Many of us have looked back on historic events where people have bravely stood up against powerful adversaries and wondered, “what would I have done?” Now is your chance to find out. It did not just start with this election; it has been that time for a long time. If you’re just realizing it now, get your ass in gear. Make yourself proud.

Collective action problem is the term political scientists use to describe any situation where a large group of people would do better for themselves if they worked together, but it’s easier for everyone to pursue their own interests. The essential work of every government is making laws that balance the tradeoffs between shared benefits and acceptable restrictions on individual or corporate freedoms to solve this dilemma, and the reason people hate the government is that not being able to do whatever you want all the time is a huge bummer. Speed limits help make our neighborhoods safer, but they also mean you aren’t supposed to put the hammer down and peel out at every stoplight, which isn’t any fun at all.

Every Verge reader is intimately familiar with collective action problems because they’re everywhere in tech. We cover them all the time: making everything charge via USB-C was a collective action problem that took European regulation to finally resolve, just as getting EV makers to adopt the NACS charging standard took regulatory effort from the Biden administration. Content moderation on social networks is a collective action problem; so are the regular fights over encryption. The single greatest webcomic in tech history describes a collective action problem.

The problem is that getting people to set aside their own selfishness and work together is generally impossible even if the benefits are obvious, a political reality so universal it’s a famous Tumblr meme. 

In general, I don’t like to discuss politics on here. I figure if you’re reading my blog, you probably have a vague idea of what my political beliefs are.

But this endorsement of Kamala Harris isn’t just an endorsement of her and her politics. In fact, there is hardly any mention of her in here.

In fact, this endorsement is an endorsement for the concept of democracy.

The key part about Kamala is toward the end, which sums up why I’m gonna vote for her:

In many ways, the ecstatic reaction to Harris is simply a reflection of the fact that she is so clearly trying. She is trying to govern America the way it’s designed to be governed, with consensus and conversation and effort. With data and accountability, ideas and persuasion. Legislatures and courts are not deterministic systems with predictable outputs based on a set of inputs — you have to guide the process of lawmaking all the way to the outcomes, over and over again, each time, and Harris seems not only aware of that reality but energized by it. More than anything, that is the change a Harris administration will bring to a country exhausted by decades of fights about whether government can or should do anything at all.

People love to say “the government is broken”, but often fail to ask any follow-up questions. You know, like "why is it broken" and "how can we fix it?"

When I see something broken, my first instinct is to figure out how it got broken in the first place. "Broken", by definition, implies there is a state of "functioning." If we want to "fix" it, we need to agree on what "functioning" means.¹

If we agree that our country is broken, then we need to agree on a vision for what a functioning country is.

When building software, there are plenty of excuses we could make as to why our system is broken. A junior engineer might blame the users. They're dumb, they're using it wrong, they don't understand the elegance of the solution we've built for them.

As you get more senior, you start to realize just how reductive and silly those arguments are. We can't control our users, and we will likely never understand them. But we can perform user testing and spend time with our customers. We learn how they actually use the software. We dig to uncover other problems they have so we can adjust our software to meet those needs.

I think what bothers me about our current political climate is that we are quick to jump to these reductive ideas which are proven to be ineffective. We have to work together and keep trying new things.

We're better than this. We all need each other, often more than we are willing to admit.

It’s a lesson I’m trying to impart on my kids. They constantly fight with each other, their feelings pouring out of them like a fire hydrant when they don’t get what they want.

I get it. It’s like The Rolling Stones said: “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try, you’ll find you’ll get what you need.”

We need America. We need to come together and curb our natural tendency toward hostility against anything that is different.

But even if you’re apolitical, I encourage you to read this excellent essay. It makes me proud to be an American at a time where it feels dangerous to be proud.

Tradeoffs exist; improving one aspect of a system can make other aspects worse. As projects grow, our control over them shrinks. Ugly truths abound, and beauty is a luxury we can rarely afford.

Knowing this, however, does not mean accepting it. Confronted with this dissonance, this ugliness, we inevitably gesture towards a better future. We talk about better design, better practices, better processes. We await better abstractions. We imagine a world in which we cannot help but make something beautiful.

This belief in the future, in an unending ascent towards perfection, is a belief in progress. The flaws in this belief — its internal tensions, the fact that it is closer to a theology than a theory — have been pointed out for centuries. It is, nevertheless, an inescapable part of the software industry. Everything we do, whether design or implementation, is oriented towards an imagined future.

This is a beautiful sentiment about software systems which could easily apply to most any system (like, our political and social systems, for example).

At the heart of today’s dysfunction in Congress — the serial ousting of speakers, the perpetual threat of government shutdowns, the inability to address pressing issues like immigration, runaway deficits or climate change — lie three political fantasies. These illusions warp the perceptions, cloud the judgment and misdirect the energies of House and Senate members of both parties. Letting go of them will be the necessary first step to restoring a functioning legislature to a country that desperately needs one.

This felt like a great summary of why we have such dysfunction within our legislative bodies.

What it doesn’t do, unfortunately, is give much of a path towards resolving this dysfunction.

I heard nothing but good things about Lina Khan when she was announced as the chair of the FTC, and I think she did a tremendous job during this interview with Jon Stewart.

Jon and Lina break down the various lawsuits that the FTC is currently engaged in, not just with big tech companies, but also pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies.

I found it interesting when Jon mentioned that he tried to have Lina on his podcast when he was with Apple TV+, but Apple told him no.

I get it, but also, why would you have hired Jon Stewart in the first place? You’ve seen his show, right? Of course he’s gonna call a spade a spade, one of the few reputable media personalities¹ who will not hesitate to bite the hand that feeds.

It’s also interesting that the FTC is often outgunned by the legal representation of the companies against which they pursue litigation, sometimes at a ratio of 10:1.

Imagine, by analogy, a virtuoso pianist at the peak of her career who looks out at the culture around her and realizes that appreciation for classical music is rapidly fading. She senses a crisis: if things continue, there will soon be no audiences, no careers in music, and no future great performances. She considers the situation so dire that she decides to step away from her instrument, if only for a time, in order to defend classical music nationwide. She gives speeches about composers in grade schools across the country, lobbies Congress for increased support for the arts, and solicits wealthy donors to sponsor classical-music instruction. Her work is noble, but it consumes her; and the crisis is so severe that her task is never done. Thus, she never fully returns to the life of music she enjoyed before. Now, when she has time to play, which is rare, she’s a shadow of her former self. Practice sessions find her distracted. Her music suffers as a result of her effort to save music.

The battle to save music is not itself the practice of music. The two activities are worlds apart. One is an instrumental good, the other intrinsic; one is never complete, the other complete in itself. This paradox occurs across domains: The battle to preserve a space for Christian worship in an increasingly secular society is not itself Christian worship. The defence of the liberal arts is not the liberal arts. And the war to save our political union from our enemies is not itself political union.

A pretty heavy article that makes a few great points about nihilism, politics, friendships, and meaning.

My only quibble is that the article makes an unnecessary leap about not being able to be complete without a relationship with God, but hey, maybe the longer I live and partake in intrinsic activities, those experiences will help change my opinion about why we’re here and what set this world into motion.

Style Guide Liberalism is only loosely connected to progressive politics. Really, it’s an expression of the worst kind of cynicism—the notion that we don’t really need to reform society or power structures but merely slap new labels on things. It’s a dodge, a pathetic sop to the left from corporations and other powerful institutions who at bottom don’t give a shit about any of this but assume that invoking on-trend progressive words and phrases will make up for all the injustice and misery they cause. As with any use of language, context is key.

Politics isn’t a per se bad. It’s a process. Making politics more productive and substantial make society better. Having people “nope” out of society whenever they get uncomfortable doesn’t help with any of the hard work politics does for things like allocating scarce resources, justice, or equity.

Poignant. I love this web comic.

Arnold Schwarzenegger:

This, to me, is not a political issue. It is a patriotic issue. When Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal,” our country certainly didn’t live up to that promise. But generations since have pushed the boundaries, bringing equality closer and closer to reality. That is the American story, and we must remember that it’s a painful story for anyone left out of the promise.

Pretty pathetic that this can’t be the message shared by the leaders of our nation.

I consider myself to be a podcast enthusiast, but I will be the first to admit that I have not listened to many of the most popular podcasts.

I've been a fan of Joe Rogan ever since NewsRadio, and I've seen some clips here and there of The Joe Rogan Experience, but I've never sat down and listened to an entire episode of his podcast. I had a feeling that his political views were more libertarian, but beyond knowing that he's a proponent of weed, I didn't know much about him on a personal level.

With that in mind, I went through the most recent episodes of his podcast to see if there was an episode that would help me learn what he was all about.

I can't be the only one in the world who thinks the political scene in 2018 is incredibly draining and makes me feel ultimately powerless. As soon as I saw that Ted Nugent was on an episode, my initial reaction was, "ugh, why the hell would I listen to this crap and subject myself to more of that same feeling?"

Before listening to this episode, here was the sum total knowledge of facts that I knew about Ted Nugent:

• He was a musician of some sort
• He wasn't popular in my Twitter bubble
• He tends to speak in brash, general, and oversimplified statements

In an effort to remove myself from my bubble, I thought, "you know what? A lot of folks seem to love Ted Nugent, so I'm gonna listen with an open mind and see what it's all about."

The episode was pretty long (over three hours), but if you've got the time, I highly encourage you to give it a listen. A few things I took away:

• I didn't realize Ted was all about hunting, and I noticed myself nodding my head in agreement during the discussions around being responsible with nature and treating the circle of life with respect.
• The discussion around the vegan lifestyle was also illuminating. I know a few folks who try to do the vegan thing, and it's interesting to look at it from the perspective of "look at the number of animals and plants you need to kill with pesticides in order to keep them off your land so your tofu can grow."
• The first hour or so is mostly Ted and Joe talking about how misunderstood hunters are. Of primary note is a part where Ted says that people think hunters are all fat, sloppy rednecks who go out and hunt down hundreds of animals at a time. He says that if non-hunters would actually talk to a hunter and see the world from their perspective, it would really make things better. I thought this was a profound point, which was made completely ironic by the next observation:
• No fewer than 50 times in this episode does Ted identify a group of people (liberals, politicians, the DNR, bureaucrats, anti-gun folks, illegal immigrants), caricaturize them, and berate them for their "ignorance."

Joe spent a lot of the episode silent, because Ted just would get on a rant and keep going. However, I think Joe did do a great job of holding Ted's feet to the fire a bit over some of his statements.

My favorite part of the episode was when Ted went to the bathroom, Joe monologued about how messed up the gun situation is in our country and that he doesn't have any answers for it. It was refreshing to hear that, since everyone seems to have an answer that wouldn't work in practice.

Like I said above, the episode was long, but I found it to be absolutely illuminating, and I will be seeking out more podcasts like this in order to make sure my perspective on life isn't being persuaded by only one type of voice.

If anything, the biggest takeaway from this episode for me was that what we need right now as a country is to find a way to come back to the table together. Social networks seem to thrive off of exploiting the worst in us as humans, and even though the first word in that phrase is "social", it has made us anything but.