week 3/17

One of this week's articles talks about politic are all deceptions. Politicians always tell the public about what they will do for the public during the campaign, and during the politicians' serves, they turn to the interest of the rich people. The article proposes a simple and direct solution, which is building a public website where everyone can use it to find out what has been promised and what it is. The article also explained that when such website is setup, people will automatically start to use it, either truth tellers or liars. My attitude towards such solution is highly conservative. I think that the article has idealize the problem, which should not be easily solved. 

Whenever I examine a question, I tend to start from the very fundamental causes. What are the fundamental causes?  

First of all, technically, politicians do not lie. Lying will absolutely terminate politicians' career. To the public, some politicians seem not fulfilling their promises. This is because they do not make clear promise. Politicians are so so so good at throwing nebulous words. During campaign, they address to the public that they will run certain programs, and during their serves, they do propose "promised" programs, but many times they do not finish it and leave it to their successors. The ability of giving nebulous talk is actually very important to survive even thrive in this world. For example, "do you know how fast you were driving?" "I do not know." "Do you know when you can finish your part? "I probably have some time to work on it tonight." Well, the purpose of this post is not to teach readers how to be tricky. 

The second question is that why politician "lie" to the public. I think the major one is to balance the benefit of different social classes. Throughout this world, there are more poor people and less rich people. Poor people have more votes, and rich people have more resources. If a politician only follows the vote, the interests of the rich people will never be satisfied, plus that A.I would be able to follow whatever decision is voted. "Politicians must be the card dealers to balance all the players on the table."

"Is is possible that rich people and poor people share the same interests so that politicians can satisfy everyone?" No. From a widely believed theory -- Maslow's hierarchy of needs, rich people are on the top of the pyramid, they are looking for self-actualization, whereas some poor people are looking for safety, for love, or for esteem. With different fundamental goals, how would one expect the rich and the poor share the same interests. 

As a matter of fact, such struggles between two different social classes are on-going for millenniums, on every continent, among every races, and under every governmental structure. Anyway, it is always worthy to try to solve this struggle by all efforts. The proposed website is absolutely good, but I am afraid things are not as easy as the article suggests.