Category Archives: opinion

No Kings

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A lot of Republicans and Trump supporters are ridiculing the protests that took place last weekend by saying things along the lines of:

  • We already don’t have a king because Trump was elected fairly
  • If we had a king, you wouldn’t be allowed to protest
  • It’s the “I hate America” rally

First, these protests are not about the election. I think most people believe the election was fair and accurate. What seems to worry people – what SHOULD worry people who love this country and appreciate the freedoms we have – is the unfettered and for lack of better description, relentlessly enthusiastic (ab)use of governmental functions and powers to continually nibble away at what we call “checks and balances” which were set up to ensure that no one would be able to unilaterally run the country on the whims of one person. We are also concerned about the two other branches of government that have seemingly abdicated their responsibilities to impose those checks and balances.

Trump continuously brands any opposition to his agenda as “radical left” and threatens to prosecute them using his band of sycophants in the Department of Justice. He’s using the military as police in a couple “blue” cities and threatening more troops each day? Seriously, in a democracy? Ignoring the decisions of federal judges? Limiting the access of the press based on how favorably they report on his administration? Illegally spending taxpayer dollars without the involvement of Congress? This is an administration that has released images of the President with a crown on his head, a man who has openly questioned whether he has to protect the Constitution and has casually thrown around the use of the Insurrection Act to quell non-existent uprisings.

Maybe we don’t have a king today but all the points above certainly appear to be someone whose goal is to become something other than an elected official, something very different from a servant of the people.

How the F**k Did We Get Here Again?

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I woke up in the middle of the night to check the election results to see that Trump was still ahead…way ahead and it was looking like there was no way for Harris to find a path to the number of electoral votes needed to challenge Trump’s lead. I turned off my phone and tossed and turned for an hour or so. Although not necessarily surprised at the outcome that was coming into focus, I was surprised by my level of disorientation and a deep-seated feeling that the my world-view was somehow improperly skewed. How could so many American voters once again ignore the obvious ethical and legal problems with this candidate and the bullshit that he has spewed for the last 4 years? Of course, TV and online pundits will be trying to answer this very question for weeks but I think there are two major reasons:

First, it seems that Americans will not vote for a female President. The idea that leadership is portrayed through traits that are stereotypically masculine, such as assertiveness, decisiveness and strength are deeply ingrained in our cultural biases. As we have seen in this campaign, this bias manifests in the way female candidates are portrayed in the media where they may be scrutinized more harshly than their male counterparts. Many were more concerned with questions about Harris’s appearance, her previous relationships, her ethnicity, her family life and her emotional stability rather than her policies and qualifications. All while ignoring the fact that Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies, accused of multiple sexual assaults, is still facing charges that he attempted to overturn a free and fair election in 2020, has run multiple businesses into bankruptcy and numerous other actions that should have turned away voters. The double-standard is remarkable.

Second, we have become a country where the majority of people get their news from 15-second TikTok videos and shallow, biased television news broadcasts. We prioritize entertainment over substance leading to a society where most individuals possess only a superficial understanding of critical issues. Complex topics, such as climate change, healthcare, gun control, immigration and reproductive rights are distilled into catchy memes or brief soundbites, stripping away the nuance and depth necessary for informed discourse.

This trend has serious implications for our collective knowledge and civic engagement. Misinformation and disinformation are frequently accepted as fact, overshadowing the informed opinions of experts who dedicate their lives to studying these issues. The allure of viral content often eclipses the hard work of journalists and scholars, making it easier for sensationalized narratives to gain traction. As a result, public opinion is swayed by misleading information that spreads rapidly across social media platforms.

    Moreover, the way we approach research has drastically changed. What was once a process of critical inquiry and evaluation has devolved into a quick scan of a few YouTube videos or a skimming of the first few results of AI-generated Google searches. This superficial “research” leads to cherry-picking information that just confirms our pre-existing beliefs rather than engaging with a diverse range of perspectives. The convenience of this approach may feel satisfying in the moment but it ultimately undermines our ability to engage thoughtfully with the world around us.

    We have become a society that is not only poorly informed but also disengaged from the complexities of the issues that affect our lives. We can see the consequences of this trend in the number of Americans who seemed ready to accept Trump’s “concept of a plan” or his claim that he would deal with one issue or another (like negotiating the end to Russia’s war on Ukraine) on day-one as complete, easy-to-implement solutions. In a democracy, an informed citizenry is essential, and the current trajectory suggests that we have moved further away from that ideal.

    Hypocrisy

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    A lot of the same people who believe the conspiracy theory that the world is run from the shadows by Jews are the same ones who are now displaying their “I support Israel” profile photos on social media.

    Picking Sides

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    I wrote this on Facebook back exactly three years ago:

    We don’t need to “pick sides” in life. People are not just black or white, left or right, rich or poor, good or bad.

    We must understand that…

    I can be horrified by the killing of a black man in police custody and also sympathize with the vast majority of professional police officers who have very difficult jobs;

    that I can condemn violence and looting but appreciate the pain and difficulty that so many minorities face in our country;

    that I can love my country and not like our President;

    that I can allow that people who accomplish great things may still have flaws;

    that I can feel that order and civility must be maintained and still support the right to assemble and freedom of speech;

    that you can’t effect positive changes in the world by just pointing out what everyone else is doing wrong;

    that I can believe Socialism is bad but still understand that people should not have to go bankrupt in order to seek medical care;

    that ensuring all citizens have the same rights does not diminish my own;

    that it’s possible to work your way up out of poverty but still believe we should be offering a helping hand;

    We are not completely defined by our political parties, our social media profiles, where we live or who we vote for. We are nuanced individuals who mostly all want the same things out of life.

    My Current (no pun intended) Take on Electric Cars

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    I’ve been sort of skeptical of the real benefits of electric vehicles for some time. It seems to make sense that, if some states (California and Texas, I’m looking at you in particular!!) have recently been facing problems with demand on their electrical grids, it may not make sense to put additional strain on them by moving to electric cars. However, I listened to this Skeptoid episode today that, as they always do, gave a logical and fact-based explanation of the actual potential impact on the US electrical grid

    https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4852

    Since we live in an area that’s often plagued with power outages, I found the vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-home options particularly interesting.

    There’s also this older episode that discusses how EVs are not as impactful to the environment as many would have us believe although there are caveats about the mining of natural elements necessary for the creation of batteries. https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4844

    At the end of the day, I’m still not completely ready to move to an EV with my next car but we clearly need to do away with fossil fuel powered vehicles sooner than later.

    On Opinions and Social Media

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    Not everyone’s opinion is valuable. I shouldn’t even have an opinion.

    Having a strong opinion when you know nothing about a topic is your political right, sure, but it’s also a symptom of a psychological problem.

    Having a society filled with such people becomes a social problem and social media has become a vector of strong, devicive, unfounded opinions for over a decade.

    Do you just have to react to that thing that AOC said? About that thing that Tucker Carlson said? About that thing the cops may or may not have done in a city you’ve never been to?

    We have built tools that give an asymmetric advantage to liers and lunatics. Social media is not a level playing field and the idea that we are powerless to correct his problem because any efforts we make amount to “censorship” is insane. It’s masochistic and it’s demonstrably harming society. But, this is a hard problem to solve.

    Sam Harris

    Why work is no fun anymore

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    I’ve been feeling the work I do as an application/web developer/programmer is not nearly as interesting or rewarding as it once was. As I was mowing the lawn a couple weeks ago (we haven’t had much rain so the grass is growling slowly!), I really got to thinking about the reason for this and I think it comes down to the fact that this type of work is just considered to be “run-of-the-mill“, now. Instead of being one of a small team of smart people who have developed these specialized skills, now I am one person in a large pool of individuals who have the same and often, even more skills than I do.

    Additionally, when you work in these technical jobs today, for the most part, you are treated as a commodity – just a resource from which the company can extract work. Of course, this has always been the case but now it’s become very clear as most developers are moved around from one project to another and only work on code for the impacted applications long enough to implement a new feature and finish the project. This would be fine if we were just making a widget on an assembly line or a hamburger from McDonalds but we are usually building or working on applications or tools that are solving a business problem and will be in use and supported for long periods of time (I’ve been supporting an application that I first created in 2002!). When something has a history like this, it tends to grow and change organically over the years as features and functionality are added and removed and, because time is always in short supply, old code is rarely cleaned up. And surprise, surprise, new code is often undocumented or commented.

    Over these long periods, code accrues an unwritten history that is passed down like ancient mythologies from developer to developer. But when you have someone who has been working on that code (or somehow intimately involved in that app’s development) since the beginning, they understand that history and the reasons things are the way they are. So, when this developer gets transferred off the project and the support for that application is moved to a team of people who don’t share that history, we lose that institutionalized knowledge and the ability to quickly home in on problems.

    So, being treated like a commodity and a lack of respect for one’s accumulated knowledge leads to some dissatisfaction. I’ve seen this in many of my colleagues, especially in the last year or so. Some people who have serious skills have moved on to other employers and some have left the technology field altogether leaving companies to do the best they can with cheap off-shore support and little documentation.

    Blowing the Lungs out of the Body – From a Scientific Perspective

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    Although this is “satire”, their point is clear – the weapons that most people are trying to ban are not necessarily the most deadly weapons. The shotgun does far more damage than a 9mm handgun, a 5.56 round (like in most AR-style rifles) or 7.62 round (like an AK-style rifle). Of course, the reason assault rifles are being looked at so closely is that they seem to be the weapon used in most of the well-publicized mass shootings.

    To me, short of literally banning firearms (which is very unlikely to happen in the US), it makes the most sense to require stricter controls and requirements on gun ownership so that these weapons are not in the hands of unstable or untrained individuals.