and have a really cool future that we, even in 2019, will be jealous of.

Fighting Battles Against The Pessimism of My Friends and Family

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Been isolating for most of the last week or so even though I desire to have conversations and interact with people again.  Yet a paranoid part of me is fearful of socializing.  When I make it a point go out of my apartment and socialize, I am usually met my irritable and angry people.  Many of my fellow tenants are in foul moods, even more so than usual.  That’s why I don’t socialize with my neighbors.  The very few times people make it a point to interact with me, they are usually upset over often trivial tripe.

I admit I wasn’t raised to be an optimist.  I almost never heard anything positive about life or the world in general even while growing up in a prosperous family during the prosperous 1990s.  Now it just seems like everyone is wanting to fight over the pettiest and stupidest nonsense.  I see it in my friends and family social media posts every day.  I hear it almost every time I call friends and even family on the phone.  I hear from my neighbors every time I step out of my apartment to run errands or even pick up my mail.  And I am burned out.  I’m burned out on all socializing.  I just want to stay home, read my books, and mess with my computers anymore.  I have no interest in interaction with rude, angry, and stupid people.  And people think I need to be on anti psychotic medications.  There seem to be plenty of people out there who probably could stand to be too if their rhetoric in public conversation is any indication.

I am not a optimist by nature.  I used to be a real pessimist, especially in junior high and high school.  I had friends and school mates, when fed up with my moaning, would say things like “drink yourself happy like everyone else” or “snap out of it.”  One of my buddies in college, when I was complaining about constantly being rejected when I asked women on dates, had enough and asked, “Zach, do you believe in God?”  I said, “Yeah”. He then answered, “If God wants you to have a woman in your life, he will miracle you one in a way even you can’t mess it up.  If not, well nothing you can do about it.”    Well, I never did have much success with dating, but I am better off on my own most of the time considering the circumstances.

Over the years of observing things happen in the world and in my own life, by the time I hit my early thirties I came to acknowledge a great truth about life in general.  This truth is that most of what we worry about almost never happens or turns out to be more manageable than previously thought.  Even the tragedies of life, like a range fire, can provide nutrient rich soil for new life and possibilities.  I am actively looking for the positives that will come from our current state of affairs in civilization as a whole.  I saw the UN’s report on climate issues stating that we have only a generation or two to start cleaning things up or we’re going to have to deal with serious consequences.  I understand that many of my friends and readers don’t accept the science behind climate change, but they don’t have to.  Most scientists, many business leaders, and people that can and will make a difference do and are making changes as I write this.  We don’t really need even the majority of people to approve of the changes that are being made.  Sheesh, it was only a small percentage of the population in the American colonies who fought in the Revolution against the British.  And I must say, I’m glad they did.  It was only a small portion of the population back in the late 1800s who wanted to enact voting rights for women and get rid of child labor.  It eventually happened.  I’m glad these things happened.  People who fight against scientific, social, humanitarian, tech, etc. progress usually find themselves on the wrong side of history.  Change is happening all around us.  It can be delayed but it is inevitable.

I’m tired of pessimists in general.  I’ve been surrounded by them my entire life.  I was forced to listen to them growing up because we had no internet to expose the facts and because, well, I had no choice in the matter of who I socialized with growing up in such a small village.  Before the internet, all I knew about of the outside world was what CNN and Fox News bothered to tell my naive Nebraska farm boy ears.  And once I started looking around and seeing most of the predictions of hell on earth not coming to fruition, I became quite angry.  I had spent years not being told what was going right.  I could have made different plans had I had all sides of what was actually going on, not just the bad.  I essentially wasted my teens and most of my twenties, the years of my physical prime, making decisions made from one sided information.  And due to this righteous indignation, I started searching out what was actually going right.

It is tough trying to break my friends and family’s myths about how bad life sucks.  I am almost always met with thunderous silence or told outright that I am a liar.  And it’s tough to remain optimist when few others even try to.  But, let’s face it, the crowds are almost always wrong.  The best thing to do in most cases is the opposite of what everyone else is doing.  Wisdom of crowds my foot.  But I will continue to attempt to break the myths my friends and family cling to, at least the myths that say life sucks.

Optimism for The Future

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Change of subject for this post. The summer is all but over.  And it doesn’t bother me much.  Summers have been my toughest times of year since I started having problems with mental health in my late teens.  I just don’t do well in hot and humid weather.  I have no doubt that being overweight only makes this worse.  But I have lost some weight this summer as I’m down a full shirt size.  I have no delusions that I’ll ever be able to run a marathon but I would love to be in better health again.  There is just so much cool and amazing things happening in science, technology, medicine, humanitarian efforts, and even geopolitics that I would love to hang around for quite awhile just to see what happens.

In spite of our problems and divisions there really are some cool things happening even right now.  Just a few days ago I read an article that stated the two Koreas are talking about placing a joint bid to host the 2032 Summer Olympics.  I would have not imagined that to be possible even five years ago.  I saw another article about a Japanese businessman who’s going to literally fly to the moon and back via SpaceX in 2023, also a few days ago.  And I have little doubt that the first people to set first on Mars have already been born, I wouldn’t be surprised if we do go there within 20 years.  As bad as the hurricane has been to the East Coast, at least we can organize relief and rebuilding efforts more rapidly than we could even fifteen years ago.  Pretty much every space agency in existence is making plans to set up bases on the moon.  Cryptocurrencies have filled in the gaps in some nations where the traditional economy is falling apart.  Kind of kicking myself for not buying into bitcoin when it was only a couple hundred dollars a shot.  Another statistic I read a few days ago that gives me hope is that people that can read are reading three times as much as their predacessors in the early 1980s did.  Granted most of this reading is online articles, tweets, and conversations with friends and colleagues.

Advances are coming in fast and often.  And as connected we as a species and civilization are, they aren’t going to slow down anytime soon.  Get used to it.  Adapt or get left behind.  I may find it frustrating to listen to people talk about the ‘good ol’ days’ but I am also amused when I hear griping about the present and talking how there’s no hope for the future on forums that didn’t even exist twenty years ago.  I might take these types seriously if they were moving into Luddite communes or Amish villages.  I for one say ‘screw the good ol’ days, they weren’t all that great’, especially if you were a racial, religious, or sexual minority, woman, or a child.  And I hope we keep advancing so should I find myself in the 2050s as an old man pining for the 2010s, the youngsters will tell me where go with my nostalgia.  And I hope some of these youngsters can tell me off from a lunar or Martian colony or via computer based telepathy or in full emersion vertical reality.

I am convinced some really cool things are going to happen within our lifetimes, especially if we don’t anything really stupid as a civilization that we can’t easily undo.  As much attention as we pay to national politics, it isn’t the politician who’s going to make a cool reality possible.  The best they can do is pass favorable laws and step aside.  Science the %*&@ out of our problems, to quote ‘The Martian.’ Otherwise other peoples in other nations will bypass these nations and make advances possible.  America and Western Europe are no longer the only shows on Earth, and no amount of whining, politicking, and trade wars are going to change this.  And why not let everyone have a shot at some prosperity?  The sooner we as a species realize that we share the same planet, breathe the same air, drink the same water, and that a species at war with itself is doomed, the better.  At this point, we can achieve some cool stuff as long as we don’t seriously screw up.  We don’t seriously mess up, it won’t be a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when.’  And I feel extremely privileged to be alive to witness these transitions even if the ride gets bumpy and irritating at times.