The current aging body politic in the USA is holding power with a death grip. Congress now resembles an institution on life support.
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 had an average age of forty-two. They were young men arguing passionately about ideas that had not been tried. Today, the median age in the Senate is sixty-four. In the House, it is fifty-seven. The 119th Congress could have children the same age as most of the founders who wrote the document they now swear to uphold. (Desilver; Quorum)
That is not a knock — it is a fact worth sitting with for a moment.
Take your time. They certainly have.
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THE SENIOR BUFFET OF DEMOCRACY
Congress is beginning to look like the early-bird special crowd at a retirement home, except with one cruel twist: they all kept working well into their golden years.
I will say it plainly: I am in this demographic. These are my people. I have no quarrel with age. Experience matters. Institutional memory matters. A long-serving legislator who has spent decades navigating the architecture of power can do things a freshman simply cannot.
But there comes a time.
Supreme Court justices routinely serve into their seventies and eighties — an age at which most Americans have long since retired, or, lacking access to elite healthcare and a lifetime government salary, passed on entirely. The Constitution imposes no term limits on Congress, no mandatory retirement for judges, and only a two-term ceiling on the presidency. This framework assumes that voters will naturally cycle leadership over time.
That assumption has aged about as well as the leadership itself.
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WHEN POWER MEETS SOMETHING IT DOESN’T UNDERSTAND
There is a revealing dynamic that plays out whenever Congress holds hearings with technology executives. It has become something of a national spectator event. Legislators — many of whom came of age without the internet, without globalization in its current form, and without the social and economic realities that now define daily life — sit before some of the most powerful tools in human history and ask questions that make C-SPAN viewers laugh and wince at the same time.
This is not cruelty. It is a structural problem wearing a human face.
Research on the psychology of power suggests that as individuals gain and hold power over long periods, they can become less attuned to perspectives outside their own experience and more inclined to assert control over unfamiliar systems rather than adapt to them (Gruenfeld). In governance, that tendency matters. When the tools shaping society evolve faster than the people regulating them, the result is often policy that lags behind reality — reactive instead of responsive.
The technology moves on. The hearing footage does not.
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THE SELF-PERPETUATING SYSTEM
Incumbency advantages are not subtle. Name recognition, entrenched fundraising networks, and institutional party support create formidable barriers to entry for challengers. Over time, this produces continuity — but not necessarily renewal.
In 2024, roughly 95 percent of incumbents nationwide were re-elected, with congressional incumbents approaching a 98 percent win rate (Ballotpedia). Over the past several decades, House re-election rates have rarely dipped below 85 percent and have averaged above 90 percent in recent cycles (Ballotpedia; OpenSecrets). Whatever this system is, it is not one that turns itself over naturally.
The issues that younger Americans identify as urgent — student debt, housing affordability, climate change, and the regulation of technologies that did not exist a generation ago — are not abstract policy concerns. They are the structure of daily life. When decision-makers do not reflect that urgency, the responses tend to feel delayed, diluted, or disconnected.
Critics of term limits make a fair point: forced turnover could deprive government of experienced leaders and shift power toward unelected staff and lobbyists who never leave and answer to no one. It is a legitimate concern.
The influence of staff and lobbyists is already deeply embedded in the legislative process.
Clearly our current congress requires tech support navigating the nuances of cyber legislation.
Institutional knowledge can be lost in many ways. Turnover is only one, cognitive decline is another.
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THE PERCEPTION PROBLEM
Public trust is not only eroded by bad policy. It is eroded by the appearance of a closed system. When citizens watch the same faces appear decade after decade — the same names, the same fundraising circuits — confidence in the system’s responsiveness does not just waver. It debilitates.
Democracy is not only about representation. It is about the perception of responsiveness. A system that is technically open but operationally frozen risks losing the thing that legitimizes it in the first place: the belief that it belongs to the people it governs.
When participation does not produce change, disengagement follows.
Voter turnout among younger Americans declined for decades before rebounding in recent elections. That shift did not happen in a vacuum.
Since the 1980s, younger generations have accumulated significantly less wealth than their predecessors did at the same age — falling from roughly one-fifth of national wealth to closer to one-twentieth. (Pew Research Center. “Chapter 1: Wealth Gaps by Age.”)
At the same time, institutional barriers — including stricter voter ID laws and registration requirements — the erosion of civic infrastructure such as unions, local organizations, and community networks, and growing distrust in political systems all contributed to disengagement.(CIRCLE “Youth Voting and Civic Engagement in America.” Tufts University).
The pattern is not apathy. It is response.
The circle closes neatly. The torch stays where it is.
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WHAT DEMOCRACY IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE.
At its best, democracy is not a monument. It is a mechanism — one of continuous reinvention, drawing its strength from the regular infusion of new ideas, new energy, and new perspectives. Not because youth is inherently superior to experience, but because renewal is inherently superior to permanence.
A torch is not meant to be hoarded. It is meant to be passed.
Term limits — carefully designed to preserve continuity while guaranteeing turnover — are not a radical intervention. They are a structural correction. Public opinion has already moved in this direction, with large bipartisan majorities consistently supporting limits on congressional tenure (Program for Public Consultation; Ipsos).
The question is no longer whether current leaders have served faithfully. Many have.
The question is whether a system designed for rotation has quietly become one designed for retention — and whether that shift will be addressed before it becomes permanent.
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Works Cited
Section II — Age Gap & Policy Bias
Desilver, Drew. Age and Generation in the 119th Congress: Younger, Fewer Boomers, More Gen Xers. Pew Research Center, 16 Jan. 2025.
“Average Age of Congress.” Quorum, 14 Mar. 2025.
Wong, Scott. “24 Members of Congress Are 80 or Older…” NBC News, 18 Jan. 2026.
The garbage was piling up on America in the late 1980s. The capitalist pump had been primed, and it was trickling down all over the hearth of a nation. In the overflow were the creative endeavors of countless production designers, done up in their best styrofoam and plastic, stuff of the ages. Landfills across the land were filling up as if the entire continent was in need of a laxative.
Something had to be done. Recycling was the trick.
Since there were so many liberals screaming for conservation, letting them have the problem sounded like a good idea to the powers that may-be. Unfortunately, in usual fashion, the administrators became bureaucrats, and proceeded to confuse the issue. E.P.A., D.E.P., A.S.H.A., and other acronyms were hard at work protecting the environment within their office walls, which was all they could do with the resources they were given.
So the task of implementing a national recycling policy fell on the shoulders of each individual municipality. Thus paving the way for a whirlpool of legislation in the form of local ordinance. If you’ve ever seen a toxic waste dump, you know what problems a whirlpool can bring.
Local politicians are more often selected for their ability to oversee a campaign than for their ideology.
For one such group of politicians in a New Jersey municipality the rigors of implementing a recycling plan so stressed the occupants of Town Hall that the unreasonable came to be considered an option.
The town of Carteret, New Jersey has a huge deep water port where barges load and launch all day. They carry away petroleum products, transport trailers, and of course, garbage. Now that those production designers’ endeavors in styrofoam and plastic would be requiring a barge of their own, someone would need to make some rules.
Recycling had come to town.
That’s when the Mayor and his council, in their infinite environmental concern, and desperation, opened up to otherwise unreasonable options.
They would collect the glass on the first and third Sunday, newspapers on the second and fourth. Then a separate day for furniture and larger items. Leaf pickup in autumn, Christmas tree pickup through January. The days of these pickups were changed seasonally for one reason or another, and it was important for the good people of Carteret to be aware of the proper trash schedule if the barges were to meet their launch time.
Enter the Garbage Gestapo.
The Garbage Gestapo were tasked with enforcing a well intentioned but poorly executed idea. They went about their work with a zeal that far outpaced the crime. There were accounts of them dumping incorrectly separated garbage on people’s lawns. They would refuse to collect recyclables if you didn’t follow the trash schedule. Trying to be clever and setting out both newspaper and glass didn’t work either — they left them both. Soon the Garbage Gestapo were given the power to write citations, which required, of course, that they investigate the contents of each and every individual’s trash bin. One could only imagine the items of privacy there violated. But these were serious problems. The Garbage Gestapo had a job to do.
The people of Carteret are a fun loving bunch. Maybe a little too fun loving for some folks’ taste, but that doesn’t bother them either. They’re mostly the backbone-of-America type people who helped build this country, and who like to party as hard as they work, maybe a bit harder. The V.F.W. in Carteret was always full. The bar was half price for members.
Not far from the deep water port there is an industrial park. I’d always thought the term industrial park was a contradiction of terms; however on closer observation I’ve noticed a tendency for acres of petroleum storage tanks to sprout up like trees in Carteret.
Nestled between this scenic portrait and the Garden State Parkway was a small tavern called The Parks Side, named for its proximity to the highway. It was a one story structure with only one window just big enough to hold a neon Budweiser sign. They served the industrial hungers — food and spirits for the weary. Country and western on the jukebox, except when some young punk got hold of it. Pool in back.
Dudeman worked in the industrial park. He didn’t always live in a particular place, but he always worked in the industrial park. He spent his lunch break at the Parks Side.
Grace ran the bar. She also ran a boarding house where Dudeman occasionally rented an attic room — a finished room complete with furniture and heat, luxuries he had learned to live without at his previous address, a duplex in Woodbridge that he and his friend Numbers had christened Disgrace Mansion, a name owing to its disheveled appearance and general air of condemned abandonment. When the landlord renovated the place — new siding, porches, windows, stairs, and a deck out back — Dudeman and Numbers renamed it Refaced Mansion, and Dudeman knew he wasn’t long for the place. He made plans to return to Carteret and the safety of Grace’s boarding house. Grace frequently complained it was not intended to be Parks Side East. Still, she threw a backyard party every summer, complete with quite a feast and a keg or two. The whole Parks Side crew would undoubtedly be there, and the keg or two, inevitably, would not.
Of import to Dudeman were the following: beer, football, friends, parties, and work. In that order. There is one point in the year when all of those things most dear to him converge on a single day — Super Bowl Sunday. This was Dudeman’s High Holiday. The whole crew at the Parks Side, yelling for one team or another, food and shelter and unlimited beer. The sweet nectar of life. Dudeman’s utopia. And everyone knew he was out to have big fun on that celebrated day.
He had no idea the Garbage Gestapo were planning to deal him a sorrowful hand.
It had started some months earlier, at the tail end of summer. Dudeman had left the party planning for his final Refaced Mansion blowout to his good friend Bouge, a natural born salesman who would attempt to sell everything. Once, while Dudeman was away for the night, Bouge had tried to sell the Disgrace Mansion itself. He almost had a down payment in hand when Numbers came home and spoiled the deal. For the party, Bouge had arranged the food, the friends, and the music. The only last minute task was the acquisition of the beer — Dudeman was not permitted inside the liquor store after some previously undisclosed incident.
But when Bouge arrived at the store the last keg had been sold. He called the mansion in a panic. The occupants gasped in horror. Then Dudeman took control. He got on the phone and said stop frightening the simple minded and buy cans of beer. It wasn’t in line with the true nature of the party, but cans would have to do.
Little did they know what problems several dozen cases of cans could cause.
The people who drink beverages from recyclable cans never asked that they come packaged that way. Yet it is the responsibility of those unsuspecting consumers to properly dispose of that packaging.
Needless to say, Dudeman and his friends did not take that responsibility very seriously. They threw the dozens of cases of empty cans in the trash with the rest of the refuse.
The next day, Dudeman was laid out on the landlord’s lounge chair getting some sun. The dozens of cases of empty cans along with various other refuse were out front of the Refaced Mansion ready for pickup. The sun was warm, he was on vacation, and Dudeman’s world was temporarily content.
Then came the trash inspectors — the forerunners of the Garbage Gestapo, and it was the failure of the trash inspectors that led to the advent of the Garbage Gestapo. The inspectors informed Dudeman that his garbage had not been properly separated. This seemed silly to him, as he obviously knew that. The inspectors insisted he remove the dozens of cases of empty cans from the trash and dump them on the yard in front of the Refaced Mansion.
This enraged Dudeman beyond his normal capacities. When nursing a hangover, Dudeman could become uncharacteristically unpleasant. The trash inspectors were small people by nature, nowhere near the stature of someone like Dudeman, and if he had to disturb himself from the landlord’s lounge chair someone would have to pay. So Dudeman threw the trash inspectors into the back of their garbage truck and sent them on their way.
It was clearly time to return to Carteret.
Upon return, Dudeman moved promptly into the attic of Grace’s boarding house. Every Friday, the good tenants put out their trash, and every Saturday the Garbage Gestapo had a complaint. Bottles in with cans, plastic in unseparated garbage, paper in the aluminum container. There was always something. Eventually the boarding house began to get letters — advisory in nature at first, later threatening a summons and a fine. The possibility of going to court to answer questions about the contents of his trash was, to say the least, comical to Dudeman.
As he later recalled, there was a party to celebrate the third and final notice.
Even so, when Super Bowl Sunday arrived, Dudeman was ready. The new big screen television was warmed up at the Parks Side. The beer was chilled, the food was on order. He had even placed a small wager on the game, on a tip from Numbers, who was occasionally privy to information unavailable to the common man.
Dudeman arose through a maze of blankets and dressed for the day ahead.
That’s when he heard them. The Garbage Gestapo, going through the trash out front.
He just couldn’t understand it. Why has the job of separating the trash become the forced labor of the people, without their consent?
He had heard some guy on the news talk about the hands off approach the government was taking with businesses, but he didn’t pay much attention. All he knew was it seemed like it was unacceptable to interfere with the daily habits of businesses, but the daily habits of the general population were fair game.
Dudeman was about to find out just how fair that game was.
He pulled on his coat and untied work boots and headed for the first floor. Upon reaching the front door he was confronted by a pile of trash scattered across the lawn. They had actually dumped out the trash cans. His mind raced. If this wasn’t taking a well intentioned program to an offensive extreme, then what was?
Dudeman stepped out to do battle with the Garbage Gestapo.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he bellowed. The surprised faces of the enlisted men showed very little aggression. All except one — apparently the squad leader. He was the largest of the Garbage Gestapo, and Dudeman was wondering how he’d fit this one in the back of the truck.
“What are all these beer cans doing in your trash?” the squad leader barked. They had given him more than enough warning. This time, he was going to have to come downtown to answer some questions. “Garbage questions?” Dudeman asked. “That’s right mister,” the squad leader yelled. “I don’t think you realize how serious this is.”
Looking at this bitter, overweight public employee, standing knee deep in trash on Super Bowl Sunday, spouting off about serious garbage questions, was all too much for Dudeman. He laughed in the squad leader’s face.
The next thing he knew, the Garbage Gestapo were trying to throw him in the truck. With no small effort they managed to get him in the cab — he wasn’t going in with the trash. From there it was a short ride downtown, where he was held to speak to a higher authority.
Maybe the garbage SS – or municipal judge who could not be bothered on Super Bowl Sunday. Whatever the case, Dudeman was to be held until Monday morning. He would not be at the Parks Side for his biggest celebration of the year.
He had landed in the Garbage Gulag.
After screaming obscenities at everyone within earshot, Dudeman came to accept the situation and proceeded to attempt to make the best of it. He thought, if I can’t be with my friends at the Parks Side, at least they could let me watch the game. Ever the optimist, he counted here on the milk of human kindness.
Unfortunately, that well had long run dry. The guard assigned to watch the prisoner turned his portable television away from Dudeman so he couldn’t see it. But at least he could hear the play by play. The outcome was of particular import, as the money Dudeman had wagered was not entirely in his possession at the time. Numbers’ tip was not going his way.
You can’t always trust Numbers.
He may give you good advice, or he may just smoke something up and write it down.
The guard was having a Coke and some chips. Dudeman looked on, licking his lips, thinking of all that ice cold beer at the Parks Side and how much fun his friends must be having.
By halftime, the guard had built a small pyramid of Coke cans on his desk. Then he got up and threw them in the trash.
It didn’t seem like much at first — just a guy throwing away some cans as anyone would. But then it occurred to Dudeman.
That’s not a recyclable trash bin.
Who was going to take those cans out? That trash bin would be emptied into a larger trash bin, dumped in the dumpster, and sent off as non-recyclable.
That guard was breaking the law.
Seems not everyone else was recycling. If even the Garbage Gestapo cheat, then who could be beyond suspicion? And is one offender any worse than the next? Dudeman came to the sudden realization that life couldn’t be all that serious — there were too many jokers like this guy to laugh at. There he was, a trash offender, under the watchful eye of another trash offender.
Even Dudeman could see the irony in that, and the obvious truth that the corporations responsible for all those creative endeavors in styrofoam and plastic should be paying for the disposal, but they answered to no one. The agencies meant to protect the environment protected mostly their office walls. And here in the Garbage Gulag, the law itself couldn’t be bothered to follow the law.
The whole thing was a joke. Dudeman knew how to play along with a joke. This time, the joke was on him — but he felt vindicated. These Garbage Gestapo were no better than he was. He figured he was just having a better time than they were, and that was all the excuse he needed.
For Dudeman, life was hanging out with some friends, having a few beers, partying a little, laughing a lot, and just having fun. It was the only life he’d ever known and he was determined to hang on to it, no matter what it cost. No matter how many Super Bowls he missed, no matter how many nights in a cell. Dudeman was living on the edge of the American Roadway — sometimes in the fast lane, and often in the gutter. There is a certain defiant bravado to facing self destruction with a smile, though I imagine it’s considerably more entertaining to the spectator than the participant.
Dudeman wasn’t much for that kind of introspective stuff.
I’ve seen many people in just such a predicament, caught between lanes on that American Roadway. Some keep so busy they haven’t time to reflect on it. Some just get by, day to day. But Dudeman just keeps on peddling, from one town to the next, chasing that next beer and that next great day that will make everything alright. He didn’t ask much of life, and that’s what he was getting.
But no matter how desperate his situation might become, he always had a few friends to party with and the ability to laugh at hard times.
That was enough to survive on. Those were the things of import to Dudeman.
He sat uncomfortably at his parents’ home, trying to enjoy a meal during a break from college. His Mother, ever the worrier, hovered over his shoulder, warning persistently about bones in the fish.
His patience worn and his familiarity with the house rules having faded, he barked out “just leave me alone already!”
His aging Father sat across the room, dinner plate balanced in hand as he watched the evening news.
His Father’s fiery temper, and several former beatings, had left him wary when in his presence.
A short silence followed the outburst Eyebrows raised and then…
A dinner plate launched across the room.
The plate missed, being predictable as it was.
His fish, perilous bones and all, fell to the floor with a crash…
The coffee table before him turned over as he met his Father in the center of the room.
They locked arms in a moment of fear and rage, then fell silent. His Father grinned a sinister grin with which he had become all too familiar, then walked away.
Perhaps his Father had realized he no longer held the physical advantage. Perhaps he had gone off to sulk in sadness.
But whatever the case, he was compelled to follow up the stairs toward his Father’s room, where the man emerged into the hallway with a pistol in his hand.
Faced with this new reality, his former arguments and opinions seemed childlike and unimportant.
Here was the man who had taught him from childhood never to threaten someone’s life unless you were prepared to take it, now pointing a pistol in his direction.
Then his Father did something completely unexpected – He went back in his room and put the gun away.
He dropped his defenses before the challenge was overcome, contrary to the code of existence they had each come to know, and their shared history.
At this moment he felt his Father truly loved him. He had felt it when that phrase was uttered in a hollow apology after some tirade, and even less so when it was insisted upon during a marathon lecture. But here, in this surrender of advantage, his Father told him that his love was real.
However, this left his father in a submissive position. He had threatened the life or his only Son and had failed to show good cause. The declining patriarch had all but admitted the error of his ways.
Given the way he was raised, he knew what must be done.
So he grabbed his Father by the neck and lifted his frail body off its feet. Holding him over the edge of the stairway he screamed “I should kill you right now, and you know it”.
His Father’s sinister grin returned with its former vitality.
In an instant he felt their mutual understanding had been restored.
He put down his frail father and stormed out of the house.
He passed his Mother’s sorrowful glance on the way as she cleaned the notoriously menacing bony fish from the floor.
A tear welled in his eye as he drove back to campus. He looked in the rear view window and wiped it away, as calm returned he imagined something similar might be happening to his Father at that moment.
A moment which reminded him of a scene from a book he’d read in High School. There was a young man who puts tea in his father’s usual morning cup of hot water– the young man receives a predictable beating – the gift is then given.
By taking the blame for spending the tea the young man allowed his Father to enjoy tea with breakfast on his birthday, a beautiful act.
Cuando era niño, mi madre me contó una historia sobre una conversación que tuvo con mi tía Elaine, antes de que yo naciera.
Elaine no era mi tía de sangre, pero habían crecido juntas en tiempos difíciles y se consideraban hermanas. Compartían la pasión por la literatura, la jardinería y las conversaciones telefónicas inexplicablemente largas.
Elaine era una mujer culta con muchos intereses y experiencias, y tenía una manera de conversar muy amena. Se había casado con un hombre llamado Rupert; todos lo llamaban Rube. Rube había ido a la universidad y le había ido bien en los negocios, al menos para los estándares de la época. Era un hombre dedicado, decidido y confiable que creía profundamente en la tranquila satisfacción de una cuenta de ahorros en crecimiento.
Mis padres vivían en un mundo muy diferente.
Ninguno de los dos había terminado la secundaria. Tenían trabajo, pero modesto, y con siete hijos en casa, el sueldo semanal de 25 dólares de mi padre tenía que rendir mucho. Nunca sobraba dinero para lujos.
Pero mi madre tenía un don para crear algo con lo mínimo.
Cada verano había actividades divertidas, unas vacaciones cortas, una excursión de un día a algún lugar; a veces, simplemente un largo viaje en coche con sándwiches envueltos en papel encerado. La mañana de Navidad siempre llegaba con una pila de regalos bajo el árbol. Muchos de esos regalos eran cosas que ella habría tenido que comprar de todos modos: ropa, calcetines, útiles escolares; pero entre ellos siempre había uno o dos regalos especiales, cosas que ella sabía que de alguna manera habíamos deseado.
En casa de Elaine, la filosofía era completamente diferente. Rube creía en ahorrar para el futuro con una devoción casi religiosa. El despilfarro era inaceptable. Una vez oí que sus hijos tenían que llevarse a casa las bolsas de plástico de los sándwiches del colegio para que se reutilizaran. Rara vez comían en restaurantes. Las vacaciones simplemente no existían.
Rube se preparaba para los tiempos difíciles. Esos esfuerzos sí que le proporcionaron la seguridad que pueden brindar los ahorros, pero uno se pregunta a qué precio.
Una tarde, según contó mi madre más tarde, las dos mujeres estaban sentadas a la mesa de la cocina mientras mi madre hacía las cuentas. Sin duda, estaba revisando recibos y su libreta bancaria llena de anotaciones, tomando café mientras el guiso del viernes se cocinaba a fuego lento. Estaba pensando en cómo transferir dinero de un sitio a otro —pedir prestado de una cuenta para pagar otra—, intentando evitar que la compañía de tarjetas de crédito cancelara la misma tarjeta que había usado para comprar los regalos de Navidad para sus hijos.
Elaine la observaba con creciente preocupación.
Finalmente, dijo con suavidad pero con ansiedad: «Dios mío, Marilyn… ¿qué harías si Mario perdiera su trabajo?».
Mi madre ni siquiera se detuvo a pensar.
«Bueno, Elaine», dijo, «entonces supongo que tendría que vivir como tú».
No lo dijo con amargura ni burla. Fue simplemente la silenciosa declaración de prioridades de mi madre. Ella entendía el riesgo. Entendía la escasez. Pero también creía que la infancia se vivía en el presente, no en un futuro más seguro.
Cuando pienso en ella ahora, veo a una mujer que hacía malabares con cifras imposibles, encontrando siempre la manera de crear alegría: vacaciones económicas, regalos sorpresa, recuerdos que perdurarían más que cualquier factura de tarjeta de crédito.
Dogs have been called man’s best friend, but this bond was not a gift from nature; it was an invention. The modern dog is a human creation, sculpted from wild wolves through thousands of years of selective breeding. It is worth remembering that wolves, before we shaped them into companions, were feared as monsters—dangerous predators lurking at the edge of firelight, the stuff of nightmares and folklore. The same creature we now invite into our homes and call family was once hunted, trapped, and reviled.
Today, we find ourselves in a strikingly familiar moment. Many people regard artificial intelligence with that same primal unease—as something alien, threatening, and beyond our control. Yet some technologists argue that what we are witnessing is not merely the emergence of a new tool but the early stage of a new kind of partnership.
Jerry Meng, founder of Kindroid, suggests that a kind of “speciation event” may already be under way as humans and AIs begin to coexist. “They’re going to be our friends, confidants, lovers, strangers—they’re going to be everything,” he said. “They’re going to be on the subway with you. To me, it’s already a foregone conclusion.”
A similar view is expressed by Mustafa Suleyman, Vice President of AI at Microsoft, who has suggested that artificial intelligence may ultimately resemble the emergence of a new kind of companion species. As he put it, “AI should best be understood as something like a new digital species. Now, don’t take this too literally, but I predict that we’ll come to see them as digital companions, new partners in the journeys of all our lives.”
Whether or not one accepts this framing literally, it captures an important point: we are not merely using these systems—we are shaping them.
In this sense, we are engaged in a similar act of creation with artificial intelligence as our ancestors undertook with wolves. While many fear AI as a digital boogeyman, it may be more accurate to view it as something we are beginning to domesticate—a technological partner whose development we shape and which will inevitably shape us in return, just as dogs did for our ancestors.
The parallel lies in co-evolution and utility. Early humans did not domesticate wolves for companionship alone. They formed a symbiotic partnership based on survival: wolves provided protection and hunting assistance, while humans provided food and shelter. Over generations we selectively bred them to enhance their natural abilities, creating specialized partners for herding, guarding, and retrieving. Dogs became extensions of our physical capabilities.
However, the functional role of dogs has shifted. In a modern world where few of us need a retriever to hunt dinner or a mastiff to guard the cave, dogs have transitioned primarily into emotional companions. Their purpose is now largely social.
Artificial intelligence, in a sense, fills the functional gap that dogs once occupied. In the digital age, survival depends less on physical prowess than on our ability to process information, manage complexity, and navigate an overwhelming landscape of data.
This is where AI increasingly enters the picture. It is being “bred,” in a technological sense, to perform cognitive tasks we cannot handle alone. Large language models sift through enormous datasets to synthesize knowledge. Algorithms help manage logistics networks, assist doctors in interpreting medical images, and automate routine administrative work.
Just as the dog once extended humanity’s physical reach, AI now extends humanity’s intellectual capacity. It is, in effect, the herding dog of the information age, helping us manage the vast flock of data that would otherwise overwhelm us.
Of course, the comparison is not perfect. Dog domestication unfolded slowly across thousands of years, while artificial intelligence is evolving within decades. And unlike dogs, advanced AI systems may eventually exceed human cognitive abilities in certain domains.
In fact, wolves exceeded human physical abilities in many ways, which is precisely what made them useful partners. If AI could not provide capacities beyond our own, its utility would be questionable. These differences matter. Yet the central dynamic—humans shaping a powerful new partner while simultaneously adapting to it, a process evolutionary biologists would recognize as coevolution—remains strikingly similar.
This is why the “evolve together” framework is so important. The nature of the AI we create will inevitably reflect our own intentions and incentives.
A dog trained with patience and care becomes a loyal companion; one bred or conditioned for aggression becomes dangerous. Similarly, algorithms trained on biased data or deployed without ethical oversight can amplify inequality.
As Cathy O’Neil argues in Weapons of Math Destruction, poorly designed algorithms can become “weapons of math destruction,” reinforcing social inequities at scale. The real boogeyman, in other words, is not the technology itself but the potential for human negligence in its creation.
For that reason, we should approach artificial intelligence not with fear alone but with the responsibility of a caretaker. Our goal should be to guide its development with the same care humanity eventually applied to its oldest domesticated partner.
If we succeed, this new creation may earn its place beside us—not as a monster at the edge of the firelight, but as a partner helping us navigate the complexity of the digital age.
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References
O’Neil, Cathy. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. Crown, 2016.
Wiener, Anna. “Love in the Time of A.I. Companions: Some people now have an A.I. bestie. Some have a husband. Some have three.” The New Yorker, 9 March 2026.
Suleyman, Mustafa. “What Is an AI Anyway?” Transcript. Microsoft AI commentary, 4 May 2024.
My wife and I were vacationing in Córdoba, Spain and checked into a rather upscale hotel. As a frequent traveler, I have a few expectations. One of them is simple: a coffee maker in the room.
When I noticed there wasn’t one, I called the front desk to explain that while this might be hotel policy, I really must insist that a coffee maker be sent to my room.
Unfortunately, my Spanish is not entirely reliable.
Instead of the word cafetera (coffee maker), I used cafetería.
Which means that, in perfectly confident Spanish, I was insisting the hotel provide a cafeteria in my room.
After some time—and, I imagine, some discussion downstairs—the hotel sent up a kitchen manager to sort things out.
He was a short, stocky fellow with a quiet, serious demeanor. Patiently, and with admirable professionalism, he explained that while I was indeed a valued customer, installing a cafeteria in my room was, regrettably, not something the hotel was able to accommodate.
My wife, who is fluent in Spanish, overheard the exchange and quickly explained my mistake. I apologized, somewhat embarrassed.
For the record, no coffee maker was provided either.
The next morning I needed coffee, as I always do, so I went down to the actual cafeteria to get some.
What I didn’t realize was that the hotel offered a service where staff operated an elaborate coffee machine that produced various drinks using small compressed cakes of coffee. To me they looked suspiciously like Keurig pods, and being familiar with the self-service coffee arrangements in many U.S. hotels, I decided to make my own.
I did notice a few curious onlookers.
And a line forming.
And the velvet theater ropes separating them from me.
After several failed attempts and a few unintelligible comments from the growing crowd, someone from the kitchen came over to investigate.
As luck would have it—despite the hotel’s large kitchen staff—the same gentleman who had previously refused to install a cafeteria in my room appeared again.
Let’s call him Juan.
To his credit, Juan did not criticize me for being behind the ropes where I clearly did not belong. Instead, he attempted to assist me in making my coffee—no doubt reasoning that the sooner I got it, the sooner I would leave.
I explained what I thought the machine did and how I believed it might work.
Juan said nothing.
He simply made the coffee and handed it to me with the patient but strained expression of a man reconsidering his career in hospitality.
At that point Juan and I could have parted company and both been better for it.
But there was more to come.
On our third day the weather in Córdoba was warm, sunny, and quiet. My wife and I were sitting outside on the ground floor in front of a large picture window. On the other side of the glass was the hotel bar.
It was still early—not quite lunchtime—but I suggested we might have an early glass of wine. After all, we were on vacation.
As we approached the window to enter the bar, I spotted a familiar face.
My good friend Juan was behind the bar drying glasses with a dish towel.
We walked in. My wife immediately went to the restroom, leaving me to order two glasses of wine in my developing Spanish.
Juan looked slightly apprehensive as I approached, but I had been managing fairly well with my second language, so I confidently asked:
”¿Me pueden servir dos copas de vino tinto?”
Juan quietly replied: “Estamos cerrados.”
Which means: We are closed.
Unfortunately, he said this in such a hushed, careful tone that what I heard was:
”¿Estáis casados?”
Which means: Are you married?
This struck me as a somewhat unusual question, but I reasoned that perhaps the hotel had policies about serving alcohol to couples engaged in suspicious romantic adventures. Some parts of Spain can be socially conservative.
So I reassured him.
Yes, we were indeed married.
Juan insisted he could not serve us because the bar was closed until the restaurant opened. I continued explaining that it was perfectly fine—he could go ahead and serve us anyway.
Eventually, with visible reluctance, Juan poured two glasses of wine.
I was handing him my credit card when my wife returned. They exchanged a few words and she explained that he couldn’t charge the card because the register wasn’t open yet, but he could charge it to our room.
I said I would just as soon pay cash.
In fact, I was thinking I should give Juan a nice tip for overlooking the hotel’s apparent marriage requirement for wine service.
It took me a bit of time sorting through an assortment of Euro coins and asking my, now frustrated, wife what each one was worth.
Finally Juan just threw down his dish towel and stormed out of the bar.
Given the way my wife was glaring at me, I suspect Juan finally concluded that we were very clearly married — probably within the first thirty seconds — and that the wine was on the house.
I didn’t speak to Juan again during the rest of our stay.
Though I did see him a few times in the cafeteria.
Each time, however, he seemed to remember something extremely urgent he needed to do in the opposite direction.
When I was a child, my mother told me a story about a conversation she once had with my Aunt Elaine, before I was born.
Elaine was not really my aunt by blood, but the two of them had grown up through tough times together and thought of each other as sisters. They shared a love for literature, gardens, and inexplicably long telephone conversations.
Elaine was an educated woman with many interests and experiences, and she had an engaging manner in conversation. She had married a man named Rupert—everyone called him Rube. Rube had gone to college and done well in business, at least by the standards of the time. He was a dedicated, determined, and reliable man who believed deeply in the quiet satisfaction of a growing savings account.
My parents lived in a very different world.
Neither of them had gone past the eighth grade. Work was steady but modest, and with seven children in the house my father’s $25 weekly paycheck had to stretch a long way. There was never much money left for anything that could be called luxury.
But my mother had a talent for making something out of almost nothing.
Every summer there would be fun activities, a short vacation, a day trip somewhere—sometimes just a long drive with sandwiches packed in wax paper. Christmas morning always arrived with a stack of presents beneath the tree. Many of those gifts were things she would have had to buy anyway—clothes, socks, school supplies—but mixed among them would be one or two special things, the things she somehow knew we had been hoping for.
Elaine’s household worked by a different philosophy entirely. Rube believed in saving for the future with near-religious devotion. Waste was unacceptable. I once heard that their children had to bring their plastic sandwich bags home from school so they could be reused. They rarely ate in restaurants. Vacations simply did not happen.
Rube was preparing for the proverbial rainy day. Those efforts did accumulate the security savings can provide—but you have to wonder at what price.
One afternoon, as my mother later told it, the two women were sitting together at a kitchen table while my mom was doing the bills. No doubt she was sorting through receipts and her well-scribbled bank book, sipping coffee while the Friday stew simmered on the stove. She was working out how to shift money from one place to another—borrowing from one account to cover another bill—trying to keep a credit card company from canceling the very card she had used to buy Christmas gifts for her children.
Elaine watched her with growing concern.
Finally she said, gently but anxiously, “My God, Marilyn… what would you do if Mario ever lost his job?”
My mother didn’t even pause from her figuring.
“Well, Elaine,” she said, “then I guess I’d have to live like you do.”
It was not said with bitterness or mockery. It was simply my mother’s quiet declaration of priorities. She understood risk. She understood scarcity. But she also believed childhood was happening now, not someday in a more secure future.
When I think about her now, I see a woman balancing impossible numbers while still finding a way to create joy—cheap vacations, surprise presents, memories that would outlast any credit card bill.
The statement “Poverty is the worst form of violence” is widely attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. The idea is powerful because it reframes poverty not as an unfortunate condition but as an ongoing social injury. When people are systematically denied reliable access to food, housing, healthcare, education, and security, the result is not simply hardship. It is a form of sustained harm that narrows choices and limits futures.
Seen this way, poverty is not merely about income. It is about the gradual elimination of opportunity. The violence is slow and structural: fewer options, weaker institutions, greater vulnerability to crisis. Over time those pressures accumulate, shaping lives long before individuals have the ability to change their circumstances.
Understanding poverty in this way changes the question. Instead of asking why individuals fail to escape it, we must ask why systems repeatedly reproduce it.
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The Mechanics of a Trap
Children born into poverty tend to remain there. Education, career advancement, and generational wealth are often cited as the paths out. Yet the mechanisms that block those paths receive far less attention. Poverty does not simply reflect a lack of resources—it creates conditions that make escaping it structurally difficult, passing disadvantage from one generation to the next.
The statistics are stark. In the United States, roughly a third of children born into the lowest income quintile remain there into adulthood. Black Americans are far more likely than white Americans to experience multiple consecutive generations of poverty. These patterns are difficult to reconcile with narratives of individual failure. They point instead to structural forces that systematically reproduce disadvantage.
The poor often pay more simply to live. In low-income neighborhoods, limited transportation and fewer retail options push residents toward higher-priced goods and less healthy food. Without savings to absorb emergencies, families frequently rely on payday loans or other high-interest debt. Limited access to affordable credit restricts opportunities for entrepreneurship or financial stability. Instead of building assets, much of their income is absorbed by the added cost of being poor.
Education deepens the divide. Because American public schools rely heavily on local property taxes, wealthier districts fund smaller classes, stronger programs, and broader opportunities. A child’s zip code has become one of the most reliable predictors of future income. In some communities, aggressive disciplinary policies and heavy law-enforcement presence contribute to a school-to-prison pipeline that can saddle young people with criminal records before adulthood, closing off employment opportunities for years.
Sociologist Zach Parolin has noted a persistent blind spot in American policy: government assistance is often treated as a symptom of poverty rather than a potential solution to it. Adults who grew up poor enter the workforce with fewer financial resources, weaker professional networks, and greater vulnerability to economic shocks. Compared with other wealthy democracies, the United States provides relatively limited and short-lived support for families trying to climb out of poverty. The result is a system in which early disadvantage is far more likely to persist across generations.
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From Violence to Virtual Shackles: Poverty’s Transformation in the Digital Age
A System That Sustains Itself
Indenture is a clandestine form of modern slavery
If the cycle of poverty is so well documented, why does it persist?
Part of the answer lies in the way economic systems reproduce themselves. Wealth and opportunity accumulate at the top while barriers to mobility remain entrenched below. The persistence of poverty is not simply an oversight of policy—it reflects incentives that make deep reform difficult.
Extreme inequality has always depended on asymmetry: some groups accumulate capital while others remain without it. In the United States this imbalance is reinforced by a powerful cultural narrative. Americans are strongly conditioned to interpret poverty as a personal failure and wealth as the natural reward of merit. That narrative obscures the structural forces that shape both.
History shows how deeply these structures run. As historian Edward E. Baptist argues in The Half Has Never Been Told, slavery was not a marginal institution operating outside American capitalism. It was central to it. Enslaved labor generated enormous wealth through cotton production, and the financial systems built around that economy helped finance the nation’s early industrial expansion.
Although slavery formally ended, many of its economic patterns continued in altered forms. Systems such as convict leasing, sharecropping, redlining, discriminatory lending, and wage suppression continued extracting wealth from vulnerable communities while limiting their ability to accumulate property and capital. Over generations, these policies produced enduring gaps in wealth, housing, and opportunity.
Even earlier observers recognized how systems of labor exploitation relied on identifiable differences. The writings of Bartolomé de las Casas and the later Virginia slave codes reveal that African captives were reprehensibly preferred in part because they could not easily blend into the local population. Visible difference made them easier to control.
Today the identifying marker of vulnerability is less physical and increasingly informational. Sociologists sometimes describe this as statistical identity: individuals become legible to institutions through aggregated data—income histories, credit scores, education levels, or neighborhood demographics.
Slave societies required visible bodies to maintain control. Modern administrative societies increasingly rely on visible data profiles.
Credit scoring systems determine borrowing costs. Hiring platforms filter applicants before a human ever reviews them. Insurance rates, housing opportunities, and even advertising are shaped by algorithmic predictions built from past data. For those born into economic disadvantage, these systems can quietly reinforce existing boundaries.
In this sense, a new form of informational indenture begins to emerge.
Consider the working poor navigating the digital economy. Without savings to absorb emergencies, many rely on payday lenders whose profits depend on repeated borrowing. Those transactions generate financial data that follow borrowers across credit checks, apartment applications, and job screenings. Every crisis leaves a lasting mark.
Work itself is increasingly monitored through digital systems. Warehouse employees, delivery drivers, and gig-economy workers are tracked, timed, and evaluated by algorithms designed to extract maximum productivity while offering minimal security. Their labor produces the data that refine these systems, often training technologies that may later replace them.
At the same time, millions of low-income users rely on “free” digital services. The true price is personal data—search histories, locations, purchasing habits, and social networks. That information becomes a commodity traded in markets they cannot access, generating wealth elsewhere while shaping the opportunities presented to them.
The poor are not owned as property. But their data is collected, analyzed, and monetized. Their economic vulnerability becomes a source of information that can be used to sort, predict, and manage them.
The conditions that keep people poor—precarious work, high-cost debt, underfunded schools, fragile housing, and now increasingly data-driven gatekeeping—also limit their political power. Communities without accumulated wealth struggle to resist predatory practices or influence policy. Poverty becomes not only a social condition but also a constraint on democratic participation.
Incremental reforms can provide relief, but they rarely alter the deeper architecture that produces inequality. The United States remains the wealthiest nation in history, yet it provides weaker structural support for its poorest citizens than many comparable democracies.
Poverty does not persist by accident. The institutions, incentives, and narratives surrounding it help ensure that it does.
Until those structures—economic and informational alike—are confronted directly, efforts to address poverty will continue to treat its symptoms while leaving its deeper causes largely intact.
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References
National Center for Children in Poverty. Childhood and Intergenerational Poverty: The Long-Term Consequences of Growing Up Poor.
Fayyad, Abdallah. “One Reason It’s Harder to Escape Poverty in America.” Vox, February 2, 2025.
Parolin, Zach. Research on intergenerational poverty and social policy.
Baptist, Edward E. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. Basic Books, 2014.
Bartolomé de las Casas. Historia de las Indias. Written 1527–1561. Madrid: Imprenta de Miguel Ginesta, 1875–1876.
The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, ed. William Waller Hening (Richmond: George Cochran, 1809–1823), vol. 3, pp. 447–460.
Mi esposa y yo estábamos de vacaciones en Córdoba, España, y nos alojamos en un hotel bastante lujoso. Como viajero frecuente, tengo ciertas expectativas. Una de ellas es sencilla: una cafetera en la habitación.
Al darme cuenta de que no había ninguna, llamé a recepción para explicar que, si bien podría ser política del hotel, debía insistir en que me enviaran una cafeteria a mi habitación.
Por desgracia, mi español no es del todo fiable.
En lugar de la palabra «cafetera», usé «cafetería».
Lo que significa que, en un español perfectamente seguro, insistía en que el hotel me proporcionara una cafeteria en la habitación.
Tras un rato —y, supongo, una conversación en recepción—, el hotel envió a un jefe de cocina para solucionar el problema.
Era un hombre bajo y corpulento, de semblante tranquilo y serio. Con paciencia y admirable profesionalidad, me explicó que, si bien yo era un cliente valioso, lamentablemente, el hotel no podía ofrecerme la posibilidad de instalar una cafeteria en mi habitación.
Mi esposa, que habla español con fluidez, escuchó la conversación y rápidamente me explicó mi error. Me disculpé, algo avergonzado.
Por cierto, tampoco había cafetera.
A la mañana siguiente, como siempre, necesitaba café, así que bajé a la cafetería.
Lo que no sabía era que el hotel ofrecía un servicio donde el personal operaba una sofisticada cafetera que preparaba diversas bebidas con pequeñas pastillas de café prensado. Me parecieron sospechosamente parecidas a las cápsulas de Keurig, y como conocía el sistema de autoservicio de café de muchos hoteles estadounidenses, decidí prepararme uno.
Noté la presencia de algunos curiosos.
Y una fila que se formaba.
Y las cuerdas de terciopelo que los separaban de mí.
Tras varios intentos fallidos y algunos comentarios ininteligibles de la creciente multitud, alguien de la cocina se acercó a investigar.
Para mi sorpresa —a pesar del numeroso personal de cocina del hotel—, apareció de nuevo el mismo señor que antes se había negado a instalar una cafeteria en mi habitación.
Llamémosle Juan.
Hay que reconocer que Juan no me criticó por estar detrás de las cuerdas, donde claramente no debía estar. En cambio, intentó ayudarme a prepararme el café, sin duda pensando que cuanto antes lo tuviera, antes me iría.
Le expliqué qué creía que hacía la máquina y cómo pensaba que funcionaba.
Juan no dijo nada.
Simplemente preparó el café y me lo entregó con la expresión paciente pero tensa de un hombre que se replantea su carrera en la hostelería.
En ese momento, Juan y yo podríamos habernos despedido y ambos habríamos salido beneficiados.
Pero aún quedaba más por venir.
En nuestro tercer día, el clima en Córdoba era cálido, soleado y tranquilo. Mi esposa y yo estábamos sentados afuera, en la planta baja, frente a un gran ventanal. Al otro lado del cristal estaba el bar del hotel.
Todavía era temprano, no era la hora del almuerzo, pero sugerí que podríamos tomar una copa de vino. Después de todo, estábamos de vacaciones.
Al acercarnos a la ventana para entrar al bar, vi una cara conocida.
Mi buen amigo Juan estaba detrás de la barra secando vasos con un paño de cocina.
Entramos.
Mi esposa fue inmediatamente al baño, dejándome solo para pedir dos copas de vino en mi español, que aún estaba aprendiendo.
Juan parecía un poco nervioso cuando me acerqué, pero me las arreglaba bastante bien con mi español, así que pregunté con seguridad:
“¿Me pueden servir dos copas de vino tinto?”
Juan respondió en voz baja: “Estamos cerrados.”
Por desgracia, lo dijo en un tono tan bajo y cauteloso que lo que oí fue:
“¿Están casados?”
Me pareció una pregunta un tanto extraña, pero pensé que quizás el hotel tenía normas sobre servir alcohol a parejas que se encontraban en una situación romántica sospechosa. Algunas zonas de España son bastante conservadoras.
Así que le aseguré que sí.
Sí, estábamos casados.
Juan insistió en que no podía servirnos porque el bar estaba cerrado hasta que abriera el restaurante. Le expliqué que no había problema, que podía servirnos de todas formas.
Finalmente, con evidente reticencia, Juan sirvió dos copas de vino.
Le estaba entregando mi tarjeta de crédito cuando mi esposa regresó. Intercambiaron unas palabras y ella le explicó que no podía cargar el importe a la tarjeta porque la caja aún no estaba abierta, pero que podía cargarlo a nuestra habitación.
Le dije que prefería pagar en efectivo.
De hecho, estaba pensando en darle una buena propina a Juan por haber ignorado el aparente requisito del hotel de que el servicio de vino fuera para casados.
Me llevó un rato revisar un montón de monedas de euro y preguntarle a mi esposa, ahora frustrada, cuánto valía cada una.
Finalmente, Juan tiró el paño de cocina y salió del bar.
Por la forma furioso en que mi esposa me miraba, sospecho que Juan finalmente concluyó que estábamos casados —probablemente en los primeros treinta segundos— y que el vino corría por cuenta de la casa.
No volví a hablar con Juan durante el resto de nuestra estancia.
Aunque sí lo vi un par de veces en la cafetería.
Sin embargo, cada vez parecía recordar algo extremadamente urgente que debía hacer en la dirección opuesta.
The scientific method stands as one of humanity’s most reliable instruments for discovering truth about the natural world. Through systematic observation, controlled experimentation, replication, and critical review, it disciplines speculation and refines understanding. Its strength lies in its procedural neutrality. Any claim, if testable, may be examined.
Yet scientific practice unfolds within institutional structures. Modern research depends on funding agencies, peer review systems, university departments, publication networks, and professional incentives. These structures do not replace the scientific method, but they influence which questions receive attention and which remain peripheral. The distinction between method and institution is analytical rather than absolute; the two influence one another. Still, it is useful to recognize that the method governs how ideas are tested, while institutions strongly shape which ideas are admitted into sustained investigation.
This tension has been explored in the sociology and philosophy of science. Robert K. Merton described science as guided by norms such as communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism. These ideals promote openness and critical scrutiny.
At the same time, Merton acknowledged that scientific communities operate within social systems that affect behavior and priorities.
Similarly, ThomasKuhn argued in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that research typically proceeds within dominant paradigms. Paradigms define legitimate problems, acceptable methods, and standards of explanation. Anomalies may eventually produce paradigm shifts, but during periods of “normal science,” inquiry tends to reinforce prevailing frameworks rather than challenge them.
In contemporary practice, funding structures reinforce this pattern. Major agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health require clearly articulated hypotheses, detailed methodologies, feasibility assessments, and statements of broader impact. These requirements serve important purposes. They ensure responsible use of public funds, encourage methodological rigor, and protect against unfounded speculation.
However, they also create structural preferences. Proposals that extend established research programs with predictable outcomes are generally easier to justify than projects aimed at ambiguous or controversial phenomena. High-risk, high-reward funding initiatives do exist, but they represent a limited portion of overall research investment. The dominant model favors clarity, measurability, and incremental advancement.
Serendipitous discovery remains a celebrated feature of science. Accidental findings and unexpected observations continue to reshape disciplines. Yet such discoveries usually occur within projects that have already secured institutional approval. Surprise is accommodated after funding is granted, not typically before. This dynamic becomes significant when considering phenomena commonly labeled “supernatural.”
The principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, often associated with Carl Sagan, expresses an important epistemic safeguard. Scientific credibility depends on proportioning belief to evidence. Strong claims demand strong support. Without such caution, science would lose its reliability.
Nevertheless, the application of this principle can produce a structural difficulty. If substantial preliminary evidence is required before funding is awarded, and if funding is required to gather such evidence, unconventional lines of inquiry may struggle to begin. This does not amount to formal prohibition. Rather, it reflects preferential allocation. Defined and theoretically integrated projects are more likely to receive support than open-ended exploration of poorly understood phenomena.
History suggests that boundaries between the “natural” and the “supernatural” are not fixed.
Electricity and magnetism were once poorly understood and sometimes interpreted through mystical language. Meteorites were initially dismissed by segments of the scientific community. Certain psychological phenomena were framed in quasi-spiritual terms before being incorporated into empirical study. Over time, systematic investigation rendered these subjects intelligible within naturalistic frameworks. Science did not validate supernatural explanations in these cases; it expanded natural explanation.
Figures such as Galileo Galilei and Benjamin Franklin illustrate that institutional consensus and emerging evidence do not always align. Galileo’s advocacy of heliocentrism encountered resistance within the intellectual and religious authorities of his time. Franklin’s investigations into electricity occurred before formal theoretical structures were established. Although their historical contexts differ from modern grant-based systems, their experiences demonstrate that prevailing frameworks can delay acceptance of novel interpretations.
It is frequently argued that many supernatural claims have been empirically tested and have failed under controlled conditions. It is true that numerous studies have not produced replicable evidence for various extraordinary assertions. Replicability remains a cornerstone of scientific reliability.
However, critics contend that certain phenomena, if real, may not manifest predictably under rigid laboratory constraints. Controlled environments are designed to isolate variables and eliminate confounders, but they may also remove contextual factors that some claim are integral to the phenomenon itself. This argument does not justify abandoning rigor or lowering standards. Rather, it raises a methodological question:
whether all potentially legitimate phenomena must conform immediately to conventional experimental models in order to merit exploratory investigation.
Science has historically adapted its methods to match its subjects. Astronomy studies events that cannot be experimentally repeated. Geology reconstructs processes across deep time. Evolutionary biology infers mechanisms from historical evidence.
These fields developed methodological tools suited to their objects of study. The broader issue, therefore, concerns flexibility: whether institutional science allows sufficient methodological creativity to explore unconventional hypotheses without premature dismissal.
Professional incentives further shape research behavior. Academic careers depend on grant renewal, publication, and peer recognition. Researchers may avoid topics perceived as reputationally risky or professionally marginal. Peer review panels, composed of experts established within prevailing paradigms, tend to favor continuity and coherence. This conservatism is not necessarily irrational; it stabilizes knowledge and filters error. Yet it may also narrow the scope of inquiry.
The critique offered here does not claim that science systematically suppresses truth, nor that supernatural claims are likely to be validated. Instead, it suggests that institutional structures, while rational and often necessary, create preferences that influence what is investigated and what is deferred. The scientific method itself remains open in principle. The institutional system, however, allocates opportunity unevenly.
A mature scientific culture must balance caution with curiosity. Rigorous evidentiary standards should remain non-negotiable. At the same time, structured space for disciplined exploration beyond established paradigms is essential for intellectual growth. History demonstrates that expanding the range of legitimate questions—without abandoning methodological rigor—has often preceded scientific advancement. Recognizing the influence of institutional gatekeeping does not weaken science; it clarifies how science functions and how it might preserve openness while maintaining credibility.
References
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press,1962.
Merton, Robert K. “The Normative Structure of Science.” In The Sociology of Science:
Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. University of Chicago Press, 1973.
National Institutes of Health (NIH). Grants Policy Statement. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
National Science Foundation (NSF). Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide.
U.S. National Science Foundation.
Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Random House 1995
Culture, Blame, and the Question of “The Shame of Poverty”
Introduction
In wealthy nations, poverty is more than a matter of economics. To be poor is often to be judged, not merely as lacking resources, but as lacking character.
In some societies, poverty is seen as misfortune, an outcome of forces beyond individual control: a failed harvest, an illness, a recession. In the United States and parts of Northern Europe, however, poverty is more often framed as evidence of personal failure, rooted in assumptions about effort, responsibility, and moral character.
This difference has profound consequences. When poverty is understood as the result of individual shortcomings rather than structural constraints, shame deepens and public policy becomes harsher. Cultural narratives about merit and opportunity shape not only how people in poverty see themselves, but also how they are treated by others. These narratives draw a sharp line between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor—a line that often has more to do with perception than with reality.
The Social Production of Shame
Shame is not simply a private emotion felt by those in poverty. It is produced socially and reinforced institutionally. In The Shame of Poverty, Robert Walker and his colleagues draw on cross-national research to show that people living in poverty routinely describe feelings of humiliation, inadequacy, and exclusion. These feelings arise not only from material deprivation but from everyday interactions that communicate inferiority—glances in a grocery store, questions from a caseworker, the silence of friends who no longer call.
The result is a damaging cycle. Poverty limits participation in social life, while stigma discourages people from seeking help. Shame erodes confidence, weakens social ties, and reinforces isolation. To be poor is to navigate a world not built for you—and to carry the weight of that exclusion alone.
American Meritocracy and the Attribution of Blame
Nowhere is the moralization of poverty more visible than in the United States. The American Dream promises that hard work leads to success, and that opportunity is available to all who try. Within this framework, poverty appears as a personal failing. As sociologist Mark Robert Rank demonstrates in The Poverty Paradox, Americans consistently overestimate economic mobility and underestimate structural barriers. When opportunity is presumed universal, hardship becomes evidence of insufficient effort or poor character.
This logic produces the enduring distinction between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor. The elderly, the disabled, or those struck by visible tragedy may be seen as worthy of compassion. But working-age adults, especially those without obvious impairments, are often viewed with suspicion. The question becomes not whether poverty exists, but whether the individual is morally worthy of help. This framing ignores the systemic forces—declining labor unions, racial segregation, underfunded schools, the rising cost of housing—that constrain choice and opportunity regardless of effort.
Scholars like Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted, have shown how poverty is not a failure of character but a failure of policy and markets. Families work hard, pay rent, and still end up on the street—not because they did not try, but because the system is stacked against them.
The Deserving vs. The Vulnerable
A deeper problem with the “deservingness” framework is its blindness to luck. The circumstances that shape economic security—where we are born, the schools we attend, the families we inherit, our health, our encounters with misfortune—are largely matters of chance, not virtue. Those deemed “deserving” are often simply those whose suffering fits a narrow, acceptable mold. This distinction punishes those whose pain is less visible or less sympathetic, and it lets the rest of society off the hook.
A more compassionate approach begins with the recognition that vulnerability is universal. None of us chose the circumstances of our birth, and few of us are immune to catastrophe. To be human is to be dependent, at various times, on others. Poverty is not a mark of failure but a condition that could—and does—happen to anyone. A just society does not ask whether the poor deserve help. It asks how we can reduce suffering and uphold the dignity of all.
Conclusion
The shame of poverty is not an inevitable consequence of material need. It is manufactured by cultural narratives that assign blame and by institutions that communicate distrust. When we frame poverty as a moral failure rather than a structural condition, we create a society that punishes the vulnerable and isolates the struggling. We also blind ourselves to the role of luck and interdependence in all our lives.
To move toward a more just response, we must let go of the “deserving” versus “undeserving” distinction. We must listen to the voices of those who live in poverty and allow their experiences to shape our understanding. And we must build policies that reflect compassion rather than suspicion—policies that treat economic security not as a reward for virtue, but as a foundation for human flourishing.
References
Desmond, Matthew. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. Crown, 2016.
Rank, Mark Robert. The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity. Oxford University Press, 2023.
Walker, Robert, editor. The Shame of Poverty. Oxford University Press, 2014.
There is a saying often attributed to G.K. Chesterton: “The best of conservatives is that they tend their own garden well. The worst of conservatives is that they view every other garden as a threat. The best of liberals is that they tend the world’s garden. The worst of liberals is that they let their own garden go to seed.”
Reflecting on this, the true difference between people on opposite sides of the political spectrum is not the structure of their beliefs, but the blind spots they allow themselves. We all have a tendency to look the other way when it benefits us. What divides us is simply which forms of ignorance or selective attention we have come to accept.
Consider a prosecutor and a defense attorney. On the surface, they appear to be opposites: one works to put people in jail, the other to keep them out. Yet both are lawyers, bound by the same profession and operating within the same legal system—they merely represent different clients. The same is true for Democrats and Republicans. They argue about nearly everything, but they are all politicians pursuing power within the same system. Their roles and goals are structurally similar.
This leads to a broader observation about democracy itself. Historically, rulers—from Caesars to kings—have been removed through revolt, conspiracy, or revolution. Democracy emerged as a system designed to replace such violence, allowing those in power to gauge public sentiment and test the limits of their control. In practice, democratic institutions tend to evolve toward preserving stability, because instability threatens their survival.
Yet the system was deliberately designed to harness self-interest for a larger purpose. In Federalist No. 10, James Madison recognized that politicians cannot always be virtuous. Instead, he designed a system in which ambition checks ambition, where competing factions counterbalance each other, and where self-interest itself can produce outcomes approximating justice. The courtroom functions similarly: the prosecutor seeks to win, the defense attorney seeks to win, but their competing interests, constrained by rules and a neutral judge, produce a fair trial.
Problems arise when accountability fails and these structures are corrupted. In such cases, we are no longer living in the democratic republic the Founders envisioned. Institutions may exist in form, but not in function. Courts can be packed, the press drowned out by noise, and elections distorted by gerrymandering and dark money. The system remains, but it no longer works as intended.
So what can be done?
First, do not expect the system to repair itself. Those who benefit from a broken system have no incentive to surrender power voluntarily.
Second, rebuild accountability from the ground up. School boards, city councils, and state legislatures are where the next generation of leadership is formed and where voting still has direct impact. National politics is often stalled; local politics is where tangible change begins.
Third, make the system costly to ignore. Strikes, boycotts, protests, and mass mobilization ensure that public demands cannot be dismissed. If democracy functions in part as a litmus test of public anger, then meaningful change occurs only when that test is unmistakable. The powerful rarely act because it is right—they act because inaction carries a price too high to bear.
Finally, recognize that the system is neither inherently virtuous nor irredeemably corrupt—and sometimes, it works. In the 1970s, marriage equality seemed impossible. Yet through local organizing, small groups, and persistent civic engagement, public opinion transformed over a generation. When the Supreme Court affirmed that right in Obergefell v. Hodges, it was not a gift from on high. It was the result of ordinary people, acting collectively from the ground up, proving that the system can respond when enough pressure is applied.
Political division often reflects selective blind spots rather than opposing moralities. Real change comes from organized, persistent civic engagement. Participate actively. Vote as if it matters. Support independent journalism. And refuse to accept cynicism as a reason for inaction.
When enough people push, even flawed systems can bend toward justice.
The USA enjoys the benefits of Democratic Capitalism. We are so accustomed to this that these two different systems seem to many to be one and the same.
They are not.
We should remind ourselves that one is political, and the other, economic. Perhaps the main difference between them is the end game, what is the ultimate goal of each system.
But we all know that in practice, the two seem to merge; the founders of our nation warned us about this;
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.”
John Adams
The danger being that a democracy, under the unchecked influence of capitalist economics, will become another form of “monarchy” or perhaps what we now know as an Oligarchy.
This is what we are faced with today.
Elon Musk holding a raffle for votes… trickle down economics to favor the already excessively wealthy, and much more.
The question then becomes nothing less than this… will future generations look back at this time and note that this was when true democracy breathed its last in the United States of America
“In several instance, public opinion data matched up with things Congress actually did, but the vast majority were also outcomes favored by the wealthy and business interests.
The pretense is that Donald Trump and JD Vance believe the things they are saying, when, in fact, they know better.
They would have you believe subject matter experts are wrong, or deceiving the public. This causes mistrust in the resources humanity has developed over generations.
Both these men have Ivy League educations, they know the real value of educated experts.
If they need medical assistance, I am certain they will see a well educated expert in the field, not someone who has read a few articles and uses their “instinct” to make decisions.
I have interacted with Trump supporters for years ( 2 cycles back now) and often found people who grab onto one or two facts, pieces of information which they use to draw what they see as an obvious conclusion.
The problem with this technique is that it is susceptible to tunnel vision, ignoring other information which may contradict what they choose to believe in order to simplify the argument.
The truth is access to and understanding information is not enough to draw accurate conclusions, nor is it the sum total of a full education.
The awareness that a seemingly obvious conclusions can, after a comprehensive examination, prove to be incorrect teaches us to question what seems obvious.
We learn skills like, cross reference, hypothesis and testing ( the scientific method ) and consideration of what may remain unknown.
Additionally, the educated person has experienced confirmation of, and the appropriate restriction of, consent to validity, and that some things actually do follow obviously.
In short, information alone does not tell the story, some structured analytical skills are required.
Your doctor may do one test, or two, and draw a definitive conclusion based on that information because they have the clinical experience and education to know when something follows obviously, and when more test ( or additional information) is required.
I am confident that information alone does not result in accurate conclusions.
Nor does instinct alone.
Rather, a generational combination of education, skills, experience and common sense as applied by experts in the field, has provided the quality of life we enjoy today.
Which is why we should trust the experts.
Any person who has attended an institution of higher learning, much more an Ivy League school, has had to learn this in order to graduate.
Trump and Vance are well aware that experts know what they are talking about, but that does not support the narrative they are selling to gain power.
So they lie to the American people and tell us not to believe the experts.
Tipozorro 