Guns Don't Kill Poeple, but Neither Does Heroin

            Have you ever heard the tired old argument, guns don’t kill people, people kill people? Of course you have, that question was rhetorical. The idea is that a gun, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad, but a tool that may be used by bad people to do bad things. Well then let me postulate by that same reasoning, that heroin does not kill people, people who use heroin do. Makes sense, right? Of course it does. Well, then please answer me, why one of those two things is illegal and the other is not? Yet no one seems that eager to legalize heroin.

Our laws are inconsistent, and as time goes on they will only get worse. The process is the problem. Laws are written for the moral obligations of those with connections enough to lobby their interests. So, while we all agree that heroin and guns both lead to inordinate numbers of deaths, regardless of what “caused” them, there is too much interest on the side of those who still wish to own guns to ban them. Likewise, tobacco kills, and is honestly less useful than heroin, and second-hand smoke even spreads the risks beyond the user, yet the profits keep tobacco products on the shelf. Probably the biggest killers in the United States right now are, in fact, still legal. That is added sugar and saturated fats. Nobody is fighting that fight. But if you want to force people to live through legislation, (seat belt laws, pro-life bills, doctor assisted suicide bans, etc…), the Forced Nutrition Act of 2019 is the answer you didn’t know you needed. You could effectively solve the health care crisis in a decade.

Personally, I tend to take the libertarian side most of the time. I draw exceptions where the threat extends beyond the individual to those outside of the decision. Others feel it is a societal obligation to protect people from themselves. Whatever your take, just try to be consistent. If you want to write the Forced Nutrition Act of 2019, go for it. Just don’t absolve soda from the ban because you “have to have a Coke in the afternoon.”

-AMS

Go Vote! Or don't...

            Go vote! Or don’t… I really don’t care. Some people are quite adamant about the participation of others in their so called “civic duty.” I however, maintain that it is as much your right to abstain from voting, as it is to abstain from saying the pledge of allegiance or standing during the national anthem, and it really doesn’t matter your reason. Now the whole, “I don’t have time, is clearly preposterous, people make time for the things that are important to them, besides they have plenty of ways to vote flexibly, so there is really no excuse to not vote if you actually want to. Rather, I am speaking to those who consciously choose not to vote.

            Maybe you are protesting our republic that is not representative of the population, maybe you have no interest in either of the two options you were given, or maybe, for a positive spin, you find either option equally promising. It sounds crazy, I know, but how hard of a job can governor be anyway. I’m sure none of the candidates will mess it up that badly. And even if they do they’ll be out in four years and someone else can step in and fix it. Besides, the same inertia that prevents our country from improving, is also protecting it from radicals without foresight. If you need proof look at president Trump. If anyone were going to bring this country to fiery end, it would have been him. Yet, here we are, more or less unchanged. And any of the horrors that have happened, that you may have attributed to him, were really only exacerbations of the problems already underlying our country. Because the truth is, politicians don’t really bring about change, good or bad.

Society is so much more complicated than politicians and laws. If you want to see real change, look to parents, teachers, coaches, celebrities, anyone that might be a role model to children. Hell, even a role model to adults, though, they are admittedly less likely to change their views. Real change has to do with individuals and their values. Laws are meaningless if no one follows or enforces them. Yes, it is illegal to drive above the speed limit, but everyone does it, because maybe the speed limit on this road is a little on the conservative side and we can all drive safely even at five over. And maybe the police officers know and understand that, so they don’t bother to ticket anyone speeding on that road. And if you are the police officer handing out petty citations to safe drivers just to generate revenue for the city, maybe you are the one that should be replaced every four years.

-AMS

Do You Know What's in That?

            The logic of people trying to scare you on the internet… things that sound scary are bad for you. Of course, this is not always true. For instance, clowns are scary… okay, bad example. But, did you know that certain beta blockers can depress your heart rate? Sounds scary. It’s also kind of the whole point. In persons with heart failure, beta blockers can be used to slow their heart rate in order to evoke stronger, more efficient pumps of the heart. Oh, well that’s not so scary after all.

            It’s twisting the delivery of information or leaving out key contextual items in order to make it unnecessarily ominous that really ruins any credence of a story. Case in point, a news article I came across was tempting consumers of a particular beverage to abstain from it on the grounds that it contained an ingredient found in an insecticide. Oh dear, surly it must have negative health consequences then? Wait. On quick question. Is the ingredient in question actually one of the ingredients meant to kill the insects? Because it turns out, a chemical in many insecticides is found in almost every beverage. It’s called water. Make sure to watch out for that stuff.

            As for anyone who finds themselves reading something scary on the internet, keep in mind that we have regulatory bodies in charge of approving and overseeing ingredients and additives for precisely the reason of preventing poisons from being put in our foods. Are there shortcomings? Yes. Do things we thought were safe turn out to be dangerous upon further study? Of course. But by in large, if something turns out to be poisonous, it is probably not going to be approved for human consumption.

            As for anyone who happens to be a news source, particularly if it is a well-known, supposedly reputable news source, do the world a favor and take a pass on stories as obviously superfluous as these. There is clearly no case to be made here, no danger in the consumption of this beverage, and certainly no warrant for actual news coverage. So, fire the reporter that submitted it and I will be happy to take their place. But until then, I’ll be here. See you all next week.

            -AMS

What Costs More, a Handheld Computer or a Shiny Rock?

            Humanity has come a long way. We’ve come so far, in fact, that it has created a market for products that would have seemed absolutely ludicrous to early humans. Yet, here we are spending all of our hard-earned money on this stuff without giving it a second thought. What’s more, is that we are doing so alongside purchases of amazingly engineered products that would have astounded those same early humans. Let’s look at some examples, shall we?

Food and Diet

            Food has changed a lot under the influence of mankind. Selective growing has led to crops that are much more durable, flavorful, and convenient than ever before. And the advent of genetic modification has only further catalyzed the developments. We have pest resistant corn, seedless watermelons and grapes, fruits so sweet they may as well be candy. We are able to can and preserve food for literal years. You can eat food that was made years ago, and it will still be perfectly safe. Walk down a grocery store aisle and just remind yourself that starvation is a thing.

            You might say we’ve gotten pretty good at food. Perhaps too good. Last year in the U.S. diet products and services sold to the tune of 66 billion dollars. We have so much food that we have to pay people to help us eat it more responsibly. Again, remind yourself that starvation is a thing.

Exercise Equipment

            Along the lines of weight loss, let’s talk about exercise. It is good for your health in more ways than you could ever imagine, so of course exercise products are going to be a great market. Been to a gym lately? The machinery is pretty impressive, isn’t it? We figured out which actions target which muscles, then we developed precision equipment for the sole purpose of activating those muscles in the most efficient way possible.

            Now, sophisticated workout equipment is great, but you can still exercise with minimal equipment. Jogging, pushups, one armed burpees into a jump lunge, they all work great with no equipment. And of course, you have good old-fashioned dumbbells. Priced a dumbbell lately? Those things are expensive. And why shouldn’t they be? After all, it is a heavy object made for the sole purpose of lifting it up and down. Wait. Couldn’t I just do that with a rock or something?

Jewelry

            Speaking of rocks, we sure do love them, especially the shiny ones. Now jewelry is decorative, and while superfluous, it is not unfounded that someone would pay good money for something that looks nice for the sole purpose of looking nice. At least jewelry is used to decorate an individual personally, rather than sitting on a shelf just hoping to catch the eye of a passerby. My point is not in purchasing jewelry, but rather the valuing of different jewelry. Just like with food and exercise equipment, we have dissected jewelry down to its components. We learned what made it tick… especially if said jewelry were a watch. Then we figured out how to make it ourselves. You can get synthetic gems that look amazing. You can coat inexpensive metals to make them look like gold. “Wow!” said early human who has never known nice things, “Everyone must be wearing this stuff then.” Nope. It’s cheap. We want the real stuff that is expensive. Doesn’t matter if you can’t tell the difference from the appearance. Hell, white gold is plated over to make it white. The gold is all on the inside and you can’t even see it. But I’ll pay good money to make sure I get at least twelve karats of it. At least I’ll know the difference… deep down.

Yeah, us modern humans are kind of weird.

            -AMS

Justice!?!

            Did you know, that not too long ago, something horrible happened? It was all over the news. And it was all over Facebook, which for many people is the news despite it being a cesspool of misinformation and unfiltered verbal assaults. It seems that the criminal justice system that we all know and love was completely destroyed. Incidentally, I despise the American criminal justice system, but for the sake of this hyperbole, pretend like I love it.

            Yes, it is true. Gone are the days of innocent until proven guilty, passed are the trials of peers deciding if evidence is substantial beyond a reasonable doubt to convict someone of a crime for which there was reasonable suspicion that they committed in the first place. It seems now, all it takes is an accusation from a single person and your entire future is ruined. What kind of dystopian future will develop from such a precedent.

            By now you might have realized, that I am of course referring to Brett Kavanaugh, the aspiring jurist with his sights set on the supreme court, only to have his dreams ripped away from him at the last minute at the consequence of a single accu- Wait… I am being informed that Brett Kavanaugh actually was confirmed for the supreme court. In fact, as it turns out, there was an investigation, and insufficient evidence was found to corroborate the accusation to an acceptable degree of confidence. Huh… turns out a single accusation won’t actually ruin your life. Well, someone should tell Facebook. Ah well, on to the next order of business: How democratic politicians pretended to think that accusations of sexual assault merited an investigation, even when concerning an individual under consideration for what is arguably the most powerful position in the nation.

            -AMS

748... A new Outlook on Life

            If you read my entry from last week, you will recall that I devoted 398 words to convincing you that a person is “a collection of conditioned organs dynamically reacting to various stimuli.” And if you did not read my previous entry, please do so now. It’s okay… I’ll wait.

Finished yet? No? Well come on now, I haven’t got all day. Or perhaps I do. I’m not really sure how time works in the sense of a narration in type. A philosophical dilemma for another day though, because by now, I am going to assume that you have either read my previous entry or have stopped reading this one, in which case good riddance. Now for the rest of you who persisted, I will attempt to devote the remainder of my 398 words convincing you that, while everything I said was true, there is more to the story than just that. What am I left with… 241 words. Perfect, let’s begin.

            A person’s brain is nothing more than an organ conditioned by previous experiences, true, but ponder this. If all of your brain connections were mapped, and then inserted into a computer capable of processing that information at the same rate as the human nervous system, would that computer be you. Your initial instinct is probably to say no. Certainly that computer could not feel emotions like a human could. But let me counter that human emotion is nothing more than conditioning. Happiness is nothing more than a chemical response to stimuli that have been associated with positive outcomes. And, while a computer certainly could not feel happiness, it could recognize events that should elicit happiness, and even determine appropriate responses based on what you would do if you were happy.

            Now imagine a different scenario. Imagine you were cold. Again, the computer would not feel cold, but it could measure the temperature and determine based on a certain objective threshold if it should be cold or not. It could even know it should seek warmth. But the computer cannot be affected by the cold. If you try to utilize fine motor control while being substantially cold, you will notice that you are significantly impaired. Your muscles simply do not respond as well in the cold. It would take a very sophisticated computer to replicate that response, and it would certainly need more than a map of your brain.

            Now, let’s look at one final scenario. Imagine you are proficient at playing the piano. And if you actually are proficient at playing the piano, way to be talented. Now let us say that we mapped your brain as before, you then learned a new song on piano, and we mapped your brain again and compared that to your baseline. Theoretically, this comparison would teach the computer how to play the song you just learned. The problem, however, is that humans really are more than just brains. Humans are entire organisms.

As a brief aside, psychologists often debate over whether to find root causes of behavior or observe behavior in context in order to make predictions. While I am personally a proponent of the belief that given enough variables root causes are all you need, the fact of the matter is that we rarely have nearly enough variables to make such assertions. Therefore, the observation of gross behavior is really quite useful in the interim.

Back to my point, humans are more than just brains. How much of playing a piano is dictated by your brain, and how much is in the body itself. Certainly, the same brain controlling an adult would produce a different song than if it were controlling a child’s body. The notes might be the same but the manner in which the keys are pressed, the transitions between chords, the weight of the hands and feet on the keys and peddles would all be slightly different. So while a computer might be able to ascertain the notes in a song and the rhythm in which they should be played, it would never be able play that song quite the same as you would without your body.

            Alright, how did I do? Did I successfully unconvince you of what I had convinced you of last week? Or… if you were unconvinced last week, did I now convince you of what I failed to convince you of last week? The moral of this story is flexibility. Never be afraid to adopt a new view on life.

748 words. Not even close.

            -AMS

What is a Person Anyway?

            When you break it down, and I mean really break it down, what constitutes a person. There is of course the physical body, but that is pretty easily described as a collection of organs dynamically reacting to various stimuli. But then there is the brain. The brain is, of course, still an organ, and it still reacts to stimuli. But we cannot predict the outcome like we can with other organs. It blurs the lines of simply reacting, by the veil of what we call consciousness.

By contrast, take the heart. When the body begins exerting greater than usual energy, the heart is presented with stimuli that cause it to react. The heart responds by beating faster to provide greater blood flow, and ultimately more oxygen. The heart behaves predictably in this way. The heart is not assessing the situation and weighing its options in order to determine the best course of action. The heart is not concerned with outcomes. The heart is simply reacting to stimuli based on how it was “programmed.” Programmed being a metaphor for the evolution of organs to include specific combinations and arrangements of cells such that energetically driven chemical reactions result in evolutionarily favored outcomes.

But the brain is different, you say. The brain does weigh options and consider outcomes and that is what leads to interpersonal differences within humanity. But what if it is not. What if everything the brain does is predictable just like the heart, lungs, and every other organ. Think about the heart again. The heart can be conditioned. If you engage in aerobic exercise for sixty minutes a day, five days a week for five years, your heart will physically change and beat more efficiently. The way it responds to the same stimuli from five years ago will be different due to its conditioning. The brain is no different. The brain can be conditioned. In fact, the brain is apt to be conditioned, and even small changes can result in noticeable intrapersonal differences.

So maybe the brain is still just reacting to stimuli in a predictable manner, but individual brains are just too different from one another, or even from themselves just five minutes ago, that we cannot figure out the equation. So, what is a person really, but a collection of conditioned organs dynamically reacting to various stimuli… exactly as they have been “programmed” to do.

-AMS

Medication is Expensive. Health Insurance is Expensive. You get to pay for Both

            Based on recent experiences, I noticed two things that seem to make sense until you think about them both together. Let me explain. In the United States we have health insurance, money we pay to a company, so that in the event of an illness, that company will cover our health expenses, which in today’s market can be almost comically excessive. Given these massive expenses, and that fact that the U.S. economy profit driven, companies implement different tactics to minimize their costs. Larger companies are able to negotiate reduced rates on the premise that they will encourage (read: refuse to pay for otherwise) their insurees to use a particular product, service, or provider. While perhaps not morally sound, you have to admit it makes sense from a business stand point. As does a company implementing a copay system, in which insurees must pay at least some portion of their health expense. This seems a bit unfair, as the whole point of insurance is to cover one’s medical costs, but again makes sense economically. People will take just about anything for free, but put at least a small price tag on it, and they’ll weigh their options. Of course, this begins to create problems when the “small” price tag becomes anything but. In summary, people pay for insurance, which then allows them to pay less for healthcare, but they still have to pay something.

            Now, let’s follow some humans down on their luck. One was recently laid off of her job due to budget cuts. She expects to be working again soon, but the next few months will be tight. Another is a single parent of a young child, below school age, and she can only work part time as she cannot afford daycare. Another is a young man of twenty-three, currently working on a master’s degree in laboratory sciences. He is hard working but puts in fifty hours a week toward his degree. These people are all incapable of affording health insurance despite being deserving of it. How do we address this? We have government sponsored healthcare for individuals meeting certain eligibility criteria. Additionally, such plans usually have either no copay, or a very minimal copay, as these individuals clearly have financial barriers. Again, this makes perfect sense. People who deserve healthcare but cannot afford it for a variety of reasons should not be penalized.

            Now here is the part that does not make sense. Let us say that a particular state offers free healthcare coverage for individuals making an annual salary of X dollars or less. Individuals making more than this are expected to obtain their own healthcare, as they can theoretically afford it. Now, imagine a man making $1000 less than that cutoff, and who does not qualify for insurance through his employer. He has free healthcare through the government, and no copay on his medical services and prescriptions. Next year receives a raise putting him at $500 above the cutoff, but still does not qualify for insurance through his employer. He now gets to pay about $300 a month, a copay of about $20 per office visit, about $10 per month for each medication he takes, as well as a variable deductible that could be a couple thousand dollars a year. That’s a hell of a raise he got.

            -AMS

What is a Millennial Anyway?

            You see it all over the news, and especially on whatever you call Fox “news.” Millennials are lazy, self-entitled naïfs who are destroying the fabric of this country with their political correctness. But what is a millennial. Quick name a date range you think describes the millennial generation. It is subjective of course, as generations are general and don’t have rigid defining years, but generally speaking, millennials are considered to have been born between the early 80s and mid to late 90s. Now let’s do some quick math and we’ll see that millennials on the upper end are closer to 40 than 30. Probably not the age you were picturing was it. On the lower end, millennials are able to drink and just finishing up that bachelor’s degree, or at least close to it. Now, for all of those old millennials/young gen Xers out there that want to complain about today’s youth. Feel free. Trust me, we’re saying much worse about you. But at least get your vocabulary straight. Words are important.

            -AMS

Conformity is not a Consequence of Schools, it is a Lesson

            We have all heard the cynical views of the modern American education system. About how teachers are stifling the creativity of future generations by enforcing conformity, dress codes, and reserved behavior. And to all of those teachers I would like to say… Thank you. Conformity gets a bad rap. Plenty of movies center around the free-spirited protagonist being repressed by the societal norm, only to realize that being different is good. But this is only true to an extent. We like to think of different as good, but we limit our scope to creativity. People who are different trailblaze musical genres, push the limits of what is art, and inspire future generations. But that is only part of the story.

Being in sync with society is good as well. People can empathize with one another. We recognize etiquette and know how to modify our behavior given different surroundings. If you are dining at a fine restaurant in celebration of your fifth wedding anniversary, only to find the patron seated behind you is shirtless and shouting about how the current administration is going to destroy the country, you would certainly not be thinking: “Gee, I sure am glad no one tried to stifle this gentleman’s creativity.”

So, when your child’s teacher complains of them speaking out of turn or acting out such that they are disrupting the rest of the class, imagine yourself seated at an event you paid to attend, where another adult is speaking out of turn and disrupting the presenter. Imagine the anger you would almost certainly feel toward them, and then work with your child on socially acceptable expressions of their creative side.

On that same note, a common theme among adolescent students and their parents today is the oppressive dress codes that schools enforce. And while there is some justification in the claim of sexism in school dress codes, (they should certainly be enforced equally and indiscriminately), it should also be realized that dress codes are not limited to schools. Most jobs, many events, some restaurants, and even public space all have some degree of requirement in an individual’s dress. The only place you are not expected to abide by a dress requirement is your own private property, reasonably concealed from public view. School is no exception, and students should be expected to demonstrate appropriate dress for the setting they are in. Some may disagree, but I feel that most schools have very reasonable dress codes, and the expectation that your child follows it has nothing to do with sexism or body shaming, but rather preparing your child for life. This you may recognize as one of the main goals of schools.

-AMS

In the Absence of Positivity, There is Always Mindful Numbness

            This world would be a great place, if only we were happy always, ever looking forward to greeting a new day, embracing the challenges and opportunities it brings, and looking back on it all with a graceful pride for the growth it has instilled in you. But of course, we cannot be happy always, because we often wake up to days filled with tediousness, on which we look back with nothing but disdain for those that wasted our precious time with a drawn-out lecture, a meeting that could have been an email, or people taking “any questions?” to be a request rather than an opportunity. Some of you may be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, or at least fake a smile for posterities sake. But meanwhile, the rest of us are struggling to just make it through the day without screaming. At least that would make things more interesting, if only for a moment. So, what do we do. We go into our happy place.

            It’s a defense mechanism really, developed in our childhood, likely while our mothers were shopping at Kohls. The consequence of consciousness is the awareness that we are. And, in the absence of stimulus, we are simply persisting through time, but all the while painfully aware of every moment that we are. To compensate, we fill our time with thoughts, plans, fantasies; we have conversations entirely within our minds; we think about how we would get away with a bank robbery, not that we would ever commit one, but just how we would get away were we dropped into that situation. I have written entire songs, outlined a dozen novels, and designed my future living room. I’ve reimagined my life as if I were born in Vietnam, wrote my constitution were I the founder of a new country, and planned out my three wishes, written in such lawyeristic detail it would foil even the most cunning genie.

            Perhaps this is not your way. Maybe you just stare blankly into space with nothing on your mind at all. But personally, I prefer, and would recommend, mindful numbness. Shut out all of the negativity, the boredom, and the tedium, and relish the quiet time to have with your own thoughts. Maybe it will inspire you to do something when people finally stop wasting your time with forced attendance.

            -AMS

When the News is too New

            Think back to some news headlines you’ve read, heard on television, or were told about by a coworker during a slow day on the job. You will probably recall several titles suggesting some new up and coming breakthrough in healthcare that will spell the end of cancer, or a drastic political shift that will surely turn the tide of the entire nation, or perhaps even a charity that is doing great things to help end world poverty. Now think about the people that are still being diagnosed with cancer, the senators who are still voting in Trump’s favor, and the billions of people around the globe who are still struggling with crippling poverty. There seems to be a discrepancy here. I swear I remember reading in the second sentence of this post that we just fixed all of those things. Why are they still a problem?

            It turns out change is slow, and the news is on too damn often. For anyone in a long-term relationship, marriage, domestic partnership, or just has a roommate who is home all the time, you know that after a couple days of talking to each other day after day, you occasionally run out of new things to tell them.

“How was your day?”

            “Well, I had the day off of work, so I stayed home, and binge watched the first four seasons of Friends while eating cereal out of the box.”

            Yes, in this scenario your roommate is a complete deadbeat. But the point is, there is only so much going on in the world to talk about. Sometimes you hit a lull. The news is no different. If they actually did cure cancer, every news station would be reporting about it for weeks, but you can only cure widespread disease states so quickly, and so the rest of the time they just throw in little breakthroughs, or even just promising outlooks that haven’t actually been fully tested yet, because what else are they going to say. This Just in, Cancer is Still NOT Cured.

            The same goes for every facet of life. There may be some political shifts here and there, especially amid a small sample of a population, but for the most part, people stay just as aligned with their politics as they always have. Large shifts in ideals take place over generations. Millennials are clearly more accepting of gay marriage than baby boomers were, and we’re all more open to exposed legs than the people of the fourteenth century. Change happens, but it is not this overnight shift they try to portray. In the meantime, the news is stuck reporting on how people today have a less negative view on marijuana, although when it comes down to a vote, we see that plenty of people are still opposed to its legalization. There is simply not enough news for the news, just enough for an enticing headline.

            -AMS

Your Doctor Doesn’t Know Which Medications You Take and Jose Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Stop Sending Me His Mail

            We live in a fractured world. I’m not taking about morals, values, classes, or anything like that. I simply mean that there is no communication between organizations and no central reporting of information, meaning that for most things, you have to answer the same questions over and over and over and over and over again. For example, your physician, dentist, optometrist, pharmacist, and any other healthcare provider you see will ask you many of the same questions: do you have any allergies, do you smoke, do you have any chronic health conditions, etc… But despite the first provider having most of the information that all subsequent providers need, they ask you again separately. And if you change dentists, be prepared to answer all of those same questions yet again. And you will need new x-rays too, because the first dentist isn’t going to share those with the new dentist.

Perhaps it is a result of the American phobia toward all things centralized, despite the obvious monopolies that rule the world, or maybe it is just that nobody ever thought of unifying all of this information, although that is obviously not true, because Google and Facebook are already doing it, just for the purpose of trying to sell you things rather than make your life any easier. This isn’t just some idealistic dream either, other countries have implemented many such central databases. Let’s compare, shall we.

In the United States we have a process called medical reconciliation. This is when a health care provider attempts to create a consolidated list of your medical conditions, which medications you are taking for those conditions, and at which dosages. Let me emphasize that this process should be entirely unnecessary and exemplifies everything that is wrong with our fractured healthcare system. The reason we must have it is because when your heart doctor changes your blood pressure medication, he doesn’t tell you primary care provider, who continues to send in prescriptions to your local pharmacy, but you actually use a mail order pharmacy now, because your insurance prefers it, (requires it or they won’t pay for your medications), but, you forgot to tell your local pharmacy so they continue to fill medications for you, and in the transfer to mail order your cholesterol medication got overlooked, so you just haven’t been taking that one, and so when your hospital doctor asks you what medications you take, you just look at him confused and say “shouldn’t you know all of that.” Yes, they should, but no, they do not, in fact, not one of those groups I named does, because everyone was missing at least one piece of the puzzle. Conversely, Denmark has the National Health Service Prescription Database. Just like it sounds, it is a national database of all prescriptions an individual fills at any pharmacy in the country. Now, this doesn’t guarantee that the patient is taking all of their medications like they are supposed to, but at least the doctor knows what they are supposed to be taking.

Okay, you said the world was fractured, but all I’ve heard are healthcare examples. Don’t worry I have others. Healthcare is the most consequential, but let’s look at one that would be much simpler to fix. When was the last time you got someone else’s mail? I don’t mean the mail carrier put it in the wrong box. It was addressed to your home address but had someone else’s name. Or maybe you get calls every other day from a car dealership trying to reach Tiffany Hays. People move, people change their phone carriers, and the people that inherit their old addresses or phone numbers also inherit all of their old contacts that they forgot to update. How do we fix it? Stop addressing mail to addresses and start addressing it to individuals. Give everyone a national postal number. This number is yours and does not change. When you order a product, instead of a shipping address you put in your postal number. If you want to send your grandson a birthday card, just write his postal number on the envelope. Here’s the kicker, if you move, contact the post office, tell them your postal number and new address. Congratulations, you have just updated your address with everyone. Phone numbers would be a little more difficult, but certainly doable.

I know what you’re going to say, I can hear the protests already. Like I said, the United States seems to have this ingrained hatred of all things centralized. You know, it’s all about the free market and whatnot. But let me remind you, that the abuse is already here. Google already tracks your internet activity. Everything you post on social media or watching on your streaming network of choice goes into an algorithm. These companies know way more about you than just where you live or what your phone number is. And that information is superfluous anyway. Solicitors don’t care who lives at a particular address, they just send out promotional mail to everywhere. At least with my method you wouldn’t have to get other people’s junk mail on top of your own.

-AMS

I Know There is an App for That, But Who Needs It

            In our age of cell phones all but completely replacing home computers, developers have needed to adapt to the shift in technology in order to improve the experience of using their product or platform on a mobile device. Smaller screens are the obvious barrier, but, of course, there are software and user interface limitations as well. For instance, trying to run a game on a mobile device’s internet browser would be a nightmare. Thus came the widespread popularity of applications, or “apps,” if you will. These downloadables have greatly increased the capabilities of the mobile device. Now, it seems there is an app for just about everything. But like everything, it’s overdone and, often times, just makes things more complicated.

            Let’s talk about superfluous apps. You have your apps that do the exact same thing your phone can already do on its own. There are alarm apps, calculator apps, messaging apps, all functions every cellphone has had since the turn of the millennium. The only difference is they take up additional space and often come littered with advertisements.

Then you have apps that compensate for the limitations of mobile internet browsers. However, internet browsers still carry a lot of use. Many websites work just as smoothly if not even better on a phone’s internet browser than that of a home computer. Online shopping is very easily accomplished via a mobile friendly webpage. No app necessary. Of course, that doesn’t stop them from making an app anyway. Download our new app so that you can do exactly the same things you do on our website with absolutely no added features or functionality. Also, the download will take up memory space on your phone. No one asked for these apps, and no one needs them. Still they try their darndest to get you to download them with promotional offers.

            Still, these incessant promos at least don’t inconvenience you, should you decide to forgo their sacred app. For that, there is Facebook. Now, I could rant forever about my qualms with Facebook. How they won the social media war of the nineties, I haven’t a clue. Sure, Myspace was buggy, but it was a creative outlet at least. But I digress. Facebook has essentially three functions. You can post things for others to see, you can look at the things that other people posted for you to see, and you can chat. Back to my point about superfluous apps. All of those functions can very easily be accomplished on a mobile browser. Even if you are addicted to Facebook, and demand instant access at a moment’s notice, this too can be accomplished without their app. Simply bookmark the page, save the bookmark to your phone’s home screen, and save your log in information to keep you logged in.

But, in order to get people to download their app, Facebook purposely removed one of the only three functionalities from their mobile webpage. It is impossible to view or create messages on their mobile platform. Rather you must download their app. And not the regular app, mind you, no, they created an entirely separate app just for messaging, again, a capability that phones have had well before Facebook even existed.

I’ve been picking on Facebook specifically, because it is one of the most heinous examples, but these unnecessary apps are everywhere. Restaurants, drug stores, grocery stores, even tire stores have their own app. Seriously, how often do you eat at the Olive Garden that you need an app for it.

-AMS

Living Vicariously Through the Eyes of a Camera

            Having just returned from a picturesque trip, I would like to share some disturbing observations about pictures. With the advent of the camera came a change in society. No longer would tangible likenesses of our experiences be limited to those with the time and resources to commission, or skills to produce, a transduction of that which is reflected in our eyes onto a medium that can be shared with others. And as technology has progressed, so has the availability of these cameras, and I mean that in two senses. The total number of persons possessing a camera has increased. But also, the repurposing of cellular phones to portable computers has resulted in nearly constant access to a camera. At any given time, you are likely capable of taking a picture, and this has led to certain consequences.

We take pictures of everything… and I mean EVERYTHING.

You go on vacation and visit a historical landmark. Naturally you would want to take a picture of something so impressive as this. But after you take your picture look around. Look at the other people visiting this landmark. Watch them take pictures of the landmark, yes, but also the sign denoting the landmark, the staircase leading up to the landmark, the cloud formation that has congregated in the horizon beyond the landmark, and the pigeon sitting upon the handrail lining the staircase leading up to the landmark. What is to become of these pictures? Do you really intend to return home and gather your closest friends to share with them your picture of a pigeon? A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. However, even the greatest picture is worthless amid a thousand others, as no one will take the time to find it.

Your incessant picture taking is infuriating to everyone else.

            In polite society, when someone is taking a photo, the courtesy is to walk around or wait until they finish so as not to disrupt their photo. This does not often come up in day to day life, though, and is therefore rarely an inconvenience. But when dozens of people are constantly stopping to take photos of themselves with everything they see, it creates real disruptions. When people are unable to even proceed due to your need to take photos no one will ever look at anyway, perhaps you should be the courteous one and move on.

You are living vicariously through the eyes of your camera.

            What do I mean by this? When your friend comes home from their trip and describes the wonderful sights they beheld in vivid detail you can almost imagine being their yourself. Vicariously you experience the wonder that they experienced firsthand. But in reality, they only experienced it secondhand. Again, watch people at these picturesque sights. They approach them, cameras at the ready. The mindset of our society has become so enveloped in taking pictures, that it proceeds even actually looking at the thing you are photographing.

No one takes in the actual experience of these wonderous sights, cultures, foods, exchanges, etc… They just take pictures. And when they return home to share their experiences with friends, they don’t tell them how overwhelmingly massive the cathedral was. how breathtaking it was to stand before beautiful mountain landscapes conceived purely by chance through the natural course of time, how simply enchanting it was to learn how to navigate a grocery store in a foreign country, how delicious a new combination of familiar foods could be, how enjoyable it was to empathize with a busy waiter… They just show you pictures.

            -AMS

Happy Birthday America

            That’s what this holiday is about right? Or was it the winning of the revolutionary war? Who really cares anyway? What this holiday is really about, is lighting of pyrotechnics. Just like how Christmas is about pine trees and presents and Easter is about eggs and chocolate. Yes, holidays are mostly founded on important events such as the declaration of a nation’s independence or birth of one’s messiah. But let’s be honest, most of these things are just tradition at this point. Some people do celebrate Christmas as a day of honoring Jesus. But for most people it’s a day off of work and an excuse to give gifts. And personally, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that at all.

            There will always be those people that get all uppity about the true meaning of Christmas, but the true meaning of Christmas was warped long before Hallmark got its hands on it. It’s based in Pagan traditions. Some would say that family and togetherness and all of that jazz is what it is really all about. And I would argue that giving people time off of work, incentivizing them to think of gifts for their friends and family, or get together and partake in some redox chemistry reactions, as is the case for the fourth, are all good ways to encourage family and togetherness. As for all that jazz, I would suggest Satchmo.

            People love to get upset about things that really don’t matter. Remember the Starbuck’s Christmas cup fiasco. No, I don’t mean people getting upset about their cups, I don’t know that I knew a single person who did that. I mean the people that got upset because they thought other people got upset about cups. Of course, I kind of just defeated my entire message here, but I think it still shines through. Regardless of what anyone thinks, even yourself in a blog post, celebrate whichever holidays you want, however you want, as long as your happy and harmless.

            -AMS

I Just Work Here

            To whom it may concern, this is corporate America and corporate is not concerned. If you have never heard the phrase: “I am going to stop coming here,” then I am legitimately shocked. People love to throw this threat around. I once received it from an out of town customer who was never coming back again anyway. They are frustrated by what they perceive as bad service, I get that. Whether justified or not is a different story, but I’ll let you in on a little secret that applies either way. No one cares. Small businesses are few and far between. Name every coffee shop, grocery store, bank, or pharmacy you know that has less than ten locations and see how many you can come up with. The country is run by corporate giants and an individual customer is not even a blip on their radar.

            From an employee perspective, short of a significant loss in business resulting in reduced hours, pay, or a full out location closedown, the pay is the same whether the store gets this one individual’s business or not. From a corporate perspective, five billion dollars is not that different from five billion one hundred dollars. Now people might think certain places care about their customers because they give them free stuff in light of their complaints, but really that is just the epitome of their apathy. Rather than even bothering to devote a minute of their time to the actual nature of your complaint, they just throw you a gift card and hope you’ll shut up.

            There is such a disconnect between customers and businesses anymore, that your comments really are meaningless most of the time. Those who can actually enact change are beyond reach and those who you can actually speak to, they just work there and can’t do anything about it. They wouldn’t even be able to put you in touch with someone who could do something about it. Most corporations have created a chain of command so expansive, the person in charge of the company probably doesn’t even know what the stores sell. The CEO is too preoccupied with meetings and investors to address your concern about the lack of a designated crosswalk in the parking lot of store number 6305. But what is the store manager going to do, go out and paint one himself? Well who is in charge of parking lot maintenance? I don’t know, someone at corporate. Here is the company contact number, why don’t you give them a call, get transferred fourteen times, and spend an hour on hold before being transferred back to the lady you talked to fifteen minutes ago, maybe that’ll work.

            -AMS

Welcome to Bureaucracy, Please Sign In

            Let me tell you a story of my childhood. My school was located about a mile from a park. About midway down the road to the park was an intersection with another road that, were one so inclined to walk down, would find themselves some five or ten minutes later at the foot of the drive of my childhood home. Now one day at school, the teacher had planned for my sixth-grade class to walk from the school to the park, participate in some science based activity that escapes me at the present time, then walk back to the school arriving back just before dismissal. And so, on that day, my class made the trek to the park, we completed that activity of science, and we started down our return path to the school. Let me reiterate, the plan was to walk back to the school and arrive just in time for dismissal. Now as we walked back to the school, we passed by the intersection that led back to my house and I thought to myself. How silly is it that I am going to walk a half mile away from my house to get on a bus that is then going to drive me back to my house?

Now imagine you are the teacher responsible for the class. If a student had asked you if they could leave the group and just walk home from here, it doesn’t matter that they are twelve and perfectly capable of walking safely down a neighborhood road to their house. You are responsible for that child until such time that they leave the school at dismissal or are received by a parent or guardian. There is no way on your life you would let that child leave on their own.

            Accountability is very important. If you are sending your child to school you are entrusting that school to keep your child safe, and failing that any reasonable person would expect repercussions. However, can we just all admit that bureaucracy has gotten a little out of hand. Have you ever read a law. They can be pages and pages long. Laws used to be: Don’t kill anyone. Don’t steal anything. But as loopholes are exposed and precedents are set, red tape gets put up. The problem is it never gets taken down. We just keep putting up more and more and eventually we are all just going to be wearing red mummy costumes.

            Think about how many things you sign a month. How many privacy policies, terms of use, and various other contracts of accountability you adorn with your infamous three loops with a line through it. Why do you think people sign like that anyway? Especially if they have a long name. Ain’t nobody got time to neatly present their signature every time they charge a pack of gum to their credit card. Where are all of these credit card signature logs going anyway. Do you know how many people these days just put everything on their credit cards? If someone actually needed to retrieve one to settle a dispute it would be a nightmare to locate.

So, one childhood story and a bit of rambling later, I guess what I am actually saying is that, the overburden of bureaucracy has more or less bureaucracy ineffective. Disclosure does no good if people are so jaded they don’t even care to read the disclosure in the first place. What good is a law that isn’t enforced? Well, there are so many laws anymore, we’d have to lock up the world. Intervention for a hoarder: have less things but nicer things. It applies to bureaucrats too. Let’s do away with all of the redundancies and unnecessary requirements and reserve the red tape for when we really need it.

            -AMS

Fake News

            Meet Tom. Tom stays up late most nights. Tom spends an average of six hours a day on his computer. Tom has a part time job where he works about fifteen hours a week. Tom is often offered to cover others’ shifts, but he refuses them because he does not have the energy to work any more hours. He does not work out and spends the majority of his day sitting down.

            Meet John. John wakes at 5:00_AM every day. He puts in a good sixty hours a week at his job at the factory. He really depends on the overtime to keep his family financially secure. John does not keep many hobbies. He is often too tired for such things after his long days of physical labor.

            Meet Zack. Zack spends more time playing video games than not. During those rare hours where Zack is not playing video games, he occupies himself on his computer developing logos, updating social media, and connecting with others via the internet.

           

These are loaded paragraphs. Descriptions that, while accurate (albeit fictional), are purposely kept vague in order to misconstrue the truth for the purpose of creating dramatic effect upon the unveiling of further information. Most of you are probably thinking, Tom is lazy and should probably work more hours, be a little more active, and spend less time sitting around on his computer. Really, he should be more like John. John is industrious and sets a prime example of dedication and work ethic. Zack, on the other hand, he is a lost cause who needs to get a job and, presumably, move out of his parents’ house.

            Meet the real Tom. Tom is a graduate student studying biochemistry. He spends an average of six hours a day reading recent literature online and running simulated models of the interactions between organic pollutants and common components of human tissue in order to better understand the implications of popular commercial manufacturing processes. He often gets so caught up in his work that he does not make it to bed until the early morning. He works a part time job in order to supplement the small stipend he receives from the university. However, given the number of hours he puts in at the lab, he does not have the energy to work much at his second job, let alone find time to himself to work out.

            Meet the real John. John was a high school dropout who did not devote much time to school. He spent his younger days playing video games and hanging out with his friends. He thought school was a waste of time and dropped out junior year to have more time to himself. A few years down the road John matured, met a nice woman, and started a family. Given his lack of qualifications, however, he was forced to take a demanding job at a factory. The pay is not great, and as such he depends upon overtime pay just to make ends meet.

            Meet the real Zack. Zack runs a video game review vlog. He spends most of his day recording content to upload to his website. When he is not recording content, he is working on designing logos for his brand, reaffirming his social media presence, and making connections to further spread awareness of his site. Zack has single handedly created a fairly popular site, and, taking in ad revenue, has managed to become self-sufficient. He owns his own house and pays into a retirement plan.

Bias is easy and does not require lying. Context is everything. Why is there so much fake news out in the world today, because no one has the time or energy to critically evaluate everything they hear, read, or see for the true context. Unfortunately, it seems, neither do the reporters, or perhaps it is simply that everyone has an agenda. The solution? Mistrust everything. That seems extreme. How about something less cynical. Unconvicted acceptance. The only thing I know for certain is that nothing is for certain. Mayhaps we will one day be rid of even death and taxes.

-AMS

We All Know Someone Who...

We all know someone who drinks hot coffee in the summer heat

We all know someone who never wears coats in the winter

We all know someone who is great company but schedules farther out than a Canadian doctor

We all know someone who could start up a conversation with a deaf Chinaman

We all secretly envy this person while laughing off our own social ineptitude

We all know someone who is always down to get some food

We all know someone who is vegan

            We didn’t ask, but they made sure to tell us

We all know someone who “never really got into Pokèmon”

We all know someone, to whom the words “to who,” sound like nails upon a chalkboard

We all know someone who always has a book in their hand

We then say, “I should really read more,” before completely forgetting about it five minutes later

We all know someone who burns on a cloudy day

We all know someone who wants eight children

We all know someone who loves their dog more than their spouse

We all know someone who identifies as a couple

We all know someone who really, really likes milk

We all know someone who is perfectly pleasant, but the sound of their voice annoys us to no end

We all know someone who writes without an agenda

We all know someone who ambiguously refers to themself despite the obvious identifiers

We all know someone who restates themself to overstate the understated

We all know someone who speaks exclusively in movie quotes

We all know someone who can’t see the box we’re pointing out

            It’s right there under the table

We all know someone who swears they’ll remember this time

            They won’t

We all know someone who believes in ghosts

We all know someone who is just a little bit ignorant

We all know someone who knows someone a little bit famous

We all know someone

And we are all someone, who someone else knows

-AMS

The Impedance of Perfection

            Perhaps this is a personal trait, perhaps it is common. But one thing is for certain, beginning is always the most difficult step. This applies to most things, but specifically I am talking about the process of making something… anything. Anytime you set out to produce something, tangible or not, the most difficult place to start is the start. So we plan. We think, and we ruminate, and we jot down notes, and we make schedules, and we imagine what it will be like when it is finished, and we even think about what we will make after we are done making the thing we have not yet started making. We have a whole series of books planned before chapter one ever gets written.

            We plan because it is easy and makes us feel accomplished, and to some extent it is very necessary. If you try to write a novel with a vague idea in mind and no plan you probably won’t end up with a very coherent story. Conversely, if you never begin writing the novel in the first place all you will have is a story about how you were going to write a novel but never got around to it. This is a tired story, let me tell you. But we can’t ever seem to bring ourselves out of the planning phase and into the actual implementation. The problem, I believe, is that we are impeded by the idea of perfection. This is our first novel and it has to be just right. Of course the novel to which I keep referring is a metaphorical novel that you can replace with whatever project you’ve had simmering for so long now that you forgot you even owned a stove. Yes the metaphorical novel is now a metaphorical porridge, it seems fitting with the just right thing I mentioned earlier.

            But while we are so meticulously planning our children’s book about anthropomorphized bears living in the woods and mastering the art of cooking, giving no credence to the concept of editing, we hesitate to ever move forward with the initial sketches because we do not want to do a disservice to the distinct blending of blondes and browns that characterize papa bears coat. Don’t worry it is faux fur coat he purchased from a fair-trade dealer, papa bear is quite progressive. So quit worrying so much about whether momma bear should wear Nike or Reebok and just do it.

            -AMS