The Democrats' argument that an Independent candidate could split the vote and help Trump is valid, backed by research but not absolute. We should questions all things and avoid being passive since democracy calls for free and open elections, citizen involvement that's open to compromise. Unfortunately, the brain is designed with blind spots, optical and psychological, and one of its cleverest tricks is to confer on us the comforting delusion that we, personally, do not have any. In a sense…people unintentionally blind themselves so that they fail to notice vital events and information that might make them question their behavior or their convictions. Knowing this, I started collecting signatures a year ago to run for US President (Howard Schultz announced last week) as an Independent in 2020.
Fears & Labels
I think most Americans have an intuitive model of cooperative behavior that stems from two linked fears, one of being taken advantage of and another of under producing for lack of opportunities. I chose to run as an Independent because I don’t believe in political parties or assigned labels. I felt the Independent label is the least polarizing label I could choose from in order to expediently appeal to the common person. My goal is to create a way, a path, for us to work with citizens and government in a format that eliminates these ingrained labels and fears by transparently communicating how our choices have (supply and demand) real world implications. On the demand side, the commons situation encourages a race to the bottom by overuse—what economists call a congested–public-good problem. On the supply side, the commons rewards free-rider behavior—removing or diminishing incentives for individual actors to invest in developing more output. The tragedy of the commons predicts only three possible outcomes. One is the sea of mud many think we have today. Another is for some actor with coercive power to enforce an allocation policy on behalf of the village (the socialist/communist solution). The third is for the commons to break up as village members, fence-off bits they can defend and manage sustainably.
Billionaire Presidents
Instead of mimicking Donald Trump’s non-virtuous approach, Howard Schultz, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Cuban etc. should seek to make open-source cooperation sustainable similar to what programmers do with software. Part of the answer certainly lies in the fact that using software does not decrease its value. Instead, widespread use of open-source software tends to increase its value, as users fold in their own fixes and features (code patches). In this inverse commons, the grass grows taller when it's grazed upon. That this public good cannot be degraded by overuse takes care of half of the congested–public-goods problem. It doesn't explain why open source doesn't suffer from under provision. Why don't people who know the open-source community exists universally exhibit free-rider behavior waiting for others to do the work they need, or (if they do the work themselves) not bothering to contribute the work back into the commons? Part of the answer lies in the fact that people don't merely need solutions, they need solutions on time. It's seldom possible to predict when someone else will finish a given piece of needed work. If the payoff from fixing a bug or adding a feature is sufficient to any potential contributor, that person will dive in and do it (at which point the fact that everyone else is a free rider becomes irrelevant). Another part of the answer lies in the fact that the putative market value of small patches to a common source base is hard to capture. Being reactive by only sitting on the patch gains nothing. Indeed, it incurs a future cost—the effort involved in re-merging the patch into the source base in each new release. So the payoff from this choice is actually negative. Instead of standing on the sidelines waiting for solutions to drop from the sky, I've written this easily accessible article hoping it encourages people to think. Suppose most readers realize my article has a monetary value; how do I collect from all those people? We all can win if we see money for what it really is, a social construct that promotes exchange through trust. To put it more positively, I gain from the reader’s input and potential input from different groups. I also gain because others will improve on my work in the future.
Starting Now
We should enable Americans to form habitual ways to meet certain needs or solve day-to-day problems instead of reading distracting tweets. Tell yourself, “greatness is the perception that virtue is enough”. Unfortunately, the common person often lacks virtue, instead we avoid looking within ourselves to make self-improvements to increase our value in the free market. The weakest rebuttal to what I propose is that no market is absolutely free; a frail objection since all things exists in the margins. I advocate for capitalism by arguing the economic pendulum should swing more in the direction of the free market in order to promote a better quality of life for the masses. Ideally, we could balance our lives, with clearly defined goals and a realistic understanding of outcome. Put another way, individuals must know and understand the probability and effectiveness of their actions in order to reach their goals. I think we need to be both constructively skeptical and virtuous while helping those in need. Since gauging need is subjective, it opens up the door for misinterpretation and disagreement regarding distribution. How do we qualify, quantify and communicate an individual’s need? Who’s the agent of interpretation?
5 beliefs Of Servant Leaders
1. Citizens and government want the same things.
2. Technique counts less than intent.
3. Solutions don’t have inherent value (one size doesn't fits all)
4. Howard Schultz Should Promote Methodology
5. World - class inquiry precedes world - class advocacy
These five key beliefs set the groundwork for a process that allows government to deal with complicated issues (immigration, free markets, externalities) in an honest, straightforward manner where we can discover all issues and needs, gather the hard information needed to create solutions that puts our country’s sustainability above all else.