There’s no question America is facing serious challenges right now. If you’re interested
enough in politics to be on a congressional candidate’s website, that’s probably not news to you.
Some of our problems are as old as the Republic and others have been debated for decades.
There are a thousand campaigns that are more than happy to detail our problems at length. But
these issues, abortion, crime, the economy, immigration, and guns, have been around for
decades. As important as they are, and as necessary as solutions are, those are going to be
long, slow debates with no quick consensus on how to proceed.
Beyond the old problems, I’m running because there are new issues where one voice
from one congressional district could make a difference right now. I’m running because America
has been given a unique opportunity to avoid being overrun by problems we should have
foreseen. For perhaps the first time in history, we know what disruptive technologies are
coming. From self driving vehicles to AI to implanted devices, America is about to have a huge
array of new technologies to come to terms with.
But those problems are not here just yet. Even though we know what’s coming, we also
know one critical truth: the future isn’t here yet. That means we have a chance to choose what
we want the future to look like. We have a chance to choose if, when, and how we accept these
new technologies and the changes they’ll bring.
And there are going to be choices. Will self driving cars be manufactured in America,
triggering a renaissance of blue collar tech jobs, or will we continue to rely on foreign sweat
shops and slave labor? Will we draw lines about respecting how citizens choose to adopt technology,
or will we allow big business to force these decisions on their workers? Will we
protect the ecosystem of human artists that enrich our culture, or will we allow computers to
strip-mine our creative commons? Will we draw a hard line banning the use of autonomous
weapons, or will we unleash Skynet by playing with fire?
These are the kinds of questions we need to be asking, because they aren’t idle
questions anymore. If even a year ago I said this website was designed by an AI, you would
have laughed. Now, you aren’t sure. {Spoiler: it’s not.}
Right now, we have been given a window to act. Right now, the cost of our chosen
future is at an all time low. But our window is closing. Every day, the price of our preferred future
goes up a little. Someday, one of the companies working on these questions will finally solve it.
On that day, the price we’ll have to pay goes up dramatically.
I don’t know when that day will be. It could be in ten months, it might not be for ten
years. But if we act like we have ten months, and we actually have ten years, we get to take a long
lunch. But if we have ten months, but we act like we have ten years, we’ll have the rest of our
lives to wonder why we didn’t say something when we had the chance.
I’m not saying I alone have the answers to all these questions. There are so many
stakeholders, so many interests, the best answer will only come through interaction I hope to
start with people of this District. But I do know these conversations have to happen. If we don’t
start until we see the breakthroughs on the news, it’ll be too late.
We’ve been given a limited time offer to really choose in a way our nation hasn’t gotten
to choose in a long time. We’ve been given a chance to turn things around for pennies on the
dollar. I’m not saying the hot button issues aren’t important, because of course they are. But if
we get tunnel visioned on problems that haven’t resolved in fifty years, we’ll miss the new
opportunities in front of us. That’s why I’m running.