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8 of China's Top 9 Govt. Officials Are Engineers
kkleiner writes "Did you know that the president of China is a scientist? President Hu Jintao was trained as a hydraulic engineer. Likewise his Premier, Wen Jiabao, is a geomechanical engineer. In fact, 8 out of China's top 9 government officials are scientists or engineers."
and all of ours are scientists.
9 our of 9 Chinese top officials promote blatant economic slavery in an attempt to increase their power. These people aren't stupid, but they are very dangerous and exploitative of the population.
Ever think that the US might have gown down the WRONG road ?
This is more or less how most of the world is; the US is one of the few places where being a scientist isn't synonymous with being respected.
Yeah, God forbid the best and brightest get in, rather than EVERYONE.
Wait, that's what it was like in the US during our golden age? WTF!? Didn't they know that we can fix any problem by just throwing tuition money at it to the point that colleges feel the need to build waterparks with lazy rivers an every campus?
Surely China is lacking in a lot of areas, but I do find this interesting.
I grow really weary of western leaders being almost completely lawyers, polsci majors, bankers, economists, and the like.
It would be nice to have some ministers that actually come from the field they are in charge of more often than now, at least. Lawyers and bankers make laws for bankers and lawyers, go figure.
Sent from my PDP-11
I do hope you all don't think this way.
Don't be fooled by the Faux News view of China.
One day you'll wake up and it'll be too late to do anything about their world markets domination.
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
From the article:
Thirty-four countries were assessed in all by the PISA test, considered to be the most comprehensive of its type. Out of those 34 the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math.
China’s 15-year olds also took the test. They ranked 1st, 1st, and 1st.
Is your point that the PISA test is either a useless measure or intentionally slanted to favor China ?
Your signature seems to imply a view that anything that casts the US in an unfavorable light in comparison with the rest of the world, including self introspection as to how we could be better, is suspect.
are active religious members.
Chinas economy is growing without having to steal oil
Americas economy is falling even after stealing oil.
i see a pattern.
Hey fellow geeks, tell me what you think about population control.. are you fundamentally opposed to involuntary sterilization or do you think it might sometimes be the right solution?
Some of the scariest social policies that I've ever heard have come out of the mouths of engineers. We're inherently heartless bastards who consider ourselves intellectually superior and so should have the right to sweep aside individual rights for what we consider to be the greater good.
For many of us, it has taken years of deprogramming to free ourselves from the "our kind know better" mindset.
How we know is more important than what we know.
> Did you know that the president of China is a scientist? President Hu Jintao was trained as a hydraulic engineer.
So, he's not a scientist, he's an engineer. That's not a slam against engineers (or scientists) but I believe that the two outlooks are very different.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
The slashdot headline says "8 of China's Top 9 Govt. Officials Are Engineers." The slashdot summary says, "8 out of China's top 9 government officials are scientists or engineers," in a link to singularityhub.com. Singularityhub says "In fact, 8 out of China's top 9 government officials are scientists," in a link to forbes.com. Forbes.com doesn't say anything about 8 out of 9 anything.
So we have some possibilities: (a) 8/9 are engineers (slashdot headline); (b) 8/9 are scientists (singularityhub); (c) 8/9 are scientists or engineers (slashdot summary); (d) none of the above (original source, forbes.com).
This stuff about comparing the US's science and engineering to China's is just plain dumb, and not only is it dumb, it's getting really, really old. Didn't we have enough of this in the Sputnik era?
Some reality checks: (1) Science is not a zero-sum game. If someone in China publishes a really good scientific paper, it makes the US better off, not worse off. (2) The US is a capitalist country, where labor is a market, and the value of a particular skill is set by supply and demand. If employers are having trouble hiring enough scientists, they'll offer higher pay for scientists. Ditto for engineers. (3) Chinese higher education sucks to high heaven. US higher education is the envy of the world. (How many US college graduates do you know who go to China for grad school?) (4) Science and engineering are two different things.
Find free books.
While we here in this forum respect engineers and scientists (because we are one of them,) they don't necessary make great leaders by any mean. So far, these 8 Chinese top officials, like the 8 preceding them, are just following the game plan set up by the early true leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, neither of whom are engineers but career generals and politicians. You can even claim the current leaders are "better" because they have not committed massive wrongdoings such as Great Leap Forward or Cultural Revolution or June 4 as their predecessor. But the current leadship's impact on Chinese history is much much less comparing to the still current political/economic impacts by Mao or Deng.
100 out of 100 are laywers in the US and not the attractive altruistic 22 year old laywers that you see on TV.
Then you'd have to include Japan in that. And England. And most other nations that realize that there's nothing wrong with vocational schools, and that some people are better off going to one of them instead of college.
Your signature seems to imply a view that anything that casts the US in an unfavorable light in comparison with the rest of the world, including self introspection as to how we could be better, is suspect.
Given how faddish and unthinking this sort of thing tends to be, yes, it should be questioned. Given that China's 15 year olds supposedly beat not just the US (which frankly is an easy target) but everyone else including Japan and the whole of Europe, then I wonder how, not if, they gamed the test.
Scoff at the concept of democracy or freedom of information.
And 10 out of 9 grad-ge-ated the sixth grade
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
The Chinese consider science and technology extremely important for the development of their state. There are many, many universities in China which focus SOLELY on producing Engineers. Not a surprise they'd prefer those sorts in people positions of power than the Western world, who for some reason prefers lawyers.
That's a good one. Yes, let's forget all the people in that "golden age" that only made it into colleges due to their parent's wealth.
In the US most of our leaders are trained as lawyers. How many people in China were graduating with law degrees 40 to 50 years ago (anyone remember the cultural revolution?) Rule of law hasn't been practiced in China for a very long time, so being trained as a lawyer hasn't been as useful there and I suspect it has been quite risky. Suppose you had been trained as a lawyer before the communists took over. As a lawyer you would have been involved in government - making you a target when the cultural revolution came along. So if you were a talented young person 40 to 50 years ago I suspect a law degree just wasn't that attractive.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Firstly these are not scientists, they are politicians with engineering degrees.
Secondly, they are also all second and third generation Communist Party Members, their parents were all big CCP players, what makes you think they had to do any work to get their qualifications? Every one of them was virtually guaranteed to get a degree no matter what their ability.
Third, even if they did their work, have you even been to any Chinese universities? All but the very top two are shockingly terrible, and I teach at a Chinese university, the standard here is.....shocking, cheating is so rife that it makes nearly all tests worthless it doesnt even compare to the crappest community college back home.
Fourth, have any of these people actually worked as engineers or have they been politicians all their life?
Fifth, what makes you think an engineer would be better at running a country than anyone else?
This smells like something put out by the people daily.
I want to know how many Chinese prefer Folgers Coffee Crystals to their regular coffee. I mean, if I'm going to open a factory there, I need some numbers I can use.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Had you read just a little further into the article:
Actually, the test in China was performed by city and the top placings were earned by Shanghai, not China as a whole
So it's specifically using the city in China that got the best results, not the national average.
Lawyers and bankers as leaders is great! ... until they deregulate the banking industry to allow them to cripple the financial system, then bail them out so that the richest of the rich can still get multi-million dollar bonuses.
>liberal democracy
But that's not what we have.
We have capitalist oligarchy neo-fascism instead.
Liberalism is a dirty word, don'tchaknow. It's been that way since 1980. Doing /anything/ that advances society overall and gets everyone a better standard of living instead of increasing the power of the ruling class is "bad." The oil companies /need/ that 20 billion dollar subsidy on top of their windfall profits. Because without it, the oil companies will stop delivering oil. Or something. Because the ruling class of the corporations knows better, for all of us.
We've even got an entire tv network spewing this garbage 24/7.
Fuck this country, for it is fucked.
The assholes at PNAC that got us into two wars should be swinging from nooses like the traitors they are.
--
BMO
How many constitutional law professors, human rights lawyers, or social scientists do they have in top government places?
Engineers serve valuable roles and are certainly well qualified in many respects, but running a country that's both successful and treats its people well requires wisdom that no college degree can ever confer. I take it that kkleiner meant to imply that China has set the standard in some way, and that other nations do themselves a disservice by not having as many engineers in top decision-making positions. If so, then it still begs the question what makes one believe an engineer would do a better job than someone of another profession when shaping public policy?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
This test was administered to only students living in Shanghai, and as such was not representative.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/education/07education.html
The fact is that away from the coastal cities China is still very backward.
Because America exported all their manufacturing to China.
Democracy is an illusion, when the two only parties have the same policies.
That gov. efficiency starts with intelligent scientists and engineers? Perhaps it is time that we simply hire decent ppl, rather than ppl like reagan and W.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Has it ever once occurred to you that there is a hard, cold reality outside of whatever "politically correct" bullshit you like to think about. Sure, millions of Americans think that population control is wrong. Mostly for religious reasons.
But even if every human being on the planet were opposed to it, there is a REALITY we live in. And in that reality, there is finite living space, farmland, and resources available for a given level of technology. (granted, technology gradually lifts the limits but populations grow EXPONENTIALLY if unconstrained)
What other solution is available to China? By stopping their population from growing too fast, they don't exceed their living space which WOULD eventually result in deaths from starvation and wars as the starving populations fight it out for the remaining food.
Go look at Africa to see what happens when there's no control.
Are you telling me that China is run by people who have been trained to make informed decisions based on hard facts? We stand no chance, unless we luck out and rapture comes on may 21st.
Uhhh ok fair enough. There is always emigration to China when it gets intolerably oppressive in the US.
Part of the problem though is this is viewed as a China vs US issue and creates arguments (see other posts here) about China's political flaws or the test's flaws. The US scored below the average of all countries, whether China was 1st, 4th or dead last is somewhat immaterial.
We can't improve as long as our gut reaction is to take any criticism, either internally or externally generated, as a personal affront.
Doing /anything/ that advances society overall
bias.. the argument being that not everything progressives push for is any good for anyone but their social and economic (yes economic) lobbies. Same as the right. There are some differences on those lobby lists, but as you go up in donations, you start to see the same corporate interests funding both sides...funny eh? I wonder why that is?
The oil companies /need/ that 20 billion dollar subsidy on top of their windfall profits. Because without it, the oil companies will stop delivering oil. Or something. Because the ruling class of the corporations knows better, for all of us.
as opposed to an all-'knowing' government knows better? a government that routinely flouts the rules it expects everyone else to follow (unless they have lots of cash to buy them off).. sound familiar? it doesn't matter which party you support, you're supporting the same thing. the differences are becoming less and less relevant as time goes on..at least as far as solving today's issues goes..
Anyway, since neither party is doing me any favors, I'd like my freedoms back please. I don't need a bogeyman to keep me in line, nor do i want billions spent to fight it.
Soon the U.S. Congress will finally have something to look to help them understand (the much needed) modern IP legislation.
I'm an engineer. There's no way in hell that I ever pretend that I'm a scientist. We're practical. We execute science, not discover it (generally speaking).
--Jim (me)
Wow, do you panic much? After that rant, the first thing you blame is......oil companies? I mean, I don't like subsidies for oil anymore than anyone else, but come on, $20billion isn't enough to cause the US real problems. In fact, $400 billion a year (for the wars) isn't enough to make a huge dent in a $14 trillion economy. If the country is truly fucked, it's because of something more fundamental.
But you're not going to find it if you are panicked or outraged. Panic and outrage is how people manipulate you, and right now, you sound like perfect manipulation material. Calm down and think rationally.
I'd still rather be here than in China. I've been to both.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It's not immediately clear why those things should have to go together. Maybe because analytical, honest people tell us things we don't want to hear? Carter was drummed out of office for telling us energy was finite, and that we needed to buckle down and tighten our belts a bit for a while. He got railroaded by an actor who told everybody whatever they wanted to hear and put us firmly on the path of financial irresponsibility.
I've seen this story before, and my response is the same now as then: this is because of different expectations of the nations' leaders.
The Chinese government has full control over everything in its borders: laws, people, economic output. It's leaders can direct the entire nation however they see fit. That means the best leaders have to be able to cope with the things they can't control: the immutable limits of physics and economics. The job of any engineer (which, I might add, is not the same as scientist) is to solve problems in the best way possible with available tools under the available constraints. The Chinese toolbox is wide open, so the constraints are all physical, and an engineer's knowledge is directly applicable.
In the U.S., the people have chosen a different route: the government does what we specifically tell them they can. The constraints are primarily legal, because the government (relatively speaking) is allowed to do very little. A lawyer's ability to navigate the mine field of who is likely to be affected, who is likely to sue, and what is likely to be shot down in court is more useful to the high-level bureaucrat. Actual problems of a sort an engineer or other knowledge worker would face are the responsibility of others. There jobs are derived from a very small part of the very small leeway we give the government. (This abundance of lawyers in government is also why the American people put a premium on military experience, since it's the government department most steeped in harsh, broad-focus, real-world logistics.)
Both of these can be compared to, say, France, where the government is the nexus of the economic, legal, and even social circles. It controls industry more directly at times than the U.S. government, so businessman represent a larger share of leadership (about a third). The legal issues are similar to the U.S., but with the government fundamentally allowed more direct intervention. Hence lawyers and former lower-level bureaucrats each take about another third of the leadership roles.
I wrote my previous post in haste, so I didn't get to explain why China's government has so many engineers.
Today's top leaders are in their mid to late 60s, some even in their 70s, which means they began their higher education in the 1960s and 1970s. That was a time before the Economic Reform era, and China was still a planned society with a planned economy, which meant that post-secondary education and later career were assigned centrally. You took your national college entrance exam in high school, and your score determined which university you went to and what piece of the workforce quota you would later fill. Engineering was a tough field then as it is now, and what do you know the higher you scored the more likely you were assigned to an engineering school. These bright kids joined the party, went into politics, and carried their degrees along with them. One should not make the mistake of assuming it was because of those degrees that they have succeeded in China's political environment, nor to assume that they are better leaders due to that engineering degree above some other had they had the freedom to choose.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Cultural Revolution what?
Engineers are taught and generally have an interest in solving tough problems and finding efficiency once the simple problems are solved. To me it makes sense that Chinese Gov. officials would be engineers. The culture as a whole generally is interested in both dedication to family and efficiency. Lawyers and poly sci theorists generally are interested in determining the best way to obfuscate rules in order to achieve goals. Those may be for the greater good or selfish goals. I think programmers could make good officials, however they generally are not interested in dealing with large numbers of people. Each society works itself out depending on their culture. Learn the culture and you'll learn why people are who they are and why the masses do what they do. I have to agree with those that say that cabinet members past career experience and education should reflect their role in US government. Many times they do. But sometimes leaders also just want someone in the position that they can trust. You probably won't find a theologian as secretary of state or interior.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Explains why they excel at election engineering.
A few questions:
How many of those people took that test in each of those countries?
What is their admissions criteria for access to education?
What determined the sets of people who were able to access the test?
How voluntary was participation in taking the test of individuals?
With that, PISA can easily be fooled by presenting only the set of people who are good at taking that kind of test. Second, the admissions criteria for PISA-level education is less rigid in the US than many other countries. It favors places with rigid admissions policies that deny education to most of a nation's population.
In short, you can goose the PISA numbers by providing a known-good set of people, without regards to actual academic performance of the nation as a whole.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I think you missed your parent's point. The US doesn't need to be the world's paragon of liberal democracy in order for his point to be valid. The US is categorically more liberal and more democratic than China, and that makes the choice of under whom one would wish to be ruled a very clear one indeed.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Bull Shit. If you want to see a neo-fascism, go to Russsia. One company, Gazprom, in Russia controls all monopolies. It uses the state to intimidate any up-and-coming companies into selling majority stake to Gazprom. The state officials hold positions in Gazprom while holding public offices (not after under big secret like its done in the US). The only equivalent in the US would be if Haliburton owned all of S&P 500 companies. Oh, and the current President of Russia is an ex-CEO of Gazprom.
Don't confuse actual fascism with what we have -- a republic corrupted by populist demagoguery into giving state enough power to consolidate power into fewer hands. And don't even start with "we have a democracy." The authority of the government derives from the Constitution. So it derives from the rule of law -- not from the votes (voting determines who gets to occupy positions authorized to exist by the law).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
In authoritarian societies people are just cogs in the machine, serving those in power. It takes engineers keep the machine running.
All those 9 guys r EVIL!!! They r destroying China and Chinese culture!!! So do CCP!!!
Carter was drummed out of office for being sad. He was so depressing.
Reagan was happy. If you find people who really like Reagan, and get to the core of why they like him, it is usually something like this. They didn't like all his policies, but he was inspiring.
Surprisingly, similar in many ways to Obama.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I take my hat off and bow deeply to you sir! Reality always trumps irony.
HTTP/1.1 400
I volunteer as a Chinese ESL teacher at a US university (Vanderbilt), and all of my students are post-docs in their 30s and 40s. Those who have the willingness to immigrate (i.e no strong family or career attachments back in China) have done so and have brought their children here, and the common consensus among these scientists in preferring to educate their bright children here rather than in China (beyond the fact that there is less competition) is that while the US education system may not be as rigorous as that in China, it provides for a greater depth of learning with opportunities to add to one's edification beyond mere career preparation. Which means that if you believe we grind out drones in the US, then you haven't seen what the Chinese system does. That isn't to say the status quo in our system is good, but I think it gives perspective (and reliable counterpoint) to the common assumption that the Chinese system is "better".
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
You weren't alive during the Carter administration, I see. He was a hick from the sticks with a hick accent, and nobody but rednecks enjoyed seeing him in the White House (Billy). Carter: Malaise Forever. Reagan: "My vision for the cold war? We win, they lose." Obama: "I'm always worried about using the word 'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur."
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
This surprises anyone?
My close friend from college and I were discussing our plans after graduation at the bar a few days before we all left for good.
I had just finished up a degree in human development and family studies. I had completed a non-paid internship developing and executing a reading comprehension improvement program for at-risk adolescents at a local low income housing complex. I had no job lined up after graduation, I was hoping to get into grad school.
My buddy had just finished up a degree in electromechanical engineering technology. He had completed a paid internship developing weapons of mass destruction, specifically, missile guidance systems. He had a $55,000+ a year job lined up after graduation, he was hoping to buy a house and a new truck.
Bottom line: Society values death. Society does not value its fellow man or society.
Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany): Studied physics, got doctorate for work in quantum chemistry.
Herman Cain (GOP presidential candidate): Master of Arts degree in computer science from Purdue University in 1971.
I have a point to make, but first I'll give you sweet, sweet data. Here's the relevant Wikipedia page, you can backtrack the direct sources from there. These are the 2009 PISA results:
Math: China (#1), Finland (#6), United States (#30)
Reading: China (#1), Finland (#3), United States (#17)
Sciences: China #1), Finland (#2), United States (#23)
= = = = = =
And now, the average cost to teach a child (Primary/Grammar/Elementary School Source, Secondary/High School Source) For Primary School and High School:
Primary/Grammar/Elementary School: Switzerland (#2, $6,470.00 per student), U.S. (#4, $6,043.00 per student), China (No data)
Secondary/High School: Switzerland (#1, $9,348.00 per student), U.S. (#3, $7,764.00 per student), China (No data)
= = = = = =
Next, the average salary per teacher for Elementary and High School (U.S. source, Finland source, China source). All are converted to dollars using XE.com.
Elementary School: Finland (~$46,000), United States (~$40,000, China (~$18,000)
High School: Finland (~$46,000 - ~$71,000), United States (~$42,000.00 - ~$44,000), China ($24,000 - ~$28,000)
= = = = = =
On this last bit, I've done some digging but haven't been able to find concrete data on all three countries from one source, so I'm going with estimates. Peek into sources if you want.
The average U.S. School day is 9-3, or about 6 hours. Finland is about 5 hours. China is about 8 hours (roughly 9-5, with a two hour lunch, so still around 7 hours).
= = = = = =
Okay, so. China pays their teachers way less than the U.S. but get far better results. Finland pays their teachers about the same and gets way better results, but not as good as China. The U.S. pays the same amount of money (roughly) that Finland does for much, much worse results.
So what the hell are we doing wrong?
China is all drill, drill, drill. A lot of the East Asian countries (South Korea, China, Japan, Indonesia, etc.) have long school days which are often supplemented by private schooling (a.k.a. "Cram courses") after the fact. Most kids are home anywhere between 8:00-10:00 PM, 2-4 hours of homework, and then wake up at 6:00 or 7:00AM the next day.
Americans, we're 9-3, plus maybe an hour or two of homework (at most). Often there's an after school program, but these are more glorified daycare and less practical education.
Finland actually ends up using *less* hours per day than us, but they use innovative teaching methods that the U.S. is sorely lacking.
I see Finland and China as two extremes. China is like grinding in an MMO. If you simply just do something a lot, you're going to get better by rote and practice. That's the general Asian method, I've found. Drill, test, drill, test, drill, test. Finland seems to be the opposite extreme - less drilling, more trying to find methods that work without having an insanely look school day. The U.S. has the worst parts of both and the benefits of neither.
If we lengthened the school days in America and really put the kids asses to work, we could edge up closer to China - maybe eve beat it out. They do way better than us for 1/3 - 1/2 the cost on teacher salary. However, if we maintained the same salary but looked at where our methodology is wrong and tried new things, we could achieve similar resu
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
I ask you to cite your claims on who is funding who. You'll find most large corporations give far more to right-wing candidates because they are and have always been the pro-business party, left-wing politics tend to favor populism or people-centric ideology. The US has always had this divide between being pro-business vs pro-economic gains. One favors businesses as a person the other society in general. Course you're a false dichotomy troll, so any argument I have with you will always sound half-hollow because humanity has been taught a tit-for-tat argument is better when in reality it usually means people are not perfect and that one is FAR worse than the other.
That being said, yes most of China's leaders are engineers because the first generation leaders were educated in politics and that worked well, the second generation leaders are all engineers and scientists steeped in the politics of China. Just because you're a very good engineer or scientist it doesn't make you a very good ruler. This is why Political scientists tend to become policy wonks and leave lawyers to being the leaders in our society. The "Know Nothing" attitude of right-wing politics pushes the argument against lawyers while most of them are lawyers. Just really not very good ones, largely who fought in corporate law. The very good lawyers tend to stay in their respective practice and rise to Judgeship. China right now though is suffering from too much of a good thing, they're overbuilt for capacity and need an export partner to take their goods. Currently wildcat strikes are occurring inside their country as the standard of living barely increases. China is looking at a crushing blow to their economy if they can't find an exporter soon as their use of Keynesian economics has worked really well except they never based their manufacturing around it. Which is the exact opposite of the US, economists on the right-wing have been pushing Randian theory the last 30 years or so and no our infrastructure has suffered dramatically because of it. We need to switch back to Keynesian and build our way out of this mess.
I come from a country that has been under totalitarian rule for over 45 years until 1989. Our president and his wife had multiple Doctor and Doctor Honoris Causa titles from different universities, including for example the one in Nice, despite being renown for their stupidity and lack of education (I am not talking about manners, but years spent in school). The president's wife, Elena Ceausescu, was called by the newspapers and TV savant de renume mondial” (internationally renowned high scientist). She was supposed to be a chemist. Everybody was laughing at her speeches that were touching on the subject. Although they were probably written by real scientists and PR, she was not able to even read them out (they never spoke freely, always read the speeches). So, in a totalitarian regime, the top leaders can be anything they fancy. But it doesn't mean much. At most, it means they appreciate science as something worthy. And about the top positions in PISA tests, try to imagine the life of a child growing in a totalitarian regime, if you can. There is not much to do for a smart child, no other "distractions", no real childhood. They are treated more like sport athletes. In our country performance in international science contests has declined since 1989, but that is only a sign that we are returning to normality, giving children a chance at a real childhood, and a bit more happiness maybe, not torturing them so maybe they will have a good position in society that will make it easier for them to get FOOD (I'm not exaggerating, my guess is that in parts of China there is a greater food problem than what we had in Roumania, and we had a fair share).
(Note: I currently live in China).
While the article just throws this (albeit true) fact "8 of 9 Chinese political leaders are engineers" out there, it doesn't seem to explain why this is the case, so let me share it with our fellow readers.
The current generation of leaders in Chinese are mostly men in their 60's who were thus born in the mid- to late- 1940's. Now, given that fact, think about when these men would have been in the stage of life where they went to university and entered the workforce. It would have been the late 1960's. Now, that what during the Cultural Revolution, where Mao famous initiated his personality cult and all that to reinforce his political control. However, another thing he did during that time was call for the abolition and discarding of anything related to traditional culture or foreign influence. The question is, what does that leave? Well, it really only left two things: one, political work, and two, manual work. Thus, engineering was considered to be non-intellectual enough to avoid a lot of the persecution that musicians and artists encountered, so a great deal of the engineers of that era became political leaders and gradually worked their way up the ladder to where they are today.
I wouldn't be surprised to see it broaden more in the near future.
Maybe, but in Syria they have an Ophthalmologist who studied in London as their leader, and look how that turned out. Better to not give too much power to anyone at the top, because it all goes to their head, no matter who they are. Really, do you want someone who is like a BOFH as President?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Aren't you eligible to file form 2555 and exclude your foreign-earned income? I was very happy about that when living and working in Tokyo. Or did Congress remove that exclusion? There was talk about that in 2006 or so, but I thought they decided to leave it be...
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
And England.
So you mean there's currently no massive shitstorm about university funding because something like 50% of the available youth were trying to go to university because there weren't much by the way of proper vocational courses left?
Sweet.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
And yet half the things the country produces (At least for the domestic market) are either constructed of compressed trash, made from sewage, or explode more readily than most I.E.D.s... ;)
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Political parties should be state funded once they reach a certain size. A proposal to do this was introduced in the UK, the idea being that once a party gets a certain proportion of the vote they become eligible for state funding, and from then on can't accept private donations towards their campaign funds. This had the added benefit of levelling the playing field in terms of the amount of money each party can spend on campaigning because they all get the same amount.
Additionally elected officials should not be allowed to have second jobs or other major sources of income.
It wouldn't stop corporate influence competely but would go a long way to reducing it. It would also discourage people who are simply interested in getting rich from standing.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Bull Shit. If you want to see a neo-fascism, go to Russsia. One company, Gazprom, in Russia controls all monopolies.
Not really, no. There are many other monopolies.
And Russia isn't neo-fascist. It's very much a shining example of oligarchic state capitalism. It even has some (badly broken) democracy. So, as an image of what US might yet become if it keeps going down the same path, it's actually surprisingly representative.
The authority of the government derives from the Constitution. So it derives from the rule of law -- not from the votes
And where does the authority of the Constitution derive from?
When will people stop calling engineers scientists. Engineering is not science, but craft, not unlike woodworking or cooking.
I might agree with calling typical engineering a "craft+" or so, but again, engineering has nothing to do with science.
One day you'll wake up and it'll be too late to do anything about their world markets domination.
China's got a buttload of problems coming up fast, like:
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I can't speak for what it was like during the Carter or reagan admins, as I Wasn't born for the former and was too young for the latter; however, I am interested enough to ask those whom were around during that time why Carter was such a bad president and why Reagan is idolized. To sum it up, Carter was too scientific while Reagan was a charismatic leader. But there are only a few people in the world who can be both a scientist and a great leader.
Americans in general tend to ignore science because only a few understand the concepts. While those that do understand it outshine the rest of the world, the rest of the country are too confused by scientific discussion and, unfortunately, fall prey to skepticism of scientific results. What is really daunting is that scientific understanding is lacking at all levels of society. /. Frequenters are in a minority and a lot of our discussions are often logical and methodical. Slip an average American in these forums and their heads will start hurting in about thirty minutes, slip several /.'s in an American Idol discussion and we would probably have the same headaches. Carter simply fell in the wrong time to be a president. Methodical thinking takes too long to be effective in a political environment that wants instant gratification. Reagan seemed more of a shoot from the hip and ask questions later kind of person, and average Americans could cling more easily to someone they think is like them. It's one of the reasons Clinton, Bush, and even Obama are adored by the American public.
Having an expectation that one day we will have scientist at the highest level of authority is wishful thinking. Science isn't the American way. Profit is the American way, science is just a means to obtain it. Once you realize that people don't care that your scientific discoveries have saved lives, time, and made their lives more bearable, then you'll understand that the only thing people care about is the amount of money in your pocket at the end of the day. It's a sad but unfortunate truth.
Isn't it also telling that American journalists can't see the contradiction in this statement: "Did you know that the president of China is a scientist? President Hu Jintao was trained as a hydraulic engineer"?
Scientist != engineer.
-Styopa
Maybe I'm wrong, but given the changes China's undergone in the past two decades or so, I really do expect enough of the drones to break out of their narrow shells in the coming decades to make China more innovative.
Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
Here's my idea of accountability for politicians: Instead of the death penalty, 10 years in prison without parole for breaking campaign promises.
Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
I bet you can buy those degrees in China, whereas in the U.S. you can only buy a liberal arts degree or a variety of lesser graduate degrees. Like, oh, I don't know... I'll have to think of an example...
Actually, I think that College is free (or nearly so) in China.
I wonder how that number would change if it cost the equivalent of a damned Rolls Royce (guessing) to get, like it does in the U.S.?
then again, some of the most famous human rights activists / writers in history are engineers
alexander solzhenytsin
andrei sakharov
yvgeny zamyatin
albert einstein
you go into the lab, you follow the instructions in the book. if it doesn't work like it's supposed to, you do it over again until you get it "right".
google it.
that kind of thing doesn't happen in any 'free' country.
seems like 90% of these threads do not know Mao from Deng, Enlai from Muy Tai, or Chiang Kai from a Butterfly
To the extent people can determine their own careers (and not from peer/family/societal pressure/tradition), people choose careers that match their personal interests and predelections.
Engineers (and scientists, a very different thing) are people who like manipulating and controlling wood, metal, concrete, chemicals, electrons, photons and many other _things_.
Quite different from others who are bored by these things, and instead are interested in personalities and other people. They seek positions of govt/corp leadership via acceptable avenues like law, marketing and sometimes even eng/sci. Beware the wolf in sheeps clothing.
Given the amount of imitation and bad research there, those are near-worthless credentials outside of China.
Then again, unlike China, education is not reserved for the few who manage to luck out on the tests. It's more or less open to all in comparison.
Exactly.
I don't mean to sound racist (and I'm not); but I can tell you from reading many, many résumés from Chinese applicants for EE positions, that not only does every one of them list education out the ying-yang (see what I did there?); but Every. Single. One. of those applicants lists about 30 years of "job experience", even though they ALSO list that they have only graduated from University of ("You'll Never Be Able To Prove I Went There") 5 years prior. I guess they figure no one can put two-and-two together, or something. But it really is Every. Single. One.
I know it isn't uncommon to gild the lilly a bit on a résumé, and I know I'm painting with a firehose; but it just seems that Chinese "engineering" job candidates list themselves as being the Chief Engineer (or nearly so) on every single large-scale project they even walked by on the way to their factory job.
And the worst part is, it is so endemic to their culture, (I guess) they don't even see how patently ridiculous their résumés look in comparison with applicants from other countries.
Herman Cain (GOP presidential candidate): Master of Arts degree in computer science from Purdue University in 1971.
The trouble with engineers who don't get Liberty is that they come up with very clever solutions. I used to be one of them. I loved the FairTax, for instance. What an excellent engineering solution to an economic problem - if you don't mind putting the entire country on welfare and Constitutionally getting the Feds involved in intrastate commerce.
Herman Cain is an example of this - he's a former head of a Federal Reserve Bank, the system which has caused so much of America's current problems, and he advocates for the system despite its obvious problems.
That said, many of my very best liberty friends here in New Hampshire are engineers. The Free State Project is teeming with them, and several of the most brilliant minds I work with in the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance are engineers. We're lucky to have several pro-Liberty engineers currently serving in our House of Representatives. They know how to attack problems, work a process, and create solutions.
Interested engineers might want to start here.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
That's a good one. Yes, let's forget all the people in that "golden age" that only made it into colleges due to their parent's wealth.
Which is why the next generation is doomed.
Not only does college cost a ridiculous amount of money in the U.S., but consumer debt and other economic factors (economics isn't my strong suit) keeps the average parent so cash-strapped that they find it nearly impossible to "pay for the kids' college" like our grandparents did for our parents (and to a somewhat lesser extent, our parents did for us).
o Massive Gender Imbalance - 55% male to 45% female birth ratio [bbc.co.uk] - that means crime, revolution or possibly war is coming, because when young men can't get laid, they take their frustration out in violence
Um, just because there are less women than men, doesn't mean that men can't get laid. Wyoming has nearly a 2:1 ratio of men to women. Have they started any wars?
Stop thinking like a raging heterosexual.
However, the rest of your post is quite insightful!
Doing /anything/ that advances society overall and gets everyone a better standard of living instead of increasing the power of the ruling class is "bad."
Give some examples. My take is that you can't separate the two unless the "giving" above isn't backed by government force. For example, back in the 30s, Social Security was presented as a way to keep all the grannies from eating catfood. In practice, it turned out to be a long running pyramid scheme with new enrollees getting less than the people who came before them. The practical result was a way for the US government to spend more each year than they otherwise could and increasing the power of the ruling class.
Similarly, the power to regulate an industry is the power to block new entrants, creating a system of "capitalist oligarchy neo-fascism," (to use your words) and selectively enforce regulation, again increasing the power of the ruling class.
More recently, health care "reform" has turned out to be a way to control the finances of "red" states, to create vast populations of dependent voters, and otherwise increase the power of the ruling class.
The two wars were merely another impulse of this nature. Unless you think the terrorists winning somehow improves the standard of living.
My impression is that you have a poor understanding of cause and effect. The naive desire to improve the well-being of our fellow man is easily steered into other territory. I think it particularly sad that the symptoms such as so-called "capitalist oligarchy neo-fascism" are blamed as the cause of the disease when the real problem is that the gullible have given too much power to the corrupt, once again.
I personally believe the only hope for the American government is to add a civilian check to the system. Either make politicians highly accountable (possibility of death penalty if they mess up our lives too much), or just to add a system where a civilian sector of the government can veto any government decision past or present if it does not benefit us the people.
They're called elections.
I just realized there's an even simpler rebuttal. First, when you complain about "doing anything that advances society," you are complaining about people resisting the use of public funds for the things you seek. Else, you and like minded people would have just funded the thing via private donations and the problem wouldn't exist. Public funding requires consensus, private funding requires nothing but some initiative.
So whining about "better standards of living" rather than doing something indicate your choice of funding source.
So who manages this "anything." Why the ruling class, of course. The same people who created the "capitalist oligarchy neo-fascism" and got us recently into two wars. There aren't two governments, one to do all the good things that benefit society and one to screw up. There's only one government and you want to hand it more power.
ClaudeVMS is correct. Hoover was a crackerjack engineer, but those skills apparently availed him not.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
And politicians. God, I hate career polititians. We need leaders, not politicians.
Political parties should be state funded once they reach a certain size. A proposal to do this was introduced in the UK, the idea being that once a party gets a certain proportion of the vote they become eligible for state funding, and from then on can't accept private donations towards their campaign funds. This had the added benefit of levelling the playing field in terms of the amount of money each party can spend on campaigning because they all get the same amount.
I have an alternate suggestion here. Any person who receives funding (either directly or through a publicly funded group) from the state is ineligible to run for office for a period of say, four years after the last incident of receiving public funding.
As you might guess, I see private donations as far less of an issue than public funding. After all, all those greedy corporations have to bribe somebody. I think it reasonable to force them to use their own money for the bribe rather than my money. .
as opposed to an all-'knowing' government knows better?
Yes. I'll say it right here: I would rather the government to have that $20 billion in their treasury to spend on roads / police / social security etc. etc. than a company that would spend every last cent on themselves.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
And where does the authority of the Constitution derive from?
It claims its authority from the people. But, as anyone who studied logic for more than 10 minutes knows, any system of logical deductions relies on base assumptions. In the same way, any authority derives from a root authority. In a Republic the root authority is the law. The authority of the law derives from the Constitution. So all government power derives from The Constitution (as a legal document -- not a living document). Don't even go down the road of "you haven't answered my question" type of reasoning. I have. The root authority is the assumed and accepted authority establishing all other authority.
Despite your "no not really" none-arguments, Russia is most definitely a most perfect example of Mussolini's Fascism. Russia implements his theory pretty much by the book. And having a democracy doesn't preempt being a fascism. Votes only determine who gets to occupy the seats of power. They don't determine what type of government system a country has. Fascism is state capitalism, at least Mussolini's fascism (as opposed to Hitler's National Socialism). It's precisely what Mussolini wanted. He saw it as state merged with business through a regulatory apparatus (with state being the dominant partner in that marriage). Which is exactly what Russia has. I wouldn't recommend admiring it. When Gazprom can show up on your door and in the best of mobs' ways tell you that "we are now partners", the rule of law is gone. And in Russia, this is precisely how business is done. This is what happens when people are supreme to the law and not the other way around.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Or it could be that cultural differences matter much more than whatever is being done in the school.
Iowans score on par with asians on those test results. So do children of Scandinavian decent living in the US in general.
Immigrant families in sweden score much lower.
But it couldn't be that only the rich and successful parts of China take part in that test, or that Finland (or for that matter, most of the US) has a culture that is much more functional than the lower-income inner-city culture dragging our test scores down.
We make a big mistake when we act as though education policy is the only, or even the largest, controlling variable here.
http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-scores-usa.html
I'll bite. I was too young to pay much attention, but Carter was widely associated with peanuts. His unpopularity was mostly due to the stagnant economy with high inflation (stagflation) of the time. Reagan had been a popular actor who voters all recognized. Then there was the Libyan hostage "crisis" where they were holding a bunch of Americans - they waited until just after Reagan took office to release them, so he gets credit where Carter did not (even thought the decision had to be made while Carter was still in). I've also heard that Carter (or the Fed during his tenure?) made some very tough (unpopular) choices on monetary policy that should have helped the economy, but that wouldn't yield results until the Reagan years. And lastly, Reagan popularized the cold war fighting those terrible Russians...
On another note, since you're young. Take notes (literally) of what's really happening 'cause this shit blows by in the blink of an eye. 30 years seems like a long time looking forward, but once you're there it seems like yesterday - except the details are all gone and all that remains is the collective "impression" and anything that stood out specifically in your mind. The Obama administration will be remembered for 3 or 4 sound bites. Truth and details (good or bad) will be forgotten. I suppose "bad economy", Killing Bin Laden, something about health care, and maybe debt will be the topics of the sound bites. I can't tell you how history will regard those things, but I bet they'll be the highlights.
> Fascism is state capitalism, at least Mussolini's fascism (as opposed to Hitler's National Socialism). It's precisely what Mussolini wanted. He saw it as state merged with business through a regulatory apparatus (with state being the dominant partner in that marriage). Which is exactly what Russia has.
As if we don't have this here in the States.
You just proved that the US /is/, in fact, Fascist.
It's been that way for a while. It's only in the last 30 years that the fascists have declared war on the middle and lower classes.
--
BMO
They don't determine what type of government system a country has. Fascism is state capitalism, at least Mussolini's fascism (as opposed to Hitler's National Socialism). It's precisely what Mussolini wanted. He saw it as state merged with business through a regulatory apparatus (with state being the dominant partner in that marriage). Which is exactly what Russia has.
There is one important difference. Mussolini wanted the merger so that the capital would serve the interests of the state - hence why regulatory apparatus. State objectives would then override the desire of businesses to make money.
In Russia, what happened instead was that the state was subsumed by capital to serve the interests of that capital. The regulatory apparatus of the state is used for the sole goal of crushing competition to maximize the profits of state capitalists in power, with no consideration whatsoever of the well-being of common citizens (even from Mussolini's perspective of "cogs in the machine" - but he still wanted them to be good cogs which don't break; whereas Russian oligarchs just bleed the country dry).
The distinction is critically important. The core tenet of fascist ideology is not state capitalism - it's just a tool - but the notion of supremacy of state. "Everything for the state, nothing outside the state". So, no, Russia is not fascist. If you want a good example of a modern textbook fascist state, China would, in fact, be it.
By the way, I'm not admiring Russia. I'm a Russian now living and working in US for a reason. But you flatter the present rulers by calling them "fascists" - that requires a degree of long-term thinking and goal-setting that they simply do not possess.
Actually, IIRC, to study in China you have to be smart. Which is, if you ask me, the better criterion when it comes to whether or not you should go on a university than, say, money.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, it was those things. Fundamentally they're cyclical, but Carter could have alleviated them - by taking on debt. As Reagan did. Those debts, such as the failure to fully fund Social Security for the boomers' retirement, and paying civil servants with unfunded pension liabilities, still have not been repaid.
And that is why Obama is taking on so much debt now. Lessons from US political history taken to heart. As much as people complain about the debt, whatever hurts their wallet right now is a voting issue.
Whereas Reagan came in and "solved" Iran? It is still a problem today. How do 52 hostages, eventually released, compare to thousands of dead soldiers and hundreds of thousands of dead civilians? In the eyes of some, Bush II somehow wins that contest. How? By making value judgments with the ego, which is irrational.
At least not explicitly. They both live on the same side of a road that most of us here chose never to cross, but they aren't the same thing.
Also important in this discussion though is the fact that engineers have been implicated as a group as being especially good violent extremists. (Viz. one , two , three , and of course, four.)
Probably also suited to running authoritarian, quasi-market-based state. Just a thought.
Yeah, you're right about England. For some reason it still stuck in my head as vocational-friendly.
It is true that the US needs to drastically downsize its military. Would be much better from a financial standpoint (since defense spending is just taxation upon every other business) and possibly philosophically as well.
...I kinda smile though, whenever someone complains that the US is not 'socialized' enough.
Well over half of the country is probably drawing a paycheck from the government: either as direct employees at the federal, state or local level, postal workers, military personnel, military contractors or sub-contractors and all those receiving Social Security, disability, unemployment or welfare benefits.
"I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
He even was not elected as President! although hes shows up on a banknote.
He appointed Volker to Fed Chairman, who employed tight monetary policy and high interest rates to end the high inflation that had been a problem for the last 3 presidential administrations. This is perhaps one of Carter's big achievements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Jimmy_Carter#Economy:_stagflation_and_the_appointment_of_Volcker
You are equating the rule of oligarchs with fascism. It's not. The current system that Russia has -- the one which broke the rule of the oligarchs -- is the fascism. What Russia lacked was the rule of law to moderate the rule of oligarchs and the effects of complete lawlessness. What it got instead of the rule of law is the rule of the fascist elite. They DO hold the state as the supreme. I've heard Putin's speeches. He is generally populist (just as Mussolini was). But he uses the apparatus of the state not to distribute the power held by oligarchs, but rather to concentrate that power in the hands of the state. Putin's Russia is a post-oligarch society. To pretend otherwise would be shortsighted. It is fascist through and through. The only reason they don't call themselves such is because of the negative connotations of the word. But they have, in practice, adapted every single mechanism of statehood practiced by Mussolini. If you think they don't have a long-term view, you are impressed by the immediate details of the runnings of the state as described by the popular media. Take a step back. You can't see if there is a long-term plan unless you take a long-term view. China is getting there, but it's not there yet. It's still closer to a Communist society than it is to a fascist one. But Mussolini envisioned fascism as a compromise between capitalism and communism with mild militarism in order ensure élan. Russians get their élan from the mythology of "slavic soul" and such pretend that all their military overtures are defensive. Defensive posture doesn't at all explain their continued support for Iran, Venezuela or NK. I suspect that while you don't admire Russia, you still circle the mental wagons when it gets called "fascist". Despite all the negative connotations, the word does have a meaning. No reason to conflate it with Nazi'ism. But, to get back to the original point, the most perfect example of the fascism in the modern world is Russia. If the left to right scale had Communism somewhere at 0 and laissez faire at 100, Russia (as a fascist state) would be at 50; China at 25 and US at 75.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
No, quite. We've taken steps in that direction. But we aren't there. For every victory that the statist regulator apparatus makes, it suffers one defeat. In a fascist state, the regulatory apparatus would rule supreme.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
We unquestionably do NOT have an oligarchy. The mobility between classes is very rapid. If you take the bottom 20% and observe them in 30 years, only 5% of them will remain in the bottom 20%. 29% of them will have moved to the top 20%. In an oligarchy, movement between levels is near impossible without an all-out war (with bullets flying and all).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
You are equating the rule of oligarchs with fascism. It's not.
I am not; indeed, I said exactly the opposite thing!
I already gave you the definition of fascism, courtesy of Mussolini himself: "everything for the state, nothing outside the state". It's really just hyper-etatism, everything else is subservient to that.
The current system that Russia has -- the one which broke the rule of the oligarchs
It didn't; it's just that some oligarchs took power directly. Who is Putin but not an oligarch? He was put into his position by oligarchs, and while he fooled many of those same people who got him there, he's not any different himself. His goal in power is to ensure money for himself and his circle, not power for power's sake (see also: Baikalfinansgroup), and definitely not power for the sake of the state.
Fascism is not just about the methods. It's about the goals.
If you think they don't have a long-term view, you are impressed by the immediate details of the runnings of the state as described by the popular media. Take a step back. You can't see if there is a long-term plan unless you take a long-term view.
Well, and what is that long-term plan? So far all I see is aggressive exploitation of natural resources, so as to maximize short-term profit. In some cases they do so even while directly hurting long-term viability. For example, some of the drilling techniques used are such that they maximize current production rate, but would lead to earlier abandonment of the oil well.
Note also that I'm not talking about long-term plans those people have for themselves ("line pockets with cash" can be very long-term...), but rather long-term plans for the country. So far, most announced major reforms have been largely smoke and mirrors.
Russians get their élan from the mythology of "slavic soul" and such pretend that all their military overtures are defensive. Defensive posture doesn't at all explain their continued support for Iran, Venezuela or NK.
You mistake official Russian propaganda for the dismal state of Russian military in reality. Posturing in Venezuela, Iran etc is just another populist measure - the majority of people distrust and dislike US and West in general, and therefore any way of flipping a middle finger to them, such as supplying arms to Iran, is appeasing that public. It is also a necessary component of establishing an "us vs them" mentality, where "them" (= US, NATO etc) are portrayed as strong and aggressive bullies, and therefore "we all need to set aside our differences and stand together" against any such purported bullying - which is used to suppress dissent.
I suspect that while you don't admire Russia, you still circle the mental wagons when it gets called "fascist".
No, not really. I'm not afraid to call things fascist when they are that. My point is that the existing arrangement is worse than fascist, because it has all authoritarianism with absolutely no benefits (you know, "trains run on time" and all that). I despise all forms of authoritarianism, but between the two I'd pick the one that at least aims to establish a stable society.
the most perfect example of the fascism in the modern world is Russia. If the left to right scale had Communism somewhere at 0 and laissez faire at 100, Russia (as a fascist state) would be at 50; China at 25 and US at 75.
Such a linear scale doesn't make much sense to me, since fascism is not really "between communism and laissez-faire". They are two ideologies which are, for the most part, completely different, with the only common point being authoritarianism.
By the way, China is definitely more authoritarian than Russia socially, and probably about the same economically.
Um, just because there are less women than men, doesn't mean that men can't get laid. Wyoming has nearly a 2:1 ratio of men to women.
Dude, get a clue. How could you even post something that so badly fails the laugh test?
Seems clear to me that you have zero critical thinking ability.
Wyoming's sex ratio is 50.2% male to 49.8% female.
Stop thinking like a raging heterosexual.
Blow me.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I think that is a clearly silly hypothesis. Reactions to politically manipulated test results non-withstanding,
the realization that the educational level of American students is not what it should be is and has been essentially universal in the US for some years, and efforts to try to improve it are rampant.
The problem is that the results of these efforts has not been what one would hope.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I believe many Taiwan top Govt officials are PhDs
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/world-leaders-1/world-leaders-t/taiwan-nde.html
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Why is Hu Jintao referred to as a scientist when in the next sentence it's clearly stated that he was trained as an engineer? I see the general public often being confused by the two terms, but I expect better from a slashdot posting. Scientists study the world as it is, engineers create the world that never has been. - Theodore Von Karman http://www.todayinsci.com/K/Karman_Theodore/KarmanTheodore-Quotations.htm
----- The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. -- Benjamin Franklin
kind of explains their solutions http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/29/health/main2860989.shtml ...
DuckDuckGo.com
Actually, the one child policy has already been changed - couples who are themselves both without siblings can have two children.
The PISA compares the most affluent, best-educated cities in China (Shanghai, Hong Kong) to the whole population of the US.
Criticism of PISA
Try adding in all the Chinese hillbillies, or removing all the American hillbillies, and you might have a meaningful comparison.
It was of course the Iranian hostage crisis. Libya cause some other trouble in the 80s and got a couple air strikes from the US that a lot of people don't remember.
Is your point that the PISA test is either a useless measure or intentionally slanted to favor China ?
Generally speaking, yes standardized tests are nearly useless. A nation's total economic package will always be improved if its youth are better at reading, science, and math. But doing well on such tests does not prove the citizenry actually are informed in a useful way in those subjects, nor does it inform you about what trade-offs were made to make those scores.
Here's a dumb example. Let's say every child from age 3-18 spends 15 hours a day sitting at a desk studying. They score great on those tests, in fact not only do they test well in science, they are exemplar in their scientific knowledge. However, their health suffers greatly for it. Most are obese, all have cardiac problems (even thin people who are sedentary have increased cardiac risk), and none of them have the stamina for simple tasks like an afternoon of gardening. Also, they never developed the social skills required to collaborate effectively or the creativity that is trained during play time.
So, do you want those guys as your nations future, even if they get perfect scores on all the tests? They'd all die in their thirties or forties, and contribute little of use during their brief stint as working adults. I know that's not what's actually happening in China, but my point is just that a test score tells you very little about anything that matters.
We don't even really know that being better at math is always better. Much of our "rational thought" is actually carried out by emotions. Perhaps, if too many people were too good at math, they would spend the time calculating rates of return and interest rates and comparing various factors that might be important in each decision they make. If you do none of that, you get ripped off, but if you do it too much you waste your time in the minutia.
See my post further down. I actually read the criticism section and other articles on PISA before I posted. Treating the report as some sort of commendation of China is obviously problematic, ignoring what it has to say about the US based on China's results is even more problematic.
We should strive to be the best, if we don't make it so be it, other countries are trying to be as well, but we should at least try. Currently we're playing political and social ping pong with education, the goal seems 'get elected' not 'fix education'. If the non-politicians (us) react to reports like this defensively and break into chants of USA USA USA we're not really helping.
This is late, but if you look at what actual economists say, upward mobility in the US is the lowest it's been in a very long time.
The upward mobility myth is what keeps the teabaggers in line supporting the GOP. Yes, you too can be a billionaire overnight if you just let us cut taxes for the richest 5 percent and de-fund education and increase taxes on the bottom 60!
It's really cynical what's going on. The part of the public that eats up Fox News is being played like a fiddle in the hands on Itzak Perlman..
--
BMO
So you want to keep people un-educated, so that they're only worth factory slave-work?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Engineers seem to have a talent for (a) running totalitarian regimes, (b) participating in terrorist activities, and (c) becoming heads of end-of-days cults.
As another example, the May-21 Rapture prediction comes from Harold Camping, who has a B.S. in Civil Engineering.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Who is Putin but not an oligarch?
Putin is not an oligarch. Oligarch in the modern parlance are the economic elite which leverages its economic power to become inseparable from the power of the state. The key has to be the rise to power through economic means. You seem to be using the word for all elites. But there are also political elites and bureaucratic elites. Putin clearly falls into the classification of political elites. He core power always derived from the power of the state -- never from the ability to corrupt with money (as so-called Oligarch's power did). Medvedev, by the way, is not an oligarch either. His core power was derived from bureaucracy (as is the case for most lawyers ascending to power). The Oligarchs, ie the people who made their fortunes by selling (or building and selling) that which people bought out of their own volition, have all been disenfranchised by now.
So far all I see is aggressive exploitation of natural resources, so as to maximize short-term profit. In some cases they do so even while directly hurting long-term viability. For example, some of the drilling techniques used are such that they maximize current production rate, but would lead to earlier abandonment of the oil well.
You are talking about specific economic endeavors. I am talking about something else. I am talking about the whole chess game they are playing rather any one specific move they make. They are crafting certain state apparatus that is meant to take roots and achieve a semi-permanent status. The long-term game is not economic -- it's political. As for your comment about oil-well, it is my understanding that until fairly recently, most oil wells were tapped until 50% of oil was removed. After that, the excess pressure of the well wasn't enough to bring the oil up. In other words, they are behind on technology, but that's a rational economic decision. Many of the old wells (in the US) are now retrofitted to pump in the lesser-pressure environment.
It is also a necessary component of establishing an "us vs them" mentality, where "them" (= US, NATO etc) are portrayed as strong and aggressive bullies, and therefore "we all need to set aside our differences and stand together" against any such purported bullying - which is used to suppress dissent.
This is the traditional definition of "nationalism". I don't disagree with you on this. But I hope agree that one of the mechanisms of making the state supreme to all other institutions is creating an environment of fear so as to prioritize safety over other concerns.
My point is that the existing arrangement is worse than fascist, because it has all authoritarianism with absolutely no benefits (you know, "trains run on time" and all that).
I strongly doubt that Mussolini was the one who made trains run on time. I strongly suspect it was the fact that he was able to dispense with the leftist labor policies (by being more leftist than the alternative -- the capitalists) combined with increased competition that the railroads had from the newly-build public highways. But more generally, I am talking about the balance of power between political and economic classes (the old merchants vs aristocracy conflict). Fascism makes them one and the same but with ultimate authority in the hands of the state. Oligarchy makes them one and the same but with ultimate authority in the hands of a few merchants.
The scale of the balance of power that I suggested has all the political power on the left and all the economic power on the right. While one may argue that "power is power", that is a faulty argument. The power through volition is not the same as power through coercion. It's the old carrot and stick. Power through being useful is the power of carrot while the power through coercion is the power of the stick. Fascism is literally the power of the stick (the word derives fr
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Most of the statics that are cited today are actually full of bs. You should listen to Thomas Sowell debunking them. They talk about "earning power" of the bottom 20%. But what they don't mention is that most people don't stay in those bottom 20% and move between those categories. Upward and downward mobility is not a myth. And your pathological comments about Fox News are a prime example of Al Gore's triangle: fear stops reason, faith stops fear, reason stops faith. You are not and I mean, not at all, being reasonable. This pathology you exhibit about Fox News makes you sound exactly like any other bigot I've heard. Try making any argument to an antisemite and you'll get "oh, that's just Jewish propaganda" in response. You are doing an exactly same thing. But, of course, my appeal won't convince you (cause remember fear stops reason). Go on, you heard the cue... time to knee jerk with "oh, like there is no fear peddling on Fox News." Now you want to knee jerk with "well, if the shoe fits..." But you know what? This is not a reasonable response. There is both upward and downward mobility to a greater degree than it ever existed. By the way, the argument from authority (eg, "most economists agree") falls on deaf ears when you are talking to an educated person (which you are). It's an argument which states conclusions that other "experts" made based on facts which the presents of the argument from authority usually does not understand. State the facts and if you hear someone state conclusions and avoiding facts, it doesn't mean they are wrong, but it does mean you take their conclusions with a grain of salt.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
It's not "argument from authority" that's a fallacy.
The actual fallacy is "argument from improper authority"
Do you really want to say to your doctor "you're using argument from authority to tell me I should get screened for cancer so I won't"?
Really?
The fallacy "argument from improper authority" is "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV." Which is used time and again on Fox. Demagogues like those found on fox (Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, et alia) all depend on this for their livelihoods.
Logical fallacies, you failed the test.
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BMO
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BMO
If Chinese culture values science/engineering more than Western culture does coming up though school, then maybe the 'winner' types end up persuing what Chinese society ( which includes the government ) values - i.e. science and engineering.
Where then would the Chinese equivalents of the 'losers and nerds' end up? Maybe other pursuits, possibly the liberal arts.
Of course the 'winners' grow up to be powerful in China as they do elsewhere, it just seems that 'winners' in China do science and engineering more than they do elsewhere probably because they offer relatively more rewards than elsewhere because they are more highly valued by the powers that be, and so everyone else because of the rewards that being valued by the powers that be confers.
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India is developing since you can exploit their people via caste system.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/03touch.htm
China is developing since you can exploit their people by abusing human rights.
http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-tech-apple-workers-forced-to-sign-no-suicide-pledge/20110504.htm
And Americans are suffering since US regime is letting Chindia exploit their people via outsourcing.
Slashdot = Sarcasm