Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

Nothing is officially certified.

One of the things this election, and the last four years, has shown me, is the impact of technology on our political discourse. It hasn't been a "good" insight.

Federal Election records indicate that the leadership of technology companies overwhelmingly supported a set of values that their employees appear to just as overwhelmingly reject. That dissonance is really quite remarkable.

I see one of the fundamental challenges facing the new administration is how to address this. I am not a fan of government regulation, more of a "let the markets decide" kind of guy. I recognize however there is a systemic risk where the technology "owner" can exploit it to harm society in a way that was previously impossible.

While the country has focused on disinformation and hate speech, consider a company that controls, in real time, the self-driving software in a car. Such a technology, if weaponized, to could kill hundreds of thousands of people. Or it could be weaponize to kill select people who were in the intersection of riding in a self-driven car and in disfavor by the company that really controls that car.

Early on in my career I chose not to work for military contractors who were the "big" employers in Los Angeles at the time I graduated from college. They were clearly engaged in finding clever, or at least more effective, ways to kill people and that wasn't where I wanted to spend my time. But what about someone working on self driving? It saves lives by avoiding some of the things end up resulting in crashes. But it also provides an opportunity for great evil.

Do we trust the person in charge to not be evil? Companies change and while they might declare their intentions when they are growing, what happens when they are on top? Sometimes those quaint notions get cast aside when being a little bit evil makes what you're trying to do that much easier or maybe that much more profitable.

What is the appropriate response, in a democracy, to a small number of people controlling a potential weapon that can destroy that democracy? Sadly this is no longer an idle question.

I don't have any answers here, just more questions.

The trend where large Internet platforms control political content propagation will intensify, and prevail in the end. Elites all over the world will not easily cede control of important narratives, which they wield in traditional media (news paper, TVs). For me, deleting COVID misinformation is ok. Blocking Trump's tweet on the election results is a bit more dubious (why not leave it to the people to judge, which are given the right to vote anyway?). And we will see more of these in the coming years.

> illustrates, is what a poor set of choices we have had.

> We need better candidates who generate real support and appeal other than just not being their opponent. Not sure how to get there.

This is in great part due to First Past The Post voting method[1] employed. The US isn't interested in democracy if they can't at least move from FPTP to something at least as good as Approval Voting. (Which is one of the simplest alternatives)

Some criterions FPTP does no meet from Wikipedia[1][2]:

1. Mutual Majority Criterion: if a majority (more than 50%) of voters top-rank some k candidates, then one of those k candidates must win.

2. Condorcet Winner Criterion: if a candidate would win a head-to-head competition against every other candidate, then that candidate must win the overall election.

3. Condorcet Loser Criterion: if a candidate would lose a head-to-head competition against every other candidate, then that candidate must not win the overall election.

4. Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Criterion: the election outcome remains the same even if a candidate who cannot win decides to run.

5. Independence of Clones Alternatives Criterion: the election outcome remains the same even if an identical candidate who is equally-preferred decides to run.

6. No favorite betrayal: Can voters be sure that they do not need to rank any other candidate above their favorite in order to obtain a result they prefer?

At least consider how 2, 4, and 6 affect alternatives like Howie Hawkins, Bernie Sanders, or Gloria la Riva to name some examples. I find it hypocritical when US government officials criticize 1-party states when the US is a 2-party state and as if that was a big qualitative difference.

[1]: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/First-past-the-post_voting#/Effe...

[2]: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Comparison_of_electoral_systems#...

> Where did all the intellect go?

It's hard to have an intellectual debate in 120-character snippets on platforms that promote outrage over reason.