The Minerva Consortium

[marct]

Hi Randy,

I downloaded and read the BAA in all of its bureaucratic glory . I'm still bothered by the way that #2 reads; I think it should be more general, along the lines of "Studies of the Strategic Impact of Religious and Cultural Changes" anywhere - period. Restricting it to "the Islamic World" is, IMO, both futile and, at the same time, needlessly limiting.

What bothers me about it most of all is that it is a needless limitation. I was chatting about the area with the guy who owns my local corner store (nice guy, from Ethiopia originally). One of the points that came out is that religious (in the broad, Geertzian sense) fanaticism appears in every religion and ideology. This implies that it is a human universal; IMO related to how humans process symbol systems and concommitant changes in brain neurology. This is what we should be studying, not some artifially limited group.

Marc

[J Wolfsberger]

... religious (in the broad, Geertzian sense) fanaticism appears in every religion and ideology. This implies that it is a human universal; IMO related to how humans process symbol systems and concommitant changes in brain neurology.

You mean biology has an impact on society and culture?

Has anyone told the people at Savage Minds?

[marct]

You mean biology has an impact on society and culture?

Has anyone told the people at Savage Minds?

Oh, I suspect they know that deep down . After all, someone had to know something to concoct the PC koolaid .

[wm]

Oh, I suspect they know that deep down . After all, someone had to know something to concoct the PC koolaid .

I wouldn't be so sure. Even a blind pig finds an acorn occasionally.

[Randy Brown]

Another link regarding Minerva Consortium by way of Wired's Danger Room blog. This news article is from the NYT, and discusses both the Minerva effort and a separate (?) forthcoming group of grants from the National Science Foundation.

Don't want y'all to think I'm single-sourcing, what with my repeated links to Wired, but I'm down in the bunker this week, and my information collection capabilities are less than optimal. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm currently concerned less about Small Wars, and more about Big Waters ...

FYI, Marct, I'm still noodling on the question of how to incentivize decidedly smaller academic, professional, for- and/or non-profit reading, writing and research. I'll let you know if and when I come up with the proverbial million dollar idea. Cheers until then!

[marct]

Hi Randy,

FYI, Marct, I'm still noodling on the question of how to incentivize decidedly smaller academic, professional, for- and/or non-profit reading, writing and research. I'll let you know if and when I come up with the proverbial million dollar idea. Cheers until then!

No worries - I'm still thinking about it too . Anyway, I hope the flooding hasn't driven you out of your home (driven to drink being a completely different matter ).

Marc

[Randy Brown]

On the Floods of 2008: No worries here on the personal front, as my family is holding the high ground. Still, thoughts, prayers and donations to the American Red Cross and other relief agencies are, no doubt, always appreciated.

On ways to incentivize (bad, business-jargony word, but the only one at hand) research, I'm still liking the X-Prize kind of model. Once again, Wired.com's Sharon Weinburger is apparently monitoring my brain waves, given her article on "More Prizes for Homeland Security Ideas", in which she states:

It's interesting to watch the proliferation of "prizes" in national security, seen in these cases, as well as in DARPA's Grand Challenge. It's become apparently an effective way to generate widespread interest, leverage private sector funding and generate publicity.

I don't know whether I've stated it clearly in past conversations, but my interest in this area relates to the generation of lessons-learned (in a small-wars context, 'natch). I figure that if Family Handyman or Better Homes and Gardens (full-disclosure, I'm the former editor of a couple of Better Homes-brand special-interest publications) will give you a couple of bucks for household hints, there might be a similar model for soliciting lessons-learned.

Something for future talk, or perhaps eventually a separate thread ...