Competition now occurs mainly between groups, mainly between the rich and the poor. The individual is no longer important.
The rich have tremendous advantages, and they are determined to use them. The rich being represented by the Republicans in the US.
In the US, I am amazed to also see competition between the generations, with the younger generation claiming priority over the older one. And they are getting away with this!
I bought a Mr. Coffee machine but could not get it to work. So I put it in a large bag and put it in the trash. A short time later, I noticed the bag was gone!
Someone had taken it, and this had reminded me, once again. of the difference between the North American and the Latino attitude towards trash.
We have grown up rich, and they have grown up poor. They carefully sort through the trash, hoping to find something useful. We don't bother with anything so trivial.
Every large city has its slums, and cities in the Rust Belt also. Usually, they are Black, but there are Hispanic slums also.
I was born in an Industrial town, Ft. Madison, Iowa, that is now part of the Rust Belt, where many of the houses, including the one we used to live in, are boarded up.
When I worked in downtown San Jose, California in the Nineties, I was treated to the sight of drug arrests during my lunch break. The contrasts between the Rich and the Poor - and between the Technical and the Nontechnical was amazing.
This was during the dotcom boom, followed by a bust - that reduced hundreds of Computer companies to five: Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.
Our Software Smarts has gone up tremendously, while our Social Smarts has declined drastically.
Latinos are part of the cultural mix typical of Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. A mix that does not include smart thinking.
Why do I lump these two areas together? This is hard to explain, but easy to feel once you have lived in both areas.
Los Angeles is the city every other large city in the world is trying to emulate. Its key feature is fast growth, at the expense of everything else.
Silicon Valley is the same, with the addition of the Computer, which introduces a number of subcategories of its own.
When I lived in the Valley (in the town of Milpitas) I was next to Alum Rock, a Latino community, where I got to experience its advantages and disadvantages. The young in this area were typical of those in any slum: dangerous people you do not want to be around.
I have been to Indonesia and this typical of the thinking there - if you could call it thinking.
They are likable people, but there are too many of them.
What was wrong with it? I do not know.
I only know it is working again, with Grammarly, like nothing was ever wrong with it.
This has been true ever since WWII, with its tank warfare. To which aircraft were added.
It is still true in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. Even if they are using trucks with machine guns mounted on them, they need Gasoline desperately.
This fact would be especially useful in our negotiations with Pakistan. This is the only weapon we have when dealing with them.
I am reading The Wrong Enemy, in case you are wondering where I got such a strange idea. It made a believer out of me.
And a Balance disorder, I can no loger ride a bicycle.
This was preceded, by a long history of falling-down problems, going back to before I moved to Costa Rica.
I was running down a hill in a wilderness area. And all of a sudden: No Legs!
I threw up my arms to protect my face, but my glasses were broken. I got up again, and staggered off to the trailhead. A Fire Truck was waiting for me, and they gave me some Oxygen. And called an Ambulance, which took me to a hospital.
Once I got there. they found I could not talk! I passed out, and when I woke up, my arms were tied down ro a hospitad bed. I could still not talk. You cannot imagine how frustraing this was.
A few hours later, I was blabering away, as if nothing had happened, so they had to relaese me. This was my first episode, but there would be many more. No one knew what was wrong with me.
Something was wrong with my Brain (or my Btain Stem) or the blood vessles connecting to them.
I got a Scan, with this huge machine, that produced many Xrays, one of which showed a ltlle bump. I atm too old to get this operated on, so I am taking pills instead.
This is what I am learning from reading the Kingdom of Nauvoo.
This is a history book and the author is determined to make it the definitive edition of that period. If you are also interested in that subject (and have plenty of time to read) this is the book for you.
Illinois at that time was the residence of Abraham Lincoln, s successful railroad lawyer, who later (to everyone's surprise) became President during the Civil War. He was assinated, and his body reyurned to Springfield to be buried.
In Western Illinois, on the Missippi River, were the Mormons, and not much else. They made frequent trips to the Nation's capital, to be reembursed fot the injustices they had recieved in Missouri, but did not seem aware of the Easrern part of their own State. Their leader, Joseph Smith, was also assinated. and the rest of them left the country.
It's a way of Relating, but What (or Who) is doing the Relating?
Most of the time, it is two members of the same organization.
I can easily get into a state where I think poorly.
This is not unusual, most people think poorly. But my disorder, it seems to me, is different.
I know there is something wrong with me, while most people do not. I can change (if only a little) while most people cannot.
This is a serious, but common situation. What are children to do who have no father? Do they really need a father?
This brings up some subsidiary questions. What kinds of relationships are possible and desirable? What do we mean by Modern Society?
Can we think about such questions?
And we (and our technologies) are getting stranger all the time.
Let's take our technologies first. The Steam Engine (especially the Stean Locomotive) was an awesome machine, and we changed ourselves to use it better. Abraham Lincoln, let me remind you, was a Railroad Lawyer, who became President, and was assassinated in a theatre.
The North won the war because it had more Railroads (and more money). The Computer is now making money hand over fist.
We love the Computer that is so simple (and so complicated) it is driving ua nuts. Eveyone has a Phone and everyone is using it.
This is where I was born and raised. On the West End of Ft.Madison, Iowa.
My father's family had come there for the jobs in Shopton, halfway between Chicago and Kansas City.
My father's father got a job there, as a safety inspector, because he did not drink. But the Railroad Strike of 1922, put him back on the farm again, where he suffered a stroke, and had to return to Ft. Madison again, and his wife went to work for the Railroad, as a cook.
Now that I have gone back after 20 years absence, I am struck by one thing: their intellectual poverty,
QAnon has become impossible to ignore. The bizarre, sprawling, right-wing conspiracy theory, which holds that a pseudonymous Trump ally known as Q is involved in a secret battle against a powerful globalist “deep state” linked to pedophilia and Satan worship, has been gathering adherents for years. Supercharged by the paranoia of a pandemic, it is now stoking real-world crimes, rallies, anti-mask movements, and even Congressional candidacies.
This country noticed the traffic into and out of the large city in the center of the country (commonly known as San Jose).
And it noticed the many railroads that were not being used, And it decided to use them.
It got rid of the buildings that had been built on them, illegally, and bought some self-motorized passenger cars to run on them. No one complained.
I noticed the railroad running to Cartago in the East of the country. A schedule of when these new passenger trains would run was posted in the refurbished passenger depot (very nice).
But they never ran. And no one complained, or asked "Why?".
The Mormon's first Prophet was Joseph Smith, and its second was Brigham Young - a much better leader.
BYU graduates many Innovative Software Developers, and they are making lots of money.
Once again they singing "Come, come ye Saints!"
They are coming. and bringing their money with them.
We live in a Computer Economy, but we don't know how that works. Because we don't know how the Computer works.
Back in the Eighties, we thought the answer was simple: it made money! Now we have gone through a few booms and busts, we aren't so sure.
Now Software has taken off, It looks like this is what it does: it makes People make Software!
How does Ethics fit into this? It doesn't. And this what we have to say: the Computer doesn't care about Ethics.
What about the Computer Economy (which includes Computer People)? That depends on the People.
So go out there and behave yourselves!
How U.S. Policy Turned the Sonoran Desert Into a Graveyard for Migrants
You will not like this, if you read it. Which is why you will not read it.
I do read, however, and I continue to be amazed by our ignorance of things south of our Border.
"We are not ignorant," you may say. "We just look ignorant, to those smart-asses who read."
For many Americans, this is a long read, and they can barely get through it.
Try a little harder.
You ger a strong dose of Popular Culture along with it. They do things their way and are certain this is the best way
They finish up doing a thing with a razor blade, held between two fingers. This has to be done just right. and they spend a lot of time on this. He had to use three double-edged blades on me, so I would feel no pain.
Other customers are waiting patiently for this perfection to be accomplished.
How common these are!
I subscribe to the CFR (Council for Foreign Relations) and I read about disasters in different countries every day.
"You should not read about these." you may reply, "They only make you feel bad. Read Nice Things instead.".
But this is not what most Americans do. They change their expectations instead. put up with some terrible situations, and consider this virtuous behavior.
Birth control pill formulations
This article in Wikipedia is enough to baffle anyone, especially parents of girls. Whose bodies are determined to get pregnant. It is up to the parents of these girls to protect them from unwanted pregnancies.
At one time, this not a problem. Kings and Queens got married when they were 13, and died when they were 40. Which gave plenty of time for everything to happen. The Pill was not necessary.
Now people live longer and have too many children. Something had to be done, and the solution was The Pill.
As you can see, formulations of The Pill vary from country to country. And you have to rely on the medical advice for each country. Which is strongly affected by their religious beliefs.
I live in Costa Rica and get my pills at a local pharmacy. This advertises a pill they sell, called Emma, which is sold as a secret between women.
Beth and I solved this problem by me getting a vasectomy. We didn't make very many smart decisions, but this was one of them.
One of my must-do projects this morning was making this work. After a long struggle, I have to admit defeat.
Its User Manual is only written in English, which is fine for me, nut not for anyone not fluent in that language.
To use this, you have to be a mechanical genius and good at making coffee - both. Making Esspresso is easy, but making Cappuccino (by adding frothed milk at just the right time) is nearly impossible.
I am still reading Bringing Up Bébé.
Two hundred years ago, Americans would see nothing unusual about this. But today, it seems peculiar and unpatriotic.
Put this in your shopping cart.
What brings this on?
That I do not know, I can only detect it once it is well underway - as it is in the US and UK now.
This is where we have to begin. We have to take a global view of where we are.
The first thing we will notice is that most people do not want to do this. They do not want to see things as they are. They want to see things as they should be. And they are very determined about this.
I keep going back to the acceptance by Industrial Workers in England to the Book of Mormon. They not only accepted it, but they also proclaimed the author to be a Prophet of God!
What was behind this? The desire to destroy Industrialization, which had destroyed them.
Is the most downloaded educational app in the world.
And is an example of a good User Interface (UX).
I am using it now to learn Spanish.
Was caused by the rise and fall of one man: Joseph Smith III.
This was not surprising, because he had bad parents. His father was insane, and his mother concentrated on countering this insanity (including polygamy) telling her sons nothing of what was going on.
When these sons grew up, married, and had children of their own - they had no income.
A group of LDS in Northern Illinois, formed a RLDS church - and hired the Smith sons to be its religious leaders. They kept poor records, and it is not clear what this church consisted of at that time.
But they bought land in Southern Iowa, and built a town on it, they called Lamoni. The RLDS church, gradually became the church of Joseph Smith III, who concentrated on making it better (what these changes were has not been recorded, but they must have included new members and increased income).
Eventually, some of the church (including JS3) moved to Independence Missouri, where he died.
The Church continued, but its leadership weakened, until it existed no more, but became the Community of Christ church.
Every living thing, that is.
Why am I saying this? Because I saw a cockroach scrambling across a drawer when I opened it, and I asked myself "What would it be like to be a cockroach?"
And once I started thinking about this, I was reminded of a childhood friend, named Larry. of whom I often said, "He could not find himself!" He died of ALS.
And I reminded of the little jungle in my side yard, full of red banana trees. These trees produce bananas that people do not like to eat, but birds do. They eat them, and then scatter their seeds in their poop.
I read this once before, and this has messed up getting my Kindle version again for my Fire tablet.
I am now reading it on my Chrome laptop, and I am impressed by Thomas Frank, again.
He is making some sophisticated arguments about the professional-managerial class. Which has now morphed into Computer-Software class.
And, in my family, the disappearance of the RLDS church.
An Encouraging Rollout for the Biden-Harris Ticket
This cooperation is not just a nice thing to have, it's a vital necessity. And I do not see it happening.
Much of our urban landscape has turned into these.
I noticed this especially when I went to the Unitarian church in Washinton, DC. I lived and worked in Northern Virginia, but sometimes ventured into the inner depths of DC. This church was trying to cure the terrible conditions there.
It hired a social worker to teach the women in the slums about birth control. And it sent men (including me) to a place, for boys (mostly black) who had no home.
How these slums develop, I do not know. I only know living close to them is a challenging experience most people avoid.
I would like to see maps made, showing where these places are, and how they getting better or worse. They could also show different kinds of slums, such as Hispanics.
The attitude of most Americans toward this is simple: they don't care, and they don't expect it to change.
Ordinarily, this would not have been a problem, but a bridge was out. And a one-hour trip took us two hours, on a terrible road.
I learned a new word in Spanish: Angosto. which in this context, means narrow and steep.
I lived through this personally, since I was born in 1936. experienced its peak in the Fifties, and can see its decline under Trump.
Americans are now saying, as loudly as they can: "There is nothing wrong with us!" When not far under the surface, they know they are finished.
They know this is true, even as they deny it with all their strength.
A short review of our recent history is in order here, beginning with the presidency of Obama. He made great speeches but accomplished little.
Trump was elected in his place. What was going on here? A lot of things, and they all fit together. But cannot be explained by one word only.
We have to say instead "The World has gone to Hell, and taken America with it!"
This is a commercial, but a very clever one. It is saying, "Microsoft is the Solution to the world's problems."
Which is BS, but pleasant BS. It's better than saying "This is God speaking through his Prophet."
These now occupy the Affluent World. And everyone else is desperately trying to copy them. Usually without success.
What's going on here?
There are plenty of examples to chose from. Women who marry into rich families from another country. This doesn't seem to work as well for men.
This happened in my own family when a woman from Nova Scotia married into a rich Boston family - and made it richer.
I know another woman from Costa Rica, who married into a rich American family - but did not make it richer. This marriage failed.
I never thought this possible, but now it has happened to me.
I made myself a quick breakfast (including coffee) and started reading my mail. This included an article from the New Yorker on How China is Controlling the Coronavirus.
It won't surprise you you to learn it is beating it to death, with the usual Chinese determination.
I see the same thing happening at my Chinese grocery store. These guys (and gals) have energy directed at the bottom dollar. Nothing else interests them.
Why? Because hard times in the USSR made the USA look good. Now it has gone away, what else can the world compare it to?
It can watch as America tries to improve its economy, or it can watch as it goes to war.
But who are they to go to war with? That is the vital question that preoccupies it, and saps much of its energy.
And there is something else, I hate to mention: the Virus. Can we lump the two together?
The answer is Yes, because we have to. And we have to see that the turning point was the Vietnam War, our final war with the USSR. What to do after that?
It's nor hard to list the Wars after that:
The Gulf War
The Afghanistan War
The Iraq War (after 9/11)
The Afghanistan War (again)
In all all these, the US is trying to find its new enemy, but the world is not cooperating, because this enemy does not exist!
The USA, the owner of the largest military ever, is now by itself.
Impossible! You are probably saying, But read this, and you will be convinced.
Is this really going on? I think so.
There are plenty of stupid things going on, and it is reasonable to think they are deliberate.
For example, the collapse of the RLDS church, the church of my parents. I left it when I graduated from college in 1960. And so did many other people. But most just let it fade away, and die of stupidity.
I can see this clearly in the case of my brother Steve, who is now doing nothing in Lamoni, Iowa, which seems to suit him fine. I can only observe from a distance, and marvel.
You can also say this is self-destructive, another common pattern. But to see this, you have to take into account the larger patterns. Such as the transformation of the Midwest to the Rust Belt. This is a huge change, but few can see it, or want to see it.
Instead, they think things are going in the right direction.
We did not realize this, of course. The Midwestern United States was plenty big enough for us. When we tried to get bigger, everything broke down.
This also happened in my personal life. I went to college in Iowa and Illinois and got my first job in Kansas City.
When I moved to NYC and got married there, things started to break down, big time.
Looking back at it, I can see the United States was really the states in the Northeast (Boston. NYC, and DC) and California. Although California can be divided into Southern (LA) and Northern (SF).
With the Computer, things only got worse, and the Midwest became the Rust Belt. Most places in the Midwest did not realize this and went quietly to their death.
To make things even worse, they elected Trump.
Now, the Midwest was really Nowhere.
Some of these dangers are well-known, such as the wars of the Reformation - the worst ever. If you visit the waxworks in London, be sure to see the exhibit depicting the execution of Queen Mary of Scotland - who had the misfortune of being Catholic.
How did religion start? As a belief in Spirits. We could not understand much of what we saw going on around us (and still cannot). So we believed Spirits were causing them. And we even made drawings and sculptures of these.
This can also be seen in our technologies. Which started off with the use of clay in Mesopotamia. Very handy stuff, and so cheap! W even used it for writing!
We invented Language first, our most important invention. That will never be equaled. And once we invented that we were off to the races - the human race.
But that is history, ancient history. Most of us are affected by modern religions. Such as Mormonism, the religion of my family.
This was started, innocently enough, by Joseph Smith, a young man with a problem: he needed a job! And he found one in plain sight: his neighbors were digging for buried treasure, but didn't know where it was! But he had a magical solution: a special rock (a seer stone) that he could use to see this treasure.
There was a problem, however: this was an illegal profession, and he had to leave upstate New York, and reside in Pennsylvania for a while. Where he met and married his wife, Martha.
He had another talent however: he could make other people believe in him! And he used this to start his own church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - commonly abbreviated to LDS.
But he soon became a dictator to his people, and the target of a violent mob, that ended his life.
