Obama is Right, but also VERY WRONG

 

This speech reminded me that Obama, who is supposed to be the ideological symbol of what the Democrat party is all about, is actually a left-leaning centrist. The things he said about how Trump is only trying to get attention rather than having any real ideological motive are the same things I've been saying all along, which almost everyone I know on both the left and the right have insisted isn't the case. The leftists keep saying he's motivated by a desire to oppress racial, sexual, and religious minorities etc., the rightists keep saying he's motivated by a desire to clean out the swamp of corruption in the mainstream media and Washington and look out for the little guy. They're both wrong!

I find it fascinating how Obama seems to have just given voice to my opinion of Trump rather than the opinion that most liberals seemed to have of Trump before then. Not only that, but he seems to have done it in a way that may have subtly shifted the liberal zeitgeist further towards that perspective without him just coming out and saying, "Your criticisms of Trump are wrong, here are some more accurate ones."

That being said, Obama misdiagnoses the root problem. He says Trump is the root problem, and that voting him out of office is the necessary first step to repairing our country.

But Trump isn't the root problem, he's only a symptom. The real root problem is that our country is already far beyond excessively centralized. People here have gotten themselves stuck in giant coalitions in order to protect themselves from other giant coalitions. It's a downward spiral of distrust and dehumanization made possible by corporate- and automation-fueled distance from our neighbors.

Not only does Obama misdiagnose the root problem, but he also demonstrates a lack of basic understanding of what ought to be a vital principle of representative government:

 

You DO NOT EVER stake everything that hundreds of millions of people care about on the actions of a single champion, because that single champion is an imperfect human being and therefore a single point of failure.

 

Staking everything on the actions of a single champion again and again for at least a decade is the whole reason we're in this mess in the first place!

If you really have to bet the lives and freedoms of hundreds of millions of people and the future of the human species on the actions of a single champion, that means you and representative government in general is already doomed.

But we don't have to do that! We've got other options. We don't need a political deus ex machina to save us. We can save ourselves!!

Bells and Whistles

Supervillain: With the power of my evil genius plan, my ultimate weapon, and my army of disposable robot minions, I will take over the world!

American 1: laughs What an adorable amateur. He really thinks all those bells and whistles are necessary!

Supervillain: What!?

American 2: to American 1 Remember that time when we stumbled our way into world domination?

American 1: Face screws up in disgust Yeah. But that was decades ago man. We have more important things to worry about now than ruling the world.

Supervillain: Eyes widen in shocked outrage

American 2: Tell me about it. Although it kinda sucks that the global market infrastructure the world depends on is collapsing in our absence.

American 1: Yeah, but its not like we ever needed global markets in the first place. We only set those up to bribe everybody to fight the Soviets. But they're gone now so...

American 2: I know, but it's just, something doesn't feel quite right about this.

American 1: We need to take care of our own first. If it makes you feel any better you can send some money to Haiti and post a hashtag about it on social media later.

American 2: Yeah, you're right. Good idea.

Exit Americans

Supervillain: screams in pure unadulterated fury

Your Loneliness Isn't Your Fault (Take 2)

Your loneliness isn't your fault. You are not ugly, you are not a bad person and you are not "undatable". If you actually look at all the people who are complaining about their lack of a love life, and compare to the ones who are in loving relationships, you will realize that there is often no pattern, no rhyme or reason for why some people have it and others don't.

The problem isn't just that you in particular can't find love, it's also that those who would love you if they knew you can't find you. Because without the community infrastructure, the social connections and networks to point us in the right direction and help narrow the search, we're all looking for a needle in a haystack!

For the most part that infrastructure just doesn't exist right now. In its place we have dating apps, which are terrible at helping people find compatible matches because they're software and not human beings. The software doesn't understand human beings well enough to understand what we need out of our relationships and who we would enjoy and fit with best.

You deserve to be loved, and there are many compatible people out there who you could find happiness with if only you could find each other. But right now whether you find each other or not is dependent on an unfair lottery. The odds of your finding each other are often very slim. Improving yourself, your appearance or the way you interact with others may have very little impact on those odds if at all.

We need to bring back human matchmaking. Fill out this quiz and share your answers with a trusted friend or community member. Have them recommend people to date or others who can give you recommendations.

Please share this message and the quiz with all your friends. We can make the world a more loving place.

Thank you.

Yoda Speaks on the Great Balancing Act

Ignorance leads to distrust. Distrust leads to fear. Fear leads to preemptive strikes. Preemptive strikes lead to death or subjugation, which leads to cycles of vengeance.

But forced to work together many tribes are, when one tribe subjugates the rest. Working together leads to trade, trade leads to alliances, alliances lead to friendship and love, which leads to a new generation growing up without remembering their hatred of each other, which leads to peace, which leads to foundational stability to build new infrastructure upon. For the good of all such infrastructure is.

Then has children the new generation does. History these children remember not. Not the toil their ancestors endured. Not the cost of infrastructure built. Complacent they become.

Locally met all needs are, or so they think. But if locally met all needs are, then needed outsiders are not.

Fade their trade relationships do. Loss of trade leads to loss of communal bonds. Loss of those bonds leads to loss of contact, loss of contact leads to loss of understanding, loss of understanding leads to ignorance...

But inevitable this was not. Continued living and growing, continued building civilization higher they could have. But only if lived longer they had–the generations whose ancestors' toil they remembered. Or if, to their children, imparted more their ancestors had. Or if to teach and learn from each other more efficiently, those children had learned. Rebuild they could have, before the last bricks of civilization fell.

A mistake every fall is. A mistake every death is. Part of life mistakes are. Learn from them we must, to become stronger, to make fewer mistakes. Or else perish we all will, with no one left to carry on.

The Great Balancing Act, Life and Civilization are.

Your Loneliness Isn't Your Fault

You are not ugly. You are not a bad person. Your loneliness isn't your fault. We all just need to get better at finding and connecting with each other. And when I say "we all" I mean our whole civilization--this is a systemic problem.

It's not your individual flaws that keep you isolated. The community infrastructure just isn't there. Human matchmaking has mostly died out in the modern era, and computer programs usually don't understand people well enough to make decent recommendations for potential dates. And as for finding communities or relationships of the non-romantic kind, there aren't any apps for that let alone human specialists.

This is a civilization-wide problem, and the only way to fix it is to build the infrastructure, to forge connections between different communities and expand our social networks so that we humans ourselves can be the matchmakers we need.

Also, fixing this problem will go a long way towards getting humankind to work together better on solving other important problems, including ones that threaten humanity's very existence like global warming and excessive automation. After all, when people are better connected to each other they also are better at working together.

We can do this. We got this.

The Love Quiz: an Essential Tool for Human Matchmaking

The Four Kinds of Heroes and Villains

A Dialogue Between a Government Worker and an Angry Citizen