Guide to Topics

Often, I write several posts on a topic, and they flow one to another, almost like they’re chapters in part of a book. This creates two problems for readers:

  1. You might start subscribing when I’m already underway on a topic and you might want to start from the beginning of the topic. If only you knew where that was.

  2. You might be interested in previous topics. If only you knew what they are.

So, I’ll give you a sort of table of contents, with buttons you can use to go directly to issues on the topic. The topics are listed in reverse chronological order and each topic is a link to more detail about the topic.



Topic 15: Reshaping American Democracy for Modern Times

America is divided, many people have little faith in our government, many people are struggling and angry, and, consequently, our democracy is in trouble. MAGA politicians, while speaking of populism, are taking America down a path toward autocracy. The Supreme Court is mired in originalism, telling us to interpret our 250-year-old Constitution based on what they think the founders meant when they wrote it. Meanwhile the world is a very different place than it was 250 years ago. We need to reshape American Democracy for modern times in a way that will be a win-win for people with different viewpoints.

Win-Win Democracy
Reshaping American Democracy for Modern Times
Restarting Win-Win Democracy…
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Topic 14: Thinking About Artificial Intelligence

I’ve given an hour-long presentation with a high-level overview of AI and ways to think about it. You can find that here:

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Video: Thinking About AI
In October 2023 I spoke about my perspectives on AI (video here). Positive response to that talk led to me presenting an updated version of the talk two weeks ago. The response was again positive, so I’m sharing it here in the hope that you’ll find it interesting and useful…
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For more extensive discussion, here’s my the roadmap of posts for this topic:

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Short Note: ChatGPT and Slide Rules
A relative of mine, who I only know because of my wife’s genealogical research, posted an interesting comment on Facebook about yesterday’s article on ChatGPT and Bing. He’s a high-school teacher and says that “We’ve been having an extended conversation about ChatGPT and AI in ge…
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  • Review the history of AI. AI began moving beyond science fiction in the mid-1950s and has progressed in fits and starts ever since. There are many lessons to learn from the history of AI efforts that will inform our understanding today. The landscape is strewn with over-promise and under-deliver, yet we are all benefiting from some impressive and useful successes.

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Thinking About AI: Part II - Early Experiences
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy Last time we saw some compelling chats with ChatGPT, some well-written but mostly false responses to prompts, and some dismal failures of logic and mathematical abilities. New Bing seemed to do a better job getting its facts right. I also…
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Short Note: First Experience with Google's Bard
Google’s AI-based chatbot, called Bard, became available to the public yesterday. You can get on the waiting list for access at https://bard.google.com. I was granted access in a few hours. Here’s a quick report on my experiences with Bard, mostly using the prompts I gave to ChatGPT…
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  • Learn about today’s AI technology. The technology behind ChatGPT is in some sense both extremely sophisticated and extremely simple. The simple aspect is that a relatively few fundamental concepts applied at large scale can produce amazing capabilities that are hard to fathom, so much so, that if you ask the question how did — name your AI — do that, the answer might be we don’t know.

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Thinking About AI: Part III - Machine Learning and Artificial Neural Networks
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy When I was a Ph.D. student in Computer Science in the late 70’s and early 80’s, many extremely smart students, faculty, and scientists at top universities and research labs were hard at work tackling AI problems like recognizing objects in images, transcribing speech from audio into text, g…
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Thinking About AI: Part IV - How It Works
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy The frenzied discussion of AI — what it can do for us, what it will do to us, what we should do to control it, and who stands to benefit from it — continues in the media. There are no definitive answers to many of the most important questions, which require predicting the future…
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  • Speculate about how AI could evolve, how it could be useful, and what dangers could lie ahead.

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Thinking About AI: Part V - Implications
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy AI frenzy continues in the media. Building on what we learned in the last issue about how these system work, we turn now to discuss the implications of this technology on society. Thanks for reading Win-Win Democracy! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work…
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  • Connect our understanding of AI to the issues of economics and democracy that we’ve discussed previously. Explore possible solutions to controlling the impact of AI.

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Thinking About AI: Part VI - Managing the Impact
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy As we’ve discussed previously, AI is impacting society for better and worse, a process that will continue and probably accelerate. We, as a society, must decide if and how to manage those impacts. My thinking on this subject derives from six core beliefs…
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  • Should we regulate AI?

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Short Note: Win-Win Democracy Takes a Rest & AI Regulation
Win-Win Democracy Takes a Rest…
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Topic 13: America and Fascism

Creeping Fascism is a serious threat to the future of American Democracy. Too many of us are ignoring the warning signs.

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Fascist Politics in America
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy…
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Is Donald Trump a fascist? Could we possibly be electing a fascist as our next president?

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Two Followups: Trump is a Fascist and Reforming SCOTUS
I hope you and yours have been coping well with the summer heat that much of the Northern Hemisphere has been experiencing. My wife and I had the bad luck to have our air conditioning break for three weeks…
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Topic 12: Hostage-Taking Using the Debt Ceiling

The debt ceiling is used to take the country hostage demanding spending cuts as ransom. Cutting through the noise, we discuss how it works and possible solutions.

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Hostage-Taking Using the Debt Ceiling
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy A debt ceiling crisis will soon be upon us. Already, Treasury Secretary Yellin is resorting to extraordinary measures to keep paying the country’s bills. Some House Republicans a…
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Topic 11: Reforming the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has become an instrument of minority rule. We look at the evidence that this is the case in the first newsletter on this topic. In the second newsletter on this topic we look at possible solutions.

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SCOTUS as an Instrument of Minority Rule
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy Last time we went on a search for win-win solutions to the fundamental conflicts over religious freedom that have been playing out over recent decades. The really important conflicts — the ones …
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Reining In the Imperial Supreme Court
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy The Supreme Court is an instrument of minority rule, made more consequential by its growing power over our democracy. Given Senate Republicans’ recent Supreme Court confirmation shenanigans, whi…
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Topic 10: Religious Freedom

Some national political leaders and many state and local political leaders are pushing for religion to play a bigger role in America. Whose religion? Well, they don’t usually say it out loud. But you can bet it is not my religion and probably not yours.

These same people are part of a well-funded, systematic effort to reframe religious freedom into a weapon used to impose beliefs on others instead of the shield that the framers intended. Think overturning Roe v. Wade, threatening to overturn access to contraception, etc.

We’ll look at the background and explore some of the seminal Supreme Court cases that are impinging on true religious freedom. We’ll also look at the people and organizations behind this effort to weaponize religious freedom to control others.

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Religious Freedom
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy Housekeeping Thanks to all of you who responded to my request for feedback. Between the responses to the poll, the comments posted, and the private emails I received, I conclude that: To a large extent, I’m preaching to the choir. Most of you, like me, are over 60 and liberal. There are …
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Weaponizing Religious Freedom
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy Today’s Supreme Court is at the vanguard of applying doublespeak to advance a conservative vision of Christianity as the nation’s religion. Building on last issue’s discussion of religious freedom, in this and the next several issues of the newsletter, I will explain that our freedom o…
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The Crumbling Wall of Separation Between Church & State
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy Guide for New Readers A reader suggested that a guide would help people new to the newsletter; such a guide is now available at https://winwindemocracy.org/p/new. It gives a few tips about the mechanics of reading the newsletter, and provides an annotated table of contents with buttons …
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The Crusaders
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy Housekeeping New Chat Capability I’ve opened up a new chat capability that we can use to discuss among ourselves. Details are available here. I’ve started three chat threads, where you can: Introduce yourself Propose and discuss topics of interest for future newsletter issues…
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Seeking Religious Freedom Win-Win Solutions
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and I wish you a Happy New Year. Last year was perilous for American democracy and the rule of law. The reactionary Supreme Court justices’ full-throated adoption of originalism was at the forefront of taking back hard-won, longstanding ri…
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Topic 9: Simplifying Taxes to Sustain Democracy

We’ve all been taught by the media that we have a progressive tax system, in which high earners pay a larger percentage of their income than do low earners. But that’s false: After looking at all the taxes to which we’re subject, almost everyone pays roughly the same percentage of their income in taxes, except for the very highest earners, who pay a lower percentage of their income.

How can this be? Our current tax system is complicated and opaque, the better to hide many gifts to high earners.

Radical simplification would be a first step to a tax system that sustains democracy by being perceived as fair. We might still want to subsidize certain people or activities. This can be done in a transparent manner on top of a radically simplified tax system.

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Simplifying Taxes to Sustain Democracy
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy We’ve seen in our previous discussions that the high level of inequality that we’ve allowed to develop in the United States threatens the survival of our democracy. We have also seen in the last newsletter issue that the single-minded focus on Adam Smith’s…
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Subsidies
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy Last time, I discussed our mishmash of income taxes with rates obfuscated by deductions and special treatment of certain categories of income, together with payroll taxes and a variety of state and local taxes, all with their own special rules and categories. We are told that we ha…
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Topic 8: Understand the Misleading GOP Response to the Inflation Reduction Act

I analyze the masterpiece of propaganda that is Senator Thom Tillis’ response to a letter I wrote asking him to support the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). He takes every possible opportunity to emphasize GOP talking points with innuendo, misleading statements, hypocrisy, and, I’m sorry to say, lies.

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Senator Tillis Attempts to Bamboozle Me on the Inflation Reduction Act
OK, this is off-topic and off-schedule. But it is important. I wrote an email to each of my Senators requesting that they break ranks with the GOP leadership to vote for the Inflation Reduction Act because the country and the world need us to start paying serious attention to climate change. So far, I’ve heard back from Senator Tillis. Here’s a screensho…
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Topic 7: Anger and Inequality

Growing economic anger and resentment is a threat to our democracy. As many people struggle economically in a land of plenty, they have become angry and resentful, willing to follow populist, authoritarian political leaders who blame others and subvert democratic institutions to consolidate power.

The data show that most people are struggling more than ever, most Americans earn shockingly little, most Americans have essentially no wealth, and the American dream of upward mobility is dying for many. Yet, Americans in the top 10% of income and wealth are doing better than ever.

We look at what’s happening and why, as well as how inequality reduces our economy’s overall growth.

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Economic Anger and Resentment
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy Growing economic anger and resentment is a threat to our democracy. As many people struggle economically in a land of plenty, they have become angry and resentful, willing to follow populist, authori…
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Inequality and Growth
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy As we discussed last time, the skewed distribution of income and wealth in our economy leaves a large part of our population in difficult straits, with little realistic expectation of their children having a better life. Their anger and resentment makes them receptive to populist a…
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Inequality: Economics, Ethics, and Policy
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy In this issue, we continue our previous discussion of economic inequality, where we reached three important conclusions: Inequality in the United States has increased dramatically since the late 1970s and there is considerable evidence that rising inequality slows growth…
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Topic 6: Fixing the Capital Gains Tax Loophole

The special treatment our tax system gives capital gains is the major factor in helping create American oligarchs (see Topic 3). Here’s how to fix it.

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Taxing Capital Gains as Ordinary Income
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy A key component of the win-win approach to reduce corporate political spending that we discussed last time is taxing investment income as ordinary income. Doing so will accomplish several goals we’ve al…
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Topic 5: Turning Money Into Power

We have a lot of extremely wealthy individuals and large, wealthy corporations. Our campaign finance system lets them turn that money into power without being accountable to anyone. After discussing the problem, I propose some possible solutions that don’t require a Constitutional amendment.

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Turning Money Into Power
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy We’ve discussed how our tax system, together with the way we treat labor and allow corporate consolidation, helps create unimaginably wealthy individuals and corporations. Although there are many reasons…
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Reducing the Political Power of Corporate Money
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy In the last five issues of this newsletter, we’ve discussed how our tax system helps people and corporations become unimaginably wealthy and how our SCOTUS-defanged campaign finance system allows such we…
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Topic 4: Corporations are Doing Great. Why?

Despite a lot of belly-aching, corporations are doing great. They’re earning more and keeping more of what they earn than the have in a long time. Understand why.

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High-Flying Corporations
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy Corporate wealth and power is one of the four existential threats to our democracy that we discussed in the newsletter issue titled Taking Stock. We are working our way through these threats so that we h…
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Why Corporate Earnings are Soaring
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy We saw last time that corporations are doing exceedingly well: Corporate before-tax profits are a larger share of GDP nowadays than they were throughout the entire period from the mid-1950s to the mid-20…
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Topic 3: How Our System Helps Create Oligarchs and Redistributes Wealth Upwards

Our tax system helps create American oligarchs. Want to understand how people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos manage to have so much money? Yes, they earn it, but our tax system lets them keep way more of it than it lets most people keep of what they earn.

Some politicians are fond of talking about “wealth redistribution,” conjuring up an image of wealth being confiscated from hard-working, deserving people like “us” and given it to lazy, undeserving people like “them.” But, in fact, tax breaks deliver large benefits to the highest earners among us in ways that don’t appear in any federal budget and are poorly understood by the public.

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Growing Oligarchs
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy In the previous issue of the newsletter, we talked about four existential threats to our American democracy: American oligarchs: the rise of the ultra-wealthy, who are empowered by the effectively unlimit…
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Redistributing Wealth
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy In our journey to address four existential threats to our American democracy — the rise of the ultra-wealthy, corporate wealth and power, economic resentment, and defanged campaign finance laws — we cont…
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Topic 2: Taking Stock

Our democracy is at a turning point. We are at great risk of our country turning into an authoritarian oligarchy. In other words, it could become controlled by an authoritarian government, working in service of wealthy individuals and large corporations. This issue paints the big picture and the plan for discussing it.

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Taking Stock
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy Historian Heather Cox Richardson opens her March 12th newsletter saying: “In our history, the United States has gone through turning points when we have had to adjust our democratic principles to new circumstances. The alternative is to lose those principles to a small group of people who insist that democracy is outdated…
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Topic 1: Voting

We’ve been fighting about voting since America’s founding. Most recently, the big fights are about fraud, voter suppression, and gerrymandering of district maps. State legislatures, the US Congress, and courts at many levels are embroiled in the battle.

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Voting - Part I
Welcome to Win-Win Democracy This is the first edition of the Win-Win Democracy newsletter. You can learn what to expect by reading the newsletter’s About page. Our first topic is voting. We’ve been fighting about voting since America’s founding. Most recently, the big fights are about fraud, voter suppression, and gerrymandering of district maps. State l…
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An Update to Today's Post & How to Discuss the Newsletter with Others
I have two short topics to cover in this update to this morning’s post. I’ll be brief. Update to Today’s Post I mentioned that both Democrats and Republicans gerrymander and that the court battles rage. Today, The New York Times reported that “[a] Republican-led group of voters filed a lawsuit late Thursday challenging New York’s freshly drawn congression…
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Voting - Part II
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy Let’s continue our discussion of achieving win-win solutions to problems in voting. In this newsletter, we’re going to focus on a win-win over voter ID. If you missed last time, you can either skip it and read the TL;DR below or (re)read it now…
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Voting — Part III
Welcome Back to Win-Win Democracy This issue continues and completes our discussion of achieving win-win solutions to problems in voting. Our focus this time is on developing a win-win approach to controlling partisan gerrymandering. If you want a refresh on what gerrymandering is and why it is helping to destroy our democracy, (re) read the first issue …
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Last updated on Tuesday, August 6, 2024