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Bill Joy For New National CTO Post?
jddeluxe writes "In an article in today's NY Times, John Doerr of Kleiner-Perkins proffered up Bill Joy's name when queried by Barack Obama for a recommendation for the position of Chief Technology Officer of the Unites States which Obama has promised to create and that the country is overdue to have.
I think that's a brilliant idea, and while you're at it, have the FCC report to him as well, why don't you?" If Bill is unavailable, I'll throw my hat in the ring, although I'm holding out for Secretary of Tubes.
I seem to recall Bill Joy having some decidedly pessimistic and even luddite attitudes towards future tech, but it's been so long since he's been in the news that I don't remember now what. Paranoid about nanotech, I think, for starters.
Infuriate left and right
I think such things as the prevalence of spyware on PCs and the reluctance of many people to offer music or movie shares stands as proof that most people actually can't make their own technology decisions.
You mean this?
"I am no apologist for Kaczynski. His bombs killed three people during a 17-year terror campaign and wounded many others. One of his bombs gravely injured my friend David Gelernter, one of the most brilliant and visionary computer scientists of our time. Like many of my colleagues, I felt that I could easily have been the Unabomber's next target. Kaczynski's actions were murderous and, in my view, criminally insane. He is clearly a Luddite, but simply saying this does not dismiss his argument; as difficult as it is for me to acknowledge, I saw some merit in the reasoning in this single passage. I felt compelled to confront it."
Bill Joy doesn't sound that out of line. If you're going to confront terrorists, you need to understand their doctrine and motivation so that you can discredit the entire philosophy, rather than just turn them into martyrs.
The Obama administration may be the place where the driving of the golden spike uniting open source development with open source government takes place. Using Federal IT standards to drive proprietary formats out of the government departments will create a cascade of rationalization and standardization throughout the US economy. Our creaky and costly medical care system desperately needs this kind of rationalization.
Accordingly, a prominent and effective member of the Open Source community should occupy this position, not a big-time software corporatist.
I'd feel more comfortable with someone from the research or academic circles than I would with someone from industry for a position like that. Might just be my bias, but I feel that someone from industry might be a little more biased toward a particular set of interests. Although marginalized to some degree, I think someone like current science advisor John Marburger would be a much better choice. Just my $0.02.
Is some authority to set the standards as a mandate for **all** federal agencies. All of them, no exceptions. One of the first things that should be done is to mandate equal consideration for .NET and LAMP because Java has way too much of a fanboi following in the federal government.
In reality, though, the position of CTO is likely to be more of a figurehead than a useful position. Obama is not likely to hand down an executive order authorizing the CTO to impose open standards and a "use the best tool for the job" method of selecting the tools that will be used for building new federal web sites and web applications.
A board? Oh, dear. No. It'd be a quagmire, a committee designed by a committee. icann did that, whciuh is why it takes $62M to replace what used to be literally a $15K/yr part time contract.
Brian K. Reid. Everybody else is either too corrupt or too bizarre to actually do the job. Brian understands people, unlike most geek geniuses.
Nobody else can do as good a job in that role. Plus, never forget Sun was founded by the commission of a federal crime.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Bruce is my vote for CTO. I'd rather have someone outspoken in the role that's only partially crazy.
Exactly. It is silly and irrelevant, and possibly dangerous. Look what happens when cabinet members are in charge of organizations that they don't know about? The FCC is about technology, but it's about so much more. Technology is a component of the agency's mission, not the other way around.
One thing that would be helpful is something (the only thing, really) that the governor of Illinois has done- information technology used to be handled agency by agency. A hodgepodge of duplication and incompetance. He changed the mission of a department, and is in the process of making that department the sole "provider" of technology to the state's agencies. The directors of the various agencies shouldn't have to deal with managing the technology. Technology is a tool, not a end onto itself. So, this agency provides what the individual agencies need, leaving them to focus on their mission.
The US gov't needs more of that. I know a guy who worked in a small office of a large Fed agency for a few years. An agency that had nothing to do with technology, and his job had nothing to do with technology. And two of the projects he had to work on were- picking out a new copier and picking out a new phone system. Why in the world should that happen? The office should have had a 20 minute meeting deciding what their needs were, and pass that onto the technology department, who would simply deliver those needs.
It's silly.
Maybe the Dept. of Commerce needs a "Technology advocacy" department to help technology companies succeed. But not any kind of quasi-cabinet CTO guy.
Bill Joy is also the guy who keeps warning of the end of the world if we don't stop developing various technologies. He wrote a number of articles and did a bunch of interviews about the world turning to gray goo if we don't kill nanotech research, how computers and weapons will kill us all, etc.
He started work on a self-sufficient, solar powered sailboat, presumably his form of a bomb shelter for the coming techpocolypse.
Basically, he has turned in to a crazy old coot.
Yes, I know what you're saying also, but let me quote rs79, a /. oldtimer:
Brian K. Reid. Everybody else is either too corrupt or too bizarre to actually do the job. Brian understands people, unlike most geek geniuses.
Now, limiting the controlling input to such a function for the ENTIRE COUNTRY to one person is fraught with problems as illustrated by the quote above. Even one President is backed up by House, Senate, and SCOTUS. See, if it's important, there should be some checks and balances. Just the mere mention of M$ on this site is cause for a flamewar. How would a single CTO personage be able to deal with all the crap/politics/bribery/governmental interference and all that will come their way? Even the DoJ was not free from corruption. One person, without a jury behind them, will fall prey to special interests. It seems inevitable. The idea is right, perhaps even the execution of that idea will be, but I have doubts about a single person as head of that implementation.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
As I understand it, the Ayers quote was "I didn't do enough", not 'plant' enough. He claims (at least since a few weeks before 9/11) that it's not specifically about bombs or even other violence. Maybe he's spinning it, maybe if anyone had asked him the same questions in the late 70's or 80's it would have been different, but yes, the context there probably matters. Deciding whether Ayers really counted as a terrorist or not means first reading up on COINTELPRO, considering all that the plethora of double agents, false flag operations, and such may imply about what he could be and how reliable the evidence is, and then you would probably have to read a few interviews or whole letters. Some reasonable people might still decide Ayers was a terrorist, but there's definitely arguments both ways, more than there are for Kaczynski.
A context where his remarks are not incendiary? No way. Even without knowing anything about Ayer's history, without the press identifying where the quotes come from, Ayers has said plenty that would still be devisive. If he was posting here, -1 Flamebait mods would swiftly follow.
Who is John Cabal?
False
http://www.stablecommunities.org/node/472
No sig for the moment.
Kurzweil?
You gotta be kidding.
OK, so the man's got vision, but so has any brain-addled acid-crazed schizo hippy you care to mention.
You need someone with real vision and practical common-sense, like Joy, or maybe Jobs (yes, I know I'll get flamed for that) or even Wozniak.
You might as well suggest Eric Drexler - another self-publicist with no notable contribution to make.
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
Basically, he has turned in to a crazy old coot.
Luddites rock!
But, anyway, he'd be a perfect fit for the Obama administration. Technology loses to concerns, many of which are unfounded, about environmental issues. Much like Greenpeace's position on nuclear fusion.
This is a common misconception.
Bush did nothing to deregulate the financial industry.
He is a flaming chowderhead and guilty of high crimes against the people of the United States and the Constitution. But to be fair, this particular accusation doesn't stick.
No one in the government encouraged mortgage lenders to make the "liars loans" (loans with no effort to verify employment and income status), package them and re-market them as AAA securities on the international market. Listen to this (45 min or so).
Obama: Nuclear power worth considering, not panacea
Could it be that Obama is actually a center-Right presidential candidate, and not the radical left wing terrorist sympathizing deep green wacko he was portrayed as in the campaign? Say it ain't so, Joe (the Plumber).
But think about it, a really representative panel of that sort would really need someone representing, say, Microsoft, maybe Apple, maybe HP and/or Dell, and then a couple of FOSS guys. Imagine Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, RMS, and ESR on such a committee. Easily imagined. Now imagine anything getting done by this committee, ever... Not so easily imagined. When the closed source guys were not fighting over which of their personal pet technologies was best for a given purpose, they'd be in grid-lock as RMS and the FOSS guys try to block all proprietary anything. I'd be inclined to say that the closed source people should get 4 seats and the FOSS 3 seats: on the theory that it's more likely that at least on closed source advocate would side with FOSS on a given specific question than that the the FOSS guys will ever side with the closed source guys, and if all 4 cosed source guys agree with something it's likely to be a least a slightly open system.
Still I think one guy, preferably fairly neutral and willing to work with all parties and being advised by a committee like you recommend, would be better. He might not always do what any one of us might want or hope he'd do, but a least something will get done.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
These people serve a valuable role in society, but it is not within the corridors of power.
They are called "prophets".
They preach absolute righteousness and call for repentance (i.e. changing your ways).
They also wear odd clothing and have long beards, but that is a secondary qualification.
I am anarch of all I survey.