Category Archives: Axel Thinks

First World Problems

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“My question to Bernie Sanders supporters: When someone in Bangladesh observes your lifestyle, it seems as incredible to them as that of the 1% seems to you. Why are they not entitled to help themselves to your things, the way you consider yourself morally entitled to help yourself to the goods of the American rich? In your answer, avoid moral irrelevancies like national borders; can we tolerate inequality just because it’s cross-border?
Extra credit: Take a picture of yourself divesting yourself of most of your goods in the name of global equality.” – Tom Woods

“It is utterly clear to me that the highest priority need of world society at the present moment is a realistic economic accounting system which will rectify, for instance, such nonsense as the fact that a top toolmaker in India, the highest paid of all craftsmen, gets only as much per month for his work in India as he could earn per day for the same work if he were employed in Detroit, Michigan.” – Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth – Buckminster Fuller

“You’ve got simultaneous epidemics of obesity and starvation. Explain that one!” – Nix (Tomorrowland)

One of the biggest complaints I hear from people is about “Our jobs going overseas.” This frustrates me to no end. The facts are if your job is exportable then you do not own the job. Who does your check come from? If you are not the owner/operator of the company, you haven’t created your job. If you didn’t create the job then it is not yours to complain that it is leaving. Complaining about things like that show a small view, not a world view.

People who complain about “their jobs” leaving are also probably the same people who complain about paying taxes and complain excessively about whichever political group that opposes their group. They are also likely people who complain excessively about not having enough money, because they are complainers. These types of people will complain about literally anything that comes their way. They are complainers, not doers.

The funny thing about these people is that they will make a big point about “buying American” verbally but if you look around their house I bet most of the stuff is NOT made in America. They will complain that it’s too hard to check everything they buy. I would say if they took all the time they spent complaining about it and took some action to fix it, they wouldn’t have the “problem” as they see it.

The facts are that exporting of jobs allows us to have the material wealth we do. We don’t look at the harsh conditions in other countries. We are totally inwardly focused. If you are reading this your life must be pretty damn good. You have access to internet which means that you likely have access to running water and readily available food. You are also likely covered by some type of health insurance. Perhaps it’s a little expensive. Perhaps you can’t even afford a new Cadillac because you are paying to much for health insurance. That sounds tough. The fact is you aren’t likely dying from one of the Neglected Tropical Diseases or goiters.

If we are going to really waste our time being outrage about something it should be the fact that people are dying in other parts of the world while we drive Cadillacs to get our $5 lattes and complain that we have “high taxes” while watching football every Sunday.

On a more positive note according to  Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth in 2001 1.1 billion of 6.1 billion (18%) people lived in extreme poverty whereas in 1981 1.5 billion of 4.4 billion (34%) people in the world were in extreme poverty. The positive note here is that there are fewer people in poverty now and the percent is also lower.

I see poverty as the biggest problem in the world because of all the things that derive from it. Setting a strict definition of poverty is tough but determining the effects of poverty is not as difficult.

The worst poverty is poverty of the mind, which is what I would say people who complain about “our jobs being shipped overseas” suffer from. To assume a victim mentality will assure that you stay in your current position. The poorest of the poor also suffer from poverty of the mind, but this is because of a lack of access to mentally stimulating materials as well as their focus on surviving! It’s hard to plan for your future when you are starving.

While we are debating our higher taxes or the “crazy” gun laws we feel the government is trying to put on us, we are neglecting the the 21,000-50,000 people who die each day due to starvation in the world. That’s 3x-6x as many as die in the USA each day from all causes!

So that’s my rant for the day #FirstWorldProblems

Powerball

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“Some people are so poor all they have is money.” – Bob Marley (or Abe Lincoln, the internet will never know)

The Powerball is up to it’s highest ever, $1.3 billion or so, and people are going nuts! If you look to history you will find plenty of lottery winners and others who have come to money and fame fast (sports stars, rock stars, etc), who crash and burn and sometimes even die from the stresses and bad decisions that stem from large life changes like that.

Why does this happen? My belief is poor planning. This could have happened to these people at anytime but getting money only accelerated the inevitable. Money is a tool just like anything else and if you view money as more than a tool, if you worship it, or just about anything else, it can destroy you. The way I see of getting around this? Sort out life before you win any money. If you already have a positive relationship with money, getting a lot of it shouldn’t affect you. Many of us have a bad relationship with money, some of us just are able to avoid consequences because we make enough to avoid issues but not enough to cause bigger issues. Some of us don’t make enough to get ourselves into issues. Although most of us won’t win a million or a billion bucks in our lifetimes, it will still be valuable to think about what your goals and aspirations and work toward those. With that attitude you will feel like you’ve won the lottery everyday, that’s how I feel, most days.

There’s been a meme going around that the Powerball split among everyone in the USA would yield $4.33 million per person, which I’m pretty sure was a super clever marketing stunt by a guy to grow his exposure to the world, good work on that dude. What it really comes out to is $4.33/ person in the USA. We all scoff at that, but there are places where that’d be enough to feed some for a week or more! Think about that next time you are buying your $5 latte.

One thing that excites me each day is that I get to be the lottery to other families. I sponsor children via Children International. It’s a pretty interesting program that does what it says below:

Taken right from their website:

Your monthly sponsorship gift of $32 will change your child’s life! Sponsorship will provide them with:

 

  • Medical and Dental Care
  • Educational Support
  • Family Assistance
  • Emergency Food as Needed
  • Clothes, Shoes and More!

 

You get a letter every few months from the children and can read more about them on the website if you care to. My specific children, in the Philippines, belong to a family that lives on $100 a month! So to give them $32/month is basically like winning the lottery to them, every month! How much cooler is that than winning the lottery yourself? And you can do it for only the cost of 6 lattes a month!

The last letter I got from a boy who’s about 5 said that he wanted to be an architect when he grew up and he even drew me a picture of a house. I am really hoping that I can help support that dream for him, for less than a cup of coffee each day for me. 

Somebody could win the Powerball today (It’s Wednesday as I’m writing this so I guess that means numbers are drawn, I just learned that today (Tuesday as I’m writing this)) But remember, you could make it like someone won the Powerball also and you probably won’t miss the $32/month.

Enough

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“Some people are so poor all they have is money.” – Bob Marley (or Abe Lincoln, the internet will never know)

I was having lunch with some colleagues at work today. Of 6 people, 2 had done PhD work and the rest held Bachelor’s degrees, engineers and computer science folks. A few were talking about how they were in the wrong business and they wanted to get into something where they made more money. They decided that $300,000 a year was a place they could feel comfortable at. I almost fell out of my seat!

I am a mechanical engineer in the midwest I keep my expenses relatively low and I have a pretty good paying job, although nowhere near $300,000 a year.

I started the year with 3 concrete goals.

  1. Save $100,000 in my retirements accounts (cumulative, not this year alone!)
  2. Get a mentor
  3. Do 100 push ups a day

There are more but I haven’t structured them well enough to be shared yet.

Of the above I am already thinking about if the first one, have $100,000 in retirement account by the end of the year is a useful one or not.
I am 26 years old.

Having already saved between my 401K (pre tax), ROTH IRA (post tax, limit $5500/year) and HSA (Health Savings account) $75,000 as of Jan 1, 2015 I would have to save $25,000 to reach $100,000 by the end of the year. Now that is do-able but I am starting to question if that is a good goal or not.

If you have looked at anything I have done in the past you will see that I like to project forward. Here is how to “Retire A Millionaire, The Easy Way”.

Using the various numbers I already calculated from there (7% growth a year, 3% inflation) and the $75,000 I already have invested, that puts me at $1,049,612 at 65 years old (39 years from now), yielding $72,420 a year (at 7%) which is equivalent to $22,866 a year in 2015 dollars. Now if I was getting $23,000 a year for free what would I be doing? Probably anything I wanted! (This is before social security, assuming it’s still around).

You would calculate a future value using the below equation.

FV = PV*(1+r)^t

FV = future value of lump sum  

PV = future value of lump sum ($75,000)

r = interest rate per period  (7% = .07)

t = number of compounding periods (39 years)

FV = 75,000*(1+.07)^39 = $1,049,612

I’m a millionaire! time to start living like it!
Of course this equation is making plenty of assumptions based on the numbers I put in. Last year certainly did not return 7%, but again, referring to the previous article, there is good reason to assume 7% average over the long term.

This makes me question why I would even put any more in my retirement account? It already seems that I have enough! Now I will continue putting money in retirement accounts as long as I can not think of any other ways to invest it, certainly don’t take this as me telling YOU to stop investing in your retirement!

The next question is why do people live the way they do?
Do people really understand the simple math I laid out above and in my other article about how to calculate future and present worth?
Do people understand how to calculate a return?
Do people understand inflation?

Now I certainly don’t live like a king. I have monthly expenses of about $1200 and drive a used (2007) Prius. It’s reliable. Having taken the time to learn about finances from The Crazy Man In The Pink Wig and understanding the answers to the questions I asked above, I am very confident. I’d suggest you read one of his books, preferable “What Color Is The Sky?” I’d even purchase and mail it to you as I have done for many others, if you like. (Drop an email at hooglandaxel@gmail.com, or comment below!)

That all being said, back to the thought of enough. What does that mean? I guess each person has to figure that out for themselves, but it’s certainly something we should perhaps put a bit more thought into than we often do!

What is your “enough” number?
If you want to talk to me about what is enough, comment or drop me an email.

The Unabomber Manifesto – A Book Review

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“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ― Aristotle

I read “Industrial Society & It’s Future” also knows as “The Unabomber Manifesto” in 6 days in December 2015. It is not a very long book, only 79 pages.

It was written by Ted Kaczynski, also known as The Unabomber for his attacks on Universities and Airlines with homemade bombs between 1978 and 1995.

Ted Kaczynski wrote (p16) “we consider lack of opportunity to properly experience the power process as the most important of the abnormal conditions to which modern society subjects people.”

He believed providing for our own basic needs, water, food, shelter satisfied some “power process” in us. If we didn’t have that power process satisfied we would turn to “surrogate activities” which often lead to creation of technologies that he believed lead to a reduction in the need for people having to provide their own basic needs. It is a never ending circle of people being less worried about what they had to do to survive turning to activities to make us feel as though we were in control of something.

A surrogate activity could be literally anything that does not contribute to our immediate survival including sports, writing blogs!, any viewing of television, fancy clothes, basically every industry or hobby you can think of would be under attack in his mind.. He specifically mentions the irony of the obsession of many of working out by saying “there is no practical motive for building enormous muscles”  (p27) as well as pointing to our fear of death by saying “It is not the primitive man, who has used his body daily for practical purposes, who fears the deterioration of age, but the modern man, who has never has a practical use for his body beyond walking from his car to his house.” (p25)

I do find this quite personally relevant. I went through a phase of working out in 2012 where lifting heavy weights was one of the only important things to me. I got big. But what did it yield me? Not much but potentially a micro tear in my left shoulder. Examination by a doctor has been inconclusive as to the cause of constant dull pain, but as everything is still working more or less fine, life continues on. The foolishness that lead to that situation though is one of the problems with modern society that Ted Kaczynski was pointing to while writing this book.

On page 30 Ted shares his definition of freedom “the opportunity to go through the power process, with real goals, not the artificial goals of surrogate activities, and without interference, manipulation or supervision from anyone.”

It is difficult for me to determine what he feels is a “real goal”. The only reason people see developed technology as a goal in the first place was to help them meet their “real goals” and we can agree that technology has succeeded in that endeavor, at least in the “rich world”. Now the proliferation of that technology to those who are disadvantaged should be our top goal or surrogate activity, if you consult myself or Buckminster Fuller.  

“Make the world work,
for 100% of humanity,
in the shortest possible time,
through spontaneous cooperation,
without ecological offense
or the disadvantage of anyone.”

  • Buckminster Fuller

My own goal for the world:

Our biggest goal for the world should be providing security to each person, the security to prosper independently or in collaboration with each other. People should get the opportunity to seek any position they desire. There will be people who don’t reach their goals but the fact that they got the opportunity to try is the important thing. – Axel Hoogland

Of note to the above should be that we should be allowed, as a society, to vet the goals of others, just a little bit, to determine that it’s not directly harmful to the rest of society. This is usually what wars arise from and this is where government regulations come in. For example: ISIS should not be free to try to reach their goal on world domination and imposing their form of Sharia Law on everyone. Also the car companies are restricted on emissions of greenhouse gases because it has been determined to be harmful to society at large. I think it’s obvious what I mean when saying that people should have the opportunity to seek positions such as engineer, doctor or policeman, unencumbered by the social or financial position they were born into. I believe we have a lot of systems in place to help these people already but those can always be improved and should be relentlessly.

Ted Kaczynski is not an idiot. In fact he is literally a genius having graduated from Harvard at 20 and receiving a PhD from the University of Michigan after that.

The irony of his situation is that his crusade to destroy all technology was in itself a surrogate activity of the type that he deplored.

In the rest of the book he explores some very advanced concepts, the kind which “normal” people give very little thought to, being absorbed in surrogate activities. On page 40 he says “If you think that big government interferes in your life too much NOW, just wait till the government starts regulating the genetic constitution of your children.” The possibility of this level of genetic engineering is moving closer and closer to reality. A page later he says “each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable.” (P42). This is a very real thought and one that we need to consider when developing any new technologies. Who will regulate them? That is why if you are really concerned about that you should work to attain positions of power in the government such that you can affect the regulation. If you can’t, you should at least be reasonably engaged in correspondence with your governmental representative. We in the USA have a strange relationship with the government. It seems we are always distrustful of “the government”. We are sure they are out to get us. That sort of thinking is just useless at best and damaging at worst. Perhaps we all need to go back to the words of JFK.

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. John F. Kennedy

Another idea that Ted Kaczinski discusses is the thought of “The Singularity”.

“The Singularity is an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today—the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity. – From “The Singularity Is Near” by Ray Kurzweil.

Although Kaczinski doesn’t mention it by that name, he describes it thus, on technology “it would presumably advance towards its logical conclusion, which is complete control over everything on Earth, including human beings and all other important organisms.” For a less negative take on The Singularity I recommend the long book “The Singularity Is Near” by Ray Kurzweil.

On page 60 he says “We can imagine a future society in which there is endless competition for positions of prestige and power.”  If that doesn’t describe our current society, I don’t know what would. But there are plenty of rays of hope for our future in both religious and nonreligious people. I am just finishing a book called Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne which discusses the drive by some religious to live with the poor and downtrodden instead of apart from them. There is also the book “Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth” by Buckminster Fuller which shares a vision of the world in which none are suffering.

I would encourage everyone to read The Unabomber Manifesto and consider what surrogate activities you are working towards and why and how you could apply your free time to a better future for all as opposed to just yourself. As an alternative to the future envisioned by Ted Kaczynski, I would recommend reading “Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think” which lays out ways in which technology, rather than destroying our future, will build it better than we could ever imagine.

World Goal

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“No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower

Another version

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

Since it’s a near year the topic of New Year’s Resolutions might be on some people’s minds but if you are serious about attaining your goals you won’t wait for an arbitrary start date. You should set them as soon as you are able to articulate them and get started.  What are your goals? If you ask most people this question they probably won’t have a very good answer. In fact I do not have perfect goals set at this point but I am developing them.

Since it seems the next 11 months will be filled with politics I can also link that in here. Politicians are really just running on what their goals are. Unfortunately they all seem to have very vague goals. Politicians are generally focused on getting elected which is just a popularity contest. As some scientists are seeming to discover, people are not smart enough for democracy to work and it doesn’t seem as if any of Plato’s Philosopher Kings are in our future.  

Our biggest goal for the world should be providing security to each person, the security to prosper independently or in collaboration with each other. People should get the opportunity to seek any position they desire. There will be people who don’t reach their goals but the fact that they got the opportunity to try is the important thing.

On a positive note according to  Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth in 2001 1.1 billion of 6.1 billion (18%) people lived in extreme poverty whereas in 1981 1.5 billion of 4.4 billion (34%) people in the world were in extreme poverty. The positive note here is that there are fewer people in poverty now and the percent is also lower.

This is a good start but it also seems to be slow progress to me. I believe with more dedication on our part (the rich of the world and if you are reading this on a computer and live in the US you can consider yourself rich, check the Global Rich List if you think you aren’t)  we could help others prosper much quicker, certainly before the end of my lifetime (which should be over 50 years) but hopefully in 20 years or less (that’s my specific goal).

Sure this is a large goal and it’s much larger than any one person. The good news is we aren’t in this alone. We are all in this together. Let’s take the historic example of another seemingly incredible goal with a short deadline, going to the moon.

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” – JFK

See the power of a goal? A problem is if we don’t know where we are, we can’t know where we are going. Most people are so wrapped up in the day to day of their lives. For some this is imperative. They have to worry about where their next meal will come from. For others their daily worry is how their stock market holdings will play out or how soon they can buy their next car or see their next movie or their upcoming vacation. Which group are you in?

The good news is that as shown above, we are on a good path and just by looking around you will see that education is pervading. You can learn more today for free than you could ever learn in the past, even if you traveled the whole world. There are free classes online from MIT. There are channels dedicated to teaching on a more fun level. There is also Wikipedia.

There are also plenty of local, national and international organizations dedicated to helping others escape the cycle of poverty. The sad thing is that these organizations are often underfunded. It’s more fun to play with cars (my own personal vice) or other things, than spend your time helping other.

It is only by bringing our collective brain power to bear on the challenges of those who have not that we can bring the whole of society forward.

My 2015 In Review

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I have started to be very interested in S.M.A.R.T. goals. S.M.A.R.T. being an acronym which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time- bound.

As I am working to set goals for the rest of my life and for 2016 in particular I thought it’d be a great exercise to look back at 2015 and see what happened and what I already have achieved.

A year is a long time. In January 2015 I was still in my first position working for John Deere which was working on engines. I had been looking for a new position since about May 2014. I had applied for a position in December 2014 with the Ag department but had run into some roadblocks in the organization. I interviewed for a few more positions between January and April . In April learned that the technicalities were fixed and I was able to be offered the position I had interviewed for in December. I started my new position May 1st 2015.

I was part of the University of Northern Iowa competition ballroom dance team from Sept 2014 to May 2015. March 8th, 2015 I was completing the 2nd amateur (newbie) dance competition I was involved in. This took place in Minnesota. It was a great experience where I was able to learn how to ballroom dance and complete in 3 competitions total. Two in Minnesota and one in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Learning a new skill has been very fun. I was able to dance at quite a few weddings and it’s something that people are quite surprised by. Growing up being a wrestler and car guy and mechanical engineer this was not something many people saw coming. Truthfully I hadn’t seen it coming myself. Way back in early 2014 I think or maybe even late 2013 a friend asked me to go dancing one time and it stuck.

Between January and March I took the transmission out of my 1987 Monte Carlo SS. I replaced the front and rear seals. I also ended up fixing the transmission cooling lines as well as replacing my power steering pump and hoses. All those things were leaking. For the first time in 11 years of ownership of that car nothing seems to be leaking.

In April a dirt bike was stolen from the back of my truck which prompted this post.

At the end of April I participated in the “Financial LIteracy Test” sponsored/created by Mike Finley. The top 10 people won a total of $100,000 ranging from $1000 for 10th to $25,000 for first place. I did not win any of the money but I learned a lot about finances from reading both of Mike Finley’s books this year as well as various discussions I’ve had with the man this year. Through this I was able to recognize that starting a ROTH IRA was probably a good idea for me. I was able to put in $5500 (max year contribution) for 2014 before April 2015 (catch up period) as well as fully funding my 2015 ($5500). I have also started saving for my 2016 contribution and hope to have that funded in early 2016. That will allow me to start saving in other vehicles or giving more. In April I did my own taxes using Turbotax instead of paying to get them done like I did the 2 previous years.

In my interest to continue to be more efficient in my living, I cut my living expenses dramatically (for 6 months) by getting  a roommate. He has moved on and gotten married (which I’m very happy for him) but again I need to look for a roommate.

In June I rebuilt the engine in my Honda bobber, put it back in the motorcycle and eventually resynced the carbs and it ran super.

Books can take you anywhere!

In 2015 I read 37 books and listened to 21 audio books as of November 15th 2015. The list can be found here. This has been a wonderful experience. It has opened my world to many different experiences that I wouldn’t otherwise have.  We all have one life to live but via books we can gain a whole person’s life’s accumulation of knowledge about subjects as varied as launching early NASA space shuttles, Lucid Dreaming, Financial Literacy, Religion, Atheism and the future of the world.

I visited 11 different churches with my church. We would visit them 1x a month, usually the 2nd weekend of the month. Sometime it’d be a saturday (7th Day Adventists and Muslims) 1-11-2015 -Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), 2-8-2015 Sunday – Universal Unitarians, 4-11-2015 – Mosque, Waterloo IA,  5-9-2015 Saturday – 7th Day Adventist Church in Waterloo, IA, 6-21-2015 Sunday – Trinity Bible Church, 7-12-2015 Sunday – First Church of Christ – Scientist, Cedar Falls, IA, 8-9-2015 Sunday – Greenhill Baptist Church, Cedar Falls, IA, 9-13-2015 Sunday – Mt. Carmel Missionary Baptist Church, Waterloo, IA, 10-11-2015 Sunday – St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, Waterloo, IA, 11-8-2015 Candeo Church, Waterloo IA. This has also been a wonderful eye-opening experience. I have approached each service with a sense of curiosity of what I will find there. What is similar to my usual services (Catholic)? What is different? Why do they believe what they do? I have met many great people and learned that we all could likely learn a bit more from knowing our neighbors better.

I have continued mentoring 2 brothers via The Job Foundation (TJF). I have also been able to help out there in other capacities from making lesson plans to providing supervision at large group events. What TJF does is provide financial literacy training to many kids who would otherwise not get it (which is really all kids!) These kids are given a few lessons throughout the school year as well as they are rewarded with Conditional Cash Transfers. They get paid to get good grades. Over half of the money is put into a savings account that is inaccessible to the kids until they graduate high school. The rest they are empowered to spend, save or donate as they see fit, giving them the opportunity to make real decisions.  If you’d like to make a 1 time or recurring donation please contact us here.


Around march 2015 I started volunteering at Cedar Valley Gearheads. “Our mission is to provide safe, reliable vehicles at no cost to those most in need in the Cedar Valley.” I have really enjoyed working on vehicles there and the few opportunities I have had to interact with the people receiving cars. I was recently voted in as Vice President for this group and am looking forward to helping them grow as an organization that does even more good in the coming year. If you’d like to make a 1 time or recurring donation please contact us here.

I learned a lot about electricity and it’s future applications via presentations at the Waterloo Technical Society. They give presentations about various topics. Three I went to were about a residential solar project, a Tesla S owner and the UNI power plant operation. Summaries can be found here. I was also able to sign up for some shares of the Cedar Falls Simple Solar project which allows people to  purchase and get the benefits of solar panels without having to maintain them or have them on their land even. It’s a community solar garden. How neat is that?

Along with that interest in electricity I was also investigating it for transportation. I found a very cool website www.EValbum.com. I had been talking with friends about building an electric bicycle for months and later an electric motorcycle. I finally just bit the bullet and bought the parts for the e-bike. I assembled it all for about $620 ($300 bike, $200 tire, $120 batteries) and was able to ride it around some. It is 1000 watts which is about 1.3 horsepower. It will go 29mph when fully charged. The one time I tried to get a max distance it went 10 miles averaging 18-20 mph. Not bad! I have since found many options for production electric bikes that seem a pretty good value.

ebike

Another bike and efficiency related thing I picked up in early 2015 was riding to get actual places I needed to go. I started by biking to dancing lessons at UNI. It’s only a mile. After that first short ride I was ecstatic. I was so jacked to bike more. I started biking down to main street and out to Gearheads. It finally ended with me biking to work about 6 times this year (45 minute bike ride). I was even up early enough one day to see Jupiter still in the sky at 5:30 in the morning. What a treat!

In my increased desire for efficiency in 2015 I took the step and actually sold a vehicle! My 2007 Mustang GT. While I enjoyed the car while I had it I kept thinking I needed more power. I asked myself what I’d actually do with a more powerful street car? I finally talked myself into selling it. I have more recently been considering a Toyota Prius or a Chevrolet Volt. My car buddies will be shocked or sickened to even hear those things coming out of my mouth but reading and learning about others has given me some appreciation of the fact that there might be more important things out there than me driving a fast inefficient car. All that being said, in my latest set of life goals I am still targeting owning a Lamborghini by the time I’m 30. Of course, we could all have self driving vehicles in the next 4 years so that might already be an obsolete dream. Who knows?

I was also lucky enough to stand up in 1 wedding, usher 2 and attend 3 more.

All of that seems to be a fairly thorough review of my 2015. Looking back, it was a great year. One of the things that I think contributed greatly was my renewed interest in informal learning through constant curiosity. Now looking forward I am working to set goals for 2016 for myself as well as set comprehensive life goals. I will hopefully share some of those in the future.

What did you do in 2015?
What do you hope to do in 2016?

Charity And Jesus

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You may have heard of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There’s another day you might want to know about: Giving Tuesday. The idea is pretty straightforward. On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, shoppers take a break from their gift-buying and donate what they can to charity. Bill Gates

I wanted to think about charities a bit as I am involved in quite a few. The whole basis of a charity is to help someone else. Some charities are (low) paid positions. Some are completely volunteer. Some are paid an actual living wage. Listen to this TED talk about charity if you have time. He talks about thinking about the salaries of CEO’s in non-profit vs. for profit companies. I especially like this question “Why is it ok to make tons of money not helping people but if we want to make a little money spending time doing something that does help people that is looked down on?” (paraphrased).

I believe each of us should make it our goal to work the government out of the “charity” business as much as we can. I believe the role of the government should solely be to provide security for it’s citizens, whoever they may be. If people are free to go about their business not harming anyone that would be a wonderful society. The government has to keep people from starving, as that is a part of providing security. This is a wonderful idea, in theory. Unfortunately in practice there can be people who will exploit this system so they never have to work in their lives or work very little. They are abusing the system. This is unfortunate and I don’t believe that most people who receive that help are in that situation. I have faith that most of humanity is “good people” who honestly want to work and get ahead. We should all recognize that. We should also all work to help those who need help as much as possible.

I listened to a speaker at a church recently. He was a missionary, meaning he went to other parts of the world to “Share the good news of Jesus”. I don’t completely understand what his exact message was to those people as there are many Christian sects and they all preach a little different stuff. The part of the story that really was touching to me was after their mission left and they had spent 2 years teaching people about Jesus, then the locals started a bunch of outreach missionaries such as providing food to the needy. Now people will say “Look at the great things these people who were taught about Jesus are doing now”. I believe that one aspect of religion is that it allows us to be vulnerable without being completely vulnerable. We always have something to drop back on, to say “Well that wasn’t totally me that was religious me.” To protect our strength if someone wanted to joke about our vulnerability. I also think a lot of people feel like they need permission to do good. They don’t feel they have any authority. I believe that part of what the missionary gave these people was a purpose and some authority. I wonder if the missionary had come in saying “We should work tirelessly to love others.” If that would have gotten the people to work towards helping each other quicker.

Another aspect of charity is that we are told we aren’t supposed to brag about giving to charities. That is supposed to be a personal and humble experience. If we give to charities but then go telling others about it that is not being very humble. I think part of the issue with this is the bible verse
Matthew 6:1-4
Giving to the Needy
1. “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2. “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4. so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Maybe we could announce it just a little? Maybe that would encourage others to follow the lead? Much like the opening thought about CEO salaries for non-profit vs. for profit, I pose the question “Why is it OK to tell others how much money you have by purchasing expensive houses/cars/etc but it’s not OK to discuss how much you are helping others?” Why is that the “bad” thing? We need to get out of the cycle of being negative when others are expressing their pursuits of helping others.

To provide a few things to think about I want to ask:

How much are you giving to charity? Both time and money are valuable. Honestly time is perhaps more important as it will help you realize how much you really have. It will eventually inspire more monetarily giving once you understand the organizations you are giving to.

The second question I wanted to pose was in response to my continued struggles with “the followers of Jesus” in a general sense, not towards any one denomination. Do you think it is more important that others know about Jesus or that others are provided with security? I believe that a lot of “believers in Christ” think that it is their duty to spread the name of Jesus so others can say the magic words “I believe in Jesus” and thus be “saved for eternity”. I am personally thinking along the lines of “If there is an all powerful and loving God he should be more than capable of taking care of our eternity. We should be more worried about acting like Jesus to others here, helping them prosper on this earth and extending their lives and making them better in the here and now.” I would argue that if you are more worried about people’s eternity you aren’t actually showing your faith, you are showing your lack of faith because you are still worried about eternity. I want to end as much suffering on this earth while I am here.

The reason all this ties together is that I am arguing that there shouldn’t be any such things as a religious charity that is focused on “saving people for eternity”. We should be more focused on helping others here and if they happen to ask we can mention our true motivations for helping them, if it’s really not just because you love them as fellow human beings.

This brings up one more situation related to Jesus and charities and non-profits. Many non-profits are religious based and are dedicated to spreading the name of Jesus, even in places that it might be dangerous to people’s lives to even know about Jesus, much less believe in him! Do you think it’s more important that people believe in Jesus in this life or that they are provided security here? I believe that if we really care about others we should be more worried about working to provide them a safe environment that they can then develop beliefs in instead of pushing our religion on others and then praising their bravery as they are killed for believing something we introduced them to.

What do you think?

The Most Important Thing

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In the intro to “Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth” Buckminster Fuller’s granddaughter recalls a car ride that he asked her “What is the most important thing we can be thinking about right now?”

Here is the list of things that I thought of off the top of my head that are I am trying to determine if they are important. I think most of them are but how to decide “the most important”? I’ve probably started writing about half of these but often I find there is something else I thought was more important to write about at that time or I reached a point where I wasn’t sure what I thought about it.

How to help Syrian Refugees?
Can I “adopt” a refugee?
How to stop abortions?
How to stop senseless violence?
How to stop people from shooting each other in Waterloo, IA (where I live)?
How to effectively guide the charity I just became vice president of?
How what is my 5 year plan?
What are my life goals?
Will I ever get married?
Do I want to get married?
Why do I want to get married?
Can I more effectively “fix the world” if I’m single?
How much should I save in my 401k and how much should I invest in people?
Should I buy an electric car?
Should I sell all my “toys” and donate that money to some charity?
Should I buy a house?
What book do I want to write?
Why do I want to write a book?
Why do I spend so much time writing this blog stuff?
What is my purpose in life?
How do I be a better older brother?
Do I want to start my own company?
What would that company even do?
How do I help those less fortunate than myself?
How do I start a company that I enjoy working at, helps the world and makes money (self sustains).
What am I really passionate about?
Should I go back to college for more school or should I just learn by doing in life?
Is there a God?
If there is why is everyone telling me about their own different god’s and acting like some of them are the same god when it’s pretty obvious to me they are different?
How do I politely ask people about beliefs of theirs that I think are ridiculous?
Is it ok to be selfish sometimes?
Is it better to try to be a politician to change the world or do it outside politics?
Is it selfish to have your own kids?
Why are most Christians so obsessed with the bible but they don’t seem to remember that Paul said it is better to be single like he was?
Why do Jews have so many laws but try so hard to get around them?
Why do so many Christians leaders (pastors etc) preach “following the Bible” but forget that Paul had a full time job outside of preaching about Jesus?
How do I love more and judge less?
Should I listen when people are negative or tell them to just change their attitude and that will change their circumstances?
Instead of converting people to Christianity in places where that belief could get them killed why don’t Christians work to change the laws of that country or work to get people out of that country?
How do you motivate people to improve their situation?
What is the situation in other countries for labor? I hear about factories in China, Afghanistan, where people are paid very little and there are still effectively “company stores”. Are those true? If so how do we stop those practices?
How does my purchase of cheap stuff from other countries affect the above?
How do we expose people to the “very poor” and get them motivated to help those people?
Would religions be more effective helping people if they were less worried about pushing their doctrine on others?
What makes me happy?
What makes others happy?
What does it mean to be happy?
Is there an afterlife?
How do we store energy so we can use renewable but not consistent power sources like wind and solar?
When will the Chinese people become sick of restrictive laws like the 1 child policy and the conditions of the factories I mentioned above and have a large revolution?
How do we stop child sex trafficking, both in the USA and in the rest of the world?
Is it selfish to lift weights and eat a lot of protein and generally “be huge” while some people starve? I am not trying to be critical of people who lift weights. I am just generally interested in why we don’t help others more. This is also asked above in the 401K vs Charity question. I think about “Is this action selfish” a lot.
Why is promiscuous sexuality so stigmatized as a sin in Christian churches while obesity (gluttony) is not?
“You’ve got simultaneous epidemics of obesity and starvation. Explain that one! – Nix (Tomorrowland – movie)

What do you think is the most important thing you could be thinking about today?

Religion, Love And Relationships

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What seemed to happen is that I became…
Less interested in religion and more interested in life
Less interested in doctrine and more interested in truth
Less interested in piety and more interested in love
Less interested in heaven and more interested in peace
Less interested in hell and more interested in suffering
Less interested in church  and more interested in people

  • Jim Palmer

I’ve been experiencing growing discontent with “religion” in a general sense lately. A lot of this has come from engaging those of various religions. While I do get a lot of enjoyment from understanding other’s beliefs I also find a lot of judgement.

I don’t like it.

I don’t like when people imply that I might be going to hell for not believing exactly what they believe, regardless of the actual number of people they would be condemning by making those accusations. Usually it’s a LOT since there are so many different denominations.  No wonder people are sick of Christians. I was raised Christian (of the Catholic variety) and really didn’t know much else until late in my college career. Now the more Christians I talk to the more I find that they all think each other are completely wrong. Why would someone listen to any Christian when they’d have to pick from 30,000 different interpretations of the same story?

When I dug for an answer to the question “What do you have to do to go to heaven?” I received various responses, generally centered around “Believe in Jesus. Actions are useless.”

When I asked if you had to be baptized I got various answers ranging from yes to no. Same with receive the Eucharist/communion or going to reconciliation/confession. Prayer didn’t show up as a requirement to often either.

I also found that a lot of the above things weren’t bringing a ton of enjoyment to my life.

I was told by at least 3 followers of their respective (different) religions to “try it and see if it works for you”. If that’s the best you got I’m not buying! “If it works” is a very subjective measuring stick for anything. Kim Jung Un would say that his ruling of North Korea is working for him but few people would say it’s the right thing to do. I say few because there are some people that have argued with me that he’s doing a good thing, or at least that it’s not bad!

I looked around and found that what I was really missing was love. I didn’t truly love others. I knew others. I liked some people, but I didn’t really love them. I didn’t act like I loved them and I certainly didn’t think I loved them. I remembered the following quote that I read one time.

“When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.” C.S. Lewis

Maybe “trying it” would work for this? It has! Now I’m not saying that I perfectly love everyone I meet, or even do it particularly well. What I am able to do is ask myself everyday why I didn’t love the people I encountered that day.

It is sort of difficult today to walk around loving others. Especially if you are a single guy. Depending on who you are talking to it can be seen as unwanted advances or perceived as an advance when it’s not meant to be. For people who the age gap is big enough, it can come off as you are trying to get something from them or take advantage in some other was.

What I’ve found is it’s difficult to love people if you don’t know them. To know people takes time, time most of us don’t think we have. I often ask myself how I am showing love to the people I already know. Often I find that I’m lacking in that area. If I don’t love people I already know how can I love people I don’t know? Seems like that’d be pretty difficult.

On getting to know people, that is another place where I see religion being misused. People will meet someone and assume they know them if they practice the same religion. They will feel safer around that person. I understand why. As I said above, we all think we don’t have any time to “waste” getting to know someone we aren’t sure about, if they do some of the same things we do certainly they are more like us than those who don’t go to the same church every week. This often leads to people only having a very small group of likeminded friends. This is a dangerous practice as pointed out in “Reasonable Atheism” by Scott F. Aikin & Robert. B Talisse

“Groups of like-minded people who discuss their common views tend to unwittingly radicalize – they cause each other to adopt more extreme beliefs.” P36

If that doesn’t describe many religions and denominations I don’t know what does. Here the thought of a radical belief doesn’t necessarily have to be that everyone else is the devil, but it often does manifest in “Everyone else is wrong and only we have the Truth.”

At one time, I would ask others what they believed so I could tell them the truth of what I believed. I am slowly working to break that habit. These days, if I ask what you believe it’s not because I want to convert you to what I believe. I legitimately just want to know what you believe and why. I can see why people would be suspicious though as many people  are still in the same mindset I was and ask only to share their own judgemental beliefs. Once you do share your beliefs with me I will ask some pointed questions that might offend you a little, depending on how thick your skin is. I will do that only to get you thinking though, not to be actually offensive. It is to really get to know you and perhaps to help you know yourself.

With that background laid, I ask you the following questions.

Have you really been living like Jesus (If you are a Christian and are telling others how they need to be living like Jesus.) To get thinking about this more I highly recommend the book “Being Jesus In Nashville” By Jim Palmer (quoted at the beginning of this article).As usual, if anyone actually reads this and wants me to buy the the book just let me know and I will! hooglandaxel@gmail.com

For those non-Christians (who likely don’t care about being like Jesus), I just ask you to recognize your group of friends. Are you unintentionally (or intentionally!) self-radicalizing? If so what? Is it a reasonable position? How can you find someone who holds differing views from you? What can you learn from them?

For everyone I ask, how are you maintaining the relationships you have? Are you truly sharing love? Who are you neglecting?

If we all took some time to think about these types of questions more I think the world would be a better place.

Elevate Your Thinking

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“Jaime, we have half an hour now during this drive. What’s the most important thing we can be thinking about?”- Buckminster Fuller

The opening quote for this post was posed by Buckminster Fuller to his granddaughter, obviously during a car ride. I lifted it off of page 1 of “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth” by Buckminster Fuller (actually it’s part of the foreward by his granddaughter), which I will buy and send to your house if you tell me you’ll read it! (email me at hooglandaxel@gmail.com). What a powerful question! How would you answer a question like that? Have you ever even been asked something like that?

I have been on a quest for truth since well before this blog was started but I feel the quest has been ever quickening as I try to write more and more opinionated pieces for this blog explaining the world as I know it to others. Trying to explain things is quite the humbling act as it really is true the more you learn, the more you learn how little you really know.

That is not to say that learning is a fruitless act, far from it!
Some of the mysteries I have been bumping into though get to sounding downright mystical. This has been a real challenge for my analytical mind.

What is Love?
What is Truth?
Why do some people turn into murders while some are artists and engineers? Why are some people both!
Is there a God? If so, is he the God that is preached by any of the hundreds of branches of each religion or have they all missed the mark in some aspects?
How do I most effectively move the world forward in a positive direction?
How do I even determine if my actions are actually positive or negative!?!?!
Why do I think negatively of X type of person. You can substitute just about anything for X. Tall, short, gay, straight, bros, hipsters, foreigners, other Americans, Republicans, Democrats. You name it, I’ve judged them.

One thing that has been wonderful for me has been visiting other churches or religious events. I have been visiting a different church each month sometime during the 2nd week of the month for almost a year now with a group from my church. At the start I had to ask “What is our goal here?” Were we on a mission to save souls from their wrong thinking? I feel this is often the attitude taken by, at least, many denominations of Christians towards other Christians, and certainly other religions. Or were we just trying to learn about others? See how the worship and try to BE with them. Luckily we had the presence of mind to choose the latter.

I have purposely tried to seek as varied services as possible. To date I have visited, Lutherans, Missionary Baptists, Southern Baptists, Mormons, Sunni Muslims, Seventh Day Adventists, Greek Orthodox Christians, Church of Christ – Scientists, Universal Unitarians and I’m sure some I have forgotten. I have only been met with welcome at every service I attended. People were happy to talk to me and those with me. They invited us in, ate with us and shared their stories and beliefs. Our group tried to be very respectful of each group we visited and they showed us each the same respect and, even better, hospitality, back. The responses I have gotten have really elevated my faith in humanity.

Incredibly when I have shared my visitation stories with friends and family often the first question I am asked is “Were you scared?” Now perhaps they are just joking and I am very oblivious but I believe that every joke has at a minimum a small amount of truth behind it. I have been a bit nervous walking into places I know no one but every time I have done it it becomes easier. I think what the people asking me those questions are really doing is voicing their own fears. Fears of the unknown, which we all have. My solution to the unknown is simply to make it known!

I believe that one solution to much of the violence and fear in the world these days is to simply expand our our circles of influence, or put in a gentler way, expand our neighborhood. Buckminster Fuller coined the term “Earthian” to help unify us. If we could brush away our differences and recognize that we are all in this together, expanding our circle of neighbors, I think we’d all become a lot more comfortable.

As you start a new day ask yourself a few questions.

How can I expand my neighborhood today?

What’s the most important thing I can be thinking about?