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Whither America's Technological Edge?
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.
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 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.) 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.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
The real problem with CA schools is bureaucratic inertia and waste. LA, for example, has approximately one administrator for each teacher on its payroll. And guess whose salary is higher?
Unfortunately for Neal Stephenson's forecasting record, it may no longer be fast pizza delivery (Domino's got sued (see Stein comment #3)), or software (lots of the kewl open source stuff is, indeed overseas -- can you say linux? [I can't pronounce it right no matter how many times I try -- leenooks?]), but it's still entertainment.
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?
Design for Use, not Construction!
Poor Ben Stein.
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.
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. " - 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.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/