I Told You So

 This is a sequel post to my 2015 post "Fencing vs Sparring." As early as 2014 I was concerned that Kumite Point Fighting - the practice that almost totally destroyed martial arts in the USA in the 1980's - was directly connected to Fencing, and that Fencing's fighting practices were one of the single most destructive forces in the martial arts. I suspected some direct connection between fencing and the origins of Kumite Point Fighting and the sport of Fencing. Now The Karate Nerd has clearly documented the connection:

So to briefly summarize: before Karate was popular in Japan, Savate was already popular in Japan. The Savate that was popular at the time wasn't organized into professional matches like Boxing or MMA today, they instead competed in something more like tournaments, which used Kumite Point Fighting stop-and-go rules, which they directly inherited from Fencing. Savate of that era considered itself to essentially be unarmed fencing. All of Shotokan's kicks with the exception of the side kick and front kick seem to be taken directly from Savate.

As you know if you read very much about martial arts on my blog, one  of my biggest pet peeves is the Kumite Point Fighting round kick, which lacks the practical power and ease of use of most other martial arts round kicks. I have noticed this in Savate before, and was puzzled that it could develop in Japan and France independently, because it is so horrifically flawed:

To be clear what is wrong with this kick is that body stops moving before the leg extends, meaning that the over all speed of the impact the kick creates is much slower than if whole body was still moving with the kick at the point of impact. Whipping your shoulders, waist and hips into the kick as it connects is a magnitude of difference in power than relying on the leg muscle alone to generate the power.

As The Karate Nerd points out above, round kicks were unheard of in Okinawan Karate originally. So how did some Karate styles like Kyokushin and other knock-down Karate styles get such good round kicks that they remind us of Muay Thai rather than Kumite Point Fighitng? The Kyokushin founder's Wikipedia page mentions his Korean ethnicity, but also his participation in an early Full Contact Karate style called Bogutsuki known for two things: 1) the use of body armor, sometimes even doing karate fighting in Kendo armor, and 2) a very strong Korean influence, entertaining seminars from Korean martial arts masters. If Tae Kwon Do is the most popular Korean Martial Art and uses a lot of the bad round kicks from Kumite Point Fighting, why would we assume good round kicks could come from Korean Martial Arts? Because Tae Kwon Do was strongly influenced by Shotokan and is not considered representative of Korean Martial Arts. The most clearly Korean kicking martial art is called "Takkyeon" and in this video this Takkyeon master executes Sanda/Muay Thai style round kicks a number of times, but so forcefully his technique requires him to spin afterwords at two specific at both 1:27 and 2:28 in this video:

And we see in Bogutsuki today that their lead leg round kicks are clearly more like Sanda/Muay Thai lead leg round kicks than like the wimpy Savate lead leg kicks, even though their fighting stance and competition rules resemble Kumite Point Fighting:

This basic full power round kick I suspect has been around since before recorded history, and it is a common sparring technique in most Northern Kung Fu styles, which is the real reason it is so prominent in San Shou:

Even in Tai Chi we see Chen Ziqiang execute a low round kick (sometimes called a "whirlwind kick" in the Chen forms) to stop an incoming opponent at 7:46:

So the Kumite Point Fighting round kicks - technically and properly called "Foette Kicks" from Savate - have almost nothing to do with authentic Asian Martial Arts, and is indeed part of the cancer that fencing is to the martial arts, a direct byproduct of Kumite Point Fighting, that Karate took from Savate in Japan.

Stealing

 It's Saturday Night and Biden and Harris have given their inspired  and touching victory speeches. This is what the The Church's website has looked like through the election from the morning of November 3rd until tonight of November 7th, 2020:

You can see the title of the main article. It clearly references "this time of anxiety and racism," obviously referring to their contempt for Trump. But it goes beyond this, the Sunday morning after that speech featured there was given, the The Chruch's president, someone we regard as a living prophet, echoed those sentiments (starting at 11:00) :

So how is it so many LDS voted for Trump? Not everyone did, Romney didn't, I sure didn't. But obviously many did, as Utah was quickly called for Trump this election.

It is no coincidence that Utah is associated with so many Multi-Level Marketing schemes and so consistently votes GOP. Since George H. W. Bush, no Republican has been elected into office for a first term by the popular vote. The electoral college, a group of government appointees, has overturned the will of the people in a sad example of socialism trumping democracy, in the case of both the W and the Trump, who both proved to be horrible villains indeed once they got into the oval office (with the W using lies to get us into protracted wars in the middle east and Trump intentionally stoking racial divides in the USA.)

LDS conservatives are incredibly comfortable with theft, doing little or nothing about the Multi-Level Marketing schemes emanating from Utah and wreaking economic havoc all over the world. The only GOP politician that raised concerns about Trump's incredibly extensive involvement in Multi-Level Marketing schemes was Mitt Romney, but obviously most of the voters in Utah ignored him, just as they ignored their leaders four years later in this election. That's why they have no problem with the GOP using any excuse at all to be opportunistic: be it stealing the vote from the popular majority through socialist loopholes in the constitution, or be it stealing the appointment of a supreme court justice, stealing is 100% fine as long as they can get away with it.

The Book of Mormon warns against this type of behavior. One of the ongoing plots in the book is an organized crime sabotaging, subverting, waging war against and eventually toppling the Utopian government described in the book that rules "by the voice of the people." Eventually that wicked and corrupt society faces the wrath of Angry Jesus, who destroys most of their cities, and then goes on to explain to everyone just exactly why each city he stomped had it coming. One city had it coming the most, in 3rd Nephi Chapter 9 verse 9 it reads:

9 And behold, that great city Jacobugath, which was inhabited by the people of king Jacob, have I caused to be burned with fire because of their sins and their wickedness, which was above all the wickedness of the whole earth, because of their secret murders and combinations; for it was they that did  destroy the peace of my people and the government of the land; therefore I did cause them to be burned, to destroy them from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up unto me any more against them.

According to that verse toppling democracy is pretty much the very worst way to piss off Jesus there is. You want to know God's worst pet peeve? I present to you: GOP behavior, with Trump doing everything he could to stop votes from being counted in 2020, from screwing with the post office to dumping tons of misinformation out in his tweet tantrums. The problem is that this idea of stealing elections is just how the GOP does things. They know they don't have the will of the people behind them and they want to run things anyways in an obvious affront to God himself:

Capitalism is going to need to adapt to survive mechanization, namely universal income and universal health care. Yet conservative LDS voters have the audacity to call that "socialist stealing." The conservative LDS voters have no grounds to call anything stealing, when they overtly support disproportionately taxing the poor in order to benefit the rich, utilizing the socialist electoral college to steal voting decisions from the masses, and the stealing of elections outright through voter suppression. If you are LDS and voted for Trump once, shame on him, but if you voted for him twice, shame on YOU!

Martial Art vs Fighting Style

A "Martial Art" could literally be anything you practice to get good at in order to defend yourself or hurt others, ranging from Parkour to driving in a destruction derby, to archery. Even more confusingly it can refer to the differences between cultures in practicing various techniques (as with "karate" versus "kung fu",) or it could refer to very specific techniques such as "the art of throwing a good straight punch" or "using situational awareness." But most of the time "Martial Art" refers to something more specific called a "fighting style."

Boxing is certainly a martial art, but I would say that it isn't a fighting style. Mayweather is a boxer who has a career of 50 undefeated fights. Tyson is a boxer with 44 knock outs. If martial arts were the same thing as fighting styles, these two fighters would be very good at most of the same strategies, but in reality they are both known to have very different yet common fighting styles known to exist within the martial art of Boxing. Even their fighting stances have well established names, Peek-a-Boo for Tyson's hard-hitting front stance fighting, and Philly Shell for Mayweather's careful and precise side stance fighting. Other fighters who trained with Tyson's trainer had basically the same style as Tyson, and Mayweather's Philly Shell is a multi-generational family fighting style:

I trained with Vern Miller before Margaret McGregor's male vs. female boxing match in 2000 (she won.) Vern Miller was more known for his kickboxing fighters, and also taught Tai Chi and Choy Li Fut. Choy Li Fut was his primary "martial art" and the combat sports and Tai Chi were part of that. The fighting style he drew from his martial art involved a front orthodox stance, left foot forward, unless you were left handed, then you fought south paw, right foot forward.

A about a decade ago I had a close friend train at Bumble Bee's Boxing in Seattle, the most famous boxing gym in the Seattle Area. We were surprised when it turned out they fought from more of a side stance, and that left handed people who trained there also fought orthodox. These were two very different styles of boxing in an hour's driving distance from each other, and what style you boxed at had everything to do with who the most experienced instructor was at they gym you trained at. Here's a side stance fighting Bumble Bee's fighter verses a more front stance Mexican-style boxer:

We can contrast boxing, which is a sport and a martial art but not a fighting style, with Judo which is both of those things AND a fighting style. Most Judo black belts can demonstrate all of the 67 throws of Judo. However when they spar, most Judo black belts will focus on only the throws that work best for them, typically around a dozen of the 67 throws. Which dozen throws depends on the individual black belt. Going by this we would be tempted to say that each Judo black belt has his own style of Judo, but the fact is almost all Judo black belts train in very similar techniques in very similar ways, and again they can all do all 67 techniques. So Judo is clearly a fighting style even though it is also a sport and a martial art.

The name of a martial art is not always specific enough to know the fighting style taught there. Something as broad as "Kung Fu" or "Karate" will never tell you the fighting style, as there is a world of difference between the fighting styles of Olympic Karate and Kyokushin Karate. In Kumite Point Fighting (like the tournaments you see in the Karate Kid/Cobra Kai franchise) because everyone seems to be fighting more or less the same way, it looks like they are all doing the same fighting style. However, the competitors train in extraordinarily different ways, and could come from all sorts of martial arts backgrounds, and for many of them the Kumite Point Fighting might not even reflect how they do sparring most of the time in their training. Because most Kumite Point Fighting participants come from different fighting styles, Kumite Point Fighting is NOT a fighting style. 

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is most definitely NOT a fighting style. Even for the rare fighter that only trains for MMA and never trains in other fighting styles, their specific gym they train at is guaranteed to have their own MMA fighting style that will be significantly different from many other gyms that also only train for the sport of MMA. This is not to say anything negative towards the Martial Arts of combat sports athletes. Mike Tyson's Peek-a-Boo fighting style would be devastating in a street fight, a very practical option for many self defense situations, a potent fighting style in and of itself by traditional martial arts standards. "Martial Arts" is a very broad term that also includes "fighting styles," and fighting styles are ways of training for using specific techniques and strategies in a fight. 

Management Studies at Antioch University

I have a Masters in Management from Antioch University. This is one of the oldest fields of study in one of the oldest school in the country. Founded in 1852 by the father of American Education, Horace Mann, Antioch has always been about hands on education, with a focus on leadership and applicability to the workplace. One of the most important thinkers in the history of management studies is the author of "The Human Side of Enterprise," Douglass McGregor. His concept of theory X vs. theory Y is foundational now to almost all other workplace leadership theories. He was president of Antioch University from 1948 to 1954.

When I was attending the Seattle campus in 2004 to 2006, that robust management program had merged with other programs that were dwindling in student interest ("Organizational Psychology," "Whole Systems Design," and "Environment and Community,") to form a new university department at the Seattle Campus called The Center For Creative Change. At the same time the over all Seattle University system has a PhD in Leadership and Change program, which did not have a Master's degree option, and took in very few students who didn't already have a master's degree. When you graduated from the Center for Creative Change, if you were going to a PhD program it was Antioch's Leadership and Change program, and some of the faculty of the Center for Creative Change were graduate students in the PhD in Leadership and Change program.

As a graduate assistant I helped promote The Center for Creative Change at a few events. I myself was attracted to this Antioch's Management program as an alternative to MBA programs which at the time were a dime a dozen and focused primarily on the operation of spreadsheets, only to reconsider changing my major to Organizational Psychology or Whole Systems Design instead (though I did not.) I saw this play out at these events, with undergraduate students coming to the Antioch University table first to look at the Management program, but then also start to get interested the other majors in the Center for Creative Change. 

So many management students chose to take less generic sounding majors after having decided to enroll, that they changed the Management major title to "Management and Leadership." But eventually the Center for Creative Change decided the Management major was no longer necessary. I protested that this would put too much distance between the Center for Creative Change and their market for students (primarily the MBA market,) and in a handful of years the Center for Creative Change disintegrated and was no more. 

However by this time the rest of the Antioch University had already compensated, with Green MBA programs at various campuses, and the PhD in Leadership and Change program starting to create their own specific master's program, the Masters in Leadership Practice. Much of the leadership faculty from the my Management program had been drafted to help with the greater university system as a whole (Shawna Horman and Mark Hower.) Now in 2020 the over all Antioch University System continues in the tradition of the Center for Creative Change with all sorts of leadership and management studies, in fields ranging from non-profit to tech to medical. I have never regretted studying Management at the world's foremost institution for doing so, Antioch University. 

Your Crap

In my recent "Rush to the Middle" post I decried agendas of the far left and far right in the USA. Though my views haven't changed much over the years, because of shifts in national politics my views have gone from being moderate-libertarian to far left to now center left (and are epitomized by capitalism-saving policies such as universal health care and universal income.) When I called the agendas "your crap" in the above post, I insinuated that the far left and far right agendas were basically the same thing. And that's exactly what I meant. 

 First let me define what I mean by far left and far right. If you can't vote for Biden because he's "republican lite", then you are far left. If you hold your nose and reluctantly vote for Biden your are moderate enough to be considered center left. If you hold your nose and vote for Trump because you can't handle what the left has been up to lately, you are center right. However, if you enthusiastically support Trump, or think that Trump should have more than two terms, you are far right. In other words you don't have to be a full blown communist or white separatist to be far right or far left, you just have to be really enthusiastic about Trump or so enthusiastic about Sanders that you are threatening within a month of the election to not vote for Biden. Let's look at what is the crap flowing from the far right, and then the crap flowing from the far left, so that I can tell you exactly why it is the same crap. 

First the far right bemoans the loss of a Christian America. But this specific brand of Christianity isn't the Black Church, it isn't Catholicism as is practiced by most Latinos, and contrary to popular belief it is most definitely not LDS. The Christianity they are talking about is primarily White and mostly North American, and has historically been very hostile towards other religions such as Catholicism, LDS, Islam and eastern religions. The white separatists I have talked to aren't anti-people-of-color, what they want is white-affirmation, "we want a world safe for white children." The so called loss of Christianity on the right is not much different.

Second the far left seeks for the English language to change in order to affirm minority groups, especially African American and LGBT. This is startling at first to those like me who are extremely concerned for our heterosexual male black friends who are at high risk to be brutalized or killed by law enforcement, because most of those black victims are straight and male. But now with a scortched earth victories in the supreme court on both abortion and gay marriage, where else is the far left to go with their culture war? 

But as one of my center left friends has pointed out, "equal rights for _______ is not _________ affirming." So for example, "equal rights for White Christians is not White Christian affirming." As we can see with this example, this affirmation seeking is essentially asking for a form of supremacy. If American Christianity needs to be preserved through legislation, that is clearly legislating white supremacy. This is the problem with the "your truth/my truth" or "your lived experience" verses "my lived experience" of post modernism, is it validates personal prejudices based on personal experiences, and thus validates racism in general. This is evident in both the far right and the far left right now.

The right was infiltrated by the cancer of post modernism in the George W. Bush years through that president's total reliance on Orwellian language, or what he called "truthiness." But now the far left seems infiltrated by the same mentality, unable to commit to vocabulary needed to form coherent policy. If "toxic masculinity for her may be different than what toxic masculinity for me," then toxic masculinity isn't really anything at all, because for words to be meaningful, they have to mean something. Policy is built on words, no words = no policy.

All of this extremism is very destructive for our democracy, and empowers villains like Trump who thrive in these chaotic circumstances. The far left is perfectly fine with Sanders branding himself as a "socialist," a word the far left fully understands alarms over 50% of the voters in the USA, and distinctly calls for a different form of government than what we have now. Likewise the far right sees the safety of fetuses as more important than a stable democracy. What they both fail to understand is their extremist views are only possible because of our democracy they have such contempt for. If the constitution fails, it is likely that whatever follows will not support the freedom of speech that make their extremist views possible.

Rush to the Middle

My politics haven't changed much in the last 4 years, but COVID-19 pandemic politics have taken my favored policies from being considered radical left to being main stream or moderate left: universal health care and universal income. My views didn't change, the world's views did.

And I am starting to consider a 3rd issue as important as these two, and that is the 1st Amendment, freedom of speech. Radical groups in the USA seem to be attacking this key requirement to making democracy function. On the left we have "cancel culture" seeking to demonize anyone who doesn't comply with the latest post modern jargon and slang. On the right we have Trump supporters endorsing a war against the media, journalism and anything even remotely like politically independent fact checking. The radicals in the USA are becoming incredibly information resistant and extremist.

The fact is Trump is a real threat to democracy, he even says so on a regular basis, asking for more terms, openly interfering with elections, praising dictators, and so on. Trump's followers when pressed seem to believe that our republic has failed as it has legalized abortion, so that democracy is no longer their preferred form of government. 

And what does the far left do in response? The same antisocial and ineffective things they did in 2016, only 100 times worse, with their childish riots and attempts to butcher the English language. Most protests aren't riots, but the riots that have happened have completely replaced the videos of police brutality in the voting public's mind. Their justification for endangering our democracy is that maybe something more Marxist will replace it.

Regardless if you are a left wing or right wing radical, know that something better isn't coming along to save you from representative democracy. If your traitorous antagonism causes the constitution to fail, the USA is done. Power holders tolerating your post modern linguistic games? Done. People tolerating your armory of a gun collection? Over. Your radicalism is a luxury of our constitution, and without it that luxury will no longer be afforded by what follows.

And so yes, the grown ups have work to do. The never Trumpers and moderate liberals have to come together to save our country from your crap. The more you throw tantrums over it, the more you show what an incurable baby you are.

Heinkido: Aikido's Salvation

I have pleaded in the past for Aikidoka to save Aikido through sparring. I have speculated that this may require some Aikido black belt (which I am not) to:

1. Train in MMA to fill out the gaps in Aikido training.
2. Fight in a Tipon/Gathering (weapon fighting event) to find the REAL combative value of Aikido's kata.
3. Cross train in Chinese martial arts to get a sense of the sparring that has been largely lost in Aikido.

Though he didn't wait for me to make these suggestions, Aikido Fresno's Sensei Christopher Hein has done just that:

It's worth noting that Hein is a direct student of the legendary Tim Cartmell, the USA's most respected internal martial artist from an MMA perspective. Tim Cartmell studied the Chinese internal arts until he was winning Sanda tournaments in China before returning to the USA and mastering BJJ as well. He's one of the ultimate masters of that Sumo-like Push Hands sparring missing in Aikido:

And going beyond also studying combat sports, Hein actually fought in a Dog Brothers Gathering using his Aikido weapons technique! So having met all my criteria for saving Aikido (actually a good while before I made any of those suggestions,) what is the quality of Hein's Aikido?

Yes, he REALLY gets Aikido. He gets the exact niche Aikido should fill, covering blind spots missed in combat sports. He really gets live training, and he really understands and appreciates the practical application of Aikido technique:

And you can see the influence of Push Hands in that practice, which is reminiscent of Sumo. And then it becomes obvious - the real application of Aikido is with weapons standing wrist locks are almost useless against an unarmed attacker, but have a higher chance of working against an armed attacker if your goal is to get the weapon rather than to take down the attacker: 

And that's when it becomes obvious that Hein sees Aikido from the most practical view of all, as art that uses weapons:

But Hein's understanding of the unarmed application of Aikido is the most advanced I know of:

Now I don't agree with Hein on a lot of things (what appears to be some very short sparring rounds, certain aspects of knife fighting technique, etc.) but I am not primarily an Aikido practitioner anyhow. I think he's starting to make some serious contributions to the martial arts beyond Aikido. In this video we see actual, factual, legit knife grappling (something we've aspired to at Tres Espadas for years):

Social Media Fasting

At the beginning of the summer my family and I started a bathroom repainting that slowly turned into something of a remodel. It was going to take two weeks. Three months later I realized we were less than half way done, so I decided to fast from social media for until it was done. It was done a few weeks later (a few hours ago.) 

For me social media is primarily blogging, YouTube and facebook. Between the three I spend a vast amount of my spare time. When I sacrificed those until I was done with my goal, I became very focused on completing my goal, AND I had more time for working on it.

I will probably be doing more fasts soon because I am behind on various Game Arts Guild projects. But first I need to get caught up on what I have been missing on YouTube...

Seattle Problems 2

This is a follow up to my original Seattle Problems post. A friend of mine has bemoaned how terrible Seattle has become since the COVID-19 pandemic began with the resulting BLM protests. I have bad news for you: Seattle never has been, hasn't been recently, is not currently, will not soon be, and will not ever be a good place to live.

Historically from the days of the Alaskan Gold Rush up through the 1990's Seattle was filled with violent, drug filled and impoverished schools and neighborhoods. From about 2000 to 2010 Seattle's draconian anti-gang units had successfully cleaned up neighborhoods, but real estate prices were still low enough that Seattle was a fairly livable place. But by 2010 Seattle's real estate prices had jumped so high that the cool kids were all leaving for greener pastures, I myself finally giving up on 2015.

Seattle always has been a place to visit, but not a place to live. Specifically it has always been a place to come to reinvent yourself. University of Washington, Seattle University, Seattle Pacific University, Antioch University Seattle are all well recognized significant universities within Seattle city limits. Also in Seattle are employers everyone wants on their resume but no one in their right mind wants to retire from like Amazon, Boeing, and various down town medical facilities. There has always been a stream of out-of-towners coming into Seattle in a homeless condition, reinventing themselves, and then moving on to make the world a better place - that IS Seattle, that IS the legacy of the Emerald City!

For those who complain Seattle is less than ideal for family life, I tell you that Seattle isn't that city, never has been, and should never be that city. If you remain in Seattle, you become a townie of the biggest college town of all time. The world is a big place, and Seattle doesn't need more Seattle-trained heroes that it is already full of. 

My only regret about leaving Seattle is that I didn't leave five years earlier.

They/Them

One of the strengths of English is that nouns do not have gender assigned by default, as you may find in Spanish or French. However English pronouns have gender. Using gender neutral pronouns will make English stronger in this regard.

In slang English when it comes to pronouns, we often use the wrong plural to get around this very problem. It all starts with the gaping void of the you-plural, there is no you-plural in English. So instead we have variations of "you all" y'all and yunz. Likewise it is often inconvenient to be throwing in "he" or "she" into a sentence because gender isn't relevant most of the time, and it's often easier to say "they" or "them."

Many people into elaborate pronoun variations like to quote Noam Chomsky. But I think Noam Chomsky's most important point on language is this: academics often make language harder to use formally than how it is used normally. They/them instead of he/she is a common grammatical error in English already, suggesting, according to Chomsky, that perhaps this is actually the best way to use English.

I recently wrote that policy that is good for transgendered tends to be good also for heterosexual males specifically. In todays' world, "he" and "his" brings tremendous burden. First we have the lofty expectations thrown upon men in our society that are difficult at best to live up to. Second we also have all the negative stereotypes about men.

I personally do not want people referencing my maleness every time they use a pronoun to refer to me. It makes a lot more sense to just refer to me in the plural, even though I am 100% hetero male. I don't need the judgement, and I don't want the weight.

But I prefer EVERYONE to use gender neutral pronouns for EVERYONE ELSE as well. That is the main reason why my preferred pronouns are they/them. Don't mention my name and say "but he's become weaker as he's gotten older," or "oh wow, is he single?," or "he gets so toxic," when you refer to me, I don't claim to speak for all men, and I certainly am not going to apologize for them either.

If we are picking our own pronouns now, I am picking they/them, and I implore you to do the same (that's how I refer to you anyhow.)

Good for Trans is Good for Mans

I have noticed quite often and quite abruptly that trans-friendly policy is great for heterosexual males. For example, God's gift to politics, Kamala Harris, is being demonized by the thin skinned for supposedly killing trans-females by forcing them to stay in male prisons. We'll go ahead and ignore the obvious problem that she wasn't the driving force behind that policy, and take that claim at face value. Male prison is too dangerous for trans women.

But guess what, it's too dangerous for men also. Saying otherwise is promoting rape culture: "You broke into my house and stole my TV, but thankfully you got caught, and you'll have plenty of time to think about it with your room mate Big Bubba." When the legal system does not condemn someone to being raped or murdered, and that someone is raped or murdered in prison, that punishment went far beyond what the legal system justified. 

IF prison were made so safe that trans women would feel comfortable there, then guess what? That's right, it would be better for ALL of the men there. And it is like this issue after issue after issue.

Let's take Pence's favorite subject, bathroom politics. Trans want to be able to be able to use the bathroom wherever they go. A trans woman really should not feel comfortable dressed as a woman in a men only bathroom, because she identifies as a woman. I have used a bathroom before that was mixed gendered with multiple stalls. It was very awkward for me, but even more awkward for the women trying to use the same restroom as me. In reality when we talk of mix gendered bathrooms, we are really talking about bathrooms with one toilet and one sink like what is often seen in hospitals and doctor's offices.

And even though that mixed gendered bathroom with multiple stalls was almost unbearably awkward, it wasn't half as awkward and trying to pee standing up between two other males standing up. The standard urinal situation in most male restrooms is such an incredible violation of privacy as to demonstrate a distinct contempt for male comfort by society as a whole. A single toilet/single sink bathroom is vastly preferable for a hetero male than the usual public restroom arrangement.

And that is also the ideal situation for Trans. And so it goes with basically every Trans issue ever. A trans man I have known since before his transition recently confided "no one treats me like I am a real man." I responded "being accused of not being masculine enough is a normal part of the male experience. Welcome to the club." We don't have to run around emasculating trans men, other LGBT men, straight men, or even women for that matter. Emasculation is particularly harmful to trans men, but it's not great for straight men either.

What is good for the trans is good for the mans.

Kamala Harris

My top three picks for president this year were: Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard and Kamala Harris. The most important political issue hands down, far above the environment or universal health care, is and basically always has been Universal Basic Income (UBI). I say that from a Utopian perspective like Elon Musk, not from a socialist perspective which demands instead a guaranteed jobs program.

Tulsi Gabbard eventually came around to the idea of a UBI but it was very late in the game. For most of the primaries it was only Yang and Harris that were talking about UBI. It is is very clear Harris is a more experienced politician than Yang and has her head around virtually every other public policy issue much better than Yang does, especially on the next two most important political issues: the environment and universal health care.

Gabbard is the president we wanted, Harris is the president we need.

Some say "Harris is a cop." This is the most childish statement of the last few decades I have heard. The most effective direction to change an organization is from within, and no other presidential or vice presidential candidate EVER understands the criminal justice system better than Harris.

Some will have an issue with her ethnicity. For those I ask you: have you met a harder working group of people than Jamaicans or people from the Indian subcontinent? She's BOTH of those, born in the USA, turned high level PROSECUTOR. Believe me, you do NOT have a problem with this woman.

Some say Harris is not loyal enough. The fact that Biden is willing to have Harris as as his Vice President shows that he's capable of taking serious, brutal feedback (unlike Trump.) When it comes to loyalty, you want the people who will tell you when you are walking down the street with your zipper down, the emperor needs to know when he has no clothes!

Harris is such an ideal presidential candidate that I am willing to hold my nose and vote for Biden in order to get her elected as Vice President. I would be able to say the same for Gabbard, Yang, and believe it or not Pence. Any of the other democratic candidates? Nope. Any other GOP besides Pence? Romney. (Pence and Romney are both pioneers of Universal Health Care.)

We need people who understand our era, who can put the constant culture war battles to the side long enough to work on the issues that make a REALLY matter.

I Am Not A Veteran

For reasons I don't understand, I am often mistaken for being a veteran. I am NOT a veteran. I have never tried to imply for any reason under any circumstances that I have ever been in the military. Beyond that, I find the sin of stolen valor to be extremely heinous. I am very grateful to all veterans who have served my country, and they have my deep respect and regard for having done so.

Here I will clarify what my connections to the military are (all civilian stuff that has nothing to do with me providing any service or products to the military of any kind,) to help clarify how much I am not a veteran:

• I grew up in Kitsap County, home of 3 significant naval bases. 
• It is no coincidence that my father was in the Navy and worked as a civilian on one of those bases. As a young child I lived in naval housing in various states.
• Some of my martial arts instruction came from veterans, particularly the very martial version of Aikido I learned from a high ranking active duty Navy captain who's son I was friends with and did martial arts with. I lived with that family for a year on an Airforce base in Ohio when I was a senior in high school.
• I myself have have worked for veteran managers and supervisors, for example when I was pepper spray certified, it included cuffing people while I was pepper sprayed because my boss/certifier had provided that training while he was in the Navy, in some leadership capacity in shore patrol. 
• I have trained or cross trained in half of the full contact martial arts facilities in Kitsap County that have existed from 1988 to the present, and as a result I have been in the ring or on the mat with a wide range of active duty personnel and veterans.

None of that is any special claim to fame or implication that I am somehow specially trained, it is literally nothing unusual for anyone doing martial arts where I live. I also don't want to mislead here, it is true that my security resume ends abruptly in 2012 and I never discuss what I have been doing since as far as that career goes publicly. None of that has anything to do with my relationship to the military.

It might be my hair? I like short haircuts for self defense reasons. It might be because I think lethal force is justified in self defense? That is a common opinion outside of the military in my country. It might be the Punisher logo? I wore that often before I realized it was becoming and anti-BLM symbol. It might be because I am a little old fashioned? That's probably more of an LDS thing, just the way I was raised and the way I try to conduct myself, and which leaves a lot to be desired.

And I will tell you something else here, which is that I don't actually recommend the military to anyone as a career choice, unless it is exactly what they want to do with their lives. If you want to be a military officer, or if you want to run boiler rooms in aircraft carriers, or if you want to gear up in body armor and shoot at bad guys, or you want to be a fighter pilot, then yes, the military is the way to go. But for most people the military is NOT going to take them where they want to go in life, the training is NOT going to translate to civilian life, the mindset will NOT serve you well in civilian life, you will NOT learn good leadership skills for outside of the military, and I could go on and on and on here. I have been actively involved in talking numerous people out of joining the military in the first place, because over all military participation is a very bad deal for most people.

Once upon a time my brother and I, recently graduated from high school, were uselessly loitering about the town, when an army recruiter noticed us and approached us. We told him "not interested" and moved on. He later drove by us in the car and stopped to talk to us out of his window:

Recruiter: "What do you have against joining the Army?"

Me: "I don't like taking orders."

Recruiter: "Is that it, that's all?" 

Me: "I don't like the color green!" 

How to Succeed at Network Marketing

I will now share with you the secret behind how I was more successful at Herbalife than most distributors. Then I will show you what my next step should have been if I had decided to stay in that business. Finally I will reveal the finishing touch you need to really succeed in your business.

My Success

If you have a down line then you know how lazy they tend to be. You spend all this time on them in meetings and training, and all they do in return is take a % of profit from what few sales they sometimes make. You could have instead made more money by using that time and effort to make those sales yourself. Admit it: most of your "team" just isn't cut out for sales, and make much better customers than team members. But whoever did MLM without recruiting? I did!

I was able to get dozens of return customers every month precisely because I didn't recruit. Because I put my time and effort into finding customers instead of do-nothing trainees, people came to ME when they wanted Cellular Nutrition or Thermojetics. I had a half of a town to myself, and when people called me up and asked to join my down line, I told them "maybe after I am done establishing my business here, I will call you." I never got to the point where I thought I should give anyone my potential customers!

But if I had wanted to stay in the game, if my heart was really into fitness, then there are a few other things I should have done in addition to this...

The Next Step

Herbalife products were packaged to appeal to distributors like me, but not packaged to appeal to my return customers. For example the Cellular Nutrition protein shake which was supposed to be a 30 day supply only contained 20 servings! What I should have done next to build my fitness business was find superior quality and superior value from OUTSIDE of Herbalife. In my martial arts training soon after this I ended up using Twin Labs protein shakes because they were more affordable and effective than the Herbalife products.

Look at how much of your hard earned cash that your up line takes out of your sales profits. Just why do they deserve that money, did they do the hard work to make the sale? Hell no, that's YOUR money they are renting that Disney mansion and BMW with. 

Do you have any idea how much better you could do with buying products in bulk than purchasing products from your up line or MLM company? The difference is massive. All of that profit could be YOURS as long as you are willing to do the smart thing, the best thing for your business AND your customers, which is to prioritize value over brand loyalty!

Finishing Touch

If I had been serious about fitness, after focusing on direct sales myself (which I actually did,) and ditching my upline along with their bad business advice, creepy conventions and fake guru nonsense, the final thing I would have needed to do is MAKE MY OFFERING UNIQUE. In my case I should have probably offered one-on-one self-defense and fitness training along with the health products I was selling.

But in today's world you don't have to study three different martial arts for years on end to become a fitness trainer. The total cost of the training to become a legitimate certified personal trainer varies between $600 to $2,000. That is a lot less than what you are probably spending now as your up line and down line leech every penny they can from your bank account. 

Secular Imperative

In 2008 I came to a realization about my own internal morality that is subtle but I think might help others, which I call the Secular Imperative:

1. Because of the phenomenon of hallucination and coincidence, God knows you can never be 100% sure there is or is not a God.
2. Therefore, God will judge you on your decisions not only by how much you followed God's will, but also by OTHER justifications you found to make your decision.
3. God is judging you on your ability to make good decisions even when you are not 100% sure of the reality of God.
4. This means God expects you to find good reasons to do the right thing besides edicts supposedly from God.

Growing up LDS, we say we "know" rather than "we believe." For the LDS God is waiting to hear from you, just barely outside of your peripheral vision, hoping you will start a correspondence with God. The LDS religion is rife with potent mojo: I can tell you story after story about personal experiences that would show why I would be lying if I didn't use the word "know" when I say "I know there is a God." 

But here's the problem: how do I know I am not crazy? How do I know have not had hallucinations or experienced some extraordinarily incredible coincidences? But since I actually am very confident that there is a God, I am also confident that God knows that no matter what, I have to entertain some possible chance that I am wrong about God's existence.

Therefore, I am confident that God's view of me and my decisions is in the context of me never being able to be sure if God exists or not. Therefore it is critical for me to have justifications for my decisions that go beyond obedience to "God's will." It is important to God for me to explore why doing something is right or wrong beyond religious justification.

THAT is what I call the "Secular Imperative." Here are two examples:

• Word of Wisdom (LDS rules about not drinking, smoking, using illicit drugs, etc.): that stuff is expensive and bad for your health. Nothing epitomizes trying to buy happiness like spending big bucks on happy pills. I am better off without risking some kind of chemical addiction.
• Chastity (sex only with one person you are married to): Do I want to complicate my life with affairs? Do I want to spend the money it would take for me to have an affair? Do I want to risk the expenses and isolation of divorce? Do I really want to risk having a child outside of my current marriage? Do I want to have to help some woman decide if she wants an abortion because of my wayward penis? Would I like to risk catching an STD? Has any women ever "made me happy," is that even a fair thing to expect out of a lover? NOPE!

The Secular Imperative is not a disregard for God's advice, nor is it blind obedience to religious edicts. The Secular Imperative is a serious exploration of the reasoning behind God's will by taking a stark inventory of the world God gave us.

Group Association

I go out of my way to talk to people I don't agree with. And this is not just over minor things, this is over big controversial things such as a lot of the subject matter on this blog - and in fact this blog often refers to some of those conversations. Why? When you find someone you disagree with, you have found the edge of your echo-chamber: if you want to help change someone's opinion, this is your only chance. But most of the time you can't change someone's opinion by arguing with them, right? 100% correct. So why discuss something with someone when you know their opinion won't budge yet?

Marketing In the Soul Age describes people identifying themselves, at least as consumers, as a unique combination of memberships in different groups. Taking me for example, I generally associate with LDS, Tai Chi, Full Contact Weapon Fighting, Yang Gang, Antioch University, AntiMLM, etc. Think about your life, what groups do you identify with?

Now, let's take two opposing groups. One group is a historical society who wants to preserve the look and feel of downtown, and the other group is a business association that wants to renovate the downtown area.  On one hand we have Nancy who is in the historical society, and on the other hand we have Jill who is in the business association. Let's say these two open a correspondence. They argue, make generalizations about each other, and otherwise have extraordinary disagreements.

But as this correspondence continues something interesting happens. When Nancy goes back to hang out with the other people in the historical society, Nancy is more knowledgeable about the business association's views. Nancy becomes the historical society's resident expert on business association thinking, basically becoming their resident business association group member. Likewise when Jill goes back to hang out with the business association, Jill rapidly becomes the business association's resident historical society member.

In order to adequately represent business association views to the historical society Nancy will find herself sometimes defending business association views. Likewise Jill will sometimes find herself defending historical society views at the business association. But this expands both Jill's and Nancy's options, because now that they understand each others perspectives, they can use each others perspectives as needed. Jill might be able to see that some of the old buildings might make good tourist attractions to attract more business, and Nancy might be able to see that if some parts of downtown are renovated it could increase the tax revenue needed to maintain more important landmarks.

Keep this "group association" concept in mind when chatting with someone involved in MLM. If you have correspondence with someone who is in MLM, they become that MLMer who has anti-MLM friends. This can help them leave MLM, because as they inevitably run into the problems in MLM, they will have YOUR anti-MLM perspective for handling those problems, and they will have YOU as a friend so they are not so isolated as they leave MLM.

3D Arguing: Common Ground

Voters need to do the exact opposite of politicians in arguments in order to preserve democracy. In an argument a politician seeks to show the differences between that politician and his opponents, to show voters why the voters should vote for that politician instead of that politician's opponents. In arguments with other voters we should seek to find common ground with other voters, so that together we can hold politicians accountable for acting or not acting on that common ground.

This is going beyond reaching out, it is fighting to find agreement. What if I were to tell you that as a progressive, I was able to come to a consensus with an Alt-right acquaintance on gun control? I have open contempt for the 2nd amendment, as I consider it to be a relic of slavery, where as my acquaintance sees the 2nd amendment as a sacred protection for all of our other rights. How could we ever see eye to eye on this issue? Here's how:

1. We both agree that soccer moms with cheap handguns in their purse with no training were a public safety problem.
2. We both agree that no matter the political views of a serious gun enthusiast, the kind of gun enthusiast that owns a wide range of firearms and shoots at the range, this enthusiast is of no public safety risk whatsoever. This gun enthusiast is not going to break the law, threaten the police, threaten other people, use the gun unsafely, fail to teach children adequate gun safety, allow children to play with the guns like toys, fail to lock up the weapons, etc.
3. Therefore, we both more or less agree that gun enthusiasts shouldn't really have restrictions on any weapon they want to own, but also that there should be less casual gun owners who do not take their weapons seriously.
4. Though we both agree the Texas gun "license to carry" system isn't perfect, we both agree it's far better than what most states have now.

In our era of constant calls for gun control, how come politicians are not fast at work making a federal system based on Texas's "License to Carry"? Because we voters are not holding them accountable, we have allowed ourselves as voters to be divided. But when I am arguing, this is the effect 3D Thinking has on the debate: any common ground I can find with the other side is precious. 

Look at it like this: are there any stupid people who agree with your views? Obviously. Therefore, is it possible that there are smart people who disagree with your views? Yes it is. Would it be wise for someone with your views to understand why smart people disagree with your views? Of course. Is that smart person better off if they understand why you disagree with their views? We are all better off, if we can see were we disagree, and then understand where we DO agree.

Reaching Out

I go out of my way to talk to people I don't agree with. And this is not just over minor things, this is over big controversial things such as a lot of the subject matter on this blog. Why? When you find someone you disagree with, you have found the edge of your echo-chamber: if you want to help change someone's opinion, this is your only chance. But most of the time you can't change someone's opinion by arguing with them, right? 100% correct. So why discuss something with someone when you know their opinion won't budge yet?

Marketing In the Soul Age describes people identifying themselves, at least as consumers, as a unique combination of memberships in different groups. Taking me for example, I generally associate with LDS, Tai Chi, Full Contact Weapon Fighting, Yang Gang, Antioch University, AntiMLM, etc. Think about your life, what groups do you identify with?

Now, let's take two opposites, on one hand we have a Mr. Antifa who is an anarchist, and on the other hand we have a Ms. Alt-right who is a fascist. Let's say these two open a correspondence. They argue, make a lot of broad accusations towards each other, offend one another deeply, and so on.

But as this correspondence continues something interesting happens. When Mr. Antifa goes back to hang out with the other anarchists, Mr. Antifa is more knowledgeable about fascist views. Mr. Antifa becomes the anarchist group's resident expert on fascist thinking, their resident fascist. Likewise when the Ms. Alt-right goes back to hang out with her fellow fascists, Ms. Alt-right rapidly becomes the fascists group's resident anarchist.

Even though Ms. Alt-right and Mr. Antifa may not agree with each other's thinking most of the time, because they understand each other's perspectives, they can use those opposing perspectives when it suits them. Mr. Antifa has a better understanding of how strong authority can have its advantages in certain situations, and Ms. Alt-right can see the flaws in strong authority figures and the need to avoid complying with authority blindly.

I recently posted a Tai Chi video on the Tres Espadas YouTube channel, and there is praise there in the comments by someone named "White Lives Matter." Does that sound like someone I would normally agree with? HELL NO! But look, here we have someone at least sympathetic towards white separatist views praising:

1. a channel and club with a spanglish name "Tres Espadas," (racist whites I have spoken to are offended by white people using Spanish names for things,)
2. a video which talks about a Chinese Martial art, "Tai Chi," (amidst the COVID-19 pandemic anti-Asian sentiment is high,) which is also 
3. a video featuring kids who are obviously at most only half-white. (When white separatists say they want to protect a future for white children, they are saying they eschew mixed race relationships.)

Having someone calling themselves "White Lives Matter" like that video is huge. That means when they are hanging out with their unsympathetic-to-BLM group, they are likely now the racially progressive one in that (probably racist) group!

I implore people in the anti-MLM community to keep this group association concept in mind. If you have correspondence with someone who is in MLM, they become that MLMer who has anti-MLM friends. This is one of the best things you can do to help them leave MLM, because as they inevitably run into the problems in MLM, they will have YOUR anti-MLM perspective for handling those problems, and they will have YOU as a friend so they are not so isolated as they leave MLM.

Mint Linux

I am a casual user of Linux, and this is about Linux from the perspective of a consumer advocate. If you want to just cut to the chase, I strongly recommend Mint Linux for most casual consumers. (Don't get me wrong, this could change, but Mint has been king now for close to a decade.)

The first thing you need to know about Linux is that it is an operating system. An operating system is the software that comes already installed on a device when you get it, which allows that device to work. Most phones use "Android" as an operating system, most computers use "Windows" as an operating system, and Apple has other operating systems for iPhones and Macs.

Most of the time when people use Linux it is on a computer that would normally run Windows. In fact most computers that run Linux originally came with Windows on them. The main reasons to use Linux instead of Windows are:

1. Linux is free. If you want to update to a new version of Windows, it's going to cost you, and it's not going to be very convenient. Linux has numerous alternatives to this.
2. Linux is more secure. No, it's not because Linux is less common, it's because Linux is designed to be more secure. Linux users generally don't have to worry about spyware and viruses!
3. Linux is open source. You can always find out what Linux is doing, because the code is available to everyone. Good luck figuring out what Windows is doing behind closed doors, probably stealing your data and selling it to the highest bidder.
4. Linux is more stable. When Linux has a problem, it's usually pretty easy to fix. Sometimes with Windows you just can't ever fix the problem because Microsoft isn't hiding their cards close to their chest, they are hiding their cards behind their back. 
5. Linux uses system resources more efficiently - or in other words it makes your computer more powerful. I do not understand why Windows seems to take up 2 gigs of RAM and 32 gigs of hard drive space, but last I checked neither of those things were free, and both things were important for my daily use of my computer.

The next thing you need to understand about Linux is what types of Linux there are. First, Linux is part of a family of operating systems based on an ancient operating system called Unix. Android, Apple's various operating systems, Chrome OS (on Chromebooks,) and Free BSD are all in this same family. But of those, the easiest to install and use on your own computer is by far Linux, which is why Linux is used by do-it-yourself people instead of those other operating systems about 99% of the time.

Now when you get down to Linux specifically, the different kinds of Linux are called "distros" (short for "distributions." If you want to follow the latest news on distros and the horse races on what distros are currently the most used, check out the website "DistroWatch.") What makes this confusing is that most distros are based on other distros. Here are some common distros for other distros to be based on:

• Debian: this is the hard core nerd maximum-power version of Linux, very elite.
• Red Hat (aka Fedora): this is the corporate business edition type of Linux.
• Arch Linux: this is like a lego set where you are given pieces with which to put together a configuration of linux for your computer and situation.
• Gentoo: this is super flexible Linux for people who want to micromanage every aspect of their operating system. This is what Chrome OS was based on back when Chrome OS was still Linux.
• Ubuntu: this is user-friendly linux meant to be used by the average computer user - I stress "meant" here, because it doesn't always deliver on this promise. Ubuntu was originally based on Debian, but Ubuntu is its own thing now.

And if you are new to Linux, the only distros you should be taking seriously are distros based on Ubuntu, because it is unlikely you will even get other distros up and running. But not all Ubuntu based distros are equal: Ubuntu was the only really user friendly Linux from 2006 to 2011, and then they made a horrible mistake ironically called "Unity" which completely fractured the Ubuntu community. Fortunately one fragment of this community dominated and thrived, and continued Ubuntu's tradition of being user-friendly, and that distro is called "Mint Linux."

Mint Linux is the way to go for most casual users of Linux and Linux newbies, because it is completely focused on being user friendly. It is easy to install, it is easy to use when it gets installed, it looks good, and it is still respectful of your system resources even though it looks good. Mint is the easy linux: it is easy, and it is linux!

It's 2020 and things are changing fast. I wish Chrome OS was a decent operating system I could install the software I need on, I wish Android was a serious challenger to Windows, I wish Google was done working on a new Operating System called Fuchsia that might be better than all of the above some day in the future, and I wish Ubuntu had never done Unity. But we install the operating system that is available to us, not the operating system we wish was available to us, and that operating system is Mint.

And honestly Mint is a fine operating system indeed, I have basically no complaints about it what so ever. The only issues that people might be concerned about are 1) not all Steam games work in Linux, and 2) some business software is Windows-only. However for most laptop and desktop users Mint is a step above all other operating systems:

Overspecialization in Martial Arts

In 2018 I wrote about encapsulation in martial arts. But the other side to that is martial arts overspecializing in one aspect of training until that training loses relevance. When it comes to self defense in general, understand that studying only unarmed martial arts for self defense is already overspecialization. For comprehensive self defense you also need training in situational awareness, what to do in an active shooter situation, and how to use weapons you have available to defend yourself with.

Another common form of overspecialization in self defense is shooting at the gun range. First, the vast majority of people with a need to defend themselves don't have a gun easily available to them most of the time, if they even own a gun in the first place. Second though practicing at a range is certainly an important aspect of gun training, there are at least 4 other aspects that need to be trained in if firearms are your primary martial art for self defense: deployment, retention, strategy and sparring.

The most encapsulated martial art is probably Boxing - punches only. It is highly effective in self defense because of the efficacy of punching (high power, low risk,) the importance of knowing how to defend against a punch and because of Boxing's footwork. Studying boxing will improve almost anyone's punching, punching defense and footwork. 

BUT the downside to this is those are the only martial arts skills you will learn in boxing. Let's say someone said "I want to do MMA, but I want a good foundation first, so I am going to train boxing until I win 10 boxing matches." The problem there is overspecialization: there's a lot of other stuff you need to know for MMA besides boxing!

But MMA itself is limited when it comes to its application to street fighting for self defense. The UFC was originally designed to show the value of grappling to martial arts consumers, and within the first few UFCs fans became convinced that grappling was far more important than striking (until Maurice Smith came along and fixed that for them.) In a one on one confrontation with no weapons, grappling can be more important than striking. The problem is that martial arts consumers don't study martial arts so they can beat up one other person who does not have weapons: martial arts consumer's first and highest concern is being attacked by more than one person or someone with a knife.

Boxing vs. MMA in this context plays out very differently. The issue is that much of the time an MMA fighter is going to want to take the opponent to the ground. The MMA fighter trains to do this until it is a reflex. If you are on the ground with a knife, and you haven't trained to control that knife, you are more vulnerable to getting stabbed than you were on your feet. Strategically being on the ground against multiple attackers is even worse.

Against multiple attackers a Boxer is going to be staying on their feet and dropping people with punches. This is one of the best strategies I know of for both handling someone with a knife and for multiple attackers. Boxing is called "the sweet science of self defense" for very good reasons.

Still MMA is a precious resource for all martial artists, helping them see were their vulnerabilities are as a fighter and making sure they have a well rounded skill set when it comes to unarmed fighting. Where things get complicated is with Jujitsu. Most forms of Jujitsu (Judo, BJJ, Aikido, etc.) have a low emphasis on striking, and most who claim to study some form of Jujitsu don't spar with strikes at all, meaning their maximum skill level for delivering and defending against strikes is minimal. Their plan A most of the time is to go to the ground with the opponent to control them. (Contrast this to say collegiate wrestling, where avoiding the pin and escaping is just as important to winning as pinning - nothing trains you to get on your feet like collegiate wrestling.) Jujitsu gives you all the going-to-the-ground vulnerabilities of MMA, without helping you cover your blind spots the way MMA does.

I found a lot of useful things from Aikido to spar with even though I only trained in it casually for a few years. The problem is that once someone is overly committed to training in Aikido, they invest massive amounts of time into wrist lock technique: for many Aikidoka, wrist locks ARE Aikido. What they don't grasp is 90% of those wrist locks are found in 90% of other traditional martial arts, but only a few of the least-sparring traditional martial arts have deluded themselves into thinking wrist locks are a reliable technique that should be used often.

But there are martial arts that spar with wrist locks. The reason why this is not obvious is because it rapidly turns into technique most often seen in Sumo, Tai Chi sparring, and Muay Thai. This means all that wrist lock training is serious overspecialization, even if the related sparring is very relevant to most martial arts consumers:

Neighborhood Safety

This is post is a sequel to my earlier 3D Police post, where I pointed out that what the public wants and the public does NOT get is crime prevention. My last post was on bad lefty branding, and "defund the police" is BLM style bad-branding, utterly failing to describe the issue Defund the Police wishes to pursue (more funding for other unspecific services, not the dissolving of police as an institution.) Before we get what I am about to propose, we first need to understand the three categories of organizations that exist and the four types of public safety that exist. The three categories of organizations are:

1. Government: state funded colleges, police departments, city counsels etc. all paid for by your tax dollars and ultimately controlled by people who depend on your vote to keep their jobs. The bottom line of the government in a democracy is to enforce the collective will of the people.
2. Businesses: they use money and resources to produce more money and resources. This is where most jobs come from, and it is also where most products and services come from.
3. Non-Profit-Organizations (NPO): these are essentially charities, typically dependent on grants, donations and/or government funding. These organizations address society's problems: shelters, most chemical dependency treatment, food banks, humane societies, institutions devoted to research, clubs etc.

Keep in mind that certain groups of organizations do not all fall in the same category. A local community college like Seattle Central is a government institution. Antioch University Seattle is an NPO. Argosy (Art Institute of Seattle) was a business. Argosy going out of business is a good example of how not all categories are good for all things, the for-profit colleges are notoriously sketchy and often short lived, a thrift store is what you get when you try to do retail as an NPO, and Government does not produce the best cheese.

Now understand that there are currently 4 main Public Safety roles:

1. Police: these are the hired guns of the District Attorney, the government's monopoly on violence. Notice they are in the category of government.
2. Private Security: the professionalism in the security industry has increased drastically over the last few decades, but its obvious to all that business employee "security officers" don't hold the same weight as Police.
3. Firefighters: that first red ambulance that shows up with the hard core professionals saving your life - those are firefighters. Yes, they have great toys for putting out fires, but their first concern is your immediate physical safety. Notice they do not have the same BLM publicity problem Police have, and notice that Firefighters are also for the most part Government employees.
4. Paramedics and EMTs of the white ambulance that show up after the red ambulance are basically hospital delivery drivers. Once firefighters stabilize someone in medical duress, the white ambulance staff gets paid a dollar or two above minimum wage to deliver that someone to the hospital. These not-really-firefighters, like the not-really-police above, are business employees.

So where is the NPO public safety staff? Crime prevention is ultimately an education issue. Education is best handled by government and NPOs. Government is already using all the resources they can for crime prevention by providing K-12 education and Police. They should and will do better in the future, but the NPO piece is clearly missing.

The best example I can think of for NPO public safety are the "Downtown Ambassadors" of the "Downtown Seattle Association" NPO. They looks sort of like cops on bikes, except for they don't have guns and are dressed in brighter colors. When they see a problem, rather than panic and make useless complaint after  complaint to 911, they actually directly approach the problem. If they see a homeless woman trying to sell herself on the street they do not make an arrest, they instead try to get that homeless woman the help she needs.

And Downtown Ambassadors are now found in Downtowns of major cities all over the USA and Canada. But this is a fairly new and experimental project. What I am proposing here is giving this movement a clear mandate, and expanding it to a much wider range of neighborhoods. What I am proposing is a Neighborhood Safety Team (NST.)

The mandate of a NST is to prevent crime. How to do this best varies from neighborhood to neighborhood, depending on demographics and lifestyles in each neighborhood. In a rural town of 5,000 people, a Neighborhood Safety Teams biggest concern might be alcohol, preventing drunk driving and breaking up teenage parties before the local Sheriff has to be involved. In an intercity neighborhood a Neighborhood Safety Team may be negotiating peace between rival gangs and holding group treatment meetings for people having issues with chemical dependency.

Neighborhood Safety Teams need tremendous autonomy from the Law Enforcement, while simultaneously having tremendous support from Law Enforcement. On one hand Law Enforcement needs to understand that the NST are not extensions of the law; the NST is not there to help the police bring evil doers to justice. On the other hand the police need to understand that if a person on an NST calls for help, that person is in severe danger and has to be a very high priority.

The leader of every Neighborhood Safety Team should be a certified chemical dependency counselor, for the following reasons:

1. It is likely most NSTs will be involved in getting people into self help meetings like AA and SMART Recovery. NST must be ready and willing to start self help groups from scratch if they need to. Certified chemical dependency counselors can start and run groups.
2. Much of the crime that needs to be prevented will be drug and alcohol related, and a certified chemical dependency counselor will have some training in understanding this dynamic and what changes need to happen in the neighborhood in order to reduce crime.
3. There is a special type of legal protection for certified chemical dependency counselors (42 CFR Part 2) that allows those counselors to exercise confidentiality not unlike a lawyer or doctor. Having a certified chemical dependency counselor at the head of a NST helps everyone be clear that the NST is on the side of the neighborhood residents, not the side of the District Attorney.

A NST would be funded through an NPO, depending on what NPOs service that neighborhood. In turn those NPOs can seek grants, donations and/or government funding with witch to support the NST. Because NPOs are always at the mercy of the communities they serve this keeps the NST accountable to their communities. Beyond this local government can decide which NPO in their area the NST will answer to by choosing which NPO they give funding to support the NST.

But an NST doesn't necessarily need government funding. An upper class neighborhood in Florida may have an NST funded through a home owner's association, and that NST might be focused on getting the spoiled grandchildren off of cocaine and helping those grandchildren organize more constructive community activities. A poor rural community may fund an NST through a local church in order to hold meetings for people struggling with methamphetamine and crashing keggers making sure kids are educated on consent and the dangers of alcohol consumption. 

But all NSTs will be experts in what things people in their Neighborhood need to do in order to avoid getting in trouble with the law. They will be eagerly explaining these issues to the residents of the neighborhood, educating constantly. In most states a certified chemical dependency counselor needs a two year college degree before they can be certified. But the leader of the team isn't the only specialist that could be helpful on the team. Depending on what the needs are in that neighborhood, other team members with education in law enforcement, sociology, anthropology, education, social work or psychology could be helpful. In some neighborhoods former thugs who have turned their life around could be valuable team members, while in other neighborhoods retired law enforcement might be valued.

You can't expect active duty police to educate instead of incarcerate. You can't expect police to sit down with a drug dealer on the corner and explain to them the dealer could make more money working part time washing dishes with far less risk. You can't expect police to be on call to handle neighborhood disputes in order to prevent violence. You can't have them constantly talking to youth making sure those youth are pursuing edifying activities and learning to stay within the law. You can't expect the police to help reorganize your community to be safer. That's why you need an NST.

I basically don't have faith that law enforcement can change their ways: in the end they are servants of the district attorney, eager to put you in prison for any crime they can trick you into implicating yourself in with their lies and intimidation, weather you are innocent or not. Meanwhile they may beat you bloody or fill you with hot lead for target practice. They are very good at what they do, and they are probably not going to change.

Instead we need a new type of public safety that is focused on crime prevention and education. The NST led by a certified chemical dependency counselor and backed by an appropriate NPO will be able to reach out to the people in your Neighborhood to help them obey they law in the first place so that Law Enforcement does not have to be involved. 

3D Police

I have friends in law enforcement, yet I myself am no fan of law enforcement. Now people are talking about reforming the police. I have some very specific points to make about this:

1. The legal system itself and its extremes are as much of a danger as the police themselves.
2. Rodney King lived: a big part of the problem of policing now is their cowboy attitude towards the use of firearms.
3. We have the technology: there are technical solutions to many of these problems.
4. We need to move on towards a crime prevention model rather than a law enforcement model.

Look at both sides of this argument. On one hand the police have a dangerous job to deal with dangerous people, and our society can't function without them: at the very least the police do a great job of preventing angry mobs from hanging innocent people. On the other hand the police are an enemy of the people funded by those people's tax dollars, and we should be able to fire them if they are a problem for us, which they are.

Both sides are 100% correct. So let's move forward into the future with better solutions.

First there are lots of laws that overly punish. I am strongly against the legalization of prostitution. However charging the prostitutes with felonies doesn't make any sense at all: what would it take for you to sell your self to questionable men on the street, how desperate would you have to be to do that? Prostitutes are more victim than perpetrator. Prostitution is exactly the sort of crime that should be not a felony, not even a misdemeanor, but a simple infraction. Prostitution should be ticketed to the point were it isn't profitable, that's it. In general if something isn't harming other people or property, it should be an infraction, not a misdemeanor, and most definitely not a felony.

There's massive injustice in our legal system. Seeing so many innocent hard working people "plead guilty for time served" so they could get back to their jobs and families while I was an assistant teacher at the King County Jail is a big part of why I decided to not go into law enforcement myself. The sad fact is that the prison industrial complex is making a lot of profit off of innocent inmates.

But going beyond this, our incarceration system has two other shockingly terrible issues: A. There seems to be no serious attempt at behavior reform in the incarceration system... any chemical dependency treatment for example seems to be shockingly antiquated and ineffective. B. Human rights of prisoners is not taken seriously, be it the fact they aren't allowed to vote, or be it the rape culture in our society that suggests a man being sentenced to a lifetime of rape is some kind of significant justice.

Arrest quotas are a violation of human rights. In fact the opposite would be preferable: each officer could be limited to a maximum number of arrests per month, and police that are able to deescalate without arrests should be awarded. Uniformed patrol officers should be focused on crime prevention, not incarceration.

Second, law enforcement should not have holsters on their uniforms for firearms. They should be able to have any firearm they want, but it should stay in their vehicle until such time as they know for a fact they need it. Taking firearms from police vehicles should automatically sound alarms for backup. Every time this happens a civilian review should take place.

The last thing a police officer should be bringing into a woman's apartment in the middle of the night for a wellness check is a firearm. There is no excuse for a 180 pound police officer to shoot a 90 pound woman with a knife.  Once upon a time, police were expected to know how to handle themselves without a firearm, like most men in the past:

Third, police should be allowed to have any non-lethal tech they want to do their job. They should have an abundance of body armor options. If they want to employ nunchucks, two handed batons, pepper spray, tazers, shields, armored military vehicles, whatever, they should have it. One problem with police carrying guns most of the time is it distracts them from making sure they have their nonlethal tech ready to use at the beginning of each shift.

But the other side of this is the police need to all have body cameras. A few bad apples sours the whole barrel, and we already know the police are trained to start telling lies as soon as they arrest us if not sooner. Not having video coverage from body cameras should be grounds for having police testimony thrown out in court!

We should think creatively about using technology to aid law enforcement. In Singapore there are cameras all over the place, preventing most crimes from happening in the first place. With tech in today's world, civilian watch dog groups should be allowed to follow police around with drones to help keep those police honest.

Fourth, and this is most 3D of all these points, is we must move into a new era of crime prevention instead of law enforcement. We tax payers want crime prevented in the first place. A crime is like an unwanted pregnancy, it is a failure of society as a whole when a crime happens.

In our law, ignorance of the law is not an excuse to disobey the law. So then why isn't "Obedience to the Law" a major topic covered in our public education system? Because it's not - not even close. You shouldn't be allowed to have a GED least bit a high school diploma without a sound understanding of how criminal law works, and general strategies for making sure you are obeying the law. Citizens should "know their rights" long before they are arrested, no one should have to learn about the legal system the hard way.

What if the Police were first and foremost focused on preventing crime rather than enforcing the law, what would that really look like? I have painted a sci-fi picture here of nonlethal ninja cops who can shut down trouble without having to kill or arrest most of the time. That isn't realistic now, because what we have now is so opposite of that ideal. We need to have 3D thinking about police reform because the police already fail so badly at what we pay our tax money for them to do: prevent crime!