Ten Billion Humans, Hurrah!

On Reddit, someone asked, “What’s your solution (no genocides) for humanity as it is estimated 10 billion humans living on earth around 2075?”

This was my answer. Since it’s just long enough to be a blog post, I thought I’d go ahead and share it here as well. Coincidentally, Life Is a Party by Stick Figure was playing while I wrote it. 


What’s my solution? Celebrate wildly once when we hit eight digits.

Yes, seriously. This anti-human, “Boohoo! There are just so many people!” thing is so incredibly tiresome.

“I’ll never have kids, because I don’t want them to grow up in this terrible world!”

OMFG, STFU. Humans have never had it as good as we do now. I realise there are good reasons not to have kids. And if you have one of those reasons, then fair enough, and I truly hope you enjoy life to the fullest. But I also feel a little sorry for you, because otherwise, what’s it all really for?

You are just the latest step in a line that goes all the way back to the primordial soup. You’re a link in an incredibly long chain. Each previous link, all the people in previous generations, found a way to overcome their challenges and pass on their experiences and what they learned. You can too!

As for overpopulation, sorry-not-sorry, but no, the Earth isn’t overpopulated. If you give everyone on Earth today just one acre and we’d all still fit in Texas. (I know people from there like to talk about how big it is, but look at a globe and you’ll see otherwise. Sorry, Texans.) And remember, half the reason we need so many calories is that we drag around these giant computers in our heads that solve incredibly difficult problems. And not exceeding Earth’s carrying capacity is one such problem. We’ll improvise, we’ll adapt, and we’ll overcome.

So no, it’s not that our planet is overpopulated, it’s just poorly managed. And sure, I agree that we need to make some difficult choices to make sure we leave the place in as good a shape as we found it. Look back and you’ll see that there are those in every era who believe that they are there to witness the end of history. The doomsayers have always been wrong before, and they’re wrong now. Every generation faces its challenges. We’re no exception. And we’re going to be okay.

On Being An American

‘When the soul of a man is born, there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight.  You talk to me of nationality, language, religion.  I shall try to fly by those nets.’ — James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

I participate in a certain web forum for the discussion of geopolitics where the number of participants is just a handful, but the viewpoint diversity is very strong, ranging from my strongly market liberal views that are pretty disdainful of government action in most dimensions, to those on the right who are more or less recognizable conservatives, to social democrats, and even our court jester: an old school Marxist tankie who spends his days and nights posting article after article from TASS and other outlets of overt Russian dezinformatsiya

Occasionally, one of the other participants in responding to something I’ve said or in drawing my attention to one issue or another will refer to US government institutions as mine. For example, “your Supreme Court”, or “your Congress”; that sort of thing. Now, I almost never take Internet discussions seriously, and even less often take them personally, so it’s interesting that alone of all the things we discuss there — war and peace, economics and social dynamics, liberty and tyranny, the works! — it is this simple formulation that, to use an ironically American turn of phrase, drives me bananas.

There are a number of reasons why that may seem odd. The fellow who uses it clearly has no ill intent, he’s simply indicating that I’m an American. And he’s quite right: I am. I’m a US citizen, born in the US of American parents. My father’s family has been here since not long after the Civil War, and my mother’s European ancestors in what is now the US go back to the 17th century. (And that’s not counting an Abenaki ancestor on my mother’s side, since that’s so distant that to claim it as meaningful would be rather disingenuous.)

That said, that doesn’t mean that ancestry is everything, or even the main thing. I’ve long thought that whether one’s ancestors have been here since the last Ice Age or just the last presidential administration, culture is king in determining who an American is. American culture takes a lot of criticism, especially from ourselves, but one thing about it that I’ve always appreciated is how easy it is to assimilate. No matter where you come from, and how strong your ties remain to that place, your kids may respect your culture, but if they are raised here, they will be American. 

So if I’m an American and don’t think that being American is bad, then why does “your president” bug me so much? There are two reasons, the lesser of which is ideological. If something is “mine”, that suggests I am somehow responsible for it and that I endorse it. Well, I’m not, and I don’t. Perhaps at the local level there a single determined individual can build meaningful influence and effect noticeable change, but when it comes to things like US foreign policy, the decisions made in Foggy Bottom are even more distant from the hoi polloi of the electorate than any ancestor who trudged across the Bering land bridge in search of wooly mammoths to spear for dinner.

The great reason, however, is that the formulation implies that one’s outlook is inexorably limited by one’s national origin, that the color of one’s passport is all that colors one’s perspective. I do realize that it’s a factor, in fact I’ve learned how important familiarity from the inside of a society is to understanding it by reading some of the humorously inaccurate beliefs about American society occasionally made on that forum by those familiar with it only from afar.

But just because one’s culture may be a starting point for understanding the world, that doesn’t mean it’s a finish line for it. By cultivating multicultural experiences and deliberate exposure to other languages, other societies, and the hopes, dreams, beliefs, and fears of those whose roots were fed in distant ground, one can end up with a much more refined view of how we are similar and how we differ. 

Put simply, then, the main reason that formulation galls me is that it suggests that a person’s views are much more one dimensional than they necessarily are. I like to think that I don’t presuppose that of others, and in turn I would prefer they not presuppose it of me. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?

How I Use Social Media

It’s occurred to me that I’ve never taken advantage of the way many social media platforms allow for a toot or tweet to be pinned, such that it will always be the first thing anyone sees. If there’s anywhere I’d direct people by default, it would be my personal web site, since social media is where I usually just make throwaway comments about whatever the Current Thing is, whereas this site is the archive of the major thoughts I’ve had that I’ve polished over time.

And if I’m going to direct social media users to my web site, then why not specifically to a post about how I prefer to use social media? So meta!

The most important thing about my approach to social media is that I may occasionally take it seriously, but I don’t take it personally. I have no illusion that my comments there will change anyone’s mind about the major issues of the day; humans just don’t work like that. So when some stranger disagrees with me, that’s not something to get worked up about, because ultimately those people are just words on a screen. To me, the value is simply in entertainment, and to a lesser extent, as a low-stakes way of keeping my rhetorical axe sharp. 

In other words, while this may sound funny, I recognize going in that social media is, by and large, a waste of time. That doesn’t mean that I never encounter interesting people and ideas that make me think about things in different ways. It just means that when that does happen it’s a pleasant surprise, not the fulfillment of an expectation.

That leads me to the issue of blocking people. I’ve noticed that a lot of people seem to make it a point of pride that they don’t block people, and I don’t really understand that. If a person or account is decreasing my enjoyment of social media, I’ll block them quickly and without remorse. Social media is a dubious enough use of time as it is; there’s certainly no point in it at all if it’s not going to be fun.

Because I travel in libertarian-ish circles, I have the feeling that much of this feeling on the part of those people comes from the misconception currently popular on the cultural right that censorship is more broadly defined than just government suppression of speech. But freedom of expression does not include an entitlement to one’s choice of venue, and the freedom to speak doesn’t oblige anyone else to listen. If a song you didn’t like came on the radio, would you feel obligated not to change the station? Then why would you feel obligated to keep listening to some fool on the Internet you don’t even know in real life?

Something sort of related to this, at least on Twitter, is the trend I’ve seen of people setting their tweets so that only those people they follow or mentioned can reply. In keeping with what I just said, absolutely, they have every right to do this. But I find it so obnoxious that when I run into this I will instantly unfollow that person. It’s not social media if the conversation doesn’t flow in both directions, so if you don’t care what I have to say, I don’t care what you have to say.

As a final thought, just because I don’t take social media personally doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate those people I’ve encountered who have a lot to offer. In fact, I’ve often wished there were established ways of befriending in a meaningful way those people who are interesting even in the arm’s length environment of social media. So if you happen to think that I’m one of them, by all means, reach out!

The Trouble With Being A “Libertarian”

Normally I’ve always thought of ideology as revolving around a set of policy positions based on first principles. If you think that government should meddle in the bedroom but not the boardroom, you’re a conservative. If you think the opposite, you’re a progressive. If you think some of each, you’re a centrist. If you think neither, you’re a libertarian. Obviously that’s a gross oversimplification, but you get the idea. And by that standard, from a policy perspective, libertarians have no more in common with the right than with the left, and because of that, for many years now I’ve used it to identify myself.

What I’ve come to realize, however, is that the policy positions associated with an ideology are one thing, but the culture that develops within the movement that surrounds that ideology is a different thing altogether. That means that it is possible to embrace the policy positions of an ideology, and even the underlying philosophy that determines them, while not at all identifying with the culture of the movement that builds up around those beliefs.

A few years ago I started noticing a deepening divide between what I initially thought of as “Don’t Tread On Me” libertarians and “Don’t Tread On Anyone” libertarians. And in the last few years the negative feedback loop of social media has strengthened the former at the expense of the latter. More and more I see self-identified libertarians with large followings on social media who not only are trolls, but proud to be so. For a while I tried to push back against this trend by suggesting that the Non-Aggression Principle and Wheaton’s Law are each incomplete without the other. But that sort of argument doesn’t work on people who, to be blunt, seem to derive great happiness from being dicks.

Take the infighting happening now in the Libertarian Party. There’s always been back and forth between the purists and the pragmatists. As I recall, in the ‘90s the former were known as PLEDGE and the latter as the “Committee for a Libertarian Majority”. But despite their disagreements, they didn’t treat each other like the enemy. Today’s LP has become a textbook example of Sayre’s Law: “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.” To be clear, I say that not because liberty has no value, but because in a world of single member districts where the mainstream media has made it abundantly clear that alternative candidates will not be meaningfully covered unless they make a mistake, the LP will never, ever amount to anything, ever.

And it’s not my goal to hate on the LP. Like many people, the LP was my gateway into a world of interesting philosophical ideas. I want to hope it can still serve that purpose for other people. But in a world where, for example, the New Hampshire affiliate tweets “Libertarians suffer more oppression than black people” I can’t see how it would attract anyone worth associating with.

And that’s where I’ve increasingly found myself unsure how to self-identify. My “live and let live” views on free markets, civil liberties, and methodological individualism haven’t changed. My utopia is still a world in which anyone can openly be who they really are, where decisions are made nonviolently rather than politically, and in which people help one another and otherwise do nice things because they choose to do so, not because they’re forced to do so. In that sense, I haven’t left the libertarian movement. But these days, I feel more and more that the movement has left me. 

Bryan Caplan’s Simplistic Theory of Left and Right, states that “the left hates markets and the right hates the left”. (Tap the link for a short but very worthwhile elaboration.) And by that standard, it’s clear to me that more and more of those calling themselves libertarians culturally fit in just fine with the right, especially when so many of the trolls seem interested in using shock value exclusively to appeal to disaffected conservatives and populists. Well, I don’t fit in with that at all, and if that means that it would make more sense for me to self-identify as “market liberal”, then I can live with that.

Remembering Johnny Clegg

In my life I’ve only met three famous people.

I met Ron Paul once in passing when I was nineteen or twenty years old. I don’t think we had an actual conversation and I don’t remember getting a personal impression of him one way or the other. I include him here mainly for completeness.

I met Douglas Adams at a book signing when I was ten years old, maybe as old as eleven. He was very abrupt and kind of a jerk to me even though he wasn’t that busy, which was kind of a shame because I was a huge Hitchhiker’s Guide fan in grade school and had gone in there expecting that meeting him was going to be the greatest thing ever. I suppose this is why they say not to meet your heroes.

But the third story is a very nice one, so when I saw today that Reddit has a question asking people, “Which celebrity did you meet and found they were much kinder/ruder than you expected?” it’s the one I shared there. It occurs to me that it will probably be lost in a sea of responses and no one will read it, so I thought since I’d typed it out anyway I’d add it here as well.

Over twenty-five years ago, my girlfriend at the time was a huge Johnny Clegg fan. Even though he would fill stadiums in his native South Africa, and in Europe, he was totally unknown in the U.S.

He did a North America tour and of course we had to go. So we get to this mid-sized venue and the place is just empty, like maybe one hundred of us were in the audience total. But he and his band did a fantastic show, with as much energy as if they were playing for a full house at Wembley Stadium rather than for a few rows at a theater in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

After the show a few of us went up to the stage and waited, to see whether he’d come out. He did, and when he saw there only like ten of us he said, “You know what? Just come to the hotel bar where I’m staying and I’ll meet you there.”

So we went over and a short while later he came down, and spent two hours regaling us with stories of the fight against Apartheid and what it was like to be a father (referred to his kid as the “Clegglet”, which cracked us up). And then at the end he picked up our whole bar tab. (I know that sounds like an “and then everyone in the store applauded” ending, but that’s what happened.)

Anyway, best celebrity ever: kind, gentle, and yet such strength. I was genuinely sad last year when I heard he passed on, especially since I’m sure he still had so much more to give.

Academic Twitter Is For The Birds

Academia is a vibrant, healthy, global community consisting of people with a variety of origins, perspectives, and goals. But generally speaking, I believe we share a commitment to building a world where educators have access to the tools and skills we need to do what is best for students, and students are empowered to reach their goals without being exploited by the giant institutions that supposedly exist to serve them.

It’s interesting, then, that so many educators create content for closed, centralized, corporate platforms whose decision makers have amply shown that they do not have the best interests of our students or ourselves at heart. Scholarly publishing is the classic example of this, in that commercial publishers need us to conduct research, write articles about it, and provide peer review, all at our own expense, and then turn around and sell the results back to us. I’ve long believed that the existence of open source platforms like Janeway or OJS only highlight how unnecessary commercial publishers truly are if only we would show the confidence to abandon them in favor of community-run alternatives.

But scholarly publishing is not the only example. In honor of Open Education Week 2020, I’d rather focus on an activity that is very popular among those in higher education that I submit is not actually in our interest: Academic Twitter.

Don’t get me wrong, like most people I participate in social media. And I see the value of Twitter in its simplicity. It requires those posting to it to get to the point (not always an academic strong suit!). Through @ and # it enables easy tagging of people and ideas to draw other people, friends and strangers, into a conversation potentially of interest to them. And its mobile app means that it’s accessible nearly everywhere (“I wasn’t ignoring your conference presentation, I was live-tweeting!”).

But Twitter facilitates this rapid exchange of small ideas at the cost of control. It’s yet another centralized corporate entity that absorbs all the data it can find, agglomerating information about its users for resale to advertisers various and sundry. As the saying goes, when you use Twitter, you’re not the customer, you’re the product. And along with that centralized control comes top-down decision making that means that the approach taken by its corporate executives may differ from what many people in higher education might prefer.

Fortunately, Twitter is not the only platform that enables that sort of microblogging. A few years ago, Eugen “Gargron” Rochko took the programming code of an existing open source project and developed it into a platform called Mastodon. But instead of just using that code to set up a single alternative microblogging platform, he developed Mastodon to be free and its use to be decentralized. This means that different people or organizations can run their own Mastodon network, and set their own rules for their own particular community, and yet people with an account on one network can interact with people on other networks by following those other accounts, replying to them, and liking and boosting posts they liked, just as they can on Twitter. In networking terms, this constellation of different Mastodon networks is “federated”, and the sum of them together is often referred to as the “Fediverse”.

And the Fediverse isn’t just connective tissue for different Mastodon networks. Open networks that run on other software, designed for different purposes, are part of what’s being built. One of these is called Diaspora, it works similarly to Facebook. One is called PeerTube, it works similarly to YouTube. But developers of open networks aren’t just trying to copy the functionality of existing services, for example the fine people who develop Moodle LMS are building MoodleNet, which in will allow educators to collaboratively build curricular resources and share them openly, all while interacting with the rest of the Fediverse.

By this point you may be asking if the Fediverse is so great, why haven’t we all moved there yet? The sticking point is critical mass. Twitter has enormous first mover advantage, and most people who are interested in microblogging are already there, which means if you want your posts to reach the widest possible audience (and really, who doesn’t?) then that’s the best place to be. But as Tom from MySpace can tell you, getting there early and building critical mass aren’t unassailable advantages. If we want a social media world that we control, that’s built for us and meets our needs, it’s within our grasp.

As things are now, there are plenty of interesting people already posting in the Fediverse every day, many of which are listed by interest in a directory called Trunk. There are Mastodon networks aimed at people in almost every walk of life, including ones meant for people in higher education. A few are listed below.

There’s no need to make the leap all at once, as It’s also possible both to keep participating in Twitter for now while also getting involved in the Fediverse, there’s even a free tool that lets you connect your accounts so that you only have to post in one for it to appear on both. But I think you’ll find that once you start finding like-minded people in the Fediverse, you’ll appreciate interacting with them in an open environment.

As with alternatives to commercial publishers, all it would take for us to build a successful decentralized Academic Fediverse is the will to do so. So the next move is yours: you can keep devoting your productive energy for the benefit of surveillance capitalists, but I hope you’ll join me in helping to build a better world of open social media.

Fediverse Resources

  • Join Mastodon: an easy introduction to Mastodon
  • mastodon.social: a general interest Mastodon network that is open to all
  • scholar.social: a Mastodon network meant for those in higher education
  • https://social.fossdle.org: a Mastodon network for those in the open education community hosted by the OER Foundation, an outstanding organization that connects dozens of higher education institutions around the world to collaborate in developing and using open educational resources
  • Mastodon Twitter Crossposter: this free service allows you to automatically post your tweets to your Mastodon account, or your Mastodon posts to your Twitter account, your choice!
  • Trunk: a great way to find Fediverse accounts worth following, based on shared interests
  • My account: follow me and I’ll follow you!

Focus On What You See

It seems that in the last few years there’s been an increase in the way that many in the media promote petty intergenerational rivalries. It started with stereotypes about Millennials being lazy, unfocused, and self-absorbed, but has since progressed to stereotypes of Baby Boomers as having selfishly destroyed the economy, using up resources, and generally leaving societal institutions of politics, media, finance, religion, etc., in a worse state than they found them. An example would be the vitriol expressed by some younger people when they find out that many senior citizens get steep discounts at many universities.

Most people leave the front door wide open when it comes to allowing ideas that they get from media to enter their ways of thinking. And sure enough, those stereotypes can be found all over social media being expressed by ordinary people, ranging from wry offhand slights all the way to the way to outrage.

Unfortunately, the problem is much more broad than just Millennials and Baby Boomers. It’s as if we’re being goaded into conflict, with collectivist ideas constantly being emitted towards us subtly and not-so-subtly that people are defined primarily by the groups to which they belong, and that each of those groups is suspect.

Consider every media message you encounter that has the effect of making you feel negatively about another group. Obviously this includes big things like age, race, national origin, religion, political affiliation, region of the country, and so forth, but it’s more insidious than that. Look at how socially acceptable it is to ridicule hipsters and vegans, not because they’re harmful, but simply because it’s an idea virus that’s spread across our culture without any real critical thinking taking place to counteract it.

But don’t take my word for it. Take a day and count all the times you come into contact with a message that, upon reflection, you can tell is meant to be divisive. Take special care to count messages that are meant to make you feel comfortable about yourself at others’ expense.

I should add that I’m not suggesting this is a pernicious conspiracy. Yes, Russian troll farms exist to stir the pot, but for the most part I think that reader and viewer attention is what sells ads, and that if you want someone’s attention, an effective way to get it and hold on to it through a commercial break is to outrage them.

Either way, given how pervasive the problem is, what’s the solution? Well, in the epic ’90s sci-fi series Babylon 5, Commander Sinclair remarks, “Ignore the propaganda. Focus on what you see.”  To do that requires retraining one’s mind to resist the collectivism of seeing people in terms of the groups to which they belong, and instead think of them first and foremost as individuals, with all the extraordinary potential variety that entails.

It takes a little practice, but after a while, not only will you have immunized yourself against these sorts of negative idea viruses, you’ll be amazed (and not a little dismayed) that most people can’t see how glaring stereotypes and generalizations are being used in a way that keeps people divided.

Fortress of Solitude

My youngest has the unfortunate habit of taking a glass upstairs for water every night and not bringing them back down in the morning. When I looked in his room a few minutes ago I said, “Noah, the very next thing you will do is take all of these glasses downstairs! There’s so much crystal in your room that it looks like the Fortress of Solitude. I’m afraid a hologram of Jor-El is going to appear!”

But he just looked at me blankly, because he had no idea what I meant. So, the moral of the story is that today I learned that I have neglected to ensure that my youngest has seen the original Superman movie from 1978, the one directed by Richard Donner that stars the late great Christopher Reeve. We will correct this at the earliest opportunity. I just hope it doesn’t inspire him to take more glasses up there rather than fewer….

Which Media Outlets Are Worthwhile?

I often discuss current events and geopolitics on the DavosMan.org forum, a small but interesting set of people who range all over the ideological map, and who hail from North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Recently one of the people there listed the set of news media he follows, and it made me think about which ones I follow. I was going to respond in kind there, but I realized the answer might be more general interest, so I’m answering here instead.

For starters, I don’t watch TV other than occasional entertainment shows. TV news is a wasteland. The 20th century newspaper columnist H.L. Mencken once wrote, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” Nowadays that phrase would seem as appropriate for 24 hour news channels, the revenue model for which is to sell ads by promoting a pernicious adrenaline high of outrage and fear so that people will keep watching. For some reason CNN seems to be the default telescreen braying in public spaces in the U.S., and every time I see it I’m reminded just how empty it really is, an endless barrage of false urgency coupled with flashy imagery designed to mesmerize. And its competitors are no better.

Some print media are a little more useful, and while I don’t set out to stay current with any specific periodical, although I’ll often read articles from the Washington Post, The Guardian, The Intercept, Reason, FEE, Asia Times, PanAm Post, and Fair Observer (long form journalism that leans centre-left). For specialty media I’ll read Dominica News Online, University World News, and InsideHigherEd.

Like many people nowadays, typically I read an article not because it’s in a particular publication but because it’s recommended on social media by someone who I know is thoughtful. Some of those people mostly share my perspectives, but others do not.

I occasionally run into articles from RT, CGTN, Granma, teleSUR, etc., but do not take them seriously. They are not an “alternative perspective”, they are just press releases from dictators worthy of no more attention than a missive from Sarah Sanders. RT in particular is an interesting study in propaganda, however, not because the news it delivers is untrue, but because its editorial approach is deliberately to report on events in a way designed to sow mistrust in Americans of every societal institution in their lives, especially governmental, media, and financial. The sad thing is that these societal institutions deserve that mistrust, which is why RT doesn’t typically have to lie, so in that sense perhaps RT is performing a backhanded service, and I can see why some libertarians actually find it appealing. But it’s still not something one could actually trust.

Instead of any of those, I’ve come to prefer spending that time on podcasts that cover new ideas in my specialization. Especially if you’re someone who spends a fair bit of time in the car, finding worthwhile podcasts is something I strongly recommend. There is definitely something for everyone out there, from the ridiculous to the sublime, a cornucopia of unfiltered experts sharing what they know.

And I don’t feel bad about spending less and less time on news media. Other than weather reports, I can’t remember the last time a news article from general interest media actually gave me information that I could use to help me reach my goals. Can you?

Social Democracy Isn’t Socialism

There’s a certain video called “The Biggest Myths About Socialism” that’s been making the rounds on social media. It’s by Francesca Fiorentini, who posts on the Al-Jazeera’s comedy webshow Newsbroke. It says something about how post-truth our era has become that there’s even such as thing as a comedy show being sponsored by what is supposedly a news media organization, but in this case, the inaccuracies are no laughing matter.

Fiorentini may be a glib presenter, but the one glaring error that dominates her piece is that she’s deliberately confusing social democracy and socialism in order to make the latter not seem like the terrible idea that it manifestly is. I’m referring to the difference between Scandinavian countries and countries like Venezuela and North Korea. They don’t have the same sort of systems, and they shouldn’t be lumped together.

Basically, social democracy is when a society has a market economy with a layer of social programs on top of it. We’ve seen around the world that this is a sustainable approach, because the prosperity that comes from a market system is enough to fund the social programs. This is what we see in places like Scandinavia and so forth.

Socialism, meanwhile, is when there’s not much of a market economy, where the government nationalises industry, or otherwise controls it so tightly that the market process is disrupted too severely to produce prosperity. We’ve also seen around the world that this is an unsustainable approach, and that, as in extreme examples like Venezuela and North Korea, it leads to poverty, starvation, and death.

It gets confusing sometimes because politicians on various sides often use the wrong word. For example, many U.S. conservatives complained that Obama’s health care legislation was “socialism”, which it wasn’t. On the other hand, Bernie Sanders has referred to his positions as “socialism”, which they aren’t. In fact, when he referred to Denmark as a socialist country, he was called out for it by the Prime Minister of Denmark.

Of course, he’s not the only one. Inspired by Sanders, a new wave of leftist American politicians have arisen to challenge the status quo of the Democratic Party, most famously Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who wears the badge of “socialism” with pride. But is she really? As commentator Matthew Gagnon writes:

The reality is, she is — like so many people crying out for socialism today — responding to a form of trendy political hipsterism. The need to signal her own virtue as a radical, counter-culture, ahead of her time, rebelliously egalitarian icon is powerful, and adopting a once scorned label and trying to make it cool is a great way to do that.

She doesn’t have to actually understand socialism at all, she can just make up whatever she wants and call it socialism. Indeed, she can position herself as mainstream and her opposition as extremist by suggesting that any and all government action, tax collection or spending is an example of socialism. “What, do you hate road, highways and schools, you troglodyte?”

To Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and their ilk, positioning themselves in this way allows them to ridicule actual opponents of socialism as little more than anti-government anarchists who believe the government should never do anything, anywhere, for any reason. This is, perhaps, the king of all strawmen.

Which means, ultimately, that Ocasio-Cortez is not even a socialist, no matter how much she might want to call herself that. She is a big government statist who believes in little more than confiscatory taxes, bloated spending, and a government program for every problem in America.

Ironically, this makes her that which she least wants to be: a boring, fairly typical liberal, the likes of which we have seen in this country for a hundred years. Not new. Not trendy. Not fresh. She is essentially a 28 year old Walter Mondale.

As Socrates said, the beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms. And by that standard, as by so many others, there is very little wisdom to be found when the term in question is “socialism”.