Whither America's Technological Edge? 1194
baldass_newbie asks: "Ben Stein wrote an editorial titled, 'How to Ruin American Enterprise'. To me, technological innovation is a big outward sign of a successful economy. Sometimes it appears like the U.S. is losing its edge in technology. Well, I was wondering what the Slashdot community at large thinks is wrong (or right) with the U.S. and technological innovation?" The article deals less with technology and more with the society on which said innovation is based, and the problems that may bring it down around our collective ears. Give the article a read, and share your thoughts on whether or not you think it's an accurate assessment on the current and future situation of America's technological advantage.
Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, leadership in consumer electronic technology shifted to Asia decades ago.
But that has nothing to do with "America's technological edge". Every time this topic comes up, the most common metric for scientific prowess is how many buttons a country puts on its cell phones. That's something, I guess, but it indicates how removed "geeks" are from what's really going on in the research world.
Being in the molecular biology / genomics field, maybe I have a skewed view of how the US ranks in research across the board. But if you pick up any issue of Nature or Science, the US has by far the most publications, in biology, chemistry, geology or physics. Japan, the UK and Germany variously compete for second place, with France, Israel, Korea and some others after them.
Frequently when this topic comes up, I'll grab the latest issue and give a quick total, but right now need to go back maintaining my own edge....
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, it depends on what exactly the US are priding themselves of. If it is providing a good research environment and networking with a large research community, then I agree, the US are tops. If they are gloating with developing all these scientists, then that's not entirely right. A very substantial number of Nobel prizes earned for the US are earned by scientists who received all their formative education and training in their native country prior to coming to the US. When they arrived here they already had the critical thinking skills required for their success, and the US gave them the environment to put them to good use. In that case Germany or Russia or China deserve at least as much credit for producing and educating these people as the US do for giving them a fertile research environment.
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:3, Insightful)
Our applied technology in the fields of aerospace, medicine, defense, security, manufacturing, telecom, and just about everything else dwarf the rest of the world in terms of value, functionality, and technological edge. Ever try making a pay phone call in Italy, for example? How about that British car engineering? Japanese plumbing?
As a good indication of where we stand relative to everyone else (toy-related metrics excluded), check out this article from the Washington Post Magazine [washingtonpost.com].
Hardware, or software? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think asia does have a lot of cool hardware technology. However, look at the innovative software and software-based services available today, and chances are they originated in the USA.
Some examples:
Amazon.com (a user-friendly, e-commerce pioneer)
eBay (online auction pioneer)
TiVo ('nuff said)
Yahoo! (first web search engine)
Google (often considered the best search engine)
AOL/Prodigy/CompuServe (put my karma on the line and say these weree the first 'major' online service providers in the world)
id Software (3D game pioneer)
Slashdot (blog pioneer. I criticize slashdot routinely, but the site named has been turned into a verb! That has to count for something.)
etc...
Re:Hardware, or software? (Score:3, Interesting)
You seem to be giving Tim Berners-Lee credit for the invention of hypertext/hypermedia, which was invented by the American, Douglas Englebart [virginia.edu].
You may have heard of him? (But judging by your ignorant post, probably not.)
Re:Hardware, or software? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly, it's not consumer electronics.
In defense the United States is number one.
China is at least 2-3 generations behind the US in Aerospace. 3-4 in Armored Systems, and Pre-Second World War when it comes to logistics. China hasn't fought a war since 1953, and it has done pretty bad in everything it's done militarily since the Opium Wars.
Russia had parity in the late 70s and early 80s, but it's content to stick with the generation old systems it has. Some new systems are coming out of Russia, but a lack of capital is crippling.
EU, the EU has some decent tech in the British and French Defence industries, but a lack of cohesive planning and a lack of foreward thinking cripplies development. That and a flawed defense budget will keep the EU accepting hand-outs from the US and limiting thier power-projection capabilities.
The rest of the world, well India is the most advanced and it's rolling out a successor to the MiG-21 and F-5 right now, those are 40 year old platforms in the same generation as what G.W. Bush flew as a Reserve pilot in the early 70s.
In Microprocessor and Computers
I've not seen Sony or Panasonic come out with any switching or CPUs, maybe they've come out and arn't here yet.
Honestly, there are some systems developed in Japan, but they've not reached mainstream deployment nor have they developed the infrastructure to mass produce an Intel or AMD killer. Japan is a niche player in the development of advanced computer systems. They make photo-lithography tools and optics and make nice little motors, but they don't push the state of the art.
In biotechnology, I really don't know who is tops, it's probly the US and EU tied.
Sort of on topic, I was in Den Haag having breakfast with a cousin who worked in the US Iran-Claims-Tribunal and we were taking about the state of the world. He said, "There are three places where things are invented, you know the important things. The United States, Bayer and Semeins."
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:3, Interesting)
SU37, for instance, in 97 was about a decade in technological years (search google for expert opinions) ahead of anything Americans had every produced or had/have in works.
Shkval missile (underwater missile) can travel three times faster than anything currently on the market or in blueprint. Americans are doing everything to steal the technology, as they can't possibly imagine how to make anything similar. That technology was invented in 70-s.
I can go on and on and on. You will probably want to mention a stealth fighter? Well, using it in countries that don't have advanced radar technologies is a plus. Russians had the capability to detect "stealth" technology just as soon as it appeared. I would better rely on vector thrust engines in my plain that on a multimillion coating that can be easily rendered useless if one put a scratch on it.
For almost every American gadget I can give you either equivalent or a more superior Russian product.
In microprocessors? Check www.elbrus.ru I don't exactly remember the date, but they have a working 1ghz CPU (e2k) back in 90s.
The sad thing is, US barely produces its own scientists. If you take a look at the nametags besides inventions, you will see that (let's be conservative in our estimation) 90% are immigrants or children of immigrants.
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/
Shkval, yea it worked really well sinking the Kursk. No, really it's fast, but there have been guidence problems, and it's only been in a homing form since the mid 90s. It'd work really well against American subs, but you can't hit what you can't hear.
Stealth, F-117 is early 80s technology, F-22 is much faster, higher flying and stealthier than F-117. F-117 can operate around 15-20 thousand feet above the service cellings of any MiG or Su other than MiG-31.
Where are the Russian GPS guided munitions? GPS jammer? JDAMs have a CEP of 10 meters without terminal guidence, opposed to 3-5 meters with it.
"The sad thing is, US barely produces its own scientists. If you take a look at the nametags besides inventions, you will see that (let's be conservative in our estimation) 90% are immigrants or children of immigrants."
If the United States was a second rate technology power, why would thousands flock to the US? For the last 400 years American has been filled with first and second generation immigrants. The United States military has tons of first and second generation immigrants. John Paul Jones, Baron von Steuben, John Ericsson, Einstein, Andy Grove, John Holland, Igor Sikorsky, Tesla, and so on in every field.
In the Civil War there were six regiments were made up solely of Germans in Missouri. Another example is Brickel's 1st Battalion German Light Artillery.
Look over http://www.civilwararchive.com/unionny.htm and see all the Units with a claimed European heritage. They didn't call themselves things like "Ulster Guard" for flavor.
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:3, Insightful)
90% are immigrants or children of immigrants.
...or the children of children of immigrants...
Keep that up enough and NOTHING was invented by Americans. This whole thread is making me sick. Every technology originating in US is traced back to some barely relevant component tech that was invented elsewhere so the author can state that another country invented it. Hell, one guy even said that UNIX was developed in Australia!
It makes me sad that so many people here jump through their asses to bash the US, and the only people defending Americans are almost apologetic about it.
Somebody shoot me....oh, wait, I suppose none of you America-bashing pacifists would have a gun.
Don't mean to rant, just had to get it off my chest.
Re:Well, let's see (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, let's see (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:5, Insightful)
I quote: "Henry Woodward of Toronto, who along with Matthew Evans patented a light bulb in 1875. Unfortunately, the two entrepreneurs could not raise the financing to commercialize their invention. The enterprising American Thomas Edison, who had been working on the same idea, bought the rights to their patent."
So it seems an American merely financed it (and edison was the Gates of the 19th century remember).
Radio
Nikola Tesla. Born in Hungary, died in America. Did "America" invent radio? Who knows.
Telephone
Yeah
Television
I seem to recall that the first TV broadcasts were carried out by the BBC, using both electrical and the other one (rotary?)
Cars
Inventor of the car turns up no helpful results (I'm googling for these btw), but the internal combustion engine: "Nikolaus August Otto was born on June 10. 1832 in Holzhausen, Germany. At the age of sixteen, Otto dropped out of high school and worked in a grocery store. He also worked as a clerk in Frankfurt and as a traveling salesman. He sold sugar, kitchenware and tea to grocery stores on the German side of the Belgian and French border." - so a german.
Airplanes
Arguable. But I can't be bothered... You get the idea.
In other words, the U.S. invented almost everything. There are only the occasional counterexamples like Russians getting into space a couple days earlier, and Germans making some firsts in rocket and jet innovations.
BS. America perhaps commercialised the most, but huge numbers of inventions came from Britain, especially during the Victorian era. Inventions I can think of:
First programmable computer
Radar
Steam engine
We can go on like this all night. If you think the US is the innovation capital of the world, or even once was, you need to think again. I'm not claiming the UK is either (it isn't), but really innovation isn't localised except maybe to developed countries.
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:5, Insightful)
With the British-invented and perfected steam engine. Let's give credit where credit is due. James Watt, an Englishman, is considered the inventor of a practical steam engine (back 1769, some seven years before the American Revolution).
While we're at it, I'd like to point out that most of the major inventions that made television possible came from outside the United States: the electron tube (Paul Nipkow, Germany, 1884), and the photocell (J. L. Baird, Britain, 1926).
The microwave oven is based on an electron tube (invented by a German, as noted above).
Automobile: First self-propelled vehicle was built by Nicolas Joseph Cugnot (France, 1789). Much of the pioneer work on modern autos (late 19th century) was done by Karl Benz and Gottlieb Diamler, in Germany. We may have made the auto famous, but we stood on the shoulders of others.
Radio was developed by Heinrich Hertz (German) and Guglielmo Marconi (Italian), based on the researchd by James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish physicist.
Having established that nearly half the items on your list were not developed by Americans (and for all that, the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, a first-generation Scottish immigrant), I have to take issue with your cheapshot at the Russians and Germans.
In other words, the U.S. invented almost everything. There are only the occasional counterexamples like Russians getting into space a couple days earlier, and Germans making some firsts in rocket and jet innovations.
The Germans were the first to deploy a working rocket interceptor (the Messerschmitt 163), a working jet-propelled fighter (the Messerchmitt 262), a cruise missile (the V-1), an ICBM (the V-2), and a prototypical stealth fighter (the Horten/Gotha 229).
The Russians beat us into manned space flight by well over a month, and into orbital flight by an entire year. Moreover, the Vostock, their first-generation capsule, was far superior to the Mercury. The Russians put their Cosmonauts up for *days* at a time. The Russian Soyuz vehicle was in many ways superior to the Apollo capsule (built in ship-to-ship docking, longer lifespan), and variants of it are still used to resupply the International Space Station (budget willing).
The United States has made important contributions to science and engineering, but all your post has done, I feel, is to demonstrate a paucity of historical knowledge/background. Funny, I think Stein was pointing to that as an example of what was wrong...
~Chazzf
Waay OT (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, are you Eminem's songwriter?
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:3, Informative)
Didn't Marconi invented it? Wasn't he Italian?
No. Austro-Hungarian Nicola Tesla did. On 21 June 1943, the US Supreme Court overturned Marconi's patent on radio and acknowledged it as Tesla's invention.
Tesla was a scientist; Marconi was a salesman who knew a profitable idea when he stole it.
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Who started the computer industry?
- Who invented nuclear power?
- Who put human beings on the moon and then brought them back safely 6 times
Actually, now that I think about it...
Transistor, the team at Bell Labs. Score one for the USA.
Computer industry? I'd say the team led by England's Alan Turing.
Nuclear power? I'd say the team led by Italy's Enrico Fermi, or if you look back further, New Zealand's Ernest Rutherford.
Putting humans on the moon? I'd say the team led by Germany's Werner von Braun.
OK, that's one from four. Nothing to really brag about. And my comment about "in our lifetimes" still stands.
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:4, Insightful)
If the U.S. is still the destination of choice for the best and brightest foreign-born minds, that's going to pay off BIG in the long run. The only challenge I see is Chinese-born professionals starting to feel that China offers enough freedom to make staying there pay off more than coming to the U.S. In order to do that, China has to focus on maintaining its own internal stability, probably liberalize its political system, and will have to take a very calm approach to international relations. That helps the U.S., too, so the downside of being the second-largest national economy won't be so bad.
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus, by going that route, you invite people to come up with the fact that Braun and Einsten where heftily harrassed by the FBI...be proud of that one (especially Einstein, a pacifist if I ever saw one). And lets not forget how impossible the US is making it to immigrate. It used to be harsh, but post 911 it's draconian. So don't be too proud.
Truthfully, this whole topic is rather distastefull to me: the one thing all those poeple have in common is that they're human! Who cares where they come from...for that matter, who cares if the US is losing it's technological edge (and judging by the number of people getting a degree, it is), as long as humanity itself keeps advancing.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:5, Informative)
The internal combustion engine is usually attributed to Benz, a German. The american inventor was a patent fraud whose claim to have invented the engine was thrown out by the US courts in the Ford case.
the sowing machine
The first functional sewing machine was invented by the French tailor, Barthelemy Thimonnier, in 1830. There were about 6 previous patents for sewing machines of which the first US one came in at number 5...
electricity
Try Faraday, Royal Society, London
the light bulb
Swan invented the light bulb first and actually filed his patent first to boot. Edison only got a patent because at the time the USPTO did not recognise foreign inventions or prior art.
bar-b-que
I don't think you can count that since the Hawaiian islanders were having BBQ before the US was founded, before Westerners had discovered it even. I don't think you can count inventions aquired by conquest.
the vaccine
"In 1796 English country doctor Edward Jenner found that if a small amount of material was taken from a cow suffering from cowpox and injected into a healthy human child, that child would become immune to smallpox. " [chron.com] - incidentally the term vaccine comes from the Latin for cows.
Should I continue?
Well since that leaves you with only the atom bomb, the telephone, cotton gin and the laser I don't think you should. I'll disallow the Internet and the computer since the first computer design was British, the first practical computer was german (Konrad Zues Z1 and z2), the first electronic computer was british - the programmable enigma machines but was classified research, the Internet is not an invention it is an implementation of packet switching which was invented on both sides of the pond.
Re:Since When Did America Have a Tech Edge? (Score:4, Insightful)
The point is, "technology" is a vague word that covers a heck of a lot. It used to be the case that the US was at the top of most technologies in the post-WW2 cold war era. It's still in a very good position. It's just that other countries are *also* starting to do very well now. It's not that the US is doing worse. It just looks that way by comparasin given that everyone else is no longer doing as poorly as they used to.
When free trade is working correctly, jealous feelings about technology shouldn't be common. The more countries performing well in technology, the better it is for everyone through a network effect.
Most technology products these days have components from multiple countries in them, and that's a good thing.
Money (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at Microsoft, RIAA. They make too much money keeping technology in check.
But then again, competiton (for more money) leads to innovation as well.
Maybe it is the balance between the two that is required.
Insightful??? (Score:5, Funny)
Please, don't drink and moderate!
Re:Insightful??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, the ultimate advancement paradox: money stifles innovation, but the pursuit of money encourages it.
Something I heard at a Conference (Score:3, Informative)
So yes I think it is happening. And I see it continuing with the legal hassles increasing and not decreasing.
Well (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, increased productivity is a big outward sign of a successful economy. Innovation (not necessarily technical) allows us to do more with less and, as such, is a driver of productivity.
Stein is talking in generalities. . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Stein is talking in generalities. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
But the creative minority has to come from somewhere, ideally from an educated population. I think Ben Stein's point, with regards to education, is that by dumbing down the curricula in schools so much, we are depriving ourselves of creating new generations of the "tech elite" or "creative minority". This IS a serious problem. And we DO need to address it NOW, not wait until the rest of the world passes us by and we become a shell of a nation.
Re:Stein is talking in generalities. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the death knells of freedom in a "democratic" society is when a majority of people realize that they can exist without effort as long as the minority produces enough for all.
Read deToqueville? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bread and circuses, the same way the Roman Empire fell. That's where we're headed. Ayn Rand was a wacko, but in this she was right.
Translation, please? (Score:3, Funny)
Metafilter discussion (Score:4, Informative)
USPTO... (Score:4, Interesting)
-Cyc
Well, duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
How long can America keep pumping out students whose test scores are in the cellar for industrial nations and expect to maintain an edge in technology? As it stands, a lot of our brains are already imported from India and China.
I live in CA, which should stand as a dire warning to the rest of the country: They limit their property taxes, their schools go underfunded, and as a result California natives largely end up working to repair the cars and wash the floors of the well-educated from elsewhere.
The US needs to get serious about education, and fast. With the tech boom and the world shinking as it is, this is a really bad time to be stupid.
Re:Well, duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just the government. American parents pay lip service to education, but don't really set either a good example nor push their children to excel. I remember in school the classes always had a mix of real poor performers to really good students. The difference was not the teachers, but their home-life and parents. Parents get the kind of education system they want. If they don't care, don't expect the government to care either.
[Insert your favorite bash to blame for this here]
CA schools have money, they just waste it... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Well, duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
This may sound good on paper, but there's a sad human side to it as well, in the form of students spending days and nights outside of class in outside of school courses, known as juku in Japan or hagwon in Korea, in a furious rat-race attempt to succeed. All emphasis is placed on getting into the top schools, to preserve the all-so-important face prevalent in Asian society. It's no coincidence that the suicide rate amongst teenagers in Asia is much higher than the general population over there.
Corporal punishment is practiced in classrooms. The curriculum is homogenous across all schools and teaching method is rote memorization and practice, practice, and more practice, which does not encourage the development of free thinking, and all this talked about "innovation" is generally spawned at the industrial rather than the academic level.
While Asia is indeed impressive, all this comes at a price, and blindly following their methods is. IMHO, not the way for the US to go.
Re:Well, duh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Those societal things are often why the various Asian nations tend not to make advances in science, medicine, and technology, though they may be the ones who best capitalize on it. Innovation, by definition, requires challenging the old order, the hierarchy. Confucian-type values make it very difficult to take this first step.
How many major, reasonably innovative (ie not a clone of Outlook) pieces of computer software (to take an example) are currently or were designed by an Asian (not an Asian American)? I can't think of one off the top of my head. Now how many are being coded by Asians (using design directives from non-Asians)?
This may sound horribly racist, but that is not the intent. If anything, it's pointing out a tension that exists between Confucianism and innovation. The fact that many persons "of Asian extraction" but who grew up in the West are great innovators indicates that it is not an issue of brain capacity; it is an issue of culturally-influenced psychology.
Things wrong with US Schools (Score:5, Insightful)
* The internet will not teach your children -- while it's true there is a fountain of knowledge at your fingertips, there's a ocean full of crap to sift though.
* Stop focussing so much money on organized sports when your school is graduating illiterates.
* Kids using Powerpoint [detnews.com] is not the answer. Unless the question is -- How do we raise a nation of Marketing drones!
Re:Well, duh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. There's a lot wrong with California public education, but underfunding isn't one of them [reason.com]. California public schools spent $9,267.00 per student for the education of its kindergarten through high school. That's a LOT of money per kid (you can send your kid to a top flight private school for about half), and most of it is pissed away by the bureaucracy. You don't cure a shopaholic by giving them more money, and you don't solve the education funding "problem" by giving them more money either.
Re:Well, duh. (Score:3, Informative)
Ooops.. off by about $130, but still a hell of a lot higher than the number you quoted.
Schools intentionally make people stupid! (Score:3, Insightful)
How long can America keep pumping out students whose test scores are in the cellar for industrial nations and expect to maintain an edge in technology? As it stands, a lot of our brains are already imported from India and China.
I live in CA, which should stand as a dire warning to the rest of the country: They limit their property taxes, their schools go underfunded, and as a result California natives largely end up working to repair the cars and wash the floors of the well-educated from elsewhere.
The US needs to get serious about education, and fast. With the tech boom and the world shinking as it is, this is a really bad time to be stupid.
I hear this stuff all the time, and used to believe it myself on occasion. Its simply not true. The educational system was NEVER intended to make people smart, it was intended to make the intelligent human masses comfortable working in factories doing boring, repetitive work and acquiesing to the demands of leaders. Education as we know it, is a system which originated in fascist germany as a way to school better, more obedient and selfless soldiers.
Make no mistake. Schools are doing EXACTLY what they were designed to do. Think about it. Have you ever gone to a neighboorhood in the US which was constructed in the 19th century? How is it houses were constructed to be not only durable, but beautiful as well? The parks, museums, sculptures... All built long before public schools. Have you ever read civil war letters? The average 15 year old infantryman in the civil war writes far better than 99% of the people who post on slashdot. Could you imagine any book by Charles Dickens being on the bestseller list today? Why are so many schools named after the industrial magnates of yesteryear, like Carnegie, Colgate... Why were so many colleges funded by the industrial elite?
If you really think about it, it just doesn't add up. Schools make you DUMB, this is what they were supposed to do. It makes a people easier to control, and less prone to nasty rebellions. Humans are innately intelligent, it is only warping their minds through years of social conditioning they became mad, lost, and inhuman. Carnegie, JP Morgan, Frick, all of them sat around and thought about how to make free men content to work in their god foresaken factories, and like it. They made it so, and now we are living with that legacy.
The forced educational system must come to an end, it is time for this system of class control to collapse and for the average american to recapture the American dream that was stolen from him by the fascist powers of a century ago. We sit here and rip on the US educational system, even though the educational system is the single largest industry in the United States, both in capital expenditures and employment percentages. How is it people in India and China can do as well as us, even in the midst of an anarchy which can barely pave roads let alone build schools. They are better because they are NOT schooled.
To all who are interested, I highly suggest you read the online version of a book entitled The Underground History of American Education [johntaylorgatto.com] by one John Taylor Gatto. The book gives a well written account of exactly how the free minds of the United States were perverted into the drones we have today. It is rare I read a book that is truly eye opening, but this book will make it all make sense.
Re:Well, duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit.
What you're actually seeing is yet another example of my parents' generation (the boomers) once again thoughtlessly gorging themselves at the expense of their children.
They run up huge debt rather than pay higher taxes. They extend the pyramid scheme that is social security so they can benefit at their children's expense. And they underfund the educational system so they can live in a slightly larger house than they otherwise would.
The CA system only really benefits people who already own homes, not new home buyers. So, it's just another example of our parents living at our expense.
Re:Well, duh. (Score:4, Insightful)
The brilliant part is that although this was sold to the electorate as protecting granny in her old house, the "people" it really protects are the business landlords. Most companies don't own their buildings, they lease them long term. So when a business relocates, the owner of the space hasn't changed and the property doesn't get reappraised. Does this rock or what?
This means that the business that's giving people two communities over jobs ('cause the people can't afford to live across the street from the office) isn't paying property taxes (via increased rent to the landlord) to the community whose infrastructure (roads, electrical & phone grid, sewers, water, etc.) it's impacting. Or at least, the taxes it is paying are adjusted to property values as of 30 years ago and not current values.
Some places responded to this with payroll taxes, but that's an even thornier issue than property taxes. What should happen is that the people who benefit from the infrastructure should pay to support it. But what is happening is that the people who pay for the infrastructure are mostly people who haven't yet had the opportunity to derive maximal benefit from it, while the long-term benefits are going to people who haven't been paying their fair share.
What?? Read the article first!? (Score:4, Funny)
Give the article a read, and share your thoughts
But that violates the /. tradition of posting your thoughts and never reading the article! Heck, some members don't even think about what they're posting.
Re:What?? Read the article first!? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think something is broken with the system when it's all the earliest posts that get the most karma - from the exact users that don't read the article!
Confession time: I couldn't figure out why my posts were never modded up, time and time again. Then I started posting early, most often without reading the article. Booya - I was up to excellent karma in no time at all. Does anyone else see a problem with this? What if we tried something like no moderation allowed for the first 15 minutes after a story was posted? Well, I guess we'd have a lot of trolls. How about no positive moderation? Just food for thought.
School (Score:5, Interesting)
This IMHO is the big one. I went to school in England until about age 12, and then came back to a private school in California. Overnight, I went from doing trig, chemistry, latin, greek, french, to gluing fucking popsicle sticks together. I kid you not, our schools are WAY behind the rest of the world.
If you're an American parent, PLEASE either ship your kids over to Europe, or home school them yourself. American society is way too fucked up to allow for anyone to get a decent education. You would not believe the social pressure - I remember it well, and I had to fight it tooth and nail in order to succeed.
Re:School (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow. You must have gone to an old-skool school :) I'm proud to state that the school I went to is in the top 5% of all comprehensives - it's mixed, non selective and state run. We never did latin or greek, that's rather highbrow. We only learnt French because, well, we're right next door to them. Trig at age 12? Man, we didn't do that until we were 15 or 16 (gcses). I dunno how Brit schooling compares to American, but you're experience seems to have been a lot better than normal.
Oh, and for any Yanks wondering - such articles are regularly published in UK media too, and all the parents stress about lack of quality schooling and how India will kick our ass etc. I think it's a western thing, rather than American.
Re:School (Score:5, Interesting)
How could this be, I wondered. I added that from my experience (and the experience related by my friends who did not go to a private school like I did), kids needed *more* homework, not less.
Her reply? "Just wait until you have kids, and have to spend your time helping them with their homework."
And there, my friends, is why our educational system is in the crapper.
Re:School (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell you what, just wait until you have kids, and not only do they spend all day in school, you have to help them do their homework all evening so they can learn what they should have in eight hours at school. It's just easier to homeschool 'em.
Re:School (Score:4, Insightful)
A good mix of thinking and knowing is crucial to get a good education.
Re:School (Score:5, Insightful)
I work with schools all the time, and I can tell you the problem with education in the United States is not teachers. It's not even the politicians. It's the general population which seems to be schizophrenic about public education. There are referendums on school vouchers popping up all over the place. That means people are bailing out on public ed. We have to decide whether we want public schools or not and act accordingly.
As far as marketeers, lawyers, etc., those are the people who have always been successful in the United States. You can't claim that the captains of industry have been brilliant engineers or innovators. More often it seems they're simply people who are ruthless, unscrupulous, lucky, or some combination thereof.
I'm also a little tired of people bashing the education system without offering any constructive criticism. It's quite easy to scream about how bad the system is and stand silent when asked for potential solutions. In the States, we educate a more diverse and larger population than most people who claim to have better systems. There are individual states in the Union larger than entire EU nations. In fact, there are two or three districts in West Texas that are larger than sovereign European states. So don't tell me we're always comparing apples to apples.
In short, I think there's a lot of panic about a situation that would better be solved by reason and open discussion. Let's pay our teachers better, put administrative power over schools back at the local level, trim the bureaucratic fat at the state and federal levels, and demand more from our kids.
Forgive me...I've had way, way too much coffee.
Re:School (Score:5, Insightful)
Apropos of education Stein writes:
"Allow schools to fall into useless decay. Do not teach civics or history except to describe America as a hopelessly fascistic, reactionary pit. Do not expect students to know the basics of mathematics, chemistry and physics. Working closely with the teachers' unions, make sure that you dumb down standards so that children who make the most minimal effort still get by with flying colors. Destroy the knowledge base on which all of mankind's scientific progress has been built by guaranteeing that such learning is confined to only a few, and spread ignorance and complacency among the many."
But later (#10 for all you following at home) he argues against what he perceives to be unfair and heavy taxation. So the US is supposed to improve schools without raising money to do so? At its most simple level, there are two basid problems.
1) Teachers get paid shit in the US. In NYC the average salery for public school teachers is just under $32,000/year (before taxes), which makes it impossible to feed and house oneself in the city (unless there are some other funds coming in, trust fund, spouse, etc). Likewise, a university professor (tenure track) at San Fransico State makes abut $40,000/yr -- in San Francisco! A janitor in a Columbus Ohio high school, on the other hand, makes about $50,000/yr. What does this tell you about the value in which teachers are held?
There are some great dedicated teachers out there, but I have taught more than one, kind well-meaning, and utterly incompetent student who planned to teach high school (and went on to do so). Yes many teachers suck (although I think almost all must be pretty selfless to put up with a very hard job). Look at what we pay them.
Yet Stein is also against those evil teacher unions. I hate to break the news, but most teacher unions are not fighting to lower standards, they are fighting for decent working conditions. Sometimes this involves lowering the bar because standards cannot be held in the conditions in which they work. Bringing us to pt. 2...
2) Given the lack of financial support for education in the US, many schools are falling apart and grossly overcrowded (10% are trying to function at %125 capacity) necesitating teaching in gyms, halls, etc... and creating enormous classes that are impossible for the most dedicated teacher to manage.
So even if we had better teachers, they would have an impossible job to do. So we end up with a nation of illiterates (44 million I think), who don't know anything about the world around them, not to even mention technology or science.
It is all very well to say "Hey we should do a better job teaching our kids," of course we should! But to do that we must spend money. Not that throwing money at the problem will make it go away, but it's a fundamental ingredient for meaningful change -- an ingrediant that the rest of Stein's articles run in the face of.
(sorry for the dangling participle)
Yes, I differ with Stein in a number of ways, we are clearly on different ends of the political spectrum, but I leave it to others to address his other "points to change" in an intelligent fashion. I'm ranted out for the moment
Re:School (Score:4, Interesting)
I recall my 3rd grade class play was a highly professional production with singing solos etc - I move back to the states and I'm the frickin' '3rd upper Molar on the right side' in some banal play about hygeine.
This country's public school system (shy the new 'charter' system) strikes me as Cro-Magnon survival skills in comparison...
Re:School (Score:3, Funny)
Which is why everyone is arguing that US schools need more funding. Do you know how much it costs to build a molar!
Constructive Criticism (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Require national standard minimum skills tests for EVERY ACCREDITED MAJOR before a degree is granted. Get professors and top hiring managers to design the test. This helps keep our universities from graduating every single person they possible can. Really, where else can we find a financial incentive for our universities to flunk more people and graduate less of them? Degrees should not be a dime a dozen.
2. Make grade school HARD. If it takes little Johnny an extra 3 years to graduate, so be it. Holding back brighter kids so the less able ones don't feel bad has to stop. I honestly want my second grader learning Intro Chinese, Solar System basics, Ecology (where litter goes), math that isn't memorization, etc. etc. No more whole days spent on Red+Blue=Purple.
3. Simple one: Make it VERY HARD to become a teacher. This is what the AMA did for doctors. This gives us better teachers who we know are motivated. It shrinks the teacher pool so we are forced to start paying more for teachers. Sure, it hurts initially when class sizes grow, but it pays off in the long run, and still 40 kids to one great teacher is far better than 10 kids to one lousy teacher.
These 3 steps could be implemented without spending much taxpayer money, and the benefits would be easy to see after a few years.
Re:School (Score:3, Interesting)
I passionately hate math (ducking flames now). Any time I see an equation with coefficients and variables, I want to puke. I don't care about trains A and B: they'll get there when they get there. I might have understood Calculus better had my teachers spoken Old English instead. But I was and continue to be highly fluent in algebra, because my mother drilled me until I cried buckets.
I learned my multiplication tables in the second grade thanks to my mother's patience with a very loud, uncooperative brat, me. Our class would have a competition where a kid would stand up and go up and down the rows of desks and be challenged by each student. My teacher would hold up a card with a multiplication, e.g. 4x4, and the student who answered correctly first would continue down the row. My mother sat me down the night before and went over every multiplication from zero to twelve until I had it.
I mean burned in folks. The next day when the teacher held up the cards, I didn't see the multiplication, I saw the answer. 4x4 wasn't 4x4. It was 16. I was so quick that next day, I went around the classroom five times before my teacher asked me to sit down and give others a chance. I think he let me go on so long, because he couldn't believe it. I'll never forget that day. It was one of my proudest, most fulfilling days of my life. Mathematics of all things.
I graduated college with a B.A. in English. I write poetry chapbooks. Literature rocks my world. But I'm the guy that always adds up the scorecard correctly, tallies the stats, and runs the numbers for others.
Ironically, I was a terrible reader until the fifth grade. I never could put events in sequence correctly (remember?). But my fifth grade teacher, the best I ever had, never let up on me. He worked me, gave me a ton of things to read until I improved. I love to read so much now, I'm in dire need of bookshelves.
The point is, you have to drill kids when they're young. Parents and teachers alike. IMHO, you have until the sixth grade to educate a kid on the fundamentals: reading, writing, and arithmetic. After that, school is a social call. No high schooler cares more about metaphors or differentials than he does about his social standing. To this day, I don't remember what I studied let alone learned in the seventh and eighth grades, because I was too busy considering tits and cars.
We in the U.S. need two basic changes to our education system:
First, drill the absolute shit out of kids from first to sixth grades. Algebra, reading comprehension, and writing composition should be outstanding by the end of the sixth grade. If you think about adulthood, if you can add, subtract, multiply, divide, read, and write well, then you can take care of yourself. It all comes back to these fundamentals.
Second and just as important, completely reform high school and college curriculums to prepare people for jobs. I firmly believe that if you take two eighteen year old men and run one through a college curriculum and start the other in an apprenticeship or company, the kid outside of the college halls is going to be light years ahead of the collegian after his four years are gone. Colleges as institutions are more enterprising then educational, period. College curriculums are the combo value meals of understanding. I knew intimately that I could not hack it as an engineer or scientist due to my lack of interest/understanding of calculus. But I had to waste away for two semesters of calculus regardless. Same story with requirements completely irrelevant to my interests and strengths. Strip away these requirements and structure a series of classes that revolve around my interests and strengths, and I should have departed college no more than two years after starting.
I'll end with this important point. I'm afraid of the American job market and its limitations not on the sheer number of jobs but on what we Americans have to take up to earn a decent living. I am lucky enough to make some money writing in addition to my regular gig as a web programmer, but I would love to make a living in a skilled labor trade. Electrician, carpenter, etc. The way I see things--and my parents steered me this way for better or worse--you're gonna have to be a lawyer, manager, or doctor to get by in the years to come. Maybe I'm wrong. We manufacture almost nothing in the U.S. any more. Look around your apartment or house. MADE IN CHINA.
Our system of education is supposedly geared to turn out knowledgeable workers, but there's only so many of those jobs to go around, right? Not everybody can be a manager. I long for the day when the phrase reads, "The world needs CEOs too."
Re: School teaches you to learn, not absorb facts (Score:3)
1) The process of learning
2) Specialized curriculums
3) Education-Employment relationship(s)
1) The process of learning. There's no doubt in my mind that rote, absorbing learning at a young age is key. E.g., children are better at picking up foreign languages than adults. Why? It helps that they aren't worried about credit card debt or a girlfriend missing her period, I'm sure. No, a young mind is just so beautifully uncluttered. You know, like a blank whiteboard, shiny and pure. There's no better time to fill it with facts and ideas, before responsibilities and anxieties poison it.
However, getting in high school and college, so much more of what we learn comes from social interaction. This time is better spent keeping the hell out of the kids' ways. College is two things to every college student: his GPA and his dick (or the female's erogenous zones, her vagina, tits, and ass--God it's not fair you ladies have three zones!). The world wants his GPA, and he wants the world to have his dick. It's just a paradox that every kid goes through. Thank God for Cliff's Notes; if it weren't for Cliff, I wouldn't have had time to discover my dick. I would have been bogged down with Bronte's Wuthering Heights or some other fscking coming of age drivel.
2) Specialized curriculums. I don't know about you, but I have read and written exponentially more since I finished college. Many more subjects and genres too. We may be having an agreement here. I too am a fan of a broadening one's knowledge of more subjects. However, I don't think regimented syllabi, attendance, and essay exams (*shiver*) stimulate a person's desire to understand the subject. Maintain a GPA maybe, but not understand the subject. I always felt the quicker I get away from college the more time I would have to think. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but think about... :)
3) The education-employment relationship(s). I agree that many folks end up in a line of work they don't conceive themselves taking up or has little to do with what they studied in college, but is that necessarily good? Are they happy? Do they pine for something more or different? College curricula exacerbates this problem, because so previous little material covers real-world processes and situations. Of course, looking at this from the outside in, most jobs in America require very little specialized, trained, enhanced thinking or skills. My personality dictates that I anger at ceremonial requirements like learning Dijkstra's algorithm and Hamming code when all I want to do is register a domain, set up a DNS server, and build a web site. I don't like doing things, because everyone else is doing them.
Here's how I look at it. With so much of what I do for a living learned on my own time, I cannot justify the tens of thousand of dollars required to take up cross-cultural requirements and other sixteen week death marches. I agree with you, writertype, that honing one's ability to learn and reason are important. Experiencing unpleasant (read: stupid) things can be educational and enriching. I fumed during the first two weeks of a required pre-1800 English literature course. It turned out to be one of the more interesting genres of literature (Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels reached me despite the longwinded prose). But these pleasant revelations were sparse compared to the "just get through it" courses I suffered. When a 30% on a physics exam scales to an A, understanding evaporates.
And for the record, I started college as a business finance major. Struggled through the freshman requirements, then got a 98% on my first accounting exam. Got bored with the rest of the sophomore classes' filler material and nearly flunked out in spectacular fashion. Switched to CS the next year and labored through logic gates and big O notation in class while building a 486 and discovering the nuances of Linux at home. I had a reputation as an ace essay writer in my fraternity house (another story altogether though I have a tattoo to show for it), and after earning an A for a friend's twenty-five page grad school history paper, I switched to English. And the rest is history...
BTW, don't worry about dating me, because I've got one foot out of MLB's door. If they reinstate Pete Rose, I quit. That coming from a kid who wore his number in grade school and saw him break Cobb's record with 4192 in Riverfront Stadium. Really. MLB is a fucking disgrace, and letting a known tax cheat, hot dog of the first order, a man who charges fans large lumps of $ for his autograph despite riding an overwhelming wave of their support, and a man who explicitly put the earnest competition of a major league sport into question by gambling on his own team constitutes an absolute withdrawal from honest sporting competition. Not that MLB has given a damn about that for over a decade now by allowing a Dixie cup strike zone, turning a blind eye to rampant performance enhancing chemistry, marginalizing the playoffs with the wildcard, and doing anything else for the Almighty Buck. I intend to spend every spare minute this Summer enjoying everything else but major league baseball.
Phew. I'm sweating now...
And yet 11% of US citizens 18-24... (Score:3, Interesting)
The educational system needs stronger standards. It also has to let students fail and repeat. I went through school (in a "smart" state, Wisconsin) unchallenged and graduated with minimal effort because it was too easy. The sad part is I graduated a 3.0 cummulative GPA, and I was a slacker!
This shit shouldn't happen. I know of some people in my class that should of never passed.
Re:Hear, hear! (Score:3, Insightful)
I didn't have to go Europe to take french, trig, beginning C programming, and some elementary biology and chemistry before getting to high school. (i.e., around 12-13 years old) I've tried to maintain this throughout high school, and even though I got a little lazy in college, I still pushed pretty hard. And what for? I can honestly say I know at least a little about just about everything, but what good does it do? I probably would have been much happier goofing off and enjoying life, especially since I would still probably be just as qualified for my current monkey-coding job.....
Well, he seems largely correct... (Score:3, Insightful)
All the foul language and no-nothing replies I've seen here in response to his article are evidence for his contentions, by the way.
Re:Well, he seems largely correct... (Score:3, Funny)
And the delicious irony of it all is that the phrase is "know-nothing". Yes, I'm pedantic. =)
6a. (Score:4, Interesting)
And now for an addendum
6a. Specifically construct laws so riddled with inaccuracy of purpose, incomprehensibility of intent, impossibility of execution, immorality of effect, and plain lack of common sense, that everyone is criminalized equally, and proven innocent $ub$antially due to their per$onal $olvency. Particularly good results may be achieved if the laws in question are ignored as technicalities by the traditionally moral masses.
inspiration for this post, and the poster believes the original article, was gained largely through understanding the logical basis of the works of Ayn Rand, all credit as it is due
Religion (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Religion (Score:3, Insightful)
This is like saying that there's an increase of violece due to insane video game players who are out of touch with reality, so video games are obviously to blame.
Religion
I counter your insightful argument with "athiests are a bunch of poop-throwing monkeys."
w00t! 10 points!
Can I moderate Mr. Stein -1 Flamebait? (Score:5, Informative)
Whatever you might happen to think about our current immigration policy (I don't like it much myself), there's no getting around the fact that this is hyperbolic bullshit. The vast majority [usdoj.gov] of illegal aliens in the US are migrant workers from Mexico. (Following Mexico are El Salvador, Guatamala and Canada. You have to go all the way down to #17 before you find a country with any substantial terrorist activity: our "ally" Pakistan [usdoj.gov].) Say what you will about Mexico, but it is not exactly a hotbed of anti-American radicalism.
The rest of this article is exactly the sort of mixture of over-stressed common sense and batshit insanity that I would expect from a former Nixon toady. [imdb.com]
A few more statistics... (Score:3, Insightful)
- Mexico
- Germany
- Phillipines
- Italy
- Canada
Not exactly Al Qaeda's hordes there.Re:Can I moderate Mr. Stein -1 Flamebait? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, call me weird, but I'm just not that worried about the Mexican army storming into San Antonio, hell-bent on reclaiming Aztlan any time soon.
Re:Can I moderate Mr. Stein -1 Flamebait? (Score:3, Insightful)
Her: All this used to be ours
Me: So you really want California run by the PRI?
Her: Eeerg.
Believe me when I say that Mexicans don't really covet the U.S. Hell, they'd be glad if they could just have a honest to goodness government running Mexico.
Stripped down (Score:5, Informative)
1 - Education, real education particularly science and math as well as history and civics, is critical. I can't see how you could disagree with this.
2 and 3- Our lawsuit-happy society needs to change. This does not mean "kill all the lawyers" as Shakespeare is so often misquoted as saying. It means discourage frivolous lawsuits and encourage personal responsibility (e.g. if you do something stupid, you don't automatically have the right to sue someone). It also means legislators should have to write laws simply and clearly and prevent loopholes rather than encourage them.
4 - The emphasis on getting rich through luck/cheating should not be glamorized.
5 - Corporate leaders should be held responsible for their actions.
6 - The law matters. If you oppose a law work to change it, don't just ignore. There are some bad cops/lawyers/judges/etc, but the vast majority are hard working decent people. Treat them that way.
7 - The anti-intelligent attitude of much of popular culture (be it talk radio or eMptyTV) is a Bad Thing(tm).
8 - Roots are a good thing. People are happier and more productive when they have connections to their town/city/etc.
9 - Immigration policy is skewed in very stupid ways and needs to be reformed.
10 - The tax system is broken (I disagree with him about death tax and capital gains, but the rest I agree with).
11 - Our medical system is totally screwed.
12 - Science is fundamental.
Re:Stripped down (Score:4, Interesting)
Hear hear. Our government actively and explicitly enforces the litigation-happy situation (I assume it makes lawyers, otherwise known as "our government," more money).
My employer recently stiffed me out of a week's paycheck in Nevada. Looking up Nevada laws, it's actually quite clear he's violated labor law. I contacted the office of the Labor Commissioner and laid out my case. They wrote me back a nice letter saying it looks like I can afford a lawyer, so they're not going to do their job (enforce labor laws) since I can afford to be a litigation-happy citizen.
I'm stunned.
And then the recent
You'd almost think lawyers wrote our current set of obviously fucked-up laws (yes, I'm aware that laws really are written by lawyers).
What America Exceeds At (Score:4, Informative)
1) Fun: We still produce more films than anyone but India, and not many people outside of the subcontinent watch those anyway. A substantial amount of the television shows (Emeril!) music, video games, theme parks, etc. still come from the good ol' US of A.
2) Pharmaceuticals -- now careful, I'm not lumping these with Entertainment. Prescription drugs are mostly innovated here.
3) Microprocessors -- sure they're manufactured where the labor is cheap, but Intel, Moto, IBM... they're developing the stuff here.
4) Industrial Design -- The shiny new cars that are manufactured by foreign companies use US design teams. Why do you think Daimler bought Chrysler?
What do you expect from a Nixon Speechwriter? (Score:4, Insightful)
1. The duh answer of them all of course is increased school funding. I relize however, if everyone got a decent education, we would have very few people willing to join the military and those who did would join one loaded with officers, and no cannon fodder, I mean elisted men.
2. Not everyone needs to get a four year degree. There needs to be many more professional opportunities for people with 2 year degrees. It would increase tax revenue to have a better paid population, and reduce the burden on four year universities who can better use the money on people who need to spend the time in college.
3. Companies that spend a sigifigant portion (~75%) of thier R&D money in Univeristy based Labs would recive an huge tax break.
4. Medical Advancement: Place a 20 blackout on the production of generics and in return drug companies must reduce prices by 75%. New drug prices are high in this country because a company must recoup the billions it spent on R&D in the first 3 years to make any sort of profit, because after 5 it can be made by anyone dirt cheap.
This give companies much more capital and incentive to innovate instead of copy what the other guy did and sell it cheaper.
5. Government Funded Hard Science: If we rely only on corperations to fund research, then we are going to be limmited to innovations that will make a profit, and we will be worthless as a civilization.
Re:What do you expect from a Nixon Speechwriter? (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a strong correlation between increasing expenditures and decreasing results, if you look at a time series for any random school district. There is no correlation between expenditures and results, if you look at panel data. As H.L. Menken (sp?) said, ``For every problem, there is an answer which is simple, attractive, and wrong.'' I think you've found it for this problem.
The answer here is for parents to demand more of their children, and more of their children's teachers. Given that most public schools are bureaucracies, they'll have to home school.
2. Not everyone needs to get a four year degree. There needs to be many more professional opportunities for people with 2 year degrees. It would increase tax revenue to have a better paid population, and reduce the burden on four year universities who can better use the money on people who need to spend the time in college.
You came so close on this one! Universities shouldn't be training construction managers (Purdue has a four-year program in that!). We need to encourage non-university, non-bachelors-degree education for crafts and trades.
The current system cheats everyone. The crafts and trades people, and the engineers, have to suffer through a lot of distribution requirements which preserve the illusion that they are getting a university education. This means that the classes must be dumbed down to be accessible to the unscholarly and uninterested (notice I didn't say stupid). The result is that the engineers don't get the in-depth techincal education they need, and the scholars don't get the education they need either.
3. Companies that spend a sigifigant portion (~75%) of thier R&D money in Univeristy based Labs would recive an huge tax break. 4. Medical Advancement: Place a 20 blackout on the production of generics and in return drug companies must reduce prices by 75%. New drug prices are high in this country because a company must recoup the billions it spent on R&D in the first 3 years to make any sort of profit, because after 5 it can be made by anyone dirt cheap. This give companies much more capital and incentive to innovate instead of copy what the other guy did and sell it cheaper. 5. Government Funded Hard Science: If we rely only on corperations to fund research, then we are going to be limmited to innovations that will make a profit, and we will be worthless as a civilization.
Are (3) and (5) contradictory? Probably not. On the other hand, given the amount of damage that corporate funding seems to be doing to academic research, your (3) might be counter productive. Finally, (4) is just a re-jiggering of the patent laws, and while it might be a good start, it isn't nearly far-reaching enough.
Furthermore, the US has been subsidising drug development and low drug prices in Canada and Europe by allowing high drug prices here to drive innovation. As long as we're chasing pie in the sky, let's force those socialist free riders to start paying their fair share!
Pointing at a problem is not offering a solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Utopians consistently excel in discovering faults, but those who actually try to fix them usually end up with a situation far worse than the one they were so alarmed about.
Re:Pointing at a problem is not offering a solutio (Score:3, Insightful)
Pointing out the problems so loudly that you can no longer deny them is the first step in building a discussion, which is necessary in finding the proper solution. Without discussion, which our current political system discourages, we end up debating the same issues for decades and get nowhere. Why wasn't our school system a hot issue for debate at the last election? Because we're too concerned with money. And I believe if you look at all these problems people keep pointing out you will find that all of them are related by 1 thing, money. People sell out and take the get-rich-quick scheme because that is the goal of American life. If we weren't persuaded by money, if we didn't cater to money or care about money we wouldn't be posting on this article and our school system would be designed properly for our kids. Unfortunately I think the only way to get our minds off of money is to do away with it completely and instead use computers, databases and networks to manage our resources efficiently.
We still lead in one crucial area (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately, one area in which there appears to be no gap is the right-wing rhetoric arms race.
The rest of the way there (Score:5, Interesting)
My list need not end here but I got tired of typing. And anyway, I even agree with one or two of Mr. Stein's points. But just as Mr. Stein did I realized that my list was already the program of many of our elected officials. (Hmm.)
It's education stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Why?
That's actually quite obvious. There are people, probably all neo-cons, that want privatization of our schools. They are vehemently against anything resembling socialism and will fight to the death to privatize everything.
Capitalism can only succeed if we have a mix between private corporations and some socialist programs. Schools should be available to everyone without the contamination of corporations, libraries should available to all, health care to everyone.
So the plan is let the public school system crumble to the ground, show the success of school vouchers for private schools, make public schools private. It's so freaking obvious it's not even worth debating. The Republicans want everything to be driven by capitalism and will stop at nothing to achieve it. The Democrats are too scared to do anything about it for fear of not getting re-elected. The average American doesn't have the time to worry about it because they are working 50-60 hours a week with 1 week vacation and trying to figure out how to afford sending their kids to college.
I hate to say it but we are fucked. We are going to be fucked for quite some time, until the average dumbass figures out he's working harder than his dad did and making less money and paying more taxes while corporations don't pay shit in taxes. It's only a matter of time before the shit hits the fan but I am afraid it will be a few years before the dumbasses realize the situation and a few more years to get it fixed.
My Take (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's first address the physical decay facing our nation's schools. The current conditions facing most students and teachers are appalling. We spend more money decorating the White House for annual holidays than most school districts budget for building maintenance.
Do not expect students to know the basics of mathematics, chemistry and physics. Working closely with the teachers' unions, make sure that you dumb down standards so that children who make the most minimal effort still get by with flying colors.
Standardized testing and federal guidelines must challenge our nation's students. In the last 15 years, federal regulations and state authorities have enacted a wave of PC rules that force schools to combine students of varying learning abilities into one large class. In that class, is expected that a student with a reading ability of an 8th grader to complete the same work as a student with a reading ability of a 12th grader.
What happened to Remedial and Honors classes?
Encourage the making of laws and rules by trial lawyers and sympathetic judges, especially through class actions. Bypass the legislative mechanisms that involve elected representatives and a president. This will stop--or at least greatly slow down--innovation, as corporations and individuals hesitate to explore new ideas for fear of getting punished (or regulated to death) by litigation for any misstep, no matter how slight, in the creation of new products and services. Make sure that lawsuits against drugmakers are especially encouraged so that the companies are afraid to develop new lifesaving drugs, lest they be sued for sums that will bankrupt them. Make trial lawyers and judges, not scientists, responsible for the flow of new products and services.
There is no question that this country needs to address Tort reform. In addition, we as a nation need to recognize that regulation is not what the founding fathers had in mind when writing the Constitution. I don't need the FCC protecting my children or me from televised orgies; I am most capable of regulating my children and myself. I don't need lawmakers asking what is popular with the country. I need lawmakers that are not afraid to do what is right, even if it is not what is popular.
Create a culture that blames the other guy for everything and discourages any form of individual self-restraint or self-control. Promote litigation to punish tobacco companies on the theory that they compel innocent people to smoke. Make it second nature for someone who is overweight to blame the restaurant that served him fries.
We must encourage and teach our children to take responsibility for their actions. Simple as that. If you drink and drive it is not the responsibility of the bartender, it is your responsibility.
Sneer at hard work and thrift. Encourage the belief that all true wealth comes from skillful manipulation and cunning, or from sudden, brilliant and lucky strokes that leave the plodding, ordinary worker and saver in the dust. Make sure that society's idols are men and women who got rich from being sexy in public or through gambling or playing tricks, not from hard work or patience. Make the citizenry permanently envious and bewildered about where real success comes from.
Continue making music videos that display a non-reality. For example, Jay-Z does not make 10 figures a year and selling 10 millions albums does not make you rich: ask TLC. In addition, be honest and open about the
Hold the managers of corporations to extremely lax standards of conduct and allow them to get off with a slap on the wrist when they betray the trust of shareholders. This will discourage thrift and investment and ensure that Americans will have far less capital to work with than other societies, while simultaneously developing that contempt for law and social standards that is the hallmark of failing nations. Hold the management of labor unions to no ethical standards.
Halliburton. WorldCom. Enron. United Airlines. But why are we upset? Why are we surprised? This is not the first time that CEOs have raped us. Oil companies did it in the 70s. Savings and Loans did it in 80s.
While you're at it, discourage respect for law in every possible way. This will dissolve the glue that holds the nation together, and dissuade any long-term thinking. Societies in which the law can be clearly seen to apply to some and not to others are doomed to decay, in terms of innovation and everything else.
I don't imagine that a 31 year-old black woman who shoplifts $5100 in merchandise from Macys would receive probation and community service. I don't imagine that anyone but a star baseball player would be charged and convicted of DUI, possession, and assault 4 different times before seeing the inside of a jail cell. I don't imagine that anyone but a star basketball player could physical assault their coach/boss, and then be offered a 7 figure yearly income with another team/job.
Encourage a mass culture that spits on intelligence and study and instead elevates drug use, coolness through sex and violence, and contempt for school. As children learn to be stupid instead of smart, the national intelligence base needed for innovation will simply vanish into MTV-land.
It is sad when video games outsell books. It is deplorable that most teenage boys can spew more slang for a woman's genital region, than he can name past Presidents.
Mock and belittle the family. Provide financial incentives to people willing to live an isolated existence, vulnerable and frightened. This guarantees that men and women of sufficient character to bring about innovation will be psychologically stifled from an early age.
Why do my wife and I pay a higher percentage of our income in taxes than single people?
Enact a tax system that encourages class antagonism and punishes saving, while rewarding indebtedness, frivolity and consumption. Tax the fruits of labor many times:
First tax it as income.
Then tax it as real or personal property.
Then tax it as capital gains.
Then tax it again, at a staggeringly high level, at death.
This way, Americans are taught that only fools save, and that it is entirely proper for us to have the lowest savings rate in the developed world. This will deprive us of much-needed capital for new investment, for innovation and our own personal aspirations. It will compel us to ask foreigners for ever more capital and allow them to own more of America. It will also promote an attitude of carelessness about the future and, once again, encourage disrespect for law.
There isn't anything I can add here. Ben Stein is dead on. As a young couple and making over $100K a year, my wife and I still don't know how we are going to afford a house, retirement, etc... It sounds far-fetched, but given taxes and more taxes, there is very little that we can save.
Have a socialized medical system that scrimps on badly needed drugs and procedures, resorts to only the cheapest practices and discourages drug companies from developing new drugs by not paying them enough to cover their costs of experimentation, trial and error.
If you don't think we have socialized medicine in the US, then explain to me what an HMO is.
Elevate mysticism, tribalism, shamanism and fundamentalism--and be sure to exclude educated, hardworking men and women--to an equal status with technology in the public mind. Make sure that, in order to pay proper (and politically correct) respect to all different ethnic groups in America, you act as if science were on an equal footing with voodoo and history with ethnic fable.
Because it is important that we return school prayer. Forget that schools cannot afford textbooks and some children cannot afford lunch, we have to work together to return school prayer. School prayer will make everything better.
And make sure that we give equal time to Darwin and the Book of Genesis when discussing the origins of the Universe.
But I stopped at a dozen because I realized that this is already, in large measure, the program of so many of our elected representatives. The debauchery of our tort system is already in place, and the rest of the agenda is under way.
Enough said. Out.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Trade Secrets, Copyright & The Erosion Of Pate (Score:3, Interesting)
Trade secrets has allowed companies to essentially patent the unpatentable and protect concepts and ideas far past the patent limit.
Copyrights are even worse in that they have allowed companies to publish software and legally protect it without actually publishing the source code.
Consider Microsoft's successful squashing of any 'unauthorized' books regarding API calls. To me Microsoft would be truly covered if all the API calls were actually published and therefore copyrighted, but they are not. So what is covered is not actually known to the public or described in any public way, yet Microsoft can continue to have them and be legally protected by just copyrighting the distribution of the executables.
This is an abomination of the entire point of having a patent or a copyright system- to encourage innovation by giving the user exclusive use and rights legally protected for a time in exchange for having the body of knowledge published publically.
Why bother to patent when trade secrets or copyright can protect you longer with no public release of knowledge or concepts?
We have drastically erred on the side of use and rights without the fair exchange of public knowledge. Until we fix this part our innovative tech base will continue to suffer.
Technical edge is not enough. (Score:3, Insightful)
- point 3. Promote litigation to punish tobacco companies on the theory that they compel innocent people to smoke.
Sorry, but this is very bad exemple, while I agree that in the US there are too many litigations, I also believe that tobacco companies do try to compel innocent people to smoke by running ads targetted to young teen.
In France, after a long battle, the problem has been solved in a radical way: any advertisement for tobacco is forbidden in any media.
- point 12. Uh? I've always seen American people as being in general higly religious which apparently haven't prevented the US from being the richest nation.
I don't really thinks that the nature of the religion is important wether it is catholicism, mysticim, or other things (except sects of course)
But I'm an atheist, so I'm not very knowledgeable into religions and I don't care, to be honest.
Also the article somehow insists too much on the technical side of the affair: US has not have the best student or best researchers for a long time, still the US is still the first nation on a big number of field, why?
Because the transformation of new idea into industries which sells works very well in the US whereas in the other country usually it doesn't work so well.
And another thing: the article didn't list the patents as a highly dangourous thing: they could slow down inovation very much..
You Gets What You Pays For (Score:4, Insightful)
We do not value little smart gadgets like the Japanese do, so we do not make them as well or as consistently. The Japanese do not have per capita square footage like we do, so anything that gives them more capability in a small space is prized. Electronics are also a very profitable item to ship, so it was an excellent arena for the Japanese to specialize in.
Being behind in consumer electronics is not new. Our broadcast standards have been absolutely behind most of the world for decades, for instance. But a clear picture wasn't as important to us and so we have lagged until HDTV.
On the other hand we feel a need to have a strong military. So we put our money into all sorts of hideous toys that are so far ahead of everyone else's that Pax Americana is an absolute fact. No matter how much Japan or France or Russia or China may want to, they simply cannot build an F-22 for a long time to come.
Unfortunately F-22s do not readily translate into consumer products, but items like BOMARC and B-52s translated into the 747, still a world-beater product.
I'm not suggesting that the military-industrial complex is our technical salvation, but since we prioritize and pay for it we get that kind of technical edge. If we want innovation in other sectors of our economy, we will need to prioritize that, either as a government initiative or the natural course of market desire.
And we need to stop whining if we don't absolutely dominate every global industrial endeavor. As long as we can offload the commoditization to Japan or the Little Dragons and keep the innovation in-house, who cares if we all have Playstations instead of Ataris?
The Roswell well has run dry, almost. (Score:4, Funny)
USA is going down the drain frankly. (Score:4, Interesting)
All these stupid decisions gives the ball to other countries to play with. I think the USA can very well go the same way as Japan did in the 90's. With current leadership in the states that is dangerous as hell. Bad economy? Start a war and focus the citizens on another direction.
It happens right now!
Our technological edge (Score:3, Interesting)
Technology is one of the most dangerous risks to take. Not only are you pouring money into something that has never been done before, but you are doing it for a product that has never been created before. Usually, the results of your investment will not be seen for several years or more.
Ben Stein is right on the money. Those things that liberals want to do -- uproot our society, change the way everyone lives over night, and throw away everything we built our country on -- means that the future is unpredictable.
Conservatives have had it right all along. We should be building on the past, not tearing it down and starting from scratch.
Sorry. You don't deserve karma. (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM [ibm.com] spent 5 billion dollars last year on R&D. Microsoft [cnn.com] just announced a boost to 5.2 billion dollars for next year.
A company like Ford would do anything they could to develop a substantial innovation over GM and DB.
Big business is always looking for an edge just
like the next guy.
This has nothing to do with big business, it is about the leisure class gone amuck.
Re:Ben , ben ... who cares (Score:5, Informative)
Born and raised in privelage then appointed to work for Nixon as an economic advisor. Soon thereafter we had the worst economy since the depression.
I don't know if it's fair to blame the Nixon recession on conservative economics. LBJ had left Nixon with massive military spending on a war in Vietnam and new Great Society spending. And then the Arab nations began their oil boycott.
All three of these factors led to massive inflation (massive spending on the military; massive spending on domestic programs; more young people in Vietnam and fewer young people in the work force; and a rising price of oil, a key price factor in many products). In response, Nixon instituted price ceilings. NOTE: Price ceilings are not a conservative, free-market response to inflation. It is a response generally associated with the left-wing, in fact.
More specifically, blaming Ben Stein for the Nixon recession is foolish - Ben Stein was a speechwriter in the Nixon Administration, not an economic policy advisor.
Re:This is rich (Score:3, Informative)
I never heard about this so I looked up some info on it:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/news/sdetail115
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/showtell/sto
http://www.etonline.com/television/a12770.htm
He claims his son was worse off because of playing Everquest, but I couldn't find a single statement saying he thought online games should be illegal. Does anyone know if he really said this?
RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
He in no way said anything Right-Wing, he simply spoke of fiscal responsibility, aligning with neither extreme.
Re:RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually what he's trying to say is that schools spend too much time on pointless activities designed to "raise self-esteem", rather than actually teaching useful material. But thanks for the perfect example of liberal debating technique: "you don't agree with me, so you're a bigot".
Re:Bleh (Score:5, Interesting)
The article was written in the 20's by a British publication about the US.
These things go in cycles, as each country gets a crisis and a generation gets burned. They work hard and raise their kids in a more stable world. Their kids, in turn, have it way too easy, but the grandparents who originally learned the lessons don't run the country anymore, and the bust, boom, bust cycle resumes. It takes about 60 years to go from one bust to the next. (You can trace back US GDP back to the American Revolution and see this cycle, but it happens everywhere.)
In the 90s, the Americans looked to the Japanese, and the Japanese soon experienced a banking bust of enormous proportions.
"The Great Reckoning", while dated, is a great read on this topic, and others.
Re:Join fingers...let's code for America (Score:3, Insightful)
Your son is not your property.
Re:Political correctness took over (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is, the Fifties was no utopia. The social stability was real, but it came about due to a different brand of "political correctness." We had Senator McCarthy putting people in jail for expressing "dangerous thoughts." We had a government nuking the hell out of the Nevada desert while at the same time denying that there was any risk to those downwind. We had a business culture that was almost completely closed off to women and minorities, and a domestic culture that taught women that it was downright abnormal to be dissatisfied with the life of a homemaker.
Are we messed up now? Quite probably. Were we doing well then? Hell, no. In order to characterize the last half century as an unmitigated march towards anarchy and social fragmentation, you have to completely ignore what was lurking beneath the charming surface back then.
Life today, she ugly. But she my kind of ugly.