Some Unusual and Outrageous Thoughts

Sometimes, just trying to make sense of what’s going on in the world is a challenge.  So many seeming contradictions go ignored.  So much silliness just slips by.  People seem to drift along, not noticing what is not in their direct line of sight or what doesn’t agree with their preconceptions.  Consider these examples.

It’s not a bad bet that the BBC is using voice-recognition software to provide closed captioning when you see the name of the president of China (Xi Jin Ping) transcribed as “Tamoxifen Ping” once and “she’s in pain” later in the same broadcast.  I don’t think robots are ready to take over the world yet.

All hail the mute button!  I rarely listen to TV ads.  I use the mute button.  Back in the 1960s the TV just droned on, in some cases telling us how cool it was to smoke cigarettes.  The only way to avoid these commercial spots was to ignore them, using a kind of mental mute button.  The alternative would be to get up every 10 minutes, walk over to the TV and turn down the volume and wait.

Now we have remote control with a mute button, but government consumer protection and other advocates think we are unable to resist the marketing lure.  They can’t tie us to the mast to resist the Siren Song as Ulysses' crew did for him, so they must pass rules and regulations to protect us.

Before the mute button came along, when you didn’t agree with something or didn’t want to hear it, you tuned it out or walked away.  Could it be that generations growing up with mute buttons have not only forgotten how to use them, but have also failed to develop that mental mute button and are unable to ignore what they don’t want to hear or change the channel?  Perhaps we did have another options in the 60s.  Instead of turning down the volume, we could have started chanting anti-smoking slogans and holding up signs during the ads.  We could have burst into our neighbor’s house, in a holier-than-thou crusade with signs and chanting, to make sure they weren’t exposed to information we found objectionable.  What a good idea!

Autopsies of former football players show a prevalence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease “associated with memory loss, impulse control problems, depression and eventually dementia.”  It causes irritability and changes in mood and behavior.  In a discussion of side effects Harvard tells us:  “Behavioral changes are typically seen as problems with impulse control which can lead to aggressive or violent behaviors.”

How surprising should cases of domestic violence and other actions showing lack of impulse control among NFL players be when it’s only a side effect of a disease they may have?  How long before some advocacy group, defense attorney or the players union starts arguing that they are victims of a disease and should not be held responsible?  When you think of how often this defense is presented in other instances, giving people a pass because their actions are due to their disease or addiction, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.  (Perhaps the defiant kneeling before the game is merely a symptom of too many hits to the head.)

Finally, why not avoid all this fuss and debate about tax reform with one side singing its praises and the other predicting disaster for the Middle Class?  The government could easily build a simple spreadsheet-based application where taxpayers could plug in their numbers from last year and see exactly what the difference would be under new rules.  Everyone gets a personalized answer instead of relying on analysts, politicians and others talking in generalities. 

Once you know how it affects you, you can decide whether the supposed effects on others are valid or worth objecting to.  (Note:  According to Forbes and other sources about 45.3%, just under half, pay no Federal income taxes.  Again from Forbes this summer:  “Under current law, some 30 percent of taxpayers itemize their deductions, as opposed to the 70 percent who claim the standard deduction.”  So except for the rates, tax reform could affect about 30% of 54% or about 16% – with some of those possibly moving to the standard deduction (if it doubles).  Most of the rest have large mortgages and property or state income tax payments.  Why is there so much fighting about the fate of a small, mostly well-to-do minority?