Untruth and Nothing But the Truth

If honesty were such a great policy, I would wonder why we don't see more of it, except for the fact that I understand that most people, and that includes myself, don't know honesty on sight. Instead, what many people, and again, I include myself in this, recognize is what aligns with the world as they understand it to be, as it works for them and how they would like it to be. And to the degree that those things are often considered to be self-evident, things that contradict them are often seen as deliberate falsehoods. Because how could anyone understand things any differently?

In this sense, the problem isn't that people lie. It's the idea of Truth; either as it is, or as it should be.

I don't recall when it was, but some time ago, I let go of the idea that I could actually understand the truth of things. It started when my father, who was wiser than I gave him credit for, told me that the definition of "Obvious" was: "Something so crystal-clear that you're the only person who sees it." And that sparked the realization that part of everything I see is, well, me. I am the filter through which I see the world, and so I am going to see things differently than literally everyone else on the planet. For a long time, I likened this to the difficulty that two people have in seeing the exact same view of the world, because in order to do so, they would each have to inhabit the precise same physical space. Now, while that example still seems apt, it also seems inadequate to the task at hand.

I'm poor at Internet "Authenticity" because I don't naturally seek to reinforce the worldviews of the people around me. I don't know that I'm openly contrarian so much as my outlook on life tends to be just that much out-of-step with the people I normally hang around with; apparently without regard to what their outlooks are.

I've come to lack an idea of Truth, because I lack confidence in the trustworthiness of my own senses. And the universality of my experiences. That leads me to an understanding of why I find things to be true that disconnects them from the way they may actually be. I don't know whether that's a good thing or not.

Don't Think So

File under: Didn't everyone already know this?

I'm not sure why it took a group of Apple researchers to come to the determination that current generative "A.I." tools are not capable of genuine reasoning. I started referring to "A.I." as "generative automation" several months ago, as while it's, as I've said, a wonderful example of human artifice, it's pretty clear that there's no intelligence there. It's basically auto-complete on steroids.

Anyone who has used generative automation tools for real-world applications should understand that they're not capable of human-like reasoning. When I asked various LLM-driven chatbots how many grocery stores there were in Washington State, none of the tools I tested took the initiative to find numbers and add them up; and only one was able to find an answer that someone else had already created.

"The Truth About AI" is pretty much the truth about anything: The hype is just that... hyperbole. I'm not going to say that anyone who says that LLM-driven "AIs" can actually reason is engaging in hype; after all, there was the one Google engineer who seemed pretty convinced. But as someone who has simply sat through the standard accessible-to-laypeople explanations of how generative automated systems work, it was clear to me from the jump that there was no actual reasoning going on. And I've never really heard any differently, so I'm curious who was lying, and who they were speaking to. Any why they believed it. (The Medium article in the screencap is members-only, it turns out, so this is all I've seen of it.)

Sparse

One would expect a local mall to have more people in it, given that Black Friday is coming up. But while it may not be immediately evident from this photograph, most of the place was still blacked out. Only one building out of the four that made of the central mall had power. (It's not in the photo. because I was standing in front of it.)

I'm pretty sure that the stores that were closed for lack of power, and the employees that were furloughed as a result, are all going to feel some financial stress from this, even if it's not particularly much. That's a part of having creaky infrastructure that isn't often in the public eye.
 

Unlit

The "bomb cyclone" that formed near the Pacific Coast of the United States came by for a visit on Tuesday evening, and a good chunk of the region is still without power. And I'm not exactly sure why. According to Puget Sound Energy, the local power utility for the suburban area, the windstorm did a fair amount of damage to the high-tension transmission lines, and those needed to be repaired first. The current extent of the outages is unknown, because it turns out that the outage map isn't displaying things properly.

And this all speaks to my general gripe with PSE, which is that they tend to come off as unprepared for anything to go the least bit sideways. The storm that hit on Tuesday was described as a once-in-a-decade event. That shouldn't be enough to take down nearly the whole of the Seattle metropolitan area. Tree limbs falling on power lines is a regular enough occurrence that one would expect much more aggressive action to keep things clear, yet it's not unusual to see tree branches, or even whole damaged trees, effectively being supported by power lines. And the major power transmission lines through the region should be durable enough to stand up to high winds. Sure, this is not an area known for being windy. But there are times when it seems to me that any breeze strong enough to make for good kite-flying weather will result in the lights going out somewhere.

This is going to be a problem for the "Green Energy Transition." People are not going to want to give up alternatives if the electricity isn't reliable. One of the initiatives on the November ballot was about preventing the state from prohibiting gas-burning appliances in new homes, and stopping state-mandated electrification. It lost (possibly because it seemed like pretty obvious shilling for the natural gas industry), but I suspect that if Tuesday's storm had arrived a month ago, the outcome may have been different. It's one thing for the lights to be out, but the furnace, stove and hot-water heater to be working. It's quite another to be without any sort of appliances. Even as it is, I suspect that homes with gas appliances and heating will be more valuable than some people would like, and generators are going to be popular items for a while.

And the public has a role to play in all of this, as well. There's going to need to be pressure on the utility companies to prioritize resilience of their infrastructure. Otherwise, it will be something that's sold to the public at a profit, for the benefit of investors, and that expense will slow the process. And the area will go dark the next time that Mother Nature tosses a curveball our way.

Try Hard

So, a little over two years ago, I made the following observation:

But the problem with capitalism, especially as it's practiced in the United States, isn't that it's necessarily rapacious. Oftentimes, it's simply needy.

And I still believe this. Mainly because I can. I don't live in a part of the world where capitalism, even so-called "late-stage" capitalism, comes across as being actively, let alone competently, rapacious. But also because this is how it tends to present itself to me. Consider the following...

I've been the person who summoned, and paid for, a ride from Uber twice. I was on a business trip, about two and a half years ago, and needed to get to the office. It was raining, and pretty heavily and to walk would have taken more than an hour. Not having traveled outside of driving distance of home in some time, I did what I usually did; I went to the front desk, and asked if they could call me a cab. They couldn't. It seems that the rideshare operators had pretty much demolished the local taxi companies, but couldn't themselves be relied up on to turn up when the front desk summoned them for a guest. So I was on my own. With the clock ticking, I quickly set up Uber and Lyft accounts.

I wound up using Uber twice on that trip. That morning, to get to the office, and a couple days later, to get to the airport. That was it. I haven't used Uber since. This is what my "Promotions" section of my inbox looked like today.

This is what automated e-mail marketing does...

Like I said, it's been two years. So long, in fact, that when I logged into Uber today to check the dates, they weren't there. Yet Uber has been constantly attempting to get me to hail a ride or use them to order in food.

A constant stream of marketing messages, apparently in hopes that something will happen to my car, and I'll be in desperate need of something. Which, to be fair is possible. But in that case, both the nearest grocery store and my favorite Chinese restaurant are within walking distance...

One would think that after more than two years, Uber would have gotten the point that I don't need anything from them. But it's not in their interests to do so. They need growth, and that means more rideshares booked and more food delivered. And so I suspect that every couple of days, I'm going to receive another e-mail or two. Maybe forever. After all, it's been just over twenty years since I last donated to a political campaign. Another fundraising pitch hit my inbox today...

Round and Round

Here we go again. Centrist and Progressive Democrats are each blaming one another for Vice President Harris losing this month’s election. Or, are they?

Some liberals are already blaming “dumb workers for not knowing their own interests.” But sneering won’t revive the fortunes of a party that desperately needs to rebuild its bond with “the common man and woman.” There is no quick fix, said Alex Gabriel in The Hill. But the first step, clearly, is to accept that the “progressive agenda, while vital in many ways, has become increasingly untethered from the concerns of the average voter.” “Progressives aren’t the problem,” said Bob Hennelly in Salon. On issue after issue—health care, climate, gun control, housing— working-class voters prefer progressive policies to Republican ones. Those millions of votes were there for Harris’ taking, until she decided to campaign with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney and run as a Glock-wielding, pro-business centrist.
Controversy of the week: Democrats: Where does the party go from here?

Media outlets love a good conflict story, and The Week is no exception. And it’s true that it seems that every four years, the Centrist and Progressive wings of the Democratic Party turn their attentions to attempting to blackmail one another into “unity.” But if one actually reads the entirety of Alex Gabriel’s and Bob Hennelly’s columns, they're both pretty much saying the same thing: that the Democrats ignored the interests of poor/“working class” voters, and paid for it in the election. Where they differ is in their perception of the Democratic “élites” that they have each set out to criticize; Mr. Gabriel thinks that they're too Progressive, while Mr. Hennelly’s convinced that they’re too Centrist. What I’m curious about is whether they're referring to the same group of people.

But maybe that’s where the solution lies; in being able to talk about, and to, different groups of people at the same time. Both Mr. Gabriel and Mr. Hennelly are more or less convinced that the answer lies in the entirety of the Democratic Party moving either more towards the Center or father to the Left. Possibly, however, what’s needed are simply different strokes for different folks, as the saying goes.

I suspect that part of the reason why Donald Trump was able to win again was that he’s able to be what people want him to be. The Trumpists I know don’t all seem to have voted for the same person; each of them has a different priority, but all of them feel that the second-time President-Elect is the person who can make it happen.

Perhaps what the Democrats need to do is stop having two wings of their party that unnecessarily position themselves as mutually exclusive. This could go a long way towards allowing candidates to avoid needing to walk a tightrope that’s mainly geared at not offending critical groups to the degree that they “stay home” on Election day. Because it doesn't seem necessary.

It means speaking to the issues that matter most: the rising cost of living, access to quality healthcare, economic mobility, and a future that feels within reach.
“Why Democrats must seriously reconsider the progressive strategy”

“Saving the democracy must be a Third Reconstruction where people are paid a living wage—where people have health care—where public education is fully funded and where voting rights are protected and expanded.”
“Progressives aren’t the problem in the Democratic coalition”

These don’t seem as if they’re that far apart. There doesn’t appear to be an intractable conflict here. Maybe the focus on who Messrs. Gabriel and Hennelly feel are calling the shots is resulting in them, like a lot of other Democrats, talking past one another, and giving observers the opportunity to play up a conflict where there needn’t be one.

Reflections

It’s a lot easier to look outward, to blame and demonize other people, instead of looking in the mirror and seeing what we can do. It is not fun to feel accountability. It requires a mental flexibility that’s painful.
Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Washington)

A WA red-district conqueror wants fellow Democrats to look in the mirror

I was speaking to a Republican the other day, and I've come to realize why it's so painful. Washington State is the only state in the nation where Donald Trump received a lower percentage of votes cast in this most recent election than he did in 2020. Here, he slipped by about half a percent. As one might expect from what now seems to be the "bluest" state in the nation, the race for Governor wasn't particularly close; with Governor-elect Ferguson winning nearly 56% of the vote. Not a blowout to be sure, but not a nail-biter. Still, the person that I was talking to didn't seem to be particularly interested in looking in the mirror, and asking why voters in and around the Seattle area were disinterested in having Dave Reichert as Governor. Instead, it was all about how those voters were simply bad people, who didn't care about "the real issues" facing the state of Washington (those "real issues" turning out to be a series of Trumpist talking points).

It was about blaming voters, rather than taking a genuine interest in what they felt their problems were, and offering solutions that fixed those problems on the voters' terms. Which, it occurred to me, is something that is never asked, let alone demanded, of the winners in an election. Representative Gluesenkamp Perez' message was intended for national Democrats, not local ones, where their control is secure. There have been a lot of recriminations concerning the performance of the Harris campaign, but it's not like she lost across the board. Blue America was solidly in her camp; and no one expects President-Elect Trump to see what he can do to address their concerns. Quite the opposite, he's widely expected to adopt a punitive stance towards those he sees as his (and his supporters') enemies.

And this is the problem with "looking in the mirror and seeing what we can do" and why "it is not fun to feel accountability." The "mental flexibility that’s painful" is required because it demands seeing oneself as a loser. The Republican I was speaking to was more than happy to "look outward, to blame and demonize other people," because the alternative was to be a supplicant, coming to the electorate hat in hand, and asking what their votes would cost. And that's a sign of weakness that neither party's activist class (or donor class) is very inclined to tolerate. And so the parties can't really go there. Representative Gluesenkamp Perez can call the Democratic party out, because her district is primarily Red; aligning herself with their general dislike of national Democrats is going to pay dividends for her. But I suspect that if Representative Suzan DelBene were to do the same, she'd find herself with a Primary election challenger to her political left in her next election cycle.

To be sure, I suspect that Representative Gluesenkamp Perez is correct. If the narrative of this election, which is that the voters that Vice President Harris needed to turn out for her stayed home, it will be, in part, because they didn't feel that having her in the White House was going to do for them what they needed done. But the nature of modern partisan politics has created a Catch-22 in that regard. One that neither party is well-equipped to find a way out of.

Sheltered

I live in the suburbs of Seattle, in a fairly faceless town that, like most suburbs, blends into the towns that border it. Not very far away, there used to be a shopping mall. It was in the process of dying when I first moved out here in the late 1990's but, like a lot of places of the sort, took forever to finally expire. It's a much smaller set of retail stores now, and the sort of big, upper-middle-class apartment and condominium development that the towns old-timers like to complain about. (Because, apparently, anything bigger than townhomes just destroys the "character: of everything within a 20-mile radius. But actually, I suspect because they fear that density will slow the growth of the equity in their homes. Housing shortages do that to people.)

In any event, there are still remnants of the old shopping district that have yet to be torn down and turned into multi-family housing, among which is an old hotel. Long abandoned, while it awaits replacement, it's become home to a number of homeless people. Which is, basically, what you would expect. While Seattle-area weather is mostly clement, the rainy season is in full effect right about now, and I wouldn't wish living out-of-doors on anyone. Sure, they may not freeze to death, as people were wont to do in Chicago winters, but staying dry is just as important as staying warm when one doesn't have reliable access to health care. The hotel, or rather, it's current occupants, have been a source of some consternation online, as a self-proclaimed "urban explorer" wondered why they hadn't been run out of the building already. "What are homeless people even doing in this town?" they asked.

Maybe it's just me, but I find it strange to ask why there are homeless people in a place where home prices routinely hit $1,000,000, and a family needs to be making in the area of a good $110,000 a year if they want to only spend a third of their take-home on rent. (Around here, utilities are almost always extra.) What I find surprising is that there seem to be so few homeless people in the immediate area. There was a person living out of their van around the corner for a while, but they disappeared over the summer, and never returned. I'd like to think they found something better, but I'm not holding my breath on that. It's not like it's difficult to find people like shop clerks or wait staff who are unlikely to be making the $25 or $30 plus an hour they would need to afford a nearby place.

And this is the thing about living in the suburbs, either here or in the Midwest. There's a set of people who believe that simply being some arbitrary distance from Downtown wherever means that none of the problems of modern life should trouble them. Rather, those problems should be bundled into the poorer urban neighborhoods, where they need never go. It's an insularity that renders people out of touch with what's going on around them, and what other people are reacting to.

I've spent enough time wandering Seattle and the suburbs with a camera to understand that the homeless are everywhere that they aren't routinely chased out of. And some places where they are. When I first came out here, I was genuinely impressed by the number of people who lived out of doors, And that was well before the burgeoning technology industry had brought enough high salaries into the area that housing was becoming scarce. (There's a lot to be said for living in place where the elements don't constantly conspire to kill one.) And I've talked to a number of these people. They're simply trying to get by, and, for the most part, stay out the way. Maybe they do a bit too good of a job of the second.

The Flavor Says...

The recalled 46,800 pounds of Kirkland Signature Unsalted Sweet Cream Butter and 32,400 pounds of Kirkland Signature Salted Sweet Cream Butter "list cream, but may be missing the Contains Milk statement," according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

80,000 pounds of Costco butter recalled for lacking disclaimer about milk

To me, this sounds like 40 tons of butter going to waste for regulatory reasons, but I suspect that it's indicative of, well, progress. Of a sort, anyway. I understand why some "social media users" were of the opinion that it's just "common sense" that butter has milk in it, but there is such a thing as vegan butter  (which I was pretty sure that we used to simply call "margarine"), after all. And so it's possible that someone could pick up some Kirkland Signature butter, and, if it wasn't on the label, not realize it was made from milk. Because most people don't need to know how their food is actually made.

For people with food allergies, what's in something is important, but the trip from raw materials to whatever it is they're examining on the grocer's shelves is another story. And that is progress, at least of a sort. Modern societies are built on division or labor and specialization, and what we're seeing here is a result of that; the concern that there are people who need to avoid taking in dairy products, but don't know what foods they might occur in if it isn't there on the labels. And maybe they shouldn't have to; that frees them up to concentrate on whatever their other tasks at hand are.

I'm sure that at some point, people not understanding where their food actually comes from will bite them in the butt, for one reason or another. Maybe it's because they find out that something taboo (but not actually harmful) is in their favorite dish, or Soylent Green does turn out to be made of people. But perhaps people not needing to know things that are basically just trivia to them is a good thing in the short run.

In Need

Coming across signs that have been abandoned by panhandlers is nothing new. Since I started carrying a camera, I've learned to pay attention for interesting found objects, and I come across these infrequently, but not rarely.

It's one of those things that doesn't seem to really change, even if the rest of the world seems to. There are always people out in various places, sometimes the same people in the same places, begging charity from passersby in an attempt to stay something resembling afloat.

Sometimes they're alone, sometimes they're in couples, or have children in tow. Sometimes, they have large signs, crowded with text as they seek to explain themselves and their plight, sometimes, they have simply a small piece of discarded cardboard, their pleas scrawled out in shaky black marker. Some of them seem hopeful, while others are clearly defeated, and beaten down by their circumstances.

Some of them are in their usual spot with depressing regularity. Others appear once, and then only a sign, left behind, marks that they were ever there.

Chatterboxing

After the past few days of seeing posts in social media and elsewhere that open with: "I can't understand why so many people...," or "I don't know what all of these people...," or "I doesn't make sense to me that this many people...," I really just want to ask: "Have you tried talking to one of them?"

And I get that this takes all of the fun out of it, which is why there are a chorus of reasons why simple conversation is completely out of the question, but when understanding people is the actual task at hand, it does the job quite nicely.

But it means letting go of something that's near and dear to a lot of people, in my experience; the sense that their values and ideals aren't choices, but self-evidently correct obligations. That what are, when it comes down it it, aesthetic judgments about life actually reflect objective reality and that, therefore, anyone of sufficient intelligence and sensitivity should share them, and that the reasons they don't are argued entirely in bad faith. But dropping that, can lead to really useful conversations with people. I still think back with a conversation I had with a White Supremacist in Seattle, likely nearly 20 years ago now. It's not a conversation that I would have signed up for before that point, but I'm really glad that I had it. Mainly because they guy, while being pretty openly a racist, didn't see any need to be a jerk. And so we could talk, and I could really try to understand just where he was coming from.

Of course, random conversations aren't going to solve everything. It's entirely possible that they don't solve anything, really. But a little insight isn't going to kill us. And being trusted by other people enough that they'll actually listen? Well, that might actually get us somewhere.

Artless

As might be expected, there's been significant uptake of "artwork" generated by automated systems on LinkedIn. While I suspect that some people have attempted to use photorealistic images, much of it is the somewhat cartoonish, clearly artificial-seeming variety, often of dubious (at best) quality. It's the sort of artwork that one uses because LinkedIn says that posts with pictures or videos can generate 40% more "engagement" than because it actually does anything to help convey whatever point someone is attempting to get across.

All of this bodes poorly for people in the creative industries (as if the ability to have computers generate "art" on command didn't bode poorly for them already), mainly because the seeming ubiquity of basically garbage illustration seems to be an indicator that a) people will tolerate it and b) that it's getting people what they want (that 40% more "engagement" that LinkedIn touts).

Which is unfortunate, but predictable. A lot of things today seem to exist solely for the sake of existing, without much regard to quality or genuine fitness for purpose. And in that sort of environment, there's little call to employ any more people than are absolutely necessary. Which is nothing new. People have been looking to automate away other people's livelihoods for more than a century now, as a way of making, or retaining, more money for themselves.

What the current generative automated systems revolution promises, or threatens, is a way to do this on a large enough scale, to enough people, that the goose that laid golden eggs finally starves to death; thus spelling the end of companies that rely on the disposable income of the middle and lower classes (not that the lower class really has all that much disposable income to start with) in order to keep their lights on and doors open.

Henry Ford was said to have understood that his workers would make for good customers, and he wanted to pay them enough that they could afford to give a pretty good chunk of their salaries back to him in order to buy automobiles. Whether Mr. Ford believed this or not, it's long gone out of fashion, and mainly because the general public's tastes simply don't require that the work really be put in. Which will, I suspect, soon enough result in very little need for a lot of people to put any work in.

Do Keep Up

"Innovation is racing ahead exponentially—it's time to adapt quickly or be left behind."

This is a message that I've seen on LinkedIn quite a bit since Generative Automation tools started becoming big. And there are a number of different variations on it, as one might expect, like: "Ai is the future. DO NOT get left behind," "It's time to embrace the change or risk being left behind," or "Are you ready to embrace AI, or will you get left behind?"

What I've found interesting about all of these messages over the past several months or so is that they all focus on the individual. The march of technology is treated impassively, like a force of nature, and it's up to the reader to do what they need to do to keep up.

But I'm not sure that this is an accurate way of looking at it. Because people, communities and societies drive technological change. People aren't going to be somehow simply left behind; everyone else is going to make the choice to leave them behind. This isn't something that's out of everyone's control; it's a choice that people are making. And while it's true that not everyone is going to have an equal say in that choice, and as individuals, many people will have no say at all in it, there's nothing that prevents groups of people from deciding that making this into a rat race, with the hindmost being overtaken by unemployment and poverty, is a bad idea.

The point behind technology should be to make it easier to bring people along, not to make cultures of scarcity even sharper and less forgiving. The political moment we find ourselves in right now is almost entirely due to people feeling that they were deliberately left behind. And rather than blame themselves for that, they blame those that moved the technology and culture forward from underneath them. What about this present situation is so wonderful that it's going to bear repeating in another few decades or so? (If not sooner?) American society has yet to find a way to do anything positive with the level of anger and resentment that currently roils the United States (even if the currently levels are overrated), why decide that more of the same will somehow be helpful?

Another industrial revolution, where many people saw their incomes plummet, and it took generations for their families to recover, may be the future, but not because it could turn out no other way. If people are left behind, it will be because their fellows chose to leave without them. Acknowledging that may be what's needed to head it off.

Carrying On

The strange thing about Nobody In Particular is that it is no longer what it started out as. It's not really a means of communication with anyone; it's simply another in a vast sea of other blogs, and so I don't really have much of an audience to speak to. It's not really writing (or typing) practice; I'm not sure that I've gotten any better at either in the time since I started this project. (On the other hand, my handwriting is nowhere near what it used to be.) And it's not really a hobby or a pastime; in the sense that it's not something that I do for the enjoyment of doing it.

Partly, it's a discipline, although it's one that's starting, I think, to shade into compulsion. I set this course for myself, and I'm seeing it... Well, "through" really isn't the right term. After all, there wasn't a genuine goal for Nobody In Particular that I set out to achieve... I was simply feeling that I wasn't keeping up with the latest trends. It took several years, but eventually I did find my way to buying a smartphone and a tablet computer, so I could claim to have kept up with things. More recently, I've dabbled in experimentation with generative "A.I.," and have learned the awesome power of a really sophisticated auto-complete system. And throughout it all, I have relatively frequently, if not regularly, updated the weblog with a meandering series of random thoughts.

One of the original rules that I set for myself when I started this was that I wouldn't write about myself, primarily out a conviction that I wasn't an interesting enough person to read about. And, to be sure, I'm still mostly convinced that's true. But I also suspect that it's beside the point, because I write this blog mostly for the sake of writing it, not simply for other people to read it.

2025 is a bit less than two months away, and at this point, I find myself starting to make plans for whatever random project I'm going to embark on come January. And I think that this time around, it will have something to do with this blog. Perhaps I'll try to make it more of a photoblog, at least for a year. I like to take pictures, but I've noticed that without a convenient place to post them, I take fewer of them. Maybe I'll be deliberate about revisiting old topics. Given that I've been at this for nearly eighteen years now, there are a lot of options, and surely some of them could do with an updated take.

The thing about projects like this, however, is that they take on lives of their own. I find my general tone to be too much in the vein of complaining about aspects of the world that irritate me, and I've attempted to change that, to no avail thus far. So maybe whatever happens will simply happen, without any real direction from me. In any event, I will do my best to make it interesting.

Theorized

The idea of "the American Experiment" is a way of invoking the idea of the United States as being somehow exceptional, and I've already noted my general discomfort with the whole concept. But if it's taken seriously for a moment, that raises, at least for me, a question: What is, or was, "the American Hypothesis?"

American patriotism (and perhaps this is true of patriotism everywhere else, for that matter) tends towards the idealistic; it sees the United States as an ideal place, and views invocations of the reality of the situation as a form of slander. For many self-styled patriots, the idea that they have the same incentives, good and bad, as people anywhere else in the world may as well be blasphemy. And this lends itself towards a hypothesis that Americans are, or should be, simply better than everyone else. And that this state if being better translates into be more deserving.

The general problem with hypotheses of virtue is that it's difficult to cast them as aspirational; if I see myself as aspiring to, say, honesty, I first have to concede that I am not an honest person, even if I must necessarily think that I can get there. And so I think that to the degree that "the American Hypothesis" is one that a nation can ensure that strength, unity, self-reliance and virtue occur naturally in its people, it has to already have come about. And so "the American Experiment" is, more than anything else, simply the proof of that.

Which, as I noted, often means treating the messy reality of humanity as either fabricated or a characteristic of an unworthy other in the midst of the "real Americans." Election cycles have become times when those segments of the American populace with the most distrust of one another make their presence known. In part, because this how elections are won. Here in Washington State, the top-two primary system means that it's possible to have two candidates of the same party face off in a general election. And so I've been receiving mailers from backers of one Democratic office-seeker accusing the other Democratic candidate of being in league with the forces of conservatism and "special interests," because it's their candidate's only real chance of winning the contest. Still, however, the effect is to call upon people to see themselves as one of the "good ones," and to cast others as "bad people," over what are likely very minor differences in policy.

With this general election cycle coming to a close (and maybe there being a breather before the next one) the current set of arguments over what the nation is attempting to prove, to itself and/or the rest of the world, are winding down. But there still won't be a consensus on what the overall hypothesis is, and whether it's still current. So it will simply be fought out again in the run-up to the next time the polls open.