/glen sed: > Well, again, if you claim the NIH "didn't work", then the burden's on you to > say what "work" means. It would be reasonable to claim that the NIH's purpose > is to save US lives. (I don't think that's true. But it would be reasonable > to say such a thing.) And since so many died from COVID-19, the NIH failed. I > think the bureaucracy to saddle with that purpose is the CDC, not the NIH. > > And it's important to recognize the Executive branch's role in the > bureaucracy. Was the Obama CDC the same as the Trump CDC? If not, which > bureaucracy failed? And why? If so, have we delineated its purpose well > enough to say it failed?
And maybe more to the point, to the extent the T-CDC was *mostly* the same as the O-CDC (moreso on day 1 than by year 3), it was definitely under a significantly different "forcing function". We also find proving a negative problematic... can we say we know how many other (potential) pandemics have been averted by such a (mal?)functioning bureacracy. That said, I am sympathetic with Marcus' judgements of the natural "thickening" (in a bad way) of institutional structures (not precisely the same as a bureacracy, but related?). I mostly notice this when *I* try to navigate these systems and get something done within their "alternate reality".. I'm much more patient/accepting of all that than I was when I was more busy "trying to get things done". - Steve - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
