The short video, produced by the House Democrats, shown prior to Nancy Pelosi’s convention speech — Reigniting the American Dream: Building Ladders of Opportunity — communicated a thought provoking POV.

The video uses interesting symbology that suggests the American Dream can be reached by climbing straight upwards — about 15 stories. To reach the top, a person must overcome gravity and pull her or himself up on a swaying rope ladder. Very scary. To attempt such a feat would require an amazing act of courage and strength, and only the fit would survive.

The visual message of the video is that the American Dream is out of reach for most people, but, this visual message contradicts the words of the video: “Our nation’s ideal is the American Dream that if you’re willing to work hard, play by the rules and take responsibility, everyone should have the opportunity to succeed.”

The notion that we need more ladders so that more people can have the opportunity to scale a 15 story precipice is pretty funny. The lack of ladders is not the problem. The problem is that for some crazy reason, the American Dream is 15 stories up. Who put it there and how do we move it to a place that is more accessible? More ladders will not matter, because most citizens are unable to make the climb. Sure, some individuals, like Michele and Barack, have the strength and courage, and luck, to make it to the top. But, for the average Joe, the “opportunity” the Democrats offer is pretty meaningless.

The premise of this Democratic Party video is that the American Dream is about the individual pulling him or herself up. But, the party of the people needs a bigger and better vision of what the American Dream actually means.

The American Dream is that we live in a fair society where every citizen is valued, a society, yes, with no ceilings — where every citizen has the opportunity to climb socially and economically — but one with a strong floor, giving security and stability to our weakest or least successful citizens. It is shameful that in our rich country we have citizens who, regardless they work hard and play by the rules, live in poverty and insecurity. To suggest that these oppressed citizens simply need more opportunity is an insult. They need more money. They need health care. They need a fair deal.

The American Dream the Democratic Party should advance is not a dream about an individual climbing to the heights of personal success — it is a dream about a nation where there is liberty and justice for all.

Paul Ryan, Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, didn’t write his speech to the RNC — anymore than Sarah Palin wrote hers. A national political convention is like a movie production. It is all scripted. The Ryan speech was written and rewritten and sets the strategy for the Romney campaign. What stands out in the Ryan script  is the boldness and the extent of its lies, lies, and lies.

Most everyone at the convention, I’m thinking, realized that Ryan was telling whopper lies — yet they cheered his every word. The maintenance of a big lie requires a big conspiracy, and, the Republican machinery, with Fox News, and with tons of money for marketing, is gearing up for the task.

Romney is going after the votes of Americans who are persuadable via emotion, anger, and resentment — not by logic, nor, amazingly, their own self interest. Big lies give such voters an emotional push, a reason to believe what they want to believe.

It would seem a daring strategy for a presidential campaign to advance blatant and bold lies. It could backfire. But, evidently, Romney has come to the conclusion that his route to victory is via bold lies. The fact that a major political party should seek to control the White House by conducting such a strategy is a strong warning that our republic is in real danger.

• Paul Ryan Obscures His Koch-Backed Agenda With a Pack of Lies in Convention Speech
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• Paul Ryan Address: Convention Speech Built On Demonstrably Misleading Assertions
• Michael Tomasky on Paul Ryan’s Convention Speech and His Web of Lies
• Paul Ryan’s brazen lies: His Republican National Convention speech was stunning for its dishonesty
• Top Ten Repeated Paul Ryan Lies

“Mr. President, by 2045 computers will be billions of times more intelligent than humans. They will have the capacity to create unlimited wealth and to create a society that needs little human labor. How will your administration help the American people prepare for this coming singularity?”

I’ve not heard much discussion so far in this presidential contest about the coming “singularity” — the time, in the near future, when computer intelligence on earth will be billions times more powerful than normal human intelligence.  Billions of times. This will be a watershed moment in human history and its impact will be beyond amazing and beyond every prediction.  Yet, it seems it is never discussed.

I’m imagining a press conference when some president in the near future is asked the above question, and he, or she, answers something like this:

Thanks for a question that deals with the big challenges of our future. Our democracy does not spend enough energy giving serious consideration to the challenges of the future.

Computer power per unit price doubles about ever 11 or 12 months. This means that computer power that today costs $1 billion, in 30 years will cost $1.  Computer power that today is worth $1 trillion, in 30 years will be worth $1000. This seems too outlandish to be true, but, we have every reason to believe that the doubling trend will continue. In the near future, we will each of us have easy access to computer power that far exceeds today’s most powerful computers.

Children growing up today will reach their peak years in a world radically different.

We are approaching a time when we will have the capacity to replace most human labor with machine labor, a time when, if we choose, humans will have multi-fold increases in leisure time and will enjoy excellent health into an extended age. A vision of a future where machine labor, “if we so choose,” could result in human worthwhile leisure time, rather than poverty for lack of a job, is a vision of a radical reordering of our society. The question is, do we so choose? How should a democratic society proceed to make plans for its best future?

Our whole economy, right now, is based upon the notion of scarcity. The contemplation of a coming singularity poses the question: Suppose there is no scarcity?  Suppose  there is only plenty?  What is the economy, what does the societal structure look like that is built on a reality of plenty?

Thinking about the possibility of a coming singularity causes us to recast our thinking about many central and complicated issues. The singularity will require that democratic societies consciously reorder much of society and such reordering will not be easy. It will require that citizens become prepared for such a task. And to prepare for this task we need a transformation in public discourse and a transformation in education at every level ….

My premise for “The Destiny Of Character” is that a city school system determines to remake its system of public education to respond to the coming singularity. The idea is that “The Destiny Of Character” is written by a super computer in 2045.

Super intelligent computers, in 2045, will, no doubt, communicate with each other via a language that compresses meaning and nuance with such detail and precision that it will be a language inaccessible to human intellect. But I’m thinking those same computers will probably have a translator function that will do its best to communicate an abbreviated and dumbed down version of the report to humans