Mindconnection eNL, 2020-03-01

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Item 1. The libtards like to propose draconian, society-ending solutions to global warming such as the Green Deal. They keep harping that "we" (developed countries) are destroying the planet. But according to the International Energy Agency, global energy-related carbon emissions did not grow in 2019, even though the world's economy grew 2.9%. Emissions in the USA fell by (oddly enough), 2.9% even though our economy grew by 2.3%. The EU's economy grew by 1.2%, but their carbon emissions dropped by 5%. Japan's carbon emissions dropped by 4%. Emissions were up in the developing countries (due to their heavy use of coal). Everyone knows China is a major offender here, but India is even worse. When the President of the Maldives traveled to India to discuss carbon emissions, the Prime Minister refused to meet with him and send a lower-level proxy. The message from India was they would do NOTHING to reduce carbon emissions until the USA reached a particular ridiculous target.

Item 2. The United States has lowered carbon emissions and other forms of pollution without enacting hare-brained government schemes. A combination of things has produced that result. This includes more energy efficient buildings, sensible government regulations, increased use of solar energy, and consumer choices. What, normal people are not actually evil idiots destroying the planet? That is correct! We are reducing (e.g., using cups and reusable bottles instead of throwaway water bottles), re-using things (e.g., cutting up old towels, linens, and clothes into cloth rags--replacing energy-wasting paper towels), and recycling. We are also driving less, flying less, buying more energy-efficient cars, energy-upgrading our homes (windows, caulking, etc.), lowering our thermostats in winter and raising them in summer, replacing CFL and incandescent bulbs with LEDs, paying a little extra for increased energy efficiency with appliances, changing our furnace filters more regularly, and increasingly telecommuting rather than driving.  This is all good news.

Yes, the warming is an existential threat. But so are the idiotic "solutions" being proposed by the so-called Democrats in the Democratic Presidential race. You would think that, after surviving eight years of "fundamentally transforming America" via Barry Soetoro's gut blows to the economy nobody would be open to a repeat performance. Yet, thousands of people believe the New Green Deal somehow would be good policy. Maybe they need to see the quadrupling of our homeless population to change their alleged "minds" but the sane among us can predict the utterly predictable easily enough to know better than to support such a devastating and totally unnecessary policy.

Item 3. Twitter has suspended 70 accounts that were posting content supporting Michael Bloomberg, saying the duplicate messages broke its policies against platform manipulation and spam. Considering Bloomberg's totally irrational worldview and his proposed policies, that is very good news indeed. These platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, have been extremely leftist since they came into existence. But even for them, Bloomberg is just too much insanity and far too dangerous to society for the executives at these platforms. Even libtardism has its limits, who wooda thunk?

Item 4. Natural Grocers has taken up the fight against the population control program that goes by the ridiculous name of "Daylight Savings Time". Yes, the earth is overpopulated by humans. But western countries are not having kids at the replacement level and the population growth is coming mostly from India (along with bad software). So the original reason for Daylight Carnage Time is no longer valid in the First World countries. There are more humane ways to kill people, anyhow. And we have the IRS engaging in murder routinely, so the deaths from DCT are not really needed IMO. I think the productivity hit outweighs the population control advantages of this evil government program. In any event, it's really good news that Natural Grocers has now taken up the banner to end this cruel, economically harmful means of reducing our population.

• The Photo Backup Stick is an all-in-one picture and video backup and storage tool. It contains special software to back up from Windows computers, Mac computers, iPhones, iPads, iPod Touch, Android phones, and Android tablets.
• Keep your pictures safe without the need for expensive and complicated cloud services.
• Supports almost all picture and video formats.
• Backs Up from Windows. Run the Windows backup app to find and backup from the computer, storage device(s) connected to the computer, or even phones or tablets connected to the computer.
• Backs Up from Mac. Run the Mac backup app to find and backup from the computer, storage device(s) connected to the computer, or even phones or tablets connected to the computer.
• Backs Up from Androids. Plug the stick directly into Android phones or tablets and use the Android app to back up to the stick without using a computer.
  Backs Up From iPhones and iPads. Backup from iPhones & iPads by plugging them into a Windows or Mac computer and run the backup app from the stick.
• Removes Duplicates. Each photo and video will be backed up only once. Every time you backup, only new photos will be backed up. The Windows app also allows you to remove duplicates just in case you have multiple copies that have been backed up.
• You can back up from the default locations or select to scan the entire computer or specific drives or folders.
• You can also connect phones and tablets to the computer and back them up at the same time.
• The Windows app allows you to remove duplicates even if they were backed up from other devices. It also allows you to easily copy your backed-up files to a computer or drive.
• Choose to keep your photos organized in the same folder structure they are on your computer or have them saved to one single folder on the stick.
• For Android phones and tablets, download the free Photo Backup Stick DC app, plug the stick into your device using the included adapters, and back up directly to the stick without using a computer.
• For iPhones, iPads, or iPod Touch, plug your device into a Windows or Mac computer, unlock the screen and trust the computer, and run the backup app from the stick. All your pictures and videos will be backed up directly to the stick for safe keeping.

The Photo Backup Stick works on Windows 7, 8, or 10 as well as Mac OS 10.12 or newer. For direct connection to Android devices, the device must support OTG connections of USB drives. If OTG is not supported, devices can be backed up using the Windows or Mac apps. For Apple iOS devices, you must connect the devices to a computer using a data cable and use the Windows or Mac app to backup.

Buy yours now.

"The framing effect is a cognitive bias where people decide on options based on whether the options are presented with positive or negative connotations; e.g. as a loss or as a gain. People tend to avoid risk when a positive frame is presented but seek risks when a negative frame is presented. Gain and loss are defined in the scenario as descriptions of outcomes (e.g., lives lost or saved, disease patients treated and not treated, etc.)." [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_effect_(psychology)]

When someone presents you with a choice that involves loss, flip the equation over and reframe it as a gain. For example, medical insurance (dishonestly called "health insurance") is sold as if it prevents you from having big losses due to some medical condition or another.

"Get this coverage for only $900 per month". Find something the policy covers that would actually have any realistic chance of happening to you, and then (depending on your policy) reframe it as, "I will lose $900 per month or $10,800 per year or $108,000 per decade to have bills paid if this happens to me, but only after I pay the $10,000 deductible." In 50 years, that's over half a million dollars. Is the insurance actually worth it? If you practice health care, odds are there is not a single thing on that list that has a realistic chance of happening to you other than a broken bone. If you think it costs half a million dollars to set a broken bone, then fine go ahead and get the insurance.

When someone presents you with a choice that involves gain, flip the equation over and reframe it as a loss. For example, your city puts a quarter cent sales tax up for vote.

The ballot reads, "Authorize the city to engage in a public works project to repair streets and curbing, which will improve the appearance and safety of city streets and neighborhoods, funded by a quarter cent sales tax to expire in five years." Wow, that sounds attractive!

Now reframe that, knowing sales taxes never expire; there is always some excuse to renew it over and over and over. Calculate how much you spend in your city, then determine how much extra this tax will cost you. Let's say it's $350 per year or $3500 per decade. You also know the city has engaged in quite a bit of wasteful spending. You obtained a summary financial report and determined that waste divided by the number of residents works out to $400 per year. So now you can reframe this as, "Authorize the city to permanently stick me with a $350/year tax hike instead of cutting the wasteful spending and giving me a $50 tax reduction. Yes or no to a $400 annual loss, indefinitely."

Practically nobody makes this effort, which is why so many people buy worthless medical insurance and approve needless tax hikes.

I'm not saying all medical insurance is worthless and all tax hikes are needless. I am just saying few people make an effort to get past the cognitive bias to determine whether a given insurance policy is worthless or a given tax hike is needless.

My recently deceased friend Howard (RIP) used to say that how people frame the debate determines what is debated and it is seldom the actual issue. His advice was, "Don't let the other side frame the debate." He meant framing in a different sense from what Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman meant. His sense of it included theirs.

Howard's more encompassing definition of framing included the selection and definition of the actual issue. You can see this sense of it at work in my second example. The City tried to "frame the debate" as being about street improvement. The real issue, however, was the City's wasteful spending. They didn't need funds because street repair needed to be done, they needed funds because they wasted what they already had. To have the funds for street repair did not require a new tax; to posit that it did was a non-sequitor. Having the funds could be accomplished by several means, including cutting waste or cutting non-wasteful discretionary spending. The choice they presented (pay the tax or don't get the improvements) was a lie.

Cities and counties use this particular ploy quite effectively, because the voters don't stop to think about what the real issue is. They let the liars frame the debate.

Let's keep this in mind when idiotic solutions and plans are presented in the 2020 "elections". When the candidate presents a plan as producing a gain, restate the plan in terms of its cost. For example, one candidate advocates "free college for all." Right now, even with absurdly high tuitions, less than half of college freshmen are prepared for college. It's a waste of time, money, and other resources to send them there. They spend a year or two taking remedial courses, then graduate without having learned enough to justify the degree they hold. Now consider what happens with millions more "pay your fee get your degree" people out there when there isn't even a fee! College will become pointless, and thus be a total waste of money. Billions of dollars of loss, that is the real issue.

Besides, this proposal is based on the idea that the skilled trades are not worth supporting or going into. That's also a lie. Your typical carpenter, electrician, and plumber are all adept in algebra and trigonometry. Your typical liberal arts graduate does not possess this mathematical way of thinking. Do we really want less thinking ability among the population? That is also a loss.

The primary contributors of this situation are readily identifiable, and I have seen what the "live out my last days a happy, vibrant person" people do instead. Here are a few pointers:

• Save while you can. You should be making regular, automatic payments into a stock mutual fund (one held by an LLC that you own) or several of them. If you also can avail yourself of a 401(k), do that. How much should you save? As a rule of thumb, about 10% of your income. Of course, that depends on many other factors.
   
• Invest what you save. Investment "experts" advise having a "balanced portfolio" that includes bonds. Bonds are borrowed assets, not owned ones, so they do not create wealth and cannot grow past the rate of inflation. Bonds historically have lost value due to inflation, so instead of an investment they are a way to lose money. Invest in good mutual funds, there are plenty to choose from. Look at the average annual return over the past 10 years of the funds you are considering, and reject any that are less than 8% (I prefer those over 15%).
   
• Practice health care. Health care is not some insurance plan you buy, it's what you do to improve your health. I did not say maintain. Always be striving to be healthier and stronger. That means a rigorous physical training program combined with a diet completely devoid of processed grains, endocrine modifiers, and Roundup. The typical American diet is based on processed grains, includes heavy amounts of endocrine modifiers, and contains large quantities of the neurotoxin glyphosate (trade name, Roundup). This means you need to eat very differently from how "everyone else" eats, unless you too want to wind up rotting away in pain for the last three years of your life while your IQ is less than half of what it is today.
   
• Reduce your overhead. Many people who say they "can't" save could save, if only they would reduce their overhead. Analyze your spending to see what is being unproductive for you. For example, how much extra stuff do you have? I know a guy who has enough pens to last him 500  more years assuming the ink doesn't dry. Buying 2 pens and investing the difference at 18% would mean produce a serious amount of money in 30 years.
   
• Declutter and then downsize. Most people have way too much stuff that they don't need. Start culling it now, and avoid the accumulation habit. It costs time and money to maintain a "stuff" collection. And it's expensive to get rid of if you downsize or die. Your home isn't a warehouse.
   
• Look for bargains. Saving a few bucks here and there means, over time, you save quite a bit of money.
   
• Buy quality things. Total cost of ownership is less than when you buy junk to "save money."
   
• Invest in good shoes. No need to explain.
   
• Learn to barter. You can trade something you have for something you want, and I don't mean just physical possessions. Assess your skills and offer to do something for another person if they can do X for you or find someone who can.
   
• Maintain or increase your skills that promote independence. Fix your computer yourself if it's something simple like a RAM replacement, maintain your car yourself, repair the hem in your slacks, replace that leaking faucet yourself instead of calling a plumber, etc. I try to fix everything. I've repaired dishwashers, clothes dryers, and many other things that people typically pay big bucks to have a service call made for repair. When my AC goes out after a storm, I change out the starting capacitor myself; that eliminates an $80 service call and takes only 5 minutes. I keep a spare toilet repair kit on hand, for when a toilet starts to act up. I just replace the bad one, and never call a plumber for such a problem.
   
• Vote no to every tax increase. There will always be some lie told to "justify" a tax hike. Taxes are already way past the point of mere absurdity. They are obscene. More taxes aren't needed, more honesty and common sense in government is. Unfortunately, honest politicians are in very short supply even in local and county elections. Common sense seems unable to gain even the slightest foothold when it comes to how governments spend your money, but maybe it will have better luck if government spenders are forced to make choices like the rest of us are forced to instead of just extorting more money from us.

https://blog.malwarebytes.com/cybercrime/2019/11/sextortion-scammers-getting-creative
 

Photo taken a couple of weeks after my 59th birthday.

Note that the information provided here will likely conflict with the "fad of the moment" and other unsustainable, unproductive ways of looking at health and fitness.

Article appears below.

See my climbing videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCyb67uKOxW_TsG6BVPbBIQ/videos

There's a philosophy based on the idea that the universe listens to you and you can "manifest" what you want just by putting out the right "mental energy." This is fine for six year olds to believe after they give up on Santa, but adults should know better. First of all, the human brain puts out about 15 to 20 watts. That is an insignificant amount of energy. Second, the universe does not care about you or even recognize you. We humans are on a tiny planet orbiting an average sized star that is one of millions of stars in one of the thousands of known galaxies.

So when I say positive mental attitude, I am not talking about any of this irrational, reality-ignoring philosophy. I am talking about something real. There's always a mix of good and bad. When you have a positive mental attitude, you put what's good in the forefront. It does not mean, however, that you ignore what's bad or what's dangerous. Nor does it mean you have no aversion to risk or that you let people walk all over you. Positive attitude is not Pollyanna attitude, so don't confuse one with the other.

Remember, nobody else can make you happy. Your job, hobby, spouse, kids, pets, or shopping experience cannot make you happy. Only you can make you happy. If your cat gets on your lap, are you annoyed or does this sign of affection please you? Depends on whether you have a positive mental attitude. If your teenage boy wants to talk to you about something, do you say, "Not now, Jimmy" or do you feel honored that he still trusts you as a parent and values your opinion? Depends on whether you have a positive mental attitude. If your boss gives you a tough job, do you complain that he's dumping on you or do you thank him for the opportunity to show him that you've got "the right stuff"? Depends on whether you have a positive mental attitued.

If you have a positive attitude:

• Instead of seeing what's wrong as the main aspect, you see what's right.
• You see problems as part of life or even as opportunities, not as bad things that happen only to you.
• You are realistic about your limitations. You are not unrealistically concerned you aren't good enough.
• You are far more likely to say, "I'll give it a try" than "I can't."
• You acknowledge that you can achieve a reasonable goal if you apply yourself.

One way to generate a positive mental attitude in yourself is to encourage other people. You get out of that what you put into it, and sometimes with a significant multiplier. Tearing others down can temporarily feel good. I think that's why some people do this routinely. It stimulates their dopamine. But it depresses their serotonin, causing them to be unhappy and their fix is to tear others down more. It's a vicious cycle.

Having a positive mental attitude about yourself is not a kind of self-deception. Negative self-talk is a kind of deception. When I began my martial arts training, one particular instructor was fond of saying, "In any fight, you face two enemies. The more dangerous enemy is the one inside you." He meant that self-doubt will cause you to lose the fight. That's true of most endeavors. In climbing, it's considered very bad form to say something negative to another climber, such as, "You can't do this." It's very common for climbers to encourage each other. Listen to the encouragement in this video, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7DndKlxry0.

In high school, I was on the Cross Country team my senior year. I was the worst performer on our team (and the only varsity runner who hadn't run Cross Country the preceding three years). Someone has to be in last place, so I did not let this get me down. But some of my teammates waited around to see me on my approach to the finish line. It was usually up a hill, and I was nearly always at the rear of the pack. They didn't jeer at me, they shouted encouragement. They even got our cheerleaders to do a cheer routine with my name in it. This belief in me, from these other peoples, always gave me such a burst of energy I would surge past several other runners. Photos from the time show me not red-faced, but purple-faced, coming across that finish line. This was well before "Run Forrest, Run" was ever uttered.

We all face hardships, annoyances, time burdens, relationship problems, and other issues. It's how you mentally view those that matters. Is the glass half empty or half full? That isn't a cliché, it's a guide for how to perceive reality. If you look at life as a losing game, that negative attitude causes stress hormones to rise. Same thing if you look at a problem as something other than an opportunity, or if you look at other people as being against you.

When you encounter difficulty, how do you respond?

• If you have a negative mental attitude, your response will be very costly in terms of emotional energy and you will experience a rise in cortisol (stress hormone), a drop in dopamine (pleasure hormone) and a drop in serotonin (happiness hormone). In this negative state, you will have switched off testosterone (signals your body to build muscle, burn fat, and store calcium in your bones).
• If you have a positive attitude, you'll just handle the problem. You may still experience stress, but you won't go into a negative hormonal state. In fact, if you adroitly handle problems all day something wonderful happens. You like the feeling of being in control and of being able to overcome whatever comes up. Even if you are momentarily displeased with something, your longer term state will be an increase in serotonin.

Don't expect the universe to deliver what you want, you will only be disappointed. Instead, choose to believe in yourself and then act on those beliefs.

You can do it. I know you can.

Upcoming installments:

How to manage hormones naturally, Part 8
Supplements. How to sort scams from the good stuff.

How to manage hormones naturally, Part 9
Chemicals to avoid. Many commonly-used chemicals adversely affect endocrine health.

How to manage hormones naturally, Part 10
Handling social pressure. Rather than use willpower to fight social pressure from the disease-embracing, health-averse culture, follow these tips to use social pressure to your advantage.

• The best workouts are short and intense.
• A good diet contains far more flavors and satisfaction than the typical American diet.

The value of residential property in the USA is about $14 trillion. That's pretty close to the valuation of all publicly traded companies in the USA combined. It's a huge sector of the economy.

Money doesn't bring you happiness, but it allows you to look for it in more places.