Quicktake: 2024 Vice Presidential Debate

 The only vice presidential debate of the 2024 election was held last tonight. It featured Republican nominee J.D. Vance and Democratic nominee Tim Walz. This debate was a more civilized affair with references and mentions of technology by both candidates. The styles of the two candidates were very different which made for a more stilted debate. Vance came across as a polished debater, and Walz showed that he doesn't come from a profession that emphasizes debating and arguments. This doesn't mean that Walz had a weak debate performance; it was a difference in style.

The main source of references and/or discussion on technology was climate change. It was interesting that Vance was willing to plausible that carbon dioxide emissions cause climate change. As far as I know this is the closest a modern Republican vice-presidential candidate has come to admitting climate change exists. Vance then argues that the best plan would be to re-shore jobs to the US, which has the cleanest economy. Since Vance's running mate has been openly in denial of climate change this is quite a change. Unfortunately, Vance does a pivot towards the fact that jobs were off-shored, in particular to China. It is hard to fathom that a Presidential campaign doesn't have a policy for dealing with something that an overwhelming amount of scientists believe is occurring.

Tim Walz responded to Vance's plan by pointing out that the Biden-Harris administration has already on  200,000 jobs from passing the Inflation Reduction Act. He then continued by discussing the Harris plan of continuing oil and gas exploration while transitioning to a green future of solar panels and wind turbines. He mentioned that in Minnesota has the largest solar manufacturer in the US. Electric vehicle batteries are being manufactured in Jeffersonville, Ohio. Walz scored a victory by clearly separating the reality of U.S. manufacturing coming back to America versus the supposed Vance-Trump plan. I was excited as this debate topic was early in the evening, and I had hopes we would hear more about policies in regards to different technologies further in the debate. This would be the last substantial discussion regarding technology in the debate. 

Towards the end of the debate as the candidates were discussing January 6th 2021 and whether the candidates would respect the outcome of the election the issue of social media censorship was brought up by Vance. Vance was using this topic, which should have been debated, rather disingenuously to create a he said she said opportunity to lay blame equally on Democrats and thus avoid the blame that Republicans right fully deserve for actions that are no less than despicable. Vance laid out the claim that Hillary Clinton was complaining about Russian interference for Republicans in 2016 preceded, and tried to claim that it was exactly the same as the actions taken by Trump on January 6th to incite a mob to violently attack the Capitol building. He tried to lay the equivalency by using sharp rhetorical language, and with the debate moderators not attempting to fact check the candidates he could land the false equivalency. The issue of foreign interference using social media platforms deserves the voters knowing what the policy solutions each side is proposing. It doesn't deserve to be used as a shield for an a very important topic that one candidate desperately is looking to avoid being exposed for their inability to answer the question.                                                                          

Quicktake: 2024 September Presidential Debate

 Tonight was the only scheduled debate this fall for the Presidential Campaign. It featured the Republican candidate former President Donald Trump and current Vice-President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. This was billed as an opportunity to hear the two candidates discuss the issues affecting the American people. It was supposed to be the royal rumble of a presidential election that has drastically changed in the last two months with Joe Biden's withdrawal and replacement with Kamala Harris, and the addition of Vice-Presidential nominees. As this blog focuses on technology and politics the review will stay on this focus.

There was very little mentioned about technology in the debate tonight. This is not unusual for Donald Trump who as far as I know never discusses technology on his campaign stump speech. Kamala Harris started answering a question on the economy by discussing how she wants to create an opportunity economy and provide $50K for startups. Startups include restaurants, cafes, bakeries, other stores, and technology companies. The large tax break she is proposing could lead to the development of new products, hardware and software apps, that will lead to more people being hired. The tax break amount will not cover the development of many breakthrough technologies that require millions of dollars for several years to achieve the breakthrough to get to commercializing. The $50K tax break should be looked at as a down payment that will allow some startups to continue until they find additional funding.

Kamala Harris was the only candidate who actually mentioned technology. She did so by mentioning that she was focused on winning the technology war, really more of a competition, with China. She mentioned the efforts to stop selling AI chips and other technology that China was using to develop advanced weapons systems. She accused him of allowing the vending of the technology and not protecting America. AI chips, really GPU processor chips used to run algorithms that are trained with large language models, are critical to building these advanced technology systems. In a turn of fate the NVIDIA which is the main manufacturer of such chips is a US based company. This is why the Biden administration has implemented multiple export controls and bans to impact China's abilities to use this new cutting edge technology. 

Donald Trump on the other hand could only muster a comment that we don't make chips in America. The vast majority of chip manufacturing is performed in Taiwan which has built specialization in this manufacturing process. It should be noted that over the last few decades new semiconductor plants have been built and are running in the United States in cities like Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Malta and Fishkill New York to name a few. The Biden-Harris administration also passed the CHIPS Act specifically to re-invigorate and build up chip manufacturing capability in the United States. They viewed the issue as one of national security. In response to the above mentioned law Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into building a fab, manufacturing plant, in Arizona. Additionally in Ohio Intel, a major and early chip maker, is investing billions of dollars in a semiconductor fab.

Donald managed to mention several things about abortion that should be addressed. He stated that Democrats supported abortion up to the 9th month, which is the point at which women typically give birth. The Democratic party position is about restoring the protections of Roe, the Roe v. Wade legalization of abortion. The ruling of Roe legalized abortion up to the point of viability which in 1977 was deemed to be 24 weeks. He also stated that the Democrats wanted to perform abortion after birth. An abortion is an action performed on a fetus and thus cannot be performed on already birthed baby. Trump additionally stated that there was support among Democrats for execution of the child after birth. Anybody committing such an act would be guilty of murder, and as far as I know there are extremely few such cases that occur and therefore prosecuted. All these misstatements at best or more likely lies that were spouted without any remorse or caution should ask any voter whether Donald Trump is disconnected from the real world.

We deserve a debate on new technology and what role the government should have in regulating and/or supporting it by candidates who have a deep understanding of the technology. I don't mean that the candidates should be technical experts who can create the algorithm or hardware, but at least be able to accurately understand the broad concept. Unfortunately, there was only one candidate who seemed to have any mastery of policy topics other than immigration on the stage tonight. We cannot have a substantive debate on these topics until the candidates on both sides take care to craft policies with actual substance and have a decent understanding about existing and emerging technology.

Quicktake: 2023 State of the Union

 It is the time of the year when the President of the United States takes a short trip down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington to give the State of the Union speech. This speech which may seem like a grand update to Congress really more is more of a list of accomplishments and a policy speech outlining the President's priorities for legislation. Now is a good time to review the technology affecting policies that the President has proposed.

President mentioned the CHIPS Act which was passed last year early in his speech as a major accomplishment of the first half of his presidency. He touted the 3000 high paying jobs that will be created in Ohio by Intel investing in a new chip plant. The law is intended to shore up American manufacturing of semiconductor chips by spending significant sums of money in subsidies and other investments. President Biden may have emphasized the quality jobs from the new chip fab that Intel is building for blue collar workers, but the investments in technology development will allow for the next generation of technologies similar to the cell phone and computer. The CHIPS Act is not only a law intended to invest in minimizing the supply chain disruptions and good paying jobs, but also is going to support an important and often overlooked part of America's national security.

The climate crisis was also brought up in the State of the Union. President Biden declared that America is stepping up to the table for the first time in a while. The Biden administration has reversed Trump's decision to leave the Paris Climate agreement. The mention in the speech was a rallying cry for continuing to implement policies that would avoid the worst of climate change. The reality is that the first two years of the Biden administration there have some minor policy changes that will have an impact on climate change. The major legislation that would have greater impacts was stymied. The risk of losing out in the green technology revolution could be significant to the American economy.

The last major topic that President Biden brought up was the Cancer moonshot. This issue is particularly close to him as he was asked by President Obama to lead this effort from it's inception and his family has been deeply affected by cancer. The investment in cancer research by the government has the ability to lead to breakthroughs that will lead to new biotechnology companies. Every American can remember that nearly three years ago there was a mysterious new virus causing an epidemic that would become a pandemic. It is important to remember that a vaccine was able to be created in record time due to mRNA technology. mRNA was only available due to the government research funding that supported this potential new technology. The cancer moonshot poses an opportunity to improve cancer treatments and healthcare in general.

2022 State of Union

 The State of the Union is traditionally an opportunity for the President to gloat about the accomplishments of the past year, announce their legislative priorities, and of course announce that the state of the Union is good. The President is required to provide an update to Congress on the State of the Union per the constitution. It is important to remember that in our government framework the President only has to power to approve or reject, veto, legislation that has been approved by both the House of Representatives and Senate. This is a good time to consider the implications to technology that the President's proposed legislative agenda will have.

This year's State of the Union was organized three months after a momentous first year of legislating by a Democratic Senate, House of Representatives, and President Joe Biden. The President started his speech with an extended discussion on the Russian invasion of Ukraine which at the time was a new and pressing issue in America's political discourse. He also mentioned all the legislation in regards to fighting the Coronavirus pandemic.

Beyond the emergency aid provided at the beginning of his administration and the overall success of the vaccination effort, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill was the most consequential legislation that will have an impact on technology. President Biden declared that 1000s of bridges and highways will be repaired or replaced. He declared that the U.S. had started an infrastructure decade. The investments that are going to be made by the bipartisan infrastructure bill will be very important as most of the public infrastructure in the United States has been chronically underfunded with maintenance, repair, and replacement of infrastructure being delayed due to lack of budget.

President Biden then changed from the accomplishments of his administration to his priorities for the year. Immediately he discusses the importance of competing in the area of emerging technologies. To do this he encouraged Congress to pass the Bipartisan Innovation Act. He stated that the government used to spend 2% on research and development spending. He stated that Intel is investing $20 Billion in a chip fab 20 miles from Columbus Ohio. Additionally Ford's $11 Billion investment in electric vehicles that is creating 11,000 jobs.

The next major topic impacting technology that Biden discussed was efforts to counteract climate change. He didn't directly state this as the topic, but instead took a more tactful item by item declaration of interest in certain policies. He discussed increasing solar and wind power incentives. He brought up winterizing homes. This issue was framed as a way to reduce heating costs on working families. In the northeast many people heat their homes using heating oil which is expensive, but also a very high carbon emitting fuel. Winterizing homes to reduce heat losses will result in reducing the home heating bills of many Americans, but it also attacks climate change from a reduction of consumption point of view. It should also be pointed out that this policy if enacted would provide jobs to working class Americans in some of the construction trades. President Biden also proposed incentives for electric vehicle purchases. Electric vehicles provide an opportunity to separate the biggest transportation method from fossil fuel consumption. This policy will be important since currently the cost of electric vehicles is approaching the cost of regular gas and diesel powered cars. The incentives will help support the efforts by the main car producers to convert their vehicles to electric fleets. The net results of the proposed policies is to reduce America's consumption of fossil fuels that are the main source of human greenhouse gas emissions.

I intentionally skipped discussing the COVID-19 earlier as the reference at the beginning was to the fact that Congress could not meet last year for a State of the Union speech due to the high level of community spread last year. In this section of the speech he went about discussing the preparatory steps the government was taking to be prepared for an upswing in infections. He cited mask, anti-viral pills, and test stockpiling. The government taking a proactive role in stockpiling supplies in anticipation of a potential rise in the rates of infection is possibly the best practice that can come from the last two years of pandemic response. He also stated that the vaccine manufacturers can provide a new vaccine formulation that can protect against new variants in 100 days. The ability to generate a vaccine, an mRNA one, in such a quick time sounds fantastic. In many ways it is, but within the 100 days the utility of a vaccine against a new variant may be moot since one of the key factors for needing a new formulation is a variant with increased transmissibility. The vaccines built with omicron variant were due out this month. Unfortunately the rate of infection has already dropped significantly since the variant had already passed peak infection. This ability to get a vaccine for a new variant out to the population so quickly would be great if there is a significant increase in mortality from the new variant.

President Biden also proposed investing in new border technology to find drugs and human smuggling. This makes lots of sense since even though we have been in a pandemic which has reduced the amount of cross border traffic. The major border crossings of Tijuana-San Diego, Juarez-El Paso, and Nogales have significant volumes of traffic both individuals and commercial vehicles. The Tijuana-San Diego border crossing is the busiest in the Western Hemisphere and the 4th busiest in the World. As is quite obvious the large volumes of traffic make it impossible to stop, investigate, and inspect every car and not create a significant impact on the economy. Human smuggling and drug trafficking do impact society and the governments spending. My initial thoughts on the technology that Biden was referencing is continued non-destructive imaging technologies to perform inspections of vehicles without completely disassembly. This technology is very valuable for all the commercial traffic that crosses the border, both truck and rail car. The impact of additional imaging technology at official border crossings will be additional seizures of illegal immigrants and narcotics. The narcotics traffickers will always look for new routes and methods for moving their illegal products into the US. They could move to use more cross-border tunnels or use of small aircraft if those prove successful. The bigger impact from additional border crossing imaging technology will be human smuggling. More human smugglers will move to funnel illegal immigrants thru the wild dangerous paths across the desert southwest to the US border. This will inevitably result in more deaths of illegal immigrants. This may be a good topic for an individual blog post in the future.

The very last topic impacting technology that President Biden brought up is the need to regulate social media companies. Frances Haugen a former Facebook employee testified in Congress last year as a whistle blower about the dangers of social media platforms. Biden extolled on the risks of the natural experiment on children that the social media companies are performing. His proposed solutions are to ban advertising to kids and to stop collecting data on kids. Any discussion of regulating social media companies brings along with it the efforts to eliminate section 230 protections on these companies. Some politicians want to get rid of this protection as part of a vendetta against social media companies and their liberal bias. Another set of politicians want to remove this protection to fight child pornography and other material they deem obscene. I intend to create a post that discusses this topic in more depth in the near future. The end result of Biden's proposed regulations will be either the elimination of services to people under 18 and the repercussions to the remaining users who have been used to free services. I think that any initiative to regulate social media companies will avoid lobbying from these big businesses.

The Blog is back

 The title of this post kind of summarizes it all. For the last four years, the last administration, this blog was in hibernation. This was due to the lack of debate and public discussion about issues with technology. The debate was entirely consumed by xenophobic, racist, and nasty policy decisions. Technology didn't stop being developed and impacting our lives. This blog did review debates as part of the last election. In the last four years we have seen the growth of disinformation campaigns that flourished on Facebook and other social media. This was and continues to be fueled by the algorithms that the social media platforms use. Net neutrality rules implemented during the Obama administration were repealed. Other regulations were repealed that have impacts on multiple sectors of the economy.

This blog could have discussed the implications of policy decisions related to the COVID pandemic. Any discussion or debate that could have been furthered by this platform could have only perpetuated the failures of many to follow the guidance of public health officials. Also most of the discussion would have focused on the crazy idea snake oil solutions being spouted from Donald Trump's press conferences and tweets,. This blog is interested in serious discussions of technology and public policy in regards to technology. The current administration is a breath of fresh air compared to the last four years. There is a real interest in making policy and implementing laws from this administration. There is a real depth to the ideas that are being proposed and executed in the laws that are being proposed and passed by congress. This can be seen in the proposed infrastructure bill, which multiple times the previous administration discussed without any policy proposal being released or implemented. In the next few weeks the reader should expected several new blog posts discussing among other things infrastructure, COVID, and any other topics from policy being proposed or implemented by this administration.

2020 Democratic Primary Debate 2 Part 2

In the first primary debate the second night had more discussion of technology than the first night. The same could be expected of tonight's debate. Unfortunately there was even less discussion of technology than last night's candidate slate. Nonetheless this blog will look at what was brought up in the debate.
The topic of climate change brought about the most discussion of technology in tonight's debate. Joe Biden proposed five hundred thousand charging stations would be built in his administration. The development of charging stations is meant to incentivize the changeover to electric vehicles. The problem with this proposal is that it is not the purview of the federal government to install charging stations. Even a proposal that would be within the powers of the federal government would need to be approved upon by a climate change denying Republican arm of congress. He would double the amount of offshore wind. Offshore wind consists of turbines that are built with posts that are set into the seabed. Power cables connect them to the grid back on solid ground.Offshore wind takes advantage of the reduced friction of the sea to get a very consistent quality wind to power the turbines. These wind turbines are typically built far enough offshore that even with diameters approaching 400 feet they are not visible from the coastline. Currently the only offshore wind in the United States is off Cape Cod. There has been interest and initial development of plans to build turbines off Long Island. Most of the regulatory hurdles that are associated with wind turbines are state and local laws. At the state level approval for these turbines typically is associated with regulations and laws controlling the power generation development. States with deregulated power markets may be easier since the power generation and distribution are separate businesses. Most of the opposition comes from people complaining about the view on their property being damaged by the wind turbines. The most likely action that Biden could take to accelerate the development of offshore wind would be to use existing federal laws to override state and local laws. This risks angering residents and there could be real backlash at the ballot box.
He also stated that his climate change plan would produce 10 million jobs. As stated in the last blog post the estimation of job creation is somewhat suspect as automation may end up doing the lion share of the work. In addition very little additional information was provided as to how the jobs will be created.
Kristen Gillibrand proposed putting a price on carbon. Pricing carbon is a very broad statement. Carbon pricing is considered a mechanism for forcing capitalist systems to move away from fossil fuel use. The risks with setting the price of carbon is setting an adequate price. If the price is too high then the economy could suffer from severe shock. This could result in citizens revolting against the governments policies. If the price of carbon is set too low then carbon emissions will not be reduced to the level that is intended. An even bigger problem with carbon pricing is that opponents of climate change will make it exceedingly difficult for the rate to increase to achieve greater reductions. In the current political climate passing a carbon pricing bill will be exceedingly difficult. Mechanisms that would allow for the price to increase would be opposed and firm price would be set and impossible to increase.
She also proposed that we get into a green energy race. We, the U.S., would compete with China and other countries to produce green technologies. The innovation spurred on by this race would achieve the necessary carbon net zero by 2050. The reality is that we are currently in a green energy race. China is currently the leader in solar panel development, electric car manufacturing, and many other green technologies. China's five year plan includes significant investment in developing technologies of the future. This includes electrification of cars, solar panels, and other green technologies. In reality the United States is behind in the green technology race. Gillibrand didn't propose any policy prescriptions for winning or even competing in the green energy race in her answer.
The other big technology point that was referenced during the debate was automation. Andrew Yang mentioned it several times in answers on a multitude of topics. This probably worked really well for a debate held in Detroit. Detroit was and is built primarily on the automotive industry that has suffered from plenty of job losses over the last 30 plus years. Andrew Yang in many ways made automation the bogey-man. He does have his freedom dividend proposal to counter the growth of automation in our economy.

2020 Democratic Primary Debate 2 Part 1

The current democratic primary debates are very interesting because of the 10 candidates on stage per night results in very limited amount of time for each candidate to speak. That being said it is important for this blog to report on technology topics that are brought up in these debates.
The only topic where technology was mentioned was about climate change. Climate change was delved into in blog posts about the first primary debate. It is important to note that there was barely a mention of the debate about the existence of climate change as man made, the scientific consensus is nearing absolute on humans impact. John Delaney was asked to explain why he didn't agree with the green new deal. He cited linking so many other issues into a policy that should work to achieve green house gas emissions reductions.
His proposal is to tax carbon, really carbon dioxide emissions, and return the revenue as a dividend. Taxing carbon is an approach that has been proposed multiple times over the years. Carbon taxation is essentially a production based tax on emissions. This may seem rather simple implement and it is at a fundamental level. The issues with carbon taxes arise when trying to calculate what the tax should be. Setting a tax level that would realistically match the impact from CO2 emmissions might kill the economy and cause a backlash from citizens who are sufferring under this policy. If the tax rate is set too low then it will have a negligible impact on our emissions and fail as a policy prescription to resolve climate change. This balancing act is only further going to get muddled by the fact that in order to pass a law other politicians, some who don't believe in climate change, will have an opportunity to impact Delaney's proposal.
Additionallt he wants to increase the research funding in the Department of Energy on alternative energy five fold from current levels. The idea behind this part of Delaney's plan is to spur innovation to provide solutions to climate change. The move to a net carbon zero economy will require innovation by private industry to achieve this goal. A significant increase in funding for research and development money towards new technologies is nice, but the proposed amount of increase may be dwarfed by the scale of the problem. Department of Energy research and development funding is not a large sum such that Delaney's proposed five fold increase will not even come close to current Defense department research funding.
He directly endorsed direct air capture technology. Direct air capture technology is a system that seperates carbon dioxide from the air. Delaney is the first candidate to mention and/or endorse the use of this technology. The technologies end goal would be to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground in a carbon capture storage system. This is a system that is currently under development and has been proven at least at a prototype level. There are still questions as to whether it can be an important player in solving climate change. The current scientific knowledge about climate change is that to achieve a one degree celsius global average temperature increase we need carbon dioxide levels to be at 350 parts per billion. The latest readings are at or over 400 parts per billion. Fundamentally this means that not only do we need to achieve a net zero emissions, but we would need to actually reduce the atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. Direct air capture technology could provide a way to do this. The other key potential benefit of direct air capture technology is that it can counter some of the excess emissions in the transition from our current fossil fuel dependent economy to a green economy, operating on net zero emissions. The transition, or scale up of new technologies, will not be instantaneous and may suffer from friction that will delay expected reductions in our emissions.
Delaney is also interested in a climate corps. Unfortunately due to the time limits in the debate this came across as a sound bite and not a solid policy. It would be nice to get a more concrete information in regards to what this corps would do and how this would tackle climate change.
Elizabeth Warren discussed her two trillion dollar green manufacturing plan. She wants to invest in manufacturing the green technologies of the future in America. This policy proposal is in many ways tailored to the midwest industrial manufacturing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The current state of green manufacturing is that China is the leader in the development of electric cars, solar panels, and other technology which will be the backbone of the zero carbon economy. Warren's plan is ambitious in that she wants to use a significant government investment to spark manufacturing in America of these technologies. The risks are that any attempt to compete with China and other possible Asian countries may turn out to be un-profitable. Solyndra was an infamous attempt by the Obama administration to invest in green manufacturing, and the company would file for bankruptcy within 24 months of receiving a multi-million dollar loan. Solyndra's failure as a business was due to China's significant investment in solar panel production. They flooded the market and drove down the price to a point that Solyndra couldn't make a profit. This risks does exist in Warren's two trillion dollar plan. In addition she has stated that this investment will generate approximately one million jobs. In order for some companies to remain competitive they may decide to use automation and not hire nearly as many employees as expected.
John Hickenlooper stated that we have to work together with other countries to avert the worse of climate change. This is true, but currently the U.S. is the only country that is planning on leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. He did in the previous debate state that he would return the U.S. to the Paris climate agreement. Unfortunately this is was also the extent of his remarks. This leaves many Americans who are interested in knowing concrete plans for dealing with climate change disappointed.
Tim Ryan reiterated his desire to dominate electric vehicle production in support of aspects of Elizabeth Warren's plan. He proposed to have a chief manufacturing officer who would help reinvigorate American manufacturing. The  chief manufacturing officer position as it was briefly described would help manufacturers grow and partner them with government programs. This is an interesting concept that hopefully Tim Ryan will be able to elucidate for the electorate to make a decision on this proposal. His last proposal to fight climate change was to promote regenerative agriculture whereby carbon is stored in the soil thru practices including cover crops and soil management. This may have been among the strongest moments of the debate for Tim Ryan. He showed a good command of his proposals and didn't repeat what had been stated multiple times by other candidates before him. He managed to link climate change, which has the strongest support in most urban areas, between the urban and industrial cities to the rural agrarian economy.
Steve Bullock was the only candidate to mention the Republican denial of climate change. His stated remedy for this was to fight corruption. It is correct that the oil and gas industry spend significant sums lobbying in congress and also provide large donations to candidates thru political action committees. Unfortunately we didn't hear a plan that touched on how to reduced greenhouse gas emissions from our economy, which according to climate scientists is vital to avoiding the worst effects of climate change. Bullock did manage to point to the correlation between an expanded fire season and climate change. He also managed to make a great point about the workers who have spent their entire working life powering America who would stand to lose their jobs. Bullock is the governor of Montana, a state with significant coal mining operations, and it would be expected for him to have a plan to fight climate change that included how to deal with coal miners, coal plant operators, and other fossil fuel workers who could be displaced.