Blender Tutorial- Proxy Physics: Mesh Deform and Cloth Physics

Mesh Deform:

Proxy Physics:

Getting Blender to do certain things is... not intuitive. Generally speaking, I use two separate meshes for rendering and physics. To link them, I use a an additional mesh a an inbetween.

IE-

Physics Mesh -> Transformation Mesh -> Render Mesh

To connect each mesh together, I use the Mesh Deform Modifier.

The Mesh Deform modifier ignores non generative modifiers on the target mesh. However, the target mesh can be changed after the binding is complete.

The target mesh is greyed out, and no longer responds to clicking. However, a little python can resolve this. IE, bpy.context.object.modifiers['MeshDeform'].object = bpy.data.objects['Insert_New_Target_Name_Here']

Note that the new and old target mesh must have the same vertices with the same index. Typically speaking, this means the binding target must be a copy of the true target.

This method allows this workflow:

Copy Transformation Mesh -> Apply all modifiers on the copy -> Bind Render Mesh to Transformation Mesh -> Switch Mesh Target from the copy to the original

Okay, so why would you want to do this? There are many reasons, but the most common one is that often, the physics mesh looks different than the Render mesh. Placing a solidify modifier, followed by a displace modifier, and other modifiers as needed, allows the transformation mesh to be shaped to encompass the render mesh.

Another useful thing to note- Adding or deleting faces and edges has no effect on vertex index. Thus, unwanted faces can be removed. If a vertex isn't wanted during binding, simply leave it "floating" unconnected to any face or edge.

This is particularly important regarding Physics -> Transformation binding, when the physics mesh contains large amounts of "strange" faces. When creating the physics mesh, use a special material and mark all "strange" faces. During binding, delete all "strange" faces. What do I mean by "strange"? Normally anything not manifold, except boundaries.

A useful note- Make sure not to accidentally delete a vertex while deleting edges and faces.

A useful note- If you have a solidify modifier on a mesh and its copy, you can delete any number of faces or edges before applying the modifier, and the vertex indexes, will still match.

Normally, my Transformation Mesh, is, originally, a copy of my physics mesh. It has all the same vertices in all the same locations. This allows a certain trick to, under almost all circumstances, successfully bind the Transformation Mesh to the Physics Mesh. This trick can also be accomplished by using shrinkwrap to align vertices.

The workflow is:

Give Physics Mesh a Solidify modifier followed by a displace modifier.

Copy Physics Mesh

Remove unwanted faces from copy.

Apply all modifiers to copy.

Bind Transformation Mesh to Copy

Switch Bind to Original

Solidify and Mesh Deform are a match made in heaven. In particular, the solidify modifier is the key to using mesh deform with non manifold topology, as is the case in most cloth physics simulations.

Cloth Physics:

Resuming Simulation:

To resume a simulation, from the middle of a simulation, my procedure is:

Free Bake

Place the timeline on the desired frame.

Hide Cloth Physics modifier

Unhide Cloth Physics modifier

Enable Disk Cache

Go to the folder containing the generated results. Rename the folder. Remember the original name.

Place the timeline on the initial frame.

Copy the contents from the renamed folder to a new folder with the same name as the original folder. (You can simply rename the folder back to its original name, but I've accidentally deleted my simulation results by doing so.)

Disable Disk Cache

Using Shape Keys:

A physics simulation will always judge the mesh using the first frame of the simulation. Sometimes, the desired initial position of the mesh is different from the desired judgement position. For instance, imagine a belt, that is supposed to cling to a character's waist.

If I wanted to achieve this I would-

Create a circle. Extrude, move negative on Z axis

Create a shape key. Select it.

Select top and bottom edge loops. Set pivot points to individual origins. Scale until the edges are inside the collision (character's) mesh.

Create two vertex groups- Root, and All

Assign all vertices to All

Add modifier- Vertex Weight Mix

Vertex Group A = Root

Vertex Group B = All

Mix Mode = Add

Mix Set = All

Set Frame to 3

Insert Keyframe: Unhide Vertex Weight Mix Modifier

Set Frame to 4

Insert Keyframe: Hide Vertex Weight Mix Modifier

Set Frame to 2

Insert Keyframe: Shapekey value 0

Set Frame to 1

Insert Keyframe: Shapekey value 1

Add Cloth Physics Modifier. Enable Pinning. Set Pinning group to Root

Using Hyper Cubes:

A hyper cube, in this instance refers to a certain shape, wherein additional faces are added to the interior of a cubelike object to aid in physics simulation. Hyper cubes are generally used when it becomes necessary to simulate rigid objects with cloth physics. Blender has a good rigid object simulator, but it is not ideal for rigid objects attached to non-rigid objects. For instance, a pendant on a necklace.

Some of my meshes contain large quantities of hyper cubes. Rather than placing each face manually it became imperative to generate them quickly.

My procedure is as follows-

Duplicate physics mesh

Select all edges. Mark Sharp. Deselect all.

For each cubelike, select one face.

Set pivot points to individual origins. Scale to -1

Assign Selected to Vertex Group

Leave edit mode, Add Edge Split modifier, apply

Reenter edit mode, use edge selection mode

Select Vertex Group

scale to -1

select all, remove doubles

Select top and bottom faces, delete

Select All

Set face material to Material B (To a distinct material)

Join duplicate with original

Select All

Remove Doubles

If desired, create 2 copies instead of 1. For each cubelike on the copy, select one of the faces connected to the face you first selected, then follow the procedure as above. This will create a perfect symmetric hypercube.

Using the Wireframe Modifier to create strings:

Converting one dimensional vertex lines into three dimensional objects can be frustratingly difficult. There are a number of methods, but, the Wireframe modifier offers several advantages over the others- One vertex is equal to one edge loop, the displacement is even, and, above all, it's fast.

However, the Wireframe Modifier refuses to cooperate without a face. Our savior is the Ngon.

The procedure is as follows.

Select a vertex connected to only one edge (IE, the first or last vertex)
Select similar, use amount of connecting edges
Extrude. Do not move the extruded vertices. Add the new vertices to vertex group "Head"
Select All
Extrude. Move all extruded vertices in direction X for 100
Assign Extruded vertices to vertex group "Extra"
Deselect vertex group "Head"
Dissolve selected vertices
Exit edit mode, add Wireframe Modifier
Set Thickness to 0.001
Disable Even Thickness
Enable Boundary
Add Modifier, Mask
Set Vertex group to "Head", Inverse
Add Modifier, Smooth
Add Modifier, Displace

Adjust Smooth and Displace until desired results emerge.
If desired, Apply all. Enter Edit mode. Select Non-Manifold. Create Faces.

Keynes, Einstein and Maxwell

People like using "wise quotes". Certain phrases are repeated continuously, each time with the user expressing a self satisfied look, like he'd really nailed his argument into place, and was oh so intelligent.

Often, the actual people who said the line are far more intelligent than the people who repeat it. As such, the lines, used as the author did, are often much more sensible than their common usage.

In this case, I'm not so much concerned with arguing against the (original intent) so much as the (mainline message).

That said, I'll introduce our wonderful Keynes quote:
"In the long run we are all dead"

Time is dimensional. This is required to make basic tenets of morality work. Consider murder- A man aims and shoots a gun at a random person in a crowd with no justification.

How does this work?

There's no frame of time in which he killed his victim. Also, there is a gap between the frames where he was applying force to the trigger, when the bullet left the gun, and when the bullet hit its target.

The common idea that time dilates morality, would mean that, between two shooters, the one who shot at people further away from him, is better than the one that shoots at people closer to him. It would mean that someone who salts anti-personnel mines in a forest is better than someone who opens fire on a crowd.

Furthermore, if time dilates, then distance should also dilate, because the two concepts are congruent. As such, a person who shoots his neighbors is worse than someone who fires some sort of awesome laser weapon into a crowd of aliens in another galaxy.

If the universe is going to end from entropy some day and a new universe is going to be born in the distant future, and some mechanism can be used to predict and influence the new universe from our current universe, and if that new universe is going to give birth to an Earth like planet, it is unimaginable that hurting people on that "new Earth" would be somehow more acceptable than doing the same on "current Earth".

Morality should not contain arbitrary delineations. As such, it is absurd to think that morality would dilate over time.

With this said, when would morality, or at least the calculations that are used to apply morality, dilate?

The answer is- data and processing power.

Now we've reached a standard that makes sense. Between shooting someone right in front of you, and shooting bullets into a thicket, obviously the thicket is the more non-violent choice. All actions must be taken under a backdrop of information scarcity, and so, utility calculations must account for "fog of war".

Processing power is similar though different. Even if we have sufficient data, that doesn't make it usable, or worth using. Sometimes, we can't reach the correct answer. Other times, we could, but it isn't worth it. Everyone should take a look at Bayesian probability, and incorporate its key concepts into their systems. However, actually drawing up a Bayesian tree should only happen in the most extreme cases.

Time and information tend to be directly correlated.

However, this is not (fundamental law) so much as a (common flow).

There are times when we have more information about the far future than the near future. For instance, imagine a game where red or blue marbles are randomly added to a pool each turn. On turn three, what is the standard deviation of the ratio of blue to red marbles?

In turn, consider the standard deviation on turn 1000.

This phenomena is frequent. The close and the far become "reality" whilst "darkness" lies in between.

To dismiss the far, and concern ourselves with the between instead, is absurd.

At times, far data is as reliable, or sufficiently reliable, that trade offs can be made between far and near. For instance, it's a decent bet that if you keep a stock of gold bars around, it'll benefit you someday. If you instead take the money and eat some restaurant food, that will also benefit you. Sometimes, gold markets crash. But, sometimes restaurants make their customers sick. There is no choice that entirely avoids risk. The data has to be weighed, and prioritized.

Of course, economics is the same. Expanding the money supply increases market noise. Government spending increases market noise. Taxes also increase market noise. Note that not all taxes, or spending programs, or currency issuances,  are the same. Issuing 5 trillion dollars into Ron Paul's bank account would probably result in less market noise than issuing a million into Paul Krugman's. A citizen's dividend (with equal funding) would cause less noise than Social Security. Every time the tax code is made more complicated with weird rules, exceptions and social engineering schemes it generates more noise. A simple tax that took 90% of all owned currency every year, would, assuming none of the proceeds were spent, generate less noise than our current tax code. (basically, a system wherein every year, dollars cease to be called dollars and are instead called dimes, pennies tenth pennies, etc.)

Because government is in constant flux, and because it's hard to tell how a program will operate after implementation, it's difficult to determine how much noise a given program will produce.

However, since noise is a fundamental element, work cannot be achieved without it.

This leads into a severe flaw of mainstream economics-

Consider Maxwell's demon.

The thought experiment began as an attack on the second law of thermodynamics, and it was one of the most interesting lines of attack. After significant effort (continuing into the modern day) scientists finally proved why, Maxwell's demon cannot exist within Newtonian physics.

The important element of their solution was that, for information to exist within our world, it required physical backing- aka, acquiring the vectors of a molecule requires payment, both in energy and entropy.

Under these principles, we can build a "demonic engine" that builds and releases pressure from a chamber, by opening and closing a door, and thus produces more energy than is used to open and close the door. This is made possible, because information can be transmuted into and from energy.

Mainstream theories consistently try to prove things in overly abstract "clean rooms". For the most part, I do not disagree with the idea that spending more during a recession will reduce the severity of the recession, or that moderate inflation will encourage more work to be done, etc.

The problem here, is that the economists are cheating. They are becoming Maxwell's demon. It is easy to come up with a program that improves the economy when you receive free information which you can then feed into the economy.

Without any information input a contracyclic spending program will still reduce the frequency of recessions. This is because-

If you flip one coin, the chance that you will get a tails is 50%

If you flip two coins, that chance of two tails is 25%

75% of the time you will not get two tails.

50% of the time you will get 1 heads and one tails. IE, either the government will be stimulating the economy, or the economy will be booming.

On the face of it, stimulus will avoid recessions.

However, a particularly disastrous scenario is prepared-

Stimulating the boom instead of the bust.

The problem is, this is just shuffling costs into a larger pool. As a result, a few long drawn out depressions replace many six month "soft periods".

Now, most economists would assert that working without any information at all is unrealistic.

I disagree, on a simple basis-

If any investor bought at the start of booms, and the sold when busts began, he'd be far richer than Warren Buffet. If any investor bought whenever a boom was going to continue, and sold whenever a bust was going to continue, he'd be similarly rich. Even now, economists argue whether we're in a boom or bust. It is obvious, that, determining whether the market is currently in a boom or a bust is impossible.

Even if someone did have the skill set necessary, that still does not mean he would be working for the federal reserve. Or that he would be a professor from Harvard. Or etc. Before the government can state that it knows something, it would have to have some method by which it can identify people with special skills.

I agree that, economists do not have to be speculators to be taken seriously. Mises never attempted to make himself rich. Nor did Adam Smith.

However, economists must be careful that they do not attribute to themselves (or worse, the general public) skills that would make them top class speculators.

In other words, much of what Keynesians use to "prove" that government can make us richer by managing our wealth, merely proves that god almighty could make us richer by managing our wealth. Not that an arbitrary or democratic bureaucracy can make us richer.

Which in turn asserts a particular axiom-

No government program will ever be implemented in the manner described by theoreticians.

This axiom is consistently true because, the theories it is applied to exclude three critical factors-
The incompetency of bureaucrats, the stupidity of crowds and the incredible complexity of problems existing in the real world.

Anthropomorphism, Redistribution and Jobs

This universe is not object oriented.

There is no distinction between cause and effect.
There is no distinction between supply and demand.
There is no distinction between past and future.
There is no gap between one life and another.
There is no gap between life and non-life.

Humans are object oriented. Reality is not.

Anthropomorphism is the underlying cause of much of this world's nonsense. People continually try to drag structures into their personal reality, in the process, distorting them.

Thus do we get religion, demand economics, effort worship, justice, etc.

Goods are heterogeneous. One good cannot be transmuted  into another. Goods are inequal. Money is not some sort of alchemical stone that turn X into Y. As such, you cannot feed the hungry by redistributing money from the rich. You cannot house the homeless by redistributing money from the rich.

In order to house someone, what is required, is a house. In order to feed someone, what is required, is food. This is true for every need- money is merely an overlay.

The amount of houses available is dependent on numerous factors. Many factors are unknown. In fact, most are unknown. Money is a system that allows efficient distribution of resources within largely unknown and unknowable environments.

The market is efficient.

Not in the logical sense- obviously, some level of supersentience could come up with a superior distribution.

The market is, in the end, just a name, given to whatever technology happens to be most efficient.

Thus, under any condition wherein market failure will arise, all other mechanisms will also fail.

Thus, all houses will be usefully employed. If a house appears not to be usefully employed, this merely demonstrates a failure of measurement. The house is usefully employed.

A house will, if worthwhile, be produced.

In turn, the market, automatically produces and sells houses. The only reasonable route of attack, is to say-

"We can cause people to make more houses than they otherwise would have."

or

"We can cause people to make more poor friendly uses of the houses."

Both ignore the obvious issue that- if the market has found a better use for the house than housing the homeless, or if the market has found a better use for its land than a housing project- that path has higher utility. It's utterly self destructive to cut off your high end projects to achieve your low end projects.

Setting that aside, the attempt still will not succeed.

This is because, it is very rare for the market to prioritize something above food, housing and transportation. It doesn't. If something can be used to produce one of these items, that is how it will be used.

Furthermore, the rich are not capable of outbidding the poor.

A homeseeker can pay well above the actual value of the house, while the speculator must make a profit on his purchase. Similarly, rich people are limited in number, and require maximum productivity on their property. Even if they own multiple properties, they must keep the properties occupied, on any margin.

The market is highly attuned to need. Someone who needs something more, will almost assuredly outbid someone who is merely richer.

As such, the amount of houses available is near the maximum imposed by resource constraints. As such, attempting to redistribute in order to improve housing, is futile. The more poor people money is given to, the more housing prices will rise.

This is the same dynamic that can be seen in education right now- first we sent everyone to high school. The project failed laughably- high school degrees lost all value, and college became the new standard for job seekers. Of course, popular opinion just started trying to churn out college degrees, but that's failing in the exact same way.

Education is not, and has never been, a limiting reactant. The amount of jobs available will not change, regardless of how much education there is.

Food comes from farms. Their yields are maintained through use of fertilizer and other resources. And, importantly, the food is worthless until it is moved from farm to consumer, a process that is often more difficult than creating the food to begin with.

Food is heterogeneous. Apples are not corn. At times, the best way to feed the most people, is to throw away apples to free up resources for use with corn. Waste is a part of efficiency.

As such-
Money owned by rich people is different than money owned by poor people.

And more to the point-
No two goods are identical.

Thus-
Nothing is fungible.

In order to transform one property, all other properties must also be transformed. Popular redistribution schemes only work logically, because their authors, basically, are changing one angle of a triangle without changing the other two.

In other words, redistribution doesn't work because it attempts to redistribute toxic mortgage bond swaps into physical houses. In the end, the price of houses rises, the price of debt bond hedge funds falls, and the physical reality approaches ground state.

Trade deficits are mathematical artifact. They have little relevance to the structures they are invoked to affect.

Simply, in any trade, both sides benefit. When a mutually beneficial deal is detected, it is executed. IE- If a person buys X from a foreigner, and pays in dollars, then the market advances. The foreigner cannot just turn around and demand, say, the buyer's house. No matter how many dollars the foreigner owns, prices will respond accordingly and the market will avoid any regression.

As such, dollars will circulate until the market arrives at an ideal ground state. It is irrelevant who owns the dollars in the end. Forcing additional trades will just pull away from the ground state. Worst of all, the market will just push back towards the ground state, rendering the effort futile.

Only two mechanisms can close a trade deficit- Tax imports or subsidize exports. Any alternative is either futile, or an obfuscated variation of the above.

Jobs are not productivity.

People want jobs mainly for respect and security.
Average income from, say, running a start up, or investing in a corporation, or inventing a machine, etc- is much higher than any field of work. As such, money, per se, isn't what is desired.

Entertainment is an important element of why people try to obtain jobs. However, jobs are not as entertaining as say, video games. Or sports. Or clubs. Etc. If the only issues were money and entertainment, jobs wouldn't exist.

Jobs only grant respect because they are scarce. If everyone had a job, no one would notice that a particular person had a job.

Respect is zero sum. Rather, respect is a ranking ladder- X>Y>Z. To be respected, means, that your desires outweigh those of others beneath you.

Jobs only grant security because they are scarce.

Jobs fundamentally give only security from other humans. A job will not cure you of disease. It will not protect you from lightning. It will not slow aging. Rather, it actually reduces your defenses against natural agents.

A job gives you several forms of security-

People who respect you. One job leads to another. And, from a liver transplant to getting a new law passed, connections are powerful.

A steady income. This should not be confused with a steady flow of resources. Income is the ability to outbid other humans, and is, therefore, zero sum.

A place in society. Homeless people constantly find themselves accosted, not simply by lack of resources, but a hostile law code designed to locate and destroy them. It isn't uncommon for people to single out outsiders and act against them. The defense, is to not stand out. This is, fundamentally, a security through obscurity mechanism, and thus, zero-sum. Someone has to be the one who most stands out.

Taking into account what a job is, what it means, and why people want it- It is logically impossible for everyone to have a job.

Of course, it would be easy to give everyone something and just call what they're given a job. But, this will just result in treadmilling.

Stock Picking, Capitalism and Communism

Rather frequently, some writer/article/person calls stock picking gambling. Connotatively, gambling like in a casino, where you inevitably lose.

This is wrong, and, furthermore, must be wrong for capitalism to work.

Namely- what is an entrepreneur?

There's only so many ways to make money. Most entrepreneurs aren't coming up with any particularly new ideas. They're just people opening another pizza place, building a gas station, or some similar concept.

And, of course, the stock market is filled with unproven ideas. It's just as possible to invest in someone else's new idea as your own.

More to the point, there are enough stocks that, whatever great idea you have, you can normally find overlap and invest in someone else already executing it.

Human labor isn't that valuable. The economy is mostly built around capital flows.

As such, there is no distinguishable difference between investor and founder. What an idea needs before execution or expansion, is trust. Money. The rich are rich, not because they have thick arms and sharp eyes, but because of return on investment.

It is, at this point, not logically impossible to create a world wherein any investment is as good as any other. However, doing so makes an utter mockery of human intelligence or diversity. In turn, a simple government organization, stripped of distracting emotions and controlled by a widespread group invulnerable to the weaknesses of the individual, would invest better than any competition.

If the world were like people accuse it of, it would imply that we should switch to communism. It's absurd to assign wealth based on some sort of accident of history. If everything were distributed based on ancient coin flips, and the wealthy had no merit to their property, and the rich were instead just living it up using return on investment without sentient control of their property, that system could not be reasonably condoned.

A system of morality should work equally regardless of dimensionality. If an almighty being created the universe in this exact shape two seconds ago, or if it came to this over millions of years, their should be no moral difference.

If wealth was distributed by ancient coin flips, there would be no moral difference if all the money were collected and redistributed by coin flip. Going from State A to equivalent State B should not have moral implications. Since A is a random distribution and B is a random distribution, the two are not distinguishable. As such, anything that applies in B should apply in A.

Reality isn't like these people say it is. No mathematical model, no hedge system, no broad index, is capable of modeling the market with the speed and accuracy provided by the full power of human sentience. And of course, people are different. Some can beat the market, some can't.

But, at the end of the day, someone has to beat the market. Without this genius investor, the market's movements would all descend into noise. In the end, everyone who doesn't beat the market, is just entrusting their money to the people who think they can beat the market, and mirroring their moves. In other words, no matter how many weird investing programs you unleash on the market, they are incapable of coming to their own judgments. Computers simply lack that degree of intelligence (as do other forms of automated thought, like hedge funds and ETFs). Instead, they copy, and therefore magnify the sounds of a few market movers. AKA, stock pickers.

The Precipice of Divinity

What is Divinity?

For the moment, I will use this definition- That which is both valid and correct.

Valid and correct also appears to need defining. I'll use:
Valid- Properly meets conditions necessary for existential reality. A valid source code would properly compile when used. A valid business model would generate a profit when executed. Hence, the concept is similar to those of existence, size and power. Perhaps the closest relative is "effective".

Correct- Contains no errors. Is not wrong. However,  correctness, in this case, stands above the simpler concept that is negation of negatives. A more precise definitions would be- Fully applies all criteria announced within declaration, reality axis and theory.

Wait- I just used three more ill-defined terms. Declaration, Reality Axis and Theory need further definition. To start with:

Reality Axis- Red truth. A reality axis is a set of data wherein, all elements necessitate all other elements. 3+3=6. I think therefore I am. A object is within my view, therefore a object exists. A reality axis exists along a line of organized data, such that all logical imperatives maintain consistency. Reality axes are avatars of consistency. Logic is merely a side effect of their presence. Anything that opposes them is contradictory.

Declaration- Gold truth. Declarations stand in a realm above even reality axes. Declarations create reality axes. To understand the necessity of a force above logic contemplate the simplest formatting of reality- one dimensional space. Rather, a number line.

Any universe can, through some sequence of mathematical transformations be converted upward or downward in element and dimension. To put this another way- Any Turing complete model can simulate any other Turing complete model. As a corollary, it is impossible to distinguish which Turing complete model underlies a particular system from the interior of the system.

As such, any universe can, somehow, be transposed as a single number.

However, here is where simple logic falls to absurdity- source code is, essentially, just a number. A compiler takes a number, and produces executable code. The strange element is this- two compilers can take the same number and produce two separate valid programs. The same number can be valid under multiple compilers. In fact, within the domain of all possible compilers, any number can be compiled into any executable.

So, in turn- not only can any universe be transposed to a single number, but, because the locations of numbers within logical space is arbitrary, they can in fact, all be transposed to the same number.

In other words:

All universes are equivalent.

The statement immediately above is absurd.

It is not illogical, nor is it contradictory.

Absurdities are untrue, but not because of any logical framework. Absurdities arise from the existence of declarations. Absurdities are that which defy the highest truth from which this universe was created.

Conversely, declarations are original truth. Facts without basis. Evidence cannot be collected for or against declarations. Declarations must exist before meaning can be ascribed to reality. Existence itself is a side effect of declarations.

Morality, life, consciousness, existence, logic, and meaning are all directly imposed upon nothing through this world's one true miracle.

Not creation. That's easy, since 0 equals 1. Nor birth and growth, consequences of mere physical law. The highest truth is a miracle that stands far above a petty act by an all mighty being or the shallow consequences of some unlikely event. Those who ask why we exist miss a much higher question-

What does it matter?

The base state is not one of meaning, but of nihilism. Most data is neither right nor wrong, but simply arbitrary. If I were to place any list of binary sequences in some separate desolate universe, no one would care. Regardless of how the numbers line up, they're all just junk data.

But, if that same data is read, if it is interpreted, if it is infused with a soul, it can become anything.

Declarations are vast, and as such, wondrous and terrifying. All reality is rooted within this highest truth. But, it is rare that we can interact directly with declarations.

Below the reality axis stands the third truth- Theory. The blue truth.

All three truths are true. however, they are different modes of truth, and importantly, different priorities of truth. Red truth is true so long as it does not contradict gold truth, and no two red truths contradict each other. Gold truth is the ultimate truth, and can be neither opposed nor denied. Blue truth lacks these constraints, and is true in all cases wherein it does not contradict the two higher truths.

To understand, consider this problem-

Choose the best answer:
You throw a ball over a wall. A moment later, an identical ball returns from the unseen recesses behind the wall.

A- Another wall exists behind the first wall. Your ball bounced back after crossing out of sight.
B- A person exists behind the wall. After the ball entered on his side, he caught it and threw it back.
C- Another ball, identical to your own, was put into motion for unrelated reasons, and arrived on your side of the wall shortly after your ball left your line of sight.
D- The ball, shortly after leaving your field of vision, decided to reverse course and return to you.


Occam's razor would probably say A, perhaps B. But, Occam's razor is merely a tool, not a logically valid principle of nature. As such, C and D are in no way inferior to A and B. The question above should, upon sufficient review, descend towards senselessness. As all answers correctly fit the ascribed scenario, none are particularly superior.

This is why we turn to theories to understand reality- All four events happened.

Theories interact with each other, and create ever branching narratives. If, after you receive the ball you travel to the other side of the wall and determine that it contains open grass as far as the eye can see, each narrative evolves. The person who returned the ball left afterwords. The wall that the ball bounced off of was demolished. After the second ball flew over the wall, the first was vaporized.

Of course, while all theories are true so long as they maintain consistency with declaration and reality axis, some theories are more useful than others. It is important to distinguish between useful and wrong. Obviously, useful theories have their uses, and thus demand greater attention than useless theories, but neither is particularly more true than its neighbor.

Divinity is therefore a concept that connects two distinct concepts. It is the intersection of righteousness and power. It is morality applied.

To be divine, you must not simply be correct, but be able to implement that nature. Justice is justice not simply because it is good, but because it is victorious.

Divinity is then, good that is victorious over evil.

This precipice, which combines two distinct forces can be placed at the pinnacle of morality. To aspire towards divinity, is to aspire towards the Platonic ideal underlying your own existence.

However, the two forces, while not contradictory at a base level, are, on an applied level, inconsistent.

For good to triumph over evil, that requires that good be stronger than evil.

However, strength is not morality. It is not directly related to morality. Logically speaking, evil is stronger, simply because it has more options available to it.

To understand, imagine this entity- A self replicating machine, that expands in an outward sphere at nearly the speed of light. Effectively, a logic bomb, irresistible by any means and faster than any competitor.

In terms of shear power, this entity is by far the highest. A search for power, will, in all probability, eventually approach this ideal being.

Another interesting example of this phenomena can be found in Conway's game of life. Being a game with complexity on the scale of our universe, the deeper rules are unclear. However, some ideas have been hinted at, or, even if we can't determine how, have been determined to be true. Two relevant conclusions are:

True life can exist with Conway's game. Full intelligence can be achieved within the simulation. In a sufficiently large random field, full intelligence would emerge with near certain probability.

However, it is extremely unlikely that full intelligence would be the best model with which to "win" Conway's game of life. Any life created in a random field would almost certainly be annihilated by far more powerful (and less vulnerable) non-life processes. A major cause of this exists in the emergent "speed of light" within Conway's game. A tile can only effect the tile adjacent to it. Thus, any signal can only move at one tile per cycle. In practice, the maximum speed falls further, since only certain patterns can maintain their existence over multiple cycles, and none of them simply move in a direction.

Reflecting these patterns or otherwise catching them is complicated. In turn, these processes take time. To "see" an object, a pattern must be released, intercept the target, and return to the originator. The maximum speed of this process is significantly below half the maximum speed allowable. However, other alternative patterns, incapable of "vision" can move faster. In turn, non-life can easily kill life before life can bring to bear any of its unique attributes to defend itself.

In this way, the search for validity draws us away from the search for correctness. If we try too hard to win, we will merely become the winner. It is the sheerest joke to win a war by adopting the culture and beliefs of your enemy. In turn, it is important to remember always to seek not to become the winner, but to triumph over evil.

Many people are called "highly successful people". However, only those who can truly stand by their beliefs and enact the world they desire deserve this title. Despite the numerous lists tallying the rich and famous, most of these people are mere shells, not deserving our respect.

If the rich were more than mere sailors, letting the winds of nature throw them about, certain signs would exist. Indeed, certain rich individuals show traits approaching divinity. However, the overall tide is different.

Existential threats are fought with budgets in the millions. Research is a paltry portion of gdp. Investment spending displays an incredibly short time preference, practically ignoring flows only five years distant.

Low level causes of suffering such as human frailty, lack of basic resources, poorly executed government and violent neighbor are barely addressed. These problems all have solutions. The 2045 Initiative has a realistic plan to replace the human body with a more reliable carrier. Escape Dynamics is working on a space launch system that would, for the near future, end scarcity for the vast majority of natural materials. The rich spend billions on lobbying and political advertising. Either they're totally incompetent, or they, to a significant degree, they control the government. Given this control, it should be within their power to implement obvious improvements, such as reductions in corruption, simplicity enhancements, regulations that regulate at lower, more theoretical levels (replacing regulations that say "use this motor in this machine" with "use a motor which produces pollution less than or equal to this motor")

However, despite the hundreds of billionaires in this world, for the most part, the world's most significant undertakings are being funded with the barest scraps of our wealth. This simple failure to act is the greatest indictment against the world's elites, and requires no further explanation to see that, whether it's a rich banker, a high ranking politician or a popular actor, no indication of morality may be found at that level.

So, what do these people lack?

They are petty. They care about minor issues, and execute those issues adeptly.

For the vast majority of humanity, this pettiness is among our greatest sins. Given that humanity is evil, this source is heartening. In the short term, pettiness is a source of strength, but in the long term, it undermines and eliminates.

Thus, in the quest for divinity we must be patient. Our enemies are not. In a scale of five, ten or a hundred years, they are nearly impervious. But, almost none of them are taking actions to secure their legacy after death, or even to prepare for its proper defense in the next decade. Year by year, it is possible to tap the deepest flows of history to direct them towards a better path.

As such, the greatest threat to divinity, a path walked with time and patience, is degeneracy.

There is very little anyone can do to become stronger. Act carefully, with patience and reason, and victory can be achieved. No amount of effort, nor intellect, nor knowledge will overcome enemies that have all three and in much greater quantities.

In civilization type games an interesting dynamic exists when enough opponents are present-

Whatever starting position you have, another opponent has a better position. Any resource you have, an opponent has more. Whatever events occur, an opponent has better. Whatever advantages you have, an opponent has more applicable advantages. In short, even if the game is balanced, given 1 player and 9 computer opponents, if the player plays on level with the computer he only has a 1 in 10 chance of winning.

Real life is much worse. Even if your IQ is high, even if you study meticulously and start a business, there are billions of humans in the world, and tens of millions of them are trying all the same schemes.

To make matters worse, humans are, essentially, input output networks. We are naturally drawn into our own worlds.

To put it simply- Who is more likely to support IP law? Someone who works at a major film studio or someone who works at a car dealership?

Who is more likely to believe in the Marxist dynamic where all real work is done at the ground level? A speculator or an auto worker?

Who is more likely to believe that government intervention is important for a proper economy? A federal reserve chairman or a computer programmer?

To a degree, our beliefs change our experiences. Anarchists try not to be policemen. However, the reverse is also the truth, and inevitably so.

After all, one experience precludes another. If you spend all your time contemplating how to make your tile factory succeed, eventually you'll grow to see tile sales as justice and closed factories as miasma. Even if people buy your tiles at gunpoint, and even when the factories are shut down because people are putting in carpets instead.

When you play a civilization game and choose to play as a slave holding, war-mongering and tyrannical faction, victory comes with an interesting knowledge, that the story ends in tragedy. It is hard to believe that your faction would turn around after the game ended.

Because of this dynamic, the intuitive plan of "Choose a valid solution. An about face to the correct solution can be made after I've defeated all my opponents." isn't reliable.

As such, to find divinity we must not only identify the path to power, but the path that leads beyond power. We must understand this higher path, and revere it.

This higher path is... complicated. The simplest version of the answer is, to live fully. To fully appreciate the meaning of the universe.

This universe exists within certain field of reality. If an intelligence falls too low, it will descend below the universe. To put this concept more simply, a dust mote cannot comprehend the weight of a tear.

However, a sufficiently high intelligence will rise above the universe. To understand this, contemplate a man in solitary confinement. Now, give him a book, and raise his intelligence. Eventually the book will seem to him to be entirely frivolous. Eventually, it may as well be another stone in the wall for all of its data content. Similarly, as his intelligence continues to expand, cell mates become sheep, and eventually even the bulwarks of mathematical logic come crashing down in sheer boredom.

With sufficient intelligence, the universe itself is just one giant prison.

The upper limit isn't that hard to reach, but it's also not as low as it seems on first glance. To put it simply- the most interesting thing in the universe right now is humans, and humans are becoming more interesting.

Being the only sober person in a room full of drunks is torturous. But, we are still far from the fundamental limits.

What is lacking isn't sheer intellect.

Even into the future, what, for a low intelligence, is meaningful, is frivolous to a higher intellect. For instance, a flower can spend its entire life savoring sunlight, rain and good soil. It's a weak experience, but also, one that doesn't interfere with a human living beside it.

Similarly, we should not attempt merely to force intellects higher, but to be closer to gardeners, who fill the world with flowers.

IE, we must expand in all directions, as far as there is desire. Only then, can we fully appreciate what we have declared.

Not all experiences are good. We are not simply collectors searching for rare items.

In turn, it is important to understand what makes something worthwhile. Worth having. Worth existing. Worth acknowledging.

The simplest answer to that is- freedom.

However, once again we encounter a weakly defined term:

Freedom is not simply a lack of enemies. It is not simply power. It is not simply choices. It is much more similar to honesty- or rather, the ability to express the truth.

In itself, pain is not evil. Nor despair or hate, nor loss and grief. Rather, the purest form of evil is sacrilege. Of course, that term is also poorly defined so:

Sacrilege is the expression of that which contradicts declaration.

it is the fumi-e of fundamental reality. It is to lie about fundamental reality. Sacrilege is the scream of nature twisted against itself.

To glorify suffering, to be servile towards monsters, to throw away treasures, that is sacrilege.

Then, in turn- Desire is the expression of the truth of the world.

Just as it is sacrilege to oppose declaration, declarations are the source of all that is sacred.

Thus, the future we should seek is this-

A girl in a field of flowers.

A simple fractal. That is the answer we should seek- that, all things should reach their highest level, that the world should exist in beautiful harmony, that, the purpose of our actions is neither A nor B, but that all elements are themselves an expression of our purpose.

In essence, we seek to build a temple to the purest truth.

In contemplating this highest reality, we will never simply create it within our minds. It would hardly be the ultimate truth in the universe if something as feeble as the brain could hold it so easily. However, we know this- that it is beautiful.

For, beauty is the highest acknowledgment of expression. It is the ephemeral jewel that adorns that which is sacred.

As such, divinity is found where there is power and beauty.

The Labor Theory of Value and American politics

Republicans keep asserting that there are too few net taxpayers and too many net tax recipients. Alongside democrats, they also assert that people are too lazy, and unemployment is too high.

Unintuitively, republicans are promoting an extremely Marxist viewpoint.

To simplify, let's use an ideal example society. In Nation A the top 10^-4 percentile of wealth holders own all but 10^-2 percent of the economy. IE, one person in a million owns 9999 units of wealth for every ten thousand units of wealth in the nation. Despite the wealth gap, the bottom sixty percent and bottom one percent in Nation A are both richer than their equivalents in America. Let's also add that the government is wildly popular, so, for the most part, it can do whatever it feels like.

Nation A has a government and uses some means of force to garner some amount of wealth.

Who should it gather it's funding from?

A populist would, almost by definition, target only the hyper rich. To understand the mechanism at play here, consider RPG A. In RPG A, you kill monsters, reach bosses, and earn levels, get new abilities and repeat. In the early game, you only have one or two abilities. Later, you can choose between hundreds of abilities and use upwards of twenty at a time.

If you were a game designer, planning on putting a boss with high stats relative to the player, where would you put it?

In the early game, the player is helpless against this monster. Since he only has two abilities, he only really has around 3 attack patterns. Or maybe six, or ten. He can rely on ability A, or B, or some combination thereof. In other words, the game designer must ensure one of these ten attack patterns will win the fight. Most likely, a early game high stat boss, would have to have special rules written into his mechanics that ensure he'll die after some specific dance.

Late game, the player has far more options. With literally trillions of attack patterns, millions of viable strategies can exist even for a highly skewed encounter.

In many RPGs, the early game is easy. The mid game is often the hardest, and contains the best gameplay. And, the end game is actually relatively easy. This is because-

Early game- the player is presented with few options. As such, he can simply try every option, and thus win every fight. At least one option must work.

Mid game- The player has more options. Enough that trying them all isn't viable. Bosses can be powerful, and the mechanisms to defeat them might not be all that obvious.

Late game- So many options exist, that even in difficult situations, there is probably a set of options that clearly and fully apply to the situation at hand. Abilities work together in strange ways, multiplying the player's power to extreme levels.


This world isn't so different. A poor person can beg, look for manual labor, or learn some marketable skill. Without any capital, his income is limited. However, a rich person has geometrically more options. He can found a company, or buy one. He can move to other countries, or at least operate a business abroad. He can invest his money. He can buy physical goods such as housing, solar cells, 3d printers, etc. that replace the need to spend anything.

Progressive tax systems are, therefore, intellectually intuitive. For a government that simply wants to collect funds with which to pursue its various pursuits, without causing too many side effects, progressive taxation is the clear and obvious solution.

However, most people oppose that setup. They either want to achieve some goal or other through taxation, or they wish to adhere to some arbitrary moral law not grounded in any form of utility.

To start with- fairness. Many people would claim, even if only one point of wealth out of 10^10000^10000 belonged to the bottom 99% that everyone should still pay an equal share of their wealth.

There is no reason why a fair society is necessary or desirable. Even if fairness is accepted, a priori, as a moral good, it should not infinitely outweigh other possible benefits. For instance, if the bottom 99% don't pay taxes, they might feel better on tax day. Or, if the system puts more weight overall on the rich, starvation might be reduced.

Setting that aside, a non-progressive tax system is, generally speaking, unfair to the poor. Or, to put it another way, the rich receive a disproportionate percent of the benefits.

Unless the poor receive massive welfare checks (in which case, why tax them to begin with, if you're just going to give it back?) we can assume most spending is on, general welfare. AKA infrastructure, law enforcement, military, environment, etc.

But, the police are protecting orders of magnitude more for the wealthy than the poor. In fact, the very lives of the wealthy are more valuable than the poor, so just keeping everyone alive is charity to the rich. (If, other factors being equal, a rich person's life isn't, to at least some degree, more valuable than a poor person's, then wealth itself is a joke, and our debate can end, since any and all tax systems are equivalent.)

For a poor person, typically, a change of government isn't that big a deal. Sometimes it's even an opportunity. For the rich, it's normally a disaster. Hence, the military can be thrown in with the police.

Even roads and the like, serve the rich more than the poor, since they travel further, and send freight over more miles.

Even education tends to serve the rich over the poor, since:
A- the rich are smarter and better learn high end material.
B- Education is, fundamentally, learning things that would make your labor more valuable to a rich person.

In the end, the rich just have a larger economic presence. So, any activity that improves the economy, improves the wealth of the rich over the poor. And, even programs like SNAP which ostensibly favor the poor, often transfer very little actual wealth, since the poor have to use their SNAP benefits to buy from stores and farms owned and operated by the rich.

A "Fair" tax is incredibly slanted against the poor.

Setting aside fair taxation, we finally reach social engineering.

Namely, taxes are used as a tool, to force the poor to earn more. Of course, the reverse is also true- spending is allowed to benefit the rich, but not the poor, because the poor might be incentivized to stop working if they had more wealth.

This viewpoint is basically parallel to that held by democrats. Both believe in the virtue of labor, and etc.

The difference between republicans and democrats, is that the republicans believe that poverty is caused by the poor, and the only way it can be solved, is through the poor's own actions. Democrats tend to favor vicious cycle models, and propose increases in education or whatever, to break the cycle.

Each version is kind of stupid but not entirely wrong.

The republicans are supported by iq, inherent differences in personality and the general availability of social mobility.

However, republicans miss that, even a super genius, hard working entrepreneur, cannot catch up to what Warren Buffet makes, simply through common sense investments like Coke, Chevron and Walmart.

Basically, the republican idea that anyone could become Steve Jobs if he was smart/rude/entrepreneurial/etc. is just as absurd as the democratic notion that anyone could become Steve Jobs with enough luck and funding.

That said, programs that improve employment, are rarely, particularly regarding republicans, presented as mass spigots of Steve Jobs. Getting more people to become janitors will reduce the amount of people who become ultra-rich, because the career path is, by its nature, a dead end, or at least, far too slow to reach any meaningful goal. Thus, from the perspective of Steve Jobs mass production, it is a mere distraction.

And yet, both parties support an increase in low wage jobs. So, they don't want simply to inflate the ranks of the elite. They want to maximize the earnings of the poor.

Herein lies the absurdity-

The reason a rich person's life is so valuable, usually has little to do with his internal world. Rich people are not particularly moral people, nor are they all Plato. They're rarely even particularly happy. Rich people are valuable because they affect poor people. Namely, given a choice between saving one genius surgeon, and ten poor people, the surgeon may be correct, but only because he will, if saved, perform more than ten life saving surgeries that would have otherwise failed, or not have been attempted.

A poor person's work is practically worthless. The lowest 80% of Americans own around 15% of the nation's wealth. In regards to stock ownership, the bottom 80% own 9% of the nation's wealth. Around two thirds of the bottom 80%'s stocks is owned by the 60-80% group. IE, poor people own very little, and most of what they do own, are just the prerequisites of their own consumption, namely, housing.

The nation's productive assets are owned and operated by the rich.

This is a clear declaration by the market that the efforts of the poor mean nothing to it.

Yet republicans refuse to simply trust the market. (of course, democrats never even claimed to trust the market.)

They instead cling to the labor theory of value, and assume blindly, that somehow, the work of janitors across the nation, magically produce a hundred times what our system of measurement says they produce.

This is like asserting that a room must be hot, because the heater is on.

It is a logical absurdity to ever, use an inferior correlant when a superior correlant is available. In turn, it is absurd to state that a person's labor is worth X, when the market has clearly stated that it is worth Y.

That said, a poor person's time, spent, not working, is as valuable as any time, spent not working. Since, production exists for the sake of consumption (practically by definition) consumption must be valuable in order for production to be valuable.

And yet, the general political consensus, is that, everyone should do an equal quantity of work.

Why?

Usually, the people espousing these arguments do not claim that janitorial work is uplifting and a necessary part of a fulfilling life. They cite economic reasons.

In essence, this is the labor theory of value. The statement that, people are working, so it must be productive.

This assertion, is easily testable.

Reduce the availability of low wage workers.

Either, wages will rise, because the work is actually valuable, so people will pay for it. Or, the work will cease to be done, because it never mattered to begin with.

There are many ways to reduce the availability of low wage workers. One of the most direct would a higher minimum wage.

Republicans consistently repeat that a higher minimum wage would raise unemployment.

How about they listen to their own logic, and stop complaining that the poor don't do enough for the nation? (that there are too many tax recipients compared to tax payers?)

The poor can't do anything for the nation.

The republican idea of fair taxation, is just as Marxist as the democrat's tirades against income inequality.

The political debate will maintain its absurdity, until a faction emerges, that does not pursue arbitrary equality of results between unequal original data. IE, until marginal utility replaces the labor theory of value.

The welfare state doesn't exist.

Start with an American making 3800 per year. (similar to an average Indian)

Say he either owns a house, or more likely, pays rent. Either way, he has to pay property taxes. The amount varies by state, but... a reasonable number would be 1000.

Next, a car. Each state demands car insurance, which costs about 1000 per year. If our theoretical person doesn't buy car insurance, and just accepts occasional fines, he's likely to pay less- but still around 400 per year.

While I'm insurance, we can note health insurance. Of course, if he makes an even 3800 every year, he can get away with not paying anything. However, if he did try to buy health insurance, it would likely cost 3600. This amount is, obviously, impossibly high. The penalty for not having healthcare is around 700. Of course, he will most likely not pay this.

However, just because his average income is 3800 per year does not mean his yearly income is 3800 per year. Most likely, this person is moving in and out of work, some years making 20000 while making little to nothing in most years. Because of the way America structures its taxes, those with unstable incomes are taxed at much higher rates than those with stable incomes. Of course, stable income means, rich. Especially since the rich have large capital gains, which they sell when they aren't making much money, and buy when they are. This allows them to maintain contra-cyclic incomes that don't fall afoul of higher tax brackets in any given year.

Hence, I will include the mandate, at 100 per year. Adding in income tax, another 200 a year isn't unreasonable.

Next, sales tax. The specific numbers here are a little convoluted, but 100 a year isn't unreasonable.

The government also issues other, convoluted taxes, often on specific goods or activities. Furthermore, the government drives many prices up with regulations and other indirect mechanisms. To cover all of this miscellaneous expenses, I'm adding another 100 per year.

So-

Strictly legal- 3100

Without committing any jailable offense- 2100

As we can see, our theoretical person is paying over half his income to the government.

Government as a percent of gdp is around 40%. Also, I included certain items that the government doesn't like including in their own numbers, so 40% is probably too low. As such, a tax percent of 55%, is not unexpected. Unless one were to expect taxes to be progressive.

Now, to start on the other half of the equation- benefits.

What does our theoretical person get from the government?

Our theoretical person may or may not be receiving SNAP benefits. However, SNAP is set up so that responsibly growing your assets and maintaining a reserve, make you ineligible. It has been noted countless times, that just being poor makes everything more expensive. If our theoretical being were to gather his money, perhaps even across generations, he could pay the lower rates of buying a house instead of renting, paying in cash instead of borrowing, doing regular maintenance on his car instead of letting it break, etc.

Furthermore, as stated, his income is likely irregular. For more than half his years, he has at least some money in his bank. 

In essence, SNAP is only useful for people who have expenses outpacing income. Normally, single mothers with multiple children. This group is also part of the poor, and the welfare state, but can be addressed elsewhere. At the minimum, I will assert that, it is not "the poor" who are driving the expense of the welfare state, but "single mothers with multiple children". This sector is hardly a welfare state and closer to a state minimum survival guarantee. And, it largely goes to children who have parents who are unwilling or unable to feed them.

Snap gives a beneficiary around 1600 per year.

Basically, the rest of America's welfare programs are worthless.

Poor people are unlikely to ever qualify for unemployment, because they only receive short term part time work. If they had steady employment, they wouldn't be poor to begin with. Furthermore, to receive unemployment, the recipient has to prove he's looking for work, which, often being an exercise in futility, is basically an act of flagellating for cash. In essence, welfare programs that require hard work, are no better than just going out in the streets and begging. This remains true from both a moralistic and a purely selfish viewport.

Retirement and disability are obviously worthless, since the poor tend to be young, and very specifically ineligible. Furthermore, very few people who complain about the crushing costs of the welfare state, are complaining about old veterans with pensions, disability, social security and medicare. As such, all such groups will be ignored.

By the same reasons noted above, social security and medicare don't count for anything.

The next major welfare spending category is housing assistance. The requirements are even more arcane than SNAP. To be fair, let's say our target, takes a loan under the adjustable rate mortgage insurance program. Banks would normally never lend to someone like him, but this program allows the government to provide insurance, such that our target may enter the viable range. The chances of eligibility for this particular program aren't exactly high, but there are other programs like it, and he's likely qualified for something.

Compared to rent, loans are typically 30% cheaper. This is worth, perhaps 600 a year. After SNAP the various government housing assistance programs are the largest outlet of government welfare. Receiving a little over a third of SNAP's benefits isn't unreasonable.

To keep track-

Government spending categories that have been addressed-

Social Security

Medicare

Welfare

Government spending that obviously doesn't give any benefit to the poor-

Interest on debt

Direct payments to the rich (Subsidies, bank bailouts, etc.)

Remainder-

Education

Law enforcement

Defense

Transportation

Transportation doesn't benefit the poor much if at all. This is because the bulk of the spending is in large cities populated by the rich, and the bulk of what's transported is property owned by the rich.

Education doesn't benefit the poor, because the poor aren't capable of getting college degrees, and high school level education gives no advantage. (People with no high school diploma make, around 80% of those who have a diploma but not a college degree. It is much more reasonable to assume that it is not the degree that raises wages, but correlated factors that lower the wages. Namely, people without high school degrees are, on average, lower iq and lazy. It is not surprising if, by working harder and more efficiently, a person makes 25% higher wages.)

The vast majority of defense spending is entirely unnecessary. Furthermore, the primary benefit of defense spending, is the ability to maintain a government. America's government doesn't provide particularly high quality of service to its poor, so the people who really want it maintained are the rich. Unless a poor person is directly working for the military, he's receiving little, if anything.

Finally, we reach law enforcement. Law enforcement receives around twice the funding of SNAP. However, very little is spent protecting the poor. In fact, the police tend to be dismissive of crimes against the poor, since the price of damage tends to be low, relative to the average. Except for the small amount spent to investigate and prevent direct acts of violence, the police do little. The vast majority of law enforcement spending, is meant to collect fines as some sort of twisted version of the IRS or to house inmates, most of whom committed non violent crimes. The poor receive minimal benefits from law enforcement. Assuming they aren't in jail.

With this we can produce three possible paradigms-

Worst case- Payments to government: 3100, Payment from government: Negligible.

Reasonable case- Payments to government: 2100, Payment from government: 1000.

Best case- Payment to government 2100, Payment from government 2600.

US tax law is highly chaotic, as are its benefits. Few people can keep within the best case for an extended period. Most likely, the same person will see a few years under the best case, a few years under the worst case and most years under the reasonable case.

In ten years, I expect 1 bad year, 3 good years and 6 reasonable years.

Each good year nets 500 in benefits.

A reasonable year costs 1100. A bad year costs 3100.

This results in an average yearly outlay of 1280. Or, around a third of total income.

An argument can be made that mothers with too many children are bankrupting America. Or that workers on the public dole are bankrupting America. Or that criminals are bankrupting America. However, these arguments are rare compared to the refrain that lazy parasites are bankrupting America.

Lazy bums are not net tax recipients. They are net tax payers. Receiving government benefits requires effort and/or capital. You can become a teacher, soldier, criminal, etc, you can buy government bonds or some equivalent, you can sell stuff to the government or you can have lots of children. You cannot just sit back and collect benefits in America.

As such, the welfare state, as popularly characterized, especially by republicans, does not exist.