ABSTRACT
When the framers of the Constitution of the United States of America set out to codify their ideals for a free and democratic society, they did not start from square one. In fact several of these individuals, most notably Thomas Jefferson, were already well read in the classical Greek literature as to what composes the ‘good’ life for both the individual and the collective society. It was from those classical sources and the necessary constraints of those days that the phrase ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ was distilled. Here, I use a slightly amended version of this phraseology to trace some historical antecedents to our collective goals for human-machine systems science as a way to envisage our future. But first, I want to begin with a story. It is a story of Norfolk, Virginia.
