The real problem isn't that we have too many 4 year degree holders, but rather that we have too many 4 year degree holders in majors such as English and Business. When I graduated, I was astounded when I looked at the list of names and discovered that Bachelor of Science degrees were a tiny minority. We need more people who understand math and science.
Going to a trade school is better than getting a four year degree in a subject suffering from a glut, while getting a four year degree in a subject that needs more people is better than both.
American citizens really must ask themselves what this spending has done for them. Access to foreign oil? Protection from terrorists? For a fraction of the trillions of dollars spent in the past decade on "defense", those issues could have been resolved virtually overnight.
I'm curious as to what alternative solutions you have that could have accomplished these objectives for a fraction of the cost.
Just because it hasn't happened yet in the US does not mean it is not a possibility. It's a continuation of the tension between the state and intellectuals that has been going on forever. To put it another way, it's the tension between those who have power and those who have knowledge.
In the olden days it was royalty and clergy and nowadays its military-industrial and scientific-technological. In both cases the relationship is mostly mutually beneficial (the state's power is derived from the intellectuals and in exchange the intellectuals get benefits such as funding from the state), but there is some antagonism because both wield immense power and often compete for control.
By the way, although it might sound like a great idea to put the modern intellectual group in control (after all they are using science instead of the religion and philosophy of the past), there are some major pitfalls with this idea. A major one is that power would end up being concentrated in the hands of an elite few, the scientific-technological elite Eisenhower mentioned. It would also likely lead to the formation of a formal hierarchical system for scientists, much like the ranks of priests or soldiers. Think of the present day academic system of rank except extended with positions of immense power on the national scale. Another huge problem is the potential for corruption, and particularly intellectual corruption. If the policies of the elite relied on specific ideas, how do you think they might react to opposing ideas? Might they decide to use their power to enforce intellectual orthodoxy? It is up to the elite few at the top to decide such things.
You're comparing apples and oranges. Of course a CRU is small compared to an oil corporation. What would the researchers even do with that much money? It's not like they have expensive physical capital such as oil wells, pipelines, refineries, etc. to build and operate.
If you want to make a fair comparison money-wise, you should do one of the following: compare fossil fuel energy industry funded CRUs to government & green industry funded CRUs compare fossil fuel corporations to governments & green industries compare overall fossil fuel industry climate research funding to overall government & green industry climate research funding
Yes, science has made huge improvements to the human condition in a very short period...but this does not mean that science is unbiased or infallible. So why are you bringing it up in that context?
Just after posting, it occurred to me that of course there's another choice. Substantially raising taxes would work as well.
Mixing reasonable spending cuts across the board along with raising taxes would probably be the least painful solution. Simply halting the accumulation of debt would make it fall as a percentage of GDP as time goes on.
My point is that the US needs to fix it's economy before it will entice investors back. The first step is to eliminate that money sink called the Iraqi war. Secondly would be to cut back on the thing that takes up over 50% of your budget, the military and then to ensure that the income is equal to or slightly greater then the expenditures including the scheduled payback of your loans (this will probably mean raising taxes) but American citizens wont permit this.
You mean, that thing that takes up a little over 50% of our discretionary budget, right?
In 2009, US Federal mandatory spending was $1961 billion. If you include interest payments, spending increases to $2148 billion. Meanwhile, there was only $2105 billion in receipts. That leaves -$43 billion for things like building and maintaining infrastructure, operating the legal system, defense, space exploration, research funding, national parks, administrative costs, disaster relief, etc.
In other words, mandatory spending is the problem. We must reduce mandatory spending, there is no other choice.
Certainly defense spending can take some cuts, but it won't solve our problem and it is unfair to single it out.
Unfortunately, since mandatory spending is mostly social programs, it will be difficult to get serious reductions enacted.
Everyone is treating this like a joke, but really this is wonderful news.
Sure, it's been done before...and their tiny 3D map and model of the Matterhorn are not particularly useful, but it was just a demonstration.
The key here is the relative simplicity of their "nano-milling" machine. This idea could lead to some serious advances in cheap nanoscale fabrication in the next few decades. It could mean that it won't be just labs with hugely expensive equipment that get to play around with nanoscale structures...not to mention the potential industrial applications.
Maybe we're the first to achieve sentience in the Milky Way and in a million years the dominion of Man will stretch across the galaxy. We'll find a lot of planets with life but no other civilizations. As we study the planets we've colonized, we'll start to realize that sentient life would have emerged in a few more million years...had it not be colonized by humanity first. That is, we're the only sentient life out there right now because we are going to interfere with the development of the rest of them in the future, and since we're the only ones that emerged to observe this galaxy we don't see any others in this galaxy. There's probably many other singleton civilizations in other galaxies (and maybe some binary civilizations), but they're way too far away for us to detect.
The scale of time is just as vast as the scale of space...while a million years might seem like an eternity to us with our short individual lives, it is but a moment in the grand scheme of things. Consider that single-celled life on Earth has been around roughly 4 billion years, multicellular life for 1.5 billion years, and post-Cambrian Explosion life for about half a billion years. On the other hand, humanity has only been around in a recognizable form for 2 million years, and in our modern form for a mere 200,000 years. Civilization has been around for even less time, only about 10,000 years. Radio has only been around since the 1890's.
Even with the best parameters filled into the Drake Equation, the likelihood that two present-era civilizations would form within a reasonable number of light years of one another is astronomically small. It should be completely unsurprising to us that the aliens are either not there or are extremely different from us.
In any case, assuming humanity can colonize the Milky Way in one million years and that we'll start working on that very soon (less than 10,000 years from now), the total window of opportunity between sentient life emerging and filling the galaxy is a mere 3 million years. What are the chances that two processes that take 3-5 billion years would happen to finish within the same 3 million year timespan? Even then, the most likely outcome is that one species would be advanced and find the other species in their long-lasting primitive state. Since that clearly didn't happen (unless the stories of ancient astronauts are true), humanity will be the advanced species discovering primitive species as we expand. The second most likely outcome is that both advanced species meet as they expand. It is very unlikely for any action to occur during the relatively short transformation from primitive to advanced, and especially for both species to be in that phase at the same time.
The most likely outcome is of course the one I suggested above. The first sentient species prevents any further sentient species from arising independently through their meddling. Most non-human sentient life will probably be things we create, like robots or genetically engineered creatures.
Of course, this theory assumes that we are not self-destructive and that we will be willing and able to colonize the galaxy. These assumptions (and others) may be incorrect, so there is certainly plenty of room for other possibilities. Still, when thinking about alien life it is critical to account for the vast scale of time.
It seems to me that this will make powered armor far more viable. It's lightweight and strong and would make an excellent armor when designed into a larger system. Also, since it can be made flexible it can cover areas that require flexibility, like joints.
Similarly, it might be useful for making improved space suits.
From the article: """ One clue came out of the interviews Fryer's team conducted with students in New York City. The students were universally excited about the money, and they wanted to earn more. They just didn't seem to know how. When researchers asked them how they could raise their scores, the kids mentioned test-taking strategies like reading the questions more carefully. But they didn't talk about the substantive work that leads to learning. "No one said they were going to stay after class and talk to the teacher," Fryer says. "Not one."
We tend to assume that kids (and adults) know how to achieve success. If they don't get there, it's for lack of effort — or talent. Sometimes that's true. But a lot of the time, people are just flying blind. John List, an economist at the University of Chicago, has noticed the disconnect in his own education experiments. He explains the problem to me this way: "I could ask you to solve a third-order linear partial differential equation," he says. "A what?" I ask. "A third-order linear partial differential equation," he says. "I could offer you a million dollars to solve it. And you can't do it." (He's right. I can't.) For some kids, doing better on a geometry test is like solving a third-order linear partial differential equation, no matter the incentive. """ If the kids really don't know how to learn, then how do we expect them to learn regardless of incentives? What kind of messed up education system produces students that don't know how to learn? How can we fix this problem?
As long as they're still known as fruit flies, changing the scientific name shouldn't cause too much confusion. Anybody who really needs to know will easily pick up on the fact that there are two scientific names and eventually the old name will become archaic.
It might be that you just need some minor warming up, but a more heavyweight solution would be to take appropriate math classes at your local community college.
While it would obviously be costly and take substantial time, it is far less costly than taking such classes at a university and you can pick a nearby one even if there's not a good university nearby (or go there cheaply while attending your university if you're already attending one). You may also be able to find a particular series of classes that suits you well time-wise. In particular, when I started out I was unsure of my ability to take on Calculus I so I took Precalculus I and Precalculus II in the same semester so I could take Calculus I the next semester. I'm glad I did it because I learned a lot and was ready for Calculus I when I took it. It also has the advantage of giving you college credits for your effort.
Of course, there's a lot of variability here. It may be that there isn't a local community college or math program that fits you. It could be that even one extra semester is too much time for you. The cost may still be too high if you're on a tight budget. etc. Still, you should at least consider the idea.
Go read actual wording of the Constitution. Religion is only mentioned twice:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
Okay, so there's no religious test required for public office, nothing relating to schools here.
Amendment 1 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Okay, so congress cannot make a law about the establishment of a religion or prohibit people from worshiping their religion.
That's it. There's nothing else in there about the separation of church and state.
How then does this translate into public dollars not being able to be spent by parents on religious schools if they so choose? The government isn't establishing religious schools or enforcing the use of religious schools. They aren't even directly funding religious schools. How is this any different from someone taking their economic stimulus check and deciding to donate it to a church? or using state-funded insurance at a religious hospital?
By the way, I'm an atheist. Though I do live in the southeastern US, so almost everyone around me is Christian.
I guess we're stuck with capitalism for a while longer.
How about a post-scarcity economy based mostly on nano-assemblers and solar power?
The hard part is getting there...we're still stuck with capitalism for a while longer, and even when we get there we'll almost certainly keep many of the trappings and technologies of capitalism, like currency for providing liquidity in trading.
So your hypothesis is that every single one of the experimental classrooms had good teachers? I find that unlikely. Don't you think the people running the experiment would have considered that and ensured that there was not a substantial difference in the teachers?
Slashdot Mirror
They can put you away for good for being "sexually dangerous" but not for being a mortal danger to the lives of others?
The real problem isn't that we have too many 4 year degree holders, but rather that we have too many 4 year degree holders in majors such as English and Business. When I graduated, I was astounded when I looked at the list of names and discovered that Bachelor of Science degrees were a tiny minority. We need more people who understand math and science.
Going to a trade school is better than getting a four year degree in a subject suffering from a glut, while getting a four year degree in a subject that needs more people is better than both.
American citizens really must ask themselves what this spending has done for them. Access to foreign oil? Protection from terrorists? For a fraction of the trillions of dollars spent in the past decade on "defense", those issues could have been resolved virtually overnight.
I'm curious as to what alternative solutions you have that could have accomplished these objectives for a fraction of the cost.
Just because it hasn't happened yet in the US does not mean it is not a possibility. It's a continuation of the tension between the state and intellectuals that has been going on forever. To put it another way, it's the tension between those who have power and those who have knowledge.
In the olden days it was royalty and clergy and nowadays its military-industrial and scientific-technological. In both cases the relationship is mostly mutually beneficial (the state's power is derived from the intellectuals and in exchange the intellectuals get benefits such as funding from the state), but there is some antagonism because both wield immense power and often compete for control.
By the way, although it might sound like a great idea to put the modern intellectual group in control (after all they are using science instead of the religion and philosophy of the past), there are some major pitfalls with this idea. A major one is that power would end up being concentrated in the hands of an elite few, the scientific-technological elite Eisenhower mentioned. It would also likely lead to the formation of a formal hierarchical system for scientists, much like the ranks of priests or soldiers. Think of the present day academic system of rank except extended with positions of immense power on the national scale. Another huge problem is the potential for corruption, and particularly intellectual corruption. If the policies of the elite relied on specific ideas, how do you think they might react to opposing ideas? Might they decide to use their power to enforce intellectual orthodoxy? It is up to the elite few at the top to decide such things.
Yeah, but at the current rate they'll never get around to approving it...
You're comparing apples and oranges. Of course a CRU is small compared to an oil corporation. What would the researchers even do with that much money? It's not like they have expensive physical capital such as oil wells, pipelines, refineries, etc. to build and operate.
If you want to make a fair comparison money-wise, you should do one of the following:
compare fossil fuel energy industry funded CRUs to government & green industry funded CRUs
compare fossil fuel corporations to governments & green industries
compare overall fossil fuel industry climate research funding to overall government & green industry climate research funding
Yes, science has made huge improvements to the human condition in a very short period...but this does not mean that science is unbiased or infallible. So why are you bringing it up in that context?
Just after posting, it occurred to me that of course there's another choice. Substantially raising taxes would work as well.
Mixing reasonable spending cuts across the board along with raising taxes would probably be the least painful solution. Simply halting the accumulation of debt would make it fall as a percentage of GDP as time goes on.
My point is that the US needs to fix it's economy before it will entice investors back. The first step is to eliminate that money sink called the Iraqi war. Secondly would be to cut back on the thing that takes up over 50% of your budget, the military and then to ensure that the income is equal to or slightly greater then the expenditures including the scheduled payback of your loans (this will probably mean raising taxes) but American citizens wont permit this.
You mean, that thing that takes up a little over 50% of our discretionary budget, right?
In 2009, US Federal mandatory spending was $1961 billion. If you include interest payments, spending increases to $2148 billion. Meanwhile, there was only $2105 billion in receipts. That leaves -$43 billion for things like building and maintaining infrastructure, operating the legal system, defense, space exploration, research funding, national parks, administrative costs, disaster relief, etc.
In other words, mandatory spending is the problem. We must reduce mandatory spending, there is no other choice.
Certainly defense spending can take some cuts, but it won't solve our problem and it is unfair to single it out.
Unfortunately, since mandatory spending is mostly social programs, it will be difficult to get serious reductions enacted.
An alternative is to pronounce it "cest" like in "incest".
Where did they get a spare face? Faces are rather hard to come by.
Everyone is treating this like a joke, but really this is wonderful news.
Sure, it's been done before...and their tiny 3D map and model of the Matterhorn are not particularly useful, but it was just a demonstration.
The key here is the relative simplicity of their "nano-milling" machine. This idea could lead to some serious advances in cheap nanoscale fabrication in the next few decades. It could mean that it won't be just labs with hugely expensive equipment that get to play around with nanoscale structures...not to mention the potential industrial applications.
prethoughtcrime?
...Google just wants to continue using the chilled blood of babies to cool their data centers.
Are you aware of how amazingly efficient chilled baby blood is at cooling data centers? We have to protect innovation like that!
Maybe we're the first to achieve sentience in the Milky Way and in a million years the dominion of Man will stretch across the galaxy. We'll find a lot of planets with life but no other civilizations. As we study the planets we've colonized, we'll start to realize that sentient life would have emerged in a few more million years...had it not be colonized by humanity first. That is, we're the only sentient life out there right now because we are going to interfere with the development of the rest of them in the future, and since we're the only ones that emerged to observe this galaxy we don't see any others in this galaxy. There's probably many other singleton civilizations in other galaxies (and maybe some binary civilizations), but they're way too far away for us to detect.
The scale of time is just as vast as the scale of space...while a million years might seem like an eternity to us with our short individual lives, it is but a moment in the grand scheme of things. Consider that single-celled life on Earth has been around roughly 4 billion years, multicellular life for 1.5 billion years, and post-Cambrian Explosion life for about half a billion years. On the other hand, humanity has only been around in a recognizable form for 2 million years, and in our modern form for a mere 200,000 years. Civilization has been around for even less time, only about 10,000 years. Radio has only been around since the 1890's.
Even with the best parameters filled into the Drake Equation, the likelihood that two present-era civilizations would form within a reasonable number of light years of one another is astronomically small. It should be completely unsurprising to us that the aliens are either not there or are extremely different from us.
In any case, assuming humanity can colonize the Milky Way in one million years and that we'll start working on that very soon (less than 10,000 years from now), the total window of opportunity between sentient life emerging and filling the galaxy is a mere 3 million years. What are the chances that two processes that take 3-5 billion years would happen to finish within the same 3 million year timespan? Even then, the most likely outcome is that one species would be advanced and find the other species in their long-lasting primitive state. Since that clearly didn't happen (unless the stories of ancient astronauts are true), humanity will be the advanced species discovering primitive species as we expand. The second most likely outcome is that both advanced species meet as they expand. It is very unlikely for any action to occur during the relatively short transformation from primitive to advanced, and especially for both species to be in that phase at the same time.
The most likely outcome is of course the one I suggested above. The first sentient species prevents any further sentient species from arising independently through their meddling. Most non-human sentient life will probably be things we create, like robots or genetically engineered creatures.
Of course, this theory assumes that we are not self-destructive and that we will be willing and able to colonize the galaxy. These assumptions (and others) may be incorrect, so there is certainly plenty of room for other possibilities. Still, when thinking about alien life it is critical to account for the vast scale of time.
It seems to me that this will make powered armor far more viable. It's lightweight and strong and would make an excellent armor when designed into a larger system. Also, since it can be made flexible it can cover areas that require flexibility, like joints.
Similarly, it might be useful for making improved space suits.
From the article:
"""
One clue came out of the interviews Fryer's team conducted with students in New York City. The students were universally excited about the money, and they wanted to earn more. They just didn't seem to know how. When researchers asked them how they could raise their scores, the kids mentioned test-taking strategies like reading the questions more carefully. But they didn't talk about the substantive work that leads to learning. "No one said they were going to stay after class and talk to the teacher," Fryer says. "Not one."
We tend to assume that kids (and adults) know how to achieve success. If they don't get there, it's for lack of effort — or talent. Sometimes that's true. But a lot of the time, people are just flying blind. John List, an economist at the University of Chicago, has noticed the disconnect in his own education experiments. He explains the problem to me this way: "I could ask you to solve a third-order linear partial differential equation," he says. "A what?" I ask. "A third-order linear partial differential equation," he says. "I could offer you a million dollars to solve it. And you can't do it." (He's right. I can't.) For some kids, doing better on a geometry test is like solving a third-order linear partial differential equation, no matter the incentive.
"""
If the kids really don't know how to learn, then how do we expect them to learn regardless of incentives? What kind of messed up education system produces students that don't know how to learn? How can we fix this problem?
Perhaps the teacher's union? Maybe they are worried about losing a chunk of school funding to the kids...
It certainly beats the 10^13 years it would take with a Jaguar!
As long as they're still known as fruit flies, changing the scientific name shouldn't cause too much confusion. Anybody who really needs to know will easily pick up on the fact that there are two scientific names and eventually the old name will become archaic.
It might be that you just need some minor warming up, but a more heavyweight solution would be to take appropriate math classes at your local community college.
While it would obviously be costly and take substantial time, it is far less costly than taking such classes at a university and you can pick a nearby one even if there's not a good university nearby (or go there cheaply while attending your university if you're already attending one). You may also be able to find a particular series of classes that suits you well time-wise. In particular, when I started out I was unsure of my ability to take on Calculus I so I took Precalculus I and Precalculus II in the same semester so I could take Calculus I the next semester. I'm glad I did it because I learned a lot and was ready for Calculus I when I took it. It also has the advantage of giving you college credits for your effort.
Of course, there's a lot of variability here. It may be that there isn't a local community college or math program that fits you. It could be that even one extra semester is too much time for you. The cost may still be too high if you're on a tight budget. etc. Still, you should at least consider the idea.
Go read actual wording of the Constitution. Religion is only mentioned twice:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the
several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of
the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or
Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be
required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United
States.
Okay, so there's no religious test required for public office, nothing relating to schools here.
Amendment 1
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
the Government for a redress of grievances.
Okay, so congress cannot make a law about the establishment of a religion or prohibit people from worshiping their religion.
That's it. There's nothing else in there about the separation of church and state.
How then does this translate into public dollars not being able to be spent by parents on religious schools if they so choose? The government isn't establishing religious schools or enforcing the use of religious schools. They aren't even directly funding religious schools. How is this any different from someone taking their economic stimulus check and deciding to donate it to a church? or using state-funded insurance at a religious hospital?
By the way, I'm an atheist. Though I do live in the southeastern US, so almost everyone around me is Christian.
+5 insightful for listing the better model.
Anybody?
I guess we're stuck with capitalism for a while longer.
How about a post-scarcity economy based mostly on nano-assemblers and solar power?
The hard part is getting there...we're still stuck with capitalism for a while longer, and even when we get there we'll almost certainly keep many of the trappings and technologies of capitalism, like currency for providing liquidity in trading.
Another explanation: the recitation class that replaced arithmetic caused the difference.
We'd have to run more experiments to be sure.
So your hypothesis is that every single one of the experimental classrooms had good teachers? I find that unlikely. Don't you think the people running the experiment would have considered that and ensured that there was not a substantial difference in the teachers?