Economics Archives - Doctor Paradox

Economics

May 6, 2023

Christian Nationalists

The term Christian nationalists brings together a number of radical religious sects seeking to overthrow the democratic republic of the United States and installing a strict theocracy, from dominionists to orthodox Catholics to Evangelicals and many more.

They tend to believe in Strict Father Morality, and desire to establish some sort of Christian fascist state in America, under the backwards idea that the founders never intended to separate church and state — despite religious freedom and the ability to worship as one pleases being precisely one of the founding ideals.

Christian nationalists list

Here are some of the people and groups involved in — or foundational to — the modern day movement to establish a Christian theocratic government in America (this is a work in progress!):

700 Club — Airing since 1966, the 700 Club is one of the longest-running Christian TV programs in the U.S. The show is produced by the Christian Broadcasting Network, founded by evangelist and one-time presidential candidate (1988) Pat Robertson.
Howard Ahmanson Jr. — American businessman, philanthropist, and Christian conservative activist who has donated millions of dollars to right-wing organizations and the GOP. Ahmanson is the son of the late financier and philanthropist Howard F. Ahmanson Sr., and a supporter of the Intelligent Design movement.
Awake 88 — A 2008 initiative sponsored by the Family Research Council (FRC) in which J.C. Church visited 2500 churches in all of Ohio’s 88 counties in an effort to turn the state red in the 2008 elections.
Alexander Acosta — Trump‘s Secretary of Labor from April 2017 to July 2019 who resigned when new details of his unlawful “sweetheart” plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein came to light. He was known to attend the weekly White House Bible study gatherings led by Dominionist Ralph Drollinger.
Alex Azar — Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services from January 2018 to January 2021, who was also known to attend the weekly White House Bible study gatherings led by Dominionist Ralph Drollinger.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) — The ADF is a nonprofit founded in 1994 by James Dobson, Bill Bright, and other Christian leaders to provide legal representation and support to people and organizations facing legal challenges based on their religious beliefs. The ADF was involved in the high-profile Masterpiece Cakeshop case, defending the baker who refused to make a gay wedding cake.
American College of Pediatricians — ACPeds is a small, socially conservative group of pediatricians founded in 2002 that has been criticized for its support of the discredited “conversion therapy” practice for LGBTQ+ youth and other views that run counter to the group’s stated purpose of promoting healthy and respectful development of children. The group is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties or the American Academy of Pediatrics.
American Enterprise Institute (AEI) — A conservative think tank based in the United States that conducts research and advocacy on a range of public policy issues. Founded in 1938, the AEI is known for its promotion of conservative social values.
American Family Association (AFA) — A non-profit conservative Christian organization based in the United States, founded in 1977. The group has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which cites the organization’s history of spreading false and harmful information about LGBTQ+ individuals and promoting intolerance and bigotry.
American Family Radio Network (AFR) — A Christian radio network in the U.S.
American Heritage Girls (AHG) — The American Heritage Girls (AHG) is a faith-based scouting organization for girls based in the United States. The organization was founded in 1995 and describes itself as “a Christ-centered character and leadership development program for girls 5 to 18 years of age.” It requires all members to agree to a statement of faith that affirms a belief in God and a commitment to Christian values.
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — Along with CNP, one of two primary right-wing groups with deep funding ties over the past half century to Republican lawmakers and donors & covertly driving “local” and state legislative agenda centrally from a nationally-coordinated source that shrinks from public view and carefully shields its operations from scrutiny.
Americans of Faith — A massive church-based get-out-the-vote campaign in 2004 led by conservative Christian activist and Salem Radio founder Edward Atsinger III.
America Wake Up — “America Wake Up” was a religious movement that emerged in the United States during the early 21st century, primarily gaining momentum in the late 2010s and early 2020s. The group, which combined elements of evangelical Christianity with apocalyptic and nationalist themes, aimed to rally Americans to restore traditional religious values and preserve the nation’s spiritual and cultural heritage. Its followers believed that America was in a state of moral decline and that God’s favor could only be reclaimed through a mass spiritual awakening. Although “America Wake Up” was never a centralized organization, its adherents often united through social media, small-group meetings, and public rallies. Critics accused the group of promoting intolerance and divisiveness, and its influence waned as mainstream religious and political figures distanced themselves from its more extreme rhetoric.
Robert Arnakis — Robert Arnakis was a prominent conservative political operative and trainer in the United States during the early 21st century. As the Director of Domestic and International Programs at the Leadership Institute, he played a crucial role in mentoring and training conservative activists, politicians, and future leaders. Although he maintained a relatively low public profile, Arnakis significantly impacted the conservative movement by shaping the careers of numerous political figures and promoting conservative values through education and training initiatives.
Arlington Group — The Arlington Group was a coalition of influential conservative Christian leaders and organizations in the United States, formed in 2002 to facilitate cooperation and strategic coordination among various religious and political factions. By focusing on shared goals such as opposition to same-sex marriage and the promotion of traditional family values, the group aimed to advance a socially conservative agenda on a national level. While the Arlington Group’s influence diminished over time, its efforts significantly impacted American politics and contributed to the ongoing debate surrounding social issues in the country.
Larry Arnn — Larry Arnn, the long-serving president of Hillsdale College, has been influential in guiding the institution towards a more conservative and Christian nationalist direction. Under his leadership, Hillsdale has emphasized a curriculum rooted in the traditional values of Western civilization and has increasingly associated with conservative religious and political figures. Arnn’s tenure has undeniably made Hillsdale a central hub for promoting and advancing conservative ideology and Christian nationalist delusions in American education and public discourse.
Edward Atsinger III — Edward Atsinger III is an American businessman and broadcasting executive, who co-founded and served as the CEO of Salem Media Group, one of the leading conservative and Christian media companies in the United States. Established in 1986, Salem Media Group operates a vast network of radio stations, digital media platforms, and publishing houses, targeting conservative and faith-based audiences. Under Atsinger’s leadership, the company has played a pivotal role in shaping American conservative and Christian media landscapes, with its platforms serving as influential channels for promoting conservative and religious viewpoints.
Marcus Bachmann — Marcus Bachmann is an American clinical therapist and entrepreneur who gained national attention due to his marriage to former Republican Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. He holds a PhD in clinical psychology and is the founder of Bachmann & Associates, a Christian counseling center in Minnesota that offers therapy services for a wide range of mental health issues. Bachmann has faced criticism for his views on conversion therapy for LGBTQ individuals, which he allegedly practiced at his clinic, although he has denied promoting this controversial treatment.
Michele Bachmann — Michele Bachmann is an American politician, lawyer, and former Republican Congresswoman who represented Minnesota’s 6th district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2015. A prominent figure in the Tea Party movement, Bachmann was known for her conservative stances on issues such as limited government, pro-life advocacy, and opposition to same-sex marriage. In 2012, she sought the Republican nomination for the presidency but eventually withdrew from the race, returning to the private sector after completing her congressional tenure.
Jim Bakker — Jim Bakker is an American televangelist, entrepreneur, and former minister who became a prominent figure in the 1970s and 1980s as the host of the successful Christian television program “The PTL Club,” alongside his then-wife, Tammy Faye Bakker. Bakker’s ministry took a downturn in the late 1980s when he was embroiled in a series of scandals involving financial fraud and extramarital affairs, ultimately resulting in his conviction and imprisonment. After his release in 1994, Bakker returned to televangelism and has continued his ministry, albeit on a smaller scale, focusing on end-time prophecy and the sale of survival products.
Steve Bannon — Steve Bannon is an American political strategist, filmmaker, and media executive who gained national prominence as the executive chairman of Breitbart News and later as the chief strategist for President Donald Trump‘s 2016 campaign and his early White House administration. Through his work at Breitbart and in the Trump campaign, Bannon promoted conservative and nationalist ideologies, often aligning with Christian nationalist values and narratives. Although not solely focused on Christian nationalism, Bannon’s influence in shaping the political landscape and amplifying the voices of the far-right contributed to the resurgence of Christian nationalist sentiments in the United States.
Baptist Press — The Baptist Press, established in 1946, is the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
George Barna — George Barna is a renowned American pollster, researcher, author, and speaker, best known for his extensive research on religion, culture, and public opinion. In 1984, he founded the Barna Group, a market research and polling firm specializing in studying the religious beliefs and behaviors of Americans, as well as the intersection of faith and culture.
Jeff Barke — Dr. Jeff Barke is an American physician, conservative activist, and author, known for his outspoken views on various public health and policy issues. He came out against the majority of the covid-19 public health measures including mask mandates, stay-at-home orders, and vaccines along with pushing unproven treatments.
Mari Barke — Mari Barke serves on the Orange County Board of Education, having been first elected in 2018. Married to Dr. Jeff Barke, she shares her husband’s conservative political views.
Stephen Barney — Stephen Barney is a conservative philanthropist, American businessman and donor to various conservative organizations, political campaigns, and educational initiatives.
David Barton — David Barton is an influential American evangelical Christian author, speaker, and political activist, known for his advocacy of conservative Christian values in politics and education. Born on January 28, 1954, in Texas, Barton is the founder and president of WallBuilders, a national organization known for its revisionist historical claims — including the idea that the First Amendment is not meant to establish freedom of religion.
Gary Bauer — Gary Bauer is known for his staunch advocacy of social conservatism and his prominent roles in various right-wing organizations. Born in Kentucky, Bauer served in the Reagan administration, first as the Deputy Under Secretary for Planning and Budget in the Department of Education, then as the Under Secretary of Education and Chief Domestic Policy Advisor. He left the White House in 1989 to become the president of the Family Research Council, a position he held until 1999. Bauer is especially known for his conservative views on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In 2000, he made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Since then, he’ has remained active in conservative politics, notably founding’s founded the Campaign for Working Families, a political action committee dedicated to electing conservative candidates to office.
Glenn Beck — Glenn Beck is a prominent American conservative political commentator, radio host, television producer, and founder of the news and entertainment network, TheBlaze. He began his career in radio as a DJ, but his career took a turn towards political commentary in the 2000s. Beck hosted the nationally syndicated radio talk show, “The Glenn Beck Program,” and his television show, “Glenn Beck,” which aired on Fox News from 2009 to 2011, was known for its emotionally charged commentary, chalkboard diagrams, and historical analysis. His shows have often been controversial for their provocative content. Beck is recognized for his libertarian-leaning conservatism and his vocal support for the Tea Party movement.
David and Jason Benham — David Benham, along with his twin brother Jason, is a prominent figure in American conservative circles, known for his outspoken views on Christianity and social issues. Prior to his involvement in political and social activism, Benham was a professional baseball player, drafted by the Boston Red Sox in 1998. After retiring from baseball, he and his brother co-founded the Benham Companies, a real estate conglomerate. The brothers gained national attention when their planned HGTV show, “Flip It Forward,” was canceled in 2014 due to controversy over their views on homosexuality and abortion. They are known for their strong pro-life stance, their opposition to same-sex marriage, and their misunderstanding of religious freedom.
Philip “Flip” Benham — Philip “Flip” Benham is an American evangelical Christian minister and anti-abortion activist, notable for his leadership roles in pro-life organizations. He was born on April 16, 1948, in Hartford, Connecticut. Benham is the father of David and Jason Benham, also known for their conservative activism. Flip Benham was the director of Operation Save America (formerly known as Operation Rescue National), a pro-life group advocating for the criminalization of abortion. The organization has been associated with protests at abortion clinics and other locations. Benham’s activism has often courted controversy, and he has been arrested multiple times during demonstrations. His vocal stances on issues such as abortion and homosexuality reflect his conservative Christian beliefs.
Robert J. Billings — Robert J. Billings was a significant figure in the American conservative movement, particularly known for his contributions to the rise of the Christian right in the late 20th century. Born on October 19, 1929, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Billings advocated for Christian education, founding Christian schools and serving as a superintendent in Wisconsin. His involvement in politics began in earnest in the 1970s, when he co-founded the American Association of Christian Schools and later became an influential figure in the Moral Majority, an organization that played a key role in mobilizing conservative Christian voters. Billings served as an advisor to President Ronald Reagan and was an instrumental figure in shaping the political landscape of the Christian right. He passed away on November 3, 1997.
Dr. Henry Blackaby — Dr. Henry Blackaby is an influential Christian pastor, author, and speaker, best known for his work “Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God,” a study that has sold millions of copies worldwide. Born on July 11, 1935, in British Columbia, Canada, Blackaby served as a pastor in California and Canada before becoming the president of the Canadian Southern Baptist Conference. In 1976, Blackaby started working for the Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) of the Southern Baptist Convention. His work in spiritual revival and church leadership has had a profound impact on evangelical Christianity, particularly in the Southern Baptist tradition. His “Experiencing God” study, developed with his son Richard, has been widely used in churches and study groups and is considered a seminal text in contemporary Christian education.
Sen Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) — Marsha Blackburn is a prominent figure in American conservative politics, known for her tenure as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee. Born on June 6, 1952, in Laurel, Mississippi, Blackburn attended Mississippi State University, earning a degree in home economics. Her political career began in the Tennessee State Senate, where she served from 1998 to 2002. In 2002, Blackburn was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Tennessee’s 7th congressional district, where she developed a reputation as a staunch conservative, particularly on issues such as healthcare, internet privacy, and fiscal responsibility. In 2018, Blackburn was elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first woman from Tennessee to serve in the upper chamber. Known for her support of President Donald Trump and her opposition to big government, Blackburn has remained a significant figure in the Republican Party and American conservative politics.
Morton Blackwell — Morton Blackwell is an influential figure in American conservative politics, best known for his role in the development and training of young conservative activists. Born on November 16, 1939, in LaHarpe, Illinois, Blackwell became involved in conservative activism early in life, working on Barry Goldwater‘s 1964 presidential campaign and serving as executive director of the College Republicans. In 1980, he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the position of Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison, working on youth outreach. Blackwell is perhaps best known as the founder and president of the Leadership Institute, an organization established in 1979 that provides training for conservative activists, particularly college students.
Bob Jones University — Bob Jones University (BJU) is a private, non-denominational evangelical university located in Greenville, South Carolina. It was founded in 1927 by Bob Jones Sr., a prominent evangelist and religious leader, with the aim of creating a training center for Christian workers. Throughout its history, BJU has been known for its conservative cultural and religious views. The university requires students to adhere to a strict code of conduct in line with its religious beliefs. Historically, BJU has been at the center of several controversies, notably regarding its policies on racial segregation, which it maintained until 1971, and its ban on interracial dating, which was not lifted until 2000. Despite these controversies, BJU has had a significant influence on conservative Christian education in the United States.
Bolthouse Foundation — The Bolthouse Foundation is a private foundation established by the Bolthouse family, who made their fortune in the farming and food production industry, notably through the Bolthouse Farms brand. The foundation’s mission has been to invest in Christian organizations and causes that align with their commitment to spreading the Christian faith and promoting social good. The foundation’s funding has often focused on supporting Christian education, religious activities, and other nonprofit organizations that align with their values.
Dick Bott — Dick Bott was an influential figure in American Christian radio broadcasting, known for founding the Bott Radio Network. Born on March 23, 1928, in Kansas City, Missouri, Bott launched the Bott Radio Network in 1962, which grew to become one of the nation’s largest Christian radio networks, featuring Bible teaching, Christian news, and music. Bott’s commitment to broadcasting Christian content led to a network that includes over 100 radio stations across the United States. Bott’s influence extended beyond his radio network, as he served on the boards of numerous Christian organizations and was a strong supporter of Christian education. He passed away on November 6, 2019.
Bott Radio Network — A network of 120 Christian radio stations operating in 14 of the United States, broadcasting Christian talk radio programs.
Lt. Gen. William Boykin (ret.) — Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin is a retired American Army officer and conservative political commentator known for his Christian views and involvement in special operations. Born on April 19, 1948, in Wilson, North Carolina, Boykin’s military career spanned over 36 years, during which he played key roles in several U.S. military actions, including the Iran hostage rescue attempt and operations in Grenada and Somalia. He was one of the original members of the U.S. Army’s Delta Force and eventually served as its commander. He also served as the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence under President George W. Bush. After retiring from the military, Boykin became an outspoken conservative Christian activist, serving as Executive Vice President of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian think-tank and lobbying organization. He has drawn controversy for his comments on Islam and other topics.
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation — The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation is one of the largest and most influential conservative grantmaking foundations in the United States. Established in 1942 by Lynde and Harry Bradley, co-founders of the Allen-Bradley Company, a successful Milwaukee-based electronics and industrial automation manufacturer, the foundation began its significant conservative philanthropic activity in the 1980s, after the sale of Allen-Bradley to Rockwell International. It has provided substantial funding to conservative think tanks, advocacy groups, and scholars, with a focus on areas such as limited government, free markets, education, and the traditional family structure. The foundation has had a considerable impact on shaping conservative policy and intellectual discourse in the United States.
Bob Branch — Bob Branch is an educator and conservative political figure known for his involvement in Arizona politics. Branch is recognized for his conservative stance on issues such as education, immigration, and the Second Amendment. He ran for the position of Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2018, campaigning on a platform of local control of education, school safety, and curriculum transparency.
Lincoln Brewster — Lincoln Brewster is an American contemporary Christian musician and worship pastor known for his guitar-based songs. Born on July 30, 1971, in Fairbanks, Alaska, Brewster developed a passion for music at a young age, with his mother nurturing his talent. He became a sought-after session guitarist in his early 20s and had the opportunity to work with mainstream artists, including journeyman rocker Steve Perry. However, Brewster felt a spiritual calling to use his musical talents for religious purposes and transitioned to contemporary Christian music. In addition to his music career, Brewster has served as a worship pastor at churches including the Bayside Church in California.
Jim Bridenstine
Harold O. J. Brown
Brown v. Board of Education
Pat Buchanan
Mark Bucher
Building a Nation
Jonathan Cain
Capitol Ministries
Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation
Ben Carson
CBN University
A Choice Not an Echo
Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN)
Christian Coalition
Christian homeschooling movement
Christian Satellite Network
J. C. Church
Church United
Church Voter Lookup
Tom Coburn
Mary Colbert
Concerned Women for America
Conscience and Religious Freedom Division
Conservative Caucus
Kellyanne Conway
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
Council for National Policy (CNP)
Culture Impact Teams (CITs)
Jan Crouch
Paul Crouch
Ted Cruz
Dr. Kenyn M. Cureton
Robert Lewis Dabney
The Daily Signal
Marjorie Dannenfelser
Jeff Denham
Betsy DeVos
Richard DeVos
Richard DeVos, Sr.
James Dobson
Mark Drever
Karen Rudolph Drollinger
Ralph Drollinger
Dinesh D’Souza
Alan P. Dye
Eagle Forum
Stuart Epperson
Equal Rights Amendment
Frank Erb
Tony Evans
Jerry Falwell
Faith & Freedom Coalition
The Family
Family Christian Academy (FCA)
Family Life Radio
Family Policy Alliance
Family Policy Councils
Family Research Council (FRC)
Family Worship Center
Fellowship Foundation
Reverend Wilber Fisk
Tami Fitzgerald
Florida Family Action
Florida Family Action PAC
Florida Family Policy Council
Focus on the Family
Foster Friess
Free Congress Foundation
Lynn Friess
Jim Garlow
Rosemary Schindler Garlow
W. Barry Garrett
Godspeak Calvary Chapel
Barry Goldwater
Peggy Goldwater
Grace Community Church, Sun Valley
Billy Graham
The Green family
Ken Ham
Abraham Hamilton III — host of American Family Radio‘s “Hamilton Corner” who described the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas as “Satan’s work” that was “immune to legislation.” He went on to claim that the Democrats were “exploiting” the victims by calling for hearings on gun control
Mark Harris
Kristan Hawkins
Carl F. H. Henry
Heritage Academy
Heritage Action
Heritage Foundation
Eric Heubeck
Hugh Hewitt
Jack Hibbs
Rob Hilarides
The Hillsdale Collegian
Kay Hiramine
A. A. Hodge
John Henry Hopkins
Mike Huckabee
Sarah Huckabee Sanders — currently the sitting governor of Arkansas
Humanitarian International Services Group (HISG)
Nelson Bunker Hunt
Institute on Religion and Democracy
Larry Jackson
David Jeremiah
Bob Jones Sr.
Bob Jones Univeristy
Kingdom Warriors
KMMJ
C. Everett Koop
Ku Klux Klan
Beverly LaHaye
Tim LaHaye
Wayne LaPierre
Bill Lee — Governor of Tennessee
Leonard Leo
Mark Levin
Liberty University
LifeWay Research
Rush Limbaugh
Elias Loera
Nathan Lord
Dave Louden
Barry Loudermilk
John MacArthur
Rachel MacNair
Danielle Madison
March for Life
Ed McAteer
The Moral Majority
Jeanne Mancini
Manhattan Declaration
Rob McCoy
Mark Meadows
Mark Meckler — Tea Party activist and co-funder of Convention of States
Janet Mefferd
Roy Moore
Museum of the Bible
The Naked Communist
Penny Young Nance
National Center for Constitutional Studies
National Christian Foundation
National Conservative Student Conference
National Federation of Republican Women
National Right to Life Committee
Richard John Neuhaus
New Christian Right
Kristi Noem — Governor of South Dakota
Gary North
North Carolina Family Policy Council
Michael Novak
Old Time Gospel Hour
John M. Olin
Organicgirl
Joel Osteen
Sarah Palin
“Pastors Briefings”
Mike Pence
Pentecostals
Sonny Perdue
Tony Perkins
Rick Perry
Howard Phillips
Buddy Pilgrim
Mike Pompeo
Art Pope
Reverend J. C. Postell
POTUS Shield
The Power of the Positive Woman
Dennis Prager
Praise Network
Tom Price
Erik Prince
Scott Pruitt
Quiverfull movement
Oleg Rachkovski
Ronald Reagan
Ralph Reed
Carolyn Richards
Road to Majority Conference
Pat Robertson
Jim Robison
Roe v. Wade
Rousas Rushdoony
Karl Rove
John Rustin
SAGE Cons
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
Salem Radio Group
Richard Mellon Scaife
Jeff Sessions
Francis Schaeffer
Phyllis Schlafly
Alan Sears
Jay Sekulow
Ben Shapiro
W. Cleon Skousen
SonLife Broadcasting Network (SBN)
SonLife Radio Network
Springs Community Church
Horatio Robinson Storer
R.J. Rushdoony
Southern Presbyterian Church
Southern Strategy
Darla St. Martin
Stop ERA
Students for Life of America
Susan B. Anthony List
Donnie Swaggart
Gabriel Swaggart
Jimmy Swaggart
Jimmy Swaggart Bible College (JSBC)
Jimmy Swaggart Telecast
Bruce Taylor
Jeff Taylor
Steve Taylor
Taylor Farms
Thomas Road Baptist Church
James Henley Thornwell
Robert Tilton
Unity Project
“Values Bus”
Values Voters Summit
Richard Viguerie
Young America’s Foundation
C. Peter Wagner
Chester Ward
Washington Watch
The Watchmen
Doug Wead
Well Versed
Paul Weyrich
Paula White
Donald Wildmon
Farris Wilks
Dan Wilks
World Ag Expo
World Congress of Families

More on conservatives:

Fairness vs. Hierarchy ↗

Liberals believe in fairness; conservatives believe in hierarchy.

Rule of Law vs. Cult of Personality ↗

Democracy is built on the rule of law, but the right-wing tends to prefer a cult of personality.

Artists vs. Fundamentalists ↗

Artists are famously left-wing, and fundamentalists are classically right-wing..

February 28, 2023

Hyper Partisanship: How to understand American politics today

republican vs. democrat cage match boxing ring

Buckle up, we’re in for a wild ride. Many of the serious scholars of political history and authoritarian regimes are sounding the alarm bells that, although it is a very very good thing that we got the Trump crime family out of the Oval Office, it is still a very very bad thing for America to have so rapidly tilted towards authoritarianism. How did we get here?! How has hyper partisanship escalated to the point of an attempted coup by 126 sitting Republican House Representatives? How has political polarization gotten this bad?

These are some of the resources that have helped me continue grappling with that question, and with the rapidly shifting landscape of information warfare. How can we understand this era of polarization, this age of tribalism? This outline is a work in progress, and I’m planning to keep adding to this list as the tape keeps rolling.

Right-Wing Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism is both a personality type and a form of government — it operates at both the interpersonal and the societal level. The words authoritarian and fascist are often used interchangeably, but fascism is a more specific type of authoritarianism, and far more historically recent.

America has had flavors of authoritarianism since its founding, and when fascism came along the right-wing authoritarians ate it up — and deeply wanted the United States to be a part of it. Only after they became social pariahs did they change position to support American involvement in World War II — and some persisted even after the attack of Pearl Harbor.

Scholars of authoritarianism

Karen Stenner — Australian political psychologist Karen Stenner found that approximately 1/3 of populations are authoritarian, have an authoritarian personality, or have authoritarian tendencies.
- Her book: The Authoritarian Dynamic

Adorno (F scale) and Altemeyer (RWA scale) — a measurement of the authoritarian tendencies in individuals and populations
- Adorno’s book: The Authoritarian Personality

Hannah Arendt — The Origins of Totalitarianism
Bob Altemeyer — The Authoritarians
Derrida — the logic of the unconscious; performativity in the act of lying
ketman — Ketman is the psychological concept of concealing one’s true aims, akin to doublethink in Orwell’s 1984, that served as a central theme to Polish dissident Czesław Miłosz‘s book The Captive Mind about intellectual life under totalitarianism during the Communist post-WWII occupation.
Erich Fromm — coined the term “malignant narcissism” to describe the psychological character of the Nazis. He also wrote extensively about the mindset of the authoritarian follower in his seminal work, Escape from Freedom.
Eric Hoffer — his book The True Believers explores the mind of the authoritarian follower, and the appeal of losing oneself in a totalist movement
Fascism — elevation of the id as the source of truth; enthusiasm for political violence
- Jason Stanley — How Fascism Works
- Robert O. Paxton — The Anatomy of Fascism
- Tim Snyder — On Tyranny
- Federico Finchelstein — A Brief History of Fascist Lies
Tyrants
- Ruth Ben-Ghiat — Strongmen
- Tyranny as a triumph of collective narcissism
- Demagogues
John Dean — 3 types of authoritarian personality:
- social dominators
- authoritarian followers
- double highs — social dominators who can “switch” to become followers in certain circumstances
Loyalty; hero worship
- Freud = deeply distrustful of hero worship and worried that it indulged people’s needs for vertical authority. He found the archetype of the authoritarian primal father very troubling.
Ayn Rand
- The Fountainhead (1943)
- Atlas Shrugged (1957)
- Objectivism
Greatness Thinking; heroic individualism
Nietszche — will to power; the Uberman
Richard Hofstadter — The Paranoid Style
Lakoff — moral framing; strict father morality
Neil Postman — Entertaining Ourselves to Death
Anti-Intellectualism
Can be disguised as hyper-rationalism (Communism)
More authoritarianism books

February 28, 2023

dark money

Dark money refers to political spending by organizations that are not required to disclose their donors or how much money they spend. This allows wealthy individuals and special interest groups to secretly fund political campaigns and influence elections without transparency or accountability.

The term “dark money” gained prominence after the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In that case, the Court ruled that corporations and unions could spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns, as long as the spending was not coordinated with a candidate’s campaign.

This decision opened the floodgates for massive amounts of dark money to flow into political campaigns, often with no way for the public to know who was behind it. Dark money can come from a variety of sources, including wealthy individuals, corporations, trade associations, and non-profit organizations.

Hidden donors

Non-profit organizations, in particular, have become a popular way for donors to hide their political contributions. These organizations can operate under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, which allows them to engage in some political activity as long as it is not their primary purpose. These groups are not required to disclose their donors, which means that wealthy individuals and corporations can funnel unlimited amounts of money into political campaigns without anyone knowing where the money came from.

Another way that dark money is used in politics is through “shell corporations.” These are companies that exist solely to make political donations and are often set up specifically to hide the identity of the true donor. For example, a wealthy individual could set up a shell corporation and then use that corporation to donate to a political campaign. Because the corporation is listed as the donor, the individual’s name does not appear on any public disclosure forms.

The money can be used to run ads, create content and propaganda, fund opposition research, pay armadas of PR people, send direct mail, lobby Congress, hire social media influencers, and many other powerful marketing strategies to reach and court voters.

These practices erode at the foundations of representative democracy, and the kind of government the Founders had in mind. One is free to vote for who one wishes, and to advocate for who ones wishes to hold power, but one has no Constitutional right to anonymity when doing so. It infringes on others peoples’ rights as well — the right to representative and transparent government.

Dark money impact

Dark money can have a significant impact on elections and public policy. Because the source of the money is not known, candidates and elected officials may be influenced by the interests of the donors rather than the needs of their constituents. This can lead to policies that benefit wealthy donors and special interest groups rather than the broader public.

There have been some efforts to increase transparency around dark money. For example, the DISCLOSE Act, which has been introduced in Congress several times since 2010, would require organizations that spend money on political campaigns to disclose their donors (the acronym stands for “Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections”). However, these efforts have been met with resistance from groups that benefit from the lack of transparency — who, somewhat ironically, have been using their influence with the Republican Party to make sure the GOP opposes the bill and prevents it from passing, or even coming up for a vote at all.

In addition to the impact on elections and policy, dark money can also undermine public trust in government. When voters feel that their voices are being drowned out by the interests of wealthy donors and special interest groups, they may become disillusioned with the political process and less likely to participate.

Overall, dark money is a significant problem in American politics. The lack of transparency and accountability around political spending allows wealthy individuals and special interest groups to wield undue influence over elections and policy. To address this problem, it will be important to increase transparency around political spending and reduce the influence of money in politics.

February 10, 2023

Psychopaths

Psychopaths are the pinnacle creatures of Cluster B — a group of personality disorders that all include pathological narcissism as a foundation. A psychopath is a cold-blooded human predator, devoid of empathy — they can be very cruel and very dangerous. They feel no shame — they consider shame the hallmark of Lesser People.

Psychopaths and their slightly-less-chilling counterparts the sociopaths (together: ASPD) make up roughly 5% of the general population — a figure which generally shocks people. That’s right — about 1 in 20 of all the people you have ever met, functionally speaking, have very little conscience. Some of them choose to behave ethically for various purposes, but many do not. They are certainly not to be trusted.

Attributes of psychopaths (this page is a work in progress):

no moral code beyond self-interest; ruthless
emotional predators
transactional worldview; everything and everyone is for sale
emotional black holes
they suck empathy out of the system, destructively; emotional vampires
emotional parasites, feeding off of others’ emotional energies and giving nothing back
the closest thing to pure evil in a human being

Famous examples in history and culture:

Hannibal Lecter
Ted Bundy
Charles Manson
Adolf Hitler
Ramsay Bolton

It’s important to note, though, that not all sociopaths are killers — far from it. These are simply the notable examples most people have heard of, to get a reference point on what these personality types are like.

Most sociopaths — unfortunately — are the guy next door, the woman at work, or the dude who took you home in his Uber. They’re someone you know.

February 10, 2023

📖 Dictionaries 📒

Words, words, and more words.

In a world of increasing disinformation, it’s more important than ever to be armed with actual information. And being curious about the meaning, nature, and origins of things is a rewarding journey in and of itself.

Think of these dictionaries as tools for your mind — they can help you make connections between concepts, understand the terminology being used in the media and all around you, and feel less lost in a sea of dizzying complexity and rapid change. A fantastic vocabulary also helps you connect with people near and far — as well as get outside your comfort zone and learn something new.

Dictionaries List

This section includes dictionaries and definitions of important terms in important realms — and is continually being built out. Stay tuned!

Terms and Concepts

Authoritarianism and American Fascism

Psychology

Definitions and terms relating to the study of the mind, including ideas from social psychology and political psychology.

Arrested Development
Bigotry is Poor Thinking
Black and White Thinking
Cognitive Distortions List
Extremism
Fear of Death
Magical Thinking
Motivated Reasoning
Paranoia
Political Psychology
Psychological Biases List
Psychopaths — Did you know that an average of 5% of the general public has no conscience at all?
Social Dominance
Supremacy

February 9, 2023

Top Mental Models

Top Mental Models for Thinkers

Mental models are different ways of mapping or viewing a system or a problem. They are frameworks that help explain what’s going on, and predict what’s likely to happen next.

Model thinking is an excellent way of improving our cognition and decision making abilities. Thinking in models helps us understand how new concepts fit with older observations, and what theories and metaphors are likely to endure.

They are useful in strategy, decision-making, analysis, planning, and a broad range of applications in both our personal and professional lives. It’s a good investment to spend time learning models — which are most typically extensible outside their original field of interest.

Often more than one model can apply to a situation or problem. Models are useful for picturing the issue in a different way, through a different lens — and perhaps to see something before unseen. They can help us try out different scenarios with ideas or personas.

Top Models and Concepts

We all have learnings in our lives we consider more precious than others — explanations and predictions that endure and keep on giving, versus those that fade away. Our core models form the backbone of our thinking and decision-making throughout our lives; it’s our grab bag of problem solving tools — and we want to have a resilient Swiss Army Knife at the ready at all times. These mental models help us understand a complex world, and prepare for all the changes that are inevitably ahead.

This set of top models below is my personal “desert island” set of model thinking concepts. These are the ones I really wouldn’t want to be caught dead leaving the house without.

Once these are on lock, head over to the unabridged models section for more model thinking goodness!

I will continue to add to this list over time as well as fill in the number of holes that remain in the set. Learning about new mental models is one of my favorite activities — it’s the closest thing to a superpower I can think of.

Term	Type	Topic	Definition
80/20 rule	Model	Economics	Also known as a power law, or the Pareto Principle
absolute advantage	Term	Economics	The ability of a party to produce a product or service more efficiently than any of its competitors.
absolute value	Term	Math	The value of a function irrespective of its sign (positive or negative). Its distance from zero, expressed as a positive.
accessibility	Term	Psychology	How easy something is to call to mind
acquittal	Legal precedent	Law	A judgment of not guilty in a criminal trial
activation energy	Term	Science	A chemistry term that describes the minimum energy required for a chemical system to react; the amount of energy required to get two or more compounds to react.
adverse selection	Term	Economics	Insurance phenomenon in which buyers or sellers in a transaction can use insider knowledge to unfairly get a better advantage over the other party or parties
a fortiori	Logic	Logic	From the Latin, "from a stronger argument," the phrase refers to conclusions for which there is stronger evidence than a previously accepted one.
akrasia	Term	Psychology	A state of mind where someone acts against their own better judgment due to weakness of will.
alea iacta est	Metaphor	Metaphor	In Latin, "the die is cast" -- attributed to Julius Caesar as he crossed the river Rubicon, leading an attack on Rome: a metaphor for a point of no return.
allocation	Method	Economics	Distributing resources, assets, or funds amongs recipients.
"All the world's a stage“	Metaphor	Arts	Shakespearean metaphor likening culture to a theatrical performance: "And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances ..." —William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Amara's Law	Theory	Science	We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.
annuity	Term	Economics	A series of regular payments at equal intervals.
antifragility	Model	Economics	Things that can benefit from disorder, and grow stronger amidst chaos. When something grows stronger under stress; when there is more upside to downside of experiencing a shock to the system.
antimatter	Theory	Science	Antimatter particles are the precise opposite charge and spin from their matter counterparts, but identical otherwise.
appreciation	Model	Economics	The tendency of an asset to appreciate, or grow, with value over time.
a priori	Logic	Philosophy	Information deduced from logical precedents versus empirical observation.
arbitrage	Model	Economics	A method of turning profit via simultaneous purchase and sale of the same assets in different markets, benefiting from the differences in listed price in various geographical regions.
archetypes	Symbol	Philosophy	An ideal type; a model after which others are fashioned.
arrow of time	Theory	Science	Theory of physics stating an asymmetry of time -- that time has a one-way direction in which the entropy of the universe is only increasing. Although human beings perceive the past as being different from the future -- and that we remember the past, but not the future -- intrinsically there is nothing in the structure of the universe that defines past from future. Time is instead an emergent feature.
artificia docuit fames	Ancient Wisdom	Philosophy	Latin saying meaning, "sophistication is born out of hunger" -- a metaphor for innovation and genius being awakened by challenge, difficulty, and constraints.
ASCII	Term	Technology	American Standard Code for Information Interchange: a standard character translation table used by computers to convert numerical representations into printable characters.
asking a fish about water	Metaphor	Metaphor	There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
asset	Term	Economics	A valuable object or good.
astroturfing	Method	Politics	The deceptive political practice of paying operatives to pose as members of the public engaging in "grassroots protest" as a way of adding plausible deniability as well as amplification of their point of view.
asymmetric encryption	Term	Computer Science	Also known as public-key cryptography, asymmetric encryption encrypts and decrypts the data using two separate keys that are related mathematically (a public and a private key).
asymptote	Term	Math	The graph of a curve as it is approaching a numerical value or limit, but never quite reaching it.
autophagy	Experimental finding	Biology, Medicine	The body's way of cleaning out damaged cells and replace them with newer, healthier cells. Literally, "self-eating."
availability bias	Model	Psychology	Cognitive distortion arising from the unconscious preference for information that is recent rather than what is representative.
average	Method	Math	A measure of central tendency of a set of data, whether the mean, media, or mode.
balance sheet	Method	Economics	A financial document showing the book value of a company, i.e. how much it's worth.
balancing loop	Model	Systems theory	A balancing loop attempts to move a current state (the way things are) to a desired state (goal or objective) though an action (thing(s) done to reach the goal).The balancing loop is one of the two foundational structures of systems thinking, along with the Reinforcing Loop. A balancing loop is representative of any situation where there is a goal or an objective and action is taken to achieve that goal or objective.
Baldwin Effect	Model	Science	As organisms learn to shape their environment, they can alter the path of evolution. For example, with the advent of dairy farming, selection pressures began favoring lactose absorption genes in humans.
bank reserves	Term	Economics	Cash minimums banks must have on hand to meet regulatory requirements ensuring the financial system is equipped to handle periodic shocks in demand for withdrawals.
bank run	Term	Economics	Economic term for when a large group of bank depositors withdraw their money all at once -- once a common occurrence that rarely happens anymore in the modern world.
base conversion	Math	Math	The base is how many numbers there are in a number system; we use base 10 primarily, and computers use base 2, aka binary. Base conversion is the method of converting numbers from one base system to another.
Base Rate Fallacy	Model	Psychology	A type of fallacy in which people tend to ignore the general prevalence of something in favor of specific anecdotes.
base weighting	Math	Statistics
Bayes' Theorem	Method	Math	A mathematical method of determining the updated probability of a certain event or case, given new information.
bend the knee	Metaphor	Social psychology	Give up one's own opinion and swear fealty to a higher authority.
beta	Method	Economics	In finance, a term that refers to investments tracking the broad market performance of an exchange or industry sector
The Big Bang	Model	Science	The massive explosion which spawned our entire universe, back at the beginning of time.
The Big Crunch	Model	Science
binary numbers	Math	Math
binomial distribution	Math	Statistics
Binomial Theorem	Theory	Math
black hole	Theory	Science
Black-Scholes model	Model	Economics
Black Swan	Model	Economics	A highly improbable and unexpected event -- which yet occurs with more frequency than one might generally assume.
blockchain	Term	Technology	The basis of cryptocurrency, blockchain technology is a kind of public ledger or shared database that records transactions transparently and out in the open, in a way that anyone can access or verify.
boiling frog	Metaphor	Philosophy	A metaphor for the common occurence of slow, gradual changes over time not being noticed, like the (contested) legend of a scienfitic experiment that boiling a frog alive by starting with tepid water and slowly turning up the temperature.
bond	Method	Economics
Boyle's Law	Scientific Law	Science	A scientific law that describes the relationship between the pressure and the volume of a confined gas.
boundary object	Theory	Technology	Information science concept describing information used in different ways, by different communities, for collaborative work through scales.
bounded rationality	Experimental finding	Psychology	A central challenge to the c. 1776 ideas of Adam Smith regarding the Invisible Hand of markets, this 20th c. psychological theory posits that rather than making optimized rational decisions, at most times the average person is "satisficing" or making the most expedient choice under considerable constraints and lack of available information
bricolage	Method	Arts	Combination of many types and forms into one piece; a pastiche or mashup of style and cultural referents
broken windows theory	Theory	Law
Butterfly Effect	Model	Science
bystander effect	Experimental finding	Psychology
cadence	Term	Arts
camel's nose	Metaphor	Philosophy	a metaphor describing how allowing a smaller innocuous act may lead to larger acts that are undesirable
capital gains	Term	Economics	Money that is earned as a result of a stock investment appreciating in value — the capital "gains in value"
capital requirements		Economics	Actual cash on hand for banks to theoretically offer at a given time, with the rest lended out as leverage
carbon-14	Scientific Law	Science
carbon dating	Method	Science	A way to scientifically determine the age of an organic object by radioactive decay.
carpe diem	Ancient Wisdom	Philosophy	In Latin, "seize the day" -- a reference often used to motivate oneself and others to act boldly and live vigorously in the moment.
cartel		Economics
catalyst	Model	Science
categorical data		Math
causa-sui project	Theory	Psychology
cause and effect	Model
caveat emptor	Ancient Wisdom	Strategy	"Beware, the buyer" in Latin -- a reference to a warning about what one is getting into.
cellular automata		Math
Central Limit Theorem	Math	Statistics	In probability theory, the CLT establishes that independent random variables when measured will tend towards the normal distribution.
central tendency	Math	Statistics	A measure of the midpoint of a data set; includes mean, median, and mode.
ceteris paribus	Method	Economics	"All other things being equal"; holding the effects of other variables constant to determine the effects on a single variable of interest.
charge preservation		Science
charlatan		Psychology	one who aspires to wealth &/or fame through trickery and deception
Chesterton's Fence	Model	Metaphor
chilling effect	Term	History	The inhibition of one's legitimate exercise of natural and legal rights by threat of legal sanction.
cognitive bias	Experimental finding	Psychology
collapse	Model	Systems theory
comparative advantage		Economics
composite events		Statistics	in probability
compound interest	Model	Economics
conditionals		Math
Condorcet Jury Theorem	Math	Statistics
confidence interval		Statistics	the range of values over which a predicted outcome may lie; the amount of certainty one has about the predicted value falling within the estimated range
confirmation bias	Experimental finding	Psychology
conflation		Psychology
consent of the governed	Philosophy	Politics	Concept of political philosophy in which a government's legitimacy and right to use state power is only justified if consented to by the people over whom said power is wielded.
consequentialism		Philosophy
conservation of energy	Scientific Law	Chemistry	In a closed system, total energy remains constant.
conservation of mass	Scientific Law	Physics	In a closed system, mass remains constant.
conservation of momentum	Scientific Law	Physics	In a closed system, momentum remains constant.
constraints		Math
Consumer Sentiment Index		Economics
continuous vs. discrete variables		Statistics
Copernican theory of the solar system	Scientific Law	Science
correlation		Statistics
correlation coefficient		Statistics
correlation is not causation	Scientific Law	Statistics
cosine	Math	Math
counterfactual
countervailing power		Economics	Economist John Kenneth Galbraith's concept for how collective worker power is needed to balance against growing corporatism in the economy.
creative destruction	Model	Economics	Economist Joseph Shumpeter's idea for how the business cycle works: by innovation disrupting established processes and industries and forcing change into markets, often destructively and swiftly.
credo quia absurdum			"I believe because it is absurd" — Tertullian's defense of belief in the miracles attributed to Christ
critical mass		Science
crossing the Rubicon	Metaphor	History	Making a decision from which there is no turning back; a reference to Julius Caesar's overthrow of the Roman republic to found the Roman Empire in 49 BCE.
cross-sectional data		Math
crowdfunding		Economics
crowdsourcing	Method	Systems theory
cryptocurrency		Economics
Dark Matter	Theory	Science
dead hand of the past	Philosophy	History	Problem inherent in constitutional political philosophy, where eventually a people becomes ruled by "masters" no longer alive, who rule by "fiat" via a document, from beyond the grave (Thomas Jefferson's concept)
death spiral
decision theory		Systems theory
decision tree	Method	Computer Science
de minimis	Legal precedent	Law
depreciation	Method	Economics
derivatives		Math
diminshing marginal utility (DMU)	Model	Economics
directory structure		Computers
dispersion	Math	Statistics	the amount of variation within a set of data; how spread out the data points are from each other
distributions	Math	Statistics
divergent thinking		Psychology
diversity	Experimental finding	Science
Diversity Prediction Theorem
dividend payments	Method	Economics	Periodic, usually quarterly, payouts to stockholders of the company when posting profits. Along with capital gains, one of the 2 primary reasons to invest in stocks.
Dodd-Frank Act of 2010	Legal precedent	Economics	definitive financial regulation of the financial industry following the 2007-8 financial crisis
domain dependence
Doppler Effect	Scientific Law	Physics
double helix
doxa		Social psychology	common belief or opinion
Drake Equation	Model	Science	Estimation of the number of technological civilizations that might exist in the universe.
dualism		Philosophy
Dunbar number	Theory	Psychology
Dunning-Kruger Effect	Experimental finding	Psychology	A cognitive bias in which people mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as higher than it actually is, because they cannot recognize their incompetence in comparison to others.
Duverger's Law	Model	Politics	Holds that plurality-rule elections within single member districts — such as the structure found in the U.S. — tend to favor two-party systems
Easterlin paradox	Experimental finding	Economics	Beyond a certain point, countries don't get happier as they get richer.
economies of scale		Economics
edge case	Metaphor	Science
elasticity; price elasticity	Model	Economics	The ability of pricing mechanisms to respond quickly or less quickly to changes in prevailing conditions.
elasticity of demand	Model	Economics
elasticity of supply	Model	Economics
electromagnetic spectrum	Scientific Law	Science
electron cloud	Model	Science	Refers to the true nature of an electron's existence around an atom, wherein its location in space is not a definite point, but a fuzzy region of probable occurence.
elephants and flies	Metaphor	Economics	Sales concept to quickly segment leads into size buckets, from elephants > deers > rabbits > mice > flies.
elephant and rider	Model	Psychology	Psychological idea about how our unconscious and semi-conscious desires dominate us, but can be directed by reason (Jonathan Haidt et al)
embargo	Legal precedent	Economics
Emperor's New Clothes	Metaphor	Government
encryption		Math
ensemble learning	Method	Technology
entropy	Scientific Law	Science	The disorder of a system increases over time.
epistemology		Philosophy
e pluribus unum	Symbol	Politics	Latin: "one out of many" — one of several phrases on the American dollar bill, it refers to the unity of the nation as made up of its many peoples and as such, signifies the republic.
equality under law	Legal precedent	Politics	An ancient principle of vital importance to almost every constitution in the world, stating that all people should be treated equally in the eyes of the law, and that all individuals are subject to the same set of laws
equilibrium		Science	A resting condition all systems seek, in which all competing inflows and outflows are in balance.
equity		Economics
equity crowdfunding		Economics
error-embracing		Psychology
event horizon	Scientific Law	Physics	A boundary beyond which events cannot affect on observer, such as the edge of a black hole.
evolution	Scientific Law	Science
exception handling	Method	Computer Science	The process of responding to the occurrence of exceptions -- unexpected conditions that throw the application into an error state and must be resolved before continuing.
exchange rates		Economics	The value of one country's currency as measured against another
existentialism		Philosophy
exit strategy	Method	Economics
externalities		Economics
extrapolation		Statistics
factorial		Math
factum tacendo, crimen facias acrius		Philosophy	He who does not stop a crime is an accomplice.
fact /value problem		Philosophy
fake news		Media
false negatives	Logic	Science
false positives	Logic	Science
false consensus effect	Experimental finding	Social psychology
falsifiability	Logic	Science	Ability to be proven untrue; a requirement for a theory to be called scientific.
Feynman Technique	Method	Science	A method of learning and remembering difficult concepts by simplifying them until you can explain it to a new student or layperson who knows nothing about that concept.
fiat money		Economics
fiduciary duty	Legal precedent	Economics
fifth column	Model	Politics	A group who unites in secret to undermine a larger group from within.
file system	Metaphor	Computer Science
filter bubble	Metaphor	Social psychology
first mover advantage	Experimental finding	Strategy
first principles	Ancient Wisdom	Philosophy
fishing expedition	Metaphor
fitness function	Term	Science	In AI, refers to a set of selection criteria applied to a set of potential solutions to a problem to allow only the better candidates to survive to the next generation.
flâneur	Term	Arts
force multiplier	Model	Science
fractals	Math	Computer Science
fractional lending	Method	Economics	Fractional reserve banking is the traditional way of doing business, in which banks loan out multiples of the assets they actually have on hand. This falls apart if there is ever a run on the bank, when every client demands their money back at the same time.
fractions	Term	Math
fragility		Philosophy
framing		Psychology
free trade	Method	Economics
free will	Philosophy	Philosophy
freshwater vs. saltwater economists		Economics
Friend of the Court filing		Law
FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt)		Social psychology
fundamental attribution error	Experimental finding	Psychology
future value		Economics
gain	Term	Arts	In audio recording, a control that allows more or less of the source sound into the channel being recorded.
game theory		Math
Gates' Law	Theory	Philosophy	The idea that software development speed halves every 18 months, negating the acceleratory effects of Moore's Law and preventing computing from leaping greatly forward.
Gaussian distribution	Term	Statistics	the Normal distribution
GDP (Gross Domestic Product)	Model	Economics	The sum of all public and private goods produced within a given period; a measure of a country's economic health.
general relativity	Theory	Science
general will	Model	Government
generalists and specialists		Philosophy
genetic algorithms		Science	An approach to AI based on evolutionary models, in which multiple candidate solutions to a problem are generated randomly by mutation and recombination, then iterated over thousands of generations through fitness functions to weed out the best of each generation.
germ theory of disease	Scientific Law
Gettier problem		Philosophy
gilding the lilly	Metaphor	Arts	Speaking so floridly of a subject that one actually tarnishes its natural beauty.
GOFAI		Technology	"Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence" — reference to the style and general algorithmic approach of early artificial intelligence work, which fell out of popularity over the decades in favor of more organic neural net and evolutionary approaches.
Golden calf
Golden Mean	Ancient Wisdom	Philosophy	Aristotelian theory of an ideal balance point between the many extremes we face in life; he advocated harmony between the various spheres of life for an experience of happiness.
Golden Rule	Ancient Wisdom	Culture	"Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you" is the essence of this ancient wisdom, often used as a shorthand version of Jesus's core teaching.
Goldilocks Zone	Model
gold standard	Legal precedent	Economics
gravity	Scientific Law	Science
gravity waves		Physics
habeas corpus	Legal precedent	Law
habitus	Theory	Social psychology
Hanlon's Razor	Model	Philosophy	never attribute to malice what is adequately described by carelessness
hard determinism		Philosophy
harmonics		Arts
hearts and minds		Politics
hedge funds		Economics
hedonism	Philosophy	Philosophy
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle	Theory	Science
hexadecimal numbers	Term	Math	base 6
heuristics	Model	Psychology	Mental shortcuts that we do as a matter of routine, especially when we're stressed or under other types of cognitive constraints.
hormesis		Science	When a small dose of a toxic substance is actually beneficial to the living thing that ingests it
hydra		Metaphor
iatrogenics		Health	harm done by the healer
ice core dating	Method	Science
id, ego, superego	Model	Psychology	Freud's psychological model of the conscious and unconscious mind.
implicit cost		Economics
Imposter Syndrome	Model	Psychology	A psychological pattern in which one doubts their own accomplishments and has a generalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.
index number; indexing		Statistics
inferior goods		Economics
inflation	Model	Economics
inflection point		Math	The point of a curve at which a change in the direction of the curve occurs.
intellectual property	Legal precedent	Economics	IP
interest	Model	Economics
interest rate		Economics
internal rate of return (IRR)		Economics
Internet of Things (IoT)	Term	Technology
intersection		Math
interventionism		Social psychology
Invisible Hand	Theory	Economics
IP addresses	Term	Technology
iron law of oligarchy	Theory	Politics	Political theory positing that no matter how democratic a group may start out, over time it will develop into a bureaucracy ruled by a small handful.
It from Bit	Theory	Physics	John Wheeler's theory about the fundamental informational nature of the universe
Keynesian economics	Theory	Economics
Keynesian Put	Model	Economics
keystone
Kronos Effect	Model	Economics	the tendency of a successful corporation to seek to acquire and/or drive its upstart competitors out of business
Laffer Curve	Theory	Economics
law of excluded middle
Law of Large Numbers	Scientific Law	Math	As the number of coin tosses approaches infinity, the number of heads encountered will converge on 0.5; helpful in calculations of probability.
least-barricaded gate	Metaphor	Politics	Trotsky's metaphor of how social revolutions can take hold more easily in already weakened societies.
lecturing birds how to fly	Metaphor	Metaphor
length contraction	Model	Physics
less is more	Philosophy	Metaphor
L'etat c'est moi	Philosophy	Politics	"I am the state“
leverage		Economics
lifeboat ethics	Philosophy	Philosophy
light-weight process		Computer Science
limit of a function	Term	Math	if the graph of an equation seems to approach a numerical value but never quite reaches it, we say that number is the limit of the function (approaching from the negative or positive direction; sometimes directionality is important)
limiting factor	Model	Systems Theory
linear regression	Method	Math
liquidity		Economics
local min	Model	Systems Theory	idea that to grow out of a stasis or plateau, you likely have to endure a period of "setback" that is a lower dip or minimum value from where you are now, but is what's required to get over the activation energy to reach the next level
locus of control
logarithm		Math
logical fallacies		Philosophy
long tail	Model	Math	In a power law distribution (of population, ages, items, etc.), the region of the graph that tapers off quickly after the initial segment of high data points
loss aversion	Experimental finding	Psychology
Lost Einsteins	Theory	Culture	http://doctorparadox.net/models/lost-einsteins/
loyalists and mercenaries	Metaphor	Systems Theory
maker's time and manager's time	Model	Systems Theory
M1		Economics
M2		Economics
mandala	Ancient Wisdom	Religion	Introcate and elaborate patterns created with colored sand by Buddhist monks, who blow away their creations at the end to signify their celebration of impermanence.
Manichaean	Ancient Wisdom	Philosophy	a narrowly-defined dualistic worldview of good against evil
man on horseback	Metaphor		Synonym for a demagogue. Comes from French general Georges Ernest Boulanger, and refers to a military leader who presents himself as the savior of the country during a crisis and either assumes or threatens to assume dictatorial powers.
map is not the territory	Metaphor	Metaphor	A phrase reminding us that our mental picture of a thing is not the same as the actual thing itself
margin of error	Math	Statistics	How much uncertainty there is in the results; a percentage the estimate may be bounded by.
marginal benefit		Economics
marginal cost		Economics
marginal returns		Economics
marginal utility		Economics
market share		Economics
Markov chain	Term	Math
Maslow's Hierarchy of needs	Model	Psychology
mean	Math	Statistics	The average value of the numbers in a data set; take the sum of all values and divide by the total number of values in the set.
median	Math	Statistics	Like mean, another way to describe the central tendency of a data set.
Median Voter Theorem	Theory	Politics
megalopsychon	Philosophy	Philosophy	Concept in Aristotelian ethics of living with grandeur and taking risks with dignity; being nonsmall
mens rea	Legal precedent	Law	"guilty mind" — establishing the intent of a perp can help to establish criminal liability
mercantilism	Theory	Economics
meritocracy	Model	Systems Theory
metaphysics	Philosophy	Philosophy
mirror neurons	Experimental finding	Science
mode	Math	Statistics	The frequency with which each data point exists in the set.
monopoly	Model	Economics	Market condition in which there exists only one seller of a resource.
monopsony	Model	Economics	Market condition in which there exists only one buyer of a resource.
Moore's Law	Theory	Technology	Named after Gordon Moore, the model predicts the doubling of transistors on a circuit of equivalent size every 18 months to 2 years. This has many consequences for both technology and economics, including the predictable drop in price of generating the same amount of computing power each period.
moral hazard	Model	Economics	when one party takes on additional risk, knowing that other parties will bear the brunt of the risk in event of a loss
Moravec's Paradox
MVP (minimum viable product)	Term	Economics
naive cynicism		Psychology	State of mind in which people believe others to have more egocentric bias than is warranted or is actually the case.
Narcissus & Echo	Ancient Wisdom	Metaphor
Nash Equilibrium	Theory	Math
nasty, brutish, and short	Theory	Philosophy
natural laws		Science
natural selection	Scientific Law	Science
necessity is the mother of invention	Common Wisdom	Culture
negative externalities	Model	Economics
negative interest rates	Method	Economics
neomania	Experimental finding	Social psychology	love of the modern for its own sake
neural net	Term	Technology
net present value (NPV)	Model	Economics
neuroplasticity	Experimental finding	Science
Newton's first law	Scientific Law	Science	An object in motion will tend to stay in motion, unless acted upon by a force.
Newton's second law	Scientific Law	Science	F = ma, or an object of mass m feeling a force F will tend to accelerate by an amount a.
Newton's third law	Scientific Law	Science	When 2 objects interact, they each apply force on the other in equal amounts magnitude, in the opposite direction.
nodes	Term	Math
noosphere	Thought Experiment	Data science	Sphere of human thought — all interacting minds on earth. An early 1900s concept from Teilhard de Chardin
nominal figures		Economics
nonlinearity		Math
Normal distribution	Scientific Law	Math
normal goods		Economics
normalized weighted average		Statistics
normative and descriptive		Philosophy
noumena		Philosophy
novus ordo seclorum	Symbol	Government	A new order for the ages; Latin phrase seen on the American dollar bill.
null hypothesis	Method	Science
observer effect	Experimental finding	Science
Occam's Razor	Theory	Philosophy	A philosophical rule of thumb that favors the simplest explanation. Also known as the "law of parsimony."
octal numbers	Math	Computer Science	base 8
oligopoly	Term	Economics
omphalos		Politics
opportunity cost	Model	Economics	What you miss out on by using a resource in a certain way -- what you would have done with the resource otherwise; what alternative use you would have put it to.
options		Economics
orders of magnitude	Scientific Law	Math
ordinally ranked data		Statistics
organizational debt		Economics
oscillations		Science
out-group bias	Experimental finding	Social psychology
outlier	Model	Math	Data points that fall well outside of the normal distribution or expected distribution of a data set.
paradox	Model	Logic	A self-contradicting statement or logically impossible event.
paragon	Model	Culture	A standard against which something can be judged — an exemplar example of a thing
Pareto Principle	Experimental finding	Economics	Another term for the 80/20 Rule
path dependent	Math	Computer Science
Pavlovian response	Experimental finding	Science
pax Romana	Legal precedent	History
pearls before swine	Metaphor	Culture	The sense of wasting one's efforts for people who don't really appreciate them.
P/E Ratio	Method	Economics	Price to earnings ratio: standard measure of relative stock performance
permutations	Math	Computer Science
Peter Principle	Theory	Systems Theory	Theory that individuals within corporate and other organizational hierarchies will rise to the highest level at which they become incompetent in their job duties.
phase shift	Scientific Law	Science	The ability of matter to change phases, most famously water from liquid to ice to vapor and back again.
philosopher kings	Ancient Wisdom
Philosopher's Stone	Unsolved Mystery
phonemes	Experimental finding
plant a seed	Metaphor
Platonic forms	Model
Platonicity		Philosophy	adherence to crisp abstract theory & forms that blind us to the mess of actual reality
Plato's Cave	Model	Philosophy	Allegory in Plato's Republic about a cave dweller whose only picture of reality is the shadow on the cave wall thrown by the fire.
pluralism		Government
point of no return	Metaphor	Culture
polling	Method	Statistics
Pollyanna Principle	Model	Psychology	The tendency for people to remember pleasant events more accurately than unpleasant ones.
populism		Government
positron	Scientific Law	Physics	an antimatter electron
Potemkin Village Effect	Model	Systems Theory	Tendency of systems to create the appearance of functioning normally — to appease the operators who wish it so — even when they are not.
precision		Math
present value		Economics	The expected current value of an income stream.
price ceiling		Economics
price floor		Economics
prima facie
principle of indifference		Statistics	In probability, when there is no basis to choose some outcomes as more likely than others, they are given equal weight (1/2 chance of a particular side of a coin, 1/52 to get a particular card from a deck, etc.).
Prisoner's Dilemma	Thought Experiment	Math
private equity (PE)	Method	Economics
probability		Math
probability distribution	Math	Statistics
Procrustean bed	Ancient Wisdom	Philosophy	Synonymous with ruthlessly enforcing conformity, the phrase comes from a Greek tale of extreme "form fitting" on the part of Poseidon's son Procrustes, a robber who is said to have attacked victims by cutting off men's legs or stretching them on racks accordingly to fit an iron bed size.
profit	Legal precedent	Economics
propaganda	Method	Social psychology	originally, a way to "propagate" any idea; used by both sides in WWI, it thereafter took on a sinister connotation when American & British citizens felt hoodwinked by their govt's use of it
proper frame		Physics	in physics, the frame of reference that accelerates with you and determines your age
proportionality	Model	Math
prospect theory		Psychology
proximate cause	Logic
proxy war	Term	Politics
pseudoscience	Method	Culture
PTSD		Psychology
punctuated equilibrium	Model	Science
putting legs on a snake	Metaphor
Pygmalian Effect		Social psychology
Pyrrhic victory	Metaphor	History	A victory in which the costs of winning far outweigh the rewards.
quantum computing	Method	Computer Science
quantum entanglement	Theory	Physics
quantum physics		Science
qubit		Science
quid pro quo	Legal precedent	Law
quota
r > q	Model	Economics	Thomas Piketty's elegant demonstration of the rise of inequality
random walks		Math
range		Statistics	In a set of numbers, the difference between the highest value and the lowest value in the data set.
rara avis	Ancient Wisdom	Culture	"Rare bird" in Latin; similar to an outlier. Someone who stands out.
rate of return		Economics
Reagonomics		Economics
realism		Philosophy
reality testing	Model	Psychology	Discerning the difference between inner and outer, and seeing events as they really are, and not just what we want them to be.
received wisdom	Ancient Wisdom	Religion
recursion	Method	Math
red shift	Scientific Law	Science
reductio ad absurdo	Ancient Wisdom	Philosophy	Collapsing things too far, in a way that destroys real significance.
reductio ad finem	Ancient Wisdom	Philosophy	To analyze to the end — break the concept down into its conponent parts.
redundancy	Method	Systems Theory	Having multiple pathways within a system to accomplish the same task or achieve the same objective.
reference frame		Physics	A frame that does not accelerate; also known as a Lorentz frame.
regnat populus
regression analysis	Method	Statistics
reincarnation	Unsolved Mystery	Religion
reinforcing loop		Systems theory
relativity	Theory	Physics	Einstein's central insight that the experience or perceived passage of time depends greatly on the conditions of the observer, particularly with respect to velocity and gravity
resilience	Model	Systems Theory	Ability to bounce back into shape after having been pressed or stretched; elasticity. The ability to recover quickly.
respice finem	Ancient Wisdom	Philosophy	"Consider that you will die" — i.e. live life as you would in order to be proud of it by the time it's over.
res publica	Ancient Wisdom	Government	pertaining to the state
retrodiction
revenue		Economics
ripple effect	Experimental finding	Science
risk	Legal precedent	Economics
risk-weighted assets (RWAs)		Economics
root cause		Philosophy
Rosetta Stone	Experimental finding	History	Metaphorically, a key to unlocking the secrets of a given thing.
rounding	Method	Math
rounding error		Math
rule of law	Legal precedent	Philosophy
run on the bank
sampling	Method	Statistics
samsara		Religion
scarcity		Economics
Schelling's Tipping Model
Schrödinger's Cat	Theory	Physics
search intent	Term	Media
second-order thinking
selection bias	Experimental finding	Psychology
self-governance	Philosophy
set theory		Math
ship of Theseus	Ancient Wisdom	Metaphor
SIFI		Economics	systemically important financial institution; post-2008 financial crisis designation for banks deemed "too big to fail" (currently, firms holding more than $50b in assets)
sigma		Statistics	standard deviation, named for the Greek letter denoting the statistical term
signal path		Physics
significant figures		Math	aka "sig figs"
simulation		Philosophy
sine	Math	Physics
sine wave	Math	Physics
Single point of failure (SPoF)	Term	Computer Science	A part of a system that, when it fails, brings down the entire rest of the system or stops it from working properly
singularity	Theory	Science	A black hole.
SIR model	Model	Science	contagious disease modelling based on possible patient states (susceptible, infected, recovered)
site navigation	Method	Computer Science
six degrees of separation	Experimental finding	Psychology
six sigma	Method	Strategy	Motorola-originated concept of ensuring quality control to a very fine point, by ensuring that parts or other production outputs are manufactured to be within a certain quality range up to 6 times the standard deviation.
situational preparedness	Method	Strategy
skew	Math	Statistics
skin in the game	Ancient Wisdom	Economics	When someone has a stake in the outcome, they are more likely to keep their word in assist its fruition.
slope of a line	Math	Statistics
social contract	Legal precedent	Philosophy	Profoundly impactful document in political philosophy from Jean Jacques Rousseau in 18th c. France, refuting the rights of monarchs to rule the people
Socratic method	Method	Philosophy	Technique of instruction or conversation where the teacher or moderator proceeds by asking the student or pupil a serious of questions, enticing her or him to come up with their own answers to the issues related to the subject at hand.
solipsism
sorting		Math
special relativity	Scientific Law	Science
speech act theory	Theory	Philosophy	British philosopher J.L.Austin's concept that all uses of speech carry a performative aspect.
speed of light (c)	Scientific Law	Science	approx. 300 million meters per second
spread		Statistics
squaring the circle	Unsolved Mystery		A notorious philosophical problem first posed by Plato, the phrase has come to be used to allude to the grandiosity and infeasibility of someone's plans.
standard deviation	Math	Statistics
standing waves	Term
stare decisis	Legal precedent	Law	"It has been decided" — terminology used by a judge or court to indicate that the matter before them has already been decided by a previous ruling.
state of nature	Thought Experiment	Philosophy
status quo	Term	Culture	The way things currently are.
stochastic terrorism	Term	Social psychology
stocks and flows	Model	Systems Theory
Stoicism	Ancient Wisdom	Philosophy
Streisand Effect	Metaphor	Social psychology	When the act of attempting to hide information only makes it more prominently spread, especially via the Internet.
strict father morality			George Lakoff's terminology to describe the conservative worldview.
strict liability		Law	Crimes which have no mens rea requirement, such as rear-ending of another vehicle (where it is always the rear-enders' fault no matter what the circumstances.
subsidy		Economics
success to the successful		Systems theory	A reinforcing loop within complex system — especially economies — wherein the spoils of victory include the means to alter the rules of the game further in the favor of the previous winners.
summum malum	Ancient Wisdom	Politics	ultimate evil — some posit cruelty as this ultimate evil
supply and demand	Model	Economics
supply chain	Term	Economics
sword of Damocles	Ancient Wisdom	Metaphor
symmetric encryption	Term
tabula rasa	Ancient Wisdom	Metaphor	Blank slate
tachyon	Experimental finding	Science	hypothetical particle that travels faster than the speed of light
tangent	Method	Math
tariff	Legal precedent	Economics
tempus edax rerum	Ancient Wisdom	Arts	"Time devours everything." — Ovid
tempus fugit	Ancient Wisdom		Time flies
tempus neminem manet	Ancient Wisdom		time waits for no man
Third Story	Thought Experiment	Philosophy	the story an impartial third-party observer might tell; a version of events any unbiased person could agree on
Thucydides Trap
tilting at windmills	Metaphor	Arts	A reference to the novel Don Quixote, denoting the ongoing pursuit of useless attacks against an implacable enemy. Ineffectual activity undertaken strenuously and loudly.
time dilation	Thought Experiment	Science
time series data	Method	Statistics	A collection of measurements taken over time that create a graph when plotted.
time value of money	Theory	Economics
tipping point	Model	Systems Theory
Tit-for-Tat	Method	Strategy
too many cooks in the kitchen	Metaphor	Culture	A metaphor connoting that too many people are currently involved in the decision-making process.
touchstone	Metaphor	Myth/Metaphor	A black stone once used to judge the purity of gold or silver — now signifying a standard against which something should be judged.
Tower of Babel	Metaphor	Religion	A tale in the book of Genesis in the Bible that purports to explain the origins of different languages, via narrative about God confounding the speech of humans trying to build a tower to reach Him.
trade-offs	Model	Economics
tragedy of the commons	Experimental finding	Economics	An economic term for a situation in which unfettered access to a resource can lead to resource depletion through uncoordinated behavior -- a classic example is overfishing. A commonly-pooled (aka public) resource is overconsumed, but underinvested in.
transitivity	Term	Math
trickle down economics	Method	Economics	Right-wing economics, also known as Reaganomics, supply side economics, fiscal conservatism, tax cut policy, and austerity.
trolly problem	Thought Experiment	Philosophy
turtles all the way down	Theory	Philosophy
twin paradox	Thought Experiment	Science
tyranny of choice	Experimental finding	Systems Theory	The paradoxical effect that having too many options to choose from actually decreases the likelihoof of being able to reach a decision at all.
Unicode	Term	Computers
union	Term	Math	In set theory, a union of sets is a set which consists of all the members of all the sets.
universal law	Philosophy	Philosophy
usury	Term	Economics	The act of charging interest on borrowed money; for thousands of years there have been religous proscriptions against lending money with interest in various societies.
utility	Theory	Philosophy
variance	Math	Statistics	The amount of variation within a data set.
Veil of Ignorance	Model	Philosophy	Philosopher John Rawls' model for making better ethical decisions, in which the decider chooses a course of action based on the predicate that s/he will not know which of the groups or persons affected by the decision they personally would be. This method creates natural incentives to find the fairest outcome for all groups, since the decider doesn't know which group they will "end up in" on the other side of the decision.
Venn Diagram	Model	Math
via negativa	Method	Philosophy	An indirect description of a thing by describing what that thing is not.
Volcker rule	Legal precedent	Economics	Financial rule preventing consumer lending banks from speculative trading in securities for their own profit.
vulnerability	Experimental finding	Psychology
wave function	Scientific Law	Science
wave-particle duality	Experimental finding	Science
wheel of life	Symbol	Religion
when life gives you lemons	Metaphor	Philosophy	You try to make lemonade! Another way of saying, "let's try and make the best of this unfortunate situation."
winner-take-all market		Economics
wisdom of crowds	Model	Social psychology	Derived from the Diversity Prediction Theorem: the average prediction of a group of individuals will be more accurate than the prediction of one average member.
wolves and sheep	Metaphor	Philosophy
wormhole	Theory	Physics	A sort of tunnel formed on the surface of a black hole that may connect two different regions of space
worst case scenario	Model	Systems Theory
zero sum game	Model	Math
z score	Term	Statistics

April 9, 2022

Collective narcissism is a bad solution to modern anxiety

I’ve been reading Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom and it’s synthesizing a few things together for me in new ways — prime among them the realization that collective narcissism is the shared root ideology of both Christian nationalism and Nazism. First off, I’d recommend it:

Next, I’d like to thank it for reminding me about the insidious dangers of Calvinism and the Protestant Work Ethic, as described in sociologist Max Weber‘s most cited work in the history of the field. Beyond the problematic authoritarianism of John Calvin as a person himself, the ideology of predestination coupled with a paradoxical obsessive compulsion with working yourself ragged is a noxious brew that fed the Protestant extrusion of American capitalism as well as the murderous violence of its Manifest Destiny.

Reformation Ideologies

Calvin — like Luther before him — was reacting to the social and economic upheavals of his day which, during the Reformation, were all about the middle class emerging from the security and certainty of feudalism into a far more dynamic world of competition, isolation, and aloneness. It held promise but also peril — hope along with, inescapably, fear.

During the Middle Ages, humankind had retreated from the aspirational virtuousness of the Greek and Roman civilizations and descended into almost 1000 years of darkness, as compared to the dazzling intellectual brilliance of the millennium before it. Those who would prefer cultish cowering in self-righteous ignorance over the humility of fallible science and critical thinking managed to topple a glittering civilization and scatter it to the wolves. It was a return to cruel and arbitrary happenstance, a horrifying Hobbesian world of pestilence and pathology.

January 15, 2022

Motivated Reasoning

Motivated reasoning is a common daily phenomenon for all of us, assuming we’re human and/or interact with other humans. It’s a cognitive science term that refers to a type of emotional bias in which we have a tendency to prefer decisions or justifications based on their personal desirability vs. an unbiased examination of the facts.

Thinking and feeling aren’t anywhere near as “separate” in the brain as is commonly believed — they are very intertwined, and it’s also incredibly difficult for us to understand or detect from moment to moment which parts of our stream of consciousness are “thinking” and which are “feeling.”

What’s worse, we have other biases that exacerbate the motivated reasoning bias — like the “Lake Wobegon Effect” wherein we tend to overestimate our own abilities vs. others. So, we’re overconfident — at the same that we are less rational than we think we are. That can be a volatile combination — especially when found in individuals who hold a lot of power, and make decisions that affect people’s lives.

For we know not what we do

It can be infuriating to deal with people who are using motivated reasoning to make decisions instead of critical thinking: they tend to work backwards from the conclusion they wish to reach, and ignore evidence that contradicts their pre-existing beliefs. The way they deal with the cognitive dissonance of conflicting information is simply to toss the new information out, instead of evaluating it. Generally, though, they are unaware that their brain is in the habit of making that easier choice, and tend to get angry when this is pointed out.

Examples of motivated reasoning:

Bigotry and prejudice
Belief that you can “reduce covid cases” by not testing
Belief that you can get Republicans elected by refusing to count Democratic votes either outright or via procedural means

Related concepts:

Emperor’s New Clothes
Potemkin Village
tautology
foregone conclusion
Catch-22
ouroborous
self-fulfilling prophecy
revealed wisdom
divine right of rule
teleological thinking
self-interest bias

January 6, 2022

January 6 Attack: A “dagger at the throat of America”

President Biden and Vice President Harris commemorated the 1 year anniversary of the January 6 attack on our democracy with morning speeches and a day of remembrance inside the Capitol rotunda with Representatives and Senators giving a number of moving speeches in their respective chambers. The tone on TV news and blue check Twitter was somber and reflective. The President referred to the violent events of Jan 6, 2021 as a terrorist attack on our democracy, and said that the threat was not yet over — that the perpetrators of that event still hold a “dagger at the throat of America.”

Only two Republicans were present in chambers when the moment of silence was held for the nation’s traumatic experience one year ago — Representative Liz Cheney and her father, Dick Cheney, the former VP and evil villain of the George W. Bush years. That this man — a cartoonish devil from my formative years as a young activist — was, along with his steel-spined force of nature daughter, one half of the lone pair that remained of the pathetic tatters of the once great party of Lincoln.

What do you do if you’re in a 2-party system and one of the parties is just sitting on the sidelines, heckling (and worse!?)? How do you restore confidence in a system that so many people love to hate, to the point of obsession? Will we be able to re-establish a sense of fair play, as Biden called on us to do today in his speech?

The Big Lie is about rewriting history

We don’t need to spend a ton of time peering deeply into discerning motive with seditionists — we can instead understand that for all of them, serving the Big Lie serves a function for them in their lives. It binds them to their tribe, it signals a piece of their “identity,” and it signals loyalty within a tight hierarchy that rewards it — all while managing to serve their highest goal of all: to annoy and intimidate liberals. Like all bullies, their primary animating drive is a self-righteous conviction that “I am RIGHT!” at all times and about all things, and that disagreement is largely punishable by death or, in lieu of that, dark twisted fantasies of death passed off lamely and pathetically as “just joking, coworker!”

January 5, 2022

Change the filibuster to save democracy

Majority Leader Schumer is right to come around to the idea that the filibuster must be changed in order to pass voting rights and save our democratic republic from the forces of authoritarianism.

The filibuster is an archaic rule that was at first only there by accident, then whittled into a sharp blade of minority rule by Southern plantation owner John C. Calhoun — a man credited with laying the groundwork for the Civil War.

The South Carolina plutocrat strategized on behalf of wealthy aristocratic ambitions in the 1820s and 30s. Dubbed the “Marx of the master class” by historian Richard Hofstadter, Calhoun consumed himself with an obsession over how to establish permanent rule by his 1% brethren. He was an early proponent of property over people — the original “just business” kind of cold calculating supremacist that would come to typify the darker southern shadow culture of America.

Calhoun came to the conclusion that the Founders had made a grave mistake when creating the nation, and had put in too much democracy and too little property protection. He had a conviction that collective governance ought to be rolled back, because it “exploited” the wealthy planter class such as himself. During his time in the Senate he engineered a number of clever devices for the minority to rule over the collective will of the public — dubbed a “set of constitutional gadgets” for restricting the operations of a democratic government by a top political scientist at the time.

Public choice theory and Charles Koch

Slaveholding Senator John C. Calhoun inspired a series of men in the future to take up the torch of minority rule and its apparatus. James McGill Buchanan combined ideas from F. A. Hayek with fascist strains of Calhoun’s ministrations in the Senate to pack a conservative economic punch with public choice theory.

A young Charles Koch was exposed to Buchanan’s re-interpretation of Calhoun’s re-intepretation of the founders’ intentions, and embarked on a lifelong mission to indoctrinate the world in the religion of hyper-libertarian Ayn Randian fiscal austerity.

New lie, same as the old lie. The old lie is that America was never intended to be a democracy — which is doublespeak nonsense. But “conservatives” have been fighting fervently for this original Big Lie since time immemorial.

So: Charles Koch is the new John C. Calhoun. He and his vast navel-gazing empire of “think tanks” and other organs of self-regurgitation have managed to brainwash enough people and operate enough bots to make it almost a coin toss whether the average citizen believes the nation was founded as a democratic republic or an authoritarian theocracy.

The filibuster is one of the strongest minority rule tools in their toolbox.

We must bust the filibuster.

January 5, 2022

Corruption Books

Corruption erodes trust, fairness, and ultimately, the rule of law. A fair playing field is necessary for a thriving democracy. Justice must come for the rich just as she comes for the poor.

see the full list on bookshop.org

December 13, 2021

Who really increases the national debt?

Mythology has it that “reckless Democratic spending” is to blame for the ballooning of the national debt — though the historical record shows otherwise.

In fact, the conservatives‘ beloved demi-god Ronald Reagan was the first President to skyrocket the debt, thanks to some bunk ideas from an old cocktail napkin that linger to this day — the Republican monetary theory in a nutshell is (I shit you not) that we should take all our pooled tax money and give it to… billionaires. Because, you know, they’re clearly the most qualified people to make decisions affecting the 99% poor people. Supposedly they’re the smartest folks to entrust with our money.

Except it’s not true, as year after year and study after study shows. Nor for all their finger-waggling at Democrats over the national debt has the GOP turned in a balanced budget since Nixon. Republicans are the most gigantic hypocrites on economics writ large, but particularly so for the national debt — with Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and Trump all turning in record debt increases, primarily through tax cuts for the wealthy and the Gulf and Afghanistan wars.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton balanced the budget, created a surplus, and reduced the debt during his 8 years in office, and Obama inherited the deepest recession since the 1929 Great Depression.

The financial crisis of 2008-09, itself caused by the reckless Republican zeal for deregulation — this time of financial derivatives — was a wholly GOP-owned debacle that the next president paid for politically. Nevertheless, President Obama had the debt again on a reduction path as a percentage of GDP — but then Donald “I bankrupted a series of casinos!” Trump oozed his way into the highest office in the land.

It’s weird how “reckless Democratic spending” always happens under Republican administrations!

During the Trump administration, Republicans patted themselves on the back for giving a $2.7 trillion tax cut to billionaires for no reason, while the economy was relatively hot already (after being rescued by Obama). Not only was no progress made on diminishing the debt, but the national debt actually increased (both nominally and as a percentage of GDP) under Trump’s first term even before the sudden arrival of a novel coronavirus caused it to leap into the stratosphere like a 21st century American tech oligarch.

Only when President Biden arrived on the scene and took the helm of fiscal and monetary policy did the national debt begin cooling off once again — all while dramatically and quickly scaling up covid-19 vaccine production and distribution and passing over $3 trillion in Keynesian legislation meant to get the dregs of the middle class reoriented to a place on the map vis-a-vis the 1% once again.

Republican national debt bullshit

I am hereby calling bullshit on Republicans’ crocodile tears over the national debt, which they suddenly remember only when a Democrat is in town and summarily ignore while their guy is in the hot seat burning through cash like it’s going out of style.

We need to have a better collective narrative for Democratic success on the economy. The Republicans are no longer the kings of the economic world — if they ever were. It feels more like smoke and mirrors each passing day, with climate change denial, the Inflationary Boogeyman, and other GOP Greatest Hits playing ad nauseum on the AM social media waves.

Here are at least a few things to remember about the national debt, that Republicans generally get wrong:

wars are very expensive
booms in social services are expensive too; but not as expensive as wars
there is not any perceivable truth in the old GOP party line that Democrats always overspend and Republicans are always thrifty
- Reagan and both Bushes presided over two of the biggest spikes in public debt in recorded history, outside of FDR who had both the Great Depression and WWII to contend with
- Clinton, Carter, Johnson, Kennedy, and Truman all decreased the debt
be wary of graphs that don’t “normalize” to GNP — it’s an attempt to “lie with statistics” by obfuscating the roles of inflation and the growth of the economy itself
there is more than one way to look at and evaluate the level of public debt

National Debt by President since the 20th century

President	National Debt Change	Total National Debt
Taft	+$210 million	$2.13 billion
Wilson	+$21.5 billion	$23.5 billion
Harding/Coolidge	+$7.9 billion	$22.3 billion
Hoover	+$7.3 billion	$29.7 billion
F.D. Roosevelt	+$218.9 billion	$260.1 billion
Truman	+$7.5 billion	$256.6 billion
Eisenhower	+$23.2 billion	$272.8 billion
Kennedy/Johnson	+$54.9 billion	$311.9 billion
Nixon/Ford	+$371 billion	$698.1 billion
Carter	+$299 billion	$997.9 billion
Reagan	+$1.86 trillion	$2.86 trillion
G.H.W. Bush	+$1.55 trillion	$4.42 trillion
Clinton	+$1.40 trillion	$5.81 trillion
G.W. Bush	+$5.85 trillion	$10.71 trillion
Obama	+$8.59 trillion	$19.30 trillion
Trump	+$7.80 trillion	$27.10 trillion
Biden (as of March 2023)	+$3.00 trillion (projected)	$30.10 trillion (projected)

November 19, 2021

McCarthy’s speech stunt gives gift of Democratic midterm slogans

Bootlicker Kevin McCarthy showboated his way through an evening of scorn and ridicule for his audience of one: Herr Trump. His sad evening comedy routine for the “just joking!” crowd was an act of political theater given no votes in his caucus were ever in danger of voting for the bill, thus no need to persuade them. McCarthy’s speech sparked jeers and heckles from the chamber itself as well as the wider outside world, as tweets poured forth from inside and out of the Capitol.

Fortunately, the GOP Leader failed to stop Biden’s Build Back Better plan while gifting the Democrats with a healthy dose of both comedy gold and some irresistable mid-term slogans:

Dem Mid-term slogan: "My opponent doesn't want your kids to go to preschool."
— barb dybwad (@doctorparadox) November 19, 2021

November 17, 2021

Property vs. People, all the way down

Or capital vs. labor, oligarchs vs. plebes, plutocrats vs. proles, rich vs. poor — however you want to narrate it, the property vs. people struggle continues on in new and old ways, each and ere day.

Here in America, the plutocrats have devised many clever methods of hiding the class struggle behind a race war smokescreen, that is both real and manufactured — instigated, exacerbated, agitated by the likes of schlubby wife abusers like Sloppy Steve Bannon, wrinkly old Palpatines like Rupert Murdoch, and shady kleptocrats like Trump and Putin.

The United States has nursed an underground Confederacy slow burning for centuries, for sociopathic demagogues to tap into and rekindle for cheap and dangerous political power. Like The Terminator, racist and supremacist troglodytes seem always to reconstitute themselves into strange and twisted new forms, from slavery to the Black Codes to sharecropping to convict leasing to Jim Crow to Jim Crow 2.0 — the psychopaths want their homeland.

Ds need to start framing this as an oligarch's game in which a global class war is repeatedly laundered and diverted into a provincial race war. https://t.co/9a0KikBuGo
— barb dybwad (@doctorparadox) November 16, 2021

The political left loves people, and our extremists for the most part destroy capital or property that insurance companies will pay to make shiny and new again — unlike the right wing extremists who bomb federal buildings, killing hundreds of people and costing taxpayers’ money to replace.

Meanwhile, the right wing claims to be the righteous party for its extreme fixation on life before birth, yet its regulation-allergic capitalists destroy people and the natural world more broadly, from factory farming to deforestation, the destruction of habitats, strip-mining and other toxic extraction practices, and on into climate change itself. Being in fact the chief architects of manmade atmospheric devastation, they have managed to make themselves invisible from the deed by simply (wink wink!) denying it exists.

WWJD?!

Certainly, not anything the Republican Party is up to. Jesus would be sad.