I am about 80 pages into a fascinating, thought-provoking book, Plato at the Googleplex <view>
One of the 1st fascinating nuggets from the fictional Plato dropping in on our world could easily occupy us for the foreseeable future:
“If we don’t understand our tools, then there is a danger that we will become the tool of our tools.”
What could we endeavor to understand about the “tools” we use for elections:
- How are our votes counted after we scan them at the polling place?
- How are absentee votes counted? How do they get from our envelopes to the place that they are counted?
- How are all those votes accumulated in a municipality and statewide to determine the election results?
- How accurate are those counts and accumulations? How do we know? Do we know how many of those votes are counted and counted accurately?
- How accurate or inaccurate is the list of registered voters?
- How accurate are the lists of voters checked-in as voting in each election?
Some other questions:
- How safe is the Internet for banking, email, and voting?
- How safe are foods, drugs, GMOs, fracking, the electric grid, and Connecticut’s nuclear power plants?
- When and how can we trust Government and the Media?
- How do we already trust Government, the Media, and our election system?
Like Plato, we will leave you to contemplate his statement and our questions. Is that a worthwhile exercise?
