In a sense I want to just be blogging for myself, and not really care what anyone reading this thinks. I mean I’m not doing it to grow my influence or my email list or to do some personal branding. That being said, it would be nice to know what people like and why. It’s very interesting because I read Lucas Cherkewski’s emails and he asks similar feedback on his thoughts. And I’ve never even let him know I actually read them vs just letting the email tracker fire so it looks like I read it in the analytics.
I have some people who send me their thoughts privately, and I really appreciate that, but I find it interesting that they don’t feel comfortable posting it publicly. I can understand in a sense, we all try to portray an image online and anything we put on the internet stays accessible for ever. I wonder if at a point we won’t be as fazed by some ridiculous comment someone did on Facebook years ago. I guess the US president is a good argument that we aren’t fazed by ridiculous comments at all. Or at least our base opinion isn’t going to change.
All that to say, if you have thoughts and feedback on my posts, I’d love to hear them. Publicly or privately.
(Note: parts of this are most likely factually incorrect and I’ll try to update it as people flag those to me but for the sake of brevity I didn’t start every sentence with “From what I understand” but feel free to add that when you read the post)
Recently-ish the government tried to close a bunch of tax loopholes that disproportionately benefit the rich (For the purpose of this post rich means having income greater then $100 000). The gist of it is that if you had a business (or in many cases made a bogus business who’s sole purpose is to save you money) you could delay paying taxes / pay a lower rate on income from investments. Now there was some grumbling among legitimate small business owners but it wasn’t as impactful as it might seem. The bigger concerns came from doctors.
There are a few problems at play here. The way doctors are paid is not a straight income and basically they run a business except the government decides how much they get paid for various things. So you go see your family doctor that price is fixed for what the government pays you for that. Now it gets a bit complicated but the general consensus is that in most provinces rates have not been following inflation for a while, meaning that in effect doctors have been getting paid less and less over the years. The problem then is that the doctors relied on the tax shelters to make what I think we would say is a fair salary for their work. In my view, the problem should be solved differently then not making these tax changes (They changed the changes to be that the first 50 000 of passive income a year is taxed at a lower rate and then a sliding scale to 150 000). Now we got way more complicated taxes, which of course is what everyone harps about how needlessly complicated it is. And in this case the solution should of just been a across the board increase in the fee we pay doctors. Now that sounds like a great simple solution! But the problem is that the tax changes are coming from the federal government, which (theoretically) doesn’t have an impact on what the provinces pay the doctors.
All that to say that the reason we can’t have simple and straightforward policies for anything is that they will always impact someone (often unintentionally) and we’ll then make small tweaks for that instead of trying to address how those people are impacted in a more global way.
Personally I think trying to make small changes to the tax code one at a time is a losing battle. You’ll always have people complaining loudly when they lose something. I’d argue making wide sweeping changes that would greatly benefit most people such as greatly cutting income tax for the first $100 000, increasing the Goods and service tax and including it in all prices advertised ( [this would help distinguish items that are taxed and those that aren’t [vegetables vs a box of cookies], I’d argue that we should potentially raise the tax drastically like ~15-20% but this would be pretty hard / unrealistic without more enforcement at the border), implementing basic income (even if it’s starting lower then what it “should” be), and implementing pharmacare for everyone.
The only way I think it would work would be if we communicated to everyone exactly how this change will impact them. So for example send every Canadian a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency telling them what their tax refund would of been for last year with the changes. That way it’s not a “I’m going to be paying 10% more on my ice cap but rather holy bananas I would of gotten $5 000 more (or really, paid $5000 less in taxes during the year).
This would make it really hard for special interest groups to take over the conversation since it’ll make it clear to every Canadian what not going thru with the changes would mean for them and they’d put up a fight to get those changes in.
(This also applies to Shipping Software which I haven’t blogged about yet but I should warn people reading this that I will probably be talking more and more about code and code related things)
Now I have a lot of friends who “know” who they are. Therefore, if they know who they are, they don’t need to change how they act in certain situations. Or more precisely they use this as an excuse for why they can’t or won’t do something different than what they’ve done in the past. For example, someone who has trouble committing, well they shouldn’t go on that second date with that guy because it was way too strong a connection and in the past that’s just been too hard.
Now often time people are aware that they are doing this. But they don’t think they can change. Or more to the the point, they are scared of the change. Because this would be different. This would mean they are a different person than their current self image. Even if you want this and you say you want this. It’s scary because you don’t know what this new you could be. Who is someone who commits to relationships? Who is someone who opens themselves up to others? Who is someone who ships software? Usually the answer is that its definitely not the current self.
Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom. ~Mary Ferguson
I relate it somewhat to how you feel when you are in a state of depression. Often there is this feeling that you belong “here” there is this comfort in the feeling you have. A feeling of belonging, that you “deserve” this, that this is the true you.
Of course it’s all BS, and as soon as you climb a little bit out you can see it for what it is. But boy is it fun at times to think we are a twisted soul. I suspect this is why some of the things such as the law of attraction and visualization and etc work so well for some people. It’s because it helps them break out of this thinking of this is who I am. It gives them a reason or an excuse or rather a way to convince themselves that they can change.
Really we are nothing more than the sum of our actions. If I want to be a coder, I am one if I do code, that means that small decisions every day count. I’m currently trying to get in better shape. I can easily say “I’m not someone who exercises and eats well”, well bullshit because every few hours I need to make a decision and I’m deciding that I’m someone who eats pretty well and every few days I decide I’m someone who does an exercise video or go to kick boxing. or what have you. If you want to be someone who has loving relationships with trust, you just have to do it one step at a time. If you want to be in shape you have to do it one step at a time. If you want to be someone who, well you get the idea.
Thinking will not overcome fear but action will. ~W. Clement Stone
So let’s go and make whatever today’s step is on to road to accomplishing whatever it is we want to accomplish 🙂
I try to be a compassionate person.
I try to be a good developer.
I’ve come to notice that It’s a lot harder for me to be compassionate when I have a migraine. It’s a lot harder to be a good developer when I’m tired. I think it’s pretty obvious when we think about it that various conditions can impact our behaviour (see all of marketing). But then, what can I change in my environment to help me be more compassionate? (This is the part where you give suggestions 😉
It’s a seemingly simple question. But I think I struggled with it when it got asked and then it came to me. I’m most grateful that I got treatment + meds for mental health in my 20s. Americans often idealize the Canadian health care system. And while yes it’s much better overall there are still lots of cracks that people can fall into (medications being the big one).
I suspect health and good health or having been healed when they were sick would be high on the list of things people are grateful for. It still puzzles me that while we’re always supportive of individuals we know who are sick we still aren’t all convinced that we should care for everyone. Like if your tax dollars were going to someone who was going to try to profit from getting dialysis or something ridiculous like that. It’s especially strange in the US where the cost of healthcare for everyone pales in comparison to their military budget. Regardless I think it’s something we need to keep pushing forward on. There have been some (from what I understand) positives change in the US and there are some positive ones happening here in terms of expanding pharmacare to everyone (both at the provincial and federal level). I wouldn’t be surprised if it was part of the Federal Liberal party’s 2019 campaign.
All that to say I’m always confused that healthcare for all is not something we can all agree on and prioritize given that our health is something we cherish and are so often grateful for.
I’ve complained about politics recently which is why it will probably surprise some that I just donated to the Ontario Provincial Liberals and will volunteer for the campaign.
The reasoning is that this election is very important to me in terms of the values that the OLP brings and the socially progressive changes they’ve made or are making.
Pharmacare for everyone under 25 and over 65. In a perfect world this would be for everyone but this is a really good start. I wasn’t able to afford my medication when I dropped out of college and had I not had family who could afford it I could of easily ended up on the streets.
Basic Income Trials: There are currently 3 pilot trials going on in Ontario and I basic income is I think one of the most important changes that we will need to make in our society to adapt to this generation’s industrial revolution.
2.1 Billion in new funding for mental health as well as more money in general for healthcare.
This being said, I can understand why some would be reticent to vote for them. They’ve been in many scandals, some of them truly dishonorable. So I understand anyone who feels they need to be punished for this. In that case I hope you’ll consider the NDP over the Conservatives as I feel like rolling back the Carbon tax, repealing the new sex ed curriculum, cancelling the planned minimum wage hike, and lacking support for the three priorities above (no specific policy on any of them that I know of) would really set the province back.
If you’re interested you can donate here: https://secure.ontarioliberal.ca/donation or volunteer here: https://www.ontarioliberal.ca/volunteer/
I did a talk on Mental Health for a government department recently and a few days before someone asked me “Why do you talk about mental health? It’s an important topic to talk about sure, but why you?”. The root of the question being what qualifies me to talk about mental health. It’s a good question, I don’t have a degree in psychology. I haven’t practiced counseling. I haven’t even lived any traumatic experiences, I’m just a regular person who had a relatively run of the mill experience with mental health over the course of his life.
And I replied saying that was exactly why I was talking about it. Because it’s so common and I’m not special or different. I remember before comparing my depression and anxiety to others who spoke about mental health. Roméo Dallaire, for example, talks about his depression and PTSD. And well when I read that, I was like, well, obviously he’s going to be depressed, that’s some really messed up stuff. I don’t have any of that, what right do I have to be depressed? I should be able to just appreciate life. What’s wrong with me?
Often when we talk about mental health, it’s in the abstract. Bell’s Mental Health campaign rolls around and we all post about how we support mental health and we should talk about it. I think it’s a great start, but we don’t often talk about the details and the real life implications of mental health. How ridiculous it can feel to be depressed. How much despair there can be. How painful it is. How mundane it can be and feel.
So that’s why I talk about mental health. Because I want to help normalize just plain old run of the mill mental health problems.
So the “whistleblower” Chris Wylie fell back to earth. https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/cambridge-analytica-chris-wylie-eunoia-trump-campaign it’s a shame because I was cheering for him. We worked together for, I don’t know, a year or two(2010-2011). He was a nice guy. A bit arrogant, but very smart.
He was always frustrated with how so many others inside the party just didn’t understand what data could do. He was always a few steps too far in front. I usually thought he was right but he would lose people by jumping too quickly ahead of where there thinking was at. We needed to slowly change minds, not try to blow their minds. Needless to say he would usually not get very far.
It’s strange because all of the nasty things about politics are exactly the same in those emails that Buzz feed talks about. The biggest sin of them all is the ever present “The ends justify the means” that is so prevalent in politics. His quote “Then we will cleanse our souls with other projects, like using the data for good rather than evil. But evil pays more.” is pretty much the common thinking. Destroying people’s careers, attacking people personally, releasing dodgy information to the media, creating companies to bypass election rules, making questionable uses of public funds for partisan purposes. It’s so prevalent. Often the excuse is “the other team is doing it, so we have to do it” or “We’re doing it for a better country” or “You have to pick your battles”, the last one implying that we couldn’t actually just do the right thing all the time and we shouldn’t focus on those.
I think something I fear is that it’s not just in politics. That it’s like that in many other places. I guess it really wouldn’t surprise me for some industries, investment banking for example.
It’s just become apparent to me that some people might think I’m talking about a whole bunch of secrets I might have. I’m not, all the stuff above can be found by in a few minutes via Google :).
I’ve started a grow op in my office. For vegetables. The only problem is that I’ve now overwatered by seedlings and it smells like “jungle” all upstairs. Also, the humidity is a bit high so it kinda feels like I’m in a rainforest. Except that instead of trees it’s 30 tomato plants.
Why so many tomato plants you may ask. Well… I don’t actually have a good reason. I mean, I’m telling myself it’s in case we do a community garden near my place and then I can just be like the tomato farie and give everyone a tomato plant. Don’t worry I’ve also got peas, peppers, Spagetti squash, acorn squash, butternut squash, watermelons, sunflowers. I’ve also got a few flowers, mostly Morning glories and coleus.
I’ve still got 72 empty cells so I’m going to see what else I can grow. Any suggestions?
I read over http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/todays-political-partisanship-is-hurting-canadas-best-and-brightest/ (full disclosure I’ve met Ian at least once and chatted with him a bit on twitter and had offered to do non-partisan [but values driven] work with him in the past). And I was struck by how close to home it resonated.
The toxic culture of Ottawa where you can’t disagree with anything the party you support does. You can’t have a nuanced opinion on anything. I remember exploiting this often. We created so many petitions. With https://web.archive.org/web/20130817152228/http://petition.liberal.ca:80/abortion-debate-woodworth-harper-canada-reproductive-rights-pro-choice-lucie-pepin/ being one of the most successful (I mean just look at the SEO of that url) with good intentions but certainly not fair, we intentionally positioned Harper as being in support of this motion, while in fact Harper voted against it. And on top of that, the motion calls for “a 12-member, all-party committee to study the definition of when a newborn can legally be considered a human being.” You can disagree with it, but this was a far cry from “opens the possibility of re-criminalizing abortion.” As we put it.
The people who are promoted and idealized in party politics are unwavering zealots that senior staff could count on to repeat the talking points. It’s very sad in a sense. But while lot’s of people will blame politicians, or the staffers, I think we should look inside ourselves to see where the problem lies.
Everytime we jump to conclusion, everytime we stick to what we know and dismiss the other opinion out of hand, everytime we try to shout down things we don’t like and stick to things we do, we enable it. This can be very simple things like pressing like on a FB post that by reading the title we know we agree with to arguing with others and not leading with compassion / giving them the benefit of the doubt.
It’s easy to blame others for this. But the media, FB, twitter, are just giving us what we tell them we want by our actions. The only way for this to change, is for each of us to change.
