"Some educators worry about the industry's heavy role"
That's because the industry wants only one thing, plentiful programmers, which equates to cheap programmers. This is a barefaced attempt to flood the future programming market and depress wages. Obviously it also means that a lot of kids, almost certainly the majority, are being taught skills of little to no value. So much for potential opportunities and careers.
I'd imagine you'd probably only get a couple of harvests before the soil loses all of its ore too. Genetically engineered seaweed to extract metals from seawater, now that might be a longer term prospect.
The "young" and the "old" aren't political classes, especially since one rather quickly becomes the other. In any case it's the middle aged who pay by far the most taxes and drive the engine of consumerism through property purchases, vehicle purchases, etc, not to mention taxation applied on company profits and the like. The economy is complicated.
However Japan is an interesting case. The rise of the "herbivores", a phenomenon whereby young men are opting out of not just society but long term relationships on a reported scale I frankly have difficulty crediting, is a symptom of a society at war with itself. This isn't a deliberate attempt to control or reduce the population but rather a culture where traditional norms were thrown out en masse before and during world war 2, to be replaced by a fervid desire to excel on the national level right up until the early 90s, and now that's been done Japanese men are finding that an angry boss at work and an angry woman at home isn't what they want out of life.
It's unknown territory, socially, and it remains to be seen if the west will follow suit.
How would they balance each other out? The climate on earth has been seesawing wildly between freezing cold and baking heat since the earth had a climate. There is no "natural balance".
While clearly we and every other living creature are having an effect on the climate, the question always has been "how much of an effect". In any case within a century or so we'll have moved to pretty much entirely renewable sources, most likely making inroads on solar satellites as well, so er, everyone calm down I guess.
Yup, western governments tend to have an enormous rump of basically useless and really expensive middle management at all levels. It's a very undesireable state of affairs. I've known government agencies reject temp workers on projects purely because they might potentially jeopardise the fulltime workers' employment.
Yeah I've noticed that in France too. I was out shopping with some friends and one guy had a hard time finding a t-shirt that fitted him, so he mumbled something about big bones. The woman next to him promptly said "FAT BONES!" loudly and without a bother.
Taste of propaganda more like it. It's really simple. People are spending wayyy more time sitting on their asses than 40 years ago, either messing with their phones, laptops, computer, ipads, or driving. If you want to fix obesity, promote exercise. End of story. Also I'd have serious questions about their statistics, 90% obesity in Ireland is nonsense unless you're using some imaginary definition of obesity.
Eh the Chinese are hugely nationalistic, what are you talking about. I get the feeling that some people seriously think the country is some kind of communist utopia.
Psychology: never put your trust in a field where people can make stuff up and have it accepted as canon by everyone else: http://www.arachnoid.com/psych...
So what would happen if aliens made an appearance?
That very much depends on the aliens.
Nice friendly Vulcan types with an interest in the betterment of intelligences in general would have a very different effect on global civilisation and this yahoo's "consciousness" than Battle for LA type aliens, or even random leviathan seeder drones sent out to terraform likely worlds into Cybertron-alikes to serve as industrial waystations for the sleeper colonists drifting through the cold void millions of years in their wake.
It's pretty much going to happen anyway, not every academic can be tenured or make a career out of it. The only things that couldn't really be done online are lab work and exams.
Tha'ts an interesting perspective, not the education aspect but the abortion one. A spot of idle Googling reveals alarm in Japan that the country had 260,000 fewer people from one year to the next, while at least 210,000 abortions were carried out (probably more). I'd have serious doubts that the population decline in these countries is solely due to abortions though despite the close numerical correlation, look up "herbivore men" for an example of much larger contributory social trends.
Just out of interest, where were you planning to go? Every country has its problems, and being honest the tradeoff between benefits and disadvantages in the US is one of the better ones, globally. It sure as hell could be a lot better and I don't like the direction it's going in, but lets be realistic here.
I find this is a common corporate problem, eventually a product just peaks out and does what it's meant to do, then you're left with a bunch of people who helped get it there left with nothing to do. So they keep trying to improve it beyond where it was already perfect, in the process breaking it, maybe because they don't realise they're finished or maybe because they need a justification to stay in employment. So we end up with buggy bloated pieces of crap. Office is one such product, there's very little a business needs that can't be done perfectly well using Office 97.
Even if we're biologically similar enough there's no huge need to send down anything but highly sterilised drones. Plus, you can learn an enormous amount just from low orbit observation, especially if you're sufficiently advanced to get there in the first place.
What use is a 3-D printer that can print houses with ease?
What use are robots that can programmatically generate great housing in a for-loop?
The developing world called, it would like a word.
You "study the humanities" not so that you learn some kind of scientific truth about the human being. You study the humanities so that you aren't naive, and waste the investment everybody's put into you.
Except it's not neccessary to study the humanities to understand these things. A simple five minute conversation usually does the trick.
Yup. I've numerous problems with the humanities beyond the chronic ideological indoctrination (in particular feminism) that has been introduced by social engineers.
First is the assumption that nobody outside of the humanities knows how to debate or think critically. No, sorry, critical thinking is far more crucial in STEM fields because if you don't think critically your stuff won't physically work, and debate gets really easy when you're relying on evidence rather than rhetoric.
Second is this notion that my complicated buzzwords are just as valid as your scientific terminology. No it isn't, I forget who said it (Chomsky?) but that's basically a case of authority envy. Much of the humanities is pulled out of someone's posterior, and any field where "theories" can be invented on the spur of the moment and taken as canon across the board based largely on who is talking about them is better suited to a coffee shop than serious academia. You get this a lot in discussions where polisoc101s start talking about what are essentially extremely simple concepts and cloaking them in their own self anointedly axiomatic newspeak.
Third, this idea that based on the above the humanities should be telling STEM endeavours what to do. This is both massively condescending by saying that science doesn't understand what morals or ethics are, and is inserting an unneccessary middleman into human development. You know, the kind of human development that led to washing machines, cars, computers, those labour saving devices that allow you to enjoy your latte at starbucks and share the photo you took on your iphone with your besties on facebook.
And finally fourth, the majority, I think the large majority of third level graduates are humanities graduates. What this tells me is that the humanities are taking valuable funding away from STEM courses at the third level.
Now I love history, the arts, I think philosophy is kind of interesting, languages are great, literature is a hobby of mine, I very much see the need for these things, but we as a society need to de-emphasise the authority of the humanities and proceed on an evidence based footing henceforth, rather than ideological. Funding is a limited pot, so perhaps it would be best to seperate STEM and the humanities into different institutions entirely, let them stand on their own merits. I know it's unlikely to happen but one can dream.
Slashdot Mirror
"Some educators worry about the industry's heavy role"
That's because the industry wants only one thing, plentiful programmers, which equates to cheap programmers. This is a barefaced attempt to flood the future programming market and depress wages. Obviously it also means that a lot of kids, almost certainly the majority, are being taught skills of little to no value. So much for potential opportunities and careers.
I'd imagine you'd probably only get a couple of harvests before the soil loses all of its ore too. Genetically engineered seaweed to extract metals from seawater, now that might be a longer term prospect.
The "young" and the "old" aren't political classes, especially since one rather quickly becomes the other. In any case it's the middle aged who pay by far the most taxes and drive the engine of consumerism through property purchases, vehicle purchases, etc, not to mention taxation applied on company profits and the like. The economy is complicated.
However Japan is an interesting case. The rise of the "herbivores", a phenomenon whereby young men are opting out of not just society but long term relationships on a reported scale I frankly have difficulty crediting, is a symptom of a society at war with itself. This isn't a deliberate attempt to control or reduce the population but rather a culture where traditional norms were thrown out en masse before and during world war 2, to be replaced by a fervid desire to excel on the national level right up until the early 90s, and now that's been done Japanese men are finding that an angry boss at work and an angry woman at home isn't what they want out of life.
It's unknown territory, socially, and it remains to be seen if the west will follow suit.
How would they balance each other out? The climate on earth has been seesawing wildly between freezing cold and baking heat since the earth had a climate. There is no "natural balance".
While clearly we and every other living creature are having an effect on the climate, the question always has been "how much of an effect". In any case within a century or so we'll have moved to pretty much entirely renewable sources, most likely making inroads on solar satellites as well, so er, everyone calm down I guess.
Yup, western governments tend to have an enormous rump of basically useless and really expensive middle management at all levels. It's a very undesireable state of affairs. I've known government agencies reject temp workers on projects purely because they might potentially jeopardise the fulltime workers' employment.
Even if it wasn't fun, it would be cool to work in a place called Imperial College London's Aerial Robotics Lab.
Yeah I've noticed that in France too. I was out shopping with some friends and one guy had a hard time finding a t-shirt that fitted him, so he mumbled something about big bones. The woman next to him promptly said "FAT BONES!" loudly and without a bother.
Taste of propaganda more like it. It's really simple. People are spending wayyy more time sitting on their asses than 40 years ago, either messing with their phones, laptops, computer, ipads, or driving. If you want to fix obesity, promote exercise. End of story. Also I'd have serious questions about their statistics, 90% obesity in Ireland is nonsense unless you're using some imaginary definition of obesity.
Eh the Chinese are hugely nationalistic, what are you talking about. I get the feeling that some people seriously think the country is some kind of communist utopia.
My question is why aren't amuptee toys cooler, why not go for a tentacle/flamethrower combo.
There was a short story about satanic looking aliens, I completely forget what it was called though.
Ah that explains all those people they need to hold up the roofs of cathedrals.
Psychology: never put your trust in a field where people can make stuff up and have it accepted as canon by everyone else: http://www.arachnoid.com/psych...
So what would happen if aliens made an appearance?
That very much depends on the aliens.
Nice friendly Vulcan types with an interest in the betterment of intelligences in general would have a very different effect on global civilisation and this yahoo's "consciousness" than Battle for LA type aliens, or even random leviathan seeder drones sent out to terraform likely worlds into Cybertron-alikes to serve as industrial waystations for the sleeper colonists drifting through the cold void millions of years in their wake.
It's pretty much going to happen anyway, not every academic can be tenured or make a career out of it. The only things that couldn't really be done online are lab work and exams.
It's more like people here have enough experience with new tech to know what usually happens to early adopters and bandwagon jumpers.
Tha'ts an interesting perspective, not the education aspect but the abortion one. A spot of idle Googling reveals alarm in Japan that the country had 260,000 fewer people from one year to the next, while at least 210,000 abortions were carried out (probably more). I'd have serious doubts that the population decline in these countries is solely due to abortions though despite the close numerical correlation, look up "herbivore men" for an example of much larger contributory social trends.
Quite interesting.
Just out of interest, where were you planning to go? Every country has its problems, and being honest the tradeoff between benefits and disadvantages in the US is one of the better ones, globally. It sure as hell could be a lot better and I don't like the direction it's going in, but lets be realistic here.
Except the exact opposite is happening, in most developed countries the population is stable or even in decline.
Actual security for none. Someone please invade this shithole.
I find this is a common corporate problem, eventually a product just peaks out and does what it's meant to do, then you're left with a bunch of people who helped get it there left with nothing to do. So they keep trying to improve it beyond where it was already perfect, in the process breaking it, maybe because they don't realise they're finished or maybe because they need a justification to stay in employment. So we end up with buggy bloated pieces of crap. Office is one such product, there's very little a business needs that can't be done perfectly well using Office 97.
Even if we're biologically similar enough there's no huge need to send down anything but highly sterilised drones. Plus, you can learn an enormous amount just from low orbit observation, especially if you're sufficiently advanced to get there in the first place.
Words of truth.
What use is a 3-D printer that can print houses with ease?
What use are robots that can programmatically generate great housing in a for-loop?
The developing world called, it would like a word.
You "study the humanities" not so that you learn some kind of scientific truth about the human being. You study the humanities so that you aren't naive, and waste the investment everybody's put into you.
Except it's not neccessary to study the humanities to understand these things. A simple five minute conversation usually does the trick.
Yup. I've numerous problems with the humanities beyond the chronic ideological indoctrination (in particular feminism) that has been introduced by social engineers.
First is the assumption that nobody outside of the humanities knows how to debate or think critically. No, sorry, critical thinking is far more crucial in STEM fields because if you don't think critically your stuff won't physically work, and debate gets really easy when you're relying on evidence rather than rhetoric.
Second is this notion that my complicated buzzwords are just as valid as your scientific terminology. No it isn't, I forget who said it (Chomsky?) but that's basically a case of authority envy. Much of the humanities is pulled out of someone's posterior, and any field where "theories" can be invented on the spur of the moment and taken as canon across the board based largely on who is talking about them is better suited to a coffee shop than serious academia. You get this a lot in discussions where polisoc101s start talking about what are essentially extremely simple concepts and cloaking them in their own self anointedly axiomatic newspeak.
Third, this idea that based on the above the humanities should be telling STEM endeavours what to do. This is both massively condescending by saying that science doesn't understand what morals or ethics are, and is inserting an unneccessary middleman into human development. You know, the kind of human development that led to washing machines, cars, computers, those labour saving devices that allow you to enjoy your latte at starbucks and share the photo you took on your iphone with your besties on facebook.
And finally fourth, the majority, I think the large majority of third level graduates are humanities graduates. What this tells me is that the humanities are taking valuable funding away from STEM courses at the third level.
Now I love history, the arts, I think philosophy is kind of interesting, languages are great, literature is a hobby of mine, I very much see the need for these things, but we as a society need to de-emphasise the authority of the humanities and proceed on an evidence based footing henceforth, rather than ideological. Funding is a limited pot, so perhaps it would be best to seperate STEM and the humanities into different institutions entirely, let them stand on their own merits. I know it's unlikely to happen but one can dream.