School Update

I did well enough in one class that the professor has waived the final, I know my grade for a second class, and I'm just waiting on the grade for my final project in the third.

Which means I'm pretty much done until the start of the Fall semester. :)  Two A's for sure, and possibly/probably an A in the third class pending results.

I'm going to go hunt some Pokemon for a bit, and try to get a really good Articuno.

I Sometimes Pity Donald Trump

I think I heard a story about Donald Trump some time ago.  That when he was young he went to some sort of bridge opening ceremony, and noticed that nobody really recognized the name of the architect who built that bridge.  That he was determined not to be overlooked like that.

I don't know if that's true or not, since I can't recall where I read it and can't find a link (searching 'Trump', 'bridge' and 'architect' brings up a whole bunch of other stuff).  If true, though, I think it shows something about Trump's driving need for recognition.  Something anyone with any passing familiarity with him would recognize, since he plasters his name on everything. (obligatory warning: I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, I do not know him personally, and I'm just guessing based on things I've read and seen.  Take it for what it's worth).

This obviously sets him apart from other wealthy individuals, since many are not well-known outside their own circles.  Your average person can name someone like Warren Buffet or Bill Gates, but not much beyond that.  It's assumed celebrities and CEOs are at that level of wealth, as well, though you shouldn't always make that assumption.  And if you've been paying attention to wealth inequality and our political troubles, you'd know that the Senate and House of Representatives are mostly composed of millionaires.

I don't know what created such an intense drive for recognition, of course.  But for someone desperate to get his name out there, becoming president should ease some of that pressure.  I mean, say what you will about Trump (and I disagree with much about him), nobody is going to forget his name any time soon.

Children will learn to recite President Trump along with all the other presidents they get taught about in school. Historians will be debating his presidency fifty years or more from now, just as they still write about Andrew Jackson, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, and even the less well known presidents (like Rutherford B. Hayes, John Tyler, Franklin Pierce, etc.  Though who could forget the sideburns on President Martin Van Buren?)

Now, it's one thing to make it into the history books.  It's another thing to be considered a positive force in history.  Hence why so many people like to discuss a president's (any president's) legacy.  You may get recited by schoolchildren, but do you want to go down as a George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and FDR?  A Richard Nixon or Warren Harding?  Or just get as close to forgotten as any president can get, like some of the presidents I listed above?

So here you've got this guy who is highly driven for name recognition, and to a certain extent he's achieved that.  (That would be disturbing to anybody, in and of itself, since once you've achieved a lifelong goal you're left wondering "what next?"  Once you've reached the summit, what purpose do you have?)

Except I don't think he's had time to reflect on that, and as embattled as he's been since before he even took office, I doubt he considers it achieved. 

I'm going to take a slight detour now, but it's with a sense of purpose I promise.

I, like almost anyone who has ever held a job, have sometimes been overruled and the group decides to do something I don't agree with.  (Shocking, I know!).  For the most part, I believe in contributing to the discussion while it's still a discussion...but once that decision has been made you have to support the decision.  With certain exceptions, like if it's immoral, illegal, or unethical of course. 

Some of that may be my military background (when you're taking direct fire, it might be better to go left or to go right, but if you stand in the open arguing about it the question is soon moot as you'll all be dead.)  But there are other reasons, and it's not just because I'm nice or unwilling to speak out.

It's because only two things are possible then - I'm either right, or I'm wrong.  If I'm right, it'll be obvious enough on it's own.  If I'm wrong, then Hey! - I learned something.

But if I actively try to undermine (or even sabotage) the effort than I actually just muddle the issue.  I make it easier for them to believe the problem was my lack of support, rather than their own bad idea.  Sure, they may still finger point and find some other excuse (and life is complicated enough that they might even be right)...but at least I'm not the one providing the fig leaf.

Which means that, barring extreme cases like I listed above, once the decision has been made I'll do what I can to make it work.  (This has caused problems, of course, since sometimes I find myself trying to tell my people to follow a policy I personally don't agree with in the first place.  Deciding when it's too much is a personal decision we all have to make for ourselves.)

So anyways.  When thousands of women protested Donald Trump the day after his inauguration, I felt it was a little - premature.  I get why they did it, I understand and saw some of the same things they did, and I won't tell them they shouldn't do it.  But I, personally, did not participate and did not feel it was the right time.  (I know I have a personal line where I would take action.  I did call my Representative about healthcare, for all the good it did.  Don't plan on voting for him in the next election, but I wasn't really planning to in the first place.  I do plan to vote, obviously.  And if someone actually tried doing something stupid like forcing Muslims to register I'd probably go down and register as Muslim myself...because that's Just Not Right.  But I'm throwing that out there as an obvious example of what would cross the line, not as an indication I think it will happen or that there isn't a line before that.)

The thing is, Donald Trump has been so embattled by opposition that it almost makes you feel sorry for him.  Plus he really puts a bee in the bonnet of all the rather self-satisfied and insular 'establishment' that we all like to hate so much.  But then he keeps tweeting horrible things, and suggesting horrible policies, and hiring horrible people.  It's like...the Democrats are giving him a fig leaf, except it's a bit too small to cover up all the problems.

So to bring this back to my earlier point, that becoming president is a guarantee of your place in the history books...

Donald Trump has achieved a level of name recognition that must be close to what he's clearly desired.  Yet he can't really appreciate that, and go through the stages of figuring out who he is without that driving need for recognition, because in a way that name recognition is threatened by the massive level of opposition (and in some cases, I'm sure, active sabotage.)

So he feels threatened and lashes out.  All of which makes things even worse, of course.

Update

The summer semester is coming to an end, all of my homework has been turned in and I just have to study for a final later this week.  Still waiting on my grades for two assignments, I hope/think I did alright.

I've been doing a lot of extra reading on the side, mostly because I felt I had to in order to make sense of what I was learning.  For example, I was initially a little confused by references to registers and registries, but I think I've got it all straight now (very different things!).  Assembly Language Step by Step is a really awesome book, btw.  Loved it.  Of course, I don't know if I would have understood the importance of what it taught if I hadn't seen how that information matters when it comes to understanding malware and computer hacks.

I don't want to get too technical (those who know probably know this even better than I do, and those who don't probably aren't too interested in hearing the details) and I may have misunderstood something, but I'll give a very small snippet, explaining part of why I felt the need to get this book.

There's a bit of a co-evolution going on between cyber defenders and cyber attackers.  Sort of like we have with bacteria and anti-bacteria.  Any time one side changes their methods, the other side changes to counter it.  We have anti-virus scanners, so the people who write malware want to create programs that can't be detected by the scanners.  There's a couple of different techniques, one of which is to change up the code (in a way that has no real impact on it's functionality) so that scanners can't easily compare the program to it's known list of programs and identify it as malicious.

Some examples of such junk sequences are:

XOR register, register
SUB register, register

or (used together)
INC AX
DEC AX

If you are like I was just a short little while ago, this doesn't really make a lot of sense.  I did know that the first part was instructions (XOR is "Exclusive Or", SUB for subtract, INC for increment and DEC for decrement) but registers?  AX?  Or (not listed in the commands above) other registers like EBP, EIP, ESP, EAX, etc?  And what do those commands above do?

Without trying to go into too much detail, I'll illustrate with the first two sequences.

'register' is just a stand in for any of the computer registers in your processor.  That gets into the mechanics of how your computer runs a program.  Overly simplified short version is that the computer loads whatever the program needs into a designated memory space, and in that space it will refer to what it needs by the memory address.  The various addresses and values are stored in the registers.  That's how it knows where to find the next instruction, or what value you told it previously when you want to add 2 + 2.  So the instruction above could say XOR EAX, EAX or XOR EDX, EDX, just substitute an appropriate register in the code.

The style is to write the action (XOR), destination and source.  So this is saying to XOR the EAX register to the EAX register.  When you tell a computer to take an "exclusive or" action, you're telling it to compare the source to the destination.  Remember, this is all in binary (1s and 0s).  Whatever data is in EAX is going to be something like 010111.  "Exclusive or" means it can be one or the other, but not both.  So if you compare 110 to 101, it looks at the first digit in each number (0 and 1) and asks "are they the same? or different?"  If they are the same, it returns a '0'.  If not, it returns a '1'.  It then compares the next two digits, and so on and so forth.  XOR the values 110 to 101 and it will return 010.

If you compare something to itself, it will always return 0 since each comparison will be a match.  And if you subtract something from itself you will also get 0.  Both lines of code do the exact same thing, but it's done differently...which means if an anti-virus scanner tries to compare something containing the code XOR EAX, EAX to something containing the code SUB EAX, EAX...it doesn't look the same. 

Anyways, I wanted to write a little bit more about another topic, so I'll do that next.

An Interesting Read

I don't think I've heard a political analysis like this before, and new takes are actually pretty rare IMHO.  Most pundits and news agencies are just recycling the same tired old arguments.  Probably part of why we all stop listening to each other.

http://www.businessinsider.com/liberals-can-win-if-they-stop-being-so-annoying-2017-7?op=1

"Real man" vs "Good man"

I'm sharing this because I really liked the distinction between being a "real man" and being a "good man".

When I think of the men in my family - fathers, uncles, brothers - and friends who enjoy the benefits of fatherhood and family, who I've never questioned as to whether they were a "real man", and I sometimes wonder how we got this limiting notion that a "real man" is all about screwing lots of women and one-up ping everyone.

I know some of it is just America, too.  Consider how weird we find it that men in the middle east often hold hands. Like that picture of President Bush holding hands with the Saudi king.

What really sucks is I find it hard to believe that these so-called "real men" (who seem so weak and fragile compared to the men I know.  Like showing affection somehow threatens your masculinity?!?  You must not be very confident about that, if so) are truly happier with such a one-dimensional, rigid, narrow role that cuts them off from any real connection. 

https://hbr.org/2017/07/why-sexual-harassment-is-more-of-a-problem-in-venture-capital?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

Odd Jump in Thought

I was reading an article about the Amazon Echo, and saw a link to the article below.  I was curious about it, mostly because Windows is still the primary desktop /business /office /school platform.  That is, much though I love my mobile if I'm going to do any serious typing I want a mouse and a keyboard.  (Maybe someday they'll create little portable computer modules that you can plug and play in phones, tablets and desktops.  Or virtually project a mouse and keyboard so you really can work off your phone.  Or, heck, maybe we'll all be cyborgs in the future, with implanted computers that can project displays on our eyeballs and read our intention to type.  I started to envision verbally talking to a voice assistant to write emails and papers, but honestly I type faster than I speak and I don't think that's realistic.  Unless everyone forgets how to type, which I suppose can happen.)

Anyways, although I was skeptical about the article I was struck by the notion that his criticism here could apply to our political parties.  Okay, first the article:

http://adamhartung.com/why-microsoft-windows-10-really-doesnt-matter/

In our political system, the parties cater to their base (and the wealthy donors and lobbyists that fund them).  The perception is that they do this at the expense of the whole, which I generally agree with. 

Used to be, politicians knew they had to cater to the base in primary elections, then shift to a more general appeal for the election itself.  Getting those independents and swing voters was key to winning.

I'm not sure I believe that happens any more.  That is, both parties seem to have given up on swing voters and instead focus on a) energizing their base and b) discouraging turnout from the other side's supporters.

Some of that is our own fault, of course.  Too few Americans don't even bother to vote (much less vote in the primaries, which you pretty much have to if you don't want to get stuck yet again choosing between the lesser of two evils with whatever horrible candidates the hardcore party bases pick).

Still, the parties, whenever they suffer a defeat and claim to be determined to figure out what went wrong (which has happened with both parties in my lifetime.  Yet somehow they always recover, and the other party never maintains dominance), seem to do exactly what this article criticizes Microsoft for.

That is, in trying to figure out what to do better, they generally go to the base.  Their loyalists.  The ones that weren't going to defect in the first place.  And annoying though it is for those party loyalists who feel taken for granted, they aren't the ones the party needs to appeal to in order to do better next election.

Food for Thought

After the rather dramatic election last year, I added a few more sites to my news feed...in the interest of getting exposure to different points of view.

Some of that has probably spurred my earlier posts.  Anyways, I wanted to share a couple of them.  It's probably no surprise that both of them criticize our current political establishment (whether Republican, Democrat, or just 'the Establishment' in general.)

It does seem like both parties are increasingly out of touch.  Republicans don't get the attention Democrats do right now, since Trump won and all, but you can't forget that Trump's election was in many ways proof that the average Republican didn't really care about/support the things that the Republican Party stood for.  For example, if Christian conservatives had had enough support on their own we probably would have seen Ted Cruz or some other Republican nominated.  Although they seem to have tied themselves to Trump pretty closely since then, it's worth remembering that they didn't have the support on their own.  (Which is why it's probably inevitable, like almost every mid-term election, that the current political leaders will alienate people as they pursue their agenda and we'll see a shift in power when the mid-terms roll around.)

Anyways.  I sometimes wonder if this is just a delayed reaction to the increasingly tight grip both parties hold on their sources of power.  I can't remember the last time I felt like I lived in a district where my vote really mattered.  Indiana, for example, will pretty much always be red.  Even when I lived in more 'blue' regions of the state.  (Some of that is probably gerrymandering). 

Illinois, on the other hand, is almost always blue.  To a large degree because of Chicago.  The politics of Chicago are very different from the politics of the rest of the state, but the rest of the state doesn't really have the population to change that.  So we're pretty much always blue.

I know there is still some connection between constituent and representative, of course.  And the parties pay close attention to the places that are up for grabs.  They'll be monitoring the midterms and trying to interpret any shifts in power.  Though as the 2016 election proves people rarely find a consensus for why something happened.

Which just adds to this sense that they're out of touch.  Someone is always learning the 'wrong' lessons.  (Except, of course, why is my opinion on what lessons to learn any better than anyone else's?)

Faith, Addendum

I wanted to add something to my last post about the LGBTIA community.

This kind of goes back to a basic question about the Bible - that is, do you take it literally or do you believe it is inspired by God but written by fallible humans?  Assuming you believe in God in the first place, of course.

My personal belief is that it was written by fallible humans.  Some of that is purely subjective, and some if it is tied to a couple of other things (i.e. it's translated from another language into English, and written thousands of years prior to now.  Which means we miss quite a bit of context, and the King James version is not necessarily an accurate translation of that context. Also - strictly accurate history is a recent phenomena.  I believe back when it was written people were looking more for a Truth, which may not actually be the truth.  You can say "God created the world" and make a story about how it was done in seven days, without necessarily feeling like it had to literally mean it was created in seven days.)

So there are Christians who honestly believe the Bible does not condemn homosexuality, and others who believe fervently that it does.  I know where I stand on that issue, though I see where others get a different idea.

I think viewing it my way leads to a richer and deeper understanding, but people differ.  The thing I wanted to point out is mainly this.

I will not presume to say how God judges us.  I might be wrong, others might be wrong, the only way we'll know for sure is if/when the time comes.  What I do believe is that when people who have been beaten, ostracized, and otherwise condemned for who they are say that they do not feel like they are being true to themselves for that, then it doesn't sound like something they've chosen lightly, or on a whim.  That maybe, most likely, probably, it is something they truly feel is who they are if they are to be true to that inner voice.  The one that pushes us to be most fully ourselves.

And if that's the case, it behooves us to listen.

I don't really understand where all the fuss is over this issue.  I don't care what shape someone's genitals are  under their clothes, or how they choose to dress.  Not unless they are trying to date me or something. 

If you think it's a sin, okay.  I get where some people think that.  So don't do it yourself.  I do think you can share your views and speak them (though some may not want to hear it)...but you do not have the right to try and force them to ignore what their inner voice is telling them.  More than that, if you consider yourself a Christian you should still treat people you consider sinners with mercy and compassion.

Overall, I find this need to refuse service (whether it's cakes or marriage licenses) less a sign of faith and more a sign that you feel free to take on God's role in judging others, along with a complete disrespect for and refusal to listen when people tell you something is essential to who they are.  It seems a far cry from Jesus hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors.

Fear, Faith, and the Self-Evident Truth That All Men Are Created Equal

I started to write something about the fears underlying our current political climate, but realized I have to step back and offer some thoughts from my own personal background.

These, for better or worse, were formed during my younger days...where I spent a rather large amount of time attending Catholic schools.  It's not meant to challenge anyone else's current beliefs so much as identify concepts I grew up with.

The word 'catholic' means universal.  I always thought there was something important about that, not in terms of the power the early Catholic church held, so much as that it's meant to say this is a religion that is for everybody.  Universally.  It in inclusive, inviting, all-embracing, of general interest, with liberal and wide sympathies.

They always talked about how Jesus hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors (i.e. the worst of the worst in his time.  Tax collectors probably being similar to a loan shark of today.)  He invited all to come to his table

Inclusiveness, to me, seems to come from God.  Exclusiveness is a sign of man's ego.  That is, 'exclusive' appeals are the ones that make you feel singled out and special.  Ads 'only for those with a discerning eye'.  Flattery.  Scientology.  Secret societies.  These are all things that appeal to us because they make us feel special.  Select.  Elite.  Unique.  Apart from (and better than) the average imperfect person.

Inclusiveness says all are welcome at our table.  The homeless, the poor, the crippled and blind.  After all, whatever you do to the least of us you are doing to Jesus.

Universal.  Welcoming to everyone.  There's something about that which seems to call us to be better people.  Our better selves.  And it's a bit of a mystery how we all have an intrinsic worth, intrinsic potential, no matter how rich or poor we are.

It's a calling to create a society where everyone can live to their full potential.  Which is a bit of a mystery, and goes against what we see in everyday society.  How can that bum sleeping on a bench be as worthy as that CEO with six houses and twenty cars?  How can we all be special, in a way that doesn't make it irrelevant to the point that nobody is special?  It's kind of a mystery, in the first sense of the word.

Still, this is a mystery that was enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, that "self-evident" truth that all men are created equal.  Even CEOs and homeless people.

What's so sad and strange and twisted about human nature is that we can take a concept like that, and still turn it into an exclusive way of life.  "Our" people are deserving of mercy and compassion, but those others must be stricken off the face of the earth.  Like the Pharisees called out in Matthew 23 (different translations here and here), we find a way to show off our faith, try to look beautiful on the outside while inside we neglect things like justice, mercy and faithfulness.  (This is part of why I find the so-called 'christian' conservatives who back Trump a rather poor example of the faith.  He is not exactly a paragon of justice, mercy and faithfulness.  Those who support him seem more concerned with publicly showing off their faith and condemning/judging anyone they consider sinners than with truly living a Christian life.)

What's even more interesting is the psychological impact of inclusiveness vs. exclusiveness.  In Matthew 19:8 Jesus said "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning."

I found this concept of hardened hearts rather fascinating, partly because if ground has hardened, hitting them with something generally just compacts it even further together.  In the same way, verbally telling people "you are wrong",  "you should X" or "you should Y" is more likely to just harden people even more.  They'll be even more determined to cling to their view, if only to prove you wrong.

Inclusiveness, however, softens the ground.  It means people don't feel they have to cling to an particular idea or way of being in order to resist that outside pressure...which in turn can make it easier to really evaluate what's best for yourself.  (Yes, some people can do this even with outside pressure...but most people tend to react to a perceived attack by getting more defensive and holding on even harder to whatever they're being attacked on.)

That's part of why the Christian organizations that stop being preachy/judgemental and really engage with people's lives seem to have far more of an impact than passing legislation condemning a particular act. 

In some ways, this desire to pass laws enforcing religious values seems more like a value-signaling method to publicly announce how 'christian' you are (like the Pharisees above) rather than a sincere effort to engage with people and their lives...and in the process, it just hardens hearts and makes it even less likely anyone will hear that little inner voice that you could say is God speaking to you.  Or your higher self.  Whichever concept is most convenient.

In many ways, I want to see who people choose to be when they are truly free to.  When they don't feel outside pressures trying to make them be this or that.  When they've had the chance to make mistakes, and screw up, (like the Prodigal Son) and explore this or that. 

I suspect that, when unpressured, most people will be driven by that inner voice to be something better.  Sure, sometimes we'll be like little kids who eat too much candy.  Our stomachs may hurt, and we may regret it later. 

Lesson learned.

What seems to drive this desire to force people to be religious is fear.  Fear that, if we didn't, they would never realize something was undesirable on their own.  To use the candy analogy above, it's fear that the kid will decide to eat candy for the rest of their life. 

Except I kind of suspect God rigs the game in His favor.  That is, if left alone the kid eating candy will probably begin to feel it unsatisfying.  (FYI: This analogy is not meant to actually apply to dietary habits!)  And eventually the kid will get sick of candy and start searching for something else, until eventually the kid discovers the satisfaction of eating an apple.  Or somesuch. 

Whereas if you come in saying "you can't have all that candy!!!  Stop eating candy! Here, eat this apple, you'll like it better!") the kid will probably resent being told what to do, decide s/he hates apples, and secretly - or not-so-secretly - keep choosing candy instead.  It's not even about the candy, so much as it is about rebelling against your attempt to tell them what to eat.  You might even be right, but they'll stubbornly refuse to admit it.

In many ways, I think these attempts to force religion on people are actually a sign that you lack faith.  You lack faith that people will realize God's will on their own, and think they will only do what He wants (or what you believe He wants) if you force them to eat apples.

Healthcare

Nice to see an article exploring what happens when the uninsured can't afford needed treatment.

Not quite what I predicted, as it doesn't show in higher premiums so much as in tax deductions.  Still, we are all footing the bill.

Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!  Here's a quote from George Washington:

"...the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."

There's a lot to that quote, and it's only part of a larger statement.  The part I wanted to focus on was his use of the word 'experiment'.  When the United States was created, there were a LOT of unknowns, and uncertainty whether the system would work at all.

Almost 50 years after the ratification of the Constitution (NOT the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  People seem to forget about the Articles of Confederation in between) Andrew Jackson said "Our Constitution is no longer a doubtful experiment."

Again, that word.  Experiment.  50 years later the United States no longer seemed quite so precarious an invention.  Today, over 200 years later, it's hard to imagine how disruptive and new our entire system of government was.

In this time of fear and anger, when divisiveness seems everywhere, I was thinking about what makes us so afraid.

For example, Politico recently wrote an article about Colorado Springs and it's experiment with libertarianism.  I'm sure there are libertarians who will disagree with their analysis, I wanted to focus less on that and more on this notion - again - of an experiment.

See, when you say something is an experiment, you imply an acceptance that the results are unknown, a willingness to give it a go, and an understanding that you'll try something different if it doesn't work out.  It requires a mindset that is, frankly, scientific.  A willingness to try and an openness to changing direction based on the results.

It's also a reminder that whatever path you are choosing, it is not irreversible.  (Which can be good or bad, but is always worth remembering.)

We act as though the fate of the nation rests on our side winning politics.  And losing is a disaster, that must be avoided at all costs.  But something funny happens when we are so afraid of losing that we try to guarantee that we win.  That sense of an experiment gets lost.

There's a balance in life which fantasy writers play up with the archetypal fight between chaos and order.  Chaos is, of course, disruptive and disorienting.  It's uncomfortable.  It makes it hard to do...well, pretty much anything.

But too much order is bad, too.  Too much order makes things stagnant, unchangeable.  In a word - dead.

We humans don't do so great in worlds like that.  Aside from turning off our brains and living on remote control, it also makes it hard for people who want to better themselves.  To improve their lives.  This is a perennial problem, of course.  Talented have-nots see people who are less talented ahead of them and wonder why they can't be that person.  It's why we developed this whole notion of a meritocracy, and why it's so desirable.

In an ordered world, one with no disruptions and no chaos, there'd be no way to get ahead.  (and, on the flip side, no way to fall behind.  Hence the appeal to order.)

The reason why I talk about income inequality, the reason I like to point out the flaws in this so-called meritocratic system, is that for us to accept that the 'cream rises to the top' and to accept that this is the land of opportunity we have to make sure everyone really DOES have that opportunity.

A kid growing up in Flint, with lead in the water, has been hamstrung before the race has even begun.  And getting to the top of the heap when half your competition has been injured before the race...it's not really a sign you're the best of the best, is it?

Our capitalist/meritocratic system depends on, requires, that everyone have the chance to show what they can do.  And any system that abandons the ones who can't afford to go to private schools, or get extra coaching for SATs, or abandons students who go to schools with rodents and water leaks, is one that can not be considered meritocratic.

How we fix that is open to debate.  On the education issue, for example, I'm not opposed to school vouchers.  You can debate whether it's the local community's responsibility (though schools located in poor communities are at a disadvantage, which doesn't make things any  more meritocratic), or the state, or the federal government.  Either way, we can not just abandon public schools.  There are too many people who still attend them and will attend them even with school vouchers.  (And for the record, there is a strong debate over whether charter schools really do better or not.)

That's just one issue, of course.  The main point is that our republic structure allows us to experiment.  One area may do school vouchers, another may raise state taxes to help improve schools.  The point I started out with, this grand sense of experiment, is that we can try different things.  Assess the results.  And use what's proven effective.

Food for Thought on this Fourth of July

https://evonomics.com/what-happens-when-you-believe-in-ayn-rand-and-modern-economic-theory/

Oh, the Humanity

Pokemon Go recently released a new version, where superpowered pokemon appear at certain locations and you can work together to defeat them.  For the truly high powered ones, you have to have a team...if the team is at a fairly high level you might be able to take one down with as few as five, though it depends a great deal on the type of pokemon and just how much of a boss it is.

I was thinking about how difficult it was to know where to go, since the game only lets you see appearances 'nearby'.  It sort of forces us to communicate with each other (I joined a Facebook group, where people regularly let everyone know when the most difficult Pokemon show up.)

Initially, I was wishing that Niantic allowed us to know what was going on throughout our entire city, rather than just the places we can see from our current location.  Yet, in a way, if they did that it would defeat their intent.  And it would make the game less fun.

See, their mission statement is this:

"Niantic’s mission is to use emerging technology to enrich our experiences as human beings in the physical world. We seek to build products that inspire movement, exploration, and face-to-face social interaction."

That face-to-face social interaction?  It happens a LOT more when you have to work with each other to figure out where to go in the first place, as well as teaming up to take down a boss.

In a way, it reminded me of something else I've learned over the years.  I read the book Band of Brothers a long time ago, part of my professional development as an Army officer.  Anyways, I found it interesting that Herbert Sobel, hated by many in his company, in a way forced them to be a better team.  I don't think it was deliberate, I generally don't think people being petty and vindictive are deliberately fostering a good team.  Yet the soldiers basically had to come together in order to deal with him.  To give each other warnings if he was in the area, or protect each other if Sobel was targeting them.  (The link above shows some of the complexity of his character, he apparently was a good trainer, after all.)

In a more positive fashion - something similar was mentioned in another professional development assignment.  Gates of Fire, about the Spartans at Thermopylae.  I don't really know if it's accurate or not, but I remember that they chose to mix veterans with newer citizen-soldiers.  That having veterans train newer citizen-soldiers helps both.  The veterans don't get too complacent, since they know not everyone is experienced.  And teaching someone else is a great way of making sure you know it, as well.

In a less military vein  - the same thing can happen when we come together to protect the weakest among us.  I have an uncle who is mentally handicapped, for example.  And we all made the effort to make his 50th birthday special, in a way that we didn't do for any of my other aunts and uncles.  Something so simple can mean the world to him, and his face lights up as he tries to tell people how excited he is (he doesn't speak very well, mostly tries to use sign language and will grab whichever relative knows what he's actually talking about to clarify.)

I remember standing at the site of one of the work camps in Germany, during World War II.  Thinking about the urge for 'perfection'.  To get rid of all the ugly, imperfect people.  Disabled.  Gay.  Jewish.  Once you go down that path, it's kind of hard to say where you draw the line.  In addition to the ugliness and immorality of what the Nazis did, they also missed something important.  Missed the way people can be at their greatest when they are working to protect and take care of those who are...

imperfect.

We have this sense that the 'best of the best' would be the most effective team.  An all-star group of people who are experts in their field, and who know each other well and work together seamlessly.  I won't say their wrong.  There's something to be said for having an elite group of experts working together.

But our strength doesn't come from being perfect.  In some ways, our imperfections actually create our strengths.  Working together to weaken a hated officer, or to take care of someone less able, or to defeat a raid boss we have no hope of defeating on our own...

That's when people are at their best.