Capitalism

I’ve never liked the word “invention”; instead, I prefer the term discovery. Nobody has ever invented anything–rather, sometimes we come upon discoveries, and some people are lucky enough to figure out how to get money from them. Whenever I think I’m clever and have somehow come upon a new idea, I have to take a step back and remind myself that nearly everything has already been tried or thought of at some point.

Once upon a time, the US government enforced antitrust legislation. One of the most famous examples of this is the case of Standard Oil. To understand what happened to Standard Oil, we need to take a short walk back in time through history. The year is 1890, and the US Congress is a well-functioning body with rational officials who’s brains still function at a high enough level to pass sensible legislation.

I watched yesterday’s budget committee meeting at the US senate (which you can find here). It was mildly interesting, and it left me with the impression that politicians plan on continuing to change nothing while we march toward extinction. Humans did this It’s worth reading the testimony of David Wallace-Wells, which is probably the closest we’ll get to a reality check in mainstream politics.