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.