Despite the unpopularity of President Trump and a lot of his policies, the Democrats are still struggling against him as they’re seen as a bunch of weird psychos who don’t even like this country. So how can the Democrats turn things around? I have 9 easy steps to fix the party for them.

How to Fix the Democratic Party

1. Invite all the trans activists to a secret meeting. They’ve been a big problem for the Democratic Party, so it’s time to have a frank talk with them.

2. Discuss the need for a compromise. That’s what’s needed for the Democrats to win again — they can’t have the trans activists calling all the shots. They need to be told that politicians have to be allowed to take more common-sense stances on trans issues.

3. Get out of that room! As expected, at the mention of even the mildest compromise, they completely freaked out and threatened to kill themselves and others. Get out of there and shut the door behind you!

4. Seal them away for a thousand years. Oh, I forgot to mention earlier you’ll be having the meeting in an underground cavern with lots of powerful glyphs on the door. Now that you’ve locked all the trans activists inside, you can seal them away for a millennium, making them a problem for the Democrats far, far in the future (and, let’s be frank, the country will have collapsed from debt long before then).

5. Make the wording on the warning outside the seal very clear. You just need to make sure under no circumstances does anyone open that door. So write lots of warnings of how dangerous what’s sealed inside is (to political prospects). Hmm, maybe you went way over the top with the threats, and people will think you just made all that up so people won’t open the sealed door and find all the gold you hid inside.

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It’s kind of unclear if the Iran war is winding down or not, but still, we probably should start thinking about whom to have a war with next, as there are still a lot of enemies out there. Here are some suggestions for the next war:

Cuba — It’s Communist and really close by. Seems like an easy one if we’re looking for a fun pick-up war.

Russia — They used to be our big rival, but now they’re a bit pathetic and locked in a quagmire in Ukraine. Maybe it’s time to finally fulfill the promise of the 80s and take them out.

Canada — Another one nearby, so there aren’t big travel expenses. Plus, they have oil.

Mars — Technically, we don’t know of anyone to fight there, but still, it would be cool to have our first war against another planet. As soon as Elon gets us there, let’s declare war!

Mexico — A nearby one again (certainly closer than Mars), but unlike with other countries where we want something, with them, we want them to keep something (all their people). Plus, there are the cartels to take out. Ever seen Sicario? Fun movie!

The UK — They were our biggest enemy starting out, so maybe it’s time for a rematch. The way they’re getting, though, this may be too similar to all those wars we have in the Middle East.

China — This is a big one and won’t be an easy battle. Plus, a lot of stuff is going to get really expensive while we are at war with them. Better save this for after we run out of easier opponents.

Ourselves — Really, the only opponent worthy of the U.S. is ourselves, so maybe we should have another civil war.

Ever seen a little kid at an arcade?1 They’ll stand in front of a game cabinet with no credits in it and move the controls, thinking they’re actually playing the game. It’s the illusion of control, and it’s an innate part of us to fool ourselves into thinking we’re in control.

At least that one is harmless, but we also understand how a video game works and why what the child is doing has no effect, and also understand how to actually control the video game. Where intelligent adults run into trouble is when what they’re trying to control is a complex system. Like the human brain.

For a long while, the way to handle problems with the brain was a lobotomy. Now, this did have an actual effect on the human brain — it wasn’t just the illusion of control. But it still wasn’t real control because it was poking holes in something so complex that none of the doctors understood it. In the end, it just did more damage than good.

Which brings us to another complex thing like the brain that people are always trying to control: the economy.

The economy is basically the world’s biggest supercomputer — but more complex than a supercomputer. It’s like a brain itself. The economy has billions of people, every day, deciding what to buy, what to sell, where to work, what something is worth to them. All of that creates information — incredibly detailed information about what people want and what things actually cost to provide. And each economic transaction is like a neuron reacting to this info.

And wow does this work. The billions fed unlike at any time in human history — the wealth and tech we all have. And it chugs away with no one at the top controlling it all.

Which a lot of people see as a problem.

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Even though the U.S. is super advanced and civilized, there are still lots of violent dummies out there. Part of us defending against that is NATO, but what exactly is NATO? Here are all the facts you need to know…

• NATO stands for National American Tactical Organization… or something else that starts with N, A, T, and O.

• Initially gained lots of members with its popular “NATO is Great-o!” campaign.

• It was formed because Russia is kind of dumb and likes invading places and places don’t like getting invaded.

• With NATO, the agreement is if Russia gets all dumb and invades a country in NATO, they will all work together to fight Russia. That’s why it’s all countries in Europe, but somehow they tricked the U.S. into signing as well since we actually know how to fight.

• It seems kind of a gyp for the U.S. because we’re not even that near Russia — except for Alaska. So I guess if Russia invades Alaska, Belgium will come help us. Yay.

• The whole thing made Russia angry, because they’re like, “If I can’t invade NATO countries, then who am I supposed to invade?” Countries not in NATO, dummies!

• Apparently, Ukraine wanted to be in NATO, which Russia found very threatening because they are threatened by countries that don’t like be invaded, because again, Russia is like dumb and violent.

• But Ukraine was not in NATO when Russia invaded, so we didn’t have to send ground troops. We just sent money, which some people are angry about, but if the money had stayed in the U.S., it would have just been spent on making poor fat kids even fatter.

• Trump has talked about leaving NATO. I mean, we definitely don’t need Europe to help protect us from Russia. And Europe is now so full of Muslims that if Russia invaded them, it would be like Afghanistan all over again.

• If we do leave NATO, we can use all the money we save from that to finally set the Guinness World Record for fattest poor kids ever.

The Democrats are desperate to find a normal white man to run as a candidate. They think he will mean an easy election victory for them. But so far, they’ve struck out. They tried to act like Tim Walz was a normal midwesterner, but he was pretty fruity. Then they got Graham Platner in Maine, but he’s got a Nazi tattoo for some reason. And now they have James Talarico in Texas and they were like, “Oh, he’s a Christian,” but he’s the weirdest of the bunch going on about how Jesus is trans or something.

It’s like if there are normal white men out there, they’re not in the Democratic party. Still, I have a solution.

Frank’s 7 Step Plan for Democrats to Get a Normal White Man as a Nominee

1. Find a hobo who has been living under a bridge.

   

   You’re probably going, “Why a hobo living under a bridge?” Well, one of the biggest problems Dems have is that anyone they want to portray as normal probably wrote on social media during peak woke something like, “I love Latinx trans kids because they’re not white!” So you need someone who wasn’t on social media if you want to get away with saying someone is normal. So, the best solution: a hobo living under a bridge. Sure, he constantly yells obscenities at random passersby, but that’s not online, so it’s like it never happened.

2. Shave the hobo and put him in a suit.

   

   Still, you need the hobo to appear normal, but that just means clean him up and put him in a suit and don’t have him carry around his bindle anymore (assure him you’re look after it). See, he already looks like a normal candidate you’d like to have a beer with (just don’t let anyone get that close to him).

3. Teach him to be quiet and wave.

   

   Now that the cameras are on him, you don’t want him yelling all that craziness and shouting random obscenities, as it will get recorded and people will know he’s not normal. Thus, you simply have to teach him to be quiet and wave. Train him by saying if he’s nice and quiet and just waves, he gets a big bowl of hobo stew.

4. Make a list of policies to attach to him.

   

   Now here’s the fun part: You make a big list of all your dumb policy ideas and just attach it to him, this normal-seeming guy who just smiles and waves. Hopefully, everyone just focuses on how normal he looks and don’t worry much about the policies he comes with.

5. Oh no. He’s heard about your tax plan and thinks it’s bad.

   

   He’s shouting obscenities again, but now they seem more focused and at you! He thinks your taxes could ruin the economy, and it’s upset him because a bad economy means lower quality trash in the dumpsters for making hobo stew. Just tell him to calm down and that you know what you’re doing. As a nuclear option, you could threaten to burn his bindle if he doesn’t do as you say.

6. He’s attacking the DNC headquarters with a hobo army!

   

   Okay. Threatening his bindle went too far. He’s recruited all his hobo friends to come and storm the DNC headquarters and get his bindle back. Better lock yourselves in the supply closet and hope he doesn’t burn the whole place down.

7. Oh wow. He won!

   

   It turns out that the way he took charge and led an army to attack the DNC really resonated with voters. If you want him to vote the party line, though, I’d just stick to offering him hobo stew and stay away from his bindle.

Ninety-three-year-old Lord Ozwell E. Spencer wheeled himself to the center of the dais.

“Thank you all for attending the Umbrella Corporation quarterly shareholder meeting. Before we open the floor, I want to introduce the rest of today’s panel. To my left, Dr. William Birkin, Chief Science Officer.”

“I’m Dr. Kevin Morse,” the man corrected.

Spencer looked confused. “What happened to Birkin?”

“He mutated and was blown up,” Morse explained.

Spencer nodded. “Oh. Right. Anyway, to my right is Albert Wesker, Vice President of... Albert, remind me of your current title.”

Wesker adjusted his sunglasses — indoors, as usual. “Vice President of Strategic Bioweapon Applications and Forward-Facing Lethality Solutions.”

“A very important position,” Spencer said. “Now, on business, Q3 was a period of strategic repositioning for the company—”

“You got Raccoon City nuked,” said a man in the third row.

“As I said. Strategic repositioning.”

The man stood up. His lanyard read GERALD HENDRICKS — SERIES B INVESTOR. “I’ve been a shareholder for six years. When I invested, you pitched me on pharmaceuticals. The company is literally called Umbrella Pharmaceuticals. You showed me a slide deck about cancer research.”

“We remain deeply committed to the pharmaceutical space.”

“You made a giant snake.”

Spencer glanced at Morse. Morse studied his notes intensely.

“That was exploratory R&D,” Spencer said.

“It was a snake! A snake the size of a gymnasium. What’s the TAM on giant snakes? Who’s the customer? What’s the use case?”

A woman near the front raised her hand. “Karen Liu, pension fund manager. I have a similar concern. My analysts tell me you have a product called a ‘Licker.’ Can someone explain to me what a Licker does?”

Morse leaned into his microphone. “The Licker is a highly advanced bioorganic weapon with a prehensile tongue capable of—”

“So it licks people.”

“It’s more nuanced than that. We’re talking combat capable—”

“Combat? How is a Licker better than, like, a gun?” Liu asked.

“It’s intelligent and can seek out and destroy enemies on its own,” Morse explained.

“Does it follow orders?”

Morse hesitated. “Not... currently.”

Hendricks was still standing. “I want to go back to the Raccoon City issue. An entire American city is just gone. It’s a smoking crater. How is that not a material liability?”

Wesker leaned into his microphone. “We view Raccoon City as a proof of concept of the T-Virus’s effectiveness in a live environment.”

“And what’s the T-Virus again?”

“It’s the next step in human evolution,” Wesker stated. “It—”

“It turns people into zombies, right?” Liu asked.

“Yes, as a side effect, but—”

“We’ve had multiple zombie outbreaks — nearly threatening to end the world in a zombie apocalypse!” Hendricks said. “How does that help shareholder value?”

Spencer cleared his throat. “What Wesker is trying to convey is that the Raccoon City incident, while regrettable, generated invaluable field data—”

“I don’t want field data. I want a return on investment,” Hendricks said. “I could have put my money in Johnson & Johnson. You know what Johnson & Johnson has never done? Had a zombie outbreak destroy a city. Not once.”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the room.

Liu jumped back in. “I also want to flag the employee retention issue. Your attrition rate is — and I need someone to confirm this for me because I thought it was a typo — four hundred percent annually? Why do people keep leaving your company?”

“People like working for us,” Wesker stated. “It’s seldom that people leave. It’s more... being eaten.”

“Is that better?” Liu asked.

“I think it shows that people enjoy our innovative research so much, they willingly take on the risk of being eaten,” Spencer said.

A new voice piped up from the back. “Ted Morrison, retail investor. Quick question: Why so many underground labs? I’m counting seven different ones. That seems like huge unnecessary expenses to dig out these underground labs instead of traditional buildings on top of the ground, as Pfizer would have.”

“It’s a safety concern,” Morse said.

“Because everything you make turns against you,” Hendricks stated. “Which gets back to the central problem!”

“Not everything,” Wesker said, “The Nemesis program showed significant improvements in target acquisition and elimination.”

“Didn’t it try and fail to eliminate one woman in a tube top?” Liu asked. “How is that anything nearing a success?”

“She was a very difficult target,” Wesker answered. “At one point, the Nemesis had her severely injured, but she got some green herbs to heal her injuries. In the future, we plan—”

“Wait, slow down a second,” Hendricks interrupted. “She healed injuries with a green herb? Like what kind of injuries?”

“Cuts, broken bones,” Wesker said. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“You’re telling me there is a magic herb out there in Raccoon City that can heal any injury?” Hendricks asked with disbelief.

Wesker shrugged. “Apparently.”

“Why is that not your focus?!” Hendricks screamed.

“Yes, an herb that heals absolutely anything sounds way more profitable for a pharmaceutical company than tongue monsters!” Liu exclaimed. “You should forget these underground labs filled with dangerous failures and put your money into researching that.”

Spencer, Wesker, and Morse were quiet as they all considered this. Finally, Morse said, “If we injected the green herb with T-Virus, it could become large enough to overtake a city.”

Wesker nodded, and Spencer said, “Excellent idea!”

Hendricks sighed. “We need to elect a new board.”

The Strait of Hormuz has been in the news lately because of the war against Iran. If you’re like most Americans, you’ve never thought much about the Strait of Hormuz (or anything outside our borders, for that matter), so here are some important facts so you can talk about it now and sound smart.

Fun Facts About the Strait of Hormuz

• Was discovered by Bob Hormuz.

• “Straight” is misspelled because they don’t know English well in the Middle East.

• It’s actually not that straight but kind of curved.

• It’s controlled by Iran who only likes evil to be able to sail through it.

• Iran may close it because we blew up their Ayatollah (blowing up their Ayatollah is frowned upon in their religion).

• We said we were sorry, but we obviously didn’t mean it since we blew up the next Ayatollah.

• Protecting ships going through it is supposed to be a job for Aquaman, but he was kidnapped by the Houthis.

• It can be avoided by just using a plane, which is way better than a boat.

• They don’t have planes in the Middle East, though — they think they’re demons and throw rocks at them.

• If you find yourself surrounded by the Strait of Hormuz, begin paddling.

• On the other side of the Strait from Iran is the United Arab Emirates, but they can’t help as they’re too busy fighting their rival, the Divided Arab Emirates.

• The main thing shipped through the Strait of Hormuz is oil. The second biggest product shipped through it is terrorism.

• If the Strait of Hormuz is closed, that will cut off 25% of the world’s oil supply, which means even more people will have to buy Teslas and Elon will get even richer and his memes even danker.

• Iran has threatened to put mines in the Strait of Hormuz, but the mines would sink to the bottom, and the only thing that would walk on them would be like crabs.

• Oh, I guess there are special floating mines. People who like blowing stuff up think of everything!

• The last time the Strait of Hormuz was shutdown was in 2019 when someone on the internet said, “More like the Gay of Hormuz” and it completely devastated Iran.

• There has been talk about relocating the Strait of Hormuz to someplace other than the Middle East where there is less war, like the tropics.

• The current solution, though, is to get a new regime in charge of Iran who likes it when we blow up their Ayatollahs. A bunch of people there have to find that as funny as we do.

• The whole thing, though, shows the problems of having wars for oil in faraway places. We instead need wars for oil closer, like in Canada.

It feels like it’s taken forever, but I now have a draft of the fourth and final Superego that’s ready to be read by someone else. The first someone else to read it will be, as always, the lovely and talented SarahK (the alpha reader). After I get her feedback, I will be looking for beta readers and will ask for them here on my Substack in a later post. The beta copy of the novel will also be made available to all paid subscribers.

I’m really happy with my ending for the series, so hopefully SarahK likes it too and doesn’t trash it. It takes so long to go from coming up with ideas for a novel to getting someone else to finally read it, which is part of why I’m going to do something different with my next novel — the third Hellbender — and instead publish it here chapter by chapter as I write it. It will be a very different writing process for me — my usual first rough draft of a novel is full of holes and I can’t do that this time — so we’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, thanks again to all the subscribers of Frank Talk for supporting my writing, and I can’t wait until you can finally read the last Superego. Who knows what lies ahead with my writing, but so far, AI can’t imitate my style and humor at all, so this writing may be the last thing I have left after the singularity.

It still seems a long way away, but 2028 is the Democrats’ chance to lick their wounds and recover after Trump’s second term. But who are their top candidates to be their next presidential nominee and lead the party? Let’s take a look at the names out there and their pros and cons.

Chuckles the Baby-Eating Clown

Pros: Seen as strong on women’s rights.

Cons: White.

South American Communist Revolutionary Alejandro Rojas

Pros: Has organizational skills and excites the left-wing base.

Cons: Doesn’t know English and isn’t an American citizen.

Gavin Newsom

Pros: Charismatic. Fights back.

Cons: It could sink his campaign in the general election if it ever becomes public knowledge that he’s the governor of California.

Mecha Hitler

Pros: Great record of being Pro-Palestine.

Cons: Needs regular maintenance.

They/Them

Pros: Upsets the genders norms that need overturning.

Cons: Likely to kill self/others.

AOC

Pros: Young and influential.

Cons: Need to work hard to keep her alive until Election Day as every time it rains she stares straight up at the rain with her mouth open and almost drowns.

Militant Farid Hussain

Pros: Stands with the left in hating their two least favorite countries: Israel and the USA.

Cons: Religious.

Kamala Harris

Pros: High name recognition. Already has experience campaigning for president.

Cons: Nothing. They should definitely run her again.

So, we started a new war with Iran. A lot of people are saying we shouldn’t have done that, and it’s an illegal war and morally wrong. The U.S. can’t just attack a country for any reason. In fact, by basic morality, there are only seven legitimate reasons for war, and anything outside of those reasons is an illegal war.

So here are the legitimate reasons for war:

Legitimate Reasons for War

1. We were attacked. If a country attacks us, we can attack them back. That’s just basic tit for tat morality.

2. We think we’re going to be attacked. Of course, if we wait until we get attacked, Americans are going to get hurt. So, if we think a country is going to attack us, we can get ‘em first before any Americans are harmed.

3. Probably not going to attack us, but could. So maybe it doesn’t seem like a country is going to attack us, but maybe one day they could. Do we really want to wait until the day before they attack us to do something? We may not stop them in time. Better to do something years in advance.

4. Need oil. I mean, this is just basic. Not everyone drives a Tesla, so we still need oil. Could we just ask countries to give it to us? I guess, but in the Middle East, they speak Arabic or something, and maybe we don’t know that. So the simplest solution is to just roll in with tanks and take the oil.

5. There’s just something about a country we don’t like. A lot of countries out there simply suck, and we don’t like them. Does that mean we should have a war with them? Probably. I mean, we’re the greatest country ever ever, so why should we share this world with countries we don’t like? That’s not fair to us.

6. Bored. Being the greatest country ever can be monotonous at times, so sometimes we just need something to do. War will keep us entertained for a few days.

So those are the legitimate reasons for war. I guess it’s only six reasons. I really thought I had seven, but I was wrong. If you came here for seven reasons and are disappointed you only got six, I’m sorry.1

Anyway, going by those reasons for war, Iran covers a few of them, making it definitely a legitimate war. I don’t make the rules. Well, I guess I made these, but I don’t feel like changing them.

Elon Musk is thinking of building a city on the moon. I don’t know if Elon looked into the moon, but it’s not actually an easy place to build.

As you may know, I am one the leading experts in moonology and know all about the moon. Thus I’d though I’d share my wisdom about what’s needed to build on the room.

Tips for Building on the Moon

• Bring air. A lot of people don’t know this, but there is actually no air on the moon. You’re probably wondering how the moon men get air, but they don’t. That’s why all the moon men are dead and the moon is barren. Some suggest we could get air from the water on the moon, but that’s nonsense because air is a gas and water is a liquid — two completely different things.

• Bring food. Early science said the moon was made of green cheese, but this was never corroborated by later science as no giant space cow was found that could make that amount of cheese. In fact, later exploration found nothing to eat there at all, so make sure to bring some food from Earth — the only currently known planet where food exists.

• Don’t bring rocks. You may be thinking, “I should bring some rocks in case I need to throw them at noisy kids on the moon,” but there are in fact lots of rocks already there so bringing any would just be unnecessary weight better used for that air and food I already mentioned you do need to bring.

• Study Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, people fly around while doing kung fu. It ends up, even if you’re really good at kung fu, you can’t actually do that because of Earth’s gravity, and the effect was all done with wires to trick gullible audiences. But on the moon, there is little gravity so you can fly around while doing kung fu for real, so make sure to study that movie for how to do flying kung fu as you’re going to be in a bunch of fights over the limited amount of air and food since you didn’t listen to me and brought a bunch of rocks instead of more of that.

• Be careful procrastinating. Often when I have something small to do, I’ll be like, “Eh. I’ll do it tomorrow,” and then play video games. But a day on the moon is like a month long, so if you put off doing the dishes until tomorrow, you could go a whole month of eating over the sink.

• Load up on silver bullets. Basic science says that if you land on the moon, that counts as being exposed to the full moon all the time. So if someone has lycanthropy1, he will instantly turn into a werewolf when on the moon. So you need silver bullets to shoot all the werewolves that could emerge when you land on the moon. I guess you could also have a better screening process to make sure no one on your crew has lycanthropy, but that might be considered “discriminatory” and against the law. Just have the silver bullets.

• Nuclear shielding. It is possible that while on the moon, someone may nuke it.2 So, it’s just a good idea to make sure your buildings there can shield you from nuclear blasts and radiation. So when loading up building supplies from Home Depot before heading to the moon, find a guy in an orange frock and ask him if the stuff you got will survive a nuclear blast. If not, have him show you the aisle where that is.

• Maybe come up with a name. It’s kind of weird how the moon still doesn’t have like a proper sort of name you capitalize and everything. It’s like having a dog around you just call “the dog.” If we’re going to live there, it should have an actual name. I’m not sure what’s a good name, though. Rocky?

Iran is evil. It has been evil for some time ever since seeing the weakness of Jimmy Carter and going, “Here’s our opportunity to be evil and no one can stop us!”

Many have thought that one day we’d have to have a war with Iran because of all of their evil, but so far we haven’t had a full war with them and have just blown up their nuclear facilities (with the help of our cool friends in the region, Israel).

But Iran continues to be extra evil, now slaughtering thousands of their own people for just wanting the Iranian government to be a bit less evil.

So that brings us to the big question: Should we blow up the Ayatollah?

Now, for those who don’t know, the Ayatollah is the main religious leader of Iran, and since their religion is pretty terrible, he is the main source of all their evil.

So, being the main source of evil, blowing him up should make the country less evil (fewer evil? no, I think this time I used less right).

And how would we blow him up? Probably a cruise missile. What I gather from the name is that a cruise missile is a missile that “cruises” through the air. I’m not sure how this makes it different from other missiles, but my understanding is that we can make the cruise missile go to a precise location, such as where the Ayatollah is making dumb and bad religious proclamations.

There are some objections to this, though. For one, won’t blowing up the religious leader of Iran be considered an act of war? To that, all I can say is, “Who knows?” I mean, how can we know what goes through the minds of people over there? The fact that they got someone like Ayatollah leading them says they’re not thinking straight. Also, when we blew up their nuclear facilities, they seemed fine with that. So maybe they’re more chill than we think.

The other objection is won’t they just appoint another Ayatollah who is just as bad as the first one? That is possible, but then we can just launch another cruise missile. We have a whole bunch of them. Maybe after enough Ayatollah’s explode, they’ll be like, “Eh. Not worth it.”

A final objection is if we start blowing up evil leaders in one country, won’t we be expected to blow up all the evil leaders in the world? You may be right. There are something like 200 countries in the world, and a cruise missile costs like one million dollars. So if thing go really wrong and we have to blow up all the world leaders because they all suck, that’s like $200 million dollars. We can afford that, but it’s not nothing.

Still, if the worst case scenario is we’ll be out $200 million if blowing up the Ayatollah gets out of hand, I think we should try it. He’s evil and he’d be a lot less evil exploded. It’s a simple moral equation, and it’s time America got back to basics.

There is a lot of anxiety about our AI future, but there is optimism, too. I know Elon Musk is planning on a future of abundance — where basically everyone is rich — and it is a possibility.

I mean, we have AI that is approaching being able to do any job that involves sitting in front of a computer. And right now many companies are working on robots that, combined with that AI, will in the not-too-distant future be able to do even jobs that require physical work. We’re rapidly approaching a future where, if any work needs to be done, you don’t hire someone — you simply build a worker.

Now, some are seeing this as some apocalypse between the haves and the have-nots, where a few will control all the capital and have no need for anyone else. Poor people can’t even be underpaid servants because robots will still be cheaper and easier to maintain.

The other, happier possibility is basically we’ll all be rich. Since the robots can work tirelessly and produce as much of anything as we want, we’ll basically all be rich and live in abundance. There will not be haves and have-nots because we’ll have so much of everything that money will be basically meaningless — it will be like a Star Trek future with no money.

Let’s focus on this future as it’s more fun to talk about. It sounds pretty great — we’ll all be like those people in Downton Abbey who don’t actually have jobs but just a bunch of people who work for them.

But how mechanically would an abundance future work? It would seem money would have no point when we can just make things, but I don’t see how we can organize without it because the point of money is not just buying things but conveying information.

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Do you want to feel old? Well, if you’re one of those few who have been with me since the IMAO blogging days, my oldest daughter is fifteen years old.

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When I shared on Twitter, I got two angry reactions from people who obviously didn’t watch to the end: Those who warned me about getting close to wildlife and those who thought they were smart for pointing out this was actually AI.

People keep talking about all the problems our country has.

What in the world are they talking about?

No one starved to death in the U.S. in the past year. Everyone seems to be wearing clothing. I don’t see a lot of people having to sleep out in the rain.

So everyone has food, shelter, and clothing, so what problems could people possibly be talking about?

Well, I’ll give you a tip: Don’t actually ask people what problems they have, because if you do, people will respond in this high-pitch, incomprehensible gibberish. Because this country does have one problem, and I’ll tell you exactly what it is:

Whining.

You’d think that when actual problems are taken care of, people would be happy all the time. I mean, throughout human history, people struggled to just be fed and live another day. Now that none of us has to worry about that, you’d think we’d be dancing around and partying all the time.

But no, it does not work that day. It ends up when people have all their real problems taken care of, that just frees up time to complain. You see, back in the olden times, people didn’t have time to complain — they had to spend all their time trying to survive. But now that we don’t have to struggle to survive, we have lots of time to just whine, which I guess is human nature when we don’t have problems.

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Much of the focus is on the U.S.’s southern border, but the northern border of the U.S. is even bigger.1 So why don’t we have a giant wall there?

Well, many will say that’s because Canadians aren’t constantly trying to illegally sneak in. And sure they aren’t.

Yet.

But I envision a future where people could be constantly trying to get into America from Canada. To prepare for this future, we need a wall.

And why will people be trying to get into the U.S. across our northern border? Because they used to live here.

See, here’s what I’m thinking. The Soviet Union had this place called “Siberia” to send people up in their north.2 Now, they were dumb Commies and sent people there to work in camps for liking freedom and stuff. Still, the idea of having this frozen place to send bad people is not terrible. And we have this frozen place to the north of us: Canada.

So, for people who suck here and don’t like freedom — like leftists and Commies — why don’t we make this country better by exiling them to our Siberia, Canada? All we need is this big wall to make sure they can’t get back.

And here is the great thing: After we build the wall, the rest of it is free. Because we’re sending them to Canada which isn’t even our country, so all these haters and losers will be Canada’s problem. We’re not like the Commies and want these people to work in camps — we just don’t want them here. So send them to Canada and have a wall so they can’t get back and it’s all done.

Will Canada like this? Unknown. Also, the wall will be soundproof, so we won’t know if Canada objects.

So there’s my big idea: A wall on our northern border. A great plan with no known flaws. If anyone reading this works in the Trump administration, please get this idea in front of Trump as soon as possible.

We didn’t worry a lot about Muslims before 9/11. There were terrorist attacks, for sure, but there was no civilization-level threat here. These guys seemed like primitives who could barely put together a bomb, and our previous worry was the Soviets with world-ending nukes pointed at us. Muslims were a nuisance of places none of us wanted to visit, but not a particular concern at home.

After 9/11… things got a little weird. The average person was more worried about Muslims, but suddenly, we’re acknowledging Ramadan and President Bush is telling us, “Islam means peace” — which seemed very doubtful from our limited knowledge of it. But it seemed a popular notion that we just had to embrace Muslims and they would integrate and become a part of the West, and there would be peace. A big part of the Iraq invasion was the idea that if we just brought democracy to the Middle East, then the people there would be more like us.

It does not seem to have worked out that way.

So the question, one I don’t think we as a Western society have sufficiently grappled with, is “How much is Islam the problem?” Are we dealing with cultural problems that can eventually be overcome, or are there simply beliefs inherent to Islam that are incompatible with Western values like human rights and equality?

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I did not fight the revolutions that created a free country.

I did not endure the wars that kept this country free.

I did not build the legal system that protects basic rights and settles disputes peacefully.

I did not build the industries that gave this country its prosperity.

I did not write the Constitution that protects my rights.

I did not lay the asphalt for the roads I travel.

I did not purify the water that flows from my tap.

I did not build the supply chains that put food in stores year-round.

I did not discover the electricity that lights my home.

I did not design the engines, materials, and safety systems that make travel by ground and air routine.

I did not find the cure for the diseases that killed my ancestors.

I did not invent the computer, the microchip, or the decades of engineering behind modern electronics.

I did not code the software that connects me to the world.

We spend so much time asking what we deserve, but we have so much we did not earn and do not deserve.

The real question is: What can we contribute to honor all we were given?