I Voted For Donald Trump In 2024

I saw my two choices for the Presidential election as voting for Trump, or not voting. Up until last week, I was still going back and forth between these two choices. Last Thursday, I finally made my decision.

My “gut reaction” was always to prefer Trump (or really any Republican) to Harris. I suspect that there is a large segment of the Democratic Party that hates white, male, heterosexuals. I suspect that this segment of the Democratic Party wants to see white people, or really any civilized people, dead. They support groups like Hamas in their efforts to remove Israelis “from the river to the sea”, which sounds like a call for ethnic cleansing and genocide. They support “Black Lives Matters” efforts to “defund the police”, so that innocent, civilized people can be murdered at will by criminals here in the US. They also support legal concepts that would excuse or justify the murder of white people by black people, such as the concept of “black rage“. There is also a good-sized segment of the Democratic Party that wants to see men impoverished (see feminism), and they want to make heterosexual people suffer. (See gender transitions for children, men in women’s sports, and women forced to change and use the bathroom with men who still have intact male genitalia.) I also don’t enjoy the verbal bullying that I see going on by Democrats. The attempt to ostracize or denigrate people who vote for Trump by Democrats just motivates me to vote for Trump. I don’t like boorish people who use argument from intimidation debate tactics, which is common amongst Democrats.

I think that the left is what I’d call “neo-Marxist”. Marxism views everything through the lens of class warfare, and violent revolution to depose the bourgeoisie. Neo-Marxism substitutes race, gender, or sexual orientation for class, and views whites (or men, or straight people) as the new bourgeoisie that needs to be killed off. This neo-Marxism often takes the form of Democrats calling Trump “fascist”. This is straight out of the Antifa playbook, where, if you aren’t a violent neo-Marxist, then you’re a Fascist. I’m tired of hearing the words “fascist” or “racist” in American political discourse. Kamila Harris’ adaptation of Antifa-language just made me want to vote for Trump.

I also think Kamala Harris is incompetent. She has never earned anything in her life. She failed the bar exam the first time. She slept with Willie Brown to get into politics. She became Vice President because Biden said he was going to pick a black woman. She didn’t win the Democratic Party primary, and was simply “installed” after Biden’s mental incompetence became apparent.

The only thing I really like about Trump is his call for replacing the Income Tax with tariffs.  I don’t like this for trade protectionist reasons, but because it is a tax on consumption rather than on production. The people who pay a tariff would be people living in the US. When a government imposes a tariff on an imported good, the importer just raises the price of the good, and passes that on to domestic consumers. An income tax, on the other hand, is a tax you pay for your work -that is for producing goods and services. Taxes on production like the income tax discourage production. If you can earn $10 for the work that you do, but the government taxes you $5 for that work, then you only earn $5. At that level, you might find that the disutility of working is greater than any utility you gain from anther $5, so you may just choose not to work. If the government taxes you $5 on a $10 good you purchase, you might decide that you don’t really need it, but you’ve still got $10 in your pocket that you can spend on other goods or services, or invest in a business, or whatever. You haven’t been discouraged from producing goods and services. Ethically, I think taxing consumption is less bad than taxing production, because you aren’t being penalized for being productive when a consumption tax is imposed.  With a tariff to fund government, American consumers can choose how much tax they pay by controlling their consumption. Basic imported foods and imported medical supplies could be exempted, and any shortfall on government funding could be covered by a national sales tax, especially on luxury goods. Even if we ultimately cannot do this because there would be insufficient revenue for government, Trump could appoint a commission to look into it, and at least start a national conversation about the merits of an alternative system of taxation.

What finalized my decision to vote for Trump was Leonard Peikoff’s video in support of him.  I was still going back and forth in my mind about what to do. This tipped me in favor of a vote for Trump, which I did the morning after seeing the video on YouTube, through early voting in Texas. I respect Peikoff’s opinion enough to consider it. His essay on the issue also made some good points I had never been able to articulate myself. Peikoff notes in the essay that Trump can be emotionalist and make bad statements when he gets like that. These outbursts by Trump are usually in the face of what he perceives as an injustice. But, he does not advocate things that would systematically undermine our Constitutional Republic and its institutions, which Harris and the Democrats do. For instance, Harris calls for “packing” the Supreme Court with additional justices.  She has also advocated ending the filibuster in the Senate.  Admittedly, neither of these things are specifically in the Constitution, but they have become such ingrained traditions, that doing away with them just to achieve short-term policy goals would be a shock to the system, and would have potentially dangerous side-effects.

Does this mean I think Trump is great? No, just significantly better than Harris. My biggest misgiving about voting for Trump is abortion rights. I consider this to be an important issue. Trump has promised to veto legislation that would impose a national abortion ban. I could see his promise having some “weasel language”.  Maybe a Republican Congress would put legislation on his desk that was “merely” a 15-month ban, and Trump will then sign it, claiming he is not breaking his promise? I don’t see the Republicans controlling enough of the Senate to get past a Democratic filibuster before the next midterms, so I’m not sure how likely this scenario is. I will certainly kick myself for trusting Trump if that happens, but I have weighed the risks of that versus the risks of a Harris presidency, and decided Harris is a greater threat.

The 2024 Cuban Blackouts

On November 15, 1973, Fidel Castro made a speech to the Cuban Worker’s Congress. Reading over the transcript is very revealing of the fundamental philosophy and motivations of his regime in Cuba, which still exists to this day.

In the speech, he said that Cuba was not yet ready for the “communist principle” as Karl Marx had defined it.  What did Castro mean by this phrase?

“This is an essential matter in the construction of socialism and our revolutionary and socialist workers understood that. In discussing that principle we have been discussing an essential and key principle of revolutionary ideology. That every one contribute according to his ability, that each one receive according to his work is a principle, an inexorable law in the construction of socialism. When we learn to understand this principle thoroughly we are penetrating the depths of political thought, we are penetrating the depths of revolutionary thought and we learn to distinguished it from another principle of the communist society established by Karl Marx: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” (Speech by Fidel Castro, at the closing ceremony of the 13th Congress of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers on 15 November, 1973 (“Nov. 15, 1973 Castro Speech”), emphasis added, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1973/19731116.html)

In essence, Castro distinguished “socialism” from “communism” by distinguishing it from Karl Marx’s statement that communism means: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”:

“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” (Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme” https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm)

Castro said that the “principle of socialism”, as contrasted from this “principle of communism” is that “…every one contribute according to his ability, that each one receive according to his work…”(“Nov. 15, 1973 Castro Speech”), emphasis added.)

Why did Castro believe they couldn’t operate under the “principle of communism” in 1973 Cuba? Because the Cuban people were not “ready” for communism:

“Many events demonstrate to us that we are not yet prepared to live in communism. Aside from the fact that in order to live in communism it is not only necessary to have a communist consciousness but to have abundant wealth spring from man’s work…” (Nov. 15, 1973 Castro Speech)

Castro says that the people are “ready” to live under “communism” in some areas, such as, supposedly, education and health care. But in other areas, they are not “ready”. An example of an area where the Cuban people were supposedly not “ready” was electrical production:

“We can continue and ask how much fuel are we wasting? How much in the way of raw materials are we wasting? How much electricity are we excessively consuming? It is clear that with (?light patrols) and simple appeals to people’s consciences, we are not going to save on electricity. I raise this issue because the electricity problem is an unpleasant one which we will have to face. It is an unpopular problem, but we have to face it. [applause] We substantially reduced the rate of an electric company–I do not exactly recall which. The electrical octopus was using a rate which encouraged the use of electricity. The rate on the first kilowatts was higher and it dropped as you used more.

With our revolutionary inexperience we were improvident. We reduced the company’s rates by half and we were left with the same condition which encouraged more consumption. I say we were improvident because we should have thought of the day when the electric system would not be the property of an electrical octopus but the property of the people. Now the electrical octupus belongs to the people and the people have to pay for the consequences of any electrical waste.” (Nov. 15, 1973 Castro Speech)

In essence Castro said here that Cuba is consuming more electrical power than is produced because the rates charged to people are very low, or even zero. Basic economics teaches that when a price ceiling is set on a good or service, there will be shortages because demand outruns supply. (https://fee.org/resources/price-controls-and-shortages/) This is why you would see breadlines in the old Soviet Union, and grocery stores with empty shelves. The profit motive to produce more is eliminated, and no one is incentivized to produce more. In the case of electrical production, the result of charging insufficient rates for electricity, or giving it away for free, is that people will not economize, and there is no incentive to produce more, so there will be constant blackouts in the power grid.

Castro blamed the Cuban people for not being “ready” for communism:

“…a study of an endless number of facts clearly demonstrates that our society, our people do not have the culture necessary for communist life–aside from the fact that an economy sufficiently developed for communist life is lacking.” (Nov. 15, 1973 Castro Speech, emphasis added.)

In other words, communism, and the goals of communism are noble, but the Cuban people are just not quite “good enough” for it. Someday, the people of Cuba would be “ready” for Communism, so operating under the “socialist principle” was just going to be temporary:

“It is a matter of making rectifications because we are socialists [applause] and because we want to be communists [applause–crowd chants Fidel, Fidel and rhythmically applauds for 30 seconds] and because we will never renounce the communist objective or our revolution and the development of our revolutionary consciousness…”(Nov. 15, 1973 Castro Speech, emphasis added.)

What is the “communist objective” it is, as Marx said: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” (Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme”)

Why, according to Castro, is the “communist objective” desirable? Because Castro and his minions “…will continue, above all, to uphold altruism, selflessness and man’s solidary spirit.” (Nov. 15, 1973 Castro Speech, emphasis added.)

Castro went on in his 1973 speech to say, almost paraphrasing Geroge Orwell, that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” at least while it’s necessary to operate under the “socialist phase”, where everyone is not equal, rather than the “communist phase”, in some future paradise, when everyone will be equal.  In particular, Castro said it would be necessary for certain “administrators” to receive more for their, supposedly, “important work” than others:

“This is another example of why we should develop a savings policy in all aspects, and especially with regard to fuel. It is here that the workers movement can give us extraordinary help. Wherever fuel is being wasted be it a farm, or a factory, or any place these are realities which our workers have to face. But a study of an endless number of facts clearly demonstrates that our society, our people do not have the culture necessary for communist life–aside from the fact that an economy sufficiently developed for communist life is lacking. Realistically, very realistically, we must implement the formulas which apply to this phase of our revolution, and implement in every aspect–not only in distribution, not only in wages, but also in administration— all the formulas which are applicable to the socialist phase of the revolution. [applause]” (Nov. 15, 1973 Castro Speech, emphasis added.)

In other words, the people involved in “administration”, that is Castro, and his gang of communist thugs in Cuba, would need to receive more money, bigger houses, nicer cars, and more political power, because what is more important than bringing about eventual communism? If everyone must “…contribute according to his ability…” and everyone must temporarily  “…receive according to his work…”, who, according to Castro and his cronies, was doing more valuable work than them? Aren’t they the ones (supposedly) trying to bring about eventual communism, which is everyone’s goal?

Castro’s 1973 speech is more than 50 years old. Surely progress has been made in moving the country towards “true” communism, hasn’t it? Has Cuba come closer to being “ready” to operate under the “communist principle” of from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs?

In October of 2024, Cuba experienced a days-long blackout throughout the country. I became aware of this by watching YouTubers in Cuba who were documenting their experiences during the blackout. (This seems to be not without risk. I assume these amateur videographers could be arrested and jailed for bringing the regime there into disrepute. I consider these YouTubers to be quite courageous.) What the blackout shows is that the Cuban people, in general, have probably gotten poorer, not wealthier.  The recent Cuban energy crisis suggests the answer to whether Cuba is more “ready” for communism than it was in 1973 is: No.

Of course, the Cuban regime, and its left-wing apologists have a retort to why Cuba is suffering from blackouts. They’ve had the same scapegoat for the past 50+ years: The United States and its supposed “blockade” on Cuba.

First of all, it’s not a “blockade”. The United States has imposed an embargo on Cuba. A “blockade” is when a country uses its navy to prevent entry or exit from a country, thereby preventing trade and the movement of people by military force. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blockade) An “embargo” is where a country simply prohibits its citizens from trading with a particular country. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/embargo)  It does not use military force to prevent other countries from trading with the embargoed country.

The “US is imposing a blockade on Cuba” myth is so prevalent on social media that it was fact checked by a left-leaning organization, and found not to be true:

“Cuba can trade with other countries of its choosing — if those countries are willing as well. Some of Cuba’s trading partners include China, Spain, the Netherlands, Canada, Mexico and Brazil, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity. Venezuela was one of Cuba’s key trade partners until its ability diminished amid its own economic turmoil. Cuba’s main exports include rolled tobacco, raw sugar, nickel, liquor and zinc. Top imports include poultry meat, wheat, soybean meal, corn and concentrated milk.” (https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/19/facebook-posts/cuba-can-trade-other-countries-heres-some-context/)

The United States has simply chosen not to trade with Cuba. (Whether the United States, from the perspective of its own national interest, should impose embargoes is a debate for another time.) An important question to ask these leftist apologists for Cuba is: Why is Cuba’s survival so dependent on trading with the arch-Capitalist enemy, the United States? Shouldn’t socialism make it economically much stronger than the US? Cuba can trade with much of Europe, Latin America, Canada, and China. Can’t it get whatever it needs in trade from China, Iran, and Russia? If not, why not? What is it about these countries that makes them less productive than the United States?

But, the most important question of all is this:  If Cuba can have the material prosperity the United States enjoys, and end the embargo, just by adapting capitalism, why not just do that? Why’d they make the people of Cuba suffer under shortages and blackouts for the past 50+ years?

The regime in Cuba must believe either, or both, of these two things:

(1) Cuba will eventually have even more prosperity in the future by not giving in and adopting some sort of semi-free-market economy here and now, and/or;

(2) Adapting more free markets and individual freedom runs so contrary to their worldview, philosophy, and morality that it is simply unthinkable, even if it means many must suffer and die. In other words, the Cuban regime believes that the only proper system is “…from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs…”, and they will kill every last person in Cuba to achieve it.

The first explanation for why Cuba does not adopt free markets and a free society has pretty much been shown to be false with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviets waited 75 years, suffered terrible hardship, human rights abuses, and deaths, but the prosperity promised by Karl Marx never came. People living under communist regimes could wait 200 years, and prosperity would never arrive because it is a system that is contrary to human nature. It is contrary to what the individual needs to survive and function. Since ‘society’ is nothing but a number of individual human beings, any system that crushes the individual, ultimately disintegrates when it runs out of productive victims.

But, prosperity is not what really matters to the Communist. What matters is that everyone receive equal results for unequal effort. The second motive of the Cuban dictators, “…from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs…”, doesn’t require prosperity. It only requires forced redistribution of the production by the able to the unable. At the end of the day, Cuba is poor not because of any (imaginary) “blockade” or embargo, but because they follow a morality that destroys productiveness. At root, the Cuban regime is committed to a morality that crushes the individual spirit, and prohibits people from furthering their own lives and pursuing personal happiness.

The leadership of the Cuban regime are not looking for prosperity for the people of Cuba. They are only looking to achieve “pure communism”, a system that destroys the individual in favor of “selflessness”, and that will someday, somehow, “work”. Since socialism and communism will never “work”, in practice, it means the leadership of the Cuban regime will continue to cling to power -and use whatever repression of the people is necessary to maintain that power, forever. (Unless the Cuban people someday decide they have had enough, and put an end to it.)

How can Cuba achieve prosperity? Only by rejecting the idea of “…from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs…” In turn, this requires them to reject altruism, that is, they must reject the sacrifice of the individual’s life for some ‘greater good.’ They must recognize that ‘society’ is nothing but a number of individuals, and that each person has an inalienable right to pursue his own happiness. I’m not even saying they have to institute pure capitalism as described by Ayn Rand. (Not even the United States is that good, yet.) It just means they need to depose the current leaders of the Cuban regime, probably by force, and institute a freer government. A government that recognizes basic individual rights, with free and fair elections, rule of law, and, in economics, a generally free market, like the United States.

Only then will Cuba’s periodic blackouts end.

Altruism In Action: The Felon Heart Transplant Recipient

Anthony Stokes was a black juvenile delinquent who needed a heart transplant in 2013. Initially the hospital refused to provide him with a transplant because he had a history of committing crimes, and had a “history of non-compliance” with the directives of his doctors regarding his health. This meant he was not a good candidate for a heart transplant over others who would actually take the gift of a heart transplant seriously.

Of course, once the leftist media got a hold of this story, the hospital was criticized for being “mean” and “racist”. The hospital caved to pressure, and reversed its decision, giving Stokes a heart. Since there are only a limited number of human organs available for transplant, this meant that someone else had to wait, and possibly die, because they gave a heart to the less-deserving Stokes. (The fact that we have limited organs for transplants, which could be solved with a free-market in organs, where people would be paid, while alive, to contractually sell their organs when they unexpectedly die in the future, is a separate issue. We can argue about that at another time. Right now, the system is what it is.)

What did Anthony Stokes do with his new lease on life? Go out and commit more crimes, of course. About two years after he got his heart transplant, he committed an armed robbery of an 81 year old woman in her house, shot at her, and then ran from the police in a high speed chase. During the course of the chase, he crashed into a pole, and died. (Presumably, he decided he was going to get his “reparations” through armed robberies.)

Our society is a society dying of altruism. What is altruism? It’s not just “helping others”. Its fundamentally about sacrificing those who are good to those who are evil:

“The injunction ‘don’t judge’ is the ultimate climax of the altruist morality which, today, can be seen in its naked essence. When men plead for forgiveness, for the nameless, cosmic forgiveness of an unconfessed evil, when they react with instantaneous compassion to any guilt, to the perpetrators of any atrocity, while turning away indifferently from the bleeding bodies of the victims and the innocent—one may see the actual purpose, motive and psychological appeal of the altruist code. When these same compassionate men turn with snarling hatred upon anyone who pronounces moral judgments, when they scream that the only evil is the determination to fight against evil—one may see the kind of moral blank check that the altruist morality hands out.” (“For the New Intellectual“, Ayn Rand; http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/altruism.html )

There is more I could say about this story. I could talk about how we coddle black criminals, because it is considered “racist” to hold them accountable for their actions, and thereby infantilize and endanger other blacks as well as whites. It’s also a story about how “black culture“, by which I mean the culture of a significant segment of black society, needs to be changed, both for the sake of black people and our own. It’s also a story about how many, many, many needlessly guilty white people, especially the “liberals” and “progressives”, are unwilling to judge and hold black people accountable for their actions. But, I think, at root, it is a story about altruism run amok, and not just with respect to race relations. Until more people explicitly recognize the value of their own lives, and chose a set of reality-oriented principles for living their lives, and for living in a rational society, which includes the willingness to judge and recognize a criminal when you see one, it’ll only get worse.

Conservatives On The Secular Basis of Sexual Propriety -A Trojan Horse For Dogmatism

I occasionally watch bits of a podcast called “whatever” on YouTube. It reminds me of “The Phil Donahue Show” from when I was a kid, although it’s more focused on sex and relationships. The host will have a panel of women on. Some of them will be involved in the pornography industry or doing sex work, sometimes including women that do legal sex-for-money work, such as in a brothel in Nevada. There will also be a person on the panel who represents the “conservative/religious viewpoint” on sex and romance.

Additionally, there will be some women on the panel who have more “average” lives, and are not sex workers and also are not conservative ideologues. The point of the podcast, from a “getting viewership” standpoint, is obviously to get the two “sides” into debates about what is and isn’t appropriate or acceptable when it comes to sex, romance, dating, and marriage. Often the debates will center around questions like: “How promiscuous is too promiscuous?” “Is sex before marriage okay or desirable?” “Is viewing or producing pornography okay?”

In the most recent episode I partially watched, there were two women who do or have done legal sex work at brothels in the state of Nevada, as well as a couple of women who do Only Fans pornography in varying degrees of undress.

The conservative/religious viewpoint was represented by Candace Owens, who is a conservative, Catholic podcaster. During the course of the podcast, she made arguments for why monogamy is preferable to promiscuity, and why things like paying money for sex, and polyamorous relationships are not desirable for the people engaged in such activities.

I saw Candace Owens making, basically, two types of arguments in the podcast, although she did not explicitly acknowledge the difference between these two categories of argument. They are the same two arguments that most religionists make about marriage, sex and romantic relationships:

(1) Non-monogamous relationships and sexual promiscuity are contrary to biology and fundamental aspects of human psychology. An example of this type of argument is the following, although I don’t know that it is explicitly made on the podcast: Too many sex partners before marriage make pair-bonding more difficult, and watching pornography will affect pair-bonding later. There is supposedly some scientific evidence for this, although that is disputed. (https://healthland.time.com/2011/02/09/do-men-really-bond-with-porn-spoiling-them-for-real-life-sex/)

(2) Non-monogamous relationships/sexual promiscuity are contrary to the Bible/Christian doctrine, at least as they interpret it.

The conservative/religious ideologues I see online make the first, secular, argument when they say things like: Women who are promiscuous when young will find it difficult to be in a committed relationship later. That may or may not be true -I don’t know. But, when pressed, the conservatives like Ms. Owens fall back on: Promiscuity is contrary to the Bible. In other words, argument number two. At the end of the day, conservatives believe such behavior is undesirable because it is contrary to their interpretation of the Bible. That is what really matters to the conservatives/religionists, not any sort of scientific or psychological argument.

There may or may not be evidence to prove the first argument, regarding biology/human nature. Even as an atheist, I still regard monogamy as ideal, and I try to avoid being too promiscuous. But, I am open to the possibility that I hold this attitude because of the somewhat Christian culture I grew up in, which might still be buried in my subconscious. For that reason, I tend not to pass judgment on people who choose unconventional sexual lifestyles, such as promiscuity, polyamory, or to be sex workers. (I think it’s easier to justify certain types of nude photos, sexual dancing, or erotic art as consistent with a healthy psychology, but again, I’m not 100% certain.)  All I am willing to say is that open relationships would not work for me.  (I would get too jealous to share a wife or girlfriend.)

I would like to see someone pose the following question to conservative/religious pundits making these two types of arguments regarding sex work and promiscuity: “If the scientific evidence will later show that promiscuous behavior before marriage does not affect pair-bonding, and it is possible to be in a long-term polyamorous relationship, or to be a sex worker without psychological damage, will you then change your opinion on this topic? Do you actually follow the science, or is this really about what you think the Bible says, evidence and logic be damned?”

This method of argument used by conservative/religious people extends beyond the realm of sexual propriety. For instance, they will use the same sorts of arguments when it comes to abortion. They will present psychological or medical arguments, which they allege are science-based, for why women who get abortions will be medically harmed by abortion, or that it will affect their psychology adversely. The science here may or may not be true, but, at the end of the day, they are really opposed to abortion because they believe it is contrary to their interpretation of the Bible. Even if there were scientific evidence that abortion causes no harm to a woman, or less harm than an unwanted pregnancy, the religionists aren’t going to suddenly change their mind. That’s because science has nothing to do with their viewpoint. It’s about religion, which is based in their faith.

Do the Conservatives/Religionists really believe that love and romance are important when they promote things like sex only after marriage? Religious institutions instruct their followers not to marry atheists because they would be “unequally yoked”, and they regard sex as a sin for purposes other than reproduction. So really, their desire for pair-bonding isn’t about love or romance, but about making yourself what they believe is a better servant of god.

More generally, conservatives will wrap up their religious arguments with secular-sounding justifications in other areas too. They will say things like: “We need religion to keep people moral.” But, why do we need morality at all? When asked this, they are probably going to say something like: “Morality is needed to keep people from committing murder and stealing.” If that is their reason for why they think morality is necessary, and if I can present a secular moral code and a secular basis for the criminal law, will they abandon religion? Of course not, because these arguments are just rationalizations. They want to advance their religion, and are pragmatic enough to use a secularist argument as a fig-leaf, if it suits their agenda.

Truly religious institutions recognize this, too. They will say things like: “Works do not get you into heaven.” In other words, not stealing and committing murder is not what they believe gets you into heaven, so they don’t really care if people are moral or not. The truly consistent ones realize that logic, reason, and science are irrelevant. Even “conventional morality”, such as “stealing is wrong” and “murder is bad”, is irrelevant to them. Many of these western religious institutions might not commit murder for god (yet), but they are certainly committing manslaughter.

Am I being hyperbolic? The Catholic Church forbids the use of contraception, even in the context of marriage. There is good evidence that the lack of contraception world-wide leads to unnecessary deaths for women. (https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2012/ahmed-contraception) The Catholic Church even opposes the use of contraception by married women with certain medical conditions that would make pregnancy unusually dangerous. They are expected to either abstain from sex or risk death if they become pregnant. I submit that this is advocacy of manslaughter by the Catholic Church. They are promoting the use of force by government to prevent women from using a device that will save their lives.

The Catholic Church will tell those women not to have sex. But, without sex, how do they maintain a romantic relationship with their husbands? The Catholic Church will respond that sex is an unnecessary aspect of marriage. I do not believe that assertion is at all reality oriented. More fundamentally, it also shows what the Catholic Church thinks of love. It is a belief in platonic love as an ideal. Sex is dirty and base for the Catholic Church. They view it as a necessary evil for reproduction, and nothing more.

Tying this back in to the ‘whatever’ podcast with Candace Owens, at points the sex workers claimed that sex and love are not connected. They said sex has nothing to do with love, so loveless sex without psychological consequence is possible. Interestingly, the Catholic Church also believes in love separated from sex. ‘True love’ between a man and woman is platonic, with sex as a necessary evil, for purposes of reproduction. This is what the truly dedicated religionists actually believe.

I don’t know if non-monogamous and polyamorous people can find lasting happiness with that sort of lifestyle. (I’m very skeptical.) All I can say for sure is it doesn’t work for me. But, swingers and sex workers are not the people who need to fear the declarations of religious institutions like the Catholic Church about how people should govern their sex lives. The people who need to be wary are the monogamous couples who want to sleep with their husband or wife without the psychological consequences of perpetual guilt and shame.

Reduction and Integration of the Neurobiological Concept of “Action Potential”

This Spring, I took a Saturday course at the local community college on Anatomy and Physiology. (It’s the course that people going into the medical professions, such as nursing, would take.) The textbook used was “Fundamentals of Anatomy and Physiology”, 11th Ed. (Martini, Nath, Bartholomew). The following was an issue that I ran into several times while reading the textbook, and how I solved that problem to advance my understanding of the concepts. (If anyone is interested, I made an A in the course.)

Chapter 12 of the textbook presents the concept of the “action potential” in nervous tissue.

The problem is it presents everything on a microscopic level, with a very abstract presentation of the electro-chemical processes.

Before I begin, I should go over the “textbook” explanation of what an “action potential” is, as best I understand it. (Keep in mind I’m not a scientist, much less a biologist, so this is just my best understanding.)

Neurons communicate with each other via electrical signals known as “action potentials”. These are defined as brief changes in the voltage across the membrane of a neuron due to the flow of certain ions into and out of the neuron. https://teachmephysiology.com/nervous-system/synapses/action-potential/

At pages 410-411 of the textbook, a series of diagrams are presented to show the generation of an action potential in a neuron. These include 4 steps in the action potential generation process: (1) Depolarization to threshold, (2) Activation of sodium ion channels and rapid depolarization, (3) Inactivation of sodium ion channels and activation of potassium ion channels to start repolarization of the neuron, and (4) time lag in closing all potassium ion channels, which leads to temporary hyperpolarization:

 

 

IMG_6197 IMG_6198

The diagrams in the textbook show what happens at a molecular or cellular level, with each diagram containing a little picture of what is supposed to be  a voltmeter to show what the voltage of the neuron’s inner membrane is at each point in the generation of the action potential. At resting membrane potential, the neuron’s inner voltage is -70mV. There are sodium ion channels that are closed at resting membrane potential. When depolarization occurs, the stimulus causes the voltage of the inner part of the neuron to become less negative, which causes the sodium ion channels to open, which allows sodium, a positive ion, to rush into the neuron. Since sodium is a positive ion, it causes the inner portion of the neuron to become much less negative, until it is a little bit positive. (+10mV according to the textbook). As the inner portion of the neuron continues to get more positive, it causes the sodium ion channels to close, and potassium ion channels to open. Repolarization can now occur, as potassium ions, which are positive are removed from the inside of the neuron, causing it to become more negative in charge on the inside. Eventually, the neuron’s inner portion is back around -70 mV.

The above explanation is what you can get from the book, but I was dissatisfied with this explanation. I wanted to know how scientists could have reached this conclusion.  Clearly, they didn’t just have a divine revelation from God. Since this all occurs on a microscopic, molecular level, you cannot see this process happening with your naked eye. In particular, I was bothered by the way the textbook presented the voltage differentials created by the change in sodium and potassium levels in the neuron. How could they get a voltmeter small enough to insert into a neuron to measure the voltage differentials? How could they possibly know that?

In the past, this would have probably taken a trip to the library, and looking through several books on the history of biology. (This is still probably the best way.) But, with the Internet, I started with some key-word searches on a search engine. I did this research several months ago, so I am somewhat recreating what I did, but as best I can recall, this is what I started my Internet search with: “discovery of action potential”.  From that, I found the following web site: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3500626/

This article discussed a pair of scientists, Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley, who did research in this area about 60 years ago.  I then plugged “Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley” into another search engine, and got the following Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hodgkin%E2%80%93Huxley_model

(A side-note on Wikipedia. I don’t consider it to be a reliable source, but I do consider it useful as a “jumping off point” for research. I will read the Wikipedia article, then look at the citations, and see if I can find more reliable sources on a topic from there. I think this is a perfectly acceptable use of Wikipedia.)

From reading the above Wikipedia article, I saw that they studied something called a “squid giant axon”. There was another Wikipedia article on that topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squid_giant_axon

This article said:

“The large diameter of the axon provided a great experimental advantage for Hodgkin and Huxley as it allowed them to insert voltage clamp electrodes inside the lumen of the axon.”

To confirm this with a more reliable source, I then typed into a search engine: “why did they use the squid giant axon to study the action potential” From there, I found this article:

“A, John Zachary Young (1907–1997). His discovery of the squid giant axon in the 1930s was pivotal since it provided an electrically excitable membrane of sufficient area for Hodgkin and Huxley’s experiments.”

“Both Hodgkin and Huxley have stated that, following the failed attempts with the mercury droplets, it was the other who made the suggestion that a fine capillary electrode might be inserted inside the nerve fibre (Fig. 3A) to record the potential difference across the membrane.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3424716/

Basically, this particular squid neuron is very big. About 1 mm in diameter, and several centimeters long. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-squid-giant-axon-The-giant-axon-is-a-very-large-up-to-1-mm-in-diameter-and-long_fig2_276491039

After that, I understood how they could have measured the change in voltage in the inner membrane of a neuron. Scientists found a neuron that was big enough to let them insert the probe of a voltmeter into it. They then operated under the assumption that this particular squid neuron worked the same as other, smaller neurons, in other species, which seemed like a reasonable inference to me. (Given the fact that all animals are connected to each other by a common ancestor in our evolutionary past, it makes sense that once a particular biological system occurs, the same model will be “used” by evolution in other organisms.)

By looking at some of the history, I learned something about the scientific experiments and observations that went into formulating this abstract idea of the action potential. I was sufficiently satisfied from half an hour of Internet searches as to how they had arrived at this conclusion, that I could move on to the rest of my reading.

I hasten to add that sometimes I might not be able to find anything regarding how scientists arrived at an abstract idea presented in a science textbook. I am somewhat limited by time constraints, and this method does not always bear fruit in 15 minutes to half an hour of Internet searches. In those instances, I will sometimes just have to resign myself to memorizing the abstract model well enough to spit it back out on a test. When that occurs, I just recognize in my mind that I haven’t really learned anything. (If I have time later, I will go back and try to learn something about how scientists came up with this idea, but sometimes I don’t.) It’s somewhat disheartening that our educational system encourages rote memorization over actual learning of concepts, but as a student, you just have to recognize that the system is what it is, and do your best to operate in it. However, I try to keep my level of rote memorization like this to a minimum, since I think if you make this your habitual method of studying in high school and college, you’ll leave academia worse than an ignoramus. So, I recommend trying to use the method outlined here at least 80 to 90 percent of the time. At the very least, you’ll have questions in your mind, that, later on down the road, might lead you to the answers.

I should also say something about where I acquired this methodology of studying science textbooks. Since this method is also an idea, I didn’t just get it through divine revelation. (We get nothing through divine revelation.)

By studying the ideas of Ayn Rand, I learned that all knowledge starts with observation, that is our sensory-perceptual apparatus. From reading “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand”, by Leonard Peikoff in college, I learned about the methods of “reduction” and “integration”, which relate to a concept’s “hierarchy” and “context”. Basically, integration, concerns the logical relationship of a concept to other concepts -that is, placing it in a context. For instance, above, I said that scientists assumed that the giant squid neuron was basically the same in its operation as the neurons in the human body, despite the size difference. I said this assumes that all animals share a common ancestor, which is a well-founded idea, based in Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection.  So, evolution through natural selection would form part of the context through which this idea of the action potential in neurons would be based.

“Reduction” relates to mentally following  a “chain” or “hierarchy” of ideas back to what you can perceive in the world around you. For instance, scientists can use a voltmeter, which has known properties to measure something that is imperceptible, the voltage of a neuron. They know through other experiments that certain voltages can perform certain tasks, such as lighting a light bulb, or spinning a turbine, etc. Chemists also are able to relate the concentrations of certain substances, like sodium, to the generation of voltage, which tells them something about the nature of otherwise imperceptible sodium atoms (that they are ions, which are charged atoms, with too few or too many electrons.) The important point of reduction here is that you want to develop a method or experiment to allow you to relate the unperceived to that which is perceived by your senses.

This explanation of Ayn Rand’s ideas on logic and epistemology is just a brief sketch. If you want to understand it better, I recommend that you pick up some of her books on the subject, or Leonard Peikoff’s book, read them, and decide for yourself if they relate to reality or not.  Like all ideas, you shouldn’t take them on faith, or assume that they are revelations from God.

“The Thin Blue Line” on Netflix

“The Thin Blue Line” on Netflix is an old documentary about an even older murder case in Dallas County, Texas. In the late 1970’s Randall Dale Adams was convicted of murdering Dallas police officer Robert Wood. It was asserted by the prosecution that Adams had shot Officer Wood after being pulled over by the later.

In reality, there was compelling evidence that another person, David Ray Harris had shot Officer Wood. This included the fact that Harris had been bragging to other people that he had shot Officer Wood. Harris later claimed at trial that he hadn’t shot Officer Wood, and had only been bragging to his friends to seem like a bigshot cop-killer. Additionally, although the state does not have to show motive for murder, Harris had the only logical motive to kill Officer Wood. Harris was driving in a stolen car when it was pulled over by Officer Wood. Randal Dale Adams would have had no reason to kill the police officer, and likely wouldn’t have even known that the car was stolen. Randal Dale Adams claimed that he was not even in the car at the time of the shooting, because he had been dropped off by David Ray Harris earlier that night.

So why was the State so intent on prosecuting Randal Dale Adams, rather than the more obvious suspect, David Ray Harris? Randal Dale Adams was in his mid-twenties at the time of the murder, while David Ray Harris was only 16, and not eligible for the death penalty. It’s likely that the Dallas Police Department, the Dallas County District Attorney, and the State of Texas wanted to put someone to death for the murder of a cop, even if it was the wrong person.

Randal Dale Adams was convicted and sentenced to death. His appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was unsuccessful in overturning his conviction or getting him a new trial.  His execution was scheduled for May 8, 1979. Three days before that, the US Supreme Court reversed the conviction on a procedural matter unrelated to the factual finding of guilt. This would require a new trial on guilt/innocence before Mr. Adams could be executed. In order to avoid a new trial, which would likely have brought to light new evidence of innocence, the Dallas County District Attorney was able to secure the commutation of his death sentence to life in prison. This obviated the need for a new trial on the procedural irregularity, since the US Supreme Court opinion only applied to death penalty cases. As a result, Randal Dale Adams then spent more than a decade in prison until “The Thin Blue Line” came out.

While conducting interviews of David Ray Harris, who was on death row himself at that point, for the murder of another person, the producers of the documentary recorded David Ray Harris giving what almost amounted to a confession, stating that Randal Dale Adams did not kill Officer Wood.

Additionally, the producers of the documentary conducted interviews of the witnesses who had claimed to see Randal Dale Adams behind the wheel of the car before Officer Wood was shot. They had been driving by on the road when Officer Wood had first pulled over the car the night of the murder. It turned out that the witnesses were not very credible, had reasons to lie, or just flat-out stated to the documentary producers they didn’t actually see Randal Dale Adams. One female witness, Emily Miller, seemed like total scum. She was either lying because she wanted to collect reward money, or she simply convinced herself that Adams was the man she had seen, even though she had not been able to pick him out of a lineup earlier. (I would think this would have been brought up by the Defendant’s attorney on cross examination?) It also turned out that Emily Miller had her own legal problems. Her daughter was being investigated for a robbery, so she might have been trying to curry favor with the DA and Police for the sake of her daughter. (She had also recently been fired from her job for stealing from the cash register.) Additionally, on a motion for a new trial, after the first trial, the Dallas County District Attorney engaged in prosecutorial misconduct and withheld evidence that could have exonerated Randal Dale Adams, ensuring that he went to death row.

As a result of the newly unearthed evidence and the negative publicity on the DA and Dallas Police, Randal Dale Adams got a new trial in 1989. The Dallas County DA then dismissed the case, and Mr. Adams was a free man after 12 years  of incarceration and nearly being executed by the State of Texas. Try to imagine what it would be like to be an innocent person, convicted of a crime you didn’t commit, waiting on death row to be killed by the State. The police didn’t believe you, the DA didn’t believe, you, the judge didn’t believe you, and the jury didn’t believe you. For all intents and purposes, the human race is against you, and wants to see you dead. In reality, you didn’t do anything to deserve any of it, and you will die soon. The situation is too horrible to contemplate.

All around, it was a total miscarriage of justice. Why would the Dallas County District Attorney and the Dallas Police Department want to convict the wrong man? Most likely because they couldn’t give David Ray Harris the death penalty because he was only 16. (Although I wondered if someone in a position of power was protecting him for some reason?) In their minds, the public needed to see someone being executed for the murder of a police officer, either because it would satisfy the public’s sense of justice, or because it would deter others from shooting a cop. Whether the Defendant actually did it was a secondary consideration for them. As a result, Randal Dale Adams was three days from his death sentence being carried out, and only avoided that because of a procedural irregularity the US Supreme Court found.

The Police, the jury, the DA, the judge, the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the public all seemed to be okay with executing Randal Dale Adams, who, in my mind was likely innocent. Unlike 99% of all other exonerations I’ve read about, I think Randal Dale Adams probably didn’t do it. Usually, I think when people who spent time in prison are let go because of newly discovered evidence, it’s not because they’re actually innocent. It’s simply a case of new evidence coming to light that creates some reasonable doubt as to their guilt, and it’s better to let them go than take a chance keeping them in prison for a crime they possibly did not commit.  I agree that it is better to let probably guilty, but possibly innocent, people go since I don’t want to see innocent people in jail or executed. Guilt always needs to be beyond a reasonable doubt, and if anything creates reasonable doubt, you’ve got to let them go.

But, the fact that everyone failed, or willfully chose to hide the truth, in the case of Randal Dale Adams has been the last straw for me. If there were a hell, the prosecutor in his case belongs there. I’ve changed my mind about the death penalty. When I was younger, I was willing to take a chance with the possibility of executing an innocent person. Life has taught me that about 50% of the police, judges, and prosecutors are either incompetent or maliciously negligent in their duties. Additionally, juries in many counties in Texas have the attitude of: “Don’t bother with presenting the evidence, just tell me where to write ‘guilty’ on the jury charge.” As an advocate of capitalism and the free market, I recognize that government is highly inefficient and often corrupt. I think death can be a just punishment, as it stops criminals from committing more crimes permanently, but many government officials are not sufficiently competent or virtuous to ensure that the innocent are not executed. There are people who definitely deserve death, but not at the cost of innocent lives.

The Biden Administration’s “Friendly Censorship”

Murthy v. Missouri is a case that was recently argued before the United States Supreme Court. It involves the allegation that the Biden administration in 2021 coerced social media companies such as Facebook into removing content that concerned COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccine, election integrity, and other matters considered important to the Biden Administration.

The factual findings of the trial court in the case are disturbing, if true:

“For   the   last   few   years—at   least   since   the   2020   presidential   transition—a group of federal officials has been in regular contact with nearly every    major    American    social-media    company    about    the    spread    of    “misinformation”  on  their  platforms.  In  their  concern,  those  officials—hailing from the White House, the CDC, the FBI, and a few other agencies—urged  the  platforms  to  remove  disfavored  content  and  accounts  from  their  sites. And, the platforms seemingly complied. They gave the officials access to an expedited reporting system, downgraded or removed flagged posts, and deplatformed  users.  The  platforms  also  changed  their  internal  policies  to  capture  more  flagged  content  and  sent  steady  reports  on  their  moderation  activities to the officials. That went on through the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2022 congressional election, and continues to this day. “ (5th Circuit Opinion, Case: 23-30445, Document: 00516889176 , Date Filed: 09/08/2023, Pg. 2) (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca5/23-30445/23-30445-2023-09-08.html)

The Biden Administration and its defenders seem to have responded to these allegations by saying that the factual findings of the trial court are simply mistaken. They claim that the trial court took things out of context, or just outright misrepresented facts:

“While the legal questions presented are legitimate, a substantial amount of the underlying evidence now before the Court in this case is problematic or factually incorrect. Snippets of various communications between the government, social media executives, and other parties appear to be stitched together – nay, manufactured – more to support a culture war conspiracy theory than to create a credible factual record” (https://www.justsecurity.org/93487/a-conspiracy-theory-goes-to-the-supreme-court-how-did-murthy-v-missouri-get-this-far/)

The government says it was merely engaging in its own speech to combat what it viewed as “bad speech”, and that it did not coerce social media companies into taking down social media posts it disagreed with:

“Brian Fletcher, the principal deputy solicitor general of the United States, argued that the government was legally using its bully pulpit to protect the American public.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/18/supreme-court-social-media-biden-missouri/)

Whether the Biden administration was merely engaged in its own speech or whether it intentionally used the threat of force to coerce social media companies into censoring the posts of their users will be determined through the court process.

Even if the government was simply using its own speech to counter what it viewed as “bad speech”, without any intentional threat of coercion, given the reach of government when it comes to regulating the economy, I think companies and businessmen must, of necessity, take into account what a President and his administration say.

In 1962, Ayn Rand wrote an article titled “Have Gun, Will Nudge” in which she discussed the efforts of then head of the FCC, Newton N. Minow, to “encourage” broadcasters to air certain types of “educational programs”. She noted that the arbitrary power held by the FCC in the form of its licensing of broadcasters meant that it didn’t have to engage in explicit censorship. Broadcasters would attempt to discern through their contacts and back-channels with Washington what the FCC officials would like to see on the airwaves, and then provide it:

“No, a federal commissioner may never utter a single word for or against any program. But what do you suppose will happen if and when, with or without his knowledge, a third-assistant or a second cousin or just a nameless friend from Washington whispers to a television executive that the commissioner does not like producer X or does not approve of writer Y or takes a great interest in the career of starlet Z or is anxious to advance the cause of the United Nations?” (Ayn Rand, “Have Gun, Will Nudge” https://ari.aynrand.org/issues/government-and-business/regulations/pov-have-gun-will-nudge/ )

For the people running a television station, or, today, a social media company, not listening to what the President wants them to post or not post would be almost suicidal. The President has enormous power to bring any company to its knees through executive orders and arbitrary regulations. It doesn’t even matter if the President and his administration intends to engage in censorship. The massive and arbitrary power that the President, and the government in general, holds over any company through economic regulation means any broadcaster or social media company has to take into account what the government wants, just as a matter of self-preservation. If Facebook or Google believes that keeping up certain social media posts might have even a one percent chance of getting them slapped with an antitrust suit, the cost of keeping up the post just isn’t worth the benefits. That’s why true freedom of speech likely isn’t even possible today. As Ayn Rand noted:

“The right to life is the source of all rights — and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.”(“Man’s Rights”, Ayn Rand https://ari.aynrand.org/issues/government-and-business/individual-rights/ )

 

“Lookism” On Netflix

In this story, an unattractive and poor young man, who is the victim of frequent assaults by other teenagers due to his looks and lack of status, magically wakes up in a new, very attractive body, while his original body lies sleeping beside him. He starts a new school in his attractive body during the day, and is awake at night in his original body. He experiences a new kind of social attention, and quickly gains social status due to his attractiveness. But, he makes an effort to befriend several fellow students who are less attractive and less popular. His new-found handsomeness causes conflict with both the more popular teenagers, and also with the unattractive teens he tries to befriend.

I thought the fantasy premise of this story was very interesting. It was much better that his old body was still there, but asleep, while he was awake in his new, attractive, body. When he’d fall asleep in his new body, he’d wake back up in his old body, which was the basis of some comedic content.
 
I also found the misunderstandings that occurred between himself, in his new body, and a couple of other characters interesting. Several people who first met him questioned his motivations, and assumed that he used his handsomeness for nefarious or manipulative purposes.

Throughout watching the series on Netflix, I wondered if there were other people with a similar secret -that they had an ugly body sleeping while their more attractive bodies were awake. At the end of season 1, such a revelation is made, although it wasn’t who I thought it would be. I suspect that there are more people with two bodies in this world, so I hope to see additional revelations in continuations of the series. That, in and of itself, would make an interesting story: a secret society of people who have an ugly body sleeping while their beautiful bodies are out and about.
 
I had two questions about this series. First, I was stunned by the way Korean high schools were portrayed. There seemed to be what could only be described as criminal gangs involved in extortion, robbery, and assault in the school. There was a level of brutality towards the less popular kids that seemed to go beyond mere high school bullying. It felt like these kids were living in “Lord of the Flies”. I’ve seen similar portrayals of high school life in other Korean TV shows. Since I’m not from that culture, and I’ve never studied it, I don’t know if this is just artistic exaggeration of the trials and tribulations of high school life, or if this is really how it is. But, the treatment of the unattractive, low-status teenagers was fairly horrifying to me.
 
My second question concerned the underlying themes in the story. These included questions about the nature of beauty, the earned versus the unearned, envy, social-esteem versus self-esteem, and the basis of social status. It seemed that the main character in his original body was treated badly not only because he wasn’t attractive, but also because he was poor. At one point, a group of kids were even going to publicly criticize him in his new body because he always wore such shabby clothing, and didn’t keep up with fashion trends. This points to the fact that social status is about more than mere looks. Wealth tends to play a role. A wealthy, but ugly, teenager could probably be fairly popular in school, too, just because he’s rich. He could also afford to improve his appearance, since attractiveness is probably only partly biological. Even aside from plastic surgery, he could wear better-fitting clothes, eat better to loose weight, invite attractive kids to hang out with him on his yacht, etc. (I’m somewhat leaving aside the issue of to what extent attractiveness is just “social convention” here, since I don’t want to go down that rabbit-hole.)
 
The main character was viewed as unattractive in his original body, in part, because he was overweight. (He was also below average in height, which, for males, means a lot of women will not consider you a good sexual choice. That’s completely beyond your control.) I tend to think that your weight is somewhat genetic, and therefore beyond your control, to a certain extent. But, I also think it’s possible to manage your weight, even if you have a genetic propensity towards obesity. I think it’s your responsibility to take action, if you have a weight problem. When the main character is awake in his original body, he makes an effort to exercise, although not much improvement is shown in his appearance. I hope that in future seasons of this series, the writers will address this issue further, and show the main character getting serious about improving his physical appearance in his original body through diet and exercise. I think this would be a positive message to convey in this story: that at the end of the day, you are ultimately responsible for improving your situation in life, regardless of how tall/short or thin/overweight you are.

An Observation While Learning Spanish Via The Comprehensible Input Method

I have been trying the comprehensible input method espoused by this site to learn Spanish.

The comprehensible input method seems correct to me, although I admittedly haven’t studied the science that they claim backs up the efficacy of the method. It just “rings true” to me based on my own introspection and knowledge of epistemology and language. The method discards learning grammar in favor of using pictures, gestures, and acting while speaking to make it more like the experience of a child first learning to speak. It also completely discounts speaking a language to learn it. Your are supposed to just gather “comprehensible input”, as that is the only way you are going to truly learn, according to the theory. The input is “comprehensible” because you understand the meaning of the speech, thanks to the gestures and drawings of the speaker, even through you do not understand the language yet.
Something I’ve noticed when listening to native or near-native Spanish speakers is they will mix in certain English words that usually reflects some new technology or imported concept, rather than adopt a specific word for it. Although this can also vary. Spaniards call computers “ordinators”, while Mexicans tend to call them “computeradoras”.

In this video, I noted that the speaker, a Spaniard, called the act of snowboarding, “hacer snow” a few times. In Spanish the substance that falls from the sky would be called “nieve”, so, to his ear, the word “snow” is connected with the concept of snowboarding.

Shazam! Movie Review

Both the 2019 movie and the 2023 sequel for “Shazam!” were recently added to the lineup on Netflix.

These can be described as “adventure comedies”, and were filled with a lot of light-hearted humor. There were three things that I think make these movies work.

First, the protagonist is an adolescent, between the ages of 15 and 18. This created a lot of opportunity for humor, as he went from having a young person’s body to having the body of a grown man. For those who don’t know, the protagonist was given his super-powers by a wizard. Whenever he says “Shazam!”, he goes from his normal form to the form of a superhero with a lightning bolt. (Similar to “He-Man”) Saying “Shazam!” again turns him back into a teenager.

His superpowers are somewhat equivalent to those of Superman. However, he does not know what powers he has in the first movie, and he and his foster-brother go through a rather amusing series of misadventures to discover what his powers are. He also doesn’t learn how to fly until pretty late in the first movie, which creates more comedic situations.

Since they are teenagers, he and his foster brother create a YouTube channel to document the discovery of his powers. Also, since they are just kids, the protagonist starts doing sidewalk demonstrations of his powers for tips, like a street musician or performer might do.  With some of that money, he and his foster-brother go buy beer. They both take a swig, and spit it out, declaring that the beer tastes like vomit. (This made me laugh a good bit.)

Another good feature of the movie was its fantasy element. Unlike most superheroes, the protagonist obtains his power through magic, rather than science fiction. I found the spells, gods, and mythology more interesting, and I thought that it opened up a lot of possibilities, in terms of what stories can be told.

Finally, I enjoyed the references to other, better-known, superheroes in the movies. During both movies, there are references to other heroes in the DC Comics label, such as Batman and Superman. The characters in Shazam! look up to these other superheroes, and try to model themselves on them, but often fall short of the mark because they are children. This creates a lot of good humor. There are also some fairly “inside” jokes. For instance, the protagonist can never settle on a name for his super-alter-ego, which is a reference to the fact that this character has been called different things in the comics, partly due to trademark disputes. At one point, the comic book character was called “Captain Marvel”, but this was changed due to an IP dispute between DC and Marvel Comics.

The protagonist from the Shazam! movies makes a good addition to the other DC movies because he is more like a member of the audience, who is suddenly getting to live the life of his heroes, and has the sort of energy and enthusiasm you’d expect from a child who suddenly found himself having super-powers. I think the character would make an excellent comedic foil or sidekick to one of the more “serious” superheroes, or perhaps he could be worked into one of the Justice League movies. I recommend that you check out Shazam!.