I am not well enough read in the workings or history of any of these three. Please correct me.

The common principles of these among other isms of governance are things we all practice, likely everyday. I’m a fan of all of three, and they all have their place.

I live in Seattle. A fringe city of outcasts and experimentation pushed to the most northwest tip of the US. An interest in Marxism has made a noted rise amongst my peers over the last decade.

Nobody needs to be taught how to practice the fundamentals of communism, socialism, or capitalism. When a parent has a baby, the provide the baby with all her needs. When a good friend is down on their luck, you may lend them favors to help that back on their feet. When my lawyer neighbor needs their lawn cut, I will offer my mower in exchange for a legal console.

However, there are massive differences between all three modes of exchange, and have to do with the fragile, very human issue of trust.

“I am, at the Fed level, libertarian;
at the state level, Republican;
at the local level, Democrat;
and at the family and friends level, a socialist.”

The less you know a particular party, the less trust should be inherently placed in them, and the less charity should be made.

To appropriately apply socialism, emotion is necessary. Distribution between family and friends are massively complicated transactions. Currently impossible to be broken down and digested into all their fundamental parts, with the seeming exception of the human brain. Emotions could be compared to the compressed summary of all the algorithms, calculations, and data the brain has processed.

Of course, this only goes so far. We live in new and unfamiliar times. Emotions must be manually honed to deal with unprecedented scales. Confusion is not uncommon when dealing with so many strangers, especially when compared to the certainty of dealing with immediate family members.

To moderate trust is the solution to dealing to dealing with the problem of scale. Low trust relationships with strangers may not be nearly efficient as relationships with friends or family. But their success rate is much higher than compared to high trust relationships with unknown peoples, unless you are a practiced judge of character.

Diversity in American has exponentially grown the need for low trust relationships. Different thinkings need time to learn of eachother before useful transactions can happen.

The moral battle between warm-blooded socialism and reptilian capitalism.

Socialism/Communism is massively appealing. If feels really, really, good to offer up your own charity to someone else. The pragmatism of emotion should not be totally discredited. Useless for something like trading crypto, but crypto is simple and easily subject to over analysis. At least when put in comparison to the intricacy of human society. Here, emotion is essential to have understood, tamed, and matured for tangible application.

Moderated trust is a necessary discipline. Bitter to the taste, but symbiotic with longevity. What meaningful vision of giving was short-lived? I had a buddy. Let’s call him Terry. Terry had the biggest heart. A musical artist, a greater listener, and speed demon with a taste for Japanese sleepers. He was always the first one there if you needed a ride to an interview or if you found yourself sloshed as the DD. There was almost always someone using his sofa as a bed, as they were themselves without home.

He died last year at 26. He always struggled with depression and a weak heart, but only opened up about it to incredible confidents. At a year older than me, behind him he left a wake of sorrow and of questions. He was the sole support for his highschool sweetheart, who has since spiraled into replace. It is still a question of whether all those he allowed to leech from his own bleeding, dying, will be able to elevate themselves to a better place to return the favor to someone else, or will they continue a cycle of suffering? I don’t know.

Steve Jobs is seen by a fair amount of my peers as the epitome of cold-blooded, unfeeling capitalism. To be fair, so do I at an emotional level. Jobs was a bit of a dick. But how does Jobs’ beneficial impact compare to Terry’s? I amalgamate Jobs into the bundle of technologists that have driven the information revolution of the last sixty years. In my eyes, there is no comparison. Jobs’ charitable contribution has been nigh insurmountable. In a single example, by the act of adding to the computational power in service to the common man we have effects likes these:

1) For the first time in history: Nearly as many girls receive an education as men. In many pools of data, for the first time in history, girls spend more time in school than men.

2) For the first time in history: The overwhelming, super-majority, of the world’s populace has been lifted out of extreme poverty. Most everyone has access to food and shelter. Suffering induced by similar shortages shrink every year. Most of the world has access to internet.

These mark termination in the circle of suffering. These are benefits that will continue to benefit at least millions of generations following. The technology to directly make all these possible, largely transportation and construction of infrastructure, has existed for centuries. All that’s changed is our ability to assess areas of need and create logistical solutions to provide relief. Changes, at large but far from totally, heralded by innovators like Jobs.

The first rule of lifeguarding: Take care of yourself, before taking care of anyone else. To be selfish can be the most selfless things you can do. To take care of others is to take care of yourself.

The Wild is not Dead

We are far from the luxury of being able to abandon moderated trust. The delusion of civilization may be comforting, but easily broken. Safety nets exhausted, without trusted family or friends, even an American can quickly find themselves alone, and in the Wild. Trust does not work in the wild. There, most it seems cannot even trust themselves, and are lost.

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I think maybe I practice trust too mildly. I trust no one, and I think it stifles my ability. I think it stems from my natural but in many way’s flawed inclination to play devil’s advocate. I see trust exercised incredibly. So I beg. Plead with you, stem your own trust in others, especially yourself, so that I may have faith in others and you.