China Plans to Surpass the U.S. in Nanotech Development

SoyChemist writes "Sociologists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting have reported that China is making major investments in nanotechnology. Their aim is to 'leapfrog' past the United States in technological development by focusing on long-ranging scientific goals. So far, the Chinese government has poured about $400 million into the young field of research. Considering the low cost of equipment and labor over there, that is a very large sum of money, and China's investment is expected to 'rise considerably.'"

Comments

Unfortunately,

[wcpalmer]

I see this being a place where the US will always lag behind due to conservative Christianity and the whole "don't play God" thing.

Not trying to troll, but this sort of research and development is going to happen regardless. Other countries will take up the slack and fill any gap we do not.

Re:Unfortunately,

[taupin]

If the Chinese government actually does put its weight behind this plan, I don't see that there's much the U.S. can do : China has the advantage of much cheaper labor, equipment, and so on and so forth, in addition to an extremely powerful, centralized government that is not at all afraid to use that power.

Re:Unfortunately,

[iNaya]

I wouldn't say that at all. The United States puts more money into nanotechnology investment in the world. Per capita, the leader is Taiwan. This was at least true in 2004, where the federal government invested $1.6 billion, and the private sector about $1.7 billion, more than half of world wide private investment in nano-tech. I'm guessing now: but, I'd say that the funding from both sectors has probably increased significantly since then.

Re:Unfortunately,

[DigiShaman]

Since when does developing nano technology require brute force cheap labor and low tech equipment?

Nano Tech will require bright minds and very highend industrial technology. Currently, the US leads China in both fields.

Re:Unfortunately,

[mochan_s]

I think it's more akin to pouring water into sand to build a pool.

China does not have a research base and trying to "leapfrog" without a base makes no sense. (research base in terms of university research structure and the experts)

NSF gets $6-7 billion a year. What is $400 million spread over 5 years.

Re:Unfortunately,

[rolfwind]

I don't know if the equipment is much cheaper. A lot of precision scientific equipment comes from Germany, Japan and America still -- which China does not make (yet).

What scares people about China is not that it is getting ahead but that we're open to their citizens but they are not really open to us (for instance, no foreign companies can have more than 49% ownership in a domestic company over there).

In some ways, other than the cheap doo-dads, it seems like a one sided relationship and that in the long term only China will benefit from it.

In the end, all great countries have declined. This has happened to China as well in the past. From what I see in history, it's usually when a people, as a whole, want to live for today with no thought of tomorrow.

It can be achieved by living off the riches of their past instead of working/producing themselves which got their predecessors to where they were. It's seen in our media companies who can't bear the thought of letting go of old systems or even 80 year old cartoons (Steamboat Willy), songs, etcetera. It's seen in many rich families too - the 1st generation works hard and brings in the billions, the second generation generally doesn't have to work quite as hard but enough to keep the empire afloat, and the 3rd generation tends to squander the luxury they grew up with. You can see the same trend in successful immigrant families as well.

Nationwide -- just look at the deficits being run up this year (3 trillion dollar budget!) -- the politicians are directly mortgaging our and our children's future for some frivolous spending today -- and there will be consequences even though they seem distant -- extremely high taxes or high inflation wiping out the middle class.

America isn't falling behind because of China's size. Switzerland never really looked America enviously and wistfully wondered if only they had our size and population, what great things they could achieve technologically - they are the leaders in many technological areas of the world. And China only surpassed Germany as top exporter recently even though Germany has less than 1/15 the population.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/BUSINESS/11/23/wto.germany.role/index.html

It's generally in the attitude of the leaders and people as a whole. Not the size of the country.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

due to conservative Christianity and the whole "don't play God" thing.

Would you like some more straw? I am not one to defend the nutcases who make such arguments, but as a group conservative Christians have been fairly quiet on this issue.

Re:Unfortunately,

[TubeSteak]

Nano Tech will require bright minds and very highend industrial technology. Currently, the US leads China in both fields. First: I don't think I know a single person in the fields of math or science who hasn't had a professor from China. If they're good enough to teach you, in your country, they've probably got a few left over for their own industry at home.

Second: How much high end equipment does the USA import from China?
And you're trying to suggest they don't have industrial technology?

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

Bright minds and high-end industrial technology in the US?
Is that a joke?
US is lagging behind Europe and Japan on both fields, I am sorry. They are at least 10 years in front of us.
But by your "Fortunate Son" show of prejudice about China, I don't think you know much about that...
Unfortunately, sing "Star Spangled Banner" and praise the massacres of civilians in Iraq won't help our nation's scientific advancement...

Re:Unfortunately,

[haystor]

This field requires the type of labor that moves to the US.

This sort of labor is exactly what the H1B is meant for.

Re:Unfortunately,

[peter52]

I am not too sure that China will surpass the U.S. anytime soon.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Hognoxious]

I am not too sure that China will surpass the U.S. anytime soon.

... and even if they do, it'll be our turn to copy from them.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Trogre]

I don't know, but I still find this funny:

"
Designed by Apple in California
Made in China
"

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

To develop, yes. But when the time comes for me to buy some nanotubes of my own, I'm going to Walmart.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious? What Neo-Con Fox News rock have you been hiding under?

Re:Unfortunately,

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Yeah the difference between china and america - freedom you know (including, obviously, the freedom to be a conservative christian or an atheist by choice), is a real hurdle to development. Let's kill it !

Re:Unfortunately,

[mrbluze]

Currently, the US leads China in both fields. But China needn't fear, as the US is doing everything it can from its side to reverse the situation.

Re:Unfortunately,

[seasunset]

What scares people about China is not that it is getting ahead but that we're open to their citizens but they are not really open to us (for instance, no foreign companies can have more than 49% ownership in a domestic company over there). The same happens in some areas in... the United States. I remember a few months ago Richard Branson, the UK flamboyant tycoon, trying to start up a Virgin brand Airliner in the US and having problems because the "majority of capital has to be American"

Re:Unfortunately,

[lee1026]

Assuming, of course, that the US simply don't just hire away all of their best and brightest, like it have been for a long time now. How do you think those professors got here in the first place?

Re:Unfortunately,

[kahei]

Currently, the US imports from China in both fields. I'm sure China doesn't export EVERYTHING.

I will admit that the US and Japan did lead China in high-end industrial and scientific machinery until very recently, and the US and Japan between them did 99% of the research in areas such as high-speed turbines and whatnot. But since all that stuff was basically shipped to China in the 90s in exchange for cash, the playing field is level again.

Re:Unfortunately,

[splashbot]

Maybe thats why the U.S. is the leading force in most areas of science today, just maybe, maybe its a coincidence, maybe.

Re:Unfortunately,

[blackest_k]

Nano Tech will require bright minds and very highend industrial technology. Currently, the US leads China in both fields. Surely the vast difference in numbers mean china is almost certain to have more bright minds than the usa.

China is in a better position to ensure the brightest minds get developed to their full potential, they will be state funded and they will go to the best universities, even if they happen to be american universities.

As for highend industrial technology, where is this technology being manufactured ... yes china pretty much along with korea and other Asian country's.

Some of america's brightest minds may be in ghetto's and trailer parks, are they going to get the access they need to be brought to their full potential?

Re:Unfortunately,

[somersault]

How is nanotech playing God any more than other methods of medical treatment, such as antidepressants and other behavioural modification drugs for example? I somehow doubt that ethics are the main stumbling block in the field of nanotechnology at the moment. In genetic engineering sure, but nanotech doesn't always have to do with genetics?

Re:Unfortunately,

[kamapuaa]

(for instance, no foreign companies can have more than 49% ownership in a domestic company over there).

This is not true. Foreign companies may own 100% of Chinese companies. Foreigners may operate businesses in China. In industries considered vital to the nation, foreign ownership is limited - for instance banking, oil, transportation, telecommunication. The US, which has the world's most liberal policies in terms of foreign ownership, has similar limits in place, and in the case of banking, China's policy is more liberal.

In the end, all great countries have declined. This has happened to China as well in the past. From what I see in history, it's usually when a people, as a whole, want to live for today with no thought of tomorrow.

This is a very Judaic/Christian look at history - a nation being punished for its decadence! It doesn't have much to do with reality though. "Barbarians," "disease," and "war" are much better answers, but really aren't as thematically interesting. It's seen in our media companies who can't bear the thought of letting go of old systems or even 80 year old cartoons (Steamboat Willy), songs, etcetera

Oh get off it. Tying copyright to the downfall of a nation is just too Slashdot. Try reading a newspaper or a real source of news.

Switzerland never really looked America enviously - they are the leaders in many technological areas of the world

No they aren't.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

... and even if they do, it'll be our turn to copy from them.

And when China protests about IP theft, we'll just have to disregard their pleas, the same way they did to the US.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Hucko]

As a member of what is often called the conservative, evangelical, fundamentalist Christian Right, I have not been able to find anything which would cause me to believe we shouldn't pursue nanotechnology. Nor genetics, stem cell research (Though I personally loath the idea of deliberately 'harvesting' embryos for the stem cells...) etc.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

They were greedy traitors to the country of their birth?

Re:Unfortunately,

[Chemicalscum]

Nano Tech will require bright minds and very highend industrial technology. Currently, the US leads China in both fields. Currently most of the bright minds in the US seem to be Chinese. They average literate Chinese person is typically better at maths than the average westerner because the higher level of abstraction required to learn written Chinese effectively prepares them for the abstract study of mathematics.

Re:Unfortunately,

[drsquare]

What scares people about China is not that it is getting ahead but that we're open to their citizens but they are not really open to us (for instance, no foreign companies can have more than 49% ownership in a domestic company over there).

America doesn't seem very open to people buying their ports or media companies. Or other countries' steel...

Re:Unfortunately,

[LordMidge]

Fair enough points but you are basically talking about selecting for the masses the best and brightest to teach. This selection process is an issue for both countries...
For all the American 'ghetto's and trailer parks' the Chinese have 'rice paddy villages and rural backwaters'.

Doesn't mean the Chinese aren't trying harder to fix that though.

Re:Unfortunately,

[CmdrGravy]

And the same way the US did with the rest of the world IP whilst it suited them.

Re:Unfortunately,

[CmdrGravy]

Switzerland never really looked America enviously - they are the leaders in many technological areas of the world

No they aren't.

Oh really, come on now; Cuckoo Clocks have never been so vital to the worlds success and no one can make them like the Swiss.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

Switzerland never really looked America enviously - they are the leaders in many technological areas of the world

No they aren't.

No? Well, who made cuckoo clock? Who created artificial human life? Who is the world leader in chocolate?

Re:Unfortunately,

[dwater]

in my experience, high tech equipment isn't cheap in china; it's slightly more expensive than in the US.

Of course, I don't have much idea about the equipment used in nano-tech.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Waffle Iron]

Assuming, of course, that the US simply don't just hire away all of their best and brightest, like it have been for a long time now.

We've been able to do that because all the money was over here. However, between trade deficits and government borrowing, we've been working really hard on sending that money over to China lately. So before long it may not make much sense for their best and brightest to come over here when they can get paid with US cash right in their own hometowns.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Capitalist1]

The problem is that they have *everyone else's* advanced technology and manufacturing plants, and those teachers who are so hot in their fields are *here*, not there. China's political system, and at root its culture, is the real barrier to their ability to become an economic powerhouse. Socialism doesn't work in the real world. It just doesn't. They've lived under it for the last 40-50 years, and it will take an equivalent of the Enlightenment for them to overcome the damage that has done to them.

Re:Unfortunately,

[EastCoastSurfer]

Good point. I've read a lot of research papers coming out of China and it is very much the "throw a lot of sh*t at the wall and see what sticks." Of course they do have some good research coming out of their facilities, but you're right about the lack of a good base seriously hampering the quality of their output.

Re:Unfortunately,

[EastCoastSurfer]

I see the Chinese government as actually a huge hurdle to research. They are walking a fine line right now. The free thinking required in research is the same free thinking that makes people not want to be controlled by their government. Eventually China is going to reach a crossroads where the government will have to become more democratic (at least less hands on) or we'll end up with another Tiananmen Square.

Re:Unfortunately,

[EchaniDrgn]

I'm not sure I see how conservative Christianity can be seen as a roadblock to nanotechnology research.

The argument of "let's not play God" has usually revolved around genetic manipulation and the ending of human life as a matter of "procedure," not as a matter of furthering technology.

Perhaps there are areas where nanotechnology could stray into ethically murky waters but, with the exception of a few more radical denominations, neither medical nor technological advancement has been seen as Anti-Christian.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

They make fusion reactors at 1/10 that.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes perfect sense. The US will lag in nanotechnology because of Christianity and the whole "don't play God" thing. Does one really follow the other? Not trying to troll here.

Re:Unfortunately,

[BeanThere]

I presume you're trolling, but Switzerland are actually in some areas leaders in medical research. So joke about chocolate and cuckoo clocks all you want, but when you get sick, there is a chance that some of the medicine that saves you will have been pioneered in Switzerland.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

However, between trade deficits and government borrowing, we've been working really hard on sending that money over to China lately. So before long it may not make much sense for their best and brightest to come over here when they can get paid with US cash right in their own hometowns.

It's already happening. One of my professors left China in the 1970s but returned a couple of years ago. The Chinese government has set up an incentive scheme for top Chinese academics working abroad to come back to China - they're paying him a similar amount per year to what he was making in the UK, as well as a big initial bonus. Because the cost of living in China is so much lower, it's a big quality-of-life improvement.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

I found an article about the Chinese government efforts to bring back overseas Chinese professors - apparently it's been going for a few years now.

Re:Unfortunately,

[kcelery]

yes, the workers should be paid by nano-dollar.

Re:Unfortunately,

[nomadic]

If the Chinese government actually does put its weight behind this plan, I don't see that there's much the U.S. can do : China has the advantage of much cheaper labor, equipment, and so on and so forth, in addition to an extremely powerful, centralized government that is not at all afraid to use that power.

What would be hilarious is if they got ahead, then the US just stole their technology like China steals the US'.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

"If they're good enough to teach you, in your country,..."

Ha! and likely, their students will be able to understand them too.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean "american universities staffed by foreign nationals"?

Re:Unfortunately,

[DMCBOSTON]

Well, you're a troll. Since when does 'conservative Christianity' have to do with nano research? I agree the research will happen. You confusing it with 'government lack of sponsorship for stem cell' research? Oh, IANACC

Re:Unfortunately,

[ArcherB]

I see this being a place where the US will always lag behind due to conservative Christianity and the whole "don't play God" thing. Can you show me a single reputable Christian that says we should NOT invest in nano-tech? I'm only asking because while visiting Second Baptist Church in Houston, they had a guest speaker who was a physicist who specialized in nano-technology. He didn't seem to have a problem with, nor did anyone at the church.

In other words, and not to be rude, you really don't know what you are talking about. Although it may be "cool" in certain circles to think that way, but Christianity is not the cause of all your woes.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Tablizer]

What scares people about China is not that it is getting ahead but that we're open to their citizens but they are not really open to us (for instance, no foreign companies can have more than 49% ownership in a domestic company over there).

Yet if a politician does something about that, they are labeled a "protectionist". Protectionism is not to slow trade, but to give leverage for a better deal from our trading partners.

Re:Unfortunately,

[jsepeta]

ummm, China has 10x or maybe 100x the number of graduate students that we do. which means that they're building the brain trust that is needed to push nanotech forward. meanwhile, our idiot politicians blow hard and long about the chinese threat and oh woe is detroit, but do significantly little to return detroit and america's manufacturing base towards the research and technologies needed to produce nanotech.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should China invest anything now? If they just talk it up, America will do the investing for them, until it can no longer afford to do much of anything. Then in a few years, China can just buy America out at 5 to 10 cents on the dollar, about what sub-prime mortgages will be going for :-(

Re:Unfortunately,

[andjcx]

You're completely wrong wcpalmer, it's about wasting and pouring billions of dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Meanwhile other nations go forward and eventually will lag you far behind thanks to your stubbornness. Even with less than one billion, China will take over the future of nanotechnology without asking America or the poor Europe if it's fair or not as She did when she decided to play capitalism "à la perfection".

Re:Unfortunately,

[HiThere]

Socialism works just fine in the real world. Communism doesn't scale, but it works "ok" at a local level. (Nobody's been fool enough to try it on a national level.)

China is historically more capitalist than the US has ever been. There was a brief pause after the trauma of the Japanese invasion when Mao took over, but it seems to me that they're heading back to more normal times. (Of course, for China normal times means "We are the only important country. Everyone outside is a barbarian." And it includes a very strong central government. Expect a new Emperor soon (possibly with a different name).

But this "normal China" is profoundly insular, not just ego-centric, but almost autistic. I can't really see the Chinese push into space as harmonious with their long term view. Nano-tech, though... they might do really well in nano-tech. (Remember, China may be insular, but it's also much of humanity. [Don't recall the exact percentages...and it changes from year to year anyway.])

It seems reasonable to expect China will become a dominant technological power in the near future...but possibly not in all fields.

Re:Unfortunately,

[cyfer2000]

Cheaper labor, equipment, and so on and so forth has nothing to do with innovation.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

They fled tyrrany to come to freedom so they could do more than just be a cog in some angry thug's low-end civilization? Assigned a job and given a dachau and allowed to keep stuff from the West in a bizarre aping of capitalism as a driving force, all the while the thug decries the evils of capitalism, as long as he keeps churning out Great Scientific Works (or keeps getting gold medals at teh Olympics)? Otherwise, go jam into that one room apartment with the rest of your family.

Uhhhh, yeah. Seems to me that sticking around in said country is much more of a traitor to your people, by continuing to support it, then fleeing at the first chance would be.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

...just keep your mouth shut.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I thought it was because we're trained to let whining kids slide on doing their homework, even as we fill them with complements as to how damned awesome-o they are.

Re:Unfortunately,

[iLoveYoyo]

US leads China in bright minds? You ignorant are kidding! Count how many scientists in US are coming from China and India. US fools don't know science at all

Re:Unfortunately,

[Grishnakh]

...just keep your mouth shut.

And how is that much different from the way things are in the USA or UK?

In China, if you speak out against the government, you might become a political prisoner. In the USA, if you speak out against the government and try to change it, you might not become a prisoner, but your efforts will be completely in vain as the people will continue to vote for the same corrupt candidates as before. Just look at who's winning the Republican and Democratic nominations right now. Of course, if you piss off the government too much, you can be abducted and taken to a secret offshore prison and tortured, as this has been ruled OK by our judiciary.

Re:Unfortunately,

[Grishnakh]

The same happens in some areas in... the United States. I remember a few months ago Richard Branson, the UK flamboyant tycoon, trying to start up a Virgin brand Airliner in the US and having problems because the "majority of capital has to be American"

That's weird. We have no problems letting Arab-owned companies own all our shipping ports, so why are we worried about some little airline?

Re:Unfortunately,

[seasunset]

The same happens in some areas in... the United States. I remember a few months ago Richard Branson, the UK flamboyant tycoon, trying to start up a Virgin brand Airliner in the US and having problems because the "majority of capital has to be American"

That's weird. We have no problems letting Arab-owned companies own all our shipping ports, so why are we worried about some little airline? Actually its 25% of shares

Re:Unfortunately,

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of america's brightest minds may be in ghetto's and trailer parks, are they going to get the access they need to be brought to their full potential? Sadly, I suspect the answer is no. The way the "No Child Left Behind" is designed, it really ends up being "No Child Gets Ahead". Until that broke-ass system is fixed, those gaming it for funding will lower the playing field for everybody. So basically those with the most potential will end up gliding by without enough of a challenge learning-wise. Thus it makes it harder for that potential to be realized. In other words, if athletics were being treated like academics in the U.S. - there would be no weights in the school gym heavier than 5 lbs because the waxy-pale emo kid couldn't lift anything beyond that.

meh

[Sylos]

Last time China tried a great leap forward..didn't work out so well.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you figure?

It's still going....course give it the run the USSR had, then we can talk comparison.

Until then...well it's 'working' so far.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Great Leap Forward" was a period of Chinese history where the populaces' present well being was gambled on future production. The people starved. Some people blamed it on the climate.

Re:meh

[neumayr]

The GP was referring to the Great Leap Forward:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

No, it didn't work out very well.

Re:meh

[Harmonious Botch]

How do you figure? They had massive famines following. Tens of millions died because Mao fucked up their economy so badly with his great leap. They literally could not manage bare subsistance rations for their country. From wikipedia:"The largest famine ever (in absolute terms) was the Chinese famine of 1958-61 that occurred as a result of the Great Leap Forward."

Re:meh

[mrxak]

Just goes to show you, there are no shortcuts in technology. I'm sure that the Cultural Revolution's suppression of intellectuals hasn't helped their research efforts either.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

And the parent was referring to "one leap forwards, two leaps back, will politics give me the sack"

Waiting..for the great...leap...forwards.

Needs more Bragg.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Your lack of knowledge just let you down quite badly. The Great Leap Forward is the name of an actual policy that, somewhat unfortunately, resulted in millions of deaths. That was back in the 60s.

I'll also point out that China has had the same run that the USSR had, about 90 years. China have been more successful (in that they didn't succumb to corrupt leaders) and finally let a small amount of values back in, but it's all relative. Their record is abysmal, and they could have achieved far more had they been less hell-bent on crushing dissent at all costs.

Re:meh

[jambox]

That was a long time ago. Out of a billion and a bit people, there are always going to be a thousand world-class geniuses born every year, it's just a question of finding and educating them.

Re:meh

[HiThere]

It's not a long time ago if one of the people quashed was your friend, relative, or neighbor. Or even a "friend of a friend".

"Paranoia strikes deep, ..."

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

They will bury us ... using billions of little tiny shovels.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of efforts to work on with their projects...

Absorb Exhaust?

[martin_henry]

from the article:

Parker said that the Olympic village parking lots being constructed in Beijing will have a nanopolymer coating that will absorb exhaust.
I too would like to know how they plan to make car exhaust more attracted to the ground than the troposhere...

Re:Absorb Exhaust?

[KDR_11k]

Many cars direct the exhaust downward so it has at least a momentary contact with the road surface. Also I doubt it's CO2 they're talking about, more the other particles that come out of exhausts.

Pollution

[Renraku]

Fancy seeing this happening in a country known for its rampant pollution. How long will it be before a Union-Carbide-esque event happens and thousands die? I would urge the Chinese to take caution, but it isn't always their way when dealing with technology and its refuse.

Re:Pollution

[MillionthMonkey]

You're going to see a lot of very tiny coal-fired power plants integrated on a single square chip 5 mm to a side. You scratch a pencil across and it heats up and starts emitting thousands of tiny wisps of sulfur dioxide. I'm going to use them on camping trips as battery chargers.

Re:Pollution

[B3ryllium]

Okay, great. So instead of Grey Goo, we're going to end up with a Red Goo situation?

Re:Pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. It seems that safety in China has not gotten a sufficient amount of attention. I am all too familar with occupation and mining safety standards, but does China enforce such things? Fair trade coffee is available - how about fair trade products to reassure the buyer that the person manufacturing it didn't loose an arm.

In contradiction to the Summary

[phantomcircuit]

The article says exactly the opposite of the summary.

Still, for all the big talk, the actual government investment is not overwhelming. The researchers estimated that the Chinese government only invested $400 million from 2002 to 2007, although that investment is expected to rise considerably.

Re:In contradiction to the Summary

[mrxak]

Surely you don't expect the submitter to RTFA either, do you?

Re:In contradiction to the Summary

[timeOday]

The $400M figure is the same, so I don't see any factual contradiction. The only contradiction is the direction of spin.

China is already huge in micro and nanotechnology

[blind biker]

I know for a fact that China is producing a ton of nanotechnology scientists. For one interesting note: this book by my professor is available in two languages - English and Chinese.

Re:China is already huge in micro and nanotechnolo

[martin_henry]

Microelectronic fabrication != nanotechnology
example, in universities, microelectronic fab. is part of elec. engineering, nanotechnology is part of physics.

teeny things!

[Anonymous Coward]

made by teeny people! Well except Yao Ming. Don't know what happened there.

Re:teeny things!

[Taco Cowboy]

Do you have Samsung TV ? Or Sony camcorders ? Or Olympus digicam ? Or Toshiba freezer ? Or Hitachi home entertainment system ?

All these are made by the teeny people - the Gooks and the Japs.

The motherboard in you PC is most probably made by teeny people too - the Taiwanese.

Standard funding scare & beg

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like somebody wants more funding and is raising the China bogeyman to do it.

Re:Standard funding scare & beg

[antirelic]

You put the hammer right on the head. The only way China is going to "leap" ahead of the US in nano-technology is either by playing nice with major corporations looking for some serious tax breaks or regulatory freedom (which seems kind of odd, going to a communist country for regulatory freedom, but the Chi-Com have been pretty savvy playing the whole capitalist game these days) or the same way they been competing against the US in the "space race". http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/AFX-0013-22936164.htm

Ultimately, its going to be corporations that make the gains. I am not exactly sure how putting a nationalistic spin on "technology" advances is relevant anymore. Most of the major players in the technology/R&D space are international conglomerates, beholden only to their own bottom line as opposed to the countries they make money from. Their only restraints are based on government grants and import/export controls of the country they have their HQ in. But as we have seen with Haliburton (operating US bases in Iraq and oil fields in Iran), these import/export controls are relatively easy to by pass if you know the game.

All things equal, who gives a rats ass if China leap frogs ahead of the US in Nano-tech anyway? Lets face it, if the US pours BILLIONS into researching nano-technology, and makes a major break through, guess where all that technology is going to go anyway? A factory in China to send cheap shit right back to the USA for profit. Let China foot the R&D bill this time around.

Real nanotech, or hype nanotech

[Animats]

Are they talking about "real" nanotech (atomic-level assemblers), or "hype" nanotech (surface chemistry of finely ground powders)? Much of what's now being touted as "nanotech" is the latter.

Re:Real nanotech, or hype nanotech

[tempest69]

Are they talking about "real" nanotech (atomic-level assemblers), or "hype" nanotech (surface chemistry of finely ground powders)? Much of what's now being touted as "nanotech" is the latter.

They're talking "hype"..

Otherwise they would call it molecular biology. MOLB goes down a whole lot further in scale, and can reliably make things of specific size. etched silicon motors don't even come close to a bacterial motor, size, efficiency, torque. Real nanotech is something that will come more from the biology side. If Molb can figure out folding then mass nanotech wont be far behind. Whereas physics has a whole slew of manufacturing issues to figure out for anything more impressive than sunscreen.

Storm

ok, that was a bit of a troll.. but my karma can take this bite.

Re:Real nanotech, or hype nanotech

[HiThere]

Well, it may be a troll, but it's also true. I happen to think that the physics approach is ultimately superior...but I'll easily grant that full realization of it's capabilities is far off. And is likely to arrive by starting with the biological approach and adding techniques for manipulating additional elements.

Err... Read more history.

[Valdrax]

The Great Leap Forward was Chairman Mao's utterly disastrous attempt at kickstarting the Chinese economy from an agrarian society into an industrial society in the late 1950s. The Great Leap Forward essentially destroyed the Chinese economy and delayed China's emergence as a major economic power for decades. Read more history.

Things to worry about. Srsly.

[Valdrax]

Looks like somebody wants more funding and is raising the China bogeyman to do it. I for one am disturbed by the potential for Chinese manufacturing practices to lead to a tainted and unreliable product due to cost cutting and corruption. Gentlemen, we face the threat that the world may have deal with a true Gray Goo Gai Pan disaster.

Re:China is already huge in micro and nanotechnolo

[blind biker]

Our institute is separate but both nanotech and microfabrication are under the auspices of the University of Technology.

Theft of tech

[Tom90deg]

One thing that is worthy of note is that China has a history of stealing tech, so they really don't NEED to make huge leaps, they just need to find the other tech and work on improving it from there. After all, which is harder, to design a car from scratch, or steal plans for a car and improve those plans?

Re:Theft of tech

[Jeff DeMaagd]

After all, which is harder, to design a car from scratch, or steal plans for a car and improve those plans?

Given what we've seen so far, they haven't improved on them. As it is, they're cheap clones with major structures left out because they either didn't know their significance or simply didn't care because that makes them cheaper.

heh

[B3ryllium]

from the don't-let-them-have-wil-wheaton dept.

Brought to you by the department of EPIC NANOTECH FAIL.

Seriously, though, that *is* one of my favourite episodes to feature Wesley. That, and the one with Ashley Judd. :)

Re:China is already huge in micro and nanotechnolo

[mrxak]

I'm not sure that really invalidates the point that your professor's book is not about nanotechnology.

totally ignorant

[Quadraginta]

As someone who has actually worked with academics and entrepreneurs in this field, I call bullshit on this. No professional scientist or engineer I've met has spent a moment's thought on what any putative "don't play God" faction thinks, or even thinks he needs to. There's zero evidence that any such faction, should it even exist outside of your imagination, has ever had any significant effect on technological advancement in this country.

Furthermore, my experience suggests that the Chinese have a much more substantial and real cultural barrier to any kind of technological progress (which is, I think, one reason why a society civilized a thousand years before the West, and having had a far larger population for far longer, has nevertheless consistently lagged behind the West in terms of invention and innovation, at least on a per capita basis).

The problem is that the Confucian tradition strongly reinforcea an acceptance of existing heirarchy, and of paying the utmost respect to your elders and those better educated and more experienced than yourself. This is antithetical to innovation and invention. The only way you can invent something new is by doing something that older and wiser heads think is foolish. (If they didn't think it was dumb, they'd have done it themselves already.)

Consequently true innovation happens only in a culture that does not value established wisdom too much, which is willing to take some chances on a young, hot-headed, crazy contrarian way of thinking. China has a long and strong cultural tradition of valuing established wisdom, and I think that is a much more significant cultural barrier to innovation than any silly Chicken-Little faddish fear that evangelicals are going to rise up and smite researchers working on nanoscopic gears and motors because the latter weren't described in the Bible.

Re:totally ignorant

[Knutsi]

Thank you for a very interesting comment! It made me think of the recent talk (at least here i Norway) on my generation, the so called "millennials" and our lack of respect for old ways. Sadly, I fear it's not combined with a appreciation for knowledge and patience needed to create real breakthroughs.

Re:totally ignorant

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html -- read the first paragraph.

Talk about total ignorance.

China was the world's leading civilization for centuries, or even millenniums. It only fell from the top dog status in the past couple of hundred years -- blink of an eye in its ~5,000 years of history. Like it or not, China is well on its way to reclaim the lost honor -- the only civilization doing so in human history.

Hopefully you are at least aware of the rise of other Asian nations/regions such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong etc. in the late 20th century, all of which owe much of their culture roots to China. Guess what? Those are only previews, teaser trailers of what China will become in the 21st century...

Re:totally ignorant

[Quadraginta]

Well, first of all, the question of what it means to be the "leading civilization" is hardly as obvious as you think. Some people would say China's peacefulness and the quality of the average life made them the "leading civilization" in about 1500, just as they might say the fat paychecks and generous benefits of Microsoft, and the stability of the company and modesty of its aims make it the leading software firm today.

Others might say the wildly more dynamic and creative ferment in the West at the same time makes it the more creative and ultimately the "leading" civilization, just as some might say an energetic small start-up with amazing new ideas about computing and the Internet is, despite the instability and occasional abrupt changes in direction, the more "leading edge" company, compared to the Redmond behemoth.

You're free to take the former, widely-accepted, establishment view. But more independent thinkers may not agree. I certainly don't.

Like it or not, China is well on its way to reclaim the lost honor

Yeah right. Just like the Soviet Union was the wave of the future in the 1970s, and Japan, Inc. was going to take over the world in the 1980s, and the Asian Tigers are going to start dominating world trade Any Day Now, and so forth and so on ad infinitum. You get back to me when that "overtaking" has turned into "overtaken," Chicken Little.

Re:totally ignorant

[Quadraginta]

I think you do your generation too little credit. There are some real entrepreneurs amongst you, the folks who invented Facebook and all that jazz. There are also some very serious and responsible folk, like the guys and gals carrying rifles and building a democratic civilization more or less with their bare hands in Iraq.

I agree the Facebook users and the folks who blog about Obamamania are a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But many others of your generation are out there quietly Getting Stuff Done, and they will be an awesome force when their time of leadership comes.

Be patient. You hear most from the noisy, and they are indeed silly, but there are quiet and serious people out there who will earn the respect of their descendants.

No shit sherlock

[Shadow-isoHunt]

Nobody plans to be #2.

USA has no national goals

[EmbeddedJanitor]

USA made great strides during the 1960s because the whole space thing was seen as a national goal with everyone onboard. Getting there was a national priority, above just any individual company's priority. That has ceased to be. Sure there were some Lockheed vs Boeing etc spats, but nothing like the inter-corporate fights of today. Major tech companies now just spend more time body-slamming each other.

USA lacks national technological goals now and no matter how bright the minds, if they don't have a supporting environment then they will not reach their potential.

China is working as a nation whiich means they will get further with what they have.

Money and equipment don't make for winning. Here's the story of the 1996 Americas Cup: The US team had the might of Boeing (Crays etc) and fleets of white coats to do their math modelling etc. The kiwis had a corner in their warehouse with a couple of SGI workstations. The kiwis achieved more with their math modelling because the math guy was onsite and slept on the floor next to his computers. They used what equipment they had with maximum effectiveness.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901.html

Just because your TV tells you that you're the smartest, doesn't mean it's true.

Re:USA has no national goals

[damienl451]

This article confuses being smart with being culture, which are two widely different things. Knowing lots of trivia about Shakespeare and Milton means you're cultivated (not smart). Knowing a lot about, say, nanotechs (as in: you're making valuable contributions to the field) means you're intelligent/competent in your field of expertise, but doesn't mean that you're cultivated. We can certainly lament that many Americans don't know much about history or geography, but it doesn't follow that they're less intelligent.

I also dislike how she labels everyone who disagrees with her an `anti-rationalist'. There is nothing irrational or anti-rational about claiming that the average American doesn't need to know foreign languages. Why would not knowing a foreign language be `a manifestation of ignorance'? Sure, if you're a businessman, a diplomat or a show-off, being multilingual is beneficial. If you're a mechanic, a bank teller or a steel-mill worker, I don't see the point.

Re:USA has no national goals

[guacamole rocks]

Exactly... this is called QinLaoZhiFu, which means "Industrious Wealth". It is a cultural phrase in China that many parents teach their children. They believe that working very hard is rewarded... and this is a national concept.

[responding to an earlier comment about China's inability to innovate] Interestingly, a Communist society where national values are promoted by the central party has a stronger work-ethic and sense of teamwork than this country walking around the world insisting that everyone must adopt democracy... or else. China has plenty of problems, but it is foolish to assume they cannot innovate simply because Confucianism (which isn't even the majority religion in China) doesn't encourage it.

Buy a plane ticket and visit... don't just ride tour buses and listen to guides... talk to real Chinese... eat lunch with them. They are a remarkable people.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Dr. Hellno]

The only problem I have with this article is the argument that media, not content are to blame. Video games are mentioned as a new development during the course of American intellectual decline, with the obvious implication that they are partially responsible. The author also mentions that she can't prove "hammering away at a Microsoft Xbox" is less beneficial to the young mind than reading, which clearly means that she believes this to be the case.

The problem is, she's right... but the xbox is not to blame.

Anyone who played monkey island and now plays halo knows what I mean. Likewise, anyone who has seen truly great films and now sees "live free or die hard", or worse, "transformers", knows what I mean. The content has become stupider, not the media. This is because people seem to want stupid fare, and that's not a phenomenon I know how to explain.

If I can offer any kind of proof of the innocence of videogames as a medium, it's this: when I was about six, my parents installed some simple games for me on the family computer. The games were educational; with mickey mouse as my avatar, I remember learning the word xylophone. In another game, the concept of opposites was illustrated to me by example. Later, I learned about pioneers in Oregon trail; I learned my sense of humor largely from exposure to lucasfilm games.

This is quickly becoming tl;dr. So, to summarize: this article is bullshit because it blames videogames (among other things) for the crumbling of the American mind; it fails to see that games without intelligent content, and movies of the same nature, are symptoms of modern-day America, not causes.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Anonymous Coward]

I use multiple languages for my work, but I fully agree. Achieving fluency in a foreign language is a noble goal, but for many people there's many other noble goals that should take priority. For many people, it's a luxury with little practical benefit - one that takes a very large amount of time and no small amount of money to master.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Joe Tie.]

Afraid I have to agree about the languages as well. It's an interesting study for its own sake, but most of the benefits are overblown. The majority kids in the US pick up are so similar to English that the benefit of "thinking in another linguistic context" fade, and the utility is usually fairly limited in real world situations for most people. The only reason I still think second languages should be a mandatory subject is that learning a third language that someone might actually need one day will be far easier if they had the concept of more than one language choices set in their mind at a young age.

Re:USA has no national goals

[somersault]

That sounds a bit contradictory to your first argument - arguable one guy with a bright mind and some decent equipment beat out a whole bunch of guys who had a better environment. No doubt national interest will affect funding, but it isn't *always* about the money..

Re:USA has no national goals

[Angostura]

Actually, I see a false dichotomy here. Knowing either lots about Shakespear or Nanotech mean that you are educated. That is all. You've been educated in different fields. Intelligence has more to do (in my opinion) with the ability to manipulate this knowledge and extrapolate from it in useful ways. The scope for extrapolation and manipulation is arguably greater with nanotech than Shakespear.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Anonymous Coward]

I speak two languages fluently, at the price of $500.

And that included two two week vacations that were both fun and great practice.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess....West Coast and Texan American English? Well, you sure made a lot of progress.

Re:USA has no national goals

[g4b]

Even if I agree with you in certain terms (e.g. less educated or cultivated people not being less intelligent), I still wouldn't dismiss the article's quintessence. My thoughts: and please, since my english isn't quite native, sorry if some sentences may be confusing, just read over and guess what i mean
Preamble: I use intellectual gifted people as extreme example of high intelligence, but that doesn't mean, I only call this certain type of intelligence "more intelligent" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_giftedness First: Being bright and having a great deal of realisation, abstraction, association or analytical benefits (which are many, while not all, aspects of intelligence), doesn't mean, you reach the same goals with it as any other. If you are smart, but grow up in an environment, which doesn't push your skill in being smart, you don't get smarter, since your gifts are not attended to. This means, cultivation and education has something to do with increasing odds to create broad-horizoned and educated people, but it doesn't guarantee you more (as in quantity) intelligent people.

Being intelligent can also give you a great deal of trouble; intellectually gifted persons tend to solve problems by explanation rather than confrontation. Imagine intelligent people amongst cavemen, where strength is primary goal in life.
Being intelligent and having the wrong surroundings (no benefit from being educated, different goals when you grow up, less education oriented paradigms) leaves you as intelligent person like a burning candle without air. Also, you need social attendance, since you are a "thinker", and with this, your social skills have to be developed by "loring you out of your thinktank".
Without this, you waste computational power to daily problems - and start getting quite depressed.

From my point of view you can't separate intelligence and rate it on an "as is" basis. Very intelligent people can be less cultivated, but with cultivation, they may use their potential in a greater aspect. And with cultivation I mean knowing things about the world not certainly bound to one topic, like, who was W. Shakespeare and speak other languages.
Also, a cultivated surrounding challenges the people to develop their intellectual skills, just as money can make your life easier.

Second: intelligence doesn't make you a good scientist. Learning and Working does. Intellectually gifted persons e.g. can be often misunderstood as slow learners, because they don't focus their attention to one subject so easily. But in the end, they might make better scientists, because they try to extend the theories they are working on by own ideas, pushing creativity.

To the topic: if you try to create nanotechnology, and you have a lot of people with intellectual potential to actually go into this subject, and have bright ideas, you need a sophisticated education system, which guarantees you:
a) education in specialization (e.g. computer science, nanotechnology...)
b) cultivation (to broaden your horizon)
c) educated teachers who can judge your intellectual structure and attend to it like you need it (otherwise you only push people who can learn a lot, not think a lot)

Especially learning other languages affects your thinking patterns a lot. I can tell that from experience, no matter what studies may say (luckily they don't contradict me), since I speak Hungarian and German, and a little bit of English and French.

Final note: I doubt being China more successful atm. in nanotechnology. They might have the intellectual power, but are they more cultivated? Do they have the same educational benefits? I don't think so, but honestly, I lack education about this topic.
But I don't doubt, that the mentioned article doesn't show us, that the States could do better in education, to leverage their inspirational force and leap forward in technology faster; sooner or later, China may catch up and m

Re:USA has no national goals

[david_thornley]

In Europe, knowing more than one language is beneficial, because (unless you live deep in Russia) you don't have far to go to find a place where people speak another language. There are, indeed, fairly small countries (like Belgium and Switzerland) that are multilingual.

In the US, knowing Spanish might be useful in the South, and possibly French in the Northeast, but other than that English is all you need. While there are good things about knowing a second language, it isn't nearly as useful as in other places. Or in other languages - English is a very good language to know, in general, but the US already speaks that.

Moreover, it's relatively hard to find people to practice a language with, and if you don't use it periodically you're going to start forgetting it.

Knowing only English while living in the US is not the same as knowing only one language while living in Europe.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Lemmy Caution]

The very idea of "tl;dr" is art of the crumbling of the American mind, and may be at least related to the rise of videogames. I like videogames, but they by no means are demonstrating the kind of depth, ambiguity, or sophistication (morally, emotionally, and spiritually) of the printed word. ("Aeris dying" doesn't cut it; Bioshock is just a first-inkling.) Before objecting that "someday" videogames will evolve into a form as sophisticated as film - a prediction I agree with - I'll note how many otherwise intelligent people show such poverty in their intellectual lives, able only to answer "how" and not "why," able to think in terms of utility but not in terms of the creation of values (at best, implicitly and unthinkingly recycling old ones.)

Re:USA has no national goals

[mux2000]

The content has become stupider, not the media. This is because people seem to want stupid fare, and that's not a phenomenon I know how to explain.

The content has and is becoming stupider by the minute, but I don't think it is because people want stupid fare, but because the selection is narrowing down, so that only stupid titles are left. As to why that happens, I have a theory. Intelligence, like lots of other natural properties, can be plotted on the bell curve. The stupider you can make your game, the bigger your potential audience can be. Of course, making it so stupid the people at the top of the curve get bored also cuts into profits, but if you also make your game exciting on some other level (violence, sex, more violence), that barrier can be sidestepped, and you can have a game everybody (of whatever intelligence) can play and enjoy, even if it is moronic.

A side-effect of this phenomenon is that because there is less and less intellectually stimulating content, there is less and less of a motivation to use and excercise the brain. This is where stuff starts to get nasty.

Re:USA has no national goals

[dwater]

most Americans need to know just the one foreign language - English.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, but the person that only knows a lot about Shakespeare knows a bunch useless crap that doesn't help anybody except other english majors, while the person that knows everything about nanotech knows physics, mathematics, and chemistry - that is, the nanotech person actually knows something useful that can be used to get them a job, plus they can contribute to increasing our scientific knowledge. Knowing a lot about Shakespeare is only useful for teaching other people about Shakespeare. Who wants to spend the rest of their life talking about the same few works over and over and over and over again?

Re:USA has no national goals

[icebrain]

Games can indeed be very educational--my favorite one during high school taught me orbital mechanics...

But yes, it is indeed the content that matters. I laugh at fart jokes as much as the next guy, but I don't subject myself to two hours of it on a regular basis, and I certainly don't find it worth the money to see it in a theater. I've met far too many people who got bored with stuff and turned it off because there weren't explosions or sex scenes in the first five minutes.

Re:USA has no national goals

[PrescriptionWarning]

I think you're failing to see the point the grandparent made about the fact that for most people its utterly unneccesary for a practical standpoint. I'd rather someone know about another peoples' culture than only being able to speak the culture's language, essentially being a complete tourist. Combine this with the fact that the best way to learn a new language is to actually use it somewhat regularly and be around other people who use it, otherwise you're going to get nowhere fast unless you have lots of time (not to mention money) to travel to those other countries to get a chance to use the newly procured language skills.

I myself am a programmer, so I can kindof relate to this. I have learned useful languages like C, Java, Python, PHP, SQL, HTML, but know why I haven't learned .NET, Ruby, Perl? Because I simply do not need it at this point (among other reasons), and I believe i will live just as full a life without learning it.

Re:USA has no national goals

[BeanThere]

There is definitely a lot of truth to what you're saying, but I think there may also be a selection bias at work. In the early days of video games, when they were a niche, it tended to be only a small percentage of usually tech/engineer-oriented people who had computers and played games - so while you were playing educational games, it doesn't mean that 'the masses' were also (or e.g. reading), but rather probably the majority of people were doing something quite brainless like playing sport or watching A-Team etc.

What's happened now is that games have become mainstream, and are now aimed at the 'mass market', who just like before demand somewhat more brainless entertainment than the small educated minority. But there still exists a niche who e.g. play educational games (e.g. a friend of mine who has a 4-year old limits her game-playing to mainly educational titles, and there are a lot aimed at kids, no doubt many more than in the past - you just don't hear about them much).

I do get the feeling though that the percentage of society that regards intelligence virtuously is shrinking. This could be due to welfare-driven and other population skewing factors, i.e. the most educated have the lowest reproductive rates, and the least educated the highest reproductive rates. Darwin has temporarily ceased to do its job here thanks to the very technologies developed by the small, poorly-regarded and resented educated minority (from dams to modern medicine (vaccines/antibiotics etc.) to industrial agriculture to cars to computers, and so on).

Re:USA has no national goals

[nomadic]

Moreover, it's relatively hard to find people to practice a language with, and if you don't use it periodically you're going to start forgetting it.

Most Europeans are ignorant of the fact that just about every American student will be taught at least one additional language, and oftentimes more than one, during their schooling. Since they typically don't really use those languages again, they lose them.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Anonymous Coward]

has a stronger work-ethic and sense of teamwork than this country walking around the world insisting that everyone must adopt democracy... or else

Democracy and communism aren't at odds with each other.

As for the work ethic, in the US we've tried that, and we've learned that no matter how hard we work, it's the CEO that gets the rewards.

Re:USA has no national goals

[maxume]

What about all the games that pre-date Monkey Island and even the entire graphical adventure game genre? I'm talking about Pacman, Galaga, etc., games that were nearly entirely based on mechanic, rather than story. Games with a singular mechanic aren't anything new, so I'm not real sure that the 'emergence' of Halo does much to support your point(if just demonstrates that a great deal of people enjoy the FPS mechanic, and that Halo was extremely well executed). Portal is pretty popular, and even though it is pretty much a mechanic game, the basic mechanic is puzzle solving. I would assume that the availability of Mickey Mouse educational games is greater now than it has ever been.

To some extent, adventure games lose their allure, as many of the puzzles are based on 'tricks' that get reused over and over, making the first several adventure games a person encounters fun, but increasing boring after that(because it isn't a particularly good way to tell a story, and the 'solving' aspects become almost entirely redundant). So I'm not sure how surprising it is that they are giving way to games with a better multiplayer mechanisms, where you don't know what to expect from your ever changing opponents.

Re:USA has no national goals

[maxume]

Pacman and Atari were plenty mass market.

I sort of wonder how much of the anti-elitism and anti-pretentiousness is based on anti-intellectualism and how much of it is actually based on attitudes that are increasingly egalitarian, in a reasonable meritish way(anybody can have a good idea), rather than a Marxist way(all ideas are equally good).

And 'Darwin' doesn't have a 'job'. (Natural) Selection does, however, make use of whatever environment it finds. People always site the differing reproductive rates at varying levels of intelligence, but the much more interesting aspect is the effect across many generations, which never get's any attention. If 'stupid people are breeding' more, but surviving in lower numbers over the long term, the observation that they experience greater immediate reproductive success isn't helpful, or even particularly meaningful.

Re:USA has no national goals

[BeanThere]

Pacman etc. - still proves my point, doesn't matter.

Referring to 'Darwin' as having a 'job' is obviously just speaking metaphorically, I'm surprised you couldn't recognise that, as you seem intelligent - so you just ended up repeating what I already said, just in different words.

But what do you mean by "surviving in lower numbers over the long term"? Do you mean that it's not sustainable, and that eventually there will be a population crash and that, if so, the more intelligent will be more likely to survive that? If that's what you meant, then again you just repeated what I said, as I quote from my original post, "temporarily ceased to do its job". I obviously (duh) do not literally mean that natural selection has stopped - just that the environmental definition of 'fitness' has changed to be very different to (by far) the norm in nature - and that it's possible at some point we'll revert to those norms to some degree (i.e. I meant that nature "would usually" be killing off these masses - I guess I must write very badly if none of that came across, but it seems to be in plain sight to me).

Re:USA has no national goals

[ultranova]

Imagine intelligent people amongst cavemen, where strength is primary goal in life.

No it isn't. Raw strength would be at secundary usefulness at best to a caveman. Being good with your hands to make tools, having keen senses and intelligence to help you track pray and other resources, being agile and coordinated enough to use a spear well and being good at coordinating a hunting party would all be far more important than raw strength.

Re:USA has no national goals

[DMCBOSTON]

"The kiwis had a corner in their warehouse with a couple of SGI workstations. The kiwis achieved more with their math modelling because the math guy was onsite and slept on the floor next to his computers. They used what equipment they had with maximum effectiveness." Or maybe he just knew more about boats. Sometimes a combination of smarts with hands on knowledge works out just fine. The 'dead reconing' effect.

Re:USA has no national goals

[maxume]

If smart guy from 1900 had 2 kids and has 250 living descendants and dumb guy from 1900 had 12 kids and has 50 living descendants, 'dumb' is only enjoying proximate success, while getting demolished by 'smart' in the long term. I have no idea what the real numbers are, but I think it is a much more interesting question than birth rate vs IQ.

I understood what you meant; I tend to fall in the camp that fails to separate humanity from nature, hence my harping on the distinction.

Re:USA has no national goals

[BeanThere]

Oh... well, I believe the real numbers are closer to something like, smart guy from 1900 has 250 living descendants, and dumb guy from 1900 has 1000 living descendants. And I think the rates of change are worse now than in 1900, i.e. that this trend is distorting and deteriorating rapidly, so this century will see this trend becoming worse. (Up until around the 50s it was still acceptable for the educated minority to have lots of kids - my gran was one of 13 kids, this wasn't uncommon - nowadays it's almost become culturally an abomination to have lots of kids, if I decided I wanted 13 kids I'd probably be ostracised and I doubt I'd find a girl who'd go along with it either - this is only amongst the educated few, perhaps a few hundred million out of six billion on the planet).

I think one of the places where the results of all this (in general) is very obvious is Africa (where I am from) - Africa's population is exploding - nearly 1 billion now - and still growing exponentially. But this is almost entirely thanks to technology; the continent in 1900 just could not support this many people, now it can, thanks mainly to dams, vaccines (and other western medicine) and industrial agriculture (and to a lesser extent cars, roads, trains etc.). Dams and vaccines are probably the two biggest contributors. Of course the people who brought that technology are currently hated, and it's worth wondering if/how that ties in to the broader context of anti-intellectualism globally. Historically, everywhere except perhaps Europe, people tend to come to resent those who are more successful/intelligent/hardworking than them, this seems to be part of human nature, but I think there are other more base, instinctive reasons why people dislike intelligent people (or rather, those that tend to be physically weaker).

I don't think birth rate and IQ are necessarily inherently well-tied, I suspect it's mainly a *cultural* impetus. Most people try to do what most people around them do. If that's a big house and car with two kids, that's what most will aim at, and won't try stray too far from the norm. If "nobody you know" has 13 kids, and most people you know would think the idea ridiculous and horrible, then you'll probably avoid doing that. So nowadays instead of having more kids, we spend more of our money on quality of life expenditures like entertainment and big cars. (That's after the taxman has also taken a big cut to give to poor families for making babies and giving them healthcare so that they can survive and breed even more, at least where I live.)

Re:USA has no national goals

[BeanThere]

if I decided I wanted 13 kids I'd probably be ostracised

Subtle correction, I think I'd probably be regarded as low-class trash, because having lots of babies "is what poor people do" (at least that's how it's seen), and the last thing I'd want is to be regarded as low-class - it's almost circular, i.e. it's become "by definition" that "poor people make babies", so the middle class then won't (or lose their status). Crazy, actually, if you think about it.

Re:USA has no national goals

[khallow]

Jacoby mentions nothing of math, business, or science. These are far more useful than a foreign language IMHO. But that's just typical "anti-rationalism" as she puts it. Knowledge that I happen to know I consider more valuable than knowledge I don't know. My take is that there's two things to consider. First, humans can't learn everything that someone considers important. Second, everyone's circumstances are different. Learning a foreign language isn't useful much less rational, if you never use the language. Similarly, she doesn't need a high level of expertise in math or the sciences while I do (profession scientist). Finally, at some point, each person decides what they learn and don't learn. It's quite easy to secondguess people as Jacoby does, but I don't see the point in it, when the knowledge she's concerned about is so limited.

Re:USA has no national goals

[khallow]

As for the work ethic, in the US we've tried that, and we've learned that no matter how hard we work, it's the CEO that gets the rewards.

If everyone knows that, then why are there so few CEOs? At the least, you can be your own CEO, ie, be self-employed. But most don't do that even though they know that's where the money is.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Shakespeare will give you a better understanding of human nature and the English language than pretty much anything else.

If you think such understanding is useless or only of use to English majors, it just shows how ignorant you are.

[Reading comprehension clue: I'm not saying that nanotech or knowledge thereof is not tremendously important.]

Re:USA has no national goals

[HiThere]

Depends a lot on your techniques. Neanderthals seem to have liked to get in close to the game and thrust with spears, even when they had safer option. For them strength had real advantages. (And reconstructions seem to show that they *were* stronger than Cro-Magnons were.) There's little evidence that they were less intelligent, but they do appear to have been more conservative, in the true sense of "keeping things the same".

Re:USA has no national goals

[DeadDecoy]

I find that blaming video games for the decline of intellect is only partially correct. On one hand, they are giant time sinks that do not challenge us mentally. On the other hand, they can inspire the more industrious of us to construct, or learn how to construct, more vivid/realistic worlds. If look back to your comparison, Halo was more complex on a technical level than MI was; by this I'm implying that there was a physics engine, not that the graphics were prettier. If you look around, there are a few projects that explore modeling physics and AI to give the playing a more realistic experience (instead of a scripted experience). Essentially, what I'm saying is that while many of us are playing video games, some of us are designing them, and this can be intellectually stimulating. Media may seem self-indulgent until it inspires us to do more. (note, I'm not really disagreeing with your comment)

Re:USA has no national goals

[HiThere]

Because the CEO's that exist have raised barriers to entry. Think of interlocking patent pools, e.g.

Re:USA has no national goals

[EastCoastSurfer]

It also has to do with someone's risk tolerance. People who run their own business generally have a higher tolerance of risk (calculated or not) than someone who works for 'the man.' I see it personally all the time. I have friends who are VPs or SVPs and are easily smart enough and have the contacts necessary to start and run their own business, but they don't. They don't have the risk tolerance that's required to leave the sure thing even when large potential rewards (not just financial) are possible.

Re:USA has no national goals

[EastCoastSurfer]

That's a cop out answer. What idea do you have that's currently being prevented by an existing patent?

Companies like Google and Facebook show you that anyone with a good idea and the willingness to work at it can still do their own thing.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Anonymous Coward]

If everyone knows that, then why are there so few CEOs?

Why are there so few Presidents?

Or, to better demonstrate the problem, can you count 300 million distinct items in your house? Do you think the country could support 300 million distinct companies, or do you think it would devolve back to Khallow Corp. contracting the labor of its CEO (and sole employee) to someone else, rejoining the herd of faceless beings working to promote the wealth of that corporation's leadership? Do you think that every American has the capability to be an inventor or creator, and that every one of them can produce enough on their own to support themselves using the product of others?

Brave New World had it right: the world cannot support that kind of equality. Capitalism cannot support that kind of equality. The only problem is that these days, the Alphas and the Betas spend their time harassing and angering the Deltas and the Epsilons, rather than encouraging them to be happy with their place in life. Bullshit like "hard work will be rewarded" is simply one facet of that, teasing them that one day, they too might become a Charlie, or perhaps even a Beta. Frankly, the ubercapitalist Randroids are worshipping the wrong author.

Making the world less inhospitable to the lower classes is important. For a completely random example, take a look at the rebuilding of New Orleans: during the early stages, the rich bussed carpenters in 3 hours each way while complaining it was taking so long to rebuild, thanks to nobody wanting to build houses that were cheap enough for carpenters to afford. Without the Deltas and the Epsilons, society does not advance for there is no-one to implement the ideas of the few great thinkers.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Grishnakh]

If everyone knows that, then why are there so few CEOs? At the least, you can be your own CEO, ie, be self-employed. But most don't do that even though they know that's where the money is.

Because not everyone can be a CEO.

1) Being the CEO of your own little company doesn't mean you'll be rich, unless you really come up with some great idea or something and get lucky. The CEOs that make tons of money are the CEOs of huge corporations, not self-employed people.

2) Becoming the CEO of a huge corporation isn't something anyone can do. It's not about what you know or what you can do, it's about who you know. The people who run the largest corporations are usually there because they know the right people, because they were in the same fraternity at some ivy-league school with them, etc. It's the same way with politics.

So people know that the CEOs are the ones who get the rewards, but they're powerless to change this system, or become CEOs themselves, because the system we're living in is not egalitarian or meritocratic, but one of nepotism. They're completely right to complain about it.

Re:USA has no national goals

[drinkypoo]

In the US, knowing Spanish might be useful in the South, and possibly French in the Northeast, but other than that English is all you need.

When the US economy collapses, you're going to wish you knew another language so that you could go somewhere else in the world that will still take you. The English-speaking countries of the world, all of which are doing better than the US right now and which will probably continue to do so for some time, aren't going to want you (or me!)

Provincial attitudes like "when am I going to need to know this?" ensure that we don't know the things we need to know to progress. Perhaps you want to be stuck in the same rut all your life; I do not.

Re:USA has no national goals

[n dot l]

Anyone who played monkey island and now plays halo knows what I mean. Likewise, anyone who has seen truly great films and now sees "live free or die hard", or worse, "transformers", knows what I mean. The content has become stupider, not the media. You know, the dumb stuff has its place. It really does. If I come home burnt out and just want to get work off my mind 30 minutes of Halo does that perfectly. 30 minutes of anything that actually requires concentration would just piss me off when I'm in that state of mind.

This is the thing that pisses me off about the "video games are ruining America" crowd, they have no sense of proportion - casual gamers easily outnumber the hardcores ten to one. The problem is that the hardcores spend more money so they get all the attention, and people end up thinking there's this epidemic of millions of children playing video games eight hours a day, rotting away on the couch. No, there isn't, most of them play an average of 30-60 minutes a day if even that. But advertisers like to promote hardcore gamers because that sells product, and the media likes to run pieces by "concerned citizens" that demonize all gamers because, well, that sells their product.

And the smart content isn't even gone, it's just not getting its share of the marketing dollars. Look at games and movies that haven't been advertised all over the place and you might be surprised by what you find. But yeah, I know what you mean.

Meh. This is just more of the same "make a quick buck now, and the future be damned" mindset that's eroding the rest of our society. Promoting trash over quality content is right up there with dumbing down (many of) the schools, letting the infrastructure rot, and shipping as many jobs as possible overseas. Integrity, ethics, and community spirit seem to be dead, and that's so deeply ingrained these days that nothing short of a major shock (recession, war, etc) is going to fix it.

Re:USA has no national goals

[khallow]

Excellent point. I was thinking most people don't have the confidence or ambition too. But that's part of risk intolerance, isn't it?

Re:USA has no national goals

[khallow]

Actually, the US Census claims there are 17.6 million businesses in 2002 with owners and no employees. These are more than 70% of all businesses, which implies to me that there's 21-25 million businesses overall. Sounds like a lot of people agree with me. And I think it provides an effective counter to your argument. After all, if we already have 22 million businesses, what's another factor of 10 going to matter?

Re:USA has no national goals

[khallow]

Because not everyone can be a CEO.

As I mentioned to another poster, the US Census claims there are over 20 million businesses in the US. That's a lot of people even if you have redundant owners (and a lot of these businesses will have multiple owners). So it's not "everyone", but it's a hell of a lot of people just the same.

1) Being the CEO of your own little company doesn't mean you'll be rich, unless you really come up with some great idea or something and get lucky. The CEOs that make tons of money are the CEOs of huge corporations, not self-employed people.

Two things wrong with this. First, one doesn't expect the owner of a small business to make as much as the owner of a large business. Nor did I claim that. My point was that being an owner or manager of a business, meant you got more money for your work. That remains true.

2) Becoming the CEO of a huge corporation isn't something anyone can do. It's not about what you know or what you can do, it's about who you know. The people who run the largest corporations are usually there because they know the right people, because they were in the same fraternity at some ivy-league school with them, etc. It's the same way with politics.

Several things wrong with this statement. First, even starting from nothing, one can get the contacts to "know" the right people. The strategies for becoming a CEO don't depend on getting a degree from the right university or being in the right social class from the start. There's plenty of examples of this. OTOH, if you become wealthy from running a business, then it's easier to pick up those contacts. People want to be known by successful people.

Re:USA has no national goals

[StikyPad]

I learned my sense of humor largely from exposure to lucasfilm games.

We'd be in real trouble if you ever used it!

Re:USA has no national goals

[david_thornley]

Provincial attitudes like "when am I going to need to know this?" ensure that we don't know the things we need to know to progress. Perhaps you want to be stuck in the same rut all your life; I do not.

I certainly don't plan to be in the same rut all my life, but there's plenty of different things to learn that will keep me alert and alive. Speaking another language is just one of them. Nor is there any point in waiting until we learn everything we might need before proceeding. It's more fun and more productive to jump in first.

Re:USA has no national goals

[rtb61]

However in this case, that is exactly what can happen. China does not have to do the nanotechnology research or genetic research itself. All it has to do is create the environment where European and American companies can do the research, especially for technology that is banned (often for good reason), but socioptahtic greed drive the corporations to do it anyhow.

China can then simply steal the technology through industrial espionage and either weaponise it or it use in what ever other way to achieve their goal of global dominance. Of course dominance has not benefit for the people living in China, it is however what always festers in the minds China's autocratic leaders, the perverse desire to control and direct everybody else, as clearly demonstrated by their opposition democracy and freedom of speech.

Re:USA has no national goals

[aethera]

The basic premise behind the usefulness of any sort of advanced education in the humanities isn't that the student of Shakespeare knows a lot about a 17th century English playwright, but that the student has learned how to analyze Shakespeare, and learned how to examine a work for structure and concept. Physics, maths, and science also teach you these skills, but the hard sciences tend to require very linear thinking whereas studying the humanities can require non-linear thinking. Both skills are complimentary and Shakespeare befits the scientist just as much as maths are useful to a historian. The Greeks had this notion that a complete man balanced both physical and mental prowess, but this could be expanded. A student who can't think both linear and nonlinear means is as well formed as a weight lifter who only did bench presses but forgot about leg squats. Now, whether a liberal arts student at today's universities actually learns these skills is really debatable.

Re:USA has no national goals

[EastCoastSurfer]

They are all related, but I think risk tolerance is in addition to the ones you listed. For example, confidence can make someone feel like they've mitigated some of the risk, but they still have to take that chance. It's very interesting to think about in a personal context and honestly evaluate if you have these traits or not.

Re:USA has no national goals

[drinkypoo]

Nor is there any point in waiting until we learn everything we might need before proceeding. It's more fun and more productive to jump in first.

Sorry, I agree with the Boy Scout motto here. The more you know, the better equipped you are. Knowledge is the gift that keeps on giving. You never know when you're going to need to know the air speed of an unladen swallow.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Anonymous Coward]

I would guess the majority of those "businesses" exist just so suburbanites can write off their SUV as business expenses.

Re:USA has no national goals

[CFTM]

The top 1% of culture today is no different than the top 1% of 20, 30 or 40 years ago. The difference is the market has been saturated so we are now exposed to a lot more garbage than we ever would have been before, it's not that the garbage wasn't produced in the 50's it's that today we have the internet so anyone could produce content.

Also, I would argue that video games develop a different skill set; for instance the average kid growing up today has the same hand eye coordination that was only found in fighter pilots and astronauts of the 50's. Why? Because of the video games. Different skills for a different world, sorry if you don't like it.

Big corporations undoubtedly affect the mass-produced culture and since so much money is invested in to it they tend to like to follow formulas and guarantee a profit which is absurd and impossible with art. Your examples are not films, but brands intended to generate money for large corporations. I can name three films off the top of my head that were released in 2007 and that are high quality from start to finish in all aspects of production: Eastern Promises, No Country for Old Men and 3:10 to Yuma.

Look at the top 1%, because that's most of what we were exposed to prior to the internet but the internet changed how the game was played.

People are not a bit stupider, a bit more evil or a bit less creative than they were in the past, we're simply exposed to more things now.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Dr. Hellno]

I'd like to retract some of the things I said or implied, based on the comments I've received. I really had no basis for talking about the decline of American gaming, films and intelligence. This is a stereotype I muddled into halfway through my comment, perhaps because I was trying to argue with an article discussing the decline of American intelligence. I argued a point, but agreed with the article's assumptions, and that was intellectual laziness on my part.

To clarify, all I really wanted to say with this comment is that there is at least one (1) instance where videogames have expanded vocabulary, illustrated semantics, and otherwise enriched the life of a young child: me.

Therefore, videogames quite irrefutably do not necessarily lead to intellectual detriment. They might in some cases. But blaming a decline in American intelligence on videogames, whether or not such a decline is actually occurring, is sheer fallacy.

Re:USA has no national goals

[khallow]

Sounds pretty weak to me. At worst, better tax consequences are one of the benefits of being your own boss.

I plan ...

[Anonymous Coward]

China plans to ...
Yeah well ...

I plan to ass fuck that smoking hot redhead chick next door
But I don't think that is going to happen.

Re:I plan ...

[martin-boundary]

Uh, this is slashdot. Some of us don't think that "ass fuck" is a grammatically correct way of placing the direct object after the verb.

Re:China is already huge in micro and nanotechnolo

[QuantumG]

This is why the term "molecular manufacturing" was coined.. because although "nanotechnology" was clearly defined by Eric Drexler, people have just pissed all over it for decades, so we need a new word.

Re:China is already huge in micro and nanotechnolo

[blind biker]

No, it doesn't, that's true.

But they are very tightly related fields (I am a student in a micro and nanotechnology program), and China is surging in them. In less than 10 years they will be at the top of the world in both micro and nanotechnology. China already now has some of the largest and most sophisticated cleanrooms in the world. Also interesting are the various technologies they developed and/or use to cope with the huge pollution in their industrial centers.

Regulation History

[asm2750]

Knowing China, there probably won't be any real safety guidelines, and chances are particulate matter from nanotech finding a way to harm humans will happen. There has been some talk as of late about nanotech stuff harming human respiratory systems significantly, and seeing China's history about dealing with this risk factor, we'll see thousands suffer from poor oversight.

Kneejerk anti-religious trolling

[billstewart]

Look, if you're going to do knee-jerk anti-religious trolling, at least do it when it's vaguely on-topic, like stem-cell research, bootstrapping the Eschaton, or building AIs with off-switches. Otherwise it's in as bad taste as saying that we can't do it because too many of our scientists are Jews, or that they can't do it because not enough of their scientists are gay.

I've seen two areas in which people's ethical or religious beliefs or aesthetics may affect nanotech research - one is what to do about an actually super-human intelligence, and one is fear about the risks of gray goo (and lower-level contamination.) You're at least as likely to have environmentalists panicking about the gray goo problem, and militarists panicking about the need to be able to destroy any super-human intelligences, and theologians wondering how many angels can dance on the head of a nanobot, and while anything you do is going to get *somebody* ranting about it, the religious arguments that are really going to happen when we start assembling nanotech tools to build enough horsepower to run AI are going to be which flavor of open source license will the new brains be running?, and some of our new nanotech overlords are going to be really annoyed if you insist on upgrading their brains. Also, once some of them start asking for citizenship, it'll get entertaining.

Meanwhile, nanotech's more at the level of self-assembling paint and similar materials science types of problems. China's research investment may advance the state of the art, or it may amount to as little as the Japanese Fifth Generation Computing great leap forward in artificial intelligence did.

Re:Kneejerk anti-religious trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

it struck me as relevant, _not_ trolling, because the christian right in your country constantly says things like "evolution is only a theory" to speak against the "arrogance of science".

This is an attempt not just to protect their creation myth, but to keep up the notion that education is an actively bad thing.
Whether your education means knowing a lot about science or literature or philosophy or, god forbid, a -foreign- language, you're a goddam liberal elitist snob if you show your education.

What really worries us about your country is that these religious psychopaths have genuine power in a country that is great in so many other ways.

A European

But Americans are still worse, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

But capitalism and Americans are still worse right?

Re:But Americans are still worse, right?

[mrbluze]

But capitalism and Americans are still worse right?

This is a good point. Honestly, until recently, the US has performed extremely well with innovation in technology. By and large it is still performing well.

However, the culture in the US has been changing for the worse over the decades, as have education standards and national infrastructure. Festering corruption in financial circles and in political leadership is becoming ever more apparent and attempts for even a moderate return to sanity in government are quashed without much subtlety.

Capitalism can be good. Free and fair markets, rather. But the markets in the US are not free anymore. It's who you know and what you know about them, not the quality of your products and efficiency of production that matters now.

In this way the US is about to exchange places with China (if, of course, China manages to rid itself of a sizeable proportion of its endemic corruption).

Re:But Americans are still worse, right?

[krou]

"Worse"? Both capitalism and communism can be, and often are, terrible.

For example, economist Amartya Sen, who won a Noble Prize, did a comparison of India's democratic capitalist experiment with that of the Chinese famine, and the Chinese communist experiment. His work "Hunger and Public Action" estimated the deaths caused by the famines in China to be around 16.5 to 29.5 million. Most estimates regarding the total deaths from the Chinese communist experiment are said to be around 100 million.

Although India didn't have a famine similar to China, Sen notes that "as far as morbidity, mortality and longevity are concerned, China has a large and decisive lead over India", and that "India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame".

In other words, the democratic capitalist experiment in India from 1947 resulted in more deaths that the entire Communist track record since 1917. By 1979, there were an estimated 100 million deaths in India already.

And before we forget, the Russian capitalist experiment that was prescribed by advisers such as the IMF and World Bank resulted in approximately 3.4 million Russian deaths until about 1998, while others put the figure up to about 15 million premature deaths, with a projected decline of 30% in the population over the coming decades.

The fact is, both systems have had terrible track records.

Re:But Americans are still worse, right?

[Grishnakh]

Capitalism can be good. Free and fair markets, rather. But the markets in the US are not free anymore. It's who you know and what you know about them, not the quality of your products and efficiency of production that matters now.

Yep, free markets are a great thing, economically. That's why China has done so spectacularly well lately: they finally got rid of their communistic economy, and fully embraced free-market capitalism, even though the government is still authoritarian in many ways (like suppressing political speech).

In this way the US is about to exchange places with China (if, of course, China manages to rid itself of a sizeable proportion of its endemic corruption).

They don't even have to do that. With the way corruption is increasing in leaps and bounds here in the USA, China only has to keep their corruption at the present levels, and the US will quickly fall behind China.

Re:But Americans are still worse, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps there are other factors involved here? I'm not sure this is such a great comparison of capitalism and communism. We're talking about two very different countries with different people and cultures. Not that I'm some kind of staunch defender of capitalism, but the link you provided is to a left-wing website. The success or failure of societies is much more complex than capitalism vs communism.

Re:But Americans are still worse, right?

[krou]

I know full well it's a left-wing website. The article I referenced was written by Chomsky, in fact. I don't particularly care. If there is evidence to say the message is wrong, rather than trying to discredit the messenger, then I'd pay attention. Yes, different countries with different people's and cultures. However, if you RTFA, Sen also notes that when development planning started, both countries had "similarities that were quite striking" in terms of death rates and so on. According to Sen, he claims that the differences in outcomes are to do with "ideological predispositions", where China had more equitable distribution of resources in comparison to India. I had a look through JSTOR, and read some of the reviews from others there. The book itself appears to have been well received, and I find little to suggest Sen is way off the mark. You're right, success and failure are more complex than just looking at the economic systems, but they do play a vitally important role.

China has a lot of catching up to do

[BadAnalogyGuy]

While they may have a lot of people to work on this sort of stuff, if they want to compete against the US, they'd better get the lead out.

talk about bs...

[djupedal]

"has nevertheless consistently lagged behind the West in terms of invention and innovation

Let's see - China had the sundial, sextant, gunpowder and circumnavigation of the planet under their belt long before the west stopped playing with dolls and you make a claim like that?

They were tossed back to the stone age during world war two, courtesy the Japanese, and basically left to rot by the West - they are just now regaining technical traction. The Chinese used to lead the planet in terms of innovation and they want that honor back. They will leapfrog the industrial revolution and plow headlong directly into the technological revolution while the rest of the world sits and watches.

Re:talk about bs...

[blind biker]

China had the sundial, sextant, gunpowder and circumnavigation of the planet under their belt Also woodblock and movable type printing.

Re:talk about bs...

[mrbluze]

They will leapfrog the industrial revolution and plow headlong directly into the technological revolution while the rest of the world sits and watches.

Leapfrog the industrial revolution? China is in the middle of an industrial revolution!

World sitting and watching? I don't think they'll be watching China. Oprah maybe, but not China.

Re:talk about bs...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the Chinese led the world once in innovation, it was a long time ago.

The modern world's scientific achievements are mostly the product of the Western scientific method, and the difference between what China may have accomplished in ancient times and today's science cannot even be compared. Just a reminder that gunpowder, paper, etc. are called inventions of "ancient" China, even by the Chinese themselves.

I agree only to a degree with the original poster. Traditional Chinese culture does indeed stifle innovation, but if you compare overall innovative ability between today's Chinese societies (Mainland China, HK, Taiwan) and those societies heavily influenced by that same culture (Korea, Japan), you'll see a big difference, which for me is largely political. There is and always will be an invisible ceiling on innovation in any restrictive society.

And speaking as an ethnic Chinese, I think there's a big insecurity factor for a lot of Chinese people whenever you bring this subject up. They see any kind of remark similar to what the original poster wrote as some kind of racial degradation, even when there obviously isn't any. This in fact may be the biggest hindrance to Chinese innovation: they are too busy trying to prove to the world they are not racially inferior.

Re:talk about bs...

[Cyberax]

Because just several European gunships were able to conquer the China?

Chinese inventions were treated as novelties, they were not put into practical use.

Re:talk about bs...

[Anonymous Coward]

> they are too busy trying to prove to the world they are not racially inferior.

That is ridiculous:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#History

Re:talk about bs...

[microbox]

They were tossed back to the stone age during world war two, courtesy the Japanese, and basically left to rot by the West - they are just now regaining technical traction. The Chinese used to lead the planet in terms of innovation and they want that honor back.

Exactly why Europe became what it did is an interesting thing. There is no reason, on the surface, why Europe over any other major culture, and Europe was backwards in many ways.

I believe it had to do with the free exchange of ideas, that challenged the status-quo. We introduced trial by jury, and reduced violence in society by placing vengence in the hands of judges.

There was an economic, social and scientific revolution as well. Holland become independent of Spain, but couldn't use its ports, so they created a vast fleet with which to explore and trade. They brought back ideas and money, and common folk became comparatively wealthy. The society was forward thinking and became full of painters, artists and scientists. They invented the microsope which became a popular curiosity. The motions of the planets were described, and the microscopic zoo was discovered. Something fundemental had happened. They saw past themselves to the book of nature, and began to read it.

While the Ming dynasty sent great junks to explore the world, they also stagnated. A comparatively tiny country - Holland - became a super-power much like Venice once was. The Chinese had invented all sorts of things, but their fundemental direction did not lead them to free thinking.

Of the eastern powers, only Japan successfully made the transition to an industrial society before WWII. I'm sure the reasons are very complex. The west didn't "throw" china away. They economically exploited it - yes. The British left a legacy of good government in many places in the world, and also let their empire go. This does not right the wrongs of the past, that is impossible. But it does allow the situation to move forward.

They will leapfrog the industrial revolution and plow headlong directly into the technological revolution while the rest of the world sits and watches.

I wonder where China will end up. Politically they are as arrogant and close-minded as the US. Taiwan is mine. Tibet is mine. You cannot critize us for how you treat what is mine. When the british cast free their empire, they acknowledged that how they treat their own and each other is a fundemental expression of who they are.

China's pride - and lust for economic prosperity - has exposed the worst qualities of our industrial age. The rest of the world is watching with facination and horror at China's economic miricle.

Sometime in the future we're going to be talking about sustainable development like it's the most important thing in the world. But between now and then, there will be a lot of conflict over who gets what. I wonder where China will end up.

Re:talk about bs...

[Jesus IS the Devil]

They were tossed back to the stone age by the great Mao and his ludicrous communist experiments on the people. Japan was bombed to the Jurassic. Korea was split into North and South. Taiwan had to start over after the Japanese were kicked off and the ROC started from scratch.

So basically everybody started from scratch. 30 years later you see Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea flourish, while mainland China enjoyed the great leap BACKWARD to the stone ages.

And no the West didn't leave them to rot. The capitalist ROC (the original Chinese government, which relocated to Taiwan) always had the support of the West. Prior to being defeated, the U.S. offered help to them, to fight the communists.

Your arguments are stupid.

Re:talk about bs...

[American Scum]

Let's see - you're claiming they were leaps and bounds ahead of western culture, but they were beat back to the stone age by a small island? Yes, I see your point now: Chinese are living in fear that Cuba will invade, effectively knocking them back to the paleozoic era.

Re:talk about bs...

[khallow]

Circumnavigation was first achieved by Magellan's expedition not the Chinese or the Muslims (as another replier claims).

They were tossed back to the stone age during world war two, courtesy the Japanese, and basically left to rot by the West - they are just now regaining technical traction.

Thank their current government for that. It was only after they started implementing economic reforms in the 80's that they got on the current productive track. And there was no point for the western world to support communist China of the 50's, a hostile power ruled by a nut who spouts poetry and created one of the larger failures of government.

They will leapfrog the industrial revolution and plow headlong directly into the technological revolution while the rest of the world sits and watches.

Even the US isn't "sitting and watching" though it is eating its seed corn.

Re:talk about bs...

[HiThere]

I'm not sure I buy that "China circumnavigated the world" idea. It's possible, but highly speculative.

It's true they sailed east to South America, and west to Africa...but that doesn't add up to a circumnavigation.

Re:talk about bs...

[Grishnakh]

And speaking as an ethnic Chinese, I think there's a big insecurity factor for a lot of Chinese people whenever you bring this subject up. They see any kind of remark similar to what the original poster wrote as some kind of racial degradation, even when there obviously isn't any. This in fact may be the biggest hindrance to Chinese innovation: they are too busy trying to prove to the world they are not racially inferior.

Which is pretty silly, as numerous studies have shown there's no link between race and intelligence. However, what will hold people back is not their genetics, but their culture, which is something they learn from their parents and peers. Different cultures have different traits, which make them better or worse at certain things. But there's nothing to prevent a group of people from changing their culture, so if they want to do things differently, they only have to have the will to do so.

Re:talk about bs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is pretty silly, as numerous studies have shown there's no link between race and intelligence. Bullshit. One example--blacks score lower than whites on tests of academic aptitude and IQ. Regardless of what you think the causes are, it does show a link between race and intelligence, no matter how loosely you define the two terms.

Re:talk about bs...

[Grishnakh]

This, coming from an Anonymous Coward. Figures.

Re:talk about bs...

[Jeff Carr]

If you wish to speak about the stone age, the chinese started the Great Wall, and had built much of it prior to the 5th century BC, which was very advanced for the time... They were still working on it during the 1600s... Long after it would have been obsolete in any other culture. Those 2000 years of stagnation can't be blamed on WWII and the Japanese.

Re:talk about bs...

[Anonymous Coward]

ehh comparing colonies to tibet or taiwan is kind of lame and silly. you should try a better analogy like comparing england to scottland considering history.

Re:talk about bs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Prove me wrong.

Re:talk about bs...

[Anonymous Coward]

"sustainable development" in a finite world is an oxymoron. Think about it.

Re:talk about bs...

[microbox]

Develop towards equilibrium, which may itself be a moving target as things change.

Now, let us close our eyes for a moment of harmony.

National Chauvinism?

[Geezle2]

Since when does developing nano technology require brute force cheap labor and low tech equipment?

Nano Tech will require bright minds and very highend industrial technology. Currently, the US leads China in both fields.

The problem with the "bright minds" that the US leads with is that America doesn't really produce them domestically any more. The US imports most of its bright minds nowadays and from where is it getting a lot of them? China.

Sure, some of those bright minds stay in America after they are sharpened in American universities and steeled in American corporations. . .but quite a few go home too. Think about it. . .you are a smart Chinese engineer with a great idea. Do you stay in America to develop your idea; hiring expensive, dumb-assed, lazy, and worthless trailer park punks to staff your fledgling company or do you go back to China to get the ball rolling? Tough decision, isn't it? Not!

Now, about that high end industrial technology. How far behind the US do you really think China is? (Keep in mind that most of the high tech goodies that Americans like to consume are produced in China). Do you think they are 25 to 30 years behind America? Wrong! Try 3 to 5 years behind - at the best! With a population way over a billion and a university system that is growing at warp speed, China is whittling that lead down fast.

Your national chauvinism likely blinds you to the fact, but China has, so far, reached all of the major technological milestones that they have set for themselves. Your comment about "low tech equipment" also suggests that you have not been there lately. Sure, there are still some places in the hinterlands where farmers continue to use water buffalo to prepare their rice fields, but the same is true for Japan. This is actually a good thing and means that China still has an opportunity to preserve some of their cultural heritage before it fades into history by turning some of these communities into domestic tourist destinations. The rest of China, however, is well into the process of becoming a 21st century megapower. You don't have to like that fact, but it is healthier to come to grips with it.

Re:National Chauvinism?

[vbraga]

Do you stay in America to develop your idea; hiring expensive, dumb-assed, lazy, and worthless trailer park punks to staff your fledgling company or do you go back to China to get the ball rolling? Tough decision, isn't it? Not! As he is going to stay. Venture capital is the reason. You need money for your idea and the US is the best place to find it.

Re:National Chauvinism?

[malkavian]

Wrong. Ever been to China? I was there last year.. And I'll say something, the amount of money that's going into commerce and construction is astounding. I've never seen anything like it in the West.
Lots of venture capital is pointed at China, simply because the cost to start something up is about 20% of setting it up in the US (and without a lot of the legal constraint as well, as an added bonus). Given that you see projects of bright ideas, some of which fail, some of which make millions.. Given a set budget, would you prefer to place bets on 10 of these, or 50 (given that the success is about even wherever the startup is performed, due to global nature of the project).
I'll bet on the 50 please. Five times the likely payoff, and the failures don't really hurt that much, as you don't gamble an awful lot out there.
VC is incredibly easy to find out in China.

Open to foreigners?

[Geezle2]

What scares people about China is not that it is getting ahead but that we're open to their citizens but they are not really open to us (for instance, no foreign companies can have more than 49% ownership in a domestic company over there).

This is no different from Japan, the US's chief ally in the region. Why should China let potentially hostile entities own controlling interest in facilities that may have strategic importance for their entire nation? To be honest, it would be really dumb.

Socially, the Chinese are MUCH friendlier and more 'open' to foreigners than are the Japanese. In none of my time in China was I ever made to feel unwelcome, yet it doesn't take long to see through the artificial politeness of the Japanese and start seeing that they are actually thinking "Damn, when will this gaijin get out of my country?".

Re:Open to foreigners?

[rolfwind]

Why should China let potentially hostile entities own controlling interest in facilities that may have strategic importance for their entire nation?

Not that I disagree with you, that many countries in the West have allowed this to happen numerous times.

Re:Open to foreigners?

[Geezle2]

My point is that "non-scary" countries, such as Japan, also treat their domestic manufacturing facilities as being strategic national assets and protect them from foreign control. This suggests that China's concern about foreign companies having controlling interest in their domestic industries is not something that is a credible source of concern for Americans. . .that is, it is not something to be scared about. Furthermore, you claimed "we're open to their citizens but they are not really open to us". To be certain, America does welcome Chinese tourists and highly qualified immigrants and guest workers. America is very open to Chinese citizens. It can't be denied, however, that China is likewise very open to American citizens. Getting permits to visit, live and work in China is not at all challenging for Westerners. What's more, the Chinese trail only Thailand and Singapore with regards to the friendliness of their people to Western guests in the region, in my experience.

Re:Open to foreigners?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't buy the sunshine and smiles crap about China being nothing but peaceful and totally non-imperialist, they're human beings so that means they have their fair share of villainous shitbags at the top - but hey, so do we.

Re:Open to foreigners?

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting permits to visit, live and work in China is not at all challenging for Westerner

This is simply not true. I'll admit that it's a lot easier to visit China for tourism or for a business trip than it is for the US, and also that the authorities turn a blind eye to anyone working illegally on a tourist or business visa. But if you're not doing something like english teaching where your company can show an obvious need for a foreign employee, it's actually pretty hard to get a legitimate Chinese work permit. Before I got my Z visa I spent two years employed by my company's Hong Kong office and technically on an 'extended business trip' in the mainland, leaving the country every six months for just long enough to renew my business visa.

Long-term immigration is even worse - even if you're married to a Chinese citizen, you can't even apply for a visa longer than a year until you've been living here for at least five years, and even after this most applicants are denied with no reason given. It's basically impossible to get Chinese citizenship in any real situation, even though the law says otherwise (I've never heard of anyone doing so without at least one parent from Mainland China).

This turned into something of a rant, but if you try to come to China for anything more than tourism or short-term business you'll see that the openness is just a facade.

Re:Open to foreigners?

[NFN_NLN]

This is no different from Japan, the US's chief ally in the region. Why should China let potentially hostile entities own controlling interest in facilities that may have strategic importance for their entire nation? To be honest, it would be really dumb.


You mean like how this happened in the US: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/685/ (Magnet Consolidation Threatens Both U.S. Jobs and Security)

...U.S. officials surrendered a growth industry and good jobs, while making the United States dependent on China for critical military and commercial technology...

Re:Open to foreigners?

[LostInTaiwan]

Try saying something like Tibetans should be allow to practice their religion and see if that welcome mat gets pulled from under you. China, unlike Japan is not a democratic country and the Chinese government acts to benefit the CCP and benefits to its citizens are incidental at best. Of course, there's military threats toward Taiwan, a democratic nation. Are the Chinese people friendly? Of course. Is the Chinese government friendly? No. Does the Chinese government represents its own populace? No. You can't compare China's ambition with Japan, Germany, or the US. Not unless the Chinese government is elected by its own citizens.

Re:Open to foreigners?

[teadrop]

Why would anyone want to become a Chinese citizen at this point of time? If I were the Chinese government, I would be suspicious as hell. Just like if a beautiful girl, out of the blue, says she wants to marry me, I would be suspicious as hell too!

Well Played, Sir

[Anonymous Coward]

Well Played, Sir

We should be used to this by now

[mikeinwa]

Why am I not surprised?

talk about revising history.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Let's see - China had the sundial, sextant, gunpowder and circumnavigation of the planet under their belt long before the west stopped playing with dolls and you make a claim like that? "

Islam had the astrolab

Islam had sundials.

Islam was circumnavigating the world.

Islam had explosive gunpowder.

Re:talk about revising history.

[mrbluze]

That settles it. I'm moving my business to Islam. Is the weather good there? How are the schools and will my wife enjoy the shopping?

Re:talk about revising history.

[dpilot]

Islam was taken over by its own fundamentalists, too.

We're following steps they have trod, about a thousand years later, with our Christian Fundamentalists.

But I still don't see China stepping into the leadership role, the way they're planning. Look at my .sig, China wants the trappings of science, the technology. To really have the science, you need freedom of thought. The real question about China is whether they will grant sufficient freedom of thought for scientific leadership, and then find that they can't cram the genie back into the bottle.

Back before the Iraq war, I suggested that Saddam had "his most loyal scientists" working feverishly on WMD. Had he had "his best scientists" working on them, they might have achieved something. I see something of the same quandary for China, as long as the Party insists on retaining absolute political power.

Re:talk about revising history.

[HiThere]

Sorry, that link does not show Islam circumnavigating the world.

Corrections

[kahei]

Sextants are derived from quadrants and astrolables, both Arab inventions.
Sundials were used by the ancient Egyptians and it's rather unlikely they got them from China -- it's probably something that's been invented many times in many places.
'Circumnavigation' appears to be an idea from Gavin Menzies' book and has little scholarly support (probably lots of *political* support) even in China and nothing resembling actual evidence, although like the Da Vinci Code it's probably going to be remembered as real history by hordes of idiots.

Manchu China was technologically and politically stagnant for a LONG time before the Japanese arrived, and Ming China had been technologically and politically stagnant for an even longer time before that, which is how the Manchurians were able to conquer China in the first place.

HTH

Re:Corrections

[jambox]

OK, Gavin Menzies aside (I actually rather enjoyed 1421 - I didn't take too much of it seriously but it was a fun romp, unlike the arse-gravy that is the Da Vinci code), the Chinese were massively ahead of the West until the late Ming Dynasty (16th Century, maybe?) Without launching into an enormous list of Chinese inventions (ok one - flush toilets!), their real contribution throughout history was to pure research - just by himself, the Song dynasty polymath Shen Kuo observed a moon in orbit around Jupiter using a primitive telescope and described the effects of climate change and geological processes around 1000AD, several hundred years before those concepts existed in the West. In addition, they formed a civil society way before the Romans did (also way before the formation, by Qin Shi Huangdi, of China per se), with a civil service, a standing army, division of labour, written histories and so on. Don't confuse that with something like Egypt or Greece at the time, great as their own achievements were. On the point where they fell behind, your view is reminiscent of Orientalism - the more modern view is that they were pretty much keeping up until the intervention of foreign powers. Yes, the Ming dynasty fell into disrepair, but that's how China works - every few hundred years it reinvents itself by burning the lot and starting again. Even the late Qing dynasty had a kind of industrial revolution in progress at the start of the Opium Wars, with full scale textile factories springing up in Guagzhou. It was a chilling feat of British strategic genius that really begain the slide into the anarchy that replaced imperial rule. Not much has changed really - despite the adoption of Western diplomatic systems, you can still view China as a dynasty. The Qing slid into disaster, anarchy took hold and another dynasty (Maoism) sprang up to take it's place. The dragon throne may be empty, but real power is still held in very few hands. The rise will continue, the Chinese will have another golden age lasting decades or centuries and then begin the inevitable slide once again. My point is that a spot of casual armchair history as you have engaged in is all well and good, but it's a gross simplification. There's absolutely nothing in Chinese culture that disadvantages them against us, Confucianism just means that they tend to be a little more slow and steady, as opposed to our pell-mell, hell-for-leather approach.

Re:Corrections

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sextants are derived from quadrants and astrolables, both Arab inventions."

Wrong. That's like saying that Newton was Roman because he might have written scholarly works in Latin. Both quadrants and astrolabes were invented by Persians (al-Khujandi & al-Fazari), who are not Arabs.

Just because you're modded +5 informative doesn't mean you're right.

That'll show you!

[Opportunist]

Soon you'll realize that our nanotech looks small compared to China's!

Erh... wait, is that a good thing?

A Change of Strategy?

[hyades1]

How is China going to surpass the U.S. or anybody else in an area of technology? You have to wait until something's been invented before you can steal it.

Re:A Change of Strategy?

[HiThere]

I take it you don't remember when the same things were said about the Japanese? It was said up until around 1980 (perhaps a bit earlier), when people discovered how much superior Toyota's were to GM cars. (A silly reason, but that's the apparent cause for people changing their minds.)

Perhaps Lenovo will be the new Toyota...but probably it'll be something else. (Lenovo owes too conspicuously to IBM.)

Russia announced a similar program

[mapkinase]

Check out news

I sense fear/jealousy

[johnsie]

From reading the comments relating to this article I've notice that a few people here are angry or afraid of the idea of China becoming the number one nation. The fact of the matter is that China is rapidly growing and is already the top dog in many fields. Americans are going to have to start getting used to the fact that they are not the most powerful superpower anymore. China is much, much bigger and are in a better position to produce quality low-cost products and technologies because they don't have the same red tape and high wages that Americans expect.

holding you back

[Tom]

What a coincidence that just a few days ago, a study was published showing that religion is the main source of trouble here (as elsewhere), and the main reason the US is slipping behind is the outdated power that religious belief has on the public opinion.

I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[flajann]

Really, all "great" nations that have had their day in the sun never stay there forever. The US is no different. Why should this come as a surprise? Who props up the US debt these days? Who has the US by its financial balls? Hello! Is anyone paying attention?

I personally welcome China in its rise to technological and ecomonic dominance. The US had its chance and has failed miserably. Them are the breaks. The US still hasen't figured out that in the 21st century, it is not military might that will win the day, but ecomonic might.

But the death-thoes of the US has been clearly visible for awhile now. Notice how the stuborn US continues to try to push for military solutions to geopolitical problems, and makes big fanfare on beating up small countries that could not hope to poise a real military threat to the US.

What's scary is that the US people seem to think this is a "good thing", this big bully on the block beating up all the little kids and thinking that that in and of itself makes "America Strong". How utterly pathetic, how utterly puerile, and how utterly futile.

China has the right idea -- allow the US to waste all of its borrowed money on building something that has no return -- the military -- whilst it uses its smarts and invest in new technologies and projects that will have a return.

The public schools in the US are abysmal with regards to the rest of the world. The US doesn't even see it as fit to invest in the stock of its own young. This too is also very telling.

Not to mention the rise of religious fundamentalism in the US, which attacks science every chance it gets. Yet another bone-head move for the US.

You know what? You get what you frelling deserve. Wake up and smell the coffee. Me? I'm going to start studying my Manderain, so at least I'll have a chance to survive and hang on when reality hits the idiots.

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[Anonymous Coward]

please try to form a proper paragraph rather

than typing messages

somewhat in the form

of posts like this

we know it makes your posts larger

so more people might see them

but it's fucking annoying when people do this

big buds are good

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[david_thornley]

What's scary is that the US people seem to think this is a "good thing", this big bully on the block beating up all the little kids and thinking that that in and of itself makes "America Strong". How utterly pathetic, how utterly puerile, and how utterly futile.

It is, however, characteristic of great powers on the way down. They invest heavily in their militaries, and tend to use them.

The public schools in the US are abysmal with regards to the rest of the world. The US doesn't even see it as fit to invest in the stock of its own young. This too is also very telling.

That's a more complicated issue than many people seem to think, but in any case US colleges and universities are quite good (at least right now).

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[johnsie]

Some American universities are good, but an awful lot more of them are crap.... American universities/schools also seem to have a have a higher rate of shooting rampages than most other countries.

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[flajann]

Yeah, they're "so good" that I'm having a hard time finding qualified people to hire.

Nope, I don't buy it. They've been sucking for a while now, and it's only getting worse.

A large part of the problem is that the entire teaching profession falls under my rubric of:

If you are smart enough to do the job,
You're not dumb enough to do the job!

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[jambox]

I hardly think the US has "failed miserably"! It won WW2, invented nuclear power, put a man on the moon, destroyed the Empire, outlasted the USSR, and so on. I take some of your other points, especially about public schools and the war in Iraq. I also think, though, that the world has changed and that China isn't out to lord it over the west. Indeed, none of its advances would have been possible wihtout international trade and co-operation. The question is, can America live with other Great Powers around (China now, then India, then Brazil, then the rest of SE Asia, then maybe Africa) or will it drive itself to destruction in an attempt to "win", as did the USSR? Remember, China has had golden age after golden age, each followed by dreadful cataclysms - war, pestilence and famine. Will America go through these cycles? The difference now, of course, is that the stakes are higher - any "proper" war starting now would go nuclear within months.

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you're thinking about moving. You know what is really bugging me? Rampant anti-American sentiment... from Americans. We hate our government, we hate what we stand for, we hate what were doing, and we hate were we're going. That more than anything will tear us apart. In a hundred years, we could be no better off than Liberia. It's true certainly.

But the real idiots are the ones who are doing nothing but complaining about it. They say they are going to move to China or Canada or whatever. Fine, go to China. The government there would probably suit you better anyway. No doubt you'd enjoy being a subject... a pet... of the People's Republic. I'm going to stay here and fight. I'll fight with my votes first, and if that doesn't work, I'll fight with protests, and if that doesn't work I'll fight with bullets. This is my country, and I won't let a few snakes tear her down. If you're a U.S. Citizen you need to shut up about the problems. Just fucking do something about it.

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[Anonymous Coward]

finding qualified people to hire.

That's what happens when you demand that people have 10 years experience in .NET and a PhD and expect a $40k salary in New York City.

Here's a hint: hire entry level people cheap, promote from within. It has worked for centuries, and by golly, I think it would have been working now, except that the entire industry cut itself off at the knees by making sure all of the experience ended up in India.

In short, colleges don't produce slave labor custom-tailored to your corporate environment. Reconsider your definition of "qualified" to not expect such.

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[HiThere]

Unfortunately there are people in the US who thing it's a good thing. If one controls major media channels, one can foster a lot of agreement with a totally insane idea, if it's one that instinctively satisfying. And one can't deny that "See, I'm strong. Watch me prove it by beating this guy up." is instinctively satisfying. Stupid, though.

OTOH, *most* people that I personally know think the war is stupid, unwarranted, unwise, etc. They differ in their reasons, but they tend to agree on that. This isn't a random sample, of course, so any conclusions about mass public opinion would be unwarranted. OTOH, I don't trust the results of polls. You never see exactly what questions were asked, and you don't know how the results were manipulate...or how many polls were conducted before they found one that they were willing to publish. And, possibly, the results were total fabrication. (Yeah, I'm cynical. Lying new media is part of what made me that way.)

The US has become corrupted during the long struggle against "The Red Menace!", and the sooner we stop being the "top nation" the better. Our ideals (as stated in the constitution & bill of rights) are great, but it's been multi-decades since we've even attempted to live up to them. I hope that a graceful transition to someone less corrupt can be managed. (The time of transition is fraught with danger.)

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[Grishnakh]

You know what? You get what you frelling deserve. Wake up and smell the coffee. Me? I'm going to start studying my Manderain, so at least I'll have a chance to survive and hang on when reality hits the idiots.

You might want to start by learning how to spell Mandarin.

You had a pretty good post up until that point.

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[Grishnakh]

Some American universities are good, but an awful lot more of them are crap....

I don't know about that. What I do know is that most grad students at American universities aren't American, and probably won't even stay in America. So the quality of America's universities seems to have little to do with anything else in America.

American universities/schools also seem to have a have a higher rate of shooting rampages than most other countries.

That's an effect of modern American culture, and the actions of a handful of disturbed individuals have little to nothing to do with the quality of the universities I think.

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[flajann]

A beginning is a very delicate time...

I would like to think that the majority of people in the US are against war in general. But having done quite a few war protests, I've seen attitudes change since 911. This is obviously very informal and unscientific, but interesting nonetheless to note that around the time the Iraq war began I noticed about a 50/50 split between thumbs up and thumbs down with passers-by. But as time progressed, I noticed the ration increase slowly to more of a 90/10 split.

There were many details that were plainly obvious to anyone paying attention, but not covered by the big news media outlets until much, much later. When they began covering what the rest of us long since knew, only then did the thumbs-up rate began to go up.

In general, it would appear that the vast majority at large are only driven by what they see in the major news outlets, and this is problematic since the major news outlets are very much controlled. It is my conjecture that the Iraq war was only possible because of this level of control.

So when China rises, it will probably come as a shock to many, and we may even see violence against many Chinese-Americans, many of whom have probably never been to China. The Media has hell-power control over how the average joe-blow thinks, mainly because joe-blow in general does not think at all.

Not sure where I was going with this. Oh well...

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[flajann]

We do expect experience, but we are also willing to pay market rates. But the quality of the interviewees have been paltry, to say the least.

On the other hand, I have experimented with "cross-training" with great results. I have trained a seasoned MS SQL guy on MySQL and its going great. Many places refuse to cross-train, so they may be missing out on some great talent.

Re:I sense a disturbance in The Force...

[flajann]

Well, this one particular "anti-American" has attempted to do quite a bit about it, but have not seen much change. I have spent many years trying to make the US a better place and it's only gotten worse despite my best efforts.

You know, I only have one lifetime and I rather spend the rest of my life having fun than beating my already bloody head against a brick wall.

And yes, I've been considering an exit for some time now. Alas, kids complicates my plans. So I may delay my exit at least until they are all grown up.

see this sort of thing before

[dougwhitehead]

Back in the 80s, Japan thought it could do anything. They were eating our lunch in production of quality cars and decided to invest in AI. The US got all scared that we would fall behind, etc. etc.
Of course the reason we never fell behind is that Money alone is not enough. It turned out that AI research was HARD. Similarly, the Chinese will find that it is a lot harder to create new materials than it is to copy innovation found elsewhere.

Re:see this sort of thing before

[Dunbal]

Yes, complacency is comfortable isn't it? After all, the Chinese economy is booming while the US economy collapses.

      Chinese students have been coming to the US for years, learning HARD science - engineering, physics, math, analytical chemistry, etc. Guess what? They don't come here so often any more. THEY DON'T HAVE TO. Chinese universities are now more than adequate. Chinese culture is rich with a history of invention and innovation. And want to know the scary part? They are nowhere NEAR being a fully developed nation, and yet are now the worlds single largest manufacturer of ANYTHING.

      Sure, laugh, and be complacent. No way the Chinese will "beat" us. I'd say guess again. The US can't afford its own space shuttle, but it can afford to fight pointless wars on concepts on foreign soil. The US cut its national science budget. 20% of US citizens apparently believe that the sun orbits the earth. Sure, go ahead. USA #1 we rule. Right. Wait.

Re:see this sort of thing before

[dougwhitehead]

Yes sure the Chinese are busting our chops in manufacturing. But manufacturing != innovation. Your comment is very similar to what many in the US said about Japan in the 80s. "We have to accelerate investment to keep up, or..."

The truth is that innovation is relentless and unless you have a self-sustaining model over the long haul, it will not work. Japan made some advances in AI, but after 10 years their commitment (without a huge payday) dropped off. Everything done during that time has been consumed and refined by the larger research community.

Without a proper respect for Patent law, who other than the government will invest? Without an investment ecosystem, how will it be sustained over the following decades? And if they make a nice profit in the near term in nanotech, don't you think other countries/companies will take notice? This is not about cheap labor.

Welcome Chinese efforts in research, it just makes the game more interesting.

Re:see this sort of thing before

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yes, complacency is comfortable [dailymail.co.uk] isn't [moondaily.com] it?"

What did you hope to prove linking to two stories about technology that the US has had for decades? I mean, apart from the fact that OP was exactly right?

Re:see this sort of thing before

[Dunbal]

The truth is that innovation is relentless and unless you have a self-sustaining model over the long haul, it will not work.

      The thing is, though, that a dollar will go a lot further in China than it will in the US or Japan. The US currently spends about $100 million per year of public funds for research. The Chinese $400 million. Perhaps a decade or so ago, one could have argued that China wasn't up to it - the infrastructure in gray matter wasn't there. But today - there are many Chinese institutions, with smart Chinese scientists. Yet costs in China are still far less.

      So proportionally China is not spending 4 times more than the us, but a great deal more. They have successfully put a man in space - all on their own. Japan has never done this, only Russia and the US.

      China is planning both a manned moon mission and a manned mission to Mars. While the proof is in the pudding, they have very ambitious goals. Impressive though Japan's industrial growth and development has been, the need for toys and entertainment and standard of living in Japan has caused a lot of resources to be wasted. I don't think neither you nor I could afford to live very well in Japan. The Chinese political philosophy, however allows them a focus no one else can achieve. They are getting close to the edge of the curve in innovation, and they can still afford to take it much further. This time I think it's for real. Yet America still sleeps.

Re:see this sort of thing before

[Anonymous Coward]

why is Chinese technological development a bad thing? obviously the companies who have moved all their American manufacturing jobs to china and tech support jobs to india are shitting bricks at the though of wages rising in those countries, but for the average american citizen Chinese technological improvement will make more manufacturing jobs available in the US and lead to an overall increase in quality of the goods we buy, since rock bottom quality manufacturing won't be economical anymore.

Re:see this sort of thing before

[Dunbal]

I'm not saying it's a bad thing at all. I'm saying that a certain nation is in for one hell of a shock in a decade or two. Either way I'm neither American nor Chinese.

Re:see this sort of thing before

[bigdavex]

20% of US citizens apparently believe that the sun orbits the earth.

I wonder what percentage of people in China believe that.

Re:see this sort of thing before

[HiThere]

You really think it will be that long? China could totally sink the dollar with one word...but it would hurt their own investments. Still, China could easily survive that. I'm not at all sure that the US could. (China owns a HUGE amount of US debt. They could sink the dollar [probably to 1/10 of it's current value] either by selling that debt, or by calling it in for payment.) The scary thing is, they may just be waiting for the oil countries to decide to figure the debts owed them in euros rather than dollars.

Is this the SAME China?

[erroneus]

Is this the SAME China that, through it's lack of containment and controls, allowed the spread of Bird Flu from its borders? It was pretty widely discussed upon its discovery that China should be taking measures to contain the threat and to destroy all of the birds infected. Clearly, that didn't happen.

One of the biggest fears regarding nanotech is the creation of a disease that simply can't be destroyed because it would be a machine, not an organism. Are they going to contain THAT?

Re:Is this the SAME China?

[FooAtWFU]

One of the biggest fears regarding nanotech is the creation of a disease that simply can't be destroyed because it would be a machine, not an organism. Are they going to contain THAT?
Simply can't be destroyed because it's a machine? Man, I wish my machines worked like that. I'd still have my old laptop.

Fortunately for the world, given the state of the art (and certain fundamental limitation of Physics) the "grey goo" ultra-fear is utter baloney. Furthermore, if a more biological-like threat arose, it will need to compete with the already-pervasive goo we call Life (fraught with bacteria as it is) and even then, if you'll ask anyone with allergies, you will find that there are plenty of things that are not alive that the immune system is willing to attack.

What you reallyneed to worry about is a bunch of environmental accumulation of icky tiny nanotubes and such that get in your food supply, like mercury in fish, because nothing metabolizes them.

Re:Things to worry about. Srsly.

[dwater]

IINM, a large proportion of the equipment you consider reliable are also made in China.

From what I've seen, a lot of people prefer low prices to high reliability, so things for local consumption are made poorly. They are perfectly capable of making high quality goods. It's when the QA is substandard that the quality suffers, since they obviously want to maximise profits.

IMO, the poor quality of some of China's exports are due to the poor QA exerted by the US customer companies. I don't see Apple having any trouble, for example, and I'm sure there are plenty of others. It's really about checking the product before it leaves the factory.

I can see the budget now.

[Chas]

$1,000,000 for actually paying for the thousands of sweat-shop scientists.

$399,000,000 for the corporate espionage against western nanotech shops.

Social....

[toddhisattva]

Sociologists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Holy crap, what next - phrenologists and astrologers?

Everything that starts with "social" is a huge load of shit.

Socialism. Social Security. Sociology. Social diseases.

The only "social" things that don't suck are the social insects, and they don't want us calling them that!

Why do it when you can steal it?

[Anonymous Coward]

And if they can't figure it out themselves, they will just steal it.

False assumption

[shed]

Neither science nor business are zero-sum games.

Let me be clear at the outset - what is occuring here has more to do with national prestige than with any real advantage to be gained.

Science: The free sharing of knowledge common to actual science (as opposed to proprietary business practice) is rising tide raising all of the boats docked. I for one welcome any and all progress China makes here, and think it will only accelerate developments in other labs as well.

Although free trade has been getting knocked about this (U.S.) election cycle, the globally interconnected economy has done wonders to the standards of living around the world. Despite forecasts of gloom, in America we have cars being manufactured by "foreign" companies, such as Honda and Toyota, and Dell has found it profitable to do some final assembly here as well. Even in the extremely unlikely event that China's investment in nanotech will only strengthen Chinese firms, the economic reality is that this would also end up benefiting other countries.

Don't believe me? Think historically - China has one of the strongest and fastest growing economies in the world, and their R&D funding is growing as well (though it lags far). But where was China 20 years ago? China is proof positive that countries can benefit profoundly by investments outside their own borders.

Chinese Brain Drain

[Doc Ruby]

China does have cheaper labor and equipment, but the labor pool is already experiencing heavy demand. Sure there are a lot of Chinese people, but only a small fraction of them have scientific education. It's already hard to find teams of programmers both competent to produce modern programming products (even with lots of competent, experienced management) and still much cheaper than their Euramerican counterparts (after extra management and other overhead costs are included).

The Chinese equipment is cheaper, but China's industry is relatively open and biased towards export, because it's more profitable than selling to domestically: their low wages work both ways. Investments in new tech equipment tend to be funded by foreigners, so there's a further bias towards exporting the gear.

And China's repressive government tends to drive away lots of people, especially those better educated who can make it elsewhere, and even more among those who get to leave to get educated. Plus the repression depends on keeping people ignorant and divided at home in order to perpetuate its power, so the full potential of China's people does not develop intellectually lest it threaten the regime. Sure there are lots of rich Chinese, but they mainly exploit China's economy and their political connections, not necessarily their own native intellect. It's worth noting that these dynamics are true in every country, but China starts out with much more repression and significantly further behind than its competitors like Europe/US/Australia/Japan. So its more likely to stay behind, or face a period where political upheaval distracts its industry from tech advance even if its "free thinker" class does push through to more freedom to think and live.

So China's advantages in building industry and making money also disadvantage truly new industries, both by blocking "mavericks" and by distracting them with profitable exports vs less advanced but less profitable domestic sales.

China's main advantage is its labor and environmental policies, as well as its simple scale and diversity of industrial growth and production, if not of innovation. The labor and environmental policies allow producers to abuse both labor and the environment, which has residual effects. Abused labor is retarded in its own growth in education and seeking innovation, so China's very bottom-heavy labor/management landscape means their middle class is relatively small, which means that source of innovations is relatively small. Real innovation in, say, nanotech doesn't require lots of industrial labor, but rather small groups of highly educated labor free to communicate globally. That kind of peopel are a risk to China's government, and therefore most of its rich people, so they're not as likely to get together as pure economics might allow.

China's environmental abuses might also keep them back, as they materialize into distractions (like epidemics, famine, drought, and other disasters) that redirect Chinese people's attention both away from innovation and towards reforming the government that allows it. But in the short run China's environment, like everywhere else China competes with used to be before they invested in turmoil and remedies, is the main donor to China's increased production, and can't defend itself by forcing the country to drag it into the new "golden age" too. Until nature does eventually make some of those demands, which can really set a country back.

China is dependent on foreign investment and markets. If foreigners want to protect ourselves from China's threats, we should use their dependence on us to force them to improve their labor, education and environmental standards to protect and improve their own assets the way most of us have done our own. The US forced "Most Favored Nation" ("MFN") trading partner status for China through our government in the 1990s on the basis that the move would make its market depend on US production, so we'd be positioned to demand reforms in Chinese government. Of course that was a lie,

BFD

[BarC0d3z]

So what's the big deal? They invent it, we steal it. Tit-for-tat.

If we're really on the ball, they invent it, we steal it, we give it to a domestic "independent" manufacturer who sells it back to China department chains cheaper (albeit at lower standards) who explain they're just giving the Chinese consumer what they want at low, low prices.

Hmm... but we'd have to throw in a few toxic chemicals just to round out the parody.

Open like this...?

[Cigarra]

What scares people about China is not that it is getting ahead but that we're open to their citizens but they are not really open to us Well, the US of A is not that open to foreigners either:

"In March 2005, the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation CNOOC) tried to acquire Unocal with a bid that valued Unocal at between $16 billion and $18 billion. Following a vote in the United States House of Representatives, the bid was referred to President George W. Bush, on the grounds that its implications for national security needed to be reviewed. CNOOC withdrew its bid. Soon after this, Unocal merged with Chevron."

Honk! Honk!

[tripwirecc]

Reminds me of Alastair's sci-fi novel "Pushing Ice", where China put also so much stake in nanotech and then eradicated most of its country with grey goo.

the physics nerd vs. lit. nerd

[emj]

If you just know "everything" about nanotech, or everything about shakespear you won't know much. But if you, as you say, also know physics, math and chemistry then sure you will be usefull. There are people who know more than just everything about Shakespeare, they might know linguistics, drama, phsycology and perhaps everything about all pop lit authors today.

Are you saying one nerd is better than another?

Now if only

[LM741N]

they could shrink their people down to nano size, pollution would decrease, people could have unlimited babies, food woundn't be scarce. And the US could build a new Disneyland on what real estate is left over.

Language Skills

[Tablizer]

There is nothing irrational or anti-rational about claiming that the average American doesn't need to know foreign languages. Why would not knowing a foreign language be `a manifestation of ignorance'?

If you don't immerse yourself in a spoken language, you are going to lose whatever you learned in class. Being how unpredictable our economy is, there is very little chance of using the language in your field of choice. What is more effective is to take advantage of immigrants' language knowledge. They already know the language well and the culture well. It is not economical to reinvent all that knowledge in a newbie.

Open? I don't think so

[querist]

Quoth the poster "What scares people about China is not that it is getting ahead but that we're open to their citizens but they are not really open to us"

I must disagree. I've been to China, and I'm going back soon. It was _very_ easy to obtain a visa as an American citizen.

I have a very dear friend in China who wanted to come here. She could not obtain a visa - a tourist visa - to visit the USA. The requirements and the questions asked are amazingly intrusive. It is very difficult for a citizen of the PRC to obtain a tourist visa to come to the USA.

Re:Open? I don't think so

[misterooga]

I think you are missing the point. Yes, it's open to tourists and what not BUT that's not what is at stake here. It's the business, interllectual properties and etcetera.

From what I remember reading, you still need to bribe officials heavily if you want to operate business successfully. The bribing may be equated as 'networking' or 'getting that official's son into this university in US' but in the end, it will be the Chinese government who will benefit, not even the public in general.

In fact, if a business fails to meet the agenda of Chinese government or those key officials, they can easily close it down with one reason or another. Unless you got the backup of another equally or more powerful, your complaint would be ignored or get lost in the 'bureaucracy'.

Perhaps it's similar to US in some aspects but at least in US, you can make a bit more noise before you are permanently silenced.

article well-balanced

[atamagabakkaomae]

Hmm, there have been so many replies already, but I do not really see anyone reporting too much of an inside view.
I have been living/working in China for some time (in a Chinese tech company) and my girlfriend works in one of the few larger Chinese multimedia content provider companies. The development (regarding the complete scientific devlopment, but Nanotech in particular) I see is:

1. The goverment invests a lot in new technologies, but mostly trying to spark corporate investments (they keep their money rather for the Olympic games / military equipment / other means of keeping control of that huge country). So basically I think, the Chinese government could spend a lot more money if they wanted. It is doing the big "blabla" to, one the one hand make their own people happy (kinda propaganda), and on the other hand to fire this wonderful sense of competition the other countries have with the 'Red Giant'.

2. There are a lot of ingenious scientists in China. There is vast number of universities in the country and if a person is really smart, then the chances that he/she will raise to the top are very good. Regardless of the average level of the universities, selection is made and the best people do go to the top universities (Tsing Hua / Beijing Da Xue / maybe Fudan) It is undeniable that there is a huge amount of interlectual potential in the country.

3. On the other hand is the difference in niveau between one of the top universities and one of the average universities severe. The purpose of average universities in China is not to breed excellence but good standard techicians for the factories. So, in contrast to a not so numerous elite, there are a lot of average graduates, who are quite unlikely to make huge discoveries in Nanotechnology etc.

What I want to say with 2. and 3. is, that the scientific progress in China should neither be overrated nor underrated. There is no need to panic because of a future invasion of millions of brilliant scientists from China, nor is there zero potential. This goes for Nanotechnology as well: of course Chinese scientists are also researching the field with sponsorship from the goverment, but for sure they will not come out with THE huge new development like Jack in the box.

Regarding the 'Zi Zhu Chuang Xin': this is not the Chinese way of overstating their potential to the world. If one has ever checked on Chinese names for shops etc. in Shanghai or Beijing you might find a lot of "Zhu's wonderful shoeshop - the best shoeshop in the world". This is just a tradition in giving names, nothing more. Actually some Americans might be quite familiar with this kind of thing..

4. The older generation in China (40 upwards) has lived parts of their lifes in a very limited, sometimes very poor, sometimes very oppressed environment (one child policy only one example): now that the country is opening up this has several consequences (which do have direct impact on the Nanotech debate, I dont wanna be off-topic): People have a tremendous strive to use their new freedom to become as rich as the people they see evryday on tv or cruising their Beamer through Shanghai. This makes them strong and this gives them this energy that the west is so affraid about. This gives them interest in exploring and exploiting new technologies.

5. People grow reckless. Their cultural education was anihilated and forbidden during the cultural revolution. Now, for many people, the only ideal they have is money. It is wrong to think that the Chinese as such stand for their nation and want to exploit the other countries. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most people are fed up with their country. They will act with an ellbow-mentality not only to foreign people but also amongst themselves.

So also for 4. and 5.: People are very strong and forward thinking, but not without their (given the circumstances) quite natural flaws. It is true that many of the average Chinese people will outrun an average westerner in drive to become wealthy and successful. But also

Cheap way of aquiring knowledge

[tsa]

I work at a nanotechnology research center at a university. We get a lot of Chinese Ph.D. students who come here, do research for four years, acquire specific skills and knowledge that only they know (not because they didn't write it down, but just because they have been working on this problem for four years and have it 'in their fingers' so to speak), and then go back to China. We invested on average 300 keuros in them and get not much in return. that saves China a LOT of money.

like Japan in the 1980s?

[peter303]

There was lots of hype about Japan leaving the US in computing dust during the 1980s. Fortunately scared the US government into more CS R&D funding. However, Japan reached parity and did not exceed.

Its fairly eay to grow an industry at 10% per year when you know an existing path. Japan, China, and India know this well. But when you reach the state of "current knowledge" its slower for everybody to find the next new great thing.

Overall I like China's high effort. The more people doing frontier things, the more everybody will advance.

Roles Reversed

[g_goblin]

I have no problem with that. Let them develop the technology and once we need it, we'll steal their secrets from them like they have been doing to us all these years.

MOD PARENT INSIGHTFUL

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said, not all forms of resistance have to be violent.

However...

[Coolhand2120]

Most of that money is spent figuring out a way to mark "Made In China" on the nanomachines.

If you think central planning works...

[MSTCrow5429]

...then I have a bridge to sell you. PRC nano-tech lead not happening.

China is the short-term hope for the future

[Explodo]

It used to be that science/tech companies in the US were run by scientists, or at least people who understood science/tech. As a result, they took a great deal of pride in the scientific accomplishments of their companies. It was a big thing to say, "I cured disease X" or "I solved problem Y". Now that those companies are all run by marketers and lawyers whose interests lie in making shareholders the most money, that has been replaced by "We made Z dollars of profit for our shareholders". In China, it would be a huge matter of national and company pride to solve Y and cure X. See the difference?

Learning other languages is not beneficial???

[The Underwriter]

"Why would not knowing a foreign language be `a manifestation of ignorance'? Sure, if you're a businessman, a diplomat or a show-off, being multilingual is beneficial. If you're a mechanic, a bank teller or a steel-mill worker, I don't see the point."

Thank you for that quintessentially American viewpoint! My friend, possessing only one linguistic format with which to communicate to your fellow man is the very DEFINITION of ignorance.

And now some random tidbits on why every American needs to learn foreign languages:
(alternately titled "Why America is the Next France, Without All of that Culture and Stuff")

- As of 2006 The FBI only had 33 Arabic speakers, and even those had limited proficiency. The CIA and other government agencies are in the same boat. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001388.html)

- The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: language shapes how you see the world. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis)

- The Paris-Hilton generation: do you honestly think the TV babies of today are going to maintain, let alone expand, the prosperity created by the post WWII and baby boomer generations? Does anyone believe anymore that we haven't passed our zenith, after considering for a moment the sterling performance of our federal education system?

- Learning a foreign language will allow you and your family to emigrate to greener pastures when times get tough! Consider it an insurance policy of sorts.

- Got laid off from your fancy high-tech job? You can always switch gears and work as an interpreter: they must be in high demand, since Americans believe foreign language study has no value.

- We Americans should leave the fucking country once in a while, we might learn something! Seriously, it gets embarrassing when foreign friends refer to you as "an exceptional American" because you went to London once. And why is it that you can find German tourists everywhere in America? How many American tourists can you find in Germany? Embarrassing! NATIONALLY we need to get up off the sofa and go outside, and see what lies beyond our island fortress.

- Maybe poor Suzy Bank Teller, or Mack the Steel Worker, should do something other than stare at the TeeVee all night, every night. Maybe the more educated and affluent members of our society should do something to reverse America's strong anti-intellectual streak, rather than engaging in audio-visual or technological masturbation in turn. Maybe we should set a better example for our children, unplug the boob tube, study WITH our kids every night as well as on our own, show them that education is a luxury, a lifelong struggle, a never ending process to be cherished and valued!

- Language IS Culture. When you learn a foreign language, you also learn about foreign cultures. Inevitably you begin to compare these foreign cultures to your own. This is where the fun begins! You start to ask little questions like "Why does America have a NEGATIVE national savings rate?", "Why are we always losing wars nowadays?", "Why don't many Americans know their neighbors?", etc etc etc. You start to cue in on the things other cultures have, that ours lacks.

Foreign readers of Slashdot, please forgive my monoglot countrymen, they know not what they do.

Consistently?

[Wolfier]

a society civilized a thousand years before the West, and having had a far larger population for far longer, has nevertheless consistently lagged behind the West in terms of invention and innovation, at least on a per capita basis

You must not know world history very well. From who knows when BC up until early 1800s the Chinese have consistently been the pinnacle of world innovation and inventions along with the Arab nations.

The situation only changed after the Industrial Revolution in Europe, which snowballed into the invasion of these countries in the late 1800s until WW2.

After a revolution of its own they're using their large resource to play catch-up with speeds never seen before: 200 years of progress in 60 years. Granted, some copying took place, but it's impressive nonetheless and everyone copies in some point of history anyway. Imagine, were it not for its relative geographical isolation, the USA would have been similarly devastated during the wars and definitely would not have been the superpower it is today.

Re:Consistently?

[Quadraginta]

From your comment, I would say I know history way better than you do, if you think China was a fount of invention as late as the 1800s.

Go read the Wikipedia entry on the Opium Wars (1840s) and the Boxer Rebellion (1899) just to get started, and ask yourself how a massive nation could be so humiliated by a handful of foreign devils if they had been "the pinnacle of world innovation and inventions" for the preceding 1500 years.

Your problem is that you've swallowed the pseudo-Marxist collectivist-worshipping crap that passes for "education" in the modern school system, without assessing the actual facts for yourself. Get a viewpoint of your own!

Re:Consistently?

[Wolfier]

I don't know how I should pity you or your knowledge of history. Mine was roughly based on my classes without looking up on Wikipedia every time like some people do - thank you.

My recollection of the timeline is not as precise as Wikipedia of course. Plus or minus 100 years does not make ANY difference to my argument.
You could pick any event as early as 300 AD and say that it marked the declined of the nation. Yeah, thank you.

Opium Wars? Boxer Rebellion? Thank you - they're in the 1800's and that was what exactly marked the beginning of the decline - at the end of a dynasty coincide with invasion of "foreign devils", after their Industrial Revolution.

It's a fact that civilizations leapfrog each other. Just that the Chinese weren't really leapfrogged AT ALL by anyone except the Persians until the Industrial Revolution. And then the invasions pushed the civilizations back 100s of years. No big deal, see it with your own eyes that they're rebounding.

Your problem is that you assume people to "take whatever viewpoint" when you have no idea who you're talking to.
Get a viewpoint of my own? Thanks I have one already, and I believe that's above yours.

Americans who have not traveled can't imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

How knowing a foreign language opens your eyes and enables you to understand things about other cultures and the greater world that are difficult to gain otherwise.

The posts about the "usefulness" of learning language, which imply that it is only good if it can be used somehow to make money, just show how our lack of ability to understand the world is compromising our understanding of how the rest of the world works.

We have been taught that everything we do and learn must be about our "career" or immediate sustainability. That in itself is a limiting and ignorant ideology, unfortunately for us.

ZZZZzzzz...

[das_schmitt]

tl;dr

SlashDot a front for US propaganda?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see nothing wrong with China taking leadership in an area where the US is slacking. China must slow down for king US? Iran must slow down for imperial US? I don't think so! The world will continue to move on even if USA is starting to feel the weight of its past actions.

I love these "Islam was first!" zealots...

[The Underwriter]

Since Wikipedia is apparently an authoritative source in your mind:

"Islam had the astrolab [sic]"...but the Greeks had it first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrolabe#A_Brief_History

"Islam had sundials."...eh? The Egyptians and Babylonians had them back in 3500 BC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundial#History

"Islam was circumnavigating the world"...the link says nothing about that! Nice try.

"Islam had explosive gunpowder."...China invented gunpowder first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder#China

You and your buddies might want to "correct" those articles. :)

Prophet Moe didn't start slitting throats and spreadin' the word until around 600 AD. This may come as a shock, but a lot of other stuff happened in the previous several thousand years of recorded human history.

indeed talk about revising history.

[Anonymous Coward]

about circumnavigation..."sundials are believed to have existed in China since ancient times"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundial

about gunpowder..."Most sources credit the discovery of gunpowder to Chinese alchemists in the 9th century...By most accounts, the earliest Arabic and Latin descriptions of the purification of saltpeter do not appear until the 1200s"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder

also, "before the west" doesn't necessarily mean first and if i remember correctly Islam would be more like "middle-east"

What the hell happened to this place?

[Anonymous Coward]

For fuck sake, this place is as bad as digg. You people. Nanotech in the US is alive and well. There are nanotech centers all over the country with many incredibly smart people working in the field. People from other countries flock here to learn this stuff - and most stay. Yes, we americans are freaking leaving for Chinese Universities in droves to learn what we cannot here. Riiiiight. As for as equipment, China is a place for MANUFACTURING, not for innovation. All the equipment made for use in the nanotech field is created by US, Europen and japanese companies - and maybe made in China. It is a place of cheap labor. When is the last time anyone bought a Chinese piece of metrology or semiconductor equipment? Never. Ever.

You fucking negative ignorant stupid people, how do some of you get through a single day? And what is with all the hatred of all things Christian? Countries with Judeo-Christian values flourish for reasons you obviously could care less about. Communist and Islamic countries.....ooohhhhh yes, HOTBEDS of innovation, creation and free thought. Name on fucking communist or Islamic country that has not amounted to more than a big steaming hot pile of shit.