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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.'"
Especially among crooks^H^H^H^H^H^H politicians.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
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.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Does anyone remember a film called 'A Face in the Crowd' that was done in the 1950s? This anti-intellectual bumpkin rises to the top of the media ladder on a wave of folksy intolerance and blather. Well, this was satire that's become truth. This weird form of popularism has become a way of attacking anyone with expertise. Elites are bad. People with specific knowledge are bad. If it's not blue collar around his neck -- DON'T TRUST HIM!
Amazingly enough, the brainwork of innovation doesn't thrive in that culture.
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.
No time to read this article, I have to see what my favourite hollywood actress is doing with her hair this week
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
It doesn't matter if innovation ceases in the US because innovation will occur elsewhere. The ideas, the innovations, that tangibly improve life will be shared by their creators wherever those creators are. Those ideas will still benefit us, whether those ideas were conceived in Hydrabad or Sunnyvale. Ideas and innovation are a type of imaginary property. Ideas are written down and transmitted digitally. Like any digital copy, when you share an idea with someone else, you do not deprive the person who conceived that idea of their property.
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.
Yeah, a lot of those kids say they want to become scientists or engineers but very few actually have a passion for it, they only get into it because it's what their parents tell them to get into. It's been my experience that people without a passion for science/engineering and are only going through the motions because they were forced into make really shitty engineers. It's Friedman-esque reporting at its finest(ie taking PR points from companies as the honest truth and not scrutinizing a single thing they are fed provided it matches their preset narrative).
Monstar L
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.
It has been obvious for more than a decade for anyone watching USA from abroad.
From watching US TV series I learn that brains have been replaced by God or other mysticism. Pseudoscience galore and the good science (from PBS) has no viewers.
Universities are graduation foreign students in the sciences and Americans with lawyers and political degrees. Luckily you still have a private sector that has a lot of innovation and hires brains from other countries. That keeps a lot of the patents and wealth in USA.
Imaginary property law shifts the balance of power away from engineers and towards the paper pushers. It doesn't matter how smart an engineer you are if some lawyer waving a patent gets to determine what all engineers can and cannot build. By definition, patent monopoly grants prevent a free market in engineering services, distorting the market so that it's more profitable to be a lawyer with the right to control what thousands of engineers can do and horsetrading those rights. So smart americans aspire to be lawyers not engineers, because in america it's the lawyers in charge, thanks to patent grants. You have to really love engineering to become an engineer in america, because it's a fundamentally irrational choice to do so in america.
Patents are a "right" to prevent other people doing something - engineers, psychologically, typically simply don't want to do that (there are exceptions, and lo, they are giant douchebags hated by most actual engineers - see edison vs. tesla...).
In 2008, NH Senator Sununu was the only graduated, certified engineer in the US Senate...and was replaced by former Governor Jeanne "Red Ridinghood" Shaheen...
If the people of the developed world knew more of history and geography, they might realize that the lifestyle they enjoy is due to their societies' mastery of technology, and that it is not an entitlement. People of the developing world, for whom this issue is more clearly germane, can see that this is so.
This should not come as much of a surprise. After all, some American people want to teach creationism in schools. If science does not get respect at the bottom most level, its hardly surprising that it doesnt get it at the higher ones.
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. I would like to see evidence of that.
In fact, one can argue the opposite: that engineers and scientists focused on engineering and science, rather than politics, is a better way to insure innovation.
But since this article was probably not written by a scientist, I suppose we're unlikely to see any scientific methods used in his argument.
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.
You can debate in government until you are blue in the face, but if the government is the one destroying the economy, it will not help you, will not see things your way.
From an outsider's perspective, I'd have to disagree. I don't see your government doing that much differently than it has in the past. What I do see is corporate-controlled media promote a general deference to large companies. For instance, where innovators once thought of creating that great new gadget, then bringing it to market and building a huge company, I now see people who simply want to make that great gadget, then sell out to the first big company with a wad of cash. There is an inherently non-competitive mindset being entrenched, and IMO is the single greatest stifling force your imaginative entrepreneurs are up against. There is also the insane culture of litigation. Noone, *noone* can expect to bring a new thing to market in America, without enduring a barrage of utterly ridiculous lawsuits. If your product is popular enough to supply an income, the lawyers make sure that the bulk of it is diverted into their profession.
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
I don't think China is communist by any sense of the word. It is a dictatorship and that's true. And I do think democracy is a mess.
But I don't think a country which lets large foreign corporations open large factories on its soil can be described as "Communism" by any sense of the term. In fact:
"7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. " ... "all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation"
When we keep cutting (or allowing to stagnate) the funding for science and engineering research, this is exactly what we get. We can't expect good science to be done with no financial backing. Scientists who love their work will indeed work for embarrassingly little money, but eventually they do need to pay the bills to keep the lights on in the lab to keep the work moving.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The funny thing is, the moment I pressed submit on that one, I realized I had been brainwashed by too much Colbert, and ashamed for having no original thought of my own.
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
From an outsider's perspective, I'd have to disagree. I don't see your government doing that much differently than it has in the past.
- which past? If we are talking about the last 98 years, then you are right, the gov't is doing mostly the same thing (safe for Harding, who actually cut gov't by 70%, fired 70% of federal gov't to fight the Fed caused recession in 1920, which was a huge success, the recession was over in 1 year).
But the chickens came home to roost. The inflationary policies of the Fed and gov't, the borrowing, the spending, the growth of gov't, the growth of spending of borrowed money, the wars, the ever growing size of list of business regulations, the growing monopolization of all industries by gov't intervention, yes, all of those things have been happening in one form or another, but now, the USA is no longer a producer of goods. It's running 50+ Billion USD/month trade deficit because it cannot supply itself with goods, energy and even food (thank you, department of Agriculture). The USA cannot supply itself with educated people (thank you, department of Education.) USA has a gov't, which caused massive problems in everything, from foreign policies to civil rights. Yes, imagine, I am one of the people who is against all rules and regulations, including the part of the Civil Rights act, which concerns private establishments. Why, do you ask? Am I a racist? No. I am looking at this and seeing the exact same thing: backfiring. Before the Civil Rights act the young black people in USA from ages of 16-24 had 85% employment. Today they are 50% unemployed. That's not good, but the society is NOT more racist today, far from it. But the policy of the government has created this problem, it backfired, because the small businesses cannot afford any lawsuits and thus they would rather avoid hiring anybody who is a minority, than hire them, then risk having a lawsuit on their hands - be it a woman, and a possible sexual harassment lawsuit, be it a minority, and a possible discrimination lawsuit resulting from trying to fire them.
But you see, people were always hired and fired, but once you have gov't laws on your side, you can now try and apply them for any situation, and even situations that have nothing to do with you being fired.
Gov't policy on agriculture subsidies and food price fixing policies have backfired and caused massive obesity in population because fructose is in everything, because it's subsidized and cheap, while prices on food are 'fixed' by gov't and so instead of having them fluctuate, the companies look for the most efficient ways to lower costs all the time - thus ingredients that are worse and worse.
Gov't foreign policy is constantly backfiring. All of the intervention, the wars - Vietnam, Korea, Grenada, Iraq, Kuwait, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and all the other 'unseen' wars, Columbia... The drug wars.
The war on poverty - well, here is another war that gov't started and again, the poverty is winning.
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I am of an opinion that anything that gov't does can be understood completely by just turning it on its head, upside down and looking at the opposite of what gov't is proposing, and then you will see the real meaning, the real results.
If gov't is 'fighting poverty', then it means gov't will increase poverty.
If gov't is 'fighting drugs', then there will be more deaths associated with that and more drug problems.
If gov't is helping Osama Bin Laden, then he'll be eventually trying to kill US citizens.
If gov't is helping Saddam Hussein, then eventually there will be a war with him.
If gov't is setting a liability cap of 10Million dollars to let deep water oil drilling while simultaneously prohibiting shallow water oil drilling - prepare for a disaster.
If gov't is saying: everybody must have a house, then NOBODY will have a house.
If gov't is saying: we will insure your bank deposits with FDIC, then they w
You can't handle the truth.
I am not going for flames, I am being honest here. I teach at what would be called a "rich kids" school (in a medium sized metro area of 1.2 million), even though the real rich kids schools are even higher up the tuition scale than my school. I bring this up to point out what seems to be most important to a vast majority of "elite" families: playing, starting and excelling on sports teams. Science club? What kind of dork does that!? Focus most time on studies? Loser! I fear much of our nation is stuck in a trap where parents are reliving their lives and the kids are feeding like crack addicts off of this behavior. What the hell kind of future do we have when the "top" young people of the future will sit around at board meetings talking about the time they caught the game winning touchdown in a flag football game played in 8th grade?
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
That flat tax POS who inherited his wealth from Daddy can move to Bejing that useless piece of pond scum. He couldn't innovate out of a paper bag.
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...
I go back to the same set of problems being responsible for this; and they're especially obvious having lived in Asia for several years.
1) An excessive and irrational fixation on "being yourself". American culture is obsessed with stressing the supposed significance of being a special little snowflake. I can't count the number of children's shows that harp on about this nonsense. The irony is that Americans end up conforming themselves to pre-defined pigeon holes anyway way worse that I've seen in other countries.
And with this comes the idiocy that you're not going to be told what to do. You're going to live your life your own way. And that brings me to number 2:
2) A fixation on pleasure. American culture portrays this unrealistic image of what life should be. Basically, if we're not mountain climbing, or doing some other extreme activity, by day and not actively participating in the bar/club scene at night we're not living life. So what does that mean? We're supposed to devote our lives to pleasure and not work. We're suckers if we work for a living.
There's also this tendency to "do what you love" as opposed to doing what will ensure success. Along with this comes the compulsive desire to make science and math fun. I think that's great but in the right context. The fact is that science and math usually isn't fun; it's a lot of hard work. So stop instilling unrealistic expectations in the youth that they can grow up to do fun things.
3) A crap work ethic. Too many Americans have an awful work ethic. They do just enough to get by but somehow think they're entitled to that job. Far too often I seen people rationalize that mentality by arguing that they deserve better, that they could do what management does. Maybe they can, but given that they can barely do their own jobs right, I wouldn't bet on it. There's too much self-righteousness going around.
Not that Asia is this wonderland of success. There are a lot of people who end up going nowhere in life and get just as screwed as anyone you might find in the states. A common problem I encountered was that a lot of men were so obsessed with having their own business, despite lacking the skills or resources to accomplish this, that they refused to get a job and work for someone else. Some would get some low-wage job like driving taxis but most lived off their parents and, if married, their wives. I'd say a lot of that is due to the excessive positive reinforcement and generally spoiled lives a lot of boys there have encountered growing up. And in general, I've been seeing the same cultural attitudes we have in the US cropping up there.
But the fact is that by and large hard work is still valued. Parents instill the importance of education and hardwork in their kids. They engage them in activities they're convinced will ensure academic success. They aren't fixated on raising athletes, celebrities or kids who are socially popular. And people tend choose careers based on what will provide the best living, not what will make them happiest. And they work their asses off, putting in long hours on a regular basis.
I know quite a few couples where the father barely sees their kids. And while not happy about the situation their perspective is that it's better to work hard now and ensure a good education and better life for their kids. Some of them probably don't even think that far, this is simply how life is.
My point has meandered a bit here, but the gist of what I'm saying is that Americans, and Europeans, don't value hard work like Asians do, but they're sure convinced they're entitled to success.
A winning football team brings back alumni to fill the stadium. These proud alumni donate money to the university. That probably easily covers the costs of any sports scholarships, and there is probably plenty left over to help finance the university. And it's good for the university image, and keeps it in the limelight.
However, to kill my own argument, do we really want a system where students choose a university based on winning sports teams?
Admissions Officer: "Son, why do you want to attend the University of Texas?"
Potential Student: "Uh, the football team is good? Is that the right answer?"
I'd rather see a system where universities were well known for academic departments, instead of sports:
Sports Commentator: "Well, Princeton seems to be fielding an excellent physics faculty this year! Anything to add to that John Madden?"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Funny... that stuff was also taught in the early 1900s as well... didnt we become a superpower in that timeframe?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Salesman & marketing pukes run my company that was founded & ran for it's first 50 years by engineers. Now we do nothing unless it's chasing the competition. At that point our leaders point & claim how our engineers dropped the ball & did not come through with the innovative product. All the while outsourcing more & more tech work to India & China. & we wonder why kids don't want to go into engineering.
We get no respect. We get little resources. None of them ask for our will listen to our opinions. All we can do it work more hours (to keep our jobs) while looking for work elsewhere. From what I read in my user groups, marketing pukes running the company is becoming quite common.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
There is an old joke in the UK, at a dinner party tell your host you are an engineer and he will show you his washing machine. Do the same in Germany and he will introduce you to his daughter.
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
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.
Put aside our horrible primary/secondary education system that doesn't adequately prepare them for the curriculum. I'm an engineer for a Dow component corporation and they are more interested sourcing their engineering work to low cost centers (read India) than staffing to appropriate levels here in the states. That's not to say that we don't hire US engineers, just not in the numbers required to do all of the work that needs to be done. Most engineers that I know spend more time managing/supporting outsource efforts or other company initiative stuff than doing actual engineering work.
We are having a huge problem of lack of engineers here in Brazil. People are leaving universities already hired even if you have zero experience. If you want a good life outside the financial market you should consider move to another country.
Brazil has some bureaucracy to get residence permission to work here but I am sure you will get a good salary and a nice quality of life. And yes, people here care more about engineers, medical doctors (one exception would be famous soccer players).
This is just an expample. I don't know the situation of India, China and others. But an experienced engineer here can get about US120k a year but you are going to pay half of the price for food and house and other things. Cars is an exception, it is more expensive than america and internet connection i pay about US$50 for 30Mbps FTTH connection.
This is just an example, there are more need for example in Africa. One of my friends a few years ago saved some money and decided to try bulding some houses in Angola. He opened a company with only him as an engineer and hired local people to build. He's fucking rich now and offered me to work there for US250k a year. If I wasn't coward because Angola had a civil war 10 years ago I would probably go. You can make huge savings for your retirement in places you probably never considered going. Take a time and look for the oportunities.
Current policy is the problem, but it's always a fallacy to say "government is the problem." Unless you support anarchy (and by anarchy I don't mean some utopian Chompsky anarchy that never has nor will exist, I mean chaos), then government cannot be a problem in and of itself. Government policy can be a problem, but here the problem is that the government isn't investing in education.
When you personify the government as some crazy anti-individual you only illustrate how out of touch you are with reality.
Way to cite your own post, btw. Here's the problem with your argument: manufacturing jobs will be lost to robots, so it really doesn't matter if we lose them to foreign countries in the short term. In the long term they're gone. We need to create a society of educated individuals whose jobs cannot be replaced by computers, robots, and machines. This starts with education and it requires the government's support.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
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
Government is the one, that is causing the fall of the US economy
Sad that you ruin your comment with a largely baseless shot against your favorite boogeyman, because you then move on to make a valid point:
Science and engineering will not be promoted in a society that has no production
This is not the problem caused by gubmint. Countries where science and engineering are thriving, such as in Germany or Canada, have much larger government spending per capita and more social programs than the United States. The idea that government is the principal hurdle to overcome would only make sense if we had no data from outside the United States, but fortunately we have discovered that there places with similar economies in the lands beyond these shores.
I'd argue that the challenge is split between two factors: culture (as in, sports are cool, science and math are not) and economics (manufacturing goes elsewhere because of liberal trade policies and a strong dollar relative to other currencies). Again, you can't argue that the latter problem is caused by government just because that nicely fits into your preferred world view, or you would get stuck failing to explain why countries with government run healthcare (unlike ours, even under the recent reform) and sub-65 retirement ages have employment rates equal to or higher than ours, as well as more manufacturing.
Two modest solutions:
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.
Funny... that stuff was also taught in the early 1900s as well... didnt we become a superpower in that timeframe?
Uhm, no? You became a superpower when Europe was torn apart by wars, and many scientists fled to the US to continue their work.
President Barack Obama - Law
Vice President Joe Biden - Law
Speaker of House John Boehner - Business
President pro tempore Daniel Inouye - Law
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - Law
Secretary of the Treasury (Timothy Geithner) - Asian Studies/Economics
Secretary of Defense (Robert Gates) - History
Attorney General (Eric Holder) - Law
Secretary of the Interior (Ken Salazar) - Law
Secretary of Agriculture (Tom Vilsack) - Law
Secretary of Commerce (Gary Locke) - Law
Secretary of Labor (Hilda Solis) - Public Policy
Secretary of Health and Human Services (Kathleen Sebelius) - Public Policy
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (Shaun Donovan) - Public Policy
Secretary of Transportation (Ray LaHood) - Education/Sociology
Secretary of Energy (Steven Chu) - Physics
Secretary of Education (Arne Duncan) - Sociology
Secretary of Veterans Affairs (Eric Shinseki) - Science/Literature
Secretary of Homeland Security (Janet Napolitano) - Law
The top posts are held by those who have been educated in law, and Cabinet members mostly educated in fields related to their positions.
You want to talk about the decay of culture and values? That's nothing new, every aging generation in every society in the history of humanity has fretted, writhed, and screamed about it.
The fact that American media prefers a self-deprecating sense of humor doesn't mean we embody those caricatures of ourselves.
"In China, eight of the top nine political posts are held by engineers"
Well, those politicians, like my father, were born, raised, and educated in a system that made that decision for them - they were assigned to study engineering by the government to fulfill quotas demanded by the planned economy. It was only in the 80's when the planned economy was abolished and economic reforms were instituted that this practice came to an end. Scientists at the time were indeed looked up to for their intelligence and social contributions, but so too were they looked up to because graduating from a top science school and joining the Communist Party was the only path to political power and thus wealth in those days. Nowadays in China, people no longer have such respect for scientists because they see that even middle school drop-outs can start factories or businesses and strike immense fortunes. They have greater respect (and disgust) for those who wield guile and personal connections, like everyone else in the world.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Any engineer or scientist who doesn't want the responsibility can easily duck it, and usually does. They know doing an honest job of it is hard work. They know leaders are targets. And there is an unending supply of loudmouthed suckers who will leap at a chance to be The Man because they think "it's good to be the king", think they'd enjoy calling the shots. They think the ones doing it now are a bunch of idiots and doing better than them will be easy. Or they don't give a damn, and just want the bigger paycheck. All the engineers have to do is be quiet, and the loudmouth will look proactive, "can do", and energetic. The higher ups or customers will fall for it almost every time. Once in a leadership position, they find it very convenient to blame problems on the "incompetent" engineers, as if they could do any better. Everyone else sees the bosses slanging the engineers, so what to they do? Pile on of course. Galling to work under someone who has no clue how hard or easy the work is, and who has caused many of the problems being blamed on the engineers. As if mere technical problems aren't plenty hard enough, have to deal with all the politicking too.
The opinionated loudmouths are the ones who shouldn't be leading, but they end up in a disproportionate number of leadership positions. Even when the engineer wants to take on the responsibility, it's tough to compete with the flashy, smooth-talking, boot licking Man with a Plan who understands the Realities of Business. And if the quiet engineer somehow wins the job anyway, then this guy is a constant thorn in the side. He's angry, and he's looking for any chance to take the engineer down. And being the sort of fool he is, he may well do it even if that leads to disaster, and gets everyone fired or causes the company to tank.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
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
These links may also be enlightening:
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/12/confident-dumb-peopl.html
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_Effect
We imported most of our scientists. We can thank Hitler and Mussolini for our scientific talent. Einstein, Fermi, many other came here.
http://science.jrank.org/pages/48899/brain-drains-paperclip-operations.html
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
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
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.
The slashdot story comes from this article in Forbes. As expected, the forbes article is just another cookie-cutter pro-H1B propaganda article. Same old "arguments." Basically, they are saying "because of the desperate shortages of US tech workers, we need to temporarily allow more H1Bs, just until US schools get up to speed."
This corporate propaganda has been fully disproved many times, but the flood of these cookie-cutter articles, continues. Tell a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth.
From Forbes:
Jan 20, 2011
Danger: America Is Losing Its Edge In Innovation
* Improve K-12 science and math education.
* Invest in long-term basic research.
* Attract and retain the best and brightest students, scientists and engineers in the U.S. and around the world.
* Create and sustain incentives for innovation and research investment.
http://blogs.forbes.com/ciocentral/2011/01/20/danger-america-is-losing-its-edge-in-innovation/
Here is the real situation:
Duke University study reporting no shortage of US Engineers:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/Study-There-Is-No-Shortage-of-US-Engineers/
PISA Scores Show Demography Is Destiny In Education Too—But Washington Doesn’t Want You To Know
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/101219_pisa.htm
I've been to the Bay Area, Hong Kong various cities in China (e.g. Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, etc.) before. I'm in Hong Kong right now but I'm going back to the Bay Area next month.
Bay Area: Engineers are rather well respected from what I can see. My sample may be biased though since I've been working with the upper layer of the valley so far (VCs, CxOs, Stanford PhDs, etc.) But hey, if your company just exited for a few million dollars, the local media and TechCrunch cares. You open a party and your friends love you.
Hong Kong: If you're an engineer (even a CTO "engineer"), you're a loser, period. Nobody ever heard of a VC or angel investor here - these things takes time to pay off, all people want is fast money. I can go rant about HK's economic environment until my face turns blue but suffice to say, innovation, technology, entrepreneurship are thinly veiled insult words here meaning you can't make fast and easy money. Some of my friends got funding of >$100M HKD and the media never paid any attention. Someone else just exited for $1B HKD last week and the mainstream media just don't care.
China: Yes there're many high tech firms in Beijing and Shenzhen and engineers do get much higher salaries (5x - 100x, depending on who you're comparing to) compared to the average uneducated worker (China has high literacy level but very low education level). Things is.. that's only for the lucky people who attended the top Chinese universities (e.g. Tsinghua) and succeeded in getting a job and work permit in the high tech cities only. If you aren't one of those 1-in-a-1000 lucky guys... sorry man but your life is gonna suck. Even if you are one of the lucky engineers - the top of the food chain in China is being a government official, not a C-Suite executive, and 100% not an engineer. The real elites in China aren't looking to become an engineer, but rather join the government and make a few really fast million bucks there.
So, from what I can tell... US's fear on losing its tech edge to Asia is highly overrated. If you really want the top tech companies, engineers and scientists in the world, the people have to love doing it and are financially allowed to keep doing it out of love (not every engineer is a tech company CxO or got hired by Google, you see...). That's simply not happening in China nor Hong Kong. The thing about Chinese engineers being ultra competitive is way overblown - if you're constantly under threat of being evicted from your ultra-expensive (compared to your tiny salary) flat, and your flat sucks - you'd be aggressive too. But it also makes you very short sighted because all you can think of is how to get a nicer house to live in, but not how to make the next Google or figure out how to build rockets cheap. So you're surely not gonna be doing better scientific research, opening a novel tech startup, or doing an open source project. Copying and cutting corners, on the other hand, works short term, but that's doesn't get China any edge ahead of the US.
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.
I guess people like to make bald statements ("Eight of nine top political posts (in the PRC) are held by engineers.
Sheesh; that was easy to check; and wrong. Even the "nine" is problematic. What's real is:
Hu JinTao - Gen secy of CPC, Pres of PRC; hydraulic eng. ...Wen JiaBao - premier of PRC; PhD in geology
Xi JinPing - first secy of CPC, VP of PRC; chem eng.
Not bad. But from there on, they're business-school degrees (albeit one from LSE) plus the minEd has a history degree.
A long way down the list (way past "nine") is Chen Zhu - minHealth; PhDs in microbiology and medicine from Shanghai and Université Paris. Curiously, not a CPC member.