163 "blue lives" don't exist

A better world is happening.

More people are living better lives now than ever before. And while this comes at a cost to the rest of our environment, people are also becoming aware of our impact on the world. We can see what a sustainable lifestyle might look like and we know what we need to do.

We might be fighting it, stuck in our old habits, but technology is evolving along with us to really encourage these new low-impact behaviors.

One smartphone can replace a radio, a television, a computer, a car, a restaurant, a grocery store, an airplane, and every highway in America.

About 15 years ago, I took a step off the stuff escalator. Ready for change, not exactly sure what it was going to be, I got rid of a two bedroom two car garage apartment's worth of stuff I'd accumulated over 10 years. When I got down to just the amount of possessions that could fit on top of a sofa, I actually felt pretty fucking good. Everything that I had I totally loved, and I didn't need anything more.

Over the years the only thing I really missed was tools. And I've bought new ones. My point being half of the shit we work our lives away for doesn't really make us that happy in the end anyway. If we even remember we have it.

For years, traffic engineers have known about "induced demand." When a highway is built to reduce traffic, instead, it increases traffic. But they keep coming out with studies showing how traffic is going to increase, so we must build more freeways. 

The general gyst of the problem is that until you get traffic engineers out of their car addiction, they're going to think the solution to everything is more car access.

(Thanks Mr. Snake for this well-said graphic.)

Something that befuddles me. Why are so many police and firefighters right-wingers? They have well paid union jobs working for the government. You don't get more socialist than that. At least in America.





Also, I find it so curious that we are wearing masks at this time of racism reckoning in America. And I also find it interesting the choice among America's most powerful men is to wear a black mask. 

Meanwhile the rest of us are going for masks that signal who we are as well. Colors and mustaches and smiles to flowery patterns to out-of-the-box surgical masks. The mask is to the 21st century what the car was the 20th century and clothing was the 19th. It is a new identifier.

Can anyone name this masked man? He wants you to know:


A better world is happening.

I do think we're going to come out of this like a phoenix from the ashes. I'm just afraid we haven't seen the ashes yet. We might not have even seen the fire. We might just be in the smoke phase. Or maybe only opening the tinderbox.

File under: the phone is the new wallet
I'm not nuts about living in a world where all transactions are traceable, but if we're going there, at least can we make it so we don't have to carry extra shit around? Yes, yes we can.

Meanwhile, locally...

My informal survey walking to the farmer's market yesterday confirmed this, and that's heading down the main commerical street in the city.

That's a quarter of our city's total population. Not working age, that's everybody...not working.

Three days. That's how long Muni was open before someone got sick and they closed again.
It's August now.
Next comes September.

Then October. 

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