My American friends,
You are all very privileged. In a few days, only you get to cast a vote on a matter than concerns the whole world. Everybody else gets to watch with concern and envy as you get to make your choice and exercise your special privilege.
As we near election day, please consider the following humble advice from an objective observer:
1. 'Change' is not much of a promise to go on
Change is an inevitable fact of life. Whoever you elect into office, things are going to 'change'. The America of tomorrow is going to be different than the America of today - that's just the way things are (and it follows directly from the 2nd law of thermodynamics).
Remember, it is not just any change that we need, it is change in the right direction, so when your candidate promises you 'change', be sure to ask:
• What exactly will change
• How exactly is the change going to happen
• What are the bad side effects of that change
If you don't get straight answers, especially related to side effects, that's a clear tell-tale sign of bullshit promises.
Speaking of side effects and bullshit promises...
2. An all-rosy picture = bullshit
Any rational leader should realize that, within a complex system like the federal United States, any tweaks of any nature or magnitude are going to bring about a certain amount of bad side effects. Your nation is as complicated as a human body, and have you ever heard of any medication that doesn't come with any side effects what so ever?
A candidate who proposes a plan and neglects to mention the bad effects, or downplays them, is either lying to you or is a complete idiot. Steer clear!
3. It's not what they believe in, it's what they'll do
Ask not whether the candidate opposes your opinion on abortion or gay marriage etc. Ask instead whether the candidate is going to shove his personal opinions down your throat or ours!
Presidents are not elected to dictate policy on controversial issues for us. Their job is simply to foster and manage the debate so that we as a free society can arrive at reasonable middle grounds for ourselves. You voting for a carbon copy of yourself and me for a carbon copy of myself, and whoever wins dictates their way to the rest - this isn't democracy and it isn't going to work.
Please elect people who are going to put their own beliefs aside and tap into the wisdom of America's world-class anthropologists, strategists, judges, and free thinkers to help us evolve our social laws to accommodate for a dynamic society and ever-shifting social norms.
4. "X is bad" is NOT an argument in Y's favor
Your duty is to pick a great candidate, or if no such candidate exists, to pick the least horrible one.
Given a choice between Bad and Unknown, Unknown does not win by default. This is because, according to to Murphy's Law, Unknown has the potential to turn out to be much, much worse than Bad. At least with Bad, you have a known upper limit to just how bad things are going to get. with Unknown, you don't!
Invest the time and get to know both candidates, then do us all a favor by choosing the least disgusting option. Knowing one is bad then and defaulting to the other is a horrible failure of logical reasoning - after all, that's how Hitler got voted into office!
5. Any statistics coming from a candidate - are garbage
As a data scientist, I really mean it when I say that stats can be twisted to mislead you into thinking whatever the speaker wants. Stats are meaningful only if created by a disinterest party, someone truly unbiased, someone whose only objective is to present the facts.
If somebody who stands to gain or lose anything uses stats to make their case, those stats are garbage.
That's why the right attitude is to ditch the stats entirely. If you're interested in the numbers, always demand a complete account from a third party. So if you're interested in employ-ability for example, go get a plot of unemployment rates over time in your region from a reputable research organization. If you're interested in health care, get your hands on plots of number of patients served over time, and average out-of-pocket cost of certain treatments over time, and cross examine those plots with historical changes to healthcare policy over the decades.
This is especially important with the issue of taxation. Remember: If someone starts talking tax strategy, always demand that they shut up and silently show you a complete chart of their proposed tax rates across income brackets, plotted against the baseline of current taxation laws. It's not too much to ask and it gives you a bullshit-free view of their tax plan.
We live in an age where it is really easy to get the data directly from the right source. Unfortunately it is also easy for all the wrong sources to trumpet misleading pseudo-science into our unsuspecting ears.
I leave you with a few made up examples to clarify my point:
Romney: Under Obama we've seen the highest unemployment rate in Chicago since 2006
Obama: I brought unemployment down in Chicago to the lowest rate since 2006
Both statements are correct!!
Obama: Under my administration the US economy underwent the highest growth rate of the 21st century!
Romney: The economy grew less in 2012 than in 2011, and less in 2011 than in 2010. We're growing less and less, we're stagnating!
Romney: I promise to lower taxes for middle income families. Under Obama, some families are going to see a $10K increase in their taxes!
Obama: If you make below $150K a year I promise to cut down your taxes. Romney is going to increase taxes on lower income families by as much as 50%!
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