The Brain Trust Project
May 14, 2007 5:16 PM Subscribe
The Brain Trust Project “is a non-partisan organization dedicated to developing smarter public policy by supporting the role of academics in creating solutions for the political problems facing us today.” The website is the work of USC undergraduates Mathew Morgan and Colin Koproske.
They'll still leave the goals of public policy to us plebes, right? Just let the wonks work out the details? Right?
posted by chlorus at 5:27 PM on May 14, 2007
posted by chlorus at 5:27 PM on May 14, 2007
I read it, and it's just...any given lefty blog with more bombast and more long-windedness.
posted by nasreddin at 5:34 PM on May 14, 2007
posted by nasreddin at 5:34 PM on May 14, 2007
What really impressed me is how unbiased they are.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 5:43 PM on May 14, 2007
posted by thehmsbeagle at 5:43 PM on May 14, 2007
Words... words... words...
posted by basicchannel at 5:45 PM on May 14, 2007
posted by basicchannel at 5:45 PM on May 14, 2007
No surprise a pair of undergraduates did this.
From USC - even less of a surprise.
Look, I'm a living, breathing brainiacal nerdgasm. I'm such a dome that I actually have to wear a neck brace to keep my weighty noggin upright and afloat.
The very title alone makes me want to throw eggs at those propeller-cap Poindexters. It's like they're vocally begging for a swirly and an atomic wedgie.
Having seen a little of the world by this point, I'm sure the world will be happy to comply.
Attention USC undergrads: Please at least wait until you're out of your rich parent's auspices and paying the lease on your own Benzo and platinum credit cards before filling your head with so much uselessly fluffy self-importance. The rest of the world doesn't care if you went to USC unless you played football in a Rose Bowl - and won.
You ain't all that and a bag of chips. I know from your little insular University world in the heart of Los Angeles it might appear like you're all that, the chips and a motherfucking pickle-spear - but you're not. You're not even a basket of stale Canter's bagel chips. Frankly, it's you fuckers that made me leave LA and not want to come home. LA hates you. LA hates your school. LA hates the way you park and drive. Hell, LA hates the way you cross the fucking street. Yes, your frat/soro costume-party beer bust was just so darling and precious. I've never seen anything so zany and daring before! Togas and 80s night! Will you please just use the fucking sidewalk and get your drunk, young and stupid ass the fuck out of traffic already?
Just go home, OK? Do not buy that cute million dollar Santa Monica flat. Do not "slum it" and move to Los Feliz or Silverlake to work on your thesis about homeless people and how they survive on cups of free soda and poetry. Do not even think of transferring your major from liberal arts to film - you're not the next Lucas and one of them was more than enough, anyway. Go back to Boston, to Iowa, to New Jersey or wherever it is that you come from. Look, I know you're from somewhere else. No one in their right mind who lives in California goes to USC. They go to fucking Stanford or one of the dozens of gigantor UC campuses that clean your clock on a daily basis.
posted by loquacious at 6:25 PM on May 14, 2007 [7 favorites]
From USC - even less of a surprise.
Look, I'm a living, breathing brainiacal nerdgasm. I'm such a dome that I actually have to wear a neck brace to keep my weighty noggin upright and afloat.
The very title alone makes me want to throw eggs at those propeller-cap Poindexters. It's like they're vocally begging for a swirly and an atomic wedgie.
Having seen a little of the world by this point, I'm sure the world will be happy to comply.
Attention USC undergrads: Please at least wait until you're out of your rich parent's auspices and paying the lease on your own Benzo and platinum credit cards before filling your head with so much uselessly fluffy self-importance. The rest of the world doesn't care if you went to USC unless you played football in a Rose Bowl - and won.
You ain't all that and a bag of chips. I know from your little insular University world in the heart of Los Angeles it might appear like you're all that, the chips and a motherfucking pickle-spear - but you're not. You're not even a basket of stale Canter's bagel chips. Frankly, it's you fuckers that made me leave LA and not want to come home. LA hates you. LA hates your school. LA hates the way you park and drive. Hell, LA hates the way you cross the fucking street. Yes, your frat/soro costume-party beer bust was just so darling and precious. I've never seen anything so zany and daring before! Togas and 80s night! Will you please just use the fucking sidewalk and get your drunk, young and stupid ass the fuck out of traffic already?
Just go home, OK? Do not buy that cute million dollar Santa Monica flat. Do not "slum it" and move to Los Feliz or Silverlake to work on your thesis about homeless people and how they survive on cups of free soda and poetry. Do not even think of transferring your major from liberal arts to film - you're not the next Lucas and one of them was more than enough, anyway. Go back to Boston, to Iowa, to New Jersey or wherever it is that you come from. Look, I know you're from somewhere else. No one in their right mind who lives in California goes to USC. They go to fucking Stanford or one of the dozens of gigantor UC campuses that clean your clock on a daily basis.
posted by loquacious at 6:25 PM on May 14, 2007 [7 favorites]
> developing smarter public policy by supporting the role of academics in creating solutions for the political
> problems facing us today.
Oh absolutely. Who could be more academic than Yale graduate and Harvard dean McGeorge Bundy?
We believe that the best available way of increasing our chance of success in Vietnam is the development and execution of a policy of sustained reprisal against North Vietnam, a policy in which air and naval action against the North is justified by and related to the whole Viet Cong campaign of violence and terror in the South.
For that matter, who could be more academic that Henry Kissinger?
posted by jfuller at 6:32 PM on May 14, 2007 [1 favorite]
> problems facing us today.
Oh absolutely. Who could be more academic than Yale graduate and Harvard dean McGeorge Bundy?
We believe that the best available way of increasing our chance of success in Vietnam is the development and execution of a policy of sustained reprisal against North Vietnam, a policy in which air and naval action against the North is justified by and related to the whole Viet Cong campaign of violence and terror in the South.
For that matter, who could be more academic that Henry Kissinger?
posted by jfuller at 6:32 PM on May 14, 2007 [1 favorite]
Condi Rice too.
posted by amberglow at 6:32 PM on May 14, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by amberglow at 6:32 PM on May 14, 2007 [1 favorite]
Either you're for a free and independent Iraq or you're for the US succeeding in its objectives there. The two outcomes are diametrically opposed. When you spend your time and energy criticizing the US government for incompetence in pursuit of those objectives, it implies that you're in favor of them, at least in principle.
posted by Clay201 at 7:15 PM on May 14, 2007
posted by Clay201 at 7:15 PM on May 14, 2007
I just came in here to through this burning bag of feces at The Brain Trust Project.
posted by taosbat at 7:52 PM on May 14, 2007
posted by taosbat at 7:52 PM on May 14, 2007
...throw...and it's got a fucking brick in it so I could get some distance.
posted by taosbat at 7:54 PM on May 14, 2007
posted by taosbat at 7:54 PM on May 14, 2007
/sigh
I can always pick a winner for my FPPs.
posted by Colloquial Collision at 8:11 PM on May 14, 2007
I can always pick a winner for my FPPs.
posted by Colloquial Collision at 8:11 PM on May 14, 2007
Look, I'm a living, breathing brainiacal nerdgasm. I'm such a dome that I actually have to wear a neck brace to keep my weighty noggin upright and afloat.
Me too! Loud snorting laughs of the snorting kind: Huuuh! Huuuh! HuuuH!
posted by longsleeves at 8:15 PM on May 14, 2007
Me too! Loud snorting laughs of the snorting kind: Huuuh! Huuuh! HuuuH!
posted by longsleeves at 8:15 PM on May 14, 2007
hey, Colloquial Collision, I liked it.
Jesus, sometimes it's so damn easy here to snark, and I do love the snark, but honestly, why all the negativity? These guys are just operating a web site where people are submitting opinions... kind of reminds me of another site, like, oh, Metafilter? My problem with the site is that I know someone who contributed an essay ahead of the deadline back in January and by the looks of it they have a bit of a backlog in content - lots of sections with no content. But that's growing pains I guess, and they'll figure it out.
loquacious, that was funny, but really, everyone, why so much snark? Am I misreading this, or is there really such disgust for academics or policy folks? Sure, some academics often talk dryly, but I hope no one's saying the work they do is crap. Would people prefer their undergrads just to get sloshed out of their gourd on a Friday night from the beer barrels in the basement? Heaven forbid anyone tries to move discourse along. Sheesh - the bloody nerve of them! Gimme more lolcats, heheh!
sadly I like lolcats too - but I think you get the point. Sometimes it's easier to snark than to do I guess...
posted by rmm at 10:30 PM on May 14, 2007
Jesus, sometimes it's so damn easy here to snark, and I do love the snark, but honestly, why all the negativity? These guys are just operating a web site where people are submitting opinions... kind of reminds me of another site, like, oh, Metafilter? My problem with the site is that I know someone who contributed an essay ahead of the deadline back in January and by the looks of it they have a bit of a backlog in content - lots of sections with no content. But that's growing pains I guess, and they'll figure it out.
loquacious, that was funny, but really, everyone, why so much snark? Am I misreading this, or is there really such disgust for academics or policy folks? Sure, some academics often talk dryly, but I hope no one's saying the work they do is crap. Would people prefer their undergrads just to get sloshed out of their gourd on a Friday night from the beer barrels in the basement? Heaven forbid anyone tries to move discourse along. Sheesh - the bloody nerve of them! Gimme more lolcats, heheh!
sadly I like lolcats too - but I think you get the point. Sometimes it's easier to snark than to do I guess...
posted by rmm at 10:30 PM on May 14, 2007
Most of us are, in some way, academics, or associate closely with them. That's why this project is so funny. It's not that it's evil.
Also, it's dead--no posts in 3 months.
posted by nasreddin at 10:48 PM on May 14, 2007
Also, it's dead--no posts in 3 months.
posted by nasreddin at 10:48 PM on May 14, 2007
Most of us are, in some way, academics, or associate closely with them.
Indeed. And the rest of us? The rest of us don't have the hubris (or ignorance) to call themselves "The Brain Trust Project." It's the punchline to a goddamn joke, for crying out loud. "Well. OK. Its got shit for user interface design and it caught fire. It's just a prototype. What do you want, exactly, from the Brain Trust of Soviet Canuckistan?"
I'm not an academic but I like to play with them in my basement.
Do not ask for whom the snark snarkeths; It snarks for thee!
posted by loquacious at 11:53 PM on May 14, 2007
Indeed. And the rest of us? The rest of us don't have the hubris (or ignorance) to call themselves "The Brain Trust Project." It's the punchline to a goddamn joke, for crying out loud. "Well. OK. Its got shit for user interface design and it caught fire. It's just a prototype. What do you want, exactly, from the Brain Trust of Soviet Canuckistan?"
I'm not an academic but I like to play with them in my basement.
Do not ask for whom the snark snarkeths; It snarks for thee!
posted by loquacious at 11:53 PM on May 14, 2007
> The rest of us don't have the hubris (or ignorance) to call themselves "The Brain Trust Project."
Kind of like calling yourself a Bright.
posted by jfuller at 7:27 AM on May 15, 2007
Kind of like calling yourself a Bright.
posted by jfuller at 7:27 AM on May 15, 2007
Why do the brights, whose "worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements," use kamikaze symbolism?
posted by taosbat at 3:29 PM on May 15, 2007
posted by taosbat at 3:29 PM on May 15, 2007
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