ParaPundit: ...I try to be polite about individuals. But the invasion of Iraq was a huge mistake and any prominent figure who makes lame arguments about the invasion must not go unchallenged. Saddam was moving towards control of the Strait of Hormuz? I'd be embarrassed to say something so obviously wrong. One doesn't need to do fancy calculations or read tons of history books or follow complex theories to know that Saddam was not moving toward control of the Strait of Hormuz. That's nuts. But where is this coming from? If Greenspan had this view 20 years ago then one can't blame it on senility. So what is going on? Can someone explain this? Is Greenspan overrated in general? Or is he only good at some narrow specialty and foolish about much else?
Greenspan is another example of a general problem we face: We are poorly led. We give our elites - especially our political elites - far too much respect and deference. These people are nowhere near as competent as they make themselves out to be. The really talented people in America are in investment banks and Silicon Valley start-ups. [OK, this is an exaggeration, and I hope he means I-banks broadly defined.] They aren't in Washington DC in high government positions. Though I bet there are some smart people on K Street manipulating the yahoos in government.
We mostly are better off if the sharpest people are in venture capital-funded start-ups and investment banks. The private sector generates the wealth. But we need some small handful of sharpies in key positions of power who can recognize when nonsense is being spoken and say no to stupid policies.
Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will Favorite posts | Manifold podcast | Twitter: @hsu_steve
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Our brilliant leaders
In case you haven't followed, Greenspan has made a number of controversial comments in his new book and in related press interviews. I agree with his criticisms of the Bush administration for fiscal profligacy, but like everyone else I find his argument for the necessity of the Iraq war to be nutty. I like the following comments from ParaPundit, found via Steve Sailer.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Blog Archive
-
▼
2007
(196)
-
▼
09
(20)
- Blade Runner returns
- Live in the UK...
- Paul Graham against philosophy and literary theory
- The world is our laboratory
- Information theory, inference and learning algorithms
- Our brilliant leaders
- Crisis in American Science
- Technologists versus the money men
- Who needs an MBA?
- The poor are different
- Hardware vs Software
- Monster talk
- Massive maths campus
- Baby vs chimp
- Cantabrigian travels
- Babbage quote: not even wrong
- Flynn on the Flynn effect
- Financier pay: it's crazy, there's no 2nd or 3rd
- More Lee Kwan Yew
- Worth a look or listen
-
▼
09
(20)

Labels
- physics (377)
- genetics (303)
- globalization (281)
- finance (268)
- brainpower (265)
- genomics (251)
- technology (237)
- american society (230)
- China (210)
- innovation (193)
- economics (184)
- ai (181)
- psychometrics (172)
- science (166)
- photos (162)
- psychology (158)
- machine learning (145)
- biology (142)
- travel (142)
- genetic engineering (130)
- universities (129)
- higher education (124)
- human capital (119)
- credit crisis (115)
- startups (113)
- iq (106)
- cognitive science (99)
- podcasts (98)
- autobiographical (88)
- political correctness (85)
- politics (85)
- careers (84)
- geopolitics (82)
- statistics (80)
- credit crunch (78)
- elitism (76)
- evolution (76)
- bounded rationality (74)
- quantum mechanics (74)
- gilded age (73)
- social science (72)
- talks (72)
- income inequality (71)
- genius (70)
- history of science (66)
- caltech (64)
- realpolitik (63)
- books (62)
- MSU (59)
- mma (57)
- sci fi (57)
- harvard (54)
- biotech (53)
- silicon valley (53)
- academia (51)
- mathematics (51)
- kids (50)
- education (49)
- history (49)
- bgi (48)
- intellectual history (48)
- cdo (45)
- derivatives (43)
- neuroscience (43)
- behavioral economics (41)
- jiujitsu (41)
- literature (41)
- physical training (39)
- video (38)
- computing (37)
- ufc (37)
- bjj (36)
- bubbles (36)
- film (36)
- mortgages (36)
- google (35)
- expert prediction (34)
- many worlds (34)
- affirmative action (33)
- economic history (33)
- hedge funds (33)
- nuclear weapons (31)
- race relations (31)
- security (31)
- black holes (30)
- quants (30)
- von Neumann (30)
- efficient markets (29)
- feynman (29)
- foo camp (29)
- movies (29)
- sports (29)
- music (28)
- singularity (26)
- entrepreneurs (25)
- housing (25)
- obama (25)
- subprime (25)
- berkeley (24)
- taiwan (24)
- conferences (23)
- epidemics (23)
- meritocracy (23)
- venture capital (23)
- athletics (22)
- quantum field theory (22)
- ultimate fighting (22)
- wall street (22)
- cds (20)
- internet (20)
- blogging (19)
- scifoo (19)
- gender (18)
- goldman sachs (18)
- new yorker (18)
- cryptography (17)
- dna (17)
- freeman dyson (17)
- smpy (17)
- treasury bailout (17)
- university of oregon (17)
- algorithms (16)
- japan (16)
- personality (16)
- privacy (16)
- autism (15)
- christmas (15)
- cosmology (15)
- happiness (15)
- height (15)
- oppenheimer (15)
- Fermi problems (14)
- fitness (14)
- les grandes ecoles (14)
- social networks (14)
- wwii (14)
- chess (13)
- government (13)
- hedonic treadmill (13)
- india (13)
- neanderthals (13)
- probability (13)
- russia (13)
- war (13)
- aspergers (12)
- blade runner (12)
- malcolm gladwell (12)
- net worth (12)
- nobel prize (12)
- nsa (12)
- philosophy of mind (12)
- research (12)
- Einstein (11)
- entropy (11)
- geeks (11)
- harvard society of fellows (11)
- string theory (11)
- television (11)
- Go (10)
- ability (10)
- art (10)
- climate change (10)
- cold war (10)
- football (10)
- italy (10)
- mutants (10)
- nerds (10)
- olympics (10)
- pseudoscience (10)
- complexity (9)
- crossfit (9)
- democracy (9)
- encryption (9)
- energy (9)
- eugene (9)
- flynn effect (9)
- france (9)
- james salter (9)
- pop culture (9)
- turing test (9)
- alan turing (8)
- alpha (8)
- data mining (8)
- dating (8)
- determinism (8)
- games (8)
- keynes (8)
- manhattan (8)
- pca (8)
- philip k. dick (8)
- qcd (8)
- quantum computers (8)
- real estate (8)
- robot genius (8)
- success (8)
- usain bolt (8)
- Iran (7)
- aig (7)
- ashkenazim (7)
- basketball (7)
- environmentalism (7)
- free will (7)
- fx (7)
- game theory (7)
- hugh everett (7)
- new york times (7)
- paris (7)
- patents (7)
- poker (7)
- simulation (7)
- tail risk (7)
- teaching (7)
- volatility (7)
- anthropic principle (6)
- bayes (6)
- class (6)
- drones (6)
- godel (6)
- intellectual property (6)
- markets (6)
- nassim taleb (6)
- noam chomsky (6)
- prostitution (6)
- rationality (6)
- academia sinica (5)
- bobby fischer (5)
- econtalk (5)
- fake alpha (5)
- global warming (5)
- inequality (5)
- information theory (5)
- iraq war (5)
- kasparov (5)
- luck (5)
- nonlinearity (5)
- perimeter institute (5)
- renaissance technologies (5)
- sad but true (5)
- software development (5)
- vietnam war (5)
- warren buffet (5)
- 100m (4)
- Poincare (4)
- bill gates (4)
- borges (4)
- cambridge uk (4)
- censorship (4)
- charles darwin (4)
- creativity (4)
- demographics (4)
- hormones (4)
- humor (4)
- judo (4)
- kerviel (4)
- microsoft (4)
- mixed martial arts (4)
- monsters (4)
- moore's law (4)
- solar energy (4)
- soros (4)
- trento (4)
- 200m (3)
- babies (3)
- brain drain (3)
- charlie munger (3)
- cheng ting hsu (3)
- chet baker (3)
- correlation (3)
- ecosystems (3)
- equity risk premium (3)
- facebook (3)
- fannie (3)
- feminism (3)
- fst (3)
- intellectual ventures (3)
- jim simons (3)
- language (3)
- lee kwan yew (3)
- lewontin fallacy (3)
- lhc (3)
- magic (3)
- michael lewis (3)
- nathan myhrvold (3)
- neal stephenson (3)
- olympiads (3)
- path integrals (3)
- risk preference (3)
- search (3)
- sec (3)
- sivs (3)
- society generale (3)
- supercomputers (3)
- systemic risk (3)
- thailand (3)
- alibaba (2)
- assortative mating (2)
- bear stearns (2)
- bruce springsteen (2)
- charles babbage (2)
- cloning (2)
- computers (2)
- david mamet (2)
- digital books (2)
- donald mackenzie (2)
- drugs (2)
- eliot spitzer (2)
- empire (2)
- exchange rates (2)
- frauds (2)
- freddie (2)
- gaussian copula (2)
- heinlein (2)
- industrial revolution (2)
- james watson (2)
- ltcm (2)
- mating (2)
- mba (2)
- mccain (2)
- mit (2)
- monkeys (2)
- national character (2)
- nicholas metropolis (2)
- no holds barred (2)
- offices (2)
- oligarchs (2)
- palin (2)
- population structure (2)
- prisoner's dilemma (2)
- skidelsky (2)
- socgen (2)
- sprints (2)
- twitter (2)
- ussr (2)
- variance (2)
- virtual reality (2)
- abx (1)
- anathem (1)
- andrew lo (1)
- antikythera mechanism (1)
- athens (1)
- atlas shrugged (1)
- ayn rand (1)
- bay area (1)
- beats (1)
- book search (1)
- bunnie huang (1)
- car dealers (1)
- carlos slim (1)
- catastrophe bonds (1)
- cdos (1)
- ces 2008 (1)
- chance (1)
- children (1)
- cochran-harpending (1)
- cpi (1)
- david x. li (1)
- dick cavett (1)
- dolomites (1)
- dune (1)
- eharmony (1)
- escorts (1)
- faces (1)
- fads (1)
- favorite posts (1)
- fiber optic cable (1)
- francis crick (1)
- gary brecher (1)
- gizmos (1)
- greece (1)
- greenspan (1)
- hypocrisy (1)
- igon value (1)
- iit (1)
- inflation (1)
- information asymmetry (1)
- iphone (1)
- jack kerouac (1)
- jaynes (1)
- jazz (1)
- jfk (1)
- john dolan (1)
- john kerry (1)
- john paulson (1)
- john searle (1)
- john tierney (1)
- jonathan littell (1)
- las vegas (1)
- lawyers (1)
- lehman auction (1)
- les bienveillantes (1)
- lowell wood (1)
- lse (1)
- machine (1)
- mcgeorge bundy (1)
- mexico (1)
- michael jackson (1)
- mickey rourke (1)
- migration (1)
- money:tech (1)
- myron scholes (1)
- netwon institute (1)
- networks (1)
- newton institute (1)
- nfl (1)
- oliver stone (1)
- phil gramm (1)
- philanthropy (1)
- philip greenspun (1)
- portfolio theory (1)
- power laws (1)
- pyschology (1)
- randomness (1)
- recession (1)
- sales (1)
- singapore (1)
- skype (1)
- standard deviation (1)
- star wars (1)
- starship troopers (1)
- students today (1)
- teleportation (1)
- tierney lab blog (1)
- tomonaga (1)
- tyler cowen (1)
- venice (1)
- violence (1)
- virtual meetings (1)
- war nerd (1)
- wealth effect (1)

1 comment:
I would certainly feel better if you and all the other people who think they should be in charge actually were in charge.
Post a Comment