Introductions...
Jennifer...@gmail.com
"knew where I was coming from" (geographically or otherwise).
I live in San Diego, CA which vaguely matches the stereotypes people
around the planet have about "California!" in terms of sun and surfing
and whatnot - lots of it is dumpier than you'd expect from Baywatch and
The OC :-)
I grew up in rural Northern California maybe an hour north of SF which
perhaps is more similar to Oregon and Washington if you're trying to
tie it to images and impressions in your head. Fog and rain and cold,
rocky, shark-infested oceans. If you surf there you're crazy. It's a
place where pot works like alcohol did during the prohibition
(substituting gangsters with hippy-esque pot heads) - lots of people
use it without being flashy and most other people vaguely frown on it
but don't think it's that big a deal. A more localized association
people might have is of "wine country" with Napa and Sonoma counties.
Think redwoods and vineyards.
Marin county (where John Walker Lindh (
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/walker/profile.html ) came
from) is in the same region. The whole region has many people who are
so self-consciously open minded and "accepting" that you could sort of
predict that *someone* growing up there would (despite having those
values internalized) react against the wishy-washy parts and swallow
another culture's fundamentalist creed hook line and sinker (the way
the rabid atheists frequently are reacting to a fundamentalist
upbringing except the other direction with a xenophilic twist).
That's where my childhood political allegiances were formed (a very
liberal region in a liberal state in a somewhat liberal country) and
why I'll always have a spot in my heart for the Greens even if as an
adult I tend to think of many of their policies as simplistic and
worryingly coercive. I've also sort of had this crazy idea that the
best "regime" to fill the federal government would be a Libertarian
dominated Senate, a Green dominated House, with a "philosopher monarch"
in the White House. The policies that managed to pass through all
three filters would be mostly good and in the mean time such a
government would be living up to the "governs best which governs least"
ethos.
I don't expect much out of representative governments except that it's
better than "alpha male tyranny" (Warlordism, Theocracy, Fascism, etc)
for most people.
Good laws are a "public good" and subject to the tragedy of the commons
( http://members.aol.com/trajcom/private/trajcom.htm ), so if people
are acting as "rational selfish economic agents" then the only people
putting effort into laws "should" be people jiggering laws around to
specially benefit themselves for *more* than they could get investing
their time and money in other ways. So long as "cash rules everything
around me" (to quote a bard) while at the same time the people who
suggest, refine, implement, and monitor governing systems *don't*
receive compensation for their efforts proportional to the good they do
the the public...
Let's just say "you get what you pay for" and right now "well served
special interest lobbying" is apparently what all extant representative
political systems are designed to deliver.
(The wrench in the works, of course, is idealists... which is why I
mostly pity long term politicians. Whether they're true believing
conservatives or liberals they face incentives that force them to be
strategically ambiguous marketers with their speech and (to a degree)
with their very minds... I assume most start out as idealists, and
slowly develop sophisticated practical knowledge consonant with the
fact that voters expect them to say something just and good and
inspiring while lobbyists expect to be paid back... and in the pursuit
of the money and votes needed to "do good" they either get sick of it
and get out of politics or they go a little bit "off" in the head.)
So, I'm not totally comfortable with official power or acquiring
"public figure" status (
http://jcomm.uoregon.edu/~tgleason/j385/Public_Figure.html ). I just
wanted people who like the idea of the Unity Party to not be stuck with
such a top-down web infrastructure. Hopefully other people better
qualified to run websites and with more stomach for political stuff can
come to the fore and I can just fade away quietly... but who knows,
maybe I'll get pulled in by the glamour of activism :-) Anyway, my
last job ended a week ago and my next won't start for a couple weeks
yet and this seemed like "something worth doing" in the meantime.
The desire to stay a private person is why I'm not flashing my last
name or phone number around very much. I like Brin's idea of a
transparent society ( http://www.davidbrin.com/tschp1.html ), but my
cynical side expects that we'll just turn slowly, comfortably, safely,
smugly, totalitarian the way Britain is maybe going and *not* get that
kind of utopia... So until my cynicism is disproven *and* the sorts of
protections and etiquette that goes with a transparent society become a
reality, I'd rather not be on Google's first page when you type in my
full name... unless it's necessary to goals that are *really* worth it
:-)
So why am I working on UnitySuporters.Com? (1) Because it would fill
an obvious need. (2) Because it seemed like a good opportunity to
sharpen my net skills... and (3) because I'm hoping that in the crucial
"influence period" when the Unity Party is still embryonic I can seed
the consciousness of thoughtful political people with some of my
cynical "you're getting what the system is designed to deliver - change
the system or embrace the horror" ideas.
The Futarchy proposal that I frequently link to (
http://hanson.gmu.edu/futarchy.html ) is the only thing I've seen that
*democratically* addresses the fact that the laws of a representative
government are a tragic commons. People could still free ride on other
people's expression of preferences, but at least it's heading in the
right direction.
And democratically determining what values to promote will be
complicated by the issues highlighted by Arrow's Impossibility Theorem
( http://www.ctl.ua.edu/math103/Voting/overvw1.htm ) which Condorcet
voting ( http://www.ctl.ua.edu/math103/Voting/methodpc.htm ) is a well
studied partial solution to.
Good communication and organization is necessary to political success.
By providing those I get to influence things in the direction of a
Unity ticket selected by a more sophisticated than average voting
process that *might* elect a ticket composed of people with a chance of
winning that "really understands" the "democratic laws are a tragic
commons" thing and the futarchy thing. I'd consider that a *huge*
success.
And there, in 15 paragraphs, is a sketch of who I am and why I'm doing
this :-) I didn't say anything about abortion or war or gay marriage
or oil. I have opinions on those subjects... I just don't think they
matter much.
There's my introduction... anyone else want to chime in? :-)
-Jennifer