Politics of fear vs. the politics of hope

What exactly happened to the health care bill in the last one year? It started off with broad support and excitement. Over the course of the year, support gradually dropped, where less than half the country supports it.

Here is what happened - the politics of fear took over. A number of groups (republicans among the primary ones) created fear in people's minds - with things that were patently untrue or where their connection to truth was at best tenuous. People are swayed more by fear than by hope - unfortunately, so this technique worked.

This is not the first time the right-wing has played this card. In fact, fear is the hallmark of their politics. The whole basis of George W. Bush's two terms in office was fear. His dad, George Bush won on a campaign of fear - anyone remember the infamous Willie Horton ad? Before that. Ronald Regan attacked two small countries - Libya, and Grenada. Justification can always be debated, but the environment was clear - "be afraid, and take action based on your fears."

Obama was elected because he offered hope, not fear. Once he was elected though, he, and his staff let the fear machine take over - explaining the gains that the right is making.

Until Americans see through it, as a society we are going to be living in fear, and electing politicians who will exploit this fear to continue getting elected. Is this the society we want to build?

Gandhian Version of "My Way or the Highway"

In the US, there is a personality trait known as "My Way or the Highway."

According to the website usingenglish.com, "this idiom is used to say that if people don't do what you say, they will have to leave or quit the project, etc."

The Gandhian version is simple - if people don't do what you say, you will leave or quit the project, etc. It may be less aggressive, but the intended results are the same - either listen to my way, or we both can't be on the same team. It is also much more difficult to argue against.

Why isn't "The Church" supporting the health-care bill

I have not seen public support from any religious institution for the health care bill. These are the same institutions that vehemently oppose abortion, and intervened in Terry Schiavo's case.

One would think that health care is a basic issue that churches would be involved with, but none is. Why is this?

One possible explanation is that many churches are being run not by people who care about religion and people, but by politicians. Instead of religion having entered politics, maybe politics has entered religion. These politicians who are acting as church-leaders are now making political decisions, not human decisions that are considered in the purview of religion.

There are no accidents - everything is someone's fault!

A headline in our local newspaper made it glaringly clear. A tree had fallen on a car killing a child. The parents blamed the city for not taking care of the tree. The city said it was not responsible. The newspaper said "City claims parents are responsible."

The US legal system considers that there are no accidents, and that anything that happens is someone's fault. In this case, if the city was not responsible, it was "clear" that the parents were. Why does it have to be anyone's responsibility?

Accidents do happen. Yes, you can take steps to reduce accidents, but can't eliminate them completely. Nor can you eliminate the impact of accidents completely.

So, what is the result of these accident-prevention measures? First, any time such an accident happens where either blame can't be clearly assigned, or the entity the blame is being assigned to wiggles out of it, new laws are created. The result - an increasing complex set of laws that choke normal behavior.The second thing that changes are people's attitudes - that we are protected against all accidents, resulting in extreme rash behavior.

Let nature take its course. There will be some accidents - always. If it was through someone's error, for sure fault them. If it could have been avoided through common-sense laws, enact those laws. But, trying to legislate around every accident is foolhardy. And, let people be careful before they try doing crazy things, and blaming the system (like the woman who got burnt in the thigh with coffee that spilled from the cup held between her thighs while she was driving).

"Atoms are the new bits"

This is how Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine ended his talk at Stanford University this evening. He had started this talk by calling it "The next industrial revolution." They are both the same, given what he had to say. Here is a brief summary.

The Internet has democratized production and distribution.

We are all familiar with distribution - Amazon, Ebay, iPod apps, ... Anyone can sell anything on the Internet, without building their own infrastructure.

On the production side, it is easy to see how digital goods production has become democratized - all steps in music can be done in software; same for news.

Chris's contention is that same thing can now be done for physical goods. If you have an idea, you can get it made without ever leaving your house. Sites like Alibaba.com put you in touch with manufacturers in China that will make your items - from 1 unit to 1 million units. And, they even accept payment via PayPal. So, no building of factories, not supply chain, no letters of credit. Just take your idea online, and someone will make it for you.

Given that physical goods can be taken online, it also means there can be greater collaboration in physical goods. He talked about his own company that makes auto-pilot model planes. And, a company near Boston that has an open-source car - a car that was created by crowdsourcing. In fact, you can order your own custom car with them.

All this comes from the understanding that "the past decade was about finding new social and innovation models on the web," and "the next decade will be about applying them to the real world."

So, hang on to your seats - Chris believes that many concepts perfects for the web will see realization in real life.