Tim wrote:

Well, good luck. I disagree. I can't see someone coming out of a Ph.D. program in "super analysis" being magically endowed with the skills to influence policy.

There's nothing magical about it: I never said any amount of formal education is "guaranteed" to do a thing for you--it is very much where you are, who you know, and what you can get them to tell you. But even in the richest of environments, if you're not making the effort to acquire fundamental analytic skills, you might as well concede that you don't "speak the language" and would be better off taking the "capitol hill ho" route instead. Which is odious--and overrated, I might add.

An obvious point that perhaps needs to be emphasized: all of those scientist-policy wonks we have discussed were first and foremost brilliant scientists.

Absolutely. But they all shared a certain mindset which made them far more than that, the whole point of bringing them up in the first place. Is that something anyone can teach you? Probably not. Does it depend on having an extremely high IQ and a lot of innate raw potential? You bet. But once you make the decision that there's something to be gained by demanding a lot from yourself, you need to find the right kind of program to facilitate getting you where you need to be to best further your ideas. And as far as I can tell, for me, the "super analyst" approach is the way to go. If you have any other suggestions I'd be glad to hear them. There's no lack of smart cypherpunk-friendly lawyers, but brilliant pro- freedom policy analysts are in short supply. If more people here at least considered this an option, I think it would be a good thing. ~Faustine.