alt Hacker NewsBased on my read of "Amusing Ourselves to Death", length and complexity of political speeches by presidents over time, and the current administration: What makes you think American voters want to put adults back in the room?
I mean I'm sympathetic; I fully support having adults back in the White House, even from above the 49th parallel. It does not, however, seem realistic.
Replies
jacquesm • yesterday at 9:34 PM
> I fully support having adults back in the White House
Or what's left of it...
> What makes you think American voters want to put adults back in the room?
People seem to make this mistake a lot.
People want adults back in the room because that's how they get the results they want. Now, are they currently doing the things that will cause that to happen? Obviously not. But "they" is us. There is no external "them" to delegate this to and then blame when it goes wrong. Things get done when someone does them. If you want it done then the someone is you.
That doesn't mean you can solve the entire problem yourself, but it also doesn't mean you can't make a contribution. The absence of trying is the presence of failure.
Now let's consider how we've gotten screwed in the past. The primary recent mechanism is that nobody likes how things are going, but half the country is convinced that the problem is the other half and vice versa. And then they direct their efforts into having their party "win" even though their party sucks because both parties suck. Which absorbs all the inclination people have to try to fix things and throws it into a black hole as everyone's efforts do nothing more than cancel out the efforts of their countrymen on the other team.
If you're being divided into teams then you're playing someone else's game. That makes people think the goal should be to win the game. But the goal should be to change the rules so that people with common interests aren't stuck on opposing teams.
Score voting would be a good start.