on treating politics as a game

snagged from filkertom's other blog: Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo on the dangers of political strategizing.

Today we hear Democrats asking whether they should take a hard line on Social Security or a soft line, stand in opposition or come up with a contending plan. Here's what I propose whenever Democrats have a question about just what stance to take on the Social Security debate.

One question ...

What is the actual policy outcome that would be most preferable on Social Security (to protect, preserve or augment it -- whatever) and how important is it that it take place in this Congress?

Cory Doctorow interviews Ray Kurzweil

picked up (natch!) from Boing Boing: Though Experiments: When the Singularity is More Than a Literary Device: An Interview with Futurist-Inventor Ray Kurzweil

Interesting. My gut feeling is that, in this context--that is, making predictions about the future of the human race as informed by new things we'll be able to do with AI Any Day Now--Kurzweil is a kook. A highly intelligent, informed, entertaining, and articulate kook, but a kook nonetheless.

I'd also like to point out the two, um, big holes in the second paragraph:

When the speed and scope of our cognition is hitched to the price-performance curve of microprocessors, our "prog-ress" will double every eighteen months, and then every twelve months, and then every ten, and eventually, every five seconds.

(1) Moore's Law (which seems to be what this notion is taken from) doesn't suggest that the doubling rate for processor speed is going to increase at any point.

(2) The end of Moore's Law's applicability is in sight.

Cory, I have a lot of respect for you and your writing, but, well, you goofed.

damned heterocyclic amines.

Grilled Meat Causes Cancer

Dammit. (Not that I even own a grill, but I do enjoy the occasional charred overtone.)