Thinking Outside of the Ought

Yeah, Paul Graham gets it. He doesn't restrict his thinking to the space of what things ought to be about -- he actually thinks about what's going on. Why does a particular candidate win an election? The political attitudes of the populus, the things that influence these attitudes, etc, of course. Well, at least that's what you'd expect it's about, that's what it ought to be about, but wrong tree argues Graham. The answer he suggests is very simple and easy to see if your view isn't blinkered.

Sure, people understand it's important (read the article to see what I'm referring to), but I think it's clear they don't appreciate just how important it is, how important it is relative to other issues -- after all look at some of the candidates the parties have chosen, as Graham points out, or the apparent lack of real effort to address charisma issues.

And let's put this into the right perspective: the US, the most powerful country in the world, lots at stake in presidential elections, huge resources put into the opposing sides. And: a simple notion that easy to see if you're view isn't blinkered, massively overlooked by all these people over many decades who've had huge stakes in these elections. Election results in the most powerful country in the world could've been different -- that's the size of those blinkers.