Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

Crissy and I spotted a strange sight yesterday on the highway. We saw a lady driving while smoking with her 8 year old in the front seat and baby in the backseat. Sadly, that alone isn’t very notable, but in this case, the lady was driving a Prius.

Normally people will make sacrifices to protect and help their family and then, when it comes to common global things, the tragedy of commons comes into play. This lady had it strangely backwards: exposing her baby and 8 year old to secondhand smoke, but driving a hybrid to reduce pollution and gas consumption.

So, what was the motivation? Was this lady the sort of person that places the larger global issues ahead of her family and herself? Or is it still a self-interested play? After all, she gets the satisfaction of being environmentally conscious and over time saves some money.

I’m not trying to be mean, but I’m still confused by what we saw. :-P

Apparently, I have a penchant for writing about toilets — wait, do 2 posts a penchant make? :-P

Today’s post is inspired with my frustration with low-flow eco-friendly toilets. These contraptions are advertised as using a lot less water than conventional toilets. The implication is that this is better for the environment. Of course, this isn’t true in reality: you often need to flush 3 times to get it to “work” properly. Seems like this is more wasteful than useful.

The toilets in our apartment are based on an impressive technology. It uses lots of water, doesn’t actually flush the contents, and often splashes the user. The only missing thing is the steal your wallet feature. :-)

And now all public places have the stupid auto-flush toilets. Originally designed to “simplify” the toilet using experience, it removes the complicated step of pulling a lever  or pressing a button. However most of these toilets flush when you don’t want them to or don’t flush when you want them to. In entire case, it’s bad.

Apparently these sensors have problems detecting dark colors. The early versions of the auto-sinks didn’t work for people with dark skin (like me) and were often called “racist faucets”. This was solved by placing signs in bathrooms that told people to face their palms toward the sensors.

Finally, here’s my auto-flush toilet sitcom idea. Imagine George Costanza sitting on an auto-flush toilet. Then he accidentally drops a ring in the bowl and realizes it’s an auto-flush. There’s all sorts of funny things here: first he realizes what happened, then realizes he can’t move, then realizes he has to move to get the ring, but needs to move really slowly, and then even calls Jerry for help and advice on what to do.

Admit it, you’re already laughing imagining it. :-)

So this post is a long time coming… Sunday is an exciting day for me, because I’ve been closely watching and researching how Web 2.0 is altering politics (by the way, I hate the term “Web 2.0″, but more on that later). One of the web’s main disruptive forces is its ability to level the playing field. As long as the government isn’t censoring things (like in China), everyone and anyone has an equal voice online. And their popularity and ability to spread their ideas is suddenly a function of the quality of their message.

In the past, if you wanted to get a message out, you needed to have access to the mainstream media (the TV networks, the newspapers, etc.). That was, of course, nearly impossible for the ordinary person for a couple of reasons. First, the editorial boards decided what was important, and second, put simply, money talks. If you don’t have it, or have a way to make it, they aren’t interested. Yes, it’s a sad statement, but why are almost all the major political candidates either extremely rich or connected to the rich?

The Internet however, is less interested in who’s rich. For the most part, it’s democratic. If you have page views (e.g. votes), you are important. Traffic is king. And traffic comes from content.

Content is important, so if you have it, you get massive support online. Mainstream politics is all about the sound bite: that five second clip for the TV news and that 10 word quote for the papers. On the Internet though, that isn’t enough; who’s going to care about a page that just has a five second video clip or 10 words?

Suddenly now you have to explain your arguments and since your audience has vast amounts of information at their fingertips, you better have put some thought into it. After all, any idiot with a blog can point out the flaws of poorly construed ideas pretty quickly.

Now along comes a little known Congressman from Texas: Ron Paul. I first heard of Dr. Paul in college. As I became involved in numerous political organizations in college, I got frustrated that all most of us knew were the usual soundbites. But what was missing was the depth of analysis; a lot of things sound great in a 15 second proposal. But they sound stupid once you start asking the right questions.

Ron Paul, though, in all his speeches and writing demonstrated an deep understanding of the topic and always gave a clear answer on why he was doing something. He voted against the Patriot Act, against the Iraqi War, and gave strong impassioned speeches against them. He’s never voted for a unbalanced budget and is known as “Dr. No” for voting against so many things in Congress.

When I saw the announcement that Ron Paul was running for president, I thought to myself, “Finally a candidate I can vote for in the primaries.” But I didn’t expect him to do that well, and figured that at least a few people would hear his strong defense of liberty and the world would be a slightly better place for it.

But, I’m amazed at the extent that this message of liberty has spread. The grassroots support has been unprecedented and Ron Paul has embraced it as any free market supporter has: just let the people do what they want.

As a result, his supporters have, among lots of other things:

• Launched a blimp (at a cost of over $250K)
• Arranged numerous airplane banner ads over major sporting events
• Self organized to an extent never seen before (nearly 88,000 Meetup volunteers, compared to 5,600 for Obama).
• Organized a campaign to send a handwritten letter to every voter in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. And they are almost done.
• Minted gold coins with Ron Paul likeness. And when the Fed raided and shut down the place, they created chocolate coins.
• Taken out full page ads in the USA Today

And, remember how money talks? Ron Paul supporters have organized fundraising campaigns completely independently of the official campaign. The November 5th “Money Bomb” was independently organized and raised $4.2 million in one day. And so far this quarter, Ron Paul has raised over $12 million, which is more than any Republican raised in all Q3.

The money is coming from ordinary people, not fatcats and lobbyists like the Hillarys of the world. According to RonPaulGraphs, his $12.1 million raised (so far) came from 140,000 people. This means that average donation was $86.

So normal people are the ones that are supporting this message and more and more people are trying to learn more about him. Check out this graph of people searching for Ron Paul on Google compared to the other candidates. The same forces that govern popularity online are translating into “the real world”: ordinary people can make a difference.

History has a handful of inflection points where something big happens, everyone stops takes notice, and the course of history changes. I think Sunday may be one of those days. Ron Paul supporters are using the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party to launch another 24 hour money bomb. I think that the millions that will be raised, the rallies held all over the nation, and the expression of the will of the people will surprise people. And they will take notice. And the world may change.

And just in case, if this is one of those important days in history, remember where you are on Sunday. One day your grandkids may ask you, “Where were you during the Tea Party of ‘07?”