You trust yourself WAY too much

Think about all the stuff you know, on all the millions of topics there are to know stuff about - numbers, names, relationships, science, history, skills, where you left your keys...
Now think about how many times in your life you have been mistaken about something you had been pretty sure of.

Of all the stuff you "know" right now, a fair percentage of it is wrong.

For some strange reason, nobody seems to notice this, and everyone goes on being sure about all manner of things - frequently including things that there is no possible way they could know for sure.

We (humans) have figured out a fair bit about our own minds.
Our awareness, perception, and recall are all very, very bad; yet we almost all almost always remain confident that our own perception accurately portrays the world outside our heads, that our memories accurately reflect what actually happened.

But you don't have to take my word for it.


The following 3 documentaries are really fun. They are interactive - if you have any doubt about your own limitations, if you don't doubt your self as much as you should - these videos should cure you of that, and grant you some humility.
And they do it in a totally entertaining way.

Watch 'em!!!

(Embedding isn't working, blogger won't upload, and Nat Geo won't allow it on youtube, so you will have to click on the links to watch)

  National Geographic: Test Your Brain Episode 1 - Pay Attention

  National Geographic: Test Your Brain Episode 2 - Perception

  National Geographic: Test Your Brain Episode 3 - Memory



No, I'm serious, click, watch.



Its free!
They are each 45 minutes long, but what you learn from it will make your life better forever.
They will help you make smarter decisions.

And aside from all that, it's filled with tricky games and puzzles, magic tricks (which they then explain) and tests, and if you don't enjoy it, I offer you a rock solid no-questions-asked, double-your-money-back-guarantee.

If you make it to the 5 minute mark without getting sucked in, well... I just don't know what's wrong with you.

 You may not have an entire 2 and a half hours right now, but do come back and watch the other two as soon as you have a chance to give it your undivided attention.

 And when you finish, take some time to reflect on what it all implies.



Its fun and interesting, but it is really one of the most profound realizations a human can have, to fully internalize this information, to accept how this affects us literally every day, to acknowledge what it implies about everything we think we know.

 As all the games and puzzles in the 3 videos showed you - you, reading these words right now - are not an exception.

 It isn't just some interesting psychological study, weird guys in labs coats doing stuff to dogs and rats which is ethically questionable, or surveys with tricky worded questions taken by college kids.

 This stuff affects you every second of every day, every piece of information you take in is processed by the same brain that failed all the tests in these documentaries.
 Which means you should always be aware that what you remember is not necessarily what actually happened, you should know there was always something going on that you missed, know that every single experience is subject to misperception, and you should question the stuff you are confident about just as much as you question those who disagree with you.

 This is not to say you can never know anything with confidence. It just means that personal experience should not outweigh better evidence. Maybe you saw something that looked like a ghost once, but given how imperfect our awareness, perception, and memory is, the more objective evidence against it should outweigh your personal experience.

Get over your ego.

You aren't always right.

 Even things you are 100% certain about, sometimes turn out to be wrong.

 Maybe you should be 100% certain less often.

This isn't an insult to you personally, it is just the nature of the human brain. We weren't optimized for our modern world, nor, for that matter, for understanding the world and getting to underlying truth's. We were optimized for survival on the savanna, and sometimes superstition leads to better chances at survival than careful objective analysis. Our world today is a million times more complex than eat or be eaten though, so it is in our own best interests to learn what our brain's limitations are, so that we can learn to compensate for them.

So, who do we trust, if we can't even trust our own senses? Not somebody else, that's for sure. Somebody else makes all the exact same mistakes as we make, but with the added disadvantage that they haven't seen those videos, they haven't been to the You Are Not So Smart blog or heard the podcast

   

and so their misinformed opinions don't even have the chance to compensate for the human mind's natural errors, because they aren't aware of them.

Enter Science!

Science is not guys in lab coats with fancy degrees and expensive equipment.
Science is just a method for checking if a particular idea is right or not, as objectively as possible.
Its a way to compensate for all the limitations of the brain that those documentaries I linked to just taught us about.
No one person can make a scientific proclamation and have it actually be science - it is crowd sourced, anyone can check, even up to and including you, whether the things it suggests actually pan out under testing and double testing. That's what makes it more reliable than personal experience, or even the collected opinions of thousands of people.

But I won't go into that in too much detail, because I already have, quite extensively, here:

  Science!


  http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/05/science.html

All of the money stuff I sometimes talk about, condensed

A lot of my personal friends and family have heard me mention something regarding saving money and investing, probably remember hearing me referencing "Mr Money Mustache" or "Jacob of Early Retirement Extreme".

Chances are, though, you chalk it up to one of those random Bakari nutty things, or maybe you even glance briefly at one of the links I send you, but it's long and there's like 300 other articles, and you don't have time for all that.

I'm going to try to explain all that stuff in a condensed and untechnical manner.

Of course, the majority of my readers who I don't know in real life found me through MMM, and all of y'all feel free to skip this post, as you won't learn anything new - it might be perfect for forwarding on to your own friends and family though who haven't come around yet.

Very early on into adulthood I discovered that I don't particularly care for employment.

Its not just about the work itself - it doesn't matter how much fun, how creative or rewarding or self-directed the job is - its just the fact of being forced to be some specific place doing some specific thing for almost exactly 1/2 of your discretionary time (factoring in mandatory lunch hours and commute time), for the majority of your life.

Luckily, I grew up poor (there were 73 of us, living in a cardboard box), plus I self-identified as an environmentalist since about age 9, plus being non-conformist, all combined to make rejection of all forms of materialism come naturally.

I never felt much need for "stuff".  Living in my RV felt plenty luxurious enough.

Psychologists say that money spent on experiences produces more happiness than money spent on stuff - but I've found there is a practically infinite supply of entertaining and educational and downright amazing and wonderful experiences to be found for free almost everywhere I look.  No, not even that - I frequently don't even have to look; often times they come to me!  Sometimes when I was looking for something else, other times they just literally come seek me out.

I've never even had the desire for the stuff most American's spend money on: cable TV, a new car, fashionable clothes, or a "phone" that is really a tiny computer.  So, after food and rent, I never had all that much to spend money on.

And here is the point of all that backstory:
 
 

I discovered early on that if I don't spend a lot of money, then I don't need a lot of money, and if I don't need a lot of money, I don't have to spend so much time working.

So that is what I did for the next 10 years.

I might work full time somewhere, but I'd get bored after a few months, and quit, with no backup plan. Other times I'd work part time, maybe two or three very part time jobs, or maybe just show up sporadically to my supposedly full-time job. I built up a ridiculous resume of jobs - experiences (that I got paid for). I traveled across the country, I went to school purely to learn interesting stuff with no intention of leveraging a "career" out of it.

I made a couple of less than ideal financial decisions here and there, but managed to pay very little in interest, never miss a payment, and keep my credit score high.

And I had lots of free time, whether I was working or not, to play, to spend with my partner, to read and learn, to go on bike rides and camping trips.

Not that I ever thought debt was no big deal, but between moving cross country, college, buying a bigger RV, and getting divorced, I hit a peak of debt (around 10k), and decided to focus seriously on getting rid of it.

Older and more mature, the day I made my last payment, I also opened an IRA - 18 February 2010

Along the way, one of my blog posts caught the attention of Kirsten Dirksen of Faircompanies.com, who asked me to write for her, and then later did a video interview of me when she was in the country.

Which got moderately popular (a good quarter million views in a couple months), which resulted in a number of internet fans who found me on facebook - one of whom suggested I look up Jacob Lund Fisker of ERE, who also lived in an RV at the time.  Well, it turned out he also lived in the Bay Area, and was planning a get together soon, we met, I started reading his blog posts... it couldn't have come at a better time.

Having recently paid off the last of my debt and opened an IRA, it was perfect timing for the message.

It turns out I was on the right track, but I missed an important detail.

Allow me to summarize how many, if not most, young people look at money:

Retirement is something that happens when you are old.  If we are lucky, it will still be at age 67 by the time we get there.  By that time most of your life has gone by and if you don't have major health problems, at the least you are too weak and tired to do all the sort of things you want to do now.  Hell, you don't even know for sure you'll live that long, so it doesn't make any sense to put off living life to the fullest now.

Of course you aren't stupid either, you aren't going to spend money frivolously, and its good to have some savings in case of emergency, maybe even a retirement plan, but that all has to be balanced with enjoying life today.
 

That's more or less how most people I talk to look at it.

It's how I looked at it.

The philosophy is good.

It's the underlying assumption that is mistaken.

Its a totally understandable mistake, because every one else around us takes it for granted.

Here is the enormous underlying mistake from the paragraph above:

67 is when social security starts paying out.  That has nothing to do with when you retire.  Retiring can happen much sooner, or much later.  Its simply a function of when (if!) you have enough to live on without having to work.

And let me cut off objections preemptively here, by emphasizing a word from my last paragraph:

"...have enough to live on without having to work."

Maybe you really enjoy your job.

It may be fun, and/or meaningful.

As of now, lets stop using the word "retire".  Lets substitute "financial independence" instead.

Not having to work means that if you get bored, you can do something else, with no stress during the transition.  It means if your boss is a jerk, you quit.  It means you can start your own small business, doing what you love.

If you already love what you do, but your company is small and on the brink, you can take a voluntary pay cut.

If you love what you do, and your employer is a soulless corporation, you can use your salary to buy expensive toys, vacations, or donate to charity, or whatever you want, because if you are already financially independent you don't need to worry about rent or food or transportation or health care.

In a word, it means "Freedom".

Would you rather have more freedom in your life, or less?

"Yeah, all that sounds great, Bakari, but it is totally unrealistic"

Ah, you'd think so, wouldn't you?

Now we get to the fun part.

I'm going to leave out all the math, and all the stock market/investing stuff.  I'll point you to some MMM posts that go into detail if you want to learn a little more and go a little deeper, but for now just trust me on the numbers.

If you invest wisely (and that doesn't mean "picking the right stocks", it means taking the safe, easy, average, middle of the road route) then once you have saved up 25 times your annual spending, you are set for life.

That's actually a really really important summary, that deserves an inset section

Once you have saved 25 times your annual spending, you are set for life.

( http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i-need-for-retirement/ )

That's secret ("secret") number one.

Here's another:

Under capitalism, money that is invested creates its own money.  Then that new money also creates new money.  Then that new money creates even more new money.  This cycle repeats indefinitely.

An early MMM analogy is to think of each and every dollar bill you have as a potential employee.  If you spend it, you have essentially fired a reliable worker.  If you invest it, it will produce a small percentage of its own value for you, 24/7, forever.  Give it enough time, and that dollar will make you a new dollar, just by sitting there not being spent.  Then, if you only spend the new dollar, and leave the original alone, you just got something for nothing.

It gets better.

If you put away five bucks a week, starting at age 18, you will have more money at (official) retirement age than you would if you put away 30 times as much - $150 a week - but didn't start until 10 years before you retire.

In the former, you only put away $260 a year, for a grand total of 13k of your own money (spread out over 50 years)

In the latter, you spent $7,800 a year, for a grand total of  78k.

You spend 6 times as much, and have less to show for it!

All that extra free cash in the former is coming from interest and dividends, compounding and snowballing on themselves.  The new money creates new money which creates new money which creates...

But what if you put away $150 a week, starting at age 18?

Well, then you would be a millionaire just a little after your 50th birthday.

Literally.

That's just math.

But lets go back to the first secret again; once you save 25 times your annual spending, you are set for life.

If you can spend less than 40k in one year, then you don't need to be a millionaire in order to be financially independent.

Given that 40k is substantially more than median individual income (and only slightly less than median household income, which on average has more than one earner), I'm going to say it is not a particularly bold claim to suggest that it is possible - nay, downright easy - to live on less than 40k per year.

(Remember, we're talking spending, not income, and you can subtract any spending on savings, as well as any spending directly related to employment, such as commuting or work clothes, from what you need once you are financially independent).
If, for example, you can live comfortably on under 20k a year, then you don't even need one half of a million in order to be financially independent for the rest of your life.

Here's the other big mistake that people tend to make:

We think in terms of what we can afford.  When we have some extra cash, we think about what we can spend it on.  Money burns holes in our pockets.

I don't hold it against you.  Its human nature, and I'm just as guilty of it as anyone else.  Most of my working life I made only enough to cover my expenses, however much that was, and if I happened across a nice large lump sum I thought "what fun and cool thing or experience can I buy with this?"

That reasoning means we tend to spend however much we have.

In other words, maybe you were actually fairly comfortable when you were only making 23k per year, but you just switched to a better job, and you moved in with your partner so your rent is half as much, and so all these opportunities open up of stuff to buy and trips to take, maybe you get your internet speed one tier higher, since you can easily afford it, maybe you eat out a little more, get a latte at Starbucks twice a week, and before you know it, you're breaking even again.
   

There's a term for that: "lifestyle inflation".
  

Hedonic adaptation dictates that it soon becomes the new normal, and provides exactly zero happiness above baseline.

Suppose when life changes allow you to have higher income and lower expenses, you threw all the excess into investments?

Suppose you make a point of lowering expenses, cutting out anything that doesn't truly make your life better in a tangible, ongoing way.

Could you save 10% of your income?
25%?
50%?
75%?
90?

90%??!? Lets not get ridiculous here.  We aren't all stock brokers and corporate lawyers and software engineers.  Sure, if you make 6 digits each year, it would be totally possible to live a comfortable life with all the modern amenities (like cars and internet) on 10% of your salary.

Here in the real world, 1/2 of all American who work make less than 30k per year, and even bike-riding, 30-year-old-truck-owning, RV-trailer-living Bakari can't see living comfortably on three grand a year.

Ok, ok, so lets step back a couple lines.

How about 50%?

This still probably sounds a bit extreme - at first...
 
 

For reasons I don't entirely understand, people seem to think money numbers are supposed to be private.  But then, I have never been much of one for secrets, so how about I use me for an example:

Remember, I started saving at the beginning of 2010.  I made $22k that year, after subtracting business expenses.

In 2011 I made $22k again. In 2012, $21k.  This past year was my worst since I began working for myself, (8 years ago), and I only made $13k.

In 2010 my net worth was $0.

Today it is $52,000

("Wait a minute now..." you say, "those numbers mean you have to be living on less than 10 Gs on average each year!" Yup.)

It's not hard.

It is, more than anything, a change in mindset.

Remember that whole thing with my old RV trailer being stolen?

The entire settlement check went straight into one of my IRA accounts.

Remember that giant chicken coop and run I built?

The 2 large I made on that, all invested.

I don't live a deprived life.

I still buy toys now and then, (like my boombox and its battery pack). I have high speed internet, a cell phone, pets, I buy organic food, I eat out and go to the movie theater now and then.

I just try to ration spending, and avoid spending money on crap I know I really don't need, that won't improve my life in any significant way in the long run.

As a result, I am 1/5th of the way to financial independence, in just over 3 years.

At this rate, about 15 years from when I started, I should be there.

I'll be 45 - still young enough to take full advantage of freedom from mandatory employment. 

Just imagine though - if I had started back at 18; I'd be financially independent already!

You aren't me, you don't live how I live, so enough anecdote - lets segue back into some real life numbers.

We were talking about saving 50% of your income, and I was just using myself as an example to prove that even if your income is much lower than average, it is still possible.

In my example of me, spending only about 1/2 of income led to a working career of 15 years.

And there's that sweet math magic again: that number isn't just true for my particular circumstances.

It is universal.

If you only spend 50% of your income, you will have approximately 25 times your annual spending saved up in approximately 15-20 years.

Simple mathematics proves that.

Even without the power of compound interest, if you spend 50% of your income, then for every year you work you buy a year of freedom (think about it for a second).
But add in the money generating money infinite feedback loop, and at 50% every year you work earns you more than a year of freedom, and the earlier you start, the more free bonus time you get.

And here is the really beautiful part of all that, which may be easy to miss:

It doesn't matter how much your income is.  The ONLY variable in that equation is what percentage of your income you spend, VS what percentage you save.

 
( http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ )

Going back to the philosophical point from near the beginning, but with this new knowledge, we have two potential life paths, especially while we are still young:

• Path 1: Live simple, so you don't need too much money to live, and take advantage of that by not working too much.
  Spend the occasional windfall on toys and/or experiences.
  Low income, low cost of living, moderate amount of free time and freedom - but you will never retire.
  The same is true if you have a higher income, but lifestyle inflation keeps you spending however much you make.  If your savings rate is zero, you will need to continue working until you die.

• Path 2: Live simple, so you don't need too much money to live - and work full time anyway, so that you have plenty of surplus to invest.
  Put most, if not all, of your occasional windfalls into your savings too.
  Moderate income, low cost of living - and low free time and freedom, at first, for a few years.  But then, before you know it, TOTAL freedom, and as much free time as you want.  For the rest of your life.

Path 1 is pretty good, beats working a 9-5 for 50 years.  Path 2 is a whole heck of a lot better.

Especially considering we aren't talking about some hypothetical future 50 years from now.  We are talking a short decade and a half.  We are talking "retiring" with the majority of your life still ahead of you.

Don't believe the math?  There are hundreds of people who have actually done exactly what I'm talking about.  A lot of them are on the Mr Money Mustache forums.  Mr MM himself is one, one who uses some of his free time to share all this information with others.  If you want to learn more, his blog is the place to start:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/06/meet-mr-money-mustache/
 
(if you start here at the beginning, when you finish this post, scroll down a little to the link that says "Meet the Realist")

and

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-hero-in-one-blog-post/

 

If you don't feel like reading too much, try maybe just this last link.

Later, if you like, you can read more for all sort of details on how to actually start spending less (with zero sacrifice to quality of life), what specifically to do with your savings to make it start working for you, and answers to all the other questions and concerns and objections you either have already, or will come up with soon.

The really important part is just the concept.  You have it now.  Very minor delayed gratification now, for totally life changing payoff in a few years.  You - you, reading this right now - can be one of those "financially independent" people.  No inheritance, no lottery, no lucky breaks.  Just being moderately frugal, and the math of compound interest.

Start looking at your money differently.

And make sure to come thank me when employment becomes optional for you.

7% of communication is words (not really though)

Just discovered what the ridiculous claim about non-verbal communication probably comes from - you know, where some corporate or academic class on effective communication claims that only 7% of a message is transmitted by the actual words (and the rest by tone and body language)?

This is of course just obviously false on the face of it: if it were true, we could communicate more effectively with someone who spoke a different language but was face-to-face with us than we could with someone who spoke the same language, but via chat (or a blog post).

But those numbers are very specific to just have been randomly made up...
Here's where they come from:
According to pychcology professor Albert Mehrabian:

When you first meet new people, their initial impression of you will be based 55% on your appearance and body-language, 38% on your style of speaking and only 7% on what you actually say.

Impression.
Now that actually makes sense! Not message. Not communication. Impression.

Furthermore, he was speaking specifically about communication about feelings, and the degree to which a person's non-verbal communication matched the verbal - as in, if a person says "I'm fine, really", but they look and sound upset, you are likely to not believe them.

In his own words, regarding this common misinterpretation of his work:

""Total Liking = 7% Verbal Liking + 38% Vocal Liking + 55% Facial Liking. Please note that this and other equations regarding relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes (i.e., like–dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable."

If I Were Elected King of the Country

My new friend asked me a few weeks ago, "what would you change about the world, if you had the power to?"

She said she tried to ask all new people she met that question.

She said it was surprising how many people didn't have an answer because they had never thought about it.

I couldn't answer, but for a very different reason.

I just couldn't sum up, couldn't choose from the list what to say first.

I've been thinking about it ever since then, and I still can't find any way to tie all the various things together, so, instead of going into the detail about how and why for each one, I think I'll just list as many as I can think of.

(and if anyone wants elaboration on any in particular, ask me as a comment, and maybe I'll make that one its own post)

These are in no particular order:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Election day would be a national holiday.  No one could be forced to work more than a 4 hour day on election day. 

Anyone not registered to vote would pay a small annual penalty with their taxes.

Judges would be subject to recall by popular vote.

Congressional, presidential, and governor terms 6 years.

All term limits would be eliminated.

All elections would be instant run off type (or another equivalent to eliminate "lesser of two evils" votes).

Party, primary, and electoral college systems eliminated.

Voter initiative process on federal level, and all 50 states.

All campaign related ads would be banned from TV, radio, print, direct mail, and billboards, starting 1 year prior to any election.  Each candidate or initiative would receive expanded space in the official election guide.  All statements made that could not be verified by an independent 3rd party fact checker would be marked with an asterisk.

No individual could donate more than $500 to any campaign or political organization in a year.  No company or corporation could donate any amount to any campaign or political organization.  No union, church, or other group could donate without 100% unanimous consent of all members, and then no more than the equivalent of $100 per member.  For any amount an individual spent out of pocket for a campaign, they would have to contribute an equal amount to the public campaign fund. 
All of this would be less important, giving the ban on media ads.

Media (of any form) which reports any mistaken information or error as factual, would be required to report the correction with equal or greater prominence and length of time as the original mistake (if error was headline for 3 days, retraction must be headline for 3 days)

Public school would be paid at the national level, by number of students (regardless of performance).  Any outside income (gifts of cash or supplies by parents for example) would reduce funding by 50% of the amount of income (i.e. parent donates $100, then federal funding is reduced by $50), used for the pool, to benefit schools with less generous parents.

Teacher training and classroom curricula would be evidence based

No multiple choice test could be used for assessment.  Guiding principal should be teaching for understanding, not just retention of facts.

Preschool and kindergarten would both become mandatory and free.

2 and 4 year college / university would be voluntary, free for any family below median national income.

All college finals would be administered one semester after the end of the class (to test for long-term retention)

Public school teacher salaries would be cut by roughly 5-10% (approximately the amount private school teachers make), principals and administrators by 25-50% (to be within 25% more than teachers).  All of this extra money would go to hiring more teachers to reduce classroom size. 

Teachers would have at least 15min of prep time for each 55min of instruction.
They would be eligible for overtime after 112 hours per month(equivalent annual hours to other jobs, considering summer and other breaks - after reduced work hours, (see below))

Cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and predictable irrationality would be a required course in middle school, high school, and college (beginning, intermediate, and advanced, respectively).

Drug use would be decriminalized.  Selling without a license would not be.  Prostitution and gambling would also be legal, (though regulated and taxed).

No law or regulation could stay in effect unless it can be shown to tangibly benefit some individual or society as a whole.

No censorship of "indecency" (nudity, sex, language)

Sex ed would be taught in preschool, 5th grade, and 12th grade, each class more advanced and in-depth (the first would be similar to current Jr High level, the last would be equivalent to college Human Sexuality course).  It would be a graduation requirement, so no opt out.

It would be illegal to formally teach any child below the age of 18 any form of religion, (other than in a historical or sociological context).  This would include attending services.

Churches would no longer be tax exempt.

No government recognition of religion or God, even in a neutral, non-specific way (e.g. "...One Nation, Under God..." or "In God We Trust")

All pronouns would be replaced with gender neutral ones.

All restrooms and locker rooms would be unisex (with individual stalls, and/or separate areas of the room optionally)

Combat and infantry roles would be available to women in the military.

No government or business could mandate different dress codes by gender.

This would include that women could be topless anywhere that men could.

Public beaches and parks would be clothing optional.

All laws on sexual assault, age of consent, marriage, etc would be gender neutral (this would, among other things, inherently legalize gay marriage).

No cosmetic surgery (including circumcision and pierced ears) before the age of 18

All subsidies and price controls for feed crops would be eliminated.

Minimum standards for animal welfare would include daily access to outdoors and a diet resembling a "natural" one - i.e. herbivores could not be fed animal by-products, nothing would be fed manure, nor its own specie, nor a reciprocal specie (i.e. Animal A is fed animal B, and animal B is fed animal A)

All new cars would be governed to a maximum of 65mph, or to the maximum of the state is is sold in, whichever is lower.

Each lane on any highway with 2 or more lanes in each would direction would have specified lane speeds. A two lane would have a maximum speed of 65 and minimum of 55 in the left lane, and max of 55 and minimum of 40 in the right. 
For a 3 lane, from the left, the speeds to maintain would be 60mph, 50, and 40 (each +/- 5mph).  A 4 lane would be 60, 55, 50, and 45 (+/-5).  A 5 lane would be 60, 55, 50, 45, 40 (+/-5). 

Speeds on all highways would be monitored by randomly placed, (and periodically moved) radar machines - a combination of the radar systems that say "your speed is:" and the camera detection system that catch red light and toll violators.  Like the latter, they would look up registration by plate number, and mail you your ticket.

The first 2 violations would be warning.  The 3rd would be a $100 fine.  The 4th would be a $500 fine.  The 5th would be one week mandatory community service.  The 6th would be license suspension for a year.

No one could get a drivers license without an intensive driver's ed class (50 hours minimum).  It would cover all the basics, plus: changing oil, checking tire pressure / fluid levels, changing a wheel, and safety check - cone tests, parallel parking, driving in reverse - calculating speed, distance, and time, as well as braking distance and impact force at different speeds - fuel economy, basic hypermiling - safe and legal bicycle operation - auto crashes, causes and prevention - practical accident avoidance, using simulator - poor weather handling, rain, ice, snow, fog, and glare - driving with manual transmission.  The final test could not contain any multiple choice questions, and would cover all topics, some as hands on skills tests.

Driving class (as above) would have a 2-3 day mandatory refresher course every 10 years - every 5 years before age 25 and after age 60, as well as after every moving violation or accident

No communication device while driving (including hands free) except 2-way radios used in the course of a job which involves driving (truck and taxi drivers, emergency services)

Public safety tax based on weight for all motor vehicles, added to annual registration (i.e. one pays for the additional risk to everyone else caused by their choice to buy a 3 ton SUV rather than a 1 ton car) - based on the grand total public cost of all accidents, divided by the total number of registered cars, proportioned by weight.

Anyone found to be 1% or greater at fault in any auto "accident" would be automatically charged with criminal negligence.

Revoke mandatory airbags, seatbelts, crash rating standards.

Traffic lights would flash green before turning yellow (as in Mexico).  They would flash red before turning green (so you know to turn your engine back on)

Stop signs would be considered yield signs for bicyclists (as in Ohio)

All 4-way stop sign intersections would be converted to either a 2-way stop, a traffic circle, or a stop light.

All major one-way streets would have timed / synchronized stop lights.

50% tax on retail gasoline, money used to subsidize public transit.

At rush hour, instead of a carpool lane, the left most lane would be for commercial vehicles (being used for work, not for commuting), transit, emergency services, and people with permanent disabilities only.  On highways with 3 or more lanes, the next one over from the commercial / handicapped lane would be for carpools of 4+ people, plus toll road paid by electronic RFID tag

Upper limit of inheritance or gifts of $10,000.  The government income from estates would replace all (or at least most) of the income tax.

The rate for any remaining income tax would be at least half for earned income (wages / salary / commission) as for unearned income (dividends, capital gains, gifts, prizes).

The tax rate on unearned income would be steeply progressive, with a maximum rate of 99% after $100,000.

One may only own land which you personally live and/or work on - i.e. a maximum of two parcels (one for work, one for home) per person.  They can be any size, so long as they are a) continuous and b) actively and directly used by the owner in some way.

No one could have more than 2 households as tenants, and then only if the tenants share the same parcel that the landlord lives on.

Corporate charters would only be granted for very specific circumstances, where it is demonstrated that the product or service offered could not be provided by a privately held company, and that it is of overall benefit to society.  Any charter application which met those standards and was granted would be for a specific and limited time period - 1 year by default, 5 years with requested extension, 10 years considered with an explanation of the need for a longer time period.

Patents and copyright would be good for 10 years, or until a 25% return on investment was made by the patent/copyright holder, or until the applicant dies whichever came first.

Business licenses and fees would be by percentage of net income, not flat amounts.

Business insurance companies would be required to offer a broad range of coverage and deductible amounts, so that small scale and hobby businesses with low maximum potential risk could afford coverage.

Any form of business could be run out of one's residence unless a specific risk or harm to the neighbors could be demonstrated.  "Lowering property values" would not in-and-of itself be a valid form of harm.

Employers would not pay for the employees' payroll taxes.  The employee would cover the full amount of their own social security and medicare taxes.

Employers would also not cover medical insurance, but that would be irrelevant, because there would be nationalized, single payer, health care.

1/2 of company profit would be distributed equally among all employees, without regard for title or position.  Any increase in efficiency due to improved technology that were not passed on to the consumer would be distributed to employees either in the form of fixed hours and increased salary, or fixed salary and decreased hours.

No one could sue for loss of profit.

A company with more than zero profit could not lay off employees.

Overtime would be anything over 86 hours per month, would pay time and a half, no exceptions by profession, would apply to salary and commission as well.  Double time after 172 hours in one month.

No company or corporation could buy another.

No company could have more than one location, except in those cases where the nature of the company required multiple locations (such as delivery service).  Exception could be made on a case by case basis, if the expansion could be shown to benefit society as a whole enough to offset the anti-competitiveness.

Any company based in the US, or with a majority of US shareholders, or with 1% or more of product exported to the US, must follow all US wage, safety, and environmental laws and regulations, regardless of the location of production.  (For example, if a company builds a factory in China, they still must pay US minimum wage if they want to export the product into the US)

No US military protection of private property, on US soil or abroad.  For example, US oil companies would have to pay for their own private security to guard pipelines.  Private corporate interests could not be considered "national interests", even if the product they produce is of value to the nation.

Any action of military or CIA is automatically war, whether or not it is officially declared.

Any action longer than 5 days must be approved by congress.  Any action longer than 60 days must be unanimously approved by all 50 states (via senators and/or governors).  Any action longer than one year requires majority vote of all US citizens.

Military budget reduced by 90% (give or take).  It could never be increased to more than 10% less than whatever nation has the highest military budget.

Universal conscription of all citizens at 18, both genders, deferments for medical issues, but no other reason.  Everyone must attend bootcamp.  After that, choice of 2 years of either military service, or civil service.

In middle school, high school, and college, reversible long-term birth control would be provided at no cost to both genders (yes, the technology exists).  This would be voluntary, and either child or parent could choose to opt out for any reason, however it would be the default - everyone would get it unless they actively choose to opt out.

(Voluntary) permanent sterilization would be provided at no cost to all adults.

All forms of contraceptive would be covered in full through health care.

Child tax credits would be eliminated.

Welfare would provide a fixed amount per household - it would not increase with additional children.

Universal, single payer healthcare - however, in order to engage in certain high risk activities, you would have to opt out.  You would present your opt out card before buying cigarettes, and to get a registration sticker with a stripe which indicates you may drive a car without a seatbelt of ride a motorcycle without a helmet.  Possibly also for purchasing more than a certain quantity of alcohol at one time, and certain foods.  Anyone who opted out could be refused service at any hospital unless they pay in full in advance, even in emergencies.  They could still purchase private health insurance, if any private insurer wanted to cover them.



Citizenship would not be automatic:
At age 18, each person would need to pass the same citizenship exam that immigrants have to pass (this would be covered in high school). 
They would  have to go to military bootcamp, and then either serve in the military or in civil service for 2 years.  They would have to register to vote. 

Anyone choosing not to apply for citizenship would be considered a native resident. 

Native residents would not have to pay any taxes.

They also could not vote or run for office.  They would not be eligible for public assistance, including health care and (college level) education.  They could not drive motor vehicles on public roads, nor sue in court.  They would be responsible for the labor, fuel, and expenses if using emergency services such as police or firefighters. 

One could apply for citizenship at anytime, up to age 40, however, once revoked, you could not get it back for 15 years, and would have to begin the process from the beginning.

Awareness of white privilege VS actually working to change it

• Apr 28, 2010

Awareness of white privilege VS actually working to change it

A couple friends of mine are taking a class on being a "white ally" - race awareness and relations, power and privileged, and counteracting racism.

One of them mentioned to me some critical feedback she had offered and it got me to thinking in more detail what has always bothered me about those sort of discussions, but up until now never quite pinned down.

The following is not a commentary on that class in particular, as I know essentially nothing about it, but rather a critique of a few general ideas I have heard and read on the topic in the past:

1 There is no such thing as "people of color"
-The impact of past racism (including slavery) and present racism does not effect all races equally, nor all in the same way.
- A black american and a white american likely have more in common with each other than with a fresh-off-the-boat Vietnamese person. A white american whose family has been in the US for generations likely has more culture in common with a black american than with a first generation eastern european immigrant with whom they share skin color.
-The very term "people of color" encourages white people to think in terms of a false dichotomy of 'us' (all white people) and 'them' (everyone else). It not only homogenizes all other races, it also makes everyone not white into an "other".
-Lumping all non-white cultures into one category, while giving white an entire separate category in itself suggests a type of superiority.
-This dichotomy also discounts the existence of mixed race individuals (officially 2% of US society, but really much higher - most surveys, as well as society, force people to choose one identity, even if they are in fact mixed)

2 Historical racism is the single largest cause for modern black poverty, and poverty does generally correlate with crime. However no historical or sociological factors can excuse individual behavior. No matter what circumstances a person is born into, they have a choice about their own behavior. Apologizing for, ignoring, discounting, or explaining away black crime rates, drug rates, or general anti-social behavior (e.g. boombox on a crowded train) does nothing to increase equality, and does not bring less conscious white people about as allies.

3 Discrimination is explicitly illegal. Talking about "institutionalized" or "systemic" racism does not address the issues which are most relevant today. While there are still white supremacists in the US, their view has become as unacceptable in mainstream society as it once was only among civil-rights activists. The president of the US is 1/2 African. This does not mean that the conversation about race is over. However, it does mean it is time to change that conversation.

For example, talking about power hierarchies is mostly nonsensical today. If racism = racism + power (as is often claimed by race activists), this does not imply that only whites can be racist, because whites do not have any particular power over other races. There are minorities in the role of police officer, judge, congress person, boss, professor, etc. as well as whites in poverty, in jail, or otherwise powerless. If you ignore all individual circumstances and look only at the whole society, then no one can be racist, because society is no one person.

4 Rarely is it explicitly acknowledged how much - and in what way - individuals (primarily, but not exclusively, white) continue to benefit from past racism. This nation was taken by force from the American Indian, built largely by African slaves (as well as Asian indentured servants) and thanks largely to not only racism, but also inheritance and locally funded education, past disparities directly result in present disparities. Even if one's own ancestors never killed Indians or owned slaves, the mere fact of living in this country means you personally benefit from those who did.

5 Not all non-white people are poor. Not all white people are middle class or wealthy. Class and race are not interchangeable. To speak about them as if they were interchangeable represents a stereotype - it implies a universal truth based on a statistic. The implication itself is racist.

Replacing discussions of poverty, economics, and class with discussions of race is a tool those with power (white, yes, but a special subset of white people - wealthy conservatives) use to polarize the working class. They emphasize criminals and welfare recipients (read: blacks) or immigrants (read: hispanics) and leave unspoken as a given the unity between white Americans of different classes. This helps prevent what should be a natural alliance of the lower class against those who exploit them.

6 What keeps the racial status quo in our society is not a social issue, but rather an economic one.
What too few people talk about is the way in which the condition of one generation affects the next.
After slavery blacks were supposed to get land. This was not a hand-out, but merely a way to compensate, to allow them to begin to catch up. This never happened.
Since poverty is inherited just as surely as wealth, the only way to level the playing field short of paying reparations (with 145 years interest) today would be a strict inheritance tax on not only the wealthy, but the middle class. This would include not only cash, but things such as houses and family businesses.

The single largest factor in predicting an individuals success in life is their education. Pre-school is the best indicator of how well a child does in school. It will be impossible to ever have a equal society without universal, mandatory, publicly financed pre-school. Schools in America are funded 50% or more by local taxes. This system guarantees that schools in poor areas are underfunded and schools in wealthy areas have better resources and an easier time keeping good teachers. Locally funded public schools is an amazingly effective method of retaining the status quo, while appearing on the surface to be neutral and fair. To counteract generations of inherited poverty, ignorance, and a cultural mindset of being separate from society, America should be offering fully funded college for all low-income high-school graduates. And because poverty and ignorance are inherited no matter one's color, this should be extended to anyone who can't afford it.

Racism, in the sense of individual people with power holding stereotypes about a race and acting on that prejudice against individual members of said race, is a relatively small factor in modern America. Formally institutionalized racism is a thing of the past.
Were all of society, at all levels, to suddenly become "color blind", the trends set in motion hundreds of years ago would continue none-the-less. For this reason educating individuals about the existence of "white privilege" can not do much to change anything. If energy is going to be invested into change, it should be invested where it will do the most good.

Its one thing to be aware of culturally insensitive language. It is another all together to recognize that the economic system we take for granted perpetuates the impact of slavery, and that no matter how aware one is in their personal relationships, you directly benefit from the current system - and then work to change that system, even if it means undermining your own economic advantages.

This would mean advocating significant increases in middle class taxes, to fund more social programs. This would mean taking the time to counter the "tea-party" people, pointing out that true justice demands a redistribution of wealth. It would mean protesting to get colleges fees raised, in order to pay for scholarships. This would mean, instead of donating money / time / materials to your own children's school, donating that same time and money to the poorer district a few miles away.

Me personally, I have been called ni**er on more than one occasion. But (not counting by other black people who use it casually - that is whole different topic) it has been in each case by a meth addict (one disowned by her family, and the other evicted from a trailer park). These are people with no power, no influence. These are people so low on the social strata, all they have left to feel even mildly good about themselves is to find someone to hate, for any reason they can. As much as it roils the blood to hear it, they are harmless. The people and ideas that maintain the status quo - including associations of particular races with poverty, drug use, crime, etc - are not overtly racist; in fact, in most cases not even necessarily sub-consciously racist. Racism set up the status quo, but economics is what maintains it.

Capitalism, the free market, individualism, and the republic system of government (as opposed to true democracy) all play a part in maintaining the present as it was in the past. If we want a just society, those are the things that we need to look at first.

THERE IS SO MUCH TO LEARN

• Nov 22, 2009

THERE IS SO MUCH TO LEARN

I have not been writing much lately.

Spending my time with work, and new friends, and classes.

Work remains fun, after 3 years of doing the same things (compare to a record of 10 months max at any one job for the rest of my life prior), easy enough to be good at it, challenging enough to stay interesting. 

Just the past few days involved somehow fitting about 10cubic yards of random stuff into the truck for the largest hauling run I've had so far, installing drywall in an attic furnace room so the building could pass fire inspection, and careful deconstuction of the walls holding in the old biodiesel tanks at the old biodiesel fuel station so the lumber could be reused.

But far more important and interesting is the classes.

Little by little I add to my stable of random skills.

Expert in nothing, but my goal is for everyone there is, I can do at least one thing moderately well that they don't do at all. 

Maybe there is someone who does a little carpentry and electronics soldering and computer software troubleshooting and lockpicking and sailing and shooting guns and bow and arrows and swordplay and bicycle repair and auto mechanics and unicycling and gardening.

Just in case, I'm taking muy thai and jui jitsu and I just took a seminar on making fire with natural materials, another on edible wild foods of the East Bay, and today one on tracking animals, and also took my first parkour class.  Judging by the skill level of my classmates, watching YouTube videos and practicing on my own at the playground and on random obstacles I find walking around the city has been more beneficial than I realized.

I feel more and more like a character from an action/adventure movie, where the hero somehow knows how to do everything. 

And yet what strikes me continually is how much I still don't know.  Not even counting all the stuff I am not interested in learning, but the skills I still want, if money was no object, would take a lifetime to learn.

And money is an object.

So one lifetime isn't enough.

I have had debt for a few years, collected over a cross country trip/move and major vehicle failure, months of unemployment,  going back to college, buying a newer larger trailer, and having to buy my ex out of said trailer when she moved out.

I am getting tantalizingly close to paying off the last of it.

I decided once I do, classes take priority one.  Jobs will be fit around them, not the other way around.  I'm looking to work about 20hrs per week.

I am saying this publicly so as to have some accountability.  If you hear me say I am working too much come next summer, remind me I said this.

Thanks

Race (Whites still winning)

• Jul 28, 2009

Race (Whites still winning)

Recently a friend of mine suggested the only topics I haven't addressed are racism and sexism.
As it happens, I did write on sexism not long ago ("...feminism is nothing more than the "radical" notion that women are people. Not that women are men. Not that women are capable of being men...Claiming that women are capable of doing anything men are is also the suggestion that men should be the standard by which people are measured.")
I had my own ideas of what to write about next, but in light of another recent conversation, it looks like he was right. Its time.



I have a few (white) friends who have complained to me on different occasions about how unfair it is that ...insert some random instance of perceived "reverse" racism here...
I am, perhaps, the friend that people can point to and say "I am not racist, some of my best friends are black", and being that friend apparently my word carries extra weight if I support them in their argument that 'such and such' is unfair.
(Never mind for now what it implies about me that such a disproportionate number of my friends are white...)



Well, first of all, you are racist. You, reading this right now. Just admit it. I'm not saying you don a white hood on the weekends, but in the very first fraction of a moment you see someone new, you make some assumptions about them based on what they look like, and skin color plays a factor in that. You may not ever act on it in any way. You might be totally willing to look past that initial assumption and give each person a fair chance to show who they really are. But it is part of how the human mind works to seek patterns, and living in our society it is impossible to not be at all racist. I know I am.
Some researchers at Harvard built a test to try to get at subconscious initial reactions, and put it online where you can try it.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/..implicit/demo/
If you are one of the exceptions, and score neutral, it really doesn't change anything overall. The issue is bigger than you; and the fact is that the majority of people make the same assumptions we expect. And so long as its true in society as a whole, every white individual in the country directly benefits from it.

A most simple example of what some could see as unfair is Affirmative Action.
When I was younger I saw it as just that. If we want to get past racism, we shouldn't be using race as a criteria, for anyone.
Thing is, pretending that there is equality doesn't make it true.
To call affirmative action (or whatever else) reverse racism is to ignore both history and the reality of today. Being color blind does not, can not, will never, solve existing problems, because we aren't starting from neutral.

First of all (and I wrote about this years ago, but before I had any significant readership...) reparations were never paid. This country has virtually unrestricted inheritance.
(I thought about trying to summarize, but I actually wrote pretty much exactly what I wanted to say here back then. So take a moment to read that one)
http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/03/heading-14-in-which-reparations-are.html

Prejudice against blacks by whites has affected a dozen generations of people, and continues to have an enormous effect on millions of people right now, today. If we start from right now, and eliminate all racism, it would STILL have an enormous effect on us, because the effects are inherited.

If someone in your ancestry immigrated more recently the same issue of a non-level playing field applies, because the US generally does not admit immigrants who can't show some level of existing financial security. One way or another, they aren't starting from zero.

So suppose your own parents were drunks or gamblers and you got nothing from your family but food and shelter, left home at 15, had to fund your own education.
You then might get the mistaken idea that you didn't have any advantages.

But the truth is, although you would never notice it, you have had plenty.

You can't tell by just watching individual situations. Because it is more subtle than that.
But you can tell by looking at the overall trends.

You can see society wide racism in the fact that a black person is 5-20% (depending on the offense) more likely to be sentenced to prison time as a white person for the same crime.
(Many studies attempt to account for this by factoring in prior sentences, but this is a circular argument. If you are more likely to be convicted the first time, obviously you are more likely to be convicted the 2nd time too)
Once convicted, Blacks face 10-15% longer prison time.
For drug offenses:

"African Americans make up approximately 12 percent of the population and are 13 percent of the drug users, yet they constitute 38 percent of all drug arrests and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses...Nationwide African American males sentenced in state courts on drug felonies receive prison sentences 52 percent of the time, while white males are sentenced to prison 34 percent of the time...When sentenced for drug offenses in state courts, whites serve an average of 27 months and blacks an average of 46 months" - Justice on Trial: Racial Disparities in the American Criminal Justice System, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Leadership Conference Education Fund, 2000

You can tell from college admission rates - with or without affirmative action
http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/56_race_sensitive_not_helping.html
http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/56_b_w_disparities.html
http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/..docs/op42.html

You can tell from the Black unemployment rate: consistently about twice the average for whites.
Or from the percentage of Black CEOs or congress people (1% of the Fortune 500 - the highest # ever; 40 out of 435 in congress and 1 out of 100 senators - these numbers in comparison to almost 14% of the general population.)

There are two ways to explain that difference. Either Black people as a whole actually are less capable and hard-working, or else the affects of society-wide racism are still as relevant today as they ever were.

If we can point to these examples and show statistically that, even accounting for individual intelligence and work ethic, Black people are overall at a disadvantage, another equally valid way to say the same thing is, all other things being equal, White people have an advantage.
Every college application. Every job interview. Every time you walk into a store. In that very first moment that someone takes a look at you, somewhere in the back of their mind is a prejudice in your favor. You will never notice it. You will have no way to know. But it's there.

Having a (half) Black president (who's African ancestry didn't descend from slavery but immigrated here) doesn't change anything of significance, so long as there is that fraction of a second of assumption that people make when they see someone new for the first time.

It's no different than if an Aboriginal American were to make some blanket statement about Americans taking the Indian's land. I am an American. I was born here. I worked for what I have now and am a generally good person. I never harmed an Indian American, never took anyone's land, never deliberately spread disease.
But the fact remains that every day I directly benefit from the people who did do those things.
I have no intention of giving up my own property or abandoning my home on the grounds that Oakland should rightfully be inhabited by Aboriginal Americans, but I certainly have no grounds to be indignant or self-righteous about the issue. As far as the actual effects go, I benefit just as much from Europeans having committed genocide against the people who lived here before them as someone directly descended from them. And merely by choosing to accept that benefit which I was born into, in a way, albeit small and indirect, I share in the responsibility for the fact that Aboriginal Americans today are by and large confined to reservations of land that no one else wanted, living largely in poverty.

We may not be directly at fault, but we are all complicit in receiving the benefits, which are at someone else's expense. So if an American Indian makes a blanket statement about Americans (which includes me) which may be technically unfair, all I can say is "your right, and I'm sorry". I have no counter-argument. I have nothing to complain about. I have no right to be indignant.

And so to, if someone makes a blanket statement such as "white people are racist" or "white people repress others", you don't get to be offended. You don't get to point out the logical flaws in generalizing. You don't get to call double standard or reverse racism.
It may be "unfair" that you are born into being seen as an oppressor, but it is even less fair that I have to prove myself just that much more than you do.
I have had friends "jokingly" say that I am not "really" Black, or not "that" Black because of how I talk and dress and act.  Those same associations, those stereotypes, they are racism, even if they aren't inherently negative, and accepting any one association implies all the others to be valid.  The fact that I can trace my own family lineage directly to American slavery on both sides of my family makes me Black.  The fact that every time I meet someone new, for at least an instant they will make certain associations and therefor assumptions about me makes me Black.

Have I experienced racism first hand? Not overtly. It would be hard to know for sure, since the person it was coming from is likely not conscious of it. Chances are, not so much. All it takes is a few minuets of talking to me and I can dispel any stereotypes pretty thoroughly, make a case for myself as an exception even with someone who is generally (subconsciously) racist, and I live in a place where it being overt is unacceptable (I learned in my travels that this is far from universal in this country).
But the point is I shouldn't have to.
Between being thought of as an oppressor and actually being oppressed, you have the better end of the deal. So suck it up and get over it.

Being color blind is not a solution. It is a cop-out. Pretending that slavery didn't happen, that racism has not been an enormous factor, and just focusing on the basic equality of man will not do anything to change things. If you need to here everything logical and fair, take a logic class, or a justice class, or a love everybody class. If you don't want to hear people say white people are racist and that's a bad thing, don't take a racial studies class.

Is it unreasonable for people to make blanket statements? Yeah, of course it is. But focusing on it isn't much different from telling a holocaust survivor that some Nazis didn't hate Jews, or stopping a conversation about rape because of improper grammar.


I don't want to end without offending everyone equally, so now is as good a time as any for another rant I have.

This one is directed to Black Americans.
Stop acting like jackasses.
We have centuries worth of stereotypes to put behind us.
Don't deliberately jaywalk extra slow just to make people wait for you.
Don't evade the fare on the train.
Don't drink or smoke weed in pubic.
Don't play music on the bus. When is the last time you saw a white person playing a boom box in the back of the bus?
Don't get into fist fights. People tried to make the shooting of Oscar Grant by BART police into a race issue. There were no white people involved in fist fights on the train. If he wasn't fighting on a crowded train, he wouldn't have gotten shot. Simple as that.
I have a 400watt stereo system with a separate powered sub-woofer behind the seat. I like my music loud, and to roll around with my windows down and my system bump as much as anyone. But when you are in a residential neighborhood at 11pm, turn that shit down. What the hell is wrong with you?
Years of oppression and poverty don't change the basic rules of being a decent respectful human being.
Remember earlier when I pointed out I have to prove myself each time I meet someone new? That's not because of a legacy of slavery. That's because of you.
People build impressions based on what they see, and each time you act a fool, it makes us all look bad.
Its true that Blacks are given disproportionate prison sentences, but it is also true that Blacks commit a disproportionate amount of (non-drug-related) crime
So when there is a statistic like 35% of the prison population is Black or 1/3 of black males between 18-29 has been, is, or will be imprisoned, part of that is systemic racism, but part of it is Black people committing crimes. It seems it has become un-PC to say so.
That's not OK. No amount of history or social issues can excuse individual behavior.
Obviously this behavior is the minority of the Black population, (although it is, inherently, a very visible minority). But if it isn't you, chances are its your friends, or your children, a family member or neighbor. And if you don't say something, no one else will. The single best way to change the perception of us is to eliminate unfavorable associations at the source.

I think its actually pretty simple and straight forward. We just need to eliminate all forms of inheritance, standardize education from preschool through university for everyone, make all hiring blind, and change young Black culture to emphasize respect of others. Those 4 steps and all this will become a non-issue in no time.
And when that happens, then we can finally have a purely logical and intellectual discussion on the subject.

The Contest

• May 11, 2009

The Contest

[note: this is a repost from long ago.  You cannot vote.  But you can still see it]


I would much appreciate it if you voted for my instructable.

I don't so much want the prize, but I would love the exposure.

Unfortunately you have to sign up, but fortunately it's free, and doesn't take very long.

Thanks in advance.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Vehicle-efficiency-upgrades/

A practical and useful blog!

• Dec 6, 2008

A practical and useful blog!

No ranting here.

It has come to my attention that a lot of people don't really know about these options.

Chances are, if you are reading this, you have a computer, and if you have a computer, you will probably find one or more of these things useful.
They are free.
And they are even legal.

The first are related to security. Internet relate hacking can be a big problem when someone cracks into your computer remotely and ID thefts you. A bad virus can permanently crash computer. A dialer can rack up 100s in unauthorized phone charges by using your fax line to dial 900 numbers. Mostly its just annoying software that hopes to entice you to buy some stupid crap.
While Norton and McAfee would like you to spend $60 plus a ongoing subscription charge, you can get equally good protection from viruses, spyware, and hackers, all for free.

For viruses, try AVG Free.
 http://free.avg.com/
 For spyware (and a lot more under "advanced, if you so choose) install "SpyBot Search and Destroy"
http://www.spybot.com/index2.html
For a software firewall, there is ZoneAlarm (A firewall keeps people from accessing your computer remotely.)
http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/zonealarm-pc-security-free-firewall.htm(note: they want you to buy the pay version. Read carefully and keep clicking the free options. It is fully functional, and does everything you need)



There are plenty of other free security software out there, but not all are equal. In fact, there are some "spyware removal" programs which are actually spyware themselves, and "antivirus" programs which install their own viruses.
These 3 programs have been around for many many years, and are well known. They have been shown in tests to be as effective as the big brand name versions. I personally have been using them successfully for years.

Then there is plain old Mozilla Firefox. It seems most people already know about it. According to my data compiler, almost as many people access my website using it as use Internet Explorer. If you aren't among them: Firefox takes the place of Internet Explorer. It has fewer security flaws. It is easier to use, but at the same time has more options and is more configurable. The latest version of IE was basically them trying to catch up with the format Firefox has had all along (most obviously the "tabs" option, which allows you to have two subwindows open within the same main window.) There is the added bonus of not using Microsoft software.

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Chances are that you are using Firefox to read this right now.
But within it, there is something called "add-ons" which a lot of people never notice. Its in the menu bar under "tools".
Some examples:
AdBlock Plus. It will block all of the annoying flashing and animated advertising boxes and bars on 1/2 of the websites you use.
IETab. There are some webpages that don't function right in Firefox (because they have a deal with microsoft - they are rare, but there are some). Allows you to open a page in a virtual Internet Explorer window, within Mozilla.
Download StatusBar. Puts the separate download window in a more convenient spot at the bottom of the browser window (the same place where the search bar pops up when you hit cntrl F)
GMail notifier tells you with a tiny icon in the corner when you have a new message, to eliminate the need to check 60 thousand times a day when you are expecting something. There are similar add-ons for yahoo or Hotmail. They can handle multiple accounts, and can be configured to tell you who a new message is from and the subject, and/or to make a tone so you know even if you aren't at the computer.
There are many more options, which may be useful depending on what sort of things you do on the internet. There are over 2000.
They are free, and couldn't be easier to install.
Go to "add-ons" (under tools)
Pick what you want, download, restart firefox, done!
or
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

Finally:
Have you ever hit "copy" or cntrl C, and then a little later tried to paste what you copied into another place, only to discover that you accidentally copied something else more recently? Clipboard recorder remembers the last 100 things that you copied, so you can recall any of them, regardless of what you copied last. This may sound unnecessary right now, but believe me, after the first time you use it, you will wonder why it isn't built in to the operating system.
If I had to estimate, I would have to say I use it about 1 million times a day. 

http://www.lw-works.com/clipboard-recorder

All of these programs are genuinely free. There are no ads, no reminders begging you for money, and they are not illegal copies.
They are just free.
Some have pay versions, with more features.
Some simply were never made for the sake of profit.
If you like the software, I encourage you to donate to the people who created it.
Its a whole different outlook, creating things to share with the world, w/o attempting to extract as much as possible from it. But I said I wouldn't rant.

Enjoy

Education -> Now, with references!!!!

• Feb 18, 2008

Education -> Now, with references!!!!

NOTE:  let me say upfront that I think this entire entry is a gross oversimplification.



We (Americans) aren't very smart.

Oh sure, there are plenty of individuals to prove me wrong; but as a whole, as a nation, I think it would be hard to argue.

But we are like the school bully or the rich kid (whose parents think it's good for him to go to public school).  We get our way all the time, and no one dares to point out to us how dumb we are.

We alone still use the English system of measurement, being afraid to learn something new, even if it's far easier in the long run.  50% of us believe in literal creationism (dinosaurs are either a hoax perpetrated by scientists and/or the devil, or they died in Noah's flood), and another 40% believe in intelligent design(1). Contrast this England, where 97% of Priests and Ministers don't believe in literal creationism(2)! 20% of us think the sun revolves around the earth,  and 11% can not find the US on an unmarked world map.(3,4)

Clearly we have the resources.  We have by far the largest total GDP, as well as one of the highest per capita in the world.(5,6)

So why is it this way?

Well...



I don't know.

For once, I can not even pretend to have any answers.

I don't like how this blog is turning out.
I think I will erase the whole thing and start over.


We'll see.


-----

For once it seems that the conservatives and libertarians have at least part of it right.

As it turns out, the US spends more per student than a great many other industrialized countries, the majority of which have students at all levels that can out perform ours.(7,8)
Private schools in the US also spend less money per student, yet have better test scores and higher graduation rates.
There is of course a number of more complex issues than money - kids in private schools have parents involved enough to not only pay the tuition, but to choose a specific school for their kid, put in the time to find it and enroll them, and a more involved parent willing to pay extra for education is more likely to have been well educated themselves, to have begun teaching stuff like counting and the alphabet early, and to have sent the child to preschool and kindergarten. 

However in at least one US school district that was studied, it was also true that for the equivalent size, the public schools had twice the administrative staff compared to the private schools, and half the teachers.(9)
While spending overall divided by number of students is higher, a great proportion of that is wasted on administration, management, and bureaucracies.


Unfortunately it looks like if anything, the efforts meant to improve public schools are aimed largely at management and bureaucracy.  Poorly preforming schools have control handed over to larger and more distant entities, the district becomes more involved, and eventually the state takes over entire districts.  Increasingly complex and demanding rules govern funding, with policy set at the state and federal level, and teachers are taken out of the classroom (and replaced with subs) for mandatory training and professional development regardless of how well their doing or what they may have been working on in the classroom that day otherwise.

---
There seems to be something disturbingly self-defeating about much of our education policy, some things which seem so obvious that its hard to not wonder if people could really believe that some of our policies are really optimal.

First and foremost, while our spending is high on average, the distribution is anything but equitable.
In the majority of states school district funding comes primarily not from federal funds, but from equal parts state and local property taxes.(10)
So, cities or counties with high property values - and therefor well off residents, have much better funded schools than areas with low property values.
What better way to preserve the status quo from one generation to the next?

This system is nothing new.

The emphasis on "accountability" is.

Of course to today's society, focused on growth and material goods over sustainability, health, or happiness, gross GDP over equitable distribution, the purpose of education is not a wise, knowledgeable, or well rounded populous, but a new generation employable in high-tech sectors.  However, even then, if we want people to succeed in college it makes sense to attempt to have students who genuinely understand the material, rather than merely being able to pass a multiple choice scan-tron type test.  In the work place there won't be a list of 4 choices a-e to fill in the correct bubble next to.  But demanding that all students everywhere use the same standardized test in order to advance a grade helps to ensure that teachers must teach to the test, teach test-taking strategies (eliminate the obviously wrong answers) instead of taking the time to explain concepts, and how they tie in with each other.


Worse yet, funding has been made proportionate to performance.  In other words, the schools which need the least help get the most money, and those which need the most get the least.  They call this "accountability". If a school, (perhaps due to being in an area with poor property values) has out-dated textbooks, a once-a-week librarian and counselor, few computers, and an un-reliable source of supplies, chances are they have lower test scores than one which has a computer for every 4 students, brand new books, and a well stocked supply room.  And in turn, due to the low test scores, the already strapped school will be the one to get funding cut even further.  Funding buys things like after-school tutors, or more teachers (which means smaller class sizes, more individual attention, and more time for teachers to develop interesting and effective lesson plans).  I went to help my wife prepare for the next weeks class one weekend, and ended up having to borrow paper from another teacher that was there that day, because there was no more in the copy room.

I think perhaps the people who came up with the idea, and those who promote it, are generally business leaders, politicians, and capitalists.  They are all people who are motivated first and foremost by money, who take the Ayn Rand view on altruism (that it is unnatural, and harmful to both giver and receiver).  To them the idea of penalizing under-performance makes since; to them it would be the best (or only) motivator to a teacher with tenure and paid on salary.
What they don't realize is: if you are a person with a Master's Degree looking to start a career, and your primary motivator isn't to help kids, you don't go into education.  Teachers - while paid more than blue-collar workers - have one of the lowest incomes among salaried professionals, among those who had to go to an extra 6 years of school to get the job, especially considering the extra hours required and that it is one of few professions which is specificallyexempted from the overtime laws the ordinarily apply to salaried workers.
If you wanted to get rich you would have become a stock broker, a real estate developer, worked your way up to upper management in some company, or perhaps software development.  People become teachers because they care about children.

Threatening to withhold funding or close under performing schools pre-supposes that the teachers weren't already trying their hardest, weren't already motivated, didn't really care if their students learned or not.  If a school is already filled with dedicated caring teachers, threatening them will not produce any results, other than extra stress, and an emphasis on teaching to the tests so that the school looks good on paper, even if the students are equally ignorant.






I strongly doubt that anyone would or could have planned something so elaborate out over such a long period of time, and so this idea is really not serious.  Although I do question from time to time whether there may not be a least a little truth to it.

I wonder if it is really to the advantage of the upper class to have universal high quality education.
If you have an unreasonable amount of undeserved wealth and power, would you rather the masses be college educated and aware of the world around them?

But the "law" says everyone is entitled to education up to high school.
Even minorities!

After slavery was legally abolished the "Jim Crow" laws, legal segregation and discrimination, helped to insure the non-whites remained in a separate and lower class for generations.  With the success of the civil rights movement, it became necessary to find more subtle and indirect ways to preserve the status quo. 

Crack and cocaine are chemically identical.  They come from the same source and produce the same effects.  The primary differences between them are cost, method of delivery, and: the demographics of the majority of users of each drug.  The mandatory sentencing guidelines make the sale of 5 grams of crack punished by the same sentence as it would take 100 times greater an amount of cocaine sales to equal.(11)

There has been an increase in focus on crime (even when rates nationwide are dropping) in both politics and media, with nearly half of states instituting some sort of 3-strikes law; in CA none of the crimes need be violent, and only the first 2 even need to be "serious", with petty theft being enough of a trigger for a 25 to life sentence.(11)  This is not directly racism. Over half of 3-strikes offenders are non-violent. Embezzling millions from shareholders will not lead you to life in prison, while shoplifting can.(12,13)  No white collar crime - although it may cost the victims far more - is considered "serious".  While it is true that the average crime rate among African American communities is higher than the overall, the arrest and conviction rates are disproportionately high even considering differing crime rates.  In other words, on average, if a black and white person are both caught for the exact same crime, on average, the black person is more likely to be convicted and/or receive a longer sentence. In particular with drug use, while blacks make up 15% of drug users, they make up almost 60% of drug convictions (80-90% in a number of states) - even among convictions, 33% of whites convicted of drug charges are given prison sentences compared to over half of blacks convicted of drug charges, with drug charges making up around 20% of the overall prison population.(14,15)
If, for whatever reasons, the justice system as a whole is biased, then any increase in punitive responses to crime inherently increases the effect.

Along with the war on drugs and a focus on crime, we've seen a strong and successful push to reduce or eliminate taxes and restrictions on the upper classes, eliminating taxes on un-earned income (inheritance, stock dividends) which applied only to the upper class (net worth of over a million and/or incomes over 350,000 a year and/or enough investment returns to eliminate the need to work) while reducing the progressivity of the income tax on productive work - a top bracket of 91% in the 50s lowered to a top bracket of 35% today, as well as on estate taxes, with a 2 million dollar inheritance just (2007) dropping from 55% to 45% with the entire tax repealed in 2 years.(16,17,18)

We also saw great calls to welfare "reform" in decades past, with much media and politician attention to those few examples of people who stayed on welfare indefinitely, and little attention drawn to the fact that before the calls to reform started the average welfare recipient received aid for under 2 years, and never returned to it.  It was put forth as a major tax drain despite being far down the list of federal expenditures (the military, privatized health care, and interest on the debt being the top 3 for many years).  On budget pie charts food stamps and AFDC checks are lumped together with Social Security (which the recipient paid into) and education, even student loans, in a broad "social welfare" category which skews perception, but in reality direct assistance to the poor only made up around 1-2% of government budgets.  Including medi-care, school lunches, veterans benefits, and other welfare which the middle class receives as well as the poor, it goes up to 12%.(19,20)  As a result of the falsely hyped up expenditure  of tax dollars on AFDC, WIC, and section 8 payments, welfare reform was put into place to force recipients, most frequently single mothers, to get a job, any job, immediately. 
This included dropping out of college to get a minimum wage job as well as leaving children with inadequate or no supervision during the work day to avoid severe or total cuts in benefits, with a mandatory cut off after 2 years regardless of circumstance.
With overt discrimination (against not just a race, but the entire lower class) becoming more difficult due to universal education anti-discrimination laws, increased freedom of information, and just being a democracy, more complex ways of keeping the lower class low and the elite excessively wealthy must be set up to appear on the surface to be equitable just and fair, while affecting some people more than others.

Might it be possible that the undermining of the public education system through local funding, standardized testing, "accountability", (and then promotion of the voucher system so that those in the middle class can afford to escape it) was another piece of other subtle social elements - the war on drugs, welfare reform, the elimination or reduction of taxes on unearned income - designed to preserve the status quo help prevent the "anyone who works hard can make it" concept that they promote as being a possibility in order to maintain social stability.

No.  I don't really think that is what is happening.  Yet sometimes its hard not to wonder if people really think some of the ideas they come up with are a good idea.


(1)http://www.gallup.com/poll/21811/American-Beliefs-Evolution-vs-Bibles-Explanation-Human-Origins.aspx
(2)http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm
(3)http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/30/science/30profile.html
(4)http://archives.cnn.com/2002/EDUCATION/11/20/geography.quiz/index.html
(5)https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html
(6)https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html
(7)http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/economic_surveys/006685.html
(8)http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/09/16/sprj.sch.education.compared.ap/
(9)http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/AboutUs/ArticleView.aspx?id=1213
(10)http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/pubs/npefs03/tables.asp
(11)http://www.aclu.org/drugpolicy/sentencing/10662leg20020521.html
(12)http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/21/BAGRNFBV211.DTL
(13)http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/08/MN218794.DTL
(14)http://www.drugwarfacts.org/racepris.htm
(15)http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/2354/Drugs-Justice-System-CONVICTION-SENTENCING-TRENDS.html
(16)http://www.cbpp.org/1-30-06tax2.htm
(17)http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/17/AR2006051701277.html
(18)http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50961-2005Apr13.html
(19)http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-runawaywelfare.htm
(20)http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/72/How-Much-Does-Nation-Spend-on-Welfare.html 

[UPDATE]

Bakari Kafele

From the reading I did in the process of writing, I do have some concrete ideas for improvements after all.

Although I am in general strongly in favor of regulation, unions, and other liberal protections, and have very little faith in the free market as a cure-all, in the case of education specifically, there does seem to be an unreasonable degree of government waste and bureaucracy.

While funding should remain public and access free and universal for students, contracting out upper management and administration (and possibly support services such as lunches, transportation, and janitorial services as well) is likely to provide a huge increase in efficiency both in funding and in procedures.

I would concede also that a degree of accountability is important, although I don't think the way it has been implemented is fair or helpful.
It would make sense to link teacher and principal raises to student performance rather than seniority on the individual level. If a particular teacher were to consistently have entire class average scores significantly below that of the district, and school average for that subject, it would be reasonable to conclude that it is the teacher him/her self which is ineffective, and penalize and/or fire that individual.
However, looking at an entire school out of context by comparing a school to a national average only serves to re-enforce any existing disparity.

Funding should be standardized nationwide, across all states, urban and rural communities, regardless of a state or counties level of prosperity. Funding should be based strictly on enrollment. If the private management company in a district did not allocate that budget effectively, they could be fired and replaced.

Kindergarten should be made mandatory.
HeadStart (preschool) should be universally free to all children.
That first year or two of schooling has been shown to be one of the better indicators of success later on in school and life(1). Otherwise you end up with some first graders who can read, write, and even add in the same class with peers who are still learning the alphabet. That disparity inevitably continues on throughout school as certain kids are always one step ahead.

If we really want an well educated populace, make grades 13 and 14 universally free as well.

And last, but certainly not least, do away with the entire "No Child Left Behind Act". I will refrain from any further comment on that...

(1)http://www.tyc.state.tx.us/prevention/hiscope.html