Why is Ideological Blindness so Dangerous?

When creatures are physically blind, they're dangerous to themselves and other creatures because they can't see the consequences of their actions (or inactions). They fall down stairs and walk off cliffs. They stomp on other innocent creatures. They get hit by cars and other moving objects. They're easy prey for predators. Their blindness prevents them from seeing danger, which prevents them from seeing how their own actions (inactions) might be hurting themselves and others.

A friend sent me a link to this video about the corruption of the U.S. social security system. The video inadvertently illustrates one of the most toxic problems in the U.S. political system today: ideological blindness. Like physical blindness, ideological blindness prevents humans from seeing certain dangers in their socioeconomic environment, which prevents them from seeing how their own actions (inactions) might be hurting themselves and others.

Everybody who has read the Gini book or scanned the Gini Book List knows the Gini Foundation is nonpartisan in every way. This gives us a perspective on economic, political and cryptocurrency systems that we rarely see in the media or from so-called think-tanks today.

For example, the shenanigans explained in the social security video are disgusting to us, but not for the reasons that the video creator intended. It's disgusting because it illustrates how quickly laws can be changed and manipulated by self-serving politicians in any party and at any point in time. This is the fundamental reason why it doesn't matter who is in the White House or Congress at any particular point in time. A law passed today can be undone tomorrow. Thus, what really matters is the structural incentives that all politicians have to either serve the broader population or serve a tiny number of giant corporate cannibals and billionaires over the long-run.

Why is Partisanship so Toxic? The problem with videos like the one at the link above is they cherry-pick facts and events out of context and then present them in such a blatantly partisan way that they cause much more harm than good. In this case, the video ignores the causes of the Vietnam War, OPEC Crisis, the collapse of the Bretton Woods System, perpetual Middle East wars, the ongoing collapse of the middle class and how both parties have contributed to budget deficits, exploding national debt and all those socioeconomic and geopolitical calamities. It ignores how U.S. politicians from both parties create and perpetuate the conditions that constantly compel them to make short-sighted and self-destructive fiscal, monetary and geopolitical decisions.

Talking without Communicating. Good-faith humans in any political party (or no party) who understand the depth of the corruption and dysfunction of the U.S. political system today will naturally bristle when they see cherry-picked videos devoid of proper context. Videos and content like that cause everybody who identifies with one of the two morally bankrupt political parties in the U.S. today to talk past each other and assume the other side is acting in bad faith.

Nostalgia for Transparent Theft. U.S. politicians prior to the 1970s usually had the political integrity and courage to raise taxes transparently to fund their pet projects. Then, at least the average American could generally see where their taxes were going and they could make informed voting decisions during each election. In contrast, politicians today in the U.S. and many other governments around the world extract stealth taxes by debasing their currencies with inflationary economic policies and stealing our wealth through backdoor corporate socialism, bank bailouts and bail-ins, perpetual wars, monetary policy alchemy and tax loopholes for their wealthy benefactors. The average American today has no idea how many ways their wealth and purchasing power are being stolen and destroyed.

Seeing Through the Partisan Propaganda. All these problems exist because the U.S. electoral system is fatally flawed. This is not a flaw in democracy; it's specifically a flaw in the U.S. electoral system, which incentivizes career politicians in both political parties to lie, cheat, manipulate facts and sabotage laws to gain financial support from the wealthiest donors so they can stay in power. (Our Global Governance Scorecard discusses the empirical data and structural reasons for this.) But it's worse than that. . . .

How Do These Creatures Stay In Power?

I know several economists and Political Science academics who question their own eyes and say things like, "Yes, it looks bad, but is there any proof that money corrupts politics?" Anybody who has ever worked in Washington or any national think-tank knows how this scam works. More empirically, congressional approval ratings are at their lowest levels in American history; yet, incumbents keep getting elected. This is because the amount of money a candidate spends determines the outcome in over 90% of national elections . . . and the price of buying a seat in the White House and Congress is rapidly rising every year.

Political Faces Change, but the Fundamental Economic and Foreign Policies Don't. The primary beneficiaries of the status quo are the wealthiest entities that buy a certain type of political creature during every election. The politicians' faces and party labels change every few years, but the core economic and foreign policies that are destroying our economic and political systems fundamentally never change. Some people call this the "Deep State", but it's not a monolithic, conspiratorial secret cabal pulling all the strings. It's simply the inevitable outcome of a political system that is dominated by giant corporate cannibals and a few billionaires who fund partisan think-tanks and lobbyists to educate politicians. This enables them to manipulate economic, trade and foreign policies to maximize their profits at the expense of the health, stability and sustainability of the American economy and society.

The Status Quo Spawns Anti-Leaders. Cherry-picked facts in blatantly partisan YouTube videos and shallow political attack campaigns are a diversion. The U.S. is not collapsing because of democrats or republicans or some vague notion of cultural decline. No, the U.S. political and economic systems are two sides of the same disintegrating coin: They're collapsing because of the hyper-concentration of wealth that corrupts the U.S. electoral system, which distorts every substantial aspect of the U.S. political system and economy. This spawns and perpetuates anti-leaders through a perverse selection process in which the most aggressive and sociopathic behavior is rewarded in government, corporations and society; while thoughtful, empathetic and consensus-driven behavior is increasingly penalized.

Liberal Fantasies. The liberals who compare Trump to Adolph Hitler assume that replacing Trump with another Obama will make a difference. The past 40 years of U.S. economic and foreign policies indicate there will be no difference. Thus, it's a fantasy for liberals to expect Congress to pass any of their progressive reforms as long as we have an electoral system that is substantially controlled by giant corporate cannibals and billionaires. Whether their reforms are economically sustainable is debatable, but the sustainability of the U.S. Government's budget and national debt was destroyed long ago by both parties. This is also true for most Western countries today, which is one of many reasons why fiat currencies are doomed to the Fiat Currency Graveyard.

Conservative & Libertarian Ideological Blindness. Many conservatives and libertarians make deliberately shallow and deceptive socialism-vs-capitalism arguments. They decry "socialist!" at anybody who wants healthcare, education, labor and trade reforms to create a more stable, sustainable and equitable economy. Their perception of causality is backward: They don't seem to grasp that wealth-destroying communism, Nazism and violent revolutions are socioeconomic responses to poverty and extreme wealth/power concentration, which of course produces even more wealth/power concentration.

Will Campaign Finance Reform Fix These Problems? Campaign finance reform will not fix these problems because it does nothing to fix the revolving door, armies of corporate lobbyists, propaganda from giant media monopolies, and rivers of dark money that flow to super-PACs and partisan think-tanks. Decentralized monetary and governance systems are the only meaningful and sustainable solution. Unfortunately, some ideologically-blinded humans will never acknowledge this truth because the corporate donors that fund their beloved think-tanks will never voluntarily give up their power to monopolize markets and manipulate centralized power structures.

All Our Predictions Are Coming True. Ideological blindness has paralyzed our political system, which is causing the collapse of the U.S. economy and middle class because paralysis favors incumbents and the status quo. The wealthiest entities that benefit from the status quo know this, which is why they use their wealth as a weapon to deliberately inject noise and propaganda into the media and public discourse to paralyze and prevent meaningful reforms. This is directly causing the disintegration of the middle class and the collapse of the human labor force, which is triggering more domestic terrorism, mass shootings, and many other problems. Of course, our readers know we've been explicitly predicting all these problems in our books and articles for years.

What Will Replace the Collapsed System?

As we described in the Gini whitepaper, when (not if) the U.S. fiat political and economic systems collapse, they will be replaced with something. That "something" must already be up and running before another power-hungry demagogue like Hitler, Stalin or Mao emerges to "fix" the collapsing fiat system by centralizing it even more. If alternative decentralized monetary and community governance systems are not operational by then, it will be too late because the demagogues will deploy A.I. and the state's centralized surveillance and military apparatus to crush any opposition to their bloody tyranny.

That's Why We're Building the Gini Platform Now. For people who have never suffered from the cruelty of bloodthirsty dictators, it might be difficult to understand why Gini is important now. For people who lack the historical knowledge and/or imagination to appreciate what state-sponsored terrorism from their own government feels like, it might seem like Gini is over-exaggerating the threats that we all face from the collapse of the American economy and society. Those people who do not understand history are doomed to be victims of short-sighted, self-serving politicians who have structural incentives to repeat the tragedies of the past.

A Once-In-Human-History Opportunity. For the first time in human history, it is technologically possible to create decentralized monetary and community governance systems. Decentralized monetary and community governance systems are the only escape from the increasing madness in Washington and other cesspools of dysfunctional economic and political governance around the world today. When (not if) these collapses occur, there will be no escape unless there is already a fully operational and truly decentralized monetary and community governance system that enables like-minded humans to migrate their economic exchanges and community governance activities out of the collapsing fiat systems and into a truly equitable, sustainable and decentralized system.

That's why Gini is important now. Please join us.