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America Losing Its Edge In Innovation
jaywhybee writes "Forbes has an interesting article about America losing its edge in innovation because engineers and scientists in the US are not as respected as they are in other countries, and thus fewer youths aspire to become one. Quoting: 'I’ve visited more than 100 countries in the past several years, meeting people from all walks of life, from impoverished children in India to heads of state. Almost every adult I’ve talked with in these countries shares a belief that the path to success is paved with science and engineering. In fact, scientists and engineers are celebrities in most countries. They’re not seen as geeks or misfits, as they too often are in the US, but rather as society’s leaders and innovators. In China, eight of the top nine political posts are held by engineers. In the US, almost no engineers or scientists are engaged in high-level politics, and there is a virtual absence of engineers in our public policy debates.'"
Only brainless jocks are perceived to have leader quality in the US, as long as you are tough and aggressive.
People think that fear is respect and thus think that the one instilling most fear has to be respected most.
People tend to gravitate towards professions that pay better. For instance, your typical Wall St analyst has about the same level of education as an engineer. If somebody is looking at those two options (because they're good with numbers and analysis), and wants to make the big bucks, which one are they going to pick, the one that will pull in $120K a year or the one that will pull in $250K a year?
The wonderful thing about using the numbers here is that it's a completely objective measure. Unlike "respect" which is harder to quantify.
I am officially gone from
I was just thinking of this the other day. We put so much importance on children to excel in sports, hoping that one dey they will make it into the NFL/NBA/NHL/MLB that we neglect to realize how minuscule that chance is. The problem with trying to excel at sports is that if you aren't good enough to be in the top league, you are basically just a point where you don't make any money at all, or at best have to have a second job even to make ends meet. Even if you are good enough at football to make it to the CFL, you still have to have a second job because you don't make enough doing your sport. On the other hand, if we pushed kids to excel in school and intelligence, even if they didn't make it into the elite, for instance being a world class heart surgeon, they would still have plenty of good jobs to fall back on if it turned out they couldn't achieve being one of the best in the world. They could be a family practitioner, a nurse, or do many other things in the same field, and still make quite a decent living. There's only a market for 400+ (432 currently based on quick google) professional basketball players. The market for most other professions is quite higher. There's probably 400 doctors in my city.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
why is it always the cynical capitalists that complain
about lack of engineering talent. it's not like they're willing
to pay for them.
if you're a bright kid and want to make money, you don't
go get an engineering degree. you go into finance.
Who cares? Can't we just outsource that, too? Actually, *don't* we just outsource that, too?
Anyway, America is about money, jesus, and big tits. Success is about catering to the common denominator. Intellectual advancement and pursuit is for "elitist" pricks with their fancy words and all. Anyway, America loves Jesus and Jesus doesn't give a shit about it. Jesus cares about celebrity and sports. If you need proof, just think of the last time you heard a scientist thank jesus for their discovery? Never! Because jesus only helps football players blond bimbos accepting their Golden Globes.
And society reinforces this. I've been a jock and a nerd my entire life and I probably don't need to tell anyone what activities and accomplishments got audiences, rewards, cheerleaders, public acknowledgement, and respect . . . and which didn't.
In America, you purchase respect. America losing its edge in innovation because engineers and scientists in the US are not as well paid as they are in other countries relative to local prices. Why would anyone spend 4 years training to become a low paid engineer when they could become a highly paid lawyer or financier or manager?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
We had an Astronaut/physics guy as the main character in I dream of Jeanie, A senior marketing executive as the husband of a witch in Bewitched, and many many others
Well, if someone thinks a "senior marketing executive" is a position that inspires technical innovation, I think I've found why the US is losing its edge.
In other TV shows of the time there was "Get Smart" with the most incompetent secret agent you can imagine and "Gilligan's Island" with the most incompetent sailor you can imagine. Of course, in the 1960s you also had "Hogan's Heroes" with a bunch of pretty competent fliers. Then in the 1980s there was "MacGyver" which is the epitome of technological ingenuity.
No, I don't think you can get much information on this trend from TV shows.
The popular belief these days is that everyone is allowed to a have 'democratic' opinion on any subject regardless if they have any clue as to what they are talking about.
No more do we look up, listen to and expect people with expertise to give us the benefit of their experience. Rather we shun 'experts' with their 'facts', since surely that sort of commitment to their field has made them biased and unreliable sources. Only the truly uneducated and ignorant are 'pure' in their innocence, only the most intuitive, simplistic and superficial description of the world maybe be considered honest. Anyone with an explanation longer than a sound bite, let alone a formula, is a charlatan, using his book-knowledge to fool us!
Trust your gut feelings, your most primitive prejudice, that which you share with those who are the loudest. Because they are the ones in charge now, they are the ones who get what they want in this world. Who gives a toss about the laws of physics, logic or math, when the truth is determined by everyone - with mod points.
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
Think back to the TV shows of the '50's and '60's. We had an Astronaut/physics guy as the main character in I dream of Jeanie, A senior marketing executive as the husband of a witch in Bewitched, and many many others. The key factor was, they were all intelligent.
These days we have Homer Simpson and the King of queens, et al.
That has a lot to do with man bashing. Intelligent women are permitted on prime time, just not intelligent while normal men, for purely political reasons.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The Arabic countries led by the Muslims were the most advanced scientists and engineers in the world, until they let the religious crazies take over. Just sayin', America...
That's stupid. "Engineer", like "doctor" is a reserved title in many societies. In Quebec you can't call yourself an engineer unless you have a degree. Photographers and writers are not responsible by what they do for the lives of people. An engineer who designed a bridge because he decided to call himself an engineer is a menace to society and therefore must be regulated. Surely you're smart enough to understand that?
In a nation of approximately 300,000,000, we can spare a few people from each field for other purposes. For example, Steven Chu has done a decent job as Secretary of Energy, and he is a physicist. I think science-minded people are good for representing us in government: when you elect lawyers and businessmen, that is when you engage in politics, as opposed to representation. Let most of the scientists and engineers focus on their disciplines, yes, but take a few for government as well. I would apply the same logic to plumbers, car mechanics, teachers, chefs, call center representatives... every walk of life. We need that diversity in our government if we are going to succeed at the intent of our Constitution.
Remember, the preamble to the Constitution says "people," not "lawyers and society's elite:"
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
As an engineer I work on things everyday that have direct and immediate consequences in the physical world. Hence my errors of judgment or bias have a direct feedback to me. The physical world is a hard unforgiving taskmaster.
A politician is buffered from any consequences or feedbacks to his actions by distance; the bureaucracy surrounding him as well as the physical disconnect.
As an engineer I must compromise between contradictory and opposite qualities and find practical combinations that satisfy a multitude of specifications and demands. I must accommodate as well as critically evaluate the demands of users, marketing and design and architecture people, and come up with a mutual understanding of what they actually want within the means of what is possible.
A politician is defined only by what that supports him in power - those who fund and elect him for the next term.
The limits with my work are the laws of physics - both direct resources: money, time, people - as well as all kinds of non-intuitive ones: scaling, flow rate, logistic function, probability distribution. Hence my sense for the 'truth' is not based on passion but experimentation, and I appear unsure and as having no confidence in my 'opinions' - which I don't really have at all, as most people understand them. An opinion for me is always something I can explain - at least to myself - and most of the time to others. It is this process that both helps me understand my own reasoning better (keeps me honest to myself), as well as provides a further insight into my cognition as well as to some extent of those of others.
A politician swims in the superficial memes of popular sentiment. He maybe an ideologue but a successful one is also a pragmatist: he shapes truth into what is most convenient for the occasion and in doing so may actually benefit from self-delusion, even intentional and conscious.
It maybe be argued that in this way a politician is more 'human' than an engineer and thus is more suited to lead us. And that my friends is the conclusion that cost me my mod points.
Burn baby burn!
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
Well, your answer kind of dances around the real problem - the high-paying jobs are not in science. In fact, it is unbelievably difficult for recent science grads to find any kind of job right now, and universities can't get enough funding for tons of grad students, even if there were enough professors to support them academically.
I mean, how exactly did all those well-off parents get to be where they are today? Evidently it was not by doing well in school, or else they would probably encourage their kids to do that more than sports and so on.
There's just so much absurdity and stupidity in that sentence I *have* to answer. In the 1960s half the planet was computerized. The 1960s were THE decade of computer innovation. It's sad that you remember the '60s as the decade that put a lot of kerosene into a metal tube and not the decade that gave us the mother of all demos and sketchpad.
The Mother of All Demos by the man who invented the mouse in the '60s
Yeah, guess what, the mouse wasn't invented by Apple.
Sketchpad. As a youtube commenter puts it: ooooomg.... 1962/1963 !!! I just can't believe it! Way cooler than going to the moon!
Computer on the Saturn V
And as for your assertion that there was no prior art, that's just fucking stupid. What the hell do you think NASA took the best Germans for? Their potato salad recipe? Do you honestly believe all these heroic Americans just invented everything out of thin air in less than a decade because going to the Moon is just so useful? Get your head out of your ass. America went to the Moon as the biggest stunt in history using the developped technological base that came out of WWII and business and science needs that drove the computer industry. NASA was a *USER*, not a developper of computers.
You probably think we only have computers today because of the Moon missions when it's the other way around.
Look, in 1959 there were already experimental graphic design tools for making CARS. *Nothing* to do with rockets or going to the Moon.
Picture
Learn some history I've rarely seen such pig-ignorance, and in an era of instant information access, it's PATHETIC.
And as for your retarded spelling of "cosmonaughts", Jesus wept, man, Jesus wept.
Well-connected people don't need technical or scientific skills. They only need personal and networking skills, and the understanding of how to leverage their contacts to take advantage of the less fortunate. Therefore it makes sense for them to work to succeed in sports since that will increase their cachet among their peers, and they will be able to parlay that into influence among those same peers later when those peers have influence of their own to exert against society.
On the other hand, for the disadvantaged, education is everything, since only a statistically insignificant percentage of the population will become a sports hero or a music legend. Unfortunately, they are still trying to emulate the rich without understanding that acting like you're #1 only serves to make you into a #2.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So anybody at all can be an engineer if they just decide so?
Yes! exactly. Engineering is about a state of mind. You can sit in a school all you like but you'll never become an engineer.
An engineer is someone who makes things, makes things better, as is passionate about it. The questions is: when did I become an engineer?
When I took apart my first machine and put it back together?
When I designed my first circuit, programmed my first code?
When I sold my first design, setup and registered my own business?
You can cry into your pillow all you like about formal qualifications - the most successful and inspiring engineers I know never benefited from or cared much for the education they went through - they were already engineers.
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
and more about a lack of respect for any sort of intellect. At least here in the US.
Turn on Fox News.. at least once during every host's shift you'll see a casting of all things liberal and intellectual as evil and bad for america. 'My politics are right. Yours just aren't wrong, they're evil.' (Jon Stewart comment iirc)
It's an inferiority complex. Dumb people are just smart enough to know they are dumber than intellectuals. And like every insecure bully ever, they lash out.
It seems that the article's author leaps to the conclusion that a lack of engineers and scientists in politics is a bad thing for innovation.
That was one point he made. I agree with you that he's out to lunch on that.
He claims that the reason young people in the US don't pursue engineering careers is because engineering isn't respected. Ummmm, no. It's because the market works. There's little market demand for engineers today. We're not using the engineers we already have and don't need more. Engineering jobs have been offshored even faster than the manufacturing jobs which preceded them. No doubt the spectacle of their peers working their butts off in engineering school for 5+ years only to graduate to diminishing job prospects was probably enough to persuade many not to follow in their footsteps.
Next he proclaims the schools are broken, that we need to train more engineers and scientists, fund more research, etc.. No. That's what we've been doing all along and the jobs disappeared anyway.
Former Intel Andy Grove has a much better understanding of our situation. How to Make an American Job Before It's Too Late: Andy Grove
Andy understands that scaling up innovation is what makes innovation matter and it's the scaling up that is not taking place in America anymore. Scaling up is my specialty. I don't much care for pure research. But if you want to make a million of 'em, I'm your man. All this business has been airmailed to China to make big bonuses for corporate CEOs. And now everyone wonders why we don't make things anymore.
I have news for Norm Augustine. Flogging ourselves about the schools is not going to bring those jobs back. Further, America is not losing it's edge in innovation. The edge he refers to disappeared almost 2 decades ago.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Experts can be wrong too.
No shit? Everyone screws up from time to time, but take a guess at who is more likely to be right, an expert or an idiot. That experts are periodically wrong does not mean we should trust ignorance instead, which is what a lot of people seem to be doing these days.
Yet unlike idiots trusting their gut on complex societal and engineering issues, experts have a means of discerning when they are wrong and a means of correcting the errors.
Anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-intellectualism, and declining opportunities in the US as opposed to other immigrant destinations has diminished this desirable in-migration. The same factors that discourage native-born citizens from entering technical professions also discourage immigrants
The interesting thing is that's tons of immigrants here, especially illegal ones. I live in Arizona, ground zero for illegal immigration, and they're everywhere. But these people aren't exactly pro-intellectualism either, they're exactly the opposite. They're basically just like dumb white rednecks, except their skin's a little bit darker and they speak Spanish, and they're much more interested in starting fistfights to prove their manhood.
Basically, we're allowing in a bunch of uneducated, backwards immigrants, because businesses like having an ultra-cheap labor pool, while no longer being attractive to the highly educated and skilled immigrants who are the people you want to come to your country.
They have some things in common
A lot of engineers and artists are decently educated. Some of them even went to college.
The big thing they have in common is that very few of them are proud of being ignorant. If they come accross something they don't know, they will either try and find it out or decide that it does not matter to them.
A lot of people - especially those in charge feel that they are superior to creative and technical people specifically because they are not. Some of them run newspapers, others run businesses and others become politicans.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
There's little demand for *entry level* engineering positions. Many places here in the US are dying for senior people. Problem is, there's few paths to get from basic to expert in high-tech. People in the low end can have their jobs outsourced, and potentially get easier positions that pay more and carry less demands. Plus, with the societal focus on popularity and fame, they're not seeing tech jobs as someplace where they can hit the spotlight, but undesirable as cogs in the machine.
Many of these factors work into draining the low end out of tech, meaning as time marches on there are fewer high-end experts in the field to keep entrepreneurship, strong technical leadership, and R&D alive in American companies. (and this probably spreads to more of the "West" than just the USA)
"There's little market demand for engineers today."
Not so. Its just that the market doesn't want to pay for their services, so they get employed in India, China and elsewhere, where salaries are lower and what they do get constitutes a living wage.
"Next he proclaims that schools are broken, that we need to train more engineers and scientists, fund more researh, etc. No. That's what we've been doing all along and the jobs are disappeared anyway".
No so. If you look at the total cost of entire budget dedicated toward paying scientists and teachers of science, it hardly amounts to a couple of ships, a few planes, and a few trainloads of ammo. The military spends way more in a week, what would fund NSF for a year. Likewise, for the total expenditures of most US corporations. The expenditure toward R&D is a small fraction of what they pay the top 5% of their corporate managers.
"Scaling up innovation" is what has caused the Amazon to disappear, rivers to be polluted, the earth to warm via carbon dioxide, the oceans to acidify, and biodiversity everywhere to disappear. The only thing humans will be scaling up in the next 50-100 years will likely be their extinction.