Category Archives: Politics

Politics is about resolving conflict. When the right answer is not clear, it’s useful to apply some sort of test (something like a philosophical razor). I call this one the “do nothing” test. Let’s say the US congress is debating a new bill, and the political parties just can’t seem to agree on a pathContinue reading “Test: Do nothing”

A few years ago, I heard someone say, “the job of congress is not to pass laws, but to stop bad bills from becoming law.” Now, I can’t help but see government through that lens. The idea is that change should not come easy. One reason is that frequent change could cause instability. Another reasonContinue reading “Incompetence”

In engineering we spend lots of time modeling systems (systems like electrical circuits). We try to describe them just enough so that we can predict their behavior. In the best cases, we can explain why they behave the way they do. In the worst cases, we can’t tell why things are, but we can makeContinue reading “Social media politics”