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TagsSkunkworks Definition:
A skunkworks is a group of people who, in order to achieve unusual results, work on a project in a way that is outside the usual rules. A skunkworks is often a small team that assumes or is given responsibility for developing something in a short time with minimal management constraints. Typically, a skunkworks has a small number of members in order to reduce communications overhead. A skunkworks is sometimes used to spearhead a product design that thereafter will be developed according to the usual process. A skunkworks project may be secret. (Source)Size, of course, is relative to the size of the organization that discovers it needs people thinking outside the box. The Manhattan Project, for example, was a skunkworks.
At the same time the Manhattan Project Skunkworks was formed Lockheed created its own skunkworks (circa 1943) when the US discovered it was no longer the leading force in fighter aircraft design. The Germans, they learned, were well along developing the first jet fighter. The Lockheed skunkworks came up with America's first jet fighter, the P-80, just 143 days after the skunkworks was formed.
The magic of a skunkworks is that it breaks great minds free from calcified, rule-bound, special interest -afflected, group-think crippled organizations. And if ever there was an organization that fits that description today, it's the USA itself.
Democrats, Republicans, Independents of various stripes have proven themselves either impotent, corrupt or just plain stupid when it comes to dealing with the very real dangers facing the US, the world and the very planet we live on. Viewed from a safe distance Congress and Executive Branch appear to be about as relevant or useful as the United Nations – lots of talk, lots of posturing, lots of bullshit, very little real solutions. The entire governing mechanism seems to have become stuck in what a computer programmer would recognize as an endless loop. It just keeps repeating itself, day in, day out, year in year out, party in, party out. And hitting "reset" every two or four years only seems to boot us all right back into that loop again.
Meanwhile the problems we hired politicians to fix just keep getting worse. Unless someone comes up with new solutions to these old problems one of these days one of those problems — loose nukes, global warming, dwindling fresh water supplies, etc, etc, — is going to get us all killed.
So, why not a national skunkworks? Here's my suggestion.
Take, California, Oregon and Washington state and cut them loose for 25-years.
I am not suggesting secession from the Union – just a time out. Give
those 3 states a 25-year leave of absence from the Union. During that
time the feds would get out of the way and while this Skunkworks comes
up with fresh solutions to the most serious, potentially deadly and
intractable problems facing the nation and the world today:
I understand that cutting three western states loose for a quarter century is more than “outside the box.” It's more like “outta your mind!?” But think about it. There's something in this idea for everyone.
For example, conservatives get all misty-eyed when they discuss “choice” in education. They've argue, often persuasively, that the public school system needs a healthy dose of competition from private and charter schools. And they argue that taxpayer money should be used to create that competition by giving parents vouchers to pay for it.
Why? Because, conservatives explain, the entire national education system is held captive by special interests; teacher unions, schoolbook publishers, school district administrators and outmoded teaching methods. And, that the only way to change that is to let parents use federal money to pay for outside that box charter and private schools – schools that would be freed of the entrenched educational bureaucracy, allowed to make their own rules, try new teaching techniques. In other words, Skunkworks schools.
Look, whether you are a conservative or a liberal, you and I both know that our government has ceased to function. Worse than that, it has ceased to function for so long now that its forgotten how to. When it tries to function it either makes things worse or the solutions they impose to fix one problem creates an even bigger mess somewhere else.
So, if we need “choice” in education, why not in government too? Why not a national skunkworks made up of an entire region — the West coast?
When things are run by an entrenched, self-sustaining bureaucracy there really is only one way to break free, and that's to break free. After all, how can people think outside the box when they are not allowed outside that box?
Even old-line communists understand that. When the leaders of Communist China saw the writing on the all for communism they created enterprise zones – economic and social skunkworks. Those pioneering regions smoothed a transition that could have otherwise turned very ugly, easing China's transition from commie to capitalist. And it worked pretty good. Today they're kicking our capitalist asses.
By turning loose the three western states, California, Oregon and Washington, we would create a 21st century Manhattan Project on a massive scale. Within the borders of these states are all the resources — financial, agricultural, industrial, political, industrial and intellectual — required to survive and thrive on their own.
Since this is my idea I claim naming rights. I hereby christen this national skunkworks, “Pacifica.”
While the devil in such things is always in the details, I think we can agree on a few fundamental skunkwork rules:
I would argue that it was a dynamic form of skunkworks that created the late, great US of A in the first place. Of course, they didn't call it a skunkworks. It was called “the Wild West.” But it functioned exactly in the way a skunkworks is intended to function. The entrenched federal forces exercised only the most tenuous control over what settlers west of the Mississippi were up to. Instead settlers experimented with what I call “wild cat innovation.” They made plenty of mistakes but, since their lives often depended on finding sustainable solutions, they eventually did, and those "proofs of concept" working solutions were later institutionalized.
Once the Union was complete and railroads and telegraph installed, the Wild West Skunkworks was shut down. One could argue that it was at that moment the seeds of stagnation began to germinate.
I only propose such a radical (and unlikely) proposition because I am at loss to come up with anything short of that. I've exhausted my last gram of faith or hope that the current two-party farce will — or even can any longer — function for the common good.
Quote this article on your site- How can a nation provide adequate healthcare to all its citizens, blending the strengths of the private sector with the stability and democratic mechanism of government, and do so without bankrupting both.
- How can we fuel a 21st century economy and modern lifestyle without relying on 19th and 20th century, non-renewable and planet-threatening fossil fuels?
- How can we quickly reduce human-produced greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining a sustainable modern standard of living and without bankrupting private sector enterprise?
- How do we balance the imperatives of mass population shifts (immigration) with the immutable realities of finite resources, private and governmental services, agriculture, jobs and living space?
- How can we develop fair, sustainable trade with other nations without encouraging environmental devastation in developing nations and exploiting their workers while devastating job opportunities here at home?
- Explore way we can either revitalize or replace the current two-party political establishment. which now functions only to sustain itself, increasingly at the expense of the nation itself.
- Explore how a nation can reasonable secure itself and protect it's citizen, and while enhancing and expanding individual freedom rather than persistently rolling those freedoms back.
I understand that cutting three western states loose for a quarter century is more than “outside the box.” It's more like “outta your mind!?” But think about it. There's something in this idea for everyone.
For example, conservatives get all misty-eyed when they discuss “choice” in education. They've argue, often persuasively, that the public school system needs a healthy dose of competition from private and charter schools. And they argue that taxpayer money should be used to create that competition by giving parents vouchers to pay for it.
Why? Because, conservatives explain, the entire national education system is held captive by special interests; teacher unions, schoolbook publishers, school district administrators and outmoded teaching methods. And, that the only way to change that is to let parents use federal money to pay for outside that box charter and private schools – schools that would be freed of the entrenched educational bureaucracy, allowed to make their own rules, try new teaching techniques. In other words, Skunkworks schools.
Look, whether you are a conservative or a liberal, you and I both know that our government has ceased to function. Worse than that, it has ceased to function for so long now that its forgotten how to. When it tries to function it either makes things worse or the solutions they impose to fix one problem creates an even bigger mess somewhere else.
So, if we need “choice” in education, why not in government too? Why not a national skunkworks made up of an entire region — the West coast?
When things are run by an entrenched, self-sustaining bureaucracy there really is only one way to break free, and that's to break free. After all, how can people think outside the box when they are not allowed outside that box?
Even old-line communists understand that. When the leaders of Communist China saw the writing on the all for communism they created enterprise zones – economic and social skunkworks. Those pioneering regions smoothed a transition that could have otherwise turned very ugly, easing China's transition from commie to capitalist. And it worked pretty good. Today they're kicking our capitalist asses.
By turning loose the three western states, California, Oregon and Washington, we would create a 21st century Manhattan Project on a massive scale. Within the borders of these states are all the resources — financial, agricultural, industrial, political, industrial and intellectual — required to survive and thrive on their own.
Since this is my idea I claim naming rights. I hereby christen this national skunkworks, “Pacifica.”
While the devil in such things is always in the details, I think we can agree on a few fundamental skunkwork rules:
- With very few exceptions the federal government would have no say whatsoever about what happens in Pacifica.
- No federal taxes would be paid by Pacifica residents,
- No federal money would flow from Washington to finance Pacifica's operations or infrastructure.
- Residents of the three states would continue paying their usual state taxes but the federal tax would be replaced by a tax to fund Pacifica's skunk works activities. (The only money Pacifica would send to the IRS would be payment for direct services negotiated and contracted by Pacifica with the feds.)
- Pacifica would pay Washington an annual fee to cover Pacifica's share of national defense.
I would argue that it was a dynamic form of skunkworks that created the late, great US of A in the first place. Of course, they didn't call it a skunkworks. It was called “the Wild West.” But it functioned exactly in the way a skunkworks is intended to function. The entrenched federal forces exercised only the most tenuous control over what settlers west of the Mississippi were up to. Instead settlers experimented with what I call “wild cat innovation.” They made plenty of mistakes but, since their lives often depended on finding sustainable solutions, they eventually did, and those "proofs of concept" working solutions were later institutionalized.
Once the Union was complete and railroads and telegraph installed, the Wild West Skunkworks was shut down. One could argue that it was at that moment the seeds of stagnation began to germinate.
I only propose such a radical (and unlikely) proposition because I am at loss to come up with anything short of that. I've exhausted my last gram of faith or hope that the current two-party farce will — or even can any longer — function for the common good.
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America desperately needs a skunkworks
Thursday, 25 October 2007
Thursday, 25 October 2007
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Trace
said:
 |
sounds good to me.... I am from Texas and I think we should also balkanize an area, say Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and maybe Louisiana (they could be our "experimental zone", where we try new and amazing things first....)....my trademarked name would be something like Nuevo Tejas, trading on our Spanish-Native American roots and whatnot... |
Jimmy Montague
said:
 |
The balkanization of America The balkanization of America has been foreseen by any number of people, especially including those who write stories of science fiction and/or violent gun-fantasy. Truth is, there are a number of historical facts that put the balkanization of America within the realm of desirable outcomes. One such fact -- a major one -- is Western man's yen for democracy combined with the nature and limitations of democracy, per se. Not to bore everyone, but you might start by considering that democracy was invented by Greek city-states. Something I once read (I believe it was an essay by H. F. D. Kitto) points out that the Greeks themselves saw that democracy cannot work in any nation (i.e. any "polis") that exceeds a size of about 5,000 people. The Greeks thought it necessary that citizens of a democratic society should know each other by sight, and through social intercourse. The possibility of human rights and human justice are major goals of any truly democratic system because mankind's yen for justice and rights are the very human itch that democracy proposes to scratch. Greek thinkers felt that justice and rights are impossible to guarantee in societies so large that. . . . Well, you see, it all comes down to the fact that lying to strangers is much easier than lying to your friends and family and neighbors who actually KNOW you. Therefore, where members of a society do not know each other, the true and most desirable fruits of democracy (justice and civil liberties) are occasionally possible to achieve but impossible to guarantee. And America as we know it is a society based upon lies. But I didn't come here to write an essay. So just think about those things and take them where you will. |
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