Kek's Witnesses

Politics is Not "Makers versus Takers." It just seems like it is. The battle of Left vs. Right feels like the battle of Flea vs. Dog, but that's the wrong frame. IMO, the real distinction is not between parasite and host, but rather between two survival strategies: Living off the Earth vs. Living off people. Those sound like the same thing, so let me phrase them better: Politics is not Makers vs. Takers; it is Producers vs. Influencers. It's not Dog vs. Flea; it's Dog vs. Flea whispering into the dog's ear. This framing is better because it explains our career choices; it predicts more outcomes; and it delivers actionable advice. For example, doctors have historically been mostly Republican, while medical ethicists are overwhelmingly Democrat. (I'm in a doctor family.) Doctors tend to be Republicans because they repair things. Conceptually, doctors are plumbers. They operate on physical objects in the physical world, subject to the discipline of impartial physical laws that cannot or should not be moved with your tongue, and sometimes they get sprayed with bodily fluids. Like plumbers, their performance can be measured objectively. (Did the patient die? How many turds on my kitchen floor?) By contrast, consider medical ethicists: They live entirely within the realm of words, and their performance cannot be measured. That's the kind of job that attracts Leftists. Medical schools are another example, and they show why Producer-vs-Influencer is a better frame than Host-vs-Parasite. (This will also be my first prediction, but it won't impress you because it's already coming true.) Unfortunately, while "Doctor" is a producer job, "Medical school administrator" is not. Every administrator made the conscious choice to control doctors rather than to become one. The administrator's job may be vital, but he doesn't make anything real, or even repair it. That's why, when doctors gratefully handed the tedious administrative tasks over to professional bureaucrats, our medical schools turned hard Left. Now medical students are compelled to pledge their loyalty to wokeness. This is actually true. As professional bureaucrats consolidate their control, squeezing the actual doctors out of medical-school administration, we should expect our future doctors to be more influencers, and less producers. That means you might die, but you won't mind because your young doctor will have a fabulous bedside manner. I predict this trend will continue until doctors re-shoulder the burden of medical school administration, under rules that ensure they remain doctors. To get that prediction from the Parasite-vs-Host framing, we must say that medical school administrators are parasites. Certainly some are, probably most of them, but the sad fact is medical schools need administrators as much as they need plumbers, to perform a vital yet distasteful function so the actual doctors won't have to. Ditto for hospitals, which used to be run by doctors, but are now mostly run by MBAs. Double ditto for medical journals, because "Journal editor" is a pure influence job. Thus the medical journals have all turned extreme Left, even though journal editors are not parasites. An actionable prediction: Any influence position will attract the Leftist-influencer personality type, and repel the producer type. So when you create, say, a medical review board with power to approve or deny drug trials, the people who volunteer to serve will mostly be Democrats. If you don't like the medical example, let's talk about plumbers. A plumber produces something tangible, so most plumbers are Republicans. Unless his income depends on his union status. (About 25% of plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters have union jobs, according to Perplexity, which is usually wrong.) Unions are designed to insulate their members from reality, to allocate jobs and income by seniority or by pull, rather than by output. It's much harder to walk in off the street and get a union job; usually you must know someone. In other words, unions are less about production, and more about influence, so union plumbers will be more Democrat than free-range plumbers. And union administrators will be the most Democrat of all. Some jobs lie midway between producer and influencer. For example, a computer programmer is partly a producer, because he creates a product that must work. His code must execute without error and satisfy the project requirements. However, few programmers face the full test of reality, because their code need not reflect anything in the physical world. The physics in Grand Theft Auto need not be accurate; it only needs to please humans. Thus, coding is a mix of production and influence, so coders are a mix of Republicans, Libertarians, and Democrats. (This is actually true.) I predict the coders who write games are more Democrat than the guys who write CAD software, because CAD physics has to be right, not just look right. You can't get this prediction from the Parasite-vs-Host framing. The influencer personality recoils from the implacable tests of physical reality, so he will avoid producer jobs. By contrast, a producer might take an influence job, because he can satisfy his producing needs elsewhere. A Right-wing author will usually do something real in his spare time, like building his own deck or restoring classic cars. So a few Republicans might volunteer to serve on your Medical Review Board, out of a sense of duty. In a Leftist author's spare time, he will tour wineries. Of all the jobs on Earth, surely the two that are most devoted to pure influence are the politician and the critic. Even an author, who toils in the realm of words, must produce a book. A literary critic does not meet even that low bar. And of course, politics is influence personified, so we should expect most politicians to be the influencer personality type (I.e., Leftist) even if they pretend to be Republicans. So here is my actionable advice: To judge whether a Republican candidate is a RINO imposter, inquire into his hobbies. Ask him to show us a few things he made with his own hands. If he flies a homebuilt airplane, he's a good gamble.