Morality

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In rereading what I’ve written, it seems that I need to give a disclaimer at the beginning. I think it’s wrong to kill people or steal or commit any other heinous criminal acts. I am simply asking questions that no one seems to consider, probably because they are difficult questions and most people don’t see much value in them. The problem is, I think they are very valuable questions to ask because they will ultimately help us understand what we believe, but more importantly why we believe those things.

“Is there a such thing as absolute right and absolute wrong?”

This seems to be the most important question we should be considering.

This simple question seems to not be considered near as often as it should. It seems we are all simply not thinking on the level as to consider such a question or we are simply afraid of the implications of the answers so we avoid asking it. Alternatively, we could all be so self absorbed with our own pursuits that the question never even occurs to us (I think this is really the bucket most people fall into, which is OK with me).  It is also likely that we don’t find many people willing or prepared to discuss such a question so we just sit on it and smolder internally. That’s what I’ve been doing, until now.

From my own internal debate I’ve concluded there can be only 2 answers to this question. Yes or No. What results from those answers?

No – If there is no such thing as an absolute right or wrong that leads to “Might makes right.” If you are able to do something who’s to stop you? On what authority? This would lead you to assume that both ISIS and Kim Jong Un are acting completely within their own framework of morality and that is fine. Of course, since under this assumption each person is entitled to their own morality, you could certainly choose to oppose them and if you can convince enough other people they are wrong then that makes you de facto right but it’s still an arbitrary right as it’s only right since you are the mightier group.

Yes – If there is a such thing as absolute right and wrong that would lead me to believe that there is some ultimate authority in the universe. This most people would call God. To avoid any assumptions that come with the word “God” I’ll use “ultimate authority” for this post. Determining if there is right and wrong doesn’t necessarily tell you (or me) what is right and wrong, just that there is some right and wrong. Of course determining what is right and wrong is the next logical step after determining that it exists.

How does one go about determining that there is or is not absolute right and wrong? I have no idea. Most people will default to the Bible telling them what is right or wrong. That is fine, but we can see that that has yielded thousands of groups with dissenting opinions. Same with other religions, Islam, Mormons, Hindus etc.

This is generally where atheists feel they shine. They point out that each person seems to make up their own personal morality anyway but then attributes it to their chosen religion. I agree that it seems that is what most religious people do. At the atheists, pointing out a flaw to someone else’s conclusions is generally much easier than drawing your own conclusions.

Most philosophers, atheists and religious eventually come to some conclusion that we should “Do unto others what we want done to us.” While that sounds fine in theory my question is why? You can find this claim in the bible. You will also find similar claims from Immanuel Kant as well as atheist Stephen Molyneux (Universally Preferable Behavior, which I don’t recommend you waste your time reading, even though I have).  

Back to my question, why do they think that for something to be right, even without an ultimate authority, you should apply it to everyone? The question I always come back to is murder, as that’s usually something everyone is averse to. My scenario goes like this “If you could kill someone (who is not threatening you) for personal gain and you were able to hide any evidence of your involvement, why shouldn’t you do that?”  Now all the above people appeal to “You wouldn’t want someone to kill you would you?” I don’t really see the point of asking that question. If there is no absolute morality that question has no basis on your decision to kill someone. You could insert any number of other actions considered crimes in here, theft being an obvious case. If you could steal something with no repercussions, why not? Again, “You wouldn’t want someone to steal from you would you?” Makes no sense to ask.

I personally cannot think of a good argument against those flawed actions if there was no absolute morality. It’s a bit terrifying to think about but that is one idea that inclines me towards there being an ultimate authority (in/outside the universe).

What do you think?

Do you believe in right and wrong independent of religion? (Note that while most people will jump to the assumption that I’m trying to make a case for a Christian God I have purposely not made that claim. I am just thinking out loud (on the internet.)

On what basis do you base authority if not on some ultimate authority?

Do you agree with “might makes right”?

I want it to be clear that I am completely ok with people admitting they agree with “might makes right”. If you don’t believe in an ultimate authority outside of the world, I think that’s your only option. Is there another?

Systemic vs. Transcendent Change

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We all want to change the world. Some on a smaller, more personal scale, and some on a much larger scale. If you are working or at least hoping for a better future for yourself, which I have yet to find someone who’s not even hoping, you want to change the world.

The question is how? From a recent discussion I had it seems there are two ways to change the world. Systemic change and transcend change. I am not going to say one is better than the other but I do want to think about the differences as they can be applied to most situations.

To try to give a few simple examples, a faster horse would be systemic change while an automobile would be transcendent. Similarly, a self driving car would be transcendent (not systemic I would argue) to the current car, while a particle transporter, like in Star Trek, would be again, transcendent.

In medicine, a vaccine that prevents and eventually can eradicate a disease would be transcendent, while a better treatment drug is simply systemic.

The discussion of systemic vs. transcendent change came up while participating in a book study in town with a larger group. The book was called “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs” by  Johann Hari. It talks about what started “the war on drugs”.

One important thing to take away from the book, although it’s not often discussed in the book, is the difference between drug users and drug abusers. Users can function relatively normally, at least outside when they are using the drug, similarly to alcohol, while abusers are focused on the drug use only. The abusers cause the problems while the users usually do not.

What I took away from the book was that people abuse drugs because they are missing something in their lives or are trying to cover or forget something terrible in their past (usually).This book focuses on people who are thrown “in the criminal justice system” and labeled as offenders because of their use or abuse of drugs. The book argues that users should be allowed to use while abusers need treatment instead of punishment. To that end, they discuss the legalization of drugs as a potentially good thing for  multiple reasons.

I think that we maintain the system of keeping drugs illegal because we are afraid. We don’t know what people will do if they are using drugs and we don’t know how many people will start abusing drugs if they use them. This is because most of us don’t know anyone who regularly uses drugs while it is easy to find a regular drinker. We know how people will react when they drink and when they drink too much, while trying to guess what someone might do when they have a “serving” of “drug” is a complete unknown to most of us. We are very uncomfortable with the unknown. Determining how to make us more comfortable with this the unknown is something I intend to address later.

I will leave it to you to read the book and draw your own conclusions on the drug war, if it should be continued or if we need to change how we look at it.

For my part, I shared with the group how I am involved with a group that works to provide meaningful relationships and role models into children who are at risk of being exposed to drug use, abuse and could be roped into the sales chain. This is where the statement was made that it seemed I was trying to transcend the problem instead of address the problem of too many people being affected by current drug laws. I conceded that that is indeed the case. I would very much like to transcend the problem. As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
The fight to legalize drugs would be a systemic change, while making people not likely to abuse drugs in the first place, would be the transcended change. I think both systemic and transcended change are both important in most situations.

When you look at a problem. How should you address it? Obviously there is not one right answer. For some situations, the systemic change is important. For other situations, the transcendent is important. Being aware of which change you are trying to drive and being aware of the different types of change and what they are affecting are very useful to helping you set goals for your work.

What types of things are you trying to affect these days?
Are you doing systemic change or transcendent change?

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.

What Is Good?

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

What is good? What is truth? How do you know when you find truth? These are some very important questions I have been trying to ask myself lately.

To know how to fix things you first need to know how things work. One thing I have been rather interested in lately is how the brain works. In light of that I read and listened to a few books about the brain.

The Man Who Wasn’t There – Anil Ananthaswamy
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain – (Audiobook) David Eagleman
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry– (Audiobook) Jon Ronson

One incredible thing to me is how many extremely intelligent people don’t seem to be the most logical. Many of the murderers you hear about are actually very intelligent people. This leads you to question why someone like that would be drawn to doing something that we are told is hardwired into our brains to be avoided.

After reading this article about people who became serial killers and how they had normal childhoods, I came upon the case of Alexander Pichushkin. The gist of his story is that he was hit in the head by a swing and damaged his frontal cortex. This caused him to became a crazed murderer. I am not sure what happened in the years between the swing incident and his first murders besides that he was bullied some and his grandfather died. The point of this story is that it’s pretty scary to think that each of us is one bump on the head away from becoming a murderer.

In another story, recounted from “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain”, I believe, was told of a respected older man who became caught up in gambling and pedophilia. This is a link to a similar story but not the exact one. The man in the story had a tumor removed and he appeared to return to normal. Months later, the symptoms appeared again. It was discovered that they had missed a piece and the tumor had returned. It was again removed and I believe he made a recovery. Again. Astonishing to think that perhaps something like that could affect a person so much. I am not suggesting we should go set all these people free by any means, but I believe understanding the real cause of crimes has real value.

Moving on in the understanding people and actions as well as trying to determine truth, I thought I’d take the time to read a book by a certified madman, Ted Kaczynski, more commonly known as the Unabomber. Now most people might take pause at that. “Do you want to kill people Axel?” they might ask. I can assure you I am not interested in that. I am in pursuit of the truth. Kaczynski was actually quite a brilliant man. He studied at Harvard at the age of 16 and eventually earned a Ph. D in Mathematics from The University of Michigan and eventually was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley by the age of 25. Subsequently he determined that technology was opposed to freedom and that the only way to let people be completely free was to destroy all technology. This lead him to bomb universities, airplanes and businesses related to technology.

The thing about Ted Kaczynski is that despite all his craziness and evil actions, he really has some profound thoughts. i would say that one of his main beliefs was that because of the proliferation of technology people have much less that they have to do to survive. Because of this we are prone to making up “surrogate activities” for ourselves. These activities could be anything we all a hobby. From building fancy cars, learning about astrology, intricate wood working, learning and adhering to any set of silly religious beliefs that don’t help us survive and spending time convincing others of those beliefs, making any collections, lifting weights and just about any other activity you could consider. He even considers many jobs as surrogate activities as we do them more out of interest for money and developed interest in a subject, instead of for survival.

In paragraph 40 he points out “But if they work under rigid orders handed from above that leave them no room for autonomous decision and initiative, then their need for the power process will not be served.” This could point out why many people feel unsatisfied in jobs where they are not required to think and are only cogs in the wheel. This is where the surrogate activities come in. People will feel powerful if they are accomplishing some goal that they have some control over.

These are some thoughts that have been crossing my mind in the last year as I search for a sense of purpose in this world. Wanting to do good is noble but we are certainly unable to determine the consequences of our actions many generations from now. I am reminded of a story by Ravi Zacharias. Basically it is a story where a series of bad and good things happen to a man while his neighbor comments on the goodness or badness of each situation while the man just accepts each think, commenting that “How can you tell what is good or bad luck?” It eventually ends on a positive note, giving the listener the feeling that all bad things can work out to good eventually. I’m not sure how I really feel about the story. I certainly question it.

A story from my life. I believe that I am doing good via a charity I volunteer at. Cedar Valley Gearheads. The gist of our work is that we fix cars and give them to people who are without a vehicle. Most people I talk with seem to really think this is a great ministry and list the reasons. People will have much easier access to food, medical care, jobs, the list goes on. I tend to agree with them. Now what if one person we gave a car to was killed in a car accident a week later by someone running a stop sign. Would that lead me to question if I am really doing good? It might.

Kaczynski’s main problem seems to be the belief that no technology can be used for good and that it will all eventually be used for evil. He does concede in paragraph 128 that “each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears desirable.” but further points out “all these technical advances taken together have created a world in which the average man’s fate is no longer in his own hands or in the hands of his neighbors and friends, but in those of politicians, corporations executives and remote anonymous technicians and bureaucrats whom he as an individual has no power to influence.”

I think this paragraph is instructive as it shares the helplessness that Kaczynski feels. I think that was his downfall. This, along with his other thoughts about the “power process” can probably give much instruction to those in power, to give workers enough room to exercise ideas, as well as in our individual lives to help us choose activities that will give us the feeling of being in control.

Another interesting topic that Kaczynski brings up in thinking about the application of future technologies. He specifically mentions gene manipulation. As mentioned before all technical advances considered by themselves appear desirable. For gene modification what if you could remove all blindness and deafness before people are born? Surely we’d want that? Also removing the predisposition for other common inherited diseases would certainly be a positive benefit. But what if as Kaczynski discusses in paragraph 124 “Somebody (probably the upper middle class mostly) would decide that such and such applications of genetic engineering were “ethical” and others were not, so that in effect they would be imposing their own values on the genetic constitution of the population at large?” Certainly this would at least make some people pause and consider if genetic engineering is such a good idea afterall.

Ultimately, I am a firm believer in progress and certainly Ted Kaczynski was a crazy man. There is no way his complete plan would ever have been enacted, which is good, but we should consider some of the situations he brings up. I would suggest reading the book “Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think” by  Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler for an alternative view of how the future with technology will be much better than Kaczynski thinks it will be. As to the point of what is really good though, I think it is important to continue discussing these questions with each other, especially taking the time to understand where someone else is coming from before we assure them they are wrong. We just might learn something.

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?

Change Ourselves. Change The World

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“Everything done was done by a human. You are a human. You can do it.” – Axel Hoogland

Be the change you wish to see in the world. – Ghandi

“We are not the rational beings that traditional economic theory assumes… Financial institutions and regulators need to accept the reality of (behavioral) biases and design products and policies around them.”Dean Karlan – Yale Economist and Founder of IPA

“Bucky championed a design revolution, maintaining that it was far easier ‘to reform the environment than to attempt to reform people.’” Page 10 Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth

It is very disheartening to me that these two great minds, Buckminster Fuller and Dean Karlan have both basically given up on the ability of people to change. They have decided that it’s easier to provide situations that can steer people a little in the right direction instead of asking people to wake up and see the complete truth. As I’m only 26 years old perhaps I am still coming at the world with a bit of a naive view but I think that it may be thinking like this that has gotten us in our current situation of people plodding mindlessly through life. If we assume people aren’t smart enough to make their own decisions why would it ever occur to them that they would be able to?

Words have power and if people are continually told that something is to complicated for them to understand, for example the stock market, of course they will be afraid of it and be willing to pay massive amounts to people to manage their money. Now that is just a waste of their money. I could become a mutual fund manager right now and beat 90% of fund managers by just investing in Index Funds. I would become rich but I would be engaging in the dumbing down of society as well as basically robbing them. Luckily there are already places like Betterment that are taking that over by robot and hopefully in the next 10 years they will have that market locked up and the mutual fund managers will be done robbing people.
I still have a fundamental belief that if we share as much information with people as possible they will be able to make good rational decisions. To be able to do this there are a lot of inherent biases we need to remove from people’s minds. The first is the thought that “someone else is so much smarter than me. I could never do that.” My favorite self created quote to combat this situation is “Everything done was done by a human. You are a human. You can do it.” If that doesn’t sum up the world I don’t know what does. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and change the world by changing yourself!