On 9/14/06, M. Adam Davis wrote: > Just like normal projects with no external influence, engineers would > produce a government that only an engineer could love in the best > case, and one that only the designer would love in the worst case. > (Well, I have seen some designers create something they hate, that > they have to use, that they have the power and resources to change, > and they choose not to change it. But IMHO they are hardly > engineers... :-) Nowadays, time to market and cost are often more important than the elegance of the design. ;-( Lots of the time you do not have the power and resources to change. You want to experiment with this and that but the project schedule and cost target make you just do the opposite. > Still, the nice thing about being an engineer is that most discussions > are based on facts that can be verified by experimentation. Many > governance issues cannot be so easily tested, and engineers would have > just as bad a time at it as regular politicians. But a good PID > algorithm here and there would certainly be an improvement in some > areas of government control... > PID control? I think the social system is highly non-linear and it is really hard to model. -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist