# The real meaning of conservative (Part 1 of 4) Date: 2026-10-29 Next Part: https://disrael.github.io/blogs/raw/the-real-meaning-of-conservative.part2.md --- --- ### The real meaning of conservative It’s very hard to sell electric cars and also endless war in the middle east and call yourself conservative. To spend the most on health care per person and not have anything to show for it. To have one of the most expensive educations in the world and also one of the most ignorant populations. It is not conservative to spend over $80 billion on corrections and over $180 billion when factoring in courts, judicial systems, and family burden. #### Conservative is living like it is 200,000 years ago 200,000 to 300,000 years ago humans were top tier hunter gatherers whose wits and technology mattered every day in the struggle to survive. > Before laying down fresh grass sheaves, inhabitants raked clean white ash from their wood-burning hearths. This ash obstructs the breathing of ticks. Hearths were positioned immediately adjacent to the front edges of the grass beds (evidenced by burn marks restricted to the bedding margins), providing radiant warmth throughout the night. When grass mats eventually became fouled, the inhabitants set fire to the old bedding generating a fresh, sterile ash base. So conservatively we make American housing a struggle also: > The typical U.S. household now earns roughly $22,200 less than the $109,796 annual income required to afford a median-priced home. [[1](https://www.abc10.com/article/news/nation-world/income-needed-to-buy-home-2026-redfin-report/507-589c056a-bf47-4002-a6eb-2609d4fe5da3), [2](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/08/05/income-needed-afford-typical-us-home-2026-redfin-report/91185869007/)] > Historically, home prices hovered around **3 times** the median annual household income. Today, the U.S. home price-to-income ratio sits at **5.08** nationally. Though whether we consciously made the choices that caused the housing struggle is unclear. > Between 1990 and 2015, over 5,000 U.S. high schools completely eliminated shop, automotive, welding, or electrical programs. [[1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N4Gf7xNwD0)] Because high schoolers were rarely exposed to trade tracks, enrollment in vocational programs plummeted from 33% in 1980 to just 8% by 2013 > A 2025–2026 contraction in foreign-born craft labor > Escalating tariffs on critical building inputs > Competition from artificial intelligence (AI) data center construction for electrical professionals and grid capacity > Too much emphasis on single family homes America conservatively tethers health care and everything else to work. > In the U.S., the financial payoff for reaching the top decile is massive, while the penalty for falling into the bottom half of the economy is severe. So rational actors will tolerate toxic management just to avoid slipping down a rung. > The United States ranks as the most economically unequal nation among major high-income and G7 countries, and near the top globally depending on whether income or wealth is measured. On population early Homo sapiens were stable. > Between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago, the overall *Homo sapiens* census population across Africa was **not experiencing sustained net growth**. America is projected to approach a stable population even with immigration. ![Image](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/the-real-meaning-of-conservative-559c924d20.png) Without immigration the US is **not experiencing sustained net growth**. Plus Americans have an on again off again relation with immigration and so did early Homo sapiens: > Roughly every 21,000 years, shifts in Earth’s axial precession altered the African monsoon. During wet phases, green corridors opened across the Sahara and East Africa. When the monsoon failed, those corridors collapsed into hyper-arid deserts, wiping out bands that had expanded into marginal territories. Early Homo sapiens were headed toward severe climate change: [**Penultimate Glacial Period - Wikipedia** *From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Penultimate Glacial Period (PGP) is the glacial period that occurred before…*en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penultimate_Glacial_Period "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penultimate_Glacial_Period") Americans are also headed toward severe climate change: > Major continental U.S. cities are projected to see significant temperature and seasonal shifts by **2050** under current high-emission pathways, with global warming thresholds like 1.5°C and 2°C approaching over the next few decades. A prolonged fight with malaria is worse than 3 years of COVID, but both Americans and early Homo sapiens suffer from disease. #### Why conservative cosplay is hard Modern life has made individual accomplishment impossible. Unlike early Homo sapiens any one person can be removed from the workforce without consequence. American capitalism obfuscates this fact: > Traditional capitalism provides high-visibility scorecards: titles, equity, bonuses, and rapid promotion tracks. The problem is that modernity itself is at odds with individual status: * Sunken costs are dramatically higher than in previous eras * Corporations are deliberately built so that no single person owns an end-to-end result * Ever more complex systems require more than one person to run and the remaining less complex work is automated Supposedly America is stuck on “rugged individualism”, but the term was coined as a 1928 political slogan and the frontier was a massive federal project involving the military and government subsidized railroads, dams, and canals. In reality humans never survived individually. > **Long-Distance Trade & Mobility**Obsidian sourced from 15 to 60 miles away — far beyond daily foraging range. Implies inter-group social networks; if migrations failed in one valley, bands had reciprocal rights to forage in neighboring territories. And early humans were not dominated by the physically strongest: > As anthropologist [Christopher Boehm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Boehm) established, once a group can coordinate and use ranged weapons, a physical bully can be easily coalition-killed or ostracized by peers. High status could no longer be seized by force — it had to be **granted** by peers based on skill (hunting, toolmaking, tracking, or conflict mediation). Hunting, toolmaking, tracking, and conflict mediation cannot be faked but almost every modern individual “skill” can and is. Yes there are a select few like athlete, writer, mathematician, artist, musician, chef, designer, etc. that maybe, *maybe* can be measured like those early H. sapiens skills, but everything else is fraud. #### What is and is not conservative Cruelty is not conservative. The cradle of humanity 300,000 to 200,000 years ago couldn’t afford cruelty and survive. ![AI on reduction of cruelty over time](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/the-real-meaning-of-conservative-574dda16c8.png) *AI on reduction of cruelty over time* The push back for ending cruelty is that without fraud everyone is equal: ![From here](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/the-real-meaning-of-conservative-bea0fca9eb.png) *From here* However everyone rewarded the same is, as far as we can tell, mostly what humans 200,000 years ago had: * the same tools * the same graves * group identity (as displayed in art) * no harems (at least that show up as paternal bottlenecks) Humans who are struggling to survive cannot afford massive inequality. Universal Basic Income and leisure for citizens of a mature empire has been implemented before: > In 123 BCE, the tribune Gaius Gracchus passed the *Lex Sempronia Frumentaria*, requiring the state to sell grain to citizens at a subsidized, fixed price to prevent famine and undercut predatory grain speculators. In 58 BCE, the tribune Publius Clodius Pulcher made the allocation entirely free. --- **[Continue reading Part 2 of 4](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/raw/the-real-meaning-of-conservative.part2.md)**