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Presidential Candidates' Science and Tech Policies
gracey1103 writes "Popular Mechanics has put together an easy-to-follow matrix of where the '08 presidential candidates stand on different science, tech and environment issues. Everything is cited and links back directly to each candidate's published policy pages so you can get more info."
They didn't mention Kucinich or Gravel, and allowed more Republicans on the list than Democrats. This seems a bit biased to me.
o Auto
o Digital/Tech
o Climate/Energy
o Environment
o Gun control
o Infrastructure
o Science/Education
o Space
WTF??
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
This seems to assume that 1. you only care about "mainstream party" candidates and 2. spending is the primary measure of support.
I don't know how willingness to spend confiscated funds on research became a qualification for office, but I am completely convinced that this point of view is part of the problem, not the solution.
-Peter
"Easy to follow matrix"? Not exactly. At first, I thought the matrix indicated endorsements, but it doesn't -- checkmarks simply indicate that they were able to find out where a candidate stands. If you actually want to know what that stance is, you sometimes have to click through many screens to get to it.
Great idea, mediocre execution. (And why is gun control on a list of science and technology issues, but not stem cell research?)
I didn't go through all of them, but it seems the matrix only shows which topics a candidate has an affirmative stance on. If they do, then a checkmark links to an explanation of the stance. If not, no information is given. For example, all of them except Giuliani and Huckabee were "in favor" of digital technology. I assume that Giuliani and Huckabee weren't taking the Amish approach, but rather they hadn't made any clear statements on the matter.
So the chart is a mildly intersting way of presenting a limited amount of information on candidates stances, but not particularly useful for comparing them. A better approach (although still imperfect) would have been to attempt to determine sides of an issue and divide the candidates that way.
For example: Should federal government increase spending on internet infrastructure projects? *
Biden: No
Clinton: Yes
Edwards: No
Obama: Yes
Richardson: No
* (answers randomly assigned)
Every election year, people get caught up in the candidates' "positions" as if they meant something. Face it: the Presidential election is the world series of lying, and you are not wise enough to detect it. In a political debate, you may safely ignore any sentence that does not begin with "When I faced this problem before, I ..."
Remember, under Jimmy Carter we got deregulation of trucking, airlines, and natural gas. Under Nixon we got actual wage and price controls (!), and the EPA.
Auto
Wow, there's a well-thought-out plan!
Digital/Tech
Nothing to disagree with there!
Energy/Climate
Wow, that's a great idea! I wonder why no other candidates say stuff like that?
Science/Education
Joke elided for fear of sounding like a broken record.
You read this stuff and it reaffirmed your faith in this guy? I knew absolutely nothing about his platform or views before. Now, I know he doesn't have any actual ideas or plans. I checked his website just to make sure I wasn't missing anything profound, and there's really *nothing* there other than vague hand-waiving. Given his "platform", I don't see why he's even bothering to run.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
This is the dumbest chart I have ever seen. A check-mark? What does that mean? The candidate is aware/unaware of the issue? Is pro/con with the issue? Just dumb. And where is Kusinich? He'd probably have the most checks (whatever they may stand for).
Or am I not geek enough to just scan over the chart and go: "Aha! Now it all makes sense." Typical dumbed down politics. Everything is so black and white at this point that a fucking check-mark is all you need to see in order to make up your own simplistic black or white opinion on any subject.
Free abortions for all!!!...err...No abortions for anybody!.....er..... Abortions for some and bestbuy vouchers for others.
But I noticed there is no column for civil rights or personal liberty. Is freedom that far off the table these days that nobody even talks about it? That sure would explain his absence. Why is gun control there? Since when did that become a "geek" issue? I think IP law would be a bigger one. Sorry, the article is lame.
What?
You know who else was consistent? That's right. George W. Bush on the existence of WMDs in Iraq.
I don't live in the US, but I have an interest in the US politics in the sense that US is in fact the only superpower and in our globalised (and Americanised) world, everything that happens in the US quickly spreads elsewhere as well because of the global interconnectedness and the special position of the US in the world. Of course there is a personal reason for my interest in the US politics as well, as it is a place I would enjoy living if it were run by a sane president (such as Dr Ron Paul).
Of much more relevance to geeks and nerds is to see who well-known free software and open source activists support. RMS, for instance, supports Kucinich (who is off the magazine's matrix, why? and by the way he is a candidate that I do not support, but I think that even those who I disagree with have a right to have their views heard) and the Green Party (on which I have a slightly positive opinion, but I haven't researched it much). However, he also partially supports the one and only candidate that I also support*, Dr Ron Paul , and he explains his reasoning here: "The only Democratic or Republican candidate, aside from Kucinich, that clearly stands for human rights, democracy, and an end to torture, secret prisons and the occupation of Iraq is Ron Paul. I urge Republicans to support him for that party's nomination".
* Saying "support" however must be understood as "support among the available and reasonable options", and I also generally believe that politicians in general are not the most ethical people of the planet, and I know that most of them change their ways after they get elected and don't carry out their programmes, but some are better than others, and I think Ron Paul is the best among all the candidates (albeit I have some disagreements over his positions on the UN), and I actually should also say that I like him as a person, at least based on his writings. Unfortunately I can't vote for him, as I am in EU and not an American, although if he wins and makes the US a reasonable country to live in and removes all stupid laws introduced by Bush et al, I would certainly consider instant relocation, as I regard US among the best places to run a business (especially compared to here in EU where entrepreneurship is many times seen with suspicion)... in fact the presence of Bush was one of the primary objections to me even visiting the US for travel or business, let alone living there. I have a special interest in the 2008 elections because these are the elections that will determine whether the fascist reforms introduced by the Bush administration are going to be repealed as a historical paranoid mistake or kept as the new gospel. Apart from Kucinich and Dr Ron Paul, the other candidates who are well-known and have a chance of winning are most likely going to keep a few or most of Bush policies. Kucinich and Dr Ron Paul are the two only candidates who are most likely to reverse the trends that currently destroy the American culture and civics, and I think the most sane choice among those available is Dr Ron Paul. By the way Dr Ron Paul supports homeschooling, which is the best way to educate gifted future geeks and nerds.
That's not true. He does have plans; you're just not reading into it cynically or deeply enough to see them:
"I intend to pay lip-service to environmentalism while doing as little as possible to actually improve things, because if I really cared I'd have more to say about the issue."
"I support filtering by ISPs and libraries. OMG, think of the children! Oh, and by "child pornography" I really mean 'music, movies, and subversive speech' too. Anonymity is bad, mmkay?"
"I support 'securing our energy' by subjugating the Iraqis, and I support 'increasing domestic supply' by drilling in protected wilderness areas."
"Just like the environment, I don't give a shit about this issue either."
By the way: I don't have anything against this Thompson fellow; in fact, I know nothing about him except these excerpts. Any candidate that says the same kinds of things should be suspected of having the same real positions.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Some friends of mine were involved in a private launch company back in the mid '80s. (At their request it will remain unnamed.)
One of their major problems was obtaining components for avionics and for handling cryogenic liquids. These were made mainly by the companies who contracted to NASA for various parts of the (very lucrative) shuttle program.
One of their contacts told them that a NASA administrator had let them know that if they supplied any parts to a private rocket company they wouldn't be supplying any more for the shuttle.
The company thus had to make do without components that had been developed with tax money, and (on their shoestring budget) develop their own from scratch or convert stuff intended for other purposes - none of them space-rated.
They did some amazing stuff on that shoestring. But it was the failure of one of those re-purposed parts that ended up trashing their effort and running them out of money.
Now NASA was SUPPOSED to be ENCOURAGING the private development of space capability, as they had air flight. But the government space programs had put them in a position where doing so would undercut the funding for their own programs. So it was in their interest to keep the suppliers on a short leash and kill off any company trying to assemble and operate their own craft.
Pulling the plug on NASA as the government-run space transportation company (and boondoggle) would, IMHO, not just open up the field to private companies, but is a necessary step in getting to affordable private space travel in what remains of my lifetime.
Which is not necessarily to say kill it off completely. But putting it out of the transportation business and back to R&D, with private enterprise actually running the spacelines, seems to me to be a necessary minimum for turning space exploration from a government-funded boondoggle (ala Columbus) to an ongoing enterprise (ala private cargo and passenger ships crossing the Atlantic and Pacific ocean).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I agree with some of Ron Paul's platform and disagree with other parts of it. I think he ignores the important benefits socialist programs have brought around the world as well as the correlation between some of these programs and quality of life (of he knows but opposes it on principal anyway). That said, it is a bit of a stretch to say he would make the government small, as if the president had the power to do that. Out system places a lot of power in many different hands and the office of the president is just one of them. If anything, I think an extremist like Ron Paul might help balance out the extremist position of ever bigger, expanding bureaucracy we have today. I wouldn't want Ron Paul as the only decision maker in Washington, but he might make a very good president, despite th fact that I think he is very wrong in principal on some topics.
I think it's safe to vote for him because there's no way he'd actually accomplish all that, but he would manage to prevent the Federal government from bloating further.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The rest of the issues are all squarely in the liberal camp, so they probably thought they should include at least one conservative issue. Face it, no conservative wants to be questioned about science, technology, and conservation. Compare the responses in the "science and education" category. Most Democrats have extensive positions consisting of multiple points. Half of the Republicans don't have positions, and the ones that do just say something lame, like Fred Thompson's "encourage students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math."
... when I saw that a majority of the candidates listed had a tick under gun control. I was less pleasantly surprised when I realised that the tick meant they opposed gun control.
How counter-intuitive is that? The tick implies approval (not to mention it implies that the candidate made the right choice).
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Obama's entire qualifications are 1) he's not GWB, and 2) he's not Hillary.
Even if you parse some particular meanings of (1) and (2) -- that he's likely to be considerably more thoughtful and effective than the current president, and he doesn't have a 16 years of culture war political baggage which Clinton has -- this doesn't seem like an apt summary to me.
Once you get past those admittedly great points in his favor, all you have left is an utterly conventional politician.
If nothing else, one reason people are already attracted to him is that his politicking is already notably different:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/obama
But there are some indications his positions, say, on a number of technical issues are hardly Washington DC business as usual:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/26/qa-with-senator-barack-obama-on-key-technology-issues/
Tweet, tweet.