A new survey from human-resources services firm Aon Hewitt found that companies are spending a record share of their payroll on performance-based bonuses, signaling a shift away from longer-term salary increases.via Bonuses Are the New Raises – At Work – WSJ. Contractors are the new employees, and bonuses are the new raises. Both are part of a work…
The Evolution of my American Nationalism
I am a proud American, and this sentiment has taken many forms over my few decades. Youth I was raised to believe America was a superhero, a boyscout, a beacon on the hill, and I did believe that. We were taught that we did some bad things, and that caution was in order, but overall we were the…
The Open Source (Political) Revolution
Open source everything, in this context, offers us the chance to build on what we’ve learned through industrialisation, to learn from our mistakes, and catalyse the re-opening of the commons, in the process breaking the grip of defunct power structures and enabling the possibility of prosperity for all. ~ Robert David Steele This article is phenomenal. This guy…
Corporations Control Our Free Time
I’ve only been back at work for a few days, but already I’m noticing that the more wholesome activities are quickly dropping out of my life: walking, exercising, reading, meditating, and extra writing. The one conspicuous similarity between these activities is that they cost little or no money, but they take time. ~ FilmsForAction This is a brilliant…
The Rise of the Servant Class
I think we’re about to see the creation of a servant class in the United States. With increasing incoming inequality, and a decreasing number of jobs to be had (that can’t be done by computers or robots), there will be a massive pool of people at the bottom that have little to offer the market. Except helping those…
Minorities Aren’t Reading
The reading scores among 17-year-olds, however, remained relatively unchanged since the 1970s.About 46 percent of white children are considered “proficient” in reading, compared with 18 percent of black children and 20 percent of Hispanic kids. ~ Reuters
Anatomy of the Corporate Soldier
I’ve been frustrated lately with our education system. It’s not a new idea, but it seems increasingly obvious that our high schools and universities are becoming corporate employee farms instead of learning institutions.
High Paying Jobs as an American Priority
I’m baffled by the shortsightedness of those who seek profit at the expense of the middle class and poor. I don’t understand how it’s so attractive to have more and more of less and less rather than a steady, but small piece, of something that’s healthy and growing. Or maybe I do understand that: Perhaps it’s as basic…
Why We Have Abysmal Broadband in the U.S.
What bothers me about the U.S. broadband situation isn’t how bad it is, but that many people seem to think the reason is a mystery. Other advanced nations are providing tens, hundreds, and even gigabits of bandwidth to their citizens, while we wallow in the relative modem-ages. People enjoy saying it’s the size of the country that matters,…
The Fix for America’s Democracy
Everyone seems to know the American experiment is failing, but what we’re not hearing is a crisp reason followed by a solution. Allow me to propose one. The two conflicting forces There are two primary forces in motion within human individuals and human societies: The Selfish Forces are given to us by evolution. They compel us to bite…
America Needs a Prime Directive
America needs a Prime Directive. If we were to capture the current, implied one, it’d be something like: Take advantage of what is around you in order to maximize profit and growth at all costs. Great. We’re good at that, and it’s killing us. It’s time to stop. We need something more sustainable, more respectable, more…well, American.
5 Reasons to Expect Many More Public Shootings
There are five interconnected reasons that you should expect the number of public shootings to rise like a meteor doesn’t.
A One Minute Summary of Obamacare
Most people are either for or against Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) without knowing much about what it is. Let’s solve that in 1 minute.
I Just Saw a 90 Minute Navy Commercial Starring Tom Hanks
I thought Tom Hanks was doing pretty well with the movie career, but evidently he decided to get into commercials. Seriously, though, as someone who used to be an adolescent boy, I know the draw of what’s being done with these movies that highlight the military. It’s the biggest conspiracy that I know of that isn’t actually a…
California is the iPhone, Android is the Tea Party
Here’s an interesting analogy: California is the iPhone. I’m not sure where Android would be, but maybe you can help me pick a place after you hear the idea. Basically, California is the beacon of liberalism, which in this context means promoting a lifestyle that it feels is best for everyone. This means things like: Healthier foods Healthcare…
The Irony of Opposing Government Programs
Many are vehemently opposed to government social programs, with supposedly good reasons. They complain about inefficiency, which I can get behind as well, but most critically they claim that it’s a moral offense to ask one person to pay for services that go to someone else. It’s sad to see good people take such a stance, but apart…
A Simple Answer to the Question of Whether Guns Make Us More or Less Safe
As expected, gun advocates believe guns make us more safe, and those against guns think they make us less so. Interestingly, both groups seem to have data to support their positions. I’ll say first of all that there isn’t an overwhelming amount of quality on the topic data because the NRA has lobbied against gun research, but that’s…
The Freedom to Suffer
I think a lot about human suffering and how best to reduce it. I particularly enjoy mixing this effort with various political philosophies, such as progressivism, or “libertarianism”, or “communitarianism”. More on those later. For now I want to simply ask a few questions that have appeared to me after reading The Fall of the American Worker by…
Why It’s Dangerous To Call Whistleblowers Heroes
Exposing blatant criminal activity is generally a good thing. This is especially true when it’s being financed by, and wielded against, the same group–e.g., the American people. The Manning and Snowden cases are dissimilar in a number of ways, but in both situations they are being labeled both heroes and traitors. Neither label is good, while both probably…
Predictions and Inevitabilities
This will be in a highly unedited format. Please pardon the writing. Paid to Be Good Citizens The jobs are going, and they’re not coming back. Right now they’re going overseas, but the reality is that they’re going away permanently. Machines are taking them. Computers are taking them. Technology is taking them. Essentially, technology makes it so fewer…
American Poverty
I read a nearly unbelievable statistic today: Average income for the bottom 75% of households is $39,000. And yet Republicans want to remove overtime. They fight against increasing the minimum wage. And now they’re trying to remove food stamp support. I get the idea of wanting to encourage welfare queen types to work rather than suck off the…
Boston: Authorities Missed Intelligence Opportunities
The senior law enforcement official said the Russians feared he could be a risk, and “they had something on him and were concerned about him, and him traveling to their region.” Chechen extremists pose a greater threat to Russia than they do to the United States, counterterrorism specialists say, though some of the groups have had ties to…
Insurance Companies Make U.S. Healthcare Expensive
Because insurers are paid a fixed percentage of the claims they administer, they have no incentive to hold down costs. Worse than that, they have no incentives to do their jobs with even a modicum of competence. To take one small personal example, I have reached the age of Medicare eligibility but, because I continue to work full…
The Idiotic Irony of Opposing Equality for Homosexuals
In all the opposition to equal marriage rights for homosexuals I find only one possible line of legitimacy. That line says that, for whatever reason(s), homosexuals have issues with depression, suicide, and other mental issues significantly exceeding heterosexuals, and that because of this they shouldn’t be allowed to raise children (and hence marry). The argument has major problems…
A Reminder About Jobs and Profit
It’s important to remember something about jobs: every industry is trying as hard as it can to automate human workers out of existence in order to maximize profit. And they’re finding some success. We should only expect that success to continue, and to accelerate. Remember what the priority is: profit. Not jobs. Not America. If technology makes it…
Profit vs. The Middle Class
Both the left and the right talk about the health of the middle class as a key indicator of American prosperity, but they fail to give specifics on what that means. If we were able to define those goals in a tangible way, i.e., minimum income, access to healthcare, etc., we’d be able to identify what’s stopping us…
Two Minds on the Suffering Class
I frequently find myself of two minds when faced with those who are suffering from poverty and lack of education, and these depend heavily on my mood and state of mind. If I’m in a poor or aggressive mood I tend to quietly condescend, taking notes of the various indicators of class and filling in the blanks of…
Why America is Falling
My favorite thing to do is determine why complex things happen. Some examples include why over half of American’s deny evolution, why women prefer men that act a certain way, or why Scandinavian countries have such low crime rates and such high suicide rates. One thing I think about a lot is why America is falling. Specifically, I…
News Entertainment: The Latest Chapter of Greed and Stupidity
Sometime within the last couple months I’ve realized that CNN and Fox (and most cable news channels) have become news entertainment. The reason for this is the increasing lack of education, and general sophistication, of the American TV-viewing population. Most Americans don’t want to think or be challenged; they want to be dazzled. And this translates to ratings…
NYC Crime Visualizations
Few things get me as excited as data visualization. I seriously love the stuff, and this project by the New York Times is excellent. It shows homicide data for the NYC area over the past several years, broken down by age, sex of perpetrator, sex of victim, race of perpetrator, race of victim, weapon used, borough, time of…
How Bad is the Ignorance Problem in the United States?
In short? Bad. To give an overall flavor, here is a collection of data from a number of polls on American belief in evolution, correlated to a number of factors: The Majority of Republicans Doubt the Theory of Evolution | Gallup, 2007 40%-50% of the public accepts a biblical creationist account of the origins of life | Pew,…
U.N. Report Predicts Social Unrest Due to Inequality
Evidently I’m not the only one who’s seeing what’s happening. I’ve been writing for years about how we’re approaching a volatile social situation due to the tension between those with and those without. My essay called “A Future Divided” loosely handles a number of scenarios along these lines, and a recent report from the U.N. just comes out…
I Am, As of Today, Thoroughly Enthralled With American History
I feel a surge of energy right now — a sense of excitement. The feeling comes from realizing how little I actually know about our country. Everything I know about our current political struggle exists in something of a historical vacuum, devoid of historical context. It’s repugnant, really. Well, perhaps not quite that bad, but close. History has…
Contemplating My Support for Obama
My support for Obama has been wavering somewhat in recent weeks. He seems to have sacrificed his positions on the FISA bill, public financing, and a few other issues. The most important of these is his tough talk on Iran when he’s around a crowd that wants to hear it. In short, he’s looking more and more like…
The Logical Solution to the Civil Union vs. Marriage Debate
The answer is so simple that it may temporarily disorient you. Civil unions are a government function Marriage is a church function In other words, civil unions declare that two people are unified according to the government, e.g. taxes, insurance, power of attorney, etc., while marriage declares two people united within a specific religious context (God does or…
Thoughts on the “Melting Pot” Metaphor
If you’re over 30 you probably remember the term “melting pot” being used to describe America’s model of benefitting from other cultures. Growing up in the SF Bay Area I heard it all the time. I was thinking about multiculturalism the other day and trying to figure out what was wrong with the “melting pot” approach when I…
Our Government Isn’t Failing Us. Our People Are.
Excerpts from an article about Obama. This is what happens when you interview “average” Americans. Of Obama, Duser said: “I’m not crazy about voting for a colored guy, but that’s not why I don’t support Obama. I’m not prejudiced. I just like Hillary.” A couple tables over, Jean Fetterman, a foster grandparent, said of Clinton: “Oh, I love…
Ron Paul’s Flaws as Seen by One Die-Hard Supporter
First off, let me just say that I am a serious Ron Paul supporter. I’ve blogged about him, spammed promoted him to friends and family, and even put a Ron Paul 2008 bumper sticker on my car (I don’t do bumper stickers). I’ve been resisting the call to write this piece for some time now, but I can…
Ron Paul is for Real. Let’s Do This.
Many have been hearing a lot about Ron Paul lately — have heard some things they like — but aren’t sure exactly where he stands on the issues. Well, he’s actually a real candidate now. He’s not some random, fringe guy anymore. He’s winning straw polls, he’s making it onto mainstream media outlets, and he’s getting people involved.…
5 Ron Paul Quotes That Scare Me
Those of you who read this site know that I’ve been heavily promoting Ron Paul as a candidate for President in 2008. Until today all of my posts about him have been positive. But alas, I am not a fanboy. I heap praise when I like something, and I call attention when I see something that doesn’t look…
How Many American’s View Atheism
What I mean by this title is that there are many American’s who are sympathetic to the idea that “real” American’s love God, and that if you don’t love God you should not be here. I, for example, feel that way about this country to a significant extent, i.e. I feel that if you hate this country you…
How I’d Save The United States
I’ve been experiencing growing frustration with social/political issues lately, and each time I get to thinking about various problems that this country faces, I try and hash out what could be done to turn things around. Thrown together haphazardly below is a list of a few of these ideas. I recognize most of the difficulties with these solutions,…