In our hyper negative isolated existence it is difficult to step out of our current situation and see how, in some ways, things have really gotten a lot better.

Abuse is a lot less hidden. Obviously all the sexual and other abuse reaching the news cycle makes the world seem like a worse place but for the victims it is a good thing. The fact that abusers are called out much sooner also means abusers will think twice about taking advantage of victims. Bill Cosby was a serial rapist and it didn’t come out for decades. If someone were to do that today victims would be much more likely to come out.

You can correspond with your doctor between appointments. When I had eye problems in the early 2ks I so badly wanted to correspond with my doctors but back then you couldn’t email your doctors because the security wasn’t up to snuff to handle medical information. Now with patient portals that has been solved and my dad goes back and forth with his doctor all the time. Of course this does make a doctor’s job harder now than it used to be.

There are better special education options in schools. A lot of people were understandably angry when Betsy DeVoss wanted to cut special ed programs but just the fact that they were an expense Republicans thought worth cutting shows how far we have come. When I was in high school in the 90’s they didn’t have much. Now they have a lot of help for people of various functioning levels at the elementary level and supports for those in high school who have various challenges.

Going out has become a lot more convenient. In the car GPS and traffic overlays will reroute you when congestion gets too bad. Maps with reviews will lead you to better quality non chain restaurants. Cell phones make it so there are a lot less missed connections and people can make plans to meet at a specific place and notify the group if plans change at the last minute. So much of Seinfeld revolved around missed connections. If they would have had today’s technology a lot of that would have been eliminated (but it would have been less funny).

Entertainment options are much better. It’s easier than ever to discover good bands with streaming, websites, and YouTube. Video is much clearer (high resolution) than it was even up to the 90’s. Cable TV is more expensive but you also get more (the ability to watch live and on demand TV on your computer and your mobile device). Netflix and the like provide a large library of shows to binge on.

Great NYTimes article, applies to a lot of facets of the lower class:

There is also the reality that in our culture of increasing isolation, in which so many of the traditional gathering places and social structures have disappeared, screens are filling a crucial void.

Many enrolled in the avatar program at Element Care were failed by the humans around them or never had a community in the first place, and they became isolated, said Cely Rosario, the occupational therapist who frequently checks in on participants. Poor communities have seen their social fabric fray the most, she said.

The database for this site was erased so I had to rebuild it from back up. I do not believe it to be a targeted attack, probably some WordPress malware bot (which doesn’t show favoritism, a Christian ministry site I webmaster is getting hit with malware too).

say what you want about stick up men
and the dirty deed they perform
but at least they’re honest
if asked they would tell you they’re not here to dialogue
some of my friends on the right need to learn from stick up men
a threat to life and livelihood is not dialogue
there is no dialogue to be had about taking people (especially women’s) healthcare away
there is no dialogue to be had about making immigrants and refugees live in fear
there is no dialogue to be had about removing people’s right to love who they wish
there is no dialogue to be had about poisoning our air and water
there is no dialogue to be had about letting special needs kids languish
there is no dialogue to be had about leaving the planet uninhabitable for our children
I’d be happy to dialogue things that warrant it
but don’t use the “let’s dialogue” trope
to make your threats seem more dignified

i’m not going to stay quiet
over what I’m not allowed to believe
(life is relational, not Mario like individualistic, for example whether one works
hard has more to do with how many good bosses they had than anything else)
(reply time is inverse proportional to concern for you)
(i’m treated like a product and expected to believe i’m a person)
(virtue gets you so much less of you are oppressed)
(therapists exert a tremendous amount of power over their clients but are disingenuous about this fact)
(jobs for all but those with stellar work histories come from
connections, not any other process
[needing to be known by the Reformed Dutch people to procure employment])
(being ignored because of being low status)
(negative thoughts exacerbate depression but don’t cause it and playing cognitive tricks to get rid of
them is like trying to stave off a flood with a metal pail)
(what you do is who you are)
(if you are a man over thirty without money you are *nothing*)
(being treated bad because you look different)
(putting yourself first gives you the happiest life)
outing unwritten rules will earn you tons of blow back
outing the mere fact that they’re outable won’t make you many friends either
(the people writing the unwritten rules are the ones who rule the world
[keep that salary quiet!])
(tragedy is distributed very unevenly throughout the populace)
the truth is a lie’s greatest threat!

And this rubric on the left verses the right outlines beliefs of both sides.  Trust me I have gotten in trouble for breaking taboos on both sides.

There is a fascinating Reddit post on Trump’s appeal to the working class.  I think the conventional thinking of Republican strategists was that the rich white people would call the shots and the poor white people would fall in line voting against their economic interests as long as the conservative media played up culture war issues.  Trump shows that logic no longer works.  Poor white people want what all people want, jobs.  Trade deals, immigration, and offshoring have gutted the kinds of jobs these people could get.  And Trump is the only candidate that promises to fight against these things.  As a web developer who has to price their work to compete with companies in India (where the cost of living is magnitudes cheaper), Trump’s message really resonates with me.  His antics have pushed me away from ever voting for him but I can understand why someone would give him their vote.

It’s just funny to me the Republican elites wringing their hands over losing a block of voters they never gave a rip about in the first place.  The poor cohort of the Republican party has decided to abandon the rich cohort.

Article on the wellness culture and overwork:

We’re working longer hours than ever before, and as our employment conditions continue to worsen, they’re simply repackaged into a new version of normal in an effort to make the truly pathological state of many of our workplaces appear acceptable. And despite the fact that the very best evidence we have about the causes of work stress and burnout point to factors present in the workplace rather than in us, the stress reduction industry and the helping professions’ focus on individual self-care strategies is at an all-time high.

From a comment on a great NYTimes article on moral courage:

Much is made of the pursuit of happiness in US society but rarely do we talk about the two main types of happiness as delineated by ancient philosophers — hedonic vs. eudaemonic happiness. The former, centered around the usual things we think of as making us happy (status, money, love, food, sex, etc.), is overemphasized where as the latter, which is about living a meaningful life, is rarely discussed. People like Mr. Sayarthi have the latter in spades.

I like to call eudaemonic happiness the happiness with the better aftertaste.  Home brewed root beer with real sassafras root is like it.  The taste is fine but the aftertaste is even better.  Eudaemonic happiness is meaningful, communal, and often takes some maturity and legwork to derive pleasure from (hedonic happiness the pleasure is usually immediate, even an infant eating ice cream can experience it).  For example volunteering at a soup kitchen might not lift your mood as much as a session of video games but it will likely leave a longer term positive after effect.

Also we tend to remember things in story form.  Negative things usually unfold in story form (for example a jerk cut you off and you had to swerve into another lane).  A lot of hedonic things like sitting on the beach or eating a great meal are pleasurable but not easily turned into stories and thus often only called to mind when one is in another pleasurable state.  Eudaemonic happiness involves things that are often stories.  For example moving your friend into a new apartment often stuff will happen that people will joke or commiserate about for years to come.  The things might not be pleasurable but memories of them will generally elicit a positive response.

Effects of eudaemonic happiness are fragile.  If you are altruistic and loving and people don’t reciprocate with gratefulness, you will get a lot less of the positive effect.  This starts a vicious cycle where people stop giving because the receivers aren’t grateful.

I have yet to hear an argument against gay marriage that doesn’t invoke something written on bronze-age parchment.  Denying people who love and are committed to each other the right to marry is bad enough.  But it gets worse, by sinking its resources into this battle the church is losing the younger generation who realizes they are on the wrong side of history.  But it’s even worse than that because the next battle, euthanasia, the church has a compelling case against.  But it’s wasting its credibility on gay marriage so when the euthanasia debate does come to the forefront people will not be willing to hear the church out.

Sufjan Stevens is coming to Grand Rapids this spring, Tuesday April 28.  Tickets go on sale tomorrow the 30th at 10:00 A.M.  They will sell out very quickly.   Here is my guide for maximizing your chances of scoring some.

1. Create a TicketReturn account right now.  To do this commence a purchase of a random cheap event like River City Improv.  During the process it will let you create an account.  After the account is created it will ask you for credit card info which you can cancel out of.
2. Be logged into your TicketReturn account at 9:40 A.M. tomorrow.   It’s important to be logged in ahead of time.
3. At this time start reloading the Sufjan Stevens TicketReturn URL:  https://www.ticketreturn.com/prod2/Team.asp?SponsorID=7505 especially as it gets closer to 10

There are no guarantees obviously but Calvin’s servers are going to grind to a halt so it’s better to go right to the TicketReturn URL.