Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Procrastinate on politics

A few months ago I had post on ways of procrastination. Since it's almost inevitable I urge everyone to involve in politics in some way. Talk to people to register to vote. Display political messages in your online profiles. People spend a lot of time online so create events, groups, threads etc. It's already being done and I am doing my part by posting this.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Streaks of thought: Streak 21

Civilizations constantly try to evolve a system in which making choices is neither very hard (e.g. not being able to make choice in time) nor very easy (e.g. locally greedy choices) so as to sustain interest in living and letting live.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Obamagain

A year ago these youngsters and many others wouldn't care to talk about politics....I mean what happened...It's simple....Here's my pick...

I wanted to write this post right after watching Obama's speech at DNC but because of an extended deadline, a labor day weekend at six-flags and an informal talk at Penn, I am writing it now.

A few months ago, when some of my friends asked my opinion about presidential candidates and whom I would support, I said I don't follow politics. If I have to answer I would depend on opinions of those who I look up to since at least I know who I choose to look up to. And the answer was Obama as his name was resonating in academia.

But see Obama's exceptional performance is drawing so many's attention to politics and making many others to actually recheck their stand in politics: excellence by definition attracts interest of many people. I have a strong liking to the foundational concepts of this country and his speeches and especially his speech at DNC 2008 renewed my beliefs in the concept of America. He is really self-critical and is basing his entire campaign on the bedrock principles and ideals of this country. As I mentioned about year and half ago self-criticality is a necessary (but not sufficient) quality that any leader should have. Scott also rightly mentions here that "Any worldview that isn’t wracked by self-doubt and confusion over its own identity is not a worldview for me."

People who are undecided or think McCain is not bad and Obama cannot be as good as he sounds should keep the following in mind. See it's easy to argue that McCain is not totally bad because generally no republican is completely bad, of course they love this country very much. The resistance to choose Obama has an analogue to that faced by "reason" in struggle between Church and Science. And further more why is it that talking big should prohibit him from doing big things. He is talking big not because he is not aware of "realities" but rather he actually understands the current realities and realizes they have to change to keep the true American concept alive. Of course he is not all powerful and has limitations but that's no reason to risk not choosing him. The question to be asked is not whether he can solve all the problems but whether he can renew the politics so that it is back on track to be able to solve real problems in a responsible, accountable and democratic way. He certainly seems to have a great potential to do such things. The very fact that he became a presidential nominee of a big party proves it. "Inexperience" is only an excuse that is so unamerican because when America was formed wasn't it the wildest experiment to declare a real independent country against the will of the greatest empire with a strong hope in democracy? The founding fathers did not have "experience" in declaring independent countries, right?

Usually I would like to identify and associate myself with those who have similar values which happen to be being self-critical, open-minded, challenging perceptions from time to time, thinking for greater good etc. etc. Hence even though I am technically not American caring for this country is a high-level goal in my life. Prayer can have "positive entanglement effects" and hence I urge everyone to pray and urge everyone you know to pray for his victory. Of course those who have right to vote must and should vote for Obama. Furthermore who can do even more sophisticated game-theoretic practices please checkout this for Nadertrading etc.