I’ve never read the Handmaid’s Tale, I really don’t know much about it. I don’t know how analogous that story is to our current situation, if it is at all. But I do know that there is a real danger posed by Trump and the Republican party. Is the Democratic party completely harmless? Absolutely not, but I don’t think they are as great a threat to democracy as the Republicans. We should vote for Biden as a harm reduction measure. Yes, just like in 2020. I know people get tired of hearing that, I know people are fed up with the constant hounding to vote for the lesser of two evils, but that is the situation we are in.

That being said, voting for Biden in this general election lIs iterally the bare minimum that we must do to defend democracy, and if that is all we do, no, it absolutely will not be enough. I think a lot of us, myself very much included, dropped the ball over the last four years and didn’t do nearly enough to try and push for more meaningful changes. That has to change, and, again, I’m including myself in that. I need to do more, most of us do. We need to do everything we possibly can to ensure that by February 2029 we will have a better president in the White House, a better Congress, and a better supreme court, as well as better governors and better state legislatures in as many states as possible.

Everything you said should be enough to get people to vote, but the sad reality is reducing it to that may not be enough.

I understand why it isn’t enough for a lot of people. I think the biggest reason people don’t vote is they don’t feel their vote matters all that much, and/or they see a certain futility in the whole thing. I understand why, in the face of that apparent futility, many people feel powerless and thus choose to disengage. But, yes, as you’ve said, disengagement does nothing and the only way to take back power is greater engagement. The powerful want us to feel powerless, they want us to be disengaged and they want us to be misinformed, thus we gain power by being informed and engaged, which will lead to us feeling empowered, which promotes even greater engagement.

If you live in Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, or Florida (really any of the fifty states, but these are the most critical), AND you don’t want to see Donald Trump elected for a second term, you must vote for Joe Biden in November. Yes Biden is a doddering old man who is experiencing rapid cognitive decline, and yes it is totally unacceptable that these are our choices, but disengaging does not solve the problem, it only makes it worse.

Believe me, I completely understand the inclination to just say to hell with it and check out, but we can’t do that. I have been as guilty of it as anyone but I now fully recognize it was a mistake. But it’s not too late to make it right. Voting is not only a right, it is a responsibility. If we, the people, want to rule, we must be vigilant and responsible.

Right now, our priority is damage control and harm reduction. I know, it has been that way for far too long, and that is extremely frustrating, but it is nonetheless the reality of the situation. We must vote for Biden this year, and then we MUST stay engaged so that we can work toward nominating the best possible candidate in 2028. We must stay informed and vote, diligently, in every state, local, and primary election.

As I’ve said many times: I don’t hate Windows, I hate Microsoft. If Windows were owned by a not-for-profit, or a consortium or some other democratically run organization of interested groups, I don’t think I would have any need for Linux. But, as it is, Linux is absolutely necessary. I hope some day that Windows is replaced by a Linux distribution that is owned and maintained by an organization that gives all stakeholders, including and especially end users, a tangible voice in its management.

The solution requires a new ideological paradigm, but transitioning into the right paradigm would be extremely difficult and it would likely take a very long time.

I think the US is already in the process of transitioning to a new paradigm, away from neoliberalism, which was the dominant paradigm over the past half century or so, to something else. However, I’m not sure we are transitioning into the “right” paradigm. I think the paradigm we are transitioning into is more protectionist than neoliberalism. We are moving away from globalization and towards something more like the cold war era, where the world was divided along ideological lines into a “first world” and a “second world.” I expect the new paradigm we are shifting into to be more antagonistic toward “unfriendly” nations. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were to lead to some kind of major conflict.

I haven’t read the book but I wonder if it should have been called ‘Why the global free market would save the world’. It sounds more like the author is making philosophical arguments for global free market capitalism, that they are stating why global capitalism should be the globe economic paradigm, rather than providing evidence that global capitalism will weather the current storm and reassert itself as the dominant global paradigm.

The tide certainly seems to be turning against globalization, and not just from the far right or far left, even the moderate establishment seems to be revaluating globalization, to at least some degree. This speech by president Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, to the Brookings Institute outlines some of the problems that have arisen as a result of globalization.

Modern suburbs are a manifestation of the neoliberal mindset, which is summed up in this well known quote from Margaret Thatcher:

…who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families…

Detached, single family homes on their own parcels of land, with clearly defined borders. Each plot is like its own sovereign territory. That is not a society, that is a rejection of society.

But this arrangement wasn’t established for no reason, it was done out of a desire for freedom and independence. With society comes shared culture, language, traditions, beliefs and expectations, things that can limit one’s individual freedom. So, you reject the larger society, procure your own piece of land and form your own micro society where you and your family can have whatever culture, speak whatever language, and practice whatever beliefs you want. Of course this is very isolating, but freedom and independence often are. A totally free and independent person is a person who is totally alone.

This makes it seem like a single, central government is responsible for the restrictive, local zoning laws. Does the federal government force cities, counties, and municipalities to adopt certain, specific zoning laws?

I wish I hadn’t installed the update. I was hoping it would make the game run better on the steam deck, but it’s actually worse. I think they’ve increased the graphical fidelity, but it’s come at the expense of the battery. I found a work around to get the game launcher to come up so I could lower the graphics settings to improve battery life, but that doesn’t fix the bugs. They seem to have gotten worse with the update. Never change, Bethesda. Never change.

Even Kurzgesagt is now admitting that interstellar travel might be too difficult to be worth it, even for very technologically advanced civilizations.

Absolutely, much more housing is definitely needed. Not-for-profit housing already exists in the US, but there’s very little of it. Not-for-profit housing units fill up very fast because they are usually less expensive, and once in the units, tenants tend to want to stay. This leads to long waiting lists for the limited Not-for-profit housing that already exists. Much, much more must be built. Changing restrictive zoning laws should help this, but I think federal and state governments are going to have to get involved as well, providing financing or subsidizing financing for Not-for-profit housing organizations to build or acquire properties.

I think Vienna has a great model to follow for making housing more affordable.

Paris is completely unaffordable to live in

Affordability is a really important part that is not talked about enough. Walkable cities are better for people and the environment but they need to be affordable for it to matter.

There’s no bind here. Investors have no loyalty to any nation, they take their capital wherever they feel they can get the best return. They care only about themselves and their own financial interests. US investors do not care if US power is undermined. The US could collapse tomorrow and they would abandon the nation like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

Mostly. I’m fine with some of these being left up to the states, like prostitution and marijuana, although I do think marijuana’s federal status should change (from schedule 1, to a much lower schedule). Also, I think the highest tax bracket should be 99%, or even 100%. But that highest bracket should be a very high number, like 0.001% of GDP.

I’ve always hated this comparison because the two problems are just not the same, at all. CFCs were nowhere near as ubiquitous as fossil hydrocarbons, and CFCs had an essentially drop-in replacement, which fossil fuels do not. There’s no non-hydrocarbon fuel that we can just replace for coal, natural gas, gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, etc. None that I’m aware of, anyway.