The Evil Rich

So a group of us were chatting over lunch. Well, the two other guys were talking. I listen a lot. They discussed the protests in Egypt. One of them ended with the off hand comment: we will continue having misery as long as we use money and power for the measure of success.

That can't be right. Money solves a problem. The replacement would, in the end, solve the same problem. And still not fix all of the things that you see wrong.

Let's do a little thought experiment. What would you replace money with?

John: Love, the good of mankind.

Swami: Okay, and how do I know that I'm returning as much good as I receive?

John: Why does that matter? You give as much good as you can. And take only the things that you need.

Swami: Define need. You don't need friends, a house, food from a grocery store, electricity, running water, etc. Well, actually, you do. You need those things if you accept the spiritual side of humans. Esteem, power, and wisdom relate to ourspiritual needs.

Money provides a form of power. You recognize that power in the reported corruption and discontent. Would you agree that money itself is not the issue? The issue really revolves around the use of money as power.

John: Yes, I agree with that - rich people using their power to oppress poor people.

Swami: I agree. And that is why you are so despicable.

John: Huh? What?!

Swami: Look around you. You live in a solid structure with four walls, a roof, carpet, furniture, electric lights, and running water. Many people in Africa still collect their own water from a river. You are unquestionably rich compared to those people. If all rich people are oppressive tyrants - then you oppress those poor people in Africa. You are the problem.

But you're right - that's utterly ridiculous. It's just as ridiculous to assume that everyone with more money than you is a rich, evil, oppressor. I heard of one restaurant owner who closed down for a week and took his entire staff on vacation. That's a generous person. Would you consider them oppressive?

Relative wealth does not measure good and evil. Some rich people really are jerks. Some poor really are jerks too. Likewise, some very kind people have much wealth. And some very kind people have very little. Wealth cannot measure the quality of one's character.

Character determines good or evil. Character makes one man a tyrant and another a leader. Money determines the reach of my power - not how I wield that power. Reducing reach does not remove evil. God wiped out the earth just a few generations after creating it. Their reach can't have extended that far yet. Yet the corruption was unbearable.

Wealth is not the problem. Redistributing wealth solve nothing! You still have wicked people exercising power - tyrants oppressing the people. All it does is change the expression of their control, not the fact of it.

When we exercise power, we remake the world in our image. Wicked people impose their will for harm because they themselves are broken. Proverbs 12:10 says that the righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel. A righteous person remakes the world in their image - good, healing, kind.

The same power, the same money, works good as well as evil. Our root problem is power in the hands of wicked people. Redistribution of wealth, or even denial of earthly possessions, cannot solve that problem. We have a spiritual problem and it requires a spiritual solution. That starts a whole new conversation...

Rotting Drywall

[A discussion about the recent attack at Congresswoman Gifford's rally. A friend submitted an op-ed piece to a local newspaper. He distributed said piece among some of us at work. This is my imaginary conversation about the thesis of that piece. I paraphrased his work - rather than quoting it fully.]

Steve: This country's culture of incivility contributed to the tragic shooting at the Congresswoman Gifford's rally on January 9, 2011. Our leaders should repudiate both violence and the incivility that incites it.

Swami: So this guy, the shooter, wasn't at fault? He's not responsible for what he did?

Steve: Yes, he is responsible.

Swami: Then the culture isn't relevant. He is responsible - only his actions and motivations are relevant.

Steve: No, the culture shares responsibility. It had an influence.

Swami: The same culture influences me, in the same strength that it influenced him. If culture is partly responsible, then why haven't I committed the same acts? Why hasn't everyone?

Steve: The culture has a different affect on different people.

Swami: Ah, so he's not responsible - the culture's affect on him is responsible.

Steve: No, no, he does bear some of the responsibility.

Swami: You just said that a different culture would have prevented this tragedy. Therefore, the culture is THE factor that caused it. If its absence would prevent it, then its presence caused it.

Steve: There are many factors that all contribute. Any one of them missing would have prevented this tragedy.

Swami: That's my point - he is not responsible because he does not control all of these external factors. You absolved him of personal responsibility for his actions.

Steve: I believe in personal responsibility. And the shooter does have some in this situation.

Swami: You can't have some personal responsibility. If you only have some responsibility, then you really have no responsibility. Again, the blame lays on the factors outside of your control. That's my whole point. This idea of shared responsibility merely covers a denial of personal responsibility. Syndrome, in the movie The Incredibles, says and when everyone is super, no one will be. Spread abnormality around enough and it becomes normal. Spread responsibility around enough and you blame everyone else.

This appears as the central tenet in almost every discussion: the shooter isn't the one to blame. I contend that he is the ONLY person to blame. He chose his own actions. And he chose them in accordance to his character.

This man already decided his value of human life. He willfully chose what actions he would consider right, and which were wrong. He measured his actions against the things that mattered most to him. He patterned his life around his selected values. He structured the world around him so that this outcome became inevitable. He shaped his world to make this happen. So yes, he is solely responsible.

Steve: Now wait a minute - you're saying that it's someone's own fault if they are depressed? We know scientifically that some people cannot control themselves. They have medical conditions that require medication to control. Your argument is fallacious.

Swami: So medication has a 100% success rate?

Steve: No, but so what?

Swami: What if depression has two components: physical and spiritual? By spiritual I mean intangibles such as attitude or character. Medication can only fix physical problems. Success or failure in treating depression relies on addressing both aspects. That's why even medicated people still visit a psychiatrist.

So the question becomes: does the physical or spiritual part of our nature control our actions? I think we can both agree that the human spirit causes physical actions. In other words, your spirit causes your actions.

The spirit controls the manner in which depression manifests itself. You can't choose to stop being depressed. You can choose to seek help. You can choose to follow the doctor's recommendations (or not).

The shooter made choices that brought with them consequences. He set in motion a death spiral culminating in what happened January 9, 2011. Changing external factors (e.g. the culture) would only influence the form of his expression, not the fact of it.

The culture, civil or not, did not cause this tragedy. A man's character and values caused it. "Fixing" the culture is like painting over rotten drywall.

Everyone Needs a Credit Card

Sue: You can't live without a credit card in today's world.

Swami: Why not?

Sue: Hotels, rental cars, all of these things require a credit card. You can't borrow money at all without a good credit score. It's impossible to live now a days without good credit.

Swami: Hmm, that's interesting. May I make a clarification? We're using the word credit to mean two different things.

First, credit means borrowed money. You buy stuff (rent a car, book a hotel room, etc.) with Visa's money. Visa sends you a bill. And you pay Visa back.

In the second sense, credit means any transaction that goes through Visa's computers. This meaning is what the rental car and hotel companies use. They don't care if the money comes from Visa or your bank account. They run the transaction through Visa's computer.

Life in today's world does require transactions that run through Visa's computer. Life does not require that you borrow money. Do you see the difference?

Sue: Well, isn't that splitting hairs?

Swami: Yes. And you hid behind that hair justifying a decision made in selfishness. You want all of the extra stuff bought with somebody else's money. Our sin nature justifies those actions because everyone needs to borrow money. Oops - I mean everyone needs a credit card.

Those two statements aren't interchangeable, are they? Yet that is precisely the spirit behind it. We mean borrow money when we say credit card.

Sue: Quit being so self righteous. Some of us simply can't get ahead.

Swami: Sorry, my delivery isn't the best. I purposefully switched to the pronouns we and our. I have the same problem. "Hi, my name is Swami, and I'm addicted to stuff."

I have been in that place - beaten down, hopeless, staring at a chasm of financial ruin with nothing but sharp rocks at the bottom. It stinks. I hated that place. Bad things happened there. Like every other 12 step program in the world, the first step was wanting to change.

So I split that hair. I use a debit card for hotels, car rentals, etc. No more borrowed money. I have not mailed payments to Visa for 2 years. I mailed my last check on my last debt to anyone at all a measly 4 months ago. And that money now goes directly into my bank account - accumulating. My checking account balance goes up every month! Do you know how exhilarating that is?

It can be done. You can kick the debt habit. Take the first step...

Broadband Connections

Jenni: What do all these numbers and things mean 6 Mbps/512 Kbps Downstream/Upstream? We’re trying to figure out what kind of speed we will need. Mind you we don’t have a home phone, so dial-up may not be the most affordable option.

Narrator: The numbers represent maximum speeds. 1 bit is a 1 or 0. You need 8 bits to send useful information to a computer. 6 Mbps means 6 million bits per second. For those nerds in the audience, it means exactly 6,144,000 bits sent in one second. Divide by 8, and it becomes 768 bytes in one second. So a large MS Word document taking 200 KB (204,800 bytes) would take 267 seconds – or 4 and a half minutes.

There are two directions: data you get from the Internet, and data you send to the Internet. Watching movies, looking at web pages, and reading e-mail gets data from the Internet – at the downstream speed. Upstream matters when you send e-mail to somebody, load a file to a website, or use file sharing. You will use the upstream very little. And stuff like e-mail takes up almost no space (very few bits). In other words, 512 Kbps is perfectly reasonable for home use.

Your options are cable and DSL. Cable, obviously, comes from the cable company. If you have cable TV, call and ask if they have a discounted bundle for TV and Internet. DSL comes through the phone company (like AT&T). DSL is limited by location. It may or may not be available in your area.

Remote Connections

I wrote this explanation for a client. The client had no IT staff. And they relied on the local cable company for their Internet connection. The six hour drive prohibited an on site visit.

Key terms...

IP ADDRESS

The public, numerical name of a computer.

PROTOCOL

The language used when two computers communicate.

PORT

A number identifying the protocol to the computer.

TELNET

A protocol used for real-time interaction with another computer.

ROUTER

Hardware device that connects multiple computers to the Internet.

You already know that the computers use an IP address when connecting. When I connect with your application server, I supply the server's IP address. The Internet recognizes two "types" of IP addresses: public and internal.

I connect through the public IP address. This is the IP address accessible to the entire world. It is assigned to you by your ISP. The public IP address accesses the router installed by the ISP.

Your office has many computers connected to the Internet - personal computers, the application server, etc. These connect to the router. They too have IP addresses. Their IP address begins with 192.168. 192.168 is a special prefix. It signals an internal IP address.

The router does not allow access to a machine with the 192.168 prefix. This prevents someone on the Internet from accessing the company's computers.

Along with the IP address, I also specify the telnet protocol. The protocol instructs the computers how to communicate. telnet provides commands for interacting with a remote computer as if I were sitting in front of it.

Sadly, computers do not understand neat names like telnet. They understand numbers. My computer translates telnet into a port number - 23. And then contacts your IP address saying I want to talk on port 23 (telnet).

Imagine a ship pulling into New York harbor. It docks at a port for unloading. The ship's captain speaks his lingo (protocol) with the harbor master for instructions. But one of those containers actually goes to Chicago. So the container ends up on a truck redirected to Chicago.

Comcast is doing something similar with your router. The router receives my request for port 23. The router redirects it to the internal IP address of the application server. And now I can remotely log into that machine to work.

In short, the ISP will configure the router to redirect port 23 (telnet) to the internal IP address of the application server.

Good, Better, Best

I enjoy reading Rand in Repose. I find his technique of placing people on a continuum very helpful. It describes the analog, complicated way that humans behave. Oddly, a lot of life's decisions fall on a continuum.

We call this weighing the pros and cons. You've probably done this before... Draw a line down the middle of a sheet of paper. On one side goes all of the reasons for the decision. The other side has all of the reasons against. This works well for about two minutes. Invariably, one reason shows up on both sides!

The pro/con list digitally describes the problem. Every thought falls on one side or the other. Problem is, life's analog - not digital. Your problem falls somewhere in between the extremes of all the pros and all the cons. A reason ends up on both sides because the issue lands squarely in the middle of that continuum.

Looking At Technology

So what measures do we look at for technology? The first continuum is usefulness. How well does the technology solve your problem? For example, I don't want to waste 30 minutes driving to and from the bank just to transfer money between accounts. On a scale of 0 to 100, the bank's web application receives a 90 (solves the problem). Pretty easy, isn't it?

0----1----2----3----4----5----6----7----8----9---100
                                    ----->  *

Next we look at popularity. Popular technologies have a lot of support. And their support lasts. You don't worry about it becoming obsolete in six months. In our example, the web application falls in the 90's.

0----1----2----3----4----5----6----7----8----9---100
                                      ----->  *

Last but not least, we measure freedom. Where does this technology leave me in five years? What happens when the company goes bankrupt? Our banking application plummets into the teens.

0----1----2----3----4----5----6----7----8----9---100
      *  <----- 

What!? The teens! Why? Online bill pay is cool. It saves me time. And if the bank drops it, I'm going to spend a day or two cleaning up the mess. They locked me into their service. Don't worry - no diatribes about free versus closed software. It is what it is.

Pulling It Together

Is this bank's web application a good technology? Wrong question. I really need to know, is the web application better than the alternatives?

0----1----2----3----4----5----6----7----8----9---100
                                    ----->  *
0----1----2----3----4----5----6----7----8----9---100
                                      ----->  *
0----1----2----3----4----5----6----7----8----9---100
      *  <----- 

In an ideal world, I would use a technology that scores high on all three scales. In the real world, the web application comes out fairly well. It certainly comes out higher than the alternative - driving to the bank.

I can accept the low freedom score because of the chance of it biting me is low. Good thing banks don't fail (dripping sarcasm intended).

Control and Flexibility

The scene opens with a woman crossing the street. This car comes out of nowhere and POW! She rolls off the hood, flung into the middle of the street. CUT!

Our mystery woman stands up and walks over to the director. She's a stuntwoman. Cool! She begins talking about the uncertaintity of stunt work - what's the next job, when will it appear, what risks does it involve. A sense of control matters a lot in her life. She finds that sense of control over her finances using the Chase Slate credit card.

It sounds perfect. Setup individual payment plans for different types of expenses. Pay smaller purchases right away to save on interest. I tell you, the emotion just wells up inside of me.

Narrator: CHEETAH!!!!! Cheetah, cheetah, cheetah! I warned you that the emotion wells up inside - the emotion to scream in terror. Think you have control of your finances? Miss just one payment. Then come back and tell how much control you have.

Guess what? Paying cash also saves on interest - without any risk of missing a due date.

And don't get me started on the tag line - debit card control, credit card flexibility.

Credit Card Flexibility

Okay, what exactly does the Slate Card offer that a debit card doesn't? Debit cards run through the same computer network as credit cards (i.e. you can use them in the same stores). Debit cards have the same fraud protections as credit cards (when used as credit in the store). The only difference is who supplies the money up front: you or Visa.

So credit cards are more flexible - for borrowing money! See how it always comes down to one question: will you save or borrow? There's no math involved. No comparison of pros or cons. Nothing but that one choice: save or borrow. Which one will you choose?