The binary ahead is the result of a simple law of Nature: adapt or die. Will we revel in a New Roaring 20s of exhilarating expansion, or will we suffer a Great Depression 2.0? Gordon Long and I explore this binary in our latest podcast. Why is the next decade a binary of extremes rather than another period of "muddle through"? The short answer: Cycles. Take your pick: the Fourth Turning, the Kondratieff credit cycle, Peter Turchin's 50-year cycle, the Debt Supercycle, and a host of others--they're all hitting their inflection points now. If you dismiss all the cycles, fine. Just look at the political, social and economic state of the world, and you reach the same conclusion: a major historical inflection point in in play. While President Trump's policies are drawing all the media attention, Gordon and I break it all down to three defining systemic dynamics: 1. America's great wealth-income divides, i.e. the winners and losers of financialization and globalization: rural / urban, Main Street / Wall Street and the generational divide. 2. The allocation of capital: creative destruction vs monopoly / cartels. How will the nation's capital be invested? Will it be squandered in malinvestment that serves the interests of private equity, or will it be invested to serve national interests? 3. DOGE and entrenched interests' resistance to change: government over-reach, unlimited deficit spending and the decay of accountability do not serve the common good, yet these excesses benefit powerful entrenched interests who will pull out all the stops to defend their slice of the pie. As I have often noted, the past 40 years can be understood as the Age of Hyper-Financialization and Hyper-Globalization, as these forces have come to dominate the America's economic, political and social landscapes. Financialization and globalization are not neutral forces: they generate winners and losers, and a deep gulf between the two extremes. Coastal urban regions have been the nig winners, rural America has been the big loser. Wall Street has been the big winner, and Main Street the big loser. The Boomer Generation that bought stocks and housing when they were affordable to the majority have been the big winners as these assets have soared in credit-asset bubbles, and the generations priced out of these assets have been the big losers. Monopolies and cartels have been the big winners, to the detriment of everyone else. The crapification of goods and services and the rise of precarity has enriched monopolies, cartels and private equity, at the expense of the rest of us. Will the nation's capital be invested in the common good and the citizenry, or will it serve the interests of private equity? The heavily promoted fantasy is that enriching private equity magically serves the common good and the citizenry, but the decline of the nation's health and security speak to the reality that self-enrichment is not the same as investing in the citizenry and their interests. The core requirement of good governance are: 1) transparency 2) accountability 3) prudent borrowing/spending and 4) limits on over-reach. That each of these are in need of improvement is undeniable, and resistance comes in two flavors: those with different ideas of reform and those resisting any diminishment of their power and share of the state's largesse. The binary ahead is the result of a simple law of Nature: adapt or die. Clinging on to whatever serves the interests of those benefiting from the current arrangement can be sold as "change," but this isn't adapting, it's maladaptation on a systemic scale. Whether we get the Roaring 20s or the Great Depression 2.0 boils down to this: Are we adapting via real transformations, or are we controlling the narrative to protect those benefiting from the status quo? Stay tuned. My recent books: Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site. The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF) Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF) The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF) When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF) Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF). A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF). Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF). The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF) Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency. Thank you, Harley O. ($20/month), for your outrageously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.   Thank you, Tim C. ($10/month), for your marvelously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership. Thank you, Kitty B. 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We're prone to addiction, and addiction is highly profitable. They know it, and we know it. We inhabit an Addiction Economy. We all know the cure for addiction is to go Cold Turkey: drop the denial and delusion of control, and excise the source of the addiction from one's life. This is of course not easy; it's agony on multiple fronts, for we've come to depend on the source of addiction for dopamine hits, pain management, and distraction from our troubles and travails. Sources of addiction that tie into our identity and need to be recognized and valued are especially pernicious, as these are what make us feel that we exist in a meaningful way. We're talking of course about social media as the source of our most compelling and tenacious addiction, for social media is the means by which we say "I exist, my opinion matters, I matter, and here is the tangible evidence, everyone can see my selfie, photo, tweet, post, note or comment, and since everyone has a device to access my opinion, I can imagine multitudes seeing it, for I can see it." In a physical world where we're invisible and don't matter, the universal, tangible visibility of social media is addictive, for there is no substitute for it in the real world in which we're anonymous and invisible. Try getting your photo or opinion in the Mainstream Media, on network TV or in a mass media publication. Unlike these rigorously gated forms of media, social media is open to all, an irresistible opportunity to stake a claim to becoming visible. There is nowhere in the real world to express oneself with such ease. Shouting on a street corner will get attention, but not the sort most desire. Standing up in a public hearing will provide three minutes of public exposure, but this only whets the appetite for a wider audience and a more substantial self-confirmation. But this confirmation of selfhood is a chimera. That others see our selfie, photo, opinion or post is no substitute for relationships in the real world, and the relationship we have with ourself, in which our integrity and actions earn our self-respect, regardless of what others see or don't see and what they think or don't think about us. Our worth has nothing to do with visibility, and neither does our identity. Let's stipulate that the phone is a mechanism of addiction, but it can be used sparingly for non-addictive practicalities. Sales people may well spend much of their day on their phone communicating with clients and making cold calls. Brief SMS texts serve as efficient communications, as do quick emails and phone calls. The iPhone software identifies this communication as social, which confuses it with social media. Practical communication isn't social, it's communicating essential information in the most efficient manner. The mobile phone also serves as a business tool--doing a bit of online banking, mapping a route, etc.--and as a modest platform for creating content: recording an idea or melody, sharing an idea for a podcast, etc. But how much of our staring at the little screen is essential communication and creation, and how much is time wasted on social media or other distractions? Here are two screenshots of our household phones. The first records total use through mid-afternoon (3:14 pm): 3 minutes. The workday is largely done and essential communication took a few minutes. Here's a weekly total: 2 hours and 22 minutes for the week, or 20 minutes average per day. Some days might require a long phone conversation, or numerous texts, but others don't require much in the way of essentials. The phone's addictive feature is its constant pinging, demanding "look at me!" as apps notifications are constantly nagging us to generate income for the platform by opening the app and giving it our attention, for the Attention Economy depends on our engagement as the source of profit. So Cold Turkey the notifications: delete the apps, turn off notifications, mute the device. Also delete / Cold Turkey the social media apps and notifications. Consider social media as a snack designed to addict you to something that tastes good but is ruinously toxic, even as it generates billions of dollars in profits for the pushers / dealers. Technology is a useful servant but a terrible master. Addiction itself is slippery; we deny we're addicted (I can stop any time), and maintain the fiction that we're in control even as we compulsively stare at our phone dozens (or hundreds) of times a day. The phone and every app are engineered to be addictive. For each of us, it's our rational understanding of the mechanisms of addiction and our will versus thousands of people working feverishly to break down our rationality and will by appealing directly to our insecurities and dopamine circuitry. Social media is intentionally designed to reward our addictive behavior because this behavior generates tens of billions of dollars in profits for the purveyors. The algos track what you click on, and give you more of that, notify you when a "friend" posts anything, cheer you on when your post gets a "like," and so on. The mechanisms of addiction are all in plain sight but we fall for them anyway because our insecurities and dopamine circuitry are so easy to manipulate. The endless feed / scroll is addictive. They know it, we know it, but we're snared anyway. The way out is Cold Turkey. The other common addiction based on products engineered to be addictive is our addiction to junk food, snacks and fast food. Once again, thousands of people are tasked with engineering and marketing these products to light up our dopamine / pleasure circuitry as the means of maximizing private profits. Our health is being ruined, slowly but surely, as the inevitable consequence of milking our dopamine circuitry for profits. Once again, the only real solution is Cold Turkey: eliminate all junk food, snacks and fast food from our lives. If there are no snacks in the house, we won't consume them. It's that simple. So go Cold Turkey on buying bags of addiction like this: And only have real food like this in the house. Need a snack? Then have a banana or apple or carrot or a few unprocessed peanuts. Everyone complains that there's no time or energy to prepare a real-food meal. Yes, modern life is a pressure cooker. But how much time do we spend every day compulsively staring at a screen, not for essential communication but for all the other digital snack food we're being prompted to consume? It's not going to make the cover of a magazine, but a can of plain black beans, some corn tortillas, a jar of salsa, some chopped up lettuce, a few olives and carrot sticks is a taco / burrito meal of real food that we control, unlike an ultra-processed substitute. Preparing a meal isn't a substitute for staring at a screen; it's the real world. There is no substitute for real food and the real world. Preparing a stir-fry meal is pretty quick. Yes, it take some prep, but the process of prepping meat, onions and vegetables is a form of meditation on the real world that heals our compulsions and addictions. We could sit and meditate to clear our minds or we can prepare a meal, which serves the same purpose. One of the most perniciously addictive qualifies of engineered, ultra-processed junk food is that it ruins our taste for real food. Junk food / snacks are addictive because they're loaded with completely unnatural concentrations of sugar, salt and low-quality fats. An apple is sweet, and so is a fresh carrot. But are they as sweet as breakfast cereal? No. Everyone says real food is too expensive. Yes it is, but what are your life and health worth? We complain about the cost of food but manage to throw away a significant percentage of all the food we buy. We also tend to eat too many low-nutrition calories. Buy on sale, waste nothing, eliminate low-nutrition calories, and costs become more bearable. We're prone to addiction, and addiction is highly profitable. They know it, and we know it. The only real way out is to go Cold Turkey and eliminate the sources of addiction from our lives. This is painful, as the pushers and dealers know oh so well, as we've lost our taste for real food and the real world. To recover our taste for real food and the real world, there's one path: Cold Turkey. The pushers and dealers insist it can't be done. Of course they do. They're terrified by the prospect of their tens of billions of dollars in Addiction Profits slipping away as those whose health they're diminishing choose health over addiction. Cold Turkey (Plastic Ono Band, 5 min) My recent books: Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site. The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF) Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF) The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF) When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF) Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF). A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF). Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF). The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF) Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency. Thank you, Dave B. ($100), for your outrageously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.   Thank you, Shift Frequency ($25), for your marvelously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership. 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These are difficult realities without Hollywood cliche answers. Caregivers and the costs of caregiving don't get much attention. They're not part of the news flow, and the day-to-day grind of caregiving doesn't lend itself to the self-promotional zeitgeist of social media. Look at me, helping Mom on her walker is not going to score big numbers online. The burdens in human and financial terms are often crushing. These realities are generally obscured by taboos and Hollywood cliches: it's considered bad form to describe the burdens of caregiving, and anyone who dares to do so is quickly chided: "You're lucky your parent is still alive so you can spend quality time together." Meanwhile, back in the real world, 4 in 10 family caregivers rarely or never feel relaxed, according to a 2023 AARP survey, as an integral part of caregiving is being on constant alert for something untoward happening to the elderly person in one's care. The demographics are sobering: we're living longer, often much longer, than previous generations, and in greater numbers. This means 65-year olds are caring for 85-year olds and 70-year olds are caring for 90+-year olds. I've logged 8+ years of caregiving (5+ years here at home) from age 63 to 70 caring for my mom-in-law, so I have personal experience of being old enough to "retire" but retirement is a fantasy for caregivers. Our neighbors are 80+ years of age and they're caring for her 102-year old Mom. What's this retirement thing people talk about so cheerily? All these realities are abstractions until they happen to you. These burdens are seeping down to Gen X and the Millennial generation. 'It's a job, and a tough one': the pain and privilege of being a millennial caregiver. The financial costs of care are staggering. A bed in private assisted living is around $75,000 and up a year, a private room in a nursing home is around $150,000 a year, and round-the-clock care at home costs from $150,000 to $250,000+ annually. The Crushing Financial Burden of Aging at Home (WSJ.com) "Christine Salhany spends about $240,000 a year for 24-hour in-home care for her husband who has Alzheimer's. In Illinois, Carolyn Brugioni's dad exhausted his savings and took out a home-equity line-of-credit to pay for home healthcare." More than 11,000 people in the U.S. are turning 65 every day and the vast majority--77% of Americans age 50 and older according to an AARP survey--want to live as long as possible in their current home. At some point, many will need help. About one-fourth of those 65 and older will eventually require significant support and services for more than three years, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. About one-third of retirees don't have resources to afford even a year of minimal care, according to the Boston College center. "The new inheritance is not having enough money to give to kids but to have enough money to cover long-term care costs, says Liz O'Donnell, the Boston-based founder of Working Daughter, an online community of caregivers. The costs of home care are so high that not just inheritances are exhausted; the home equity is also drained. $350,000 sounds like a lot of money but that might cover two years in a nursing home but not be enough to cover two years of round-the-clock care at home. The cost of maintaining the home doesn't go away: property taxes, insurance and maintenance expenses must be paid, too. Those without monumental financial resources make do by doing everything themselves. Depending on the resources available in the community, there may be some minimal assistance such as weekly visits by a nurse, meals delivered, and adult day-care facilities, but there are no guarantees any of these are available or that the family qualifies. In other words, the idea that the retired generation will leave ample inheritances is increasingly detached from reality. As noted, the new inheritance is to get through the years of caregiving without acquiring debt. The human costs are high, too. In the Hollywood cliche, everyone adapts and makes the best of it, and there's plenty of Hallmark moments that make it all worthwhile. Yes, there are Hallmark moments, but the elderly person misses their independence and may feel resentment that they no longer control how things are done. The caregivers are often exhausted--especially if they're 65 or older--and despite their best efforts may feel resentment at ending their careers early and sacrificing their own last best years caring for a decidedly unstellar parent who doesn't seem to appreciate the immense sacrifices being made on their behalf. The indignities of extreme old age weigh on the elderly, and the 65+ caregivers worry that they can't pick Mom or Dad up now that they're so old that they have their own infirmities. The responsible parent frets at the expense and feels bad they won't be able to pass on much to their grandkids. They may express guilt at being a burden, though that is beyond their control. The responsible adult child is burning out trying to juggle three generations and keep themselves glued together enough to keep functioning. They can't help but want their own life back, but to say this out loud is taboo because if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. In other words, tell us a happy story, repeat an acceptable cliche or say nothing. Nobody wants to hear any of this, and so the caregiver develops a self-contained stoicism. Everyone with no experience of caregiving wants to hear the Hollywood version, and so conversations with other caregivers are the only moments where the truth can be expressed and heard. In the rest of "normal life," the caregiver quickly learns to say what's expected: "We're managing. Life's good." This cultural taboo means the difficult realities that will multiply as 68 million Boomers age will come as an unwelcome surprise. Everyone wants to end their lives at home, we all understand this. While the fortunate elderly die peacefully at home after a brief illness, the less fortunate require levels of care that soon exhaust people and bank accounts. The burdens of caring for the remaining Silent Generation are high, but what about the 60 million retiree tsunami of the Boomer generation? As the general health of the American public declines, how many people will be healthy enough to care for their very elderly parents or grandparents? Who will do the often thankless work of caring for the very elderly at home and in nursing homes? These are difficult realities without Hollywood cliche answers. The fantasy is that 60 million very elderly will be tended by robots, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. But this isn't realistic, despite all the giddy claims. The American zeitgeist rejects problems for which there is no facile technological solution. But reality isn't a narrative, and the elderly person who fell and can't get up wants a bit of caring and sympathy, and the aging child wants to help their parent. That it isn't easy to do so requires a stoicism worthy of Marcus Aurelius. "You have power over your mind--not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." "Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart." "Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present." All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace by Richard Brautigan I like to think (and My recent books: Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site. The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF) Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF) The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF) When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF) Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF). A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF). Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF). The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF) Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency. Thank you, Robin C. ($100), for your outrageously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.   Thank you, Heather L. ($70), for your marvelously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership. Thank you, Karen K. 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Just the experiment of setting aside ideological certainties for a moment would be instructive. Humans are hard-wired to prefer simplicity over complexity, and this is the foundation of ideology, which like mythology takes a complex world and radically simplifies it to an easily digestible construct. (I tease all this apart in my book The Mythology of Progress.) Being social animals, humans are also hard-wired to quickly form loyalties to groups and gravitate to one camp. Very few football fans (if any) have zero loyalty to any team and have zero emotional stake (i.e. there's no team they hope loses and none they hope will win). Uncertainty generates anxiety, and so we settle the real world's many uncertainties with internal certainty: an ideology is a simple sketch of how the world works, and we will defend this emotionally powerful construct even as evidence piles up that it doesn't accurately map all of the world's complexities. We will deny, rationalize and cherry-pick examples to "prove" our ideological certainties map the real world. The problem with radically simplified constructs like mythologies and ideologies is they cannot possibly map the world accurately as complex, interactive systems don't reduce down to a simplified construct. So every ideological construct ends up denying, rationalizing and cherry-picking examples to cover the inherent weaknesses of simplifying the world into bite-sized constructs. Our intense drive to establish and nurture loyalties leads to emotionally satisfying but often counter-productive convolutions, such as any enemy of my enemy is my friend and any friend of my enemy is my enemy. The problems with ideological constructs are magnified in tumultuous times as ideologies map a rapidly shrinking share of the real world. The internally coherent ideology drifts further into incoherence, and our natural defense is not to become more open-minded (i.e. actively embrace uncertainty and entertain new ideas) but to cling even harder to the simplified certainties that generate our internal sense of self and certainty. Since the faithful of competing ideologies are pursuing the same strategy to reduce anxiety, our loyalties clash with increasing intensity. That possibility that all the ideologies claiming to map the real world are increasingly detached from real-world dynamics doesn't occur to any true believer in any camp, for each believer remains confident (and when pushed, becomes ever more adamant) that their ideology is the one true construct that faithfully maps all of the real world's immense complexity. Such is the power of these internally coherent constructs that we don't see them as belief structures, we see them as the bedrock of truth. We don't recognize our ideological beliefs as beliefs open to question, and so when challenged, we respond defensively: Ideology? What ideology? What I'm saying is the truth. Yes, true to us, but an accurate account / map of all the world's complexity? No. To each believer in an ideology, the problem isn't that their ideology is not mapping the real world with sufficient accuracy to successfully navigate increasingly stormy seas. The problem is the other ideologies are obstructing our solutions, which are guaranteed to work if pursued with absolute purity. Compromises introduce fatal impurities and so of course they fail to fix what's broken. If only all those misguided souls abandoned their wrong-headed beliefs and joined our temple, then we'd clear up all the real-world problems in no time. But alas, the fools insist on clinging to their completely misguided faith in false gods. In this increasingly bitter environment, up becomes down and vice versa. Common sense--by definition, an attempt to map real world complexities based on practicalities rather than internally coherent constructs and loyalties--is tossed aside in favor of doubling down on the simplified precepts of the ideology. We end up arguing about internally coherent simplifications, none of which do a productive job of mapping the real world, and accusations and raw emotions replace rationality. We are raging, spittle flying, demanding everyone agree with us that 100 angels can dance on the head of pin, not 10 and not 1,000. How can we trust anyone who so adamantly clings to such wrong-headed ideas? We can't, so social trust plummets accordingly. Those without any ideological faith watch the emotional fireworks with stunned amazement. So you think Dallas should be nuked because you hate the Cowboys? Um, okay.... But does nuking the Cowboys really clear your team's path to the Super Bowl? The more the real world unravels into complex uncertainties, the greater our need to cling to certainties as the source of our internal security and hope. Rather than see the failure of all internally coherent but increasingly incoherent constructs to map the real world as the core problem, we see those with different ideological beliefs as the problem. If we managed to set all ideological beliefs and constructs aside for a brief moment, is there anything we might agree on? As a thought experiment, imagine an AI project tasked with providing solutions to the core threats to our future stability and security. Is there anything the program might suggest that we could agree on? How about accountability and transparency? Can we agree on the practical value of making those wielding power accountable for their actions and decisions? Can anyone contest the practicality of demanding an honest, transparent, accurate accounting of public funds and publicly traded private-sector enterprises? Can anyone contest that transparency is the foundation of sound decision-making? Just the experiment of setting aside ideological certainties for a moment would be instructive. The irony here is the more the real world changes in ways that don't map simplistic ideologies, the greater our urgency to cling even harder to the simplicities we've invested with our identity and loyalty, and the stronger our instinct to lash out at anyone who disagrees with us, as if their disagreement is the problem, rather than the real-world complexities that no simple construct can map with any functional utility. Rather than nuking Dallas, maybe finding some sort of practical, common-sense middle ground might be the wiser course, even though it goes against every fiber of our hard-wired instincts to circle the wagons to defend the one true construct and declare those who disagree as the problem. My recent books: Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site. The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF) Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF) The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF) When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF) Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF). A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF). Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF). The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF) Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency. Thank you, Cheryl A. ($50), for your much-appreciated generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.   Thank you, Steven R ($50), for your marvelously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership. Thank you, NeilHrab ($50), for your magnificently generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.   Thank you, Alexander H. ($7/month), for your splendidly generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership. Go to my main site at www.oftwominds.com/blog.html for the full posts and archives.