Weeds

If you plant a garden and then say 'I'm not going to remove anything or water or prune because I believe in survival of the fittest'

you will soon find yourself growing weeds.

Predictably Irrational

A conversation a few weeks ago convinced me to pick up Predictably Irrational. It fits rather well with things I already knew, and definitely goes far beyond. 

I was reading the chapter on market norms vs social norms, basically pointing out that people act differently depending on which set of norms are in play. We don't charge friends for moving their couch, for example. And we don't work for free.

The examples he used also show another norm. Something I thought pretty obvious, but hard-hearted business leaders seem to forget - when market norms are in play, the quality and quantity of work depend on how much you're compensated for it. (This is also probably why they try to shift the situation to a social norm, by building a sense of community, etc - but given they don't actually act like a family since everyone knows they will fire you in a heartbeat, going beyond the typical office norms just seems pretty fake.)

Cheap out and pay people poorly, and you get what you paid for - a bare minimum of effort.

Too True

It's from a fictional story, but I think it applies just as well to building a nation. And the decay I see - the resentment at doing needed maintenance, the unwillingness to create the conditions that make a place worth coming to - I get why people liked the slogan to "Make America Great Again" because we sure can see the slow rot settling in. I just wish they looked for a candidate that was actually interested in doing such a thing, instead of believing the words of someone who clearly doesn't.

But I'm getting away from the quote that started this:

"The road. The water. The shelter. The welcome. These were the conditions. The people are what the conditions produced. You cannot make people come. You can make the place worth coming to. 

"And when the place is worth coming to," James said, "it makes itself." 

"Not without maintenance," the elemental said, with the precision of something that understood what happened to springs that were not tended. " The conditions require attention. The welcome requires renewal. A place that stops being made is a place that starts to be unmade."

James thought about the list on his wall. About the road and the cistern and the market day proposal under the rock on his table. About Ren walking the perimeter twice daily and Eletha tracking the game population through the winter and Herbert with his accounting of iron stock and Bogrog with his bark-mark system keeping the agricultural record. 

About Caroline keeping rooms ready. 

"The maintenance is the work," James said.

 "The maintenance is the love,"  the elemental said, with the specificity of something that meant the word precisely.  "You do not maintain what you do not love. What you love, you maintain without being asked."

Yep

I keep wondering when people will get tired of all the lies and insanity.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/07/new-frontiers-in-sanewashing

I generally believe that "you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time" but...

It sure is taking people a long time to wise up.

Always Rewriting History

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/why-stone-faced-fascists-keep-getting-antiquity-wrong-x-twitter-elon-musk-ancient-greece-roman-empire

The Flood

I have been thinking about the Biblical story about the Flood.

Or rather, I have been thinking about God wanting to wipe the world clean and start all over.

It reminds me, sometimes, of the urge I get to wipe out some coding project and start all over. Which, sometimes, is the right call. Let's you do a reset, take all your lessons learned, and rebuild without having to figure out how to update however many lines of code you'd have needed to before.

Most of the time, however, it's not actually a good idea. It basically makes you redo work you'd already done, creates new bugs that you'll have to solve, removes the solutions you found in the previous code so that you have to solve them all over again... and it basically means that a lot of time that urge is more about emotional satisfaction than something with real, practical benefit. (One could say the same about accelerationists wanting to speed up the collapse of society in hopes of being able to influence the rebuild).

But this isn't just about the pros and cons of rebuilding some large, complex project. I think about God, and the Flood, because my childhood upbringing has imprinted on me the idea that God loves us. That he realized wiping the world clean wasn't going to fix anything, and so He works in subtler ways. 

And we keep on being stubborn, stiff-necked fools.

Which is sometimes kind of admirable, often quite frustrating, and right now - where poor judgment seems everywhere and all sorts of foolishness is causing misery and suffering - I have a hard time appreciating.

I want to. I have often despised the arrogant elitists who think they're somehow special, that see how the masses are so easily led astray and look down on them - as if they are any better. (Every story of every billionaire throwing yet more money at the Trump administration shows that they really aren't. They  just have a ton of money that insulates them and makes it easier for them to force their bad ideas on everyone else.)

But that means that I don't really want to say the same things. I don't honestly want to believe that everyone who still supports Trump is a dumbass, or a gullible fool. Or someone too lazy to do real research. Or someone who has never learned how to get past their own biases and preconceptions, and has no incentive to, and therefore doesn't question the nonsense being thrown their way.

If I thought that, I'd have to reconsider the idea of democracy as a whole, and frankly given the elitist support for these assholes I have no reason to believe they're actually better. Given the way they're actively blocking anything that would help improve this messed up system, I'm pretty sure they'd actually be worse.

But then, where does that leave me? How do I still believe in democracy, believe in America, love my fellow Americans... and still value every single one of the dumbasses who are either passively or actively enabling this disastrous administration.

And it is a disastrous administration. It is maddening how much that gets glossed over and overlooked. I know most people don't pay attention to dry and boring policy, or the intricacies of legislation, or the historical reasons for various things... but I still think that Jan 6th should have been easy enough to demonstrate the threat.

People seem to ignore Trump's bluster and consider his attacks on the election as an attack on Democrats, rather than an attacking on the foundations of our country itself... 

And I don't know if that willingness to overlook things is a sign of ignorance, selfishness, short-sightedness, cynicism, or what.... but I do think people have forgotten just why we value self-determination, truth, and the rule of law so much.

I look at story after story of yet another government institution corrupted, and yet another abuse of power, and yet more degradation of the rule of law and democracy and I see the many Americans who just ignore it, if not outright cheer for it, and I find myself wondering 'how does God keep on loving us when we're like this?'

Because this isn't just us being ridiculously foolish. It's not just a one-time thing. It seems like this is something humanity does to itself, over and over again.

Stiff-necked fools. 

I know I'm supposed to love my neighbor, and not judge, and that really we're all products of our environment and if I was born and raised like those I am commenting on here and now that I would probably be just like them...

But some days it's really hard.

Especially when that foolishness is likely to destroy things I care about very much.

Like the rule of law, which I think protects all of us, and helps mitigate the politicization and pointing of fingers that are hallmarks of a system that is incapable of excelling.

Like the dream of what we could be, of an America where anyone and everyone truly can succeed if they're willing to put in the work. (And there's at least a bare minimum so that people aren't starving in the streets.)

I could probably leave this here, and perhaps write another post for the next bit... but they're related enough that I'll continue.

I think about how God can possibly love us - foolish, stubborn, spiteful, prideful, as we are.

And I think about cats.

Yes, I know... that sounds like a ridiculous non sequitur. Bear with me.

When pet owners talk about why they love their pets, you'll get statements like "And he's a dumbass, but... "

"That dog runs into walls."

"That cat hoards socks."

Sometimes we love a cat for being selfish and not taking any shit. Sometimes we love them for how they comfort us and adore us. Sometimes it's for doing something stupid...

But we adore the little fuzzballs. You can say something similar about dogs too. If you're a pet owner, you probably have at least one anecdote of some silly or stupid or funny or annoying thing your cat or dog does, and you adore them and when they're gone if something reminds you of it you'll miss them.

And we love our furballs no matter what they look like. Sometimes even because of it.

We love our big fat cat, or our three legged dog, or the way one floppy ear turns inside out, or the ridiculous underbite, or when a big dog thinks he's a lapdog or a tiny dog acts like she's the pack leader.

Love, in many ways, is not actually because of any of that. Not because of the floppy ear or the goofy behavior. Those things we talk about the things we mention, are not the reason we love our pets. The love comes first, and those things just are associated with what we love.

And I think we should apply that to people. Maybe from God's perspective, he looks at us and he sees that goofy person who failed a test and it's just like the foolish cat that misjudged a leap. And maybe that ruthless billionaire looks like the irritable cat that will take a swipe at you if you try to pet them the wrong way.

Perhaps part of the reason He doesn't actually get involved in our petty little disputes and fights is that it's like a pet owner whose cats are fighting. There is no 'right' or 'wrong', He just doesn't want either to get hurt.

And perhaps from His perspective it's alright. I mean, if He exists and if there's an afterlife than even death isn't truly the end. And He's got time for us to figure things out and get it right...

From that perspective nothing is really that big of a deal.

But that's not a perspective I can share. Not truly.

I see the people murdered when our Navy blows up a boat rather than shooting out the engine and taking everyone into custody, and I know that people died without any real justice. Because of the orders this administration made.

I hear about the unusual number of deaths among people detained by ICE, about pregnancies in detainees that were separated by gender and shouldn't have even been able to get pregnant unless one of the guards or people working at the facility had sex with them, and I know - again - that people are dying because of this administration.

They are dying... and too many of my fellow Americans just don't give a shit. 

Then there's all the anti-vaccine crap, and an administration that it honestly wouldn't surprise me to learn is made up of eugenicists.

There's the petty vindictiveness of this administration. The attempts to abuse their power to hurt anyone that opposes them, like trying to take aware Senator Mark Kelly's retirement. 

It's disgusting. I hate it. I loathe what this administration is doing to the country I loved.

And so I wonder, yet again, how God is able to keep on loving us when we're like this.

Interesting

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trained-me-disappear-inside-dennis-hofs-world-ground-truth-freedland-syonc?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&utm_campaign=share_via