Running for Office

Ladies & Gentlemen,

Thank you for showing up, it means more to me than you can imagine.

My name is Ben Paine, and I am running for Congress.  Not as a Democrat or a Republican or a Green or a Libertarian, because all those choices cost money that I don’t have and that I won’t beg for.  I have called myself a "flaming liberal" but my political positions on issues are informed by common sense, not by anyone's liberal platform.  I mean to win your trust and your vote, perhaps not your agreement on your favorite issue.  So, if I impress you and you want me to represent you in Congress, you will have to write me in.  Ben Paine is an easy name to remember.

I am a Jew by blood and inclination but that will only bug antisemites.  And an American by birth and inclination and that should not bug anyone here.

I am 85 years old, and if that is a deal breaker for you, I understand.  But mentally I am as sharp as Bernie Sanders, who is actually a year younger than me, and I am way sharper than Joe Biden or Donald Trump.  Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina made it to 100 years before he retired, and I plan to do as well.

I am also a bit of a carpet bagger as I am not from these parts.  I am originally from the NYC area; but for the last 25 years I have lived in suburban New Orleans, suburban Santa Fe, suburban Washington DC, and last in Richmond, VA, the capital of the Old South.  If my not being a local is a deal breaker for you, I understand.  Nor will it be my intention to vote pork into legislation to benefit y’all.  Pork is federal money earmarked for a Congress person’s home district, hidden in another bill with hopes that no one will notice.  I will fight for federal funds for this district, but not as pork.

Why am I doing this?  Because, my friends, we are in deep deep trouble.  Who are we?  We Americans.

Some of us think that trans rights or regulations are a key political issue.  Some of us think that abortion is a key political issue.  Or prayers in public schools.  Or the economy.  Or inflation.  Yes, I have my “opinions” on all those questions, and more; but I am here to tell you that we have to get real, we have to stop being distracted by these REAL problems, because they are of little importance compared to the three that I will talk about right now.

One, Global Warming aka Climate Change.  Two, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.  And three, democracy.

Global Warming WILL make planet Earth uninhabitable, but not in your lifetime.  The longer we delay in reversing or mitigating warming, the more difficult it will be to halt it.  In the meantime, the price of gas goes up, not because of the war in Iran, but because petrol is fossil fuel, a finite resource; the more we extract the less remains to be extracted.  In the 20th century, 2 – 5 million people died from heat events; so far, in the 21st century, 10 – 13 million people have died from heat events, four times as many in ¼ of the time.  Do you think that will reverse itself, any time soon, by itself?

AI may cure cancer heart disease and Alzheimer’s, but who will be able to afford the cure?  As AI gets smarter, how many jobs will it take from us?  For many of us, our jobs are our purpose in life; how many of us will thrive in a world of 24 hour days of leisure without purpose?  In the end, when robots become 100x as smart as us, they won’t need us anymore.  Ironically, as long as AI needs an ever-growing number of data centers with their unquenchable thirst for electricity, we have nothing to fear, unless we build these data centers, and absorb the cost of our electricity doubling every year.

Ah, democracy, that ephemeral word.  Self-rule, the people rule.  Who believes that Donald Trump or Elon Musk will solve these existential problems?  For Musk, Mars is Plan B.  But it would be one million times more difficult for 1000 humans and their generations to survive on Mars for 100 years than fixing our problems here on planet Earth.  Who else but the people, even if only 1% of us, really care about this distant future?  Cares about Warming and AI?  If a real democracy can’t solve these existential issues, we will deserve what we get: species extinction.  For those of you who do not care about this distant future, do not care about popular self-rule, I feel for you, life is hard.  But please get out of the way of the few who do care, who will act, for “Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're our only hope.”

 

Note that all three of these concerns are long-term concerns.  And are therefore not at the forefront of anybody’s concerns.  When we are worried about food and shelter, and paying for gas and our kids’ college, and saving for our eventual retirement, and when all these things have gotten more difficult over the years, none of us has the time to worry about Global Warming or AI, or even democracy.  I get it!  I do!  Indeed, it is the failure of our current system that we are in such trouble dealing with present day problems.