I am voting for Obama; and something completely different

I am disappointed that both Obama and McCain supported the bailout bill. But at least Obama is wholeheartedly supporting a stimulus package, which might make up somewhat for the stupid unfair bailouts. I figure the reason the economy didn't fall apart this summer largely had to do with the tax rebate checks, small though they were. And I have the impression that Obama has more of an upside than McCain. Obama, being young, is probably less set in his errors and more in a good way to learn.

I noticed as the campaign unfolded that Obama demonstrated the capacity to adapt. He didn't seem conceited in his speech before the Democratic Convention, as he earlier had seemed to me. It's as though he has the ability to understand and recognize his own irrational traits and work on correcting them, not an easy thing to do.

I am not entirely gloomy about the economic situation. True, few of our leaders have a clue about economics, but with time reality will knock some sense into them and perhaps encourage them to read economics textbooks, etc., and to think rationally about how to make things better. And with time, we voters can learn better which leaders are corrupted by financial interests. I plan to vote Republican for Senate and House, since my representative and my senator up for re-election this year each voted against the bailout bill, which is more than one can say for most Democratic senators and representatives.

There is a hint of an interesting idea in McCain's whole deification of Joe the Plumber. One could argue that there is something admirable in one who believes in choosing a path that will give him great gains should he succeed (at the expense of abysmal failure should he not succeed). Again, behaving so that one's success or failure more depends on one's innate abilities is something that encourages evolution, which people don't really care unselfishly about enough, since having highly evolved descendants mainly is of benefit to the mates of descendants, inasmuch as most of the genetic material in the descendants of some person is not from that person. People are especially selfishly indifferent when it comes to caring about (long-term) benefits to distant descendants. But just because it is admirable for Joe the Plumber to be this way, doesn't mean it is admirable for society thus to try to rev up natural selection by allowing excess income and wealth differences. E.g., maybe too much natural selection could interfere with sexual selection (which alone is mostly responsible for evolution of moral traits), maybe wealth doesn't correspond well to worth, and maybe evolution can go too fast (and thus too narrowly). I don't feel like it's something I have fresh clear insights into, though, especially the last part, so it is something I don't want to discuss until I do. Which is too bad, in a way, because vaguely I feel one of the main reasons some people are hesitant to take me seriously is they are scared by my attempts to connect evolution with morality. It's asinine that some people think "Hitler!" any time someone discusses morality and evolution together. They're kind of like people who think anyone who enjoys pondering nude females is a woot!-hole! person (probably the main reason females are afraid of nudity (as opposed to modelling in bikinis, say) is that they quite reasonably don't want to emphasize the hole-like quality of their sexuality, lest they be seen as trying to encourage woot!-hole! males, who typically are forever insidiously conflating holes). I refuse to let Hitler make me hesitant to consider evolution and morality together just as much as I refuse to let woot!-hole! males make me hesitant to consider female sexuality and the nude female form together. I am not afraid of becoming Hitler or a woot!-hole! male. What is the point of scaring people? Hitlers and woot!-hole! males will be what they are regardless, and so by encouraging people to take care lest they become one, one will only end up making scared and guilty the people who on account of their virtues should not be thus. I should point out that when I say someone is "woot!-hole!" I don't mean to imply enthusiasm, just behavior that mimics enthusiasm. Not that there's any depravity that should be suggested by real enthusiasm, notwithstanding enthusiasm can lead to nerdishness and is typically somewhat crazy.