Oh, no, not again

 Once again America's financial credibility is on borrowed time. On January nineteenth, 2023, US Treasury Secretary, Janet L. Yellen notified Kevin McCarthy, House Speaker, and other leaders of both houses, of the steps she was taking to prevent the United States defaulting on its debt. She would cease investing in the retirement funds of civil and postal workers, stop new borrowing, and cash in some retirement fund investments. By law, she has to pay it all back once the debt ceiling is raised or suspended. However, Kevin McCarthy and fellow Republicans intend to put conditions on raising the debt limit, while President Biden has said he won't negotiate over money that's already been spoken for. Biden has the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment on his side for what that's worth. Section 4. of the amendment basically says if the US owes money, it must pay it back. Quibbling about the debt is not okay.

Yet quibbling over repayment of the debt has occurred on multiple occasions. Some of this quibbling has caused partial government shutdowns which force affected workers to scrimp and borrow until their paychecks are restored. The 2011 stand-off over the debt ceiling caused a downgrade in the country's credit rating costing the US an extra billion dollars in debt interest. This time around, President Bidden has made it clear that he has no intention of bargaining.

While the Obama administration considered invoking the 14th Amendment, it quickly dismissed the idea. Instead, Obama agreed to spending cuts. This time, the House Republican majority has passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling that would reverse much of the Inflation Reduction Act intended to tackle climate change. Another of it's provisions would de-fund the IRS, a move that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said would reduce future revenue. A third provision would place additional work requirements on those already burdened by poverty and poor health.

President Biden released his 2024 budget proposal in early March. If implemented, it would raise taxes on those earning over $400,000 and roll-back tax benefits granted to the wealthy in 2017. During the final week of April the House Republicans passed a bill that would raise the debt ceiling at the expense of Democratic gains. It stands no chance of passing since the Senate won't take it up and the President will veto it. On May first, the Treasury Secretary warned that the US could reach the debt ceiling by as early as June first. Talks between the president and Congressional members are scheduled for May 9. Those talks could be rocky since there is little consensus among Republicans and Biden's firm stance leaves little room for negotiation.

Legal experts disagree about what would result if the Section 4 of the 14th Amendment were invoked. One fundamental question comes down to who besides the House has authority  to force the House to do it's job of repaying debt. Some say the President could order the Treasury to continue borrowing, but others argue that the President lacks this authority.

Sadly, we budget and spend before sitting down to discuss how much we're willing to borrow. The debt ceiling carries legal weight, but so too does Section 4's requirement that we pay our debts. The legal conundrum that results when the 14th Amendment bumps up against debt ceiling legislation, provides an underhanded opportunity to whichever party wants to bludgeon an already approved budget.

The 14th Amendment has a Third Section that could make a difference in these stalemates, yet I've never seen that Section mentioned in discussions of the debt ceiling. Section 3. says one can't be a President, Senator or Congressman, etc. if one has taken an oath to support the US Constitution and has engaged in insurrection or rebellion against it. "Insurrection" generally implies violence, but "rebellion" can be simple obstruction, such as a refusal to obey an order or fulfill a duty. Repaying government debt is one such duty. Refusing to pay it is rebellion.

If the debt ceiling is breached, then those responsible will have refused to honor US debt, will have engaged in rebellion, and will, therefore, be ineligible to remain in office. But who would enforce this? Certainly not the very Congressmen that voted not to honor the debt. Perhaps the President or the Senate could force those Congressmen out of office. Perhaps not.

What could make a difference is if the American people themselves called out their errant Congressmen. Here's what I'm writing:

Dear Congressman ______,

Please be advised that if you do not honor the United States debt you will have violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment this act of rebellion will result in your being ineligible to remain in office. Should that happen, I will urge your removal from office.

The Fourteenth Amendment

Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

The oath that the amendment refers to is this:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

un Civil un War

January brought news that a second civil war might be in store for America. On January 6, Michelle Goldberg wrote about two books predicting civil war in the near future. She notes, however, that not all scholars agree. Goldberg quotes Josh Kertser tweeting that few civil war scholars believe the United States is on the verge of civil war. Goldberg adds, "yet even some who push back on civil war talk tend to acknowledge what a perilous place America is in."

On January 11, Ron Elving wrote that a number of polls show civil war is on peoples' minds. While animosity remains between north and south states, the main division is between "metro and non-metro" citizens. How would the battle lines in such a civil war be drawn? Throw out history — we're in new territory here.

I divide Republicans into two camps, pragmatists and die-hard Trump followers. I believe it's the  die-hard Trump followers who are most likely to rebel. I estimate these constitute about a third of voting Americans. Clearly not a majority, albeit a meaningful minority. These voters are angry. If our society addressed their anger it could move foreword, and by doing so we would address shared societal needs. However American voters differ in their approach to meeting our societal needs. One approach allows Trump die-hards to continue embracing The Big Lie even as Trump and his allies face legal scrutiny. This third of voters lives in an alternate reality, in denial or unaware of what the majority accepts as fact.

Some label Trump die-hards Low Information Voters. Traditional news sources (fake news to some) reported overwhelming evidence of a fraud-free 2020 election. Big Lie supporters failed to provide evidence of election fraud. Instead of evidence they provided only unsubstantiated claims. For these voters trusting a personality matters more than trusting information.

Personality cults are the nemesis of democracies. The Trump Cult is destroying what's left of ours. Democracy demands cooperation while personality cults and partisanship drive selfish ambitions. Political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution. Americans should eliminate parties entirely and minimize the influence any one politician can have. Political discourse should be issue driven instead of limited to party chestnuts.

Discourse driven politics, however, is not possible under our current system. We address too few issues, not always factually, with slogans rather than dialogue. One reason we're this way is that we are influenced by blame-fueled partisan radio and cable programing and by hate-fueled social media. Such media couldn't behave this way before the Fairness Doctrine was toppled. The cost of unrestricted free speech is that it allows people to lie without consequences. Before we can meaningfully address issues we must first agree upon facts. We need renewed standards and laws that would ensure falsehoods would rise no further than exaggerations. Under such laws, severe exaggerations would face consequences. Such a society would require enough education to suss out facts and meaningful arguments, but it wouldn't require geniuses. It would only require that people respected the rules of polite discussion. Facebook or its imitators would not exist in a dialog driven society. Useful discussion would replace the current troll fest.

But changing the rules of dialog is not sufficient to rebuild our democracy. We must also eliminate political parties and the ability of the wealthy to spend unrestricted amounts to influence political opinion.

In other words, we must become a democracy again. The idea of corporations as persons allows a few wealthy individuals the ability to buy voters' opinions at the expense of corporate employees. In a true democracy everyone's opinion matters. But to make that work, informed polite discussion must occur. We need to eliminate parties and partisanship and to do so candidates must become more issue driven, and parties need to be replaced with issue-centered coalitions. Eliminating congressional districts would not only eliminate gerrymandering, but would force candidates to choose among a number of state wide issues.

While every state has two senators, states have varied populations. Both California's millions and Wyoming's' thousands are represented by two senators. This is inherently undemocratic because it favors the few over the many. However nothing in the Constitution says we must elect senators at the state level. Why not elect them nationally instead?

Maybe my ideas seem goofy. That's okay, we don't have to use them. But we do need to start thinking outside the box, because the democracy we've got isn't working well anymore. Lying partisans are destroying our country. Let's keep what works, build around commonalities and dump the damaging bullshit.

Poisons and profundities

When We Cease to Understand the World
Benjamin Labatut
Historical Fiction, 191 pages

The book begins with mustard gas and cyanide — mustard gas caused death in the trenches in the first world war, while cyanide exterminated captive Jews and suiciding Nazis in the second. Between those two wars a scientific revolution occurred. At the 1927 Solvay Conference quantum physics theory came into being. While that theory makes sense mathematically, it defies sensibility when described in words. That's as true today as it was in 1927.

Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity in 1915, ten years after his theory of special relativity. At the time, Europe was at war. Einstein made no attempt to solve the equation backing his theory. Shortly before his death, a German soldier sent a letter containing the equation's solution from the trenches to Einstein. This soldier-mathematician was Karl Schwarzschild whose solution implied the possibility of singularities, the oddities at the centers of black holes. Mustard gas, in part, caused Schwarzschild's death.

Benjamin Labatut writes of two other mathematicians, Shinichi Mochizuki and Alexander Grothendieck. As yet, no other mathematicians understand Shinichi Mochizuki's proof of a basic mathematical concept and he withdrew its publication. Alexander Grothendieck realized that humanity wasn't ready to understand the "heart of the heart" of mathematics and became a recluse. The heart of Labatut's book, however is the emergence of quantum theory, one that like Einstein's, challenges human understanding. 

This historical fiction is a brief and elegant explanation of the persons and ideas that resulted in quantum physics. But the fictional bits, while entertaining, are unnecessary, and add little to the story. The same can be said about the section following the epilogue. That section, "The Night Gardner," only adds extra pages and could have been skipped entirely.

While quantum physics and relativity theories both played parts in our losing our understanding of the world, Labatut missed a third theory which played a part in that loss. However Darwin's theory of evolution didn't cause that lost understanding. Rather, it was some peoples' response to that theory which caused our loss. Prior to Darwin, the new science of geology caused many Christian theologians to accept that the earth couldn't have been created in the six thousand years of Biblical time. It had to be far older. The Bible, therefore had to be read figuratively rather than literally. Darwin's theory was generally well received by his religious contemporaries. It wasn't until shortly after World War I that evolution was rejected by North American religionists. Throwing out evolution also means throwing out geology and archaeology. some have argued that dinosaur fossils must have been planted by God or Satan to test believers' faith or deceive us. Other explanations that pit the Bible against science strike me as equally far-fetched. In my view, faith must be guided by science and reason lest religion become superstition. Once one builds ones beliefs on blind faith rather than on faith tempered by science and reason, it becomes possible to ignore politicians' lies and vote on faith alone. We cease to understand the world at our peril.

Ignorance of the truth is no excuse

By watching court dramas as a child I learned, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” (Ignorantia juris non excusat). Therefore the mislead will be punished for their actions on January 6, 2021.  As for those who mislead them? Nothing. They broke no laws.

Facebook has taken most of the blame so far. Deservedly so. However, lying partisans and Fox commentators have largely escaped rebuke.

President Biden said this morning:

"My fellow Americans, in life there's truth and tragically there are lies. Lies conceived and spread for profit and power. We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie. And here's the truth: The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election.

He's done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interest as more important than his country's interest, than America's interest. And because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution."

Biden blames the problem on lies. Particularly that of one man but he also doesn’t spare the Republicans continuing to back Trump.

"While some courageous men and women in the Republican Party are standing against it, trying to uphold the principle of that party, too many others are transforming that party into something else."

Something else is possible when a party values power over truth. But to be completely fair, which party is lying and which is telling the truth? We wouldn’t be in such a partisan mess if the fairness doctrine of 1949 hadn’t been repealed. That doctrine required broadcasters to present controversial views in response to their programming. It was in broadcasters’ interests to avoid giving air time to disagreeing viewers. Air time was too valuable to give to dissenting voices. To avoid controversy, broadcasters presented news as factually and objectively as possible. Bland, harmless news avoids controversy.

News organizations are free now to express controversial, even untruthful opinions while giving equal time to no one. Partnering with Trump, they created a counter-narrative while the Fake News claimed Trump lied over 30,000 times. Sounds unbelievable. Could they be lying themselves? It’s hard to tell. Furthermore, there are few instances of lying that are punishable, and many that are never challenged. Lies pass themselves off as free speech and any attempt to regulate lying would need to be carefully worded so as not to unjustly entrap those exercising their right to speak freely.

“The Justice Department remains committed to holding all Jan. 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law,” said Attorney General, Merrick Garland. I expect that ignorance of the truth will be no excuse, while those who deceived won’t be punished.

It’s unlikely laws curtailing lies will arise. But perhaps the people will. What if they demanded a change in the political process? The abolishment of parties for example. Expressing political will would become more local and more personal. Perhaps even grow better conceived ideas. Could it be done? Would it hurt to try?

A lump of coal in your Christmas stocking

Letter to Joe Manchin

Wouldn't you like that though. You've made plenty from coal and another lump couldn't hurt. But consider the majority of Americans who want to stop climate change. We can't stop it until we move away from fossil fuels, and you've opposed taking meaningful action. Do you consider your opposition patriotic? I don't, though I suppose oil and coal industry executives probably do. But they are blinded by their insatiable greed. Greed that makes it okay to spend five decades misleading the public while fully aware of the damage they did to the environment. Five decades ago I walked away from my high school peers in order to avoid the drugs they used. Walk away from your unwholesome peers, Joe. Greed is a drug. It fools those who have too much into thinking they can ignore social responsibilities and not pay their fair share of taxes. Greed lets them think they can destroy their neighbors' yards without harming their own. I suspect that you, too, are addicted to greed. Just say "no" to drugs, Joe, and fix our society and environment now. Our problems can't be kicked down the road any longer. Don't listen to the siren call of lobbyists lest the ship of state shatter upon the rocks of Anthemoessa. Listen to the majority instead.

Don't believe plastic people

When Frank Zappa sang that plastic people were a drag, he meant something other than what I mean. He meant that superficial people, unlike more independent thinkers, are dull, time-wasting companions.

Plastics come from petrochemicals, made from oil. On September 30, a New York Times headline said, “In Your Facebook Feed: Oil Industry Pushback Against Biden Climate Plans”. No surprise. For decades, this industry denied climate change while lobbying for subsidies and tax breaks. As Jane Mayer writes, people in this industry began the long drive to move American politics to the right. Those first antisocialists were soon joined by corporate executives and other wealthy folk. Now they are all plastic people.

Before the 1980s, corporate messaging showed concern with the welfare of all corporate stakeholders — customers, workers, stockholders — and for the general public for whom corporations tirelessly worked. But then  business philosophy changed and corporations became concerned only with maximising stockholder value. Traces of the messaging remain. For example: corporate tax hikes will harm American workers. Untrue. It’s only stockholders who lose from taxes on profits. Workers who are also stockholders could suffer from higher corporate taxes, but most of these already receive high wages. Average workers would feel no different. The majority of Americans favor raising taxes on corporations. However many of these work for the same corporations that lobby against tax increases.  Corporations are “persons” according to the Supreme Court. It is assumed that these “persons” speak for their employees. And so they are allowed to spend grandly to promote their ideas, even when those ideas don’t sync with what employees want and need.

Corporations speak louder than individual voters. They buy voters’ political views with suave talk and false promises. Climate change is real but plastic people won’t pay extra taxes to address its effects. Plastic people choose wealth over wellbeing. That hurts everyone, even plastic people. Plastic people, though few, speak loudly. The majority must make itself heard. Speak up.

Hoorah for the filibusters

 

"Show, don't tell," is the advice heard by many would-be fiction writers. That advice often works for contemporary fiction. As times have changed, so have writing conventions. In "Captain Blood", Rafael Sabatini tells first, then shows. While Sabatini occasionally shows by describing a character's eyes dilating or her face flushing, it's not his primary technique. Rather, he describes the character's motivating emotions, then shows how those emotions affect subsequent actions. The technique works well in this action novel. Although this novel was written about 100 years ago, its language is fresh rather than archaic. Contemporary writers can benefit from reading old writers instead of just following contemporary advice. Stories can be told through a variety of techniques.

This book grabbed me in its first paragraph and held me until its end. The plot is intricate and anchored by two actual historical events. I won't spill any spoilers. If you want to know how respectable Dr. Peter Blood becomes a notorious pirate, or how love restrains bloodstained hands, you'll have to read the book. 

The only sure thing is climate change and taxes

 

U.S. tax rates change over time. In 1913 the highest earners paid only 7 percent, but in 1918 they paid 77 percent to pay for the first world. During the early 1920s, top tax rates remained higher than today, but in 1925 the highest tax rate dropped to 25 percent. It stayed within a point of that rate until 1932 when it rose to 63 percent. The tax rate continued to climb during the Great Depression and beyond, reaching a high of 94 percent during the final two years of World War II. The rate dropped into the 80s after the war, but was generally around 91 percent between 1950 and 1963. The top rate then moved to 77 percent and began to fall after that, reaching a low of 35 percent in 2003. It remained at that rate until 2013 when it jumped to 39.6 percent. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) reduced the top rate to 37 percent.

Corporate tax rates fluctuate as well. From 1946 through 1949 corporate profits were taxed at a maximum rate of 53 percent. This rate applied to profits over $25,000 and under $50,ooo. The rate fell to 38 percent on profits over $50,000.

Between 1993 and 2017 the highest corporate tax rate was 39 percent on profits between $100,000 and $335,000. Above that amount, the rate dropped to 34 or 35 percent on profits below 15 million dollars. Between 15 and 18.33 million dollars profit the rate returned to 38 percent, before falling back to a top rate of 35 percent. Progressive tax rates increase as income grows, while regressive taxes take a larger bite of income from those with smaller incomes. This period’s tax rates are generally progressive, but don’t entirely follow a straight progressive increase.

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) sets a flat tax of 21 percent on corporate profits. Flat taxes are usually considered to be regressive. Large corporations must love TCJA since it forces smaller ones to pay 21 percent instead of 15 percent on their first $50,000 in profits.

During its history, the United States has held debt at various times, but in 2001, it held a surplus. That didn’t last long. Today the national debt is an enormous three trillion dollars. Higher taxes can lower a nation’s debt. The rationale behind TCJA was that lower taxes would pay for themselves by growing the economy. Did it work? The economy did grow a bit, but not as much as predicted. Our nation’s high deficit grew instead of decreased as predicted. According to the Economic Policy Institute, TCJA “did not increase wages for working people, failed to spur business investments, decreased corporate tax revenues, and boosted stock buybacks in its wake.” No surprise here — taxes are paid on profits taken after employees are paid and R&D costs accounted for. There was never any logic to its boosters’ claim that TCJA would increase business investment and benefit workers. Who lobbied for this lie?  The usual suspects,  including among others, the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers. These same organizations plan to lobby against the 3.5 trillion dollar economic plan.

If that economic plan isn’t implemented, there could be a long wait before climate change is meaningfully addressed. The poor also suffer when the wealthy don’t pay their fair share. During the mid-twentieth century when taxes were high the middle class was broader and more affluent than today. Taxing wealth to repair the climate would also benefit the bottom 90 percent of U.S. citizens. Speak loudly Citizen and shame the greedy into social responsibility.

Of mice and (greedy) men

 On the final day of August a Washington Post headline read, “Corporate America launches massive lobbying blitz to kill key parts of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion economic plan.”  A few days later, Paul Krugman, writing for the New York Times, asked, “Why does Mickey Mouse want to destroy civilization?” Krugman explains that the Walt Disney Company is a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which intends to lobby against tax increases on corporate profits which would be used, in part, to pay for the proposed economic plan. Krugman is correct to assume that if climate change isn’t addressed immediately, years could pass before it finally is. By that time, it might be too late to address it significantly.

Members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce may, or may not, believe in climate change, but they certainly believe that protecting profits from taxation is more important than doing their share to address it. Joining the Chamber in its defense of greed are the Business Roundtable, and PhRMA which doesn’t want the government meddling in drug pricing.

The National Association of Manufacturers is also involved in a lobbying effort. Its senior vice president, Aric Newhouse, said that if the economic plan passes, “manufacturing families will suffer, jobs will be lost.” He’s lying. Profits are taken after employees have been paid, not before. A tax on profits has no effect on labor costs. Who really will suffer? Stockholders, because they receive their dividends after all taxes have been paid. Only the wealthiest Americans have significant stock holdings — they can afford to pay higher taxes, but spend millions to avoid doing so. According to Statista, the top 10 percent of Americans hold 70 percent of the nations’ wealth. Many of the other 90 percent of Americans are but a paycheck removed from homelessness. After seeing this summer’s hurricanes and wildfires, it’s obvious that climate change is coming for us all. It won’t spare the wealthy, even if they believe their money will cushion its blows.

Similar lobbying tactics were used to pass the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA). The name itself is a lie. The act failed to create the jobs it promised. According to the Brookings Institute:

"Overall, the TCJA's advocates promised many supply-side benefits and promised they would materialize quickly. But at least for the first two years, the Act failed to deliver its promises on investment and growth, leaving the country instead with higher deficits and a less equal distribution of after-tax income." 

 Gentle reader, consider speaking or writing the idolaters whose Mammon worship blinds them to the catastrophes to come. Here’s some contact information to get you started:

National Association of Manufacturers
(800) 814-8468
(202) 637-3000
info@nam.org

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

(800) 638-6582

(202) 659-6000
membership@uschamber.com
federation@uschamber.com
smallbusiness@uschamber.com
press@uschamber.com

Sample message:

Your company is a member of the U. S Chamber of Commerce which plans to lobby against corporate tax increases slated to be used in fighting climate change. Money can wait, but the climate can't. Stop being so greedy and pay your fair share.

Caterpillar, Inc.

Citi
The Coca-Cola Company
General Electric
PepsiCo
Pfizer
Procter & Gamble
Target
Walt Disney Company 

Of Siren Servers and Radical Markets

Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society
Eric A Posner and E. Glen Weyl
Nonfiction 337 pages
Princeton University Press, 2018

Who Owns the Future?
Jaron Lanier
Nonfiction 396 pages
Simon & Schuster, 2013

It is difficult to review what one doesn't fully understand. Which isn't to say that I was totally baffled by these two books from these  three authors. Their descriptions of socioeconomic problems made perfect sense to me. It was their solutions that baffled me.

"Radical Markets" looks at capitalism in a radical way, starting with the premise that property is monopoly. While their solutions are sometimes over-explained, they none-the-less failed to convince me. That may be due to my inadequate understanding of economics, or perhaps I've correctly intuited that something is missing in their solutions.

Regardless, the ideas are certainly worth reading. One in particular was splendid. It's called quadradic voting, and it works like this: let's say you have a number of vote credits and you can spend them across a number of issues. To vote once on an issue costs one vote credit, to vote twice costs four credits, and voting three times costs nine. If you really cared about an issue, you could vote four times, spending sixteen vote credits. The more you care, the more it costs you. This might be a good way to decide certain popular issues. We live in times where manipulating complex math is easy. There are all kinds of new solutions we could try.

The authors also discuss the idea of treating data as currency, giving credit for this idea to Jaron Lanier. The idea evolved as a solution to what Lanier calls "Siren Servers." I feel the same ambivalence toward Lanier's solutions as I do to those of the other authors. Lanier's label, "Siren Servers", refers to technology companies that make their money by mining other people's content or data. According to Lanier, people should be paid for the demographic data they provide to those who mine it for marketing products or gaining or suppressing potential votes. Sadly, in the United States a great deal of money is spent persuading voters to embrace policies that harm them while enriching those who already have too much. Paying people for their demographic data won't fix this problem. Limiting how much Political Action Committees can spend would do greater good.

I'm not sure Lanier's solution is workable, but I'm completely sure that Siren Servers are an engine of income inequality. Once software is written, only maintenance costs remain. Siren Servers don't require factories full of workers. Only a few, very well paid, employees are needed. Since there are only a handful of Siren Servers, there is little competition to limit price. Apple can charge an app maker 30 percent for a sale in its app store because no competitor charges less. It may not seem like much, but 30 percent of retail price is a strain for both the app maker and the app consumer. On the unregulated internet, price gouging is business as usual. In its earliest days the internet was used to share government and academic information. As the World Wide Web gained popularity, this information source was commodified. Going forward, the internet needs to be more like a library and less a device for monopolist rent collectors.

Explore Denver by Trail

Every city has its secrets and Denver is no exception. Among Denver’s secrets are its miles and miles of trails shared by cycling, walking, rollerblading, and riding urban adventurers. Of course, not every trail is suitable for every conveyance—horses aren’t permitted in some places and rollerblades will suffer on unpaved portions—but all in all, there’s plenty for everyone, especially those who travel on foot.

Suppose you’re attending a convention in the mile high city. Day’s business done, adventure calls. You leave the Colorado Convention Center, cross Speer Boulevard, descend a few stairs, and you’re there. You’re now on the Cherry Creek Trail. Should you head southeast, you’ll pass through some of Denver’s older and more affluent neighborhoods. If you go all the way to the end of the trail, you’ll have travelled about thirty-nine miles. But by then you’ll be in Franktown, not Denver.

Heading northwest instead, you’ll soon arrive at Confluence Park where Cherry Creek meets up with the South Platt River. Heading north along the Platt you can go as far as 104th Avenue before the trail develops discontinuous portions. Heading south, the trail system will take you as far as Chatfield State Park. Trying to go this distance on foot isn’t quite practical. But, a bicycle can take you there if you’re fit and have the time.

The Bear Creek Greenbelt is a personal favorite. It runs from the South Platt River Trail through several parks, including Bear Creek Lake Park, and ends in Morrison. Bear Creek hosts a variety of water fowl. I once saw a night heron while cycling that path. I’d never seen one before and wondered what a penguin was doing that far north. (Since writing this in 2008, I've also seen a Malayan Night Heron, though in Taipei, not Denver.)

 

Towering Babble

 

Back in 1946, George Orwell expressed his doubts about, Politics and the English Language in an essay with that title. If he was correct then that politics was corrupting  language, it's even more true now. Only today, it's not just politics. Social media and a tribalized electorate isolate Americans into conflicting subcultures.

Those who spout unreasoned political nonsense abuse both language and factuality. But one only needs to look toward academia to find serious language corruptors. Academicians abuse language by making it inaccessible to the more than two out of three Americans without college degrees. I suppose academicians coin new terms as a substitute for new ideas. It's a dangerous practice.

Take the term, critical race theory. What does it mean? The term invites attack. If instead, one promoted teaching the history of what really happened, who could object?

Another term I can do without is systemic racism. The word "systemic" bothers me. Without knowing which system, political, social, financial, or educational, is under discussion, it's impossible to address the problem. If I said instead that racism was culturally embedded, I'd be providing a better description of the problem. The seeds of racism are found in children's rhymes, folk tales, ethnic jokes, and locker room talk. Racism is embedded in American culture and that is where it must be sought. Only by understanding its cultural manifestations can we understand how it's embedded in different systems within our culture and its subcultures.

 

Big Donor Man

 

Dave asked me to write something, but I haven't had time. The children's grandparents are visiting and that means no days off for me. Granddad was playing a song by some old band called the Doors. I was thinking about the song and came up with my own lyrics about lobbyists and wealthy donors. It's not much. Perhaps the excerpt from my book explains it better.

WTF, yo...oh

C'mon, duh, duh, c'mon, duh
I am a, duh, I'm a big donor man
I'm a big donor man
The plebes don't know, but the rich folk understand

Hey, all you serfs that are tryin' to survive
I'm taking away the money that keeps you alive, duh
'Cause I'm a big dough man
The plebes don't know, but the rich folk understand
All reet, duh

You chumps go eat your lunch, crap on week-old bread
What we say at fund raisers make you wish you were dead, duh,
I'm a big donor man, wtf
The plebes don't know, but the rich folk understand

Well, I'm a big donor man
I'm a big dough man
Duh, sucka, I'm a big dough man
The plebes don't know, but the rich folk understand

Excerpt from Fix It. Voters don’t usually notice charitable donations that are subsidized by government, but these aren’t the only invisible ways in which elites can leverage government for their own advantage. Rent-seeking occurs when scarcity adds to the amount that can be charged for a product or service. Scarcity, however, can be artificially created by groups seeking to create regulations which favor themselves. There are four ways in which special interests can gain unfair market advantages, Brink Lindsey and Steven Teles write in, The Captured Economy: How the Powerful Enrich Themselves, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequality.

Their examples of special interest rent-seeking come from finance, intellectual property, occupational licensing, and land use. Lack of competition, they argue, is one of the reasons behind income inequality. Enforcing antitrust laws would create more competition “But an absence of competition also comes from the affirmative use of government power, such as when incumbents are able to fend off challenges by constructing barriers to entry like licenses or intellectual property protection.”

While no one wants to see a doctor lacking sufficient credentials, over-strenuous requirements can keep qualified physicians out of the game:

Although graduation from a U.S. medical school is not required to obtain a medical license, completion of a U.S. residency program is … The U.S. residency requirement, combined with highly restrictive policies on high-skill immigration, makes AMA power over medical school accreditation a powerful lever to constrict supply. Meanwhile, by historical accident the vast bulk of funding for residency slots is provided by Medicare, and for cost saving reasons the number of slots has been frozen since 1997. In 2016, for example, 8,640 graduates of accredited medical schools who applied for residencies—or roughly a quarter of all applicants—failed to be given a match.

If a quarter of new doctors can’t find residencies, then shortages of doctors are bound to lead to higher healthcare costs. Should the AMA choose to loosen requirements enough to increase the supply of physicians, they would also be reducing the potential salaries of their members. Groups like the AMA lack incentives to increase membership and are likely to become even more restrictive in influencing licensing requirements. Unfortunately lawmakers receive most of their information from those most likely to engage in rent seeking. Such groups have both money and organization on their side while ordinary citizens lack both and are often unaware of potential rent seekers.

Silicon Valley is another source of rent seeking. Just recently one of Amazon’s patents expired. This was for their one-click purchasing method. While there’s nothing inherently inventive in a method that saves a mouse click, Amazon none-the-less gained an advantage over Barnes and Nobel with this dubious patent.

It’s easier now than in earlier years to obtain patents. “In 1982, the newly established Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) was vested with exclusive appellate jurisdiction over patent cases. Since then, the CAFC has reshaped the law by lowering the standards for patentability and expanding the scope of patentable inventions to include software, business methods, and even parts of the human genome. As a result, the number of patents issued annually by the US Patent and Trademark Office has increased almost fivefold. …

For this reason an entire industry buys patents in order to sue those who infringe upon them. The potential liability that one might be sued for accidentally using another company’s patented method discourages innovators from developing new products. Loosely defined and over-enforced, patent laws are stifling start-ups, crushing competition, and preventing progress.

Spam for breakfast, nothing for lunch

This morning I checked my email and found a message from Jeff Bezos. How exciting! Here it is:

Hi,

My name is Jeff Bezos an American technology entrepreneur, investor, and charity donor. I'm the founder, CEO and president of Amazon.com, Inc. I believe strongly in ‘giving while living’ I had one idea that never changed in my mind, that you should use your wealth to help people and i have decided to give Five Million Dollars, to randomly selected individuals worldwide. On receipt of this email, you should count yourself as the lucky individual. Your email address was chosen online while searching at random. Kindly get back to me at your earliest convenience, so I know your email address is valid. …

Best Regards,
Mr Jeffrey Preston Bezos, Billionaire investor

Whoa. Five million? Really? Sign me up.

But then, I asked myself, "What's the catch? There's always a catch." Thinking this, I hesitated to reply to Mr. Bezos. "Why," I asked myself, "would Jeff Bezos choose me? Could this email be SPAM?"

Or is it really from Mr. Bezos? Is he the kind of philanthropist who gives money to random strangers? Not according to a Forbes article from September, 2020. The magazine scored 400 billionaires on their philanthropy. Five was the high score. Bezos got a one. That score means he's given out less than 0ne percent of his wealth.

Well, perhaps he's a humanitarian. Not so, according to this PBS story. Former employees consider Amazon a dehumanizing workplace. But if Bezos isn't a philanthropist or a humanitarian why would he want to give me five million?

He could be sitting on a lot of spare change. Maybe not. Didn't he just buy a 500 million dollar yacht?

On another note, my ancestors used to hunt and gather their food. They didn't own much, because there wasn't much to own. The food they acquired, they shared with their neighbors. Their neighbors likewise shared food with them. Sounds like Communism, doesn't it? Luckily, humanity replaced gathering with farming, and hunting with animal husbandry, so that it could invent real estate and other forms of property. With property comes capital and with with capital comes Capitalism and its heir, income inequality. Through new methods and technologies, Capitalism now churns out extreme income inequality like climate change churns out high waves. Society could do something about this, but why stop a great party just because some go hungry?

Is the brain a spiritual organ?

The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain: A Neurologist’s Search for the God Experience
Kevin Nelson, M. D.
Nonfiction 326 pages

Concentrating on near death experiences (NDEs), and to a lesser extent, other spiritual experiences, Kevin Nelson asks how these experiences arise in the brain. He identifies the brain regions and conditions typically involved in NDEs and related experiences. For example, one cause of NDEs can be loss of blood flow to the brain. When blood is cut off to both the brain and the eyes, tunnel vision may result. This may explain why people who have had NDEs report traveling down a tunnel. The bright light they report at the tunnel’s end may be light observed through partially closed eyelids. When blood is cut off to the temporoparietal area, patients may experience an unobserved presence or a sense of being outside their bodies.

Fright is another factor that can trigger a NDE. Nelson cites the NDE experienced by the Russian author, Dostoevsky, when he faced a mock execution in front of a firing squad.

Near death experiences arise, Nelson believes, in a unique state of consciousness that is neither wakefulness nor sleep. This is the state that some people experience just prior to falling asleep, upon awakening, or occasionally while awake. Those who have had NDEs are more likely to have experienced dreaming while awake than are those who came close to death without experiencing the unique consciousness associated with NDEs.

Normally, we are either awake or asleep. Several microscopic components in the brain’s locus coeruleus act as a switch, toggling us between wakefulness and dreaming. Pain, low blood pressure, or lack of oxygen can cause a portion of the switch called the vlPAG to flip us into a dreaming state or rapid eye movement (REM) consciousness.

When the vlPAG suddenly flips their consciousness, some people may report having an out of body experience (OBE), often accompanied with a sense of well being. After being bitten by a lion, explorer, David Livingston, experienced, “… a sense of dreaminess in which there was no sense of pain or feeling of terror …” Although such experiences occur when the body is in crisis, they can occur at other times as well. Nelson quotes a woman who was “lying anxiously in bed, halfway between being awake and asleep,” who had a sudden OBE.

Two portions of the brain, the temporoparital, and the dorso-lateral prefrontal, regions use little energy during REM sleep. They can be said to be turned off. However, during lucid dreaming,  the dorso-lateral prefrontal region remains turned on. People experiencing lucid dreams are aware that they are dreaming. For hundreds of years, some practitioners of Buddhism in Tibet have trained themselves to experience lucid dreams. Trained lucid dreamers have reported experiencing emotions ranging from fear to ecstasy. Nelson quotes a lucid dreamer’s report of a joyous out of body experience. Afterward, “The euphoria lasted several days, the memory, forever.”

There is a strong similarity between the experiences reported by those who have had vivid lucid dreams and those who have had near death experiences. If the vlPAG suddenly flips consciousness into REM while the dorso-lateral pre-frontal region remains turned on, then one can be dreaming while awake, and perhaps having a spiritual experience or NDE.

Such experiences can be life-changing, but do they prove life after death or the existence of God? There is no reason to think so. However, if the brain is the locus of human experience, that doesn’t refute the possibility of an afterlife or of God’s existence. Countless souls have staked their belief in the divine on their spiritual experiences, regardless of whether or not those experiences arise in the brain.

Those who have had spiritual experiences, as well as, 42 percent of those who have had NDEs report having felt a sense of unity, peace and joy. However, Nelson is unconvinced that spiritual experiences are necessarily accompanied by REM sleep intrusions into wakeful consciousness. He feels that such experiences arise in the brainstem and specifically involve serotonin receptors which are numerous in that region. He cites the experiences of John Lilly who experimented with sensory deprivation chambers and later with LSD in conjunction with sensory deprivation.

The use of powerful hallucinogens does not guarantee spiritual experience. Some experience paranoia rather than bliss. Nelson quotes a man named Frank for whom psychoactive substances brought about a religious delusion. Frank was able to shake his delusion but experienced depression in the process. Clearly psychoactive drugs aren’t toys.

Hospital patients can choose either to be, or not to be, resuscitated. There may come a time when those nearing death can choose whether, or not, to be raptured. When science allows us such choices, it risks offending the religious. Never-the-less, Nelson is hopeful that a new wisdom will arise from considering the brain as a spiritual organ.

Too good to be true?

Extra Sensory: The Science and Pseudoscience of Telepathy and Other Powers of the Mind
Brian Clegg
Non-fiction, 321 pages

If you’re looking for proof of psi phenomena you won’t find it here. Instead, you’ll read a history of poorly designed research and questionable results. This is interesting in itself as an explanation of what constitutes good experimental design and what does not. Although the author describes several theoretical mechanisms that could explain psi phenomena, he also notes that only minimal evidence supports its existence.

 In his conclusion, Brian Clegg notes, “… coming at this with an open mind while frankly wishing that ESP did exist, I have to conclude that the existing experiments have demonstrated nothing more than coincidence, artifacts of the experimental design, misunderstanding, and fraud.”

Physicist, Wolfgang Pauli, became a good friend of psychiatrist, C. G. Jung. The two collaborated together on a book with each contributing a section. In Jung’s section, the psychiatrist describes what he calls synchronicity, a phenomena consisting of meaningful coincidences, and considered to be an acausal connecting principal. Pauli himself experienced a type of synchronicity as the jocularly known Pauli Effect. Reportedly, whenever Pauli entered a laboratory equipment malfunctioned. This occurred frequently enough that it became known as the Pauli effect. Jung’s synchronicity as well as Pauli’s Effect is largely based on anecdotal evidence and not achievable in a laboratory in the same fashion as cards in a deck can be guessed by experiment participants. Much traditional ESP research was conducted using a card deck of five symbols and evaluated by comparing the number the correct guesses to an expected twenty percent of the time. Often there is only a small deviation from the expected results.

Clegg feels that current methods of testing psi phenomena will never produce significant results. “What the researchers seem to have totally forgotten is that they are attempting to verify the validity of hundreds of years of anecdotal evidence. … Real-world ESP is not about small statistical variations; it is about clear, specific communication.”

The bloodshed must stop

"Adieu!" she said softly.
And I put a bullet in the calf of her leg. She sat down—plump! Utter surprise stretched her white face. It was too soon for pain. I had never shot a woman before. I felt queer about it.
"You ought to have known I'd do it!" My voice sounded harsh and savage and like a stranger's in my ears. "Didn't I steal a crutch from a cripple?"

 
Rather than allow her escape, Dashiell Hammett’s detective shoots his suspect. Although firing on non-threatening fleeing suspects is illegal, it doesn’t stop the Continental Op. It doesn’t stop some police officers either. Hammett’s operative experiences moral uncertainty before putting one bullet in a non-lethal spot. I wonder what Rusten Sheskey experienced as he put seven bullets in Jacob Blake’s back while fellow officers watched. I think he used excessive force. Kenosha County District Attorney, Michael Graveley, doesn’t share my opinion. He declined to bring charges against Officer Sheskey.

A few miles from where Derek Chauvin stands trial for George Floyd’s death, a female officer killed yet another, non-threatening, fleeing suspect. She didn’t kneel on his neck for over nine minutes as did Derek Chauvin. Instead she mistook her gun for a taser. Answering your question is police use-of-force expert, Ed Obayashi, summarized in the New York Times, "… the officer can become accustomed to using the same hand to draw either weapon, a habit that can make it harder to tell one from the other in high-pressure situations when muscle memory and instinct kick in."

Okay, that makes sense, but why didn’t she simply let him drive home and arrest him later. I’ve noticed, in some of these recent police killings, the blameworthy officer had an audience, in several cases, rookies. Does that matter or is it coincidence?

A second’s worth of poor video shows 13 year old, Adam Toledo, unarmed, and with hands raised, just before being fatally struck by a bullet. Neuroscience shows that actions can be decided and implemented half a second before they become conscious. The officer made a split-second decision that turned out wrong. Was he wrong?

Yes, according to the Lone Ranger. “I'll shoot to wound, not to kill. A man must die, it's up to the Lord to decide that; not the person behind the six shooter.”

The Lone Ranger had a steady hand and rawhide nerves. He would not have shot Adam Toledo. Only if Adam were armed would the Lone Ranger have fired a wounding shot.

In an ideal world, police would act more like cowboys or Dashiell Hammett detectives. Sam Spade occasionally disarmed bad guys, but he didn’t carry a gun himself. “Yeah, right. What about racist policing?” you ask.

Well, according to the fifth principal of Gene Autry’s Cowboy Code, a cowboy, “must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.”

At this point you’re thinking I’m talking nonsense You want to remind me that cowboys and movie detectives are make-believe. Yes, I’ll agree, I am talking nonsense. For this I blame the ancient Greeks and Romans. They endowed humans with a rationality that humans don’t always display. In a tense situation, rational responses are less likely to occur than those triggered by reflexes. Perhaps unconscious racism sometimes kicks-in as well.

We need more fool-proof policing methods. For example, instead of having a pistol shape, tasers could be shaped like dildos. I don’t think a cop could mistake a gun for a dildo. Better yet, let’s do away with tasers entirely. Sometimes they fail to subdue suspects, enraging them instead. There must be better mousetraps we can invent.

Lastly, there are many situations that can end peacefully if approached peacefully. Paladin’s calling card read, “Have Gun Will Travel,” but he rarely used his six shooter. He preferred conflict resolution to gunplay. According to Vox, police recruits receive extensive firearms training, but little training in conflict management. It’s time for serious changes in our policing philosophy and methods. The bloodshed must stop.

Gravity. Bet you fall for it too

Gravity: How the Weakest Force in the Universe Shaped Our Lives
Brian Clegg
Non-fiction, 335 pages

Books like this don’t have happy endings. In fact, they don’t have proper endings at all. They begin with questions and end with even more questions. I like to read them anyway.

Clegg begins with history: What were the earliest notions of gravity and how did they evolve? When people think of gravity they often think of Isaac Newton, but the idea of gravity had precedents in ancient Greek thought. Later, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and others elaborated on the ideas that later influenced Newton. Then in the twentieth century, Albert Einstein introduced an entirely new framework for understanding gravity.

 About the time Einstein was tackling gravity, other scientists were developing quantum physics. Now a new problem arose. Einstein’s gravity is very good at explaining the behavior of large objects like stars and planets, while quantum physics can account for the behavior of small objects like atoms and particles. However, the two theories don’t play well with each other.

 In the latter half of the twentieth century string theory was developed as a means of unifying the two theories. String theory, however, introduces a number of unanswerable questions.  Clegg discusses several newer theories that may help resolve the problems of string theory. One of these was inspired by graphene, a one atom thick layer of graphite. When graphene is cooled to an extreme temperature, it appears to violate the rules of special relativity. Peter Horava wondered about the implications of this finding. Einstein gave us the concept of space-time. Horava’s theory breaks space and time apart again. By doing so, he is able to make general relativity and quantum physics work together.

 All of the recently emerging theories will require further research. Gravity, the weakest of the four forces, has remained elusive. Gravitons have been hypothesized, yet never found.

Ephemera? I don't think so

Brain Wars the scientific battle over the existence of the mind and the proof that will change the way we live our lives
Mario Beauregard
Non-fiction 250 pages
HarperOne. 2012

Mario Beauregard introduces his book stating, that according to materialist science only the brain exists; that mind, soul, and consciousness are ephemera produced by the brain and as such, cannot exist independently of the brain. The Cartesian model of brain/mind dualism is false. Only the brain exists, nothing more.

This is essentially the view taken by several materialist theories. The author argues, however, that none of these theories provide a satisfactory answers to what David Chalmers calls the "hard problem "of consciousness which ponders how experience arises from brain processes.

Chalmers is a philosopher. I am not. I wonder if subjective experience isn't just another ephemera produced by the brain. On the other hand, my subjective experience seems real enough that I wonder if those who question the materialist view are correct after all. Beauregard claims that, "multiple lines of hard evidence show that mental events do exist and can significantly influence the functioning of our brains and bodies. They also show that our minds can affect events occurring outside the confines of our bodies, and that we can access consciously transcendent realms—even when the brain is apparently not functioning."

I'm not sure that I buy the first of Beauregard's premises, that mental events exist and can influence body and brain. In the first chapter, "The Power of Belief to Cure or Kill" he shows how Voodoo can kill and placebos can cure. But how does this refute the materialists? Why can't mental events and beliefs be products of the brain, and therefore ephemera?

In his sixth chapter, Beauregard cites psychic (or psi) phenomena such as extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis as evidence that consciousness exists apart from the brain. Since psi phenomena are non-local, how can they be produced by a local mechanism such as the brain? Although Beauregard's argument has become more compelling, I am still inclined to reject it.

Many skeptics reject the existence of psi phenomena. However, Beauregard and others make a compelling case for its reality. Although early psychic researchers were sometimes taken in by charlatans, contemporary researchers use more rigorous methods. Using sophisticated procedures to insure accuracy, they still achieve results that are highly unlikely to be due to chance.

Today, it is not the psychic researchers but the skeptics who are biased. Psi is an established fact. However, the fact that it occurs does not mean that it occurs frequently and dependably. It remains a rare human experience. Does it prove that consciousness can exist independently of the brain? I don't think so. People have claimed to pick up radio stations through the filings in their teeth. Perhaps the brain occasionally acts like a radio and picks up non-local information. That wouldn't prove that consciousness exists apart from the brain.

In his seventh chapter, Beauregard makes his most persuasive point. If consciousness is merely a phenomena of the brain, how is it that people report being conscious during near death experiences? More remarkably, how is it that they report such vivid experiences when their brains are working at greatly reduced capacities?

Other books have addressed these questions. One such book, "The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain: A Neurologist's Search for the God Experience", examines near death experiences (NDEs) in great detail. Author, Kevin Nelson neatly explains all the phenomena associated with NDEs as products of the brain responding to particular conditions. Although he dissects each phenomena thoroughly, his cumulative explanations do not adequately explain the detailed and complex narratives that some people have reported after returning from the brink of death.

It is because NDE narratives can be so complex and detailed that I am inclined to think that diminished brain function can only explain the grosser aspects of NDEs and not their details. However, other factors may be involved. Perhaps in some cases NDE memories are simple confabulations, false memories invented by troubled brains to explain what they can't understand.

Beauregard presents several very compelling cases of NDEs. One such is the case of Pam Reynolds. Prior to brain surgery she was chilled to a point of near-death. Blood no longer pumped through her brain. Her eyes were taped shut, yet she reported observing her operation while outside her body. Is this a case of invented memory, or did it actually occur? If so, does this prove that consciousness exists independently of the brain?

For his final arguments, Beauregard looks toward mysticism and quantum physics. In 1976, biomedical researcher and atheist, Dr. Allan Smith had a life changing mystical experience while observing a sunset. While NDEs are often reported after body and brain trauma, there was no apparent cause for Dr. Smith's experience. Throughout history people have had mystical experiences in which they perceive themselves to be one with everything and no longer confined by a mortal human existence. Psychiatrist, Richard Maurice Bucke, gave the phenomena a name. He called it Cosmic Consciousness.

Early in its development, quantum mechanics encountered a problem—one that remains a mystery to this day. The problem is this: the act of observation influences the phenomena that is observed. Scientists have attempted to explain this in a number of ways, but never to everyone's satisfaction.

Some people claim that consciousness affects external phenomena, yet this is only one way of viewing the interconnectedness of observers with observations. It may be that the human mind lacks sufficient language or logic to understand the reality. It may be that the theory of quantum mechanics is missing an undiscovered piece. This is what Einstein thought.

Einstein knew that quantum mechanics allowed for the possibility of entangled particles. These are particles that mirror each other, seemingly instantly and at any distance. Einstein and his two collaborators wrote that because non-locality, or "spooky action at a distance" isn't possible, then something must be missing from quantum mechanics.

Einstein was wrong. During the final years of the 20th century, non-locality was proven to exist. The implication of non-locality is that everything is connected and indivisible. That means the mystics are correct. Each of us is indeed one with everything. Consciousness is not dependent on the brain.

Yet countless books on neuroscience make it plainly clear that if certain regions of the brain are damaged, then profound changes in personality emerge. The same can be said for changes in sense perceptions, speech, mobility, etc. How then, can it be said that consciousness does not depend on the brain?

Books like this, as well as those which attempt to prove an opposite view, often fail to define consciousness in a thorough manner. An initial omission of definition flaws the ensuing discussion. Whether consciousness is ephemera produced by brains, or whether it is non-local and nondependent on brains, is a question that can't be resolved until we agree on just what consciousness is.

Cut them down to size

USA wealth curve 2016

When shrubbery gets overgrown it must be pruned. Same goes for big corporations sprouting monopolistic tendrils. But it's easier to prune a garden than an economy. About half a dozen companies buoy up the value of the stock market. Of those, five are major tech companies. They trade as AAPL, MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL and FB. Most, if not all, of these engage, or have engaged, in monopolistic practices.

Now and then these companies come under scrutiny, but little ever gets done. If one political party has a good idea, the other calls it a partisan ploy. One big reason our politics is so partisan comes down to the influence of large unregulated corporations. Today there are no fairness doctrines to constrain broadcast media, and no rules at all for social media.

Aside from partisan politics, trust-busting doesn't come easy. To tilt at financial monoliths without regard as to where their rubble will topple would be dangerously quixotic. Monopolies must be disassembled carefully. Adding to a hesitancy to disassemble them is the unspoken fear of unleashing the Invisible Hand.

I hope some day to be able to prove my belief that bad old ideas become parasites that stunt the growth of new thoughts. Adam Smith used the term Invisible Hand only twice in his writings and never in the context in which it's popularly used. The idea that an Invisible Hand will balance financial markets in lieu of regulating them has never been tested. That's because financial markets have always been regulated. When regulations were weakened to allow the Invisible Hand more freedom to balance markets, lenders and borrowers got greedy. The result was the Great Recession of 2008. When the government realized that banks were too big to fail — that if the banks failed the greater economy would collapse — it rescued them financially. Institutions were enabled while common folks lost their homes. Enamored of their bonuses, bankers quickly returned to believing in the balancing Invisible Hand.

Because they were too big to fail, the largest financial institutions should have been reorganized. They weren't. Small competitors can play a bit dirty without disturbing the economic order, but when large companies do so, they have become monopolies, and must be cut down for the social good.

It's high time for companies like AAPL, MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL and FB to face regulation and partial disassembly into companies designed to collaborate and compete with smaller entrepreneurs. Just like the Tooth Fairy, there is no Invisible Hand. It's a myth the greedy promoted while grabbing advantages for themselves.

America needs a more balanced economy; one with a larger middle class and reduced levels of both poverty and opulence. Pruning monopolies like the big five will help achieve this but it's not enough to rebalance our economy. According to Economic Policy Institute:

"In 2019, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 320-to-1 under the realized measure of CEO pay; that is up from 293-to-1 in 2018 and a big increase from 21-to-1 in 1965 and 61-to-1 in 1989."

In 1965, a worker in 1965 whose boss made 21 times his salary could be invited to his boss' home for dinner. In 2019, a worker earning 320 times less than his boss is unlikely to ever meet him. Not only has the degree of income inequality increased enormously, class distinctions have grown, and our sense of community has shrunk. Back in 1965 the wealthiest paid high progressive taxes. They may have complained, but they didn't suffer all that much. We need to tax wealth to prevent it from growing into a weed that disrupts social harmony.

Lastly, a Hands-On effort to balance our economy will work faster and more efficiently than an Invisible Hand ever will. Yet we need to be cautious. The Soviet planned economy didn't work well. It might work better today because of our abundance of internet driven consumer data. Still, we shouldn't attempt it. When Capitalism excels it 's because competing businesses create innovation. Innovation stops happening when companies grow too large. We need to encourage innovation and that means more entrepreneurs and fewer corporate monoliths.

But we won't have more entrepreneurs without the right economic conditions. While many entrepreneurs start with little capital, they can't start at all if they live from one paycheck to the next. Universal Basic Income (UBI), or similar stimulus programs could allow people to take entrepreneurial  risks without risking everything. Larger organizations could receive government startup funding. A helping economy unleashing creativity and innovation is what we need to reverse climate change and restore American prosperity.

V.O Diedlaff is author of, We Can Fix It: Reclaiming the American Dream.