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Steve Chen Making China's Supercomputer Grid
nanotrends writes "Steve Chen was the principal designer of the Cray X-MP supercomputer. He recently created multi-teraflop blade based supercomputers for a Chinese company. He is now creating a supercomputer grid across China and he is working on a bio-supercomputer extension to
human brains called THIRD-BRAIN. The THIRD-BRAIN project has significant 3 year and 5 year targets."
Is there a downloadable Vorbcast of this?
I wonder if anyone has tried adding a bunch of high performance GPU chips into the mix (e.g. NVidia or ATI's can run at close to 1 TFlop), or hook together a bunch of PS3 Cell chips? I realize these are more specialized, but they are SO fast that augmenting classic commodity chips with these specialized chips seems like it could greatly boost performance.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
>He is now creating a supercomputer grid across China
Can you see it from space?
Brains. Right. Just what some bot-master will want to send his zombies after.
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
I thought the Noosphere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere/ would awaken us all and speak in the English language. I'd better learn Chinese now :)
Why is nobody commenting about this THIRD BRAIN thing ? This is the first time I hear about it, and the first time I hear about a serious government funded initiative for a brain-machine interface...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I guess he's found something to do with Google's money.
It isn't. From the article, the guy right now has nothing and plans to implement what the entire AI field has been trying to do for years and years. He doesn't mention any new or innovative techinques he is applying to the problem -- only a boatload of unfounded confidence.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
OMG!!!
Someone over than The West having wealth!!!
Sacré Bleu!
Aren't there international laws against this or something?
Let's nuke the bastards back to the stone age!
Steven Chen is a slimebag. First, he is working to help the Chinese government develop
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technology with skills he learned at Cray. This is a transfer of US technical skills to the Chinese militaty and mirrors Chinese industrial espionage. Chen is helping support a communist state that is killing people in Tibet and has the humanitarian aims of a dictator like Sadam Husein and supports torture. Steven Chen just took his skills to China to help the Chinese government which kills and interns millions in Stallinist style concentration camps and helped Pakistan and North Korea get an Atomic bomb. Those high tech computers he's building are being used to make better nuclear weapons. Steven Chen's ethics are on the level of a street urchin. Notice how the article mentions supercomputer applications except nuclear weapons which is one application that really uses supercomputers. Steven Chen was probably a Chinese plant though to take his knowledge back to China after he worked at Cray.
There is also evidence the Chinese reverse engineered a Cray. Chen is no different from Chinese technicians trying to steal chip designs and fly back to China after working at an American company and the blueprints.
China also supports widespread censorship of the internet and press. Freedom of speech does not exist in China. Steven Chen is promoting and supporting a China where freedom of speech
doesn't exist and an e-mail can get you 10 years. http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocac
China is also militaristic and destabilizes Asia with ambitions of power. China wants to takeover Taiwan either by military force or politically. Any attempts to declare Taiwan a separate and autonomous country are met by Chinese government attacks and threats of reprisal against the US no less. In fact Chinese influence reaches to even the hidden corridors of the White House. China wants to add Taiwan to it's territories militarily or by any other means.
Way to go Steve. Help out a corrupt Chinese government. Maybe the Dalai Lama can congratulate you.
At least Steven Chen could be working in the west and supporting economic and political reforms in China but he's doing the opposite. Steven Chen should be proud that he's helping support democracy in China by working in a corrupt and unreformed system where economic reforms do not encourage government reforms.
It seems as though the team is working primarily on the number crunching power at the moment - which is all good and well. But when queried about the AI aspect, he says that they will just have to research it, even after the interviewer points out many other people have been working on this. I think he greatly underestimates the problem! Saying that all other AI researchers have not had an integral approach is a bit lacking as an answer to me.
Put yourself together. Chinese people are not eating you, not without you cooked in our way.(see Chinese Food).
.5 billion of our folks to your neighborhood, to make the human resource, the human right, and the population, of both countries, even. this could be an idea to ease your nerve.
Seriously a diesel submaine can do nothing to endanger a carrier fleet, if not making itself a firework. and remember, american's claws has alreay been on our door in Taiwan Strait, in East sea, in Japan, in South Korea and everywhere asian. Back few years ago, it's an american spy plane which literally hit down a Chinese fight jet just few koilmeters away from China's coast. it's you, americans always want to war with someone, not Chinese.
Talking about human life, yes, human resource is inexpensive here in contrast to other part of the planet. it's just because of the number we got,it's not about the value we hold towards the human life. honestly if any possible, i hope we can move
China, in fact, is very fragile.
and he is working on a bio-supercomputer extension to human brains called THIRD-BRAIN. The THIRD-BRAIN project has significant 3 year and 5 year targets.
Why call it Third Brain? I'm not terribly familiar with Anatomy, but I thought humans only had one brain. (Well, unless you're a guy. Then you've got an extra one in your pants that does most of the thinking)
Push Button, Receive Bacon
s/China/US/
s/communist/capitalist/
s/Tibet/Iraq/
You cannot even talk about their dumb leaders after electing Bush.
Maybe someone comes up with moral enough to make speeches. This is not America, though.
I'm confused. He says it might be able to scale to 100 Tflop/s then says they expect to scale to 250 Tflop/s by next year.
Strange... Call me crazy, but this reeks of Cyber-brains from Ghost in the Shell. XP
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
Hahahahaha, bravo! :-)
Result = 42
"...he is working on a bio-supercomputer extension to human brains called THIRD-BRAIN."
Now I'm no mathematician, but aren't we missing one here? Where's the second brain?
Bonus mod-points for anyone replying "in my pants" etc. etc.
"He is now creating a supercomputer grid across China and he is working on a bio-supercomputer extension to human brains called THIRD-BRAIN"
Why did you jump from 1st brain to 3rd brain? WHERE IS THE 2nd BRAIN?
someone stole the 2nd brain! call 9-1-1!
.. so that he can run Vista
How come that China is a threat to anyone in this planet?
Have the nuked anyone?
Have they attacked defenseless poor countries?
Have they messed up other countries causing civil wars?
The colour of that kettle has nothing to do with the pot.
Keep thinking that every other country can do whatever they want because you think the US is evil, though. I'm sure someday you'll see how much of a complete tool you are. Too bad it will probably take a nuke and several tens of thousands of innocent lives first.
I've got the first shot of THIRDBRAIN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ageofsteel.jpg
A supercomputer is not better, because it is distributed. In fact distributed computing power is useless except for some very specific problems. All this "gird" nonsense does not solve a real problem, but serves to keep initiatives alive that were dead a decade ago when they were started.
An this nonsense about extending the human brain? Have we not heard enough of this in the last 30 years or so? Having ''significant goals'' will not prevent this from being another case of lying to the public....
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
As opposed to American Democratic four year non-plans which achieve nothing of historical note and abdicate national planning to corporations motivated only by profit for the shareholders?
Personally, I'd rather die for my country working on a plan of significance even if it fails, rather than live my life in the meaningless no mans land of corporate quarterly statistics.
Capitalist Democracy fosters national inaction, for if an elected body achieves something significant it only represents a risk to re-election and corporate support. The less a democratic government achieves, the more successful it is.
It is a horrifying future for humanity, and now that the meme of capitalism has spread to the formerly communist nations of Eastern Europe and Asia it represents a genuine threat to the future survival of the human race.
China's leaders ahve even RECENTLY stated their eventual goal to "defeat America". How is criticizing China "Bushian". I don't give a fat fuck what sort of economic engine they are. There's money to be made so we support an outdated corrupt regime? Fuck the geek community. You are all bought and sold by the tech world. Scumbags.
Back in the day we called it "Y2K consulting", today it's "Supercomputer grid consulting". The main difference is this guy has friends in the business whose products he will be pushing for a nice kickback, in addition to his hourly fee.
Any twit can write "Qty: 1000" next to a system order when someone else is footing the bill.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
...and from the looks of it, it appears to make people go insane... http://www.threebrain.com/
"Have they attacked defenseless poor countries?"
- One down, two to go.
Capitalism, by definition, requires infinite market growth. It just so happens however that the earth's resources are finite. The only way that capitalism can work long term is if we successfully develop interstellar travel. Unfortunately, this is extremely unlikely, as it requires national(global) planning of extreme significance (which capitalist democracy precludes) on the order of more than five years and is not initially going to be in the least profitable, therefore extremely unlikely to happen under global capitalism.
Capitalist democracy is a surefire recipe for the extinction of the human race, or as a best case, destruction of modern civilisation. Either way, global capitalist democracy as fostered by the United States will do far more harm to humanity than any communist five year plan could dream of.
The sad thing is that very few people realise this, and live blindly hurtling humanity toward destruction.
Intelligence, genius and foresight are not a boon to a person, but are a terrible curse. The feeling of helplessness and sorrow is overwhelming and crippling.
- Cliff Burton, Metallica,
How come that China is a threat to anyone in this planet?
China is to South East Asia where the United States is to the Middle East. They have the world's largest standing army, they have been blustering towards Taiwan for years. They have invaded Vietnam, after the Americans did, for even lesser reasons.
Have the nuked anyone?
No, but they have had a nuclear weapons program for 50 years now.
Have they attacked defenseless poor countries?
See Vietnam after the American involvement. See Tibet.
Have they messed up other countries causing civil wars?
See Laos. See China's various exports in arms to other third world counties. They have many a good motivations to keep the conflict brewing.
My take on China, and I'm from there, is that they would be in the United States position as a world bully if they had the technological know how to do so. They have been historically a commanding presence for thousands of years within the region since the time of the Yellow Emperor. It is culturally inherent that daughter states surround the main country, and they have been as prolific as the romans in securing land and resources that they deem fit. The only reason why anyone would want China to do well is to counteract the success of the Americans in a world wide tug of war. For a peace like that to succeed, we have to have a third party overseeing the competition, and there isn't one big enough to knock these two around. The UN can't do it, the World Banks won't do it, and there is nothing stopping the competition's fallout from harming innocent bystanders. If not for the US Navy off the Tokyo sea and the numerous naval and air force bases in the Philippines and South Korea, I don't see China playing nice for long. Your average citizen of the populace in China is entitled to less education in ethics, they have been in a cultural and spiritual void since the 5 year plans and the Cultural revolution, which has made the average citizen all the more world-ignorant.
I grew up knowing that there are Chinese people I respect. There are words of chinese thinkers that I would recite to my children as they come into understanding. I'm proud to call myself Chinese and I do love my country, but I absolutely detest the government that is a cancer upon the land now, and I only wish that the powers that keep them in check, continue to do so.
So I guess you would have been a proponent of things like the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Yeah, it was great. I hear there was even cannibalism. Or think of some of Stalin's wonderful 5-year plans. Also, the USA is not a democracy - it is a republic which uses democratic processes (I assume your comment of "four year non-plans" was referring to US presidential terms). I find it humorous that you feel the spread of capitalism to former communist areas is a "threat to the future survival [sic] of the human race." Are you serious? Certainly, capitalism has its flaws and will someday (hopefully) be replaced with a better system. But do you truly believe that communism is the answer? Why don't you look at the record of communism? Do you really believe that Stalin's artificial famines are better than capitalism's corporate farms? Instead of expressing your admittedly warranted anger at the US's policies in an ignorant fashion you should do some research so that you are able to add to the discussion/process in a reasonable and thought-out manner.
Don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon.
Actually, diesel-electrics are said to be much quieter and harder to detect than nuclear submarines. I remember reading a few years ago that an Australian diesel-electric, in exercises, was took out the carrier in a carrier group.
i ne
0 82993693.html
Ah, here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collins_class_submar
In a 2003 joint naval exercise, three Collins-class submarines reportedly "sank" two American Los Angeles class attack submarines and a US aircraft carrier, supporting the claims of defect resolution and combat effectiveness
Here's a description of the US/Australian exercise: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/23/1064
--Pat
I'm surprised that nobody's asked about why there's no mention of a SECOND BRAIN? Has china already developed that one? Or are they just skipping a brain?
As opposed to American Democratic four year non-plans which achieve nothing of historical note and abdicate national planning to corporations motivated only by profit for the shareholders?
Might I add that this abdication has turned out to be wildly successful? Most things should be turned over to busiensses (not just corporations which are but a category of private enterprise). I don't need a "four year plan" to live my life.
Personally, I'd rather die for my country working on a plan of significance even if it fails, rather than live my life in the meaningless no mans land of corporate quarterly statistics.
Get a job that you like even if it's at a non-profit rather than an evil corporation. Do something useful with your life. It's your choice anyway.
It is a horrifying future for humanity, and now that the meme of capitalism has spread to the formerly communist nations of Eastern Europe and Asia it represents a genuine threat to the future survival of the human race.
Right. Some aspects of this "horrifying future": end to poverty, the technology to address things like global warming, and an end to wars like those of the 20th Century. Keep it coming.> "bio-supercomputer extension to human brains"
Um... I'm from dairy country, and have learned to identify bullshit quite accurately.
Especially when a cow-pie crawls up your leg and bites you on the ass.
Sir, I have been bitten.
It's nice to know Chen is selling out to our mortal enemy.
Just like Prescott Bush supporting the NATZIs during WW2.
That's it give the Chinese military all of our technology They own us anyway.
Now those are Real Americans.
Land of the Sheep
Home of the Slaves
Thank You for Shopping at Wal*Mart.
Sue
When it's Time
It's Time
And
It may be sooner then you think.
``only a boatload of unfounded confidence.''
Well, isn't that what made America so great?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Maybe ten years ago it required a national plan, today individuals & companies are making their way into space and space travel. Maybe you missed the story that the $20 million tickets to space are SOLD OUT until 2009 I think that demostrated market demand is what Virgin & that other guy are hoping to sell their space traveling ticket to.
As people aquire more wealth and free time, they will be able to fund more exotic items like space travel.
Yes, I agree capitalism has flaws... what system doesn't? Corruption is a difficult thing to counter, even in a system with checks&balances.
Ignorance is bliss.. or "I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandpa... not kicking & screaming like the passengers in his car."
If the govt becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites man to become his own law, it invites anarchy
Sounds great! Who's going to be the first sucker- er- I mean brave volunteer to beta test it?
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
he designed the Cray XMP in US, now the one he worked on in China is a new design.
i think what you meant should be "his technology"...
They're going to call it HAL 9000, right?
This is in no small part due to government agricultural subsidies, but the fact that these subsidies continue despite the fact that they actively undermine our health has to say something about the power our government grants business.
Meanwhile, the wages of the poorest 40% of Americans have hardly budged since the 1970s, while the richest 1% of Americans now own about half the wealth in this country. Is that the sort of economy anyone would plan, or anyone would ask for? Besides the aforementioned 1%, I mean.
In a way, we have the worst sort of mix of private and public: a government which allows business to write its rules. Capitalism is no more a panacea than communism. Global capitalism isn't all prosperity and health and flat-screen TVs; it also brings wage arbitrage, huge wealth inequalities, unsustainable overconsumption, sweatshop labor, and a host of other problems. In your rush to defend the good aspects of the free market, you shouldn't ignore its pitfalls and limitations.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Have they attacked defenseless poor countries?
China attacked and took over Tibet. The Dalai Lama has been exiled from his own country. They attacked a poor neighbor Tibet and annexed them and treated them as a Chinese province. Tibet as a nation no longer exists.
China has also provided aid to both the Vietnamese and the North Koreans. So they have indirectly caused civil wars and helped spread communism. China is also a threat to Taiwanese independence and security.
Interstellar travel is an entirely different matter, it is significantly more expensive and there is no return trip. Its one way, I'm pretty sure people will not pay for that. Its going to take certain kind of person to be willing to make the one way trip that may not even succeed, and will likely require genetic engineering of the human species. It will not be a matter of choice.
Launching people to extreme sub-orbital altitudes and calling it space-tourism is trivial. Comparing Virgin's self serving bullshit scheme to the magnitude of planning and expense required for interstellar travel is comical.
Yes I am serious, capitalism poses a real and fatal threat to the future of humanity. Communism never has and never will pose such a threat.
This is the standard response when people are presented with the critical and fatal flaws of capitalism - attack communism.
Sorry, the fact remains that capitalism is unsustainable and will most likely destroy the human race or at a minimum modern civilisation. That is too hard for most Americans to accept, so they deny it and attack communism by pointing out its past failures.
You will notice that I do not suggest that communism is the answer, just that capitalism certainly is not.
The evil of capitalism is far more insidious, and far more detrimental to the future of the human race than communism ever could be.
You attitude is exactly the problem and is why the future of humanity is doomed.
P.S. You have misused 'sic'; it is used to indicate a spelling or grammatical error in quoted text, neither of which was present tin the text of mine you quoted. Perhaps your research, education and knee-jerk response of denial and attack could use a little more work than my well thought out and irrefutable argument.
5. Profit!
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You missed the point - capitalism is the threat to the future of humanity. It is what virtually guarantees that global warming will exterminate us. If not that, then some other environmental disaster which will result from the unbelievably naive idea that the market can grow indefinitely on a finite resource base. As long as we do not have successful interstellar colonization, capitalism is irresponsible and a recipe for disaster. By definition capitalism is incapable of achieving successful interstellar colonization.
End to poverty? Clearly you do not understand how capitalism works. Capitalism requires poverty to work.
Capitalism as a solution to global warming? Laughable. Show me the profit in that.
And end to wars like those of the 20th century? Just wait, you have not seen anything yet. Capitalism is the perfect machine for war.
The problem with the abdication of plans for humanity to corporations governed by the principles of capitalism, is that they are not responsible and accountable to the people, they can hide behind puppet governments giving the people the illusion of control over their nation and the future of humanity. Sorry, but the "invisible hand" is not adequate for this juncture in history, we need planning with intelligence behind it, not the haphazard and irresponsible philosophy of the market.
I have thought this through completely over decades, capitalism is fatally flawed and extremely dangerous to the future of humanity. You'd think by now I would have learned that it is futile to try and convince people of that, but every so often my sense of responsibility and altruism compels me to point it out once again, perhaps some people will eventually get it. If not, then at least I have tried.
wtf? for the last time, America = Liberalism. drop your guns or die! why cant anyone understand that?! If all the armies in the world would accept this do you think there would be any more war? no because the age of cannibalism is OVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER
Intelligence, genius and foresight are not a boon to a person, but are a terrible curse.
:)
Consider yourself lucky to never have been afflicted with such a horrible condition
What?
(sorry, but it is true, I call it like I see it)
Maybe a trip to the optometrist is in order?
What?
How can you honestly claim that China is not a threat to its neighbors when they have flatly refused to give up annexing Taiwan by military might?
depression... when it happens to me, i call it depression.... unfortunately, i have found nothing which can fix it.
Does it go on forever?
In Chinese, computer is translated as "electronic brain."
So this is the 3rd generation. Human, (super-)computer, super-computer grid?
The 'sic' was in response to your use of 'future survival.' It is obvious that any survival is necessarily in the future - thus you repeat yourself when you use it. I also believe that I was quite clear in saying that I hope capitalism is one day replaced with something better. I also "attacked" communism because you say that it is superior to capitalism - this is foolish and you seem unable to address any of the specific points I made about failures in communism. Also - I find your attribution of a certain 'attitude' to myself to be funnier even than your assertion that communism is better than capitalism. Once again I must suggest that you do your research so that you are able to add constructively to the process and not resort to ad hominem attacks about my "attitude." What exactly do you think should replace capitalism? P.S. - I did not misuse 'sic' - from dictionary.com - denote that a word, phrase, passage, etc., that may appear strange or incorrect has been written intentionally or has been quoted verbatim.
Don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon.
If you need anyone to write "your google", you know where to find us. We'll be happy to assist a government with 500M people who's looking after their interests and don't sell info to the CIA.
huge wealth inequalities
I've never understood this point.
There are huge inequalities in the world in intelligence, in musical ability, athletic ability, application, perseverance, etc.
Why would anyone expect that moneymaking ability should be different from all the other abilities? I mean do you complain that musical ability in the world is unfairly distributed?
They've threatened to nuke the US and other countries.
They stole the Trident missile and B2 tech to be sure that they can.
They've started civil wars in most of the countries surrounding them, and in Central and Latin America, as well as in the Sudan in Africa.
They have over 900 missiles aimed at the free Republic of China on the Island of Formosa, and regularly threaten to invade and enslave the tens of millions who live there.
They've murdered 50-100 million of their own population
They murdered at least 10,000 peacefully-protesting students at Tien an Men Square.
They brutally occupied many nations, including Tibet, East Turkmenistan, Inner Mongolia and Manchuria.
In other words, the key problems are in areas where we don't have free markets, but substantial government interference which in turn results in a lot of rent-seeking and other behavior that concentrates wealth and even harms the health of US citizens.
PS, why do people keep refering to Cuba like the comparison were valid? Cuba (and other dictatorships like it) is know to distort statistics like this. And the statistics aren't the same. For example, stillbirths aren't routinely counted as infant deaths, and there are a number of premature babies with serious health problems born in the US that would be counted as stillbirths in Cuba.You missed the point - capitalism is the threat to the future of humanity. It is what virtually guarantees that global warming will exterminate us. If not that, then some other environmental disaster which will result from the unbelievably naive idea that the market can grow indefinitely on a finite resource base. As long as we do not have successful interstellar colonization, capitalism is irresponsible and a recipe for disaster. By definition capitalism is incapable of achieving successful interstellar colonization.
You are batting around a strawman. Capitalism is merely an efficient way to move around "scarce" (ie, finite) resources. Externalities like carbon dioxide emissions are easy to factor in. Just make the cost of emitting a unit of CO2 (through taxes or a carbon market) equivalent to the actual cost it imposes. Growth is merely an outlook or expectation of the future. I think it is justified because of the massive amount of infrastructure both physical and social, and elevating billions of people out of poverty. Ie, the economy of the world is growing and has been doing so for centuries in terms of resources, infrastructure, technology, and population. If at some point, growth stops, then capitalism is an great way to adjust expectations to a zero growth world.
End to poverty? Clearly you do not understand how capitalism works. Capitalism requires poverty to work.
No, it merely requires that the parties have material needs and have something to trade in exchange. Having an extreme need is counterproductive since that often forces the party to resort to tactics like theft or extortion that undermine capitalism and can destroy infrastructure.
Capitalism as a solution to global warming? Laughable. Show me the profit in that.
There will be considerable profit in replacement and sequestration technologies once fossil fuel burning becomes expensive either due to global warming costs or "peak oil" scenarios.
And end to wars like those of the 20th century? Just wait, you have not seen anything yet. Capitalism is the perfect machine for war.
Yes, it is for producing war material. But wars are also vastly unprofitable for capitalist societies as a whole. It breaks expensive things including people who will require expensive care. And the risks involved are extraordinary. My take is that we won't see serious wars between two capitalist societies unless one or both are extremely unhealthy and on the verge of breaking down.
The problem with the abdication of plans for humanity to corporations governed by the principles of capitalism, is that they are not responsible and accountable to the people, they can hide behind puppet governments giving the people the illusion of control over their nation and the future of humanity. Sorry, but the "invisible hand" is not adequate for this juncture in history, we need planning with intelligence behind it, not the haphazard and irresponsible philosophy of the market.
Puppet governments? So you're really saying is that as usual the problem is in badly managed government not in some concept of capitalism? And why should "the people" automatically have a say in what a business does? Most of the time, it's simply not relevant to society what a business does as long as they conform to the laws of the land. For a government, virtually everyone pays for and receives some sort of benefit from government. So it matters what that government does and they should have a say in its operation. But a business often has a very narrow scope. Eg, it sells flavored carbonated water. So it's affairs really matter only to the customers, employees, owners, and anyone else who happens to have some sort of dealing with that business. Capitalism provides a great means by which to mediate between the interests of those parties without involving society or government in it.
I have thought this through completely over decades, capitalism is fatally flawed and extremely dangerous to the
> WHERE IS THE 2nd BRAIN?
s _3_32/ai_54504396h tm
In your gut.
The enteric nervous system is a bunch of neurons in the lining of your digestive system that are complex enough to be called a brain in their own right.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/i
http://www.aikidoaus.com.au/dojo/docs/2nd_braina.
The Chinese get their money to invest in this stuff because we keep purchasing cheap shit at Walmart. I'm not picking on Walmart per se it's just that we are addicted to buying cheaply made gizmatrons made in China a cut rate prices and we gota have them. We are boosting the Chi Coms by doing this and 1. I read the other day that some clown had sold the Chi Coms the plans to the steal bomber and now this, what a great deal, they got our telemetry and guidance systems thanks to Former Pres. Clinton and now the bomber shit and with this third brain crap the'll use it to bury us
Paul E. Bahre
Wasn't the "Third Brain" a Macguffin in the Spykids franchise?
That's a completely different issue. Eugenics aside, we have no control over the distribution of the talents you listed. But as a society, we have a lot of control over how wealth is distributed.
If you're trying to say that some of these attributes just naturally lead to making more money, then I'd agree. I'm fine with the fact that one person can earn more than another. What I have a problem with is income that is not earned: income generated entirely by ownership of some business, property, etc. I'm an unrepentant communist, in the sense that I believe that the wealth generated by a business should go to the people doing the work, and that mere ownership confers little value.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Here's a challenge: Name me the country that has fewer controls on its health care system, yet delivers better health outcomes. I can name plenty of countries where people live longer, and plenty where less is spent per capita. But in all those cases, the government is more in control of how health care is distributed, not less.
Come to think of it, name the free market paradise where the food industry is both lightly regulated and primarily devoted to delivering the sort of food that will keep people healthy, instead of clogging arteries and turning its citizens into porkers.
I have little hope that this free market utopianism, if implemented, could do anything beyond lining the pockets of the rich. Meanwhile, every country I perceive as having a better quality of life has a more stringent approach to regulating business than the U.S.
While it's not easy to compare infant mortality rates between the two countries, it's safe to say that Cuba has an impressive health care system. Cubans live about as long as we do, even though we spend more per person on health care than Cubans spend on everything put together.
Further, unless Cuba is flat-out lying about their infant mortality numbers (not just adding them up differently), they're doing stunningly well with regard to infant mortality. The U.S.--which has far greater resources to tackle the problem--is a pathetic underachiever by comparison.
Some of America's poor performance may be attributable to different ways of collecting statistics, and to more active intervention in the cases of very high-risk births. But you're ignoring the role played by inadequate prenatal care, poor nutrition, poverty, and inadequate access to health care. It's hard to respect such a Panglossian attitude when there are plenty of better outcomes staring us in the face. Cuba, for its many faults, shows what can come of a government that is devoted to ensuring that everyone has access to basic medical care. The United States, for all its wonders, delivers terrible health outcomes at exorbitant rates, because it marries an obsession with technological gadgetry and a complete lack of interest in making sure that everyone has the basics.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Canada. Gets the best of both worlds. Access to cheap government subsidized health care, and just south is the US.