Peter K.:
> Never heard of Babbage but found this info after searching with Google:
> "[Babbage's] other inventions:
> The cowcatcher, dynamometer, standard railroad gauge, uniform postal rates,
> occulting lights for lighthouses, Greenwich time signals, heliograph
> opthalmoscope. He also had an interest in cyphers and lock-picking, but
> abhorred street musicians."
Babbage's machine, had it worked fully, would have been the first programmable computer. Like early electronic computers, it would have been completely deterministic and therfore subject to the rule of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).
However, more advanced machines are networked and may have knowledge of the world, in which case bad input could be, and in fact often is, corrected. And oftener still, good input is corrupted by mistakes, malfunctions, and the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. The parliamentarians, then, were a bit ahead of Babbage.
> Could you explain the point of the quote? I'm a little slow today. Made me
> think of economist/talking head Larry Kudlow thoughts on deregulation in
> California, i.e.:
> horrible mess caused by deregulation [wrong figures] = [translates in
> Larry's mind to] =
> not enough deregulation [right answer]
This sort of response was a foregone conclusion, was it not? But in this case, the right answer is produced by faith, not machinery.