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Why Are the Best and Brightest Not Flooding DARPA?
David W. White writes "Wired mag's Danger Room carried an article today that highlighted how desperate the US Military's DARPA has become in its attempts to bring in additional brain power. The tactics include filmed testimonials, folders and even playing cards all screaming join DARPA! Where are all the Einsteins who want to be on the cutting edge for the Government?"
I completely agree! And, no, I'm not posting anonymously! First Amendment right, BUSH!
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Young techies tend to be progressive, as progressive as bush is regressive, as such they absolutely hate the Bush administration.
I sincerely would have enlisted with some arm of the military for the structured experience, but I will not associate myself with the bush government.
I get the feeling that a darpa under Obama will grow and prosper.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Wow you are set dude! Good luck with all of that. A BS in Math and an MA in Economics - dude you have some good fortune coming your way. Enjoy - yes I am jealous but I will not let that impede my ability to wish yu well.
http://projectleader.wordpress.com
Who wants to be top egghead in the next has-been, banana republic?
Seriously - it took about 15 years for the US to hurtle over the edge of the black abyss that previously, the USSR plunged into.
Patting their wise-ass selves on the back, all the way down!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The man was a mass murderer after all. Some of us don't want to create weapons of mass destruction, even if we're assured by skilled liars they will not be used to kill thousands of innocent civilians.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The US has yet to purge potential opposition the way the USSR did so many times. Everything is in place but we have yet to go beyond economic assassination. Mass murder starts when the press is really beat down. We are very close, so watch out. After mass murder comes wars of conquest that will make Iraq and Iran look like Italy's North African wars.
But when President Obama takes over, he's only going to appoint people who are minorities and who are fans of Louis Farrakhan. After that, he's going to jack up taxes and use it to pay huge reparations to black people so they don't have to work any more.
I don't know if Obama is going to be better or worse than McCain, who'll continue the war in Iraq, and possibly start a nuclear war with Iran.
I'm still flabbergasted that the American people have narrowed the race down to these two fools. What ever happened to the days when decent people ran for President? I know it's been a long time (we haven't had many decent people run for office since LBJ took over), but still.
Academics are not open to new ideas that may upset their world view.
Yeah, like torture.
Actions have consequences. Until the US government learns that simple fact, they can hire somebody else to work on their "defense"-related (sic) advanced research projects.
If that's not racism, I don't know what is.
I always found it counter-productive... the gov't is willing to bring these people over for work, offer them specialized resources to help with their assimilation, yet they don't want them working for the gov't itself.
It's like they WANT megacorporations to overthrow the gov't - they've got all the hard workers and more money than should be legal. This litigious bullshit will only last so long, eventually it will be most cost-effective to skip the courts and privatize human rights.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I'm curious as to why? A New Zealander believing in the Iraqi and Afghanistani causes?
Good! The less 3rd worlders like you stinking up my country the better. Wanna know why your countries are such pieces of garbage? Because people like you live there.
Kuhn may be popular with the so called 'philosophers' of science, but not too many actual scientists have much use for him or many of his ideas.
I am sure Kuhn fully expected this since his book was critical of scientists. That does not make him wrong, though.
The academy isn't full of a bunch of stodgy old fools who aren't able to keep up with change or adapt to new data or ideas. The academy of today is the same one that has produced many great minds of the past such as Einstein, Turing, and Planck
I'm glad you mentioned Turing because this is rather a propos. IMO, Turing and his ideas are the worse things to have happened to computer science (mod me down as a troll, if you hate Kuhn and/or the free flow of ideas). I am sure you'll disagree on what I have to say but hey, nobody has a monopoly on opinions. Consider that the computer industry is faced with three major crises: software unreliability, low productivity and the parallel programming problem. Guess what? Not one of Turing's supposedly brilliant ideas is of any help. Not a single one! You know why? It's because Turing's ideas are the cause of those crises. Now you may have a different opinion but the academic community is so enfatuated with Turing, that only a world-shaking revolution would displace Turing from his pedestal and replace the old guard with one that does not give a rat's behind about their idol. This is what Kuhn's work is about. Science is like religion and it becomes very entrenched in the status quo. That's too bad because an anti-Turing revolution is precisely what is going to happen to computer science. The time is ripe for a revolution.
Even if your weapon is used in a defensive mode? Remember that battles -- even attacks -- can be defensive in nature.
Recent events have people strictly thinking of the military as a vehicle of attack, but it's also a defensive organization. Without it, we'd have people flowing across our borders uncontrolled to take jobs mowing lawns, working in construction crews, forming violent gangs in Los Angeles...
I wouldn't want this for the US legal system for obvious reasons, but given the extingencies of war, allowing the US military access to industrialized nations' police force interrogation techniques seems reasonable.
And come on, if it were Clinton in Iraq now, and Clinton had listened to his generals, kept a tight reign on contractors, and not fucked up the occupation, would anyone really be complaining that the military was water boarding a half dozen assholes, and making some lesser assholes stand awkwardly for hours? Either one of those still sounds like a huge improvement over an Italian police "talk".