While I’m doing stuff other than thinking about Obama’s decision and the flawed thinking underpinning it, I tripped over a BRILLIANT presentation by Larry Lessig which neatly summarizes what he sees – and what I see – as the core problem with American politics today.
Take 15 mins and watch and listen to the while thing.
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The best part was his example of AGW 😉 I think he got the corruption part a bit wrong on that one. And zero peer reviewed papers questioned the consensus? Perhaps Lessig is part of the problem too, no?
If you took that seriously, you’d be a minarchist, not a liberal :-).
I am going to hit him on “global warming” because it illustrates two flaws in his approach.
The first, of course, is that recent revelations reveal that the “concensus” was mostly manufactured and in reality climate is so complex and modeling so poor that _nobody_ knows what is going on. Yet he was completely taken in by the fraud of the “consensus ” that such knowledge existed.
The larger error is a cause of the first which is the failure to consider all interests in situations like this. He talks of the sums spent by carbon dioxide emitting industries, but nary a mention of the billions of taxpayer dollars sent to the consensus builders. What was the return on investment there? Shouldn’t that cause at least a little, tiny bit of skepticism? But it doesn’t.
I am all for his kind of skepticism about private interests. That would normally be a good thing. What makes it bad is the lack of skepticism the other way, toward the rentiers of public interest. This also creates a “consensus” that is more wrong than right.
I would say that the best litmus test of this new organization he is trying to build to work on this problem is whether it looks at _all_ the players, not just a subset of them. If it doesn’t, then it’s just another partisan player in the scrum.
_“…the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers._
_The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded._
_Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.â€_
Dwight D. Eisenhower (hattip “Bill Whittle”:http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/
Remember when that used to be the left’s favorite refrain? I guess if you can’t beat em, join em.
The bit about the peer-reviewed journals and global warming is looking wayyy less robust.
But there’s certainly a VERY large pecuniary interest “among those manufacturing the very ‘consensus’ he cites.”:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=t0:a16:g2:r1:c0.0916061:b29149856
And yet Lessig doesn’t see that as having the potential for institutional corruption. Why?
It’s not an idle question, either. His presentation says the whole point of the current project at Harvard is to develop ways to identify this in ways that go beyond ideology. and he has very clearly failed miserably in that task.
Which tends to sharply erode confidence in his project’s ability to deliver on its promise. And that’s a damn shame – because his project has the right aim. Just, maybe, not the right people to execute it.
I think the comments so far are spot on but I’ll just add this observation: the problem with the global warming example in his analysis of the institutional corruption of Congress seems to be, itself, institutional corruption. Curious that he missed the very thing he was looking for, when it was just in a different place.
I suspect that it has something to do with AGW coming from the Academy, Lessig’s own home mindset. Few people see their own as being corrupt.
_”Mark Hess, public affairs director for the Goddard Space Flight Center which runs the GISS laboratory, said they are working on Mr. Horner’s_ (FOIA) _request, though he couldn’t say why they have taken so long.”_
…
_He said he was unfamiliar with the British controversy and couldn’t say whether NASA was susceptible to the same challenges to its data.”_
“researcher-says-nasa-hiding-climate-data”:http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/03/researcher-says-nasa-hiding-climate-data/?page=2
The public affairs director of CRU’s American counterpart isn’t familiar with the controversy? Are the walls that thick in the ivory tower, or is this guy full of crap? Anyone care to make a friendly wager on whether NASA’s has just as many skeletons?
Are the walls that thick in the ivory tower, or is this guy full of crap?
I’ve found that even many technical people don’t know of the CRU scandal. Most folks don’t hang out on the internet and until the popular media/news/talk shows cover the event they are as unaware as anyone. Don’t underestimate the continuing power of the MSM to control the message.
Agreed- but he’s the _public affairs director._ Heh.
chuck;
It’s one thing for a chemist working nano-particle conductive inks in a start up to have missed out on the controversy. Completely understandable.
But techies working in the field at one of the other biggest global players? Not plausible. It would mean there is no grape vine and gossip among and about the top players in that technical field. I can’t imagine what would be hotter (heh) news in such a community.
IMO Lessig’s project is doomed to failure. The arrows from “lobbyist” to “congress” to “interests” is oversimplified and incomplete. Power, prestige, and money go hand in hand and are for all practical purposes inseparable. If one acquires one of the 3 the other 2 will flow to him in due time.
In Lessig’s circle of influence the “interests” pay the “lobbyist” who pay the “congress”. The congress in return passes legislation to protect the “interests”. While he touches on how the “interest” gains financially from this arrangement he fails to mention the consequences of not paying into the circle of influence. Lessig seems oblivious to the power structure. If we replace the 3 groups in Lessig’s presentation with the shop keeper (interests), the enforcement thugs (lobbyist), and the Mafia (congress) the power structure becomes obvious. I don’t think anyone would suggest that the shop keeper is buying the Mafia. His argument that the institution can’t violate the existing rules is a bit silly since congress makes the rules. For as long as I have been alive congress has been increasingly violating the rules we call the constitution.
Have some people failed to notice that the date of the Lessing talk predates the first AGW post on this site by 11 days?
Anyway, isn’t AGW rather off topic here? Write it off as a poorly chosen example if you want, it doesn’t change the points made does it?
What about the main point of the talk that too much money and too much lobbying has lead to institutional corruption? I agree with Joe Katzman that working on this problem is a wothwhile project. I’m not sure why Lessing is the “wrong type of person” to pursue such a project. The more the merrier, no?
Anyway . . . Robert Reich’s “Supercaptialism” is on point here. I recommend it to all. Here’s a review I did of it some time ago.
Well, AL posta apretty good link to a bright guy and a simple presentation about institutional corruption that I would have thought would provoke some interesting discussion.
What I get ais a group of people who agree with one another slapping themselves on the back about their views on Global Warming. Something that has been discussed to death on the site for over a week in a number of different threats.
On a Met fan site I visit there are specific rules against going off topic in this manner. the posts are removed/
This thread was about Institutional Corruption and it was hijacked to be about AWG. I think this weakens the site because it cuts off discussion of varying topics, Do you think this could be addressed AL.
It is really annoying and very bad behavior.