There’s a modern adage:

We know what we know, and we know what we don’t know. But there’s a third category, what we don’t know that we don’t know.

What we don’t know that we don’t know

The third category are things in our blind spots. Often when I’m surprised, I suddenly realize there were important things I didn’t consider. Some of them were in the second category., but some are in the third.

Today, I’ve been extending some PeopleCount software. When I program, I know the software will do roughly what I want. And I know that I don’t know the quality of untested software.

The output of today’s work are files that initialize the database. There are about 25 issues, 100 questions and 1000 answers. This means there are about 500,000 “tallies”, for each answer, there is one tally per district. When I loaded them into the database, the connection timed out! That was in my blind spot. I didn’t know that I needed to be careful about the size of “insert” statements. (It was easy to work around- instead of having one insert statement inserting 500,000 rows, I made 10 of them, each inserting about 50,000.)

To say this a little more clearly, this third category is areas that we’re not even aware of.

What we’re blind to in politics – in Britain

The same thing happens in politics. Just look at Brexit. When Britain’s decision to leave the EU was announced, those who voted to leave were happy. But then the reports began to surface about what leaving actually meant. And two central leaders of the Brexit movement decided to bow out. Those voting to leave didn’t know that no one had thought it through and that their leaders weren’t capable of leading them.

What we’re blind to in politics – in the US

There’s a joke going around. The British and the American peoples are competing to see which are the most stupid about politics. The Brits feel pretty stupid after Brexit. But the Americans hold the Trump card.

We know Donald Trump is a sociopath and narcissist. We don’t yet know what’s in his tax returns. Nor how serious is the child-rape charge. (My guess is that respectable Republicans are hoping he goes to jail on the rape charge before taking office and Pence becomes president…)

The Republican party inflamed and enraged their members for years. They ignored their own corruption and lack of accountability and blamed everything on the Democrats. But they didn’t realize they had prepared their base to be taken over by someone even less scrupulous.

There’s plenty in that third category for partisans

Republicans think they hate Hillary Clinton. What they don’t know that they don’t know is that their hatred of her has been built for many years by Republican lies. While they think they’re standing up against evil, they don’t realize they’re being distracted from the real evil- the Republican Congress isn’t serving them.

There’s plenty for Democrats, too. Most were blind to the DNC’s bias against Bernie Sanders. Without the hack, we would have presumed that Clinton’s rise to the top of the nomination pool was a natural one. Some think had this come to light sooner, we would have a different candidate standing before us. The question remains- what secrets remain?

Where no one besides me seems to look

Most people deal with what they see as, “the way things are.” Some react against it, whether by protest-voting for Trump (or no one), or by wanting new campaign-reform laws, or just by complaining. But this is just dealing with what we know.

What we’re unaware of, what we’re blind to, is that our system can’t work. Put another way, our system is working. Given its rules, the results we’re having these days, divisiveness, congressional gridlock, anger and disunity are exactly what our system produces. As I’ve said before, real political accountability is in our blind spot. We don’t know about it, and we unaware that it’s something we don’t know.

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PS: A fair number of others are looking at some other blind spots…

The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.

I ran across this NY Times article which discusses how Trump is faring in the polls especially among white voters with and without a college degree.

That media even talks about the election relative to people of different races is strong evidence that we’re racist. Even stronger is that different races have different mix of political stands.

Does race account for differences?

The definition has two parts. First, the belief that race accounts for differences in human character. When you look at polls and the differences between what different racial groups want, it seems to actually be true, that race does give these groups a different mix of characteristic.

The problem is, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you recognize race and think it means something, it’ll change how you identify yourself and what choices you make. So racism accounts for the differences existing as well as that we look for them.

Do we think one race is superior?

The other part of the definition is that one race is superior to another. But humans compare everything. So if you think races are different, your brain is probably making better/worse judgements about all the ways they’re different.

And we humans tend to justify what we think. So we figure if whites or men are, on average, more wealthy, or more prone to be Executives, our minds tend to justify those differences and attribute it to race.

Is it bad to be racist?

In a sense, no. We are like we are.

But I say it’s bad to accept our level of racism. We’re America. We want to be moral and great. The only way to do that is to accept ourselves for how we are and make goals for how we want to be, and strive for them.

So I accept that I have my current level of racism. And I accept that it’s a character flaw. It’s fine to have a character flaw. But to be a good person, I should work to notice when it’s making me behave poorly, and fix that.

It’s bad to be great.

I think it’s a sin to think we’re great. It makes us think we’re good enough. It makes us complacent and entitled. Clearly we’re not good enough to have a thriving economy- many or our people are impoverished, poor, unemployed, even hungry. Clearly we’re not good enough in international relations- we destabilized the Middle East and have enemies that base their hatred of us on our past actions. Clearly we’re not good enough about racism because we are still so race-conscious. Sure, America may be great in some ways. But to think we’re great is a sin of pride.

If we really do want to be great, we should sent some benchmarks, some measures of what great is. We shouldn’t argue about whether we’re great. We should measure ourselves and improve until we achieve them.

In the first through third posts, I wrote about the story of my life, what I’d write next, and who I’d want my character to be. Courageous and honorable.

I told my wife a bit about it, and that I’d want the character to be honorable. She said something about how I’m not. Ouch. That hurt.

But that’s what she sees. To me, I’m up to something much bigger than me. I’m not practiced at being up to something big. I’m not good at networking or being social. I’m lousy at sales and marketing. I’m not good at product management. So it’s not really surprising that I’m failing.

And I use my word, my promises, to help drive me forward. I give my word like throwing a hat over a fence, to make me climb over the fence and get it. I thought PeopleCount would easily launch by April. June was a sure bet. I didn’t foresee the first developer wasting 6 weeks and then quitting without a word. Then it took three weeks to decide on the next team. And then they added weeks to it and did less than minimal. So they, too, had taken two months and delivered very little. Then I worked with another two guys and they delivered nothing for a week. And so I’m working alongside this other small team. And it’s going slow, but we’re getting it done. But it has been almost six months instead of 2-3.

My wife took my forecast of June as a promise. I knew that. So I promised June.

And I promised I’d deliver PeopleCount to hundreds of people. No one else on the planet is capable of it. Really. Many people could be. Some have the money to be. Some are deeply committed to the results that PeopleCount can produce. Some are bright enough. Some are honest enough. But none have committed, except me. So it’s all up to me…

But my wife thinks the sacrifice of the money we’ve put into it is too large. Much too large. She agrees with my father that if no one else has invested real money in it, it’s not worth investing in. It’s a fool’s errand. To her, I’m delusional. And she thinks (and it may be true), that others think I’m delusional, too.

And she thinks I’m risking the well-being of our family. And that our family should come first. And between that and breaking the promise of June 7th, I’m not being honorable. That’s her judgement.

If there’s anything harder than doing something impossible and big. If there’s anything harder than doing something largely alone that a well-financed team should be working on, it’s doing it largely alone with the disapproval of one’s family. And without their respect. (I’m pretty sure it’s not respectful to tell someone that he’s delusional…)

Incidentally, I’m not delusional. I don’t think PeopleCount will work out. I’m committed that I either make it work, or at least I make a big splash trying, to get the idea into the culture. It certainly CAN work. In fact, a number of people have said that with a real team and a million dollars in funding, they’re convinced we’d have a high probability of success.

But this is all from people who can’t afford to donate…  Well, except for one who said his millions are already committed to something else…

Ok. I’ll get back to work… And I say that I’ve struggled to be honorable. And I’ll continue striving for that.

Do you want to know why American political officials are not accountable to The People? It’s because they can’t be. It is because YOU and I are not holding them accountable. It is because YOU and I don’t effectively participate. Specifically, we don’t participate in accountability.

Our politicians are trying

Most, or all, or our members of Congress went into politics to make a difference in representing people well. When they got there, they couldn’t. They had brains (most of them) and voices and intentions. They had notions of what constituents wants. But others had other notions. And they couldn’t go back to the People and ask them what they really want.

The winners of our elections got to Washington and there was no national conversation about what to do. Instead, there were parties fighting for power, and partisan sides to either join with or fight with. There were lots of lobbyists representing all sorts of special interests. Lots of people want to meet with them and have them do stuff. But not you and me. We’re at home, mostly working and looking for work, taking care of ourselves and our families and our houses and jobs.

When our members of Congress got to Washington, all the best advisors told them they had to either work for two years (six for senators) and then quit, or they would have to spend hours fundraising every single day. They are told there’s really no other choice. They had to meet with lobbyists and go to fundraising events and make lots of phone calls asking for money. If they don’t, they are told they won’t have enough money to run an effective campaign next time.

And the results are the results we see

So that’s what they do. They try to keep in touch with us and what we want, but they can’t do that very effectively. Mostly, they guess. They read reports and polls and letters to editors, too. And then they either guess or go with their gut.

And the results is the state of Congress today. America is an oligarchy, not a democracy. There’s no correlation between the bills that are passed and what the people want. There’s a high correlation between the bills that are passed and what the wealthiest special interests want.

You and I are not represented

You and I aren’t in Washington. We have no way of holding politicians accountable. Our politicians are mostly trying hard to do their jobs well. If we want them to do better, we’re going to have to make a better system. We’re going to have to make a way for us to participate.

Currently, we have no way to effectively participate. Many of us have tried and it doesn’t work. Those who are most dedicated work for causes. Or we go to political party meetings. Or we write letters to senators and representatives or to the media and nothing changes.

To make accountable politicians, you and I must participate in accountability

If we want accountable politicians, we’re going to have to make a way to participate in them being accountable.

If we want accountable government, we have to make some sort of accountability system.

That’s why PeopleCount has designed one.  But we, too, need your participation. 

I’m happy. Last week I found a VP Marketing. Let’s call him FM. (I don’t want to announce him until we have the paperwork finished, and that’ll take a couple of weeks.)

He’s great. We seem to see eye-to-eye on everything. He takes my ideas, puts them into an organization and glues them together brilliantly. Plus he pushes back at times, or to the side.

And there are a bunch of areas where I have good ideas for marketing, but have not been executing well. He’s taking those over, seems to have skill in those areas and knows some great vendors.

We came up with an incredibly cool idea the other day. I came up with it, but he did the pushing. And the great thing is that maybe he can say the same thing- that he came up with it and I did the pushing. We came up with it. I love that…  That’s partnership- not just working together, but together creating a future we love.

Partnership: Working Together to Create a Future we Lovev

And I’ve had this other good idea. But I didn’t quite know how to fit it in, or if we should. He really liked it! And he agrees- not in the first release. I think we found a great way to fit it into the plan.

We’re putting it all into a road map so we can plan it out well, and then study it to see its ramifications for the architecture. He doesn’t just want to push ahead, he wants to do it well. I love that.

And we’ll do the market testing as well as marketing and development. 

PLUS he lives about a mile from me! Already, we met three times in person while he waited for his daughter to finish a class.

Bringing on a partner takes legal work. So now I’m finding a lawyer, and directing him how to reorganize the company. Plus I’m working to guide the product developers and today I was handling the eventual cloud deployment. And I spent most of the day on reaching out to customers.

It was a long day. But the highlight was the daily meeting with FM.

Please Join in our Partnership

Please join us in this partnership. I’m putting my nest-egg on the line for you. Chip in $2 and put your name on our announcement list.

You’ll love the next post. Someone acknowledged me for focusing on accountability!

This is about how I came up with a way to fix democracy, to fix the main problems of American politics.

I’m writing this as a rebuttal to Joshua Tauberer’s blog in which he not only says that democracy can’t be fixed, he says:

If there was an idea that could ‘fix’ democracy, it would have been thought-up already.

You could have been one of the people that informed Gandhi that non-violent civil disobedience wouldn’t work. When he proposed it, they had no words for it. He committed to freeing India when it was a ludicrous, impossible idea.

Tens of thousands of people are working… Foundations and venture capitalists have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on making government and policy-making better, and many tens of millions of that just on use of technology.

It’s naive to thinking something isn’t solvable if it hasn’t been solved yet. And each one of us is different and has had a different path. So let’s look at me and mine:

What Happened that I found a way to Fix Democracy?

IQ-wise, apparently I’m in the top 3/1000. I have a math background in which I became adept at proofs. I’m trained as a problem-solver and computer scientist. I spent four years studying ego and attachment and achieving enlightenment.

Besides a 30-year career in computer science, I’ve had the equivalent of a full year of post-graduate study in applied context, the nature of assumptions, cultural myths, and possibility. I’ve had lots of exercises and homework involving looking at how these shape my thoughts, my personality, my strengths and weaknesses. I practiced ways of living freely, outside their limits.

In courses and with experienced experts I’ve stretched my notions of what’s possible for myself and my life. While about 2 million people have taken at least one of these courses, I estimate Iess than fifty thousand people have taken all these.

How the Idea to Fix Democracy Arose

It was in one of these courses that I saw my resignation about politics as something I accidentally picked up. While I had reasons for it, I saw that all the reasons were true only with the cultural context. So I gave up my resignation and began studying politics.

The basic idea arose after 6 months of inquiries probably no one else has done. After I came up with it, I didn’t believe it. I’ve taken it apart and put it together many times. I’ve shared it with many people, listened closely to their feedback and questions and answered them.

It’s not a magical solution. There will be challenges. I can’t do it alone, though I’ve done a lot of planning and design. And I’ve done some interesting marketing. There’ll be alliances with all sorts of groups and industries, the type of planning few startups seem to do.

The website is only part of the solution. The other part is the marketing, motivating people to come, rewarding people for participating, and creating new mythology to support it. I have rough designs of it, but it’ll take marketing professionals.

When I do the math, it looks reasonable that no one came up with this before. When I talked to many of the founders of other efforts in this space, I heard no one with a similar plan or vision, no one seemed to have done anything like the work I’ve done to get here.

I’ve heard many people say journey has been extraordinary, as a matter of fact, not as praise. While I’m bright, IQ wise, I have plenty of weaknesses. I’m pretty sociable and liked, but I live a bit as a recluse. I never developed much of a network, and that has slowed me down.

In the next article, I’ll tell you, from my perspective, why it’s reasonable that you and thousands of others didn’t think of this already, and why you find it hard to understand.

This October Gallup report says 6 of 10 Americans say a third party is needed.  I’ll bet Americans don’t really want a third party at all.

Consider:  When there’s something wrong with something, we want to put a bandage on it. Sometimes we say the problem is not enough.  Sometimes we want less- like less government spending or waste.  Sometimes we say its broken and want it fixed, like the tax code. Sometimes we want it to be different, like health care.  We have a saying, “The more you change it, the more it stays the same.”  Will a third party really help?

In this case, there’s something wrong with our 2-party political system.  So instead of two parties, we want three. Will that fix the problem? No.

Bandages are great when a strange circumstance damages an otherwise working system, like the bail-out to GM or the economic stimulus package.  But neither of these brought fundamental changes.

When we look at our political problems, it’s easy to look at the surface. On the surface, the people running the show are the problem- the Democrats and the Republicans. But Washington corrupts and disempowers all new members of Congress, too. Washington would corrupt a third party, too.

Some people look deeper and see the problem being too much money in politics, so they want campaign finance laws and anti-corruption legislation. As opposed to starting a third party, these would at least fix the system a bit.

It’s like Uncle Sam has a drug addiction. In this case, the drug is money. His family, the parties, are co-dependents trying to help him, but end up getting sucked into the drama. Adding a third party is like giving him a new family. That’ll give him a fresh start but they’ll get sucked in, too.

The legislative solution is like instructing the police to watch him. This will certainly help, but how long before he finds a way around them?

What’s needed is to cure the addiction. Unlike a drug addiction, politicians really do need money. Even if we pass these laws, there’ll still be PACs or the wealthy willing to spend money on elections. The campaign finance laws aren’t foolproof. Just like the drug war hasn’t stopped drugs from getting to addicts who want it, these laws or a third party won’t stop the addiction.

The poll says Americans want a third party only because they weren’t given a good option. Without a good option, yes, let’s have a third party and the legislation. But let’s create a good option.

What we need is a communication system that allows politicians to communicate with citizens inexpensively on the issues that are important to citizens. What we need is PeopleCount.org.

And as a side-effect, it’ll be easy to have a third party. And it’ll be easy to pass the legislation. Register and vote on issues on PeopleCount.org.

Often, I’ve found political discourse to be uncivil.  There are half-truths, name-calling, accusations and completely unfair blame, not only aimed at our officials, but also at other people commenting.  Why?

I said in the last blog, “what I see is that the results we have are a natural design of our system.”  Let’s look at uncivil discourse from the same perspective.  Why would uncivil, even nasty, comments arise in our current political system?

Because nothing else works.  If you’re polite, what difference does it make?  Sure, you might convince people or have a better conversation, even a great one.  But, what difference does it make?  In my experience, no conversation that I have sways my representatives.  They don’t seem to make a difference.

Now add swearing and name-calling and blame.  Adding these, and anger, give me a little release, and I can go away blaming our situation on them.  It gives me a little satisfaction.  (Of course, I’ve been pretty good about not actually spewing this kind of stuff, but I’ve had lapses.  And more than once I’ve typed such drivel and caught myself before hitting the “post” button…)

In politics, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”  We’re encouraged to “make noise”, phone our representatives, write blogs and editorials, go out on the street with signs, sign petition after petition.  These are the teachings of our culture.  Of course, we’re cautioned to stay peaceful, even respectful.  Why?  Because making noise is also the result of throwing a tantrum, including yelling, swearing, name-calling, and blaming.

Imagine if everyone used PeopleCount.org and we were all voting on issues. Imagine we each took 20 minutes a week, 10 minutes to complete a new profile and 10 minutes to check to see progress on the areas we’re most interested in. Imagine we’re seeing progress in the areas where we agree and in most of the other areas, we’re seeing opportunities for compromise and we’re seeing new questions or answers about new solutions.

We’d no longer have to make noise.  When we can communicate effectively about what we want and our representatives can use that information to build solutions, we can stop throwing tantrums.

Of course, some people will still throw tantrums, partly because they are accustomed to it or are more overcome by their emotions.  And partly because it takes time to break a habit.  But over time, our culture will shift.  With voting on issues making the most difference, people will turn to voting, rather than blaming. Sense something’s wrong?  Vote.  See an issue that needs addressing?  Alert PeopleCount.

And, we’ve identified several other new technologies that help make yelling and blaming unnecessary.  There are several exciting projects underway to produce better conversations and identify better sources of information.  They’re still being developed, but they’re very promising.

All you have to do is vote.  Of course, more support is welcome.  Inviting your friends and family will increase our user base so the results of votes become more valuable and potential donors see us valued by more people.  Donating money and promising to donate that every year (in the Demographics profile) will demonstrate more tangible support and that when we become used by millions, we can be self-sufficient.  You can also help by giving us a “Like” on Facebook or by following us on Twitter, or by volunteering or introducing us to others who’d like to transform politics.

This is an introspective article, about how I work, how I approach organizing. After all, PeopleCount.org is all about organizing- organizing a team, organizing supporters, organizing citizens and politicians to participate, organizing citizens to determine what we want on each issue.

In this article about organizing, Jeff Swift says there are 3 kinds. Quoting the article:

• “Lone wolves sought to build power through information & they primarily focused on research rather than volunteer engagement.”
• “Mobilizers sought to build power by building membership, taking people where they are and getting as many people as possible to participate in low-barrier actions.”
• “Organizers sought to build power by building leadership, thereby transforming the motivations and capabilities of members to take on more leadership. Responsibility was distributed out to a large network of volunteers.”

I guess I’m naturally a lone wolf. (I’m an extrovert, getting energy from others, but I tend to live as an introvert.) I’m trying to be a mobilizer. I’m also trying to build and organization that I can lead (though I’d also be happy to let someone else lead.)

Later it says “Nonprofit leader Nikki Batchelor has identified three key characteristics of organizing:”

1. Put relationships at the center
2. Create various paths for taking action
3. Empower leaders at different levels

I do the first two, but have not been very skilled or successful at the first. I haven’t had much opportunity for the third…

The conclusion:

Organizing is the art of building a community and then protecting its strength. It’s hard work, but it’s easier than losing.

I disagree. Society has a lot of organizing to do. For most people, losing is easier. Most people accept that they’re powerless in the face of “how politics seems” and choose instead to look elsewhere and rightly see the value of their contributions. And many mistakenly believe the myth or their own powerlessness and invent they should stay away from politics.

It’s also conceptually easier to focus on your goals than question them newly. I see this in many political efforts where people are promoting apparent solutions rather than joining me. At the same time, I try to keep questioning my goals- are there better ones?  I truly don’t care how I make the difference I’m out to make, or even if I make it. I just want the difference to be made.

At the same time, there are potentially big wins to not questioning. It takes time and energy.

From what I’ve seen though, the losses are much bigger- the invasion of Iraq, the millions of Americans wrongly imprisoned, the many problems in America that persist and worsen due to Congressional gridlock.

I don’t know if there’s some “best balance”. I don’t know what the solution is, in general. I just have a great solution to our political problems.

You’re welcome to reach out, and help me move forward.