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Did the US Take the Back Seat In Science In 2009?
tcd004 writes "In the PBS NewsHour's roundup of the biggest science news of the year, Neil DeGrasse Tyson dropped this doozie: '[Scientific leadership] drives the economic strength and security of nations. The fall is not from a cliff. More like a slow, downward slide — almost imperceptible from day to day. But as the years pass America will have descended from leaders to players to merely followers as we fade to insignificance, at best hitching a ride on the innovations of others.'"
The USA has a population of around 300,000,000, or around 5% of the world population. It should expect to be following in some areas. In the twentieth century, a combination of factors (less damage from WWII than other developed nations, higher ratio of middle class to subsistence-level citizens, greater economies of scale that most of Europe) let the USA lead in technology. Even then, a number of key developments came from outside the USA, for example the first theoretical models in computing, the first stored program computer, the most successful commercial CPU architecture and the TFT display all came from the UK, the first (and, so far, only) supersonic passenger aircraft was a joint venture between the UK and France.
With 5% of the world population, you simply can't expect to be the world leader at everything. Through most of the twentieth century, the USA operated quite a successful brain drain, skimming off a lot of the best and brightest in the rest of the world by offering them bigger salaries and, more importantly, a lot more resources to continue their work. Now it's quite difficult for someone with a PhD to get a visa to work in the USA (unless they're just transferring within the same multinational company) and the desire to work in America is significantly lowered by the insane anti-terror legislation, not to mention the crippling IP laws which make the USA a much less attractive place to do research unless you have a massive company backing you.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You can't just have PARC and places sitting in isolation, churning out whizz bang science.
Neither can you just build a PARC, and have that attract and create industry around it.
PARC and places like that need to co-exist with a hotbed industrial base, and then you get a positive feedback loop.
If you kill local industry and manufacture, then you also kill science.
If you kill science, then you also kill local industry and manufacture.
Back in the 1960's and before every school in the UK turned out kids who could read, write, and do math.
You cannot do ANY trade without these skills, not plumbing, not carpentry, not bricklaying, not to mention the slightly higher level trades like boilermakers etc.
Sadly, we threw it all away, in our pursuit of crap courses like equine aromatherapy and womyns studies, anything, just to get more people in university, just to get more people with degrees and diplomas and certificates.
Now we have a "service" economy that relies on someone else being able to do the basic math etc.
I am an engineer ( a proper one, eg mechanical and marine) and sadly I am the demographic that went through the trade at a time when an engineer was lower in status and pay than many blue collar jobs, which meant no-one wanted to do apprenticeships, which means I am one of the last of the "old school" of engineers.
The future isn't bright.
Sci-fi series Firefly had one thing right, learn a second language, and make it Chinese.
Even if we turned around and went balls out to fix the problem, money no expense, NOW, it would take a generation, or 20 years, to fix, which is too damn slow to work.
All that is left is importing the talent.
From what I know of the USA, there is a lot of importing engineering talent going on, lots of foreign nationals, green card holders and immigrants working in tech.
A friend of mine summed it up well years ago, when he said that in 2020 the USA will be the place to go to make cheap porn and exploit people who don't have any other options.
USA, the new Romania.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
US may be taking a back seat in science, but what is described in the article has nothing to do with that.
Russian space agency needs money very much like NASA. The proposal to shoot down an asteroid (which, according to recent calculations is not an imminent threat) is made primarily to raise their profile, and perhaps get some cash. It certainly helps that the cause is "you will die unless you pay". If you read the original russian announcement you'd notice that they "will need 100s of millions of dollars" and they hope US and European partners will bring some dough to the table :)
I am somewhat familiar with a state of Russian science, and while it may be that over countries are going ahead of US - Russia is not one of them. Real science in Russia is, unfortunately, taking a backseat to populist crackpottery (such as controlling the clouds or making machines that cure all diseases with "magnetism" and other such things bordering on mysticism) that is in style with the new rich, who are ready to pay for it.
Nobody ever said the Internet wasn't global. When interpreting pronouns like 'we' in a quote like that posted on slashdot, context matters. The person who constructed the sentence made it very clear that the 'we' pronoun was citizens and residents of the United States. 'We' isn't always a universal that is meant to encompass everyone who reads the text. For example, the U.S. Declaration of Independence was written by the Continental Congress, to be sent both to people within the American Colonies, *AND* to foreign nations (in particular, England). The second paragraph starts "We hold these truths to be self evident. . ."
It's obvious that the writers of the Declaration of Independence weren't including all possible readers in the "We", as the King of England and his privy council, as well as the parliament of England, probably didn't hold that view at that time.
'We' is a perfectly useful pronoun, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way it was used in the quote posted to slashdot. If the article author hadn't made it clear from context who 'we' encompassed, then I might have agreed with your position, but I personally find your argument lacks merit.
Who cares where the research happens, so long as it happens and happens well? Science should be without borders. Reducing it to a penis-measuring contest is hardly edifying.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
American society absolutely hates smart people these days. They are called derogatory names, like "nerds", and "geeks", ridiculed and made fun of. The net result of that is in years to come only rednecks would be left in US and other countries which value smart people would have replaced US as world leaders. This is called evolution - survival of the best and the fittest.
By the way, if we have laws to prevent discrimination against races, why is there no anti-discrimination law for discrimination against intelligent people? Calling someone a "geek" and bullying him and making fun of him just because he is more intelligent than you should be against the law.
However, that law is never mentioned when American companies demand that Washington open the floodgates to foreign engineers begging to come to the USA. The CEO of, say, Intel says that the American economy will collapse unless we Americans admit foreign engineers. Professor David Patterson (of UC-Berkeley) promotes the idea that we must admit foreign engineers so that we can be #1 in all fields. (Patterson is president of ACM and has promoted the H-1B program.)
These advocates of foreign engineers are wrong.
Even more interesting is the fact that Japanese companies rarely hire foreign engineers. Technology in Japan is homegrown. Yet, the Japanese beat the Americans in several areas of high technology. Most of the patents for your LCD monitor are owned by Japanese companies.
Here is the irony. Despite a massive influx of foreign engineers, the USA is actually declining in scientific achievement according to the lead news article in this discussion. Yet, Japan, which has severe restrictions on hiring foreigners, remains a technological powerhouse. Here is the conclusion: H-1B engineers were never necessary to the American economy.
http://creationmuseum.org/
...and it has not been laughed out of existence. 'Nuff said.
Disruption is the essence of progress. Some of what was is superseded by something new. Typically the incumbent technologies and powers either fight progress tooth and nail, try to co-opt it, or try to at least manage it's pace to something they can control. When too much incumbent power is too successful at slowing progress, that progress tends to move somewhere else.
In recent years, those incumbent powers have been quite successful in the US. One can hope that that trend doesn't continue.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
not anyone who counted
He made a very good point.
Tyson made a very good point. In that lecture, he talked about the Islamic Empires of the 12th and 13th centuries that were building while we were in the Christian Dark Ages. Do you know what happened? A bunch of Imams got together and basically stated that Math and Science were of the devil. After that, it was only a matter of time. The result is the Middle East we see today.
He also stated a statistic that since Bush took office in 2001, during the 8 years of Bush, the amount of "hard science" Papers in Chemistry, Biology and Physics has dropped to 1/10th what it was in the 90s.
(He had exact numbers, and I saw this last November.)
The point is, Reactionary Christianity is causing the collapse of our civilization just the same way that Reactionary Islam caused the middle east to become what it is today.
Christianity. Its the Problem.
When you have 60% of your population denying Evolution, a scientific fact, your civilization is circling the drain.
A lot of people still go to the USA to get their PhDs, but over the last few years the rules have changed to make it much harder for them to get a work visa afterwards. It used to be a quite easy way of getting into the country; go for a PhD, get it, and then stay. Now you're educating people to a high standard and then sending them back to their original homes, and then wondering why there are so many excellent foreign research centres...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This decline has been going on much longer than any war on terror. This is a problem on a wide social level that has no single cause and no single solution. The sooner people stop using this problem to push their own political agenda the sooner we can get down to solving it.
Maybe now it's time for the US to send their best students abroad and get valuable PhDs from countries where you can still find a taste for hard work and good science?
No, America has a high quality (but very expensive) post-secondary education system. Being expensive means that some bright but less fortunate students will never reach their full potential - which is sad but it is still provides a quality education. The real problem with America is the public education system. Low standards combined with parents that don't get involved result in very few American students good enough to attend post-secondary education. So good students are imported.
For some time now, America has operated their "brain drain" to attract the best from other countries. Take Canada for example (I am Canadian). American jobs generally offer higher wages and result in lower taxes. This is partly because tuition in Canada is subsidized - I only paid ~$2000 a semester. So I can graduate from Canada with very low dept and then move to America to work. This is great for both me and America as America does not have to pay for my training. It is bad for the Canadians that do pay for my training and for the Americans I am competing against that do not have the option of a low cost education. But overall, this is good for America and is partly responsible for the lead America had in R&D.
Others have discussed some reasons why this American "brain drain" is starting to fail - and I agree with them. For example, I have no desire to work in the US. I don't even want to travel to the US - or through the US for that matter. I will gladly pay extra for flights that do not require a transfer in an American airport. It is sad because the Americans that I know who live here in Canada are amazing people. I love my American friends - but seriously America, what happened???
While I think there is rampant abuse of the H1-B program I do think it is vital a U.S. dominance in all technological fields. Through-out the 30's and 40's we were not pulling just highly educated people from other countries, we were pulling in rockstars of science, people that could contribute the science we were trying to develop. Today H1-Bs are just a form of cheaper labor for companies and you don't have to be especially well qualified to land a job using an H1-B. Because of this our job pool is diluted and all the effort bringing people here yields very little.
The best and brightest minds are naturally going to be in other countries as we hold merely 5% of the population. H1-B needs to be about bringing in the best and the brightest, not about filling non-existent programmer position voids. Foreigners helped us construct the atomic bomb among many other technological leaps forward. They are necessary. The fact that Japan is so successful right now is due to us being lazy and let's face it, science was manipulated for political gains through the new millennium. When we recover our strengths you'll see us surpass Japan unless they too start bringing in foreign talent.
Of course you might remember that Japan was in a similar position to the U.S. now about a decade ago. They shifted their priorities and surprise surprise, they are back to being productive members of the international community. Right now people in the U.S. take their success for granted and have forgotten that it was only achieved through lots of hard work and lots of sacrifice! My own feelings lean towards suggesting that the religious awakening since 9/11 has been the root cause due to people living in fear searching for a quick fix rather than fixing the root of the problems at hand. It's easy to say god will save us, hard to actually do it yourself and stop the international sale of arms to unstable regions and stop the acquisition of oil from countries that behave unconscionably. All solutions come with sacrifice and there would be serious humanitarian issues to deal with although I suspect China would fill any economic gaps for those countries we stopped buying from. At some point we have to accept higher gas prices as a cost of our ideals which are just and sound if only we had the balls to live up to them.
H-1B engineers are necessary to suppress wages, which is necessary to make the rich richer at the expense of everyone else. That's commonly known as "right-wing" politics, which have been practiced at least since Reagan's time, for the detriment of almost all.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
No, it is not. Look at China. They operate PURELY as a nation looking out for their own interest. Copenhagen should have told you that. Likewise, we see similar actions in South America. India worked with China, but even they point their finger at China for not working to do what most nations perceive as being in global interest. Brazil and nations like Veneuela point their finger at America and say that we did not do enough. Yet, we offered up large conncessions and said that we would go further if CHina would go with us. China refused. Problem is, that unless CHina changes course, then even if the entire west drops to ZERO OUTPUT TODAY (zero chance), China will drive the total emissions over the 2050 line by 2030.
What this shows is that we have a coming superpower that only recognizes national lines, not global.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
>>They are, but perhaps they wouldn't have been if there was sufficient (in price as well as quantity) homegrown talent.
Fixed that for you. H-1B's are there to lower expected wage for engineers by increasing the pool, not to replace any shortage.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
To have a good domestic workforce, you have to train good domestic engineers. It is actually that simple.
Ever seen a Japanese school from the inside? Try to discuss the idea of "no child left behind" with a person from Japan and watch closely how he tries to retain his proverbial composure. Japanese schools don't level the field, they demand.
You say that the Japanese system of a reliance on domestic engineers is good and should be applied to the US. I say, to do that you first of all have to create engineers that are on par with Japan. Then we can talk.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, the problem is, as pointed out in the subtext of your post, a failing educational system.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
American universities should focus on Americans first.
And this is exactly the attitude that is causing America to be slipping. Don't educate the best and brightest, educate the best from the 5% who happen to be born in the USA. Don't encourage the best and brightest to come to America and make it a better place, pick from the 5% who happen to be born in the USA. If you want America to regain the place it had in the middle of the twentieth century, you need to make it an attractive place for the top foreigners to relocate to. Stop importing people to fill up jobs at the bottom and middle, and start importing world leaders again.
Or would you rather that people like Einstein and Von Braun had gone somewhere else and their jobs been taking by Real Americans(tm)? The world stage would probably look very different if that had happened...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
My understanding is that to receive a student Visa in the US, you have to promise NOT to attempt to get a job here after graduation. Why are we trying to send the best(?) educated people in the world to other countries to innovate? If I was president, anyone with a master or doctorate degree from an accredited US university could live and work here as long as they like with a only a background check.
First, the rudeness was started by you within your posts (and even the cowardliness of it). Your lazy tag is attributed Americans all the time, yet is patently. And my post was about both intellect and labor since the 2 are intertwined. I simply choose the easiest to show an example of. BTW, I am an individual that grew up around and working on Farms, building homes and have multiple science degrees and have worked in multiple disciplines. I work regularly with foreign born and still see similar work ethics amongst all. And as several of my friends have pointed out, those that are here in America are the BEST OF THE BEST that India, China, and other nations have to offer.
As to the last paragraph, you have the first item CORRECT. That is, LAZY profs are choosing to ONLY WORK with their national kin are choosing to overlook many other, and many better, individuals JUST BECAUSE IT IS EASIER ON THEM. In addition, no doubt a number of the them are choosing ppl to take back tech to their nation.
As to the last item, the answer is no. There are PLENTY of good ppl. When I worked in RD, including in our universities, I saw loads of good ppl passed on. And a number of the ppl that were brought in, were behind in their knowledge, and others were very lazy (just here for the piece of paper). Now that does not mean all. Because I admire so much of Asian work ethics (similar to Americans), I spent time with and ended up marrying an Indian. BUT, that does not mean that Americans are lazy, either intellectually, or even in labor.
I do have to say that I DO despise those that apply simple tags to groups of ppl without even having a clue of what they are talking about. Right now, I carp about China (due to their nationalistic behaviors and their illegal actions concerning money exchange, trade barriers, dumping, lack of env. ethics, etc), but not about the Chinese (a hard working group of ppl). There is a HUGE difference. One is a gov. the other is a group of ppl. OTH, your nationalistic racism shows a great deal about you.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I have no clue what you're trying to prove by that.
That the US still does science isn't being disputed. Science in the US can be on the decline, while still exploring the solar system, doing research in genetics and funding studies.
Really? You think the problem with the US is that it provides TOO MUCH of a social safety net? You realise that one reason why most foreign countries do not require companies to purchase health insurance is because most foreign countries have proper national healthcare schemes ranging from single-payer to full nationalisation?
The only places that don't tend to be collapsed states or semi-developed countries aiming for the real lowest cost, lowest value unskilled or semi-skilled labour. There is no way that this work will even be sufficient to provide a middle-class income any more. It just doesn't provide enough value and the luxuries expected for a middle-class lifestyle in the US are now too much.
If anything, America has benefited from massive outsourcing by the rest of the world of capital raising and corporate HQ admin. One reason why many "American" companies have lots of operations overseas is because they serve lots of customers overseas - for many American companies the US market may not be the biggest part of their operations any more and won't be one with the highest growth potential.
The US market clearly works well at providing one thing though - it provides plenty of scapegoats, talking points and political finger-pointing to allow people to avoid facing the changing global economic environment.
this nightmare started in 1980 with reagan and has continued ever since. Poppa Bush tried to give it more funding, but Clinton did little and W out and out destroyed it. It remains to be seen what Obama really will do, but it does not look all that good.
Clinton canceled the Superconducting Supercollider. That's pretty fucking big, but not in a good way...
In an odd coincidence, when those plants were growing with all that carbon dioxide in the air, it was a lot hotter than it is now! Obviously that warming wasn't man made so this must not be either, right?
You state we spend money "proving" global warming. Let's assume you're right - how much is that exactly?
According to the GAO, it's probably around 6 billion a year. Which is about two weeks in Iraq.
Not sure that... we are doing anything never seen in the history of this planet.
Yes, we are burning hundreds of millions of years worth of old biomass in less than 150. We're also destroying every old growth forest on the planet. I'm fairly sure these are new events. And even a closed system will have periods of self-regulation that could be very inhospitable to our way of life.
Virgin is doing more with space technology than NASA is. And making money at it.
Virgin is not making money. Virgin has not been to the moon. Virgin hasn't ever placed a satellite. Virgin has never even orbited the earth as the space shuttle has. Virgin has never docked with a space station, or built one. It's performing sub-orbital flights - whoopdedoo!
All government funded research does is take money away from people who want to spend it in some other manner and apply it towards projects that may not have any realizable benefit that's being run by people who are better at pitching funding proposals than delivering results.
If this is true, why are all technologically advanced civilizations run by a strong state government? And I guess rocket technology, information technology, satellites, and every other major advance of the 20th century funded directly by government research have netted us very little.
Here's food for thought. Polywell fusion has amazing potential as a viable energy source. Government funding consists of $500,000 from the US Navy and run by a private company. The researchers are not Government employees. With some Venture Capital they could be running this project with billions of capital investments
I thought you just said government funding was the problem? Would polywell reactors had a chance at private capital investment in the 1980s, so it could develop to the point where it may be viable? Or are you just unable to form a coherent argument if you're allowed to write more than a few sentences?
I agree that there need to be more reasonable restrictions for research and development, but that's more of a function of bad governance than private initiative. All of the programs in Australia and South Korea are sponsored by their federal governments.
We don't do commercial R&D because we can't afford it. All our money is going to Federal programs.
Commercial R&D is just like commerce itself. Incredibly short sighted and hamstrung by the requirement of quick return on investment. That's why pure R&D does not exist in the commercial realm, especially since the closure of Bell Labs. Modern corporations are so greedy, they are only allowed by their shareholders to perform product development. Anything that has a good chance of losing money - like pure research and development - is never even put on the table.
Well, about the Climate Change or Global Warming, I find it funny that people come and say the we have no proof of that. The other day I was hearing a known analyst on tv saying just that. I remember the same guy saying there were WMDs in Iraq well after US troops overrun the country, that Saddam hid them in a boat of truck in the desert... I'm not saying the same applies to you... My point is that while some disagreement seems to exist, that's more on how it's going to affect us, because the large majority - it no longer takes a scientist to see that - can't deny something is happening. But even if people don't want to believe the warming there's a whole array of other nice problems: garbage, garbage on the sea, extinction, deforestation, and our old but somewhat forgotten friend - the ozone hole! Now, are the scientists still trying to find proof for these too, I ask?
I sure think it's changing. In fact I'm sure. I hear my parents and grandparents saying how it used to rain more or how it used to be colder in Winter. Hell, seasons are blurring since a few years back. More extreme weather phenomena is happening... And it's going to get worse I fear.
As for research, we don't have much of that here, we slightly have some in the Universities but that's it. But in the US? Come on, cut a few percent off the defense budget and there's plenty dough for everyone. Why should people have to choose between having private or public R&D? They can have both.
The decline in science and technology in America is enough to scare the hell out of me. The worst of it is that we can do nothing to fix it that the public would tolerate. Requirements for success by our school children would have to be drastic. American parents are in no way willing to put their kids through the kind of hell it takes to make competitive scholars. Some nations have genius scholars simply because extraordinary accomplishments are the only hope a young person has to avoid a living hell.
A lot of people here are talking about H1bs and the cost of education and one person even said the size of our population somehow correlates to a lack of amazing scientific progress. If that's true, India and China should have warp drives already.
Let's stop with the nonsense, especially with regard to immigrant workers.
While some companies do abuse H1bs it's not the cause of the decline of US scientific leadership, not even close! Einstein, Fermi, Godel et al were all foreigners! Please take the immigration debate elsewhere!
The realize the real root of the problem: culture. We have created a culture that loves to watch celebrities and make money. We have not instilled in our students the value of science education. And this should be seen as the biggest tragedy going into the second decade of the 21st century. People lack basic scientific literacy and they seems to be ok with not understanding a great many things. Just the other day I read about a high school that wanted to cut science labs because too many white students were overachieving while the minority students were not. This should be obvious to anyone with common sense that this is absurd. Taking away resources from achieving students and directed them to non-achieving students won't help anyone. There are a lot of factors why students don't perform well in school, particularly in the math and science fields. But I think the main reason is culture. The under-achieving students haven't had it beaten into them that their education, particularly in science, is invaluable. And while these are often minority students, they are not exclusively so. My grandfather came to this country with a PhD in physics but less than $6.00 in his pocket and no family, but managed to work his way up to solidly middle class with a comfortable life and his kids are in engineering. The idea that education is paramount has been drilled into me from birth and now I'm a graduate physics student and I enjoy doing physics.
So my point is, you must hammer into the psyche of the populace that science and math are not inaccesible and can be quite enjoyable if some hard work is put into study. Not everything is about money and getting the MBA (but yes, increased funding would go a long way to help advance STEM). And even though some companies do probably abuse H1bs, it's not the reason we're lacking and neither is the size of our population (a silly idea in my humble opinion, it's obvious to see why).
So, even thought Tyson makes a weak link between the shooting of Apophis and American science, the point he raises is still a valid one and is a valid concern and requires an honest attempt at a cultural shift as I pointed just mentioned that requires us, especially scientists, to show the population that evolution is fact, the reasons for it, why it's important, and how spectacular learning about it is.
Get an MBA. Half the work, twice the standard of living. If you're smart, do a salary survey and really look at the work conditions of the various career paths. I didn't.
Engineers, and many scientists from what I see, work long hours, get very little respect/recognition, and make a decent salary. Don't expect a door or window to your "office", and expect to be jealous of Dilbert (I'm no kidding).
With an MBA you get lots of recognition (i.e. take credit for what your engineers do), get little blame (i.e. blame all your engineers), and get ~50% more salary despite the omnipresent line of drool on the left side of your mouth. No one bats an eye when you leave for a 3:30 PM tee time either. Best of all your skills are "universal", no need to understand microwave design now that you manage it, you worked for a disk drive manufacturer. Same thing, right?
Seriously, the incentives are pretty fouled up at the moment, and you will kick yourself later if you get into engineering or science for anything but the cerebral self rewards your are occasionally allowed to enjoy (in between schedule related beatings from your MBA wielding overlord).
Ironically, we are only releasing carbon from fossil fuels that was once in plants, which was once in the air, which is where we are putting it. Not sure that, given the planet earth is a closed system in terms of matter conservation, we are doing anything never seen in the history of this planet.
Ironically, you would not be living well in a Earth habitat that existed 1,000,000s of years ago. Just because the Earth once was does not mean that Humankind once was. Humankind has not been around as long as the Earth and there were many, many environments that the Earth has had.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
Sounds like blissfully wishful thinking for the anti-US Lefties/Greenies crowd...
Investment theory models treat corporations as if they were mathematical or perhaps physical entities - a mechanism, if you will.
That is not the case.
A corporation is a SOCIAL entity, because most of the moving parts are PEOPLE.
That means that there are second and third and umpty-ordinal effects of the model-driven first order effects because the model cannot predict how the employees will feel and react to decisions made in the company.
Any military commander will tell you that the most precious attribute of a unit is *morale*. You can give a man the best weapons, the best equipment, outnumber the enemy by a significant margin - but if the troops won't fight, you're going to lose.
Morale is built from human relationships and human contact. It is constructed from trust and experience. It is a very touchy-feely, nebulous concept that does not model well. It can be simulated, somewhat, and many wargames attempt to build in some approximation of it because it is so important. Do your investment models take it into account?
I have been in companies with both low and high morale. The difference is night and day. And a company with low morale is both a horrid place to work and and underperformer.
Leadership, not management, build winners.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
While I agree with your assessment that US schools and society should foster interest and acceptance of more hard science and engineering, and seek to reduce the attractiveness of careers like being the next basketball or hip hop star, using the Japanese method of schooling does have its own set of drawbacks.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/kuchikomi/view/childrens-depression-and-suicide-a-worsening-problem
I think something in the middle between the US methods and the Japanese methods of childhood education might hit the sweet spot a little better.
If that means some short attention span theater stockholder doesn't make enough this quarter..who cares...
I think it is far more important, for the longer range view of humanity in general, that the emphasis is more placed on just being happy and having enough, rather than the great race to see who can accumulate the most electronic digits in some server some place, to be at the top of an unhappy and dysfunctional dystopian society, by being the most strict and ruthless and to use your word, "demanding".
I, for one, to follow the meme and to use an example that everyone here would understand, have absolutely no desire to be part of a society of either extreme (which unfortunately both extremes exist today and ARE being pushed heavily towards); either some zombied/brainwashed out Borg "you as an individual have no worth, and must conform and do exactly as you are programmed to do for the collective" type society, nor a "profits above everything else" type individual greed is king no rules and get out of the way or you are dead Ferengi type society.
Got no use for either, but sadly, those are roughly the two main political tracks on the planet now. Kinda sucks.
First off I am a frequent lurker of the Polywell community and if you are being intellectually
honest you know darn well that the potential device has only a slim chance of being
better than ITER. The lack of funds is one thing true, the other is the performance of science
(in this case fusion) without a proper amount of community (yes boring democratic government)
peer review so that in 30 years on the most basic assumptions have yet to be verified.
Secondly were "climate change" false or a scam there would be zero reason to develop Polywell
since this country has ample coal reserves -- enough to last 100's of years.
Thirdly I have been long been an academic researcher, now am in industry and I will tell you
that nothing innovative in science comes except from government funding. The halcyon
days of Bell Labs funding astronomy are long gone. There is a difference between science
and technology.
Capitalism, as practiced worldwide has advantages in terms of efficiency, but few in terms of
"the vision thing".