Category: Uncategorized

Depression is a Bitch [Part 1]

My last entry was almost 6 months ago.  There’s been no lack of thoughts or ideas.  No lack of motivation to continue understanding what’s happening around me.  But there was a deep sense that I wasn’t at my best self and that this was an activity which I would only do when I could put quality work forward.

Generally speaking, writing these entries is a weekend activity for me.  I’ll wake up, go through my morning routine, and then sit down with my laptop and write out something that’s on my mind.  It was common to start at 9 or 10 in the morning and not wrap up until the mid-afternoon.  I found it really valuable in organizing and testing my ideas.  I also really enjoyed the exercise of articulating my thoughts.

But…  As my professional life continued to go sideways, so did the rest of my life.  The more I think about it, the further back it probably goes.

Chapter 1

I was all but kicked out of my university half way through my second year.  My grades were decent, but in my position as dorm president, I had a habit of standing up to university authority when they overstepped their boundaries and started negatively impacting the lives of students.  Through a series of university judicial charges, bans, and fines, they made it very clear that I was unwanted at that school.  So I left.  But after 18 months, I took it as a personal challenge and decided to go back and take my degree through sheer academic effort.  I did.  I excelled and it left me optimistic for a bright future where talent, effort and focus would lead to great things.  I even skipped my convocation to hit the job market ahead of everyone else.  I managed to graduate into the great recession.  The job market was barren.  I took what I could get.. I was hired as a management trainee for enterprise rentacar doing customer service and washing cars in a suit for $13/hour.  In one of the world’s most expensive cities.  Not ideal, but if I could make manager, everything would get better.

Chapter 2

Enterprise Rentacar was hemorrhaging money in my area so they decided to cut costs.  Within 12 months, most of the area’s top paid employees were constructively dismissed.  That included my manager, also a close friend of mine..  In that transition, I was offered a job managing the second largest location in our group, a mid-sized airport branch.  It required me to move about 4 hours away and I wouldn’t get my promotion until I arrived, but they insisted I would be rewarded by taking one for the team.  I discussed it with my dad, and we decided it was the best career move available to me.  2 months after I moved, my dad died.

Chapter 3

Within the month following my dad, my girlfriend left me for another guy, I tore my shoulder pretty bad, and corporate management was now telling me that I would have the responsibility of a manager, but only the title, pay, and recognition of an assistant manager.  They said that corporate policy prevented them from authorizing a promotion at this time.  2 months later, they moved another assistant manager to the branch who was under the impression that they would get promoted.  2 months after that, the original manager who was on an indefinite maternity leave decided to come back.

Chapter 4

Without much going right in my life, I put all my focus towards the small inheritance my dad left to his 3 kids.  My dad made it my responsibility, so it became the most important thing in the world to me.  As I started to look for work, the investment firm who handled my dad’s funds took an interest in me.  So did a wealthy business man who was looking for a protege to mentor as he shifted into a soft retirement.  The portfolio which my dad made me responsible for is probably the single biggest reason why I chose the bank.

Chapter 5 

The bank (RBC) was introduced to me as the hardest thing I’ll ever do, but that if I can make it through the first 4 years, it’s worth every ounce of effort.  I was warned about the high failure rate, but was also told that failure was a result of laziness, ego, and not following direction.  Little did I know, the failure rate was about 95% for those who didn’t arrive with an already established book or source of clients.  I also learned that following the process meant maintaining a status quo which was ineffective, severely out of date, and not in the clients’ or public’s best interest.  Regardless, I worked harder than I had ever worked before.  Weekends was a given.. late nights were a given.. holidays were a thing of the past.. whatever I could do to increase my chances of success.  It didn’t seem to matter though.  Expectations were $10M of net-new assets per year, by far the highest in the industry.  In year one, I did $7M.  In year 2, I was up to $16M.  By year 3, management had determined that I wasn’t worth keeping.  In year 4, I realized that a far better path was joining a more senior team who wasn’t subject to short-term sales targets and could actually focus on providing wealth management services to their clients.. what I understood the job to be, and what I excelled at.  After a great deal of effort, I joined a top 5 team with expectations of taking over the book once the senior advisor retired in 5-10 years.  It was the best possible deal someone like myself could’ve landed.  1 month after I moved and joined the new team, the senior advisor told me that management had a target on my back.  A month after that, I was fired.

Chapter 6

I left the bank on a Monday and while leaving the office, my stubbornness and sense of competition took over.  I refused to be beat and committed myself to having a new job by Friday.  Then I went and bought an ounce of weed.. mulled it over.. and realized that was a terrible idea.  For the first time in my life, I had committed everything I had to being successful at something – and it failed in spectacular fashion.  All the hours I put in.. all the money I spent.. all the relationships I didn’t prioritize.. all for naught.   I used to think that I was so capable, that I could be successful in any environment.  This proved otherwise and it was important to understand why.  Eventually, I realized that if I was going to stick to my values and be a person of integrity, there were some environments which would tolerate me and some who would celebrate me.  It was now my responsibility to find the latter.

Chapter 7

I eventually found work with a small cannabis shop which had won a series of awards for being the best retailer around.  With cannabis legalization on the horizon, it occurred to me that there was a significant amount of opportunity here.  At first, I worked with them in building an expansion plan which would see them go from one store to a national chain.  Then we needed to raise capital, so I put that together too.  Eventually, I told the company I was looking to earn a leadership role within the company, preferably the CEO seat.  The founders were a husband and wife team who spent most of their time minding the store or doing non-profit work, creating a great opportunity for someone to come in and mind the back-end of the business.  For the first several months, everything was pretty good.  The happiest I’ve been in a long time was when we had 45 days to prepare for a pitch competition. I worked 15 hours a day, 7 days a week to make sure that every aspect of the business was presentable to investors.  I even stopped smoking weed because it was just getting in the way of something I loved doing.

But then legalization was delayed and regulations became uncertain.  This spooked investors and a lack of investors stressed out the founders.  I tried to tell them that we didn’t need the majority of funds until after legalization and that they didn’t need to stress, but it fell on deaf ears.  I tried to bring a business coach in to help streamline communication and roles.  They suggested that we design our roles around our personal interests, skills, and capacity.  That meant giving me more of a leadership role in the company.  They were reluctant and the recommendations went nowhere.

As we got closer to legalization, I lined up a friendly investment from the largest cannabis company in the world.  It was all the financing the company would need to build out its next 8 stores.  Around this time, the founders started to question what I did for the company or if I was even needed.  I had the distinct impression that I was no longer part of the inner-circle.  Maybe this had something to do with their passion for social justice and the fact that I’m a straight white male who drives an SUV and used to work at the bank.  Maybe it was their suspicion for my rational approach to business when everything in their world was a matter of emotions.  Maybe it was their tendency to look at the business as their property instead of looking at it as an organization of people who are working together, trying to solve a problem.  Or maybe it was me declining to start our meeting with healing crystals for the second time in 2 weeks.

Whatever it was, they came to me and said that they wanted to enjoy themselves when they came to work and they were spending most of their time stressed out.  They thought I was the cause.  Apparently, I just wasn’t their kind of people.  I listened, I apologized, and I made a real effort to try and ‘soften’ my edges.  This included spending a long weekend at a ranch, doing mushrooms for the first time as an adult, talking to my ‘softer’ friends, and reading up on the issues I was facing.  It wasn’t enough.  Within a couple months, I was no longer employed.  They even tried to remove me from the board, but had to stop when they were reminded that all the funding came through me and is only accessible while I”m part of the company.

Chapter 8

This lands us at Dec 1 of 2018.  Just like when I had left RBC… personally broke.. somewhat dejected.. but with my eyes on redemption.  I was a major part of building one of the best cannabis retailer in the country.  On the verge of cannabis legalization, this seemed like a rather valuable skill set.  Things could be worse.

Something I had finally learned is that I’m not willing to compromise my values for my career, so finding a place where there’s an alignment of values is paramount.  As such, I thought I’d take some time in finding that fit this time around.  Between December ’18 and April of ’19, I applied to over 200 jobs, participated in dozens of phone interviews and several in-person interviews.  That was on top of all my warm-network activity.  By the end of it, I had been considered for everything from Chief of Staff at a publicly traded company to a Chief Operating Officer of a small start-up.

It was quite the experience.  I learned about the gig-economy and how health plans, let alone dental is getting harder and harder to come by.  I learned about how recruiters are incentivized.  I learned how the head of HR is there to sell strong candidates on the company in the same way that strong candidates try to sell themselves.  And I definitely learned about the imbalance of power between the interests of those looking for work versus those looking to hire.  I didn’t take a job until April 15th of this year.  Not because I was being picky, but because it was the first job officially offered to me and I needed an income.

Chapter 9

The job that I ended up taking was with a cannabis retailer that I had been trying to stay away from.  I didn’t agree with the way the CEO carried himself and was not interested in his business.  However, they were the only company who made a real offer.  Even if it was only a 3 month contract, the compensation was fair and it was an industry I wanted to continue in.  Could be worse.

I was brought in to help with a capital raise and do some market analysis.  We launched the raise a couple weeks in and I quickly found out that current shareholders, who we were going back to for more money, were not very happy with how things had gone.  As it turns out, the company had raised $8M to open 15 stores by the end of 2018.  Now in 2019, we had 2 stores, no money, and needed another $6M to open up another 9 locations.  The capital raise fell flat on its face as almost every existing investor declined to put more money in.  As a result, the CFO I was working for became increasingly agitated.  Eventually, he asked me to mislead potential investors for the sake of closing more investment dollars.  I told him it wasn’t a good idea and stood my ground on ethics and business practices.  The following week, I was told that if I wasn’t comfortable doing these kinds of things, my contract wouldn’t be extended.  I brought this to the CEO and HR who both sided with me, but ultimately said that they weren’t part of the conversation and would have to talk to the CFO as well.  The CFO met with me the following week and told me that the unsuccessful capital raise has forced him to re-do the budget and they no longer have funds for my position.  That was 4 days before my contract ended.

Chapter 10

For the fourth time in my young career, I had found another employer who was at odds with my values.  The realization that I was consistently being forced to choose between my values or my career… was just a really dark place for me.  My values are who I am.  If I compromised those for someone else, in exchange for money… I just can’t.  I’d rather get off the ride entirely than live my life like that.

Upon reflection, it’s like I had the potential to be a tremendous employee.. but despite my best efforts, couldn’t find the right employer.  I had the potential to be a great entrepreneur but lacked the resources to do it.  It was like I had all these gifts.. but no one to give them to.  All this potential, but without purpose.  And if I’m not useful.. if I’m not meaningful.. if I have no purpose.. why am I needed?  Why should I continue to consume the world’s resources if it’s all for naught?  Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if I just removed myself from the equation?

I don’t think I’m the first one to have those thoughts.  I suspect they’re more common today than ever before.  And for those reasons, I’m grateful for the experience.  I’m not out of the woods yet, but I’m no longer missing the forest for the trees.  It’s remarkable how much you can learn in the dark places of your mind, especially once you shine some light.  Even if I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, the compassion I’ve learned for my fellow human being has made this entire experience worth it.

Taxing the wealthy won’t work. A cryptocurrency might. (Part 2)

Taxes are for putting money in the hands of the government, not the citizens.

The more taxes the government collects, the more resources they control.  The more resources they control, the closer we get to the original problem: too many resources in the hands of too few.  I think that just about all of us agree that there needs to be a more functional distribution of resources but it’s not as simple as taking resources away from the wealthy.  Especially if you’re shifting those resources to the government and not the people.  Let’s not forget that we have a government which is more likely to see value in socialism for corporations than socialism for citizens.

If our goal is to put resources back in the hands of more people, maybe there’s a more direct approach.. A way to accomplish that outside of the government.  Maybe there’s the potential for a currency which bypasses tax and simply redistributes itself without the potential for a corrupted middle-person like the government.  Perhaps a cryptocurrency with an automated distribution curve that ensures nobody ever receives less than a basic cost of living.  Because how does that benefit the society as a whole?  They require inefficient social assistance programs which require tax dollars anyways.

A lot of people see how much we’re struggling right now and think that it’s because wages need to rise.  Well, that might not help if the cost of living continues to rise more quickly.  What we really need to do is recognize that income is only relevant when compared to what we spend our money on.  We could all be billionaires and it would mean nothing if the average home cost a trillion dollars.  We need real a benchmark.

Right now, our poorest people receive so little support and so few opportunities, that their environment does a better job of keeping them where they are as opposed to helping them rise above their circumstances.  That needs to change.  Our baseline should be an environment that lends to creating successful people, not one which holds them back.  Based on that, being poor would mean that you could still afford: A comfortable living space, healthy food, quality clothing, transportation, broadband internet and a smart phone, education, savings, and a disposable income.  Imagine that, our least fortunate being given every opportunity to make something of themselves and live a good life.  Do you have any idea what that would do to our nation’s productivity?  That alone would increase the nation’s average IQ by double digits and slingshot us into the next industrial revolution.

Lets’ say that the average income needed to produce that lifestyle was $50,000 per year.  Sounds steep?  In 2018, total household wealth topped $100 trillion.   That’s about $300,000 each across 350 million people.  If it only costs $50,000 per year in resources to ensure that someone has every opportunity to become their most productive self, that’s starting to sound like a downright brilliant investment.  As they spend that $50,000 in resources throughout the year on things like rent, or professional services, or education, or eating out, those resources simply flow to others within the economy based on free market principles.  This still leaves plenty of resources left over for a strong middle class, and plenty still, for the most productive geniuses among us.  And let’s not forget that when the lower and middle class have savings and a disposable income, they can invest in the great ideas of others, whether that be big companies they like, or good friend with a great idea.

If you could tie that distribution curve to a basic cost of living and a basic standard of living.. with the idea of promoting competition with a well resourced diversity of thought, and reaping the rewards of a meritocracy of ideas.. I think it could absolutely be something special.  But it’s not without it challenges.

When I come up with an idea like this, one of the first things I ask myself is how I would undermine it.  Generally speaking, if I could, then someone else would.  Like how would someone buy into this cryptocurrency?  If it’s like any other foreign exchange, what would prevent someone from buying 1 dollar of the currency, and then having it topped up to $50,000 through an automated rebalancing while they keep the rest of their money in USD?  How would the currency even know who to rebalance it to?  And how exactly are you ranked in this distribution curve?  I don’t see how this would work without other pieces in play.

One of my most successful strategies in devising solutions to problems is thinking outside the box.  I know it sounds cliche, but I also think it’s relevant.  When we’re talking about a functional and effective distribution of resources among a population, just about every solution we’ve come up with includes making adjustments to the current tax system.  That means using the government as a mandatory intermediary and decision maker.  Considering that the government has managed to rack up $22 trillion in national debt with no plans of reducing it, maybe that’s part of the problem.  Maybe they’re part of the box that we have to think outside of.  But what if outside the box is uncharted territory?  Well… a blank canvas usually requires some innovation and a willingness to create something new.

For a cryptocurrency to functionally redistribute resources across it’s users, it would have to know who they are.  It would need a fair and accurate mechanism to evaluate their merit to determine  the level of resources they should have access to.  I’m tempted to say that’s a whole new set of problems… but perhaps that’s not the right way to look at it.  Perhaps it’s a whole new set of solutions… ones which together, form a new platform for organizing wealth.  Perhaps we’ve taken our current platform to the limit of it’s efficacy… a society in which we know the price of everything and the value of nothing.  Perhaps next up, we can devise a system which cares about the price of nothing, because it understands the value of everything.

While not without its challenges, this concept has one rather remarkable advantage.  A currency like this, if feasible, could be remarkably popular among the masses.  If they chose to adopt that currency in a mainstream manner, it would destroy the value of the USD.  The top 1% who would avoid a currency like this at all costs, would see the value of their estates drop dramatically.

Taxing the Wealthy won’t work. A Crypocurrency might. (Part 1)

I spent 4 years working at a major bank in a role that effectively made me the personal CFO for wealthy families.  It was my responsibility to coordinate all things finance, from their investment portfolios, to their tax planning, to their wills & estate.  I really enjoyed what I did, and I only worked with clients that I chose to take on, so I really liked my clients too.  Most of them were the ‘top 1%’ but almost all of them had come from humble beginnings, worked super hard, succeeded at their craft, were good to their families, and did plenty of philanthropy.  If you didn’t know how much money they had, you’d have little conflict calling them good people.   But in having worked so hard to get to where they were, and having little to no confidence in government spending, they weren’t interested in handing over their hard earned money back via tax dollars.  For that reason, just about every client had a full tax plan done for them by high level accountants and tax lawyers.  We used to counsel our clients that avoiding taxes is legal, while evading taxes is illegal.  There were some grey areas, but we encouraged them to avoid those too.  Even so, they barely paid any tax.

It was while I was working at the bank that I also first discovered just how uneven the distribution of wealth was.  I grew up in a poor neighborhood so I generally assumed that everyone around me was always better off than I was, and I was just in the process of catching up.  But then I found this YouTube video:

 

Using data from 2009, it painted a very real picture of how wealth is allocated in today’s America.  As soon as I saw that, I knew that this was a very real problem and started trying to figure out what I could do to help.  I knew that the lack of financial literacy in the bottom 90% was a big factor so I started holding financial literacy seminars in my neighborhood and teaching a finance class at my old high school.  The data was collected in 2009.  I was teaching these classes between 2013 and 2015.  Today, things are much worse.

And I’m that much more motivated to come up with a solution to the problem.

When you see how much wealth the top 1% control, most people would agree that it’s an issue but I don’t think people fully understand why.  Wealth is not the same as money.  These billionaires don’t have billions of dollars in the bank.  Cash is understood to be an asset, and if it’s just sitting around, it’s losing ground to inflation.  So people tend to keep as little cash as possible, and leave the rest of their money sitting in a diversified portfolio of assets.  For the billionaires, that’s real estate, businesses, stock portfolios, gold, art, and just about everything in between.  The problem has little to with how wealthy they are or how much money they earn, it’s about how much of the nation’s resources they control.

One of the fundamental concepts within capitalism is competition.  When capitalism is running as intended, there’s a diversity of thought, a competitive market place of ideas, and those who can execute on the best ideas tend to win.  When the best ideas we can come up with are what become the businesses of our economy, we all win.  But that’s not what we have today.  What we have today is a failed capitalist state.

I’m someone with no shortage of business ideas and people often ask me why I don’t start my own business.  Well… people usually save up for that right?  Work a decent paying job for while, save up some money and open a business right?  Well, in an economy where 80% of people are living from paycheck to paycheck, I guess saving up to start a business isn’t exactly an option that’s available to everyone.

Well what about getting a loan from the bank?  Well the bank isn’t interested in giving people opportunities as much as it’s interested in guaranteeing that it’ll get it’s money back.  Businesses don’t have any guarantee of success, so they’ll ask for a personal guarantee.  Since most aspiring entrepreneurs today don’t have savings let alone assets, the banks aren’t interested in lending money to them.  For those who have scraped enough together to own their own home, the bank will gladly lend you the money to start a business.  They’ll also take your home if your business fails. 80% of small businesses fail within the 5 years year.

What about getting an investment from friends and family?  Well most would want to see you put your own money in first. If you’ve managed to do that, you need friends and family who have enough money to make a high-risk investment into your venture.  If you have both, chances are you’re closer to the 1% than you think.

What about getting investment dollars from a venture capital firm?  Well most would like to see a business that’s up and running already.  If you’ve managed to get that far and have one of the few businesses they’d like to invest in, they’re likely to take a predatory stake in the company to mitigate their risk.  Congratulations, you’ve just circumvented the control that the top 1% has on our nations resources… by begging them for money, and then giving them a significant part of your business, on their terms.  This is all wrong.  When the top 1% control the vast majority of the country’s resources, they get to choose where that wealth goes and who has access to it.  When you can’t compete without resources, that reduces competition.  When there’s no ability to compete, people are less inclined to come up with great ideas… because it’s just too hard to get it past the idea phase.  And that.. is a failure of capitalism.

So how do we fix it?

Some would think that the wealthy aren’t paying their fair share of taxes, so why don’t we just tax the wealthy?  How about a 70% tax rate on income over $10 million? Or a tax on their assets? Or change the tax brackets… or something!  When I see these ideas being put forward, I’m hearing someone who is working with the right motivations, but the wrong understanding.

A 70% tax rate on incomes over $10 million? Easy, just don’t pay yourself more than $10 million in income in any given year.  When you’re a billionaire, your entire life can be structured as a company expense and you have very little need for personal income.  A tax on assets?  Easy, just move the ownership of the asset into a structure which isn’t subject to tax.  None locally? All good, just move them off-shore.  I don’t think the general public or the politicians appreciate just how well the tax system is designed for wealthy people who don’t want to pay tax.  I wonder how that happened…

I think that when the general public sees this behavior, they get upset.  Us normal people who are barely getting by are forced to pay our taxes, while these rich people who have more money than you can spend aren’t paying their fair share.  Well.. why is that? I don’t think it’s just greed.  Why would so many of the world’s high profile billionaires be giving away so much of their money if they were so greedy?  At least part of it is that they don’t trust the ability of the government to spend effectively.  All things considered, they’re probably right.  If the government were to confiscate all the wealth from all of America’s billionaires, it would cover government expenses for less than a year.  It’s like making a donation to a charity and finding out that most of that money goes to the people running the charity and not the cause which the charity is supporting.  I can’t help but think that the wealthy know that the government works the same way and avoids giving them money because of it.  At least with philanthropy, you have a little more control over how that money is spent.

The reality is that our current tax system is so complex and filled with so many loopholes, that the wealthy will always find a way to avoid paying taxes.  And if we make things prohibitive locally, there’s no shortage of countries which are willing to show preferential treatment to someone who is willing to bring billions of dollars with them.  Think about Amazon’s approach to finding a new ‘HQ’ and hunting for government subsidies.  To make it worse, it’s these same billionaires who are funding the elections of what are supposed to be *our* elected representatives.  That means that laws and regulations will continue to shift to their favor.  There’s a joke that if American’s didn’t have estate tax, the wealthy would never pay tax at all.  Well, it should come as no surprise that politicians, including our current president, are keen to eliminate that estate tax.

The first solution I had to this problem was tax reform.  A complete overhaul of the system that would make taxes simple and easy to file on your own.  Something that was so easy and obvious, that there would be no room for loopholes.  I think there’s probably a way to do it… but it’s not something I’m capable of figuring out right now.  Too complex.  So what do I do when things are too complicated?  I make them less complicated.

The real special sauce behind capitalism is a meritocracy, where the best ideas get the most resources.  We want someone like Elon Musk to have all the support and resources he needs because what he’ll build with them will likely benefit us all.  But not all of us are like Elon, and some of us have to give up a little, so someone like him can have a little extra.  And it’s not because we think he should have bigger houses or fancier vacations.  The little bit that each of us gives up, goes to someone developing things like solar energy, or electric cars, or space travel… because when they do, all of us win.  So for all us to be best off, there must be an unequal distribution of resources.  But how do we create systematic inequality, which truly benefits everyone?

What about a crytpocurrency?  One which had a distribution curve built into it, and automatically rebalanced itself?  What if the currency itself always assured that those on the low end of the spectrum could always afford a standard cost of living, and those on the high side received more resources than the average person?  And that our best and brightest generally had everything that they needed?

Wouldn’t that be something… I’ll take a crack at mapping it out in Part 2.

A Brief Thought on the Self

Any time I’ve had the chance to look up at the stars on a clear night, I would start to lose my sense of self.  There was something about appreciating where I was in the grand scheme of things to help feel like I was just part of the universe.  After reading Neil Degrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, I couldn’t help but understand why I felt that way.  Within a 14 billion year old universe, for just a brief moment, the right amount of stardust mixed together in exactly the right away.. and here I am.

Since then I’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking about my sense of self.  I may have stumbled upon a rather interesting understanding of how a sense of self exists within all life.  I’m going to try and connect those dots here.

I suspect that the core programming of all life, is self-preservation.  I also think that this programming manifests into different behaviors based on what we understand to be the ‘self’.

Consider the reptile, equipped with a reptilian brain.  This brain is programmed to fight, flight, and f*ck.  That is, it fights and flights to preserve its own life, and it f*cks to preserve the life of the species.  Without this basic programming, survival of the individual self or of the species would not be possible.    But the reptile brain isn’t very well equipped to understand the self as being more than the individual, hence why reptiles are more than capable of eating their own young.

Now consider the limbic brain, something that connects all mammals.  This part of the brain developed on top of  the reptilian brain as reptiles evolved into mammals.  This likely had to do with mammals being responsible for raising their young while reptiles tend to hatch from eggs and make a mad dash for dear life.  This means that the limbic brain had to develop a sense of self which included its off-spring.  This programming is what motivates parents to put their lives on the line for their children… a sense of self that extends beyond the individual and to the family.  I suspect that this sense of self can be extended as far as one’s entire tribe and may explain elements of today’s culture war.

Now consider the neo-cortex, or the brain that connects all humans.  This is the part of the brain that lets us think logically and abstractly.  I would suggest that these are the best tools for truly understanding one’s self and their surroundings..  And perhaps it’s through these tools that Buddhists arrived at this idea that there is no self.  Or how Bill Clinton arrived at the quote that selfless and selfish are really the same thing when we understand how interconnected we all are.

There are more bacteria cells in my body than human cells.  Does that make be more bacteria than human?  Or are the bacteria cells in my body not part of my body?  If so, could I survive without them?  Drawing the line between what is you and what isn’t you, isn’t so easy when you actually understand what you are.  And even if we did decide that everything that was within your physical body was the ‘self’, could that ‘self’ survive on its own?  Without human contact, our minds tend to go.  Without this ecosystem of life around us, our bodies wouldn’t survive.  I think there is relevance and significance to the physical self, but the more I think about it, there’s a greater understanding available to us here.

A pattern that I see, is that the more capable we become of understanding ourselves and our surroundings, the more likely we are to expand the self beyond the individual self.  That may suggest that the highest level of understanding, includes a definition of self which encompasses the entire universe.  We’re all just stardust anyways, are we not?

 

Schultz 2020

A couple years ago I got involved with a cool little cannabis company.  It was retail, and very early stage, but it had a ton of character and was being done really, really well.  As I was preparing them for a capital raise, I had to create a quick comparison with an existing business that others would recognize.  We landed on, ‘the young Starbucks of cannabis’.  I figured that if I was going to make a bold claim of that nature, I had better know that company inside and out.  Part of that was reading Howard Schultz’s book, Pour Your Heart Into It.  

I actually listened to it while on a mini-road trip and I was immediately a fan of the guy.  He had true humble beginnings.  His path did not lack adversity.  And his success did not cost him his humility.  In hearing how he approached the obstacles he faced throughout his career, you could tell that he was a person of integrity and strong values.  Not just a smart person, but the kind of person who uses their smarts to try and make life better for others.

When Donald Trump ran for president, a lot of people were saying that getting a business mind into the White House was a great idea and that Donald Trump was an ideal candidate.  I think that someone who truly understands the fundamentals of business is capable of running an organization of any shape or size.  I also think that those who are most capable of running a government are not in politics.  I had actually been hoping to see a great business mind in the White House for years but I also knew that Donald Trump was not that person.  His approach to building and running businesses (into bankruptcy) was not transferable to building and running a government.  I still think that Hillary would’ve been a far more competent and far less corrupt leader than Trump, but it still shows that the American voter is looking for a change from the status quo.  They can sense that the talent pool within the political system is thin and that our best and brightest operate in the private sector.

Over the last 3 years or so, I’ve paid a great deal of attention to American politics.  Far more than I ever had in my life.  And in order to keep up, I had to learn a ton about how things work.  And like many of us, it led me to a place where I wanted help create change for the better.  I think Howard Schultz has ended up there as well.  He’s been asked about running for office various times over the years and in most cases, he’s suggested that he’s interested but not that interested.  My impression is that he was motivated to make the world a better place but that he would rather do that through Starbucks and his charitable work than attempt to navigate the corrupt landscape of politics.  But that all changed when Trump came along.  Schultz sees what I see, and it means that his sense of responsibility to make the world a better place now weighs more heavily on him than his desire to stay out of politics.

When I say that both Trump and Clinton were terrible candidates, people ask me who I would vote for or who I would want to run.  For the last two years, I’ve been saying Howard Schultz.  The guy actually grew up in the projects so he knows what it means to come from humble beginnings and what it takes to rise up out of those circumstances.  In Starbucks, he built a world-class organization that made a name for itself by treating its employees really well.  As an individual, he’s demonstrated that he’s a person of character and integrity.  And the bonus, if he ran, I was pretty sure it would be as an independent.

Well, a couple days ago, Schultz was interviewed on the news and he told the audience that he was considering a run in 2020.  Fuck ya.  Not just that, but that he was going to run as an independent and a centrist.  He called out both parties for doing more politicking than governing and I expected no less from the guy.  As a real life billionaire, he’s capable of funding his own campaign and doesn’t need to hitch himself to any special interests.  And that seems to be ruffling some feathers.

First you had Trump that managed to embarrass himself more effectively in one tweet than any dig from Schultz would have.  Trump started by saying that Schultz didn’t have the guts to run for president.  Weird flex considering that if Schultz does run, he starts the game 1 – 0 against Trump.  Then Trump takes a shot at Schultz’s intelligence, claiming that he himself is the smartest person in America.  Meanwhile, what Trump was referencing was when Schultz said that he’s not always the smartest person in the room.  From what I’ve observed, this is what smart people say when they’re being modest and it’s often because they’re smart enough to spent time with even smarter people.  Finally, Trump tries to wrap it up by establishing dominance, asking if Schultz has paid him his rent for the Starbucks location inside Trump tower.  Cringe-worthy.

What I saw from Trump was expected.  Trump’s tactics are reminiscent of a bully on a playground.  He starts with, “you don’t have the guts to play here”.   Then he teases him and calls him stupid.  Then he brags about something that’s clearly a lie.  Then he makes  play for his lunch money.  Straight off the playground.  And if Schultz has any political strategists already on board, they’re loving it.  Trump plays the role of the bully well, but he’s a shadow of himself when it doesn’t work.  It’s also why I don’t think you should protect kids from bullying as much as you should prepare them to overcome it.  Schultz was no stranger to bullies growing up and has dealt with bullies of all shapes and sizes in the private sector.  If someone of Trump’s character is easy pickings for someone like me, Schultz is going to eat him alive.  I really do think that of all the potential candidates that may run against Trump, Trump would fear Schultz the most.  Fortunately for Trump, there’s a good chance he won’t make it to 2020.

While that was Trump’s reaction, the republican reaction has been more muted.  I don’t think they know what to say just yet.  The republican national committee seems to have thrown their full weight behind Trump which seems a bit suspicious given his current poll numbers and impending proceedings.  I guess we’ll see how that turns out.  But either way, right wing media has been more focused on the democrats response to Schultz’s announcement than anything.. and perhaps rightfully so.

The Democrat’s response to Schultz looking into a 2020 presidential run has been a giant, steaming pile of horse shit.  Every democrat that I’ve seen speak on this, including some top brass, has been strongly against Schultz running for president.  As they’ll tell you, it has almost nothing to do with his policies or his credentials, and everything with him running as an independent.  As they put it, the greatest concern is defeating Donald Trump and by introducing a popular independent candidate, you risk ‘splitting the anti-Trump vote’.  They’re afraid that Donald Trump has 40% of the voter base on lock, and that if you split the remaining 60% of voters between Schultz and a democrat candidate, you end up with another 4 years of Trump.  Fuck that.

From what I understand, one of the biggest flaws in American politics is a 2 party system.  It’s an effective duopoly of American democracy.  One in which *both* parties have demonstrated that they are deeply corrupt and beholden to special interest groups.  One of the best things we could do for democracy is to have elected representatives who voted exclusively on what their constituents want, rather than voting along party lines or voting for special interests on promises of future campaign contributions.  This change isn’t only grass roots, in large organizations, it happens from the top down.  But how would we accomplish that it costs a billion dollars to run for president and most people can only access that kind of capital as a democrat or republican candidate?  99.9% can’t, and that’s the point.  That’s why it’s a duopoly.  That’s why every president in the last however many years has been produced by one of two organizations.  It’s why no matter who’s in office, nothing ever seems to change.  And we’re now at a point where it all desperately needs to change.  And the democrats are now the ones trying to stand in the way.

This isn’t the first time it’s happened either.  This is literally what happened with Bernie Sanders in 2016.  Bernie was a better candidate than Hillary and he was certainly a better candidate than Trump.  The democrats thought Hillary was a stronger candidate and did what they could to give her the party’s nomination.  Considering that Bernie is an independent, I wonder if someone from the democrats approached him before he decided to run and encouraged him to run as a democrat instead of as an independent.  You know, because of how important it was to not split the anti-trump vote.

Things are a bit different this time though.  Trump is the dumpster fire that everyone predicted and it’s left the republicans in a tight spot.  Trump has solidified about 20% of voters into a cult of personality who, right now, would follow him off a cliff.  As long as Trump stays out of jail, keeps yelling at immigrants, and the economy keeps growing, he’s probably their only candidate for 2020.  Meanwhile, democrats had their blue wave during the midterm, and bunch of new blood in congress, and Pelosi is just starting to flex her muscles.  They’re primed for a big comeback in 2020 with a broad selection of candidates from career politicians to career politicians.  As far as they’re concerned, 2020 is theirs to lose.  The problem with that though, is that this isn’t about them.  It’s about the country.  And the people.  And the democratic process.  And they’re treating it like trying to win a big, 4 year government contract.  Fuck that.

Right now, my full weight is behind Schultz.  This notion that we should avoid putting our best leaders forward because it might reduce the chances of a democrat candidate beating a republican candidate sound remarkably undemocratic.  First and foremost, both political parties are playing divisive politics and catering to the more vocal and extreme ends of their base.  Most of us are not represented by these individuals and together, we represent the silent majority.  We are people who might lean left or right, but generally speaking, hold a balanced view.  It’s people who are here that realize that good and bad ideas can be found on either end of the political spectrum.  And that despite all our differences, we have far more in common with one another.  Someone needs to step up for the silent majority.. and represent reason.. and common sense.. and community.. and being good to one another again.  Right now I think Schultz is our best chance at giving those people a voice.

The second reason, which should be obvious, is that Schultz has just as much of a chance to take votes off of the republican candidate as it would with the democrat one.  Most people who voted for Trump did so because he was a challenge to Washington’s status quo.  They wanted an outsider with a background in business to come and shake things up.  They wanted it so desperately that they didn’t bother looking too close when Trump said he was exactly what they were looking for.  If Trump goes down in flames, which I bet he will.. his base sure as hell won’t be voting for a rank and file democrat.. but I could certainly see them voting for someone like Schultz.  Someone who isn’t afraid to stand up to the ridiculous politics of the left, I think that’s going to mean a lot for them.  Someone who can go on to Fox News and lay down the boom as a self-made billionaire who was the CEO of a fortune 500 company.  I think there’s a strong contingency in the Trump base who would love a guy who did all that.  And if they had someone they trusted to root for, who was also telling us that we all gotta get along with one another if we’re going to make any progress… I think things get a lot better.

Third, and perhaps the biggest reason.. is dishonesty.  You have the democrat brass coming out of the wood work sternly telling Schultz not to run because it’ll improve the chances of Trump being elected.  Bullshit.  You don’t want Schultz to run because it’ll decrease the chances of a democrat candidate taking office.  And not just in 2020.  If Schultz gets in there and does a good job, he’s getting another 4 years.  And within that 8 year period, as we learn the lessons of identity politics and learn to embrace our individuality… what happens to the relevancy of the two-party system? How many others run as independents?  How many of us in hindsight want nothing to do with the political tactics of the democrats and republicans?  Howard Schultz winning the 2020 election could quite possibly be the death of the 2 party system in America and that could easily be the best thing to happen to American politics in the last 100 years.

 

Making Sense of the Noise

As someone who has had an excess of free time on their hands over the last two years, I’ve put a fair bit of effort into keeping track of what’s happening in American and global politics.  It started back in 2016 during Trump’s campaign.  Before that, I made a point of avoiding politics and the news.  During the election, my two primary news feeds were the Google app and Facebook.  It was really interesting to see Facebook get as political and dis-informational as it did.  I managed to get into a variety of debates before I chalked it up as a lost cause.  Even the Google feed wasn’t great.  I had to find a better way of staying informed.

I guess you could say I took an interdisciplinary approach to figuring out what was going on.  I read philosophy books to get a better understanding for the fundamental concepts of things like democracy and morality.  I read an astrophysics book to try and connect the small to the big.  I read psychology books to better understand why people do what they do.  I even read a neuroscience book to understand how and why people think the way that they think.  And all the while, I was consuming about 10-20 news articles a day.  That was probably on top of another 10-20 search queries a day, just on random things I wanted to know.

It was a lot of information, and it didn’t happen quickly, but I eventually started to piece it all together.  There are certainly gaps in my understanding of what’s happening as I’m missing key pieces of information.  But for what’s on the public record, I got a pretty good handle as to what’s going on.  My friends have actually started to tease me for it but they also use me for updates so I think my efforts are appreciated.

One of my friends asked me the other day what my process is for making sense of all this noise. She wanted to know what sources she could trust, or where she should be looking, or anything to help make things a bit more clear.  I’ve given that some thought and I’ve tried to isolate the algorithm that my brain uses to go from data to information to knowledge.

Step 1: Find a platform that effectively aggregates news sources and stories according to your preferences.  Personally, I’ve found Reddit to be most effective.  It’s open platform means that voices of all shapes and sizes are on there.  I can check in on what the far right thinks about a major event, and then just as easy, check in on what the far left are saying.  I’ve found that these communities, when not censored, provide some great insight into what people are thinking and feeling.  While far from perfect, there’s also a degree of accountability within the community and that makes for some solid fact checking.  After I curated my home feed, I was able to receive an effectively unlimited feed of interesting data.  It’s extremely easy to navigate as well since it just shows up as a scrolling feed of headlines, pictures, and videos.

Step 2: Scan the headlines.  I’ve found that most news reports these days contain one new relevant data point, surrounded by filler.  The filler is usually a summary of previous reports leading up to the the current report, and it’s often filled with biased commentary.  And for each new data point being reported on, dozens of publications will write a story on it.  Being able to scan headlines for key info not only keeps you from reading redundant material, it also helps you stay focused on the facts.

Step 3: Does the article provide a question or an answer?  I’ve found that a common approach to filling in the news cycle is asking the question that we’re all thinking, and trying to answer it with no new information.  Something to the effect of, “Robert Mueller Probe to End Soon?”.  We’d all like to know the answer to that question and your headline would suggest that you know something we don’t.  But you never do.  The reality is that if any reporter or news outlet had factual information that indicated when the Mueller probe would end, it would be a story in itself and breaking news.  I tend to filter out the questions, unless it’s one I haven’t asked myself before.  What I’m really looking for while scanning these headlines is answers.

Step 4: Verifying new information.  The first thing I look for is who’s reporting on it.  If the same event is being reported on by all major outlets, there’s a good chance that it happened.  Next step is jumping into one of the articles and looking for the quoted material and who it’s sourced from.  Almost every article will be referencing the same quote so you don’t really have to worry about the bias of the reporter unless you start reading their commentary.  Once you know what was said and who said it, you see how that fits into your larger understanding of the situation.  If it fits in neatly, in it goes and your understanding of what’s happening has grown.  If it doesn’t fit in neatly, it’s time to figure out why.

Step 5: Analysis.  When a headline or quote fits neatly into what I already know about what’s going on, it’s like adding a collectible to your collection.  In most cases, I knew what I was looking for, I was already looking for it, and I knew exactly where it would go once I found it.  But now and then, a new piece of information doesn’t fit neatly into what I already know and I now have to figure out why.  Sometimes the information is incorrect, sometimes my understanding of the situation is incorrect, and sometimes it’s somewhere in between.  Regardless, the process is always the same, to dig in until I understand what’s going on.  More often than one might expect, it leads me down some rather deep rabbit holes.  These journeys can take me through a variety of sources, including news articles, Wikipedia articles, scientific studies, historical texts, and plain old books.  Until I understand it, it doesn’t get added to my understanding.  I’d like to think that one of my most valuable skills in this process is being okay with leaving things in the maybe pile and not jumping to conclusions.

Step 5: Adoption.  Once a new data point is verified and it clicks into place, I move on.  I don’t mind having to go back and undo some of that work because something isn’t what I thought it was.  I’ve found that the conspiracy theory crowd have a hard time seeing the bigger picture because they get stuck on the validity of key details.  It’s like the scientific consensus, you don’t need to be 100% certain to move on, just 99%.  If someone presents new evidence that doesn’t align with what you previously thought?  Sweet.  Time to go figure out why and learn something new.

 

It would seem as though the filtering process that I’m applying to my data feed is an elaborate IF statement.  If the new data passed my verification process, I add it to my programming.  If it doesn’t, I analyze further.  If it’s because the data is corrupt, I identify it as such and set it aside.  If the data proves to be valid, I perform a self-diagnostic to understand why it conflicts with my existing programming.  More often than not, it’s my existing programming which needs to be updated to accommodate for the new data.  Sometimes the self-diagnostic can’t find anything wrong with the data or the programming, in which case it’s identified as such as set aside for further review.  Every once in a while, I’ll get an update which helps me make sense of something that was set aside for further review.  Then, even that piece of information gets tucked away neatly where it belongs.  Maybe a bit methodical, but I gotta say.. seems like a good way to go about things.

Decisions in Math

So I stumbled onto Determinism recently.  It’s something that I’ve seen and recognized for years but it’s only been in the last few months that I began to study it.  Simply put, the physical laws which we observe within the universe, the same ones that apply to us and all other living things, doesn’t make room for free will.  Philosophers have been debating this for millennia now but as we gain a stronger understanding of the universe, it’s become a rather bold assumption that we’re the ones in charge.

It’s a difficult concept for most people to wrap their heads around.  Some will suggest that if they stopped controlling themselves, they’d lay in bed and waste away.  I would suggest that they try it.  I’d bet good money they don’t last a day.  At some point, you’re going to have the urge to get up and do something.  And while you’re up, you might as well do something else. And so on, and so on.  But even if you did manage to stay in bed and waste away, it wouldn’t be because you decided to or because you chose to give up control.  It would be a result of the series of events which led to that moment.  You might think of it as a decision but the motivations, the considerations, and everything that went into that decision was present before the decision was made.  It was the only decision you were ever going to make.  What we typically think of a decision is more of an inflection point.

I was trying to describe this to a friend and it wasn’t easy.  He’s big on having control of his own destiny.  I was too.. we were very similar in that regard.  He along with most of the world don’t like the idea that they aren’t in control of their actions.  And it seems silly to suggest otherwise.  If you’re not in control of your actions then who is? If I tell myself to do something, I’m obviously the one doing it aren’t I?

A puppet is free when it believes it has no strings.

There’s a great scene in West World where Maeve is learning that she’s an AI for the first time.  The technicians tell her that everything that she does and says is according to her programming.  She persists and claims that her actions are her own and that she has free will.  To prove her otherwise, they show her a tablet with her speech algorithms on it.  She looks down and sees that the screen had predicted everything that she said.  And as she was about to comment on it, the screen predicted that too.  She couldn’t reconcile what she was seeing with her core programming and started to glitch.

Are we so different? Our programming resides in our subconscious and we behave according to our programming.  The difference seems to be that if I were to show them what they were going to say or before they said or did it, they could still choose to believe otherwise.  A remarkable and curious feature of the human mind.  I think a part of it may be that this perspective results in such a fundamental shift in how reality is perceived, that people need a clear and reasonable path to map this philosophy on to their normal lives.  You can’t just say that free will doesn’t exist.  You have to show why it doesn’t exist, and you have to show how it’s just a more honest way of seeing the world that we already know.  Easier said than done… but I had a shower thought.

I’ve said that the field of math is a demonstration and perhaps even evidence of determinism.  I’ve even suggested that an equation as simple as 2+2=4 represents a microcosm of a deterministic universe.  Yesterday, it also helped me better understand this inflection point that we call a decision.

If you thought about the number 10 and a big number 10 popped up in front of you, it would be reasonable to assume that you were responsible for creating that number 10.  If you did it 1000 times in a row and it popped up 1000 times, you would probably declare for certain that you were responsible for creating each of those number 10s.  But what if I told you that not once during those 1000 times that a 10 popped up in front of you, did you look behind you.  You were so focused on the product of the equation, that you never took the time to look for the equation itself.  For each of those 1000 times that a big number 10 popped up in front of you, there was a 5+5 behind you.  Without the 5+5, there would be no 10.  With the 5+5, the only number that would appear ahead of you is 10.

You…. are the equal sign.

That decision, or that inflection point, is where cause meets effect.  It’s where the equation leading up to that inflection point creates a product.  It’s where everything that was becomes what is.  It’s where everything that goes into making a decision becomes the path that you choose to take.  Except you didn’t really choose it because everything that went into that decision was only going to produce one path forward.  And that’s ok.  If I was going to choose to be any part of an equation it would probably be the equal sign. It’s like being in the front seat of the roller coaster.  You might be strapped in and on rails, and there’s no guarantee of safety, but you get to see all best parts as they happen and one way or another, it’s going to be an incredible ride.

Trump’s Honesty

I didn’t know much about Trump before he ran for office.  I knew he was a wealthy business person, had hotels, and was on the apprentice.  I also remember him promoting a Trump board game way back in the day.  I’ve paid close attention over the last 3 years and I’ve learned a fair bit since.  For those who take the time to understand him, he’s a fascinating person.

One of the things that’s had my attention since he took to twitter was his sense of honesty.  It was bewildering for Trump to lie so frequently and so obviously, and then to see it resonate so well with his base.  All this talk of drain the swamp had so much to do with dishonesty in how politicians interact with the public.  Yet here was a person who lied freely while his audience was chanting ‘drain the swamp’.  A lot of people write that off as a cult of personality or a result of poor education.  Both are likely to be true but I suspect there’s more to it than that.

As we’ve seen, there’s no shortage of wealthy people who are fans of Trump.  One of them is a friend of mine and we’ve been debating the topic of Trump for nearly 3 years now.  My friend is a good man, runs a good business, and really does value things like honesty.  Early on, I kept asking him why he was supportive of someone who lied so often and so freely.  At first he denied the lies.  So I kept pointing them out.  Then he said that it was par for the course in politics.  So I showed him stats that suggested he was in a league of his own.  He said my fact checking sites were biased.  He had barricaded himself in… so I had to try another approach.

One of his favorite authors had a blog which talked politics and economics, and I wanted to see what he had said about Trump.  There was a very interesting line about “taking trump seriously, but not literally.’  Something clicked.  If you took Trump literally, then he was a very dishonest person and not very smart.  But if you took him seriously, well that didn’t require him to be intellectually honest.

I really does seem like we’re approaching some type of grand tipping point here.  One of the things I keep seeing is a battle within our own minds between thought and emotion.  They’re very different parts or the brain that have evolved for very different purposes.  100,000 years ago, the emotional part of our brains were far more valuable to us than the logical side.  But in a world full of abstract concepts and so heavily supported by technology, thought has become more valuable.  I suspect that this is something that’s rarely thought about, let alone discussed.  But I think that tension exists and it’s manifesting in a variety of different ways.  Including Donald Trump.

Trump doesn’t have an intellectual sense of honesty.  It’s rather obvious at this point as even my wealthy friend has conceded.  Now it’s not about what he says, but rather about what he does.  He’s seen as a ‘salty sailor’, the kind of person who cusses and isn’t politically correct, but also the kind of person who wouldn’t hesitate to pull you out of a burning building.  For the record, I don’t think captain bone spurs is pulling anyone out of a burning building.  Trump hasn’t demonstrated much of an internal compass outside of self-preservation and ‘winning’.  For him, I suspect life is a zero-sum game where nothing really matters besides beating your opponent.  In that context, he’s found intellectual dishonesty to be far more advantageous.  But it’s not the only form of honesty.

I still see Trump supporters talk about how honest he is.  And when they make references, I kinda get it.  He’s willing to say all kinds of things that your average politician wouldn’t be willing to say.  Much if not most is misleading or inaccurate, but the topics his willing to talk about aren’t.  I would think to myself that if only he would actually be honest on these topics, this would transform politics in the best way.  But there’s still something here.

It dawned on me this morning… that Trump is intellectually dishonest, and emotionally honest.  He has no emotional filter.  When you see Trump, you get Trump.  There’s this wonderful authenticity to him when he brags or when he gets angry, because that’s actually him.  That’s not the polished politician who we’ve become accustomed to.  We’re used to politicians presenting themselves the way they think we want them to present themselves.  The end result is a product which we all known is a front.  Hillary Clinton probably would’ve been a fine president, but the people couldn’t get through her emotional dishonesty and she paid the price for it.  Curious that American politics finally made us choose between dishonesty and dishonesty.

For decades, we’ve wanted to see behind the veil and know who these leaders really are.  Trump was the first President to be emotionally honest with the people.  Perhaps, in many ways, Trump was the first president that we really got to know.  Even better, the whole world will probably get to know him a lot better over the next couple years as the Mueller report pulls back the curtain on the rest.

 

A solution to steroids in sports

With this picogram nonsense coming out of Jon Jones and the UFC, I’ve been thinking about this problem again recently.  I find it quite interesting.  The idea is that you don’t want anybody taking performance enhancing drugs to avoid giving anyone an unfair advantage when competing.  But where do you draw the line on what’s a drug, or enhanced performance, or the difference between a fair and unfair advantage?

Most of these fighters are on a scientific diet that includes a range of daily supplements.  The optimal fuel for your body is undoubtedly an advantage.  But some supplements are considered fair use and some aren’t.  Some are outright illegal.  It seems like we’re putting all kinds of things in our bodies, looking for that added advantage.  If so, avoiding the banned substances list seems more like a guideline than a requirement.  Tito used to always say that if you weren’t cheating, you weren’t trying.  I learned that if you want to change someone’s behavior, you can’t just tell someone that they’re not allowed because they’ll just look for a way around it.  You have to give them a better option, and let them choose it.

I have a friend who still says give them all the roids they want and let them go to town.  Considering how entertaining things were back in the days of Pride, the fans would certainly benefit.  But I would protest and say at that point, it’s not a competition of skill but a competition of chemistry.  I would also suggest that it would be danger to the fighters as they would trade years off of their bodies to go faster and harder today.

When GSP stepped away and criticized the prevelence of steroids in the sport, I was still a little skeptical.  I was skeptical because I knew they were doing drug testing and assumed a professional standard.   But I also just didn’t know that much about it.  Then USADA showed up and it couldn’t have been more obvious.  Not only were a ton of fighters testing positive for PEDs, many of those who didn’t, looked like deflated versions of themselves.  It would seem like we’ve reached an even playing field, but I don’t think that’s the case.

From the dietitians, to the nutritionists, to the supplements, to the substances on the banned list, everyone’s looking for the best fuel available.  And rightfully so, it’s a big part of performing at your best.  And most of it, when used appropriately, is good for your body.  People often forget how frequently steroids are prescribed by doctors.  So here’s my wild idea, what not put together a team of medical specialists and task them with creating a healthy regiment of supplements?  I’m sure you could apply this to other sports but we’ll start with the UFC.

Each fighter is given a weekly check-up by a member of the medical team.  The check-ups will help the medical staff to track and monitor the athlete’s health over time.  On the first check-up, the fighter will be given the option to fight naturally, or join the enhancement program.  If you choose to fight naturally, you’ll be issued a banned substances list and receive standard testing.  If you choose the enhancement program, the ufc will cook you up a tailored PED cocktail and ensure that you have the diet, training, and recovery regiment to support it.

It’s important to give fighters the opportunity to use PEDs or not to use PEDs.  Those who choose not to and find success will be rewarded by the fans accordingly.  But for those who do, the objective will be peak health and not peak performance.  If you prioritize peak performance in the short-term, you’ll start to make trades for the athlete’s long-term health.  This is an important distinction and at the crux of this approach becoming corrupted.  The purpose of using PEDs isn’t to create the most violent fights but rather to increase the short-term and long-term health of the athletes.  In doing so, we hope the fighters will exceed their physical limits, that they recover more quickly from their injuries, that they will become injured less frequently, that their careers will be extended, and that their health in retirement will be optimized.

In the current system, PEDs still exist.  Right now, according to the UFC, the testing system is simultaneously so accurate that it can test for amounts that ‘shouldn’t be testable’, yet so inaccurate that plenty of PED users have found ways to navigate the system.  While I think they’re full of shit on a range of things, they have a point.  You can test right down to the picogram, and still have people figure out how to game the system.  It’s a perpetual game of cat and mouse where the mouse is never truly caught.  You gotta give them an option that they’re rather have.  For those who want to use PEDs, let them.  Get a program tailored specifically to their body and training regiment, by medical professionals, who are looking out of the health of the athlete, and can monitor them on a regular basis.  Not only would athletes be far less motivated to find their own PEDs, it would be very difficult to include additional PEDs into your body when you’re already been monitored on a regular basis by a medical staff.  For most fighters, I don’t think it would be worth the effort.

The net result should be a higher caliber of athlete.  Once which is chemically enhanced, but since when are chemicals not fuel and since when are we not biological machines?  As long as long-term health is the priority, this could push science in a meaningful direction.  As it is, most R&D for PEDs is based around avoiding detection and maximizing short-term performance.  If we change the priorities, we change the motivations.  If we change the motivations, we change the R&D.  All of the sudden, the chemists and biologists are looking to better understand the body and what we put into it.  The data coming out of a research center like this could end up being highly valuable to the world.

Where I draw the line with the right

The city I live in is relatively progressive.  Not necessarily in a ‘leftist’ sorta way, but more so in a classic liberal sort of way.  In this landscape, it’s difficult for right-wing nonsense to get any kind of traction.  But that’s not to say that I don’t see it.  I have a close friend who has started following some of the center-right media like Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder.  He’s been testing me with some of his nonsense.  So perhaps it’s time to call it out here too.

Trans people are people.  I don’t think we’d be in this free speech mess around gender pronouns if we hadn’t collectively been giant assholes to transgender people.  Throughout history, we’ve treated those who we didn’t understand with contempt and history has never looked kindly upon it.  It happened with people from unfamiliar cultures, it happened with people with unfamiliar skin colors, it happened with people with an unfamiliar sexuality, and it happened with trans people.  Conservatism has never been on the right side of human rights because the role of conservatism is to avoid change.  If those who are different are understood, accepted, and appreciated, they don’t special protections.

Full-time work needs to pay a living wage.  There’s a suggestion that a minimum wage is a bad idea.  Apparently, by allowing businesses to pay wages lower than the current minimum wage, workers will make more money.  That open market model only works if two forces are firmly in play: A strong incentive to pay the workers as little as possible (to maximize company profits), and a strong incentive to pay the workers as much as possible (to maximize talent acquisition).  If the incentive to maximize company profits is stronger than the incentive to maximize talent acquisition, there is a strong downward pressure on wages.  That downward pressure can be so strong that someone working 40 hours a week may not make enough to make a living wage.  If we’re in an environment where the cost of living is rising quickly, it gets even worse.  And who benefits?  Clearly it’s not the worker.  The business will benefit from better margins, but for how long?  An underpaid workforce is more of a liability than an asset.  When business owners under pay their employees less, they rely more heavily on social assistance programs.  These programs are funded by tax payers, and not the ones who aren’t making enough money to pay any significant tax.  Paying your laborers less than what it costs them to live a middle class life is a terrible idea for any economy.

Racism still exists.  Racism exists, sexism exists, ageism exists… there’s no lack of ways in which we try to generalize others to their detriment.  I wish we could solve them all at once by understanding that prejudice leads to inaccurate understandings and bad decisions.. but we have to start somewhere.  And I’m not interested in addressing controversial racism like who got kicked out of a Starbucks or who’s modelling a black panther costume.  I’m talking about that KKK shit.  That sand n*gger shit.  That BUILD THE WALL shit.  That is some of the ugliest behavior I’ve seen in western society and the right needs to do a better job of standing up to it.  Everyone on the right wishes the moderate left would call out their more extreme counter-parts.  Well everyone on the left wants the same from the right.  It can’t be a, ‘sure, we all know that racism exists but it’s not the problem here.’  Without racism, we wouldn’t have Trump.  Without racism, we wouldn’t have a government shutdown right now.  Without racism, Fox News wouldn’t have been fear mongering around a migrant caravan.  It might not be at the center of all our problems, but it does seem to make most of our problems worse.  Identity politics exist on both sides, and both sides need to hold their crazies accountable.

Stop cherry picking your science.  Climate change is real.  Humans have contributed to it significantly.  The scientific consensus here is over 99%.  Why are you still arguing this?  I understand if you’re a stake holder in the fossil fuel industry, but otherwise you’re just being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative.  Even if it wasn’t man made, our window of opportunity for maintaining an ecosystem that’s habitable for humans is closing.  We should be all hands on deck, but the right is dragging their feet.  If you have no interest in listening to scientists on this, then you’re about as useful as those on the far left which ignore biology to advance their gender politics agenda.

Religion.  Religion exists across the political spectrum, but the right seems to have their own approach to it.  The evangelicals denounced a democratic president for having an immoral character, then celebrated Trump on the basis that moral character isn’t an important consideration.  The religious right also argues that abortion is a religious issue when the bible offers no such guidance beyond telling you how to do one.  They’re also quick to point out all the flaws of religions like Islam, while failing to acknowledging the dark history of western religions or the issues of today.  And to make it all worse, politicians are now abusing religion again, excusing their actions as some twisted act of god.  Next time you see a politician say “well that’s what I believe”, look closely.

Feminism is a big deal.  I’m not talking about the man-hating variety that seems to be pushing it’s way into the mainstream today.  I’m talking about a movement that started centuries ago.. maybe even millennia.  It’s about our species evolving to the point where men didn’t have to be hunters and gatherers, and women didn’t have to forage and care for the kids.  It’s about men no longer having to go out and do hard labor and women being able to join the work force.  It’s about moving past our traditional blueprints of what men and women were supposed to be, and exploring the freedom of what we can be within a modern society.  One of the smartest things western society ever did was bring women into the work force.  There’s still more ground to cover.

You overestimate your abilities.  I used to assume that people who were wealthy were naturally hardworking and very smart.  Then I started to meet some of them.  Many of them were smart and many of them were hard working, but what they were more likely to have in common was an inflated sense of ego.  They took responsibility for their actions, and since they were successful, they were responsible for their success.  But then I would look behind them and see an incredible amount of support.  More often than not, it included a good family, a private school, an ivy league education, connections, and an inheritance.  Bit of a stretch to say you’re responsible for all those factors too.  What I’ve noticed from the right is that tend to equate financial success with human value.  Those who find a path to financial success overestimate what their contribution was to that point, and underestimate what was already in motion.  And then they dismiss those who are less fortunate as lazy or uninspired.

You’re selfish.  Something else I’ve noticed about the right is their tendency to be selfish, after they’ve ‘made it’.  When I was younger, I wasn’t all that interested in helping my fellow human.  It was about being as successful as possible, as soon as possible, and then helping my fellow human.  I see a lot of people take a similar path, but when they arrive at success, they’re much less interested in helping others.  Now it’s about paying the least amount of tax possible, or doing away with social assistance programs that you don’t personally use, or avoiding giving money to the homeless ‘because they’re just gonna use it on drugs anyways’.  And what I find remarkable is that liberals do this too, just not when they’re poor.  The rich shouldn’t give to the poor out of sympathy.  The few should invest in the many, because none of us truly do anything on our own.

Your immigration policies suck.  Besides the fact that they’re currently rooted in racism, they’re also shortsighted.  Most people would be surprised to find that children of wealthy families make ill-equipped leaders.  But it’s not that hard to understand why.  When you go through adversity, you experience challenges that you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.  Parents who have fled to the US from a harsh environment provide a powerful and unique environment for children to grow up in.  That home is more likely to produce a world leader or Pulitzer prize winner than someone who was so rich that they didn’t need to bother learning the local language.  Written on the statue of liberty is, ““Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”  America is supposed to be the land of opportunity, where you escape from terrible conditions and are given the chance to make something of yourself.  This is the secret sauce of the American immigration policy. If we close the doors to all that have made us great, and only open our doors to those who are already ‘great’, I think we’re in trouble.

You can be an argumentative dick.  I know, because I used to be one too.  Back in university, everyone was for gay marriage but me.  I had no issues with gay people… or them getting married.. but I didn’t like that everyone was agreeing with one another on something they hadn’t really thought about.  So I said I was down with them being legally married, but wasn’t OK with them appropriating a ceremony from a religion which was expressly against gay marriage.  I may have had a point, but I was arguing for the sake of arguing.  I see this happen from the right so often.  You realize that your up against someone who hasn’t quite thought things through, and rather than help them get there, you pick them apart and try to make them feel like they don’t know what they’re talking about.  Meanwhile, it’s quite possible that they had a point and just weren’t able to argue it effectively.  Or maybe they had a good idea but didn’t quite know how to make it a reality.  Fantastic, you won that argument.. but at what cost?  At what point is the pursuit of truth more important to you than ‘winning’?

The relentless spin. If I were to guess, the right is more intelligent than the left.  It’s not that a ‘right-wing’ ideology produces smarter people, it’s that intelligence lends to success,, success lends to wanting to keep things as-is, and wanting to keep things as-is lends to conservatism.  You know, conserving the good life.  So when the less fortunate get together and say things aren’t fair, we need change… you say that things are fair, that you’re an example of how to be successful, and to just keep working hard.  But then the less fortunate notice that there are far more hardworking poor people than rich people.  At the end of the day, the left might not have the best idea for how to get things done, but they are often right about what needs to be done.  And no matter what they present you with, you’ll spin it to your favor.  If you were up against someone who could debate you properly, you’d look absolutely foolish.  But the mainstream media doesn’t provide that format so everyone’s left speaking into their echo chambers.  I can’t tell you how many times colleagues of mine have tried to spin the most ridiculous Trump lies into something reasonable.  Recently, they’ve started to give up.. suggesting that it’s not what he says but what he does.  Well he’s behaving like the most compromised or corrupt politician in modern American history.. and you’re still trying to spin it.

You don’t want a meritocracy.  I’m a big fan of equal opportunity over equal outcome.  So is the right.. it’s one of their primary arguments against social security programs.  The left hasn’t been able to wrap their head around the concept in a way that fits their ideology.  I think the political spectrum is generally clueless about what a meritocracy really entails.  For example, there’s a good chance that in a true meritocracy, most top CEOs would still be men.  But you know what else happens in a meritocracy?  Those responsible for educating future generations aren’t living paycheck to paycheck.  But perhaps the most powerful example, in a meritocracy, inheritance wouldn’t exist.  In a meritocracy, you receive resources in exchange for the creation of value.  The more value you produce, the more resources you have to work with.  In that model, someone like an Elon Musk would be one of the most well resourced individuals in the world while someone like Trump would be broke.  But in a world where Trump can leave billions in wealth to his children.. something’s not right.  In a world where future generations of your family can enjoy substantial resources despite having not created any value… something not right.  In a meritocracy, Harvard isn’t filled with legacy students and lucrative internships aren’t filled with people who’s parents know an executive at the company.  That whole idea of an inside track.. the powerful helping the powerful.. none of it exists.

 

If we could find a way to cast aside all the nonsense… from all sides of the political spectrum… and come together to be effective for the greater good… we could probably do something pretty darn special.