Rational Solutions for Challenges of the New Mellennium
We have reviewed ten major public problems challenging our Nation as it enters the new millennium. These are defense, healthcare costs, education, aging population, energy and environment, crime, low productivity growth services, income distribution, regulations, and infrastructure. These problems share several features. First, each is so large, if it were soIved; it would have major impact on the U.S. economy. Second, each is resident in a socioeconomic system containing non-linear feedback loops and an adaptive human element. Third, each can only be solved by our political system, yet these problems are not responsive to piecemeal problem solving, the approach traditionally used by policy makers. However, unless each problem is addressed in the context of the system in which it resides, the solution maybe worse than the problem. Our political system is immersed in reams of disconnected, unintelligible information skewed by various special interests to suggest policies favoring their particular needs. Help is needed, if rational solutions that serve public interests are to be forged for these ten probIems, The simulation and modeIing tools of physical scientists, engineers, economists, social scientists, public policy experts, and others, bolstered by the recent explosive growth in massively parallel computing power, must be blended together to synthesize models of the complex systems in which these problems are resident. These models must simulate the seemingly chaotic human element inherent in these systems and support policymakers in making informed decKlons about the future. We propose altering the policy development process by incorporating more modeling, simulation and analysis to bring about a revolution in policy making that takes advantage of the revolution in engineering emerging from simulation and modeling. While we recommend major research efforts to address each of these problems, we also observe these to be very complex, highly interdependent, multi-disciplinary problems; it will challenge the U.S. community of individual investigator researchers to make the cultural transformation necessary to address these problems in a team environment. Furthermore, models that simulate future behavior of these complex systems will not be exacq therefore, researchers must be prepared to use the modeling and simulation tools they develop to propose experiments to Congress. We recommend that ten laboratories owned by the American public be selected in an interagency competition to each manage and host a $1 billion/yertr National effort, each focused on one of these ten problems. Much of the supporting research and subsystem modeling work will be conducted at U.S. universities and at private firms with relevant expertise. Success of the Manhattan Project at the middle of the 20th century provides evidence this leadership model works.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 1885
- Report Number(s):
- SAND98-1864; ON: DE00001885
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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