Draper's idea is not only somewhat selfish and very conventional, its a way of reductionist thinking that compounds the original error... Its re-hash of stupidity we are suffering from everyday as a result of having drawn dotted lines on maps where no dotted lines should be. All the challenges of the 21st Century, the Anthropocene Era, do not care about dotted lines on maps. If Draper were really smart, he would investigate business opportunities to make the lines irrelevant. I have two such opportunities for him or any other VC that cares to change America for the better - but it will take some patient capital. Tim: If you do want to make a positive impact, there are much better ways than compounding old errors, but I understand your frustration. Its time, in many ways, to get outside the box - do something positive. Let me know.

Makes sense to me...there is more stuff to run into in the spiral arms than elsewhere. So when does our solar system wander through the next one?

Watson is just a specific (but amazing) example of the use of analytics to solve our societal challenges...now and in the future (coming soon to a community near you). All analytics does is sift through the ever-increasing mountains of data our engineered and industrial society produces on a daily basis as well as data generated by instrumentation of the natural world. Humans will never be able to do that...our biology holds us back...we are not designed for such tasks (why does R. L. Gore and Associates try to limit the number of humans at each of their sites? - look it up on NPR.org). Let the machines sift through all the data and present anomalies and patterns to us in visual form - so we can make more informed decisions. That is really all the Intelligent Operations Center in Rio does...the Mayor and his managers make the decisions...and are held accountable for them. I am now working on a concept about better government by design - attempting to architect a solution to the mess we call local government in America. If/when implemented, it should return politicians to their rightful and original place in government - as public servants, not public exploiters. I call it Smarter Local Government...stay tuned.