Political Agenda for the Next Election

1. Climate Change: 100% tax on all fossil fuels to start with increasing each year
2. Health Care: Medicare for all
3. Gun Violence: Make it illegal to possess a firearm
4. Freedom Dividend: $1000/month for all adults no matter what
5. Immigration: Double the staff and hours at immigration offices
6. Education: First two years of public college free, generally increase public education
7. Foreign Policy: Only get involved in activities abroad as part of the U
8. Homelessness: Provide homes to those who need them
9. Drugs: Legalize illegal drugs and tax them

Civilization Ending

Remember seeing cartoons with people carrying signs that the world will end?
I am beginning to believe that unless there are significant socialist reforms around the world that civilization a sc we know it will come to an end.  The resulting struggle ed will last for the thousands of years.  Will human sc go extinct at last?  There is a strong possibility.  Why?  Climate change will accelerate mass extinctions already occurring, massive immigrations will occur as people flee from affected areas, mass starvation will result in as class war that will result in as class war but this tim eff the mobs and religious fanatics will unleash wmd's which will spiral into more suffering.  Enjoy the present.  It just doesn't get any better than this

How Automation will Transform American Jobs

I watched an interview with Andrew Yang on CBS last weekend and he makes some good points concerning universal income, automation, and artificial intelligence.

Tesla is already claiming to have self driving cars and there are self driving taxis being used in Las Vegas and other cities around the world.  I believe the big market for this technology will be in the trucking industry.  Andrew Yang explores the consequences of this.  Let's say that adding self driving (SD) to  a car double the cost of the car.  Adding SD to a semi-truck will cost about the same but since a semi costs much more than a car it will be a much smaller fraction of the total cost.

For car SD is mostly just a curiosity that some people may want, for big rig transportation self driving has many advantages.  The trucks can drive 24 seven with taking a break.  The trucks will choose the most efficient route and be less prone to accidents.  Automated scheduling will ensure the products reach the correct destination just in time.

I see SD trucks will initially deliver products to large distribution centers and local human drivers will transfer the products to their final destinations, but eventually the self driving vehicles will be able to do it all better and cheaper than the human drivers.  It will  probably start out as a new start up trucking company that has no drivers.  Then it will spread to all of the other companies in order for them to compete.

Most of the union power of the trucking industry has been dismantled so the truckers won't really be able to do anything about it.

What are the social ramifications?  Well trucking is currently one of the more lucrative jobs for young to middle aged moderately skilled workers.  There are a lot of truck drivers who rely on this income.  Within the next ten years all of those jobs could be gone or on their way out.

You are going to have a large population of angry unemployed truckers.  I don't think that is something you will want to see.

Religion: Intelligent Design

My relative posted a video promoting intelligent design. In the video it showed a book and asked a number of people if they thought it could have come together by chance. They said no, someone would have had to design it.  The producer then stated that DNA was the book that explained how to put people together.  They asked do you think the DNA could have come together by chance? Everyone was amazed, no of course not.

A couple of points: DNA is not a book, it is a molecular structure. It did not come about by chance but was developed through billions  of years of evolution following a process where a portion of  the universe can decrease entropy by increasing entropy of the rest of the  universe, an entropic trade.

DNA is not error free but is filled with mistakes, junk DNA, DNA that does little more than make copies of itself.  It is nothing like a perfect book.

If you go along with the intelligent design crowd it doesn't take long for them to tell you that not only was there an intelligent designer but that being had to be the Christian god since it turns out there are some other obscure observations that somehow link there ideas to Christianity.

Then they go on to explain that the earth is only 5000 years old and people used to play with dinosaurs in the garden of Eden.

If there is a god is he benevolent or malevolent? Otherwise how could you explain children being born with genetic illnesses? How is it  that an all-powerful god lets babies die?  If there is a God I  would not worship such a being.

Socialists

A woman told me that she was upset at how socialist the United States had become under President Obama.  I wondered what socialist programs she thinks are bad:

• Public education
• Public roads
• Social security
• Medicare
• Drinking water
• Public libraries

The Future: 2050

Predicting the future is always difficult but let's take a look at what things might be like in the year 2050.  First of all there are many things that are difficult to predict but there are some things that are pretty sure.

The human life span is about 80 years so by 2050 most of the baby boomers will have died.  The cost of health care increases greatly right before death: Healthcare cost vs age

So putting this together we should see a flurry of healthcare spending just before the baby boomers die out.  After that we will have surplus health care capability.  That should mean the cost of healthcare will decrease, health professions will no longer be in such high demand, it will be hard for them to get a job.

Currently the baby boomers are just entering retirement.  Throughout their careers their 401k plans have fueled the stock market.  Now they will be moving that money into more secure assets.  Eventually though most of that wealth will end up going to retirement homes and memory care centers.  Anyone who has a loved one in one of these places knows how expensive they can be.  So this should result in a direct transfer of wealth from the stock market to retirement homes and memory care centers.  Then it will all be gone.

The effects of global warming will be devastating and I have been having trouble finding information on just how these effects will impact day to day life for people.  I feel it might be possible that the forests of the midwest will be gone.  The properties on the coasts will be under water.  This will probably be the biggest environmental disaster in history.

Fox News Gets Its Own President

After years as a propaganda machine for the right Fox News now has control of the White House.  Unfortunately they have also opened the door the the extreme right.

It's sad how President Trump barely mentions the mass shootings going on in schools today but continues to promote more gun access through the NRA.