Acting with History in Mind

I've mostly stayed out of the furor over the high school kids from Covington Catholic school confronting a Native American protester - most everything I could say has already been said. But this article from The Root deserves to be spread widely, not just as a sarcastic takedown (which it most definitely is) but also for the attention it draws to historical and institutional racism.

Those of us on the privileged side of history need to take every opportunity to remind ourselves that we can't just look at ourselves and our immediate surroundings in isolation. There's a long history behind every interaction we have. Whether you're talking about high-profile confrontations at protest marches, or economic statistics like lower prices for black-owned homes, it's not just about what's happening today, but all the history that led up to this point. And this isn't just about how to respond at protest marches, but should influence all our actions - including the kinds of policies we support and who we vote for.

Full disclosure - I was one of those privileged white boys who had no understanding of how my actions might impact others, back when I was that age. (Case in point.) Experience and interactions with many people of varying races and wealth levels have taught me empathy, and I hope some of the kids from this incident can do the same.

How I Retired

Last January, I wrote a post on this blog about Why I Retired. A year later seemed like a good time to address the "how" portion, as in "how did I afford this?"

Here's one of those completely accurate yet almost entirely useless "easy steps" lists that you see in self-help books everywhere.

1. Make lots of money.
2. Don't spend much of it.
3. Invest the remainder wisely.

Simple, right? Obviously not, but it's a useful outline.

Step 1: Making money involves being both skilled and fortunate. Thanks in large part to good genes and upbringing, I had the aptitude needed to succeed in school and work with technology. Choosing computer science as a field of study meant that I had no lack of job opportunities, and I put in the work needed to be at the top of that field. Across my 15 years as a consultant and systems architect, I averaged around $100,000 a year.

Certainly the hard work was important to my success, but I think luck played a big part as well. If hadn't enjoyed working with technology and chosen a less lucrative field of study, or been born into different circumstances and never had the educational opportunities, I'd have had a much more difficult time making good money.

I also had several chances to take bigger risks - joining start-up firms, jumping to other career paths - but I chose to play the odds and stay on the less risky path. Could those risks have paid off with greater rewards? Sure, but it likely would have taken longer, and there's a chance I'd have ended up with much less.

Step 2: People spend money on all sorts of things, most of which never appealed to me. I don't really care for fancy cars, a huge wardrobe, a giant house, the fanciest home theater system, and so on. I do like travel and good food, but my choice of career meant that much of that was provided for me in the form of business trips. Keeping expenses down by buying economical cars, a small condo, used TV/stereo, etc was pretty easy for me. I'll admit that I did splurge on some high-end computers on occasion, but even there I'd usually build my own.

The biggest way that I kept my expenditures low, though, is by not marrying or having kids. Those are pretty important things to most people, but I'm just not built that way. I actually like living alone and I'm not particularly concerned about leaving a legacy (my brother's kids have the next generation covered anyway). Being single and unattached means that just about every line item in my budget is smaller than the average family: I need less space in my home, smaller car, less food, pay less for insurance, and so on.

It's also important to mention that even if you keep your regular expenses down, it's important to allow some slack in your budget. Everyone makes the occasional impulse purchase, or goes for a spur-of-the-moment dinner out with friends. (In my case, I tend to buy books and games that catch my eye, and make unplanned visits to brewpubs.) Have a miscellaneous line item in the budget that allows for such things.

Step 3: Investing wisely means setting up a plan for yourself, then avoiding two things: shortcuts and panic. The plan part is pretty easy since it's well-documented by just about every financial institution on the face of the planet. Take full advantage of tax-advantaged and/or employer-supported options such as 401(k) accounts. Create an emergency fund that you can access easily if needed. Split your remaining investments between long-term growth (usually stock index funds) and low-risk (bonds), starting with lots of the former and slowly moving to a more even split over time.

Avoiding the pitfalls isn't necessarily hard, but it does require discipline. By "shortcuts" I mean extremely risky methods like day trading. Sure, you can make a lot of money, but you can also lose a ton, to the point where it's basically gambling. You can also include actively managed funds in this category, which almost always under-perform index funds while charging higher fees. (I'll admit that I've fallen into that trap occasionally myself, but I've since learned my lesson.) By "panic" I mean deviating from the plan due to outside circumstances: a fall in the stock market, political upheaval, dire warnings from talking heads on finance cable shows, etc.

All of the above is what gave me the means to live my current lifestyle indefinitely. It wouldn't work for everyone, but in my case it gets the job done. Nothing is guaranteed, of course. Any number of disasters could poke a hole in my plan, but I have enough safeguards that in the worst case I should have plenty of time to get back into the work force. Hopefully, disaster can be avoided and I can stay with the plan as long as I like.

Abortion in Politics

Abortion is one of the most contentious issues in US politics today. I've made the decision to leave it off my list of issues that affect how I vote. Here's why.

Just to be perfectly clear up front, I believe abortion is morally wrong. If I was in a position where a woman asked me if she should have an abortion, I'd recommend against it. I believe life begins at conception. I don't believe this infringes on a woman's right to control her body - the control point was earlier, when choosing to have sex without birth control. (For the purposes of this discussion, I'm leaving aside situations where the woman was not in control, like rape and incest. Those are rare enough to be handled on a case-by-case basis.)

So if I believe all that, why isn't abortion an issue in my political views? My logic is that abortion doesn't outweigh any other issue that might affect my vote. My reasoning is as follows:

• From the perspective of compassion, it's difficult to ignore abortion. Regardless of where you put the beginning of "personhood," a potential life is ending. I certainly don't condone this, but I do think that there are other ways to show just as much compassion while being more effective (and efficient). Provide birth control and sex education, particularly to poor communities. Improve education and quality of life for the least fortunate, particularly children and young parents. Expand the services available to orphans. Consider all the good that can be done if the resources spent protesting and fighting over abortion was used to actually improve the lives of those already out of the womb. (It's also worth noting that the politicians most strident in support of abortion tend to want to shrink or completely eliminate funding for programs similar to the ones I've mentioned above, which I find highly hypocritical.)
• From a spiritual perspective, I believe that God will accept the innocent who had no opportunity to make their own decisions. One can argue over exactly where the line is drawn to say that a child is capable of making a decision to accept Jesus Christ, but I don't think anyone believes that an unborn child could have done so.
• From a purely logical perspective, the world does not need the additional people that would be born if there was no abortion. There are over 7 billion people in the world, and that number will pass 11 billion by the year 2100. Over 130 million more are born each year. Another 40-50 million pregnancies are aborted. There is no lack of people in the world, and the growth rate is significant. Eliminating or slowing abortion rates exacerbates overpopulation problems.
• I've heard the argument that every abortion robs the world of the opportunity to benefit from whatever that child might have done. While that may be true, I think it's just as true that the world also avoids any problems that child may have caused. From an opportunity cost perspective, I think the good and bad are pretty much in balance.
• From a political viewpoint, fighting over abortion is a losing battle, at least in the US. Viewpoints are so ingrained on both sides that making any change is nigh impossible. It leads only to gridlock.

In a perfect world, there would be no abortions. But in the real world, I believe that the good that could be done by focusing on other issues far outweighs the harm done. Focusing on abortion as a political issue - even taking it into account at all - does no good and prevents that focus from being spent on issues that could actually improve people's lives. That's why I don't let the issue affect my vote.

A For-Profit System is Terrible for Health Care

In a free market economic system, providers of goods and services succeed by maximizing their profits through the low costs and high prices. That's a fine system as long as consumers have the option to refuse the service if they think the cost is too high. Unfortunately, you can't just refuse health care when you really need it. Even in situations where it's possible to do without, you're almost always heading toward a later, larger health crisis.

There's an inherent conflict of interest between providing a service that everyone needs, and charging individuals for it. The people able to pay a premium get good service, and those who can't get less (or none). Consider public services like fire services or law enforcement. Firefighters and police officers aren't paid by the people they help, but rather from taxes levied on an entire area. They work directly for the government. It's not a perfect system, with constant struggles against corruption and bias, but on the whole the system works without a profit motive.

Here in the United States, our health care system is largely based on the profit motive. We've built a highly complex system of private and public providers, with insurance as a middle-man to manage financial risk. Some components of the system are non-profit, but they almost always do business with other portions of the system that do have a profit motive. Large portions of this system are motivated primarily by making money, conflicting with the aim of keeping people healthy. It may be possible to do both successfully in the short term, but eventually situations always come up where a decision has to be made between what's best for patients versus making the best profit.

Making the system work for most people has required the government to get heavily involved. There's tons of regulation, as well as programs like Medicare and Medicaid for those unable to pay the costs. With the Affordable Care Act, the government has also gotten involved in pushing consumers into the system, with penalties for the unwilling.

I'd much rather see a health care system that works more like the way those first-responder services are provided. For universally necessary services, the government should provide the whole system, including payment. There could still be private for-profit providers for non-essential services, like cosmetic surgery. (Similar to how private security companies exist, to draw another parallel to law enforcement.) That would cut out two huge flaws in the current system: the conflict of interest between profit and patient, and the inefficiency of the whole concept of health insurance (with no financial risk to the individual, there's no need to manage that risk with insurance).

Certainly this system wouldn't be perfect, but I believe it would be much simpler and more effective than what is currently in place. Of course, making such a change would require overcoming major resistance. The inefficiency of the current system makes a lot of money for a lot of people, and those interests are entrenched in the political system. The worst-case scenario of any possible change is trumpeted across the media (see: Death Panels), no matter how unlikely, and even honest politicians with good intentions find it hard to move forward.

I'm not sure how it would be possible to make these kinds of major changes in the US healthcare system, given the power and money with interest in the status quo. I'd certainly listen very carefully to any politician that came up with a plan, though.

Racial Tensions and Law Enforcement

A lot has been in the news lately about law enforcement and racial tensions. The past week has seen two black men killed by police officers (in Louisiana and Minnesota), and several police officers killed in Dallas by a gunman who specifically wanted to "kill white people — particularly white police officers".

As a middle-aged, middle-class white man, I don't feel at all qualified to comment on racial (or class, or gender-based) tensions. But I suppose that's actually part of the problem. When those of us not directly affected do nothing more than watch from afar, these sorts of problems never go away. So I'll say my piece anyhow.

Treating minority populations of any kind differently from the majority is a terrible execution of the freedom-based system that the United States was founded upon. All of us should absolutely be pushing to punish any such discrimination and reform the system to prevent it.

At the same time, we can't expect our law enforcement officers to ignore threats. The Dallas shootings drive home how dangerous it can be to simply be a police officer, or even just be perceived as one. Each encounter with a suspect has the potential to be harmful to the officer. Though the shootings in Dallas weren't part of a normal suspect interaction, they still serve to remind us how much risk is taken by law enforcement officers.

As with just about everything in life, the extremes aren't a good solution for either side. Officers have to be able to use some amount of their own judgement in deciding when a suspect is a threat, and how much force is needed to remove that threat. That judgement can't simply be based on the suspect's skin color, or the way they are dressed, or what their name sounds like. It's a balancing act, and there's no perfect solution.

A couple of potential actions come to mind, to move closer to that balance. Non-lethal force options, such as tasers instead of guns, would help in many situations. Improvements to the current versions should be pursued to make them useful in as many situations as possible. Upgrades to psychological screening for law enforcement officers would also be a step in the right direction, using modern techniques to maximize the chance of weeding out those most likely to engage in discrimination. Doing those screens regularly and without exception would help to weed out the few bad actors from the majority of hard-working, fair-minded officers.

Nothing is going to completely remove either discrimination (because law enforcement officers are human beings) or threats to those officers (because so are suspects). But we can and should be taking actions that move us as close as possible to the proper balance between officer safety and suspect rights.

Revisiting Favorites

I read a lot, and watch a good amount of TV (and other video). For most things, once is enough. But I find myself repeating favorites as well.

When you stop and think about it, it's a little odd that we like to revisit the same books, shows, and other types of media. There's so much to choose from that a person could go lifetimes without ever repeating themselves. A few hundred years ago, that wasn't the case...most people might see only a few books or plays in their lifetime. In the last century or two, though, opportunity to find new media has exploded. Radio, movies, television, libraries, the Internet...sources of new material are everywhere.

Part of the reason for repetition is that I'm not always looking for the same thing when picking something to read or watch. Much of the time I'm interested in something new, of course. But other times I have other goals. Maybe I'm feeling nostalgic, and wind up looking for something I first encountered years ago. Or perhaps some random event reminded me of a particular book recently. It may just be so long since I last watched a movie that I barely remember it, other than that it was fun.

There's also a comfort factor in revisiting old favorites. When you're watching or reading something for the first time, you're not entirely sure if you'll enjoy it. Maybe that movie will feel like a waste of a couple of hours, or the book that looked so promising on the cover blurb will be dull and lifeless. Can't let that fear prevent trying new things, of course, but occasionally I just want something that I know I'll enjoy.

Much of what I enjoy reading or watching involves long, complex storylines. It's not uncommon for me to go through the first part of a story when it's first released, then have to wait for the rest. If it's been a while since I read the earlier parts, I may revisit those before jumping into the latest release. Mostly this applies to book and movie series, in which releases may be years apart. I've also been known to simply avoid an interesting-looking series until the whole thing is complete, but I don't always want to wait.

Generally, I find that a second or third trip through a particular work will result in learning something new about it. Partially that's just because I can't absorb everything at once - there's always some details that slip by. And in many cases, my perspective changes once I know where the creator is heading with the story. I also find, though, that I see things differently because I've changed. Something I first read years ago in high school or college may look very different to me now, with quite a bit more experience and perspective.

So I'll keep copies of my favorites nearby, whether that be my own physical copies or easy access at the library or on the Internet. Going back to an enjoyable book or video can be just as satisfying as discovering something new.

Feeling Helpless

There are times in life when you're on the outside of a terrible situation, with no reasonable way to make a difference. It may not impact you in any significant way, but that doesn't stop the feeling of wanting to help. You'd like to do something, anything that will improve things, but you just don't have any options...you're helpless.

It's not hard to find examples of this kind of helpless feeling. I've had two extended family members and several friends diagnosed with various long-term illnesses in the last decade or so, for instance. My own personal most recent example is an Internet forum post from a person I've interacted with casually for years, mostly about video games. He's dealing with cancer in his family, describing a very difficult situation. It will likely continue for years as various treatments are applied. I'm helpless to do anything about it - we don't know one another outside the Internet forum, and even if we did there's not a lot I could do aside from listen. Any words of sympathy from me will just be a repeat of things he's heard many times before from people much closer to him. (Though I still say the words, just in case.)

These helpless situations make me sad and angry. Sad for the people who have to deal with whatever is going wrong, and angry at my own inability to affect the situation. To the point of tears, sometimes, especially if I know the people involved. And that in turn makes me feel a bit guilty. I don't really have any skin in the game, so who am I to be feeling poorly about a situation that doesn't affect me? Knowing that doesn't help, unfortunately.

Distracting myself from the situation is one option, and it actually works pretty well in truly remote cases. Wars or terrorism that is going on halfway around the world, for instance. The helpless feeling is there, but only briefly. Once the next news story comes up, or I start doing something unrelated, I can put it out of my mind. Unfortunately, distraction doesn't work nearly as well when I'm close to the situation, usually because I know someone involved.

Sometimes, I'm able to redirect the energy from the sad/angry/helpless feelings into productive outlets. This blog, for instance (though "productive" is questionable there). Or the occasional volunteer work that I participate in. I can't affect the original situation through whatever I'm doing, but I'm helping someone, and that certainly counteracts the negative feelings.

Another coping mechanism is prayer. You see some variation of the "thoughts and prayers with you" phrase more often than just about anything else in response to someone having a difficult time. I suspect I may not be particularly popular among other believers (in almost any faith) for my viewpoint on this, but prayer just doesn't help me with the feelings of helplessness. My faith as an evangelical Christian certainly tells me that prayer is important, and I do pray regularly for all kinds of things, including these helpless feeling situations. It doesn't help me feel better, though, because logic tells me that an omniscient, omnipotent, loving God already has done everything that He feels is appropriate regardless of what I have to say. I do believe He still listens - otherwise I wouldn't pray at all - but it just doesn't give me any relief from that helpless feeling.

In the end, though, what helps most in these situations is this: in the act of sharing, some portion of the emotional load is lifted from the person who is suffering. I first came across the saying "shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased" in a Spider Robinson novel long ago, and I'm sure he wasn't the first to express that sentiment. Over the years, I've found that saying to be true on both counts. The closer you are to the other people involved, the more it applies. The feeling of helplessness is much lessened when I remember that simply sharing these difficult situations benefits those involved.

A Matter of Faith

This is Easter Sunday, the day that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It seems like an appropriate day to write a bit about faith.

I believe two things that I am completely incapable of proving:

• When I die, my immortal soul is either going to be with God, or apart from Him.
• Nothing I do can win my soul that spot with God; only belief that Jesus is the only way and commitment to Him will make it happen.

Making that commitment to Jesus is what makes me a Christian. Obviously there's a lot of other beliefs implied by these two: that there is a God, that we have immortal souls, that Jesus really did the things the Bible says he did, etc. But those two are the core. No one can prove that they're right (or wrong), as humanity has no way to see past the veil of death. It's a matter of faith.

This may seem fairly simplistic, but it's pretty difficult for a few reasons. I'm a logic person. I like things that can be explained, predicted, and analyzed. You can't do that with faith. There's no way for me to gather evidence or analyze results in this area. Anything that happens around me can be interpreted either to support my belief, or undermine it. Nothing is going to prove it either true or false. It's not easy to hold faith when almost everything else in life is explainable.

Maintaining faith is made more difficult when others use their faith as an excuse for inflicting harm. The obvious example is Islamic extremists. We hear about some new atrocity regularly, most recently from Belgium. Those responsible don't share the same faith I do, but their faith is the foundation that makes them capable of those horrific acts. It makes the whole concept of unconditional belief in anything more difficult to accept.

It's also not easy sometimes to hold my faith when I see what other people do under the Christian banner. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart and mind, and the second was to love your neighbor (which is to say, everyone) as yourself. Yet many Christians battle to force everyone into compliance with their own beliefs on many issues. Birth control, treating LGBT people equally, teaching scientific theories in schools, and lack of tolerance for other religions to name just a few. That's not loving your neighbor; it's browbeating them into compliance. I'm not perfect in this area by any stretch of the imagination, but I do my best not to be involved in any way with discrimination or deprivation in the name of religious belief.

On this Easter, belief isn't that difficult, as believers around the world are celebrating one of the holiest acts in history. The rest of the time, it may not be so easy. Nevertheless, I still have faith.

Privacy and Government Compulsion

The US Department of Justice and Apple are in a legal battle over whether the company has to unlock one of their phones at the government's request. My opinion is that Apple is right, but not necessarily for privacy reasons.

The phone in question belonged to one of the shooters in the 2015 San Bernardino attack. Federal prosecutors believe the phone could hold evidence related to the attack. Apple says that they have cooperated in providing information that they have access to, such as what the attackers backed up to iCloud. But they've drawn the line at providing tools that could help to unlock the phone itself.

The natural surface reaction to that stance is "why not" - after all, the shooter is gone and his phone is physically held by the FBI. The issue, as Apple CEO Tim Cook stated in an open letter on the Apple website, is that the government wants Apple to build a tool that disables security features on the iPhone. Once they've done that, the government can order the use of that tool any time they want iPhone data. The next case might not be as clear-cut as a known perpetrator of a terror attack.

I don't have strong feelings on the privacy part of this issue. I understand the argument that any violation of privacy by the government is the first step on a slippery slope leading to a Orwellian Big Brother dystopia. I also understand the need for law enforcement to access the information of known criminals. Like nearly everything in life, I think the answer is somewhere in the middle rather than either extreme. If the government finds a way to open up that phone and get the data they need, then more power to them. (And it feels like they should be able to. There are a lot of very skilled hackers in the world, surely the FBI could find one.)

Where I do have a problem with the government's request is that they're trying to get Apple to weaken their own products. Once you've built a security-circumvention tool, that tool could end up in the hands of unscrupulous users. It also sets a legal precedent to force other companies to do similar things. Both of those things are dangerous to the public at large, not just criminals.

If any government believes that they need to have access to their citizens' information (electronic or otherwise), then they need to set up rules beforehand that allow them access. The free countries in the world don't have such access-granting rules, and likely won't because the people won't stand for it. Coming in after the fact and trying to force a company to violate their own privacy promises to the consumer is no better, and we shouldn't allow either.

Pets, Virtual and Otherwise

I've never been much of a pet person. I know plenty of people who are, and getting acquainted with their pets when I visit doesn't bother me. But having a pet of my own hasn't really appealed to me. I think I've filled that particular niche in my brain in other ways.

We had a few different animals in the house as I was growing up, but most didn't stay around long. Between various allergies among family members and our frequent housing moves, it was easier not to have them. Once I was out on my own, I just never really felt the need to get a pet. It would cross my mind occasionally, but I'd lose interest long before actually going out to get one.

I was thinking about this recently as walked past the pet supplies aisle in the store. The sheer amount of things you can invest in to keep your pet healthy and happy is pretty amazing. And that was just one section in a big-box store. Shops dedicated to pet supplies, and of course the Internet, makes the selection a whole lot larger. The investment that people make in their pets, both in time and money, is pretty foreign to me.

A bit later on, once I'd gone home and logged into a game, it struck me that I do actually have pets. Just about every role-playing game, especially MMOs, encourages you to be invested in the actions and well-being of your characters, much like keeping a pet. It's not exactly the same, obviously - you don't directly control the actions of your cat or dog, or send them out to fight dragons or soldiers. (At least I hope no one does.) And your MMO character isn't going to sit on your couch or wake you up with a wet nose. But there's a lot of parallels: work to keep them healthy, obtain toys and (maybe) clothes for them, spend time with them just playing around with no real end goal except having fun. And it can be a rough experience when you lose them (as in hardcore-mode games with perma-death, or if the plug is pulled on an MMO).

No, I don't have pet rocks. But the picture seemed appropriate.

So I guess I do understand a bit of people's fascination with their pets. Mine are just virtual. Has the benefit of less messes to clean up.

We Should All Be Absentee Voters

I vote in pretty much every election for which I am eligible, even if I don't particularly like the way the system works. I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can fairly easily make it out to the polling place regardless of when the election happens to fall. But not everyone can.

I've had to use absentee voting in the past, mostly due to work. When I was traveling almost every week, I'd request an absentee ballot. It's not a difficult process, but it does require you to plan ahead. The current Michigan rules say that you must apply by the Saturday before the election. That doesn't sound difficult, but if the reason you're voting absentee is that you're very busy with work and travel, it's tougher than it sounds.

In Michigan, you can only request an absentee ballot if you meet certain conditions (copied from those same current rules):

• age 60 years old or older
• unable to vote without assistance at the polls
• expecting to be out of town on election day
• in jail awaiting arraignment or trial
• unable to attend the polls due to religious reasons
• appointed to work as an election inspector in a precinct outside of your precinct of residence.

Nowhere in there do I see some pretty common reasons that someone might want to vote absentee. "Out of town unexpectedly," for instance. Or maybe "Kid got sick and had to stay home." How about "Work schedule leaves only a short window when polls are open, and other commitments cover the rest." And there's always "Lines at the polling place are incredibly long and I can't afford to wait for hours." Life doesn't stop just because the government schedules a single day to vote.

Several states already conduct all elections by mail, which is effectively absentee voting for everyone. This makes the most sense to me. Not only does this allow people to vote on their own schedule, it also saves a lot of hassle in setting up polling places, getting volunteers to run them, and so on. It also makes it more likely that voters will make more informed decisions, since it's easier to look up some candidate you've never heard of when you're voting at home with plenty of time.

I'd like to see a lot of changes to the electoral system, and I realize this is a fairly minor one in the grand scheme of things. But it's also a fairly easy change to make, since absentee mail-voting already exists everywhere. It's cost-effective, since it eliminates a lot of polling-place costs that should more than cover the expanded mail-voting system. But it doesn't seem to be a priority. I'd be a lot more likely to listen to a politician if they're speaking out about changes like this that improve our system.

Financial Market Instability

If you follow the financial news at all, you know that January 2016 was a pretty poor month in the financial world. Stock markets had all kinds of up and down days, trending more toward down, and there's been all sort of concern over the price of oil and the future of China. It's easy to get caught up in all the fuss.

The S&P 500 index over the last few months. That steep drop around Jan 1 sure made the news.

It's really tempting to react to what goes on in the financial world. When you see headlines screaming about a horrible day on Wall Street, or forecasting doom and gloom because oil prices are crashing, it's easy to think that you need to take some action. Of course, that's the worst time to do anything with your investments. Reacting emotionally to the news of the day is a good way to lose what you've built up over time.

Just about any financial adviser - at least, the ones who actually want to help you - will tell you to make a long term plan and stick to it. That's what I've done, balancing my investments between stocks and bonds, plus a few CDs in case of something catastrophic in the financial markets. Other than occasionally rebalancing the stock/bond ratio, I don't change anything based on what the markets are doing. Putting more money in or taking it out happens when my needs dictate, not based on market changes.

If you follow the news at all, you probably can't avoid hearing about the financial world's latest problems. But that doesn't mean you have to react to it.

Online Account Management

Almost everyone has a bunch of different online accounts these days. Email, social media, banks, shopping, etc, etc. Keeping track of all of the logins is difficult, and it's easy to fall into poor habits. In the 20-ish years since I got started with online accounts (in college), I've gone through just about all of the bad ideas. As technology changed and I learned about better options, I've improved how I deal with all my various login information.

The single worst thing you can do is use a very weak password, like the ones on this annual worst password list. Of course, that's how I started out. I think my very first password ever was "wordpass1", and it was only saved from being "password" because the system wouldn't let me use that.

Only slightly better than weak login information is using the same information everywhere. I had two standard passwords for years: one for "important" accounts like email, work, and banking; and one for everything else, like games and online forums. I'd also choose the same "security questions" on every account whenever possible. This allowed me to 1) remember my passwords and security questions and 2) not need a list of all my accounts, since if the "standard" didn't work on a particular site, I'd know it was a new site and I should create an account. The problem with this approach is that if one account is compromised, then everything else using that same login information is vulnerable.

Currently, I use the online password manager LastPass (and there are other similar products). This tool requires you to have a single master password which unlocks access to your "vault." You put an entry into the vault for each account (web site URL, username, password, even security questions and answers). That takes some work to set up at first, but you can do it over time, as you access the various sites that you use. This allows you to use a different (often completely random) password on each account, change them regularly, and still have no trouble remembering them...all you need to remember is the master vault password. I go a step farther with security questions - I'll select nonsense answers, relying on my vault entry to retrieve them at need, so anyone trying to bypass my password by answering security questions will have a really tough time. LastPass provides browser plug-ins and an Android app, which make it simple to log into sites without having to manually open the vault and copy the information into the login forms.

That's not to say that using an online password manager is a perfect solution. The master password is the most obvious vulnerability. Mine is fairly long (15+ chars) and consists of multiple unrelated words and numbers. I change it regularly. I also use two-step authentication via Google Authenticator on my phone, so even if someone guesses the password, they'd also have to have my phone (or access to my email in order to turn off the two-step process).

Another vulnerability is the online aspect of the password manager. LastPass itself could be compromised, which puts all my information at risk. I've read about the measures they take to prevent this (a good summary in this blog post) and I'm willing to accept that risk for the convenience that their service provides. For those who would rather not rely on an online service, there are other options, such as KeePass or 1Password, that allow you to keep your data locally. It's a bit less convenient since you need to share the data between your various devices, and make sure to keep it backed up. But it is more secure.

In a perfect world, we'd be able to avoid all this mess entirely, and rely on something like biometrics to access all of our online services. But that kind of thing is still imperfect and very expensive, no matter how often you may see it on TV or in the movies. For now, a password manager is the most secure solution that is also practical.

Following the News

News from around the world is available everywhere. It's hard to avoid: TV, radio, casual conversation bits, and of course the Internet. I do my best to strike a balance between ignoring the outside world, and obsessing over it.

I think it's important to have a basic knowledge of what is going on in the world. It doesn't impact my daily life in a significant way, since nothing I do will have much impact outside my very immediate area. It helps me keep an open mind, though, by seeing what is happening beyond my own little sphere. It's important for the purpose of conversation - you never know where your discussions might lead, whether they be with friends or just random daily interactions. And there's an entertainment aspect, too - some of the news is interesting even if I never actually use what I learn.

On the other side of the coin, it's not a great idea to obsess over remote events. With all the available news sources, particularly 24-hour news channels and the Internet, it's easy to spend a ton of time looking at just about any event or area. At some point, digging into the details stops being informative and becomes voyeurism.

My daily routine for maintaining the balance is to spend about an hour a day keeping up on the news. I usually listen to a half-hour of financial news (from Marketplace), watch a half-hour of local news, and watch one of the half-hour nightly news broadcasts. (Yes, I know that adds up to 90 minutes, but when you skip the commercials and a bunch of the stuff about the weather and local trial details, it's well under an hour.) I'll skim through the headlines for some news websites, too, usually while those news shows are on.

What I don't do is put on a 24-hour news channel all day, or watch wall-to-wall coverage of whatever crisis is filling the news cycle. If there's something of particular interest going on, I might spend some time looking at multiple sources, but otherwise I just need the summary from my daily routine.

Why I Retired

On the first working day after the New Year in January 2013, I pulled my manager into a meeting room and let him know I was quitting my job. Two weeks later, I was officially unemployed for the first time in 15 years. At the time, I wasn't sure what I was doing next. After three years, I'm pretty sure that it's safe to say that I've retired. (And let me just say up front that this post is about why, not how, as in "how did I afford to do this." Might do the how another day. Suffice it to say that I have the means to live my current lifestyle indefinitely. Edit: A year later - here is the how!)

The short answer to why is this: lack of motivation. I've never been one of those people who love their jobs. I didn't actively dislike it (for the most part), but neither did I particularly enjoy the job itself. Going to work was something I did primarily because it was necessary. Once my financial situation was such that it was no longer necessary, motivation to keep going fell off very quickly.

That's not to say that I didn't like anything about working in the IT industry. I traveled to many interesting places, all over the United States as well as internationally (Australia, New Zealand, India, Malaysia). I met a lot of folks that I still consider friends. I got to work with a lot of interesting computer hardware and software. I was exposed to all sorts of different environments and industries, ranging from e-commerce to warehouse logistics to laundromats to health care. All good things, at least in moderation. But they're also all peripheral to the actual job of IT systems integration, which at the end of the day is mostly about augmenting business operations with technology.

As I approached my 15th year in the industry, I found myself wondering why I continued to go into the office each day. I felt like I was rehashing the same problems, same issues, same meetings day after day. Even when something "new" happened, like bringing in a new software system or starting a new project, it was similar to things I'd done in the past. That's a natural result of spending so long in the same industry, of course, but for me it meant that I was just going through the motions. The same motions, over and over.

I didn't immediately decide that the answer was to stop working. I tried making changes at work a few times. There was an attempt to move into an "architect" role, focused more on high-level direction than daily implementation issues. Then I tried changing from systems integration development to a systems administration role. (For the non-IT folks, that's kind of like moving from working on a phone app to maintaining the phone itself.) But after a short period of adjustment, I was back to feeling unmotivated.

Some people get motivation not from what they actually do in their jobs, but from making progress up the power structure. That didn't work for me, in large part because I actively dislike managing people. In 2007, I actually left my consulting job in part because the company had been pushing me to take more of a management role. I didn't feel pushed in that direction at the job I took after that, but it was also pretty clear that there was no other advancement path.

I certainly could have set other goals for myself, rather than dropping out of the work force entirely. I considered changing to a completely different type of IT company, or a different industry altogether, or going back to consulting. But as I thought about my options, I realized that what I really wanted to do was the stuff that you find yourself describing as, "if I had more time, I'd do..."

So that's exactly what I did...gave myself that time. And for three years, I've had absolutely no complaints. I haven't really even made a significant dent in my gaming or reading backlog, to be honest, though that's not for lack of effort. I've done some volunteer work (though not a whole lot), and taken a few trips. I get to see a lot of sports and watch movies that I'd never have bothered with while I was working. I have yet to find myself with a day when I just can't find anything to do.

Not everyone is in a position to be able to retire, or would want to. But it was the right choice for me, and three years in, I'm very satisfied with the decision.

Social Credit in China

The most recent Extra Credits video is all about "Sesame Credit", the early stages of a system being set up in China to track the "social credit" of each individual. The Extra Credit folks were pretty worried about where such a thing might lead, and after doing a bit of poking around the Internet, so am I.

This isn't the first time I've heard of Sesame Credit. There was a Marketplace story about it back in January, referencing this New York Times story. But those stories made it sound like Sesame Credit was simply a credit score for China, similar to the credit rating system we have here in the USA. The main difference was that Alibaba (China's biggest e-commerce company) would be generating the scores based on their data, rather than the credit bureau system that the USA uses. Honestly, it sounded pretty good to me at the time, considering what a pain our credit score system can be, particularly if they make a mistake with your data.

But the Extra Credits video paints a picture of Sesame Credit as a whole lot more than just a credit score. It would track whether you posted things to social media that toe the party line, or things that embarrass the government. You'd get more points for buying Chinese-owned products than foreign ones. And your score would be affected by other people in your social network, so you'd have incentive to put pressure on them to "act right" to improve their scores.

Sesame Credit isn't the end-game, but rather one of eight pilot projects being watched by the government (according to this BBC article). By 2020, the Chinese government plans to use what it learns from those pilot projects and develop a mandatory, country-wide social credit system. So I figured I'd better look at the source, to see what's really going on.

Here's what the Chinese government released about this social credit system back in 2014. I admit, I didn't read that entire thing, because it's long and worded in government-propaganda-speak. I did skim through it, though, and I see plenty in there to confirm what the Extra Credits video was saying. Here's a few:

• Under "Guiding Ideology" we see "...the construction of sincerity in government affairs, commercial sincerity, social sincerity and judicial credibility." A list of "focus areas" follows which covers pretty much everything in life. Just a few samples: "finance", "e-commerce", "advertising", "health care, hygiene, and birth control", "culture, sports, and tourism", "public security", "judicial law enforcement". This isn't a "credit score" as we're used to thinking of it in the USA, focused almost entirely on finances...this score covers everything you do.
• Section V(1) is titled "Build mechanisms to incentivise trust-keeping and punish trust-breaking" - meaning the system rewards staying in line and has punishment for those who don't. 
• Also in Section V(1), there's this bit: "Establish rewarded reporting systems for acts of breach of trust. Realistically implement rewards for reporting individuals, and protect the lawful rights and interests of reporting individuals." Translation: Encourage people to blow the whistle on their neighbors.

That's some frightening stuff, right out of stories about informants reporting to the secret police in authoritarian societies. But this is worse, because you don't need the secret police. Everyone will be watching all the time through this social credit score system. And anyone in the system (that is, everyone, since this will be mandatory) will be affected by the people they know, so peer pressure is going to nudge people into line.

The system isn't in place yet, and maybe it won't turn out to be the worst-case scenario. I certainly hope that's the case. The potential is there, though, for some really dangerous limitations on people's freedom to think and act. Worth thinking about, and worth being vigilant against similar things that could happen closer to home.

Fiction and Suspension of Disbelief

I read books, watch videos, and play games in all sorts of fictional settings. Science fiction, fantasy, thrillers, mysteries, alternate history...they all have something in common. The easier they make it for me to suspend my disbelief, the better they are.

The phrase "suspension of disbelief" was first used by Samuel Taylor Coleridge back in 1817. The basic idea is simple - fiction relies on the observer willingly accepting something false. It's a pretty rare work of fiction that expects people to believe that it's actually true. For the vast majority of fiction, the consumer knows going in that they're seeing something unreal.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

This is easier in some genres than others. It's fairly straightforward to settle into a mystery set in the present day, with people you can easily believe might walk by on the street and technology that you recognize. A far-future world with aliens and fantastic machines, on the other hand, requires the observer to accept things that would never be encountered in daily life.

I find that I rarely have trouble with the sheer amount of things that a work of fiction expects me to accept. Magic, aliens, super-spies, warp speed, etc, etc...it's all good. Suspending my disbelief rarely runs into a volume limit. Give me a basic explanation of what your particular work of fiction expects me to accept, and I'm pretty likely to do so.

What I do have trouble with, however, is inconsistency. Tell me that there's a guy who can move faster than the eye can see, and has some funky ability so he doesn't burn up in the process...no problem. But then turn around and put him in a showdown with a single opponent who relies on a gun, which speedy should be able to take away before it can be fired - now we have a problem. This exact scenario has happened on CW's The Flash, which is a show I actually like quite a bit, but I had some trouble accepting that particular scene. The bigger the distance of the initial premise from reality, the more often you get this sort of inconsistency.

A well-crafted story can make things easier on the audience, by including believable reasons behind these kinds of scenarios. For instance, in that Flash-and-gun scenario, have the villain rig up the gun to explode or shoot randomly as soon as anyone else touches it. (Which is in fact what they did in a later episode.) While you probably couldn't do that in reality any more than a guy can run at light speed, having that added detail gives the viewer an excuse to believe in the scenario.

Most of the best fiction I've encountered requires suspension of disbelief just once, setting the initial scenario, and then everything follows logically from there. Harry Turtledove's various alternate history novels are a great example of this. The Guns of the South is perhaps the most famous; an alternate Civil War in which the Confederacy was given 20th century firearms. Once you get past the initial hurdle of accepting that premise, the rest of the story makes sense without forcing yourself to ignore logical holes.

By definition, fiction is going to contain something untrue, and much of the time it's something fantastic. The consumer is going to have to suspend their disbelief along the way. Really good fiction defines and explains those differences from reality in a way that the observer can understand and easily accept.

Frugal and Efficient

For the most part, I'm a frugal person, by which I mean making the most of my resources: time, money, etc. Another way to say this is being efficient in using what you have.

I've seen the words "frugal" and "cheap" used interchangeably on occasion, which is misleading. You can spend a lot of money and time dealing with problems if you always just pick up the cheapest thing, or take the quickest path. "Cheap" or "quick" can sometimes be efficient, but if you look far enough ahead, it's often not the case.

A little patience goes a long way toward maximizing resources. There are all kinds of examples. Almost anything you can buy in a store will go on sale at some point, if you keep an eye on it for a while rather than grabbing it right away. The latest technology gadget will cost a lot less after a few months. (Unless it's an Apple device.) Even watching TV benefits from waiting...let the DVR record it and skip the commercials.

Exactly what being frugal means to anyone has a lot to do with how much you value money and time. If time is most important to you, then you're probably willing to spend more in order to get something done faster. Likewise, if money is more important, you'll likely spend time going after bargains or making things for yourself. This balance is different for everyone, and it changes as your life situation evolves.

Anyone who has read very many of my previous posts is probably wondering why someone who mostly talks about reading, playing games, and watching videos cares about efficient use of resources. For one thing, being efficient is how I have time to do all those things. Also, don't confuse being frugal with setting priorities. That's a whole other topic in itself; suffice it to say that there are efficient ways to accomplish whatever priorities you've set for yourself.

Another aspect of being frugal is being satisfied with what you have. There's always a newer, shinier thing out there: better cars, nicer house, bigger TV, faster computer. It's easy to get caught up in wanting the next thing, rather than sticking with what you already have as long as is reasonable. That's not to say that you can't have new things, but plan ahead and don't pick up something new just because it's shiny.

Being frugal isn't glamorous, and efficiency probably isn't going to make you famous. But on the whole, I find that I'm much happier when I know that I've made the most of my time and money.

Voting and Representation

I believe that representative democracy is an excellent form of government. Having been born and raised in the United States, and lived here all my life aside from a few fairly short overseas trips, that's probably no surprise. What may be surprising is that I'm less sure every year that the United States actually is a representative democracy in practice.

A representative democracy has two parts. The "democracy" part means that the people control their government. (At least, those who vote do.) The "representative" part means that this isn't done directly; instead, the people choose a smaller group of leaders, who then have the actual power and control. By the letter of this definition, there's no doubt that the United States is indeed a representative democracy.

But are the people being chosen really representative of the people? That's the part that seems to be falling apart, for a wide variety of reasons. I don't pretend to be an expert on everything that goes into this issue, but I can list a few things that seem to be especially egregious problems, even to a layman like me.

Gerrymandering. This is the practice of drawing electoral districts such that one particular group, usually a political party, has overwhelming support in that particular district. This means that anyone who votes in that district who doesn't support that group is effectively cut out of the representative process. Even worse, it's possible to draw the boundaries such that one group gets more total districts, even if there are actually an equal number or even more voters for an opposing group. Since representatives have equal power no matter which district they come from, one group ends up controlling the government even if another group has equal or even higher support.

My home state of Michigan is heavily gerrymandered in favor of Republicans, as this article does a good job of explaining. In state-wide elections (i.e. US Senate, President), Michigan has consistently voted Democratic for years, indicating that the majority of voters lean Democratic; yet in district-driven elections (i.e. US Representative, state representatives), Michigan consistently sends largely Republican representative groups. Gerrymandering isn't the only cause, but it's a major contributing factor.

Party Control. The voting process is largely controlled by the two major political parties, Republicans and Democrats. They set up primary elections to choose their candidate, and voters overwhelmingly support one of those candidates. In many places, in large part due to gerrymandering, the primary election effectively chooses the representative. Third parties do exist, but they generally have such low visibility and lack of power that voters aren't even aware of them. There are options for mitigating this issue. For instance, holding a blanket primary, in which the primary process is not split by party. Better yet, a form of proportional representation would allow even small parties to have some level of representation, and if properly implemented would address some of the gerrymandering concerns as well.

Term Length/Election Frequency. We in the United States have elections regularly, choosing every type of representative from local school boards to the President of the country. There's elections every year in most places for local concerns and every two/four years at the national level. On the surface this seems like a good thing; the more often we vote, the more attention the elected officials spend making sure their voters are happy. Unfortunately, what that means is that the officials tend to look primarily at short-term actions which make them look good at election time, regardless of the long-term consequences. Often they spend more time raising funds for the rapidly-approaching next election cycle than actually governing, especially when terms are only a year or two in length. When you have to be voted into office every two or four years, it's very difficult to look out five, ten, or more years and do the best thing for the country in the medium-to-long term, especially if it causes some short-term pain.

Campaign Funding. Rules for election campaigns in the United States seem fairly strict on the surface. There are all kinds of rules about how much money can be accepted, how it needs to be reported, and how it can be spent. Those rules have been regularly weakened, though, most famously by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision in 2010. Organizations known as "Super PACs" allow unlimited funds to be spent to support (or oppose) particular election campaigns. In some cases, there's no requirement to disclose who gives the money. The reason all this is important is that the voices of those supported by the big money drown out all other viewpoints.

Issues like those I've mentioned here (and others, like voter registration restrictions), are limiting the actual representation of the will of the voters. I'd love to support politicians who are dedicated to making improvements in the electoral process, but it seems they're all busy benefiting from the system rather than trying to change it. I still vote, because I consider it both a right and a duty, but it sure feels like a useless gesture sometimes. I can certainly empathize with those who don't vote at all.