How do I know there is climate change? Well, for a starter, where I live (#NorCal) used to get hot weather maybe once a decade. For us, it isn’t really hot unless it tops out in the teens (>44 C). Now, we’re seeing hot truly hot weather every single year. Often we have spells above 120/50 degrees. That is how I judge climate change. That is what will bring the inevitable rise in sea level and flood my Sacramento Valley home.
This opinion has been a long time coming but… I believe that I am of the opinion, at least on the West Coast, that you can accurately judge the quality of any restaurant by whether or not they serve Pepsi products. On the West Coast you serve Pepsi if you want to cut costs and don’t care if you cut corners… and you don’t care for your clientele.
I’m encountering an increasingly unpleasant phenomenon as I travel around the world and the rural US. But a digression.
In my IT professional days I was forced to pay attention to credit card security and card readers. None of it, then, was cheap or easy. One of the stats I learned to pay attention to was where the weak points were. Specifically, the weakest point for Point of Purchase systems was (& remains!) entry of a PIN number. More than 90% of system fraud is centered around PIN entry. That is why secure systems, these days bypass the need for this vulnerability.
I was very pleased when tap to pay tech arrived in some measure. It is increasingly available even in many foreign countries. A recent trip to Costa Rica proved the systems tech as prevalent. I wasn’t forced to swipe or insert for the chip once let alone enter a PIN. Segue to a recent trip in the Northwest, a hub of tech and innovation. In a full week I saw a vendor use tap tech once. It is rather clear. US business is all about flash and brag. When it comes to protecting client interests there is little enthusiasm.
The thing about prayer is that God always answers. The problem most christians have is that God doesn’t necessarily grant them the answer that they expect is their due…
Sitting in an Oregonian winery this evening sipping a very soft chardonnay. The breeze is warm as we look across the Rogue Valley towards Crater Lake. Perfume from the honeysuckle saturates the air and I feel more at peace than many a time recently. Spring has arrived here.
Something needs saying…
I am constantly surprised at the number of GOPers who quote libertarian party lines without any conceptual underpinnings of organized political thought. So here, briefly, is a short simplistic analysis of why libertarianism fails.
People like to organize. It is one of our basic traits. The most basic political unit is your family. Somebody, mom or dad or grandma it doesn’t matter, takes charge and the family takes shape. Everyone knows each other and there is some accountability. It can be good, bad, or dysfunctional. By and large the family unit works for human kind.
Next step up the organizational ladder is usually the clan. This is usually a grouping of multiple family units where everyone knows everyone and it is easy to predict how a given person will behave and how they will display trust and loyalty.
The clan will have some form of hierarchy such as a council or clan head. These leaders will guide the clan through political decisions. Do we war with our neighbors for resources? Do we fix the road to the area market? Do we hire a healer noted for her prowess? Again, everyone knows everyone and can personally hold their clan mates accountable.
The problem central to the workings of clan structure is simple. Beyond a certain size, which political scientists and sociologists tell us is about 500 people, it is functionally impossible for most people to maintain the knowledge of everyone in the political unit to maintain trust and accountability.
Beyond that five hundred person threshold is where representative government steps in. This doesn’t address which of the various types such as democracy, a republic, social democracy, socialism, or communism. Those systems provide a format for organizing trust and responsibility which clan level activity does not.
The ultimate failure of libertarian thought is that it tries to elevate the logic of clan organization to scale to representative governmental functionality (i.e.; >500 people). For the same reasons that clan governance begins to have problems with larger groups libertarianism as a representative government just doesn’t work.
Of course, the philosophy of libertarianism is seductive to the simple minded because it is so very easy to say, “I know Billy & Susie. If we have a problem we talk it out. As rational beings, our government shouldn’t need to impose what is above what we all know logically works.” Of course, this presupposes all humankind subscribe to my ideas of what constitutes logic.
Libertarianism always fails at scale no matter how rational it might sound. It fails to provide trust and accountability.