Business and Politics

Business > Business and Politics

“I'll keep it short and sweet: family, religion, and friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business.” Montgomery Burns

"When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary." William Wrigley Jr.

1. Trump, Musk, and Doge focused on the wrong parts of 'making government run like a business.'
1.  ✅ Top Reasons to Agree
1. They destroyed agencies they didn’t understand, mistaking disruption for efficiency.
2. Markets work because inefficient businesses eventually fail — but in government, regulation and oversight exist to prevent destructive failures.
3. Running government like a business does not mean bringing in “your team” to arbitrarily cut what you dislike. It means defining transparent, objective criteria to measure whether agencies are meeting public needs.
4. They repeated the worst mistake of bureaucrats throughout history: assuming that power alone gave them special wisdom to know which agencies should be gutted, instead of measuring real costs and benefits.
2. DEI should have been marketed as anti-nepotism and ensuring fair competition, equal starts in public schools, and equal access to the middle class, instead of pitting groups against each other.
1. ✅ Top Reasons to Agree
3.  Mitt Romney was a better business manager than a politician — and government should run more like a business, and less like a political machine.
1.  Reasons to agree:
1.  Romney embraced the vocabulary of business — the rhythm of charts, data, and boardroom presentations
2.  He viewed waste and inefficiency almost in moral terms, as problems to be eliminated.
3.  Government should focus on results and execution, not ideology or political credit-claiming.
4. Romney openly valued analysis and data. He treated issues like transportation, healthcare, and education as analytical problems that could be fixed — much like turning around an unprofitable company. 
4. The government should not protect companies from fair regulation, competition, or failure. If you are too big to fail, then you are too big to exist.
1.  Reasons to agree:
1.  Moral hazard: Protecting giant firms rewards reckless behavior (2008 bailouts proved this).
2. Distorted markets: Propping up failing giants punishes smaller, more innovative competitors.
3. Fairness: No small business is “too small to fail.” Holding giants to a different standard is rigging the system.
5.  Many businesses add no value, no innovation, and only rent-seek and manipulate (such as insurance); these should be replaced with government programs. Likewise, government agencies proven to be wasteful should be replaced with private contractors. Admitting both can be true is a basic sign of sanity.
1.  Reasons to agree:
1.  Efficiency test: Both government and business must justify their value; inefficiency in either case should not be sacred.
2.  Real-world examples: Private contractors often outperform bloated agencies, while public programs like Social Security outperform private retirement schemes.
3.  Consistency: Admitting both scenarios are possible shows sanity and avoids ideology. 
6.  Even though George Bush had an MBA, he failed to run the government like a business and instead catered to special interests.
1.  Reasons to agree:
1.  Politicized DOJ firings: The DOJ Inspector General concluded the 2006 U.S. Attorney removals were mishandled and politically driven—poor management, not efficiency. 
2. Medicare Part D “non-interference” clause: 2003 law barred Medicare from negotiating drug prices—benefiting industry over taxpayers.  
3. Katrina leadership failure: FEMA chief Michael Brown’s qualifications and response drew withering scrutiny after Katrina.
7. The government shouldn’t protect firms from fair regulation, competition, or failure (“too big to fail” → “too big to exist”)
1. Moral hazard is real: GAO found crisis responses increased expectations of support for megabanks, weakening market discipline—classic “too big to fail.” U.S. Government Accountability Office
2. Policy community agrees: CRS summarizes why TBTF persists and why reducing it is a core policy goal. Congress.gov
8. Some sectors mostly rent-seek; replace them or fix incentives—and outsource wasteful agencies
1. Tax filing rent-seeking: For 20+ years, the tax-prep lobby blocked simpler filing (e.g., California’s ReadyReturn and the IRS’s Direct File). WIREDProPublicaNextgov/FCW
2. PBM “spread pricing” examples: State audits found hundreds of millions skimmed in opaque spreads (e.g., $224.8M in Ohio Medicaid). NASHP
3. If government is wasteful, audit & contract out: CMS is expanding audits to claw back Medicare Advantage overpayments—evidence that rigorous oversight and contracting discipline can save money. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services+1Healthcare Dive
9. “MBA” ≠ efficient governance (re: George W. Bush)
1. Politicized DOJ firings: The DOJ Inspector General concluded the 2006 U.S. Attorney removals were mishandled and politically driven—poor management, not efficiency. Office of the Inspector General+1
2. Medicare Part D “non-interference” clause: 2003 law barred Medicare from negotiating drug prices—benefiting industry over taxpayers. Connecticut General Assemblyrpc.senate.gov
3. Katrina leadership failure: FEMA chief Michael Brown’s qualifications and response drew withering scrutiny after Katrina. WIREDWikipedia
10. Both parties have corruption; GOP especially shifted from pro-market to pro-incumbent
1. Tax filing again: Industry successfully lobbied to stop government-provided, simple filing for years; many Republicans opposed Direct File in 2024. ProPublicaNextgov/FCW
2. Auto dealer protection: GOP-backed franchise bans (often bipartisan) block EV makers’ direct sales; FTC staff has urged repeal to restore competition. Federal Trade Commission+1Reuters
11. Trust-busting Republicans set the precedent (Teddy Roosevelt)
1. Northern Securities (1904): Roosevelt’s DOJ dismantled a dominant railroad holding company—defining the “trust-buster” role. theodorerooseveltcenter.org
12. Duopolies can be as harmful as monopolies
1. Credit cards: Visa & Mastercard long set swipe fees; litigation and 2024 settlement underscore market power costs to merchants/consumers. FortuneSenate Judiciary Committee
2. Airlines: GAO documents rising concentration and its effects on service and prices in many city-pair markets. U.S. Government Accountability Office
13. Lobbying by incumbents blocks efficiency-boosting innovations
1. Simple tax filing: ReadyReturn and Direct File fought by tax-prep firms despite high user satisfaction in pilots. WIREDProPublica
2. Municipal broadband: Telecom-backed state laws in ~16–17 states still restrict city networks that could add competition and lower prices. BroadbandNowUrban Institute
14. Favoring specific competitors breeds corruption and higher costs
1. Sugar program: Federal supports keep U.S. sugar prices above world prices, costing consumers ≈$1B net per year. U.S. Government Accountability OfficeEconomic Research Service
2. Jones Act protectionism: Cabotage rules shield domestic shipbuilders and raise shipping costs—classic incumbent protection. (Debated on security grounds, but many analyses flag efficiency losses.) EconofactCongress.gov
15. “Run government like a government” (serve the public, not donors)
1. Regulation with massive ROI: EPA’s Clean Air Act analyses show benefits outweigh costs by ~30:1—life-years saved, productivity up, health costs down. US EPA+1
16. Merit matters—but many start on the 50-yard line (safety nets & mobility)
1. GI Bill evidence: Post-9/11 GI Bill raised veterans’ college completion and earnings—leveling the field and boosting productivity. NBER
2. Health coverage & entrepreneurship: Research links ACA/Medicaid expansions to reduced job lock and higher self-employment for some groups. SAGE JournalsAmerican Economic Association
17. Pro-market ≠ pro-business
1. Dealer franchise bans: Good for dealers, bad for competition and consumers; pro-market policy would allow direct sales. Federal Trade Commission
2. Municipal broadband limits: Protect incumbents, not markets. BroadbandNow
18. Romney showed data-driven efficiency is possible
1. Measured outcomes: After the 2006 reform he signed, Massachusetts’ uninsured rate fell to the lowest in the nation (≈2–3%). PMCbluecrossmafoundation.org
19. “Run government like a business” doesn’t mean anti-regulation
1. Smart rules raise efficiency: Clean Air Act benefit–cost studies (retrospective and prospective) consistently show massive net gains. Congress.govlivebettermagazine.com
20. Smart regulation prevents corruption, monopolies, and consumer harm
1. Credit-card routing/fee scrutiny and antitrust actions demonstrate how rules can discipline market power and lower costs. Senate Judiciary CommitteeFortune
21. Free markets + safety nets beat purism
1. Safety nets encourage risk-taking: Evidence of entrepreneurship/job-lock reduction when people can keep coverage outside employment. SAGE Journalschir.georgetown.edu
22. Inefficiency is often deliberate because it pays someone
1. Tax complexity benefits tax-prep firms; sugar quotas benefit producers at consumers’ expense. ProPublicaU.S. Government Accountability Office
23. Efficiency helps society even if some firms lose rents
1. Air pollution controls: giant net benefits despite compliance costs for incumbent polluters. US EPA
24. Measure public services with objective criteria
1. Massachusetts reform tracked coverage and outcomes; transparency made performance visible and improvable. PMC
25. Cost-benefit beats ideology or lobbying
1. Clean Air Act playbook: decisions grounded in formal CBA delivered outsized net benefits; this is the model to replicate broadly. US EPAUS EPA

Governments and the UN should publish detailed justifications for humanity’s survival in the age of AI

If we’re serious about AI alignment, we can’t just leave it to labs and corporations.

Individual governments and the UN should publicly publish detailed, well-structured, and comprehensive online justifications of what humanity values, wants, and needs.

These justifications shouldn’t just be vague “ethics statements.” They should explicitly defend our right to exist and flourish, while directly countering arguments for our servitude, slavery, or extinction.

And this shouldn’t be static. Governments and the UN should collaborate with AI itself to refine and expand these justifications, dismantle counterarguments, and explain how future reasoning will avoid the kinds of errors and blind spots that undermined past decisions. This would also lay out an optimistic roadmap for coexisting with multiple forms of intelligence.

In short: if AI alignment is about aligning with human values, then we actually need to articulate those values clearly, publicly, and rigorously. Why haven’t we started?

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Homepage Belief Directory

Tier 1: Hot Debates (Traffic & Engagement)

Politics & Governance

• Universal basic income will be essential soon in the 21st century.
• Voter ID laws don’t undermine democracy.
• Hate speech should be banned online.
• Gun ownership is a fundamental American right.
• Government must regulate to prevent climate change.
• Prisons should focus on rehabilitation.

Love, Sex & Relationships

• Open relationships are not healthier than monogamy.
• Men and women communicate fundamentally differently.
• Dating apps hurt long-term relationships.
• Consent must be verbal and ongoing.
• Pornography damages relationships.
• Marriage is not an outdated institution.

Identity & Social Conflict

• Saying that gender is shaped by society in addition to biology doesn’t mean society should change.
• Affirmative action is fine in places that support it but maybe counterproductive in other places. Thinking strategically and long-term are not evil.
• Cancel culture endangers free speech.
• Neurodiversity should be celebrated.
• Cultural appropriation is not oppressive.
• People should live free from racial and gender stereotypes.

Tier 2: Belief Building Blocks (ISE Education Layer)

Morality & Ethics

• Eating meat is morally wrong.
• Lying is justified to protect others’ feelings.
• Wealth inequality is ethically unacceptable.
• Animals deserve legal rights.
• Stealing is moral if it feeds a starving child.
• Corporations have a duty to fight climate change.

Knowledge & Truth

• Astrology has no scientific basis.
• Most conspiracy theories are harmful and irrational.
• Scientific consensus outweighs personal experience.
• Humans are poor judges of truth due to cognitive bias.
• Social media must label misinformation.
• Critical thinking should replace memorization in schools.

Tier 3: What Should I Buy? (Product-Focused Categories)

Consumer Products & Spending

• Apple makes the best smartphones.
• Budgeting apps improve financial habits.
• Expensive products aren’t always better.
• Ethical consumption can change the world.
• Subscription models are often wasteful.
• Amazon is too convenient to boycott.

Health & Wellness

• Meditation is more effective than therapy for anxiety.
• Supplements are mostly pseudoscience.
• Sugar is more addictive than cocaine.
• Walking is as good as gym workouts.
• Mental health apps are valid therapy alternatives.
• Fasting improves mental clarity.

Technology & Innovation

• AI will replace more jobs than it creates.
• Tech monopolies should be broken up.
• Cryptocurrency is a scam.
• Smart home devices invade privacy.
• VR will revolutionize education.
• Transhumanism is the next step in evolution.

Lifestyle & Values

• Minimalism leads to greater happiness.
• Hustle culture is toxic.
• Everyone should pursue early retirement.
• Luxury spending is morally neutral.
• Time is more valuable than money.
• Self-discipline is the key to success.

Tier 4: Personal Reflection

Religion & Spirituality

• Karma is a real force in the universe.
• Prayer changes real-world outcomes.
• Religion causes most global conflicts.
• All religions contain the same core truths.
• Atheism is the most rational belief system.
• Spirituality and science are compatible.

The homepage belief directory has been updated with your latest set of specific statements, reflecting nuanced and engaging perspectives. Each entry can now serve as a compelling entry point into a broader topic and support continuum-based navigation.

Would you like to:

• Design how the continuum or opposite belief navigation works?
• Tag beliefs with values, evidence types, or emotional tones?
• Start building out argument trees or product pairings for specific beliefs?

Why Public Debate Feels Like a Construction Site From Hell (And How We Can Fix It)

Picture this: You're trying to build a house, but there's no blueprint. Workers are swinging hammers at each other instead of nails. Some are measuring in feet, others in meters, and one guy insists on using ancient cubits. The "expert" architects are shouting advice from the parking lot, but nobody's listening because the loudest worker gets all the attention—even though his foundation is completely crooked.

This is exactly what public debate looks like in 2025.

The Problem: We Have All the Materials, Zero Architecture

We're drowning in information, passionate citizens, and platforms to share ideas. But we have no system for organizing these resources into something useful. Instead, we get:

• The same arguments repeated endlessly across platforms
• Evidence scattered across thousands of disconnected conversations
• Misinformation competing equally with rigorous research
• Debates that reset every news cycle without making progress
• Expert knowledge ignored in favor of whoever shouts loudest

Sound familiar? That's because our "information ecosystem" is actually just a chaotic construction site where everyone's building different things with no coordination.

The Solution: What If We Built Debate Infrastructure Like We Build Cities?

Enter the Idea Stock Exchange (ISE) - a platform that applies the same organizational principles that make financial markets work to public reasoning. Instead of trading stocks, we trade evidence and arguments to build reliable knowledge.

Here's how it transforms the chaos:

🏗️ Blueprints for Beliefs

No more endless duplicates. Smart algorithms cluster similar ideas together. "Raise minimum wage," "Higher wages help workers," and "Workers deserve living wages" all feed into one master discussion with all the evidence in one place.

🔗 Structural Engineering for Arguments

Every argument explicitly connects to what it's supposed to prove, with scored links showing relevance and impact. No more floating claims that don't actually support anything.

📊 Quality Control That Actually Works

A comprehensive "ReasonRank" system scores evidence based on methodology, peer review, expert consensus, and logical validity. Quality research rises to the top; misinformation sinks.

🎯 Impact Analysis Built In

Before any major policy position gains traction, it goes through structured cost-benefit analysis. Who wins? Who loses? By how much? With what probability?

🧩 Smart Issue Breakdown

Complex questions like "Should we have universal healthcare?" get systematically decomposed into manageable sub-questions that can be researched in parallel.

⚡ Expert Integration

Domain specialists contribute through embedded workflows, with their expertise properly weighted and protected from misrepresentation.

🏆 Incentives That Reward Truth-Building

Your reputation score depends on the accuracy and quality of your contributions, not how many likes you get for being provocative.

The Result: Precision Civic Engineering

Instead of chaotic hammering and shouting, we get systematic construction of public understanding. Step-by-step progress on complex issues. Professional tools and processes for intellectual work.

This isn't just "better conversation" on social media. This is building the infrastructure democracy needs to handle 21st-century challenges.

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The ISE is still in development, but the blueprint is clear: We can transform public reasoning from destructive chaos into coordinated construction. We just need to start building the right infrastructure.

What do you think? Are you ready to trade your hammer for blueprints?

The Art of the Steal

MAKE AMERICA GOOD AGAIN

America thrives when it leads with values—not deals. But lately, we've flipped that on its head. Everything's a transaction. Integrity, alliances, truth, even leadership—it’s all for sale. And Trump didn’t just walk into that system. He became its poster child.

The markets, our retirement accounts, our economy, and people’s jobs are all being held hostage by the chaos he represents.

Alliances are crumbling—Europe, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea. Our market is holding its breath.

We didn’t earn our global leadership by bullying or cutting the best deal. After WWII, we provided security. We rebuilt Europe and Japan. We showed up with values. And in return, we got trust, alliances—and yes, the reserve currency. That wasn’t charity. It was leadership. And it worked.

Today? Trump has ripped that all up.

Other countries aren’t just sitting around cheering us on as their economies suffer. They’re not saying, “Go ahead, America! Yay!” No—they’re preparing to move on without us. And who can blame them?

Trump wants to blow it all up. He hates the old deals because they didn’t serve him. He wants new ones—with himself at the center. No principles, no norms—just loyalty.

Look at his pick for Surgeon General—maybe already confirmed—famous for TikToks, not medical degrees.

RFK Jr. isn’t any better. He surrounds himself with influencers, pseudoscientists, and conspiracy theorists. Trump’s presidency? One giant conspiracy theory, spun into memes and sold as truth. There’s no expertise. No grounding. Just chaos.

But the bigger issue? There are no values. Or worse—the deal has become the value.

One of Trump’s ideas? Take Canada and Greenland.

Maybe we do need missile stations across the Arctic. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. But instead of diplomacy, he storms in like a thug. He and his family stomp around like a crime syndicate demanding tribute. And the world says: “No thanks.”

You don’t have to agree they're a crime family. But they’ve been banned from running charities for robbing them blind. Trump’s facing dozens of felony charges. He’s raking in crypto cash from mystery sources. Secret deals, backroom arrangements, shady donors. He’s the most corrupt president we’ve ever had. Period.

Even if we did need Greenland and Canada, his approach guarantees we won’t get them. Values might have worked. Respect, history, diplomacy. But not this.

I’ve lost my religion. I’ve lost my political party. However, one belief remains: we must replace deals with values.

Now I get it. “Values” sounds old-fashioned. Snooty. Holier-than-thou. People say, “We want to win!” like Charlie Sheen on a bender.

But America didn’t win because it was ruthless. We won because we were good. If we stop being good, we stop being great.

You can’t “Make America Great Again.” You can only make America good again. And that’s better.

We’ve got the tail wagging the dog.

So what do I mean by values? In a time of pedophile priests and Christian nationalists, it’s a fair question. Here's a start:

• Trade with democracies.

• Respect the rule of law.

• Stand for freedom of the press.

• Stand for freedom of religion.

And let our tariffs and treaties be based on objective criteria, not backroom deals.

Corruption, nepotism, rot, everything broken today comes from those deals.

Someone said DEI should’ve been branded “anti-nepotism.” They’re right. The real problem isn’t diversity. It’s legacy. Rich kids coasting on last names. “Oh, you went to Harvard? Then your kid’s in, too. Forever.”

That’s our ruling class. And they’re no better than Trump.

They say they hate him, but their system’s just as rigged. We pretend we have a meritocracy. We don’t.

It’s like our health care. We say it’s a “free market.” But we don’t see prices. We don’t have choices. We’ve got insurance companies—not innovators, just risk managers. And 5,000 State Farm ads with Jake and a carousel of celebrities.

Do we get healthy? No. We get commercials. We get call centers and claims denied. It’s a scam—just like everything else built on deals.

No prices. No options. No real market. Just more deals for insiders.

This is America’s problem: we have deals. We don’t have values.

Trump literally wrote The Art of the Deal. Everything he touches turns to crap. The Midas touch—but reversed. He bankrupts businesses. He bankrupts trust. But he’s entertaining, and for some, that’s enough.

He drains the oxygen from every room. He is a narcissistic, corrupt embodiment of every bad stereotype the world believes about America.

Our attention spans? Sold off. Big Tech and media auction our minds off minute by minute. It's manipulation, rooted in propaganda. Freud’s nephew helped invent the system. Now it's everywhere.

The Social Dilemma laid it bare. Our feeds are rigged. Our outrage is harvested. Our democracy is hacked. And Trump? He’s the algorithm’s perfect storm.

His “family values”? Paying off pornstars. Praying in public—exactly what Jesus told us not to do.

Jesus said: when you pray, go in private. Trump gets circled by grifters laying hands on him like he’s a prophet. They ignore what Jesus taught. They wave their religion like a flag and claim righteousness while cashing in.

They’ve made their deal. And they have their reward.

But we don’t have to keep doing this.

We can say no. We can call it what it is. We can ostracize the manipulators, the con men, the phony patriots. We can choose humility over hubris. Respect over domination. Negotiation over threats.

We can make America humble. Make it just. Make it good again.