The Campaign Never Ended
a debrief of the least successful congressional campaign in recent memory
Since I was a little kid, I felt an urge to be involved in public service.
And for a long time, I thought that was politics.
When I turned 25, I was now eligible to serve. It was time to put up or shut up.
I chose to make good on that promise with my younger self, and to answer the lifelong calling. If not now, when? If not you, who?
So, I entered the arena as an official candidate (2018)!
I quickly realized the Herculean task of revitalizing American politics was beyond any one of us.
But early on in the campaign, I was inspired by the story of a great mathematician named David Hilbert.
In 1900, DH put together a program of 23 open questions that he wanted the field to focus on (also added Q’s as time went on).
Hilbert’s well-organized challenge captivated a generation of up & coming thinkers and the experts of his day, well focusing their attention on the most pressing problems of their time.
Among the inspired of the next-generation was Alan Turing. His work product not only was critical to resolving one of these problems, but it also was the cornerstone to the (digital) computing revolution at the heart of 20th Century advancement: culminating in trillions of dollars of valuable resources that power our World today.
We recognize that this triumphant story exemplifies a general truth: the fundamental method of progress is humans beings asking the right questions and then getting the right people to work on them together in the right way.
My “platform” (RA) was inspired by this historical precedent.
It is a non-partisan proposal for the future of policymaking and law.
Revitalizing America (RA) is an initiative for open-sourcing politics and to create a language for politics.
Whatever your preferences, no matter the party in charge, our politics will only ever be as good as our actionable and implementable solutions.
As I learned through my journey, even putting the mire of today’s politics aside, the complexity and interdependence of today’s problems require a well organized fixture for the public intelligentsia.
Problem 0 is to determine the realistic manner of solving all the other problems: the methodology, the language, the means.
The methodology can be summarized as follows:
Step 0: Ask interesting questions
Step 1: Identify the landscape of smart answers to these questions
Step 2: Do good politics on top of this basis
To seed the initiative, I created a problem set of 23 domestic and international problems that we need to solve over the next couple decades.
I reached out to many of the smartest people of our time seeking their guidance, feedback, mentorship, and support.
One of these people was the late great Freeman Dyson, who invited me to lunch to discuss my proposal. It was an honor, exhilarating, and a living case-in-point argument against age-ism.
The original RA program included questions like:
Q6. How can the Government re-earn the respect & trust of the people?
Q10. In an age of increasing nihilism, how do we find purpose & optimism in the future?
Q19. Is there an alternative doctrine to Mutually Assured Destruction?
Q23. How can we ensure that AI is working in our best interest?
RA is a politics for the 21st century, without the politics.
RA’s ambitious mission (work product) is to produce an end-to-end detailed “American Playbook”: an ever-updating “Library of Law” of answers to our fundamental problems. Think Wikipedia meets GitHub.
This growing solution library will serve as the basis of a much more meaningful, productive, transparent, inclusive, and healthy politics — and in part, is an answer to question 6.
I remain focused on problems affecting people and society, and continue working with more resolve and vigor than ever.
I don’t think much about politics these days, but I write to let you know the campaign never ended.
If you are thinking of running for office, I hope my story motivates you to give it a shot.