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US No Longer Technology King
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that according to a recent report from the World Economic Forum the US has lost the leading spot for technology innovation. The new reigning champ is now apparently Denmark with other Nordic neighbors Sweden, Finland and Norway all claiming top spots as well. "Countries were judged on technological advancements in general business, the infrastructure available and the extent to which government policy creates a framework necessary for economic development and increased competitiveness."
It appears it's mostly based on that... but then we all know this country sucks there in regards to Europe and Asia. As soon as the FCC stops sucking up to the big telecom corps and opens up the spectrum, the game is on again.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Since the eighties, when Japan began to take over U.S. role on technology, and U.S. started to focus more on services, this was something predictable. Sometimes people forget that there is no way to be prosper doing each others laundry
When a society decides that corporations are priviledged citizens, corporations decide that profit and Tax Evasion matter more than Education, how can the country NOT fall behind in technology?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
In some respects that's not too far from the truth, but at the rate we're losing those freedoms I figure they'll eventually stop hating us.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
One small think they left off -- marginal tax rates. High rates like Sweden positively drive innovators away.
If anybody doubts that we have lost our edge in the technology arena let me ask you one question:
Name one complete sub-assembly inside of your computer which had the majority of the R&D and Fabrication done in the USA.
Of that sub-assembly (assuming you have named one), which components are utilizing NEW technology developed here in the USA.
I would like to know why the USA (given a dedicated effort) could not take back the crown of technology power house without doing so by stifling our competition over seas.
There has to be enough room in the future technology development for us to foster and train our citizens to come up with new concepts which will not rely on foreign brains, labor, or money to develop, market, and sell.
Until the US fixes its priorities we're going to continue to fall. Perhaps the US can keep buying talent from other nations, with H1-B visas, but unless the scientists are given fruitful environments they simply aren't going to come up with anything new or revolutionary. What encouragement do the nation's thinkers have to keep improving their ideas when the laurels and rewards are going only to the people who manage them like a column of assets? It's plain demoralizing to continually refine a product for a year only to see executive support lost and funding slashed. Graduate students and post-docs, while they provide a significant source of intellectual labor, cannot compete with happy and eager experienced scientists in other parts of the world.
Extreme levels of government regulation, oversight, interaction, and micromanaging are probably a significant contributor to the death of American technological innovation as well.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
The first thing I would critique about this (amongst many others) is that it is a ranked list. At least in the BBC summary, it doesn't describe the objective rankings of the countries.
For example, if it was on a 100 point scale, the US could have slipped from, say, 99.9 to 99.8, and that would have been enough to slip from first to seventh. Or maybe the objective score would have been a much larger slide. Maybe the US objectively climbed, but just not at the same rate as the other countries. Being that all ten of the top countries have the same mature technological apparatus, I am imagining that whatever shuffling took place in the ratings was rather minor. The actual differences between technology adaption between the US and Iceland might be almost indistinguishable.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Isn't it a global marketplace now? Who cares what 'your country' is doing. Just be the best you can be in your field and you'll be fine. Life will go on even if you can't wave a big flag saying your country is better than somebody else's. Be proud of what *you* can do.
Like software, Education and Immigration should be free and open. Providing innovation a fertile breeding ground.
I think that the cost of Education in the US has a big impact on this too. Sadly, a college degree has become a status symbol in the US for "upper class" citizens. A lot of people can't afford a student loan that is sometimes more than their mortgage!
A lot of European countries offer good incentives for people to study, including paying a state allowance for university students.
I'm not up to date on European immigration policy, but I'm sure it would be much more relaxed than the US when it comes to skilled labor. I couldn't imagine it being any more tighter.
Well, that's my 2 cents worth anyways...
Dark fiber isn't useful for pushing out broadband. The dark fiber is just extra fiber that was run alongside lit fiber (because the incremental cost is very low) when they were installing the backbones. If the backbone owners find that they need more bandwidth, they'll use that dark fiber. There's no lack of bandwidth on the backbones; it's with the "last mile" connections to homes and businesses, which requires some type of new infrastructure to be installed.
'What country has landed on the moon?'
38 years ago.
'What country invented the transistor, and later the microchip?'
Over 50 years ago.
'What country harnessed electricity, and set up the first electric lights?'
You'd be surprised. But that was over 120 years ago.
'What country set up the first assembly line, and mass produced the automobile?'
Again, 100 years ago.
'What country split the atom?'
63 years ago.
Now.
Which of the wealthy industrialized countries has the highest percentage of poor?
Which has least progressive taxation, ie rich pay higher percentage, indeed, pay taxes at all.
Which has lowest average wages.
Which has declining participation in the wealth generated by labor.
Which has worst ratio superrich to general population.
Which has giant trade imbalance.
Which has largest debt.
Which has biggest tax breaks for wealthiest people.
Which has collapsing real estate market.
Which has no manufacturing capacity for its own markets.
Which has worst schools.
Which has largest percentage of permanent poor.
Which has poorest representation of science in government.
Which has most money wasted on military and spy networks.
Which has religious belief that markets cure anything.
Which lost a major city and told its people to go to hell for being poor and stupid.
Which has the highest per capita spending on health care with the worst per capita coverage. Add: Which has businesses taking 30 percent or more of the health care expenditures as admin costs and profit.
Which has worst sex education, teen pregnancy rate and STD infection rate.
Which has worst newborn death rate.
Which has collapsing science funding.
Which has had science infiltrated by the operatives of a political party.
Which has a population so uneducated and unimaginative that they only finished 1/4 of a space station and forgot to build a shuttle to get to it. And can't understand why that would matter.
Which economy is about to explode, sinking belly up?
Which nation is exceedingly wealthy and well educated because they nationalized their oil fields, keeping all the profits? That would be Norway.
Which countries tax high, have excellent labor representation in business decisions, has excellent health care at reasonable cost, low poverty rates, lowest teen birth rates and STD infection rates, and now lead the world in tech development? Why, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and all the other countries mentioned.
Apparently the people of a nation taking control of their futures through their representative governments do better than those who abdicate their control to be ruled by corporate business. Who would have thought it.
One thing i think that has been overlooked in this discussion is the number of amazing institutions. If you compare the number of elite research institutions in the United States to anywhere else the US does extremely well. While this is certainly only one factor in a nations "technology ranking" the amount of research these universities generate and the highly educated people they churn out is undeniable a huge positive force for the US.
Yea, all the whiney stuff about losing our tech edge... really man, get over it. How about something that really counts, like high scores on Grand Theft Auto? We rule dude. When it comes to whacking cops and hos and stealin stuff, we are like so totally NUMBER ONE! We are the numero uno video game nation! The USA is also top of the heap in pizza, and drinks with cool names like "cocaine", and shopping malls. And stuff like SUVs and MP3 players. You Euro-smack talkers ever look and see where your iPod comes from? Silicone valley usa, dude. And where do you think Star Wars came from? France? Sheesh. They're not even allowed to use cameras anymore. Where else can you see American Idle or a Billy Ray Cirrhosis show? Huh? Not London hon. No way. Cause we are just too bitchin.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
We now have a President who is "Born Again", and recognizes Christ as his personal saviour. His old Attorney General, John Ashcroft, a devout Assemblies of God member, used to anoint himself with oil. We have many members of Congress, both in the Senate and the House, who are ordained ministers in their churches. Some are LDS Bishops. I would venture to say that the percentage of devout Christians holding office in various levels of government in the US exceeds that of the general population. Which oath do they hold to? Their duty to country, or to a church?
You've got people who firmly believe that the US Constitution states that the USA is a Christian nation. I've got in-laws who used to believe that I was damned to Hell because I was raised Catholic and not a member of the Church of Christ.
We have a member of the Texas House who firmly believes that the Earth is the center of the Universe, and that we never landed a man on the moon, and that satellites are held in orbit by magnetism, not gravity - because Newton's Laws are wrong and he can prove it. http://www.fixedearth.com/geosynchronous_sa.htm (I had to post that link because it's a hoot. His proof is that a LaGrange point is where gravity stops because it's where it balances out. Give the man a Nobel!)
We had an Army General (2 star?) who fervently believed we would win in Iraq because his God is greater than their God, Allah. Someone forgot to tell him they're one and the same. Jehovah, too.
These are the people who've been running this nation for the last dozen years or so. Their's are the people who backed a "Crusade" in the Middle East, thinking we'd set them "free".
Oh. And that CUNY study? Does it take into account that many black Southern Baptists are becoming Muslims? And the biggest immigrant groups in the US today are Hispanic Catholics (and Protestants) and Muslims from the Middle East and SE Asia?
Just because the percentage of people identifying themselves as Christians has gone down (how accurate is that study) does not mean that the number of people who identify themselves as religious has gone down. Or that the percentage who identify themselves as Born Again has gone down.
I don't need to cite references. All you need to do is get out of your ivory tower (sorry, that actually sounds religious!) and look around. Wake up. You're missing an entire country out there!
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
Whoa, whoa. You were doing ok until here, where you slip up. It is perfectly reasonable to assume, given the existence of early Buddhists, that there was a Buddha. Was he in fact in possession of all of the traits they attributed to him? Probably not, from a skeptical outlook - most likely, he was just a very smart, insightful and charismatic individual. Likewise Jesus. The scant evidence does not prove he exists, but the simplest explanation is that such a person - not necessarily a divine one - did, in fact, exist. Don't mix up the existence of the supernatural Christ with a human Jesus. Don't compare the existence of the human Jesus to the existence of Xenu, these are completely different issues.
Scientology - there was a Ron L. Hubbard. Mormonism - there was a Joseph Smith. Religious movements nearly always start with a powerful leader figure. As skeptics, we would view those people as ('merely') exceptional human beings, not divine or supernatural as the adherents of those faiths would. But let's not deny the likely existence of the individual itself.