If you were part of a think tank what would you be working on?

I would give up my job in a flash to work for a think tank. I would love to specialize in looking beneath the layers and try to 'back-engineer' the workings of established, active systems that we live with and affect our lives. This would also include the path we may be taking or the future of certain dynamic global and local systems.

An example would be algorithmic trading computers in stock exchanges and their dominance and 'influence' on the world's economy. My specific interest in them would be how difficult it is for regulators to trace or prove collusion and 'fixing' of prices and markets when you've only got to deal with '1's and '0's. My initial conclusion would be, unlike observing or listening to two investors collaborating to fix prices, these preordained networking computers could be rigging markets and communicating with each other, but we wouldn't be able to prove that they were fixing markets to suit special needs; a real problem.

This is just one of many assignments I'd work on. Back to my boring day job.

I have to say I have a feeling this thread may take off... I also have to say, can I think on that and get back to you?!

Originally posted by onehuman
I have to say I have a feeling this thread may take off... I also have to say, can I think on that and get back to you?!

Of course, but let me get the Cone of Silence first!

reply to post by kon1foundas


if i were working for a think tank, there are several things i would focus on:

1) the cognitive processes leading the "average person" to believe that barack obama is "gonna give (them) a check."

2) how to effectively and efficiently subsidize the mass production of a very high quality craft-style beer for a retail selling price of 25 cents per quart.

3) how to power motor vehicles with human urine.

and, the most critical think i would want to study:

4) three dimensional, high-def quality interactive pornography.

I would work on the zombie virus on where and when to release it, so it's world wide horror. For one zombie's are non discrimnating, they will attack anyone, they can not be bribed or have emotions, You have survival of the fittest, so it's an equal or done equally affair so you have lucky or unlucky. It's the perfect overall solution.
perfect math collaspe

reply to post by MMPI2


I think someone is releasing 3d porn in the UK this week. If I were in a think tank I would want to work on how to stop some people from abusing the welfare system, the immigration problem, and the education problem.

I'd be the guy peeing on himself in the corner, screaming about how much of a b-word the hot bartender chic is. Wait... you said "think tank", not "drunk tank"....well I think I've just proven I should not be involved in this forum. Good luck with the think tank, guys. BURP!

reply to post by kon1foundas

Id like to participate in a think tank involving 2 things:
1) Are the US distribution/sales of arms to the world really worth it? Are the jobs and profit worth it? Could we bring in all of the factors to weigh it out?
2) A project to not only create a replicator for synthesizing both organic and inorganic items, but the changes in society that would occur as a result. Right out of Star Trek yes, but with a replicator, all of our needs could be met, so we would need to take a new direction with our aspirations and creativity. This would surely involve think tanks.

Peace,
spec

ETA: In response to your choice, do you think more computer and algorithms are used at Wall St, or the quants, which I believe are math genius'? Perhaps both?

The socio-psychological effect (broken down by region...probably just use the preexisting FEMA Regions I through X and economic classes/subclasses) of known foreign intelligence political and psychological destabilization operations directed towards American citizens using national psychological data, classified intelligence and FBI information (the alphabet soup tends to share more freely with think tanks than they do each other) marketing data, state-by-state crime data and mental health statistics, and social networking/global OSINT communications (web-forums, chat rooms) etc for the purposes of designing psychological warfare defensive counter-operations.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


Around 60% of all trades done on the NYSE are from algorithmic computers with no human intervention and nearly all high frequency trades around the world are done by these machines.

I use to think or ask when are those robots like in the Terminator going to become a reality? But what I didn't realize then is that you don't need a machine to physically move about. It's the 'thinking' power that you need to be wary of and not 'Arnie' moving about looking for Sarah Connor.

Advanced Origami folding and the design of paper aeronautics ..

reply to post by kon1foundas


ill work in george bushes think tank, not much work

reply to post by kon1foundas


EASY

Mini sized thorium nuclear power plants. Especially those adapted to use in transportation. Ocean going ships and rail locomotives to be percise.

Toshiba has been testing 200KW reactors measuring roughly six metres by two metres

In the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. scientists ignored thorium, and went with uranium because uranium produces plutonium the key ingredient in nuclear bombs. Link

The Basics
.... This thorium fuel cycle carries with it a number of important natural properties some of which contrast sharply with the uranium fuel cycle:

-At no point in the thorium cycle – from mining to waste – can fuel or waste products be used as bomb material in any way;

-The thorium fuel cycle is inherently incapable of causing a meltdown according to the laws of physics; in nuclear reactor parlance, the fuel is said to contain passive safety features;

-Thorium-based fuels do not require conversion or enrichment – two essential phases of the uranium fuel cycle that are exceedingly expensive, and create proliferation risk;

-Thorium fuel cycle waste material consists mostly of 233-uranium, which can be recycled as fuel (with minor actinide content decreased 90-100%, and with plutonium content eliminated entirely);
-Thorium-based fuels are significantly energy efficient;

-Thorium fuel cycle waste material is radiotoxic for tens of years, as opposed to the thousands of years with today’s standard radioactive waste;

-Thorium fuel designs exist today that can be used in all existing nuclear reactors;

-Thorium exists in greater abundance and higher concentrations than uranium making it much less expensive and environmentally-unobtrusive to mine;


These facts have many serious implications for the efficiency and security of energy delivery in the United States, and the world. SOURCE

reply to post by kon1foundas


I would focus on a few things but first thing would be if there are certain groups designed to see what other thinkers are thinking when they are thinking to see if that is really what they are thinking. And create ways for them to fall into info reaching bloggs to see what are they really thinking. Excuse me I was thinking about this thinking tank and it really got me thinking.

Another role I'd like relates to why we might be peddling backwards as an intelligent species. For example, why do we marvel at the latest phone on the market and think how advanced we are, when we couldn't even get to the moon again in a year if we really had to!