mattcantstop / mattcantstop.github.io

personal site

What is this?

This is my personal website that you can find at www.matthewduff.com. I write about plans, current views, and stories from life (at the request of my wife).

mattcantstop.github.io's Issues

School and education

• Current paradigm tries to educate kids about topics they do not care about, package those kids and all the learnings up, and then send them off into the world.
• But the real thing we want is for people to be curious, and to be problem solvers, and learning things you don't yet care about is a surefire way to ensure that people will not retain that information.
• Example: I wanted to get better at understanding how payments are calculated for an app I was building. I had taken math courses, but I cannot tell you any functions because when I was learning them I didn't see any application for them. So they went in my brain temporarily, and then out. When I wanted to learn to solve a specific problem I consumed many videos about how these payments are calculated, I truly learned the subject matter, and created the app with that functionality.
• We should give kids a foundation of knowledge, but then educate them as the needs arise for a specific thing they are trying to accomplish. We should shorten formal schooling and enable kids to jump into topics that interest them.
• I have four kids. Right now one is creating an Etsy shop. Another is trying to start a bicycle repair shop. They are learning a lot of topics as they investigate these things, and they are incredibly motivated in these pursuits. But they hate school.

Template for weekly progress

• Posts I wrote:
• Videos I created:
• Projects I built:
• Time usage:
  • Screen time:
    • Breakdown...
  • Time spent reading:
    • Book I was reading...
• Total exercise time:
  • Breakdown...

Some overarching views on government

• Make it easier to run a business. Make it effortless to register as a business, get your business license, and to pay taxes.
• Close tax loopholes. Make the tax code incredibly simple and difficult to game
• Tax companies based on the amount of wealth they create for their employees. Companies who benefit their local community, their employees, and the environment should have almost no tax bill
• Tax heavily the companies who create pollution. Incentivize the companies who create systems that greatly reduce our carbon footprint.
• Tax heavily the companies that make fortunes while their employees are impoverished. Making a fortune is not a bad thing, making a fortune while your employees need government assistance is the behavior we most need to curtail.
• Infrastructure that is intended to bring out the contributions of a larger portion of our society. Make housing affordable and available. Create roads that permit everyone in the city to get around inexpensively, safely, and conveniently. Provide training for people who want training. Make the United States the most competitive workforce in the world.
• Avoid wars of morality like same-sex marriage, the war on drugs, abortion, and other political war calling cards. Make most things legal. Use incentives to curtail damaging behavior and get people the help they need and use taxes to provide it.

Wealth creation

• I believe in creating wealth
• All advancements in society were created from human labor, and wealth. For instance, specialization of skill was brought about as a result of SOMEONE on earth being able to create more food than they could consume (outside of areas of effortless food consumption).
• Wealth can make a better world
• Companies should be concerned with creating wealth for their employees. It should be a foundational goal of the organization, equal to shareholder value (may change that after thinking about it more)
• ...

Weekly writing

• Story from my life (to remember them and to have my kids have a fun resource)
• What I accomplished that week to see my goals come to fruition
  • What are my goals?

Gathering thoughts on policies/approach

Guiding principles for a city

There is so much disagreement between the different sides of the political aisles in the United States. The two party system encourages disagreements, not our common values and insights. I feel like there is a bipartisan set of guiding principles out there that people can largely agree on (not perfectly, however). These principles could be

The source of our wealth is the individual, the laborer toiling

• Wealth is created by individual effort. People should be encouraged to create, improve, and maintain the world we live in.
• ...more to add here, but thinking through my thoughts...

Power always needs checks and balances, equivalent in potency to the amount of power given

• Financial transparency should be at the heart of checks on power
• Each adult should constitute one vote, with equal representation
• The possibility of corruption is so strong that public servants should have requirements of transparency

Budget deficits should be incredibly rare

• Similar to a household's finances, a budget deficit should be very rare and be considered an emergency
• Reserves should be proactively added to the budget

Self-sufficiency

• Self-sufficiency is a hedge against attack and immoral behavior from the city's residents
  • People who have full bellies, safe homes and safe streets, and hope for the future are incredibly difficult to recruit to murder other people (fight in your wars)
  • A city that is less fragile when it comes to infrastructure and the staples of life (food, electricity, heat, safety) is more difficult to make desperate or attack.
• Embracing regional constraints, and figuring out how to thrive within those constraints makes for a more innovative and self-sustaining people
• Creating regional proficiency and expertise in a field is an economic boon for the region
• The grid provides resilience, but should be a secondary source:
  • Electricity should be produced as locally as possible, but we should connect to the grid as well
  • Water should be collected locally, but the grid should provide it as a backup as well
• Low cost, low impact travel should be at the heart of self-sustaining city, as it enables the independence of its citizens
• Food reserves should be kept locally as a public good

Resources are the baseline of life, and taxation and policy should be based on this understanding

• Our oxygen, water, soil, land, and time are incredibly precious resources. Human life fundamentally depends on these things. Our policies should intimately reflect this dynamic.
• The most reasonable way to tax (if I am wrong, correct me!) is the extent to which someone is taking up a resource from someone else. And it should be a progressive tax. For instance, if your family uses 200 gallons of water a month that is reasonable usage to sustain life, and should be taxed accordingly. But if you your family uses 200,000 of gallons of water a month that has implications for the rest of society, as well as possibly future generations. Our policies should ensure we are stewards of the resources of the earth. Fundamental to this viewpoint is that all people should have equal access (as much as possible) to the earth's resources. They are all of ours, collectively.

Diversity makes us better

• The power of proximity is a powerful way for us to overcome bias, embrace differences, and create more multi-cultural societies.
• Diversity is a competitive advantage. The best cities in the world, that have the largest economies, are the most multicultural. People want to live in places with "culture"
• Multi-lingual cities are a treasure, and a melting pot of cultures can create an empathetic, vibrant culture.

Education is at the ❤️ of a thriving society

• Education and the youth are focal points of a thriving society
• All inhabitants should have equality in opportunity when it comes to education, as much as possible
• The incentives of educators should be aligned with students' incentives
• Knowledge should be created and shared freely, while people's time should be highly valued (as it is a finite resource)

Multiple forms of housing/transportation in a thriving city

• Housing of all types can exist in a thriving city, with enough density to make for a great area the enable...
• Multiple transit options Many of the world's most desired cities to live in are create an environment that encourage people to travel using different modes of transportation. We should create policies on travel that have to do with consumption: the more of the road or resources you use up to travel, the less of a preference that mode of transportation has in planning

Put your messes in the middle of the room

Rough sketch

• Most reasonable people don't leave messes in the middle of a room
• Keep your public spaces the messiest places
• Really, it comes down to honesty
• How people hide their messes
  • Sales and avoiding product shortcomings
  • Reality distortion fields
  • Market power: there are no competitors

People worth trusting do not ask for your loyalty

Thoughts

• People who ask for your trust are likely trying to exploit you
• When people are acting virtuously there is no need to request loyalty
• We should not be loyal to any organization who does not act virtuously. This qualifies for spouses, nations, employers, and friends. "Pledges of allegiance" are a relic of a completely different era, and have no place in a modern society.
• This does not mean to abandon people when they are down. There is an enormous difference there.
• If an organization or individual asks for your loyalty, that should immediately make us distrust them
• Loyalty has much more to do with ego and pride than any redeeming quality a society can possess.

Post about company communication

Based on thoughts prompted from this article.

Remote work, and asynchronous communication, significantly slows down decision making and conversations. What could often be a five minute synchronous discussion ends up being multiple days of back and forth when people ask a one sentence clarification question or wake up in times zones that are around the world. Sometimes a phone call is the right choice.

Topics

• My politics are experimentation
  • Experimentation is the heart of innovation
  • I want to build a city
• Leadership approach
• Post about Mormonism: A former Mormon's love letter to Mormonism (only focusing on positives, as a final goodbye)
  • Answers to questions other mainstream faiths don't have (same-sex marriage, life after death)
  • Small things are what God uses to make incredible things happen!
  • A belief system that puts human connection at the very center
    • Eternal marriage, families forever
  • It provides a feeling of certainty (what a drug this is!)
    • Where should I move?
    • Who should I marry?
    • Are my lost loved ones still around?
    • Do my actions matter?
    • Do I have something unique to offer the world? (this one is a huge "yes," which is why children feel confident talking to 60 year old rabbis and such about what God really wants them know)
    • The paradigm of Mormonism makes it easy to shrug off cognitive dissonance. If you start with the conclusion first, and evaluate the evidence to fit the conclusion, you can disregard any beliefs that make you uncomfortable. This can certainly be mentally exhausting as well, but I found it to be great at enabling me to not really feel bad about certain things. "It may be unpopular, but it's God's will, so 🤷‍♂️ )
  • Viewpoints on the poor
  • Viewpoints on why law of health is "good"
  • Continually asks you what you can improve upon, making repentance a focus, and creating a lifelong path of discipleship. I loved this.
  • Forgiveness (this was probably the #1 reason I converted.
    • It's great for the somewhat masochistic who want to feel punished for the bad things they've done
  • Structure for the structureless
  • A focus on "becoming"
    • It is much more focused on the person you are becoming. This is a beautiful focus for people, I believe, and something that I continue to try to focus on.
• The most influential reason I escaped poverty (from my perspective)
• Taxes based on consumption (square footprint of home)
  • What type of permanent waste should we be permitted to create?
  • We shouldn't be able to create permanent waste, we need better recycling
• Decide on fundamentals, cancel other programs, and get the incredible important things right. Let the other topics vary depending on person/place
• Zoning: to me, the primary purposes of zoning should be:
  • To protect people from the negative externalities of their neighbors, industry, etc
  • To craft a city that is sustainable, livable, and efficient
  • To create opportunities for industry and self-reliance
    • Based on this, we should not having "single family" zoning districts, and people should not be restricted in what they can build, as long as others cannot demonstrate a tangible harm by what they are building

Are we not all beggars? How the prosperity gospel mindset (or plain pride) poisons America's social safety nets.

• Truth that leads to a lie
• Mosiah 4:16-19

Leaders respond to the most pressing matters

• Leaders don't have a great view into the problems of their constituents
• What do we require our leaders to do?
  • Do we force their hand?
  • Leaders make many decisions based on political survival, not what is best for their constituents
  • If our leaders are not making bold moves, we should reflect on what we have done to force their hand?

Overall hypothesis and following sequence of posts: We have incredible unlocked potential

Thoughts

• What is the goal? (probably should be its own post)
  • Some truths:
    • It is better to conserve and to use as little resources as possible to accomplish our goals (if the use of those resources in non-renewable or destruction)
    • We should strive to reduce violence as society's prime directive (?)
    • Struggle benefits society, but not too much, and some struggles are back breaking while some are life giving
    • We should have a society that continually looks to improve our ability to conserve our environment and way of life while using less resources (resources are wealth)
    • Freedom, relationships, and purpose provide a rich life. We should look for ways to improve all these parts of life
• We have enormous problems that need to be solved
• Our greatest assets are the people alive. From the seemingly most unlikely places incredible advancements of society can be created.
• The creation of the limited liability corporation enabled us to advance society because it enabled people to take risks
• We are wasting incredible minds
• Systems can provide the environment that enables, and encourages, innovations. Systems can also stifle innovation.
• If we are optimistic about the future, we need to unlock the labor and intelligence of billions of more people

That viewpoints leads to many following viewpoints

• We should have healthcare that makes people take risks
• We should have financial systems that enable people to take risk
• We should have education systems that make people take risks and that discover and uncover intelligence
• We should have infrastructure (housing, commercial real estate, transit) that enables people to take risk and subsidizes risk taking and creativity
• We should try to function on the backbone of efficient, safe, ubiquitous transportation systems. This enables people to take more risk.

Should we know what people are doing with tools that are being built

Thoughts

• Overall, I think privacy is the right approach. I am strong believer in end to end encryption, knowing that this can be used for good/bad
• There is a spectrum of use. Some factors in how we determine that
  • How practical is banning the thing?
  • What other possible uses does the thing have?
  • What is the potential harm to humans for them not having it? For instance, individuals can't really claim to be worse off by not having a personal atomic weapon.
  • What is infrastructure?
  • Potential axis?
    • How much am I harmed if I don't have axis to this?
    • How much harm can I do with this?

Our generation must feel the pain

• Other generations took the path of excess and consumption, it was understandable, but immoral and terribly shortsighted
• For the changes to happen that need to happen, a generation is going to need to be willing to feel the pain of change, it should be our generation
• Constraint is the mother of invention. You find innovation in areas that are facing a problem, not in places where the problem doesn't exist.
  • Housing was created in cold climates, not in luxurious equatorial locations
  • Water conservancy innovations are discovered in deserts, not in Seattle
• We have an opportunity to discover incredible innovations if we put the constraints in place to encourage people to start looking for a new way to do things.

Climate action

People make decisions based on the economics, and largely personal impacts, of those decisions. We need to curb individual behavior to healthier choices, and help with collective action.

The most effective way to do that is to change the underlying structure and not require herculean personal action to make changes. The changes need to be systemic.

Taxes are an incredible way to affect behavior. Taxes should be used to curb harmful behavior and should be used to invest in, and reward, healthy behaviors or production. Some major premises:

• Someone is going to need to feel the pain:
  • Any meaningful improvements in the world have come from some individuals feeling the pain. Progress requires sacrifice. It should be our generation that decides to stop endless consumption and feel the pain of progress. We should be the ones inconvenienced. We should stop kicking the can of accountability down the street to our children and their children. We must be the ones to take action.
• Financial accountability for actual costs
  • Tax non-renewables to the point of it being painful
  • Tax single use plastic to the point where creating single use plastic is not financially viable
  • Tax internal combustion vehicles to the point of feeling the pain (phased in)
  • Tax car ownership (especially in urban areas) a lot
  • Tax the creation of parking spaces in urban areas through the teeth so people repurpose the space through property taxes (while still enabling access to those who cannot use active transit)
  • Tax the building of parking through the teeth when people are getting permits. It costs more to create parking than it does to create housing. We have an abundance of pavement that sits empty for parking, and a lack of affordable housing.
  • Taxes should be consumption based. We should make the heart of our tax system represent the consumption of non-renewable resources. I should pay far more in taxes for a single family home than a person living in a small apartment
  • Remove minimum square footage for housing. We are focused on progress. A single bed with a small spot for belongings is progress when compared to people living on the street.
• Use tax revenues to invest (incentivize) new innovations and new businesses
  • Use the money from taxing non-renewable resources to invest in renewable resource businesses
  • Use the money from taxing plastics to invest in businesses who are innovating in recycling and reuse technologies/services
  • Use the money from taxing vehicles to incentive active transportation and mass transportation. For instance, subsidize people who do not register a car so they can purchase a bicycle or a bus pass. Reclaim public space for private vehicles and build infrastructure for active transit, pedestrians, and public spaces. Create a city that is safe and pleasant for children, the handicapped, and the elderly and it'll become an incredible city for all. But optimize for the most vulnerable in our society.
  • Tax parking spaces and use the revenue to build affordable housing.