Many have built faulty systems of morality that lack foundation by incorrectly assessing who we are as humans. Some have exalted us to supermen without limitations. Some have likened us to blank slates, bereft of passions, instincts, or consciences—like clay to be molded. And some have described us as entirely selfish savages to be bound in chains and subject to imperial decree. We are none of these things, and moral systems built on these bases invariably lead to catastrophe.

I offer here a system of morality that accords with our nature and limitations. I explain our moral duties, distinguish right from wrong, and draw boundaries for our actions, within which we may act freely and morally.

The axioms upon which a worthwhile system of morality rests

There are two axioms that our system of morality rests upon.

The first is that we live in an objective reality with constant underlying laws which we can observe with enough clarity to make falsifiable claims and draw enduring conclusions. Without this assumption, we couldn’t trust anything we observed, communicate anything consistently applicable, or make any reliable predictions, making it impossible to construct a robust moral system. You could say that existing evidence suggests that reality follows universal and timeless laws, but even the supporting force of evidence itself presupposes that we live in an objective reality.

Observations and logic can tell us about things that are, but by themselves cannot tell us what’s fundamentally valuable, nor how we must conduct ourselves.

The second axiom then, which asserts value, is that there is intrinsic merit in how human nature—qualities which are present in all or nearly all people—assesses that which is moral.

A moral system founded on human nature protects and promotes our survival, our connections, our societies, and our rights and freedoms—though as it turns out, we find these to be indispensable simply because it’s in our nature to believe so. We can’t go any deeper than human nature as our basis without speculation, and we can’t get any more crude without loss of applicability.

From our observations of that which is most valuable and agreeable to the most prevalent parts of our nature, we can establish a strong, sensible, and applicable system of morality.

A description of human nature

In order to determine what’s most valuable to us according to our nature—and thus what is worth gearing our moral system towards protecting and upholding—we must first describe what the most widespread elements of our nature actually are.

Our consideration for ourselves

Perhaps the most salient parts of our nature involve our strong sense of self-care.

We don’t want to die. We have an intense instinct to preserve ourselves. If someone attacked you, you’d have an involuntary stress response, and you’d either fight back, run away, or shield yourself. If you noticed a car careening towards you, you’d likely try to leap out of the way without thinking. And if you were stuck in a prolonged life-or-death scenario against overwhelming odds, there’s a good chance that you would endure rather than quickly submit to despair.1

We don’t want our bodies to be hurt. Physical pain points to potential threats to our lives. This sense is so strong that even without thinking about how pain aids in our survival, our immediate instinct is to seek comfort for, withdraw from, or shield ourselves from sources of pain we did not subject ourselves to.

We don’t want our property damaged or stolen. We have a visceral sense of things rightfully belonging to us. Property aids in our survival and pain avoidance, since material wealth—such as food, clothes, shelter, tools, and weaponry—protects us from uncertainty, privation, wild animals, and mortal enemies. But this sense is so strong that we feel violated even when possessions unnecessary for our survival are stolen or destroyed.

We are free moral agents. We don’t want others dictating how we live—especially if we’re not acting immorally. Our free will accords with our well-being since we typically have the best understanding of what we value and how to improve our circumstances, making us better suited to pursue our happiness than anybody else could on our behalf. But even absent this consideration, we each innately wish to control our own fates.

Our consideration for others

Nothing explained so far tells us that we must not harm others. If we only cared for ourselves, then sure, we might “refrain from infringing on someone’s rights” after gauging his strength and deciding the trouble isn’t worth it—like lions competing for territory.

Our reluctance to wrong others however, regardless of the private benefits, runs deeper and broader than that, and extends even to those who are weaker than us or whom we can easily dupe. We are sentimental creatures. We recoil at the thought of inflicting on others what we would not want done to us. And when we wrong others, we rack ourselves with guilt, shame, and self-loathing. Our sentimentality is so ubiquitous that we regard those who defy or lack this sense as having lost their very humanity.

On top of that, we are social creatures. We engage in familial ties and friendships, partake in communities, work alongside colleagues, enter into contracts, and produce goods for people we’ll never meet. We form connections, ranging from the brief and cordial to the intimate and lifelong. We endure hardship, make sacrifices, and forgo personal gain for the sake of those we’re close to. And we uphold the trust of those who have faith in what we promise or advertise.

The peaceful, free, and secure societies that have risen out of our collective sociability are immensely advantageous to our survival and happiness. Our combined abilities allow us to shelter ourselves from inhospitable wilderness, bring criminals to justice, and overcome otherwise insurmountable problems. Plus, we have the liberty to explore a vast wealth of richness, beauty, refinement, and meaning otherwise inaccessible to us outside of society and our connections. It accords with our sociability and our sense of self-preservation to find such societies worth preserving.

Our limitations—and things outside our obligations

To prevent ourselves from constructing a system that demands of us more than we can give, we must consider our limitations.

I’ve already implicitly mentioned one of our limitations—we are vulnerable. Our senses of self-preservation and pain-avoidance steer us away from death and pain. Since it’s in our nature to regard our lives and bodies as crucial, heroism is not among our obligations.

We’re also limited in our knowledge and brainpower. This manifests in two ways. First, each of us understands what we value better than anybody else, so it’s fitting that we detest having our rights and freedoms infringed upon, and our ability to determine our destinies stymied. And second, lacking perfect knowledge, others can deceive us. Because we wish to act with correct information, we treasure those who are honest, trustworthy, and loyal to us, and disassociate from those who mislead us. And if deception underlaid the majority of our interactions, our resulting suspicion of everyone around us would drive us into isolation, preventing society altogether.

Furthermore, we’re limited in the time and effort we can spend. This restricts the number of connections we can have—the closer the connection, the fewer similarly close bonds we’re able to keep. At any time, we can have a few family members—such as a romantic partner, young children, or ailing parents—whom we dedicate significant attention to. We can have a small inner circle of close friends, and our bonds with them don’t require as much care. We can retain a larger number of distant friendships, and have even more acquaintances, for these ties require little to no effort to “maintain.” Beyond that, we have trouble even grasping the billions outside our social network more concretely than in the abstract, let alone hope to sustain a meaningful connection with most of them. Each one of us can only stay connected with a tiny portion of humanity.

This limitation on the time and effort we can expend prevents us from being universally benevolent—to step in as saviors and satisfy everyone’s needs—which would demand more of us than we could possibly give. We’d be forced to disregard virtually all consideration for ourselves—to the point of self-destruction—and to spread our time and attention so thinly that we’d neglect our actual moral obligations to society and to those we’re connected to.

Our rights and obligations

Given this account of human nature, we can lay out our rights and obligations, drawing from our strong sense of self-care in conjunction with our sentimental and social nature. The resulting moral system, rightly ordered and well-founded, takes into consideration the preservation of life, limb, and property by forbidding injustice, and demands that we act with fidelity so that we may each have the trust in our fellow citizens necessary to enter into and sustain society—all without having to exceed our limitations.

We have a right to life, limb, and property, originating from how immensely valuable these things are to us, our sentiments thereby recognizing the wrong inherent in violating these things belonging to others, and the collapse of society that would result from these things no longer being held sacred.2 Concomitant with that right is an obligation on our part to not murder, assault, rape, steal, or vandalize.

Additionally, we have a right to our autonomy—within the bounds of our moral obligations—originating from our nature as free moral agents, the repugnance of tyranny to our sentiments, and the threat that tyranny poses to a free society. We therefore must not coerce or oppress others.

In short, we have an obligation to be just.

Given our wish to act in the world with accurate information to avoid making costly mistakes, we naturally distrust those who mislead us. Deception is thus abhorrent to our sentiments and our sociability, and furthermore erodes society. Therefore, we have a duty to act with veracity. It’s fine to withhold information if candor would put life, limb, or property in jeopardy. It’s fine to keep irrelevant private matters to ourselves. But otherwise, tell the truth when it needs to be told, and do not omit that which properly concerns others.

Both justice and veracity are essential to rightly ordered conduct as they promote our well-being and accord with our sociability. But they are insufficient in fostering the trust between people necessary for society to persist. For instance, we must uphold the duties that we’ve been entrusted with, including the promises and contracts we’ve agreed to. We must repay our debts and compensate for any damages we’ve caused. We must follow just laws that have been enacted via the consent of the governed, and not twist their meanings to the whims of our personal reinterpretations.3 We must not deceive or betray our fellow citizenry, whose collective sociability society depends on. And we must not betray our country, whose political force provides the sole accountable means for enforcing justice and protecting us from enemies abroad.

These duties, and others like it, enable and foster our confidence in the people, goods, services, infrastructure, and institutions around us, and thereby strengthen and maintain society. We therefore have an obligation to act with fidelity—to act in a trustworthy manner, and to abstain from undermining society or taking advantage of the loyalty and good will of others.

Such are our obligations to others in general.

Our rights and our sociability are not the only things which generate obligations; so do our connections. For example, we have a duty of benevolence to those we love and cherish, in proportion to the closeness of those connections and the particular fidelity demanded of us in those relationships—otherwise, could we really say we love and cherish them? We also have a duty of benevolence to our young children—in accordance with the fidelity owed to them—whom we are responsible for bringing into the world, or whom we have sworn to take care of, and who utterly rely on us.

Outside of our moral obligations, we are free to pursue meaning, happiness, and refinement however we please.

Our moral duties may not ignite the same feelings of esteem as virtues like generosity or heroism do, and they may not be enough by themselves to make any of us “great”—but we must follow them if we are to be good.

Moreover, these obligations are within everyone’s capabilities. We don’t have to try and fix all of humanity’s problems, for that would be beyond our limitations. But as it turns out, and as Lord Kames so aptly remarked: “It is better ordered, that in most instances individuals should have a limited aim, what they can readily accomplish. To every man is assigned his own task; and if every man do his duty, the general good will be promoted much more effectually, than if it were the aim in every single action.”4

An Air Marshal whistleblower revealed that Tulsi Gabbard was put onto the Department of Homeland Security’s “Quiet Skies” terrorist watchlist. As a result, in multiple instances, Gabbard and her husband have been searched while trying to get to their flights. Gabbard describes the process as follows:

“They have to shut down an entire screening lane through the TSA checkpoint just to screen you individually because it takes so long. They will check all of your electronics—they will empty every single article: your toothbrush, your underwear, your clothing, your books, your battery charger—every single article from your carry-on luggage—and screen and swipe every single piece of it. It takes thirty to forty five minutes, and then once they give you the all-clear, then you go and you board your flight and sometimes you may get additional screening at the gate before you’re allowed to walk onto the plane.”1

Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, also notes in a letter to DHS Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari: 

“The Special Mission Coverage in Ms. Gabbard’s case reportedly involves two Explosive Detection Canine Teams, one Transportation Security Specialist (explosives), one plainclothes TSA Supervisor, and three Federal Air Marshals on every flight Ms. Gabbard boards.”2

Who is Tulsi Gabbard? Is the treatment she’s receiving justified? And what is the DHS hoping to accomplish?

In April 2003, Tulsi Gabbard enlisted in the Hawaii Army National Guard to defend America against radical Islamist terrorists in the wake of 9/11.3 She has served (and continues to serve) in the Army for 21 years, having since risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Gabbard was also a Hawaii Congresswoman for eight years, and ran for president in 2019 against other Democrat party candidates during the primaries—one of them being Kamala Harris.

It was during the primary debates that Gabbard shone a harsh light on Harris’ career as attorney general of California, stating that Harris jailed 1,500 people for marijuana violations while laughing when she was asked if she had ever smoked herself, withheld evidence that could have supported the case of a death row inmate, and held prisoners beyond their sentences to be used as cheap labor.4 These debate moments went viral and likely played a part in ruining Harris’ election chances and in causing her to join Joe Biden as his running mate instead.

Gabbard has since made many appearances on media outlets and podcasts, openly criticizing our intelligence agencies, the military industrial complex, and the Biden-Harris administration, saying that they have been undermining our freedoms, carelessly spending our taxpayer dollars, and inching us ever closer to provoking a nuclear war.5

On July 21st, 2024, Biden announced that he wouldn’t be seeking re-election, and that Kamala Harris would be running in his stead. On July 22nd, Gabbard appeared on the Laura Ingraham show, again to criticize Biden and Harris, pointing out that they had ceded power to the military industrial complex, which wants us and our allies in a constant state of war for their own gain, and our intelligence agencies, and noting that Trump would stand up to these unelected powers if he were made president, preventing us from entering wars.6 And according to the previously mentioned whistleblower, on July 23rd, Gabbard was added to the Quiet Skies watchlist.

Three months later, Gabbard is still on this watchlist to my knowledge, with no explanation from either the DHS or the Biden-Harris administration. Their months of inaction, coupled with the peculiar timing of Gabbard’s addition to the watchlist, her continual criticisms against Biden and Harris, and Gabbard’s recent endorsement of Donald Trump for president—which I doubt have all gone unnoticed by Biden and Harris—indicate to me that Harris tacitly approves of Gabbard being added to this watchlist.7

Gabbard does not deserve to be on this watchlist. She is loyal to the American people, as evidenced by her admirable military service and her denunciations of policies she believes would plunge America into war. Her husband, a mere cinematographer, also does not deserve to be on this watchlist.8

Why were they added to this watchlist, if not to protect commercial flights? I believe this was an act of political retaliation—to frighten Gabbard into silence prior to the 2024 presidential election (to the benefit of Kamala Harris’s campaign)—and to serve as an example to anyone else thinking about speaking out against Harris and her allies in the bureaucratic state. Regardless of how you feel about Gabbard’s claims, her addition to this watchlist is a blatant violation of her First (and Fourth) Amendment rights, and a concerning sign that our most fundamental liberties are being stripped from right under our noses.

Here’s my guess as to why the DHS has allied itself with Harris. Our federal government has given up tremendous power to “a natural and loose alliance” of agencies consisting of millions of unelected bureaucrats. These officials have access to once constitutionally separated powers of legislative, executive, and judicial branches, creating more regulations annually than Congress does laws, “[punishing] perceived offenders and [mustering] unlimited resources to quash citizens’ appeals and objections.” Our agencies—the DHS included—had been growing largely uninterrupted for decades until the Trump administration’s attempts at deregulation. And so the DHS has allied itself with Harris by trying to suppress Gabbard’s speech in order to prevent Trump from potentially stripping more power from these self-perceived “permanent custodians of U.S. power, morality, and influence.”9

I believe this predicament we’re in has (a) flown under most voters’ radars, (b) is not what voters intended, including those who support Kamala Harris, and, (c) is bigger than just Biden and Harris.

Though the unelected are seemingly not yet able to simply outright toss the most prominent outspoken dissidents like Gabbard in prison, I fear where this slippery slope may lead us if we do not course correct. Free speech is the greatest restorative mechanism a society has, without which said society ossifies rapidly into authoritarianism. It is a miracle that such a right is enshrined in our Constitution given that most nations even today do not enjoy this privilege, but we have no guarantee to this freedom if we do not remain vigilant.10

You may have inferred that I favor Trump leading up to the 2024 presidential election. And you would be right—at least when it comes to diminishing bureaucratic control, Trump has made strides at deregulation to degrees not seen since Reagan’s presidency, which in principle I align with.

With that said, even if you do not vote this election cycle, or if you choose to vote for Kamala Harris for president, I hope you’ve come away from this reading with a greater appreciation for the degree to which the American people and elected officials have (and continue to) handed over our freedoms to unelected bureaucrats who now have power that no one, regardless of political leaning, should have. I ask only that you try to keep your ears to the pavement and listen for all manners in which our government, no matter the party in charge, is infringing upon our rights.

I have reason to be optimistic. We still have agency in determining our nation’s trajectory. We each still have a say in who gets elected. And we can still make our voices heard. As previously mentioned, elected officials can make headway in chipping away at the administrative state. The bureaucrats in our government have only grown so brazen because many of us have taken our privileges for granted and have not been vigilant in safeguarding our rights. If each of us makes our desire to have our rights safeguarded and solidified heard, whether through civil discourse with our friends and neighbors, or through our votes at the ballot box, I believe we can dissuade bureaucrats and politicians from trammeling upon our liberties and revert our government to one that serves the people, rather than one that merely serves its own special interests.11

This post was last updated on 8/17/24.

A few years ago while I was in college, I had the misfortune of going through multiple traumatic experiences in the span of a few months that triggered a spiral of depression and anxiety lasting over a year and a half with no clear end in sight. I slept sporadically, napped all too often, and constantly felt drained. I had recurring nightmares and frequently woke up with my heart racing. I feared even leaving my room, opting instead to spend most of my days wasting away on my bed with my eyes glued to my phone. I socially isolated myself, fell behind on coursework, and ate poorly. I had disruptive recurring memories of the aforementioned traumatic experiences. And I had thoughts of “ending it all”—thoughts that, while not particularly desirable, repeatedly surfaced in my mind unhindered by any overriding zest for life.1

Underneath all of that, a chip-on-my-shoulder resentment bubbled within me—resentment towards the people that had wronged me—resentment towards people that I felt were mocking me, even though they were joking in good fun and I was taking myself too seriously to see it—resentment towards many of the people I had thought were my friends for not checking in on me, even though I had similarly failed to reach out to them. I discovered that I had quite the spiteful and vengeful demon within me, and that left to fester, I could drive myself to commit acts of great evil. I truly began to understand what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn meant when he proclaimed that “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”2

The wisdom I gained during that dark chapter of my life that is most relevant to the topics I’d like to cover in my blog is this: humans are fallible and corruptible (and clearly I am no exception). That’s not to say that everybody is deeply corrupt and evil—far from it. The point is that humans on average miss the perfect mark. We are limited beings—doomed to die—lacking infinite courage, energy, wisdom, knowledge, and compassion—forever wrestling with forces within that steer us towards vanity, temptation, and wrath. And due to these fundamental human imperfections, I believe it would be wise if we kept people’s coercive powers in check, and gave everyday people the agency and responsibility to chart their own courses in life.

I’m glad that I decided that dragging everybody else down into hell with me was not a path worth going down. I strove to bear the burden of my responsibilities forthrightly (even if incompletely) despite my suffering. I gradually worked on my character, slowly and incrementally constructing a more sophisticated world-view than the one I previously had, which helped me organize a lot of the chaos and confusion I had found myself mired in. And most importantly, within this Pandora’s Box of negative emotions, I discovered some courage within myself that I didn’t know I had—specifically the courage to stand up for myself and tell the truth, tactfully but plainly. It was this act of courage—telling the truth when it needed to be told—that ultimately freed me from my torment.

And it is that same courage that I hope to harness in embarking on this blog.

As a pastime in more recent years, I started learning bits and pieces about economics and policy. I was startled by how little I—and the average American voter—seemed to understand basic economics, despite the impact that policies affecting the economy had on everyday citizens. Hoping to patch some of the gaps in my knowledge, I picked up some books—primarily works by Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman—and leafed through them in my spare time.3

From my readings, I gained the impression that a free market oriented economy with limited government is the best system humanity has come up with for improving the quality of life of as many people as rapidly as possible, and that many of the supposed deficiencies in modern “hyper-capitalist” societies are attributable to a great deal of friction—friction which enables corruption and discourages ambitious risk-taking and innovation—originating from the vast corpus of ostensibly well-meaning regulations doled out and enforced by an even more expansive class of unelected bureaucrats.

On a more fundamental level, this vision I hold is an extension of my aforementioned belief that people are better off determining the course of their own lives, warts and all, short of unreasonably harming others. That said, I also believe that governments are necessary for preventing “unreasonable harm” from coming to others—by dispensing justice and protecting us from foreign invaders. Though it is difficult to determine exactly where the reach of government should end and where people’s freedoms should begin, I believe that the rules and regulations in modern day America, supposedly put in place for our protection and benefit, have in fact gone too far in encroaching upon our right to self-govern, producing counterproductive outcomes, incurring greater costs than benefits, and overall diminishing our quality of life. This overreach is seemingly the culmination of a nearly century long trend of politicians and bureaucrats consolidating power into the halls of Washington—into the hands of supposed moral and intellectual paragons that strive to misconstrue, reinterpret away, and otherwise circumvent the protective checks and balances put in place by our Founding Fathers so that they may impose their own vision for the world upon the rest of us.

I hope to explore these topics—and more—in my blog.

I’d procrastinated on starting a blog for voicing my thoughts for some time now. I’d tinkered with many details: what my brand would be, the tone I would carry myself with, the degree to which I revealed my identity (for now, I wish to remain anonymous for the most part), and the more concrete aims of such a blog. I’d fixated on minutiae, likely because I wanted to delay what may very well be the undertaking of a lifetime, that would demand of me courage, tact, grace, patience, effort, and sacrifice—essentially, more than I thought I could muster at the time from a better version of myself that did not yet exist. In this manner I have erred—I wasn’t supposed to wait for this version of myself to magically manifest—rather, I was supposed to take a few leaps of faith, fall flat on my face a bunch of times, and grow into a better thinker and communicator through repeated trial and error. And that’s what I endeavor to do now.

What is it then that spurred me to begin writing? First, it seems to me that so much political and ideological dialogue nowadays is vitriolic. Many Americans, myself included, hesitate to voice their opinions for fear of being labeled some damning and untrue pejorative.4 With this blog, I hope to extend an olive branch into the figurative no man’s land and show that by having civil discourse, first, we may come to find that we believe more in common than we previously expected to, and second, we may temper bitterness, come to understand (even if we don’t agree with) the viewpoints of those who might otherwise have been our ideological enemies, and find common ground. Perhaps these goals are all too ambitious and naïve, and I understand that some people will remain unreceptive to an approach like this, but in a landscape already filled with abrasive influencers, I see no need to act in a similar fashion.

Second, as I’ve mentioned before, I believe that there are a lot of problems afflicting America today that are a result of the cumulative weight of nearly a century of seemingly compassionate but counterproductive rule and policy-making taking its toll. I want to try my hand at proposing what I believe to be the best tradeoffs in response to these problems. Much of what I have to say isn’t new or revolutionary—we can mimic past generations that have lived out patterns of behaviors which are time-tested and have been shown to lead to greater prosperity. I believe that such dependable frameworks have been supplanted by harmful policies sold as panaceas that have increased feelings of apathy, hopelessness, antagonism, and polarization across our population.

As for my third reason: though I find it hard to believe that my blog will have any major effect on the outcome of history, moral exemplars far more great and wise than myself have individually come to the conclusion that it is the individual, no matter how seemingly insignificant, that bears the responsibility for mending the fabric of society.5 And that fabric does seem frayed to me indeed; a large fraction of the population—afraid to voice their opinions to anyone outside the dinner table for fear of being demonized and ridiculed—have, over the last few decades, relinquished power to a disinterested class of political and bureaucratic elites, allowed the most inflammatory voices to take over public discourse largely unimpeded, lost appreciation for the founding principles of this country that set us apart from any other nation in history, and become pessimistic about obtaining that American dream that was widely accessible to citizens only a few generations ago.

Speaking of demonization, some people harbored so much undue hatred that they lauded the attempted assassination of Donald Trump—with little consideration for whether he deserved to die or what the utterly cataclysmic consequences for this nation would’ve been should the killer have succeeded—and mocked the untimely death of Corey Comperatore, who heroically shielded his family from harm during that same assassination attempt.6 Yes, it was indeed this moment that shook me awake — a stark reminder that, in spite of its founding principles, there was no law of nature preventing America from descending into a figurative hell on earth, either steeped in an intractable civil war, trampled under the heels of (as C.S. Lewis would put it) omnipotent moral busybodies, or coming under fire from foreign powers keen on taking advantage of our tattered state.7 In the face of those dire possibilities, I intend to muster up some courage and help bear a little bit of that aforementioned responsibility—to vouch and speak up for what I believe to be true and good, in hopes of contributing to a more prosperous and harmonious future for America.

I wish to clarify that I am an expert of nothing. I hold no degrees in any of the topics I’ll be covering in this blog. I am not at the top of any field or venture. The gaps in my knowledge are vast. I am not well trained in rigorous academic writing or research methodologies. When it comes to the topics I’ll be discussing, I believe at the moment I really am just a layman. And of course, as you may have noticed, I have my biases and leanings—namely, I believe that the more free a people are, the more prosperous their society ends up being, and as such, I’m a fan of a government that is limited and restricted in its reach and power.

Think of this blog then as just that: a blog—the (hopefully measured) thoughts of a concerned citizen trying to voice what he believes in and to get at something approximating the true and good. I encourage you to not simply take what I say at face value. I do not ask that you agree with everything, or even anything, that I say. Chances are, I’m going to say some things down the line that you strongly disagree with. All told, I am grateful that you have given me as much time as you have so far to hearing me out, and I hope that from here on out, I can provide you, the reader, with some civil dialogue that winds up being stimulating and productive.

Well wishes,

Stumbling Stupidly