Comments on: Political Science Fiction

By: Darren

Darren — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:24:27 +0000

mmm … on second thoughts, perhaps it’s not!

By: Darren

Darren — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:21:20 +0000

“In ‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency,’ a software mogul made his fortune by inventing a back-to-front relational database program. In typical db programs, you enter all the data and see what projections the software give you. In this guy’s program, you enter the conclusions you’d like the program to arrive at, and it goes back and enters the appropriate data in the spreadsheets to make the answer come out right.” Isn't this how the process between observation and orientation (before decision and action) works? See here to be read with ...

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:53:31 +0000

With all due respect, Dan, I’m not sure there’s such a thing as “overly snarky” when it comes to discussing Prof. Reynolds.

By: Dan Nexon

Dan Nexon — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 17:49:56 +0000

Speaking of “political science fiction”, has anyone seen the top SF recommendation from instapundit’s readers? My own, overly snarky, reaction at my blog.

By: Robin

Robin — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 17:18:58 +0000

Raymong Geuss, who wrote the critique of Habermas, The Idea of a Critical Theory, once said that there are case where you hate someone much more and come into more conflict when you understand them better. Interesting, the babelfish problem as the rejoinder to Habermas.

By: dave heasman

dave heasman — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 16:45:58 +0000

This is how Analogue Computers worked for solving complicated equations. Something similar obtained for complicated homeostatic control systems, where you knew what output you wanted.

By: Brennan

Brennan — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 13:25:52 +0000

I loved God’s final message to his creation:

“Sorry for the inconvenience.”

By: euan

euan — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 12:44:07 +0000

AltaVista delenda est.

By: Jeremy Osner

Jeremy Osner — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 11:55:29 +0000

I never quite got why the Babel Fish worked as a translator of speech—it seemed to me like as described, it would be more a telepathy machine. Why would it feed exclusively on the brain activity of the entity addressing the user? But it’s been a long time since I read the books, maybe this was addressed and I didn’t pick up on it.

By: nothstine

nothstine — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 05:59:57 +0000

Adams made another contibution that rings true these days:

[Details are going to be sketchy—the book’s packed away right now. But this is the gist:]

In ‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency,’ a software mogul made his fortune by inventing a back-to-front relational database program. In typical db programs, you enter all the data and see what projections the software give you. In this guy’s program, you enter the conclusions you’d like the program to arrive at, and it goes back and enters the appropriate data in the spreadsheets to make the answer come out right.

The product never made it on the market; the Pentagon bought it up, as well as all the code and notes, and classified it. He claimed, though, that you could read the newspaper coverage of how different branches of the military justified their appropriations requests and figure out that the Navy was still using v. 2.0, while the Air Force was apparently beta testing v. 3.0, etc.

By 2003, Cheney, Blair, et al. were probably running v. 4.0 to “fix” their Iraq intelligence.

By: mikez

mikez — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 02:51:42 +0000

James Morrow wrote a short story in which God reversed his mischief at the Tower of Babel and then some. Not only did everyone speak the same language, but everyone understood the meaning and beliefs behind everyone else’s words perfectly, no matter how well hidden they would have normally been. The results were bloody, to say the least.

By: josh

josh — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 02:14:28 +0000

I’m still waiting for the book on the Political Theory of Discworld. There must be Terry Pratchett fans working in relevant disciplines out there … right?

By: markus

markus — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 00:53:08 +0000

yeah, but Drezner apparently missed the part about painting the whole thing pink before applying the SEP field (and the longest nightshift in the history of the universe; I believe context is important here).
That said, Douglas Adams had lots of useful things to say concerning politics, IMHO it just doesn’t lend itself well to debate since the insight is in most cases indisputable. I mean, take The other Shaltanak’s dukelberry shrub is always a more mauvey shade of pinky russet. or the phases of “Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases or careless talk and the G’Gugvuntts and the Vl’hurgs and of course the explantion of the problem with governing people. (“To summarize the summary of the summary, people are a problem.”)