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In bygone eras, perhaps they were always bygone, it was believed that truth and love would always win in the end, that purveyors of falsehood and hate would be exposed, and then they would be inevitably be brought down and punished severely. The idea was that heartfelt honesty supporting truth and love always wins because it feels good and is the right thing to do, and those honest loving people wouldn’t tolerate those who violated the rules. I could go on but this style of writing is self-defeating because everyone knows cheating almost always works, and even flagrant violating of laws works almost all the time. I mentioned the other day a guy driving past me at about 50 MPH thru a residential zone clearly marked at 20 MPH. He did wait behind a line of cars at the next RED light. Even on black-ice covered roads, people here drive faster than the posted speed limits.

Without feedback to one’s behavior, there is no possibility of proper adaptation to an existing environment. I’m in agreement with Nassim Taleb’s idea that people should have skin in the game; that is, something they value will be lost if they perform a bad action. In our present era, there isn’t a tight lock between good actions and good outcomes. Quite the opposite!

I’m tired of this post! I’m going to go read Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen; perhaps he has some good suggestions.