About Mad Liberal

I’ve been trying to come to terms with what can best be described as a value
paradox. My confusion and rumination is compounded by factors that I will explain in
this document, and which I attempted to consider and report on through my Python
dashboard and programming assignment, Mad Liberal.

Since this is my first semester back in college after more than 25 years, it was
necessary to take the plunge directly into a new discipline, with more than a bit of rust. It
is, at this point in my life, a matter of survival. So in spite of the challenges I faced I have
very little choice but to examine the parts of myself in flux and how the paradox I’m
experiencing directs my forward progress. In particular, I’m referring to the value system
of Liberalism, in particular, Classic Liberalism, but under the auspices of American
Liberalism in 2026.

What I had to face in my own life was the lack of opportunity in the design field
after a classic Liberal Arts Education where I focused on Critical Theory, Social and
Political Philosophy, Audio-Visual and expressing myself primarily through artistic
means and writing. Traditionally these had potential as forms of social criticism, but as
social media has succeeded in shaping consciousness, I began to realize both the
means themselves and my own power to deter the erosion of an ideology has
diminished, even as my ability to use the formal language of the mediums has evolved.
And, to witness the apparatus of Artificial Intelligence functionally outwit, not just the
individual, but entire communities, leaving one to question the nature of communication,
criticism and labor itself.

And the balance of power.

To contemplate the chasm of this artifice between the individual, the inherent ability of it (AI), even compared to the greatest thinkers in human history is failed by the words “Existential Crisis.” One could compare the divergence of thought in computing to the divergence of thought within Liberalism, by visualizing the challenge as one of exponential and uncontained expansion. That is the spread of ideas, without guardrails, through networks. This is the main idea explored in my project.