A Quick and Easy Guide to Displaying Your Virtue

Becoming a good person who contributes to society is difficult, as outlined in a previous post.  It requires a change in mindset, a change in attitudes and acting according to rules.  Making that change can also mean that you will face consequences from friends, family and even the authorities. There will always be a cost to being a "good person".  It's actually far easier to LOOK like someone who's virtuous without actually making the sacrifices.  So, in order to gain social brownie points, you'll need to be effective at signaling your virtue to both your digital and analog social circles.

Here are a few easy tips on how to do that.

1) Be Offended and Outraged

You have a lot of options here. You can be offended about jokes. You can be outraged at the lack of racial/gender/religious/sexual orientation/physical size/disability/dietary choice "representation" in films and TV shows. You can complain about public figures' comments, or lack thereof, on a given controversial topic that they have no expertise on.  You can complain about the insensitivity of Halloween costumes.

Of course, even if you're not part of the group that you believe is being victimized by the offensive piece of content, you shouldn't be shy to show how offended and outraged you are.  After all, if you're not part of that underprivileged group, you can still be an "ally" to that group.  You can use your "position of privilege" to help the cause.

You know, because people that are different from you have no agency at all and will always require your help.

2) Take to the Streets and Protest
Historically, protesting on the streets has been a great way to get governments to take action.  This worked in the past when trying to get a dictator to step down from power or to have specific laws changed.  It's eventually worked for people wanting political prisoners to be freed or for people wanting to get an occupying power out of their country.

Of course, there's a cost for those types of protestors. They historically have been targets of violence, unlawful imprisonment and other human rights violations.  Think about the Civil Rights movement in the US in the 1960s, the Arab Spring protests in the early 2010s, the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, or more recently, the protests in Chile and Hong Kong as examples.

If you live in a free society and democracy in 2019, the types of causes similar to those mentioned above aren't found as easily.  Instead, you'll have to find ways to protest against problems and concepts like censorship of free speech, racism, police brutality, income inequality, sexism, anti-scientific thinking, climate change and human extinction.  It's not that these causes aren't worthy of protest. The problem is that these are complex, unspecific issues that require extremely complex solutions which can't be fixed by simply taking a walk.

For example, if you want to stop climate change caused by humans, you can try to get governments to commit to making investments in clean energy and reduce carbon emissions. To make that work, that means you need to create a mechanism to enforce their commitments.  And then those governments have to get trillion dollar industries to bend to their will.  Good luck fixing that with your march.

But hey, you did take to the streets for a cause.  You marched and blocked traffic to let people know that you're fighting against a concept or something that requires a multiple levels of complex thought to to reach a solution.  You didn't really affect change and put yourself in any danger of violent reprisals. Your protesting just made it LOOK like you did something. That should be enough. You just want to seem like you're "fighting" without actually incurring any real cost to your well-being.

3) "Think of the Children"

Saying that you're thinking of children and future generations as a reason for your position is great way to show your virtue.  This is true whether you're part of a highly religious group wanting to censor the latest blasphemous, popular film or whether you're part of an environmental activism group trying to fight climate change.

Even if you don't have kids or you don't really care about kids, you'll sound like someone who cares. All you need to do is to position your argument as being based on "protecting children" or ensuring that you are fighting to "leave a better world for the next generation".  This is a very easy way to demonstrate that you are unselfish and better than other people who can only think of theirs and their own families' current well-being.

It is true that children can be vulnerable to adults who can directly exploit them. This is not what I'm talking about.  To actually help expose and help prosecute a pedophile or a child pornography ring requires time, effort and could potentially put yourself in harm's way.  Studying and getting a job as a social worker who tries to take kids away from their abusive home is way more difficult than simply clicking "like" and "share" on a social media sob story.

It's much easier to say that you're thinking of the children when you petition school boards to censor what kind of books teachers should be teaching or when you demand that certain types of words need to be "policed" in schools.  That's an easier task that will make you seem like a good person who wants to help children.

4) Document everything on Social Media

Of course, you must make sure your efforts are visible to the world. If there are no pics (or videos), then it didn't happen.  This is where social media comes in.

Now I'll admit that in places where oppressive governments censor the press and the flow of information, social media has been useful at disseminating news of civic unrest.  The Arab Spring wouldn't have played out the way it did if it wasn't for Twitter, for example.

However, for those living in free, Western democracies, you can also use this tactic to make your actions seem more virtuous than they actually are.

Post selfies of you and your besties participating in protests to show that "you took part in this historic moment." That way, when someone else did the work of getting elected, changing laws and negotiating with multiple stakeholders to effect real-life political and social change, you can point to your Instagram pic and take credit because you skipped out on a job you don't like that day to take a walk.

Don't be shy to post on public figures' social media accounts to call them out on their non-woke behaviours and opinions. You can "call them out" if they're not living up to the arbitrary moral standards of the day.

Even if these public figures are too busy doing their jobs and have outsourced their social media to their marketing and PR teams, it's ok. You'll get more views on your posts by tagging these people than just posting something yourself. And that means more people can potentially see how morally superior you are.

Final Thoughts
It's very difficult to actually be a good person.  In fact, it's almost impossible if you consider all the unintended consequences of your choices and actions.  Creating real social change is incredibly difficult. It's much easier to make people THINK that you are virtuous.  It's easier to adopt a strong opinion on a subject and determine that one side is perfectly good and the other is evidently evil without examining the nuances.

Whether it's allying yourself with an "oppressed" group or using future generations as the "beneficiaries" of your actions, the idea is to make sure that the most amount of people see that you're being morally superior.  With that, you can reap the benefits of being a good person without having to face the difficult consequences of choosing morally acceptable behaviour.

5 Tips to Help You Win an Election

It's election season again in Canada. It can be fun to see what strategies each political party leader is using to win over their voters.  Some are working better than others, but if I ever become a politician and decide to run for office, here's what I would do to win.

Tip # 1: Don't pretend to be "perfect"
One of the problems with politicians is that they like to project an image of a leader that's above the common folk, that their values and thoughts are superior.  They want to show themselves as the perfect candidate, wearing the perfect clothes, the perfect family and always saying the perfect slogans, participating at the "right" events. So guess what happens when the dirt comes out that goes against that perfect image?  They immediately lose credibility.

What's actually better is to be somewhat less polished. Look at some of the democratically-elected world leaders who gained traction in the past few years and see how less-than-perfect their public images have been.

If you have any flaws as a human being (which we all do), don't be afraid to get called out on it.  Don't be afraid to laugh at yourself when you make a mistake.  Which brings me to my next point...

Tip # 2: Take ownership of your past
If I were running for office, I would make sure to prevent any potential scandals that could derail my campaign by being upfront at the beginning.  I will start by immediately publicly admitting past mistakes.  At the very beginning of the campaign, I'll post pictures of myself getting drunk and/or high on social media, videos of me making borderline racist jokes, and controversial blog posts or op-ed pieces that I may have written.

What you're doing is getting all the dirt out of the way as soon as possible.  You're telling the voters: "Yes, I'm human.  Yes, I've made mistakes in the past as you can see. I apologize if I hurt people before with the foolish behaviours of my youth.  I've changed since then.  I've evolved.  I've learned, I'm now wiser and ready to be your leader."

You can apologize if you want, but it's usually easier to do it once and then move on.  Yes, even if you are Canadian.  Sure it will hit the "news cycle" and it might hurt your numbers at first. But after a couple of weeks, when a new scandal, natural disaster, celebrity sex tape or a new provocative piece of "news" hits, most people would have forgotten your admitted mistakes and they won't affect your results come election time.

The idea is to control the narrative and not give your opponents the chance to portray you the way they want. This move also gives you the image of being a "flawed human" who can be a good leader because you have "proven" that you can learn from your mistakes.  You become more relatable.  You'll also be seen as transparent and not hiding anything.

So what's the best way to control your narrative?

Tip # 3: Use "new media" more than (if not as much as) "traditional media"
The problem with traditional media like TV, radio and other ads is that you have to make sure that you can get your views, your personality and why your opponent is wrong in very short, 15 to 30 second sound bites. Now you have to depend on your voters to pay attention and put together all the different sound bites so they can get an idea of what you're trying to communicate before they can vote.

You also have to depend on the goofy political debate formats where nobody really answers questions.  Instead everyone's trying to cram their talking points in where it seems appropriate. Worst of all are the political ads.  They're expensive to produce, it's expensive to buy time and most people probably don't think they're credible at all.

The better strategy is using new media, like YouTube, social media sites and even podcasts.  You have full control over what you say on a YouTube video.  You won't get interrupted by an interviewer because they need to get small sound bite before going to a laundry detergent commercial.  You'll be able to talk as long or as little as you want to explain your positions and policies.  You can respond more clearly to criticisms and you can interact almost instantaneously with your constituents from any where in the country.

Using certain social media sites, you can show the "behind-the-scenes" of your campaign. Or how human and relatable you are.  You just have to be careful to not be too perfect with your posts, because it's very easy to see when someone's pretending to be authentic.

What's even better is that you're making it easier for traditional journalists to get the information they need from your campaign because it's all accessible.  You get to be top-of-mind.  And of course, all this is relatively cheap when compared to buying ad space or paying PR firms to get you on TV and radio shows with dwindling audiences.  All you need is good lighting, an intern holding a smartphone and your YouTube and social media accounts.  If you provide entertaining, but politically relevant content, you're good to go.

Tip # 4: Find the quiet majority's opinion
It's quite easy for opinions to be swayed by what the media likes to highlight as "important issues" of the day.  The common cliché is that the traditional mainstream media will normally highlight the loud, minority opinion because they can sometimes be so extreme (on both the left and the right side of the political spectrum), that it gets more ratings, views and clicks.

If you truly want to get elected, you might want to actually talk to your constituents instead of watching the news media's version of what the constituents want.  Most of the time, you'll find that a lot of "hot-button" issues are really non-issues to the common voter, and a lot of issues that are being ignored by the media are really the most important ones to the electorate.

Once you find the true pain points of your voters, the easier it will be to come to them with a solution that only you can provide.

Tip # 5: Destroy your opponents' credibility
The most interesting thing about elections to me has always been the marketing problem that each candidate faces.  They are trying to position themselves to appear a certain way to voters, while at the same time trying to position their opponents in a very negative way.  If you want to make your opponent look bad, there's no point in lying or spreading misinformation about their positions.  All you need to do is to find a way to diminish their credibility.  The simplest way to do that is by making them look like hypocrites.

This will work the best because most candidates are still stuck in the past and haven't followed Steps 1 and 2 above.  In all likelihood, most politicians are hiding some kind of secret that will conflict with their proposed policies.  For example, if your opponent is championing diversity, equality and is depicting themselves as the "inclusively woke" candidate, finding old pictures of them wearing a racist Halloween costume or recordings of them going on drunken, anti-Semitic rants can be very damaging.  If your opponent is the pro-family values candidate, finding old videos of them smoking crack cocaine while partying with sex workers is not going to be good for their image.  You get the point.

Whether or not their target voters agree with their behaviour isn't the issue.  It's the fact that their proposed policies compared to their past behaviours will make them look like hypocrites that will make them less credible.

Now it goes without saying that when your people find the dirt, you simply have them use anonymous social media accounts and pretend to be "confidential whistleblowers" to leak this information.

Finally, be wise about the timing of your leaks.  You don't want to release these too early.  What you want to do is strategically leak these as soon your opponents' numbers are reaching a peak in the polls.  The damaging information, will cause those numbers to go down and put the opposition on the defensive.  As soon as they get their numbers back up again, that's when you release another piece of damaging information to put them back on the defensive again.  Just hope that you have enough dirt so you can repeat the process over and over throughout the duration of the campaign.

So that's it.  Five simple tips that any political candidate needs to follow in this era.  If you look closely, you'll notice that more and more politicians will begin using these strategies in the future.

Your Lunch is Cultural Appropriation

How your dietary choices can help stop world-wide oppression

Ask anyone in social justice warrior / activism circles. They'll tell you that the appropriation of an oppressed people's culture is one of the ways that the powerful have used to keep people down. 

The choices you make when it comes to clothes you wear, the hairstyle you choose, the music you decide to play or the physical activity you practice, can contribute to the oppression caused by cultural appropriation.

Some of the best examples of appropriation can be found in the food you eat. Here are some examples of seemingly common foods that you should steer clear of to avoid the sin of cultural appropriation.

Pasta with tomato sauce

This is probably one of the most iconic of Italian dishes. Except that if you really look at the ingredients, you'll see that this dish is really a combination of noodles taken from China with a sauce using tomatoes that are only native to South America.

So really, if you want to be oppression-free when eating any form of pasta with a tomato-based sauce, the only way would be to eat a dish made by a Chinese person assisted by a Colombian or a Peruvian saucier. Otherwise, you're just encouraging the continued cultural theft perpetrated by white Italians who have the gall to call this and other pasta variations as "authentic Italian food".

Banh Mi Sandwiches

These delicious Vietnamese sandwiches are seriously problematic. For one, many non-Vietnamese have been selling these with the wrong kind of bread (ciabatta instead of baguettes) and passing them off as "authentic".

But more problematically, the authentic Vietnamese sandwich makers have appropriated French bread. Now we can argue that it's not really cultural appropriation because the French were actually the colonial oppressors in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and the surrounding regions.  So you'd think that an oppressed people taking over a part of an oppressor's culture would be positive, right?

Think again.

The fact that the Vietnamese has adopted the French baguette is not positive at all. This is a sign of cultural self-hatred caused by colonialism.  The colonial influence has made Vietnamese chefs think that their local breads aren't good enough and they have to use a modified version of French bread to make their food better.

By buying and eating a banh mi sandwich, you are not only encouraging Vietnamese people's appropriation of French culture. Your purchase also helps Vietnamese people to proliferate their hatred of their own culture.

Poutine

Wait a minute, this is a dish made by white people in Canada. How can it be cultural appropriation for other white people to sell and eat this amazing combination of french fries, cheese curds and gravy?

Invented in 1950s rural Quebec (the popular consensus is that it's from Drummondville, though other towns will dispute it), the dish had a very working class origin. It was created by mixing ingredients that are easily found in a diner (fries and gravy) with a by-product of cheddar cheese production (cheese curds).

The problem is that for the longest time, French Canadian culture in Quebec has always been under the oppression of the rest of English-speaking Canada. The "weirdness" of poutine was actually mocked as being the example of why Quebec culture is supposedly inferior to that of the rest of Canada.

As the popularity of poutine has skyrocketed, many restaurants in Toronto and other large cities in English Canada have been profiting off the invention of French-speaking Quebec and passing it off as a Canadian dish.  Never mind that Quebec is part of Canada.  Quebec society considers its culture as distinct from the rest of Canada.  So buying poutine outside of Quebec or from a restaurant that isn't owned by French-speaking Quebecois is definitely problematic.  Let's not even talk about American restaurants starting to add poutine in their menus.

What makes it worse are the variations of poutine that have started popping up.  It started out with "Italian poutine" where tomato sauce is used instead of gravy.  I've already explained the problematic nature of tomato sauce above.  Now you're also seeing the additions of chicken tikka masala or feta and tzatziki sauce on poutine.  Some have even substituted the cheese curds with brie or other more expensive cheeses.  Other restaurants have put lobster on poutine.

The biggest offender is of course the famous "Au Pied de Cochon" restaurant in Montreal who puts foie gras in their poutine.  Yes, the chef and owner is a French-speaking Quebecois.  The issue is that while he technically is allowed to make and sell poutine, the chef has committed social class appropriation. He essentially gentrified poutine by making it "fancy" and pricing it beyond the means of the working class who invented the dish and intended to make it accessible for everyone.

General Tso's / General Tao Chicken

This staple of North American Chinese restaurants was actually invented by a Chinese chef who fled to Taiwan when Mao's Communist Party took over. The chef then brought it to the United States.  Seems harmless enough, right?

Not so fast.

Yes the creator of the dish was originally Chinese.  However, because he created that dish in Taiwan and then brought it to the USA, General Tso's chicken (or General Tao chicken in some places) is virtually unknown in China.  But the dish itself was and still is being passed off as "Chinese food" in North America, giving consumers the wrong impression of what food in China is actually like.

What's the big deal?  Taiwan is basically China, right?  Wrong!

The government of Taiwan (not to mention the people) will be quick to say that they are an independent state with their own distinct culture.  So in this case, calling General Tso's chicken a Chinese dish is indeed cultural appropriation by Taiwanese and of course North American restaurateurs.

So if you truly want to show respect to Chinese culture, you would do well to avoid this dish when going into a Chinese restaurant (which, of course should be Chinese-owned and operated).  If you do eat this, you're encouraging Taiwanese rebels who are both appropriating and profiting off authentic Chinese cuisine.

An Executive’s Guide to Looking Effective (Without necessarily being effective)

Originally published on Medium:

The cool thing about getting a job as an executive is that because it can pay so well, you can leave a company or a department after a couple years with a lot of money in your pocket. In all likelihood, the long-term consequences of your short-term decisions won’t be too apparent. This is especially true if you’re in a publicly traded company where “performance” is measured every 3 months instead of years or decades.

If you’re an executive, your ability to make effective strategic decisions is secondary. Actually having knowledge of how the business works is tertiary. After all, you don’t really need to stay there that long if you’re good at negotiating salaries and bonuses and you’re smart with your money.

To show your value to shareholders and investors what’s more important are the optics. What you actually accomplish isn’t necessarily as important as what it looks like you’re doing to improve the business on a quarterly basis.

Here are a few tips to help you look like you’re worth the large amount of money they’re paying you.

 

Adopt an “executive persona”

Think of the most iconic, charismatic leaders in the business world. They’ve all got a persona (whether it’s real or not):

• You can be the tough, all-nighter-pulling, Alpha executive in a well-tailored power suit.
• The supermom exec who successfully finds the balance between crushing board meetings and coaching her kids’ hockey team
• You can be the quirky, hoodie-wearing Silicon Valley CEO.
• An executive who wears the same outfit on a daily basis to “save their mental energy” for more important decisions.
• You can pretend that you’re the rebellious, “think-outside-the-box”, jet-setting, risk-taking, jeans-wearing, entrepreneurial exec.

Here’s a persona that many an executive in the financial industry has adopted almost too well.

It doesn’t matter which persona you pick. You just have to make sure that the persona you pick follows these two criteria:

1. It just has to be different enough from the person you replaced. This will give both employees and shareholders the impression that you’re there to shake things up and make some sweeping changes for the better of the company.
2. It has to be believable enough to show off your authenticity. For this, I would do what the most successful WWE professional wrestlers do. They take a real quirk in their personality and just exaggerate it to a point that it becomes a new character.

WWE Hall of Famer Donald Trump using his created “executive persona” in the ring alongside Stone Cold Steve Austin, Vince McMahon and Bobby Lashley.

Be “helpful”

Always present yourself to your employees (preferably when in a group setting) as someone who is willing to provide executive help for any “roadblocks” they might face in their day-to-day. Don’t actually help them, though. You’re busy. Actually helping takes time and effort that you don’t necessarily want to get mixed up in. We’re talking optics here. You need to project an image that you’re willing to help.

Remember, you must only ask how you can help when you’re in a public setting. That way, whoever actually wants to ask for help will have to do so in front of the entire company. Putting people on the spot like that will reduce the likelihood of them asking for anything for fear of looking foolish, weak or incompetent in front of the rest of the company. At the extreme, they risk asking something inappropriate from the high-level executive and get themselves fired.

Either way, the result is that you look like the benevolent leader with an “open door” policy, but because everyone’s so scared, you won’t actually have to do the work of making any changes.

Make your micro-management and bullying tactics look like you’re just “hands-on” and “getting shit done”

Yes, we all teach our kids that bullying is wrong. In this case, since you’re the boss, it’s not really bullying. No, not really. You’re simply showing employees that you’re forcefully getting things done. You’re not ineffectual like the last exec. As the new leader, you don’t want to get bogged down by useless processes. You are simply “passionate” and can get emotional when it comes to making sure that the business succeeds under your tenure.

To make it look like you’re getting things done, make sure that all emails you send to your middle-managers get marked as “Important” or “Urgent” or “Priority”. Ensure that cons

equences for employees who don’t respond to these emails on time are made clear.

You might be seen as micro-managing, but really, you simply want to make sure that your employees are staying focused on the strategic tasks at hand. You’re simply showing that you’re “hands on” and interested in how the business functions. It’s part of “being helpful”.

Of course, the most important thing if you get called out on your aggressive behaviour is to never apologize. Employees should just be grateful that you are sharing your wisdom and helping them succeed in their day-to-day.

Offer your employees “training opportunities”

Offering skills training to employees looking for both lateral and upward moves in the company is necessary. That should be standard in any good company.

However, if you want to look like you’re a great executive going above and beyond, you need to sponsor mandatory training programs that will make your company look like it’s also socially conscious and woke.

Here are some examples, in no particular order:

• Diversity training courses
• Anti-bullying classes
• Mindfulness training
• Anti-harassment training
• Business ethics
• Environmental consciousness training
• Employee engagement initiatives
• Et cetera…

Sure, those types of training programs can have some inherent value, especially if your company has a history of harassment, bullying or even employee burn-outs. However, the biggest value that they bring is really how good it makes the executive (and the company) look to employees, shareholders, the media and even the general public.

Let’s face it. The courses themselves can be empty or simply lip service. But for a relatively low investment, an executive can now have a great PR talking point. Now, his HR minions can brag about the company’s commitment to “preventing harassment in the workplace”, for example. Whether this actually stops sexual harassment in the company is irrelevant. The executive can now wash his or her hands when wrongdoing is reported because current employees have already received the training. If future harassment happens, the exec can always point to this training and say that the company isn’t to blame for the inappropriate behaviour of a few “bad apples”.

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Being an executive can be a great, but difficult job opportunity. Latest studies of the S&P 500 companies show that the median tenure of a CEO for example is about 5 years. In that short a time, could you really make a huge difference to justify the bonuses and salary that you negotiated so well? If you’re exceptional, sure. If you’re able to ride an upward trend and make it look like it was your leadership instead of luck, maybe. If you can turn a company around from the brink of bankruptcy, of course.

The truth is, making a difference in a company is difficult. Sure you can make strategic decisions, but for the most part, results of those will take a lot of time to actually show. You can only be shown to be effective by what you look like you’re doing during the quarter, not by what you’ve done. So instead doing the actual heavy lifting with results that won’t be seen until after you leave, just do the noisy, but ineffectual things that everyone will see. If you’re good, you can sell them on the value that you added to the company as you leave laughing to the bank and on to a new executive job at a different company to start the process over again.

Carpe the sh*t out of your diem

Originally published on Medium:

Life is precious. You never really know if today will be the last time you see someone. Whenever you see them, you should never, ever hesitate to tell them: “Hey, I really need that money back from you.” After that it’ll be too late and pretty awkward to ask their surviving relatives to pay you back.

Don’t procrastinate. Tell people what you need to say to them…