On Politics

I’m not a very political guy. The one thing that I hate the most is people who are really tied to their politics. We are all just humans with differing opinions, and that’s ok. I’m getting asked about it more and more, so figured I’d put down my thoughts. This isn’t a post I will share publically, but one that I will keep in case anyone asks.

If I had to describe my politics, I think it would be centerists, socially liberal, borderline accelerationist. I was raised very liberal in Madison WI, and a lot of those values stick with me to this day. I think as I’ve gone through life, I’ve seen how other viewpoints positively impact humanity and that has become more core to my political beliefs.

Here’s a short list of things I think are important:

Accelerating Science and Technology

This is one of the most profound charts in all of humanity. Something happened around 1850. Turns out that the industrial revolution had a pretty big impact. From experience and from my gut, essentially the best thing we can do for the prosperity of humanity is to accelerate science and technology. I’m firmly in the camp of any candidate who promises to do this. Not even just as a tech guy. Science and technology just makes everyone’s lives better. Open source AI, regulated cryptotechnologies that prevent fraud but promote freedom, really anything to make technology safe, fair, and widely adopted for everyone. I’m pro bitcoin, pro open source AI, pro regulation to bring technologies back to the US, here for all of it.

Socially: Pretty Liberal

This is the Madison WI, Boulder CO part of me. Strongly pro choice, pro equality between genders on pay etc, pro equality especially in opporuntity for minorities, pro trans, lgbt rights, gay marriage. I’m not stoked with DEI in how it’s been implemented; in some ways I feel like it’s gone too far. I think we should bias first towards qualification and then picking between qualified candidates we should seek to elevate people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Generally, people should be free to be who they want to be and not be judged negatively for it by society.

I think where I would draw the line on the liberal side is that I’m not socialist. I believe in a sort-of floor on quality of life, but unlimited upside. People should be free to make lots of money and live great lives. People should also start off with a baseline: healthcare, access to a good education, roof over their heads, stable family situation etc. I think society help provide the basics, but not give everyone everything. Capitalism, especially when it enables ambition, tends to do really good things for overall quality of life.

Help the Small Guys, Tax the Big (Old) Guys

The best thing in accelerating technology in society is by creating advantages for the small / newer companies, espcially the ones trying to create new technology, and disadvantages for the big (old) guys, who might be already established and just coasting. This creates a natural cycle for business where the *best* truly win on a level playing feild where monopolies aren’t advantaged. Basically, it aligns incentives that drive more innovation. This comes from someone who has done both the big and small company thing. Higher taxes for big tech cos, lower taxes and help for the startups just getting going. Same goes for wealth. New wealth = good, something you worked hard for and created. Old, generational wealth = bad, static money being hoarded by the wealthy.

Pro Military, Anti War

This is where I think I might stray away from my liberal roots. Most of my family would probably push for defunding the military. If you look historically, the end of WW2 essentially marked the longest area of world peace ever. Yes, there have been small conflicts, but war is no longer one of the main drivers of loss of human life.

Why is that? I think the main thing it comes down to is deterance, especially with nuclear weapons. Essentially, because the US military is so big, no one wants to fuck with us, and since we’re allied with basically the entire world, no one wants to fuck with them either. That has created this relatively sustained period of world peace, where the most you get are small conflicts in corners of the world, not major conflicts across the map. Worth the 650b we spend annually on it.

Do I think it could be a little more targeted towards deterance? Yes. Overall though I think the military has gigantic benefits to society.

I am anti-war. Especially with what’s been happening in Ukranine and in the middle east. I understand the basis for these conflicts, but don’t understand the need for them to be sustained, or for us to perpetually fund them. Ultimately it feels like not settling these conflicts is just broader geopolitics, and doesn’t really account for the people it’s impacting on the ground. For instance, have we asked what the opinion of the people in territories Russia has taken whether they’re ok being Russian? My strong guess is that the popular public opinion would be that vs forever war.

Immigration

It is wayyyy to hard to get a H1B or O1 visa, and someone needs to fix this ASAP. I have lived this directly, and I think it’s a significant deteriment to our innovation economy. I actually agree we should build a “wall“ or whatever digital, drone and technology driven equivalent of that wall is to keep people from illegally coming in, and then we should pave a pathway to citizenship for the people we want to come here legally that will contribute to our society and hold our values. We should probably penalize the people who have come here illegally, especially if they’ve done something illegal (like committed a violent crime), and help those who are already here illegally find their path to contributing to our society (I’m only in favor of kicking out bad people).

I have too many friends who are incredibly talented who have waited 10+ years to become citizens. This is a tragedy. We need to pave a much faster, legal path to citizenship for anyone, regardless of skill level.

Public Health

I wish this was talked about more and was a bigger issue. I think the majority of human suffering comes from public health issues across the board. Yes, things like cancer and heart disease, but more realistically a completely ignored public health crisis around mental health, drugs and addiction. I see this directly in SF where the population of people plauged with mental health, alcohol, and drug issues is off the charts. Everywhere from middle america to the coasts are experiencing this, and it’s a tragedy. These are people that can’t advocate for themselves because of their situations, and it’s our job to stick up for them. Wish this was a bigger issue that more people approached with more empathy.

Who am I voting for?

Really depends on the election you’re talking about. I’m firmly in the Gary Tan camp of SF politics. I want to see the drug dealers in the tenderloin, SOMA criminalized (like actually go to jail for a long time, because they’re terrible people) and the homeless population to get actual help. Push more on making this the best tech apmosphere to build a startup. That’s what SF is great at. Cut out the ultra-liberal politics for something more central.

Presidential? Strong meh. Maybe a “no preference“ vote, so at least I do my civic duty of voting. This is easily the most devisive choice. I am secretely hoping that both candidates somehow find reasons to drop out before November. I’d like to see some younger, more tech forward person run. Both of these guys I can find reason to disagree with strongly and support for some smaller reasons. I firmly disagree with trump on basically everything social (paying off a porn star who you slept with to win a presidential election should, in some ways, completely disqualify you from being president), and biden and I do not get along on my technology / science / entrepreneurship / crypto / AI etc viewpoints. At this point it’s kind of a competition for who I dislike most, and for what reason.