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U.S. Cities Don't Make the Intelligence Cut
coondoggie writes "For the second year running, no U.S. city has made the list of the world's top Intelligent Communities of 2007, as selected by global think tank Intelligent Community Forum. The ICF selects the Intelligent Community list based on how advanced the communities are in deploying broadband, building a knowledge-based workforce, combining government and private-sector "digital inclusion," fostering innovation and marketing economic development."
Did I miss something? I was watching American Idol.
This is not my sandwich.
As based on Broadband deployment?
Instead of basing it on say, the intelligence of the community.
But, it was part of the Pacific Telecommunications Council, so I'm sure they have an agenda somewhere.
My twitter
The ICF met and announced this list as part of the 29th annual Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) conference
This is a political ploy by Telecoms to push governments into subsidizing broadband. It is trolling, just like "You are not intelligent if you don't use vi/java/rails/xml/etc." We've been -1trolled.
Table-ized A.I.
Oh, curses! Our synergystic engineerification of innovationist intelligent-making just can't keep up with the likes of Dundee, Scotland!
The Intelligent Community Forum is basically rating cities on how much they consume the services of the IT people who make up the forum. Think of it as marketing for the IT 'Guild.'
It has little to do with the actual overall quality of a community in anyway except the dollar amount of the IT salaries they pay out of tax money. Though, I suppose, slashdot would be the place for this sort of thing.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
"The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) is a nonprofit think tank that focuses on job creation and economic development in the broadband economy."
This is not an objective measure of how "intelligent" a community is, it's an objective measure of what broadband policies will make the global technocratic elite supporters of the institute the most money. And the "Digital Inclusiveness" blurb means "How can we get more money from taxpayers to line our pockets?"
But I'm sure they appreciate the free advertising. In fact, I would say that was worth $25,000 of free advertizing for them, which means that now Slashdot will have to register as a paid lobbyist. Oh wait, that bill was defeated.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
That's nothing that a few nukes can't solve.
-Dave
Causally related, but the topic was introduced by a troll, so I prefer to reintroduce it more seriously... The topic is the problems with public education in the States as a contributing factor to the decline of America.
Public education works fine in many countries--the ones that take the future seriously enough. Mostly that means funding the public education system with a better economic model than property taxes and bond-based borrowing. Educating your citizens is a great investment and those educated citizens become great assets for any civilization above hunting and gathering. Well, actually even the hunters and gatherers can benefit from knowledge of what to hunt and what not to gather, but they're too busy trying to stay alive to worry about public schools.
My own experiences are with the American and Japanese public education systems. Just to deal with the easy topic first, the Japanese education system is quite good, and the bulk of it is public. The main distortions are in the private senior high schools and the cram schools. However, before you start crying about the relatively minor imperfections (compared to the present state of American public education), you better remember the Japanese educational system was to a great degree patterned on American models, both in Meiji times and again after the war. (And yes, I know Japan didn't have a winner this year, either, but it's the data point I have. However, that mostly disproves the OT's (Original Troll's) point blaming public education.)
For the American system, my experience is much more complicated. At the low levels I was in extremely good public schools through high school--but in a district that was one of the richest in the country at the time. I think we were No.2 for the entire nation on a per/student basis. Just an accident that the entire large area had been zoned residential, and those residential property taxes were being collected, but it was mostly vacant lots. Over the years the houses got built, the students arrived, the per/student money dropped to an average level, and the public schools dropped too. It's not the case that money always makes a difference, but it certainly is a major influence, and many of my important school experiences would not have happened except that my schools had the money at that time. That point is reinforced by my experience at one of the richest public universities, which was an awful school. My other degree was from a smaller private university that I regard as vastly superior to the enormous state school. Money isn't enough to counteract a staunchly conservative educational philosophy dedicated to forcing the students into the smallest possible mental boxes.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
There's a lot more educational content on YouTube than you'll ever find on most American TV channels.
There are numerous foreign language courses on YouTube, for instance. There's a lot of foreign language content, as well, which is very valuable when trying to learn another language. In America, you'll rarely find anything other than English or Spanish being used in the vast, vast majority of TV programming.
There are also a number of instructional videos that teach one how to play various musical instruments. Again, that's something you just won't see on American TV.
If all you watch on YouTube is Family Guy clips and anime, no, you probably won't become any more intelligent. But if you use YouTube to access content that you'd never see on American TV, then you likely will become wiser, more talented, and better aware of the world around you.
That's nothing, Paco! My *apartment* beats the flying fuck out of every nation on the planet: 100% broadband penetration. 100% employed in the IT field. 8:1 computer to user ratio. All this despite having a GDP several orders of magnitude smaller than any nation on the planet.
Estonia's land area is smaller than 41 of the 50 US states. It has a lower population tha 40 of the 50 US states. Maybe it would be wise to consider the challenges in deploying a cellular service to a massive country vs. to a tiny country.
Finally you ought to consider what it really means to improve your life.
If you want talk "beating pants off technologically" you might want to take a look see about which countries make high performance micro processors.
The reason Estonia advanced its cellular technology so fast was because the existing Soviet era landline system was a mess and inadequate for the communication needs of the country. People had been on waiting lists for phones for years. When further investment in the infrastructure was available, cellphones were already on the scene so it made sense to focus there instead of on an outdated system.
That's because Canada is two nations, not just one.
Where's the list of the world's dumbest cities? I'd like to move to one of them and use my moderate intelligence to take over.
Actually, Estonia, also known as E-stonia, prides itself on being an extremely high-tech nation.