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People sometimes get me wrong. They think that because I talk a lot about giving back and living modestly, I must not care about money. On the contrary, I care a lot about money because I understand how our system works. Most of us have learned that politics are not driven by ideology, they are driven by money. The same applies to business, media, and even art. We all have ideas of how the world should work. We all have our own vision of justice and fair play – but in our system, an idea without money is just noise.
Every year, I have to make decisions as they pertain to NAHREP. At last year’s national convention, we required that everyone be tested for COVID prior to entering the event. We announced that requirement months in advance, and we had dozens of members boycott the event for political reasons. This year our conference is in Miami, and I have already had several people say they are boycotting the event in protest of the passage of the governor’s recent immigration law. While I respect everyone’s opinion and their right to protest; make no mistake, the people that boycotted our event last year had no impact on our event, and those that choose to protest over our event being in Miami will have no impact on the immigration laws in Florida. That may sound harsh, but it’s reality. If you want a different law in Florida, make more money, and support candidates that support your ideas. That will have a million times more impact than a one-off boycott – believe me.
It’s not just about politics. We all know that media, entertainment, and art influence practically everything. We complain a lot about the accuracy and fairness of the media, but the news we watch, the movies we see, and the books we read are all provided to us by very well-capitalized enterprises that have very specific agendas. With Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, the evolution of technology is being debated by practically everyone. However, mark my words, the final iteration of AI won’t be driven by ethics or safety, it will be driven by economics.
If you think our immigration system is flawed, make more money. If you think our gun laws need to be protected, make more money. If you think there is injustice in the world, make more money. If you despise racism, make more money. It might be easy to misinterpret what I am saying in this blog. I am not suggesting, we should live our lives obsessed with money, but the fact remains, ideas without money just do not go very far.
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