What you write contains embedded good questions, for which there
are some incomplete answers. Overall, it’s fair to think of this as
a kind of “average commission” in a case where few or none
of its members understand the substance of the subject
manner. Imagine an analogous commission in a Hiroshima-
free, WWII free, world, with some slightly off-key
remit like the “Pitchblende commission”,
or the “Radio-activity commission”, with no people who
really understood the physics, but with smart people who
understood the Kellog-Bryand pact, and with some engineers
who had pioneered the development of the 16 inch gun
for battleships for technical briefings, and you are closer.
It’s not clear to me how one does better in a technically
sophisticated space where things really are moving fast,
either. More offline. 27 September 2010