I know I’ve been complaining that the trek of late 2010’s is bad in many ways.

Subsequent events have revived my believe in the original myth of the Starfleet: there seem to be something rather deep in this whole Star Trek thing… For example the Starfleet emblem. Of two slanted triangular shapes is supposed to represent an asymmetry in the physics of our world’s energy that enables the almighty warp drive to function. This idea seems so deep and have very deep connections with other difficult endeavors into theories of things as well.

Admittedly though, I know of other traditions that have similarly foretold some key elements of what I needed to make gigantic leaps in my own progression. What I don’t know is how to actually recover these wonderful wisdom in the right context for them to be duly useful.

I am in awe of all that we have available in all shapes, sizes, forms and manifestations in our modern lives to live the good life and do the good deeds and to be all that we can be!

It’s like mansplaining is a manner in which men speak to women and non-male identified individuals, except in this case it is a member of white majority explaining some kind of rule or rhyme and reason for something to be.

Honestly, since I FOBed in more than 3 decades ago, I have developed a quite persistent but very vague notion of how a white person would explain something to me, in most cases beyond my control and against my wishes.

The trouble with it is that because I was a kid when I developed this mental concept, it is really hard to separate aspects of whitesplaining that are objectively beneficial from those that are completely selfish and completely political in a way that is unfavorable to me. It’s not clear which and how much whitesplanation on the individual level is essential for sustaining out society. Nor is it clear if any conscious decision goes into when whitesplaining is done or when it is not done. Do non-white people whitesplaining?(yes we absolutely do, I even dadsplain sometimes, which honestly can be quite a bit more atrocious relative to reality)

But in any case, there you have it, people! Whitesplaining abound! Don’t do it if you are white, don’t do it if you’re not white, just don’t whitesplaining period.

Ps and don’t wifesplain too much, otherwise it might, dare we say this, explained…

Agnostics decides that they must form knowledge and make decisions knowing that they do not know some things. Some people choose agnosticism out of practical considerations: we really don’t have them mental capacity to know all, that it is most rational to assume we don’t know some things. Other people choose to not learn, consider or even be aware of some knowledge for moral, legal or other intangible reasons.

In practice, the reality is often that the agnosticism is artificial. The subject really do know something but choose to not consider that knowledge: For example any fair employer in America not only has to do it, they also have to declare that their considerations are always agnostic of race, age, sex, place-of-origin and residence.

There are some technical fields that have discovered the effectiveness of using agnosticism. Those that I have heard, things like uninformative priors and maximum entropy principle make an initial assumption that are mathematical representations of knowledgelessness and maximum chaos. Obviously there are words and math, which is knowledge, that described that state, but what is described is with least assumption about what the world is. These approaches, for a time or for eternity depending on whom you asked, have been producing the most useful technologies.

So, when the University of California school system announced, in May of 2021, that college applicants will no longer require ACT/SAT test scores, I thought: That’s great! I hope they’re using all that smarts and technology to make this more agnostic admission process better than before. But sadly, I found out later that this decision was a reactionary response to a law suite that successfully impressed upon the UC system that the use of ACT/SAT adversely impacted black and latino people from exposure to higher education.

I would like to argue that this characterization is possibly biased. Recalling one aptitude test that my 6-year-old took, asked what class of object could a Neapolitan belong to. (The right answer, btw, based on googling and choosing available answer from the multiple-choice test, is that it is a desert) I have to admit, I am too poor to have had that desert ever. I can’t recall ever having desert in a restaurant when I was a child. So is that a test question that is biased against my lack of Italian-American heritage? I mean, if the test asked what a guilinggao is, would that be fair if it has been served in American restaurants publically for possibly more than 300 years?

This question is a challenging one. But a common explanation is that it isn’t really a race based selection but rather a economic-class based discrimination. People who are rich enough to have the curiosity and to have the time to sample enough restaurants to have tried the guilinggao are allowed into universities. Other people who had to work until their bodies and minds are too tired to do anything else will never have a chance.

Honestly, it is quite possible that the preparation for ACT/SAT is just like that–only families rich enough to have the free time and money and curiosity to prepare for it can do well in the tests. Those poor bodies laboring in the cotton fields, or fighting off bullies, or even those who are too busy selling drugs, they all had to make a living before they have the wherewithal to do well on a standardized test. It is not really a choice for any of these poor people.

Looking back, the critical thinker will point out that there are very direct and very organized systems for discriminating against black latinos (and that possibly more for these two groups than other minorities for economical reasons). And that a class-based affirmative action will not sufficiently address the gaping cavity left by generations of discrimination.

I would agree with that claim completely. Yes, definitely more black people were enslaved, beaten, and grotesquely exploited than any other race of people from China or Korea or Japan. There is absolutely no doubt about it. But on the flip side, Asian Americans, like Chinese people, were excluded from arriving and reproducing here. Asian people had far fewer opportunities in America than all those black people, each of whom was an opportunity. And it gets worse from there onward. Think of all the black people who knowingly and actively helped white people in the perpetuation of enslavement of their color. Think of all those people who did not rise up when they could have, think of all the black people who did not speak loud enough over the centuries… And what about the drug dealing, and white-people killing, and riots… Seems there have been some great subtraction from American culture as well. Think of all your white parents, they have behaved in ways we find unacceptably racist their lives, and think of your white grandparents who used the word nigger derogatorily and inflammatorily. (A finding a race-neutral(by today’s standards) white person before a certain point time is like searching for a prostitute with a heart of gold—they DO exist, I’ve definitely seen how that can work out in movies… But immho rarely really well(I would appreciate any feedback in way of counterexamples though) [[EDIT]change to PG version maybe cavity free Easter Bunny would have more apropos hue and chroma] What should these white people pay for their transgressions? Shouldn’t we just kick all the white kids out universities instead? I mean seriously, if you want admission quota, you can take all the Asian-American spots, and it would still far inferior to the piece of juicy meat that is the white student body. I mean wouldn’t that be something worth sinking your teeth into?

Alas, everyone is a sinner and those sins, sometimes sinful thoughts, lead us to sin more. Being an agnostic does not free us from a necessarily evil cycle of sinning if you believe that, but it does give us a break from intergenerational retributions. White kids should be happy, they should not have to pay for the sins of their parents and ancestors. Black kids should be happy, they should not pay for the sins of the white parents and white peoples’ ancestors. And certainly nice happy Chinese-American kids should not have to pay for the sins of both black and white peoples’ parents and their ancestors. We shouldn’t have to pay for a fight that you people could not finish despite centuries of injuries. I mean for Spanish speaking people, some of your ancestors had been fighting with the other white people of Europe for millenniums before America, and you are still at war. You are still discriminating against each other and still racist against each other. (And i should digress here and point out that although I am fervent supporter of space tourism, especially the non-polluting kind, I am completely against colonization unless there is an existential reason to do that. We must resolve our strives before we take the fighting to space.)

Here, agnosticism saves us from a spiral of hatred down to hell. In past generations, many have wronged and many have suffered. But in the present, nobody should have to. Kids should be admitted agnostically without regards to any criterion.

What? You might ask me, are you freaking serious? The university would be overrun with druggies and hippies who stand around the mall and smoke weed and skateboard all day long. You might inform me that if we import that kind of lazy culture that our future society will be ruined! The teachers will be busy teaching high school or grammar school material instead of college material to catch everyone up. I mean, the teachers might be too busy dodging bullets and smoke. How can that possibly work?

But it will.

I have faith that it will.

I am an agnostic to my people’s past in America.

I am agnostic to all past exploitation of minorities in America.

I am agnostic to admissions to twenty-first century academic institutions in America.

I am agnostic to the fact that UC is sued and forced to make this admissions change for two specific minority races.

I will choose not to look back at all the things that happened to Chinese-Americans and look forward to my kids attending UC system(If they choose to) and succeeding in their American lives having benefited from a world-class education!

Previously, we had imagined the United States Federal government would issue sufficient payments for completion of civic duties such being a juror, voting, and other “nice things.” (Kind of like the direct payment of $ for social credit that Andrew Yang campaigned about). In that case, we should actually call the program Universal Basic Jobs (UBJ), construing the civic duties as jobs the government gives to it’s citizens. Today, we envision a new form of distributive allocation of excess societal wealth: It is an UBI with a different ‘I’–namely Universal Basic Investment. In some instantiations, it may even be properly referred to as Universal Basic Investiture.

Typical corporate stock related actions are available to a person: He can split it, reverse split it, make up some new shares, sell some or buy some back, and pay dividends. Derivatives may be issued for his stock. The person may gift some shares, for example, at a baby’s birth, parents may gift shares of their own stock to the baby.

Suppose we issue stocks that represents a person’s worth, with official recording, monitoring and oversight. When a baby is born, it has 1 share and is worth $0. Of course, the parents may choose to gift the child with monetary gifts (that can be taxed), and his money worth at birth can be substantially higher than $0. But for most people, the money value of the person (and therefore his stock price) would be just what’s in the bank account. If the money invested, then a rational investor would value that person’s monetary worth at the value of the portfolio. Now this is considered a public entity encumbered with to-be-established normal reporting and transparency requirements. However, the person is the chief executive of his publicly incorporated entity, able to direct its funds and operations.

For brevity sake, instead of referring to the federal government, let’s assume the Social Security Administration (SSA) or a later instance of that same body of the federal government is responsible for UBI.

In one embodiment, the SSA may make periodic (or continuous) purchase of each person’s stocks at a fixed rate. For example $2000 each month. For babies, the SSA’s shares dilute very quickly as it has to split or create new shares in order to get these monies from the SSA. Notice that by issuing the UBI as equity purchase, we have given the person asset without increasing his liabilities in the accounting formula Assets=Liabilities+Equity. We can also calculate the worth of each new baby assuming guaranteed UBI share purchases by the SSA. Supposing a discount rate of 1%, the NPV of all future proceeds of stock sale is only $200,000. If everyone is to be born Millionaire in a low inflation period having discount of 10‱, the SSA only need to purchase $1000/person/month. For a country of 0.3 Billion people, that comes to 3.6 Trillion dollars each year(That is approximately same as the total 2020 IRS collection.) As SSA gradually invests in each person, it may wish to cap the ownership of each person’s public property to a legislated maximum. As each individuals’ wealth increase, the SSA may end up rebalancing it’s portfolio selling some of their shares instead of buying it from him. Equivalently, this means investing more to the poorer individuals and capitalizing on those that earn or own more. The SSA may also wish to cap the periodic investment for practical purposes.

In another embodiment, the parents may own all or some significant share of a baby’s stocks. In this case, the parents sell the stocks to the SSA for money to raise the child. Later, they may wish to buy some shares back (into their own ownership, or to reduce the amount of outstanding shares) if they realize their child has money-worthy talents. The management of personal stock shares switches ownership to the children at their 18th birthday. In fact, this loss to the parents should be a tax deductible event, their wealth have materially been impacted due to the maturing of their child. The opposite is of course concerning: the birth of a child is a taxable event due to its increase of parents’ assets, although this increase is valued at $0.

In another embodiment the SSA is a market maker for this and will trade in and out of peoples’ stocks so there is some apparent liquidity. It treats everyone equally and must spend same amount for purchase from each person. In order to encourage participation in this market, the SSA is required to make these purchases periodically. If it cannot find any sellers, it will raise purchase price until it spends enough.

It is not permitted to contract a debt convenant over the person’s operation of his stocks.

There could be ETF’s that aggregate peoples’ personal worth.

Much like a company, while the shareholders may retain the ownership of future earnings of an individual, they do not control that individual. In particular, these personal stocks are like the non-voting shares that some silicone valley companies have been issuing. The shares only grant right to the assets of the company but does not control the operations of the company. Therefore, each person is able to go to Vegas and lose it all in one hand of poker. But more likely scenario is that they may spend the money to engage in non-productive(and non-reproductive) activities.

Another interesting aspect of this system is that a person may have rational reasons to refuse the UBI. If the person has sufficient cash(flow), it makes no sense to sell shares to the SSA. SSA should offer to purchase equally, but the seller may refuse to sell. In the case of high cash-inflow but temporary cash shortage, the individual may choose to borrow debt instead of selling his stocks. Of course, there are many financial varietals such as warrants, convertible debts, etc., that combines debt with their stock. This choice for self determination is a fundamental difference between Universal Basic Investment and any other system that permits the government to forcibly own individuals’ future productions and current assets. If the individual choose not to sell out his shares, he can freely do so and no one else can own that individual.

Upon death, the person’s assets are distributed to share holders in dollars. If a children holds shares of parents’ stocks, then they receive the money similar to inheritance.

What’s cool about this is that parents can actually trade in and out of their own kids (and the kids’ friends). And I do declare that I’m not inspired by my kids or other peoples’ kids in any specific way. I have never wanted to short my kids and long their friends in their whole life and never plan to. But with UBI on top of the Stock Market, we actually can!

The advantage of these new formulations is that we forgo the unnecessary but traditional political debates of socialism (or even communism) versus capitalism. This implementation is all capitalism! It is completely based on modern tried and true mechanisms of capitalism: capital based alloctaion, investment for the future, ownership and control, free market, competition as well as principals of democracy: equal empowerment of all citizens. Leveraging present day technologies, it doesn’t get better than this, if I do say so myself.

Ordered a “fighter plane” on Amazon for Christmas. It arrived in a few weeks. But when we opened the plane we saw something unexpected. The foot-long fighter jet was a color that lean towards that of poop than the advertised bright yellow color. But that’s not my biggest concern. The model fighter jet is labeled ARMY Fighter J-15. After googling a bit, I discovered that J-15 is a Chinese fighter jet. This isn’t such a terrible thing per se. I guess I knew I was buying a people-killing, enemy destroying, petroleum fuel burning lean mean machine that could leveraged by a party of some war to fight. It bring a J-15 ought not to weigh me mentally down any more than an F-15. But it does. The down side of a more powerful China will be that it produce these things and will use it to wrangle power worldwide.

This is something we should keep in mind as the openly anti-sino Trump administration departs. I hope the Biden administration can live up to its campaign promises and build toward a more peaceful and collaborative world by growing America.