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Nobel Prize Winning Physicist As Energy Secretary
bledri writes "Officials close to the Obama transition team say that
Physics Nobel Laureate Steven Chu is the likely candidate for Energy Secretary. Some are worried that Chu is not politically savvy enough,
but I'm hopeful that a scientist will base policy on evidence.
Discuss among yourselves."
Just because someone is a great scientist does not mean the person is a good administrator or a good politician. The sad truth is that politicians will not care if he has a Nobel Prize and will think nothing of tearing him down for no reason other than they can. Everybody has limitations, and it would be better to get someone who can listen to scientists and engineers and also be a great administrator.
For the first time in *at least* 8 years, I am quite jealous of you US guys. If you ask me, people in senior positions are are not 'politically savvy enough' is *exactly* what the world needs right now.
(Stupid lameness filter!)
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
we have to move beyond coal and oil, for all of the obvious environmental and geopolitical reasons. we can't keep dumping carbon into our atmosphere, we can't keep funding saudi wahabbism, russian neoimperialism, and venezuelan blowhards. the only we are going to do this is through science
so hopefully, we'll get the following out of washington dc:
1. more nuclear power plants
2. more funding for fusion research
3. now that we have nationalized the car industry, we put a gun to the heads of the fuckers and detroit and force them to make more, cheaper electric cars. force this on them as a priority
4. the infrastructure to allow for battery swapping nationwide
of course, the american consumer has to be dragged kicking and screaming out of his SUV and into a post-oil and coal future. so be it. the only person who is going to be the visionary to do this is a scientist. he has plenty of support in his bully pulpit role from those of us who "get it". we finally just elected an administration it seems that also gets it
where it= oil and coal need to go the way of history
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Salon has a story today on Obama's pick to solve the energy crisis:
Chu must have reasonable political skills, as he the director of the Berkeley Lab, an organization with 4000 people and a budget of half a billion. The management of a scientific organization of this nature is usually quite challenging, if only because many of the people employed by it are (necessarily) independent-minded and headstrong. There is more back-stabbing in academic labs than in Washington DC.
Putting a scientist in charge of energy policy is a good idea. A factually justified, realistic energy policy is urgently needed.
Besides, during the last few years people in the public research departments have been demoralized by a political leadership that made it clearly felt that it couldn't care less about scientific data and factual reality. The DoE needs a leader who has the confidence of its staff. Chu could be that leader.
Some are worried that Chu is not politically savvy enough
Politically savvy people don't make good politicians or bureaucrats, but unfortunately that's what they usually become.
Let's hope this is an appointment and not a popularity contest. If he's smart and he has the entitlement to succeed then things may go well.
It's about time a real scientist with real ideas is put into the position where his opinion is respected. It seems most people are too worried about the politics of everything and not about results. In history we have elected generals as our presidents who have made far better choices for this country in my opinion although we've created a secretary of defense position to avoid having a military leader with the ability to make war moving decisions. We think that just because a man has been out of the service for 10 years he won't make bias decisions based on his past military history. The fact of the matter is we need people in those Government positions that actually do the work, so the outcome isn't twisted. Politics are so overrated.
This is great news coming from an administration that chooses people based on competence rather then connections and theocratic similarities.
The current buddy-buddy system got the US in the biggest hole in over 3 decades ( we may even have to go back a century ).
I admit I don't know too much about the apointee but winning a Nobel in Physics is not a small feat and indicates a factual based personality, which is exactly what we MUST have right now, and something that we always should have in any higher position.
There is hope ...
From Wikipedia:
As global warming warnings grow more dire, Chu is currently pushing his scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and industry to develop technologies to reduce the impact of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Just what we need, someone else that will perpetuate the hoax of man made global warming.
Probably somewhere in China or India.
Half of the world is there - statistically that is where the second coming should take place.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
An anonymous source says that Chu has solved the pickle matrix, and has made significant progress on the rebigulator. DOE should be a piece of cake.
Obama has impressed me and I hope he keeps going. I am worried, I just know Rod Sterling is waiting to spring the gotcha on everybody and that Twilight Zone music will crank up.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
He also has a Nobel prize and has become a moral authority on climate change and energy ever since his film, "Inconvenient Truth." He has deep experience in government and has done extensive thinking about energy and environmental policy. In short, he both knows what he's talking about and can get things done.
Perhaps Chu has that, too, but his lack of name recognition will constrain his effectiveness.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
If you mean what common parlance means by "politics" -- i.e. "getting elected"
If you mean "running a social unit, such as a state" then most of them suck.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
but all of the downside, including what you listed above, is not as big a downside as that of oil and coal
environment: we pollute our air
geopolitics: we fund our enemies
those two take the cake when compared to nuclear and electric being "messy" and all the other minor issues you list. especially regarding nuclear: lookup pebble bed reactors. we can get 10x the amount of energy out of uranium, and thorium, and produce 1/10th the waste that lasts 2 centuries rather than 10,000 years. nuclear is a no-brainer. the french and japanese have been doing it for decades, deriving most of their energy from nuclear
the french and japanese need to show the way to americans who, like you, seem to suffer from tunnel vision. it doesn't have to be oil and coal. we are using a suboptimal source for our energy needs. all of the downside to nuclear and electric do not stack up as much as the downside of oil and coal
and then we really need to master fusion, in a century, at least. because oil and coal sources are just going to get deeper and more expensive, and uranium and thorium sources aren't going to last forever either
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i thought obama was a communist muslim
i guess the contradictions in the terms communist and muslim escapes the average wackjob... but when you are just stringing together negative terms to connote an Enemy of the United States (trademark), you can't be picky
i guess we can go with fascist communist terrorist muslim then?
too much? sorry, its so hard to keep track of nowadays, the shocking crimes of barack obama. i mean, he wasn't even born in the usa. and when are they finally going to reveal obama's sordid past as a pedophile priest? its all a conspiracy of the liberal media that the truth is kept from us. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE! KEEP UP THE GOOD FIGHT!
zzz
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
where suburbs never developed, where cities remained small and compact, where we retained strong investment in our national rail and trolley infrastructure, you would have something valid to say about biking
but the automobile came and completely transformed our communities and how we live our lives. for the better? for the worse? doesn't matter. it's what happened. irreversibly
so now we are tasked with getting off oil and coal in the least painful way possible
oh sure, people will start biking more if gas goes to say, $100 gallon. but this is not an option for many people: the old, the out of shape, those who live in places that are very hot or cold, places that are very hilly, those who live 30 miles from their job, etc. that which works for the 25 year old marathon runner is not an option for most of us
of course the next step then is to see development patterns abandon the far flung suburbs model if energy sources remain difficult. but changing our lifestyles will take decades. it took decades to put us all in the suburbs, dependent on the car
but we just aren't going to abaondon the suburbs. people like their big houses, they don't like small cramped apartments. what will happen instead is people will simply use electric cars, and continue living in the suburbs. because when faced with the choice between:
1. abandoning the big house in the suburbs for a small city apartment and a bike on cold rainy days/ hot stifling days
2. using an electric car instead
people are going to pick #2, 99.9999% of the time
your doomsday scenario of everyone on bikes is just not going to happen. its not beijing, 1970. sorry to burst your fantasy bubble
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Looks like they did a lot of research to narrow down that Energy secretary short list. Arnie the actor, Colin the military guy (or the football player?) or a Nobel prize winning energy scientist. I dunno, my my gut feeling is to go with the Nobel prize scientist, but then I don't have much political savvy...
i suppose social darwinism is superior?
if a guy breaks his arm and is out of a job, what do you do? let him starve?
no, as a society you give him the healthcare he needs until he is back on his feet. are there those who abuse the system? welfare cheats? yes. so you find them and punish them
but because soomeone tries to cheat the system you'd prefer a world where society just lets people starve for the sake of setbacks in their life? setbacks we all suffer, including you?
where do you derive your support? are you very rich? do you have a lot of strong family ties? good for you! so someone who iw poor or has no family ties deserves to starve in the street? this is a superior moral or just plain logistical approach to the world in your eyes? really?
socialism is superior. wake up america
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What advantage does having a physicist help set energy policy have over having an over-the-road trucker? I doubt the secretary of energy gets a lot of research papers that require him to determine whether something is actually feasible. Credentials are really nice and I'm sure the wall behind his desk will be quite impressive while he's sitting there doing whatever anyone else would do in the same position, since the budget for the department is set by congress.
Perhaps, the appointment is a simple Obama as sending a message that, unlike Bush, he believes in the sciences. It is impossible to tell if Chu will be a good administrator at the federal level at this point, but that could be said about any appointee. And don't forget, the day to day workings of a department is run by the bureaucrats, so Chu will initially only have influence on what goes on. Yes, he sets the directions, but the bureaucrats can carry it out or *not*, at least at the beginning. I for one am very happy about this type of appointment. To me, it shows Obama's desire to let science back into the administration.
you think some sort of agrarian utopia of everyone on bikes is superior? this is proof common sense has absolutely nothing to do with your thought processes. no, common sense says we simply modify our energy sources. we go nuclear, and we master fusion eventually (if we don't do that we ARE going to all be on bikes in a century or two)
the only future is more and more energy use. you seem to have this idea in your head that living large is wrong. no, the story of progress is more and more riches and energy use for everyone. we get temporary setbacks, certainly, but the only way to say your approach is superior is to abandon the notion of progress
everyone on bikes is akin to agrarian communist fantasies of everyone becoming farmers again. should we stop using lightbulbs too? candles? you're insane. its just not going to happen, it isn't superior, and to think everyone bikes is superior in any scenario is proof that common sense has nothing to do with you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
a number of negativities with being american that are, in fact, just negativities with being human. for example, obsession with celebrities. this is a worldwide phenomenon, not an american one. furthermore, try talking about nazism or scientology or certain islamic practices in france or great britain or germany. i think that you find your rights to free speech and being spied upon are just as bad, if not worse, than any curtailments on your free speech in the usa
certainly, much is wrong with the usa. but much is also wrong with europe. on a number of issues, there are pluses and minuses to living her or there. however, one feature does pop up in my mind: socialized medicine. the usa needs universal healthcare. it is a national shame that we do not, and that we are held hostage to some really frigne fools and their idiotic philosophies about why universal healthcare is wrong
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
not that lithium is abundant, nor cheap to get, but nor is coal or oil getting cheaper
nor is uranium and thorium, while we're at it
and yet we need to upgrade to nuclear, like france japan, in order to save our environment and stop funding our enemies. and then we need to figure out fusion, or we really are doomed
looking at the larger picture, how expensive is that lithium battery, really?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What's his Slashdot handle? How many digits are in his UID?
Need surgery? get a surgeon. Need your car fixed? get a mechanic. I'm glad to see Chu get the nod, I don't see a downside to truth and knowledge. If we fail to act on his advice, then that's our shortcoming, not his.
By all accounts, he is an able administrator and a brilliant scientist. He also has experience doing excellent science in a university-based setting with direct applicability, and in the complications of running a very large multi-disciplinary lab.
I hope this signals, as it would seem to, a clear shift towards science-based solutions for climate change, energy production and other important problems of our time. I also hope the solutions being pursued will bring an end to the layoffs, non-paid furloughs and other severe cutbacks in our science community that have been going on steadily over the last eight years, arguably contributing to the decline in innovation that led to the current economic weakness.
During the Bush administration, there were stories of people running through the halls in the White House because they were late to their Bible study meetings; meanwhile scientists were persecuted, cut off from the press, and hounded for simply expressing accurately the results of their work on global warming and climate studies. Almost every area of science was affected, almost uniformly in a negative way. I am not opposed to religion (I am a person of quiet faith myself), but the interference with and poor funding of science, engineering and innovation over the past several years were unconscionable. High time for a change, and this looks to be a change in a good direction.
We all nerd should be proud of it.
Let's hope he'll be the living proof that not always "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence". He's the energy boss, and US needs a brand new energy aproach.
That's one small step for mankind, one giant leap for nerds.
Nerds of the world, unite!
the american model is broken. you compare our lifestyles and what we worry about with say, the danish. now the danish are taxed at ridiculous rates. but they also gets weeks off every year from work. they never have to worry about their healthcare. you ever fought with an hmo over what is covered or not?
to pay for healthcare on your own, you are putting yourself in effectively the same tax bracket as the danish anyways. so the only difference then is the danish get worry free peace of mind, and we get to fight with hmos. its fucking stupid
and surveys show the danish are happier than americans. universal healthcare is such a no brainer. i can't fathom the stupidity of those in the usa that oppose it
socialism is superior to the american model. it really, really is. ok, we get lower taxes. but that just means we have to go buy on our own what is covered anyways in socialist societies. america has better healthcare? partially: better CRISIS healthcare. but the socialist model has better PREVENTATIVE healthcare. in other words, if i have a heart attack, i'd rather be in an american hosptial than a european one. but in the european hospital, i wouldn't get the heart attack in the first place!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Meanwhile, as President-elect Obama contemplates hiring 1997 Nobel Physics laureate Dr. Chu for Secretary of Energy, the current EPA Administrator, Stephen Johnson, just proclaimed that there is "no clean-cut division between science and religion".
I'm really looking forward to January 20th when the grownups take charge for the first time in eight years.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
Chu is the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. So he has at least some management and understanding of politics, even if he has a Noble.
Think Deeply.
Congra Chu Lations!
Don't tell me the federal government is going to start basing science decisions on science instead of emotion or pandering to certain political groups? That just wouldn't feel right.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
the french and japanese have been doing it for decades, deriving most of their energy from nuclear
So has the US... practically our entire Navy runs on nuclear power, and has (safely) for over 50 years now.
Of course, the Navy doesn't have to go through 60,000 "environmental reviews" before digging a ditch, nor do they has as much a concern about "Not In My Backyard" weenies, since they already own tons of land.
BTW, that key to the left of Z on your keyboard is called a shift key. That's how people are making the big letters. FYI.
Comment of the year
Wait, has anyone on this forum ever talked to Nobel Laureates in any sciences? Or read about them?
The vast majority (I'd ballpark it at 80% from completely non-scientific, anecdotal experience) of Nobel Prize winners IN SCIENCE are ego-driven megalomaniacs that are addicted to prestige and influence (since salary rarely goes into 7 digits for professors, its rarely the largest motivator). As such, they've dedicated their lives to feeding their addiction, working their way up from assistant professor to Director of [Weighty Gov. Funding Cash Cow], and navigating the political landscape comes as easily as breathing.
This is no surprise. In nearly any field, there are many more workers whose merit-based achievement qualifies them for advancement than open positions for advancement, so its the self-promoters who actually land the boss's job. Sometimes the value of the work is so strong it outweighs political maneuvering, but its the exception more than the rule. The fact is, every year there are a very limited number of Nobels to hand out, and MANY researchers who have done science of a caliber to deserve them.
The fact that Chu has a Nobel AND is a Director of a Gov. Cash Cow should indicate strongly enough his political experience. The only question remaining is whether he can transplant himself into a wholly new network of players in the politic game.
P.S. I've met Chu. He's a nice guy, and from my inexperienced scientist viewpoint, he's got what it takes to play with the big boys in Washington.
not going to happen dude. perhaps if you had mentioned more trains, more mass transport, ok. but you are asking people to exert a lot of effort. you realize that, right? you want some office worker to bike 10 miles a day? really? are you serious?
While it's certainly not going to happen, it is difficult to conceive of any genuinely negative results should the average office worker start riding 10 miles to work.
I think he was refering to the fact that the beam looks cut. However, it is just as likely to have broken and had metallic flow from melting steel above cover it.
"And the heathens with their ways of trickery and deceit shall not prevail over the will of the righteous"
Plenty of good administrators and politicians, where did that get us? To global climate change and a car industry without any incentives to become socially responsible.
If only politicians and good administrators are the solutions to our problems we can as well stop the fairy tale democracy would be and let professional politicians and administrators do as they wish since they *obviously" know better.
The only problem is that they actually don't ....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You don't become a Nobel Prize winner by being stupid and not knowing how to play "the game". You should see the level of politics in academia - Washington DC will be a piece of cake for this guy.
Mindset is the stumbling block for not wanting to get killed on my way to work by riding a bike in a major metropolitan area? I think "fatassedness" is the primary stumbling block for most people not riding a bike to work 20 miles a day. And snow. And rain. And dark. And getting hit by a car. And being sweaty at work. And messing up my work attire. And dropping my kids of at school on my way. Can I stop yet?
Yeah, but he had to leave the Greenpeace organization before, or because, he expressed his beliefs about nuclear power. That's not a promising sign.
Comment of the year
Many of you miss the point. Yes at one point Chu did science. But now he is an administraitor at one of the biggest labs in the contry. He has spend his later years working for energy related issues
we can get 10x the amount of energy out of uranium, and thorium, and produce 1/10th the waste that lasts 2 centuries rather than 10,000 years.
By the way, that's another way of phrasing "waste that is 50 times as radioactive".
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I'm not sure why this was modded "Insightful" -- do you have a clue who Steven Chu is? Because, if so, I'd like to know why you think that he isn't a good administrator that can deal with politicians (the President, Congress, etc.), business leaders, etc., and a person "who can listen to scientists and engineers and also be a great administrator". It is hardly as if winning the Nobel Prize in Physics is inconsistent with also being a competent administrator, and to me his history (most recently, as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) seems to have plenty of evidence of success as an administrator in roles which require working with scientists, engineers, politicians, etc.
what are you babbling about logic about? the european countries ARE democracies
it's impossible to be socialist and a democracy at the same time? the usa ALREADY IS SOCIALIST: medicare, social security
what the hell about socialism gives you conniption fits?
can you ligcally explain to me why something like universla healthcare counteracts representational democracy?
no, you can't
stop babbling about logic, you have none
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So has the US... practically our entire Navy runs on nuclear power, and has (safely) for over 50 years now.
Not really.
The US Navy's submarine fleet is, I believe, completely nuclear powered. The US Navy just retired, or is in the process of retiring, its last non-nuclear powered aircraft carrier.
Every other ship in the US Navy is powered by oil or gas. Oil for diesel engines or gas for gas turbines.
The US Navy has decided that nuclear power is for special purpose or very large platforms. Not for general purpose. A 600-foot long guided missile destroyer (DDG51 class, current production being built now) is too small for a nuclear power plant.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
world has seen LITTLE benefit from political savvy people up till today, since the DAWN of civilization.
sorry, your concern is bullshit, because apparently you dont know much about world history, leave aside political history.
to be able to be political savvy, you have to be a politician in profession. which, leaves little room for anything else. you end up basically being a tricky bastard that can get his way by compromising whatever they can, and in the end this profits noone but the politician and the interested party.
noone here can name 5 cases in which politically savy people did great good for the betterment of mankind. i dare you too.
Read radical news here
Well it looks like you win. Your ad hominems get modded up, and my observations get modded Troll and Flamebait. Congratulations. (Actually the only reason I'm posting this is so that more of the Troll modders here will waste their mod points). How low can my Karma go?
but you don't have brains
if we all rode bikes, yes, that would be a better world
it would also be a better world if we all sang campfire songs instead of wage war
except for the small fact that both scenarios are impossible
i'm not here to destroy your sense that the world cannot be improved, i'm here to tell you that the way you think it should be improved is logistically impossible, that certain truths about this world, while very ugly and regrettable, are also insurmountable, and all you can do is accept
anyone who looks at a world of people on bikes has their heart in the right place, but not much of a head on their shoulders. so don't lose heart, just grow a brain and keep the heart
keep working for a better future. just know what avenues of work are going to bring fruit, and which are wastes of time
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If that's the case, then what was the purpose of the National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL) that we built in Colorado back in the 1970s? Sure, its budget was gutted back during the Reagan years, but to say that we haven't had any national lab assets focused on renewable energy is misleading. Don't get me wrong, I applaud Chu's dedication to the cause of renewable energy at LBL, but saying that DoE hasn't been focused on this issue is an insult to the good work that NREL scientists have been doing for the last three decades.
It's like putting A.L.I.C.E. and SmarterChild into the same chat window and seeing them go back and forth with one another in an infinite loop of retarded pre-written scripts.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
lookup pebble bed reactors. we can get 10x the amount of energy out of uranium, and thorium, and produce 1/10th the waste that lasts 2 centuries rather than 10,000 years. nuclear is a no-brainer.
There are some great new designs out there... If we applied ourselves, we could certainly better the current reactors, which seem to have been designed around the time of the Crimean War.
But there are tremendous barriers to doing this in the US. The fact that the barriers are political more than technical doesn't make them any less real.
I think that we first need to concentrate on a massive social engineering project, educating people about nuclear power. Social engineering is the key to enabling the next generation of nuclear power.
It may be an insurmountable task for this country, though. Nuclear power has as much good buzz as, say, slavery, and we only seem to respect technologies that play music.
It is sad that /. bothers with speculation and rumour.
This is the sort of baseless drivel I expect from main stream media now, listen up you primitive screw heads! Stick to the facts, weâ(TM)re supposed to be geeks not jocks.
8-)
Regards Sinesurfer A Nerd is someone who lives for technology, A Geek is someone who lives for technology and loves it
Congradulations. You still find the time to mod me down, even though I am pointing out your abuses.
the man already administers LL.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm sure this is just a typo of some sort. Surely they meant Alex Chiu, right?
[Mother Earth used Energy Crisis attack]
Obama : "Steven! I Chu-chu-choose you!"
[The United States sends out Steven Chu]
[Steven Chu used Voodoo Magic Science Attack]
[It's super effective! Mother Earth has fainted, rolled over and resumed her regular role of abused neglected pregnant kitchen slave]
Obama : Make me a sandwich, betch!
I would rather have someone who knows what they are talking about than someone who knows more on how to talk. This man knows what he is talking about and would be an excellent choice for the rest of the politicians to learn from. Political people are usually not saying what they mean. We need more people who just say what is in Washington. This man would be perfect in my mind to deal with Washington. He would state his case with facts on why things need to be a certain way and he is uncorrupted by politics.
I think imposing artificial limits on the capabilities of 'smart people' is a common mistake. If your comments are supposed to be intelligent, why would an intelligent person be less likely to arrive at something similar? You find your suggestions to embody a correct solution, but for some reason it is out of reach to those exceeding a particular IQ or level of education? Maybe this comes from fearing people having education without intelligence; but as long as we are actually speaking about someone who is intelligent -- not just educated -- I think we should give 'em a chance.
It sounds to me like the claim is: people who are smart think they know more than they do. If anything, I think the smarter you are, the more likely you are to realize exactly what you don't know.
"...such is the excellence of your judgment that it was ever contrary to that of the people's..."
You are correct, the phrase "smart people" is really way too vague. I didn't want to go through and put quotes (but not "smart" quotes!) around the use of "smart" either, because I didn't really mean smart in a sarcastic way. I really do mean people with a significant amount of education and/or intelligence.
The people I am expressing my concern about are people with legitimate reason to believe that they have a significantly greater ability to think/reason than most of the general population. A Nobel prize winner in Physics might reasonably believe this about himself, for example. It is very easy for such "smart people" to jump to the conclusion that their intelligence is equal to the problem of government. In general, when someone believes this, they are incorrect.
Certain things like allowing people to suffer the consequences of their poor decisions are emotionally difficult to accept. It is hard (for most of us) to see people suffer. It is very tempting to think you can come up with a law to fix their problems. In the case of religious people they will generally consider the law to be a good law because it reflects the laws of whatever God they believe in. In the case of academics, they think it's a good law because they believe it is based on sound reasoning.
It is very difficult to {be that highly educated and highly regarded by your peers as being intelligent}, and yet still {have the humility to realize that the problems you solved in science are dwarfed by the complexity of things like markets and human behavior}.
Many educated people fear, with good reason, those who would govern by imposing their religious beliefs. They fail to fear those who would govern by imposing their "logical conclusions" or imposing the "thinking of the best minds on the subject". Forcing your ideas on others never ends up being a good thing. The only thing that works is to find the smallest set of rules that have to be imposed by force, and relentlessly eliminate anything else that well-meaning meddlers try to introduce.
Liberty uber alles.
So, how do you feel about reserve requirements placed upon commercial and investment banks?
Jesus ...
Gandhi
Genghis Khan ( in spite of european propaganda, he had lasting influces in Asia )
Abraham Lincoln
Martin Luther King Jr.
I think you have too narrow a view of politics.
Almost by definition, great leaders must be politically savvy. Afterall, politics is no more than convincing people to go where you want them to go.
I dunno. I just don't buy it. The staggering complexity of human behavior, market forces, etc. seems such an obvious, and concrete even, issue that you'd have to be suffering from pathological delusions to be a successful physicist and ignore it. Although, if my understanding is correct, these delusions may be exactly what you're imputing to Nobel prize winners.
I recognize what you're saying as a possibility. However, I also have a suspicion that those who succeed in intellectual endeavors have a great awareness of what they do not know. It's expedient in learning and in problem solving; without having skill in it, it seems unlikely that you'd make much progress in the first place. If there's any truth to this, it's inconceivable to me that someone skilled in locating what they do not know, would make the unforgivable blunder of thinking they know enough about an overly complex system to control it.
"...such is the excellence of your judgment that it was ever contrary to that of the people's..."
From this mornings metamod:
Comment: Re:eww (Score 1) 2008-11-24 22:46
by unlametheweak on 10:46 PM November 24th, 2008 (#25881285)
Attached to: PETA Using Games To Spread Its Message
Comment: Re:Who broke the law? (Score 1) 2008-12-10 08:08
by unlametheweak on 08:08 AM December 10th, 2008 (#26058713)
Attached to: When Teachers Are Obstacles To Linux In Education
Comment: Re:RINO (Score 1) 2008-11-21 09:09
by unlametheweak on 09:09 AM November 21st, 2008 (#25844849)
Attached to: In a nutshell
Comment: Re:But think of the children (Score 1) 2008-12-10 03:08
by unlametheweak on 03:08 AM December 10th, 2008 (#26056781)
Attached to: IWF Backs Down On Wiki Censorship
Comment: Re:Seriously? (Oh, wait..."srsly omfg!!!") (Score 1) 2008-11-21 00:38
by unlametheweak on 12:38 AM November 21st, 2008 (#25842249)
Attached to: Study Recommends Online Gaming, Social Networking For Kids
Comment: Re:10,000 URLs? (Score 1) 2008-12-06 18:49
by unlametheweak on 06:49 PM December 6th, 2008 (#26015967)
Attached to: Clarifying the Next Step in Australia's Net-Censorship Scheme
Might be a while before that/those mod(s) get points again assuming I am typical of metamods.
Crazy. Thought something looked odd 6 of the 10 mm's were for one persons comments. Then I remembered you saying something about being subjected to drive by modding. No reason not to + them anyway. Maybe the "system" will catch up with them eventually.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
I'm not sure whether I'm reading you correctly, but are you demonstrating the exact problem that I'm trying to illustrate? You aren't, by any chance, thinking that because you know something about reserve requirements (while 90% of the public does not), you would be able to set a better policy (e.g. 100% reserve! Then there will be no crashes!)? Forgive me if you meant something else.
If it's just a straight question, well, what I think about reserve requirements is that if you're going to play with trust-based or market-based currency, it ought to be up to you what reserve requirements you personally set as a minimum before doing business in that currency. If you're wondering whether I think the federal government should attempt, by force, to control banks, to prevent private individuals from doing business in whatever currency they choose, to declare by fiat that certain private companies shall control an artificial money supply that everyone is forced by the government to accept the currency of, well, no, I don't think the government has any right to do that.
Really, though, this is the point. You shouldn't have to be an expert on economics to figure out who you pick to vote for for president. But you have to be, because he is going to be able (and expected) to use the massive power of the federal government to (attempt to) control it. That's idiotic. You're swinging this giant thing around, destroying all kinds of small economic ecosystems. No one should have that kind of power. The constitution did not want the government to take that kind of power. And what is happening right now financially is a great example of why.
Liberty uber alles.
I agree that it's inconceivable, but it's the inconceivable situation we have right now. Academics are overwhelmingly left leaning, and the left is very much into setting the "right policies" to control that overly complex system.
Liberty uber alles.
... requires the coordination of huge departments and highly specialized staff. Chen happens to be the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. With a budget of half a billion $ it doesn't get much bigger than that in the US.
You obviously don't know much about what it takes to be successful in modern day experimental physics nor did you perform any research on Chen. Implying that this man doesn't have an impressive administrative resume is ludicrous.
That this comment is moderated 5 goes to show that your ignorance is pretty widely shared.
A brilliant choice. The problems will arise when his science and Obama's politics prove incompatible, which will inevitably happen at some point since politics is about compromise and sub-optimisation. Will he then cave or resign?
Yes, the first full scale prototype will be coming online soon so we'll be able to find out from the Chinese if they are any good or not.
Nuclear power still has some way to go before it can be considered viable. The very sad thing is lobbyists are not pushing for more research to make something decent, they are pushing to build 1960s dinosaurs painted green as a raid on the public purse. A decent energy policy may be able to reverse that, but in the meantime the only viable options for US nuclear power is to wait until China or India (accelerated thorium looks good) has something that can be shown to work well and then buy that.
Some people talk about fast breeders but they are ignoring the French efforts of the 1970s and basing their hopes on the now broken fast breeder dreams of the 1960s. Sure, the French got something to sort of work but the reality of having a lot of highly radioactive stuff about is that you have to use a lot of very expensive automation since. You can't just send in a guy with an angle grinder, especially if there is no radiation suit thick enough.
what I think about reserve requirements is that if you're going to play with trust-based or market-based currency, it ought to be up to you what reserve requirements you personally set as a minimum before doing business in that currency
I don't think we're talking about the same thing. Reserve requirements placed upon banks are something different than a margin account.
The point is that we need regulations sometimes. Without reserve requirements placed upon banks we'd be setting ourselves up for another great depression.
He just added that sentence to Wikipedia before posting his comment.
Wow, I'm a troll. I really do not understand how that happened.
I genuinely am hoping that real scientific facts enter into this country where popular trends now lead the day.
It seems obvious to me now that Mr. Chu is going to have his hands full (Now that was a sarcastic troll).
After actually trying to address high energy prices, the only real answers I found turned out to be a hybrid turbo diesel powered vehicle and geothermal heating/cooling. The rest was a bunch of huwe and hopeful thinking.
By the way, that's another way of saying "fuel".
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Actually, I was indeed talking about reserve requirements placed on banks. Currently it's like 1/9th or something iirc. What I was saying was that there should not be a central power dictating what that is and forcing you to use that currency. If some people want to put their stuff in a 1/9th fractional reserve bank, let them. If someone else thinks that's bunk and the fraction should be 1/2, let them start their own thing, and let the market set the rate of exchange between the two currencies. Don't force everyone to use the same one, because then, no matter what the policy, it will be wrong for somebody. A heterogeneous system is more likely to be resistant to problems. Instead of "the" economy you would have more local control, and if people did something really stupid it would serve as a cautionary tale for the next state or next town over, rather than taking down everyone.
As for the great depression, that's a great example of the failure of central economic authority. Even when local innovation in currency started helping one town in Austria get out of the Great Depression, their central government was concerned about losing control so they stopped it.
http://mig76en.wordpress.com/2006/05/09/a-local-currency-to-revive-the-local-economy-in-austria/
The federal monetary dictatorship is not constitutional, which is reason enough to reject it in my opinion. But the bigger problem is that it stifles local innovation. One single neighborhood could innovate themselves out of economic crisis if they were allowed to do so. Currently, most people don't even know that innovation in currency is possible. That is what life is like in a dictatorship--you start losing even the ability to think about the world in a different way.
Just to be clear on the initial point--I have no problem with fractional reserve banking. I have a big problem with the federal gov't unconstitutionally shoving their particular blessed instance of it down our throats. What you are seeing now is the result of a devastated financial ecosystem that suffers from, among other things, a lack of diversity.
Liberty uber alles.
I actually think some of what you are saying here is pretty smart. However there is one thing I would point out: earlier you were complaining that people shouldn't have to be experts on economics in order to pick their president. Your solution is that they should be experts on economics in order to pick their bank? Not that I really have a personal problem with that.
Yes. But in practice you would have stuff like consumer reports, local conventional wisdom, etc, which aren't there now because there isn't really that much to decide. You have stuff decided for you. If you knew that it was in the hands of private companies, you would not just lazily assume the government was making sure that nothing really bad could happen to your money.
And that's actually another problem--when the government steps in and controls stuff, people start thinking things like "if [mortgage-backed securities] were a horrifically dumb idea, there would be a regulation against them". People get dependent on the government to protect them from their own stupidity, and when that doesn't work out, they introduce something that is supposed to fix it (Sarbanes-Oxley) which further cripples innovation.
In any system, you are going to have bubbles, because you are always going to have people who want to gamble and get rich quick. But when the regulations force/push/influence people into doing things a certain way, the bubbles get artificially huge and so do the ripple effects when the burst.
Liberty uber alles.
Because you were never actually arguing against me. I was talking about civil society while you were busy destroying your Randian-free-market-fundamentalist-strawman. I can stand at a remove from things, because I wasn't really involved in your pre-written script argument against the strawman you created. You obviously weren't reading any of my posts nor responding to any of the points I made--I didn't even really need to be there.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
And there's the other important point about politics, which is it's a necessary part of systems where there are struggles for power, and a necessary part of human discourse where everyone wants something. However, it doesn't have to be the game that gets played in the public court. I think at this point there's a level of faÃade that we can all see through.
The problem with the ugly game -- in which the pretendocracy makes as though they misconstrue some point, or become righteously indignant about some minor thing, or endlessly repeat some talking-point as though it were always conventional wisdom -- it only works against an opponent who plays the same game. Whenever you try to launch smears against decent people the shit always flies back in your face. The last thing politicians of industry want is grownups coming in and spoiling their play-time.
I look forward to the future day when the Earth (and Mars) are ruled by a wise council of enlightened people whose aim is first to help humanity thrive. But until that day, I'll take any honest soul we can find!
-- thinkyhead software and media