How and why and what is a think tank…
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A think tank is usually an organization using different scientists, researchers and analysts to provide analysis, recommendations and research papers for specific topics, often on a strategic, long-term level.
Often think tanks specialize on a certain topic (military, economy, foreign politics for example), and in some cases have a clear political colour.
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The main political think tanks in D.C. operate like sitting governments.
A particular ideological faction will employ people who filter in and out of the different branches of the US government and they will conduct, or pay, for political science research, write policy papers, and draft legislation. When a new president with shared ideology gets elected, they will pick cabinet executives and management from those think tanks and they will then start the process of trying to pass legislation that was developed in the think tank, or use their papers to develop executive action.
Following what think tanks are doing is what political insiders inside the beltway do every day because they have a huge influence on future legislation and they keep people from the operational management levels of the executive branch in the loop so they can hit the ground running when a transition happens. The same goes from the transition from one Cabinet level official to the next inside the same presidential administration.
Think tanks are companies that produce ideas. They employ, depending on their industry of focus some or all of the following: experts with industry experience, scientists, researchers, data analysts, consultants, marketers, writers, and PR people. Some exist to do genuine research and advance the intellectual state of their industry in good faith, for the greater good. Others are “legitimizers for hire”, cherrypicking facts and data to back up an existing claim or agenda.
They’re private bodies that conduct research into (existing or proposed) government policies and then work to disseminate the results to the public, the media and the government. They almost always have some specific political goal in mind, which can be something noble like “reduce CO2 emissions” or “improve cancer treatment”, or something selfish like “increase the profits of the tobacco industry” or “get the Evil Bastards Party elected”. Often they aren’t very honest about their goals. They tend to get their funding from some combination of rich people, businesses, charities, political parties and governments. Some of them actually hire respected academics and do serious research, while others just do the bare minimum to make it seem like there is scientific support for their preferred policies.
A think tank is a bunch of people who think they’re smarter than you that think you should pay them for forming your opinion for you.
It’s an organization that performs research related to their goals. This research is then shared publicly and with policy makers, etc. to try and inform legislation or other action.
For example, a think tank focused on tax policy might study effects of different types of taxation systems, different tax levels, etc. to try and make recommendations for tax policy. They might release public posts about lowering taxes or adding wealth taxes, especially now around Tax Day, to try and sway public opinion. But they would also provide more in depth research to congressional staffs trying to influence tax policy.
Sometimes mommies and daddies know that its time to throw away some of your baby toys, but they aren’t sure which ones to throw away, which ones to keep, or which ones to save for the grandkids. They have never done this before because they have never had a five year old until now! So they read parenting blogs for advice and realize that this daddy blogger is so cool and smart! So they sponsor them on Patreon.
A good think tank is like the parenting blogger, the governments are the mommies and daddies who need to throw away old toys, and you five year-olds are the people they govern 🙂
originally they were a way to connect high level technical expertise with government. They attempt to identify and solve problems for government as a separate 3rd party. The first think tank was the Rand Corporation, itself the offspringof the US military’s Research ANd Development department, under which the Manhattan project was carried out. The Rand corporation worked on the theoretical side of nuclear weapons and the cold war, and is the origin of the term game theory among other things. While initially not intended to be partisan, they’ve increasingly become ways to theorize and formalize potential policy under the guise of academia. Effectively many of them are the other side of lobby culture now
They create ideas, at the core of it
They’re a group of experts, that thinks about long term plans and concepts
A think tank for a food brand might consist of chefs, accountants, food-scientists, a few executives, couple of data analysts maybe etc. for example.
On the otherhand, a military tank might consist of a few soldiers, field engineers, scientists, ethics boards, etc.
They’re the ones who invent new concepts.
We tend to think that everything has one singular “inventor”, and as a result, we always argue who built it. “It was Edison! No, Tes- NO, WAIT, Swan! No, Lodygin!”
In reality, most innovations are the results of multiple people, talking about a topic for hours and hours on end, thinking about what’s possible.
Down to its core it is an experience.
You are essentially tossed into a hypothetical tank where you think about new ideas.
Almost like a gathering of would-be visionaries to create a high density space of potential to engineer possible ideas to grow on.
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