If you log into Facebook very often you’ve probably been bombarded with relentless calls to action. Those kind souls in Silicon Valley seem to really care about democracy (or something else), and have been encouraging voting for weeks on end.
It’s probably good to remind people to register to vote. We all live busy lives and are prone to forget rare but important events (Men, this is your anniversary reminder. You’re welcome).
However, I also find the ongoing persistence of these reminders incredibly irritating. It’s not confined just to Facebook. Today’s culture in the United States treats voting as some kind of moral obligation that all of us must fulfill. I find that idea to be completely ridiculous, and in many cases actively harmful.
Have you been on social media? Have you witnessed the unending stream of nonsense, ignorance, and vitriol? Do you really want all of these people shaping the course of human events?
I think those questions can stand alone as an unassailable argument, but I’ll elaborate so my position on voting is made clear: You shouldn’t let people pressure you into voting, especially if you haven’t done much deep thinking about it.
What is Politics?
Politics is a complex arena, especially at the national level. It involves the intersection of many fields, like economics, history, morality, religion, science, law, and so on. Few, if any of us, could be considered experts in each of these fields.
The best we can do is take what we’ve learned and develop a coherent worldview that gives us a general idea of how the world works. From there we can use our vote to try to shape a better future based on our worldview. Every voter does this, whether they consciously recognize it or not.
What Motives Do Voters Have?
If people voted entirely out of pure self-interest, maybe I could see the appeal of encouraging everyone to vote. People don’t vote that way though.
Have you ever been in a political debate before? Everybody argues that implementing their ideas will be better for society as a whole, not just for themselves. People of all political stripes claim that some ideas may benefit them directly, but overall would be bad for society.
Self-interest certainly plays a role in who people decide to vote for, but it’s far from the only motivating factor.
The Problem of Careless Voting
This leads to a significant problem. By treating the right to vote as a golden calf to worship, we are rewarded with a very large group of people with vastly different levels of wisdom who all feel obligated to weigh in on the complex problems of the world.
Clearly, these people can’t all be correct about their prescriptions for the future. Some might even argue they all are wrong.
You wouldn’t encourage your friend to make an important life decision without first spending some time thinking about it deeply. Why would you encourage voting among people who normally aren’t very interested in thinking about the broad implications of policy decisions?
None of us should want close elections decided by people who voted based on a few click-bait articles they saw the week before the election, or because they were pressured by annoying friends who don’t know what they’re talking about.
If you have to constantly remind somebody to do something, it probably isn’t very important to them.
How We Should Treat Voting
We should treat the right to vote the same way we treat other rights granted to us by the US Constitution. Like any other right, it should be exercised responsibly.
We shouldn’t put such an emphasis on encouraging people to vote. Instead, we should be encouraging people to learn more about how the world works and to use that knowledge to take on new challenges in their own lives.
Read about those different fields and disciplines. Start a business. Learn a new skill. Volunteer in your community. Become friends with people who think differently than you. Travel somewhere new. If you become a more well-rounded person you will be better prepared to make decisions that affect the lives of other people.
Democracy is wonderful, but it is no safeguard against poor decision making.
If this tirade still didn’t convince you, I just have one request to make. When you encourage people to vote, you’re really encouraging them to vote for your preferred candidate, aren’t you? I’m cool with that, but at least be honest about it.
We may be running out of toilet paper during this pandemic, but there is no shortage of news. Each day new reports come out, and we feel like we have to be the first to soak up everything.
And we have so many questions. What’s going on? Should we wear masks? When will normal life return? Is the government infringing upon civil liberties? Who is to blame?
We want to be informed, and we want our friends to know we are informed.
Fortunately, there are plenty of experts ready and willing to share information that will completely confirm our prior opinions.
Perhaps being locked up in our homes is making us crave more information from the outside world. It’s possible, but I really don’t think this is something new. As technology has advanced the news has come at us at a faster and faster pace. With the internet now living in our pockets, the latest news is always just a glance away.
I see some problems with this. So much so that I’m going to try to convince you to stop reading the news. Or at least, cut back and be more diligent about your news consumption. It’s something I’ve been doing lately, and I’ve found it to be a positive change. I’ll share a few reasons why.
It’s Low Quality
News is cheaper to produce than ever before. This has led to a reduction in its overall quality. There are people whose job it is to write thousands of articles a year. This means they are writing multiple articles every single day.
It takes me several days of work just to crank out one JavaScript tutorial, and when I finish I’m still worried that I’ve left out an important detail or described something poorly. Now, lots of these people are probably better and faster writers than I am. But there is no possible way most of them have spent the time to understand each of the subjects they are covering at a deep level.
It’s Not Designed to Help You
By and large, today’s news is designed to produce outrage and confirm your biases. There are some exceptions, but news is mostly free. This means the advertisers are the customers. That makes you the product. And what the advertisers want is as big an audience as possible. Nothing draws bigger audiences than outrage inducing headlines and information that you can rub in the face of the “other team” on Facebook.
A disturbing result of this is that it leads to living in an echo chamber. What feels like staying informed is often just indulging in the most extreme stories and explanations that confirm your prior beliefs. Before long you’ll start viewing half the country as evil, when in reality most of them are probably a lot like you.
Of course, some stories really are egregious and deserving of our attention. Being outraged about true injustice is a healthy response. But when you find yourself getting worked up every single day over people you’ve never met, I’d say it’s time for some self-reflection.
There are Better Ways to Spend Your Time
I’ve been thinking about opportunity cost a lot lately. It applies to so many things in life, and news consumption is no exception.
You should stop to ask yourself some questions about the news you are reading. Will it be important to you two weeks from now? Will it help you make better decisions? Will it bring you peace? In short, are there other things you should be spending your time on?
It’s a good thing to stay informed of and connected to the world around you, but be wise about how you do it.
Prefer actively creating over passively consuming. Read time-tested content that adds value to your life. Read content from authors and journalists who have earned your trust and respect. Read content that will nudge you to think for yourself.
If you’re like me and struggle to get through even one book in a month, maybe we have no business consuming the junk food of today’s news.
Since I have the best readers in the world, you’re all probably asking the obvious, though slightly cynical question.
“So, should I stop reading your blog?”
To that I say, if my writing isn’t adding value to your life, then yes. Ironically, by taking my advice, you’ll be proving that it is. So actually no, you should probably subscribe 😜
Hello my dear readers. Apologies for the intentionally over the top click-bait headline. This post has nothing to do with that. I need all the readers I can get and I am not opposed to underhanded tactics.
I know most of you are here for programming content and JavaScript tutorials, and that’s what I try to consistently deliver on a haphazard, irregular basis. However, since we currently find ourselves in the midst of the apocalypse, it seems appropriate to talk about it. I’m sure historians will love to have first hand accounts of this event, so if nothing else, consider this post my contribution to the betterment of humanity. Lofty goals, I know.
I have to admit, I was hoping for more zombies and shotguns. This has to be the most boring of all doomsday scenarios. Overall though, it hasn’t affected me personally too much. I’ve been fortunate to keep my job (for now), and have been working from home the last few months. I know many have not been so lucky.
In some ways the change in routine has been good for me. I’ve been better about eating healthy and staying active each day. And for some reason, everybody is coming out of the woodwork to jump on a video call to catch up and play video games.
It’s an interesting phenomenon because nothing was stopping them from doing this before. I think we are appreciating our relationships more now that restrictions have been placed on them. I’ll be happy if that trend continues once this crisis is over.
I don’t claim to know exactly what the best course of action is. Any policy decision will have benefits and drawbacks, and it is frustrating to see politicians and media outlets pretend this is not the case.
My biggest disappointment in all this is this feeling I get that so many of the same petty divisions remain unresolved. I remember how the United States came to together as a nation in the weeks following 9/11. It didn’t last, but it was a good moment. It seems like we have bypassed that phase and went straight to assuming the worst intentions of those we disagree with.
I may be a bit too harsh with that analysis though. People act differently on social media than they do in real life. I’ve seen people making masks, donating to food banks, picking up groceries for the elderly, and using their talents to help their neighbors. That gives me hope and reminds me that the craziest people are often the most vocal. If you start feeling pessimistic about people it’s probably a good idea to get off social media and start interracting with people in your local community.
I’ll leave playing the blame game to the masochists who like dealing with angry commenters. Now that we’re in this mess, how do we get out of it? I’m sure people with more expertise can tell you all about testing, contact tracing, social distancing, flattening the curve, and all the rest. Like I said before, I don’t know exactly what the best course of action is. But I think there is a general approach that all reasonable people can agree with. Let’s look at three options:
Remain fully locked down indefinitely for months on end until a vaccine is (hopefully) developed while supply chains crumble, currency becomes worthless, and millions are forced into abject poverty.
Immediately release everyone to frolic around in Myrtle Beach while kissing everyone in sight.
Allow businesses to open responsibly and trust people to take appropriate measures to protect the most vulnerable.
To me, option three, while an imperfect solution, seems like the only viable one. I don’t think option one can be sustained, and option two is a bad idea under normal circumstances.
Once we can be confident that hospitals will not be overrun, we need to start getting people back to work. The timelines should look different for different geographical areas, but I think that’s the direction they need to be heading in.
And that’s about as controversial as I care to be in this post. The picture above sums up my position fairly well. I hope you all are staying safe and taking the appropriate precautions. Thanks for reading. If you want to hear more from me, you can subscribe to receive an email every time I post. That happens less often than I’d like, so you won’t have to worry about being bombarded with emails.
For reasonable people, few topics are more nauseating to listen to these days than debates about mitigating climate change. The two “solutions” discussed most often by politicians and activists are different in approach, yet similar in terms of their detachment from reality.
As somebody who harbors political views that are mostly right of center, I have to admit that I was slower than some to hop aboard the “we ought to do something about climate change” train. For me the reasons were two-fold, and I suspect many conservatives can relate:
I hadn’t researched the topic enough. There are lots of problems worth thinking about, and nobody has the time to be an expert on everything.
I didn’t trust or like the messenger. It all seemed a little too convenient as I watched politicians gleefully propose big government, top-down control as a way to reduce climate change. They are constantly in search of a problem to fit this solution, so it was no surprise that they latched onto the existential threat of climate change.
Eventually I realized that despite how annoying and generally wrong about everything Bernie Sanders is, I ought to take climate change more seriously than I had been. We have burned lots of fossil fuels over the past century, and have improved the standard of living all around the world as a result of it. Unfortunately, these actions have had some unintended side effects. Evidence suggests that the increased use of fossil fuels over the past century is directly related to the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the warming temperatures we have seen.
We don’t know exactly how this trend will play out over the next 100 years. Conditions might get really bad, or they might turn out to be pretty manageable. Politically motivated actors will tell you they know exactly what will happen, but they do not. Different models show a range of potential outcomes.
What we do know is that climate change poses potential risks to the well-being of humanity, and we ought to take some steps to mitigate against it. We also know that the use of fossil fuels has enabled millions of people to live better and longer lives.
So what can we do? Well, planting a whole bunch of trees seems like an uncontroversial, easy win and should help soak up some of that carbon dioxide, but some people think that will only get us so far. Attacking the problem on multiple fronts will be the best approach. There are three areas for mitigating climate change that seem promising to me.
Coal-generated electricity is declining as natural gas and renewable energy sources are expanding.
There are still potential concerns, like methane leaks not being properly prevented. It’s not a perfect solution, but perfect is often the enemy of good. We ought to celebrate these short-term wins while striving towards doing even better.
Future Developments
Lots of companies are doing just that. Tesla is doing work that has the potential to make a big difference in the amount of fossil fuels we use. Their electric vehicles consistently receive rave reviews from drivers, and Tesla’s success has inspired other car manufacturers to develop their own electric vehicles. If these vehicles become widely adopted at large scales that would be a big step in solving a small part of the problem.
Elon Musk, the co-founder and CEO of Tesla.
Companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are attacking the problem from a different angle. They have created plant-based burgers that imitate the taste of beef. Fast food chains have already started partnering with them. These developments have the potential to reduce some of the negative environmental effects caused by current agriculture practices.
Another often overlooked technological innovation is the increased capability for people to work remotely. Solutions have been developed that allow us to collaborate with people living on the other side of the world, all from the comfort of our own home. More and more companies and people are taking advantage of this, leading to less time spent making long commutes. Less people on the road every day means decreased emissions and decreased traffic. That sounds like a win to me.
There are other companies attacking this problem too. Many of them are experimenting with ideas I’ve never even heard of. There is a lot of promise to be found in the the innovative spirit of entrepreneurs. The free market is an amazing engine that has solved many of our problems over the years. However, putting hope in future technology alone seems like a bit of a gamble. Maybe it will be enough, but maybe it won’t. Or maybe we won’t develop the solutions quickly enough.
That leads me to the second area of promise for mitigating climate change. It involves technology that is already here right now.
A Nuclear Renaissance
What if we discovered an energy source that:
Is extremely energy dense, even more so than fossil fuels.
Has zero emissions.
Produces little waste.
Wasn’t dependent on external conditions (sun shining, wind blowing).
Wouldn’t we be jumping all over this opportunity to mitigate climate change? It turns out, no, because that’s what we have with nuclear fission. While countries like France have shown how big of an impact this technology can have on reducing emissions, most of the world hasn’t taken notice. Despite its many advantages, humanity has failed to harness the power of nuclear energy to the fullest extent that it should. This is due to many reasons, some legitimate, and some political.
Safety
Most concerns revolve around the safety of the plants and the disposal of nuclear waste. For many, events like Chernobyl come to mind. While we shouldn’t dismiss safety concerns out of hand, it is worth comparing these scenarios to the alternative. Research shows that many lives have been saved by nuclear energy that would have been lost due to air pollution. Most accidents are preventable by following proper procedures. While we have made nuclear energy pretty safe already, more investments in nuclear technology will inevitably lead to better, cheaper, and safer outcomes.
Waste Disposal
When it comes to waste disposal, nuclear energy might actually have an advantage over renewables. Due its density, nuclear energy produces very little waste. The waste is radioactive, but we can just bury it deep underground, and can do so for quite a long time. In contrast there is no good plan to deal with solar panels and wind turbines, which cover very large surface areas, after their 20 year lifespans are up. From a holistic perspective, this should be a concern to environmentalists. For more information about this issue, check out this article.
What are we gonna do with all of these?
If the climate change situation is as dire as many claim it to be, shouldn’t we be willing to accept the risks associated with nuclear energy?
I think the proper application of technology might be enough to get us where we need to be. However, some people think we need to act now. I haven’t heard many good ideas when it comes to government intervention, but there is one I’ve heard that shows some promise.
Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax Combined With Decreased EPA Regulatory Authority
The name for my plan doesn’t exactly inspire as many warm and fuzzy feelings as, “The Green New Deal“, does it? Well that’s okay because while it doesn’t sound as cool, my plan is actually a reasonable policy proposal. Also, I lied. This isn’t really my plan. It has been proposed by people who have been doing a lot of thinking on the subject.
Currently, greenhouse gas emmisisons are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Their task is to decrease emissions by telling businesses what to do. They make rules about how much emitting cars and trucks are allowed to do. So instead of adjusting price signals through taxes, we are currently using command-and-control policies to achieve the desired decreases in emissions. One problem with this is that the companies using fossil fuels are only incentivized to meet the bare minimum requirements.
Another problem is that the decisions about how to reduce emissions are left up to regulators instead of the businesses themselves, and the federal government has a less than stellar track record at running efficient and profitable enterprises.
Rethinking Incentive Structures
A replacement tax on fossil fuel production solves both of these problems. It prices in the negative externality of polluting our common resource, the atmosphere. It incentivizes companies to work to eliminate emissions entirely and thus avoid paying the tax. And unlike regulations, taxes produce revenue. We can use this additional revenue to cut taxes somewhere else. This additional revenue will allow us to compensate the poorest people in our communities who would be most affected by the increased cost of fossil fuels.
Summary
Climate change is a divisive topic these days, but there are reasonable actions that we can take that have the potential to help mitigate it. By creating a business environment that encourages innovation, reviving the nuclear industry, and making a few changes to incentives we can start steering humanity towards a better and more sustainable future. Thanks for reading, and let me know your thoughts in the comments. This topic is huge, and I’m sure there is much more information out there I am unaware of. And don’t forget to subscribe!
In my last post I made the case for why being pro-life is the morally correct position to take. My friend Daniel incorporated my post into his own thoughts about a another related topic: single-issue voting. We got to talking, and I then I got to thinking. Is being a single-issue voter a good or a bad thing?
What does it mean to be a single-issue voter?
My gut-level reaction is…it depends on what the term “single-issue voter” means. One possible definition is somebody who puts on blinders and only casts his vote based on what is being said about a single issue. This seems like an obviously bad approach to politics. Another possible definition is somebody who pays attention to what each party is saying about a range of different issues, understands the trade-offs being made by each, and then still makes a decision that is influenced very heavily by a single issue. I think this can be a good way to approach politics, and is the definition I’ll be discussing for the rest of this article.
A moral imperative
In certain situations it could be considered morally imperative to be a single-issue voter. Building on the analogy used in my previous post, who could argue with 20/20 hindsight that the abolition of slavery wasn’t worthy of single-issue voting? Or voting against the Nazis when they were coming to power? The key ingredient here is an awareness and understanding of the times. Assuming you have full confidence in your opinion on the issue itself, the biggest factor you will have to wrestle with is all the other positions you are also implicitly casting your vote for. The net benefit/harm of the policies each party stands for should weigh into your decision.
Let’s take the abortion issue as an example. It’s hard to imagine another issue today that would be a better candidate for justifying single-issue voting. The merits and drawbacks of different policies can often be endlessly debated without a clear consensus emerging about their effects. But with today’s abortion policies, we are allowing the direct termination of innocent lives for the sake of convenience. We couldn’t even get a ban after 20 weeks through the Senate, and it included exceptions for the life of the mother and for rape or incest. That is appalling. Personally, it’s very difficult for me to cast a vote without the huge weight of this factor disproportionately influencing my decision making. If you are against this piece of legislation, I frankly do not care what you think the minimum wage should be.
Maintaining awareness
Now let’s say, for the sake of discussion, that all of a sudden the pro-life party started campaigning on hauling a certain group of people off to Nazi style concentration camps. Well now the case for single-issue voting on the abortion issue has been weakened quite a bit, to say the least. The situation has changed and now the calculation must be performed again. No matter how grave the issue, single-issue voting should be accompanied by a continuous reevaluation of the political landscape.
Conclusion
In short, I don’t think single-issue voting should be your standard operating procedure. But if you arrive there after some deep thinking, there is a chance you might just be on the right side of history.
As always, if you are enjoying the ideas I’ve presented or you think I’m crazy and want to tell me why I’m wrong, go ahead and subscribe to stay up to date with all the latest content.
