better
Let us assume for a moment that you want to make things better.
What if you wanted the simplest way to do it? Not necessarily the traditional way, the expected way, the required way.
But your own way. One that allows efficient use of your time and effort.
What would that look like? Would you “vote”? Hmmm… traditional, dilute, expected, “required” (else you’re shunned).
I have never registered to vote in my life, let alone pulled the trigger. Why would I? Why would I desire to play the part of “one in 300 million?” Other than tradition and peer pressure, I can see no reason.
What? I am going to put on a red or blue shirt and hop on the most inefficient, hypocritical, comic farce imaginable?
THEY are going to be the recipient of my effort, my glucose, my calories?
Uhhhhhhhh… I don’t THINK so.
So let’s keep thinking.
Each of us is a mammal. So let’s assume that we have certain inevitable common goals i.e. safety, health, freedom. We don’t have to turn it into a ridiculous battle of the minutiae to agree this far.
Let’s assume for a moment that our desire for freedom implies we want democracy rather than autocracy.
Now, let’s NOT invent men with wigs, or Whigs with men. Let’s not reproduce history. Let’s make it, fresh. Let’s honor the prescient a bit more than the precedent and the president.
So let’s skip Congress etc and see how the organism comprised of all human mammals might wish to express itself, protect itself, thrive and advance.
When you ring your neighbor’s doorbell, they don’t respond with a painstaking diatribe listing every detail of its inner workings, complete with skewed critique of what circuits they might wish changed.
WHY NOT?
Because that’s not effective. They simply open the door.
Voting, Congress, blues and reds and Reds are not effective. If your TV or vacuum were not effective, you would replace or delete them.
Note that I didn’t say replace the members of Congress with other members. You’re smart. You understand what I mean.
There is nothing sacred about the constitution. You can say it was the best that could be done at the time. Fine. Do you want to live in the past forever? If so, stop reading.
We transfer money in and out of our banks easily, instantly. We have insisted on it ever since it was shown to be possible. Why do we cower at the whim of someone whose job is as anachronistically cringeworthy as any pale euro monarch that currently tempts my dinner to repeat?
And how does this game look again? Let’s see…We the people, plus other unknown sources, give politicians huge sums of money and trust them not only to understand our needs and desires, but to actually accomplish them. And we tolerate their endless obfuscation, double-speak, subsequent “walking back” of blatant lies, unexplained personal financial antics etc. ad nauseam.
That, my friends, is “Congress” (and of course, presidency, judicial, etc. Expand the scope at your leisure throughout this diatribe.) And note that I didn’t say “represent” our needs and desires. I specifically used the word “accomplish”. Do you see the difference?
Congress = “We will represent you. (We will accomplish nothing).
Us (not U.S.) = “Well, then, we will fire you. Or better yet, un-create your job, along with the institution you work for (because it sure isn’t us).
At this point, you may be slightly uncomfortable with such a blasé disregard and even advocacy for the obsoleting of such a “sacred” institution. You should probably stop reading.
Because if you think there is anything “sacred” about gods, institutions, america, congress and the rest of these constructs, all of which burn our sacred fuel to run their machinery, you are already hypnotized, cowed and almost, but hopefully not quite out of the range of my voice. I love you. We love you. Walk closer. Listen. Hear. Read.
SO WHAT ACTION IS SMART?
Don’t allow the talkers to define the field, the game or the players.
In other words, don’t succumb to the hypnosis of the constant repetition that you must play on these ridiculous “teams” like the libs or the neocons or the left or right, or the red or blue or the maga’s or the woke. Are we fucking stupid?
From these players, all you hear is: My opponent will “lead us off the cliff” and “destroy our country” without specific, straightforward and concise cause-and-effect explanations.
Does your electrician say that he is the only one who can “save your house from ruin”? No. You go with the cost-effective, proven, reliable vendor. You are the customer. You are the boss. You require that they ACCOMPLISH the job in order to be paid.
(Ahem)
You are not stupid, right? That’s why we’re here. Because we’re not stupid.
(Ahem)
So is it smart to be swayed by players, hucksters, who know how to manipulate crowds or marks with emotional language, victim baiting, hide-the-money sleight of hand, incomprehensible bookkeeping, special privileged status… should I go on?
YOU ARE LETTING THEM DO IT.
The best part is, no one needs an armed insurrection to accomplish all that needs to be accomplished. Things erode over time. They erode when they are not used or Fed (sorry, couldn’t resist). It need not happen dramatically. Sure, earthquakes and revolutions are interesting. But they’re costly. Especially when alternate means and mechanisms are already at hand.
OUR HUMAN ENERGY IS THE KEY. OUR CHOICES.
Not “our choice of which of THEIR levers to pull”. Oh, no no. Way too cute for me. I will not pull their lever.
By the way, we can learn from societies far more “primitive” (are they?) than ours. And in learning, we need not also emulate their shortcomings. (I doubt your brilliant math teacher was also your fashion guru.)
Bees and other hive dwellers demonstrate what quick and efficient deployment of energy and resources looks like, when addressing nutritional, construction and protective actions. Can they read Shakespeare? No.
But neither are they, seven decades later, still failing to implement efficient rules of the game.
Perhaps one of the first erosions of these ridiculous institutions should be in their energy-suck from the populace. (In other words, stop sponsoring their spews in the media. Block, downvote or otherwise demand that anything vying for your attention must contain concise, non-hyperbolic “cause-and-effect” rationale.)
REMEMBER, I SAID “ACCOMPLISH”.
So, just as we trust and demand that our financial transactions be ACCOMPLISHED without months and years-long bloviation from clowns with names like “the honorable”… so also can we demand that our “political will” be ACCOMPLISHED by modern means, rather than garter-and-wig re-enactors drowning in their processeeeeeeees (rhymes with fleas).
Examples of the silly, stupid and absurd:
Certain states “go first” in “primaries”
Really? What is this, a barn dance? We either wear intellectual diapers or submit to being “party trained”? You cannot think of any better way to “vet” candidates than to have them stumble onto a stage and interrupt each other with “zingers” while hapless or complicit “moderators” spinelessly avoid the concept of a fairly timed mute button? Can NOTHING be fucking defined? Well, YOU ALLOW THIS.
We vote our preferences with 18th-century technology
Iinstant online voting at reasonable intervals (not years apart) has not been implemented for a populace which, for decades has PROVEN THEY TRUST the same technology to manage their most preciously guarded resources, their money.
IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING. YOU MIGHT WANT TO SPEED IT ALONG.
What is already happening is that exploration, energized by the young and nurtured by the visionary aged, is ACCOMPLISHING things like efficient sharing and valuation of assets including human-work-time, objects of art (virtual or otherwise), platforms for collaboration for the development of software, medical systems, food & energy production and distribution.
HOW DO WE PROTECT OURSELVES?
First, by recognizing what needs protecting and what actually constitutes protection rather than lip service and co-option. In any collection of mammals living in proximity, there is the potential for conflict and violence. We can call damage, damage. We can rank damage logically, rather than through the per verse (sorry, did it again) antiquated poetry of English common law.
Keep remembering. How do we do banking? (I need $100. Done. Accomplished. I want to deposit $200. Done. Accomplished.)
NOT: “Thank you. We are “representing” your $100, which may or may not, depending on what the meaning of “may” is this fiscal quarter, be working for - or against - the needs of your account, said needs being ranked for their potential in outcome-based normalization of what you can buy with it three weeks from Tuesday. Oh, and by the way, my honorable, estimable and virtue-signaling opponent on the other side of the aisle, believes that you have minus $100., and I now yield the balance of my time so they may also fail to properly explain it to you.”
(They run together to deposit all $300 into their private accounts).
So we protect ourselves not by hiring “representatives” who fail to ACCOMPLISH our desires, but by creating, enabling and nurturing those who do, whether they are individual human mammals or groups. Require these individuals and groups to state their goals and methods clearly and concisely, again with “cause-and-effect” rationale, not emotional and manipulative slogans..
If they do not behave according to YOUR requirements, cease their glucose drip. Cast your treasure elsewhere. You need NO ONE’S PERMISSION. That is the BEAUTY of it. The beauty is in the sheer direct immediate EFFECTIVENESS of it. The beauty is in its reflection of your freedom. This action, really, DEFINES your freedom.
You are NOT free if you are hypnotized. You are NOT free if you cannot see the ball. You are NOT free if you suffer while others benefit from your confusion.
AND YOU ARE SMART. YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW TO DO THIS. YOU HAVE JUST ALLOWED CERTAIN PLAYERS (church, congress and other constructs) to make you forget how a REAL game is played.
WHY DON’T YOU PAY FIRST IN A RESTAURANT?
Several reasons, from the fact that you may want to add dessert later… to “it’s always been done this way”… etc.
So why do you give your mechanic 50% up front, before a lick of work is done?
These norms established themselves over time in a laboratory. The lab of history. The reason it’s done this way is because it has been found to WORK. Whatever the default rate is, however many people per thousand walk out on the check has been found to be an “acceptable” number. No shit! Because if it weren’t, then we’d all be paying up front in restaurants.
Why do I bring this up? Because there are certain systems to which we have NOT applied the above logic. We HAVE been hypnotized. We have allowed ourselves to pay detrimental amounts of attention to well-financed charlatans who hold before us a green tennis ball and tell us it is orange.
And rather than IMMEDIATELY and directly dismissing them, we allow them to dance some seductive, hypnotic dance that concludes with us giving them one more chance (totaling hundreds in the end… and there IS no end, apparently).
Well, I have never done this. Along with never voting (why would I?) or believing in some god (why would I?) I have also never allowed my resources to be stolen or co-opted by charlatans who tell me they “represent” me. My face and my actions represent me well enough, thank you very much. Your two faces do not.
I also do not behave in a way that exposes me to the violence of law enforcement. And by violence, I do not restrict that definition to police with bullets. Violence is also the demanding of arbitrary and unjustifiable amounts of a person’s resources (money) every year under threat of jail. That is VIOLENCE. And not merely because the ultimate resolution of law-breaking is armed arrest.
So what kind of animal am I? I function in order to, among other things, promote my interests in the most efficient way. I find it more efficient to exhort you to apply your time and resources wisely than I do to reminisce about the late 1960’s and tempt shooters with public sit-down strikes.
We’ve grown up. Like the iceberg, most of our mass is beneath the surface. Subtler or stranger than traditionalists and their institutions can recognize, regulate and control. And that can be as effective or dangerous to us as we allow.
I do not give the powers that be dominion over me by making stupid, obvious mistakes that play to their advantage. Like the reed in the wind I bend and endure, even prevail.
So I encourage you to seek out and support, as directly as you can, those entities that have the HONESTY and TALENT to actually represent through their behavior those things that you need, value and desire. Be strict with them. Do not fear them.
And for those things you do fear and resent, entities that arbitrarily and unduly limit you? Cause them to become irrelevant. If you kick the bully in the shin, your time at play may be curtailed. But do patronize the restaurant that serves good reasonably priced food, and the mechanic that explains simply and directly and fixes efficiently and reliably.
Do not be an enabler of the con through your participation in its systems. Be aware of it where it exists. Seek its absence. Play clean games on clean boards with named and defined pieces. Don’t assume everything is bilateral, zero sum, good/evil. Most of the time, we just need things done. Not “feel your pain” “thoughts and prayers” done. But ACTUALLY changed and done.
DEMAND YOUR RIGHTS THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS AND THE DEPLOYMENT OF YOUR RESOURCES
Do not be hoodwinked by things that are “enshrined”. Do not use honorifics. Everyone has a first name. Respect has NOTHING to do with using a person’s first name. Get over yourself, and get over EVERYONE ELSE. The only thing that matters is:
What needs to be done?
Who CAN do it?
How can we HAVE them do it?
EVERYTHING else — leather chairs, black robes, pre-session prayers, “enshrined” as an adjective to fill-in-the-blank… these are all tools of charlatans and hypnotists.
You will note that I also do not play the game of saying “It’s the X team’s fault” or “It’s the Y team’s fault”. That’s a game for fools.
Which of the two-and-only-two-forever-why-dunno-but-that’s-how-it’s-alway-been levers should I pull, boss?
Identify and express your NEEDS AND GOALS, and track the chosen implementers’ progress unforgivingly. If that is the methodology of our actions en masse, the robes and leather chairs will become as obsolete as horse-drawn carriages, without silly decades of ping-pong legislation. But simply because they become, de-facto, irrelevant to our new and evolving processes, and we ignore hypnotic entreaties to maintain them on life support.
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The above is an impromptu perspective on process, entities and realism. Your attempt will be either to understand it, or to misunderstand it. I have supplied sufficient fodder for either.
Many of the mechanisms and alternatives mentioned are “shorthanded” to give a flavor of the playing field, our shared human circumstances, and to jolt us out of certain fogs to which we may be susceptible. They all require further elaboration to make much sense. But these notions CAN be more deeply explained and expanded. Philosophical axioms can be misguided, irrelevant bullshit, or they can be valid and effective tools for addressing our needs. - JM