Wrong Conversations

The trolls are winning.  If you take a few steps back and look at the world for what it is, I think that you'll pretty clearly see that there is a lot of confusion.  The ability to clearly see confusion?  Follow me for just a minute, please.

When forced to analyze the validity and perspective of my world view, which happens often, I am often struck with the thought that I disagree with many things on many different levels.  When I get to the meat and bones of various topics, and it usually doesn't take me long to get there, I'm often left feeling as if the real topics are shrouded in misdirection.

Wrong Question: Is Global Climate Change real?

Real Questions: Are we excessively polluting our planet in the name of higher profits and GDP?  Is that pollution causing causing a reduction of biodiversity?  How do changes in biodiversity affect the health and survival of humanity on the grandest of scales?

This is probably the most infuriating question of our time.  In the name of money, we create arguments to dispute the validity of Global Climate Change.  Do I believe that Global Climate Change is real?  Yes, of course I do.  There is a lot of scientific evidence  to support this idea, but more importantly, we don't even have to look past our own kitchens and homes to see that we are far more wasteful than we need to be.  To clean up our own wastefulness would ultimately result in lower consumerism, which is bad for the economy, which is why the real questions don't get asked.  Make it a true or false question on whether or not the science is real, let American choose to believe either scientist A or scientist B, let's do that.

Wrong Question: Did Hilary really win the 2016 presidential election?

Real Questions: Did an internal or external body unfairly affect Any votes in fair of one candidate or another?  Can we hold faith in the security and accuracy of our current system?  Does anyone at the top care about what is moral?  Or do we only care if it affects the actual end results?

Yes I'm a liberal/socialist/supporter of not-trump.  Regardless, I do not hold any delusions of Hilary winning in a post-election controversial upset.  What I do hold delusions of is the idea that if there is reason to check into vote validity, then we should do it.  If the constituency believes that their vote doesn't count, then less voters will turn out, and the process becomes even less valid than it is already.  We need to believe that our system works, regardless of whether or not it affects the end results.  It's that whole "means are just as, if not more than, important than the ends" thing (I'm going to give a detailed explanation of my previously stated beliefs in a future post).

Wrong Question: Is not standing for the National Anthem an act of anti-patriotism?

Real Questions: Is standing during the National Anthem an act of patriotism?  Why does negative media coverage receive more attention than negative media coverage?  

If donating time in addition to millions of dollar to charity received as much attention as refusing to stand during the national anthem, then maybe we would see more positive action towards causes.  Discrimination is real.  As a professional athlete who is on television every week, I cannot think of a more effective way to communicate dissatisfaction with social inequities.  I'm not saying it's proper, but there are many improper things that go on in the world, this is certainly one of the least of these things.

There are many more questions that we will touch on in the future, but you get where I'm going with this.  The trolls are winning, you just don't know that they are winning because you don't know that they are trolls.  Instead of hurling insults, they hurl the things at you that you want to hear.  What you hear is what you need to hear, a perfectly valid sounding explanation to keep living life as you always have, the easy option.  "Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right, and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good and kind and brave because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort"

Let's talk more soon.