anti-ai. anti-abuse. pro-literacy. pro-thinking

Here's my concern (finally). We don't have extra lives to use up, sending reprogrammed cyborgs back in time to save us. We can only save ourselves in real time. Time is slipping through our fingers. We're distracted and procrastinating, like a teenager with ADHD who is about to drop outta high school. I felt pretty good about that analogy at first. Oh well...

Meanwhile, nearly our entire species is actively engaged in separating us from one another. We keep identifying enemies within our ranks. And it's ALL bullshit. Someone misidentifies you as a legit target, making themselves, in fact, the legit target. All because they were paranoid about somebody being different from them, or believing lies that you'll take something from them, or harm people they care about.

The driving forces behind all this destruction, madness, and hate, and everything is a combination of:

EVIL. STUPIDITY. and DERANGEMENT.

Within every decision, situation, and maniac, there is a ratio of evil to stupid to crazy.

EVIL : STUPID : CRAZY.

But how do we know what particular ratio we're dealing with??

55% - 20% - 25% ?

It defies quantification! Most things seem like they're

100% - 95% - 85%

The forces at play are too intangible and horrific at the same time. It's like a horror movie like The Blob, The Thing, The Fog... I know there are other great ones I can't remember or haven't seen. You know what I'm saying.

The United States will reach an end to a war within its own borders on October 19, 2031.

Depending on when, and where, and whom you ask, it will be referred to as the Second Revolution or Civil War II. Some will try to popularize "the Revolutionary Civil War." But that will not enter serious or popular usage.

There will be tens of thousands of fatalities, and a disproportionate number of non-fatal wounded. In fact, the hundreds of thousands wounded will be credited as compelling us to end the war and resolve the precipitating conflicts within the country that had been built up for decades.

A "winner" will not be declared. In fact, debate about it will be highly unpopular. Sentiments, even on the internet, will turn toward, "Be a part of the solution not a part of the problem." For a solid year, the main two factions will draft and ratify binding resolutions--with the purpose of reconciliation, rebuilding, and peace--with ongoing talks, resolutions, and rebuilding continuing more gradually for decades, becoming a permanent fixture in government, politics, and our very culture. Unhinged wrath, instead of rekindling old, destructive fires, serves as a reminder to de-escalate and inquire into our problems. Problems are (at least) two-sided, so solutions must be two-sided as well.

Conflict is not the solution. Yet conflict has indeed been humanity's only motivation to seek peace, resolution, the solving of our largest problems. The question is ultimately, "What led to those bombs being dropped on civilians??" Despite extensive experience in these pursuits, we are still more drawn to aggression, destruction, and violence. Honestly, we do not study peace. Perhaps we see it as essentially inert, instead of an active practice. And it takes a tremendous amount of study and practice. Conflict resolution takes training, dedication, and experience in order to consistently succeed at it over time. But we are clearly not even trying. The failure may have never been more evident as it has been in the 2020s.

CW: Bible verses. Progressive folks have interestingly taken up the Bible. Certain forces have not only abandoned the Bible in the last two decades or more, but turned directly against its teachings of kindness, tolerance, charity, and peace. (So I'm not talking about hippies, punks, metal-heads, or hip-hoppers.)

Lol Fucking idiot.

Look, I'm not a political guy. I just calls 'em like I sees 'em. And this very basic issue ain't political in the first place. Just like everything else in the stupid world, it's politicized. It's no more than basic economics and a little ethics.

So, really I'm being a little unfair to this schlub. He's not an economist. He's just posting a screenshot of- lemme see here- another CFP posting this drivel.

$150k isn't even an order of magnitude higher than $25k. I wouldn't call $150k quite rich. That amount of money could get you rich if your financial planner didn't get his training out of a Cracker-Jack box. $25k will get you homeless, so nobody should be taxed on that, or anything below about $40k.

Somewhere six figures to eight figures, not only does someone become wealthy, but their effective tax rate goes down. A bunch of tax laws and loopholes come into effect. AND guess what? There aren't nearly as many people pulling in millions per year as there are making five to six figures.

When it takes ten or a thousand of us to make what one of them makes, and they can hide more and more money from the IRS, the poors aren't the bad guy. The wealthy aren't necessarily the bad guy, either. (Yes, the government wastes a lot of money, and it still hasn't faced anything resembling a proper audit in 2026. Hell, yes we should tackle this problem from all sides.

Anyway, look. What would help people stuck at five figure jobs to contribute more taxes is higher wages without getting sunk with inflation. (I'm not going into the, "If you want a higher wage, then get some training." Yes, but thousands of jobs won't appear, just because thousands of people get better job-ready training. That's not even half a plan, so we gotta completely set that aside for today.) People who aren't getting taxed that much, because they're making under six figures, are making out people a little wealthier than them to be... victims 😅 and making out people making a little less money than them to be the thieving opportunists. "Their taxes are so low, but they complain about being poor." So you're complaining about your own taxes as of your poor. This is getting twisted. And you think the reason your taxes are so high is because poor people don't get taxed enough. But it couldn't be because people pulling in millions are under-taxed. Although, if millionaires and billionaires were taxed enough, then why do you still have to pay any taxes? 🤔 any respectable conservative administration would obliterate middle class taxes. But they can't afford to. Or they don't want to over totally ideological reasons. They want to keep you where you are. It would be so easy for any congress over the last fifty years to lower the tax rate on the middle class. IF they had the BALLS to tax the wealthy in a proportional manner. It would take such a tiny sliver of their taxes to off-set your taxes.

The fact that the middle class is over-taxed isn't partisan. It's a fact, which only very stupid politicians disagree with. Stupid people in general. But raising taxes on the poor to give the middle class a break is really stupid. Then, what are the poor left with? Kicked out on the street. And then the middle class AND the lower-middle class are pissed about all the tents they gotta walk around and the bodies they gotta walk over (step over? Whatever).

98% of us are voting for leaders who don't give a flying shit about us.

So ultimately, it doesn't matter how many great or terrible tax ideas any of us have. Unless we change government from the outside and the inside.

Let's do all of the above. Create better (higher paying) jobs. Grow small businesses; there is a lot of empty business space across a lot of cities. This is baaaad.

Audit governments effectively. This does not mean stumbling through essential departments and pushing computers off their desks and kicking people out.

Decades ago, trXmp sold an eight-figure Florida property to a Russian oligarch for eight figures, indeed over double it's purchase price four years prior. This was a suspicious but legal way to give Dmitri Rubolbiev over $50 million. It sure wouldn't have been an above board debt. Blackmail, possibly. Bribe. Or just a simple quid-pro for shady services. Some combination of them. Doesn't really matter. It's all a part of the same greater elitist underworld of Epṣtein, where favors and information are the best currency, more valuable than money, which is only used when they're desperate. The millions are more of an afterthought, a petty slap on somebody's wrist.

If they don't trade high enough for their compulsions, they're blackmailed for even more. Then they better trade their way back out of their hole with even more depraved favors. They're all tricks and marks. Leaders of the toilet cult.

Returning to the topic of oligarchs and elites, one has to ask, what defines the super-wealthy who do not live among us little people? Are they all elites by virtue of having assets of nine, ten, eleven, or twelve digits? That's anywhere between hundreds of millions to hundreds of billions. Can we scarcely imagine the strata in those worlds of the elite? Look at $500,000,000,000 five hundred billion dollars, or half a trillion. Or consider nine digits: anywhere from one hundred million to 999 million. (Do any of those seem obtainable to you in your lifetime?) Now consider how much you might realistically earn in a lifetime. And how much might you keep? Whatever "keep" means, since you'll spend it during retirement, assuming you even get the chance.

It's pretty common for people to earn a million dollars over their lifetime, but inversely common to ever keep or amass a million in any shape or form. Average $50k per year for 40 years, and that's two million bucks. Most of that's spent every month. Savings won't ever touch six digits. If we don't count debt, sure $500k in assets is feasible by having a mortgage. And credit cards, medical debt, and all the rest.

And consider, the debt that eats away at us is one of countless means of funneling our money to the elites. Another is chronic under-compensation for our work. They don't just own the company, they own our work by virtue of owning the company. (Unless it's a co-op somehow.) It's not commerce, it's slavery. And everything we buy comes from the company store. We live in company housing. It's been like this our whole lives, so most of us will never see it for what it is. Though it is getting more obvious. So more of us may become aware during our lifetimes.

But that's not what I meant to discuss.

Looking back at the super-wealthy, how are they different from one another? Ideally, we ignore politics. Here's why. We can look at their behavior and try to avoid our judgments. How do they get their money AND what do they do with it?

I can't give you data about these factors, only questions and proposals.

What we do plainly know is that multi- millionaires and billionaires source their money in different ways. Earning wages is NOT one of them. Well, it's not critical in their overall income. Sure, when they have a $700 million corporation, they give themselves a salary. But beyond that, they have stock options, bonuses, and diversify their income and assets. They make money more by virtue of already owning than by labor. Sure, it takes work of a kind to buy and sell, and chose this or that. To manipulate, which is what most of it boils down to. Do they have good or bad intentions? Or are they amoral and removed from our world? They make money from our real labor. We pour our life's work into their pockets. Yes, we do get a fraction. But only a fraction, no matter how professional and valued our work is. Doctors are used by the system. Lawyer, less so, depending. Lawyers get to participate in the manipulation and the leeching.

So, are there ethical elites? We've heard of philanthropists. They are all criticized, no matter what their causes are. They are often seen as meddlers. And there are meddlers of all sizes, manipulating and causing trouble. I can see your gears turning. So many roads paved with good intentions. It seems like the more money people get their hands on, the more damage they do. Money IS power. Don't believe me? That's not a problem. Think about it later.

My $100 isn't very powerful. But to somebody who's been broke and close to starving for a year, $100 could change their lives. For better or worse. To somebody with $10 million in cash investments, my $100 is less than a penny on the ground is to me. But each of their $100 (all 100,000 of them) is leveraged against our power and success. We are under a hundred thousand of their thumbs.

But, y'know, a few of those $100 millionaires and billionaires probably are trying in completely good faith to be ethical in their dealings and to bring good to the world. They donate to housing initiatives, third world infrastructure, philanthropic medical projects, and all that.

The point I've done such a bad job at making is that there are different kinds of wealthy elites. Look at how they get their money, both in the past and in the present. Who did they step on? Are they mostly using their money now to: manipulate, meddle, and to increase the rate of their returns? Are they controlling the messages? That's propaganda, which in today's media is supercharged. And it doesn't matter what their values or intentions. It is about control and manipulation, no matter what the financial outcome is.

1.5% was never a mandate, much less a "landslide."

What's more is that any shift of more than 0.75% would have tipped the popular vote.

The electoral votes were suspect at best.

"Kamala was crowned by the DNC without a single vote cast."

That's maga propaganda. It's often coupled with, "They tried to erase trXmp from the ballot."

What would you rather? That Biden stayed on the ticket? Again, maga bullshit.

Like it or not, no political party is itself a democratic organization. Abiding by the votes of the pseudo-constituency is no more than a courtesy which can be omitted without so much as a cursory show of hands. It's utter nonsense to think that people who want nothing to do with the democratic party would also complain how it operates, much less opine about being ignored by it. If these people exist in any quantity, they are all complete idiots. Honestly, has nobody pointed this out before?

Roughly a third (or more, depending on whose numbers you trust more. But notice these numbers don't stray, no matter how many sources you look for) of eligible voters did not vote. There has been no "spoiling" since Ralph Nader. The biggest decider in two decades of elections is no more than apathy itself. You can bet that at least half of that third still did have an opinion. That's easily a potential swing of 16%. And furthermore, voters have every right to vote against whichever candidate they dislike the most. Though, on some level, a large number don't believe that they do, so they stray home. Therefore, when thoroughly considering voter intent, in many cases, it is at least as important to consider which candidate is unwanted the most, if not more so.

Only 62% of voters bother to show up. One wins by a popular margin of 0.75% (that's ¾ of one percent for all you math nerds). Meanwhile, the percentage of the electorate who would have shown up--if they felt their "anti-votes" mattered--is in the double digits. That's two orders of magnitude, going from a fraction to anything over ten.

There are clearly numerous unaddresed, serious problems with our democratic system(s):

Simply the political parties themselves. Especially that there are only two major ones. They need to be kept out of how congress functions, too.

The electoral college and gerrymandering, which are intertwined.

Having a long AF voting season. A whole year? No. More like half. Jesus.

They don't just have a big money problem, it's a huge money problem. It's like the cola war, fucking stupid.

Our bad education feeds our ignorance, and now we're in a downward vicious tail-spin. Repairing this will take a long time and continual hard work on the part of the public. The government will NEVER fix this, much less either political party. In fact, it's because of the political parties themselves.

Take political parties out of government, get rid of all the partisan bullshit. Congress must directly obey the public's will without question. Political parties are utterly antithetical to any hope of effective representation.

Regardless of the quality of a high school diploma or GED in the future, we can't dig our way out of this hole without a public education campaign directed at adults. We can't get 100%, but far more of the public must understand how our government works, or is supposed to, so that we can at least call out the bullshit that gets in the way.

Then civic engagement can increase, which improves representation and the functioning of government.