Social Media Platforms Are Defective By Design. Recall And Quarantine Them.

While the social-mediaphobes are largely wrong about their latest moral panic in regards to young people specifically, there is still a very vexing kernel of truth to what they say, albeit for all ages.  That is, to say the quiet part out loud, social media platforms are defective by design.  If they were only designed to be deliberately addictive with features that are engineered to keep users "engaged" (or in Vegas lingo, increase "time on machine"), which they of course are doing as well, that alone would be bad enough.  But it gets worse than that.  These platforms are designed to amplify the very worst of humanity, as far and wide as possible, so the companies that run them can literally profit off of the world's misery.  And these soulless corporations could literally care less about who gets hurt in the process, so long as their bottom lines increase.  And it's only getting worse, not better.

(And so-called "dating apps" are basically "social media on crack", by the way.  So everything in this article that we say about social media shall apply a fortiori to these algorithmically driven apps as well.)

Thus, the TSAP currently believes that emergency executive action needs to be taken by the President of the United States, yesterday.  (Of course, we know that no President actually will.)  That is, declare these products to be defective by design, recall, and "quarantine" them (for all ages) for two weeks or until they can be made safer, whichever is longer.  That is, freeze the platforms completely and sign everyone out automatically.  Exceptions should of course be made for standalone direct messaging apps like FB Messenger or WhatsApp (which are used frequently for international business with the Global South as well as as the Global North), provided that group chats are limited to no more than 10 people (chats larger than that would get frozen too).

This is of course temporary, so while it will provide a much needed "digital detox" for millions of people, it will not actually solve the collective action problem of Big Tech and the "Social Dilemma".  But after that, here are some things that actually will, in descending order of priority and effectiveness:

1. First and foremost, take a "Privacy First" approach as recommended by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  Pass comprehensive data privacy legislation for all ages that, at a minimum, would ban surveillance advertising, and ban data brokers too.
2. Audit the algorithms and internal research of the Big Tech giants, and make the results publicly available for all to see.  Sunlight is truly the best disinfectant. 
3. Require the strictest and safest privacy settings to be the default settings for all users of all ages, which can then be adjusted more liberally by the users themselves.  For example, "friends only" sharing and "no DMs enabled from people whom one does not follow" by default.  And allow the option to turn off all DMs completely as well.
4. Require or incentivize the use of various "architectural" safety features on all social media, such as various nudges, #OneClickSafer ("stop at two hops") to reduce the pitfalls of frictionless sharing, and increase the use of CAPTCHAs and similar tools to root out the pervasive toxic bots.
5. If after doing that, We the People feel that we must still get stricter in terms of age, then don't make things any stricter than current California standards (i.e. CCPA and CAADCA).  That is, a "Kids Code" would be fine as long as it is properly written and doesn't result in censorship or mandatory age verification. 

The first two items on the list in particular would of course be vehemently opposed by Big Tech.  That's because their whole business model depends on creepy surveillance advertising and creepy algorithms, and thus incentivizing addiction for profit.  They would thus have to switch to the (gasp!) DuckDuckGo model if these items were done.  (Plays world's smallest violin) That would of course be tantamount to throwing the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, in J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

Other good ideas we would endorse are a voluntary smartphone buyback program (similar to gun buybacks), and perhaps even paying people to voluntarily delete or deactivate their social media accounts for a time. That would accomplish far more than any realistic mandatory measures would.

Another possible idea is simply to slow down by design the pace of these social media platforms.  Much like #OneClickSafer mentioned above, adding a little bit of friction to an otherwise frictionless system can help tame the very real dark side of that system.  I mean, would you willingly drive on a frictionless surface (such as ice)?  Of course you wouldn't.

Note that internet connection speeds are more than ten times faster (!) today on average than in 2010.  That leaves a LOT of room for adding back friction!

And finally, the idea of banning certain questionable design features (infinite scroll, autoplay, etc.) may be controversial in terms of whether such features are protected by the First Amendment, but we believe that those features per se are not automatically protected, unless the ban is deliberately abused to censor specific content.  If such bans are truly content-neutal, we are fine with that. 

We must remember that, at the end of the day, Big Tech is NOT our friend.  But neither are the illiberal control freak zealots.  These measures that we endorse will actually make both sides quite angry indeed.  And if nothing else, it will certainly help Americans of all ages finally snap out of the collective trance we have (more or less) all been under since the "Like Button Apocalypse" launched in 2009, and social media went fully mainstream shortly thereafter. 

So what are we waiting for?

How To Solve The Big Tech Problem Withiout Violating Anyone's Rights (Updated Re-Post)

"Big Tech is the new Big Tobacco" is often bandied about these days.  And while that has a kernel of truth to it (a kernel the size of a cornfield, in fact), it is also used by authoritarian zealots with a very illiberal (and ageist) agenda.  Mandatory age verification, censorship, repealing Section 230, and other related illiberal restrictions would open up the door to many unintended consequences to privacy, cybersecurity, and civil rights and liberties in general.  Even those adults who don't support youth rights will eventually experience these consequences sooner or later.  Kafka, meet trap.  Pandora, meet box.  Albatross, meet neck.  And of course, baby, meet bathwater. 

And none of these things will actually solve the collective action problem of Big Tech and the "Social Dilemma".  But here are some things that will, in descending order of priority and effectiveness:

1. First and foremost, take a "Privacy First" approach as recommended by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  Pass comprehensive data privacy legislation for all ages that, at a minimum, would ban surveillance advertising, and ban data brokers too.
2. Audit the algorithms and internal research of the Big Tech giants, and make the results publicly available for all to see.  Sunlight is truly the best disinfectant. 
3. Require the strictest and safest privacy settings to be the default settings for all users of all ages, which can then be adjusted more liberally by the users themselves.  For example, "friends only" sharing and "no DMs enabled from people whom one does not follow" by default.  And allow the option to turn off all DMs completely as well.
4. Require or incentivize the use of various "architectural" safety features on all social media, such as various nudges, #OneClickSafer ("stop at two hops") to reduce the pitfalls of frictionless sharing, and increase the use of CAPTCHAs and similar tools to root out the pervasive toxic bots.
5. If after doing that, We the People feel that we must still get stricter in terms of age, then don't make things any stricter than current California standards (i.e. CCPA and CAADCA).  That is, a "Kids Code" would be fine as long as it is properly written and doesn't result in censorship or mandatory age verification. 

The first two items on the list in particular would of course be vehemently opposed by Big Tech.  That's because their whole business model depends on creepy surveillance advertising and creepy algorithms, and thus incentivizing addiction for profit.  They would thus have to switch to the (gasp!) DuckDuckGo model if these items were done.  (Plays world's smallest violin) That would of course be tantamount to throwing the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, in J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

For another, related collective action problem, what about the emerging idea of phone-free schools?  Fine, but to be fair, how about phone-free workplaces for all ages as well?  In both cases, it should ONLY apply while "on the clock", which for school would be best defined as being from the opening bell to the final bell of the day, as well as during any after-school detention time.  And of course, in both cases, there would have to be medical exemptions for students and employees who need such devices for real-time medical monitoring (glucose for diabetes, for example).  Surely productivity would increase so much as a result that we could easily shorten the standard workweek to 30-32 hours per week (8 hours for 4 days, or 6 hours for 5 days) with no loss in profits?  But that would make too much sense.

Other good ideas we would endorse are a voluntary smartphone buyback program (similar to gun buybacks), and perhaps even paying people to voluntarily delete or deactivate their social media accounts for a time. That would accomplish far more than any realistic mandatory measures would.

Another possible idea is simply to slow down by design the pace of these social media platforms.  Much like #OneClickSafer mentioned above, adding a little bit of friction to an otherwise frictionless system can help tame the very real dark side of that system.  I mean, would you willingly drive on a frictionless surface (such as ice)?  Of course you wouldn't.

Note that internet connection speeds are more than ten times faster (!) today on average than in 2010.  That leaves a LOT of room for adding back friction!

And finally, the idea of banning certain questionable design features (infinite scroll, autoplay, etc.) may be controversial in terms of whether such features are protected by the First Amendment, but we believe that those features per se are not automatically protected, unless the ban is deliberately abused to censor specific content.  If such bans are truly content-neutal, we are fine with that. 

We must remember that, at the end of the day, Big Tech is NOT our friend.  But neither are the illiberal control freak zealots.  These measures that we endorse will actually make both sides quite angry indeed.  But truly that's a feature, not a bug.

Big Tech can go EFF off!

UPDATE:  We have opposed KOSA until recently due to censorship concerns, and while those concerns have been somewhat alleviated with recent edits to the bill, we still cannot say we support it 100%.  But for now, we have dropped our opposition to the bill, if for no other reason than to forestall more restrictive bills (like Australia's new law) in the future, and thus the TSAP and Twenty-One Debunked is currently neutral on KOSA despite it still not being ideal.

Was The Election Hacked? Maybe

DISCLAIMER:  (*holds nose while typing this*) All people named in the following article and comments shall be presumed innocent until proven guilty.  

(H/T to Rachel Donald, whose Substack article on the same topic I am citing for this article below.)

There is a theory making the rounds lately online, namely, that the 2024 presidential election was allegedly hacked in favor of Trump, presumably by his buddy Elon Musk.  In fact, some cybersecurity experts agree, and have sounded the alarm in that regard.  And there are indeed some notable irregularities that have been observed.

First of all, the very fact that Trump won ALL SEVEN swing states in itself strains credulity, seeing as how historically unusual that is.  Such a massive sweep should ring alarm bells as too good to be true.

But the most crucial issue this time is the unusually high percentage of "bullet ballots", that is, ballots in which the president section was filled out but the rest of the ballot was left blank.  Typically, including in the last two presidential elections, that percentage hovers around 1% or less.  And in the non-swing states, that same pattern remained true.  But in the seven swing states, the "bullet ballot" percentage greatly exceeded that (often off the charts) for Trump ballots, with the highest being 11% in North Carolina.  And the biggest tell of all:  it wasn't evenly distributed either, but rather heavily concentrated in only some localities.

(Voting only for president and nothing else, especially in a year where hot-button issues were on the ballot as initiatives and referenda in several states, is anomalous to say the least.  And that it would occur so unevenly skewed and off the charts is suspicious.)

In other words, it sure seems like something is rotten in the states of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. 

I smell a (Musk) rat.  There are a number of ways in which such an alleged hack could have happened, and all were indeed possible.  Either way, it looks likely that a non-trivial number of Trump ballots may very well never have even existed at all.

No wonder Trump, Musk, and the rest of the insiders in their orbit were so smug in the days and weeks leading up to the election, let alone afterwards:  they must have known on some level that the fix was in. 

All of this can be very easily debunked, of course, if a hand recount was done in all seven swing states.  But of course, neither Musk nor Trump nor anyone in their orbit will allow that.  Since the totals were just above the margin where such a recount would be required by law, no one will do it unless the Democrats (or others) fight for it. And unfortunately, we all know that most people are too lazy and chickenshit to do it, especially against the richest person in the world and his orange menace buddy, both of whom are known to be very spiteful. 

Indeed, Musk himself threatened to use the "Hammer of Justice" against those who spread such a theory in a post on his very own social media platform, X (formerly Twitter).  Natch.  Is that a promise, Elon?

True, there is no actual proof, not yet.  And we shouldn't pretend there is.  But the evidence thus far is highly suggestive that something isn't quite right with the numbers, and thus all the more reason to investigate, even if only to put this all to rest.

FINAL THOUGHT:  I will concede that this outcome, cheating or not, would not have even been possible at all in anything even approaching a healthy society.  Granted.  And yes, the mainstream Dems leave a LOT to be desired, to put it nicely.  But the Substack article, and the cybersecurity experts that the author cites, still make excellent points.  I still smell a Musk rat.

The Generation Who Failed

Recently, I realized what my greatest disappointment of all really is right now, and that is at my own generation, the Elder Millennials, or whatever we call ourselves this week.  We were supposed to be the generation who saved the world.  And we had every chance to do so, and we blew it big time.  No wonder we look like we haven't aged very much if at all:  just like vampires, we sold our souls long ago.  

We failed to stop the Bush/Cheney warmongering.  We let the once-promising Occupy movement fall by the wayside.  We failed to stop Trump the first time.  We fell for the Covid lockdown, mask, and jab nonsense and leaned heavily into it, instead of either adopting the "flu strategy" or perhaps grounding only our parents and grandparents for a brief time as we built herd immunity, which would have saved far more lives in the long run.  We couldn't wait to throw younger Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha under the bus, because "I got mine, screw everyone else".  And now, the majority of us either voted for Trump or third party or not at all, in part because we didn't have the intestinal fortitude to demand years ago that the mainstream Democrats do better.

Oh, and the world is on fire too, both literally and metaphorically.  And also metaphysically.

And then we have the GALL to blame it all on our Boomer parents?  Well, the apple sure didn't fall far from the tree!

So to any younger generations reading this, or who will read this in the future, I sincerely apologize for what my generation did and failed to do.  What a "wonderful" world you will be inheriting.

Will future generations ever forgive us?  Because that would be a pretty tall order!

If There Was A Single Thing That Cost The Dems The Election, It Was This

This election has truly been a rout for the Democrats.  Now the Republicans basically hold all of the cards, as they now fully dominate all three branches of government for the first time in literally decades.  And on November 5th, it looked like the Dems had it in the bag.  So what the hell went wrong?

It was a number of things, to be sure.  But the increasingly neoliberal, out-of-touch, and yes, elitist mainstream wing of the Democratic party came to utterly dominate the party in recent years while sidelining the genuine progressives like Bernie Sanders et al.  And if there was ONE decision they made that truly cost them the election, it was the conscious choice to allow the expanded child tax credits (a sort of "mini-UBI" in place during the pandemic) to expire, without extending or replacing them with something similar or better (like UBI for all).  This program, which cut child poverty rates in HALF while they were in place, was truly a resounding success by any rational measure, but child poverty and hunger then predictably rebounded after they were allowed to expire.  Yes, you read that right.

The Dems were apparently too hung up on identity politics and other wedge issues to embrace true economic progressivism.  They were basically blinded by their own class privilege, in other words.  So "woke" they were, that they sleepwalked into defeat.

Not that this actually justifies anyone voting for Trump or Republicans, of course.  Everyone should have known by now that he is a grifter, grafter, racist, rapist, insurrectionist, convicted felon, misogynist, serial liar, hothead, and madman.  But when people are hungry, and grocery and other prices are high on the heels of the worst inflation in four decades (even as it is finally abating), and a conman is promising everyone "a chicken in every pot", while the opposing party seemed to be out to lunch in that regard, or at least not nearly progressive enough on economic issues, such people may not vote rationally.  Most who voted for Trump would have voted for him regardless, but there were enough fence-sitters at the margins that genuinely voted with their wallets.

In other words, "it's the economy, stupid".  At least for the non-trivial fence-sitters who swung this election, it was.  Hindsight is truly 2024.  The Dems absolutely must remember this next time.  That is, IF there even IS a next time at all, of course.  Which, with the way things are going, is by no means guaranteed. 

It's Midnight In America

It's midnight in America, and the sun may never rise again.

Well, it's official.  Trump won the 2024 presidential election.  Again.  And this time, we can't blame it on the Electoral College or Russian interference or anything other than We the People.  Or rather, about half of us.  

Only this time around, literally everyone knew what he was all about, and yet so many still voted for him.  So literally NO ONE can credibly claim naivety or ignorance (unless truly willful) this time.  They had an easy out, and yet they chose to go right back to Trump.  They are NOT victims, they are volunteers, often very eager ones, which makes them complicit with the oppressors.  In fact, in the two weeks leading up to Election Day, Trump deliberately darkened his already vile rhetoric even more to get more undecided or apathetic folks off of their couches to go to the polls.

I mean, they literally chose the rapist, racist, misogynistic, convicted felon, lunatic, and insurrectionist candidate over the admittedly imperfect but highly accomplished woman of color candidate, because reasons.  Or they simply didn't vote at all, or they voted third party, because they chose to make the perfect the enemy of the good, and we all ultimately got neither as a result. 

They had ONE job this time, and that was to simply get off the damn couch and cast a secret ballot for Kamala, the only person really standing in the way of Trump, and no one would ever have to know.  And they couldn't even do that!  And now that they have sown the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind!

Unfortunately, ALL of us will.

America is basically dead and done now, and it will truly take a miracle of miracles to be able to transcend this madness and come out the other side in one piece.  Of course, once could argue that America was already slowly dying for quite some time now.  The fact that anywhere near half of the country would even remotely consider voting for Trump in the first place, again, would have been unthinkable in a truly healthy country and society. 

So as the darkness settles in once again, we need to keep all of this in mind.  And once again, we all must #RESIST tyranny of any kind.  If you give them an inch, they will take a mile. 

UBI Is The Only Way To End Modern Slavery (Updated Re-Post)

Most of the objections to Universal Basic Income (UBI), from both the left and the right (usually the right), are fundamentally patronizing, paternalistic, and/or sadistic in nature, whether subtly or not-so-subtly.  Those are, of course, very easily debunked as void on their face in anything even remotely approaching a free and civilized society.  But what about the very few supposedly ethical objections that don't quite fit this mold?

One such objection to UBI is that it is really just "crowdsourced slavery", both within nations as well as (especially) with the imperialistic Global North continuing to exploit the Global South.  Or something.

Tell me, how exactly does one "crowdsource" slavery?  And if everyone is getting free money, and all work thus becomes de facto voluntary and optional, who exactly is really being exploited or enslaved?  How would anybody be able to economically coerce anyone else?

And how exactly can it possibly be any worse than the status quo?  (Don't think too hard about that.)

Even the biggest degrowth advocates like Jason Hickel openly support UBI, and he is certainly no imperialist shill.  Ditto for Charles Eisenstein and David Graeber.

True, the Romans had the Cura Annonae (aka "the dole"), and slavery still persisted for quite some time then.  But what they didn't have, of course, was anywhere near the number of "energy slaves" that we have now, let alone today's technology that should have made all forms of slavery obsolete long ago, but for the system of late capitalism under which we live.

True, UBI is unlikely to be global overnight, and will have to start at the national or subnational level.  To avoid the worst unintended consequences, particularly those related to currencies and inflation, a global UBI (especially one directed primarily towards the Global South) would best be funded by a Tobin Tax on foreign currency exchanges, while a national, subnational, or local one would best be funded by seigniorage via national or local currencies, and/or Georgist-style taxation on the use of natural resources.  But until then, even a globally lopsided national-only UBI is highly unlikely to be any WORSE than the status quo, even if we do still maintain a sizable "trade deficit" in the near term.  In other words, if you make the perfect the enemy of the good, you ultimately end up with neither.

(Some may counter that they are really "making the necessary the enemy of the convenient", but that is really just begging the question.  Any way you slice it, it is an unserious argument to oppose UBI.)

Over the lifecycle, we ALL subsidize each other to one degree or another.  Period.  And whether we like it or not, the globalization genie is out of the bottle, and has been for some time now.  And while all empires should of course go back to being republics, returning to complete autarky (whether it be national or small-scale autarky) is a practical nonstarter for the foreseeable future, so a new model of "alter-globalization," perhaps combined with some partial economic relocalization, is the least worst way forward.  (The scarcity mindset sure doesn't help.)

Until then, we need to meet people where they are at.  Dismantling an empire this massive is best done very, very gingerly to avoid catastrophic unintended consequences, even if it takes a bit longer to do.

(Sorry, Tereza Coraggio, but history has shown that strictly small-scale sovereignty also has it's own set of pitfalls as well.  And unfortunately, NOT all people are inherently good either, and thus to blame any and all bad behavior entirely on The System is to rob individuals of agency.  Better to be protopian and not utopian, as the latter, which literally means "no place" in Greek, ultimately leads to dystopia in practice.)

As for slavery, I hereby cordially invite anyone reading this to go look up your own slavery footprint under the status quo.  Go on.  I bet your hands don't feel so clean now, do they?

If you still feel guilty about receiving UBI for whatever reason, then by all means, feel free to to donate it to GiveDirectly then.  Put your money where your mouth is.  Otherwise, silence is golden.

Bonus points for those who decide they now support UBI, even if only so they can now finally afford to buy ethically sourced, fair trade products instead of the usual cheap junk often produced by slave labor.  (Because, let's face it, "just doing without" is not only a political nonstarter, but often is not even a viable option at all under the current system, at least for those who are not extremely privileged, and is really like saying "let them eat cake".)  If you just spotted the very, very glaring "collective action problem" in the status quo before I mentioned it, you are thus quite astute, and even more bonus points to you.

If that's still not purist enough for you, dear reader, then feel free to "sell all you have, and give the proceeds to the [global] poor", as Jesus of Nazareth famously instructed the rich man.  (You may not feel rich, but you are far, far richer than even the very richest person was back then on an absolute basis, albeit admittedly ignoring relative wealth and poverty.)  And while there is no guarantee that you will "find treasure in Heaven" after doing so, at least then you could finally honestly oppose UBI for moral reasons without being a flaming hypocrite.

(Cue the crickets and cicadas)

Honestly, NO ONE's hands are truly clean in the system we currently live under.  Except for those at the very top (the oligarchs) and the very bottom (literal chattel slaves) of the global pyramid scheme, we are ALL effectively varying degrees of slaves AND slavers at the same time under the global kyriarchy.  (And yes, contrary to popular opinion, it is entirely possible for slaves to own or rent other slaves, as Harriet Beecher Stowe noted in her famous, and now politically incorrect, book whose very title was since converted into a mild to moderate racial slur.  There was then, and still is now, a pecking order that goes ALL the way down, in fact.)  And clearly some form of UBI is necessary, even if not sufficient by itself, to finally end this evil system once and for all.

(TL;DR version:  there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and the sooner we move beyond it into post-capitalism, the better we will all be.  UBI is a crucial key policy tool that, while not perfect, will still help further that goal from a protopian perspective.  After all, life doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.)

(Mic drop)

This November's Election Is For All The Marbles

Listen up, everyone.  Make no mistake, this November's election is for ALL the marbles.  And not just because the Donald has lost his marbles (he lost them long ago), but because the stakes are even higher still this time around.  A vote for Trump (or a vote for any third party candidate, or not voting at all) is effectively a vote for Project 2025, the latest Republican agenda, which would lead America into Margaret Atwood's worst nightmare.  What they are proposing is downright horrifying to say the least!  And it is also a vote for the Trump-Putin-Xi-Kim Axis of Evil as well.  Some may say that this election is essentially a choice between World War III and Civil War 2.0, but we think that Trump winning would make it that much more likely that we will get the two-for-one special, barring a miracle of miracles.

And to those who say that their vote doesn't count because it is rigged and the outcome is predetermined, keep in mind that such a thing really only happens when the election is close, and it becomes that much HARDER to cheat when the election is not close.  We still haven't gone so far down the rabbit hole of kleptocracy that we have full banana republic sham elections--YET.  (Though if Trump wins, he could very easily make that the case in the future.)  And if everyone who was eligible to vote actually voted, Trump (and the Republicans in general) really wouldn't stand a chance.

The lesson that should have been learned in 2016:  if you make the perfect the enemy of the good, we ultimately end up with neither. Seriously. 

P.S.  To all of the young(-ish) Trump supporting men out there who are still smug about Project 2025 because of your gender, race, etc., read the fine print.  One of the things on the agenda is to bring back the military draft.  Seriously.  That means YOU too.  So maybe you might want to reconsider which candidate, and party, you are willing to support.  And to all of the Serena Joy-esque self-hating misogynists out there, who think they personally will be spared, well, remember what ultimately happens to Serena in Atwood's novel.  Don't say you haven't been warned!

Like the song "Freewill" by Rush goes, "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

Excellent Article About UBI

The ever-insightful Rodger Malcolm Mitchell has a great new article about the topic of UBI from a Monetary Sovereignty perspective.  Read it and share it far and wide.  It needs to go VIRAL!

The only arguments against UBI are either ignorant, obsolete, greedy, selfish, patronizing, paternalistic, and/or sadistic, which means that there are really NO good arguments against it in any free and decent society worthy of the name.  Period.

(Mic drop)

The Latest Universal Basic Income (UBI) Experiment Study Is A Political-Philosophical Rorschach Test

Much has been made of the latest Universal Basic Income (UBI) experiment run by tech CEO Sam Altman, lasting for three years beginning in 2020, and the study of the results by Eva Vivalt et al.  In a nutshell, the abstract below, particularly the text in bold (emphasis ours), seems to be a sort of political and philosophical Rorschach (inkblot) test, in which we all see what we subconsciously want to see:

We study the causal impacts of income on a rich array of employment outcomes, leveraging an experiment in which 1,000 low-income individuals were randomized into receiving $1,000 per month unconditionally for three years, with a control group of 2,000 participants receiving $50/month. We gather detailed survey data, administrative records, and data from a custom mobile phone app. The transfer caused total individual income to fall by about $1,500/year relative to the control group, excluding the transfers. The program resulted in a 2.0 percentage point decrease in labor market participation for participants and a 1.3-1.4 hour per week reduction in labor hours, with participants’ partners reducing their hours worked by a comparable amount. The transfer generated the largest increases in time spent on leisure, as well as smaller increases in time spent in other activities such as transportation and finances. Despite asking detailed questions about amenities, we find no impact on quality of employment, and our confidence intervals can rule out even small improvements. We observe no significant effects on investments in human capital, though younger participants may pursue more formal education. Overall, our results suggest a moderate labor supply effect that does not appear offset by other productive activities.

And there you have it.  Some commenters have reacted positively to it, seeing it as a good thing, and some negatively, seeing it as a bad thing, often quite predictably based on political leanings.  That said, the following comment from a libertarian perspective on the Reason article clearly wins the internet:

check out reddit.com/r/antiwork

There are large groups of people who simply think it’s unfair that they are required to work in order to feed themselves. Why should they be required to do things that society deems “useful”?

I’m in favor of UBI as a replacement for welfare. I’m in favor of single payer basic healthcare as a way of decoupling healthcare from employers.

I’m ok with one of the consequences being that some people can stop pretending to work.

The commenter, Bubba Jones, makes an excellent point there.  So what if UBI results in such a modest drop in work hours and the nominal size of the labor force?  A drop of merely two percentage points and 1.4 hours per week is hardly a mass exodus from the workforce, and I would hazard a guess that the lion's share of the drop is concentrated among those who are at the lower end of the bell curve and the vitality curve, that is, marginally attached workers who tend to enervate more than they energize.  (Note as well that this study was done largely during the outlier years of the pandemic, so that may have biased the numbers.)  And in any case, more leisure is NOT inherently a bad thing.  As Robert Reich famously said, the economy exists to make our lives better, we don't exist to make the economy.   This of course echoes Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative that we should always treat humanity as ends in themselves, and never solely as a means to an end.

And it dovetails nicely with the famous quote by the late, great Buckminster Fuller, the Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century:

We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

(Mic drop)

UPDATE:  The ever-insightful Rodger Malcolm Mitchell has a great new article about the topic of UBI from a Monetary Sovereignty perspective.  Read it and share it far and wide.  It needs to go VIRAL!

Also, as the ever-insightful Marco Fioretti notes, the laws of physics ultimately demand some flavor of UBI from a limits-to-growth perspective.  Thus whether you are pro-growth, anti-growth, degrowth, or agnostic about growth, all roads lead to UBI.

And finally, to clarify, the TSAP agrees with the Reddit comment IF the middle part is modified as follows:

"I’m in favor of UBI as a replacement for [cash] welfare. I’m in favor of single payer basic [comprehensive] healthcare as a way of decoupling healthcare from employers."

There, fixed it for you.  And once again:

(Mic drop)

What Hath The FERAL Reserve Wrought?

The FERAL Reserve needs to answer the Clue Phone, as it is ringing louder than ever.  The stock market is crashing, and the Sahm Rule recession indicator is currently flashing red.  The broader economy itself is not crashing--yet--but at least a mild recession seems to be already baked into the cake at this point.  

The Fed's overzealous crusade against inflation has ultimately jumped the proverbial shark a while ago.  They hiked interest rates too high and stubbornly kept them too high for too long, creating a stagflationary quagmire as a result.  Inflation began to fall on its own once the pandemic-induced global supply chain crisis was resolved, and also the geopolitical issues abroad (war, sanctions, etc.) were less intense for the USA than initially thought, no thanks to the interest rate hikes, which only deepened the quagmire in the long run. 

We have been saying for a while now, and will say it again:  the Fed absolutely MUST cut interest rates yesterday, full stop.  An emergency rate cut of 100 basis points (aka one full percentage point) is clearly indicated for this situation to prevent the worst case scenario from unfolding.   

Don't say we didn't warn you!

UPDATE:  Looks like the stock market has recovered from the correction for now.  But our point still stands regardless.  And inflation is basically defeated for the time being.  Cut interest rates NOW!

Liberty Is Not A "Luxury Belief". It Is A Birthright For All

The term "luxury beliefs" has gained quite a lot of traction since it was coined in 2019, and especially since 2022, by Rob Henderson.  Per Wikipedia:

A luxury belief is an idea or opinion that confers status on members of the upper class at little cost, while inflicting costs on persons in lower classes.  The term is often applied to privileged individuals who are seen as disconnected from the lived experiences of impoverished and marginalized people. Such individuals supposedly hold political and social beliefs that signal their elite status, yet which are alleged to have negative impacts on those with the least influence. Exactly what counts as a luxury belief is not always consistent and may vary from person to person, and the term in general is considered to be controversial.

Make no mistake, it is typically only (social) conservatives that have been using the term in recent years to describe their opponents' views on various hot-button issues (bail reform, criminal justice, policing, MMT, immigration, net zero, environmentalism, marriage and family, sexual freedom, reproductive rights, drug legalization and decriminalization, etc.).  Occasionally the left and center-left have used the term (much more accurately, we would argue) to describe conservative beliefs like "supply-side economics", "trickle-down theory", austerity, artificial scarcity, weak or nonexistent social safety nets, and stuff like that, but the use of the term on the left in that context is relatively rare.

On the right, and even somewhat on the "third way" neoliberal left since President Clinton, there seems to be this specious idea that too much personal liberty is somehow apocalyptically worse than too little, particularly for the poor, downtrodden, and vulnerable members of society, and especially for racialized minorities (who says conservatives don't "play the race card" when it's convenient?).  We argue that this is a patronizing and paternalistic attitude towards people that the talking heads (consciously or unconsciously) feel smugly superior to, and it essentially robs such people of agency.  And to be blunt about it, as the saying goes, "crap always rolls downhill".  That is, granted, ANY policy can have unintended consequences per Murphy's Law, and as a well-known corollary, those negative consequences tend to accrue disproportionately to those who lack the means to insulate themselves from such consequences, particularly those at the bottom of the socioeconomic hierarchy.  For example, in that regard, we can call the War on (people who use a few particular) Drugs just as much if not more of a "luxury belief" as full drug legalization would be in practice, as the adverse consequences (which are not entirely unintended!) fall disproportionately on poor people and/or racialized minorities. 

As Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) famously said, "you can get over an addiction, but you will never get over a conviction".  And that clearly applies tenfold to the poor as it does to the rich.

The real problem is systemic, as must any real solution be.  But liberty per se is not the problem.  While the utterly patronizing and paternalistic protectionism and "tyranny of the weaker brother" is the real luxury belief here, as are the economic ones like "trickle-down theory", austerity, and neoliberalism. ("Catch and release" and "defund the police" are the only ones that Henderson mentions that even come close in that regard.)

The TSAP supports liberty and justice for all, in contrast to liberty for "just us", NOT all.  To quote Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies (sic) attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it".  Truer words have never been spoken indeed.

(Mic drop)

To Refurbish Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), One Must Admit That Lockdowns Were Indeed Harmful On Balance

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has been taking quite a drubbing lately.  Some say it has been thoroughly discredited since it was de facto practiced (to an extent) during the pandemic, and massive inflation resulted.  But that glib commentary misses the real root cause of the inflation:  the shortages of goods, services, and labor resulting from the massive global supply chain disruptions, which in turn resulted from the lockdowns and related restrictions. 

(And it's not entirely due to ignorance, since those naysayers actually DO admit as much about the lockdowns, but yet they still speciously put most, if not all, of the blame on MMT, because reasons.)

MMT per se was never the problem.  But to refurbish it, one must admit that lockdowns and related restrictions did very real harm, something that the pseudo-left is loath to do.  Not that MMT is flawless, by any means.  But Rodger Malcolm Mitchell's related theory, Monetary Sovereignty (MS), essentially fixes those flaws, especially when he (belatedly) jettisoned the specious idea of interest rate hikes (which only deepened the stagflationary quagmire) as an inflation-fighting tool.  A good essay about the differences between the two can be found here.

In a nutshell, when you literally shut down the broader economy in most of the world for an extended period of time (which greatly disrupts and shrinks supply), AND then try to paper over it by printing unprecedented amounts of money (which stokes demand), that WILL be inflationary.  But the money printing was NOT the root cause, and remember that if the powers that be didn't do that, there would have been a full-blown depression, if not a complete collapse of civilization as we knew it, and within a couple weeks the masses would have been furiously calling for their heads with torches and pitchforks.  Or, they could have simply adopted the "flu strategy" and NOT imposed any restrictions, and perhaps implemented a more modest (but more brief and front-loaded) stimulus package, and this whole stagflationary quagmire could have been avoided.  And as the experience of Sweden and other countries has famously shown, it would not have resulted in any more excess deaths than occurred with lockdowns.  Hindsight is quite literally 2020.

It's not that lunch cannot ever be free.  It actually can be, at least to a point.  But truly lockdowns can never be a free lunch, no matter how much money gets printed to paper over the massive holes they make.

As for the specious notion that MMT (and by extension, MS) is a "luxury belief", well, we know that the real luxury beliefs are austerity and artificial scarcity.  Not to mention lockdowns as well.

This November's Election Is For All The Marbles

With President Biden officially dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, and VP Kamala Harris the most likely candidate in his place, the 2024 election just got that much more interesting.  This is of course right on the heels of the recent (and mysterious) assassination attempt on Trump (which we condemn, of course), which has apparently elevated him to "martyr" status among his cult-like base.  

Make no mistake, this election is for ALL the marbles.  And not just because the Donald has lost his marbles (he lost them long ago), but because the stakes are even higher still this time around.  A vote for Trump (or a vote for any third party candidate, or not voting at all) is effectively a vote for Project 2025, the latest Republican agenda, which would lead America into Margaret Atwood's worst nightmare.  What they are proposing is downright horrifying to say the least!  And it is also a vote for the Trump-Putin-Xi-Kim Axis of Evil as well.  Some may say that this election is essentially a choice between World War III and Civil War 2.0, but we think that Trump winning would make it that much more likely that we will get the two-for-one special, barring a miracle of miracles.

And to those who say that their vote doesn't count because it is rigged and the outcome is predetermined, keep in mind that such a thing really only happens when the election is close, and it becomes that much HARDER to cheat when the election is not close.  We still haven't gone so far down the rabbit hole of kleptocracy that we have full banana republic sham elections--YET.  (Though if Trump wins, he could very easily make that the case in the future.)  And if everyone who was eligible to vote actually voted, Trump (and the Republicans in general) really wouldn't stand a chance.

The lesson that should have been learned in 2016:  if you make the perfect the enemy of the good, we ultimately end up with neither. Seriously. 

P.S.  To all of the young(-ish) Trump supporting men out there who are still smug about Project 2025 because of your gender, race, etc., read the fine print.  One of the things on the agenda is to bring back the military draft.  Seriously.  That means YOU too.  So maybe you might want to reconsider which candidate, and party, you are willing to support.  And to all of the Serena Joy-esque self-hating misogynists out there, who think they personally will be spared, well, remember what ultimately happens to Serena in Atwood's novel.  Don't say you haven't been warned!

Like the song "Freewill" by Rush goes, "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

Reclaim The 4th!

As John Pavlovitz notes, it is no secret that today, the Fourth of July, has become a high holy day for the MAGA movement and fascists in general.  And that truly is a shame.  They have, essentially, culturally appropriated and turned thoroughly inside-out such an otherwise wonderful holiday celebrating our nation's hard-won independence from the British Empire, and the ideals of liberty and justice for all.  

Thus we must NEVER let them have exclusive use of this day, as that is dangerous.  Instead, we must reclaim it from the fascists, lest we let them win.

So what are we waiting for?  Happy Birthday America!  And hopefully many, many more!

Hey FERAL Reserve, Cut Interest Rates NOW!

The FERAL Reserve still has yet to cut interest rates, and despite the Dow Jones recently hitting 40,000, the risk of recession is apparently growing by the day.  And after falling dramatically from its 2022 peak of 9% once the pandemic-induced (more like lockdown-induced) supply chain issues and shortages got resolved, inflation currently remains stubbornly stuck in the neighborhood of 3%.  Because Jerome Powell is too stubborn to cut rates, thus keeping us trapped in a quagmire.  Hello, stagflation!

A recession is probably already baked into the cake at this point, and thus is probably too late to avoid entirely.  Granted.  But the Fed can still at least delay the onset, reduce the length and severity, and promote a speedier recovery IF they would deign to cut rates yesterday.  And even just delaying the onset by a quarter or two would likely postpone it until after the November election, reducing the odds that the Donald would win again. 

Flag Day

Just pointing out that today is Flag Day. But this blog looks no different today because we display the Stars and Stripes every day.

To all the ignorant fools who burn it, remember what it is that you're really burning, and all those that fought and died for it. Those who consider themselves to be on the political left would be better served by "taking back the Flag" and waving it proudly, so it is NOT perverted into an ultra-right-wing symbol by the fascists.  Make it clear that the government policies you oppose are NOT in the national interest. And let everyone know that you can just as strongly love this country as you dislike its government. In fact, plenty of true patriots often do feel that way.

The Flag is not Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, or belonging to any other faction. It is the American Flag, and it belongs to all of us. 

LIVE FREE OR DIE!

Trump Is Guilty As Charged

It's official, Trump is GUILTY as charged.  On May 30, 2024, he was found guilty on all 34 counts in the hush-money trial.  That means he is now literally a convicted felon, and the first president in US history, current or former, to have ever been convicted of a felony.  That is, as he would say, "unpresidented".  He will be sentenced on July 11, and can face up to four years in prison, and also have to pay up to $5000 per count, if the judge (hopefully!) decides to give him the maximum sentence.  That's, as he would say YUUUUUGE!  Also, as he would say, Sad!

Of course, his die-hard supporters will see him as a martyr.  LOL.  But hopefully, even if he ends up avoiding prison and somehow still remains on the 2024 ballot, enough of the fence-sitters will be swayed to guarantee that he will lose the election, bigly.  

Believe me.

A Better Than Nordic-Style Social Welfare State With Less Than ALASKA Taxes

A friendly reminder to all readers:  contrary to popular opinion, it is entirely possible to have a better than Nordic-style social welfare state with less than Florida Alaska taxes.  Why?  (You really may want to sit down before reading any further.)

Because federal taxes do NOT fund federal spending, that's why!  Not the individual income tax, not the corporate income tax, not FICA, not the various excises, duties, and tariffs, not estate or gift taxes, nor any other federal tax for that matter.  It is all a Big Lie illusion to prop up the oligarchy, especially the big banks, via artificial scarcity of dollars.  As Rodger Malcolm Mitchell famously notes, and echoed by Dr. Joseph M. Firestone, the federal government is Monetarily Sovereign, that is, being the issuer of it's own currency, it by definition has infinite money.  Any money they receive, through taxes or otherwise, is effectively like bringing coals to Newcastle, in that it disappears into infinity (thus de facto destroyed).  And whenever they spend money on anything, they create each dollar on an ad hoc basis to pay as they go.  

Switching to what Dr. Firestone calls "Overt Congressional Financing (OCF)" is LONG overdue.  On August 15, 1971, the gold standard effectively ended for good, but the method of Congressional financing remains more or less stuck in the past.

Meanwhile, the so-called "National Debt" (TM) is also an illusion, in that it consists of Treasury securities that are only spuriously linked to federal spending due to arcane and archaic rules left over from the now-defunct gold standard that ended over half a century ago.  Each T-security is effectively equivalent to a CD savings account for those who choose to invest in them.  Additionally, the idea that money can only be created with interest or other "strings" attached to it is yet another part of the Big Lie as well.

(It could literally be paid off in one fell swoop at zero cost to anyone, in fact.  And it's technically not even "borrowing" at all.  Infinite money, remember?)

Ditto for the Social Security, Medicare, and other federal "trust funds", which are literally nothing more than accounting gimmicks based on artificial scarcity.  They could fund all of that and more by simply creating the money on an ad hoc basis.

As for inflation, that is generally caused by shortages of goods and services, NOT by printing too much money.  It is ultimately a supply-side problem that requires supply-side solutions, including (counterintuitively) more federal spending targeted to incentivize more production of scarce goods and services.  Thus, rationing dollars via austerity measures and/or raising interest rates to fight inflation and/or recession is like applying leeches to cure anemia.  It is a fundamental category mistake that does far more harm than good on balance.

Of course, the oligarchs want to condition We the People to accept mere crumbs from the tables of the rich.  That way they can keep widening the yawning gap between the haves and have-nots, givng the oligarchs more power to lord it over us all.

Bottom line: all of these gimmicks are completely artificial, contrived, and designed to deceive us all.  The ONLY purposes of taxes in a Monetarily Sovereign government that issues it's own currency (like the federal government, but not (yet) state and local governments) are 1) to control and regulate the economy by encouraging or discouraging various behaviors and activities, 2) to (crudely) fight inflation, 3) to create demand for the currency, and 4) to prop up and give credence to the Big Lie.  But the supposed need to raise revenue is NOT one of them at all.

Thus, with the stroke of a pen, Congress can very easily square the circle of a better than Nordic-style social welfare state with less than Alaska taxes, complete with a national version of the Alaska Permanent Fund.  They gave the FERAL Reserve its power in 1913, and they can just as easily take it away today if they chose to.  But of course, their oligarch masters would NOT want that at all!  Most Congresscritters save for a tiny few, are of course bought and paid for by the big money interests.  Thus, we need to throw the bums out, yesterday!

So what are we waiting for? PAGING DR. FIRESTONE!  NEEDED IN WASHINGTON, DC, STAT!

Hey FERAL Reserve: Cut Interest Rates NOW!

The FERAL Reserve still has yet to cut interest rates, and despite the Dow Jones recently hitting 40,000, the risk of recession is apparently growing by the day.  And after falling dramatically from its 2022 peak of 9% once the pandemic-induced (more like lockdown-induced) supply chain issues and shortages got resolved, inflation currently remains stubbornly stuck in the neighborhood of 3%.  Because Jerome Powell is too stubborn to cut rates, thus keeping us trapped in a quagmire.  Hello, stagflation!

A recession is probably already baked into the cake at this point, and thus is probably too late to avoid entirely.  Granted.  But the Fed can still at least delay the onset, reduce the length and severity, and promote a speedier recovery IF they would deign to cut rates yesterday.  And even just delaying the onset by a quarter or two would likely postpone it until after the November election, reducing the odds that the Donald would win again.