Utah Caucuses

"Utah Caucuses" --Probably the biggest joke in the political system right after how difficult it is to register.

Read that again for me please because I think 90% of people will double-take and question what I'm talking about.

Let me enlighten you:

I've lived in Utah my whole life--minus a brief 2 year stint in West Virginia for religious prison. I've sat back and watched the political ball field through the years in my state. First, I was a silent observer because I wasn't of voting age, then I gained my citizenship--actually, I just turned 18, that's it, but that year I didn't vote for anything. Probably because I was inbetween the important elections, or probably because of the real issue:

To register to vote, you have to have a physical address. --I moved away from my parent's house at 17, but I was kind of inbetween--half of the time I was at my parents; half of the time I was in another city. I was in limbo and my life was very emotionally driven in those years--probably it still is.

The one year I voted, I absentee voted by mail because it's easier--while I was living in WV. I was 19 at the time, go me. It was for the president. It was against Obama--I think for McCain (shudders). I really had no clue what I was voting for because I was preoccupied with my religion and merely voted with what my religion told me to and what my parents told me to.

Ever since then, I haven't been able to vote. 

...And if you think about it, that vote wasn't really a fair vote, it wasn't really reflective of me, it was reflective of my religion. So ya, I admit it: I don't vote. Not that I don't study the candidates, not that I don't talk politics. Not that I don't know who I Would vote for, but because of what I think most people call "disillusionment with the voting system"

After I got back from my religious stint, I lived in one house, then moved elsewhere in the county to another house, then moved back to Logan, then moved back to Plain City, then moved to North Ogden, Brigham city, Taylorsville, Slatterville, and now West Jordan.

When it comes time to vote, I've been "stuck at work"--well, to say that is kind of tricky: I've been at work all morning, afternoon and into the evening, then I guess things would pile up so I couldn't physically go down to where I needed to go to vote.

Furthermore, when I looked into voting by mail--Which is an option--I was told I had to register my new address with the county recorder--which is standard, sure, and it sounds simple enough, just print off this piece of paper and mail it to the recorder or go down there in person. --I don't even know where to go for that kind of thing....What's the address? What times of day can I go? Who is it?--Okay, maybe I'll choose option B) mail it in. But then I have to buy a stamp book, because I don't use stamps all that often. And envelops. Oh, and paper and ink for my printer--well, right now I don't even have a printer. So I guess I could go to the library?

Oh, and did I mention that I live in West Jordan but own a house in Taylorsville, and I won't be living in W. Jordan by the end of the year most likely? ...How many times do I have to change my address? how many stamps? How many pieces of paper printed? (I've moved 7 Times in the last 5 years.)

This is already looking like a lot of red tape, just to cast a vote.


Okay, let's add more red tape:
In Utah, the electoral college is still a little secretive in my mind. Who votes? Senators? House of Reps? I'm confused and it's all very blurry to me. No one taught this in my Citizenship course in High School, but what I do know is that it's all or nothing and it's always Republican here in Utah. [2012 it was 740,000 to 250,000 Rep- to Dem votes, so to make any leeway, 500,000 people or 1/6th of the state would have to vote strictly for democrats.--but did we award 1 collegate vote to Obama-Bidden? No. ]

So. I disagree with a lot of things the Republican party is saying these days. What options do I have here? Do I have any? --In light of past performance, 60-75% of the Utah popular vote goes to a republican candidate, I think the only thing to do is to appeal to the Republican party to hear my concerns.

Do I just send a letter to my senators (no, he'll throw it away along with all the rest of his junk mail).


How do you make any difference in Utah?
You caucus.

But that's silly. Not everyone goes or can go to the caucuses just the same as when they can't vote. They try to accommodate everyone, but how could they? It's just more red tape that people have to cross to get their voice heard here in the state.

Caucuses though--they sound so simple!

Here's how the republican caucus goes in the republican theocracy of Utah: They have a prayer. (which, I disagree with, because one can believe in God--one of the party's main beliefs--but that god could be the Buddhist God, or the Indian God, or the Scientology God, or the Muslim God or what have you, and they all pray very differently though they all tend to believe in that same god of the universe. How does one voice such a concern to their party?--it's not on the voting ballot).
Next, they elect caucus positions, and caucus delegates which are just another layer of separation between who has a voice and who doesn't in this state--the delegates vote on the positions in the state, such as senator or governor, not really the people; and sure, they are supposed to vote based on the people in their caucus--their neighbors, etc. but they don't always, and more often than not their neighbors don't say anything to them so they vote for who they themselves want to vote for.

All of this is very silly to me.
I get that we don't live in a Democracy, we live in a Republic, but this isn't even a Republic. The layer upon layer upon layer confuses things. So not only does the Utah vote come down to 6 people, it comes down to 6 people who are influenced by 40 people who are influenced by really just the 30 or 40 people who attend the republican caucus. Do the math, that's less than 10k people who influence 6/538 (1%) of the presidential campaign.

In order words, 10k people make up the 1% of political power here in Utah.  10K people are the 1%.



And even at the Republican Caucus I attended, 2 delegates represent me on the state level--they influence the Governor, the Senators, and I believe the house of reps--you know, that lowly position that is supposed to be an advocate for all the people in his or her jurisdiction but has very little power to do anything. Out of 40 people that were there, only 3 people ran for those 3 seats--I was one of them. To add to it, they allowed someone who was not even at the caucus to run --AND WIN--one of the seats. Is that fair? I wasn't aware that you could run for something and then not show up on the day of the election...?


This whole process seems to reinforce my belief about what is wrong with the republican party. People don't want to really be active--they don't want to run for delegate in the state, they would rather someone else do that. Then, they vote on delegates based not upon the lack of information--the guy who did the job previously but didn't show up somehow gets an exception and in fact may look better than other candidates. Lets vote for him.



I admit: I don't know the rules to delegates or to caucuses or even to the electoral college--or really anything. I just know that my voice is often disregarded, so why should I be anything other than disillusioned? I could take the time to figure it out, but in politics, time is everything and if you miss you shot it's a long time before you get another. Usually years.

Robotic Automation: Part 1

This is another one of this "ahah! moments." why didn't I see this earlier?

Soon, automation and robots will take over 95% of jobs. What's left will be creative jobs that require a lot of education (Not the present form of education that we think of, but the kind where you have to know a lot about a lot of things). Jobs like: Inventors, Engineers (of all kind), Artists and Designers, as well as resource managers, accountants, and sadly lawyers, salesmen, and politicians will be just about the only jobs necessary for our society.

In fact, it's starting right now. Your jobs are slowly being taken away and you probably don't realize it.

Customer service? --Nah, you're an actor, everything's scripted and a robot could do your job, you just sit here and pretend that you can help people.

Manufacturing? --Definitely nope. Your jobs were taken away a long time ago and only the poorest, weakest companies are relying on humans.

Bankers? --Nope. Finance isn't about making decisions, it's about upselling you on different loans or lying about your qualifications so that you get a different kind of loan. The hard work of finance is taken care of by mathematically algorithms. And Tellers? Ever heard of an Automatic Teller Machine? If people could figure out how to use one they wouldn't go to a teller.

Wake up everyone! We as a human race have hit the ceiling of our present understanding of how life is supposed to work. It's time to evolve our way of thinking or be left behind!

People talked about this day back in the 70s when robotics were taking hold of the human mind. Slowly machines started manufacturing things for us. Then, last year, the 3D printer became a valid reality. Anyone can obtain one if they want one... Except for maybe people outside of Amazon's shipping radius of 75+ countries.

The future is now.

We live in a world where anyone can make any product that they can think of and have it in under 1 month. How you ask?

1. Hire a freelancer from one of the freelance sites like Odesk to do a CAD drawing of a sketch that you drew. Can't draw? Hire a 13 year old next door to do it for you. 

2. Next, hire another freelancer online or a local who you know has a 3D printer to produce 1 prototype of the device.

3. Record a video of the device in action using your Cell phone.

4. Hire a video editor freelancer to mash up the video and make it interesting--actually, maybe even come to them before you record it and ask for tips and that you'll hire them to edit it when you're done.

5. Share your video online on social media.

6. Set up an online campaign through one of the big online advertisers (Google, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc etc) under a pay per click model.

7. Use the same process to design and create the boxes that you'll be shipping in.

8. For the first few orders you can rely on someone else to use their 3D printer to print your product. After a while though you can get your own 3D printer and print a product every time you sell it.

--Guess what? If you use this model you effectively diminish the business risk down to just the price of hiring freelancers, the cost of a 3d printer, and any piecemeal fees for things like paying UPS to ship it, paying for 3D plastic reels, paying an online store a commission, etc.--Let me break down that cost for you: Freelance designers will design packaging for you for $20 in some other country. Editors charge $15-$50 to edit a simple video of your product and make it presentable. A CAD designer will probably charge you $15-100 to make your thingamajig. The 3D printer only costs $1500.

That means your first prototype will cost somewhere less than $2,000

That's $166/Mo for a year, or $5.50/day for 365 days. --Go without that video game you're eyeing, skip lunch every day, cut corners here and there until you come up with $2,000. Borrow the money from a pool of friends, pawn your old toys, or even take out a microloan.

After that, all of your expenses are -per product-. That's fancy because that means when a customer buys your product you already know: it costs this much to make it, plus I need to earn back my $2000, plus I want to make X dollars per unit as my share for being an inventor and risk taker. If the customer complains about the price, tell them to go make it themselves, because this is the minimum price you could make it for.

And that's only talking about tangible products--there is also software/digital products which you can use the same formula to get the same result.

We live in the future!