Why Apps are Evil (Hardware Bricking & Planned Obsolescence)

If you own a piece of hardware that requires an internet connection in order to work, and a specific app or website to function properly, you are at the mercy of that app or website provider not to brick your device.

So much of hardware sold today is dependent on some sort of internet connection.  In the UK, BMW famously tried to "rent" heated seats (15 pounds per month) and heated steering wheel (10 pounds per month) and backed down only when people freaked out.  You buy a piece of hardware you expect it to function, without having to pay a subscription fee.  Imagine a toilet that won't flush unless you sign up for "Flush Premium!" with a negative-option subscription plan and a cancellation process that is akin to the labyrinth of the Minotaur.

Don't imagine it - I suspect someone somewhere right now is planning just such a product. The toilet is free, of course, and comes with a starter cartridge that gives you ten flushes.  But after that, you have to pay for a subscription to new cartridges.  If HP made toilets, well, that's how they'd work.  I gave up on color printing long ago.  I was given color inkjet printers by friends, but the cartridges (the set) cost like $50 or more and since I rarely printed with them, they dried up and died after only a dozen pages were printed.  Also, they made the pages wet with ink.  It was just easier to go to Staples or use the color printer at the Arts Association (for their work) or just use my trusty Canon black and white laser printer which is stolid and stalwart as an old HP 4P was, back in the day when they made printers and not schemes.

But I digress.

Mark gave me his old Huawei Band 3 Pro fitness watch, as he decided to "upgrade" to a model that monitored his blood pressure (and it even works).  My experience with fitness watches isn't good.  I broke my old Fitbit and it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.  The company was bought by Google and those Fitbits went into the e-trash a long time ago, I recently got a communication from Google that I need to update my Fitbit account.  How about deleting it, instead?

So I look online for the "app" - Huawei Health - and on the Google Play Store, a number of sound-alike apps pop up - most are bloatware or just garbage apps or apps for competing products.  The Huawei app is nowhere to be found.  I google "Huawei Health App" and get a link to com.huawei.health or something weird like that (com in the front?).  I click on it and it asks me to download an app to download the app.  I decline and try to download the app, but the phone flags it as malware.

I nope out of that in a hurry.  I find a "Huawei Health & Fitness" app on the playstore, but either it is another garbage app or it is intended for a different product, as when I try to link it to my watch (band) it claims it cannot find it!

I finally google "why can't I find the Huawei Health app?" and get a website that tells me it was superseded by a newer app (oddly enough, not one that the Playstore would recommend to me - shame on you Google!).   But the app is still available on the Samsung Galaxy store.  Go Figure.

So I download it from there and it seems to work and recognize the device.  Back in business - but I am sure I will destroy this band as well, smashing it against a brake rotor or something.  I was never meant to have nice things.  Or more precisely, I despise things that are expensive, fussy, and delicate.  Give me something that withstands the test of time!

But what got me to thinking was that if I could not find this app online, the "Huawei Pro Band 3" was essentially worthless - so much electronic junk that would not function without a link to a cell phone. And if Huawei decides that supporting this product is no longer profitable, they might pull the plug on the app and effectively brick the device.

Some software providers have already gone down this road - making older hardware essentially worthless.  Worse yet, they promote users to "upgrade" to the latest version of their software, which, once installed, either slows an older device to a crawl, or makes it unusable entirely.

Others withdraw "support" and upgrades, but still allow the software to run.  I am still running Windows 7, although I wonder in the long run, whether some glitch will disable it in the future.  Hang onto those install discs and installation codes!  We'll see how that plays out.

Sometimes, the company has no choice in the matter.  If they go bankrupt, there is no money to pay for the servers and hardware to service the app or website, so the user's device becomes junk overnight.  I suspect we will see a lot more of this sort of thing in the future, as weaker competitors for new technology are weeded out of the marketplace.  And I suspect we will see some makers intentionally pull the plug - quite literally - on their legacy user database, and thus (hopefully) force users to upgrade to a newer device.

I suspect that even if that is allowed to fly in the US, our friends in Europe will have a meltdown - and good for them.  Europeans have forced Apple to get rid of its slow and incompatible "lightning" connector, and also have pushed companies to sell parts to make hardware repairable. When I went looking for a new power switch for our Bissel 1984 vacuum cleaner (still the best vacuum I have ever owned, despite the switch) I found it was not for sale anywhere in the United States.  But our friends in Europe had it - and the shipping cost more than the switch itself!  I was pretty skeptical of "right to repair" laws at first, but now I see how they really help the consumer.

I will keep using the Huawei watch, and it will dutifully upload everything I do, to the Communist Party of China the friendly folks at Huawei.  But quite frankly, since Mr. See and I do everything together almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week, I can just look at his watch and see how many steps we have taken and even get a good idea of what my blood pressure is like.

So, a nice toy, but not something I desperately need.

Pressure Washer Update:  I installed the new key in the shaft and the engine starts right up and the pump generates pressure and... blows the hose right off the fitting.  Both the hose and the nipple are corroded and the threads stripped - they are a metric "M22" connector.  I look online and see a plethora of the hose nipple parts available, including some upgraded versions, for under $10.  Seems a common problem.  When you have a mechanical problem and look online for the affected part and see it offered by multiple sources, chances are, you are on the right track.  To be safe, I ordered a new 50 foot M22 hose as well - the old hose looked pretty beat and the connectors corroded.  Pats were cheap online!

Put it all together and it blasts out the pressure - and stalls the engine when I release the wand handle. Turns out that someone monkeyed with it when the shaft key broke, thinking that turning the pressure relief valve all the way up might solve the problem of a pump no longer connected physically to the shaft.  I backed out the relief valve and it works fine now.  I washed the driveway and the soffit on the house (an annual chore) and it works great.  LOUD AS ALL GET OUT, THOUGH!

So, I will keep my trusty electric Karcher and save this monstrosity for heavy jobs.  All told, I spent about $45 on parts and maybe two hours of my time tinkering with it.  Comparable units today sell for over $300 or even $400.  However, the previous owner told me it may be 20 years old, so I have a feeling if it breaks again, that will be the end of it.

Every appliance has a design life - even if it wasn't designed to be disabled remotely via an app!

A Surprising Number Of People...

...have no ideas of their own.

You hear it all the time.  "I watch Joe Rogan's podcast!" they cry.  "I never miss Tucker Carlson!" another says.  "That Andrew Tate knows something about women!" another blubbers.  "Who is your favorite influencer?" a girl asks.  "That Bill Maher is one smart guy!" another opines, quoting a favorite line.  And of course, even dead folks get in on this game - George Carlin's every comment is repeated religiously (!) today.

It seems people have no ideas of their own.  And I am not just talking about listening to these gurus occasionally, but faithfully (!) and regularly - and following their "advice" on how to live, often with disastrous results.

I wrote about this before - how it seems a lot of people are like sheep, particularly the kind who accuse other people of being "sheeple" which is a unique phrase they came up with on their own.  People crave advice and validation.  I noted earlier that one of the most popular "subs" on Reddit is "AITA?" or "Am I The Asshole?" where people beg for advice as to whether they did something wrong by offending their niece's step-father's sister-in-law.

Advice columns have been around since the printing press was invented.  Gutenberg, after publishing the Bible, published an "advice for the love-lorn" column which was pasted up on fences all over town.  Just kidding, of course, but then again, it wouldn't surprise me.

I guess religion was the first advice-giver or "influencer."   Catholics religiously go to the confession booth and ask for forgiveness and advice on what to do.  Somehow, the answer always involves saying Hail Marys.   Religion literally has all the answers, even if the answers are different depending on which religion you consult.  The vast majority of people on this planet willingly give over their free will to a religion, substituting belief for reasoning.  Just hand over 10% of your gross income to the church - or more! - and you'll be just fine.

People make a religion out of pop stars or politicians.  Young "Swifties" in South America are camped out for five months waiting to get tickets to a show (it better be a good show!).  They literally hand over their lives to some distant superstar on stage.  Others want to overthrow our government and abolish democracy and install Donald Trump as dictator for life as, well, you know, you can't trust people to make their own decisions in life and Donnie knows what is best for all of us, as evidenced by his track record.  You can't make this shit up!

It seems we crave advice.  Some people even ask me for advice, and I try not to give it - I am not an advice column.

To me, it is an anathema.  I guess I am too independent to just hand my life over to an "influencer" or guru.  I would ask too many pointed questions and be an irritant in the cult.  Unless I could be the guru, not interested - thanks!

Of course, this is not to say I am never "influenced" ever.  We all are, usually subconsciously.  We listen to the news or the opinions of our friends and co-workers and are subtly "nudged" in one way or another.  Those of us who believe in the "one true religion!" tend to believe in the religion of their parents and childhood, or a religion they have been exposed to in their home country.  It is rare that anyone adopts a religion from across the planet, unless it is some bastardized new-age version of that religion, being pushed by a local guru.

We adopt the belief systems of our parents, family, and community, except in some rare instances.  Some people revolt at the belief system of their parents, because they don't get along with their parents, who may be abusive.  Or, they see, firsthand, the horrors of the cult their family has been indoctrinated into.  But for every reformed Cath-aholic or dis-fellowshipped Witness or Ex-Scientologist, there are ten, nay a hundred, who follow the religion of their upbringing.  Belief is very powerful and thus very evil.  And most people struggle to think for themselves.

And don't get me started on "crypto" - the whole thing is based on faith, and if you ask pointed questions about it, the faithful barf up dogma better than a Catholic!  Faith-based investing always ends up badly, except for the guy setting up the scheme - and even then... some go to jail.

Some argue that you have to at least listen to these types of "influencers" in life to judge whether what they are saying is true or not.  A neat argument, but there are literally not enough hours in the day to listen to all of them.  And a surprising (or not so surprising) number of people watch television all day long, basically programming their brains with things like Fox News.   "This is important," they think, "The television said so!"

I think Social Media influencers can be just ignored completely - they are just advertisers hawking products.  Mark has clicked on a number of videos by people who are hawking a product in exchange for cash or by getting a free product.  When we went shopping for a tonneau cover for our truck, it seemed every video we watched for about ten different products, claimed that theirs was the best!  It is akin to finding the one true religion.  After we bought the cover we have, we found out the bald truth - they leak.  And the one video by a guy not paid by anyone showed us that - but only after we had a road to Damascus experience.

Others are hawking books, seminars, or other "how-to" sessions that involve you taking out your wallet and giving them money.  Andrew Tate, who has destroyed the minds and libidos of hundreds of thousands of 7th graders (who will now never get laid in their lifetimes) made money selling books and such, and also from advertisers on his "channel" which I guess will now be streamed from prison.  The rest of the "podcasters" are no different - selling sensationalism to make a buck.  Most have no real moral compass or lodestar - they merely are entertainers and should be treated as such.  Yet so many folks hang on their every word, when what they have to say is as meaningless as what a celebrity has to say when they make their political Oscar speech.

It scares me, really, how so many people are willing to suspend disbelief and disregard their own life experiences to follow a guru.  Right now, the GOP is promising to cut Social Security and Medicare, and one of their largest voting blocs (besides crazy people) is elderly retirees who rely on Social Security and Medicare.  I mean, when will they wake up?  The day they got to the mailbox and find no Social Security check waiting?  Even then, will they blame that on the Democrats?

You bet!

Of course, conservatives have no monopoly on blind faith followers - they just have more of 'em!  There are wacky liberals galore, who latch onto far-left causes without thinking too much.  Things like "guaranteed annual income" or "student loan forgiveness" are taken on faith. When you ask pointed questions about these financial schemes, they get evasive as a Christian does, when you ask them what exactly is the holy ghost.  How does student loan forgiveness tamp down the spiraling cost of education (it doesn't - like any subsidy, it increases prices).  How does this work for future students?  Do all loans get forgiven going forward?  If so, they aren't really "loans" anymore, are they?  If you take away a Senior's $3000-a-month Social Security and replace it with $1200 of "guaranteed annual income" how can they survive on that?  Why would they vote for that?  Well, granted, they will vote to abolish Social Security entirely, provided that it only applied to "those born on 1960 and thereafter."  What do they have against us, anyway?

These sort of "one thing fixes everything" solutions are based on faith and not logic.  Term limits don't solve anything, particularly when the person arguing for them wants term limits for the other guy but not for his guy.  Similarly, flat-tax schemes or national sales taxes are based on faith, not logic - but are appealing to people who like simple mantras.

Speaking of simple mantras - how about "white supremacy" or antisemitism?  Funny thing, the folks who blindly follow that are often the same simpletons who want flat tax, flat earth, and term limits.

Belief is dangerous.  It is evil.  But people do it, because it is fun.  Besides, if you believe in something that doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever happening, you can perpetually claim to be "right" and the rest of the world is wrong.  Jesus is coming back any day now, and boy is he pissed!  Any day now... real soon.  Like next week!   Maybe the week after.  Next year?  Let me consult my horological chart.

Of course, all of this is for naught. I am just ranting - shouting against the wind.  You can tell people they need to figure things out for themselves, and they still don't get it.  Like "Tommy" in the "rock opera" by The Who, he tries to tell people they need to find their own path, and people turn away from him in disgust, as he doesn't have the pat answers they wanted.

Yes, we are all individuals!

Monty Python in The Life of Brian spoofed this magnificently.  "You need to think for yourselves!" he shouts.  "We need to think for ourselves" the crowd drones in response.  They never get it and never will.

The upside to all of this - as I discovered far too late in life - is that if you can think for yourself, and think logically and not emotionally, you will soar ahead of your brain-dead compatriots who fall for whatever attractive-sounding con-job that comes down the pike.

But then again, if I say that, someone will surely ask me, "That sounds good, how do I go about doing that?"

Arrrrgh!

Social Media = Mob Rule

When what you read and hear and see is based on a popular vote, you will see the lowest common denominator in terms of content.

Back in the 1960's, we had three television channels - ABC, NBC, and CBS.  Sure, you might get a fuzzy "UHF" station with "Public Broadcasting" on it, but that barely came in and they had yet to develop any quality programming.  Broadcasters had a limited amount of bandwidth (quite literally) to serve a nation of 200 million people.  So much of what was broadcast was, well, kind of stupid.

When television first became a "thing" the broadcasters tried a lot of highbrow stuff - broadcasting ballet, symphonies, Shakespeare - that kind of thing.  The only people watching were the wealthy few who could afford a television set - so they catered to that demographic.  Over the years, it dumbed-down as the audience became larger and more plebeian.  There were still things like The Philco Television Playhouse or Playhouse 90, which would present live drama to the audience.  But over time, those went away, and pre-recorded shows became the norm.

Game shows were initially highbrow - the $64,000 question, for example, was (nominally) touted as a test of intelligence and intellect (before it was revealed to be rigged).  What's My Line? featured celebrities not known (publicly) for their arrest records or drug abuse, but for their sophistication and erudition.  That was probably the last time a book publisher was considered a "celebrity."  Today?  We have "Family Feud" and "The Price is Right!" and "Let's make a deal!"   Even "celebrity" shows are brain-dead, with lame jokes and low-brow humor.  Match Game PM was no What's My Line?

By the 1960's, however, television was in every home, not just those of the wealthy.  Color television was becoming commonplace (although my Dad refused to buy a color TV until 1976!).  And television programming became more idiotic.  I suppose it started in the 1950's with shows like The Honeymooners or I Love Lucy, where the plot every week was pretty repetitive and forgettable.  What scheme will the boys come up with tonight?  And will Ricky ever let Lucy in his show?  Canned laughter sealed the deal, telling you what was funny and what was not.

By the mid-1960's, a nadir was reached.  We were treated to such intellectual fare as Gilligan's Island, or Hogan's Heroes.  Then there were the "country" shows such as Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and The Beverly Hillbillies.  Cop shows - also having their roots in the 1950's, became popular, particularly in the 1970s until today.  The modern "crime drama" has instilled a sense of paranoia in the minds of most middle-class Americans, who, having witnessed thousands of horrific crimes on television, are convinced that they will be robbed, raped, or murdered, at any given instant.

Television is an example of how the mob rules - how the lowest common denominator must be catered to, particularly as they are consumers of wealth, not accumulators of it.  Thus, they are prime targets for advertisers, particularly of trivial things like fast-food meals, soda-pop, various forms of soaps and detergents, and of course, cars (and today, medicines).  You never see yachts advertised on television - wrong audience!

The Internet, at first, seemed like a respite from the onslaught on the brain that is television.  Sure, you can turn television off, but you will see it in every waiting room, bar, restaurant, and even on your gas pump.  The Internet, at first, was just tech geeks exchanging information, and for a while, at least, it was something interesting and useful.  AOL was probably the first harbinger of evil.  Facebook sealed the deal.  Twitter will write its epitaph.

Social media, as a whole, turned the Internet into television.  Most social media sites have some sort of mechanism to upvote and/or downvote postings or comments.  Whether it is an "upvote" or a "like" or whatever - in some instances, even a view counts as a vote - the end result is that what you see on a social media site is what the lowest common denominator decided they liked.  And what the hoi polloi likes is, well, dreck.

Take Reddit, for example.  I noted before that it seems most of the postings these days are AI-generated things along the lines of "My Sister-In-Law ruined my wedding!" or some other sort of white-trash trailer-park drama.  This is what people like, hence reality television.  But what is really interesting is that when someone asks a serious question, the first 25 responses are jokes and puns and referential humor.  You have to scroll way down the list to find a thoughtful and accurate and detailed response to the question - which shortly will be "downvoted to oblivion."

Other sites are not much better.  I recently sold some old golf cart tires and I (reluctantly) set up a facebook account to put them on "Facebook marketplace."  Oddly enough, I actually sold them on Craigslist before I even got one bite on Facebook.  I quickly closed my Facebook account, which required scrolling through a dozen screens, answering "YES" to "are you sure?" ten times and even then, the account won't disappear until December 1st!  They really want to get their hooks into you.

What was interesting, the brief time I was on there, was the nonsense they wanted to put in my "feed" - which was mostly two-bit drama and utter bullshit.  For some reason, Facebook thought I was black, or at least recommended that I "friend" no fewer than 60 black people, I think mostly from the Atlanta area.  I am not sure why this is, other than my "IP Address" being based on a WiFi hotspot, often shows that I am in Atlanta (a six-hour drive from here!) as - I am guessing - that is the home of the AT&T hub for the State of  Georgia.  It might also be that "Bob Bell" is a somewhat famous black name - the name of a football player as well as a car dealer.  I am not saying Facebook is racial profiling, but, yea, they are.

Other social media sites are getting a lot of flack because what the mob wants is not necessarily good.  Tick-Tock - the arm of the Chinese Communist Party - not only monitors what you do and say and where you go, but promotes the worst sort of behaviors.  "Prank videos" float to the top of that cesspool and some of them are not actually staged.  In other situations, horrible things happen to people (such as the assault of a Korean woman, recently) and no one bothers to help her, but rather they all get out their phones to record the incident - not for the police to use to catch the perpetrator, but for delicious, precious, imaginary Tick-Tock points.

Years ago, there was a story about a woman who was murdered in New York and the neighbors did nothing to help her.  Some revisionists have questioned the veracity of that account.  Maybe it didn't happen as they said it did.  But today?  We see daily these horrific things done to humanity and people standing around recording the mayhem, but doing nothing.  Maybe the bystander effect wasn't real in the 1950's, but today it is - only instead of doing nothing, bystanders record.

It is easy to bash the pranksters and recording bystanders as being the source of this evil, until you realize you watched the video five times and then commented on what an outrage it was (after all, you are a decent person, right?).   By clicking on these "rage-bait" videos and postings, you end up promoting them - adding to the thousands or even millions of "views" which in turn puts these postings and videos before a larger and larger audience.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

It is rare that a posting online is something beautiful, positive, life-affirming, or wholesome.  What we see is brutality and outrage because that is what the mob wants.  Bread and circuses - the slaughter of gladiators in the arena.  The Romans knew how to appease the mob.  So do Facebook, YouTube, Tick-Tock and Twitter.

We become addicted to this nonsense, too - whether we like it or not.  I do not have a Facebook account, nor a Tick-Tock channel, nor a Twitter "handle" - yet we all see and read about these things, as other media outlets link to or reproduce their content.  Journalists, in particular, latched onto Twitter as some sort of pulse of the nation.  For four long years, the "News" consisted of "You'll never guess what outrageous thing Donald Trump tweeted today!" and indeed, this still goes on today, as if the random comments of a deranged man had any real meaning or impact.

Newsweek - which used to be a magazine - is the worst at this.  "Former assistant to the Janitor at the Office were some Lawyer who knows a guy who used to represent Trump says that the Ex-Prez is going to jail tomorrow!"   It is almost comical how "Newsweek" now panders to Trump-haters with these horrible click-bait articles.  Again, you can blame Newsweek, but you have to blame the people who click on these articles, too - which includes you and I.

Sadly, most "mainstream" media has fallen down this rabbit-hole as well.  Even the staid New York Times and the formerly staid Washington Post, have resorted to click-bait titles and sensationalist articles.  And again, you can't blame them - no one reads real journalism anymore.  It's not interesting!  Too time-consuming!  The only real "investigative" pieces they do anymore are just slanted articles that start out, "It was cold that day as little Jimmy pedaled his way ten miles to school to give his book report..." - and ten pages later you find out he is a serial killer but "it was society's fault we failed him."

That sort of shit sells - Netflix is going to a new format of just "wrongfully convicted" docu-dramas, because people love to watch that shit.  I guess it started with Call Northside 777 and yea, some people are wrongfully convicted. On the other hand, producers seem to make it a game to get a guilty person released, as if to show their power.  Bernie killed someone, no matter how nice Jack Black made him out to be.

We're right back where we started, it seems, watching re-runs (metaphorically or literally) of Gilligan's Island on our smart phones.  This level of discourse is what we see, because it is what the mob wants to see.  People arguing, fighting, being horrible to one another.  Horrific events occur and the first thing people want to know is, did someone get a video of it?  Because if they did, they literally will get paid for their efforts, like a modern day Weegee.  And like that famous photographer, if they can't find some outrage to film, well, you can always stage or create one.

So what's the point?  I am not sure, other than sometimes it is better to read curated or moderated content.  Back in the day, newspapers catered to the mob mentality, to be sure.  But news organizations also felt a need to tell us things we should read or hear - even if we didn't like them.  Sites like Wikipedia, which indeed have their own issues, try to at least be informative and impartial, even as that pisses some people off.  But even that site is a function of mob rule - although by a different mob.

I recall trying to edit an entry about the summer camp I went to in the Adirondacks. I visited it during on trip a few summers ago and noticed that the lakefront property had been turned into private home sites.  The Wikipedia entry said that the camp had closed for "unknown reasons" and its fate was "unknown."  I tried to update the entry to note that it was now a housing development but was shot down and blocked from Wikipedia for a month because they felt the term "housing development" was "prejudicial."   OK, whatever!

So maybe there is no point.  Maybe we are doomed to engage with the lowest common denominator in our society - a level which appears to be dropping with each passing day.  I suppose one way is to not engage or at least limit engagement with social media.  But again, as I noted, so much of "mainstream media" is just barfing up the latest Tweet or Tick-Tock - and indeed, "mainstream media" gave up a long time ago and just resorted to click-bait to stay alive.  The local newspaper cannot afford to hire reporters, so they just have a kid read Twitter and report on the most click-worthy Tweets.

So maybe I am just ranting.  But I think we lost something along the way - and lost control of our own culture as a result.  We are riding this social media juggernaut all the way down, it seems.  Today, we are having serious discussions of not only whether Nazism is bad (an issue I thought was decided in 1945) but whether the world is flat (something I think was resolved by 1492 at the latest).

I mean, where are we going with this?

Grunting and Groaning

Why do older people - particularly men - grunt and groan a lot?

Human behavior isn't hard to understand, if you view it through the lens of Darwinism.  Everything we do has some survival instinct associated with it, just as every part of our body has some function - or had - that helped us survive.  People use to say the Appendix was a "vestige" organ, but some Doctors today are now saying it has a function in fermenting gut bacteria.  Too bad it can turn into a hand-grenade and kill you at a moment's notice.

But everything we do has some survival benefit - or did.  We like to think we are an intelligent, thinking species, but in reality we are a poorly-programmed neural network - a bag of chemicals and electric impulses that we really have little or no control over.  Every few decades, humanity goes insane and goes on a killing spree, as it appears we are poised to do very soon now.  People are all riled up over "freedom!" and are willing to destroy democracy and install a dictator and abolish freedom - to save it!

It makes no sense, but then again, people make no sense.  But war probably has some evolutionary value, sad to say.  The strongest and fittest survive, the weak and frail end up dead.  In more recent wars, the strongest and dumbest are sent to the front to be slaughtered, while the smartest and cleverest stay far behind the lines to direct the war or develop weapons or decrypt communications.  Wars in the 20th Century have been the biggest driver of technology.

And since World War II, we've used "proxy wars" to test out new weapons and tactics.  The Ukraine war is a case in point - we are finally entering the era of drone warfare. Dimestore drones can drop a hand grenade down the hatch of a multi-million-dollar tank, killing everyone inside. In response, the Russians have rigged up canopies over their tanks, designed to cause grenades to bounce off.  We never would have learned about these strategies and counter-strategies, without the war to test them out.  It is a bloody business.

But I digress.

What is the evolutionary function of old men (mostly men) grunting and groaning when they have to bend down or get up from kneeling on the ground?  Yes, it is a response to discomfort and pain, but why does going "Oooomph!" make it better?

It seems to me that one function is to distract you from the pain.  You let out a grunt and like a Lamaze breathing exercise, it helps block the pain for an instance.  But it also annoys the crap out of your spouse, or anyone else in the vicinity.

But, perhaps this also has some survival function.  Maybe it alerts others to the disability of the grunter.  We see all the time here on Old People Island, the elderly wives asking husbands to lift things they have no business lifting.  When Dad lets out a grunt, Mom realizes she is abusing her spouse and then asks the neighbor boy (strong back, weak mind) to lift it, instead.  And perhaps these grunts and groans are a way for the grunter to realize they are no longer a youth and in fact, may be damaging their bodies by trying to lift heavy things.

Maybe.  There has to be some reason for it.  People don't just do things for no reason, in general.

Wealth Taxes & Property Taxes (Versus Income Taxes)

A tax on wealth or property isn't really a fair tax.

Years ago, I moved to Alexandria, Virginia, and was chagrined that I had to pay taxes - every year - on my car.  Not a sales tax or even a title fee, but an annual "personal property tax" that could be $1000 or more on a new car.  Over time, the tax decreased as the car lost value - which incentivized people to hang on to old junkers, as the staggering cost of the annual tax on a new car discouraged trading-in.

And yes, you had to pay the tax on a leased car as well. Leasing a car is not renting it.  It is only buying a car with a complicated contract that requires you to trade it back in after so many months.  It sucks.

What was really unfair about this tax was that it targeted the poor and middle-class.  Every day I would take a shortcut through Old Town, past expensive rowhouses with private garages. A garage door would open up and some rich guy in a Mercedes - with District of Columbia tags - would pull out and cut me off.  Since he had an office in DC, he would use that as his "address" for registering the car, and avoid thousands of dollars in annual taxes. Meanwhile, the tax enforcement guy would cruise the parking lots of the apartment buildings and issue tickets to folks who didn't have tax stickers - even if your car had out-of-state plates!  Particularly if your car had out-of-state plates!

They have since abated that tax, as it was unfair. It was a great way to tax the poor and middle-class while keeping real estate property taxes low. The very rich win again.  That fancy townhouse had lower taxes thanks to the $1000 a year I paid on my Camry.  Seems fair, right?

Anyway, that "car tax" was a vast improvement over previous years.  A decade earlier, you had to pay "personal property tax" on everything you owned.  So you had to pay tax on your couch - every year - and your lamp, and your chair, and your rug and your clothes and your appliances and the cans of Campbell's soup in the cupboard.  You could tote all that up and try to figure out what the real value of a decade-old couch was, and then calculate your taxes, or pay a flat rate based on the value of your home.  Most people chose the latter.

And perhaps this was a holdover from the racist old days of the old South - where poor people would have to pay taxes on things they'd owned for decades - which would reduce taxes on the very rich.  Since the very poor outnumber the very rich by more than 10 to 1 (or 100 to 1 these days) a few dollars from a lot of the poor means huge savings for the very rich.

Taxing possessions makes little or no sense.  You buy a couch for $1000 and if you pay a 4% property tax on it every year, even assuming it declines in value every year, you end up paying as much again in property taxes, over time, or at least a significant chunk of the value - 50% or more.  What's more, there is no income stream tied to the couch to offset the taxes.  You can easily find yourself in a situation where you have to sell off your possessions to pay the property taxes on them.

You think I am kidding, but this is a real thing with real estate property taxes, particularly in high-tax States like Florida or New York.  We knew people in New York who had to sell off a lake cabin that had been in their family for generations, as they could not afford the $20,000 annual property taxes on it.  Most of the surrounding land was taxed at agricultural rates or had homestead exemptions of one kind or another.  So the tax authorities hammered anything on the lakefront, which meant five-figure tax bills.   You can own something outright, but still not afford it.

Similarly, Governor DeSantis recently told an interviewer they should move to Florida as there are "no taxes."  And while it is true there is no State Income Tax, there are onerous property taxes easily in the five-figures, even for a modest house.  Since you can "homestead" your home, your taxes are locked in. So, for example, Mark's parent's house was taxed at $3000 a year for decades, as it was homesteaded.  When they died, the taxes jumped to $15,000 right off the bat (and went up yearly after that) as the homestead exemption is not transferable.

Bear in mind that that house in Florida had the same market value as our house in Jekyll, which is taxed at $2500 a year or so.  No income tax in Florida, to be sure, but my income tax bill in Georgia was a few hundred dollars last year (and I got a $500 rebate, making my tax burden negative).  If we had moved to Florida, we would have paid $12,000 more in property taxes (and another four grand in insurance) and then pay more income taxes on the additional money we would have to tap from our 401(k) to live there.  No thanks, Mr. DeSantis!

The homestead exemption creates a weird situation where one house is taxed very low and an identical house across the street is taxed at ten times that amount, simply because one person lived there a long time, and another recently bought.  Since so many houses are taxed at a low rate, the few that don't qualify for homestead exemption (snowbirds, for example) are screwed royally.  And for retirees, this can be a nightmare, as they end up paying far more in Florida property taxes than they did "up North" in income taxes.

Of course, that is better than the double-whammy of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, where you pay staggering property taxes and income taxes to boot!  Thank you very much Tony Soprano!

States try to fix this with elderly tax relief - they realize that a pensioner or someone living off their 401(k) can end up broke or homeless, if their tax bill skyrockets.  Like I said, for the 401(k) generation, you have to take more money from your 401(k) to pay increased property taxes.  This, in turn, increases your income tax burden.  So you take out yet more money to pay those taxes, and so on and so forth.  It becomes a death spiral.  You end up selling your house, even though it is paid-for.

Income taxes, on the other hand, at least have an income stream to support them.  You make a hundred grand, you have a hundred grand to draw from to pay those taxes.  But if you have a house with a property tax bill of $20,000 and a Social Security income of $30,000 you will be tossed out of your house, eventually.   Taxes should be tied to income streams, not mere possessions.

There are other problems with real estate property taxes.  Two houses sit side-by-side. One is all fixed up and painted nicely and has many improvements.  The neighboring house is owned by a slumlord and has junked cars on the lawn and the house is falling apart.  The nice house is socked with a huge tax bill as a penalty for being in good shape.  The falling-down-home gets a small tax bill as a reward for looking like a slum shack.

I ran into a classmate of mine from school a decade after graduation.  She had married and she and her husband built a small home down by the creek.  It was nicely done, but one side was all tar-paper with no siding on it.  I asked her about this and she said that according to the local tax code, the house was not "finished" until all the siding was on it.  So they left the siding off on that one wall for three years to avoid paying onerous New York property taxes.  After three years, the tax man declares the game to be up and the full taxes are assessed and they put the siding on that last wall.  But during those three years, the house was assessed as a vacant lot.  Pretty crazy situation!  Pretty crazy rules!

You see how taxes incentivize people to make their houses look like shit.  The person who fixes up their home is punished for his work.  Some urban planners have studied this issue and proposed changes to tax laws to tax only land and not improvements.  If only the land is taxed, the slum shack is taxed the same amount as the mansion next door, provided they have the same acreage.  The idea is that it incentivizes the slum-shack owner to either sell his property to someone who will fix it up, or motivate him to improve his property - and not penalize him for doing so.

When we lived in the DC area, I read an article in the WaPo about a slum-lord who owned dozens of row houses that were uninhabitable and a blight on the neighborhood.  Junkies were breaking in and squatting in them.  He never paid the property taxes and DC was lax in collecting them or auctioning off properties for back taxes.  As I discussed before, it is hard to acquire a property for back taxes, as even if you "win" the auction, the owner can pay the back taxes and take it back from you. And since the taxes on dilapidated houses were low, he could pay the taxes occasionally on one or two properties, if they were threatened with tax foreclosure.  So this slumlord played this game for years and eventually a developer approached him to buy the properties and knock it all down to build an office building - and he made millions.

If those properties had been taxed based on land value (and the tax laws enforced) he would not have been able to afford to play this game and someone would have bought the properties and improved them.  But again, that's another unintended consequence.  If you have an "historic" property that cannot be torn down due to its significance, you can still destroy it through sheer neglect.  You merely let the place fall part until the roof leaks and the rafters rot and one day, it collapses or is condemned and you end up tearing it down, cultural significance or not.  A convenient house fire caused by squatters is another way.

Of course, taxes on real property are not a real problem, if they are reasonable. And not long ago, property taxes across America were pretty low - to the point where it was a rounding error on your mortgage payment. You paid Principle and Interest on your mortgage and that was the big deal.  Insurance was a few hundred a year and taxes maybe a thousand.  Today, both insurance and taxes are measured in the thousands of dollars, particularly in places like Florida, which not only has hurricanes but corrupt politicians, roofers, and lawyers, all acting in concert to rip-off homeowners (and their roofs) and the insurance companies (who in turn always pass on costs to homeowners, or failing that, leave the State).

If you want to move to Florida, bring money, because you'll need it. Other than an uninsured trailer home in the baked middle of the State, much of Florida is now staggeringly expensive, even for relatively modest houses - which is one reason many are leaving the State of Florida for Georgia and the Carolina's.

But getting back to property taxes, some on the far-Left have proposed a "wealth tax" on wealth itself, not just income.  The idea, I guess, is to somehow "level the playing field" and take away money from some people and then give it to others - and they are quite plain and clear on this.  Take away wealth - not just income - from Person A and then give it to Person B in the form of "guaranteed annual income" or some other form of balderdash.

The problem is, of course, that if you taxed "wealth" at, say, 10% per year, in ten years, the "wealthy" person is broke, and those "guaranteed annual income" people still want their checks cashed.  Oh, and there is now one more of them to pay.  Taxing income makes sense - the more you make, the more you pay. Or that is the way it should be (but isn't). Taxing wealth is like the car tax - you have no corresponding income stream to tap from.

That is, by the way, the reason why we have the "depreciation deduction" in the first place.  If you won a rental property that brings in $12,000 a year in rent, and has expenses of $12,000 in the form of taxes, insurance, repairs, and mortgage payments, you are breaking even in terms of cash-flow.  However, since part of that mortgage payment pays off the balance on the loan, in financial terms, you have a net profit.  Problem is, there is no income cash-flow to pay the taxes on that profit. You literally could go broke while breaking even.  So they allow this "depreciation deduction" (where nothing is actually depreciating) to even out the score.  You will still pay taxes on capital gains when you sell the property, but a tax deferred is a tax denied and capital gains rates are lower than "ordinary income" rates.  And since the depreciation deduction is too generous, you can convert ordinary income into capital gains.

Now, some point out that having so many taxes is too complicated - property taxes, income taxes (State and Federal), sales taxes, and so on and so forth.  One of the most ridiculous taxes I never paid was the "Gross Receipts Tax" of 4.5% that the City of Alexandria wanted me to pay.  Not a tax on income, but sort of a sales tax on whatever I billed.  "Just raise your rates by 4.5%!" they said.

Nice try, but in many transactions, the government fees outweigh mine.  For example, I pay a "maintenance fee" of $1000 for a client and add my service charge of $250. The total due is $1250 and I have to pay 4.5% taxes on the entire amount, not just my fee.  So now I have to charge the client an additional $45 just to let $1000 pass through my hands.  In addition to the accounting nightmare, it was just a grab for cash for the City, which already was collecting a lot in taxes (such as the car tax mentioned above).  I decided that working from home as a "contractor" was far easier and more profitable and also lowered my profile from the tax man.  Having a brick-and-mortar storefront is just putting a target on your back.

So yea, a simpler tax system would be cool, but it ain't likely to happen.  My rich friends love their low capital gains tax, and they fund the re-election campaigns of the GOP who promises to criminalize abortion and lower taxes (for them, not you!).  The patchwork method of collecting taxes insures that we don't realize how much we are paying in taxes overall - although we pay far less than other Western countries.

But property taxes?  Wealth taxes?  If they exist at all, they should be modest enough to make paying them an easy chore.  When your house tax is over ten grand a year, something isn't right.

Doya hear me, Governor DeSantis?  I doubt it.  He's convinced Florida is a "tax-free" State!