Strategies
If we can come to a rough agreement on outcomes and values, then we can have a conversation about how to get there.
Assuming we can agree to something along the lines of the values and outcomes I’ve shared, these are the kinds of questions we’d want to ask about strategies:
● What makes people happy? Is it faster internet, legalized weed, and more Doordash? Is it more connection with self, loved ones, spirit, and nature? Or is it something else?
● What creates health? Is it more vaccines and cheaper drugs? Is it fewer vaccines and drugs, cleaner food, and more exercise? Or is it something else?
● What creates prosperity? Is it raising the minimum wage, controlling prices, and printing money to pay for foreign wars? Is it teaching people to save and invest, change their mindset, and acquire new skills? Or is it something else?
● What creates safety? Is it fewer guns, defunding the police, fighting wars, and allowing more immigrants in? Is it more guns in the hands of the right people, locking criminals away, and incentivizing families to stay together, or is it something else?
● What creates a thriving economy? Is it printing more money and more government spending? Is it reducing the regulations, reducing the size of government? Or is it something else?
● What creates a healthy planet? Is it more windmills and solar panels? Is it more nuclear power, tapping into zero point energy, and respecting the natural ecology? Or is it something else?
● What makes elections secure and fair? Is it mail-in ballots and no ID requirements? Is it in-person voting, ID requirements, and paper ballots? Or is it something else?
● What makes the media honest? Is it government funded media and censorship? Is it X with its free speech focus and community notes? Or is it something else?
Those are the kinds of conversations we should have.
I have my ideas, of course, but that’s not the point.
The point is that if we settle on values and desired outcomes, then we can start crowdsourcing and experimenting our way to the best strategies.
That would actually be productive.
In today’s politics, rather than have the important conversations about outcomes, values, and strategies, we demonize each other and get into unproductive arguments over Thanksgiving dinners.
We gotta change that.
Actions Lead to Results
The way we achieve anything in life is that we take actions, and those actions lead to results.
You can say all the right things all day long.
You can want an outcome super duper bad.
You can even take so much action you burn yourself out.
None of that is guaranteed to make the outcome happen.
Making outcomes happen is hard, as we’ve seen with NASA and Boeing and SpaceX.
Of course, we all know this.
Saying you want to lose weight doesn’t make the weight come off.
Wanting to lose weight, even wanting it really badly, doesn’t make the weight come off.
Making a solemn vow on New Year’s Eve doesn’t make the weight come off.
Even doing a lot of dieting and exercising and watching YouTube videos about losing weight doesn’t make the weight come off.
Only the correct action, taken consistently, over a long period of time will make that darn weight come off.
Trust me, I have some experience with this.
And it’s not just what you do. It’s also what you don’t do. And the order in which you do them. And the energy and intention with which you do them.
And just because you make the weight come off once doesn't mean it’ll stay off.
Achieving desired outcomes is hard!
If it were easy, we’d all be ripped billionaire rockstars!
And yet, when it comes to politics, all our common sense just flies out the window as we listen to our favorite politician say all the right things and we clap our little hands.
When a politician says they want to do something, it’s a really good idea to be skeptical. Not only do they often lie. But even if they mean to do it doesn’t mean they know how to actually do it. I’m not convinced they’re all the brightest bulbs in the box.
Solving Problems
I was a big Bernie fan in 2016.
By this time I had lost faith in Obama. He hadn’t held Wall Street accountable. He didn’t close Guantanamo Bay. He bombed Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia.
But I wasn’t hearing Bernie’s actual, you know, words. I was just swept in by his vibe. “Yeah, the system’s corrupt. Washington’s broken. We need to fix it!” Same vibe that got me to believe in Obama. How easily we’re fooled by the vibe.
We all know that most politicians will say whatever works to get them elected. It’s theater.
And yet a part of us still believes they mean what they say. We want to believe them so bad!
The point is that if we actually want to achieve something, we can’t just jump straight into doing stuff that “feels” right. We have to analyze, think, study, and experiment.
You must identify the root causes and address them. You must look at all the consequences of your potential actions, including 2nd, 3rd, and 4th order consequences, not just the ones you want.
When drugs have “side effects,” to the body, those are all just effects. Side effects is just a word the drug company says so you don’t notice. Bottom line is that for a proper solution, we need an honest, thorough analysis of every factor before we can pick the best course of action. And then we must try things out and see how they work in practice, because there are always unforeseen consequences.
It’s super important to get it right, because most of the time when the government tries to fix a problem, the problem somehow gets worse. Poverty. Terrorism. Foreign wars. Homelessness. Drugs. Racism. Mental illness. Health. The list goes on and on.
It’s a pattern. And I think it’s by design.
The purpose of a system is what it does.
But whether or not it is, we need to stop letting them do this to us.
