Democracy is mob rule, usually resulting in tyranny via propaganda. It’s a form of socialism that pretends that the will of the majority is in the best interests of everyone. In comparison, a republic’s goal is that the locus of decision-making first starts with the individual then the community then the county then the state, and final oversight by the federal government; making choices that sacrifice individual liberty for the group’s needs considered at each step. Even though democracy often plays a part, it is constrained by liberty, as formally defined in the U.S. Constitution and also parochially according to local custom, culture & tradition, so that at no time do people think their own liberty is being taken unfairly. In fact, for democracy to even work, voting needs to be at the finest granularity so that only the people directly involved in the consequences of the decision are doing the voting, with the democratically-elected individuals from the smaller groups acting in a representative role at ever-increasing scale. Federalism, the overarching control performed by the national government, is only for things that people from different states should expect to be in every state; for example, military conscription, interstate commerce and the judiciary. However, all of this only works if important values like work ethic, sexual propriety, educational standards & law enforcement are shared by everyone, otherwise so-called multiculturalism will destroy the society.

The word “democracy” has reached the level of mysticism; it’s the d-word. To invoke democracy as a reason to do or not do something is the paramount demand. Women are the primary advocates of democracy, just as men are of liberty. Masculine men are independent and ambitious. They want to control the world and the things in it, both environment and people; they want to explore and go on adventures; they want to build and multiply. These are all goals performed best when someone has personal liberty, and in none of these things is democracy even a consideration. For the most part, because in comparison due to less testosterone, men are superior to women, at least as far as aspects of physical prowess are concerned, this inferiority inevitably and justifiably leads to resentment by women, and a desire to be included in the process. The abstraction of voting is how women redirect the aspirations of men, and why the concept has taken on a religion of its own. It’s the tool used by women to gain “equality.” a goal even more important than life or happiness. Equality, requires democracy; the Democrat party’s goal is to spread democracy around the world, but what they’re really spreading is feminism because women are in the majority, and vote for their own self-interest over the betterment of society; they even go so far as to redefine what is better to the detriment of men. The reality is democracy can easily be distorted to be in direct conflict with liberty, but democracy without liberty is tyranny.

Everyone likes to talk about money: 1. It’s not that difficult to solve an imaginary problem. 2. Defaulting on the national debt wouldn’t affect most people. 3. Mass immigration is a cynical way to increase GDP. 4. Solving wealth disparity is simple but not easy. 5. Investing gives the veneer of respectability to gambling. 6. Tariffs are preferable to so-called “free” trade because they can be tailored to a society’s needs. 7. Choosing money over God always fails in the long term. 8. Capitalists imagine they’re superior but they’re just parasites. 9. It’s not an effect that people aren’t all average. You may get your news somewhere else but take your advice from me, the Wysest Myn in the Wyrld.

Among the intelligentsia, the “Dunning-Kruger effect” is often smugly cited: it’s the idea that people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities while people with exceptional ability underestimate theirs. This is an attractive excuse for narcissists to feel superior, proving they’re special, and with a semblance of scientific rigor to support their claim. In popular culture, the Dunning–Kruger effect is often misunderstood as a claim about general overconfidence of people with low intelligence. Of course, the people making this claim see themselves as the superior ones, never even considering that perhaps they’ve misinterpreted the analysis. Even the astute observers who know the sham isn’t about intelligence will still explain the situation as overconfidence of people unskilled at a particular task. There are a lot of studies in many different realms of expertise all exhibiting the same effect but because of preconceptions and selection bias, they all come to the same erroneous conclusion. However, the so-called Dunning-Kruger effect is actual far more mundane because the true deduction is more Occam’s razor than scientific. Data for the graph is obtained by people estimating their skill then an actual measurement is made. As per human nature, most people logically think they’re average, but of course some are better and some are worse; the graph simply demonstrates that natural phenomenon. It’s not that dumb people overestimate and smart people underestimate, it’s just the difference between the average and reality.

There’s an intentional attempt, mostly successful, to conflate capitalism with free markets, though a free market can exist without capitalism. Capitalism is built on the concept of imaginary money, where more money is made from money, all of it imaginary, and making money is the ultimate goal. Free markets are centered around productivity, and productive members of society are easily identified because they produce something. Values like the “Protestant work ethic” seems quaint by today’s standards when the goal of every young person is to be an online influencer making money simply by being adored by everyone else. Even if some conservative has the outdated value of, “a day’s pay for a day’s labor,” in reality, the pay is not worth the labor, and lots of people, maybe most, get more than a day’s pay producing nothing. Investing is the idea that you need not work if you’re so elite that you get to siphon off other people’s money. Unfortunately, it works; investors are some of the wealthiest people in the world, and they seemingly did little or nothing to get that way. This is only possible with capitalism. Extreme wealth concentration is not possible in a free market because money is limited to the finite productivity of individuals. But wealth concentration is the goal of capitalism; in fact, it’s the inevitable result, and every capitalist imagines they too can get rich doing nothing, and a lot do. Capitalism results in the imaginary supplanting reality.

There’s nothing morally or ethically wrong with wealth inequality, or any kind of inequality for that matter; but at the extremes of capitalism, it becomes problematic. Money is artificial; it’s an accounting of things that have no real value because they can be taken away so easily, as compared to experiences, relationships, knowledge & creativity, that can’t. This distortion of reality is possible because money is imaginary; it only exists if people imagine it exists. If there was no money, life would continue. In fact, there are many nations in history whose money evaporated because no one imagined it was worth anything anymore. Those countries had a short period of adjustment, but no lives were lost, and for the vast majority of their people, nothing much changed. The reason capitalism has such a good track record for progressing a society is because it fits perfectly into existing human motivations. The truth is, avarice is common, and no amount of wealth is too much, so given the chance, wealth will concentrate. Avarice pushes the economy in a positive direction right up until extreme wealth stratification inevitability occurs, then the majority of the people who have no wealth will revolt in some way. Many people think God is imaginary. In the comparison between money and God, one leads to affluence & influence, and the other brings solace & forgiveness. If people have a choice, they’ll pick the former, even though the latter is more useful because only a small fraction of people will achieve great imaginary wealth, while everyone will at one time or another need the succor of an imaginary god.

Russia’s strong economy and modernity despite strict sanctions is evidence that free trade is not a requirement for first world status; in fact, there’s a case that it primarily makes the rich richer at the expense of society. The extremes of trade are completely open, where a country does nothing but import; and completely closed, where the country makes everything itself. In the first scenario where a country is self-sufficient then all governmental decisions are made with the goal of perpetuating that society without regards to other societies. But a free trade society is dependent on the actions and sensibilities of foreign nations. In the extreme example, the unproductive open society is completely at the mercy of, essentially enslaved by, outside forces. If an economy is defined by its productivity, then everyone is productively making something useful that other members of the economy, who also make useful things, can exchange with. On the other hand, in a consumer economy, people do nothing productive but instead use the things someone else makes; perhaps it’s robots making these things or more likely, it’s from a productive country. In an investment economy, where nothing is produced nor consumed, people place financial bets on the productivity or consumption of others without necessarily doing either themselves, but accumulating financial wealth, which is as ephemeral as it is imaginary. Under Trump, the U.S. took back control of its financial destiny by putting an end to free trade.

Of all the vices, gambling is the biggest. Being addicted doesn’t stop someone from being productive; neither does lying nor any of the seven deadly sins. Gambling, however, produces nothing. It’s ironic then that capitalism is gambling at its most evolved state. People know this but, like all addiction and avarice, they gleefully engage in it. The fact that investing is considered more noble than work is also very problematic. The biggest issue is, of course, that an investor’s goal is to not have to work. Investing is not productive except in the sense that an imaginary thing called “money” is bandied about. Somehow this investing game supersedes the requirements of real life. The man out in the fields growing & harvesting food is at the mercy of people who do absolutely nothing but still benefit from his labor, exploit it even. The parasitic nature of investing is bad enough even if all of the players in the game were playing by the same rules, but making the ethical situation worse, many of them are insiders, con men, or outright thieves. Supposedly, there are legal consequences to engaging in these unsavory activities but when you consider that members of the U.S. House and Senate are explicitly allowed to engage in insider trading at the expense of their constituents, it’s oversight for thee but not for me. Also, it’s impossible for the average person to know what’s a Ponzi scheme, which as it turns out, most companies are. Plus many of the people who have made fortunes by manipulating stocks are taking it from the retirement funds of the people who work. It seems unlikely that a society that praises the exploitation of its productive members by the gamblers can continue for long.

The natural result and biggest threat to a capitalist society is wealth concentration because it creates people with so much money that they aren’t subject to market forces and, subsequently, distort democracy into what it is today, and needs to be corrected. Curing the Top 1% wealth problem is not complicated but it would be vehemently resisted because the simplest solution is to limit inheritance. In America’s past, that’s what happened, plus high income was taxed over 90%. However, the ultra-wealthy were able to use their inordinate amount of money & power to change those high progressive rates to the relatively low ones we have today, creating emerging dynasties. Limiting the familial propagation of money needs to return. For example, each heir could only receive an annuity that would provide a comfortable but not exceptional life. Anything imaginary, such as money or stocks would simply disappear, hard assets would be sold to finance the annuity, and real property would convert to lifetime only occupancy. If an heir is truly capable, the parents should start transferring management of a business but not ownership over to them before death, and let them make their own money. Furthermore, let the benefactors give away all of their money to whoever they want, limited to some reasonable level. This would maintain the overall wealth in America without it being concentrated, and give a whole lot of people a head start, curing the problem while still recognizing individual liberty. Taking a 100 or so fortunes every year is workable because how many houses, cars, yachts & ex-wives does someone need? The alternative of doing nothing ends in aristocracy or revolution.

It’s unclear why the Biden administration allowed unfettered immigration? It could be something nefarious, like foreign powers wanting to destabilize the United States, or it could be that the people propping up a demented old man were diehard communists intent on implementing their ideology. There are also more Machiavellian reasons, like corporations wanting cheap labor. Whatever it was, you can be certain that self-interest played a big part of it. Who is more scheming than a political party wanting to gain or retain power? Democrats may have thought large numbers of foreigners would give them a voting majority, plus, illegal immigration makes the economy look like it’s improving on paper, thought not in reality. If the government gives an immigrant $10K, he spends it, increasing GDP by $10K.If the immigrant also earns $10K and spends it, that increases GDP too. So the debt/GDP ratio is 50%, which is quite good. That is then averaged in with the existing debt/GDP ratio, around 100% (bad but status quo), bringing it down. By this calculation, the more immigrants the better. Even if the immigrant doesn’t earn anything, simply consumes the $10K, that doesn’t affect the economic status quo. However, this is simply a statistical illusion because it would take mass immigration to make a significant dent in GDP, which would explain everything. The sheer hubris of sacrificing long-term economic health for a strategic short-term advantage is almost unimaginable, but not quite...

69 % of national debt around the world is held by governments: 30% is pension funds and the rest by the 1% ultra-wealthy. 8% of people own 88% of stocks, while the bottom 50% own none. All of these numbers are a measurement of something imaginary; namely money. Money is different from productivity; someone who actually does something is the valuable one; all of the middle managers can be let go, all of the fear-mongers who sell insurance can be dismissed; and all of the bankers can be banished. If the government defaults on the national debt, it would actually benefit the vast majority of Americans in a very real way because they wouldn’t have the specter of financial insecurity hanging over them. Debt slavery is no less so than its namesake. As it is, because the fatal consequence of capitalism is wealth concentration, regular people are responsible for the national debt while the ultra-wealthy own everything. Ultra-wealthy people are not superhuman; they aren’t special elites that deserved their wealth more than everyone else. Any wealthy person can be easily replaced with 10,000 other people equally, or even more, qualified with themselves. The thing that separates the ultra-wealthy from the rest of the population is primarily luck, and though luck is an essential part of life, it doesn’t justify negatively distorting the lives of everyone for the benefit of the tiny few. By definition, those who can loan money, don’t need it to survive. If every ultra-wealthy person lost all of their imaginary money tomorrow, the world would be up-and-running almost immediately, and the national debt could be forgotten.

Since money is imaginary, any debt measured in money is imaginary. People are under the misimpression that something imaginary can threaten the very survival of the nation because they have been brainwashed to think so. The reality is that the things that people actually need: food, utilities, manufacturing & protection, are needed no matter what the capitalists do. The very nature of capitalism is parasitic; markets don’t require capitialists. Imaginary money is more a convenience than a requirement for markets to work. People will barter with chickens for what they need if they have to; they don’t need moneylenders. During the time of Rome, lending money was considered immoral and unsavory because it was exploitative and arbitrary. The basic fact is, the National Debt isn’t really a debt at all; it’s the distortion caused by the imaginary nature of money, and the people who worry about it aren’t very imaginative because creative people can imagine a simple way out of debt. For example, if a new imaginary currency was created, say a cryptocurrency, the U.S. could create an amount of cryptocurrency that equals the debt, and pay its creditors with it. They could legitimize the crypto by allowing it to be used to pay taxes, tariffs, fines, and any other payments to the government. The people who would receive this new imaginary money would be the same ones that everyone else used to owe debt to, and they could remain imaginarily ultra-wealthy.

Let’s learn about happiness: 1. It’s a relief to know that happiness can be controlled. 2. Happiness is objective because it can be measured. 3. The components of happiness are common and easy to comprehend. 4. Serotonin is the “happiness hormone.” 5. Dopamine is the “motivation molecule.” 6. Unhappiness is actually low happiness. 7. You can be both dissatisfied and contented at the same time. 8. If you can buy it, it’s not an achievement. 9. Insight makes you smarter and happier. You may get your news somewhere else but take your advice from me, the Wysest Myn in the Wyrld.

Insight is the ability to perceive something clearly & deeply. Examples include: a sudden understanding of a complex situation or problem, understanding the significance of an event or action, and understanding the cause and effect within a particular context, Essentially, insight is the best way to learn more about a subject, and about life in general. Insight is not merely intellectual; it’s an epiphany born from direct experience that reorganizes our emotional world, increasing flexibility, self-efficacy, hope and self-compassion. Insight can revise self-narratives and motivate behavioral change. Some insights arise from an experience first, which is then analyzed internally as to cause and effect. These insights can emerge out of doing something new or turning inwards and analyzing your past thoughts, feelings, reactions & behaviors, jostling old narratives for reinterpretation. Other insights are more cerebral, starting with a “why” question and then trying to answer it. Because of all these mindful exercises, insight increases cognitive flexibility, a substantial component of mental health, because at the core of psychological problems is rigidity: fixed narratives and behavioral patterns that keep people trapped in unprofitable thinking patterns. New insights revise our existing conceptual framework to resolve impasses and suggests alternative ways forward. This is why insights typically settle us and generate hope, which is an aspect of optimism, a positive component of happiness. Insight and self-awareness are closely correlated to each other, and self-awareness also increases happiness.

A lot of people equate purchasing something as an accomplishment. A person who goes on an expensive vacation is not the same as a person who backpacks around the world, nor are people who buy a house similar to a person who builds a house, nor is a person who buys a classic car versus a person who repairs their own car. This misconception of buying versus doing is rampant among people who have money through some kind of manipulation of the financial system, but the difference is clearly recognized by people who actually produce something real. As irritating as it is for a doer to listen to a buyer, there are people who accumulate their money as if that’s accomplishment enough. At least a buyer gets something from their money. They might even be able to buy some happiness: the satisfaction of ownership, the pride that comes with the acquisition of a life-long goal, or savoring the envy of others. However, there is a deeper satisfaction that can’t be bought, the kind that can only come from accomplishments which is more valuable than money. Money can easily be taken away from you but accomplishments are forever. In fact, the ultimate purpose of money should be to use it to achieve something. The worst people are those who, out of their own sense inadequacy, dismiss the accomplishments of others while wallowing in rewards that can be purchased. A common refrain from these kind of people is “I could have done too too if I had the time, inclination, money & luck,” thereby trivializing the accomplishment. In response, a doer can be just as dismissive of purchased pride by saying, “You can buy that.”

“Contented” and “satisfied” are similar terms that add to happiness, but contented refers to a state of being at peace with one's current circumstances, while satisfied is a feeling of gratification after achieving a goal. You can be dissatisfied but still be contented; you have the intellectual abilities to take what you have rather than fulminate on what you wanted. You want to be rich but not being broke is enough; you wanted to be head of a business but being head of your own family has a lot of fulfillment too; you wanted to travel the world but at least you’ve had relaxing vacations. Wisdom is not letting vague & naive goals take precedence over the reality of your situation, and often a mature version of those youthful goals is always within your grasp if you’re creative enough. Satisfaction is more difficult to obtain since you have to actively achieve something rather than simply coping with what you have. Satisfaction requires accomplishment of goals, and goals require ambition. Because of ambition, which comes from testosterone, humanity flourished; if an opportunity exists to be exploited then, men especially, are anxious to pursue it. Unfortunately, that striving causes anxiety, which subtracts from happiness, and a person can paradoxically reduce their happiness while trying to increase it. That’s why the idea of living on a deserted island by yourself seems so appealing because no one is in control and there are few opportunities available, hence, nothing to be anxious about; you can be content but not satisfied.

Unhappy is not the opposite of happy; it’s actually the dissatisfaction with the level of happiness one possesses. There are lots of things that affect one’s happiness: the death of a loved one, dire circumstances, rejection, and physical ailments; but these only subtract from one’s innate happiness. Except for someone in the depths of psychiatric depression, everyone has some amount of happiness if they’re self-aware enough to recognize it; something as basic as simply being alive, or the lack of things like despair, misery & anguish. Perversity, a person who is deeply satisfied at the discomfort of others out of sadism, spite or schadenfreude, also plays a part in unhappiness because unhappy people resent happy people and revel in their troubles. It’s the reason that perceptibly evil people are happy, because they obtain their happiness at the expense of others. Coping is another mechanism for unhappy people to alleviate their anxiety; for example, some people are pessimistic by nature because it reduces their anxiety due to lowering expectations. Masochism seems like it would make people unhappy but they cope by subconsciously redefining their discomfort into happiness. In this way, unhappiness explains a lot of antisocial behaviors.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter found in the brain that aids in several aspects of brain function, most importantly, happiness. It’s involved in many functions, like reward, enthusiasm, memory, attention & regulation of body movements, so-much-so that it is called the “motivation molecule.” It also reduces fear, increases tolerance to pain, increases both verbal and artistic creativity, and improves cognition. Poetically, seeing the sun triggers a dopamine burst, the brighter the better. The most ubiquitous dopamine trigger is caffeine, often in the form of coffee, soda and energy drinks. That’s why coffee has the reputation for starting the day off. Beer, because it contains uridine, is also a dopamine trigger. Interestingly, cold water immersion causes a significant increase in dopamine levels. Another well known technique to stimulate dopamine is meditation. The dopamine that was released during the day in the pursuit of happiness is returned to the nerve synapses where it originated during sleep, so the amount and quality of sleep one gets is important. Even one sleepless night can significantly raise the presence of dopamine in your brain, which is how the brain is able to keep the body awake despite your urge to sleep. The result of sleep deprivation is a decline in mental acuity and fatigue, the inability to get a dopamine burst during activities that would usually supply it. Too much dopamine exacerbates impulsivity, overactive behavior and addiction. Too little dopamine, on the other hand, is the cause of Parkinson’s and anxiety. A high protein diet and exercise are needed to maintain healthy levels of dopamine.

It’s not a coincidence that serotonin is often referred to as the "happiness hormone" because it is the source of contentment, the baseline level of happiness. It carries signals among nerve cells throughout your body. Serotonin also regulates blood pressure, temperature, neural development, sleep, digestion, appetite & libido. Serotonin is targeted by several antidepressants, most notably, SSRIs & SNRIs which block its reabsorption in nerve synapses to elevate its levels. Serotonin is found in nearly all bilateral animals, including insects, spiders and worms, and also occurs in fungi and plants. In plants and insect venom, it serves a defensive function by inducing pain. 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut, with a smaller amount synthesized in the brain. There are natural ways to boost serotonin levels; for example, consuming foods rich in tryptophan, such as turkey, eggs, nuts, and oily fatty fish like salmon & tuna. Exercise and exposure to natural light also promote its production; in fact, light therapy is often used to treat seasonal affective disorder. Too much serotonin causes heavy sweating, flushing, and in the long term, osteoporosis. If you eat something toxic, your gut responds by releasing excess serotonin to hurry the toxin out of your body via diarrhea. Similarly, serotonin released by pathogenic amoebae in fruit causes diarrhea, stimulating better seed dispersal. Melatonin, known as the “sleep hormone,” is derived from serotonin, so too much or too little serotonin will affect sleep patterns. The dietary supplements used to increase serotonin are: 5-HTP, probiotics, pure tryptophan, SAMe, and the herb, St. John’s wort.

Happiness can be expressed by objective equations; for example: Happiness = contentment + self-awareness X (satisfaction + optimism) - anxiety – stress. Some of these concepts can be further broken down into lower-level components; for example: Contentment = peace + tranquility, where peace is the absence of disturbance, and tranquility is calmness & serenity. Further analysis reveals that: satisfaction = accomplishment + control. People usually get satisfaction when a goal is achieved, but it also comes from spite, perversity & masochism; however, its main source comes from being in control of your life. Satisfaction requires self-awareness; something some people don’t have, particularly children. Self-awareness = perception X discernment. Self-awareness is also the most important ingredient for wisdom, where wisdom = self-awareness X depth & breath of knowledge and experience. Anxiety comes from past memories; children have no past; yesterday’s events are transitory. The myth of an amnesic waking up without remembering his past, without a problem in the world, happy as a child, is an attractive one. This is the primary motivation for a person to take thought-suppressing drugs, most notably, alcohol. Continuing with our analysis: anxiety is the opposite of optimism. Optimism = imagination X naivety X ambition, and imagination = intellect X curiosity. Optimism also requires self-awareness because people need to know what the possibilities are, which requires perception and discernment. On the negative side of the mathematical ledger: stress = obligations + misery, where misery = pain + deprivation. Misery is suffering due to physical circumstances; sometimes those are actual ailments, such as hunger, sickness or pain, but despair also causes it. While deprivation = hunger + isolation. Children don’t experience despair because they have nothing to compare their situation to; they may be suffering but they don’t know and so it has no affect on their happiness. Misery can also result from depression but that’s a psychiatric condition caused by a misbalance of neurochemistry.