David > Recent Status Updates

Arguing against 3 myths of popular vote:
1. Big cities will dominate
2. National popular vote would end our 2 party system
3. A national popular vote would benefit Democrats

Solid arguments dismantle those positions, and several collateral ones as well at the same time. "If you get the most votes, you win, if not, you lose." Seems simple enough.

Pillar 6 of caste, dehumanization and stigma. It's easier for the oppressors not to think of individuals but to apply thoughts of characteristics to a group as a whole. So eg the Nazis would shave heads of Jews, replace their clothes with ill-fitting garb, slowly starve them, subject them to cruel treatment, all making it easier to "justify" their cruel killings later.

Occupational hierarchy. The subservient class is restricted to only certain types of jobs. Even within those roles, they were supposed to know they were to avoid besting one of their "superiors," such as a black boxer knocking out a white one, which caused race riots.

Listening to the audiobook while traveling to/from Ankeny, IA.

A chapter of examples of atrocities between castes. Start with Germany concentration camp incinerations, but move on to US lynchings, burning alive, and other executions. Horrible already, of course, BUT with the added sickness of making postcards or other mementos, even arguing in front of the soon-to-be victim about who would get which body parts after it was done. Is this to be in our future, too?

The Nazis took ideas for miscegenation laws from American laws of segregation. They just didn't go quite as far, re: the "one drop [of blood]" rule.

India has a more explicit caste system that is quite similar to the one in the US, but it is not based on color. Names are a clue to which caste a person belongs.

Examination of race as a selector, as compared to, say, height. Attempts to discern between racism and casteism.

A girl named "Miss" and a retailer who couldn't imagine a New York Times writer of color. Two examples of people not staying in the container society made for them.

Oh, the direct election of the president came so close to passage in 1970, but it seems even then some kind of subterfuge made people back away from it. It never came as close to passage again, despite Bayh's reintroduction of the law in every congress for another decade. No surprise that a character like Strom Thurmond figures in a story like this.

"“No one was white before he/she came to America,” James Baldwin once said."

I.e. they were Polish, or Italian, or German, or some other nationality. In the same way, Africa has no blacks. Each person we Americans would label black sees themselves as a member of their tribe.

"None of us are ourselves." We all play a role assigned at birth determined by our skin color, a costume we can never remove.

Intro to the Principles sections.

Discussing teaching stories. Examples of connecting with a store clerk, spaceship Columbia analysis after foam broke off, ugly girl being teased, and discovery of lithium related in a movie.

Rule 5 is not to let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. You as a parent must be the proxy for the world and inflict negative consequences for boorish behavior (such as throwing a tantrum in a store).

Great story about how we came fairly close to replacing the electoral college with a straight popular vote in the late 60s, on the heels of the 1968 election where George Wallace's 3rd party run nearly caused the election to be thrown to the House of Reps to be decided. But when it came to the Senate, they couldn't overcome a filibuster. It seems some things haven't changed .

Discussion and examples of "why I am here" stories. They can highlight a character (poetry before budget discussion) , humanize with a failure story(caught out of hotel room in tighty whiteys), describe a mentor situation(taken to floor by 75YO mentor showing we resist too much), or reference a book or movie (eg The Matrix and blue/red pill).

After the Civil War, we might expect that things would have gotten more egalitarian, but no, they didn't. Briefly, there was a surge of black lawmakers, but a close presidential election with Rutherford B. Hayes led to a compromise that removed enforcement troops from the south and ushered in 80 years of white supremacy, via KKK intimidation and voter suppression tactics.

Kamala includes info from the time while her mother was declining from the effects of cancer, trying to convey how heartbreaking it was for her.

First story type: who-I-am stories. Like a time that I shined, or blew it, or a mentoring story, or a story from a movie that resonates. Like all story types described earlier, it should touch deep emotion, say of pride, or embarrassment, or appreciation.

One key for me from this section:

"Linear thinkers often get blindsided by emotional responses. They don’t have a system for anticipating “irrational” and emotionally charged responses. They think being right is enough. The truth is, facts aren’t as powerful as human emotions."

Just got a high level view of 4 buckets for types of stories to catalog (success, failure, mentoring, or movie reference), plus advice to try stories out on a small test audience who is instructed to point out the good in the story, not critique it.

Plenty of examples through time of candidates and others who disliked/hated the electoral college system. The voters in an "all or nothing" state who voted for anyone but the top vote getter in their state essentially have their votes disregarded. And it didn't take long for the displeasure to land, starting barely a decade after the Constitutional convention.

In "The Fraught Origins of the Electoral College" we're treated to many discussion points between the framers of the constitution, which seems to show that it's a compromise designed to appease southern slave states so they'd be willing to approve the new charter. About the strongest statement for this process was on the order of "the states will at least accept this method." Not high praise!