…but you could apply his arguement to a lot of things that people get very excited about at the moment…
“Every technology invention has been touted as the key to peace and understanding. Dynamite (which Nobel truly thought would simply make construction safer), the telegraph (world peace because at last, world leaders could communicate), telephone, phonograph (everyone would learn languages effortlessly, said Edison), radio, TV, movies, internet, …
The notion that enough is understood about the psychological, sociological, anthropological, political, cultural dimensions of humankind to embed them in a sort of XML goes beyond comprehension.”
and he goes on:
“Fortunately, these committee exercises never go anywhere. They allow lots of people to travel to lots of conferences in exotic places in the world. It’s a great job, when you want to retire, to get on international standards committees. The price is a few boring meeting[s], but the benefits are world travel.”
Petafloptimism 
He’s right of course. But you have to love this typo:
“The first document even makes
the preposterous claim that human bony language is understood.”
I want to speak some of that human bony language.
i’m not a big fan of nn group stuff. i was always struck by the “some consultants have data, we have diner” attitude. imagine, therefore, my dismay when dn is not only completely right, but i agree with him completely.