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Clinton Wants $497 Million for Nanotech Research
jimmcq writes "President Clinton on Friday proposed a $2.8 billion increase in research into elusive medical cures and high-technology breakthroughs like reducing information in the Library of Congress into a unit the size of a sugar cube. More info at Yahoo! News." Specifically, Clinton is advocating "as much as" $497 million for nanotech out of a $2.8 billion increase over last year's ~$38 billion federal allocation for scientific research. But don't get excited yet. Congress holds the budget pursestrings and may not go along with all or any of the President's proposals.
I realize that this is OT for this thread, but I'm a little bothered right now because I see the same spamming idiot is posting in this story. I just blew all 5 of my moderation points trying to get rid of that morons "Q"'s and F*** You's in the robot thread. Those were 5 moderation points I would have normally used to score up GOOD articles (I prefer to moderate up, not down). So here's my suggestion, take it or leave it.
:) So why not require ALL users to register, and have Slash record a secure log so that ONLY /. staff can identify (and kick) the users causing the problems? If you wanted to secure it even more, Slashdot could also add in a bit of code limiting new registrations to a few posts per thread for a limited period of time after signup, and prevent Slash from registering more than one account per email address, per month or so. I realize that nothing can absolutely stop morons like these, but you can at least make it difficult for them.
/. needs to get rid of the "true" AC account. The classic objection to doing this has been the fact that not everyone can comfortably post if they can be easily ID'd. Well, look at me right now. I'm an AC, but I'm also a regular user with an account...the "Post Anonymously" checkbox is my friend
And if anyones wondering why I'm posting AC, it's because I don't really feel like dealing with a mailbomb just because I admitted to moderating him down. I feel embarrased at hiding my identity because of an annoying little s**t, but it's not worth the hassle to reveal myself.
The use of this spam *is* to get moderator's to waste points. Why? Because me and many others are extremely pissed at the number of UNFAIR moderations going on. Even if an article deviates *slightly* from the moderators moral, religious or personal convictions, you get moderated down.
This is the only way we can fight back.
Just watch, this very post will get moderated down.
It's unfortunate that we have to wait 4 years for a president to grow a real spine and do what he thinks is right. (Actually, it's way more than four years, since so few actually make it to a second term.)
My Freakin Blog
It's so good to hear fellow /.'ers expressing Libertarian views, especially without making it blatanly clear that one is doing so, like I always feel the need to ;)
It's so hard to convince people that gov't funding is always bad. We say, "the gov't shouldn't be funding nanotech research." And people say, "What, you're opposed to nanotech development?!" as if we're some kind of heretics. But that's not what we said! The issue is that the gov't is stealing (yes, taxes = theft) copious amounts of money from us constantly, and it doesn't matter WHAT they spend it on, the mere fact that they have it at all is completely unethical and, in the words of Frederic Bastiat, "a perversion of the law".
If you're not a member already, I suggest you join the party! http://www.lp.org
MoNsTeR
The previous poster's example about mapping the solar system was poor, but so is your analysis about which science is the most productive to invest in.
:)
:) of biophysics. The various branches of chemistry are employed, and materials science and nanotechnology are developed by NASA for astronomical exploration, too.
:)
You can't simply claim that one is "the best bang for the buck," since they're all intertwined!
Astrophysics and astronomy advance science (and technology) on multiple fronts, too. Astrophysics involves basically all aspects of "pure" physics: High energy physics, condensed matter physics, plasma physics, etc. etc, with the possible exception (so far
I agree that nanotechnology must be heavily studied, too. I also see, though, that nano investment is a field much more prone to heavy private funding, in addition to government funding, since there is so much perceived short term gain.
However, there's no reason for us to quibble about such things, because no science (or technological endeavor) should have to fight for funding with any other. We should all be funded to the hilt.
I think the president and Congress both understand how good of an investment science is, and that the effort has to be spread around to advance the state of the art on as many fronts as possible.
I think that they also are very aware that the country will receive economic and spriritual returns commensurate with whatever level of funding they they provide for the sciences.
For all of you reporters out there, could you please write some stories on this? For the senators (former and current) who are running, what are their voting records on scientific and engineering matters? (I'm not interested in, "So-and-so wants a moratorium on net taxes." We've heard tons about the net, computers, and health care policy (which isn't science), but we've heard very little about pure science and the like.)
Here are a few questions I'd love to hear at a debate:
Those are the sorts of questions I'd love to see asked. I don't expect them to be an expert at any subject, I'd just like to know that they are interested in the scientific and engineering progress of the country, and that they have some rough picture, at least, of where the nation is headed.
Anyway, I'd love to hear any information people have on the candidates' views on science.
John Karcz
(*) If Bush says, "I discovered Jesus," I won't be terribly surprised.
The government funds research in practically every branch of knowledge, so it's not surprising that they helped fund the development of the computer.
But the question is not: has government funding led to useful research? The question is: would society be better off if the government had not funded that research. I think there is a case to be made that it did.
The idea that computers would not exist without government support is ludicrous. By the fifties, IBM and other companies were already pioneering commercial uses of computers, and private universities were engaging in research. It is possible (although I think unlikely) that it would have taken longer for the computer revolution to occur, but I rather doubt it. And since the mid-seventies, the PC industry has taken off with essentially no government support.
One of the primart effects of research funding of the computer industry today is simple corporate welfare. For example, the US has been encouraging the formation of "partnerships" between US semiconductor firms, and these "partnerships have been supported with lots of Federal money. The result of these kinds of subsidies has simply been to entrench the established players in the industry.
We see what government money has helped to create. We do not see what would be if the government had not spent that money. The fact that some government money went to fund important research does not mean that other research wasn't wasteful, or that on average private funding would have gotten better results.
In one of his books, Carl Sagen talks about the then current aversion to anything resembling "pure research" in government science funding. He made a fairly good argument that many of our greatest technological advancements were based on research that at its start would have been dismissed as non-technologically driven and practically useless.
Which may be why so many corporations hire people to do basic research. They realize that while they can't see a future in it at the moment, the payoff should a breakthrough be made would be enourmous. I will again point out the example of "IBM" being written on Xenon atoms. This clearly doesn't improve IBM's bottom line in the short run, but by funding this type of research, they are giving themselves a leg up if nanotech proves to be as powerful as some people think it is.
The science research will only be about getting the company more money. So, would the company allow its data to be spread out in the world (open-source) or would they hoard it, making their competitors have to use money to find out the same info.
This is demonstrably not true. There are many corporations that pay their researchers to do basic research, in the hope that they will stumble on something that will lead to a product down the road. These corporations may "hoard" their data in some cases, but they also need to keep their researchers happy. In scientific circles, one's prestige is largely determined by one's published work, and so many researchers will insist on the right to publish before they will accept a position.
Also, "private funding" does not necessarily mean "corporate funding." Private Universities and private charities are also a factor. Look at the American Heart Association, or the other analogous organizations for other diseases. And a big tax cut will allow more of this kind of funding to exist, since the wealthy will have more money to give to charity.
That is true because governments are a lot more effective. The gov't wil try to find the entire effects of research
That's not what I meant. What I meant was tht it is inefficient in that it is wasteful in its use of funding, both in excessive paper-pushing, and in making poor choices about who is to get funding. It is very easy to make poor choices when you are giving away other peoples' money and you have lots of it. Private foundations are founded by people who care specifically about what is being researched, and they have to convince their donors to give them money. That means that they have much more incentive to ensure that the grants are being used for worthwhile purposes.
I don't want to get into this, but poor families that work very hard for little money should get priority in tax cuts.
I think everyone should get a massive tax cut, rich and poor alike. And I don't think anyone should get "priority." The point of a tax cut is returning to taxpayers the money they earn, not social engineering. If the tax burden if 10% of the economy rather than 40%, it is much less of a big deal who has to pay for it.
The space program never whould have started without the government's push (and yes, the govenment pushed space because of the Cold War). Only now that space and satillites are established do companies send up things on their own.
I find this a little hard to believe. Yes, the government funded the space program, and yes, this probably sped man's exploration of space. But I think it's quite likely that had the government not subsidized space travel, private companies would have done so to put satellites up. Not only that, but without government subsidies companies would have far more incentive to find cheaper ways of getting in space, and so today it might be possible to do *more* space research for less money than it would have been back then.
We are using basically the same space technology as we did in 1981. The cost of getting into space has not decreased much at all in that time. It is almost certain that a private, competitive space industry would find more efficient ways to accomplish this task.
Subsidizing something is a good way of killing it. When people don't have to convince anyone to give them money, they often don't work as hard to find new, innovative ways to do it. I think that in the long run NASA has hurt the space industry by subsidizing the status quo.
No, this is wrong. I am at a private university. We do have a ~$1e7 endowment. it goes to scholarships, capital improvements, and makeing interest to maintain the endowment. As for the most basic of research in physics, no money for these projects come from private sources. I am talking about things like my research group's search for Dark Matter or another group's Big Occulting Steerable Satellite. Private companies do not and will not fund things like this because there are no even remotely visible dollar signs at the end of the research.
As I said, private does not necessarily mean corporate. There are lots of private people out there with an intense interest in just such basic research, and if the government were not funding, it, you could probably get at least some funding from them. Keep in mind also that people would have more disposable income in a low-tax system.
Also, some of the best inventions and discoveries have been made on shoestring budgets. If you don't have a billion dollars to make a particle accellerator, you might be driven to think of some way to do the same research on your more limited budget.
I'm not saying that all government funding of research is necessarily bad, but I disagree with the unreserved enthusiasm for it. Government tends to stifle everything it touches, and I don't want this to happen to science.
What are ancient civilizations remembered for? Their scientific advancement.
Actually, some civilizations (the Aztec and Egyptians and Romans, for example) are remembered for building enourmous piles of rock with slave labor. Today they are called pyramids. I would rather our society focuses on how we live in the here and now, not how impressive we will look to future generations. Western civilization has already achieved more than all previous civilizations combined. There is no chance of them forgetting we existed any time soon.
The only thing that really lasts is the knowledge that we pass down to successive generations. This is the basic human drive. Why are we here? Where are we going? How did it happen? These questions are what make us human. This is why science is important.
Hey, you're preaching to the converted here. I am not opposed to science by any means. In fact I agree that it is one of our greatest achievements. That is one of the reason I want the government to keep away from it. The government has a habit of destroy everything it tries to help.
Not likely that nanotech can end society; it may end society as we know it. But then, the personal computer has ended society the way our parents knew it. If you haven't read it, check out Neal Stephenson's book The Diamond Age. It's a great thought-experiment on nanotech, as well as a pretty good sci-fi read.
As for copy protection, manufacturing won't disappear, because of basic economics of technology: the manufacturers will be developing fast, cheap mass-production nanotech facilities (really just storage warehouses with hundreds of matter compilers) that can outdo any single, home-use matter compiler. Prices will go down, profits will be huge (companies pay for seawater, pumps, and a few programmers to run the matter compilers), and home units will still be grossly expensive. Much like stereo component CD-burners, the industry lobby will doubtless come up with a scheme to keep the prices of home-use compilers high until they've developed the next generation.
Eventually, home-use will take over, but the manufacturers will have plenty of time to pack up and get inside before it rains.
As for the benefits:
medical technology like arterial plaque cleaners; information technology like a dispersed smog of weather nanites that beam back position, velocity, and air pressure to NOAA;
diamond windows cheaper than glass;
stronger and lighter materials revolutionizing spaceflight and all material intensive engineering;
and more...
Don't be scared, it's just the future. Make friends while he's still a puppy.
--jurph
American People, this is YOUR MONEY Clinton is
so happily waving around and trying to spend.
A 2.8$ billion increase, well that's somewhere
in the neighborhood of 10.76$ each citizen.
So the Federal government comes along and takes
10.76$ out of your pocket, and all of you shout
'Thank you sir may I please have another!'.
Federally sponsored science programs are one of
the most ineffective and inefficient ways to
do science. In a private scenario, there is more
accountability, and more competition to do
science in the best way.
If you really want to support science, invest
in the companies that are doing the kind of
research you are interested in, and take the
power of government back into your own hands.
Let me leave you with a quote:
"The American Republic will endure, until
politicians realize they can bribe the people
with their own money."
-- Alexis de Tocqueville
L
I am the original poster and a physicist. I have two problems with your point of view:
The fact is that there are many companies out there that fund basic research. They do it primarily because if a breakthrough occurs, they want to have people in-house that can help turn it into a working product.
Well, private companies do fund some a lot of "basic" research, but not all. Companies like IBM, Lucent (aka Bell Labs) and others do fund projects not directly applicable to makeing $$$, but the research they do fund is stuff that is somewhat related. ie, IBM funds projects in Solid State physics becuase if some breakthough occurs, it can easily be applied to make smaller, faster chips. Companies would not have invested in space just 25 years ago. The space program never whould have started without the government's push (and yes, the govenment pushed space because of the Cold War). Only now that space and satillites are established do companies send up things on their own.
You are also ignoring private charities and Universities. There are many private schools with hundreds of millions in endowments, and many of those do and would be used to fund basic research. These endowments would be even bigger in a society with a lower tax burden, since many wealthy people leave their fortunes to their alma mater. There are also private donations directly toward research programs.
No, this is wrong. I am at a private university. We do have a ~$1e7 endowment. it goes to scholarships, capital improvements, and makeing interest to maintain the endowment. As for the most basic of research in physics, no money for these projects come from private sources. I am talking about things like my research group's search for Dark Matter or another group's Big Occulting Steerable Satellite. Private companies do not and will not fund things like this because there are no even remotely visible dollar signs at the end of the research. The price tags on these (and other things like particle accelerators) are too big for private endowments. Only the govenment (or governments) is in a position to reasonably fund research as to how the universe works.
<rant> :-) and should really only be used to answer the questions that science cannot tell us). I am a relatively spritual and religious man, but religion cannot tell us where we evolved from just as science cannot tell us how to act morally.
What are ancient civilizations remembered for? Their scientific advancement. The Greeks with logic and math, the Mayans calanders and astronomy, the Chinese, gunpowder. What difference does it make in the grand scheme of things whether this battle was fought on Tuesday or Friday? Not a whole lot. The only thing that really lasts is the knowledge that we pass down to successive generations. This is the basic human drive. Why are we here? Where are we going? How did it happen? These questions are what make us human. This is why science is important. Science is the systematic attempt to glean meaning from the universe in an attempt to answer these questions. (Religion also attempts to answer these questions but it is usually not as systematic
</rant>
Disclaimer: This whole thing is of course my opinion, especially the last parenthetical sentence.
A wealthy eccentric who marches to the beat of a different drum. But you may call me "Noodle Noggin."
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
A good thing. I saw this announcement on CNN last night, and after the Clinton clip, the reporter stated that as per a study (i forget the name), scientific research is THE BEST investment of the government dollar that there is. I only wish they increased funding for physics explpicitly. As to whether the Republican Congress will go along with it, it might seem rather suprising, but in the last budget, they actually increased the president's science budget by a bit. CNN also had a clip of a Republican Congresswoman on the science committee commending the president's initative.
YAY SCIENCE!!
A wealthy eccentric who marches to the beat of a different drum. But you may call me "Noodle Noggin."
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
...we don't have to worry about everything we know being invalidated by the complete change nanotech would bring about.
If he comes through with the money, it will kill nanotech progress as effectively as NASA has killed space exploration and travel.
"is to be able to get credit for eventual success of nanotech"
I wasn't speaking to motivation when I said for the public good, I was refering to end effect. If Al Gore wants credit for the internet, or Clinton for nanotech, who cares? As long as the end result is more basic research being done which achieves the long term interests of the people.
LetterRip
As unpopular as it may be, I'm totally against this funding. Do I want to see science advanced? Are nanobites cool? Of course. But why in the world do we want to have them funded by the government? Why is that the government's responsibility (or privelege)?
All this is is Big Papa Clinton giving all of his children another toy to keep them happy and loyal. This country was founded on the principle that (federal) government should be responsible for a few very important things, such as national defense and commerce laws between states, but largely since the great depression and FDR, that focus has changed for some reason.
If the government is providing the money (of course, they aren't, it's really our money, but that's another issue), the government will also be controlling the results to some extent. You can argue that if you want to, but it's true.
Why is it evil for the private sector to do research? Look Thomas Edison, or the famed Bell Labs. These are not cruel, heartless researchers, but rather geniuses, wishing to advance science, who would like to feed their families at the end of the day.
The one handing out the money has the power. Why centralize the power?
TerraAlien
-----
He's getting desperate for a *positive* legacy. After all, he does not want his dysfunctional personal life to dominate his entries in the history books.
Statements like, "President Clinton, only the second ever to be impeached, and whose character was impugned by astonishing revelations of improper and crass behavior..." are NOT what he has in mind for schoolkids to learn years from now.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The Diamond age, you know Neal Stephenson's book, oh just follow this link.
I used to have a sig but I left it on a bus
I'm sorry but I don't agree with you. This is a post from craig on this thread about the Q spammer.
I like your bit of deductive reasoning though: Even though several thousand people read slashdot if 1 person admits to posting a disruptive post he must be guilty of all of them. That's a pretty big assumption.
PS: Try reading Trolltalk sometime and then you'll realize how large a troll community slashdot has.
Does Clinton want to be known for having started a second Manhattan project (I suppose it is a lot better than what he will most likely be known for)?
If your position is that we shouldn't explore something that's dangerous, you picked a piss-poor example in the Manhattan project.
If the US hadn't poured a whole bunch of money into that project in a hell of hurry, somebody else would have gotten it first, and the world would be in way worse shape than it presently is.
You can't fight something unless you understand it, and you can't fully understand it unless you can build it from scratch.
OK, then please explain to me why IBM funded the etching of the words "IBM" into Xenon atoms? Or why Xerox-PARC invented the modern GUI without ever making an actual product based around it? Or why most major corporations employ top researchers to do work that, although certainly related to the company's broad goals, is not directly related to any specific product in development?
The fact is that there are many companies out there that fund basic research. They do it primarily because if a breakthrough occurs, they want to have people in-house that can help turn it into a working product.
You are also ignoring private charities and Universities. There are many private schools with hundreds of millions in endowments, and many of those do and would be used to fund basic research. These endowments would be even bigger in a society with a lower tax burden, since many wealthy people leave their fortunes to their alma mater. There are also private donations directly toward research programs.
We see that the government has funded most basic research. But this does not imply that if the government cut off funding that the research would simply stop. There are private sources for funding. That funding simply gets used elsewhere when folks see that the government is already pumping lots of money into basic research.
I think a much better use of that money is an accross-the-board tax cut. There is lots of private money going around for private research, and there would be more if the government wasn't pumping so much money into it. Governments are notoriously inefficient, and I question whether government should be in the business of funding research.
There is also a fundamentally anti-scientific element to having a centralized source for all of the research funding. A scientist with a wacky idea is far more likely to get funding if there are dozens of private sources than if most of the money comes from one source.
Certainly there are worse things the government can do with a billion dollars, but I'd much rather see it returned to the people who earned it.
Well, yes, we will have.
Anyway, the article doesn't go into a lot of detail. It's entirely possible that some of the proposed funds would go to astronomy. Want to increase the odds of that? Contact your gov't reps.
What abunch of Luddites.
:v)
Look guys, we're grown up enough to get over the "Gray Goo" scenarios of killer, runaway nanobots. We have the damn things already, with names like "Ebloa", "HIV, "Hepatitis" and "Termites". The only reason we can't currently beat them is because we don't have control of a suitably advanced technology.
Nanotechnology is THE advanced technology. It is the only technology we would be able to counter a deliberate nanotechnology offensive with - if anyone were able to build a serious nanotech weapon, and that is not as simple as it seems.
The alternative is to wait - either not doing much, or actively banning nanotechnology, it doesn't matter much - until they develop nanotechnology in Switzerland, Brazil, Japan or whatever. Once someone builds a single functional assembler, it will not be hard to distribute copies or cross national boundaries.
Transmeta has already started the process with their "soft" processor. The design concepts and partnership with IBM have inexorably set in motion a series of steps which will bring us protein-based nanotechnology within 5 years, and an assembler probably by 2010.
I've rounded up the details and links on http://olliver.peng uinpowered.com/launchpad/transprocessor.html
Vik
Research in nano is nice, because it advances technological fronts on many sides- materials science/manufacturing, chemistry, molecular biology, medicine, computer science
A mapping of the near earth objects/space is of little return (short term). Also, by waiting a few years technological improvements could greatly increase the search speed. (recall the article about waiting to start on computer intensive projects because of moores law?)
Thus a nano/related investment is probably the best bang for the buck...
LetterRip
There is a world of difference between basic nanotechnology, and a full scale autonomous replicator. Probably on the order of 20 to 50 years of reasearch difference, minimum. Early nano allows for better basic materials sciene- ie fewer flaws in metals, plastics, silicon, which increases strength, reduces resistance, and basically improves properties all around.
This is very early level stuff, your talking at least twenty years off for the applications you speak of (and much more likely closer to 100...)
LetterRip
Things like Astronomy have been languishing for years. You'd think that with the recent hoopla over asteroids, we'd at least be spending megabucks on a complete mapping of the local area of the solar system. Nope, just the same token investments through NASA as always.
:-(
/., so he can say his peace), but there are plenty of other sciences that the US is ignoring, and other countries are mostly following our lead.
This, not to mention the tremendous value in such things as solar research which could help us better understand our climate and the dangers that might be posed to us by our own "life-giving" sun.
Nah, nanotech is cooler. If we shrink the space used for the Library of Congress, we'll have *really* accomplished something.
I'm picking on astronomy because I have a friend in the field (who also reads/posts to
I am teaching a college astronomy course again for the first time in about 15 years. It is astonishing to me to see how more information we have been able to accumulate in that time, and the effect that our nearly instantaneous access to that information is having on the way I can teach. So much of this change seems to be because the access to the information allows groups to informally come together to share resources and work together in problem solving. (e.g. One fundemental insight into a solution is quickly shared and implemented when you can just knock together a webpage and post it rather than waiting for the peer-reviewed journals to publish your short paper.)
Nano tech devices that would allow for raw information to be distributed more effeciently would increase the rate of progress.
The only downside to this announcement is that ~500 million of a 2.8 billion dollar budget isn't really nearly the kind of investment we should be making in fundenmental research.
There must be some sort of mechanism (other invoking "Tang" and "Blister packaging") to convince people of the benefits that investing basic research brings.
In illa quae ultra sunt
When you create an account, you also get given an "anonymous user" account.
Now here's the clever bit
There is no link whatsoever between your normal user account and the Anonymous user account. You can use either to post but slashdot keeps no information to link the accounts. Also, there is nothing to distinguish one Anonymous User from another. (Note that a side effect of this is that an individual anonymous user cannot accumulate karma since this could identify someone with high karma (although it might be good to allow karma to be used if the anonymous user wants to)
The good thing is that anonymous cowards drop below the event horizon (unless they get moderated up) but people with genuine comments they may not wished to be attributed to their real personas get to post. If someone abuses their AU persona, it is banned. True they can get another one by re-registering as a new real user but at least that requires some degree of effort and is more likely to discourage the casual spammer.
Rich
Research is, obviously, a Very Good Thing. But let's remember Clinton promises everyone that they'll get special treatment in the budget next year. He doesn't actually push for everything, since if he did, we'd be back in debt. So he just blames Congress instead. We can only hope that science is one of those things he's willing to actually do more than talk about.
After Clipper Chip/CDA/etc, I'm not too optimistic.
i found these two links from the A-Infos Radio Project:
this is an MP3 interview with the Professor
and this is his essay on Nanosocialism
basically he talks about the social aspects of nanotechnology, building on some of the promise resident in the molecular and massively mirco scale.
I'm not someone who advocates trying to resist the progress of technology, I believe we have to embrace it and change our lives accordingly, but its interesting that Nano-technology research is not more controversial considering the possible dangers involved.
The "dangers" involved in debated and even banned areas such as human cloning, bio engineering, and true AI are really pretty small compared with Nanotech, where one invisibly small nanomachine, programmed to multiply and destroy its host could eradicate life on earth and still not stop. Does Clinton want to be known for having started a second Manhattan project (I suppose it is a lot better than what he will most likely be known for)?
And the prospect of Nanotech has some _very_ interesting implications on the current RIAA, MPAA, and other "evil forces of the world" situation with the freedom of Information. When nanotech comes along, will we have a Copyright Act that forbids programming nanomachines to work-around "nano-scan protection systems"? Will Ford sue me for writing a Nano-assembler that can make a copy of your neighbors Mustang? Will Coca-Cola go after me for having bought one bottle and then copied it to all my friends at the party? And most importantly, if its true as the Copyright defenders say, that copy protection is necessary for the economy to work, will society then end with Nanotech? Maybe all the companies that produce physcial items ought to be out lobbying congress to not spend another cent on Nano-research, which could cripple their bussiness!!!
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.