Isn't It Obvious

Phil asks whether fittest should be replaced with adaptability. K Sera argues that fittest implies adaptability. Micah blames capitalism.

In this episode we have discuss the podcast itself, Darwinism, what the word fit means, what did our parents play when they were children, playing outside in the 90s as a child, the pandemic as an enemy, military cosplay, media reaction to tan suits and long ties, and the decline of Pax Americana.

Note: This podcast was originally recorded in the early winter of 2020, almost a year before the publication of the episode. Phil makes a terrible risk assessment of MAGA supports and protestors, once again proving how foolish it is to make predictions.

Show notes:

Survival of the fittest

Playing outside back in the 90s

Pandemic fatalities compared to other death comparisons are fraught

A tan suit controversy

Why do societies fail, from Jared Diamond

K Sera’s afterthoughts:

- Phil… words can and do have more than one definition. Fitness: n. 1.) The condition of being physically fit and healthy. 2.) The quality of being suitable to fulfill a particular role or task. 3.) (Biology) An organism's ability to survive and reproduce in a particular environment.

- While listening to our discussion, It really hits me hard just how incredibly different we three approach the world. Micah is like a pessimistic black hole of despair who believes revolution and war are on the horizon on our home soil; Phil’s actions demonstrate hope for the future, but his words suggest deep concerns and the expectation of imminent failure; and then there is me, the lizard, who is cautiously optimistic about humanity’s path forward, but also kind of apathetic about humanity's long-term survival.

Despite our different views, we all kind of agree on a few key things: bad people need to be held accountable for their bad actions and our current situation is not particularly promising. Humanity is walking a tightrope, and none of us knows just how far we’ll fall if we lose our balance.

Here is why I don’t think we are imminently doomed: Humanity has faced down traumatic and devastating situations in the past and we’ve survived and learned from them (maybe not always as much as we’d like, but we are generally heading in the direction of improvement). We might fail and we might fall, but maybe (hopefully) not permanently. Or, we might keep our footing and be just fine. People are resilient and highly adaptable. People are creative. The game isn’t over until there are no more players on the field. What I’m saying is we still have a chance.

Here’s why, despite my optimism, I’m also relatively apathetic about humanity’s end game survival: There really isn’t much I can or will do as an individual to make an impact on humanity’s overall future. Of course I do small things within my power towards the goal of survival, but humanity’s direction is an ocean tide I can’t actually stop by myself. Worrying incessantly about things that I can’t control or won’t change is pointless and unhealthy. The best I can do is to change the things I can change and adapt as best I can to things I can’t control. 

Or, as Teddy Roosevelt* said: “Do what you can with what you have, where you are.” (*and I guess Bill Widener, and probably other people, honestly. It’s a good quote.)

In the end, que sera sera.

Phil’s afterthoughts:

-I just want to say I was so wrong in this podcast. When I re-listen to this episode I cannot believe what I said about how Trump supports were not really a threat to anyone (and that they are just cosplaying). But little did I know that only a month later (from the original recording of this podcast) that we would have a national event in the congressional halls of Washington DC. K Sera is right, people are terrible at making predictions.

-With that in mind, I hope I am also wrong about our chances of surviving as a nation. Every day there is more evidence that the system is owned by the wealthiest 0.1% of America. At this point we are firmly an oligarchy. And yet my predictions are often wrong, so perhaps this is wrong as well. Individuals that only follow intuition are prone to follow the impulsive and the immediate gratification of an answer. I hope that I am just a lazy thinker, and that the world is more complex and that humanity is not as selfish and self-destructive as it seems. I do so hope.

Micah brings up voting in this episode (eventually), and Phil entertains the idea. K Sera is not buying what he is selling. In this episode we discuss: Voter rights, laws, prison, constitutional originalism, and the psychology of entitlement versus an earned privilege.

Show notes:

Originalism

Voting rights for prisoners

Voting rights already under attack

And another example of voting rights already under attack, again

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K Sera’s After Thoughts:

- Just because you choose not to exercise your rights doesn’t mean they should be taken away. Just because you can’t or don’t work shouldn’t exclude your say in the laws and policies that impact your quality of life. Phil makes a lot of good arguments for how pretty much all efforts to make voting dependent on “contributions to society” can (and almost certainly will) be manipulated and abused.

- I am not in favor of voting disenfranchisement of citizens, period. While I do think there are plenty of people who I wish would abstain or would at least think more critically before they cast their ballot, I would still say they have a right as citizens for their voice to be heard and an opportunity to advance their interests.

- Micah is wrong. AS USUAL. He may or may not be shoved into a vat of nope sauce in the near future… and I will watch him flail while consuming deconstructed nachos with olives on the side.

Phil’s After Thoughts:

-I think that the basic premise is how do we encourage our voters to actually care about the issues instead of tuning out (and leaving the voting to just the extremes that are energized to a boiling point). The last election about half the eligible voting population decided to skip the polls.

-I also want to point out that while I understand why current prisoners should have their voting rights temporarily restricted, I want to say that it’s weird that for “population/census” reasons that prisoners count for redistricting purposes (so they count for gerrymandering) but they legally cannot vote. These types of shenanigans are ultimate why I believe that the current politicians have even more incentive to ”lock undesirable voters” in record numbers while also benefiting from their incarceration. And anyone who will argue with me that justice is blind will only fall upon deaf ears.

-Also, just because people do vote in the polls, it doesn’t mean that they are well informed voters. As we have seen, more people voted for GOP agenda in 2020, despite all the chaos we have endured. I can no longer relate to a large swath of the American Electorate.

Phillip proposes that frozen pizza is superior (within his ill-defined boundary conditions) over franchise pizza. K Sera agrees to a road trip to Mankato. Micah does not like Adam Sandler movies.

Show notes:

Visit us a www.iiopodcast.fm, just for fun!

K Sera’s After Thoughts:

- It’s been about a year since this recording and we have yet to take a road trip for pizza tasting. I feel cheated? Seems like my favorite pizza will forever remain a mystery to the masses.

- Frozen pizza bonfire fun times is on the horizon, however!

- Also, just because I am garlic sensitive doesn’t make me undead. While I may be a lizard, I am definitely not a vampire! I love basking in the sun! Garlic sensitivity really sucks, because garlic is like… in everything delicious. As far as I’ve been able to determine, I have a fructan intolerance? The garlic and onion family give me a slew of painful issues that we don’t need to go into detail about. Despite my struggle, I love onions and have discovered that if I cook them and don’t eat too much in too short a period, I can avoid some of the more terrible symptoms. Also, if you look up the top foods high in fructans, you will get a list of my favorite fruits and vegetables. QAQ Why must these delicious things torment me so!? I’m still going to eat them. Just… maybe in smaller and rarer quantities.

Phil’s After Thoughts:

-I love frozen pizza and I could eat one every single day of my life. It would unfortunately be a very short life.

K Sera explains that she does not like surprise parties. Phillip and Micah talk about video games.

Show notes:

N/A

K Sera’s after thoughts:

- After careful consideration and deliberation on the subject of surprise parties, it comes as an obvious conclusion that I really need to play Zelda: Breath of the Wild. 

- On the subject of surprises, I am already predisposed to hate them. I’m the type of person who enjoys routine and reliability. I want my life to be as predictable as the sunrise with any changes planned for or with time to consider. I’m not the sort of person to live recklessly. So I have to wonder, are the people who enjoy surprise parties more likely to be risk takers? I feel like there is a correlation here.

Phill’s after thoughts:

-I like surprises!

This episode was originally recorded in early Fall of 2020, so any mention of the pandemic and the presidency is aimed during that timeline. Phil brings up the question if people are deluding themselves of their hobbies. Micah disagrees and states that this timeframe of great anxiety makes any kind of escapism difficult. K Sera humors us in the discussion of hobbies, snow, a really hot oven, cabins, and the insanity of the continuing real estate market.

Show notes:

Hobbies are important

Visit us at www.iiopodcast.fm just for fun, like a hobby.

Phil’s after thoughts:

- Minnesota winters are terrible. The only good thing about them is that it gets so cold they make you question your very existence. Also the hot cocoa is a bonus too

- My hobbies of playing the guitar is still quite non-existent

- My thoughts on the fact that back in the fall of 2020 I thought that the real estate market would cool. It is now a year later and things are still as bonkers. I fear that our generation (Millennial) will be last to own homes, and the future generations will be renters forever.

In this episode K Sera asks why can't politicians just answer the question! Micah provides a real-life demonstrate on the art of the non-answer; Phil discusses that this is unfortunately the winning strategy.

Note: This episode was originally recorded in the early Fall of 2020, during the debates of the Presidential Elections. Interestingly enough, "stacking the courts" is still relevant one year later and perhaps for many more years to come.

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Show notes:

The worst debate we have ever witnessed, so far

Dog Whistle Words

Stacking the Courts

K Sera’s After Thoughts:

- I’m still disappointed in politicians who dodge questions, but after this conversation, I’m also kind of in awe. It is clearly a skill and I feel like you could make a drinking game out of political debates. At least then I would find them both frustrating and entertaining.

- Also, way to go Micah, making this episode about something else entirely. Not that I didn’t completely take the bait.

- Phil makes so many good points in this episode. I love learning new things, especially things I feel like I should have learned when I was much younger. This was the first time I heard about the former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara’s strategy for responding to questions. And that’s just it - it’s a response, not an answer. This is a great short term strategy and a perfectly reasonable way to respond to trap questions, but I predict this strategy will ultimately fail in the long run, especially where the asker’s questions are softballs or actually demand an answer. Your boss won’t accept a non-answer response to questions related to your job performance, and excuses will only buy you time. Your spouse or SO might accept your question dodging, but eventually they’ll get tired of your BS and go find their own answers. Why do politicians get a pass? Eventually there will be an accounting, whether you answer or not… Unless you are an expert karma-dodging lucky jerk who somehow always manages to skate by without consequences no matter how terrible you are or what terrible things you’ve done. 

┌∩┐(ಠ_ಠ)┌∩┐

Phil’s After Thoughts:

-The rules for the political sphere do not reflect reality for everyone else! Providing long-winded non-answers is not acceptable for 99.999% of the population but for politicians they are above both accountability and responsibility from their very own words and actions. Seems a bit of “heads I win, tails you lose” if you ask me.

-I will vote for both my co-hosts if they ever choose to run for public office. And although Micah is sarcastic in his excellent demonstration of sprouting sound bites and buzzwords, deep down I think he can win.

-We can only hope that the next generation of voters will not succumb to the apathy and attrition of our current political nonsense. We need to demand more from our public servants, especially those that abuse our trust and misuse our resources.

Micah discusses how criminalizing victimless vice crimes are wrong from almost every angle you can look at it. Phil discusses why he believes it only benefits the for profit prison system in the US and there is too much money made from legal slavery for it to ever change. K Sera, after even much more discussion, has a plan (when elected) to save money, reduce crime, create jobs and all of this can be done with a very simple first step: watch yourself (with cameras)!

Show Notes:

Economics Explained: For Profit Prison System

50 years of the US War on Drugs

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K Sera’s Afterthoughts

- OMG. We all kinda agree? 

- Vices aren’t super great, that’s true enough. There are socially negative consequences to over indulging or being irresponsible – of course – but making activities illegal because they might cause social friction is kind of… shity? Can’t we have a more nuanced approach?

- Legal consequences should not be for using substances or engaging in ‘vice’ activities - legal consequences should apply to those who abuse or misuse their vice of choice in excess to the point where they are compromising the safety of others. Where to draw the line, however… well, that requires a lot more thought than I can spare at the moment.

- President Sera wishes to create a task force. Perhaps two? Three? Covering: sex work, recreational substances, gambling. Am I missing any? (While we’re at it, let’s throw in one more for public surveillance rules and requirements for accessing surveillance data.) Each task force shall be responsible for establishing protections and occupational requirements for their particular vice, ideally led by qualified individuals with knowledge of the potential risks involved with their assignment. Yeah. No more of this group-of-white-men-in-a-room deciding what is appropriate for the health and safety of millions in need of diverse and nuanced protections.

Phil’s Afterthoughts:

-Of course Micah is 100% correct. I tried to side-step the conversation about how I honestly believe that entire business of illegal narcotics is not a victimless crime. The supply chain, management, labor, and funding to support the shipment of terrible substances is not trivial nor is it a negative externality for someone else to take care of. Users of these harmless drugs seriously do not even think about how it was delivered, not realizing that their funds are going to an illicit authority that cares very little about the concept of human life. To quote a New York Times op-ed from Mario Berlanga: “They think this drug use is a victimless crime. It’s not. Follow the supply chain and you’ll find a trail of horrific violence.”

-Despite that, Micah is still 100% right. The prohibition should be a gold standard case study of how organized crime can wield serious power with little to no consequence. The very fact that the United States government is directly creating a vacuum of services where illicit markets thrive is exactly the reason why systematic violence and drug use is rampant. From a moral perspective, supporting cartels and horrible crime syndicates for recreational use is abhorrent but systematically speaking the consumer has no choice but to go through a horrendous supplier.

-Ultimately the problem is that the common constituent sees our drug laws with very little trust that there is any science or logic behind why alcohol is fine to purchase (for those 21 and older) but cannabis is a Schedule 1 drug (with no redeeming medicinal value and considered highly addictive, according to the Justice Department). There is no scientific backing or truly any honest argument against this “whatabousim” attack. So clearly the public servants that we elect in good faith to represent us are literally lying to our face about this War on Drugs. And so rightfully the question is “well then what else are they misleading us about?”

-The right to Human Autonomy has not been advanced yet in this country of ours. The right to our own self, to treat our body as we see civilly fit, is not recognized in our laws or constitution. I have a right to decline quartering soldiers, but I do not have a right to what I can do with my own flesh. It is madness, but from a civic leadership perspective, a general welfare issue that needs to be reckoned with someday. No mayor or governor wants a population of mind-numbed fools, heavily anesthetized to the pressing demands ahead of our city, state, and nation. I understand that a moderate approach must be pursued and that we cannot afford to have our cities filled with those that use biochemical escapism while serious work remains. But the pendulum for fifty years of draconian drug policies is not the solution, nor has it ever been.

-Micah is right, it is time to chime a new paradigm of no vice crimes.

Phill brings up the obvious problem with American chocolates. Micah and K Sera has opinions about this and also on so many other things. In this discussion we cover the joys of a Minnesota funeral supper, Venison foods, Macdonalds Meat Shop, Cukes are cute cucumbers, Christmas gifts and deadweight capitalism, K Sera’s burial plans, teenagers and compusilivity, German cars, Semi Truck Drivers, Amtrak, Megabus experiences, and uncontrollable flatulence.

Shownotes:

Macdonalds Meats

K Sera’s after thoughts:

- I don’t think Micah ever shared that venison sausage with me. :( … but it’s okay, I’ve got a better source of deer and am trying my hand at a slow cooker venison roast as I type.

- And listen, there’s NOTHING WRONG WITH MY CUKES.

- Did this start with chocolate?

- As for German engineering… Micah’s car needed work at the time of this recording and just this past month he is putting another $2,000 of fixes into it. I feel like I’ve never had so many problems with my Japanese car. My little Mazda lasted me 17 years and the biggest bill I had was maybe around $700 in one go for broken shocks after hitting a pothole. Ah Minnesota roads in the spring. All I’m saying is… Japan makes better cars.

- What even IS this episode?

Phill’s after thoughts:

-I love this episode.

-Also, this is perhaps our weirdest episode so far.

-Japanese cars are really good except for Mitsubishi. Don’t get a Mitsubishi, those are terrible.

Micah asks if it is obvious that we need mandatory voting in the United States. Things also discussed in this episode: corruption, Australia, school referendums, HOA zero-sum thinking, the virtuous cycle of economics, the death spiral of economics, Christianity, the devil is not a sheep dog, other Abrahamic religions, Catholicism, single issue voters, Bill Clinton, yuppies, Wisconsin, the military industrial complex and hopeful sponsorships, and cheese.

Show notes:

Compulsory voting

Virtuous circle

Phill’s afterthoughts:

- We recorded this episode last year (from the publication date) in the late summer/early fall of 2020. We still didn’t know who was going to win the election but at that time people thought that if more people voted then it would be a detriment to Trump administration.

- Making people vote is tricky. While I like the idea that politicians will have to cater to more than just lobbyists and special interests and the traditional voting blocs, I also see this as a tough philosophical debate. People need to vote and they need to take agency in their lives to do so. If they see voting as so useless that they don’t even bother, than compelling them to vote is a strange solution, especially if the candidates are polarized too. Maybe if we had this as part of a new “voting bill of rights” that introduced neutral redistricting, campaign finance laws, election holidays, mail in ballot, 100% paper ballots for auditing purposes, ranked choice voting, ending the electoral college, and removing outside influencing in our political campaigns with mandatory voting I could see this as being part of a comprehensive solution to our current polarization/balkanization we face today.

-I think that the fact more people voted for Donald Trump in 2020 than in 2016 makes me think that we have very long road ahead of us.

-Also, if you don’t vote but complain that you don’t get what you want… please note that while one individual vote may not matter where you live, please keep in mind that your whining is fallen on deaf ears.

Phill asks if it is obvious that emotions are contagious. K Sera discusses classic narcissism behaviors, sycophantic tactics, and the evolutionary psychology. Micah brings up examples from the previous administration, Star Wars, and Jedi/Sith similarities. Phill likes Nintendo.

Note: this was originally recorded a year ago in the late summer of 2020, so when we mention “our president” we refer to the 45th presidency administration, not the current (as of publication of this episode) President Biden.

Show notes:

Emotional contagion

Narcissism

Sycophancy

Scaramucci Rise and Fall

K Sera’s afterthoughts:

-I really haven’t got much to say except Pokémon Red/Blue for the Gameboy Color is a great Nintendo game! And um… this has everything to do with contagious emotions because… uhhhhh … Hey what’s that over there?

Phill’s afterthoughts:

-Nintendo is good at min-maxing fun games. They may not be rewarding, technically impressive, or even worth your time, but they try to be fun first and foremost; and I am thankful for that