I am glad it was withdrawn, but with such a CYA attitude that it's still irritating. Rumsfeld was saying "well, it might be a good idea but we don't know".
I think alternate ways of looking at data are great -- but I think the market model was chosen not for its predictive power but for political overtones. It says to the world "We are aiming at a society where monetary value determines everything... even the future."
Artificial agents that collaborate in a "market" to identify previously invisible trends might be a good idea -- but then you can hard-code your assumptions. Market manipulation (why I mentioned Enron) is outside of those assumptions, and yet it happens -- it's a scary thought to imagine what might happen with a market-manipulator of a terrorism market.
diversions like these obscure the point of how and why terrorism exists in the first place
Amen, brother. A stitch in time saves nine. Why don't we ask those questions? Maybe if we-the-first-world encouraged democracy (instead of Realpolitik puppetry) and shared the fabulous wealth we control (rather than hoarding it and doling it out in little dollops along with guns), we wouldn't inspire (dare I say it?) understandable outrage from have-not world citizens.
If the outrage wasn't there, it couldn't be perverted into soul-killing violence like September 11th, and the Departments of State and Defense would have to dig deeper to come up with a cover story for bombing Iraqi children.
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Re: Withdrawn
Date: 2003-07-31 06:30 pm (UTC)I think alternate ways of looking at data are great -- but I think the market model was chosen not for its predictive power but for political overtones. It says to the world "We are aiming at a society where monetary value determines everything... even the future."
Artificial agents that collaborate in a "market" to identify previously invisible trends might be a good idea -- but then you can hard-code your assumptions. Market manipulation (why I mentioned Enron) is outside of those assumptions, and yet it happens -- it's a scary thought to imagine what might happen with a market-manipulator of a terrorism market.
Amen, brother. A stitch in time saves nine. Why don't we ask those questions? Maybe if we-the-first-world encouraged democracy (instead of Realpolitik puppetry) and shared the fabulous wealth we control (rather than hoarding it and doling it out in little dollops along with guns), we wouldn't inspire (dare I say it?) understandable outrage from have-not world citizens.
If the outrage wasn't there, it couldn't be perverted into soul-killing violence like September 11th, and the Departments of State and Defense would have to dig deeper to come up with a cover story for bombing Iraqi children.