From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!ucbvax!poli-sci Newsgroups: fa.poli-sci Title: Poli-Sci Digest V2 #131 Article-I.D.: ucbvax.7145 Posted: Tue May 11 16:40:10 1982 Received: Wed May 12 03:52:24 1982 >From JoSH@RUTGERS Tue May 11 16:35:43 1982 Poli-Sci Digest Wed 12 May 82 Volume 2 Number 131 Contents: Voluntary School prayer (2 msgs) New Operating System Principles Another Irreversable and Unconscious Decision Request for Information -- "Chariots of Israel" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 May 1982 2133-EDT (Sunday) From: Gary Feldman at CMU-10A Subject: Voluntary School prayer Voluntary praying in schools is legal, has always been legal, and will always be legal. The school day is filled with significant amounts of "silent time", either as rest periods in the earlier grades, or as home room and study hall in intermediate and high schools; teachers are certainly not permitted to tell students "You may read, do homework, engage in any other silent activity, but no praying." The concept that Reagan and others are labeling "voluntary prayer" is more properly called "endorsed prayer," with the following effect. Instead of saying "you may do any quiet activity," teachers will say "you may pray or do any other quiet activity." Thus prayer becomes elevated to an approved activity, rather than one for which the government is neutral. Gary ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 1982 1030-EDT (Monday) From: Robert.Frederking at CMU-10A (C410RF60) Subject: "Voluntary" school prayer How can anyone seriously refer to Reagan's idea as "voluntary" prayer in school? There already is voluntary prayer. If this wonderful thing goes through, the child whose beliefs differ from the majority gets the wonderful opportunity to be a social pariah by refusing to go along with everyone else, or else betray the faith of his family. I thought Reagan was pro-family? I guess he meant pro-main-stream family. On another note, NPR pointed out that there are places in the U.S. where the local majority is Buddhist. I wonder how Jerry Falwell would feel if his kid was pressured to go along with Buddhist prayers before school. ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 10 May 1982, 01:37-EDT From: Michael TraversSubject: [MSS at SU-AI: New Operating System Principles.... ] Date: 09 May 1982 1448-PDT From: Mark Sherman From: Kirk Lougheed Subject: New Operating System Principles.... The following item appeared in the IEE News dated April 1st, 1982. "BRITISH TEAM IN ECONOMICS BREAKTHROUGH" "A DRAMATIC NEW BREAKTHROUGH IN THE EFFICIENT USE OF LARGE-SCALE COMPUTING SYSTEMS HAS BEEN CLAIMED BY A GROUP OF BRITISH SYSTEMS THEORISTS. EMBODIED IN A RADICALLY INNOVATIVE COMPUTER OPERATING SYSTEM, THE NEW BREAKTHROUGH, WHICH IS TO BE FORMALLY ANNOUNCED ON THE DAY OF PUBLICATION OF THIS ISSUE, PROMISES TO REVOLUTIONISE THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF COMPUTER OPERATION BY APPLYING TO THE PROBLEMS OF OVERALL SYSTEM CONTROL THE LATEST DEVOLOPMENTS IN ECONOMICS THEORY. To be known as the Total Optimisation of Resource Interaction concept (TORI), the new approach is aimed at solving one of the main problems facing those responsible for the efficient operation of large-scale computing systems and networks -- that of ensuring that the computing resources available are shared between the various application programs so as to optimise the operation of the system as a whole. Algorithms Currently available systems all approach this problem of efficient resource sharing by the use of complex resource-allocation algorithms contained in a large and often cumbersome piece of software known as the operating system. Behind these resource-allocation algorithms there is invariably a more or less complicated concept of pre-planned priorities so as to maximise throughput, with each functional unit in the system being loaded according to its capacity and each application program being allocated system resources according to its needs. It is exactly this concept of pre-planned priorities that has been so dramatically rejected by the TORI researchers. Such a concept, they point out, leads to gross inefficiencies in practice, not least because of the considerable overheads that are introduced by the need for detailed administration of all system resources by the central operating-system software. Only the applications programs 'owned' by the system's users actually contribute to its useful throughput, the TORI theorists point out, so all overheads introduced by the central (or 'publically' owned) operating software represent nothing more than a waste of system resources. `The trouble with conventional operating systems', a TORI spokesman pointed out, `is that they spend too much time worrying about how to allocate system throughput and not enough on how to maximise it. What we need to do in future is to spend less time in working out how to divide up the 'cake' and more on how to make it bigger.' The concept that the TORI team intends to use in order to fulfill this aim was revealed recently at their research centre in the Buckinghamshire town of Milton Friedman. The idea is essentially to scrap the concept of resource-allocation by pre-planned priorities and to replace it by one of allocating resources by direct transactions between applications programs and the system's functional units. Transaction Units In practice, each applications program will be credited with a number of transaction units, and each functional unit will be given a target number of transaction units that represents how much it needs to 'earn its keep'. From then on the whole operation of the system will be based on direct 'buying and selling' of system resources on what the TORI group calls a 'free-market' basis. As an example, if under this system two applications programs simultaneously require access to, say, a line printer, their order of execution will be decided not by the 'public sector' operating system but by direct bidding within the 'private sector'. Thus the line printer will make itself available to the applications program that is able and willing to 'pay' the greatest number of units. As a result, the TORI theorists point out, the most productive programs will automatically be allocated the most system resources, optimising throughput for the system as a whole. Overheads An important additional advantage of this approach, according to its proponents, is that it allows the 'bureaucratic' overheads of the operating system to be greatly reduced. In fact, this 'public sector' software can be scrapped almost in its entirety, with nearly all its remaining functions being 'privatised' by being incorporated into competing private-sector utility programs that can 'hire themselves out' to other private-sector programs. `All this is much more than just theory', pointed out the TORI spokesman, `in fact, the TORI principles have been under test on a major national system for nearly 3 years now.' When asked whether the predicted large-scale benefits had yet been achieved in practice, the spokesman added that certain external factors had as a matter of fact meant that the real benefits had not been achieved so far, but there was now every sign that what he called `the upturn' would occur in the very near future. Leaked Privately, however, an informal group within the TORI team have made known their doubts about whether the radical new operating scheme is actually capable of achieving the predicted results. Known as the Weak Economic Theory Subgroup (WETS), this part of the TORI team has 'leaked' a number of disturbing facts about the actual operation of the TORI experiment. According to these leaks,the TORI system has been beset with recurrent problems of what is known as 'inflation', which apparently involves the system's functional units constantly increasing their transactional thresholds or 'prices', while applications programs constantly demand greater transactional budgets or 'wages'. In addition, there is said to be a growing problem of the system's functional units being unable to find applications programs capable of keeping them fully occupied, leading to them being designated as Disconnected Operations List Entries, or being 'put on the DOLE'. In terms of memory units alone, this phenomenon of resource 'unemployment' has apparently reached the unprecedented proportion of over 3MBytes. As well as these doubts raised by the WETS researchers, the TORI team also faces competition from a number of other groups. Their main competitor is in fact still very much committed to the concept of resource allocation by pre-planned priorities, but is said to be having continued difficulties in making the component parts of its system work together convincingly. New Approach These problems within TORI's main competitor have recently led to a new approach being promoted by a recently formed joint- venture development between an existing small team and a new 'spin-off' operation headed by four ex-members of the main anti-TORI group. This new joint venture development has recently been attracting a great deal of interest as a result of its claims to be able to give everyone the best of both worlds, but it has been noted that, everytime its spokesmen are asked to explain their system's resource-allocation policies in detail, no real explanation is forthcoming. [Interestingly enough, I proposed a "free-market operating system" last year in earnest as a way of coordinating networks of micros in non-static configurations (the system was called MicroEconomics...) A friend and I did a bit of work on the concept before he left Rutgers, and from this state of ignorance it actually appears feasible, Thatcher's free market lip service and Britain's lousy economy to the contrary notwithstanding. --JoSH] ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 10 May 1982 14:58-PDT Subject: Another irreversable and unconscious decision From: norm at RAND-UNIX I believe that American Society is in the process of unconsciusly committing itself to an irreversable restructuring based on an undesigned network -- a single national (nay, international) net composed of many overlapping nets of computers. I believe that as this undesigned net evolves, all of us and our institutions will change to exploit and accomodate it. I belive that these changes will make it impossible to "change our minds" about the use of this net. I don't assert that this development is good or that it is bad. I do assert that we, as a society, should try and understand what we are doing and decide if we want to do it. An example of a technology which society irreversibly adapted without any consideration by any of the members or institutions of society of its irreversibility and of the wisdom of making that irreversible step, is the institution of the privately owned automobile and supporting institutions, including the road networks, the fuel distribution systems, motels, etc., and all the other private and government institutions associated with the private passenger automobile. I do not argue that the adoption of the privately owned passenger automobile as one of our principal modes of human transportation was wise or unwise. I only argue (1) that its adoption was essentially an irreversible "decision." Irreversible not in that if society wanted to badly enough the "decision" could not be reversed, but that we could not now do so without large-scale economic, political and social dislocations which, as a result, make the "decision", in effect, irreversible. and (2) this "decision" was made by society without very much of any deliberate awareness by the members of society, by any of the professional thinkers of the society, or by the institutions of the society that we were going down a path of no return. Each individual and institution took very minor steps which seemed reasonable and which did not seem very dramatic at the time. and (3) this decision changed the way we court, work, play, sleep, buy, sell,... It effected everthing from our sexual mores to our legal system. Another example is the recent revolution in retail credit generated by the bank credit cards. This application of computer technology has, I believe, irreversibly revolutionized and changed the nature of retail credit. Again, I do not argue as to whether or not the decision was a good one or a bad one. I only argue that it could not now be reversed without shocks to the nature of our economy, and that the acts constituting the decision to go to this type of retail credit system were never considered by society as to their wisdom as to whether or not they were worth going to, etc. We have not yet committed ourselves to the reorganization of society which will depend on everybody and every institution being on line. Do we want to? What would the consequences be? How do we decide if we want to travel down this one way road? ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 82 20:39:40 EDT (Mon) From: Steve Bellovin Subject: request for information Sir Harold Wilson has just had published a book entitled "Chariots of Israel". Has anyone on this list read it? It's a subject he's obviously qualified to write on, and the book appeared to be copiously footnoted -- but historical works by politicians are not noted for historical veracity. Comments, anyone? --Steve ------------------------------ End of POLI-SCI Digest - 30 - -------