Death, Taxes and Internet Addiction

Here are the Grimreads for the week! The biggest news today that got buried was the Supreme Courts decision to take up an appeal of a lower court’s decision that the state of Wisconsin’s districts are gerrymandered beyond reason. This could end up being one of the most consequential news stories of the year, so pay attention.

 

At Bloomberg, Barry Ritholtz covers the remarkable end of Sam Brownback’s tax cut experiment. Republicans should study this carefully before trying to institute tax reform.

 

A terrifying article from The Guardian about internet addiction and young men. This kind of stuff used to be funny, but a chill went up my spine as I read the article on my iPad while laying next to my wife who was watching a Let’s Play video on her laptop as we listened to music, well into the third hour of mutual internet surfing on our Sunday morning. The first step is admitting you have a problem…

 

While we are talking about young men and their problems, The Onion is insightful as always.

 

Finally, 538 looks into their crystal ball to see what is going to probably kill you based on where you live. Death to America, as they say.

You Shouldn’t Kill People Who Disagree With You

I played baseball when I was a kid and I feel like it has an innocent quality to it that other sports lack. It doesn’t have the violence of football or hockey and it is more pastoral than basketball. Players wear hats, button up shirts and belts. Excessive rudeness will result in your ejection from the game. Then there is the whole “America’s Pastime” thing, and yes I did watch all 20 hours of “Ken Burn’s Baseball”. I was never good at baseball but it is still a pocket of warmth in my mind.

Maybe that is why the shooting of Steve Scalise in Virginia on Wednesday made me feel extra nauseas. Outfield grass should not have a trail of blood on it. If one of his fellow Congressman at the practice had not been a physician and acted quickly to stem his blood loss, Steve Scalise might be dead. The annual Congressional baseball game is a silly ritual, but in fractured times like these, sometimes it is only the silly rituals that allow for bipartisanship. If Steve Scalise dies (he is still in critical condition as of this writing) the shadow of his murder will hang over this silly ritual for years to come.

In the wake of this shooting people will point fingers at whatever disease they think is eroding our republic, whether it is gun culture or “assassination porn”. But those are only symptoms, not the true disease. The real disease the failure of the American voter to open their minds and be willing to be wrong. Our politics has become a game where winning and losing takes precedence over cooperating to discover the truths that apply to all of us. The way that Americans talk to and about each other has become so saturated with bitterness and the need for catharsis over agreement that some people feel like they can’t get their point across at less than 2700 fps. In cities, street protest turn violent. In rural areas, heavily armed men practice for the end of the world and occasionally seize a government building.

We cannot blame politicians, or big business or the media (in all its flavors) before we blame ourselves. We cannot blame them because they are us. We elect the politicians, demand products and then buy them, and consume the media that stimulates us like a child with candy. None of the things we bitch about will change until we do.

This requires that people learn about issues not just as bullet points on the website they have as their homepage, but with the kind of depth that takes time and effort. Instead of spending all Saturday binging The Handmaid’s Tale, take a break halfway through to play with a federal budge calculator. If you are a Fox News junkie, try actually reading the Trans-Pacific Partnership and NAFTA before deriding them as the dumbest agreements in history. It’s probably too much to ask that people make friends across the political spectrum, but the next time you are in a group of like-minded individuals, don’t be afraid to be a contrarian! That is how arguments are supposed to make us stronger. Debate should be a collaborative effort to uncover the truth. A person should not feel humiliated when their original position is proven wrong. They should feel enlightened.

Many of the issues that face us are almost impossibly complicated and we should be cautious about making categorical statements in loud, confident voices. Temper your views with a healthy dose of agnosticism.

Bring these views into your local politics. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican you should support candidates that speak to you like an adult and are humble. Most importantly, you need to tell them that it is okay to COMPROMISE. They will not do it unless they feel supported. Remember that they are an extension of you. Your representative will do whatever you tell them to as long as they think it will get them elected.

I confess that I myself have not done this. I have never caucused with a political party, happily calling myself an independent and therefore above the fray of such petty politics. It is a trend in American politics for people to no longer affiliate with political parties, but this is a mistake. It has left only the most passionate and partisan individuals to select candidates in caucuses and primaries. You can rest assured that I will being participating in the next caucus and casting my vote for the most moderate motherfucker on the ballot.

The alternative, after all, is this:

Warhammer 40k is Real and Right Now

This is a story about toys.

 

The 8th edition of Warhammer 40k is coming out next week and it has people like me pulling out their old rule books, painting their models and brushing up on their fluff in preparation.

For anyone who is not familiar with Warhammer 40,000, it is a tabletop miniature wargame created in 1987 and set in the year 41,999 (aka, “The Grim Darkness of the Far Future”). There are more than a dozen individual armies that people can collect and paint, at great expense, all for the purpose of waging tiny battles on their kitchen table until their spouse announces it’s dinner time. The game is costly in terms of both time and money, the rules are about as complex as bankruptcy law, and the games take around 4 hours if you need to crack open the instructions every turn like I do.

Why would anyone play such a game? Because the shameless brilliance of Warhammer 40k (owned by Games Workshop) is that it has looted every corner of the sci-fi and fantasy genres, given them a coat of copyright retardant paint and amalgamated them into coherent universe.

Warhammer 40k contains the following, in space: orks, elves, Nazis, Commies, giant mecha robots, zombies, witchcraft, archaeology, religion, every flavor of military fiction, THE SPANISH INQUISITION, undead cyborgs, space pirates, mutants, Zerg/Aliens/BUGS!!!, psychics, demons, pirates, lizard people who secretly orchestrate everything, chaos, comedy, and never ending war on a galactic scale. It is a future where the feudal-fascist Imperium of Man spans more than a million worlds, all of buckling under the ever present threat of chaos cults, space locusts, barbarians and killer robots.

Every possible story can be told in this setting (well, “Call the Midwife 40k” would be tough). The 40k canvas spans 40,000 years and a million worlds, everything an imaginative 14 year old could want. And I am nothing if not an imaginative 14 year old at heart.

Warhammer 40k has a more serious resonance with me however. Its picture of the universe as a never ending war between factions fundamentally unable to exist together was originally written as parody by the Games Workshop staff, but our real world is edging perilously close to this Grim Darkness. There is a parallel between the crumbling Imperium of Man and the Western democracies. In the fluff of 40k, the Imperium was a galaxy spanning power, uniting all of humanity under a common banner. Now, beset by external threats and internal stagnation, the Imperium keeps its people united through theocracy, xenophobia and brute force. Even factions who should be able to work together against common threats, like humans and spaces elves, screw each other over if an advantage can be found. The walls have been built, the witches are being hunted, and the Gulags are almost full. The bell tolls midnight.

We aren’t there yet. In the long run, humans have always been resourceful and managed to survive. I know that God-Emperor Donald promised to take care of everything, but I have an inkling he might have just been giving us a sales pitch. Americans will need to work together, make compromises and not retreat into mindless revanchism if we want to avoid a future which promises “Only War”. The only xenocide I want my children committing should be on the kitchen table, before dinner.

I understand if you disagree with me. It may seem naïve to be comparing our current state of affairs to a game with chainsaw wielding orks and interstellar battle-nuns. Just remember that this game represents our collective unconscious. How much has been written about Star Wars as a lens for our culture and times? Warhammer 40k is a grimmer, darker Star Wars, as written by David Simon and H.P. Lovecraft. Sadly, I think it may be the more realistic (if not unavoidable) portrait of us.

 

Still disagree with me? Prepare for exterminatus.

 

P.S., I changed my mind about “Call the Midwife 40k”. This may end up as an episode of my “Pop Culture What-If Machine” podcast.

Grim Reads Year Zero

Congressional testi-Comey tomorrow! I will be missing it for a family funeral, which will be only slightly sadder than watching the recently fired Director of the FBI describe what a creep our reality TV president is. Don’t hold your breath for anything that is worthy of impeachment based on Comey’s notes, which have already been released, but also don’t expect anything to make Donald Trump look less grotesque. Here are today’s worthwhile reads:

 

Barry Ritholtz sums up our changing society, in the context of retail.

 

Kate Baggeley at NBC about sex, robots and sex robots. The prospect of catching HPV at a robot brothel is about to go viral.

 

Markham Heid with Time Magazine wants you to lift heavy and bulk clean.

 

The writers at the Health Affairs blog think that automatic enrollment could help keep premiums down and move us towards universal coverage no matter what plan Congress adopts.

 

Finally, musicians may have found their savior in blockchain. “Blockchain” would have been a great title for a Soundgarden album. RIP Chris Cornell.

Sad Family News

The first Grim news alert is that my aunt Mary passed away on Friday from cancer. That sucks.  My mom was close with her. She was 53. She was the baby of the family.  Her husband Jim and her three kids Beth, Peter and Tom are still alive, but probably not really feeling that way right now. There is a lot of red tape to go through when one of your “immediates” dies, and you have to be kind of numb to get it all done. It’s hard to grieve when you are filling out paperwork, so the healing part comes later.

 

She was one of my favorite family members and I am tearing up a little bit writing this. I am thinking about Kathy’s dad who also died of cancer and never got the chance to be my father in law. I am thinking of all the dead claimants I have processed working for Social Security. And I am thinking about what a mystery this whole life thing is. I am listening to music while I write this and you know what song just came up? “Once In A Lifetime”. Very funny, YouTube.

 

Anyway, I am glad my aunt whom I loved is no longer suffering. I know it will take a while for her family to process the pain of their loss. Grieving isn’t a one-click process, it just has to be lived through with faith, courage and good humor which I know their family has plenty of. That’s why I love them.

 

And if Amazon ever comes out with One-Click Grieving, I thought of it first dammit.