William Blake Quote

"Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not be believed."

Robert McNamara

Robert McNamara died recently. A confessed unconvicted War Criminal, McNamara was a logitician for the firebombing campaigns on Japan, and a reluctant architect of the Cuban Missle Crisis and most significantly, the Vietnam War. In addition to being a profoundly intelligent and capable CEO, Cabinet Secretary and World Bank Chief, Mcnamara was striking for his deep reflection and appreciation for the moral complexity of his actions as revealed in the excellent documentary Fog of War (torrent).

Here is the synopsis of an interview at Berkeley in 2004 including a webcast.

Who better to deduce the lessons and folly of War than a man who was its Commander. Here are a list of his 11 lessons:

1. Empathize with your enemy
2. Rationality will not save us
3. There's something beyond one's self
4. Maximize efficiency
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war
6. Get the data
7. Belief and seeing are often both wrong
8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning
9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil
10. Never say never
11. You can't change human nature

Controversial, terrible, and flawed as he was, a great man has died.

Mankiw on Friedman on Global Warming

David Friedman, wary of ever expanding government, expresses caution for the seemingly obvious imposition of a Pigovian carbon tax. Greg Mankiw gives an excellent response to Friedman's slippery slope argument, citing his father, the legendary Milton, as a supporting argument.

Immigration Policy

Legendary businessman and philanthropist, Bill Gates criticises immigration policy in the United States before a Senate committee. WSJ article. FT article. Many foreign students lucky enough to be given subsidised graduate-level education in the United States are then forced to return home right at their economic prime. An economy only benefits from the import of high skilled, high income labour. Conversely, brain drain in undeveloped countries tends to maintain a vicious cycle of poverty. Much fuss has been made recently in the US calling for anti-immigration policies. Maintaining tight limits on the numbers of H1-B visas owing to a large influx of low skilled illegal Mexican immigrants is a travesty of economic policy.

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan was one of the most articulate and rational thinkers of the past 50 years. A visionary, humanist, planetary scientist and professor at Cornell University, he put considerable effort into communicating the knowledge and implications of scientific revelation to the general public. On issues from science, public and foreign policy, and informed religious belief, he was an important voice for mankind. Indeed, when in my previous post I declared that technocrats should be the ones setting policy, I was referring to men such as him. His public television series 'Cosmos' should be required viewing.

He died 10 years ago.

Incidentally, most of his public writing was shaped by his regular use of cannabis. While he remained private about this issue during his life so as not to detract from his important public message, he anonymously advocated very strongly for its legalisation and responsible use.

Recently, his wife was interviewed recently by Ira Flatow on NPR Science Friday. This is an archived interview of Carl Sagan himself with Flatow from 1994 which I highly recommend.

My good friend Timothy recently posted about Sagan as well.