Welcome back to your favorite Friday read, posted on a Saturday. The last week has been wild here in the U.S. The presidential election took place this past Tuesday and America has, for the second time in history, elected a candidate to serve a non-consecutive second presidential term.
Donald Trump
There are many things to be said about Donald Trump, many of which have been said. I will keep it simple, I am simply disappointed.
I am disappointed in the voters, I am disappointed in the intelligence level of the country, and I am most disappointed in how easily people are manipulated.
What I see in Donald Trump being reelected is the manipulation of desperate people.
Trump has successfully convinced over 70 million people that he will be able to fix our economy. To help the people who are feeling the impacts of inflation the most.
I hope he does, but it doesn’t seem likely to me.
He will likely do what he did last time, work to unravel the policies put into place to help the middle and lower class, while helping the wealthy. I believe that it is likely we will either see an economic downturn or rampant inflation.
Trump is the second president in United States history to serve a second, non-consecutive term. The first was Grover Cleveland, who’s inaugural address focused on tariffs, sound currency, and civil reform. Sounds some what familiar.
Cleveland’s second term started with the nation entering the most severe depression in the countries history up until that point.
I am not implying that this will happen with Trump, but it is interesting to see the similarities of the position.
The democratic party is not off the hook either. I am quite disappointed in them as well. Why is there a push to become more radical on both sides?
I don’t think the next four years will be good for our country. I am particularly afraid of the amount of damage that Trump has the ability to cause to the environment now that he has the Senate and most likely the House too.
Hopefully the hard times with bring strong leaders and the cycle will start anew.
The Internet
The internet is a very useful tool and has led to many advancements in information access and communication, but it is also the leading cause of misinformation and manipulation.
I believe that everyone having access to information is a great thing. It allows us to learn faster and to make informed decisions, but what if the information your are making your decision on is incorrect or misleading?
Finding the right sources to trust on the internet has always been a tricky game and even more so now. Once credible sources are now biased and pushing for an angle that supports them.
Even when the information is factual, the way it is presented makes an immense difference. Let’s say that we are trying to increase the amount of deer in a given area. We know that currently only one deer is in that area, so we do some forest and wildlife management to try and increase the population. Now four deer are in that area after the management.
Someone who is pro-management could represent this as a 300% increase in the population after the management was put into effect.
Someone who is antimanagement might represent it as less than 0.1% of the states deer population is now using that habitat.
So who is right? Did the management work and actually make a difference?
The truth is that we don’t know. Our numbers are to small to have any statistically significance. It doesn’t mean that the management did work, but it doesn’t mean that it didn’t work either.
The problem here is that typically on the internet one source will represent it one way and another the opposite. Then you have the people who blindly believe whatever that source tells them and form opinions on the topic without any other knowledge.
This then leads to arguments on Facebook and an awkward Thanksgiving dinner with that one hard headed uncle (You know who you are).
I guess my point is to be careful where you are getting your information from and try to look at the facts objectively, and if possible, from different points of view.
Also, stop arguing so damn much in the comments of stuff online. Most people just don’t know and rather than belittling them or starting a fight, try to educate them.
“Never attribute malice to that which can be attributed to ignorance”
– Robert J. Hanlon
The Meaning of Life
I was out for a hike after work a few days ago and my thoughts stumbled on the meaning of life. I am sure that this thought has occurred to you many times throughout your life as well.
I thought back to an answer my dad had given me a few years prior when I poised this question to him in a discussion. He said that, “The meaning of life is to make a positive impact on the world around you.”
It is a good answer and one that I am sure many people could agree with. Logically, I asked myself “Why?” As I sat there on a rocky cliff overlooking the bare tree limbs of the oak beech forest below, I thought he might answer, “Well, it’s the right thing to do.”
Again I asked, “Why? Why is it the right thing to do? Is right and wrong nothing more than rules we have put into place ourselves?”
This led me to think that what we consider right and wrong are a mix of social constructs combined with the release of chemicals in our brains.
When we do the “right” thing it provides a few things; the release of happy chemicals, or the suppression of regretfulness chemicals, and elevates our social standing – which then helps to release more chemicals.
So from this I derived that the meaning of life is to… try and be happy. Not a very thrilling discovery.
Not only is it to try and be happy but it is also to try and eliminate any suffering we might experience. This all goes back to our primal brains. Eliminating suffering and being happy means that we are alive and passing on our genes – the two real meanings of life.
This is also the same brain that wants you to stay in bed all day and keep scrolling on Instagram. Unfortunately, social media seems to highjack the primal brainwaves.
This is a more important conversation that you might think however, because while someone could have told me the only meaning of life is to try and be happy, being able to reverse engineer it actually gives me permission to believe it.
This then allows me to stop worrying so much about my job, about the election, and about the economy. While you could argue all of these things will play a role in my long term happiness, I no longer believe that I can sacrifice my short term happiness for more success at long term happiness.
I would like to leave you to ponder this quote:
“Wander a whole summer if you can…time will not be taken from the sum of your life. Instead of shortening, it will definitely lengthen it and make you truly immortal.”
– John Muir
Sources
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/grover-cleveland-second-term-event-timeline
https://millercenter.org/president/cleveland/domestic-affairs
