The World Economic Forum is, depending on your interlocutor, either a leading nexus of progress and discussion or the annual planning retreat for various global conspiracies.

In the manner beloved of journalists, the WEF has become more generally known as “Davos”, after the town in Switzerland which usually plays host. Each year a cross-section of the globe’s leading politicians, businessmen and other worthies gather to discuss global issues such as poverty, trade, terrorism and disease. I imagine a certain amount of informal horse-trading takes place too.

This year YouTube has continued its unchecked march into the heart of popular culture with The Davos Question:

What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?

It’s another triumphant exercise by YouTube, that combination of marketing coup and worthy-cause-capitalism beloved of their owners Google. I’ve been watching some of the responses (which are piling up fast) and so far it’s been quite an interesting mix.
Not much is new, however:

• A call to focus on research funding and science education,
• A plea to reduce or abolish meat in the modern diet,
• An answer in two parts: first, “consume less”, second, “distribute wealth” — you first mate,
• My personal favourite, “Can’t We Just Get Along?“,
• Bringing democracy to Burma, by force, with raindrops falling on people’s heads (OK, this is actually pretty original),
• Some sage advice from the Headcrab Zombie (who I think may be from a constellation near Hong Kong),
• This bloke points out that all the videos are made by people who can afford webcams and internet access. He also slams other YouTubers as uneducated. Is that a copy of Allars’s Administrative Law: Cases and Commentary that I spy on his shelf?
• More and better recognition and enforcement of human rights worldwide,
• This guy tackles global warming with the voice and easy loquacity of a radio shock jock … then peters out and tells us all to work together …

At this point I sort of lost interest.

My expectation is that the videos with the best production values will get the nod to be shown at the Forum. Otherwise a lot of it is restatements of books or articles read by the videographers.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. There’s nothing new under the sun (unless you’re trying for consecutive dips in the same river). But I hope something good comes of it.

As a budding computer scientist and sometime visitor to the lands of the dismal science I have come to instinctively recoil from silver bullets, which is why I found the question — phrased in terms of “the one thing” — so suspect. Even so I have begun to believe in low-hanging fruit instead of silver bullets, and perhaps here traction can be found.

Regular sufferers of my ill-advised spoutings at this august fount of wisdom may recognise that I have used the phrase “low-hanging fruit” before. I’ve used it in the context of libertarian policy making and I think that the same approach can be adopted more widely. Proposed reforms must pass a tripartite test: Is it easy to explain and sell to the public? Will it give generous benefits? Is it piece-wise step from the current state of affairs, or can it be achieved with piece-wise steps? If not, it isn’t a low-lying fruit.

I borrow here from the field of optimisation, in which the first directive is “don’t”, the second “don’t yet”, and the third “do, but prove the need”. Also I borrow from the relatively fresh subject of “refactoring” — fresh in the sense that now there is a title to make manifest the idea. Refactoring is essentially optimising understanding by cleaning code up in recognisable ways.

Both optimisation and refactoring are piece-wise tasks. We move in modest steps to obviously improved positions, because the Big Leap Into The Exciting Unknown might easily turn out to be a Foolish Hop Into The Septic Tank. Club Troppo’s current infamy re: reliability has been a good example of why I should practice what I preach.

Herewith enough of my tedious ranting. Go have a look at the responses; they represent the continuing development of the punctuation of ordinary concerned citizens into the rarified lives of the governing elite, a process which — as my answer to the question — I see as something we fortunate ones living in 2008 should continue to nurture.