http://mitworld.mit.edu/ MIT World media in category 'History'. en-us Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:56:41 GMT Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/721 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/721 An exemplar of the purpose-driven life in medical science, Ed Scolnick details research milestones from a remarkably varied career, revealing how scientific insight and collaborative effort translate into life-saving solutions for millions.

This physician turned biochemist has held distinguished positions at the National Institutes of Health, Merck, and now at MIT, but common themes unite his pursuits: “I’m always excited by the inherent beauty of molecular and biochemical insights into how biology works. Making scientific discoveries for me is tremendously emotionally satisfying and in fact addicting.”

In his talk, Scolnick touches on such research breakthroughs as identifying virus oncogenes, and developing treatments for cardiovascular disease, Hepatitis B, and osteoporosis, among others. He emphasizes that teasing out the biochemistry of diseases is “the key to success in drug discovery.” In Marfan syndrome, for example, investigators learned that a mutant gene leads to a malfunctioning aorta. Finding a cure flowed from understanding the underlying pathological processes. Scolnick proudly describes research on a gene involved with cholesterol buildup and an elevated risk for cardiovascular disease. This led to the development of statins, which has helped dramatically reduce the death rate in people with heart disease.

Scolnick offers a dramatic chronology of his pioneering work at Merck starting in 1981 to find an effective AIDS treatment, an effort leading to the protease inhibitor Crixivan. His timeline covers more than a decade of scientific collaboration to block the mechanism of HIV, and involves false starts, the death of a key scientist in the Lockerbie bombing, pressure from AIDS activists and corporate overseers, a “miracle” AIDS patient, breakthroughs in measuring viral protein, and more than one “twist of fate.”

In 2004, Scolnick turned in a new direction: toward mental illness, a field stalled for decades due to ignorance “about the underlying biochemistry and physiology of the disease.” Today, with the help of genomics and computative technologies, researchers are beginning to reveal the basic genetic architecture of schizophrenia and bipolar illness, says Scolnick. The “outline of their biochemistry” is starting to come clear for the first time, leading to the real possibility of novel therapeutics. While the challenges are formidable, he believes, consolidating MIT’s “first rate neuroscience, human genetics, chemistry (creates) a unique opportunity to do something in a field that desperately needs the kind of approach and change we were able to bring to the AIDS field.”

NOTE: Audio levels for Kastner and Horvitz are very low, but improve when Scolnick begins his talk. We apologize for the inferior audio capture in the field. ]]> Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/720 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/720 Six years after Darfur made its appearance on the world stage, the horrific crisis burns on, as these panelists vividly attest. In a forum companion to the traveling exhibit DARFUR/DARFUR, the speakers provide big picture political context, as well as actual images from the field.

Note: This lecture contains descriptions and images of horrific war crimes which may be difficult for some to view.

While the conflict may no longer be “hot news,” the “genocidal years are continuing,” says Robert Rotberg. Three million Darfuris are languishing in refugee camps on the border with Chad and in their own country. The leader of this desert nation, President Omar al-Bashir, has been accused by the International Court of war crimes, yet militias under his direction, including the feared Janjaweed, continue to rain death down on villages and refugee camps. Neither the world’s condemnation, nor a multilateral force, has stopped the violence. China’s support of Sudan (with its rich oil fields) presents another obstacle to peace. Rotberg worries about the appointment by President Obama of a special envoy, J. Scott Gration, who “has made welcoming noises to Bashir…offering carrots without carrying a big stick.” A plan for peace, says Rotberg, should include a ban on overflights; dismantling of the Janjaweed and all the militias, and their repatriation into village life; a mechanism for power-sharing at all levels; compensation for genocide; and support for reconstruction.

Susannah Sirkin and her investigators from Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) are among those who have documented the Sudanese government’s atrocities against the people of Darfur. People have been bombed, strafed and burnt out of their villages. Says Sirkin, “The government of Sudan knew full well what would happen when hundreds of thousands of people were forced out of their homes, knew they wouldn’t make it to a place where they could receive the basic necessities of survival.”

In spite of harrowing conditions, including the regime’s persecution of aid workers, PHR has collected ample evidence of “the crime of mass rape as a weapon in this war,” a crime that goes on even at the refugee camps. The peaceful pre-war existence of women, tending animals, family and farming, is brutally shattered when militias massacre their families, and assault them sexually. PHR doctors describe their suffering as “unimaginable.” Sirkin recounts the tragic story of one 18-year-old, whose experiences stand for the thousands who endure comparable horrors.

The finale of the panel is a slideshow by photojournalist Marcus Bleasdale of his 12 trips to Darfur in the past six years. He captures the fear -- entire communities huddled under trees for fear of detection by government planes – and the aftermath of Janjaweed attacks. There are charred villages, bodies left to rot in the sun and people burned by white phosphorus, dumped by helicopter. At the camps, there are child soldiers with amputated limbs, starving mothers and babies, and long lines for the plastic bottles of water provided by aid agencies. Says Bleasdale, “These aren’t singular stories; they’re happening thousands of times, in every village.” ]]> Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/718 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/718 The collapse of print and other traditional news and the rise of celebrity culture have contributed to the sharp decline of in-depth stories involving race and society, say these two speakers, in a discussion that’s replete with personal anecdote.

Juan Williams sets out detailing his childhood dreams to break into the newspaper business. He read all the New York papers for baseball coverage, “and noticed no people of color telling their stories … The absence struck me.” From prep school through college, Williams found internships at progressively larger papers, which had at most a handful of black reporters, and often denied those the right to bylines. But the turmoil of the ‘60s, recalls Williams, led to a wave of more militant black journalists who demanded respect and greater attention to their own communities.

In spite of some gains, Williams does not see signs of great progress over the years. President Obama’s election may have led to more African-American commentators, but Williams is the only regular person of color on Washington’s Sunday morning talk shows, which he describes as “conversations among elite white males.” Nor are there African-American anchors: “It always comes down to, ‘Is the audience going to relate to a black male as lead dog?’”

Williams deplores the “pandering” that big media institutions engage in with people of color. An executive at a black cable network, rejecting the idea of a news show, told Williams that the black men “who would identify with you like to watch sports and pornography…” Magazines like Ebony, Jet, and Essence focus on the “fabulously rich singer or superstar,” and avoid discussing the nation’s social and economic crises. There’s “no investment of money, or placing journalists in a position to tell you critical stories … to find the political power players who have their fingers on the levers causing distress in lower income communities. It doesn’t exist.”

J. Phillip Thompson believes that the waning of local newspapers like New York’s Amsterdam News marks the end of one of the last resources communities of color have to learn about issues affecting them. As a former public housing manager in New York, he knows the importance of reporters scrutinizing the words and actions of politicians. Now “I’ll read about a shooting in a mainstream newspaper. But the voice of community and debates I heard all the time I don’t read about.”

He traces a class divide in black America today that’s different from previous incarnations. For instance, black officials representing majority black districts “don’t want issues, don’t want people excited.” Elected leadership, he says, is not focused on addressing “fundamental problems like jobs, the fact that people can’t pay mortgages, raise families. Instead of dealing with that, officials move onto other issues like Skip Gates being arrested off of his porch. That’s unfortunate, but it’s just not a vital issue in black America.” ]]> Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/717 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/717 Who knew that one of mankind’s greatest scientists also worked as a gumshoe on London’s mean streets, or that this same absent-minded professor helped England fix its monetary policy from an office in the Tower of London? Thomas Levenson brings all sorts of surprises to light in his own sleuthing of a little known but significant episode in British history involving Sir Isaac Newton -- subject of his recent book, Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist.

Levenson stumbled onto his story while working on a larger history of science: He read a letter in Newton’s files from a “human voice in desperation:” William Chaloner, stuck in Newgate Jail in 1699, facing the gallows for treason (counterfeiting). Levenson was unable to link together this unlikely pair for a decade, until he struck gold in a stash of 400 documents signed by Newton while he served as a civil servant in the British Mint.

The tale Levenson pieced together follows Chaloner from his rural origins to a cunning criminal career in plague-stricken 17th century London, as well as Newton’s passage from world-renowned natural philosopher in isolated Cambridge University, to a promised sinecure in the Royal Mint. The tale of their intertwined fates illuminates a time when science was beginning to make its mark not just on the intelligentsia, but on all of society. Levenson describes how the scientific revolution meant “a much broader change in thinking,” new ways of problem-solving that gave even common people a leg up.

Newton entered his second career in London to find the English currency in a state of crisis: rampant counterfeiting, as well as the loss of silver from existing currency. One of the geniuses behind this state of affairs was Chaloner, who had come to “coining” by way of such money-making schemes as pornographic watches. Levenson describes “Newton’s mind at work” as he builds chains of evidence and pursues his prey with elaborate traps, including informants and double agents placed in counterfeiting gangs.

Levenson finds “evidence of Newton’s ruthlessness,” as he brings Chaloner to the gibbet with a case that “was rhetorical and persuasive more than precisely accurate.” In their calculation and drive, both men somehow captured the new scientific spirit of the times. Says Levenson, “When big ideas happen, they don’t just happen in own spheres. There’s an effect that spreads well beyond them. And if they matter to the way people lead their lives, then people will find out about them and do things with them...” ]]> Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/715 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/715 John M. Barry brings unsettling news from the frontlines of H1N1 research: this novel influenza virus is very hard to pin down. In spite of international scientific scrutiny, H1N1 continues to baffle and elude, worrying health officials defending against the pandemic, and challenging some ideas about influenza in general. Says Barry, “A lot of things we thought we knew, the virus demonstrates we knew wrong.”

Barry examines the current pandemic in both historic and scientific context. Most influenza viruses share certain features: They can jump to other species by way of mutation, or by mixing genetic components with another virus that happens to be infecting the same cell at the same time. Influenza pandemics go “as far back in history as we can look,” with 10 occurring in just the last 300 years. Four of the most recent pandemics appear to have rolled out in waves of varying lethality, infecting at peak times some 30% of the human population.

Before last year, the latest pandemic threat seemed to be H5N1, an avian flu jumping to humans. But, says Barry, “while we were all looking at H5N1, this H1N1 virus snuck up on us…and we have no idea yet how serious it will be.” The problem for researchers is that H1N1 simply won’t behave in predictable ways. When ordinary influenza viruses are transmissible between humans, novel molecular markers are present. The current H1N1 doesn’t bear these markers, yet is transmissible. There are conflicting reports on whether this flu is more infectious than the seasonal flu. There’s evidence that some people over 60 are resistant, perhaps because they carry antibodies to previous influenzas. And although H1N1 doesn’t exhibit conventional molecular tags for virulence, it is virulent. Unlike seasonal flu, when H1N1 kills, it targets younger people, and it does so through viral pneumonia, as opposed to complicating bacterial infections. “Depending on how you ask the question, it’s either extraordinarily mild, more mild than seasonal flu, or more than 100 times as virulent as seasonal influenza.”

While H1N1 seems stable for the moment, and to some, unthreatening, its path can’t yet be plotted. Some of the most infamous flu epidemics take two years to travel around the world, moving from sporadic activity to “blanketing the entire globe and causing enormous morbidity numbers.” If this flu takes off, history tells us, short of a “retreat on a Vermont mountain with shotguns,” there will be nowhere to hide, says Barry. “This virus is going to find me.” ]]> Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/714 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/714 At times humorous and other times defiant, José Ramos-Horta describes nurturing the 21st century’s first sovereign state through its formative years. The journey of East Timor from brutal Indonesian rule to fragile self-governance has involved Ramos-Horta in conflict and debate from the halls of the U.N. to the smallest villages of this tiny Southeast Asian island.

He describes the scene in 2002, after two years of UN-supervised transition, when Indonesia handed off a nation it had governed by force for decades: “A human calamity -- close to 200 thousand people lost their lives.” Another 200 thousand were forcibly displaced into West Timor. As it departed “in anger and frustration,” Indonesia’s military orchestrated the destruction of the nation’s cities, roads, schools and clinics. “The economy was at a standstill,” says Ramos-Horta. “We received barely a sketch of a state, a skeleton.”

The challenge of rebuilding East Timor is all the more daunting given “the psychological-emotional trauma of 24 years of violence.” There are bitter disputes involving how to conduct a national process of reconciliation. Western ambassadors recently called on Ramos-Horta, “representatives of two countries most notorious…for providing weapons and the red carpet treatment to the dictatorship of Indonesia.” They advocated establishing an international tribunal to pursue crimes against humanity during Indonesian rule. Says Ramos-Horta, “Had I been in a bad mood, I would have said, ‘Excuse me, the two of you are lecturing me on human rights and justice?’”

Despite warnings from the U.N. that “lack of justice encourages impunity,” he believes East Timor must travel its own path toward reconciliation. If East Timor set up such a tribunal, “Who would it start with -- Indonesia or the U.S., which provided weapons to Suharto, or Australia, or all of them at once?” He states, “If you pursue justice at any cost without being sensitive to the challenges and complexities on the ground, you undermine the incipient nation, democracy and justice.”

Today, when Ramos-Horta travels in the countryside, people don’t want to discuss security and unity. Recounts Ramos-Horta, “They joke with me: ‘Mr. President, we really like your road to peace, but we prefer a road to our village.’” He’s now focused on providing his people with such essentials as clean water and electricity, and shoring up the nation’s fragile social and economic institutions. “Let’s put all the past behind us. Look after the victims, the wounded, in their minds, bodies and souls, build a country that is deserving of so much sacrifice. Chasing the ghosts of the past leads us nowhere,” says Ramos-Horta. ]]> Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/698 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/698 One of the nation’s revered technology leaders dispenses anecdotes and wisdom on the slippery subject of engineering systems (or systems engineering). Norm Augustine just can’t get a handle on the discipline: “No one agrees on what it is, or what it does.” After years in industries like Lockheed Martin, Augustine has come up with “Norm’s Rules,” and can at least define ‘system’ as “having two or more elements that interact,” and ‘engineering’ as “creating the means for performing useful functions.” But these definitions don’t get you too far in the real world.

Augustine shows a fuel control system, which some engineers might view as part of a propulsion system. In turn, aeronautical engineers might think of the entire airplane as a system, and transport engineers view aircraft as merely components in systems incorporating airports, highways, shipping lanes. Augustine continues up the ladder until “our system that started as a fuel controller…seems to have the whole universe as a system.” Like Russian Matryoshka dolls, systems can always be embedded within larger systems. Even if you try to simplify a system in terms of just a few objects with a binary, on-off interaction, things can get complex very quickly. Five elements in a system can exist in more than a million possible states. Says Augustine, “A typical earth satellite has nearly one million parts; a 747 over 5 million. How does that make you feel about flying?”

Distinguishing the significant interactions and the important external influences on a system are central to designing and problem solving. And these days, engineers must include politics, public policy and economics as part of their systems. “The trick is to bound the scope of the system so it’s not too large to be analyzed and not too small to be representative.” Doing this right is “why systems engineers should be paid so much.”

Augustine concludes with his “Dirty Dozen” systems engineering traps, which have led to embarrassing bust-ups, monumental failures, and real tragedies. Notable among these: “the ubiquitous interface,” (or absence thereof). He describes how two flight control groups used different metric units and accidentally sent a Mars-bound spacecraft whizzing off into deep space. There’s the “single-point failure,” exemplified by the collapse of a football field-sized satellite dish due to a poorly designed bracket. There’s software, “which like entropy, always increases:” a Mariner spacecraft headed in the wrong direction due to a missing hyphen in 100 thousand lines of code. The problem with most systems ultimately is that they “contain human elements … and humans sometimes do irrational things.” ]]> Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/692 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/692 Contrary to popular thinking, China owes its astonishing economic expansion not to far-sighted government policy but to hundreds of millions of entrepreneurial peasants. Yasheng Huang’s research reveals not only how small-scale rural businesses created China’s miracle but how that nation’s recovery from the global recession and righting the massive East-West trade imbalance depend on this same under-acknowledged sector.

Huang begins with questions, including why China produces so much relative to its own consumption. He shows graphs dramatically illustrating the rise of China’s GDP with a concurrent drop in domestic consumption. A nation that doesn’t consume what it produces must export. Huang has pounded away at the question of this drop in consumption. He rejects explanations pointing at a Chinese bent for thrift, and believes instead that households have become impoverished in the midst of the nation’s decades-long boom.

Huang’s research analyzed previously unexamined data to resolve this paradox and produce a novel thesis, detailing the rise and fall of rural entrepreneurship in China. In the 1980s, enabled by government liberalization, tens of millions of peasants began home-grown private businesses, from small-scale manufacturing to service delivery. They supplemented meager agricultural incomes, generating profits that they used to better their standards of living. The Chinese economy boomed. But in the 1990s, a new regime took over, taxing the grass-roots entrepreneurs and pouring money into infrastructure and state-run enterprises. Politicians imposed steep fees on education and healthcare, soaking the newly minted rural capitalists. GDP rose, but household incomes dipped, as hundreds of millions pinched pennies instead of generating profits. The Chinese made lots of things that they couldn’t buy. A global trade imbalance ballooned.

The recession has struck the rural Chinese especially painfully (they make up 70% of the nation’s population). More than 100 million who had migrated to cities for work have lost their jobs with the shutdown of factories, and there has been a “virtual collapse in non-farm business income growth,” says Huang. New Chinese policies have begun to attend to rural issues, such as abolishing rural taxation, reducing fees, and spurring microfinance. This should help increase household income. But in key areas like land reform, there’s only been talk. Huang believes a Chinese stimulus package aimed at reinvigorating the building boom won’t do nearly as much good for the economy as liberalization of social policies and attempts to unleash once again the productive energies of the rural poor. ]]> Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/688 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/688 At the end of the three-day Media in Transition conference, panelists swap impressions and reactions, offering some notional themes for future symposia.

Mary Bryson frames her comments as “a mash-up aggregation.” The conference’s “massive disagreements and sometimes awkward silences and gaps” were beneficial, “as we make our way in the present imperfect of media studies.” For Bryson, a key question arose: “What time is it here?” The past, present and future are now intertwined in media studies, and often in “incommensurable tension.” The next conference might wish to “mobilize and re-territorialize” itself across borders, making itself available in multiple host locations.

The traditional discourse around libraries and archives no longer serves us well, observes librarian Marlene Manoff, who calls for a “new terminology to describe or think about collections of digital objects, especially when they involve new services and functionalities.” She was “happy to hear a universal acknowledgment of the volatility and mutability of the digital record,” yet finds herself “still at a loss when it comes to questions about what should or should not be saved.” Colleagues in the profession have been “discussing the social and political implications of selection decisions for a long time,” and today, with so many people creating and collecting digital objects and files,” she perceives “a much broader conversation,” although there is yet “no cultural consensus” about these issues.

John Durham Peters offers three observations: He first addresses the difficulty of organizing knowledge in a field as diverse as media studies (or for that matter, in other modern scholarship). Peters likens media studies to “a 17th-century cabinet of curiosities.” He also gives “two cheers for breakdown,” for the ways that archives fail to conserve “all kinds of stuff.” He asks if we would regard Sappho as such a good poet “if we possessed all 12 of the books.” He’s not trying “to praise barbarians who want to burn libraries,” but to point out that “what counts as historical record is exceedingly malleable.” His last comment involves the “interesting reversibility” of transmission and storage. To “transcend time, we must use up space, just as to transcend space, we must use up time.”

Thomas Pettitt admits to an identity crisis of sorts -- that “those of us who do literature but who have lost faith in literature as a rounded concept are not quite certain what it is that we do.” Possibly as a result of the welcoming nature of the conference, he wonders if “over time, literature studies people will find our true identity within media studies.” Literature is a form of culture production whose scholars focus on aesthetics, particularly those in a verbal form. The conference was absorbed with questions of quantity (“megas and teras”), but asks Pettitt, “Have we neglected (aesthetic) quality as a factor?” And finally, he found confirmation in the notion that “advances in media technology are taking us back to conditions as they were before some of the mechanical inventions.” Is this “business of the future looking rather like the past?” ]]> Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/681 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/681 European archivists grapple with the legal obligations, civic responsibilities and future prospects of their collections, which, thanks to the Internet and other new technologies, are increasingly awash in image and sound. As William Urichhio notes, “tradition-bound institutions know what we should be gathering: feature films, books, newspapers, political documents, but it’s much harder to know what to do with things like social media…say, networks of interactions.” Different organizations are evolving diverse strategies.

At France’s National Institute of the Audiovisual (INA), Claude Mussou describes managing “memory and heritage policies in the information age.” In the 16th century, she recounts, Francois 1 mandated that any book published would be first deposited in the royal library. The national collection law broadened over centuries to include new forms of knowledge production: documents, film, radio and TV, and beginning in 2006, websites, because of the migration of so many activities online, and because of the fleeting life of many websites. Says Mussou, “Twenty, 50 or 100 years from now, when scholars or academics look for evidence and testimony for what the 21st century was,…web archives will be a necessary and valuable source.” She pointedly notes that we can’t rely on Google or other commercial interests to maintain web archives, and therefore governments must not “surrender their role as gatekeepers to collective memory.”

Sweden’s national library recently merged with the national media archive, says Pelle Snickars, which includes seven million hours of media material. The legal deposit law mandates anything put out on tape, radio or TV must find its way into the state’s collections. This imposes an enormous burden, both curatorial and budgetary. As it transitions to digital, the library must maintain its analog collection. Snickars says the larger problem involves rights: researchers would love access via the web to the material that’s being transferred, but the material belongs to others. Snickars worries about the best methods for digital preservation, and whether quality concerns should be sacrificed to quantity demands, as more and more people assume access to information online.

The BBC boasts 100 kilometers of shelves for its A/V collection, says Richard Wright, from 1920s radio to videotape from the 1960s onward -- all of which must be digitized to be preserved. The BBC is converting 200 terabytes per week of current broadcast material -- an enormous commitment to digital. As Wright points out, “We’re putting a very big egg in that basket, and the basket is not perfect.” The risk of loss of data is proportional to the data stored, and since so much is pouring from analog to digital, “the risk is growing by Moore’s Law.” One way to mitigate this loss: avoid compressing data, and seek redundancy. As we’ve moved from stone, to paper, and onto disc, storage capacity gets denser and cheaper, he notes -- almost overwhelming: “It’s why our grandchildren are swimming in a sea of digital photos.” If we can’t tag all this material appropriately, it will be “struggling to survive” for future generations. ]]> Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/682 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/682 While Barack Obama has rejected the Bush administration’s harsh stance toward Iran, panelists warn that we’re far from the start of fruitful relations, and that achieving real diplomacy will paradoxically require both patience and a sense of urgency.

Suzanna DiMaggio observes the U.S. seeking “areas of common interest and managing areas of profound differences” with Iran, moving “well beyond a change in language” to concrete and profound shifts in policy, such as recognizing Iran’s right to a peaceful nuclear program; curtailing support for Iranian opposition groups; and reaching out for Iran’s cooperation on Afghanistan. DiMaggio says Afghanistan may prove key to building the foundations of a relationship, since Iran is concerned about halting the spread of violent fundamentalism and curtailing drug trafficking. The way forward, she suggests, involves approaching Iran in a “direct and sustained way to clarify U.S. intentions in the region while building confidence and trust,” which “will require each side to exercise great restraint,” and an acceptance that there will be frequent setbacks.

Jim Walsh describes recent U.S. actions toward Iran as “scene setting,” with such moves as dropping preconditions for discussing Iran’s nuclear program, and discouraging Israel from contemplating a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. But “Iran is cautious,” with its government demonstrating “a certain schizophrenia” -- hopefulness and curiosity about Barack Obama, but skepticism about the U.S. pursuing substantive change. Tactical cooperation with Iran around Afghanistan and the drug trade appears to Walsh a better starting point for discussions than Iran’s nuclear program. He says, “Barack Obama may speak with a nicer tone, offer greater incentives, but if at the end of the day, he insists on no centrifuges, we will end up at the same outcome as before.” Substantial movement will take months, and all the while, Iran will continue to build centrifuges. Walsh sees a dilemma for the president: he must attempt to build confidence by moving slowly, but the “best chance for success is if Obama acts early and boldly while he still has the power of public opinion behind him domestically and internationally…It won’t last forever.

Stephen Heintz points out that “Iran is in the center of a set of issues of direct national interest to the U.S.,” including Middle East peace, the war on terror, regional stability and oil. The problem is that in trying to find points of intersection with Iran, each nation “has very little knowledge of the other,” as well as bad memories (the hostage crisis of 1979, the U.S. support of the Shah). This “only reinforces a relationship based on suspicion.” While Barack Obama “has done a superb job at creating different atmospherics,” there is a huge debate underway within policy circles, as different groups jockey to shape Iran policy. Heintz doesn’t expect much movement until after the Iranian elections, but hopes that the restart of multilateral talks, and discussions about regional security and drug trade will help free both nations of the “paranoia and fear” that’s built up over time. ]]> Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/676 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/676 As old media die, new forms are emerging, but it’s not clear they will serve such vital civic functions as “helping people form publics,” as Pat Aufderheide puts it. These panelists point to promising experiments in “Public Media 2.0,” but caution that new media are not guaranteed to shore up democracy or invigorate public culture.

After two years of research, Jessica Clark has reframed the notion of public media as “outlets that provide context/content that allows publics to form around shared issues without political or corporate interference.” Instead of a centralized producer (old media), user-producers collaborate, forming networks with the use of digital tools. Some novel ventures that “break out of the old zones:” cell phone reporting in forbidden areas of war-torn Gaza, and streaming iPhone feeds of local news from U.S. cities.

Ellen Hume faults traditional journalism to some degree for its own demise, because it did not “connect the dots between news and action.” It stirred up emotions with stories but didn’t give people “a place to go” with their passion. In contrast, new civic medium SeeClickFix.com enables the public to report a problem in a community (from potholes to graffiti), spurring government response. HeroReports.org encourages people to report instances of kindness. Says Hume, “These new media offer enormous opportunity for creativity, and unleash the ability to participate in public.” But we haven’t yet entered the era of full media literacy, where people become “part of the public, rather than cruising through.”

Persephone Miel has been searching for “all that democracy we were supposed to get.” In spite of the proliferation of new types of reporting media, including news aggregator, author- and audience-driven web sites, Miel believes the “old media model still does unique things for us.” As traditional journalism fades, there’s no new media replacement yet for its “editorial intelligence,” its persistent, watchdog functions. Miel sees no evidence that “the volunteer energy of the blogosphere” will step into these roles. She notes several attempts at hybrid journalism forms: websites Spot.us, a nonprofit project for community-funded reporting; Global Voices, where correspondents in developing nations send out web dispatches; and Town Meeting 2009, a New Hampshire public radio web venture that reported on local governments’ budget process.

On the technology front, Dean Jansen has developed a free open source HD video player, Miro, so people don’t have to go through proprietary gateways or load specialized software to access web video content. He hopes to swell the ranks of user-producers in a more inclusive, participatory webspace.

Jake Shapiro’s public radio exchange, PRX.org, invites independent radio producers to connect with local public radio stations through his aggregating site. Citing the “current collapse of traditional forms,” particularly public television, Shapiro hopes to reconfigure public broadcasting. He says his marketplace enables content creators to find an audience, receive royalties from interested public radio buyers, create social networks, and potentially find alternative channels of distribution via podcasting. ]]> Wed, 27 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/673 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/673 John Ochsendorf, a structural engineer, “fell in love with archaeology” during college. His senior thesis at Cornell involved a 600-year-old Incan suspension bridge made entirely out of grass. Ochsendorf learned that this apparently primitive structure owed its astonishing longevity to regular rebuilds by the locals (during a community festival), and the use of renewable, biodegradable resources. While Cornell’s engineering faculty couldn’t see the point of this research -- “grass bridges over highway overpasses”? -- Ochsendorf realized that historical structures held important lessons for modern building technology.

The grass bridge raised several problems that now consume Ochsendorf’s academic and professional life. First, how to consider the whole life of a product when designing it, of particular import since “the 21st century is going to be a wild ride in terms of natural resources,” says Ochsendorf. Some building costs increase over time, consuming material and labor while deteriorating (nb: New York’s 1903 Williamsburg Bridge, with $1 billion in repairs, and still unsafe at any speed).

Ochsendorf suggests alternatives: making permanent structures with high quality construction and reusable materials (such as Roman stone arch bridges); very temporary structures, such as the grass bridge, or a Japanese pavilion made out of recycleable paper; or modular structures designed to change over time. Ochsendorf created “a medieval building for the 21st century,” a sustainable home made out of waste clay tiles, rammed earth from local chalk, and a heavy green roof on which sheep graze.

Ochsendorf also studies the integrity of existing historical structures: how to guarantee the safety of a medieval cathedral, or a 19th-century train station. The Pantheon’s stood for 2000 years, a brittle structure that inevitably develops cracks. Engineers today can’t say for sure “if something will fall down.” Ochsendorf is creating engineering tools to vouch for the masonry, steel and concrete holding up both historical treasures and more commonplace infrastructure. He is also working on high tech tools so engineers can examine building designs before construction to ensure “safe results,” and to create structures that will consume less energy and emit fewer greenhouse gases during their lifetimes. As composers know Mozart, and philosophers know the works of Plato, concludes Ochsendorf, the next generation of engineers must review the works of their forebears, if they’re to maintain existing infrastructure, and create better designs for the future. ]]> Wed, 27 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/674 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/674 Scholars of “dead tree technologies” feel increasingly uneasy in a culture overwhelmingly consumed with innovation. Although we may “live in a condition of perpetual flux,” David Thorburn hopes that “we won’t allow utopians and futurists to intimidate us.” Moderator Peter Walsh poses a series of questions to the archivists and historians on this panel, who reflect the anxiety and exhilaration of a digital age that is constantly transforming their disciplines.

After a thousand years and the extinction of many written literatures, John Miles Foley views the oral tradition (OT) as “alive and well in highly literate societies, even in the wired West, and multifunctional: it does many more things for societies than literature is able to do.” It has survived through its “ability to morph in support of morphing societies,” such as in South Africa as it dissolved apartheid. And OT and IT (Internet technology) are quite alike: both performer driven, involved in emergent activities, partaking in distributed authorship. Indeed, OT may find robust expression on the Internet, with new journals and multimedia e-companions encouraging wider audiences and interactive users for performances and events.

A switch from physical to digital archives “will change historical knowledge,” Lisa Gitelman says, because it means a change in the systems governing those archives. Whenever you open a Gmail account, says Gitelman, you’re urged not to delete: “new media have always prompted new archival sensibilities.” But, she warns, the emerging archive system “depends almost wholly on the alphanumeric character of objects and the metadata that describe them.” A historian searching through archives is like a miner whose helmet light can only illuminate narrowly defined areas.

Rick Prelinger views archives as “culturally emergent. …They’re going retail.” Once used mainly by specialists to produce books, TV shows, and exhibits, archives now attract ordinary users with home-based projects. YouTube -- which only resembles an archive -- has created unrealistic expectations of 24/7 archival access. But if archives rebuff users, “the social-cultural consensus that supports us and keeps archives open may fail.” Prelinger sees possibilities for changing the perception of archives “as the place where documents go to molder and die.” Archives could be “a point of departure … for historical intervention,” generating “opportunities for mainstreaming history and re-anchoring in the public sphere.”

“Stewardship responsibility in a digital environment is essential,” says Ann Wolpert, who believes “the odds that bits will survive in a shoebox in the attic are pretty small.” She also points to a “yawning gap emerging between institutional archives and records … and those archives (that are) a byproduct of normal human activities.” She shows an MIT photo of a 1935 drama club performance, where the “winsome damsel” would one day become the president’s wife. It’s the “incidental archives that create the flavor, richness and texture of life at a point in time.” What scrapbook items will people hold onto for future generations, as we record more and more “in media so ephemeral that we run the serious risk of losing …these experiences”? ]]> Sun, 17 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/669 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/669 Sometime around 100 million years ago, when the continents of Africa and South America were still in touch, a female primate -- one of our ancestors -- was born with the capacity to see in vivid color. Jeremy Nathans describes the fortuitous genetic event that gave rise to this evolutionary leap, and links an ancient biological timeline to his very current research in human color vision.

Nathan’s talk, spanning eons and disciplines, starts with Isaac Newton’s astonishing 17th century experiments into the physics of colored light, and his prescient guess that the human brain could somehow translate colors the way it interpreted sound vibrations. The physiology behind vision didn’t coalesce until the 19th century, when a picture emerged of photoreceptor cells, with rods for night vision and cones for color. 20th century science finally cracked the photochemical mechanism behind light sensing.

In the 1980s, Nathans became interested in “making a dent in the area of identifying (genetic) sequences of the visual pigments.” He describes how he isolated the DNA behind the light sensors responsible for human color vision -- the short(S), medium (M) and long (L) wavelength receptors. He also discovered a diversity of genetic variations in normal, trichromatic vision. Indeed, he says the sequences lend themselves to all sorts of “mischief,” which can result in what’s commonly described as color blindness. When genes for the M or L pigments are not expressed, humans lose various degrees of color discrimination. When Nathans shows a picture of fruit from the perspectives of those with normal and abnormal color vision, it’s clear how “trichromats” enjoy an advantage in detecting ripe foods, or just enjoying scenery.

From his genetic research, Nathans became interested in how some mammals made the leap from dichromatic to trichromatic vision. Simple creatures such as honey bees and tropical fish are blessed with better color vision than humans, but among mammals, only a subset of primates have moved to trichromatic vision. Lower mammals lack one of the three dimensions for color vision. Nathans conjectured a “happy accident” on the X chromosome in primates likely resulted in the genes for the additional dimension. In a groundbreaking experiment to “recreate in a mouse the first step in the evolution of trichromatic color vision,” Nathans knocked into the mouse genome a human L pigment gene in place of its M pigment gene, resulting in an animal with the capacity for distinguishing colors a normal mouse could not. “This argues,” concludes Nathans, “that acquisition of a new dimension of color vision is not so difficult after all.” ]]> Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/663 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/663 In a panel that at times resembles a late-night ramble and conversation, three film music professionals discuss changes in their industry, with some no-holds-barred dishing and kvetching.

Martin Marks sets the scene historically, starting with the revolutionary introduction of sound to film. He plays a clip from the original 1933 film King Kong, which he describes as both a technological and aesthetic landmark of soundtrack production. Paul Chihara continues the story, explaining that the score’s creator, Max Steiner, was part of the first wave of film composers, classically trained musicians, fleeing Hitler’s Germany. Steiner drew on the music he knew best, the kind performed by the Vienna Staatsoper, for his King Kong score, so we get a movie that’s “wall to wall music, filled with leitmotifs,” played by a giant orchestra.

Cut to 2005, and the Peter Jackson remake of King Kong. In what he describes as “an electro-acoustic seminar on how digitally sound is enhanced,” Chihara plays several clips of the same scene that demonstrate the evolutionary leap in soundtrack scoring since 1933. The process involves the demo track, a score with digital sampling and no acoustic instruments intended to help the filmmaker imagine how music will work with the film; next an acoustic score; and the final dub version, where acoustic and digital music sources combine, and the rest of the sound elements are added in post production (dialogue and sound effects).

The new scoring process can prove dangerous to composers, as Dan Carlin reveals. “We have a term called ‘demo love,’ describing how the director gets attached to the very first track offered by the composer.” This is a digitally sampled score often drawn from other composers’ work. The editor and director become accustomed to it, and test audiences watch films with demo tracks. “So the composer comes in with a new approach, and often gets fired at this point.” This has led to composers fearful of originality. Carlin says starting in the ‘90s, generic romantic and action scores began to emerge: “Everything starts to sound alike.” He also describes how composer Georges Delerue went to see Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple, and heard one of his own themes, which had started as a temporary music cue but then was essentially plagiarized. This led to a very lucrative law suit. Marks notes that “one of America’s film music geniuses,” Elmer Bernstein, essentially dropped out of the business because of the insistence on demo tracks over original music.

Panelists also bemoan the demise of orchestral recording sessions at production studios, as digital audio tools put the composer’s work in the hands of directors and editors, who play with increasingly authentic sounding software-based instruments. Companies are buying up the rights to the sounds of famous symphony orchestras, down to the staccato and legato notes of strings and horns in different keys and pitches. The craft involved in composing music, then conducting an orchestra through a movie scene, has become obsolete. Chihara concludes sadly, “It’s an unnecessary art.” ]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/662 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/662 The Obama campaign owes its victory not to a single charismatic candidate, but to the efforts of a disciplined and motivated organization whose roots go back to landmark movements of the 1960s. Marshall Ganz, who cut his teeth on civil rights work and with Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers, describes how the principles and practices he learned around organizing and leadership played out in the most recent presidential election.

For Ganz, our time represents the end of “40 years of wandering in the desert,” the end of “the politics of disappointment.” We’ve arrived at an extraordinary moment of rapid change -- a time of both possibility and uncertainty -- with commensurate challenges to political leaders. But Ganz’s take, after years with progressive movements, is that leadership involves “taking responsibility to enable others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty.” Leaders recruit, motivate and develop others, constructing a community around common interests, and building capacity from within the community. And unlike businesses, which tend to rely on rigid hierarchies, and systems and procedures, effective volunteer-based organizations must engage and enable lots of people to become innovators, adaptive in the face of uncertainty.

This kind of “civic capital” is precisely what the Obama campaign cultivated and invested in, says Ganz. Thousands of people acquired the skills and practiced “the arts of leadership necessary to self govern in democracy.” Some unique conditions made this campaign so successful, including Obama’s story of hope, which drew on a persuasive personal narrative. There was also the campaign’s strategy of developing grassroots capacity to win caucuses and close primaries; its use of the Internet to attract an army of small-scale, repeat contributors; and its capacity for “continual learning” about what was and was not working.

In the summer of 2007, Ganz served as counselor in LA’s “Camp Obama,” teaching key state organizers to share personal narratives and create compelling politics around human experience and emotion, rather than around issues. He led workshops on motivating from “a place of hopefulness,” rather than of fear, and on how to build from common ground to shared political values and commitments. Obama staffers and volunteers learned how to create mutually reliant leadership teams that could act independent of the campaign HQ; and how to amass and utilize voter information both to get out the vote, and to tap additional volunteers. A “cascade of training and leadership development” led to a massive field organization that built upon itself, where volunteers continually joined and moved up the ranks, and everyone felt “they owned a piece of it.” ]]> Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/653 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/653 There are times when it’s necessary to judge a book by its cover, or a single page, because that’s all that remains. Michael Scott Cuthbert and Nancy Schrock reveal some treasures from MIT’s early music collection which, while often incomplete or damaged, sing volumes about their origins and use.

Cuthbert demonstrates that when it comes to medieval and renaissance music manuscripts, there’s really no substitute for the real thing. His discussion concerns several recent additions to MIT’s Lewis Music Library. Online perusal alone cannot reveal which of his manuscripts was designed to be read by a large group of singers in a cathedral, and which served as a valued part of a priest’s collection for personal study. Holding the two artifacts up, Cuthbert makes it clear: He first displays a giant, two-sided leaf, and then an aged volume containing the much smaller page.

To examine these specimens, says Shrock, she must use special tools of the trade: a fiber optic light sheet for studying paper; microscopes, digital cameras. In examining and preserving music manuscripts and other rare MIT books, Schrock needs to know the process by which the object came into being. She shows the large leaf from the choir book: it’s parchment, made from the lined skins of young animals, with the hair scraped off, shaved and rubbed with pumice to achieve a smooth surface perfect for text and binding. Schrock shows a 15th century book of hours, an illuminated manuscript that was rebound by a collector in the 18th century. While she admires the redo (red morocco tooled in gold), the object “no longer reflects the way this manuscript was originally made, and we’ve lost knowledge about it.” Flaws are more informative than beauty.

Says Cuthbert, “For many of us, modern musicology is less about spending time in dusty archives and more about recreating what we see in CSI.” New technology may hold the key to answering longstanding mysteries, such as the abrupt abandonment or evolution of certain kinds of religious music. Some manuscripts may hide their beginnings, or travel widely: “Maybe the choir book left the cathedral in a sack in the middle of the night,” he says. With computer software, researchers can now compare music manuscripts that originated in widely separated regions of the world. New machines can peer into manuscripts where the music has been scraped off to make room for other information (such as land ownership records, or an illustrated bestiary), to see what originally existed; and advances in digital imaging can discern the flow of notes on a page where they had once been obliterated or obscured. DNA tracing, he hopes, will ultimately permit musicologists to determine the provenance of animals used in parchment down to the cathedral green where they grazed. ]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/648 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/648 Two students deliver heartfelt appeals for courage and integrity at the annual Martin Luther King Day breakfast.

In the 1940s, Matt Gethers recounts, his grandfather was forced to flee South Carolina after defending his brother against white racists in a store. Gethers wonders if he’d have put his life on the line in the same way. He acknowledges the “bittersweet reality” that he won’t likely be facing the trials of his ancestors, while also wishing to “share in the work and sacrifice that secured my inalienable rights as a citizen of this country and the world.”

While U.S. institutions seem to reflect “what we know to be right with respect to race, gender and disability,” Gethers notes that there’s a more corrosive racism eating away at “hearts and minds.” The absence of diversity in leadership throughout U.S. society encourages stereotyping. In his work in the Cambridge Public Schools, Gethers meets students who believe they couldn’t possibly grow up to be “an astronaut, physicist, mathematician or president.” Why? “Because little black girls don’t grow up to become CEOs.” Gethers concludes that only when these students see themselves “in people who are breaking the mold …will we restore their sacred right to dream.”

Joy Johnson was almost cheated of a college scholarship by a high school counselor who “forgot” to send her transcript in. Entrenched racism has helped create the “impostor syndrome,” says Johnson, whose “sufferers can’t internalize their own accomplishments and thus feel they don’t deserve them.” She wonders how many fellow MIT students are asking themselves, “Do we even belong here, and what do we need to do to become as smart as the others?” But “many times the impostor is not us at all,” says Johnson. She sees a long, sorry tale of the usurpation of black achievements, inventions and discoveries: “Impostors have been doing it so long, they’ve perfected the very art of fraud.”

But what must be done to ensure that the contributions of black people are recognized? Johnson nods toward MIT’s mission -- inclusive of all students -- of advancing knowledge to serve the nation and world. True innovation and intellectual advancement, she says, require respectful interactions not just in labs and classrooms, but in everyday life. “This must begin with acknowledgments, speaking to … janitors and lab techs and bus drivers as eagerly as we speak to professors.” Johnson ultimately hopes to “show the world that at this institution, decisions are made on merit, not on nepotism, cronyism or racism.” ]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/649 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/649 Two “sisters” -- both university chiefs -- celebrate the victory of the first African-American U.S. President, but remind listeners that American institutions have not yet achieved the full measure of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream.

MIT, which prides itself on inventing the future, says Susan Hockfield, must stop looking backwards and “make diversity and inclusion a daily reality.” To fulfill these goals, says Hockfield, MIT is pursuing policy and practical change in such areas as retention, recruitment, climate, communication and accountability. For instance, candidate searches must move beyond sorting through known options, Hockfield states. She also notes that the steps required “in a very long journey” to build a culture of inclusion will not be threatened by budget pressures. Many actions cost nothing at all, she says: pairing up a new hire with a long-term employee “as a welcoming guide,” and reaching out to student cultural and affinity groups, for instance. Department heads can check in with women and professors of color for the “cost of no more than an occasional cup of coffee.” Concludes Hockfield, “Distributed leadership is the only path to success in building a culture of inclusion, because real progress in mentoring, reaching out, locating new talent, must happen step by step, unit by unit, in labs, offices and residence halls across all MIT.”

“We are still such a mighty, might long way from being able to declare victory over bigotry and discrimination,” says Johnetta B. Cole. Behind these twin evils stand people with power and privilege. Quoting Frederick Douglass, Cole cautions that such people ‘concede nothing without a struggle.’ So those in power must perceive a rewarding alternative: “We need to imagine and work toward making a world where difference doesn’t make any more difference.”

Even the most marginalized of us, says Cole, must locate in ourselves the power and privilege we do, have, and expunge the temptation to victimize others. “Some white women who have been the victims of sexism can systematically practice racism,” Cole points out, and “some black folk who have known the bitter sting of racism can be intensely homophobic…” She asks her audience to “learn how you learned your prejudices and interrogate yourself around your particular journey around questions of diversity and inclusion.” Own all parts of your identity, and “never again let anyone interact with you on the basis of one alone.”

While she acknowledges MIT’s work toward diversity, Cole says “that is not enough,” and that each person must take personal responsibility “for helping to change this mighty institution.” Her advice: make sure the curriculum moves away from “WWW:” western, white and womanless. No faculty or staff searches should move forward without a diverse pool of candidates. Real inclusion means not just recruiting a diverse class of students each and every year, but “creating an inclusive culture so students of color, or the LGBT community, students who are differently abled -- all the underrepresented groups -- can say this is my university.” ]]> Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/640 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/640 Noted philosopher, critic and essayist Boris Groys, who has previously delved into the Soviet post-modernist and Russian avant-garde art scene, turns his attention now to the recent and dangerous marriage of religion and digital media. In a talk based on his paper, Religion in the Age of Digital Reproduction, Groys draws freely on such predecessors as Gilles Deleuze, Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger and Nietzsche to draw a bead on fundamentalism. He contends that the revival of extremist religion worldwide, in the face of a secular and skeptical world, depends on the broadcast of video and distribution of data, particularly through the Internet.

Groys argues that in older times, religious rituals were practiced “in isolated sacred places.” Today, “ritual, repetition and reproduction have become the fate of the entire culture. Everything reproduces itself -- capital, commodities, technology and art.” In our day, public media sites like MySpace and YouTube feature private hopes, dreams and beliefs, substituting for the public discussions of a previous age. This new configuration of the media, especially the Internet, encourages and even favors sovereign religious politics over institutionalized secular politics, says Groys. “The Internet is the space in which it is possible for contemporary, aggressive religious movements to install their propaganda material and act globally.”

Today’s religious rituals are enacted in a wired global space, where they can be faithfully reproduced an unlimited number of times, through the apparent magic of digital duplication. Video, believes Groys, serves as the principal medium of fundamentalism, serving up images over broadcast TV, the Internet, and in stores. Digital images are all the more powerful because they “have the ability to originate, multiply and distribute themselves through the open fields…of communication, like climbing out of nowhere, like being divine…”

Groys shows two video clips: a Christian evangelical ritual in Siberia, where a man dressed in Biblical garb straight out of Franco Zeffirelli’s bio-pic, Jesus of Nazareth, greets the faithful; and the taped confession of a Lebanese communist suicide bomber with commentary. Video recordings, digital images transmitted to countless many, are attempts to generate belief and passion, and function in some ways like “a Byzantine icon,” says Groys. “The digital file functions as an angel -- an invisible messenger transmitting a divine command.” ]]> Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/633 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/633 George Soros extends his “theory of reflexivity” from abstraction to application in the realm of investing. His book, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets, offers a timely look at the credit crisis that reached crescendo in 2008. His views fall between prescience and vindication. Nevertheless, he concedes fallibility: “With all my great, deep understanding, I don’t always get the markets right.”

In conversation with Ricardo Caballero, Soros recounts the formative experience of his life -- surviving the German occupation of Hungary -- “a far from equilibrium situation.” He credits his father for recognizing that “the normal rules don’t apply” and falsifying documents permitting the family’s escape from fascism. Soros attributes his intellectual development during college to the philosophy of Karl Popper. This led him eventually to question the economic postulate of “perfect knowledge and perfect competition.”

He concluded that markets do not exist in a vacuum nor spontaneously self-correct. Thinking participants introduce friction, inevitably influencing outcomes for better or worse. Soros characterizes this phenomenon as the cognitive function interfering with the manipulative function and vice versa, thus the reflexivity of his theory. “Path dependence is very much due to imperfect understanding,” he states and “actions have unintended consequences.”

Time and again Soros has anticipated financial bubbles and capitalized on opportunities he foresaw. Caballero elicits his ideas on bubble formation and collapse. Soros’s metaphor is “people go on dancing even though they realize that the music is about to stop.” He says the most common bubble is real estate where the misconception is that value “is independent of the willingness to lend.” Soros asserts that a “superbubble has been growing for at least 25 years,” periodically manifested by the international banking crisis and Latin debt in the early ’80s; 1997’s emerging market crisis; the Internet technology explosion; overleveraging that created the housing bubble; and escalating oil and commodity prices. He also faults financial innovation and securitization of debt. “People became very loose in their lending habits” and increased risk “by separating agent from principal.”

Soros’s prescription for a sounder financial system begins with reducing troubled mortgages to 80% of current value, thereby minimizing foreclosures and preventing further decline of housing prices. He also recommends recapitalizing banks to encourage lending, and lowering the reserve requirement to 6%. His ultimate suggestion sounds simple enough: “Stabilize the global economy.”

Soros admits markets will always tend toward bubbles. He places responsibility on regulators to rein this in, adding “that would require the use of judgment and they’re bound to get it wrong … because they’re human.” ]]> Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/631 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/631 Much like our divided country, each side of this debate strains to comprehend the perspective of the other, together reaching no consensus on the fate of the Electoral College. In what feels like a constitutional law and political science scrimmage, participants lob questions and spark exchanges. What follows is a short list of discussion themes:

Judith Best wonders how a movement currently pursuing a nationwide popular vote outside of a Constitutional amendment can accomplish its goal without usurping Constitutional process. Robert Bennett responds that advocates believe they are neither overturning the Constitutional system nor encroaching on the prerogatives of federal government. Alexander Belenky asks what benefits popular vote proponents think it will bring. Alexander Keyssar asks in return, “Why shouldn’t people … have the ultimate voice in deciding what their political institutions look like?”

Robert Hardaway worries about implementation of the direct national election. John Fortier notes possible problems among states over differing voting standards (e.g., polling hours, or mail-in ballots). Akhil Amar adds, “Who votes and who doesn’t? Is it fair if one state allows 16-year-olds and another 18-year-olds? Is it equal if one state lets you vote for three months and another lets you vote for three hours? These are real issues, but in the end don’t scare me away.”

Is a national popular vote doomed due to inertia and the preference of political parties for the Electoral College? Bennett imagines opposition might wither if a modest version of a nationwide vote emerged. Akhil Amar believes if both parties feel “bitten in the back” by the EC system, they’ll say “let’s move.” Vikram Amar says unlike other ideas for constitutional amendments (such as for a balanced budget or school prayer), a popular vote has “potential for traction,” since it involves improving democracy.

Best thinks proponents of popular election “have their priorities wrong and should go after the Senate first.” Vikram Amar agrees that the Senate is anachronistic, part of the original deal “to get the Constitution done” but Akhil Amar states there are “perfectly sound reasons for wanting to change the presidency and selection mechanism that do not require rethinking the Senate.”

Belenky wonders if it’s good for the country if we elect a president by a thin plurality who has lost the popular vote in every state. Keyssar retorts “that for any conceivable electoral system the rest of people here…can think of a disastrous counter example.” Best insists that “as thinkers, we must be careful to not confuse end and means: the goal of an election is to produce a president who can govern this nation.”

Concludes Akhil Amar, “Many arguments invoked against popular elections are actually red herrings, which might be sufficient to persuade people to stick with what we’ve got now.” Says Bennett, “I don’t think there’s any doubt, if we go to a national popular vote … there might be unexpected consequences …but the notion that it will be somehow fatal is an over-dramatization of a point.” ]]> Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/632 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/632 Audience members take the floor in this last of five sessions debating whether to retain or discard the Electoral College system. Through question, answer and general discussion, the panelists further elucidate their positions on the main conference topic.

The following is a short list of discussion areas raised by audience questions:

Panelists engage around how a national popular vote system would impact minority groups. Judith Best and Robert Hardaway believe that minorities in swing states have an advantage in our current system, and a change would mean losing that leverage. Robert Bennett, Paul Schumaker, and Akhil Amar dispute this.

John Fortier, Schumaker, Alan Natapoff, and Vikram and Akhil Amar discuss whether a national popular vote would have the effect of mobilizing voter organization and participation at a community level. Fortier doesn’t see a panacea in the popular election, while Schumaker sees very positive consequences. Akhil Amar believes there will be “more close elections in the future than in the past,” due to 24/7 polling made possible by new technologies. Natapoff declares that “simple national voting creates pernicious incentives to play off one group against another.”

An audience member comments on the “denigration of third parties” during the conference and wonders how a change in election systems might affect the emergence of viable, elect-able third party candidates. Alexander Keyssar notes that the U.S. is the only country in the world where no new political party has come to power in the 20th century. “It’s possible that’s because our two political parties are so magnificent…” he says. Other panelists point out the dangers of multiparty elections, and the possibility of elections being thrown into the House of Representatives. Some suggest adopting instant runoff elections. Akhil Amar cites a law of political science that “when you have one office up for grabs, you’re generally going to have two parties vying for it in long-term equilibrium.”

One audience member wonders what foreign nations might offer the U.S. in terms of election process. Natapoff claims that our current system is essentially parliamentary, and Akhil Amar retorts “our system is so far from parliamentary as to be staggering.” Keyssar adds that our Electoral College, while like a parliament, is not an ongoing body. Amar believes that while we have much to learn from other systems, they won’t be adopted at the federal level unless “they’re road-tested in the states and proved to be workable.”

If the U.S. generally produces only two viable candidates, and the Electoral College handles this kind of election well, why move to a popular vote? Alexander Belenky responds that with the EC, just 11 states can elect a president. “If in those states the turnout is low and the rest of the country’s turnout is high, it may be that a small percentage of the popular vote will elect the president.”

The panelists devote additional time to discussing each other’s suggestions for modifying the Electoral College and other changes to the voting system, and discuss in detail how runoff voting works. ]]> Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/628 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/628 As David King puts it, “The Constitution has an on the one hand, on the other quality,” and the Electoral College seems a focal point for contrariness and ambivalence. King ticks off areas where the EC can be viewed alternatively: for instance, does it encourage healthy, broad-based campaigning and widespread voting, or promote targeted campaigning, and widespread voter fraud? Well acquainted with congressmen, King worries about the tension between short-term concerns (getting re-elected), and long-term interests. He believes that with the Electoral College, “you at least tip toward caring about winning multiple states…and the more states you try to win, the more candidates for office look to the long term and national best interest.”

Arnold Barnett offers a “pragmatic compromise” between a popular vote and the current Electoral College system, a potential cure for the current “funhouse mirror” of election politics based on weighted averages. Hold elections in individual states, and determine each candidate’s percentage. Says Barnett: “Each candidate’s national vote share would be a weighted average of vote shares in individual states. The weight of each state would be proportional to its share of electoral votes (i.e., the number of members of Congress).” The candidate with the highest weighted vote share would become president. Advantages of this system, says Barnett, include increasing the power of small states, and making currently irrelevant big states like New York relevant again. It would eliminate the worst consequences of winner take all (“Poster child: Florida 2000”); and there would be no danger of an election heading for the House of Representatives “where the president would be chosen under Strange Rules.”

Under the current system, not everyone has a say in presidential elections, Alexander Belenky believes, because a candidate with a very small percentage of the popular vote can actually become president. The Founding Fathers came up with a compromise to resolve problems in their day, and they “might be surprised to learn we still have this system.” Belenky suggests considering the will of the nation as a whole and the will of the states and DC as equal members of the Union as two decisive factors in determining the election outcome while retaining the Electoral College as a backup. Belenky suggests that the “winner-take-all” is the lesser evil compared to the proportional and the district (Maine-like) schemes of awarding state electoral votes and that its simple modification can make every state vote count, even under the Electoral College.

Alan Natapoff reaches for analogies from baseball and poker to describe voting systems, and ultimately relies on mathematics to shape his variation on the current EC system. Natapoff’s concept: Winner takes all by state, but rather than a fixed number of votes, states instead have the number of votes equal to the number of votes cast plus the proportional equivalent of the two electoral votes they have now. Winner takes all “magnifies the power of individual voters,” and works better than a simple national vote, unless the election is exquisitely close (with a margin less than 1 standard deviation). Concludes Natapoff: “We needn’t apologize for this system…it’s the ideal of a voting system…and it works.” ]]> Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/626 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/626 Give a hearty cheer for the Electoral College, and for the Founding Fathers, whose good sense (and good luck), say these panelists, have led to a durable, wise and relatively fair system for electing a president.

By way of introduction, Alex Belenky details the mechanics of the current Electoral College, and explains “to a certain extent, this is not in line with what was initially designed or meant by the Founding Fathers.” The founders’ idea was to appoint “some wise people from different states and they would come up with their own ideas. These wise people, a so-called independent congress, would elect a president.” Belenky encourages panelists to debate whether the current system, in which electoral votes are determined by how states vote, should be abolished, or combined somehow with a popular vote. The people’s belief that they vote for president and vice president directly “is definitely a far cry from reality,” he says.

The greatest fear of the founders, says Judith Best, was that of a majority tyranny that could control the entire government, and use it to oppress a minority. This fear led to the concept of three branches of government with separation of powers, and a federal principle shaping all governing institutions and decisions, where no popular votes for anything can be added across state lines. These are “load-bearing walls of the Constitution,” says Best.

Founders determined a method to balance nation and states, viewed as “little republics where selfish interests are forced to compromise early and often.” But they struggled with the presidential election, especially how to prevent Congress from making the president its lackey. So they cleverly created a temporary congress to hire the president, with “no further influence or power over the winner.” This ephemeral body, the Electoral College, “beats all alternatives,” believes Best. The goal of an election is to “select a president who can govern a vast, heterogeneous nation,” not serve as a public opinion poll. Requiring candidates to win states structures the election, forcing candidates to form broad cross-sectional coalitions, which unlike a popular vote, leads to a swift, sure decision to fill the world’s most powerful office.

Robert Hardaway believes the Electoral College is part of a grand plan that works quite well. This “parallel parliament” has but one duty: to meet every four years to select a president. John F. Kennedy, whose election in 1960 raised questions about the electoral mechanism, described a solar system of government power, all in balance. JFK believed any attempt to rework the Electoral College would mean transforming the other branches as well. Alternatives such as direct elections can lead to a proliferation of splinter parties, and to runoff elections where a majority of the people might reject the runoff candidates, but still end up with one of them. Founding Fathers wanted a system that protected minority rights and that “would elect a candidate whose support was broad as well as deep,” says Hardaway.

The Electoral College works pretty well in general, says John Fortier. There’s not a great likelihood that the popular vote will head in one direction and electoral vote in another, and while small states exert substantial influence, they are relatively evenly split between the two parties. Our system takes “seriously the need to win a majority or strong plurality in states to do things, not just to elect a president, but to pass state laws.” The most serious argument against the Electoral College is that campaigns don’t take place as much nationally as in selected states, says Fortier, and he’d be “open to looking at some sort of proportional system where states would allocate electors that might open up…greater competition.” ]]> Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/627 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/627 The Electoral College emphatically does not represent the best of all possible worlds, say these panelists, providing often scathing and nuanced responses to the EC advocates who precede them in this conference.

Akhil Amar favors the direct national election because it “best expresses the idea of one person, one vote.” One argument in favor of the EC, though: inertia, which essentially expresses that “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.” He takes issue with those who would preserve the EC because it exclusively sustains federalism. Direct national elections, he says, wouldn’t eliminate the Senate or the need for federal oversight of voting. Why fear a direct vote, he asks, when plenty of big states like California and Texas directly elect an executive “who looks like a mini-president…and it works just fine.”

The “origins of the Electoral College are quite tainted and not really that understood,” says Vikram Amar, and the more he listens to arguments for retaining the institution, “the more laughable some of them are.” The EC doesn’t really promote “the deepest vision of federalism,” as its proponents suggest, nor does it defeat regionalism, since as few as 11 states could dictate the outcome of an election. He also derides advocates who support the EC because it can “exaggerate the margin of victory to create legitimacy.”

Robert Bennett favors a nationwide popular vote, because he’s “concerned about the incentives we have for campaigning and promising by candidates.” Under the current system, candidates hit swing states hard and “ignore the others.” Voters in California or New York don’t hear from candidates except around money raising. Bennett believes that a popular vote “would lead to reaching out to a broader swath of the population.” Other incentives to switch systems: the minority party would need “to get its act together” and we would be “less likely to have terribly close (elections). “

Alexander Keyssar says many of the empirical claims in favor of the Electoral College “are demonstrably false,” and describes the current system as “deformed.” It’s “surely the most unpopular political institution the Founding Fathers have created.” Many attempts to abolish the system failed, owing in large part to the issue of race. “Had there been a national popular vote, the political power of the white racist South would have been dramatically diminished.” Another reason for the preservation of the EC has been the perception of short-term partisan advantage. Keyssar approves the decentralized efforts by the National Popular Vote Initiative to abolish the Electoral College.

Paul Schumaker has written a book breaking down the pros and cons of the existing election system. He recommends going beyond thinking “just in terms of a popular system,” and looking at elections based on popular plurality, popular majority and instant runoff (his personal favorite). He examines all of these in light of such qualities as simplicity, equality, neutrality, participation, legitimacy and stability. Ultimately, “I don’t think there’s an ideal system, says Schumaker. But “can we do better? Yes.” ]]> Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/624 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/624 The 2008 U.S. Presidential election was in many ways a watershed event, including the impact of religion on candidates and voters.

Shaun Casey finds some parallels to 2008 in 1960, when John F. Kennedy eventually overcame enough Protestant resistance to become the first Roman Catholic president – just as Obama campaigned to overcome American racism and become the first African-American president. Kennedy applied a “technical rationality to most problems,” says Casey, so he hired staffers to help him present his faith in an unthreatening way. Obama also put together a staff to deal with such “religion problems” as Reverend Wright, the notion that he was a “Manchurian Meccan candidate,” or even worse, “a secular Harvard Law School educator who’s really an atheist.”

Alan Wolfe observes that in the 1960 election, people were tired of eight years of Republican power, and found a young Democratic challenger appealing. The candidate with the real religion problem then was Richard Nixon, who “essentially had to hide his religion: he was Quaker.” Says Wolfe, “What a horrible embarrassment” for a party that “believes in aggressive military posture.” What Wolfe finds of greater interest is the emergence, after the ‘60s, of “the religious litmus test.” He hypothesizes that Jimmy Carter introduced the concept, offering himself up as a man of God in whom a post-Watergate era America could trust. One of the Democrats’ more “admirable” candidates thus “opened the Pandora’s box for Republicans.”

Catching up to current times, Wolfe debunks Karl Rove’s mystique as master manipulator of the religious right, claiming that Bush actually lost the 2000 election, and that Rove was “simply lucky” in 2004. McCain deployed the Rove strategy in 2008, and “it’s been a disaster for him…” Also, McCain is simply “awkward speaking about religion…he’s tone deaf.” In contrast, “Obama the ‘Muslim’ is steeped in the Christian language.”

Casey believes Rove and George Bush “elevated religious outreach to an art form not seen in American politics,” marketing a candidate who was “a specific kind of Christian possibility independent of the reality in that candidate’s life.” Wolfe thinks conservative Christians gravitate to the Republican Party now because they’re “working in big corporations…they’re wealthier.” They see themselves as a marginalized minority group. Wolfe says the “real inheritors of the ‘60s are the Christian right. They’re victimized, oppressed, and …they’re a movement of insurgency.”

Both panelists discern a new sensibility emerging in the evangelical movement. Young people don’t clothe themselves as much in what Wolfe calls the “highly Calvinistic, punitive approach,” and instead embrace openness around such issues as poverty, climate change and genocide. Casey believes this new religious cohort, raised in public schools, has been exposed to ethnic diversity, and interracial and interethnic dating: “They’re far more cosmopolitan,” he says. They’re attracted to Obama, and less likely to oppose things like civil rights and sex education. “A kid in a suburban high school won’t get exercised about gay rights; it’s more live and let live.” ]]> Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/622 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/622 Perhaps because he is a historian rather than librarian by training, Robert Darnton regards the vast ocean of digital information that civilization has begun accumulating with relish rather than anxiety. Darnton delves into European archives to find raw material, boxes of cast-off “ephemera,” for his stories of how people lived hundreds of years ago. No wonder he believes “it’s important to preserve as much as you can because you don’t know what will turn out to be significant.”

In conversation with David Thorburn and audience members, Darnton lays out why he finds more promise than peril in rapidly expanding digital collections. He first owns up to the tactile pleasures of archival history: the sensation of opening a box full of manuscripts, dirty hands, the smell of old paper, and literally coming “into contact with vanished humanity.” He cherishes the drama of such research, as well as the finished, weighty products of this kind of work: the book. While the “tactile quality of books” is very important -- and Darnton describes holding up leaves of 18th century books to see bits of ground-down petticoat thread -- there are also positive dimensions to digital versions. For instance, when the British Library digitized Beowulf, it discovered several new words. But “one medium of communication doesn’t displace another,” he reassures. “They coexist.” Darnton himself is hard at work on a large-scale electronic book about books in the 18th century, comprised of layers a user can navigate, from essays on various subjects, to selections of documents in English, to the original documents in French. There might even be songs performed as they were sung in the streets of Paris 250 years ago. “We are in an era of creating new kinds of books, new kinds of reading and authorship.”

Darnton advocates “a total history of communication … by internet, by songs, jokes, graffiti -- by all of the media of any period...”and a corresponding expansion of libraries’ duties. But he admits concern about the preservation of digital documents: “We migrate them through various formats, and they’re not like books. They could disappear due to inadequate metadata, or “lose a few 0s and 1s, and the whole document disintegrates.” He advocates keeping card catalogs, and making sure that all conceivable editions of books, manuscripts and research papers get digitized. He even supports preserving email. The “ephemera” of our times may serve as an entry point for historians of the future, and we should let the next generation find in the vast world of preserved data what they deem most significant.

]]> Sun, 14 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/596 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/596 In a trip down memory lane, Brad Feld regales us with the pre- and recent history of electronic innovation, with a rapid-fire delivery that achieves vaudevillian pitch.

Via a slide-laden PowerPoint presentation -- and, by the way, Feld claims to hate PowerPoint, because as a venture capitalist “I’ve only received about 6,723,000 of them” -- he narrates landmark moments in the evolution of the computer age. He touches on the room-size ENIAC computer, and pays tribute to the Jetsons cartoon as embodying his view of the future as a child. He cites his first programming language (APL, 1976), and first computer (Apple II, 1978). Feld speaks sentimentally of the familiar A> prompt as a quaint relic of the DOS operating system era.

Jump to the late ’80s, when Hypercard on the Macintosh was a pre-web foreshadowing of distributing data through multiple applications…“a major breakthrough.” Windows 3.0 heralded the ’90s and subsequent leapfrogging of Microsoft and Apple on the personal computer frontier. He cites the renegade Linux operating system (1991), then the ignoble Michelangelo virus (1992)…“the first time the mainstream media got crazy about computer security.”

Feld detours from history to recount naming his software consulting firm Feld Technologies; whenever anything went wrong “people called up and asked for Mr. Feld.” Therefore, he warns “lesson #1 of entrepreneurship is don’t name your company after yourself.”

In the mid-’90s, the emergence of the Internet in mass culture made ubiquitous such terms as Mosaic, Yahoo!, Java, Explorer, and other iterations of web browser, search engine, and email protocol. In 1999, E-commerce and the Y2K scare entered common parlance. Around 2000, OS X and iTunes burst on the scene, in spite of post-Internet bubble depression. Feld credits Apple with changing “the way we think about digital content.” Catching up to recent times, he invokes social networking, the astronomical Google IPO, and the notion of Web 2.0.

As a venture capitalist, Feld seeks new paradigms in software development as investing prospects for 10 to 20 years – “the next big thing.” He is interested in “immersive experience” that alters human interaction with the computer. His attention is also drawn to decoupling mouse and keyboard from control of the computer toward methods requiring no tactile input. Lastly, he speaks of “cloud computing” where “everything is disconnected from what is on your desktop” and “you don’t have to worry about…data storage and equipment.” Then, elliptically, he reprises a slide of a 1960s room-size computer, suggesting it resembles a latter-day incarnation of a server farm. Full circle. ]]>