Belief versus Reality

"I am an Engineer, cursed with actually knowing something."  --Robert Platt Bell

For a lot of people, what they want to believe is akin to fashion in clothes.   You pick and choose among the styles, and then select what you think makes you look good, or is "fun."  Whether something is actually true or not is, of course, secondary.   And of course, most people will play stupid mind games with you and argue that there is no such thing as an absolute truth.

But there is.   Hit them upside the head and ask them if they feel that "absolute truth" or not.  Chances are, they will snap back to reality in short order.

I just got off the phone with an inventor who is convinced he has invented perpetual motion.   It is a bugaboo of our business that every so often you do get a raging "true believer" who thinks they have figured out a way around the laws of thermodynamics.   I explained to him that even though the Patent Office basically threw up its hands and stopped rejecting perpetual motion machine Patent applications (because inventors would claim such rejections were evidence that "the government was in the pockets of the big oil companies!") that he would need to find another attorney, as I could not, in good faith, prosecute an application to an invention I knew would not work.

He tried to persuade me, but his arguments were based more on belief than sound engineering.   But while on the phone, I looked online and sent him links to several nearly identical perpetual motion machines and that seemed to persuade him that even if the thing could work (which it couldn't) he wouldn't get much Patent protection, as the idea was largely "public domain."

(And this is the problem with perpetual motion machines.   Like the Howard Johnson's Motor, they are now public domain designs - yet in the decades they have been around, no one can build one that will work!)

But it begs the question, why was he such a raging true believer and why did I dismiss the idea out of hand as not being possible?   The answer is complex.   I am a skeptic.  I live in the real world.  As an Engineer and Lawyer, I want to see hard evidence, not fantastic dreams, promotional come-ons, or happy talk.   And maybe because of this, I can spot a fraud from 100 yards.  When hard facts are elusive, chances are, you are being deceived.

(I don't believe in perpetual motion, not just because I took Thermodynamics, but because I don't believe in the free lunch.   Nothing in life would be that easy.  And if perpetual motion were possible, the universe would generate more and more energy until it exploded.   No, God doesn't hand out free-passes.  We have to work for it, simple as that). 

Others, well, they cannot discern between advertising puffery, slick talk, vague promises and real hard honest facts and data.   To them, an advertising brochure that says "The New Chevy Camaro is super-fast and powerful!" is the same as technical data that says, "It has 426 HP and 420 ft-lbs of torque."  The former is a bunch of advertising bullshit.  The later is hard data.  And pretty impressive data, considering the original Camaro from the 1960's was a poorly made rusty deathtrap that got shitty mileage and couldn't hope for those numbers even on a good day.

But then again, I live in reality.  Fantasy-man tells me how much better cars were in the good old days.  Fantasy-man has his head up his ass.  He's not an Engineer.

Sadly, puffery and happy-talk is mostly what you see these days.  Put a column of numbers in front of people and they go off to snooze-land, even if they are impressive numbers.   But put together a slick animation or computer generated graphic?   If is a slow news day, the media will lap it up, and the plebes will fall all over themselves gushing on about how great the world will be when the Trollies and Zeppelins come back.

What sort of things am I talking about?   Well, for example, rotating skyscrapers, which made the news a few years ago, and were going to be built "next year" which is a great time-frame to use.  It is like those bar signs that say, "Free Beer - Tomorrow!", but of course tomorrow never comes.

And after the hoopla dies down, you realize the architect of this "rotating skyscraper" never designed a skyscraper before, and doesn't have a client for it, and after several years, still doesn't.  And as an Engineer, you quickly appreciate how the structure of tall buildings works, and how you can't have dynamic loads on a tiny core and have the whole thing stand up.  Not to mention how the plumbing and electrical connections are going to work.  Then you read the claims that it will generate enough electricity to power five buildings, and well, you know someone is pulling your leg.

But others?  You read the comments online and people say, "This is so cool!  I can't wait to see it built!" and they accept, without question, some clever computer graphics as reality.

Or take the air-powered car - coming "next year" as well.  Or the three-wheeled "Elio" car - due next year!

Or floating cities - only "a few years away!"   A third-grader could find the flaws in that plan.  Can you spell "Hurricane"?

An interesting side note - when the "floating cities" press release first came out, one advantage touted was that such cities would be in international waters, and thus beyond national laws.  So drugs and other things would be legal - which tells you a lot about the audience for such wild-eyed fantasies.   Yes, pot smokers are the first to believe in air-powered cars or the return of the Zeppelins - or kicking back and sparking a bowl in your floating-city condo.   Yea, that could all happen.  Maybe not.

All these clever press-releases have compelling made-for-prime-time video and graphics.  If Preston Tucker were alive today, he wouldn't have bothered building 51 prototype cars, but would have done it all in CGI instead.  A lot less hassle.

A new one is the solar powered enviropod, which we are told you can tow with your electric car - while it recharges it!   Again, we are told is is available "next year" which could mean anytime in the next 100 years.  How one is able to get sufficient solar power from a round egg-shape is not told.  And if you know something about the energy density of solar panels and how they work, you would realize that a flat panel that could be angled toward the sun would be far more efficient - but still not enough to run your air conditioning, much less recharge your electric car.

But still, people want to believe.  In the future, we will all live in eco-pods and travel in our three-wheel air-powered cars to our Zeppelins, if not by Trolly or jetpack or whatever.

It is a nice fantasy.  It is not reality.  Like it or not, we have to live in reality.   It is not that mankind cannot accomplish amazing things.  My Grandmother was born in the horse-and-buggy era and yet also saw a man land on the moon.  Surely an amazing pace of accomplishment.   And when I was young, it seemed like trips to the space station would be routine - scheduled to fly on Pan Am, of course!   And colonies on the Moon and Mars were just "a few years away."  Maybe "next year."  Always a compelling timeline.

What happened?   Reality happened.   It turned out that landing on the moon was a very dangerous stunt that killed one crew (Apollo 1), nearly killed the first crew to land (Apollo 11), and nearly killed the third crew (Apollo 13).  Turns out, we live at the bottom of a gravity well, and getting into space is never going to be as easy as booking a flight on an airliner.  Not now, not tomorrow, not ever.  

This isn't to say we shouldn't try, and that down the road, maybe things will change.  But it won't be easy, and it won't happen overnight.  A self-sustaining colony in space, as we are finding out, is an expensive undertaking, as every damn thing you need has to be lifted free and clear of our gravity well and then flung out into orbit days, weeks, or months away.   And there are no practical shortcuts to this.

Of course, it is far more fun to believe otherwise.  And there are no shortage of people who will indulge your fantasies in this regard, such as the folks at Mars One.  But let's face it - these folks haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of ever going.  A nice website and a press release do not a Mars mission make.

So what's the harm in all of this?   Believing in "fun things" like aliens and conspiracy theories is just harmless fun, right?  It's like religion - silly stories about a guy living in a whale, that get us through the day and make our hum-drum lives seem more important and interesting, right?

Maybe.   But frankly, I find reality - with all its drudgery, hardship, difficulty, and disappointment - to be fascinating enough.   For example, the fact that people believe all this bullshit is part of reality, and that is fascinating to me.  Just understanding this is a big key to understanding people and how the world works.   If you can live in reality more than in fantasy, your personal life will be so much better, trust me.

The other harm in this is that sometimes these fantasy-sellers are outright con-men.   There have been accusations that some of these press-release wonders are just fronts for investment scams - asking people to front money to "invest" in these schemes, or dealerships or deposits or "automated prefabricated factories" to build (whatever) in your "territory".   Yes, dreams like this are usually bait, with a hook attached, and the goal is to separate you from your money.

"But what about all the great inventions in the past?" you say, "Didn't folks have to have a dream back then and sell it to investors?"

Yes and No.  If you know the back story about Microsoft, for example, you realize there was no "dream" of creating DOS or Windows - just projects that fell into their laps.  No one was selling Microsoft's "dream" to investors.   A lucky few made a lot of money by being in the right place at the right time.

Thomas Edison wasn't prone to making press releases to raise money.  The only media "stunt" he ever did was to invent the electric chair in an effort to discredit Westinghouse.

The Wright Brother's strategy was to sell one airplane to the government for the astounding sum of $50,000.   They actually sold one, too.   But of course, first to market was last in the market place, as we have learned all-too-often.

Henry Ford?  He quit the company that became Cadillac.  He was just one of hundreds of people hoping to cash in on the burgeoning car business.  His real insight was going after the low-end of the market, and succeeding by cutting production costs and adopting mass-production standards.

No, no, real innovation and real invention is rarely accompanied by hoopla and hype.  In fact, hype can often kill off a good invention.  When you see fancy press releases about inventions "coming next year!" chances are, you are being bullshitted.

And perhaps I am missing out on something in life by being grounded in reality.  I have had clients tell me they see angels.   I have friends who claim to be ghost hunters.  Others believe in faeries and whatnot.  I suppose theirs is a magical world full of whimsy and wonder.   But then I look at their financial situation and think to myself, maybe reality ain't so bad after all.  And maybe if these folks paid more attention to reality, they wouldn't have to retreat into a fantasy world

And fantasy beliefs go beyond fantastic inventions or elves and whatnot.   Fundamentalist religious beliefs - beliefs that intrude into your personal and financial life - are on the rise.  One friend tells me that her son (who is older than I am) believes the "end times" are coming, and thus has saved nothing for retirement but instead gave all his money to the evangelical church.   Same shit, different day, as far as I am concerned.

For me, reality ain't so bad.   And reality isn't just as you perceive it to be.  Or more precisely, how you perceive reality is often cross-checked by actual reality - just like the Scientific Method.  If your belief systems are continually clashing with reality, then maybe it is time to adjust your belief systems to fit the real world, rather than try to force reality to fit your preconceived notions.

Because reality really isn't all that scary.  And retreating into delusion and belief is really no answer - and in fact often makes things worse.

Confront reality.  Make it your friend.  It ain't all that bad!

Why White Supremacy is Obviously Wrong (And What Causes It).

The fundamental problem with white supremacy is that the people who promote it are the worst examples of the white race.   If white people were "supreme" over other races, then there would be no losers like this around.

White supremacy in the news again, sadly, this time as part of a mass-murder.  There are other factors involved, of course, and I suspect we will find out in short order that mental health was a real factor. That and parents who think buying their mentally ill son a handgun is a swell idea.   And what's with the weirdo Justin Beiber haircut?  The kid in Connecticut had the same 'do.   Weird.

I have been reading Gore Vidal's Empire series of historical novels, and he makes the point, with regard to the McKinley assassination, that when people, particularly in the media, start saying things like "kill the President" that some nutjob will take this as a cue and actually commit the act.  William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate, published in his papers, calls for the President to be assassinated.  After the assassination of Governor William Goebel of Kentucky, Hearst published this nasty little couplet:

The bullet that pierced Goebel's breast
Can not be found in all the West;
Good reason, it is speeding here
To stretch McKinley on his bier.

And that was all it took to set off a self-styled "anarchist" to finish off the job.   People like to believe in conspiracy theories.   I say it doesn't matter.  You put up the hate talk, and these nutjobs, like little windup dolls, go off to do your bidding.   Such was the case in Dallas in 1963.  But I digress.

White supremacy is, of course, a classic example of weak thinking and externalizing.   And that is why white supremacists are usually unemployed or underemployed losers with a chip on their shoulder.   The problems they face in the world, they believe, are not due to their inherent stupidity, laziness, lack of discipline, or other personal faults.   No, no, it is the black people who "took their money away."

It is funny, but you never see smart people or successful people become white supremacists or "sovereign citizens" (a closely related, if not overlapping phenomenon).  People who have their shit together don't need to find scapegoats for the problems in their lives.  And the reason for this is simple: People who have their shit together address their own problems and try to solve them rather than externalizing them to unseen others.

Externalizing your problems never solves them, but in fact, makes them worse.

Thus, externalizing is an appealing belief system to weak thinkers and lazy people.  Blaming all of your problems on external forces, such as minorities, has such classic appeal - nothing you have done is wrong.  No, you are a good person!  It is those bad people who made your life miserable.

And this is why the Nazi philosophy appealed to criminal elements and lower classes in Germany - who first took up the banner.   And it is why a high school drop out, in trouble with drugs and the law, might take the easy way out and blame all his problems on blacks.  It is cowardice and an utter lack of character.

But where would a kid like this even get such ideas?  Well, if you scour some of the less savory portions of the Internet, you'll find racism and white supremacy alive and well.  In the olden days, if you wanted to find "like minded" race-haters, you either had to live in the South (or South Boston) or subscribe to some sort of newsletter or something.  It takes a network of hate to spread and reinforce bad ideas.

On the Internet, you don't have to look far.  Reddit, the "front page of the Internet" and owned by Conde Nast, had "subreddits" called "Coontown" and "Watching N*****s Die" which are pretty self-explanatory.  The first is just a virulent racism, repeated over and over again - young white men sharing and reinforcing their racist views. 

The second is nothing but links to videos of black people being killed.  Gee, the Internet is really fun, ain't it?  And you let your children use it?

And I am sure that when they get done searching this young man's computer, they will find links to all of these sorts of sites.

So that's all it takes.  A mentally ill young man, easy access to guns, and a whole lot of really bad ideas  repeated over and over again.   And like a little wind-up doll, some nutjob will listen to all this nonsense and then take it seriously and then go off killing people.

Of course, there is often more to it that that.  There are people who are not mentally ill who engage in race-hate crimes.  One horrific example is a group of white teenagers from Mississippi, who made it a habit to drive to black neighborhoods and beat up unsuspecting black folks. They did this several times, and were never caught, and emboldened, ran over a man one night and killed him.

Again, bad ideas reinforced by the peer group, and anyone who has teenagers or who has been one, knows how this works.  Young men in particular, will egg each other on, and afraid of being called a "sissy" or whatever, people go along with it. When you set certain social norms or normative cues, then people act accordingly.   And it is frightening how easily "normal" people can be manipulated in this manner.

(And this is not necessarily a racial thing.  Google "teens kill homeless man" sometime and see the results - it goes on for pages.   This is such a popular thing to do that Jon Stewart actually joked about it, which I find in bad taste.  Apparently the baseball bat is the weapon of choice.  A few decades ago, there was a similar trend, but the target was gay men.)

So what could we do?  Well, for starters, maybe institutionalize schizophrenic young men and try to help them, rather than give them guns and a computer and let them do 'whatever' as was the case in Connecticut, and I suspect in South Carolina as well.  And maybe not letting your teen kids run wild in packs is another good idea, as well.

And maybe premiere publishing companies like Hearst or Conde Nast shouldn't be propagating hate in newspapers or on the Internet.   After the McKinley assassination, Hearst was widely blamed for the act, and in fact, it put an end to his political ambitions.  Where is the blowback for Conde Nast?  Oh, right, they "spun off" Reddit as an "independent entity" while at the same time owning the majority of the stock in the new company.

Of course, some would cry this is "censorship" - but is it really?  Historically our society has policed what is deemed acceptable by means of social pressure. And maybe if more people put social pressure - or financial pressure - on Conde Nast, they would shutter the more racist elements of Reddit.   Perhaps we should boycott advertisers in Conde Nast publications until they see the light?   Perhaps.

Others would note that doing this would just "drive it underground" which is, of course, where it should be.  When something is not so readily available, and is deemed shameful and awful, then at least there is a social stigma attached to it.  We have successfully done this with child pornography, which until a couple of decades ago, was freely available in places like Times Square, and legal in countries like Sweden and Japan (in Japan until last year).

It is funny about the Internet.  We "shame" people all the time for saying the wrong thing on Twitter.  But if you want to wallow in racist crapulence, it is all there, online, sponsored by and owned by, major media outlets.

UPDATE:  It only took a few years, but Reddit decided finally that racist subreddits have to go.  No more "coontown".   What took so long?

Sea Change - Perpetual Debt and the 401(k) Generation

Retirement for many will be a series of increasingly unpleasant financial decisions to make.

I received an e-mail from a reader who is in a bit of a pickle.  Forced to retire early (actually, into their second career) they have a mortgage to pay off while in their 60's.   Should they cash in their 401(k) to pay off the mortgage? 

Tough question.   And questions like this illustrate why it is best not to put yourself into tough situations where you have to make hard choices.

There are, of course other options.   First, you could sell the house, if there is any equity in it, and then buy a smaller house, preferably paying cash from the sale of the first house, and then live mortgage-free in a smaller, easier-to-care-for house with lower utility bills, lower taxes, lower insurance, and lower upkeep.    That would be my choice, because at age 55, I am already sick of mowing lawns and scrubbing toilets, and less space, less land, less expense would seem to me to be an advantage.

But a lot of folks immediately disregard this option - even if it were feasible.   They don't want to be seen as "giving up" by their neighbors and friends.   For us here on retirement island, the choice is to sell here and move to the mainland.    A typical house on this island may sell for about $380,000 in average condition (a house without a beach view or whatnot).   On the mainland, a very nice house in a suburban development can be had for about $175,000 or about half the price of living here.

And yet many, when faced with financial stress, would not even consider this option, as pride prevents them from doing so.   To sell here and move elsewhere would be seen as an admission of poverty and shame.   And folks worry what other people think of them - people they hardly know.  And that's pretty stupid.

Others will use the gambit of "I'm moving away to be closer to my grandchildren!" which puts a spin on it that they are not just selling for financial reasons.   Hey, if that gets you through the night, do it.

But of course, I do not know the reader's full financial situation, so I cannot give him advice.  And as I have noted before, I am not Dear Abby.   I started this blog to figure out my own finances.   And my solution was to downsize - albeit on a larger scale.

For example, I have no idea what housing prices are like where he lives, what equity he has in his home, what his sources of income are, and what his other monthly expenses are.  He says he has a "negative cash flow" and is tapping into emergency funds.   But he is paying for Cable TV and a Smart Phone?  Because if so, I can tell him where to find $200 a month in a real hurry.

And what some consider "necessities" others consider "luxuries."  I recounted a friend of mine who wanted "help with their finances" and I went through their budget, and showed them where they could easily cut $250 a month.    They were paying $100 for cable TV, $65 for internet service, and so on.   And they were going to the most expensive restaurant on the island, regularly, and buying $12 drinks.   But what I found out, after doing this analysis was what they wanted wasn't my advice so much as a loan of $5000. I'm not in that business either.

Another option our reader could take is to refinance.   This is, in a way, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.   However, we are all on the Titanic as we approach retirement age.   Life has an end point.   If he refinances the house at a lower (fixed) rate, the monthly payment might go down and be within his affordability.   A neighbor of mine did just that, at the ripe old age of 78 - taking out a 30-year mortgage.  Not my first choice, of course, but it works for him, or at least it appears to be doing so.   But in a few years, he won't have to worry about the mortgage.  But his wife will, and she's a lot younger.  I hope she has the income to service the mortgage once he's dead!

A reverse mortgage is another option (and we are really working our way down the food chain here!) but I am not sure if that would work with an existing mortgage on the property.  And it would depend on how much equity is in the house.   A $500,000 house with a $60,000 mortgage is a far different scenario than a $80,000 house with a $60,000 mortgage.  Like I said, without knowing all the details, it is hard to even start to guess at what to do.

And speaking of reverse mortgages - which I think are a very, very bad idea - there was another article in the news the other day about a woman whose husband died, and without telling her, took out a reverse mortgage in his name only and as a result, is facing foreclosure.  Men can be so nice to their spouses, no?  This is called financial abuse and it goes on a lot more than you think.  My Grandfather, for example, died at age 55 and left his wife with nothing.

But this conundrum illustrates why it is important to think about retirement and old age and "owning yourself" when you are 30, not 50.  By age 50, your career may last only another five years, and it is far too late to "save up for retirement" at that point.    Far too many people today are living for today only and making no plans for the future.  And when the future comes - at a time when the mind and body are failing and life is far harder to live - you don't want to be forced into a situation where you have to make hard choices like this.

It is not impossible to pay off a mortgage over 30 years, if you get it at age 30 and work until age 60.   But many folks chose instead to do other things with their money - and we see this all the time at the local boat ramp or at the RV campground.   People want to impress others with their fancy new toys - as if they actually made these things instead of merely signing loan papers on them.   Folks want to take fabulous vacations and then post the pictures on Facebook.   These are all choices we make.

The problem for our generation is that we don't have the luxury of a pension to look forward to.    I know people here on our island who are making in the six figures (as a couple) on pension income alone.  A retired school teacher from New York can easily make $50,000 a year in pension, if not more.   Good for them.  Bad for the taxpayers.   One reason I no longer pay property taxes in New York State.   But that is another issue that you will hear a lot about in the coming months.   And I suspect the teacher's unions are going to take it on the chin pretty soon.   But I digress.

The rest of us have to live on our accumulated savings - which is one reason most of us have less and less sympathy for people with cushy pension plans that we have to pay for.   And most folks today have very little saved for retirement.   Maybe a hundred thousand or so - which is not a lot of money.

To have the same $50,000 annual pension as our NYS school teacher (as an example), one would have to save up a cool million dollars using the 5% rule of withdrawal.   And yet, if you asked these pensioners if they were millionaires, they would cry out, "I'm not rich!  I don't have a lot of money!" and they don't - in terms of cash on the table.  They have only a pension check and nothing more.   And I know pensioners like this, who confess they have a mortgage, car payments, and whatnot, but only $10,000 in savings.   So long as their pension holds up, they are set.   Better pray Mitt Romney doesn't buy the company you retired from.   Oh, right, these are the same idiots who voted for him.  No sympathy.

So when people say to me that "You're lucky, you're rich!" I have the same reaction as our schoolteacher pensioner.   A million dollars isn't a lot of money today - it is barely enough to retire on in any sort of middle-class lifestyle.

And to retire on your savings, a mortgage is out of the question.   You have to live on your savings, which means paying taxes on your IRA/401(k) as you take the money out.   So the name of the game is to minimize the amount you take out (those with a Roth IRA don't have to worry as much).  If you have to take out $2000 a month just to pay a mortgage, that means not only paying more taxes, but probably pushing you into a higher tax bracket.

So what does this mean?   Well the best decision to make is to not place yourself in a situation where you have to make such dire decisions.  Sadly, a lot of people will be in these bad places, in large numbers, and very soon.  And many will do very odd things, too, like cashing in a 401(k) so they can "own a house" or whatever.   It happens all the time - it is already happening.

On the news the other day, a sad story of a retired Navy war vet.  For some odd reason, he decided that taking his pension in monthly payments wasn't good enough, and a helpful company in the Navy Times offered to give him a "lump sum" payout, in exchange for his pension payments for the next ten years.  What he needed the money for is unknown (conveniently - was it gambling, stocks, housing, drugs, what?).

Anyway, he now needs money to live on, and he won't see a pension payment until 2025 if he lives that long.  And yea, the "lump sum" payout people basically loaned him money at 30-40% interest or more,

Just don't do shit like that.  Don't buy a jet ski when you haven't funded your IRA.  Don't take out yet another home equity loan to pay off credit cards, while at the same time having 500 channels of cable and a smart phone.

But alas, most folks think cable television is like oxygen ("everyone has it, right?") and not having the latest smart phone would be like living in a 3rd world country.

Choices, Choices!

"I may disagree with what you say, but I downvote your right to say it!"

People on Social Media complain about "censorship on the Internet" failing to realize that Social Media is censorship on the Internet.

Social Media - whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or even a discussion group, all fails for the same reason:   Only ideas that are popular or talked about end up being heard.   Unpopular ideas or opinions are squashed like a bug, even if they are true.  Popular lies, however, propagate.

On Facebook, this is called "Liking" and if your posting is not "liked" enough, it does not appear on your "feed".   So if you say something that is popular to say, and the group you are in "likes" it, then it appears.  If you say unpopular things - even if they are hard truths that need to be heard - they disappear like so much electronic dust.

Popular Facebook posts usually relate to some Internet rumor (the more outlandish the better), the public-safety fake Wal-Mart slasher hysteria, or some kind of public shaming.   Not surprisingly, Facebook is dominated today by older and more female users.

Twitter works in a similar way, with popular postings being re-tweeted or responded to.   Unpopular ideas die on the vine.  Popular ideas usually have to deal with entertainers or politicians and are usually very, very superficial, which is in keeping with its 140-character nature.

Reddit has an "upvoting/downvoting" scheme where popular ideas float to the top of the cesspool, and unpopular ideas sink to the bottom.   When someone posts an unpopular idea on Reddit, they usually predicate it with, "I realize this will be downvoted, but...." and of course, it is downvoted, and once it reaches -10 or so, it disappears from the feed.

Reddit is interesting, in that opinions that marijuana is great, the Police are bad, criminals are just misunderstood, gun ownership is great, big corporations are evil, and so forth, get upvoted.   This is an interesting and scary profile of the Reddit user - some sort of Libertarian gun freak who smokes pot and hates the Police.  I wouldn't knock on their door late at night.   Quite frankly, I think most "Redditors" are mentally ill.

Reddit, by the way, posits itself as the "front page of the Internet" and was originally supposed to be a sort of a bulletin board where people could post links to articles they had read (hence the name, "Reddit" as in "I read it").   Unfortunately, what everyone wants to seem to read is not necessarily a balanced view of the world, anymore than Fox News is.   Since its inception, Reddit has devolved into something other than the "front page of the Internet" and if you want to get the latest news, it is not a sound choice.

 

Internet discussion groups are the same way, with "hot" topics which generate a lot of replies floating to the top, and stale discussions - even if relevant - sinking to the bottom.   Woe be to the person who "resuscitates" an old discussion!   They will be taken to task for "bringing back a thread from three years ago!" which apparently is worse that robbing a bank.

And the funny thing is, an Internet discussion group that is about, for example, old motorcycles, can readily be hijacked into a political discussion very easily.  Moreover, it is fascinating to me that someone in the group just assumes that since you like old motorcycles, you hate Obama and the evil corporations or whatever.   Usually, flame wars erupt.

Of course, there are also things like forwarded e-mails, which amount to the same sort of thing.   They are usually utter horseshit, and only the popular ones survive, getting forwarded over and over again.  Any unpopular idea, no matter how true it is, dies on the vine.

There is, of course, an exception to these rules - and that is Internet Shaming.   If someone posts a wildly unpopular opinion (something racist, for example) then it will get piled upon by people trying to "prove" how much better they are, by shaming the original poster.  And yes, this has resulted in people losing their jobs, careers, spouses, friends and family.   A misspoken word, a poorly worded or off-color joke, or even a typo in an e-mail, and it's all over.   In the real world, such things are quickly forgotten.  Online, they exist forever - and are mass-forwarded over and over again.

As as I noted, the purpose of Internet Shaming really isn't to shame the person in question, but to make the people making such statements feel better about themselves.   "Look at what a great person I am!" they crow, "I advocated burning down the house of someone who made an offensive Tweet!"  Irony is lost on these folks.

In the Social Media world, everyone feels good about themselves, pats each other on the back, reinforces each other's ideas, and then shouts down any unpopular ideas or ideas contrary to their world view.

How fucking evil is that?   Pretty fucking evil, is what.

Consider the poor bastard in California, who got into a fight with his daughter.   She took the keys to his new Porsche, and drove it into a concrete barrier at a toll booth at 100 mph.  The car was totaled, and she was splattered all over the toll both.   Photos started appearing on the Internet.  People immediately piled on, saying what a rotten guy the Dad was, for getting into a fight with the daughter, or by "giving her a Porsche" (the story gets mangled online as it is retold).   A grieving parent, shamed online.

Worse yet, the gristly photos of his daughter's body are reproduced over and over again, on gristly photo websites (yes, they exist.  Why, I cannot tell you.  It is not mentally healthy, though).   The Dad tries to have them taken down, to no avail.   The more you try to suppress such shit, the worse it gets.   So, some really sick people take to taunting him online, finding his e-mail address and then sending the gristly photos to him, so they pop up on his desktop first thing in the morning.

How fucking evil is that?   Pretty fucking evil, is what.

But that is just an egregious example of people intentionally trying to be evil.   The problem with evil isn't the folks who are evil, it is the folks who go along with evil, the folks who can't spot evil.  The so-called banality of evil.  People upvote evil on the Internet without realizing it. They "like" evil things and re-tweet them.   They have a mob mentality that is the ultimate expression of evil.

Thus, the problem isn't the evil Internet Trolls who put up annoying postings, it is the rest of us who respond to such trolls or postings, by liking them, re-tweeting them, or up-voting them.   Instead of listening to opposing viewpoints, we downvote or ignore ideas that conflict with our world-view.   And we tend to go off the handle without bothering to Google the issue or even fully read the article in question.   As a result, we keep reinforcing what turn out to be bad ideas.  We turn lies into truth, simply by attaching a hashtag to it.

A robber who assaults a police officer is turned into a civil rights hero overnight, and an entire movement is built around him.   People go off the deep end with shaming posts.  And someone gets the idea, based on all of this, that shooting two off-duty cops in the head is a swell idea.   Even after the Justice Department and the President of the United States step in, to highlight the truth, most people online still believe the lies.  Chances are, you do, too.

Now, I suppose that you could argue that this is nothing new.  People have believed rumors and lies since the dawn of time.   Conspiracy theories existed long before the Internet.   People would chose which paper to read based on the editorial content that mostly closely reflected their preconceived notions.   And perhaps all of that is true.

I guess what is different about the Internet is the speed at which these sorts of things occur - a speed far greater than reason can keep up with.   Events can occur and overtake us - become a hashtag and a flash crowd, long before anyone has time to sort things out.   The loudest voices are the ones carrying the day, not the most reasonable or most soundly researched.  Put up a story that the "big evil corporations" are "wasting food" and in short order, you'll have a hashtag for it.

I am not sure what the answer is, only that less social media in your life is a good thing.  Real information - real data - doesn't evaporate overnight in a Twitter feed.  Truth is often only readily apparent years after events occur.  Being "up to the minute" with Social Media often means being utterly uninformed as to what is really going on in the world.  If you are spending a lot of time and energy on Facebook, Twitter, or other online sites, chances are, you are squandering a lot of energy doing so, and ending up a lot less well informed. 

But, I guess what is true for Social Media, is probably also is true for blogging sites.  Mea Culpa!

Next on the Liberal Agenda: Wasting Food

When a topic suddenly becomes popular on several media sources all at once, it isn't by accident, but by design.  This week, the liberal media has decided that the "talking point" is "food waste."  Who decided this?

In the last few weeks, a trend has been emerging in the media: stories about food being wasted.   First we are treated to a story from France, where a new law requires restaurants throwing away food to donate it to a food bank or homeless shelter.   How this is to be enforced is anyone's guess.   Dumpster Police? 
 
Today, we hear on NPR (and later tonight on PBS) about how America wastes so much food and what a crime it is to "waste good food!"

Now if you are an emotional idiot, you've already gone off the deep end on this, without even thinking.  "Food being wasted!  That's a crime!"

Well, first, realize you have been baited and baited big time.   Food is one of those Pavlovian response things that marketers and media types know that will get an emotional reaction from you.   And the reason is simple:  we all need food to survive.   So if you tout "free groceries" as a come-on promotion, you get the plebes salivating.   Talk about "perfectly good" food being thrown away and you have the plebes up in arms!

By the way, two other Pavlovian response things are free gas and suitcases full of money.   If you want to fleece the plebes of their every last cent, offer then a penny off on gasoline, and they will bite on it.   In every action-adventure movie, there is usually a scene where someone opens up an aluminum briefcase full of hundred-dollar bills.   Or they are throwing piles of (ill-gotten) money on a bed - that is another trope.   The plebes love this shit - they eat it up.   

So if you want to tug at emotional heartstrings, use one of these gimmicks to get at people's cerebral cortexes - and bypass any logical thinking.

The truth about the food business is that yes, food gets thrown away.  Most of it is food gone bad that would kill people if it were served.   Others are food that is just not salable - stale bread and whatnot.   But good food?  Most food businesses use it.

For example, if you go to a salad bar at the grocery store, odds are the "croutons" are yesterdays leftover bread, cut up and toasted.  The salad greens and tomatoes were carefully picked from the about-to-expire fresh produce.   Those packages of "fruit salad?" - fruit that was about to go south.   It is all packaged up and sold - perfectly healthy food - and thrown away if not sold that day.   

Yes, the "evil corporations" don't like to waste money.  So no, "good food" is not thrown away in an orgy of waste for no apparent rhyme or reason.   Our corporate overlords are not stupid.  And no, they don't throw away food to "keep the price up" anymore than GM crushes cars to create a shortage (if you even tried such a thing, your competitors would thank you!).

Sadly, however, there are instances were some food gets tossed.   As I related before, when Mark ran the gourmet store, they threw away leftover baguettes and pastries that could not be sold because they would be stale by the next day.  He tried calling food banks and homeless shelters, but they required that the food be delivered (which would mean paying a driver overtime) and also that the food provided be of uniform quality and quantity.   In other words, they didn't want odd-lots of inconsistent size of assorted artisanal breads.  They wanted 100 loaves of white bread, delivered every day by 5:00 PM.

In other words, to donate food, the company would have to make the bread to donate and set it aside.  The homeless shelter didn't want "leftovers." 

Why is this?  Well, they have 1,000 people to feed, and they need a relied-upon quantity of food every day.  Also, the bums clients would get upset and start knife fights if one bum client got rye bread and another got wheat.   Yea, you have to respect the homeless and they get to choose what they get to eat.   In America, it seems, beggars can be choosers.

Moreover, there is a liability issue in that if someone claimed to get sick from donated food, the company could be sued.  Restaurants have to deal with allegations of "food poisoning" all the time (most are bogus, unless a score of people fall ill at the same time). But at least they are dealing with paying customers.

So what to do with the food?   You could try handing it out to local homeless near the store, packing it up in bags.  Problem is, this ends up attracting a line of homeless people at your loading dock around quitting time - which the City would not be to happy about, and the customers neither.

Even throwing the food in the dumpster is problematic, as then "dumpster divers" go in and get it, and again, you have a homeless encampment behind your restaurant.  And that is why many restaurants and stores destroy food before throwing it away.   Letting someone dumpster-dive behind your restaurant is only enabling their street lifestyle.   And if you believe that homeless people are "just like you" but "down on their luck" you are terribly naive.  They need help - an institution, not a free meal and spare change.  But that is another topic.

There are, of course, easier and better ways to feed people.   And in the United States, we are awash in a sea of food.   Our largest health problem in the USA is obesity and among the poor, it is the worst.   And please, no more talk of "well they eat the wrong foods!" - the point is, they are not starving and no one is, except maybe supermodels, or welfare parents who spend their WIC checks on themselves, and not their kids.

And yea, I've seen this firsthand - poor parents who zoom into the gas station and buy $5 a gas, a carton of cigarettes, and then slap their emaciated children when they beg for a candy bar.   "Momma needs her cigarettes, Billy!  Now get back in the car before I slap you agin!"   Act shocked.

No, a better way to feed people would be to provide them with some sort of credit card, based on their income, where they could go and buy food for themselves and their family.  Oh, wait, we already have that - it's called food stamps or the SNAP program.  And it works pretty well - again, America's obesity problem being proof of that.

So what is the point of these "food wasting" stories?   Well, again, it is part of this "America is bad" agenda - to try to make people feel vaguely bad about their country, their government, their institutions, their corporations, their employers, and whatnot.   And on a slow news day, it is not hard to put together a "food wasting" story by sitting behind some food processing plant and taking pictures of the dumpster.   They throw food away - big surprise.  It is as easy to put together as one of those "ultimate couponer" stories, or a squirrel on water skis.  Whatever gets the plebes to watch.

In the NPR piece this morning, they whine and moan that a salad processing plant (making those pre-packaged salads that are oh-so-handy for the on-the-go NPR listeners!) throws away packages of salad before their expiration date!

The deal is, of course, the salad would be expired by the time it gets to the store shelves, so in the trash it goes.  Since it is wrapped in plastic, it cannot be mulched.   And, we are told, this is filling up landfills and causing greenhouse gases!  Oh me!  Oh my!
 

Oh wait, another bullshit story.   Remember back in the 1980's we were told that disposable diapers were "filling up the landfills"?  Billions of tons of diapers would overwhelm us!   Then someone decided to challenge this evidence from the Bureau of Specious Statistics and it turns out that no, disposable diapers were not going to take over the planet, and if the numbers batted around by liberals were really true, the entire planet would be three feet deep in diapers in a decade.

People exaggerate.  Act shocked.

The reality is, of course, that throwing away this tiny amount of salad (compared to the overall production) is the cheapest way to go.  Hiring someone to open each bag and dump it in a compost heap would be exorbitantly expensive and add to the price of food (and we wouldn't want that, although NPR listeners can afford to cough up another buck for salad, right?  But what about the pee-pul?).

The story goes on to criticize farmers for "overplanting" by 10% as if this were a shocking crime.  The deal is, of course, in the fresh produce business, you have to make more of the product than necessary as waste kills off a huge portion of the product at every step in the food chain.   From the grower, to the warehouse, to the packaging plant, to shipping, to the grocery store, and even in your refrigerator, a portion of fresh produce goes bad (or will go bad) and has to be thrown out.  If this is a shocking surprise to you, then you've never bought strawberries.

But really, the point of this blog isn't that "food waste" stories are stupid and bogus (and they are) but that it is frightening to me that the media is so controlled that someone somewhere decides that this is a "story" this week, and not last week and not next.

And lest you think I am picking on liberals, the conservative media is even worse.   The GOP and Fox News have their own coordinated "talking points" and suddenly its "War on Christmas!" which is now a five-year-old family tradition on the Fox network (and we all look forward to that, just as we do the Charlie Brown special!).   Come on, let's face it, it just isn't Christmas anymore without a war on it.

No, the point isn't that liberals or conservatives are bad, but that our media is subtly (or not so subtly) manipulated, and as a consequence, we are as well.    We are told what the burning issues of the day are, often by press release or whatnot.   And if it is a slow news day, whoever has the catchiest press release ends up winning the issue.

And when it comes down to catchy eye-candy or click-bait, well wasting food wins the Pavlovian emotional response contest every time.

You are, in short, being baited.   The "news" is nothing more than emotional triggers wrapped up in a shit sandwich, designed to sell you crap.

UPDATE:  A reader points out that, "the right wingnuts also like to push the "wasting food" button with those annoying e-mail forwards about illegals reportedly throwing away perfectly good "free or reduced cost" school lunches. Same story, different target audience...hmmmm."

Again, using emotional hot buttons to get at us.   This week, it is the liberal agenda.  Next week, the conservatives.   Probably should mention the illegals getting free gas or something.  That will get out the right-wing vote, right?

The reader also provides this hilarious video link, which is on point:
 

 It's De Mornay...Rebecca De Mornay

UPDATE:   The French found a way around the "wasting food" law passed in Paris.  Now, when you go to a restaurant, and you don't finish your entree, it is wrapped up for you to take home - what was formerly only a gross (and dangerous, from a food poisoning standpoint) American habit.    Since a half-eaten entree cannot be "re-used" or given to a homeless person (without making them sick) the only solution was to wrap it up and force the patron to take it.   And the patron probably puts it in the nearest garbage can.    Another example of why good intentions are not good laws.