Make Your Vote Count

To trash your vote, don’t vote at all. Even worse, vote Democrat or Republican.

The common cliché heard during election years is that you “throw your vote away” when you vote for a third party. Just where exactly does this idea originate from?

Not from logic. Logic dictates that those in power want to consolidate that power. What this implies is that we may have the same situation today in the United States. Under the idea of a “2-party system”, what we may really have is a one-party-system that has stage actors playing the parts of players in 2 opposing parties. Perhaps both parties answer to the same elite masters. If that is true, there very may be no democracy, not even representative democracy. If that is true, what we may actually have is a fascist state ruled by one party.

If the above thesis is true, then the true throwaway vote is the vote for a Republican or a Democrat candidate for President. Why? Because they come from the same system, are financed by, take orders from, and answer to, the same system. Any apparent “differences” between the candidates is acting, created for people to see ….and believe. A two-party system gives everyone a team and nicely divides them.

Both parties try to sell the public on the idea that there are many points of difference between the two (2) candidates.

Most people know in their gut that this just can’t be true.

Any vote for a Republican or Democrat candidate for President may be a wasted vote. Why? Because there is no real difference between the choices. The system we have is not a Democracy, but a Hypocracy.

You are voting for one system, one party, one power, regardless of who you cast your vote for. If this is true, your vote is wasted because there is no real choice to be made. You are simply a believer that Democrat candidates are somehow different from Republican candidates. You are voting based on a set of beliefs that are true for you, but may not be true in fact. If the candidates are in fact financed by and answering to the same corporations, banks and other institutions, there is no actual choice.

You are therefore throwing your vote away.

Not voting at all throws your vote away by ceding more leverage to the “approved” candidates from one of two possible parties. The only way to avoid throwing your vote away is to vote, and to vote for a non-Republican and a non-Democrat. This intentional act makes the most of your vote by making a statement with it. That statement is a rejection of the so-called “two-party” system and a validation of more plurality, more diversity, and more true democracy in contemporary American life

The Open Source President will never be a Democrat or a Republican for the above mentioned reasons. The “OSP” will belong to the citizens of the United States, a member and elected leader of the “set of all Americans”. The OSP will constantly improve and be engaged in a continuous loop of feedback with the American people. The OSP will read every email, memorize US history, and reconcile the current will of the people with a deep understanding the past. The result will be a better United States and a better world. In a world that is increasingly based on peer-to-peer relationships and structures, the OSP will gain tremendous power to change the world positively. The emergence of a viable campaign by the OSP for President will encourage others to do the same. The result will be plurality of choice and an example that can only advance democracy positively throughout the world. We urge your intentional commitment to join us in this open source project.

Ask The Candidate Released

Admin | 03 May, 2004 15:16

Today we finally release "Ask The Candidate." Want to know where the Open Source President stands on your favorite issues? Ask a political question, get a political answer.

The Foreign Policy Module

Admin | 16 April, 2004 11:18

The Open Source President™ Foreign Policy Module (FPM) is the critical piece of the overall Open Source President skills profile. Any failure at effectiveness in this area is a failure for the entire world, free or otherwise. One only has to look to history to see the critical impact of USA foreign policy. Members of this programming team have the potential to change world history.

Currently the Open Source President project is looking for a strong, knowledgeable individual to lead this subset of the project. The key qualification is a deep understanding of no-limit Texas Hold’Em poker. No political knowledge is required.

It has been said that a President who cannot play poker well is not qualified to be President. In no aspect of the job is this truer than in the area of foreign policy.

Dealing with ever-changing heads of state, worldwide, on economic and military issues is a high-pressure, high-stakes, high-risk endeavor. For this reason, the Open Source President will be the world’s most expert poker player. The link between great Presidential leadership and great poker skills is a well-documented, historical fact.

(Almost every great President was a great poker player. Learn more about the link between a great President and great poker skills here. To understand the poker-like decisions foreign policy leaders musy make, see Gambling Theory and Other Topics, by David Sklansky, pages 266-277)

No-Limit Texas Hold Em

The poker game No-Limit Texas Hold Em is a very difficult multi-player game. The strategies in this game are broadly applicable to foreign policy decision-making. For this reason, the Open Source President is being constructed from the beginning to be the best No Limit Texas Hold’Em Player in the world.

The generalized poker kernel (GPK) powers the foreign policy module (FPM). The kernel incorporates game theory and complex algorithms than manage bluffing, semi-bluffing, reverse implied odds and other keys to no-limit decision making.

Foreign policy problems are multi-player, zero-sum game situations that offer only partial or incomplete information about each opponent. No limit Texas Hold’Em poker is exactly this kind of game. As of May 2004, the Open Source President™ is already well on it’s way to being the best No Limit Texas Hold’em Player in the world. This is because we have actively recruited the programmers of the Poki project to participate in the poker kernel that powers the FPM of the OSP.

Poki is a generalized poker decision making engine developed by great programmers at the University of Alberta, Canada. We are actively recruiting the likes of:

Darse Billings, (darse@cs.ualberta.ca, Ph.D. Student),

Aaron Davidson, (davidson@cs.ualberta.ca, M.Sc. Graduate.),

Terence Schauenberg, (terence@cs.ualberta.ca, M.Sc. Student),

Neil Burch, (burch@cs.ualberta.ca, Programmer Analyst),

and Robert Holte, (holte@cs.ualberta.ca, Professor).

These are great, world-class programmers. We are in fact actively recruiting the entire incredible Poki team including Jonathan Schaeffer, Duane Szafron, and others to join this open source project.

If we can catch even just two of these great programmers with Poki experience to join our project, the team will be incredible. The challenge of programming a “no-limit” poker engine are very attractive to the best and brightest heuristic / AI programmers. This difficult, world-class computing problem is already attracting the best programmers in the world.

In addition to recruiting members of the Poki team, we also seek the involvement of Bob Wilson of Wilson software. Wilson is best known for Turbo Texas Hold’em, arguably the best no-limit Texas Hold’Em computer program in the world today.

By enabling the Open Source President as an expert no-limit poker player, we believe this approach will serve the United States and in fact the entire world. By enabling our President to be utterly rational and mathematically precise in the dynamic, ongoing assessment of multi-way foreign policy options, world peace can become a real possibility.

A President utterly focused on correct play will never harm the world with a bad foreign policy decision. The Open Source President™ will draw deeply from game theory, heuristics and complex theoretical math when making each foreign policy decision. OSP will also draw from relational databases that log every multi-way foreign policy “player decision” of every head of state in the world.

Drawing from resources across the community of world poker champions, we are building the finest foreign policy module the world has ever seen. We are actively seeking the advice of world champions like Robert Varkonyi, Chris Ferguson, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. We are seeking the counsel of theorist and celebrated poker strategy author David Sklansky. The Open Source President™ will never make a bad foreign policy decision and will be the best “no-limit” foreign policy decision maker the world has ever seen.

Research has proven conclusively that successful foreign policy is not a matter of encyclopedic knowledge of history, or even of getting good advice. Rather, foreign policy is a matter of judgement, of implied or reverse implied odds, economic power ratios, relative power analysis and proper estimations of opportunity cost and size. These are exactly the issues that world-class poker players face on a daily basis. These factors are also direct inputs into every correct—and INCORRECT-- foreign policy decision.

Poker is a game of tension, correct judgement, and proper execution. For this reason, the Open Source President is being programmed to play no-limit Texas Hold’Em as dynamically as the world’s very best players. The logic in the No Limit Texas Hold’em “kernel” of the Open Source President Foreign Policy module is being generalized to solve any multi-player, zero-sum game offering incomplete information about opponents.

With the best multi-way, zero-sum-game decision-making engine ever created, the Open Source President™ will never lead us to a losing foreign policy decision. It will always make “plays” based on a positive “Expected Value”. These decisions will be made without regard to human emotion.

This approach to foreign policy decision making will make the entire world a better place by

Reducing the occurrence of war;
Increasing the value of America’s resources by leveraging them in every foreign policy decision’
Leveraging the best mathematic theories to solve practical world problems, and
Minimizing the influence of world leaders who “play incorrectly” in the foreign policy arena

Summary

The OSP FPM is an exiting project that will benefit everyone in the world by making USA foreign policy decisions utterly rational and mathematically correct at all times. We invite you to join us.

First Project in development

Admin | 16 April, 2004 08:42

We've started work on the first piece of software for this project. "Ask The President" will allow you to ask the OSP candidate a policy question. The software will then analyze the question, look in it's vast database and answer with an appropriate answer.

Open Source President Begins it's new life

Admin | 10 April, 2004 08:25

Today, the open source president begins it's life on the web.