James Bennett traces the origins of aversion to innovation in bureaucracy, and explains how this aversion killed the idea-futures market.
America and all the world's strong civil societies are under challenge. Our opponents have been quite innovative and clever in their grisly way, working with tools of suicidal attack that we cannot copy. Victory will require innovation, a quality America and its allies have in abundance. But we cannot make use of it if innovators are forced to operate under rules originally devised to maintain the ever-normal granaries of the Ming emperors. The truly appalling aspect of this incident is that we have succeeded brilliantly in fostering innovation in government, only to have it sabotaged by a handful of cheap grandstanding politicians.
Bennett turns to another approach that several of us have been talking about.
The idea-futures market DARPA had created to improve predictive capability about Middle Eastern affairs was a classic example of the innovation it was chartered to exercise. Hopefully the idea-futures market will go forward under private auspices, but we have lost valuable time we may soon come to regret.
I'd like to see the blogosphere get behind the idea of making a privatized
version of the futures market. Whether it's done offshore to avoid gambling
restrictions (as Rand Simberg has suggested) or whether a legal solution can
be pushed through here in the US, this is too good an idea to let go to waste.
I'm open to suggestions. How do we push this thing along?
Via InstaPundit
Posted by Phil at August 4, 2003 04:49 PM | TrackBack