The Gunfire That Barks "I Am! I Am!'

“Ego starts when a being stops considering itself a being and starts being its own point of view. It thinks survival is maintaining that point of view. An ego, therefore, is a point of view attempting to cause its own survival. So its purpose is domination of everything. An ego will sacrifice its own body just to be right.” — Adam Smith, writing about EST in his book Powers of Mind

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And that, right there, explains every mass shooter.

Umair Haque: The Moral Universals We Lack

Umair Haque

British economist Umair Haque asks: “What does America not have that the rest of the rich world does? Public healthcare, transport, education, and so on. Every single rich nation in the world has sophisticated, broad, and expansive public goods, that improve by the year. Today, even many medium income and even poor nations are building public healthcare, transport, etc. America is the only one that never developed any — not on the national level, something that every person receives or can access, broadly. Public goods protect societies in deep, profound, invisible ways (we’ll get to that). And America is in fact losing the most basic public goods by the day — they are no longer safe from mass shootings in public places.”

“Working societies — if they are to endure, grow, and cohere, if they are to prosper, hang together, and really mature — need moral universals. Moral universals are simply things that people believe everyone should have.”

“Moral universals anchor a society in a genuinely shared prosperity. Not just because they ‘spread the wealth,’ though they do: because, more deeply, moral universals civilize people. They are what let people grow to become sane, humane, intelligent human beings. A person that is desperate for a meal will resort to whatever they must to feed their kids. A person constantly fed a stream of nonsense by Fox News will end up believing the earth is flat. Moral universals let people act morally, and acting morally is what the process of civilization is.

“Democracy therefore depends on moral universals. It is fairly hard, in the scope of human history, to establish a democracy. But it is harder still to keep it going. A democracy requires, before it demands votes, sane, humane, civilized people to vote. A society that cannot create sane, humane, civilized people can therefore no more reasonably stay a democracy than a global economy can be powered by fossil fuels forever.”

“American leaders are pretending like the relationship above is a great, confounding mystery. Like dumbfounded dinosaurs watching the mushroom cloud engulf the land, never in American mainstream media will you read a column, hear a voice, or see a face discussing the above relationship, making it part of the national conversation. Yes, figures like Liz Warren promote public goods. But in the mainstream, this connection is not made.”

Editor’s note: Umair Haque is the author of  The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business and Betterness: Economics for Humans.

Thor Four Leaves Us Ready for More

I could use a sweet movie right about now, and Bart, Paul and I found one in Thor 4, a/k/a Thor: Love and Thunder, a cosmic romp whose lightheartedness was enhanced by heart. 

These cosmic capers, inherently illogical, have to surf along on the strength of the emotions they evoke, and this one has just the right actors for the job.

By this time, Chris Hemsworth wears the role as stylishly as his red cape. Natalie Portman finally gets to really do something with her role as Thor’s lady love. Jane Foster. Russell Crowe made a Marvelous a-hole Zeus. Christian Bale devoured the scenery with Hollandaise sauce as the omnipotent and cruel yet sympathetic villain.

The film had all that, plus intimidating ancient weaponry that has surprisingly touchy feelings, and goats. I loved the goats.

It's interesting to me that while the first Thor film was visibly nervous about referring to its characters as “gods,” this one is God City, literally.

Bring on Thor 5.

But Oh To Be...

As free as a bird?

Sure, that’s nice, but oh to be

As calm as a clam.

What You'll Never Regret

You’ll never, ever

regret the hours you have spent 

not being afraid.

The Forest Knows No Fear

Fear is a phantom

who desires to distract you

from gently swaying trees.

Parking in the Park

Each lunchtime they park

in the park to escape an

airless cubicle