About those Other Realities…

About those Other Realities…

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This past summer I watched a few recently made sci-fi movies and shows, all with stories based around the idea of alternate or repeating timelines. Their characters experience, voluntarily or not, different versions of reality that arise when different events happen. I enjoyed them all, with the caveat that I am a science fiction junkie, and also have a pretty low bar on what qualifies as good entertainment.

To summarize them without being too spoiler-y, one was the movie Redux Redux, an indie dark thriller with a cast you’ve never heard of; another was Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, more of a gonzo action comedy, headlined by a big star. And the last was the Black Mirror episode Bête Noire, which I thought was one of their better ones (though I liked the episode before it in Season 7 even more).

Each film has its own weird science explanation for how the timeline jumping works, the details of which are not important. “Weird science,” if you didn’t know, is a term for when fiction uses the tag “science!” to explain some technological device in the story, but unrealistically, in a manner not justfied by what we know from actual science. In other words, weird science is just magic, except it’s not magic per se because then you would be watching fantasy, not science fiction. There was a famous statement by sci-fi author Arthur C. Clake, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” and sci-fi writers have generally taken it to heart.

I’ve been spoiler-y on the Black Mirror episode, sorry about that. The reveal comes late in the episode, and the timeline shifting is tied to quantum computing, a weird science shtick the show has used previously. I think the idea is that quantum computers are super-duper powerful and so they can compute anything? Not sure, exactly. One intriguing thought is that the Black Mirror writers are aware of how quantum physics is connected to the very concept of alternate realities, and are speculating along those lines about what might be possible with quantum computing.

What do I mean by that? It all comes down to one of the basic, most puzzling phenomena in quantum mechanics: the dual wave-particle nature of subatomic reality.

Subatomic particles cannot be measured precisely; there is always some uncertainty as to their exact position or velocity. In quantum mechanics, this uncertainty is translated into a “probability wave function” that expresses all of the possible states of a particle. During a measurement, the precise state is instantaneously determined, in what is known as “collapsing the wave function.” But no sooner than this is done, the probablity wave expands once more and the state of the particle becomes unknown again.

The truly bizarre nature of quantum mechanics is apparent in some of the experimental results that are explainable by theorizing that particles sometimes behave not like particles, but literally like they are waves of probability. The most famous is probably the double-slit experiment, in which electrons travelling through a plate with two openings exhibit wave interference patterns when not observed as they pass through the openings, but spontaneously switch to acting like billiard balls if they are detected before passing through. This means that the experimenter can decide whether to make the electrons act like waves or like particles.

Wave-particle duality is also exhibited in the phenomenon of “quantum tunneling,” in which a particle’s probability wave allows it to pass through an otherwise unsurmountable potential energy barrier. This is not merely a curiosity of physics; it has practical applications and implications.

Physicists are stuck with the principles of quantum mechanics. They are verified experimentally, and our modern technology relies on them. The mathematics of the probability wave works out, but there is still the conundrum of how exactly the observer factors into the collapse of the wave function. Why should an electron care if anyone is looking at it or not?

In the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics, a particle is said to exist in a superposition of multiple possible states, until it is observed, at which point its state becomes a fixed, objective fact. This interpretation runs into a paradox when combined with material realism, or the idea that the standard model of particle physics, with its particles and forces, is all that is needed to explain reality – and everything else, including us and our consciousness, derives from it.

The problem is, how to account for the observer effect, the collapse of the probabilistic wave function. At what point does the experimenter cease to be a conglomerate of particles and forces, which theoretically only exist as a superposition of possible states, and then suddenly become an observer recording a measurement? Face it: a superposition of possibilities cannot of its own collapse into an actuality.

There are numerous other theoretical interpretations of quantum mechanics that have attempted to get around this paradox, most beyond the scope of this post. A perhaps better known one is the idea of hidden variables – that we simply haven’t fully figured out the deterministic math and the probability function is just a placeholder we use for now. This was espoused by the great Albert Einstein, who did not at all like the indeterminism in the new theories and famously declared, “God does not play dice.” Einstein didn’t live to see it, but hidden variables were eventually shown to be incompatible with quantum mechanics.

Another interpretation simply declares that there is no collapse of the wave function. Rather, each possibility in the superposition is as real as all the others. The act of observing determines not which possibility becomes a reality, but instead which reality the observer ends up in! This is the interpretation that ties into the shows I was watching, and why they reminded me of quantum mechanical theory. Maybe quantum computers could somehow tap into the wave function and do some weird science thing like reverse the polarity and thereby bounce around among the alternate universes.

There are some obvious problems with the many-worlds interpretation, as it is called. One is the insanely large number of alternate realities being proposed. Think about it: each subatomic particle has a superposition of possible states, multiplied by every other subatomic particle’s superpositions, branching out every fraction of a second. The total number of superpositions is staggering!

Of course, there is no reason theoretically to limit the number of universes. Most of them would be very hard to distinguish from one another, with only infinitesimally tiny differences. But theoretically every possibility could be someone’s reality. There is no way to disprove this theory, if there is no interaction among the alternate realities, which makes it scientifically untenable. That’s the biggest problem with this interpretation. In a sense, it’s a cop out.

Now, in the science fiction stories, the alternate worlds do intereact. Otherwise, the stories would be no fun. In one of my first posts on this blog, I wrote about one such story – All The Myriad Ways, by Larry Niven. In this story, alternate realities are proven to exist, and as a consequence people start lapsing morally and a crime wave ensues. The logic is thus: why not go ahead and follow your impulse to do bad things, since there will necessarily be some universe in which you didn’t anyways, plus if you restrain yourself, you’re just giving all the fun to some other version of you in another universe? The story, I concluded, is a parable about moral choice and its relation to the limits of reality.

This takes me, at last, to the real topic of this post. There is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that neatly resolves the paradox of the observer effect. That would be the Von Neumann–Wigner interpretation, which accepts the observer effect at face value and postulates that it is consciousness itself that is causing the collapse. This is a framework that has been expanded on greatly by Amit Goswami, perhaps my favorite quantum physicist.

Note an important implication of this interpretation: consciousness possesses agency. It is an ultimate cause. How can this be, if consciousness emerges as a property of complex conglomerates of subatomic particles, as theorized in material realism? Consciousness would only be another possibility in superposition, up until the moment of wave function collapse.

It must be that material realism is wrong in its fundamental assumptions, and that consciousness precedes material reality. Consciousness must, in fact, be the ground of being, with all that exists manifesting within it. When an observation is made, consciousness is choosing which of the possible states of the wave function becomes the actual state that is observed. This is why there is always an observer at the moment of wave function collapse.

The pioneers of quantum mechanics understood this. Erwin Schrödinger, he of the infamous cat, said: “The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one.” No objective reality exists without there also being a subjective observer. The two are inseparable.

But how, you might ask, is that going to work if my consciousness and your consciousness pick different possibilities of the wave function to collapse into reality? This is the so-called “Wigner’s friend” paradox. You might choose the cat to be alive and I might choose it to be dead. That poor cat!

The answer is simple. Consciousness is not a quality or attribute that you or I possess. It is the ground of reality, with you, I, and the cat all existing within it. The choice at the moment of wave function collapse is made by the singular cosmic consciousness that underlies all reality, and you and I see the same cat inside the box (hopefully, it sees us, too). You and I experience this as separate observers only because consciousness is identifying with our mind-body conglomerates in that moment and act of observation.

I reiterate: consciousness does not emerge as an epiphenomenom caused by the interaction of the material particles in our brains, as proposed by material realism. The material realist ontology cannot even explain what subjective consciousness is, even though it is something we all experience and therefore must be addressed by any complete scientific theory. At best, it can keep analyzing the brain and promising that the truth will be discovered eventually. But the brain is not where the subject resides! The subject in an act of observation is within cosmic consciousness, which encompasses the mind, and the brain, and whatever thing – whatever electron or chair or coffee table or computer screen – is being observed.

Comprehending unitive consciousness as the ground of reality gives us an ontology in which the subtle aspects of our inner experience are just as real as the material universe that surrounds us. Our thoughts and feelings are as real as material things made of atoms and molecules, the difference being that we experience them as fleeting objects in a personal space, instead of as fixed objects in a shared space. And anyway those “fixed” things are also “fleeting” – affected, as all matter is, by quantum uncertainty. The amount of uncertainty is just very small at human scale, so that we all observe physical reality similarly enough that we can agree on what is what.

Our thoughts and feelings, experienced as private and personal, amount to what the ancients called our psyche – which means soul.

You see where I am going with this. This intrepretation of quantum mechanics aligns with spirituality and mystic wisdom. Material realism is wrong. There is something greater out there.

Unitive cosmic consciousness is the Ground Luminosity of Tibetan Buddhism. It is that which is, beyond which there is nothing else. A being that has no greater being – a “Supreme Being,” if you will. It subsumes the whole of the universe, including space and time, which only exist in the context of matter and energy, anyway, per relativity theory. In other words, cosmic consciousness is beyond space and time; that is, it is eternal.

Let’s just take the leap: unitive cosmic consciousness is what religions mean when they refer to “God.”

We can go further. If consciousness is purposive and through its purposiveness manifests reality, by choosing the actual state of the universe from among its possibilities, then it can be said to be creating the universe. Just as the religions claim.

If purposive consciousness is creative and strives to manifest ever more complex forms into existence, then it is guiding evolution, just as the intelligent design theorists claim. If there is a purpose to evolution and a direction toward higher modes of consciousness, then in that sense we could say that cosmic consciousness is “creating us in its image.”

Finally, if consciousness is unitive and our sense of separate selves only arises because of our temporary existence as mortal creations, then just as the mystics claim, our souls are on a journey of self-discovery, striving towards God-realization.

It is just as it was sung by The Beatles:

And the time will come when you see we’re all one
And life flows on within you and without you

The lotus with a thousand petals, symbol of the crown chakra, which connects us to spiritual purpose

I know this is a bold assertion: an interpretation of the mysterious phenomena of quantum mechanics which proposes that there really is a spiritual dimension to our existence, and which conforms in many ways with the doctrines of religious systems. It is not generally a well-received interpretation, as far as I can tell, probably because people who are interested in the science of quantum physics also tend to be wary of religion, with its long history of dogmatic belief and atrocities perpetrated in the name of God.

So let’s be clear: dogmatic myths, like a God who is a bearded old white guy, are way off the mark. But that doesn’t rule out spirituality and non-material reality. Nor does the tragic history of religious conflict and persecution, since anyways humans justify their cruelty, bigotry, and violence on both religious and non-religious grounds.

The most profound takeaway from the idea of unitive cosmic consciousness as the ground of being is that consciousness has agency. Our choices truly matter.

All experience, the internal subtle experiences in our minds, and the external physical universe that we experience together as shared reality, occurs within unitive consciousness. In that sense, whatever choices we make, God is watching.

If consciousness collapses the quantum wave function and manifests reality, then with each choice that consciousness makes, the timeline is established. History is made. There is no alternate version of reality to pursue, no type of weird science that will allow us to backtrack or experience the outcomes of different choices.

Those science fiction stories are a hoot, but they are just that – fiction. In reality, our choices fix the timeline, and therefore are rife with moral consequence. It makes a difference whether we decide to follow our impulses to do bad things, or make the stronger choice to do good.

That’s why I called the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics a cop out. As Larry Niven’s story All The Myriad Ways informs, it offers us a way to escape the consequences of our choices.

But we can’t. Just as the mystics say, with each choice we make, we make our shared reality.

And God is watching.

And we are all God.

Thanks for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it and found the subject interesting. If you want to learn more about how quantum physics can explain the spiritual nature of reality, I recommend these two books by Amit Goswami: The Self-Aware Universe (ISBN 9780874777987), and God Is Not Dead (ISBN 9781571745637).

Namaste.

Our Circus, Our Monkeys

Our Circus, Our Monkeys

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2026 Philly Fringe kicks off with a banger of a show, 1A Clown’s Way: A Clown’s Guide to Falling in Line. This one-clown, one-act workshop production is written and performed by Madi Distefano, a multidisciplinary Philadelphia artist and a dear friend. It was about this season, in 2025, that we first gathered together with her and other merry pranksters to brainstorm what to do about the whirlygig three-ring-circus of destruction that is our government. We were a group of artists and free-thinkers, dreading what is happening in this country, and our Clown Party formed in joyful resistance.

A year has passed, and so much has happened that I recognized in the story that is told on stage. Madi gives a powerhouse performance in multiple well-crafted roles. Will the MC of the oppressive Big Top bully the audience into submission, or will tactical frivolity prevail when we heed the better clowns of our nature? Do we wait for a signal, or let our voices be heard? It’s a message that resonates with these mad, mad, times.

Run, don’t walk, to see the next performance at the Asian Arts Initiative Black Box Theater, 1219 Vine Street, Philadelphia.

Who dat clown?? (photo by Aileen Lynch-McCulloch)

Shows runs for 75 minutes and is up for just one week, tomorrow through Sept. 15. Get your tickets while they last! 1A Clown’s Way: A Clown’s Guide to Falling in Line.

Musical Review: The Lost Boys

Musical Review: The Lost Boys

Last weekend, Aileen and I had the pleasure of seeing The Lost Boys on Broadway, a stage musical adaptation of the 1987 film by Joel Schumacher. We got our tickets the way we often do when we visit New York City, which is to go to one of the sources of discounted resale tickets and get them on the cheap. This means relatively cheap and not usually the best seats.

So we’re sitting in our balcony seats waiting for the show to start, and there’s this rumbling sound in the theater which is kind of curious, but hey, it’s New York which is a noisy place, so whatever. When the show starts it’s clear this was part of the sound design, as the rumbling gets louder and louder and the curtain opens to a screen that simply shows “1987.” Establishing shot.

The rumbling crescendos and stops, the screen rises and we see an impressive, multi-level, darkly lit set – some kind of abandoned industrial site being used by squatters. There’s a TV on playing a speech by President Reagan. It’s a short, dramatic scene that ends with a jump scare and a blackout, then when the lights come back up the set has transformed. How did they do that so fast?

Next we meet the family, the same trio as in the film – Lucy (Mom) and her two sons, Michael and Sam. There’s a montage of them moving from Phoenix, AZ to Santa Clara, CA, and when they arrive, wow does the set change blow your mind. There’s just so much going on with the set design in this production, and it’s basically how it introduces itself, but here’s the best part – as strong as the tech is and amazing as the effects are, they don’t at all detract from the performances. And the script is solid as well!

The story is faithful to the original film. A few characters are dropped, including the canines, normal enough for a stage adaptation. A couple of roles from the movie’s all-white cast are instead portrayed by people of color, and some queer/non-binary subtext is introduced, but not in any kind of intrusive or overwhelming way. It’s like a nod to the changing mores since the 1980s, a bit of a Millennial/Gen Z touch to an otherwise solid Gen X story.

And it is a Gen X story, with a little Boomer in it with the Mom character. Aileen says it’s THE Gen X musical. The script certainly captures key Gen X themes of searching for a sense of belonging and moral grounding in a time of family break up, parental abandonment, and youth running wild. Honestly, it has more depth than the original screenplay, and being a musical is more emotionally expressive. Sure, it’s based on a formulaic 1980s coming of age comedy horror movie, but it’s authentic and speaks with its own voice.

Many of the memorable moments from the film are repeated on the stage, a nice bit of fan service. It’s a rock musical, too, by the way, with a raucous energy that includes live band performances. You will even hear a familiar refrain from Cry Little Sister, the movie’s theme, though not the entire song. Overall, this musical balances levity, even a bit of campiness, with some truly startling horror moments and impressive physical stunts.

Yes, this scene from the original film is reenacted in the stage musical. Prepare to be amazed.

I won’t say much more about it, I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you. What really impressed me about The Lost Boys was how well the excellence of its performances and its technical virtuosity blended together. Theatre is, ultimately, an art of collaboration and trust, and this ambitious production, with its hyperactive set and its daring action, clearly required an enormous amount of trust.

Well, I’ve gushed over The Lost Boys enough. I know we enjoyed it so much we would like to see it again, and probably be looking for better seats in orchestra center, should any cross our path.

One Year on Substack Already?!

One Year on Substack Already?!

Can you believe it’s been a year since I started publishing on Substack?

It’s true that I introduced “Darkest Hour” here on this blog in the month of August, but my first post on the site was actually in July. It’s going pretty well over there; I’ve got over sixty articles published, which means I’ve kept up a cadence of over one article a week. I don’t get a huge amount of engagement, but I do have over 40 subscribers and I am enjoying having the publication as an outlet for my in-depth social commentary.

This post, going out to blog email subscribers – and I thank you all for the continued support – is mainly so that I can have at least one post on the blog this month. It’s been kind of neglected lately as I focus my creativity on Substack.

I also wanted to showcase the lovely non-AI generated art I made to celebrate one year of “Darkest Hour“:

If you’d like to subscribe to “Darkest Hour“, it’s easy and free – all you need is an email address!

Just go here to visit the site: https://stevebarrera.substack.com/

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

The Board Game Challenge Continues

The Board Game Challenge Continues

It’s already half way through the year (how??) so you may be wondering how Board Games Challenge 2026 is going. As I posted back in March, this is our project to play as many unplayed games from our large collection as we can this year, with the goal of maybe winnowing it down a little if we can identify games we don’t care for or aren’t even interested in playing at all.

First, here’s a couple of games we’ve played recently.

Cascadia is an elegantly designed tile layout game with a Pacific Northwest wildlife theme. It has a drafting mechanic where you take a tile that represents the environment at the same time that you take a wooden token that represents the wildlife, but the placement rules and scoring differ between the tiles and the wildlife. Without getting into too much detail, the challenge is finding the right pair of tile and token for your strategy, given that you only have four options. It’s a great game that gets a lot of strategic depth out of fairly simple rules – game design gold, IMO. Definitely a keeper.

Blokus Duo is also a tile layout game, but more about area control than forming patterns. This version is 2-player only, and basically whoever gets the most tiles out wins. You might be familiar with the multiplayer version, as it is more of a family game. In the 2-player version, it is much harder to get all of your pieces out. The game is also small and portable and doesn’t take up much table space, so it’s great for taking places. Here we are actually playing in a bar as you might be able to tell from the shot. Also a keeper.

the spreadsheet filtered by only games played

The basic problem that we’re having is that it’s hard to find a game we would want to get rid of! How far have we even made it in our challenge? Let’s consult the spreadsheet (remember, there was a spreadsheet?).

It’s got all the games in our collection, downloaded from BoardGameGeek. Whenver we play a game in 2026 I put in the date, and I count expansions if they were included. I even front loaded the spreadsheet by including a bunch of games we played over the holidays as played in January.

We’ve played a lot, yes? It’s just a little over 7% of our total collection, so I guess it’s not looking too good for getting through them all this year. We did identify one game that we decided to sell after playing it, and I also put up on ebay the extra copies of a few games where we owned two copies. So far three games have sold!

We might have bought a few more games, too, so not sure if this project is going to actually reduce our inventory by any appreciable amount. But it was worth a try, right? And it sure is fun to play board games!

Back in the Saddle Again

Back in the Saddle Again

I’m happy to report that I have returned to work at the company I started at in 2023, continuing in a Software Quality Assurance role, and working 100% remote.

It’s a career first for me to be rehired at a company where I’ve worked before. I experienced a different kind of onboarding, as I joined meetings where I knew many, if not all, of the people participating, and felt welcomed back. I had been away from the teams for 8 months, which frankly is the longest I’ve been out of work since the early 2000s.

It was not a career first for me to be onboarded 100% remote, as that was what happened back in March 2023, when I first joined there, after being laid off from a different company. At that time I got hired almost immediately after being out of work, and I felt like a “remote ’til Covid” God. This time around, I had a rockier road from one contract to the next, as I found it difficult to get interviews, despite applying to multiple positions week after week. In 8 months, I only got 3 interviews, not counting the interview my old company gave me.

I worried a bit about how tough it was landing a new job, and speculated in an earlier post that it might be because of my age (60th is coming up for me), or maybe because my late stage career plus the AI takeover means my expertise is becoming obsolete.

You can imagine my relief and my gratitude when the company that laid me off last year offered me another contract. This had actually been promised already as a possibility. Meaning, a large number of contractors had been laid off for budgetary reasons (a RIF, in other words), but I was told that if the company was able to hire again, they would prioritize bringing back contractors that had been let go. I knew for a fact that this had already happened with another contractor who was in the same boat as me, who had been rehired in January.

It’s certainly a good feeling to also be rehired, with the implicit understanding that brings that the company has my trust. The role I am hired into is simliar to what I was first brought on for – I will continue as an individual contributor in my specialized area of expertise. I’m not obsolete yet!

One thing I got out of this experience is an appreciation for the veracity of that old adage, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” As the job search dragged on, and I reviewed how to improve my odds at getting an interview, one thing that came up was to reach out to folks and maintain my relationships. We used to call this “networking,” and it remains as important as ever for career success. I can’t be completely sure, but I think reaching out just to touch base with my old colleagues helped out.

Truly, having a good support network is important to all aspects of living, especially in difficult times such as we are in.

Another thing I wanted to note is that people respond to positivity on social media more than to negativity, at least for me. I got a lot more engagement (likes and comments) with a positive post about getting re-rehired than I ever do with my doomposts over on Substack.

Anyway, I’m glad to be back to work finally, and very glad to continue in the 100% remote mode.

Thanks for reading and stay safe out there.

The view from my home office

Yes, the doomposting continues on Substack. You can check it out, and subscribe (for free!) with an email address, at this link: https://stevebarrera.substack.com/

TV Show Review: When We Were Younger

TV Show Review: When We Were Younger

We’ve been watching and enjoying a show called Younger, which ran from 2015 to 2021, and is now available on Netflix.

Succintly put, it’s like a Millennial generation version of Sex and the City. The latter show was based on the writing of Boomer Candace Bushnell (b. 1958), and was about a group of professional women in New York City, played mostly by Gen Xers, who remain fast friends throughout the trials and tribulations of playing the dating game. It was set roughly in the 1990s. The former, from the same Gen X creator and producer (Darren Star, b. 1961), has a similar vibe, is set in the same city in the late 2010s, and is about a group of mostly Millennials.

Which isn’t even quite true, as the characters in the show are an even mix of Millennials and Gen Xers. But the premise is that a 42-year old divorced woman named Liza, played by Broadway star Sutton Foster (b. 1975), wants to get back into the publishing industry after a long hiatus while she raised her daughter. She finds that it is impossible to get hired because of her age, so she pretends to be 26 years old, and then lands a position as an assistant to a marketing executive, a fellow Gen X woman who believes she has hired a Millennial.

It’s a sketchy premise, but if we suspend our disbelief and let the show run with it, there is plenty of fun tension and humor generated by the main character attempting to lead her double life. She ends up befriending a Millennial book editor at the company, played by former teen idol Hilary Duff (b. 1987), and running with her circle of Millennial friends. She hangs out with them at clubs and bars, and starts dating a hunky Millennial hipster guy.

I particularly enjoyed the show’s savvy with regard to markers of generational belonging. When you are born in a certain time period, you experience subsequent history at specific ages, and your memory of time is specifc to how the world looked, throughout time, to everyone in your age group. So Liza is constantly having to check herself while hanging with her Millennial friends, because she is supposed to recall the 90s and 00s as if she were 16 years younger than she really is, and doesn’t want to blow her cover and consequently her career.

The show ends up depicting a Millennial-Gen X generation gap, though notably Generation X is never called out by name. The term Millennial, however, is used frequently; in fact, the character played by Duff ends up becoming the head of her own publishing imprint called “Millennial Print,” targetting the younger generation. But the term “Generation X” never comes up, and at least once during the show, a Gen Xer is labelled as a Boomer. This is a common enough misrepresentation, and anyway we all know “Boomer” is just culture code for an older, out of touch person. My poor, forgotten generation!

That’s why I say this is a Millennial show, even though it isn’t. Like Sex and the City, it is racy, and has the characters rotating in and out of various romantic and sexual relationships. It is updated for the sensibilities of the current age, with more openness about being gay or bi or polyamorous. The Sex and the City sequel, And Just Like That…, tried to do that, too, but with less success (IMO).

Younger also ends up being a nostalgic look at life in the late 2010s. Can we really be nostalgic for the years of the first Trump administration? Well yeah, considering all that’s happened since. It was a time when Twitter was still respectable, and hashtags still had the power to cancel the un-woke. It was a time when it was conceivable that a young up-and-coming professional could live in New York City and make it in a still relevant web-based publishing industry. That doesn’t seem so possible now, as this article by a Millennial in New York reminds us: Ten Years In A Crumbling Industry

Younger might not be a show for everyone. It’s not the most brilliant thing on TV, but you might like it if, as I do, you like it when the popular culture is consciously generational. This show is definitely consciously Millennial. And it reminds us of how different the zeitgeist – or vibe as the youngsters call it – was, just 10 years ago.

Why I Am a Toaster Democrat

Why I Am a Toaster Democrat

If you’re a long time reader of this blog, you know that I don’t hide my partisanship. I am squarely on the liberal/Democratic/blue zone side of the partisan divide.

I have voted Democratic since 2004. In 2000 I voted Libertarian (oops) but after the debacle of that election and the subsequent unfolding of the Bush era, I came to the realization that Libertarianism is not a viable political philosophy, and that since I was more aligned with the Democrats than the Republicans, I should vote for them. Nothing the Republicans have done since then has changed my mind. If anything, they’ve only gotten worse and hardened my resolve.

There is this term “yellow dog Democrat” to refer to someone who will always vote a straight Democratic party ticket in any election. The term has origins going back to the nineteenth century, but here is an example of its use in the 1950s:

 “We’re pretty much yellow-dog Democrats here,” said an Arkansan last week, explaining the state would vote Democratic even if the party nominates a “yellow dog.” – LIFE magazine, May 21, 1956.

The quote above was from a Southerner in a time when the Democratic party could still rely on the “Solid South” for votes. That would change with political realignment starting in the 1960s, when white Southerners started gravitating toward the Republican party. Arkansas did cast its electoral votes for the Democractic Presidential candidate as late as Clinton in 1996 (understandably), but hasn’t since then.

One of my online friends introduced me to the term “toaster Democrat,” which I believe he coined. He meant it in the same way: that he would vote for a toaster over the Republican candidate, if the Democrats nominated a toaster. It’s as if to say, “not only would I choose a quadruped over a Republican, I would even choose a lifeless kitchen appliance over a Republican.”

At this point I would say I am also a toaster Democract, and I feel vindicated in being so, because – here’s the thing – with the unhinged ways that the current Republican President is acting, it is literally the case that an actual toaster, a kitchen appliance useful only for making toast, would be a better President. This is not an exaggeration or a figure of speech: we would truly be better off as a nation if our President was a toaster, instead of the guy we have now.

With the complete devolution of the Republican party into a bizarre and disturbing cult dedicated to evil and destruction, I obviously could never vote for a Republican candidate for as long as I live. But here is the thing: I get why people are disillusioned with the Democratic party as well. They have delivered very little in the way of real change to help the common American. The truth is, it’s been relatively easy for me to support Democrats, because I am still (barely) middle class, and have done fairly well under neoliberalism, thanks mainly to getting into the field of Information Technology (this could change as AI takes over).

In my political alignment, I am pretty much a basic centrist Dad. I have been voting mainstream Democrat since I registered as a Democrat, with the only exception being voting for Bernie Sanders in the 2020 primary. I get that Democrats need a stronger platform, and think they would do better with an economically populist vision in line with traditional (pre-Reagan era New Deal) Democratic policies: stronger worker protections, better social safety nets, more progressive tax structures to force the ultra-wealthy to pay for better outcomes for everyone else. Populism is the current zeitgeist and Democrats need to ride that wave.

But for now we’re stuck in this terrifying and dangerous equilibrium of having a depraved supervillain for President, with no one able to do anything to stop him. This Substack post explains the dynamic: Why No One Acts.

It’s basically a game theory problem where no one is incentivized to act because the risks are too high. And I am stuck (all us hoi polloi voters are) in the same trap. I have to vote Democrat, even though nothing will change.

But I can dream of a better world. A world where our President is a toaster.

I even made a picture of what that President would be like. Since I got some flak for using AI-generated images in my last post, I drew this one myself, with pencils. It took me over an hour, I’ll have you know. ChatGPT would have done it in like a minute, and it probably would have looked nicer. But I went with the hard way, so as not to consume precious natural resources and enrich the billionaire oligarchs a smidgen more. You’re welcome.

The desk is orange because I couldn’t find a brown colored pencil. Better an orange desk than an orange President, amirite?

Cue “Hail to the Chief…”

My AI Sloppy Job Hunt

My AI Sloppy Job Hunt

I’m still on the job hunt, and finding it tough in this market. Prospects were really dry at the end of last year. I’ve seen a bit of a pick-up now that 2026 is moving along, but still no offer, and only two interviews in front of hiring managers so far, though I apply to a dozen or so jobs a week.

It’s a striking contrast to how I was able to quickly land a position after being laid off in 2023, just three years ago.

Anyone else out there who’s looking having the same problem? Or is it just me?

Here’s a couple of observations if you’re wondering what it’s like to be on the job hunt these days. On the applications, companies still ask all the EEO DEI-type questions – gender, race, veteran and disability status. Sometimes pronouns. The private sector did not get the memo that we’ve gone MAGA now, and woke is out.

A few times I’ve even been been asked about my sexual orientation! That’s one question to which I always answer “I prefer not to say.” What business is that of yours, I’m trying to get a job at your company, not have sex with it!

One thing that has become prevalent on the job search is AI. For one thing, there are a lot of postings for jobs where you are training AIs. They don’t promise you a lot of hours, and the rates they offer have a wide range, sometimes seeming too good to be true. I have ignored these kinds of postings. I’m not there (yet).

Sometimes when applying for a job, an AI chatbot will intervene as part of the process. Annoying. I have also been requested to do AI interviews as a next screening step. I started one once, and when I realized that it was supposed to be on camera, I bagged. But then a little later, I was requested to do an AI-driven “assessment,” also on camera, and since they were going to present my resume to a client, I acquiesced. It was a bit unnerving to be interviewed by a bot, but at least I have some experience at it, for later.

You know, for when the AIs take over. Gonna have to be able to appear compliant.

But seriously, I won’t deny it, I have leaned a little on ChatGPT for advice, and for help tailoring my resume. I’m no Luddite, I’m down with the AI revolution! ChatGPT even made me this inspiring image:

But I also won’t deny I feel a greater sense of uncertainty than I have in past periods of unemployment. There are a lot of factors that could be hampering my job search, as I enter what is probably the last decade of my life where I am in the workforce.

  • I was laid off in the midst of a shrinking job market, one that still hasn’t recovered. How could it with a gonzo administration in charge and WWIII looming over our heads? It’s just a bad time to be looking for work.
  • I am facing discrimination because of my age. Companies would rather have younger, more energetic workers that can be paid less. I can’t afford to backtrack on my rate at this stage of my life, though, with “retirement” coming around the corner.
  • Related to the above, my experience is too specialized. This is only natural for a late stage career, as it makes sense over time to focus on our strengths and area of expertise. But this could be also be understood as carving ourselves into a rut that is hard to get out of when that specialized expertise is in less demand.
  • I’m not trying hard enough. In the past, I have enjoyed periods of “funemployent,” but always bounced back into the workforce with relative ease. Maybe that’s not a realistic expectation deep in middle age.
  • AI really is taking over. My whole sector of the workforce – Information Technology – simply needs fewer humans, now that “agentic AI” is smart enough to do our jobs.

Oh no!

Board Games Challenge 2026

Board Games Challenge 2026

If you hadn’t heard, we own way too many board games over here at Morgantown Manor. If that were even a thing, I mean. You can peruse our collection on BoardGameGeek:
https://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/sbarrera

If you see the same game appear more than once in the gallery, that is not a mistake. That means we own an extra copy (or two) of that game.

It’s kind of out of control.

In the interest of reclaiming some of our house space, I have been trying to sell some of the games on BGG and on ebay, with a slight amount of luck. It’s hard for me, though, to give up any of these lovely games. A little thing called loss aversion.

Aileen presented me with a challenge: let’s play all the games we never play, and anything we don’t like or don’t even want to play is a game we can get rid of.

We started the challenge yesterday, with three games in the “abstract” category – meaning they are just about logic with no theme like building a civilization or crafting things or something like that.

First we played the delightful Ingenious by the legendary Reiner Knizia. It’s all about placing your dominoes-like tiles next to similar colors to score the most possible points – but the trick is your final score is the lowest you have among all colors, so you can’t ignore any color.

Next we tried this game we have never played before called Da Vinci’s Challenge, a two-player game where you make a variety of patterns using just two types of pieces. The real challenge is noticing the patterns when they happen, because if you miss them there’s no takesies-backsies to score them on a later turn.

This game was a thrift store find. We get a lot of our games that way, which is kind of how we got into this mess in the first place.

Our copy of Da Vinci’s Challange had one already filled in score sheet –>

Looks like the kids crushed Dad pretty good, though we had to wonder if Dad was playing nice.

We finished the day’s gaming with a classic abstract called Qwirkle, where you play rows of tiles that either match in color or in shape.

Aileen says we get to count the games we already played this year, and I started a spreadsheet to keep track of them.

Yeah, it’s like that.

Looking forward to playing more games in this challenge mode, since there will be lots of games we don’t usually play, and many that we have never played (never played games are called the “shelf of shame” in our community).

Stay tuned for more board gaming posts this year, though I promise there won’t be one for every single game we play.

That would just be crazy.