I travel around a lot, and get to see tons of different cultures, communities, ways of living, governments, and identity. There's absolutely common threads with every human society on earth, but there's also many unique elements. However at the same time, I know many Americans who never left America think America sucks and is shit... At the same time, many Americans who never left America, are also arrogantly proud.

So I thought I'd just like to spend this Sunday afternoon to share my perspective that has evolved after over a decade of travel:

First and foremost - Americans are exceptionally different than most of the world. I think it's due to our issolation and non-necessity to leave our own borders. We're kind of like an issolated evolutionary ecosystem with little evolutionary drift, so we're able to craft out this very unique system, bulit on the "genetic" lineage of being a complete melting pot.

The standards we set, are set in a sort of isolated echo chamber. How Americans judge themselves, the world, and standards set, are very much removed. And this has a lot of pros and cons. On one hand the ignorance allows us to be far more bold than what is reasonably expected. Our hubris leads dreaming big and taking shots, that very few other cultures would tolerate, much less encourage. But in the US, taking risk, dreaming big, failure as a lesson, is the air we breath and water we live in. It's what ultimately leads to absolutely exceptional output.

Most of the world is very... How do I say it... tempered. Most places have this mentality of "this is how it is, and how it always will be." Outside of maybe China, the idea of doing big things, is not culturally part of the ethos. Most people are just content with where they are in life, as will their children, and pessimism is sort of standard.

In the states, someone can say that they are starting a business or want to run for politics, and even if there's a bit of skepticism, no matter who it is, we have this sort mental map of "It's totally possible" and encourage the journey. Literally everywhere else, unless your rich, you will be cut down for being too ambitious. In the country I'm in now, people literally negatively judge people who become successful as a negative. As a sort of insult to everyone else for not staying in your lane while the rest of them remain in theirs.

The food is the best in the world. I'll die on this hill. Yes, there's great food everywhere, and it's all unique, and it has a wide window of different types of delicious. France is very sophisticated and technical, where you can get a meal that's probably near impossible to get in most other places, while in the Phillipines, you'll have cheap street food that will put you into a coma.

But iunno if it's just our brutal capitalism, matched with a huge market, lead by every culture in the world bringing their best... But we treat gastronomy like a science we take serious. Say what you want about the preservatives, chemicals, supply chain, and ethics... At the end of the day, standard American food, is absolutely the best tasting. We just have this huge catalogue of different foods at every corner, and every region, specializing in just the most itus inducing gluttony you can imagine.

Most other countries obviously make good food, but it's in their very narrow lane. In the US, we have the whole collective world of food options, and when it got here, we treated it like a science. We innovate, experiment, and perfect all the dishes other countries have to offer. The wine world is a perfect example of this. The "old world" wines pride themselves on consistency and quality... Then Californians came over, stole some vines, and then went, "Okay let's use their grapes and growing methods as the control, then deploy 50 different experiments to make it even better." We innovate, they just prefer nothing changing. And now the CA wine world is an obnoxious thorn in many sides.

We genuinely are very warm and friendly people. I think the Americas in general just have extremely friendly people. I think Asians, and Europeans think it's a "facade" because they don't think people can genuinely be that nice or optimistic unless they are faking it, as part of some cultural expectation. But no. It's real

Just about EVERY SINGLE person I've met who has an opinion on America, goes one of two ways: First, those who never visited the US. Just filled with negativity, sour grapes, judgement, and view the US as some sort of war torn hell hole. Second, those who actually visited America, and they all absolutely love the place. The people, food, size, and scenery, are things they just absolutely fall in love with. Almost everyone who's visited the US from Europe at least, all talk about how they want to move there. Not even the major cities neither. Like, some random place in Georgia. They just love how optimistic and friendly everyone is.

Our problems are over indexed because of our culture. What's VERY unique about American culture is we don't like having problems fester, or sit below the surface. Again, I think this roots from our arrogant hubris (in a good way), where we always trying to surface issues. Most countries do the opposite. If there's a social, political, or cultural problem, most countries try to round the edges, and work around them.

In America, we have this culture where we like to bring to the surface and amplify all our problems - eager to solve them. For instance, we know the race relations in America are complex, unfair, and needs a resolve. The way most countries deal with those sort of issues are just normalize it to the point where people just stop talking or caring about it. To the point that it becomes "that's just how it is" and pay no attention to it. Whereas is the US, it's amplified and argued, publicly, and loudly. This creates a perception to outsiders that it's a big issue

But ultimately that's just the side effect of American culture where we don't like failure, unfairness, and systemic failure. All of American issues are always raised to the surface and battles over, while most of the world tries to just brush it off and put it out of site. Most Americans know racism when they see it, and it triggers a visceral reaction. But if you travel around, you'll see a whole different type of apathetic normalization of racism. In a way unlike the US completely. Which can make almost seem like it's "not an issue" in other countries... Not because it's not an actual problem, but because culturally, people just accept it and adapt around it.

Even the most progressive, anti American types, don't realize how deeply American they are. The horseshoe theory is so true. Puritianism is a seeded root in our entire culture, no matter how religious crazy conservative to woke progressive. Those traits cross over in their own manifestations.

The USA still has VERY serious issues. One thing about travelling the world is learning that so many things Americans think are too hard, had already been solved. To the point that it's not even something that's even discussed any longer. But Americans are still trying to figure out how manage a vertical monopoly on healthcare, even though there are like 20 different models out there already. But our issolation keeps us completely ignorant of that.

We also have a very unique issue with money in politics. While most of the world is incredibly corrupt, or elites like Europe where it's just sort of an elitist view of managing the ignorant masses... The US is the hegemony. Everyone, from states to multinational industries, are running the political process.

To me it's very obvious there's two elections in America, and I think Lawrence Lessig would agree: The first election is done behind the scenes by the global rich and elite. They use their enormous capital influence to pick "viable candidates". They created this by making campaigns so expensive to run, that it's impossible to compete without their blessing and support.

Then the second election happens which is public, where we decide which side of the same coin we prefer.

Even China isn't this bad. They are a one party state, unlike our two party state, but at least they have heavy emphasis on merit. In the US, there seems to be this smoke screen of two parties making us believe there's much choice, when ultimately, the primary decider is monied interests.

There's also a serious mental health issue in America. I know we recognize it, but it's far more obvious when you leave. I can go visit very poor areas, where most Americans would scoff at, and most people there would be objectively far happier, kind, and content than Americans.

There's just this overlooming anxiety and insecurity with Americans. As social and friendly as we are, we also just don't have third spaces, community bonds, or just culturally routine things to do (except the south). There's just this ever lingering capital scarcity that everyone has behing them knowing that comes with knowing that they are just one missed paycheck away from total ruin. And since we don't have a lot of close friends, and culture of tight family, the threat of collapse is the sort of thing that keeps people grinding away.

It's so brutal that we don't even mandate mothers to be allowed to recover and spend time with the life they created. They are expected back into work as soon as possible. This sort of mindset is truly toxic and bewildering. Yet, it's normal in the states. To the point that one political party will fight relentlessly against allowing the people who create life and the next generation, deserve no rest. Absolutely wild concept, yet... It's normal.

Anways, this is enough of a novella. Cheers.

First we need to understand that no matter what we have done or try to do, there will always be racism and racists. That's not stuff that will ever go away unfortunately and is just a flaw in humanity like illness and death. The only thing you can do is try to convert racists out of their racism. That doesn't mean telling them racism is bad or beating them up and being shocked it doesn't work, it means having thought out conversations on why they're racist and why they believe racism is good for the country. You obviously don't listen to agree with them, but you listen so you know how to effectively respond back and help them see the error of their ways. I know it's hard for some especially those who they're being racist against, but you have to try.

Second, we need to use more critical thinking when situations regarding people of different races happen negatively. Just because it's super obvious to assume doesn't mean it was the reason something happened. It's totally possible a white cop could just be a POS and happen to abuse their power against someone who isn't white. That doesn't mean the cop hasn't also abused their power against a white person before. Also with how the media works certain stories get more coverage and attention for personal gain and because they know too many in society are gullible and ignorant about how these things actually work.

Third, everyone needs to recognize systemic racism still exists. It might not be as bad as it was in the past. But it still unfortunately exists and there needs to be serious and thought out discussions on how to fix it. Not just saying stuff that sounds good or that has been applauded in echo chambers but realistically won't work out as people think it will.

Finally, the downplaying or justification of certain bigotry needs to end. I don't care what groups have experienced more of it, who has the most social power, etc. That is not an excuse to be a bigot towards others. Someone being a bigot against a certain group because of what a person or some people who are also part of the same racial group did isn't helping anything. If they want to vent about how those experiences make them feel that's fine, but when it crosses into bigotry that's not fine. If your tolerance for bigotry flip flops based on the skin color or race of the person or people doing it and receiving it, you have no room to talk about being against hate and discrimination. You're part of the problem even if you think you aren't. Also stop telling white people to just "suck it up and stop complaining" when they talk about bigotry against them because others may have it worse. It's bullying at the end of the day and Jim Crow isn't going to magically come back just because you acted like a normal and fair human being when a white person talks about racial bullying they have faced like you do for other groups.

I understand your average human isn't racist or obsessed with race like many terminally online individuals are and thank god. But I thought I would share my take on why some individuals still insist there are racial tension issues in the country.

There's a concept in production engineering called observability. You instrument a system with metrics, logs, and alerts not because you expect it to stay healthy, but because you expect it won't, and the difference between a cheap incident and a catastrophic one is almost always how early you noticed. A system without observability isn't stable. It's failing invisibly, and you find out when the failure has already propagated everywhere.

I build this stuff for a living, and lately I can't stop seeing societies through the same lens. I want to lay out the argument and have people here poke holes in it.

Every governance model shares one failure mode

Political debate is usually a contest over which model is correct: more state control, more market freedom, some blend. But the historical record suggests the interesting variable isn't the model, it's the failure mode, and the failure mode is always the same. Power concentrates, and whoever accumulates it spends it on entrenchment. Command economies get there through direct capture of institutions and media. Unregulated markets get there through monopoly. Different transport layer, identical payload.

The arrangements that have held up best so far aren't the ideologically coherent ones. They're the hybrids built on institutionalized paranoia: separated powers, independent courts, adversarial press, antitrust. Nothing in that list trusts anyone's character. It all assumes power will try to pool and adds structural resistance. Whether seventy-odd years of data on such systems tells us anything about century-scale stability is a separate question, and I'd say the honest answer is we don't know yet.

The hidden dependency

Here's the claim I want scrutinized. Every one of those structural safeguards has an undeclared dependency: a population that can detect manipulation.

Safeguards are operated by people and legitimized by public trust. When enough of the population can't tell evidence from narrative, the safeguards keep running but stop safeguarding. An adversarial press becomes a distribution channel for whoever crafts the most compelling story. Elections select for the best manipulator rather than the best candidate. And crucially, distrust itself becomes a weapon: you don't need to win the argument, you need people to conclude that no source can be trusted, at which point you supply the narrative that fills the vacuum. Manufacturing generalized distrust is cheaper than manufacturing belief, and it pays better.

There's an asymmetry that compounds this. Institutions like science do self-correct, that's the entire mechanism, but the correction loop runs on months while falsehoods propagate in hours. The retraction reaches a fraction of the audience the original claim did. In monitoring terms, the mean time to detect is longer than the time to cascade, which any on-call engineer will tell you is the definition of an unrecoverable architecture.

So what's the monitoring layer?

If safeguards are the control plane, the observability layer of a society is the distributed capacity of its people to evaluate claims: check a source, notice when an argument is engineered to route around judgment via emotion, distinguish signal from noise. Not universally, not perfectly, but at sufficient density that local failures get flagged before they cascade.

Which is why I've come around to thinking critical thinking education belongs in the category of infrastructure rather than personal virtue. Taught from childhood, treated the way we treat literacy, not offered as an elective at twenty. The obvious objections apply: it takes a generation to pay off, it doesn't fit on a protest sign, nobody wins an election running on it, and teaching people how to reason doesn't guarantee they'll want to. All granted. My claim is narrower: it's the only intervention that addresses the failure mode all the systems share. Structural safeguards defend against concentrated power. Only a reasoning population defends the safeguards. Better leaders, better regulation, better ideology all quietly assume a public that can notice when it's being played, and that capacity looks to me like the thing currently degrading fastest.

Where the analogy breaks down

I'll flag the weak points myself. Software is tractable because it's ultimately deterministic: you can profile, reproduce, roll back. Societies have feedback loops you can't isolate and no rollback, and you can't A/B test governance on half a country. There's also a fair objection that "teach everyone critical thinking" is the social-policy equivalent of "just write bug-free code," a solution that restates the problem. My tentative response is that we don't need bug-free code, we need detection density high enough that faults surface before they cascade, and that's a threshold effect rather than a perfection requirement. But I hold that loosely.

Tear it apart. I'm especially interested in whether anyone knows of historical cases where a society measurably improved its epistemic baseline on purpose, and what it cost.

We live in a society which is filled with analogies and metaphors. For example, books and movies are filled with them. There are usually themes: these themes are uncovered through analogies, for example, a character stands for x, an interaction between characters stands for y.

The reader/watcher has to independently pick up on them and make sense of them. But I think this is the problem. People are biased. They will not use analogies and themes to correct their pre-exising incorrect worldviews, rather, they will interpret themes in a manner to make them consistent with and justify their pre-existing views.

I think there are 2 main types of themes. 1) obvious and uncontroversial themes/themes that parrot existing societal ideals. For example, the little match girl. Theme: poverty bad. I don't think anybody contests this. So what is the point of this theme? If everybody can pick up on it and agrees on it, what is the point? This means there was no need for the theme. In fact I argue that such themes are counterproductive, because they emotionalize the issue rather than focus on the root causes that create/maintain poverty for example. This leads to a society in which most people neglect the root causes, but use emotions to immediately at a very insufficient level "fix" poverty: for example, the average person when walking by a homeless person will feel guilty in the moment and might drop a bit of change. They are not going to go home and analyze the structural causes of poverty and how to fix this so that homeless person does not have to be homeless in the first place.

2) more deep themes. For these, the issue is that very few people will pick them up. And the rest will either miss them, or will interpret them incorrectly/in a way to twist them into a way that becomes consistent with/justifies their pre-existing views. So it fails because it does not change the incorrect pre-exising views of the masses. This is why so many great works only begin to be understood/accepted long after the author died/society changed.

This is why the paradox exists: most famous pieces of work are those that conform to existing societal ideals. They don't change society for the better: they parrot existing beliefs and make people emotionally feel good about themselves in the moment. And those that challenge societal ideals fall under the radar and are rejected because they make people think, which can cause temporary emotion pain, which people want to avoid, and these works are not valued until decades/centuries later after society already changes to be consistent with the themes of that book/movie but not because of it.

This is also why there is so much polarization today.

In order to change people's thinking, you need to take a page out of therapy. First you build a connection and validate them. Then you ask them questions that make them realize their problematic thinking patterns, and wait for them to catch it themselves. If you do it for them, they will resist and double down. So the problem with themes/analogies is that it does not get people to question their beliefs, as it is not direct enough. They will either miss it/ignore it/or it will cause cognitive dissonance and they will double down on their pre-existing beliefs.

Over a long span of time, it can be said that humans have turned some wolves into chihuahuas, but the irony here is through civilization-induced human domestication, we may have done the exact same thing to ourselves as well.

In evolutionary biology, domestication means trading resilience, strength and instinct for safety and dependency. In the context of our civilization, we like to think that we're at the peak and the best has yet to come, but there is a hidden cost that very few people like to focus on: extreme fragility.

For example, most of us can’t survive a week-long power outage without the grid. We swapped generalist skills for specialized jobs that may quickly become obsolete.

On specialization, we have already outsourced many tasks to the so-called experts, and the adoption of AI is only going to make the trend more obvious (that is, less skilled and more dependent).

Of course, to keep our global system running smoothly, we are incentivized to be predictable, compliant and even passive. We may think that we are the masters who build the system to propel progress, but this may turn out to be a cage that becomes increasingly difficult to escape from...

I'm trying to get into substack more, really like Hannah Ritchie who writes a blog on climate science (in a very bipartisan way - often calling out issues with how the media reports on climate science without context).

Who else would you recommend?

Also, anyone non political but interesting would be good to know about.

The past half century shows that this strategy has simply not worked. This would make sense if voting Democrat led to gradual positive changes over decades. This is not what happened. Things actually continued to get worse for the middle/working class regardless of whether Reps or Dems have won.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

And usually a Dem win is then followed by a Rep win: if the Dems actually changed things/made things better, these constant see-saw swings would not happen. Also, let us even hypothetically assume that Dems would be able to keep winning: even if this happened, why on earth would they change any of their policies? If they are getting votes unconditionally/keep getting elected regardless, what incentive do they have to change/offer more to the middle class?

It is like an oligopoly. Let's say you have only 2 companies offering cell phone services, and both are charging high prices. One may occasionally slightly price gouge you less/offer slightly better service, but overall both are heavily price gouging you and keep raising their prices while reducing their quality. If you keep switching between them, why would they stop doing this? If you keep staying with one, why would they stop doing this?

So logically and factually, this voting for the lesser evil strategy has not worked/will not work. When there is a cancer you don't juggle the slightly smaller tumor, you get rid of the entire thing. Neoliberalism is a cancer.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot

We just cant seem to find a coherent fixed legislative solution to a variable astronomical problem.

Before railroads were a thing every town set their clocks to a solar mean for their particular longitude. That worked great for everyone, until railroads needed a defined schedule. Railroad companies didn't wait for the government to come up with a solution, they unilaterally came up with time zones, and synchronizing time within those zones. On Sunday, November 18, 1883 the railroads sent out a telegraph signal timestamp that all connected towns were to adjust their clocks to. Some towns near the edges of the General Time Convention designed time zones resisted the nearly 30 minute change. Detroit resisted for nearly two decades before they finally got onboard railroad time.

It was 35 years later that the government decided for itself that timekeeping was another ever expanding enumerated power. And the Standard Time Act of 1918 finally gave railroad time federal legal standing ..... the same act added the first wartime DST provision .... supposedly to save coal.

Some groups hated the DST and it was quickly repealed over the President's veto.... twice.

In 1942 Congress again enacted year around DST for the duration of the war.

From 1945 to 1966 DST became optional, and a patchwork of local governments adopted it, and it once again became a scheduling nightmare. Bus passengers on a 35 mile trip from West Virginia to Ohio had to change their watches seven times.

This led the Transportation and broadcasting industry lobbies to push for the 1966 Uniform Time Act which codified the DST start / stop dates and while States could still opt out, local jurisdictions now couldn't.

The 1972 Uniform Time Act amendment allowed states split by time zones to only observe DST in one zone ..... to synchronize themselves.

In 1973 Nixon declared year round DST as one of several overreactions to the OPEC Oil embargo. It had widespread support until the first winter when a few child pedestrian deaths were blamed on pre-dawn bus stop waits ....... public support cratered and Congress quickly repealed..... even though Sammy Hagar and me still had to break the also kneejerk federally mandated 55 MPH speed limit law for over a decade .....and some argue law enforcement never much wanted to give up the speeding ticket revenue.

In 1986 the start of DST was moved up 3 weeks due to lobbying from the retail and recreational industries ..... arguing evening daylight boosted consumer spending. The start was again bumped up a few weeks in 2005 ........ this is when I had to buy new atomic clock synced alarm clocks, so they didn't switch over on the wrong dates.

At any rate ...... getting around to my point ...... every change has left some portion of the population mildly unhappy. And every new generation of politician feels they have a mandate to assuage those disgruntled constituents. Until those same constituents that wanted change have to live through a winter of the consequences they never fully thought through.

Personally, I've always worked in an outdoor industry whose start time was regulated by daylight. And I have to be 3 counties away from my nice cozy bed by dawn. With seasonal DST we could generally keep a 7:00 AM start time year around.

Under the pending legislation being discussed, the people might not have the inconvenience of changing their clocks twice a year, but people and companies who work in outdoor related industries will now have to change their start time twice a year.

I hate when we change clocks ........ it messes with my internal chronometer and takes me a couple weeks to get readjusted ...... but I think our current time regulation scheme is based on sound historical compromises. It has been refined through the process of trial and error to keep the minimum number of people mildly unhappy.

If we change it again, I predict it will again be quickly repealed.

I’ve been reading articles on certain website for quite a while now, and honestly, the way they break down both history and what's happening in the world today from a completely different perspective has totally changed how I look at the news. For the longest time, I just couldn't wrap my head around how an entire nation like Germany, just normal, everyday people, could go along with everything the Nazis did. It never made sense to me how everyone just... agreed.

And let's be real, it's the exact same thing with current events. I always wondered how state propaganda successfully brainwashes huge part of population into accepting or even cheering for a war. But I stumbled upon a massive investigation recently, and its starting to make sense for me.

It pretty much all traces back to this one specific operation run by a theologian and Nazi ideologue named Walter Künneth. In 1932, he took over this thing called an Apologetic Center. If you’re anything like me, you probably thought apologetics was just some boring, totally harmless academic stuff where religious scholars debate philosophy and try to defend their faith. But Künneth completely flipped that on its head. He basically weaponized the whole field and turned it into a literal factory for dehumanizing people.

Here is how he did it......before the Nazis could actually implement the Yellow Star system to isolate and destroy people, they needed to make sure the public would be okay with it first. Künneth built the blueprint. He didn't care about actual theology. Instead, he used his center to draw up massive blacklists, labeling alternative religious groups, minorities, and anyone who criticized the regime as dangerous sects or cults.

He made sure everything looked totally legit, academic, and objective on the surface. But behind closed doors, it was a whole different story, he basically turned his center into a spy nest. By 1933, he was feeding these massive archives, blacklists, and psychological profiles straight to the Gestapo and Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda ministry. Künneth basically did all the dirty, ground level work. His research literally became the official hit list the regime used to track down, arrest, and silence anyone who didn't fall in line.

The craziest part of his strategy was a psychological trick called the Mirror Reflection method. Honestly, it’s just next level gaslighting. It is literally like when a school bully punches you straight in the face, and then runs to the teacher crying and screaming that you attacked them.

His center would actively ruin innocent people's reputations, spread lies, and spread public panic. And then? They’d instantly flip it on their victims, accusing them of being the ones spreading lies, hate, and chaos. It completely inverted reality. It left the victims totally defenseless while the brainwashed public cheered for their destruction. By constantly screaming that these sects were a threat, he built an environment of pure fear. He slowly trained regular citizens to look at their own neighbors as subhumans that needed to be wiped out.

And no, this didn’t stop in 1945. Künneth was never even punished. Instead, his exact methods of manipulating human consciousness were passed down through a direct line of succession over the decades.

Walter Künneth trained Friedrich Wilhelm Haack and Johannes Aagaard, who eventually passed it to Alexander Dvorkin. For decades now, Dvorkin has basically acted as the modern day Walter Künneth in Russia. He integrated himself deep into the Russian Orthodox Church and various government ministries to build massive databases of unwanted groups, labeling them as dangerous cults, and using state media to trigger brutal raids and jail time for innocent people.

The parallels between Nazi Germany and modern Russia are honestly chilling. Just like Künneth’s center worked hand in hand with the Gestapo, modern Russia has integrated these exact same anticult networks into its state security forces. They used the exact same blueprint to prep the public for the war in Ukraine. First, years of blacklists, aggressive smear campaigns, and using state media to label anyone who didn't conform as a foreign agent or a subhuman cultist. Once they manufactured that fake public consensus, the state used it to justify a brutal war. It's the exact same totalitarian strategy, just copy pasted into the 21st century.

We even saw this in the 1990s in Serbia through Bratislav Petrović and the Belgrade Dialog Center. They used Künneth’s techniques to brainwash soldiers and dehumanize opponents by labeling them as dangerous sects, which directly escalated into the horrific violence and genocide in Srebrenica.

And just to be clear....I’m not trying to pick a side or point fingers at one specific political team here or country or whatever. That’s honestly the trap. This isn’t about who’s right or wrong in today’s messy world. It’s about looking at the actual source of this hate. Once you see how this psychological trick works, you start noticing it literally everywhere, no matter who is pulling the strings.

Honestly, there are so many facts, documents, and historical links confirming this that it’s just overwhelming. The material I read is a massive investigation. It even breaks down how these exact same dehumanization and blacklisting tactics are being used today against certain political figures, driving public hatred to the point where it triggers assassination attempts and crazy political violence. If anyone wants to look at the actual investigation files or the full breakdown of the evidence yourself, let me know in the comments and I'll gladly share where to find it.

I never really realized how easily this trick actually works on our brains. Once a group gets hit with some dehumanizing label, we just automatically stop seeing them as individual human beings, even if we've never met a single one of them in real life. That’s exactly how the Nazis brainwashed regular Germans into thinking Jehovah’s Witnesses or other minority groups weren't even human, making it totally okay to just wipe them out. The neuroscientist David Eagleman actually talks about this exact thing, how propaganda literally rewires our brain's empathy so we stop seeing the others as people. It’s scary how fast your brain just falls for it.

Like, have you watched otherwise normal, nice people around you completely switch off their empathy the second a specific group comes up in conversation?

Little Johnny was considered to be a bad boy. A bad boy is bad. Bad boys do bad things. Bad things are done by bad boys.

One day, Johnny was sick and tired of having to rote memorize facts and formulas in school. One day, Johnny decided to speak up. This all happened one day, of course, but against the backdrop of many days, rather, years, of daily drudgery. His class offered "free talk time" once a month, on the last Friday of the month. During free talk time, any student in the class could talk, provided they raised their hands, talked in an orderly fashion, did not use bad language, used an acceptable decibel level, did not offend anybody, did not say anything immoral, did not say anything evil, did not say anything mean, did not spread misinformation, presented established empirical evidence to support each of their statements, did not say anything that could harm children, and did not say anything bad. Now, Johnny was not the worst student, but he was not the best student. He coasted through school, more so due to boredom than laziness. He would pass all the subjects, but unlike Theodore and other students, he would make more silly mistakes and would sometime score lower on multiple choice tests. However, outside of school, once he finished his homework as quickly as he possibly could, he would start to read books about all the different things he was interested about. He would reflect on his day and his conversations. About what his parents and what other adults and children told him. Then he would try to make sense of it all.

Johnny raised his hand, which hurt from having to write repeated formulas and definitions all day, and Ms. Mormonton, noticing that his hand was the only one in the air, reluctantly permitted him to speak. Ms. Mormonton was a noble and neat woman. She was an intelligent woman, as evidenced by her score of 126 on standardized intelligence testing when she herself was assessed as a youngster after the Ministry of Education mandated a jurisdiction-wide intelligence testing program nicknamed Educational learnings of empiricism in benefit of the glorious jurisdiction of Lawrenceworth. Her father was a lawyer who attended a prestigious university and worked for the government prior to pursuing litigation in private practice within the realm of contract disputes, and her mother a nurse who diligently administered medication to thousands of institutionalized mental health patients throughout her career at the hospital. Ms. Mormonton had 2 children of her own, a boy and a girl. She was hopeful for the boy turning into a doctor, to administer even more medication than her mother did as a nurse at the hospital, and her daughter to be a judge, to maintain the moral, civilized, and correct standards of society that were set thousands and hundreds of years ago. Ms. Mormonton would dress professionally and sharply, with her hair neatly ironed and straightened on a daily basis, and would wear a pin with the school's motto, "You can be anything you want to be." on it, much to the satisfaction of the principal, Mr. Taylorsworth. Johnny however, was considered a slob. He would often wear the same clothes, even though he did not have them washed infrequently. His hair was somewhat wavy, and he did not use hair gel like the other young boys in his grade, though he did not infrequently shower.

Johnny asked Ms. Mormonton: Ms. Mormonton, my hands and head hurt from rote memorizing facts and formulas all day, when will we ever use these damn things in the future anyways, why can't we learn about solving problems that actually exist on a daily basis"? Ms. Mormonton looked at Johnny as if she saw a ghost. Sure, Johnny was a pale boy, presumably due to being confined within the school walls all day rote memorizing, and often in detention after school for defending himself against Theodore and his clique, who happen to be Ms. Mormonton's favorite students, but he was no ghost. He was living flesh and bones, who, unlike a ghost, was able to feel pain and emotions, which led to his questioning in the classroom in the first place. "Johnny", Ms. Mormonton replied, "how dare you use that wretched word, the d word? When you talk like this, how do you ever expect anybody to believe anything you say? Moreover, how dare you disrespect this sacred institution? I have worked here for 27 years and this is how you repay me? You will serve 3 detentions, starting today. Also, I see that you have not done up your top button on your shirt again, and you could certainly use a comb more regularly". The children laughed, with Theodore, in his perfect pinstripe shirt, which resembled a casino worker more than a young student, laughing while raising his hand. After the laughter ceased and a few seconds went by, Ms. Mormonton noticed Theodore's non-wailing but stern hand in the air, calling upon him to speak. Theodore stated, "yes, Ms. Mormonton is correct: how come you don't dress like me, Johnny?" Much of the class mumbled something in agreement, though they did not laugh this time, because the time it took for Ms. Mormonton to select Theodore's hand in permitting him to speak killed the momentum. Nevertheless, Ms. Mormonton said semi-loudly, "structure.", which was her word to calm down the class. The children ceased mumbling at once. "Now now, children, you know better than to talk out of turn, without raising your hand". "Yes Ms. Mormonton", the children replied in unison.

"Now, where were we?", continued Ms. Mormonton. "Ah, yes, Theodore was instructing Johnny on appropriate and suitable physical presentation and etiquette within the classroom, Johnny, I hope you picked up something worthwhile from this free talk session, in which all children are free to talk about everything that is on their mind, because here at Pencilworth Prepatory, we believe in freedom of speech. Think now, children, if you were in another corner of the world, the forces of evil and totalitarianism would have suppressed your ability to exercise free speech. You would have been told what to eat, what to speak, what to feel. How horrible would that be, children? Can you imagine? Fortunately, here at Pencilworth Prepatory, within the glorious jurisdiction of Lawrenceworth, we do not have this problem. Now, everybody get ready to exit to the cafeteria as it is noon and you must be hungry, though in single file, as we are not savages. Theodore, please do the daily head count and report to the lunch lady so she can administer the correct number of trays. I heard in the teacher's lounge that today's lunch will be hamburgers with fries, concentrated apple juice with 15% real juice, and a bag of chips. My father actually represented Purehealth Meats, which is the meat source for our yummy burgers, and as the name shows, you know you are in for a healthy meaty meal of goodness. Furthermore, I personally attended a function with the CEO Mr. Naismith, where he was presenting a speech about his ambitious plans to donate money to upgrade our computer systems in our library and in his honor the library will be renamed to the Naismith Library in Benefit of Empiricism and Advancement. What a wonderful man and philanthropist, with a wonderful suit selection and smile to match." The children cheered and went into the cafeteria single file, akin to the cows who were confined on the conveyor belts in the farms of Purehealth Meats. However, the cows, I am sad to say, were not headed to a cafeteria. But they were behind closed doors and so this did not cross the minds of the children, who were instead focused on their carbohydrate rich meals in front of their faces, which would temporarily spike them with energy so that they could memorize more facts and formulas upon being shepherded back into the classroom after lunch period.

Many of the children were already obese, but this did not matter, because scientific experts and doctors such as Ms. Mormonton's family members past and present would be sure to treat them using the latest medical technology and empirical sciences. In fact, Ms. Mormonton's brother, who started out as a medical doctor and for reasons unknown transitioned early on in his career into serving as the chief medical officer of Lawrenceworth, a regulatory position personally selected by the esteemed top political leader of Lawrenceworth himself, just recently provided a visually appealing powerpoint presentation with many charts, graphs, and cited sources called "Evidence-based empirical and scientific methods in benefit of tackling the obesity epidemic" in which he was promoting a new anti-fat medication created by Perfectbody Pharmaceuticals, whose CEO happened to be the cousin of CEO and philanthropist Mr. Naismith of Purehealth Meats, which would, in his medical opinion, "make us victorious in the battle against obesity".

I feel like so many of the IDW figures that were popular ~5 years ago have been disappointing or revealed to be suffering from many cognitive biases, or were revealed to be grifters, insincere, status-oriented, or pseudo-profound.

Been away from this sub for a while. I’m wondering:

1. Is this a common sentiment here, or am I alone in thinking this? (Wondering what the overall sentiment is here)
   
2. Who do people watch/read/listen to now? Also welcome any video/podcast/book recs
   
3. Which OGs are still the most popular/who has aged the best in terms of their ideas?
   
4. Do you still mainly consume content from IDW figures or more outside this space? Anyone that’s not IDW that you find insightful, enjoy or recommend?

I’m really interested in how people feel about the IDW figures, ideas, and space now in 2026 vs around 2020, if your preferences have changed at all or what has changed or remained the same. All thoughts and opinions are welcome, as I’m curious.

Who is representing us now? Biden eventually dropped out. It took too long, but he did. Now we have Trump basically acting how Biden acted.

We also now have a Republican party pretending that Mitch McConnell is alive and well.

This feels dystopian. Just actors behind the scenes.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, graduates of programs like "Gender Studies" often do not have a specialized skillset that allows them to provide economic value in capitalistic free market.

Most of their employability comes from sectors which prioritize/reward ideological alignment over meritocratic competence.

Bureaucratic/administrative quotas forced by the government onto the private sector are often needed for these graduates to be employable. Therefore, their employability is highly dependent on a certain government being put into office.

And so these graduates are then highly incentivized towards political activism.

How is this not a major red flag regarding our higher education system that continues to put students in debt to receive these degrees??

This is a quintessential distillation of the current moment in American economic politics.

Americans are vulnerable to this kind of disinformation because we have been propagandized to respect the intellect of successful entrepreneurs and we are largely innumerate. So. . . we are mostly unable to verify empirical claims about the economy (e.g. Democrat immigration policy lead to runaway housing prices) and we are primed to believe whatever narrative is woven by real-estate crooks.

NB: It is absolutely possible for immigration policy to increase the cost of housing. This has clearly happened in Canada. The story in the US is different. Even municipalities that are losing population had rapid increase in housing prices. This is can not be due to immigration.

Vladimir Rudolphovich Solovyov , the face of Russian state television .

Hyper-hawkish, absurd or would be, if not so locally popular . He regularly calls for the Nuking of London and NY.

He is well educated , He taught economics at UNA in Alabama, worked as a Republican operative , his Wikipedia article sums this period up in one sentence(There he actively participated in political life and started doing business).

He then returned home and launched a career that ultimately would see him as one of the most influential and rich people In Russia .

Thoughts on this guy ?

July 4, 2026

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a people to dissolve the structures of government which have, until now, represented them, and to reclaim the sovereign station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind at home and abroad requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to revolution.

We hold that the equality of all people and the rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are and shall ever be inviolable. Equally sacrosanct to us are natural rights, and those not granted by, but enshrined in our Constitution. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among mankind, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is not only the right, but the responsibility of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to protect those rights, their safety, and their happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. Accordingly, all experience shows today just as it did two and a half centuries ago, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, subverting a constitution conceived in the genius of our forefathers, has rendered our government a servant not of the governed, but of political parties, those in power, and those from whom they derive wealth and influence, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Such has been the suffering of the people of this nation, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their institutions. The recent history of government in The United States of America is one of repeated injuries, derelictions of duty, and bare-faced malfeasance, all culminating in a government of, by, and for the very people we elect to it. Our present crisis is not the tyranny of a sovereign beyond the sea, but one of a government and its institutions beset by decay and by office-holders unmotivated to serve us effectively. The machinery of our republic still stands, yet too often fails to perform the work for which it was built. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

A duopoly of political parties has split us neighbor from neighbor, sown discord, and poured accelerant on the issues that most reliably divide us. Their entrenched hold on power has left little room for independent voices, centrists, and new parties to flourish. They now treat their opposition as the enemy, and decades of such rhetoric have taught voters to do the same. Compromise, the very art by which a free people govern themselves, is commonly condemned as betrayal. Most dangerous of all, they have corroded our ability to discern what is true. The conflict between Americans is no longer merely that we disagree on issues, but increasingly that we cannot agree upon the facts from which those issues proceed. When citizens cannot rely upon their leaders to speak with candor, and when common sense realities become matters of partisan dispute, many conclude that politics is no longer a means of solving problems, but merely a contest for power. No party should have power over a people they can no longer persuade. We must embrace a system that rewards new voices, new parties, and new ideas rather than smothering them.

Such domination and decay has stripped many well-intentioned leaders entering public service of fidelity to their conscience and the people. It has rewarded unyielding party loyalty and punished independence of thought. It has chained public service to never-ending fundraising. It has placed not only their votes, but often their convictions under the thumb of party leadership, leaving constituents unheard and rewarding conformity over truthfulness. It is no wonder our two parties are not brimming with office-holders decrying abuses, and more importantly, voting to correct them; the system has stripped away incentives for such courage. Elections must belong more to voters and less to donors; elected officials must belong more to their constituents and less to their parties.

Those in power in our present system, though their direct compensation is modest, quickly find themselves in positions of substantial wealth. Connections and fortunate circumstances account for some of this wealth, but the financial temptations our public servants face go far beyond that. The opportunities for brazen self-dealing are not subtle; they are constant, and they are corrosive. Our Congress has utterly failed to stamp out insider trading, outright corruption, and the elected-official-to-lobbyist pipeline. Service in our government was never meant to be enriching, but enrichment has become routine. The close relationship between holding public office and the rapid accumulation of wealth is a great danger to the freedom of every person in this country. We must demand fidelity from our elected leaders, strengthen ethical requirements, and make oversight of our representatives independent of them. Leadership in our government must again be a service, not self-interest; a stewardship, not self-enrichment. We must restore public service as an honorable profession held under a sacred trust.

While corporations are a necessary and valuable part of any modern capitalist society and can fairly compete to provide a wide variety of goods and services, some have begun to turn the most basic human needs into a means of accumulating wealth. They do not merely participate in these markets; they dominate them. In health care, meaningful competition has all but vanished, and the corporations running it have radically driven up costs for both patients and the people who care for them. Insurance is increasingly cost-prohibitive, yet families can scarcely risk doing without it as private-pay costs and medical debt threaten their financial security. Corporations are also buying up housing in this country, including single-family homes, treating them more as a speculative asset than as the roof over the head of a family. These markets were once expected to serve the people who depended upon them. In these sectors, both competition and the simple morality of doing right by people have largely disappeared. The rent is indeed too damn high in too many places, and corporate buyers paying cash routinely out-compete ordinary American families seeking to buy a home the only way most can: with a mortgage and years of savings. They have rendered the ordinary, modest stability of working life increasingly unaffordable. These conditions did not arise spontaneously. They are a consequence of laws, regulations, and policies that our elected officials have enacted, tolerated, or neglected. Politicians have permitted monopolistic concentration, left health insurance tied to our employers, and too often favored powerful interests over the public good. Government must demand that commerce be the servant of the people, not the reverse. We live in a regulated capitalist society, and such regulation must favor the people over the frequent campaign donor. A free people should never find their access to shelter, health, or dignity contingent on the relentless pursuit of profit by others.

Elected officials from both parties have for decades beguiled the people of this country into believing that we could indefinitely sustain more government, costing more money than we collect in taxes, without consequence. Powerful and moneyed interests pressure Congress continuously to spend more on more things, but not to raise taxes. We have lived under this system for so long that we the voters are often applying that pressure. This practice that we have allowed, no, encouraged, has run up a debt in this country that now consumes sixteen percent of all taxation just to pay the interest. This debt must be paid, and politicians today will do anything they can to convince you it need not be, or at least not anytime soon. We must get our house in order once and for all. To get there, elected officials at all levels and citizens alike must speak plainly and honestly with one another about how much government we want, who shall be responsible for what, and how to pay for it. The situation is already well beyond the oft-quoted "our grandchildren will be paying it off." Indeed, should we go on like this another ten years, making any appreciable payment beyond interest toward principal would involve a level of austerity unimaginable in this country. We can charge fair and reasonable taxes, pay our bills, protect ourselves in a dangerous world, and provide for the least among us. These choices are not beyond our capacity. They have gone unmade because our government has too often found advantage in neglecting them.

A voting system repugnant to our sacred maxim that one person equals one vote has failed to provide fair and transparent representation. Americans possess the right to cast a ballot, yet lack any meaningful voice in the government thereby formed. Minority views are swallowed whole by majorities, and millions find themselves unrepresented. Many voters live in districts so aligned to their preferred party that their vote is surplus, and wasted. Many others live in districts so aligned to the opposite party that their vote can never hope to help seat an opponent of that party. A republic cannot endure when millions believe their voice carries no consequence. Among the most insidious of mechanisms contributing to the failure of our present system are first-past-the-post elections and an electoral college that fails to equally represent voters at a national level. The upper house of our Congress is apportioned through districts of vastly unequal population. The lower house is apportioned through districts gerrymandered by the very parties that benefit from it. These flaws erode the people’s faith that government truly represents them. The two parties have a stranglehold on the primary process, producing candidates more loyal to them than to any ideal or to their constituents, robbing us of consequential choices at general elections. These powers, in the hands of the parties, have been repeatedly used to serve the interests of politicians instead of the people. Nations do not decay when they disagree; they decay when their citizens stop feeling ownership of their government. American government must truly represent all voters, not simply sort their ballots into one of two buckets.

Fair elections alone cannot save a legislature incapable of governing effectively. Our Congress has become a mire from which quality legislation reflecting the will of the people seldom crawls out. We ask the electorate to speak, then divide its voice among institutions elected at different times, under different circumstances, and often to different purposes. Our voice is then filtered through parties that reflect our will less and less, so it is unsurprising that agreement between parties and houses is unlikely. Committee structure, governmental oversight, the budget process, and confirmation of nominees have all been fundamentally broken by partisan forces, and no longer work for us. Our once proud and learned Senate was intended to serve as the sober voice of second thought, revising legislation and tempering momentary passions. It has instead become the place where bills frequently go to die. When responsibility is divided among so many actors, accountability becomes easy to evade and difficult to assign. We can have a legislature that cannot be so easily co-opted by the parties inside it, and whose incentives keep them working for us. Congress is the branch that was designed to most closely reflect the will of the people, and the time has come for them to turn from the mirror and return both their gaze and their fidelity to us.

Our executive branch has devolved into an imperial Presidency whose powers have become so unclearly defined that it is a great challenge for any court, our Congress, or indeed, a President to say with any certainty or authority what a President can and cannot lawfully do. We have had Presidents both ignore a ruling of the judiciary and exercise a power clearly given to the legislature. The separation of powers is fundamentally broken, and the danger to our freedoms and the very sanctity of constitutional government could not be more dire. Over time, Congress has found it easier to surrender difficult decisions than to make them. Presidents, in turn, have found it easier to exercise power than to seek its formal delegation. Thus power has flowed steadily toward the executive, not by constitutional design, but by institutional neglect. Where powers are unclearly defined, every incentive favors their expansion. Authority once assumed is rarely surrendered, and any acceptance of it becomes precedent for future exercise of it. Checks and balances will not function when the party in power decides they need not. We must have an executive with more clearly defined and limited powers, and one more subject to the consent of the other branches. We must restore the checks and balances that keep the co-equal branches accountable to one another, and ultimately, to us. In doing so, America can again have Presidents we are proud of, whether we voted for them or not.

We have failed to establish an apolitical senior power to prevent abuses by those who have control over our political institutions. The Supreme Court took this power to itself, and while it has saved us from a great many threats to both our freedoms and good government, most of this noble and critical work was done in the last century or before. The Court has become increasingly politicized, unable to effectively respond to what has become a status quo of bad government, and more than we would like to admit, tied to and controlled by the two parties. Lower courts suffer from an obscene number of unfilled vacancies, and litigants openly maneuver not only to seek justice, but to find the judge most likely to deliver their preferred outcome. It can be no surprise then that the fairness and impartiality we expect from our courts is too often absent when it is needed most. Lower courts have been stripped of broad injunctive relief powers to restrain unlawful exercises of power. Without that ability to halt illegal actions when they are challenged, rights may be violated long before justice can arrive. Their decisions are increasingly overturned with an unconsidered swiftness unbecoming of a democratic judiciary. Such limits on the power of judges have dismantled a critical link in our checks and balances. Whether by design or indifference, those who hold power benefit more and more from institutions unwilling or unable to restrain them. The judiciary does not have unlimited power or resources to protect us from abuses of power, so we cannot be shocked to have arrived at this moment when our institutions can no longer reliably correct themselves. We must have a judiciary that can be counted upon to impartially bring about justice, and we must give it the resources to protect both people and republic from abuses of the other branches. The Supreme Court was not long ago the most respected and admired institution in our government, and it can be again.

Our troubles with the executive branch do not lie solely in Washington, but also at home. Policing in this country, though dominated by dedicated and heroic public servants taking risks most of us would reject, has significant cultural patterns and practices that stand at times in direct opposition to the rights, safety, and dignity of the people they are sworn to protect. While there are undoubtedly a number of officers drawn to the authority of the badge as a license to rule others rather than a responsibility to serve, the failures of American law enforcement cannot be explained away as the misconduct of a few bad apples. The problem is structural, cultural, and systemic. Too many law enforcement agencies have failed to instill a culture of service, de-escalation, judiciousness, humility, restraint, and Constitutional fidelity. Police incentives and publicly funded training too often instead emphasize unyielding situational control, rights as obstacles to be managed, and deceit and coercion as acceptable tools for producing obedience. These tenets cannot be taught as doctrine in a free society. Excessive force, sometimes reaching inhuman brutality, still stains American law enforcement, and less-than-lethal weapons have gone from a means of keeping subjects from serious harm to everyday tools for obtaining immediate compliance, even in low-stakes situations. The law itself compounds each of these failures. It is dangerously unclear what constitutes a lawful order of a police officer, while broad and vague catch-all laws like disorderly conduct, resisting, obstructing, disturbing the peace, and loitering grant authorities wide discretion to act where no true crime exists. Such ambiguity invites bias and abuse, and too often shields them. Where rights are unclear, they are easily denied. Appallingly, redress of grievances for victims of police mistreatment is slow or nonexistent. Where accountability is weak, misconduct is easily repeated, and rights that exist only after litigation are already diminished. We count on law enforcement to keep us safe, but authority without restraint is not safety, it is danger. Rights must live not only in the courtroom, but in our homes, in public, and by the side of the road. The authority of the badge should command respect because it has earned trust, not merely because it can compel obedience. We must require from law enforcement a level of professionalism and respect for civilians and their rights that we and they can be proud of.

These failures, though varied in form, arise from the same underlying decay. Across our government, institutions increasingly fail to perform the duties for which they were created, to correct their own mistakes, and to remain accountable to the people. No people blessed with so much should ever have accepted so little from their government. The reforms we seek are not ends in themselves. They are the means by which free people reclaim ownership of their institutions. Government exists to serve the people, not itself; to safeguard liberty, not power; to faithfully execute the duties entrusted to it; and to remain accountable to those from whom its authority was derived. America must do all these things and be all these things because we are more than a Constitution, a people, or a land. America is a promise made to each and every one of us, a dream toward which generations have labored, and a legacy we don't just inherit, but actively shape for those who will come after us. We have, for far too long, sat idly by, having been masterfully refocused away from the principles and issues that matter most to us, and onto the never-ending battle of blue versus red, a contest that promises victory while delivering virtually nothing. Meanwhile, our promise was broken, our dream corrupted, and our legacy taken from us and given to the two political parties. We shall tolerate this no longer. Not for one more election. We, the governed, revoke our consent to a system that long ago stopped serving us.

Resolved, then, that the time for incrementalism is long past, and that our great nation needs sweeping and immediate structural change toward a government befitting its glory and its people. We are resolved that our nation’s two parties have lost not just the will, but the ability to serve us. We are resolved that America needs not a great new party, but instead a new commitment to a great and righteous purpose: building a government capable of enduring even when those entrusted with power are ruled by something less than their better angels. We therefore, the people of The United States of America, appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do solemnly publish and declare that all allegiance to a government that places parties and politicians above ourselves is and ought to be totally dissolved. We hereby withdraw our consent from a failed political order and dedicate ourselves to the creation of one worthy of a free people. By striving ardently toward that goal, we are certain of leaving as a legacy to all future generations a renewed American Dream and renewed promise of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

This is not a revolution of blood and struggle, but one of minds and purpose. Not of chaos, but of design. We act not in rage, but with resolve. We do not abandon our founding; we fulfill it. We do not cast aside our Constitution; we reclaim it. We are not reckless for demanding change; we are responsible. We seek not a government uniform in thought, but one capable of governing despite disagreement. Our Constitution, after all, is not weakened when we demand better of our public servants; it is vindicated. This is a revolution that will happen only by and with the consent of the governed. The tree of liberty needs desperately to be refreshed, but not with the blood of tyrants and patriots. Instead, renewal must come from recovering our ability as a people to speak through representative institutions about what matters most. America must again be the shining beacon on a hill proclaiming democracy to all the world.

The United States of America was founded on the idea that we are a perpetually unfinished nation, one that has not only accepted the idea of becoming a more perfect union, but was indeed designed for it. We are a plural society; we accept more than one idea. With that concept firmly in our hearts, this is not a conservative movement, nor is it a liberal one. We welcome citizens of both political persuasions, those who find themselves in the middle, and all who feel disillusioned with our present politics. Our revolution is not for or against most political issues; it is for a rational, functional, fairly elected government. Through such a government we can both progress toward a future we seek with opportunity and dignity for all, and conserve the liberties that have long sustained us, the strength of family, and values we hold most dear. Not left. Not right. Forward.

Substack

Are you a person who cannot own a bad feeling? Do you immediately project your jealousy or hatred onto other people and claim they feel that way?

And/or have you got to a point in your life where engaging critical reasoning and decent interrogation of issues would overwhelm you with regret and shame about the life you’ve lived up to this point?

Well, the Institute for the Better is here to help you continue to smuggle the zucchini and chase the snake for as long as necessary. We have a selection of traditionally easy targets from various ethnic, socio-economic and age groups to suit your straw manning needs.

We’ll help you get back your self-deceiving equilibrium in no time so drop in for a chat at our office conveniently located at Woodside Plaza, Perth.

What we call “democracy” is a joke.

It’s lobbying, it’s AIPAC, it’s billionaires whispering in politicians’ ears, and it’s the same recycled lies every election cycle. We “vote” every few years, then watch the people we picked turn around and push policies we never asked for.

That’s not democracy. That’s a rigged middleman system where corporations and interest groups pull the strings, and we get the illusion of choice.

But here’s the thing, it doesn’t have to be like this. We literally live in the digital age. You can send money across the world in seconds. You can order a pizza and track the driver in real time. You can gamble on meme stocks 24/7 from your phone.

So why the hell can’t we vote on actual policies the same way?

Direct digital democracy isn’t science fiction:

Secure voting platforms exist.

Blockchain-level verification is possible.

Transparency can kill backroom deals.

Politicians can still advise us, lay out options, warn about consequences. But the final decisions? On wars, budgets, rights, healthcare, foreign policy? That should come from us, the actual people.

Representative democracy was a patchwork solution from an era of horse carriages and handwritten letters. It’s outdated. It’s slow. And it’s been captured by vested interests.

We could have real democracy right now. We’re just not allowed to.

So the question is: do we keep pretending this rigged system works, or do we finally rip the middlemen out and run it ourselves?

The first democracy in history worked that way in Athens. It wasn’t flawless (women, slaves, and foreigners excluded), but it showed that ordinary citizens could govern themselves for centuries, in a world without universal education, without the internet, and without mass literacy.

And Athens wasn’t the only case:

Swiss Cantons have practiced forms of direct democracy for hundreds of years. Modern Switzerland still uses referendums constantly, and while it’s not perfect, nobody calls the Swiss state a failure.

Medieval Italian city-states like Florence and Venice had hybrid systems with strong citizen assemblies that made crucial decisions. They didn’t collapse because “people are dumb”, they thrived for generations.

The idea that the average citizen is too stupid to decide is basically an elitist argument that’s been recycled for 2,500 years. The Athenian aristocrats said the same thing back then, yet their city birthed philosophy, science, and political thought that shaped the West.

Were mistakes made? Of course. But representative democracy doesn’t protect us from “bad decisions” either, Iraq War, Iran War,financial deregulation, surveillance states…

So the question isn’t “are people too dumb?” It’s “who do you trust more: millions of citizens making collective decisions, or a few hundred politicians making them after dinner with lobbyists?

And also:

You don't have to vote on every issue. You can just vote on whatever you want and delegate the rest if you don't care and don't have enough time to be informed on everything;

Citizens can delegate their vote on issues they don’t care about (like healthcare policy) to people/organizations they trust, but they can override that delegation anytime. That’s called liquid democracy, and it blends direct participation with flexibility.

Issues could be batched (monthly votes on key topics), not every tiny regulation or minor thing.

Current turnout is low because people feel voting every 4–5 years changes nothing. If they saw their votes actually decide budgets, laws, and rights, engagement could actually spike. It’s not apathy that currently causes low turnout,it’s cynicism(knowing nothing changes no matter what you vote)

And then, finally, on the Media:

We already live in a media-manipulated system. Politicians get elected through PR campaigns, billion-dollar ad budgets, and press spin.

The answer is to hard-wire protections: mandatory transparency on funding, equal access to airtime for different sides, open fact-checking systems built into the platforms. Also social media is so big it's virtually impossible to control it like big news agencies and it's better than trusting CNN, Fox, Bild, or Le Monde to spoon-feed us half-truths. Thousands of voices and narratives can be heard and seen through social media. That is not the case for modern newspapers and agencies

I know many of us want to help everyone be better people. But the harsh reality is some people just can't or it takes way longer than others to improve themselves.

The only thing you can fully control is your ability to tell and show them how to be better. As long as you've done that you've made your point.

It is on them after to listen and follow if they want to. If not it sucks, but that's just life. Too many people keep giving those confident with their ignorance, stubbornness, and/or stupidity too much doubt

While they may have been purposely misled to believe something, at a certain point they have to put in the work to see if it's really true or not and be willing to change their mind if need be. We can't endlessly baby them because our education system and government aren't functioning exactly as they should.

For folks who read a lot and otherwise engage with ideas, where do you go to talk about things that spark your curiosity? Obviously, there are forums and social media, but I guess I'm looking for a place for deeper, more meaningful discussion. Have had several careers across like a dozen countries, so social and intellectual isolation is a problem.

I felt the movie somewhat showed the truth. I agree that religious doings are based on mentality. If mentality and power to understand the reality is not correct then such things happen judging women for what they wear. Talking about immigration I believe it's somewhat west created it, first they invaded other small countries I mean USA then created COUP and distalizibed the country. When the invaded countries leaders become corrupt, people have to migrate to other countries for education and whatsoever purpose. I don't wanna speak about Africans What the World did to them is horrible. So now when these western countries are facing the same problem what they did back to other countries. Like the British destroyed, robbed and partitioned India. Like I can go on about many countries which are destroyed. So talking about invading and destroying things doesn't suit the west because they also did the same thing to other countries.

I’m 24F, working in tech.

I always feel the need of having connected to a person who is genuinely smart, intellectually challenging, empathetic, challenges belief, brings different perspectives. I feel like I can’t settle for someone who doesn’t push me to think deeper. It’s not about being arrogant; it’s just that I crave that specific kind of mental connection to feel truly close to someone.

Does anyone else struggle with this?

Would love to hear your thoughts in comments.

[EDIT] ----

hi everybody, there are so many comments to respond to. thanks for sharing your perspectives. therefore, after reading all of them and broadening my views, i am posting this comment so as to express clearly what i meant from my post -

i work in data science domain - ml, dl, gen ai...and also preparing for this exam(in India) that is for hiring administrators for the govt. While preparing for this exam, i started studying humanities, and found everything so interesting. It had made more tolerant of diversity, beliefs, people ; as i was able to appreciate the origin of events, and able to appreciate them for who they are.

I don't know if that was the right time for me to put the post, as this exam prep itself only requires so much time as the syllabus is huge. but i posted because i was feeling like if i could discuss with somebody what i'm learning, to share diverse opinions and to be challenged, and to become even more smarter.

I have people around me who are smart, and i have moments of deep thinking, new learnings, but what i lack is somebody with whom i can talk to on any topic without having a fear that i should be smart, intelligent enough everytime to carry the conversation, to discuss business plans with (may be we can try one), and to be motivated each day (because i am feeling very tough to be motivated by myself every day) to pursue fitness, sports, working on tech concepts and the exam preparation, and to explore world with a completely different lens, i like running, trekking.

and i agree with people saying, you are not the smartest person, what i would like to have is somebody who is self aware, curious about learning new things, supporting each other to grow. i am aware that compatibility is what matters, but it also starts from some point, right? that point for me is - having fundamental and basic smartness and empathy, to be able to comprehend different opinions, challenge thoughts with evidences, data, insights, different angles, provide with newer lens of looking at things, while at the same time i should also strive for the same. everything else that is needed in a friendship/relationship comes after all of these for me, having met the basics.

I came across a YouTube video that I'm not going to name directly, but which was basically arguing, seriously, with data and an academic tone, that child marriage was necessary to sustain birth rates and that Western modernity and feminism had ruined everything. Presentable people, professional production, thousands of views, and almost nobody in the comments pushing back. What the hell is happening to parts of the right? And what the hell is wrong with YouTube for allowing this to exist on their platform?

Let's be honest about something: for years I heard people on the right, many of them legitimately concerned about the ideologization of culture, saying it was the left that wanted to normalize unspeakable things, that it was the left attacking children. And in some cases they may have been right. But what I just watched didn't come from any progressive. It came from people who present themselves as pronatalist, traditionalist, defenders of Western civilization, and they were arguing with statistics and historical comparisons that the West's demographic problem can be solved by reconsidering the protections for children that we take for granted. That is not conservatism. That is not traditionalism. That is exactly what they claim to be fighting against, dressed up in different vocabulary.

What I find most revealing is not the video itself but that almost nobody in the comments was questioning it. Thousands of views, the tone of an intellectual conversation between friends, and the audience processing it as if it were just another episode of heterodox cultural analysis. That doesn't happen in a vacuum. It happens when the ethical framework that made this kind of argument unthinkable has eroded enough that it no longer functions as an automatic filter.

And part of that erosion has a name: the Epstein case. No conspiracy theory is needed to recognize the cultural effect it produced. What that case demonstrated is that elite figures, intellectuals, politicians, businesspeople, participated in the systematic abuse of minors for decades with total impunity. And instead of being horrified by how sick and almost demonic our elites are, some people drew a different conclusion: that the protection of children is a hypocritical taboo that nobody actually follows, and that it can therefore be questioned. As if Charles Manson or the nobles who released lions on villages for entertainment were some kind of serious ethical benchmark. The fact that elites are corrupt doesn't turn their corruption into a moral argument. It just makes the elites corrupt, nothing more.

And the pronatalist argument itself makes no sense if you actually look at the real data. Until recently Japan socially tolerated things we now consider unacceptable, and I have seen blogs reporting that you can still find sixty-year-old men with schoolgirls in public parks. Japan's birth rate is through the floor. If child marriage or social tolerance of attraction to minors solved the demographic problem, Japan would be the most fertile country in the world. It isn't. African countries with child marriage have more children because they are agricultural societies where children are labor, not because marrying off girls produces birth rates. The argument is not only morally repugnant, it is empirically false.

Now, I know that as soon as I post this some atheist or progressive will rush to the comments to tell me that Christianity is equally degenerate, that some cardinal, that institutional cover-ups, blah blah. And they are right about one thing: the institutional corruption of the churches is real and documented. But confusing that corruption with genuine Christian ethics, the ethics of the text, the ethics of ordinary believers, is a categorical error that serves everyone's interests except the truth. The Christian text on this subject has no ambiguity whatsoever: whoever harms one of these little ones, it would be better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea. There is no cultural exception, no demographic relativism, no "but historically in other societies."

The protection of childhood as a moral principle is not universal common sense or natural instinct. It is the product of a specific ethic, the ethic of dignity for the weak, the idea that every person has intrinsic value independent of their social utility. That idea did not exist in the Greco-Roman pagan world where infant exposure was completely legal. It did not exist in premodern cultures where children were property, not moral subjects. It arrived with a specific ethical revolution and that revolution has a name. When that ethic erodes, when churches empty and cultural relativism replaces the principles we considered universal, what returns is not something new. It is something very old.

And to be completely honest, because I am not going to pretend otherwise: the left does not have clean hands in this either. Foucault and various left-wing philosophers signed petitions to decriminalize pedophilia. There are documented videos of naked adults in front of children at pride parades. Multiple Democrats appear on the Epstein list. The problem does not have a single political color. What is specific to parts of the right is using civilizational and pronatalist rhetoric, which in other contexts can be entirely legitimate, as intellectual cover to arrive at the same places as always. And that deserves to be called out without pretending the problem belongs exclusively to one side.

What we are seeing with videos like this being accepted, monetized and practically applauded is that the world is paganizing itself. Not dramatically or visibly, but in the worst possible way: gradually, academically, with good production values and a reasonable tone. Civilizations do not collapse only through external invasions or mass immigration. They collapse when people stop believing in and defending what makes them what they are. The real decline of the West does not arrive with barbarians at the gate. It arrives when the people who claim to defend civilization begin using civilization's own intellectual tools to dismantle what makes it civilization. And that, unlike many things I write about, does not strike me as interesting or analyzable from a distance. It strikes me as simply horrible.