How Do YOU Choose a Political Candidate To Vote For?

Commentary by Roger Erickson

Con man ‘fine’ as trial begins.

People with such traits supposedly concentrate in management and politics - not to mention the invention called aristocracy.

Yet when we notice the correlation of undeniably impressive tactical talents with dismal group outcomes ... it's time to change methods?

Reviewing any example of that particular tactics/outcomes mismatch (aka, cons or frauds) proves, once again, that we can't always just compartmentalize process management metrics. The inter-dependencies can really bite if not attended to. Our job as an electorate and culture is to manage interdependencies sooner/better/leaner, so that they don't become badly broken  - and get belatedly renamed as cons, frauds, or massive Control Frauds.

The con man article might just as easily have read: "Politician 'fine' after finally being voted out of office."  Or, "Lobby group 'fine' after disastrous national policy finally repudiated."

Unfortunately, our economy & culture is NOT doing fine. Why is it taking so long for our electorate to see the many, existing policy and political mismatches? Why is it taking us so long to vote 'da bums out, and CHANGE POLITICAL METHODS, not just rotate the same old candidates?

We are ALWAYS, by definition, a day late and a paradigm short in managing emerging situtions. That's inevitable, since we have zero predictive power and only adaptive power. The simple point remains, however, that we don't have to be THIS late and THIS FAR behind. Our main task is to keep the gap between theory and operations smaller than it currently is. We need better methods, not just another set of untested presumptions!

Minimize the Policy_vs_Operations Gap, as a consequence of minimizing the Output Gap?

That statement actually recognizes and decries all forms of class, clan and corporate warfare, expressed as unequal weighting of civic feedback, lobbying and policy decision-making. Why not just let the data on general welfare of the people speak for itself?  We've trained a whole generation of students out of that most valuable of habits?

Why, and how, did that happen? Historic, evolutionary evidence suggests that if we simply manage the general welfare of the people, we could still reliably follow the subsequent quality of distributed decision-making as a guide for increasing our national Adaptive Rate.  Yet that can happen only IF we add methods for keeping the USA aware of what American's know. It's our indirect methods which will drive results, as always.

In mundane practice, that step requires faster/better/further distributed feedback, and more focus on outcomes vs ideology - a process practiced as flexible, Outcomes Based Training and Education. If we look for ways to scale OBT&E methods up to guiding Operations and Policy as well, we could have OBTEOP, which is a goal worth reaching for. That way we could regain policy agility, and be more likely to produce sane national policy again! If we're flexible about at least trying to reach that level of policy agility, and that size policy space, then additional and unpredictable options will surely be noticed along the way.

Less ideology, less theory, less economic theory in particular ... and more focus on letting our damn operations be flexible? Is that what we need most of all? Distributed outcomes will direct theory to follow emerging operations, if we just let the operations speak. To do that, we all need to listen sooner and more often, to a wider range of citizens and professions than we normally do, pronounce less, and adjust more.  

Just let 'easy' happen? Let the Zen of National Policy Preparation procede? Let's all take a national deep breath, relax, and let national operations flow. :)  Then we can all calmly focus on the little ounces of prevention, like subtly regulating sane vs insane operations, and nipping more Control Fraud in the bud.

Om. Ommmm. OMB? OMB-BS! OMG! ... SCE ... SPO* .. Ommmm?

Nirvana as a dynamic equilibrium process for staying near an unpredictable path?

* Sane Political Operations