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USA to Pass Science Crown to China
instantgames writes "According to a working paper of the National Bureau of Economic Research, rapid development of a science and technology base by populous Asian countries soon may threaten the economic position of the United States. Not only is the U.S. losing ground in high technology exports, but its very capacity to develop new technologies is declining rapidly with respect to the rest of the world. According to Richard Freeman, the paper's author, the sheer population of Asian countries may allow them to train more scientists and engineers than the U.S. while devoting a smaller share of their economy to science and technology." From the article: "The phenomenal growth of China's industrial base has been widely publicized, but Freeman focuses on what is perhaps the more important long-term indicator of a nation's prosperity - its re-investment in science and technology education.
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This nation does not have a history of education or academic excellence. Our WW2 genius was mostly imported, as was much of our cold war research.
We as a nation have been able to attract great minds with promises of "vast tracks of land", but that is about it.
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But they continued on to also say opposition to ANY nuclear project was critical.
Yeah, sometimes (most of the time?) passionate self-righteousness precludes any rational thought. I work on the campus of a liberal arts college, and see a lot of PCU-style protesters. A few years ago, NC was looking to build a waste-disposal site for low-level nuclear waste (generally stuff like rubber gloves used in medical procedures involving radiation or x-ray). I was approached by a protest group that wanted me to sign a petition decrying this horrendous environmental affront. I asked them what they proposed should be done with this waste, they said "Stop producing it." I pointed out that a) chemotherapy patients, dental patients, etc. would object to this "solution", and b) this "solution" would do absolutely nothing for the already existing waste.
I'm not sure which was louder, the howls of rage, or the giant sucking sound as my points were hurled into the intellectual vacuum.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Get rid of most of the teachers after grade 5 or so and let people who can utilize the vast array of self-tutorials, peer-forums and the sheer power of the internet to learn. My niece is 12 years old and has advanced all the way to precalculus with a mother and father who know only basic arithmitic and has never been in a school or met a teacher. She is self-sufficient and is not some super genius or anything. Teacher-led instruction as the basis for education in a fast paced knowledge driven economy is damaging children before they learn you can learn for yourself, by yourself.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
> America is hated largely because we are number one in terms of GDP, freedom, etc. I say let someone else take that spot at the top (at least in GDP) so the rest of the world can hate them for a while.
America is not hated because you have more GDP or freedom than the rest of the world. You are hated because you attack and destroy countries and sovereign governments when your economic interest dictates that, in the name of "liberating" the population (well, the part which you do not kill) while you do not give a hoot about hundreds of thousand dying when there is no money for you in it.
You are hated because you toot around against WMDs whlie you are the largest developers of named WMDs and, in fact, the only one who used nuclear weapons against civilian targets.
You are hated because you refuse to care about the environment because it would hurt your bottom line and the rest of the world suffers from your ignorance. You are hated because you define what "freedom" must mean to the rest of the world: the American Way of Life. Everyone who thinks differently is an enemy of Freedom and Liberty and the enemy of the US of A.
You are hated because you set up dictators when it suits you then try to depose them, with all your military might, when they do not toe the party line any more. Never mind how many people die in both turn and never mind what gets destroyed, as long as weapons sale profits are high enough.
You are not hated but looked down for touting freedom when you had seggregation just 30 years ago, for warning parents that the Origin of Species contains dangerous theories that are not in the Bible, for having a patent system that allows you to patent a way of combing your hair to cover a bald spot, for cranking out movie after movie with no plot but more blood and explosion than a slaghterhouse hit by a Pershing and you call it "culture" but in the same time you have no problem destroying many thousand year old remnants of human history - all in all, that was not American, thus it must have been worthless. You are looked down for being the largest porn manufacturing industry but with an unbelievable hypocricy make nudity a deadly sin. You talk about freedom but ban gay marriages. You talk about women's rights but ban abortus even to an underage rape victim.
The idea that the world envies you is false. It comes from the idea that the US is, by definition, the best. Therefore obviously the world wants to be like the US just evil forces want to stop development and in order to liberate the world in their quest to finally living "our way of life", as your great leader puts it in every speech, you should attack them by economic, political and military needs. The fallacy in the whole ideology is that the rest of the world does not want to live like you. Europe appreciates her own decadent ways you know, with all that culture rubbish and lack of rights to have machine guns but with some rights of not being killed by your fellow citizens. Asia has a culture that is a lot more ancient than even Europe's and they seem to be doing reasonably OK with it, thank you very much. Africa is just too poor to have its priorities around freedom and ideology, they think about the food and water and medication more than their liberty.
Noone would have a problem with the US wanting to lead the world.
The problem is that you do not want to lead, you want to rule.
I teach in an engineering department in a fairly good european university.
We had a meeting recently where the senior members of the department discussed project work and instructions to students. Their concern was that a pattern was emerging along these lines...
Domestic students would or would not do what they were told by the deadline. They may or may not introduce some ideas of their own in doing this.
European students would tend to deliver but had a tendency to deliver what they wanted deliver rather than what was discussed, this would vary a bit as to whether it was a good thing (innovative, neat ideas, rejecting what on balance became bad advice) or a bad thing (willfully ignoring good advice) depending.
Japanese students tend never to say no, but would sometimes reappear at an advanced point in the project and confess they were stuck. Sometimes this would be a bit too late to do much about it. They'd normally get by though, just on the basis that up until that point they'd have had a damn good go at attacking the problem and there was often on close examination some stuff there that could be re-worked or otherwise given prominence to attract the credit it deserved.
Chinese students, basically, would never so no and always deliver exactly what was requested, even if they staggered in looking like death warmed up.
The bulk of the meeting was discussing how we could get our overseas students to loosen up a little and be more proactive. Its a fine balance obviously recognising the needs of individuals but not being discriminatory. But as one Prof quipped, we could probably kill a Chinese student by giving them an insoluable problem to work on whereas a domestic student would probably turn up and call us names (rightly). Be careful with the off-hand suggestions was the message, be clear about what the goals are and what are side issues. This should help all the above in different ways.
Does this translate into anything nationally? Not sure, but it might be relevant if it says something universal about mentality. Chinese engineers certainly have the work ethic, put it that way.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76