Cyber International Relations: Emergent Realities of Conflict and Cooperation
Nazli Choucri, Daniel Goldsmith
Schedule: TBD
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)
In international relations, the traditional approaches to theory, research, practice and policy were derived from experiences in the 18th and 19th centuries, refined further in the 20th century. But cyberspace has created new conditions—problems and opportunities—for which there are no clear precedents. As an environment for communication, a venue for social interaction and an enabler of new mechanisms for power and leverage, cyberspace calls for new perspectives, policies and practices. A part of the MIT-Harvard multidisciplinary Minerva Project on “Explorations in Cyber International Relations (ECIR),” this activity seeks to adjust traditional views to the cyber realities of the 21st century.
Our vision is to create new understandings of these realities that help:
• Highlight alternative perspectives and policies as well as institutional requirements;
• Clarify threats and opportunities in cyberspace for national security, welfare, and influence;
• Provide analytical tools for understanding and managing transformation and change; and
• Attract and educate a new generation of researchers, scholars, and analysts.
We hope to discuss an integrated approach to international relations and help frame cyber theory and practice for the 21st century.
Web: http://web.mit.edu/ecir/home.html
Contact: Nazli Choucri, E53-493, x3-6198, nchoucri@mit.edu
|
How Baseball, Poker and Fermat Teach Us The Best Way to Elect the President
Alan Natapoff
Wed Jan 19, 04-05:30pm, 37-212
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
The Electoral College (EC) promotes the ideal of unanimity through large voting power. Small numbers (as in Florida-2000) can turn the presidency under it, but not under simple majority voting. The EC can empower the 80 million impotent voters in poorly contested states by adopting a vote-for-popular-vote basis in which a state's winner receives one vote for every popular vote cast. The opposition can vote for their candidate B (and count for a dominant A they accept) or cast a blank ballot that will not count for a hostile A. This rewards candidates, vote-for-vote, for the acquiescence of their opposition. The analysis suggests ways that France, Israel, and Iraq can protect their vulnerable systems. We trace the paradoxes, the delicious oddities, and the resolution of Florida's deadlock in 2000 by Fermat's Rule.
Web: http://natapoff@mit.edu
Contact: Alan Natapoff, 37-219, x3-7757, natapoff@space.mit.edu
|
MIT Washington Summer Internship Program Information Sessions
Charles Stewart, Tobie Weiner
Thu Jan 20, 11am-12:00pm, 4-145
Wed Jan 26, 01-02:00pm, 4-149
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Repeating event. Participants welcome at any session
Come to an information session and find out about the MIT Washington Summer Internship Program. The program was founded in 1995 to give selected MIT undergraduates the opportunity to explore science and engineering policymaking at the national level, through study and practical experience. The interns have worked in the offices of government agencies, the private sector, and advocacy groups. Complementing the summer internships are a trip to Washington, DC, during spring break and a 12-unit HASS subject designed to give students an introduction to policymaking. All sessions are the same; come to any one.
Web: http://web.mit.edu/summerwash/www
Contact: Tobie Weiner, E53-484, x3-3649, iguanatw@mit.edu
|
|
