Josh Allred's Blog

There’s something said today about the fact that “rights” are inherently given. Obviously, this wasn’t always true throughout history. But to do so is to create something separate in the ether that can be shared and understood.

I think about this. One of the things that has come to mind is that these “rights” are best understood in terms of “property.” To go deeper, we are then talking about owning our own rights (or freedoms for that matter). Which means property, by definition, can be disposed of, sold, given, used, taken away, and so on.

What I’ve been drawn to with this is how we so willingly give these rights away. Further, what is the distinction between when these rights are taken (extreme forms such as slavery) or when we trade our time for money in the marketplace (debt servitude)?

We become so accustomed to thinking one way that we forget to examine the reasons behind it.

Has a unit of measure to get everyone to understand how far something is. And yet, we use these same units to measure things that are immeasurable. “The gap between us is the size of the Grand Canyon.” Indeed, metaphors and analogies help us understand the situation.

Temperature can be artificially manipulated with outside factors. A stove can be turned up or down. But once water hits a roaring boil, there’s no making it boil any more.c

Here’s the thing: culture ebbs and flows. Violence is a catalyst for more violence. We are aware of the research that has shown the spread of these ideas, in particular, from mass shootings to suicides. The internet, while it can be a place to learn, connect, and share art, is often a place that breeds hate, discontent, and sorrow.

There’s no temperature regulation for the internet. And people are more complicated than a boiling pot of water. The “us” versus “them” culture is worth examining. For instance, when half of the voting population votes for one candidate and the other half for another, it appears to be a clear divide. And the temptation with any finite game is to “beat” the other side. This isn’t possible. 350 million people are never going to be on the same page. Not ever. The answer is to find a space that allows us to coexist.

The internet has been weaponized to shame people into compliance. Mass media continues to highlight the “emergency.” And so much more that I don’t need to tell you. Where is the off-ramp for this madness? More importantly, is there any way to control the temperature? Perhaps simply hitting the pause button to see what happens next is the right course of action.

In Utah, it is a phrase you will hear from time to time. And the follow-up question I have is this: What signs are you paying attention to?

This is true of anything. When we seek to prove a hypothesis or prediction true, we look for evidence to reinforce our ideas, while disregarding inputs that contradict our beliefs.

The adage that a broken clock will still be right twice a day. The same thought process can be applied: with enough time to pass, sure, anything is possible—we have to keep waiting to see.

Douglas Hofsteader touches on this in his essential book, Gödel, Escher, Bach. A computer solving for Pi would continue trying to solve it forever. Humans, on the other hand, can reasonably assume that it will never be solved. And with that information, you can go ahead and make different assumptions instead of spending your time to find out for sure.

We can’t know anything for sure since we don’t live long enough to see how it truly fits in the universe. But this isn’t any way to live either.

We have to pick something—a direction. Using a compass helps us navigate to our desired destination. The temptation is to wait when things appear to be getting worse. To lead and initiate, to inspire the rest of us to get moving in creating a future that will make us all proud.

Communities only exist when we participate in them. When we are unwilling to participate, the absence of the community in our lives is noticeable.

In our digital algorithm-driven world, the shift we see today creates binary distinctions in our community: this or that, us and them, Republicans and Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives, mainstream and the edges, and on and on. What is different in today’s discourse is that each side tries to beat the other, not coexist. Social media and the internet have made sorting so easy. But this is the wrong approach. We have to learn to live with our differences, not sort them out of our lives. After apartheid ended, South Africa tried to heal itself through The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which gave victims and former government officials a chance to tell their stories. The goal was not revenge but truth and healing. Social media isn’t The Truth and Rrconciliation Commision. And if we spend all our time in digital spaces, the world can feel so noisy. Take a break.

Revolutions have been hard-fought throughout history. Replacing social structures, remaking institutions, fixing broken systems…can be done—sometimes through violence, sometimes through collapse. When change is inevitable, it means we can rely on one thing: there’s always hope. The arrow may not appear to be going in the right direction, but over time, it can. Until one day, generations from now, someone stands on the fruits of our labors.

Once you see that pro wrestling is fake, the whole thing looks different. You see the choreography, that there is a predetermined winner and loser, you see the ketchup packets, etc. And you start to understand that it is a form of entertainment. There are lots of things that are fake and entertaining. I would argue that this is most of the politics that we consume. What we watch from the algorithm (which is also a form of pro wrestling) is to entertain us. Not to inform us or change our minds. Unfortunately, we like to believe that pro wrestling and politics are not in the same category but the two rhym more than we realize. 

Sometimes the hardest places to look, the hardest material to read, the hardest subjects to grasp are precisely the places we should be looking.

We already know what we know. And to drive the point home to others is insisting that your point of view is complete. (Which it isn’t.)

No one “needs” a $100 T-shirt, but we get one for the story it tells about ourselves. It informs the people around you.

So much of what we do is about who we are trying to be accepted by.