I'll be voting for Kamala Harris in the general election. Quick turnaround, considering how long this blog has been active.

I'm not excited by her policies. However, she didn't instigate a violent coup as a distraction to steal the presidency with false electors. She wasn't found liable for sexual assault. She's not obviously too old to do the job.

We can worry about electing candidates with good political platforms once the incompetent ones are out of the way.

I blame Trump's fan club for the debased way politics has been discussed in the last decade. But the class of 'centrist' commentators that simply spent the years talking around Trump are starting to let the mask slip now. I thought of myself as on the centrist wavelength because the online left and right are alienating milieus. It made sense to avoid talking about narcissists; attention is their oxygen. But if this was a rhetorical arrangement to enable Trump supporters to avoid making an intellectual case for their candidate, it's time to remove the veil. (I'm not referring to centrists that refuse to vote.)

I'm sympathetic to the critique that Harris is a cop. As district attorney, she had far too many convictions for nonviolent drug offenses. But there is still no alternative within the two major political parties. Republican talking points on small government have always been hollow when on the subject of drug policy. Convictions for sex work follow the same reasoning.

It isn't great that Harris helped to shield the public from knowing the extent of Biden's mental decline. I won't defend that. I also don't expect anything more from those in Trump's orbit, where any principle beyond loyalty would get them tossed. We already know that they would shield the public from knowledge of Trump's mental decline.

Aside from concerns that are too sexist or frivolous to address, the only remaining argument against Harris that I see is that she is a 'DEI candidate'. This phrase isn't a coherent critique. It is a way to remind partisans of where their loyalties lie.

I don't want to create my entire media identity railing for or against 'diversity, equity and inclusion', though there's money in that back and forth. To me, it makes sense to put a thumb on the scales to correct for historic injustice, IF there is planned obsolescence incorporated into the action. I don't like the left-wing view that the problems of discrimination are intractable, any more than the right-wing view that they are all in the past. Politics might be the worst realm to try to hash out these questions.

Taking a side is not as cool as sitting on the margins, hoping that both candidates lose. But I'm a dog owner. Sometimes you have to reward good behavior and punish bad.

This was a lengthy polemic on the necessity of US governmental oversight on the development of superintelligence over the next decade. There was a particular emphasis on the influence of China as a potential rival best suited to reach AI dominance during this time, due to lax security standards currently at AI labs. The existential risks of AI development were a backdrop to the thrust of the argument.

The premise is compelling enough for me to agree with. Sort of. The line between AI applications that require military command and civilian uses becomes blurry or nonexistent on many parts of the map. I'm not totally bought into the allegory of the Oppenheimer moment (the paper contained several references to Los Alamos) because the trajectory of the technology is reversed. The positive applications of nuclear power were downstream of the bomb. The negative applications of AI are downstream of a benign process of step-by-step learning, iterated at speed beyond human reaction. It seems clear to me that some directions AI takes will require immediate government involvement, but many other paths will be contested. For example, at what point does medical research become dangerous enough to require DOD oversight?

China's dominance is not an optimal outcome. But if they have a decisive edge in the next decade, this doesn't seem irreversible. I'm not convinced that the dominant AI model would be tied to geography, via power demands or any other bottleneck. It's not even clear what dominance would look like. What if the fastest superintelligence had blind spots that could be exploited by an opposing AI force? What if China had a superior power grid that was exploited by one or more invisible US models?

This was a useful corrective to doomer and accelerationist narratives.

I have always thought that the 'alpha wolf' idea was nonsense.

The meme has floated around the culture for as long as I can remember, but it's based on faulty research. Decades ago, research on captive wolves misinterpreted their behavior. In the wild, wolf packs are generally a breeding couple and their pups. Removed from their families and thrown in an unfamiliar setting, you get the cruel dominance games that can be seen in human prisons.

I don't know if humans are innately meant to exist within a dominance hierarchy. I imagine that some vibe with that arrangement, based on personality. (Jordan Peterson fans seem to prefer it.) The variable is the option to rebel against or escape the hierarchy.

(The current political climate could be viewed as a desperate struggle between two groups rebelling against perceived hierarchies, while a much smaller number try to seize dominance. These groups aren't trapped in a prison together, but they are conceptually bound together by both a federal government and social media structure. Neither works very well.)

Still, some guys love the wolf metaphor. I just saw a thread breaking down various film characters into 'delta wolf' 'sigma wolf' and other wolf categories. Of course, it was hawking a guide that would turn every reader into an alpha wolf. Everyone gets a trophy, I guess.

The narrative is wrong, but it might improve your life anyways if you believe in it.

This goes for any belief system (or BS).

Every religion is wrong. At least, we can agree most of them are wrong. But religious people tend to have longer, happier lives.

Every political ideology is wrong. At least, we can agree most of them are wrong. But ideologues tend to have more friends and better social cohesion within their spheres.

In the 2011 film The Grey, survivors of a plane crash face off against a stunningly unscientific wolf pack, led by an alpha the size of a grizzly. This is not what the story is about. As the survivors realize that they are about to die, they interrogate the internal narratives that led them to this point. They know what will happen next, and question whether these stories serve as a suitable companion for the journey.

In that sense, the alpha wolf is very real. And we will all have to fight it someday.

​I hope you go down swinging.

Before I created this website, I wrote about two weeks' worth of posts. This morning, I planned to fish one out of the hopper to meet my schedule. I didn't like any of them.

My greatest shortcoming as a writer is the tendency to be hypercritical. In the past, this meant that the novel, screenplay, or whatever other project I was working on would eventually end up in the trash. Resetting to zero always seemed like the safer option.

To meet my schedule, I've decided to be less embarrassed by what I have written, and more embarrassed by what I haven't.

People tend to change for two reasons. They either take incremental steps, or they have been backed into a corner and need to make big changes fast.

This is direct advice for people that have been backed into a corner.

If you are in physical danger right now, get to safety.

Next, grab a pencil and paper, so you can visualize your situation. Write down how many systems are in crisis, with space between each entry.

For example, someone doing this exercise could write down 'close to getting fired', 'intense anxiety and related mental health', 'debt', 'can't talk to spouse', etc. Don't worry about getting it exact. In this example, maybe the person doing this exercise didn't write 'suicidal' or 'addicted to painkillers' because they weren't ready to admit these problems to themselves. Or they wrote 'close to getting fired' even though, if they had a moment to think about it, their situation would be improved by leaving their job. This list doesn't need to be accurate, because you are simply prioritizing what to focus on next.

Now, write numbers next to each entry, in order of most to least pressing. In order of importance, jot down a potential course of action for each step. If needed, expand an entry into multiple steps. 'Debt' could become 'rent', 'credit card debt', 'owe the mafia', and 'other debts', which you would prioritize now by physical safety, and later by a debt reduction plan.

If one of these steps requires immediate action, take it. Pay the bill. Have the tough conversation. Do it now.

Next, review the most pressing item that does not require immediate attention. If it needs to be done by the end of the day, do it.

At this point, you may want to reach out to someone, like a therapist or impartial friend. You have enough clarity to explain your problems and get a different perspective. If you don't have someone you can talk to, that's okay. You still have someone in your corner that is looking out for you. Yourself.

The most immediate steps are taken care of. You likely need to rest. Even if anxiety keeps you awake, lying down can give you energy for the next step.

The next day, review the list and see if it still makes sense.

A silver lining to crisis is that you don't have your standard excuses not to change your behavior. You might have to do something different, right away. If you create a new problem for yourself, try to observe this behavior as neutrally as you can. Add a new item to the list, if needed.

It is up to you to decide the point when the crisis has passed. If it helps you proceed, you can burn the paper.

Note for July 2024 - If you are in crisis and need someone to talk to, email me.

Most people who give life advice have something about their personality that is a little daunting. Whenever I read, watch, or listen to someone describe how to get ahead in life, there is always a part of my brain that thinks 'Easy for you to say'. 
  
Let's indulge the shadow for a minute. The content creator you admire has reached a kind of success that you will never achieve. They all have certain advantages that were determined at birth, an intertwining of nature and nurture gave them specific characteristics that you will not be able to exactly replicate. Even if they didn't draw on a resource like inherited wealth, they used creativity to add value. If you took the exact path they did without creativity, you are joining the cycle deep in the diminishing returns phase. 
  
I don't know your life. But I know that if you have an internal monologue, part of it is afraid of success. Success is change, and change is scary. Your mind will serve up one excuse after another as to why change is impossible. 
  
The most powerful excuse your mind has is based on evidence. Change is impossible because you haven't changed yet. 
  
But another part of you wants to start somewhere. 
  
People tend to change for two reasons. They take incremental steps, or they have been backed into a corner, and they need to make big changes fast. 
  
This bit of advice here is for someone who is mostly comfortable, but curious about the smallest incremental steps they can take. 
  
We're not going to start a journal and map out our true purpose today, or anything scary like that. We're reserving that for the 'backed in a corner' advice. 
  
Today, you spent your day doing what you are adapted to do. You are very skilled at the strategies that you use to get through your day, however you do it. That is the first thing you have to grasp. You have a skillset. If your situation changed, you would develop new skills to navigate that new environment. 
  
The second thing to understand is that there are a limited number of hours in a day. You will be asleep for part of them, and sleep is vital. You likely have a job, or school, or something that you have to spend a lot of time and mental energy on. And the time you have left might default to some kind of mindless entertainment, because you don't have the energy or inclination for much else. 
  
You're not going to hear this from many other people, but it's okay to multitask. 
  
The research is pretty clear that the human mind can only focus on one task at a time. If you are studying for a test, you will get better results the more distractions you can shut out. 
  
But the amount of time you can spend on deep work in a day is only a few hours. You can't spend all your waking hours focused on studying. Your job, school, or family might already leave you too mentally exhausted to do much more. If you are already too drained to focus on anything, or you only spend your time on mindless entertainment, multitasking won’t make anything worse. 
  
Let's say that you often spend several hours a day playing video games. I'm right there with you. I love gaming. But if I'm playing a game that isn't driven by narrative, I am shutting off the game music and listening to a video or a podcast. Most recently, I absorbed two four-hour courses on copywriting and technical writing. I wasn't fully focused on them, so my retention isn't going to be great. I can't recite chapter and verse on these videos. But I know more about these subjects than I did. I have a general sense of how to break into these fields, who would be interested in doing them full-time, what kind of money can be made in them, etc. I also know how to proceed with follow-up research, if I want to do a deep dive. 
  
If I am spending a chunk of time commuting or washing dishes, I sometimes throw on a podcast on something I want to know more about. That might be an addition that works for you. 
  
The third kind of multitasking is when you are mostly focused on one activity. You want the task to take up most of your attention, but you are throwing on some background music to stay engaged. Or maybe you grab a snack while still mostly engaged. This is probably fine. Experiment. See what works for you. Try different music genres and lower volume. 
  
If multitasking doesn't appeal, another option is the ten-minute dip. Find ten minutes in your day to take a walk, meditate, or research a subject. As the days go by, you can accumulate a lot of gains from repeatedly doing something for ten minutes. 
  
These suggestions are not meant to be a camel nose in the tent. I'm not trying to realign your entire life so that you spend ten hours a day in the gym and ten hours meditating and ten hours cold calling sales leads. Fuck all that. I am trying to spark your curiosity about what could happen if you make the smallest possible changes. 
  
I mentioned taking a walk before. This is the easiest exercise to fit into any schedule. If you're intimidated by the idea of opening the door to a gym, try taking a walk. Figure out what you need for safety and sun protection, and try it. 
  
Maybe you want to change your diet. When I did this, the first thing I changed was breakfast. It used to be sugary cereals and soda, and now it's black coffee and Greek yogurt. What I figured out is that I don't have the energy to make decisions first thing in the morning, so a long-term habit would stick. If you're trying to change up dinner, you have all day to talk yourself out of eating the healthy option. 
  
I focused on the span of one day in case, like me, you have trouble with anxiety. It's easy to get overwhelmed when you think about the future. But if you focus on how to get through the day, you'll be fine. ​

If you ever catch me using phrases like 'I think', 'I believe', 'in my opinion', 'maybe we should try', or anything else that indicates that I lack confidence in my views, it was probably intentional.

There is a small cottage industry around the updating of linguistic tics to make people sound like the most confident person in the room. This is bad advice.

It is possible that you unconsciously repeat some terms and phrases that indicate low self-esteem. This isn't always the issue, though. A lack of self-confidence could cause you to be hyper-critical of your own words. The additional focus might be the opposite of what you need.

Another possibility is that some phrases are necessary for the situation, even if they are routinely bashed in articles on business websites.

The common understanding of confidence is that it is synonymous with composure. If you watch someone move with grace as they write a cold email, defuse a bomb, or perform any other difficult task, you can estimate their general level of confidence.

This is a judgment based on limited data.

Practice is critical in any task. If this person has defused a hundred bombs, they will appear quite skillful to anyone brave enough to watch them at work. But if they don't have practice in pouring a mixed drink, or approaching an attractive stranger, the first attempt won't look as impressive.

If you don't have the skill, it requires courage to make the first attempt.

We learn things when we are at the edge of our abilities. If we have integrity, we will be honest about what we do and don't know. This requires some humility in our language, particularly in fields with a lot of unknowns.

This is what confidence is. Not just faith in your current level of skill, but faith that you can handle whatever the world throws at you.

​Hedge with authority!

A day away from the moment I was setting up my profile on X, I saw the trending phrase 'HOW COULD YOU MISS'.

I've been away from social media for a few years now. In that time, I've lowered my expectations to roughly one goal. I would like to minimize political violence, as much as possible. 

Most Americans share this goal, if you ask them on a day they forget to check social media.

*****

Quick tour to explain why this seems out of reach.

The United States federal government is a revolutionary government. The country endured a bloody civil war, with what most would agree is the positive result of ending slavery. Violence is always on the table. 

The country has a comparatively unregulated stance on gun proliferation, and a matching cultural affinity. In my opinion, the strongest argument for widespread gun ownership is the threat of tyranny. The US has the most powerful military on the planet. If things go bad here, they go bad everywhere. 

We all want less political violence. But we can imagine circumstances where we would tolerate a little to avoid a lot. This is the terrible logic of assassination. We only need to remember Bin Laden as an example of cultural acceptance of the practice.

Without delving too deep into the trolley problem, most of us can talk ourselves into a circumstance where it becomes thinkable to take the shot. Or to condone or allow someone else to commit the act.

Many of us are already there.

What we think of as the political left and right are divided by a variety of issues, but I can zero in on two that enable justifications for violence. On the left, a unifying belief is that we are in a climate crisis that will kill a large number of people. On the right, a unifying belief is that we are allowing the murder of a large number of unborn babies.

(In this essay, 'large number' means a sum that is large enough not to be easily counted or understood, but which compels government action, at least.)

There are some commonalities between these belief systems. The fate of these unseen victims is worth more moral consideration than Americans of differing political beliefs. There is certainty about the science. Certainty of the objective. A lack of faith in achieving similar ends through speech and persuasion (despite overall public sentiment).

There are also key differences. Many on the left believe it is too late, and that the extinction of all life on earth is imminent. This faction is still capable of violence, however. They see themselves as similar to the Bruce Willis character in 12 Monkeys, having a moral pass for any violent action because the future is set in stone. And obviously, the right has a more overt religious bent, despite the lack of scripture backing their views. For them, the imminent end is a judgment day, where heroic acts are sure to win the favor of the Lord.

*****

There is another faction though, that isn't clearly tied to the left or the right. This group is very concerned about the future of liberal democracy, and believe that we are close to a point where it could be lost. However, the wedge in this group is over whether democracy can be saved by the presence or absence of one prominent demagogue.

This demagogue is closely associated with some policies, but the policies don't really matter. The platform of the last Republican convention was blank, because they had such trouble keeping track of their candidate's views. (At the time of writing, the next Republican convention is about to start.)

The only common thread I can spot in his policies is that all of them are meant to polarize.

The media coverage of his candidacies were overwhelmingly negative, in large part, because his tone and personality encourages people to be their worst selves. On a mammalian, instinctive level, the thought of 'ally' or 'enemy' overwhelms whatever neutral opinion one might have of his policies. If you decided to vote for him after seeing bloody images, you didn't reason yourself into the decision.

*****

I'm not particularly interested in describing the demagogue or his actions. He casts such a large shadow, that it is difficult to imagine what his supporters will be doing in five years.

However, I do want to describe TRUMP v. UNITED STATES, No. 23–939.

I would like to encourage every American to read all 119 pages, or at least ask the AI assistant to summarize.

Since that won't happen everywhere, here's my review. The 6-3 majority opinion (which includes 3 Trump appointees) outlines that the president should have presumptive immunity for all official acts. Several pages are devoted to the differences between official and unofficial acts, and another section breaks down each of Trump's actions in the 2020 aftermath, and whether the court has standing to rule on each of them.

In the aftermath of Trump's 2020 loss, he tried to steal the election through using false electors. The January 6th riot was intended to intimidate Mike Pence and other Republicans into participating in the scheme.

Justice Sotomayor, in the dissenting opinion, easily dismantles the majority opinion.

Relying on a textualist interpretation, it is lain out how the Framers could have created limited or unlimited immunity for those in the presidential role. Having just overthrown a king, they had no desire to create a new one.

The three arguments which created immunity are not based on existing law. They aren't based on anything but the desire for a new king.

Last, Justice Jackson tries to grapple with what the ruling could mean for the future of the US. As I read this section, I realized something terrible.

Once the government created a class that is no longer accountable to laws, political violence became the only method left to hold them accountable.

The decision was published July 1, 2024. The shooting was July 13th.


*****

At this point, I personally don't plan to support either of the major candidates. I disagree with them on too many policies, think they are both too old to do the job effectively, and though I was once a delegate for Bernie Sanders, I no longer identify with either party. I'm even distancing myself from using the terms 'left' and 'right' as coherent descriptors.

There is no one on earth that I think should be immune from criminal prosecution.

You likely hold a different set of values, which is fine. But if you are trying to elect someone that is unaccountable to the law, you are encouraging a violent reaction. If you are trying to incite violent revolt, you are encouraging an authoritarian response. I don't support either of your goals.

*****

It seems like we're entering another season of political violence, similar to 1968. I'll refrain from speculating further, so it isn't wishcasted into existence. But I have some straightforward advice.

Political events such as protests or rallies are dangerous. If you value your life, avoid them. If you value your individual perspective, avoid them. If you feel that your participation is an important exercise of the first amendment, attend them.

Have friends that disagree with your political views. Be honest with them. Have a clear idea of the point where you would have to break ties.

If you want to convince people, learn sales and persuasion.

If someone seems trapped in an ideology with a negative outcome, practice pattern interrupts. Defy their expectations. Resist categorization and the political binary.

In many respects, this is still a good country, where a good life can be lived. Consider stepping away from politics, and focusing on problems with clearer solutions.