Dear group members,
For many years I've silently followed these discussions and
now a project is emerging on which I'd like to ask whether
any of you knowledgeable members might wish to help. The
project starts in a different place but will inform your
deliberations.
Background: Two years ago I began a research project at
the Harvard Kennedy School on "Pathologies of Public-
Decision-making," to answer the question: Why do very
smart and well-informed persons make decisions with
catastrophic consequences, even though warned in advance--
and what can be done to mitigate this pathological behavior?
The findings will be based on a series of case studies including
the Iraq War and 2007/08 financial crisis (building on my earlier
work on the Vietnam War). It turns out that decision-making
processes in all these cases share structural similiarities leading
to the adverse outcomes.
As for us on this group, the decision process leading to the
present rules for internet messaging seems to have
strong resemblances to the other cases You are all smart
and we were adequately warned in advance and all the way
along (as this thread illustrates, and over the years I've monitored
many dozens of threads like this one). But the result has been
catastrophic: most messages are spam, with a heavy economic cost
in terms of cleanup and prevention costs and the burden of fraud.
So I will include a case study on the spam/abuse phenomenon
and why so many smart people (like those on this and related
lists I monitor) have produced such adverse outcomes.
I am planning to complete my book manuscript next year and hope
to be writing up this part of the draft early in '16. I invite anyone
interested in commenting (or even working with me in writing this
chapter) to send me a note off-list.
To understand my approach please see the "Pathologies" page
linked on my website noted below. Best to invest 10 minutes in
viewing the MP4 file. A quick summary appears in the linked PDF
but if you are not read into this type of analysis the elaboration in
the spoken version will help a lot.
My thanks in advance to any of you who find this of interest and
might be able to help make the final result something unusual.
Jeffrey Race, President
Cambridge Electronics Laboratories
Co-organizer, "Buddhism Rejoins the Great Conversation in India"
Pune, India, November 22-24, 2014
(Centre for Buddhist Studies University of Oxford)
International Center of Excellence --- University of Yangon (2014)
"Introduction to Economics and Political Economy"
(under auspices of School of Advanced International Studies,
The Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC)
Ash Center Fellow Harvard University (2012-13)
+1 617 629-2805 086 709-7645
(follows me worldwide) (in Thailand)
Current projects and forthcoming publications:
<http://www.jeffreyrace.com>
******
"The Vietnam War as an Early Warning"
<http://www.jeffreyrace.com/document/race_oh.pdf>
******
"Pathologies of Public Decision-making"
informal title:
"How Not To Be An American Blunderer"
<http://www.jeffreyrace.com/tenmin/bonfire.htm>
(Presented at Harvard University on 5/26/2015)
On Tue, 3 Nov 2015 14:37:10 +0000, Brian Nisbet wrote:
>On 03/11/2015 14:14, Gert Doering wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 03, 2015 at 01:49:18PM +0000, Sascha Luck [ml] wrote:
>>> On Tue, Nov 03, 2015 at 07:13:17PM +0530, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
>>>> I would actually prefer any such proposal to come from within
>>>> the regular RIPE community, rather than from one of us
>>>> outsiders.
>>>
>>> For once I agree completely. If this goes to an actual proposal,
>>> this needs to be in APWG as it would be:
>>>
>>> a) address policy
>>> b) affecting the entire community
>>>
>>> Any contractual changes will also need membership approval via GM
>>> vote anyway.
>>
>> I'm not so sure about APWG. "Spending resources" is traditionally
>> ncc-services-land, "combating abuse" is definitely anti-abuse-wg... so
>> discussing the details here, and sending a heads-up over to APWG and
>> ncc-services is good enough for me...
>
>We're getting deep into minutiae at this point, but this is actually
>something I had planned to try and bring to the DB-WG and we'd see where
>we went from there. That said, I simply haven't had the time over the
>summer.
>
>Suresh, your point is noted, however I was asking more for people to
>undertake to help, rather than to lead.
>
>Ok, I realise I have said this before, but given the proximity of RIPE71
>I will undertake, during that week, to iron out some of the important
>minutiae and figure out if DB remains the best place for this and go
>from there.
>
>I would still love if there were more people from this working group who
>were willing and able to help with the drafting, of course, because that
>would help the whole thing along (and not let me get utterly distracted
>by my day job).
>
>Of course if it is decided that AA-WG is the right place for such a
>proposal, I would have to re-evaluate my involvement, but we've
>mechanisms in place to deal with that.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Brian
>
