Imagining Universal Income and how it might change society/culture.

This longish exploration of my thinking starts sad/mad and ends hopeful. I think. 😁. Sparked by reading about Dahmer’s father…and ends with a brief thought about the Bible I’ll explore more later…

I have felt passionately, since I was a young child, that parents are to blame when children murder.

But now, at 42, I blame everybody.

All of society is responsible for future generations.

Not just the Children owners.

And we do own our children.

We get to decide everything that happens to them, unless they “win” emancipation.

Which they have no way of fighting for without adult help.

Children’s rights are the most fundamental human rights.

Until children can save themselves from terrible caretakers, no one is free.

But we don’t have to make it about control.

We can better every child’s life in America with our tax dollars.

And bettering children’s lives betters everyone’s lives.

We all have the base needs we had as children.

You don’t turn 18, or 30, and magically become superhuman grown-ups.

Here’s the secret kids: growing up just means less support mandated by society.

In poor families, like mine and most of my neighbors, oldest kids were babysitting young.

I can remember being in charge of my 5 year old sister and 3 year old brother when I was 8.

And when I was 10, babysitting 5 children, overnight while their parents were out drinking, for $20. 1991, and those kids were 9, 7, 5, 3, and 18 months.

I changed the diapers, bathed them all, bullied the oldest into bed, and stayed up almost all night making sure they slept, and made them all cereal the next morning after a couple hours of sleep. Made them watch TV. Made them lunch of canned ravioli. Their parents came home, reeking, laughing.

Told me I did I great job, here’s $20, go home.

We don’t all live in the same America.

But 70% of us know exactly what I am talking about.

And progressive politics are only one solution.

Everybody deciding to befriend our neighbors and get to know each other, in this giant suburb…it’s scary.

The murder rate is high nearby.

Which makes it even more important to look out for each other.

But also, less likely.

Scared people don’t keep friends easy.

Angry people are just people who hate feeling scared.

Still, I’m raising two beautiful, sweet, creative, fun young men who keep me immersed in magic every day.

And I married the most wonderful man in the multiverse. We have never been happier, nor more in love, year 23, and year…7 of marriage. 🥰

I believe in science and magic. I believe science IS magic. 😁

I believe people are born good, and evil can only flourish where children are allowed to be neglected.

Universal income would protect a lot more children than more police or laws or guns ever could.

Universal healthcare would save more children.

Tax-paid tuition for every American would make us all the doctors and lawyers and teachers and artists and everything we want to be.

Universal Income…there are so many possibilities!

What if CEOs made the same as cashiers?

Would we treat each other differently if we were all sharing our national profit, equally as citizens?

Would we value our time the same?

Our partners?

Before we can create it, we need a concrete example, and we have them. Everywhere. If you are looking, you will find it.

Yesterday, my sons and husband woke up to see my hair green.

After my husband got home last night, I did this.

It was still bright outside. I put on a turquoise dress, and joined them in the backyard.

After awhile, I asked if they noticed my hair.

Their faces: 😳😳

I laughed, and asked what color it was this morning.

I recently took a Wondrium class by a psychologist, which reminded me of a Netflix show I watched in 2021, which had reminded me of my psychology classes when I pushed a minor in it, class of ’03.

The more recent example of this idea that made me laugh when they didn’t notice my hair instead of becoming upset…

In a VR simulation, real pilots practiced landing a jet on a runway.

The more experienced pilots landed their virtual jets on a jet parked on the runway.

Because in real life, they would never expect to see the jet parked, their brains just show them a clear runway.

Like their eyes are on autopilot…the screensaver shows what they expect to see.

The less experienced pilots saw the parked jet in VR, and reacted accordingly.

Doctors often rely on their experience when they should be looking through the eyes of those they are training.

That’s how you stay on top of your game.

How you keep growing and developing and becoming the version of you the world needs you to be.

You look through the eyes of others, and see with them, too.

Biden has been a better president because he’s focused on helping the most he can…not just the most loud, or the most popular.

But America, we are our country.

Our leader is just the guy with the toughest job and the least support, nowadays.

I hear my friends criticize his choices, and I want to remind them to look at the good he’s doing, too.

No leader will ever make us 100% satisfied with his every choice.

And it’s naive to think America can just stop fueling war and war will end.

War will end when we put our attention into feeding, housing, clothing, bathing, and caring for everyone, together.

Whether we agree on anything or not, we’re still people. And people deserve help getting our needs met.

Because we’re people. Like us or not, like you or not, we’re still all children, all beloved.

Culture wars fizzle out of everyone shifts to solutions and cooperation, instead.

People who are struggling to survive should not bear the burden of best behavior in order to have their basic needs met.

Behavior is biological, predictable, and supremely infuence-able.

Any book on marketing can teach you that. 💁

So…how do we convince our neighbors to be friends?

How do we convince ourselves to befriend people who we know hate parts of us?

Religion does it for some.

I guess mine does too.

My religion is love. I think all religions are, on paper, if not in practice.

The Bible was the first book mass printed.

It was used to subjugate for going on two millennia now. Still is, today. But it also inspires hope and love and compassion in millions of hearts every day.

In survival brain, things are either good or bad.

But humans are always both. As are all of our creations.

Good and bad are relative, and dependent on things outside our control. How we appear. The lighting. The mood. The stories we’re all telling ourselves.

Things were not better in the 50s. TV lied. Lol

We all know it’s fake with our intelligence, but our bodies have their own intelligence, and cultures have been telling people to fight our instincts and animal natures.

That’s the only way to maintain a hierarchy in a primate society.

You have to limit resources to keep the majority fueling while a minority takes advantage.

There are a lot of smart people talking about how to fix this. I’m gonna go read one.

If you read all this, I love you extra. 😘😁