Instead of loans, the Federal Government should massively increase funding of State schools with the caveat that school is free for anyone in that state. If all State schools were free to attend, private schools would have to compete on either price or value.
If someone doesn't beat me to it, we need a petition for campaign finance reform. As far as I'm concerned, it is the one issue that affects all others. Right or left, we should all favor reversing the money race that candidates have to go through in order to stand a chance of winning.
The world managed to ban CFCs without sacrificing many jobs. A world wide agreement to change a major component in industry. Given that the US is both the largest consumer and the largest producer, our influence alone could mold the world, should we choose to do so.
Countries that don't play nice could have various penalties imposed. Anything from import/export duties, tariffs, etc.. These could be put in place slowly over time. But that is assuming that this is going to be costly, and that there isn't any incentive to change from a business perspective.
Watch http://www.ted.com/talks/amory_lovins_on_winning_the_oil_endgame.html Or read http://www.rmi.org/rmi/ReinventingFire
Changing to new energy sources may actually grow the economy and create jobs! It doesn't need to be a painful migration. We don't lack the resources to change, we lack the political will.
So what do we do?
Get the word out. Pressure politicians. Hold news organizations accountable when they continue to 'debate the issue'. Unfortunately I am pretty skeptical of any grassroots movement having much of an effect until meaningful campaign finance reform is in place, but one can hope right?
There is enough evidence and economic incentive to start the migration to new energy sources right now.
The military, being a pragmatic organization, gets this concept. http://www.npr.org/2011/10/24/141548273/the-military-boosts-clean-energy-with-startup-help
Thanks for the response. I hadn't quite thought of it that way before, and I think you may have just changed my mind.
I'll have to think about this some more, but it does make sense that if things stay local, there is no way for extremely vocal radical groups to have national influence.
You are right in that the study is basically just now a 4th set of temperature records (nasa, noaa, cru) that agree. Just more evidence that the warming is real.
Assuming that climate models are fairly accurate (and hopefully getting more accurate over time with further research), they are predicting what the temperature should be minus humans. The real temperature is much higher than predicted.
It's my understanding that models use proxy data to look way further back than the ~200 years we normally see in graphs. Ice cores, tree rings, floral records, the sum of those supporting each other, etc.. and you can say with some amount of confidence that it was X temperature 5,000 years ago. Or even millions of years ago (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/), granted, with less confidence.
Regardless, I'm not sure why we don't want the air cleaner, electricity (eventually) cheaper, less ties to the middle east, to come faster rather than over the next 100 years. China is kicking our behinds in solar panel production and is poised to overtake wind turbine production. The US needs to be moving faster towards clean energy.
And if http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review#Treatment_of_uncertainty is even remotely close to right, its going to cost us a lot more later than if we spend some money now to 'go green'.
Question #2: Is it our fault, i.e. is it anthropogenic global warming (AGW)? Answer: This study doesn't have anything to say about that, but as others have pointed out, it is 'consistent with AGW models.' This seems to be the most difficult question because there are so many variables. The earth is warmer, sure; but it's been warmer before without our having done anything to it
The climate models do take into account long and short term cycles, sun spots, pretty much everything we know about what affects climate. The models can show what the temperature should be like based on those historical cycles, and then compare that to actual temperature data. Even 10,000 year cycles by using proxy data.
How accurate the models are is always open to speculation until we've seen them in action for thousands of years, but for those that are using the models, question 2 has been answered.
As to question 3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review
2% of GDP should be spent reducing emissions if you want to save 5% of GDP later when the effects hit.
What I'd like to see is all the models in a simple chart, that shows the estimated uncertainty in each prediction, and then have economists work up the cost for each prediction. The Stern Review likely used averages or something to reach such a simple conclusion, but it would be nice for political leaders to have a comparison chart that shows the range of costs involved.
Something like: Temp. Increase | percent of models supporting this | cost to prevent | cost to do nothing 1c | 10% | 1% of GDP +/-0.2% of GDP | 5% of GDP 2c | 20% | 2% of GDP +/-0.2% of GDP | 7% of GDP 3c | 30% | 3% of GDP +/-0.2% of GDP | 9% of GDP 4c | 50% | 4% of GDP +/-0.2% of GDP | 11% of GDP 5c | 20% | 5% of GDP +/-0.2% of GDP | 14% of GDP 6c | 10% | 6% of GDP +/-0.2% of GDP | 18% of GDP
The Stern Review's main conclusion is that the benefits of strong, early action on climate change far outweigh the costs of not acting.[3] The Review points to the potential impacts of climate change on water resources, food production, health, and the environment. According to the Review, without action, the overall costs of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global gross domestic product (GDP) each year, now and forever. Including a wider range of risks and impacts could increase this to 20% of GDP or more.
The Review proposes that one percent of global GDP per annum is required to be invested in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. In June 2008, Stern increased the estimate for the annual cost of achieving stabilisation between 500 and 550 ppm CO2e to 2% of GDP to account for faster than expected climate change.[4]
Well, when you go about doing that planning, others have found that it is likely way cheaper to reduce carbon emissions than it is to deal with the consequences.
There are still a lot of assumptions being made in studies like that though. The media, politicians, and others in power have spent far too long either denying that the planet is warming or then denying that man is part of the problem. With only a handful of exceptions, the entire Republican congress denies that AGW, at any level, is even happening.
If everyone agreed that we need to start planning, then there would likely be way more funding for global studies. How many people would X meters of sea level rise displace? What is the predicted range of X? When is the soonest and latest that X rise might happen? How costly is that to deal with X million people displaced? Etc.. start looking at all the factors.
Instead, because of political gridlock and a spineless media, our plan is going to be "wait until it gets so bad that we have to do something". That's not much of a plan.
The problem with that statement is the "unreasonable" part. Courts get to decide that case by case. And in most cases, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of law enforcement. Hence random sobriety checkpoints and other types of searches that do not require suspicion of a crime.
I just read 200 comments and not one mentioned increasing revenue.
Taxes are at historic lows. The wealthy survived just fine with > 50% taxes for decades. Likewise, all of us (middle/upper middle class) survived just fine with Clinton era rates.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3490
The bush tax cuts, the wars, and medicare part d, combined with the recession, are what is causing the deficit. If we just stop those three things and the economy recovers, the deficit will go away.
This thread is from yesterday, so you likely won't read this...but...
I've always thought that having a D. of Edu. makes sense because it sets a national standard. It helps prevent 'crazier' states from teaching non-factual things. I'm not sure what types of radical groups exist in Canada, but in the US the far religious right is pushing very hard to change education and it is a constant battle keeping their ideas out of the classroom. Attempts to change text books, banning certain books, banning sex education, pushing creationism, etc.. they are a small, but very vocal and very politically active group.
At first glance you'd assume that the majority would eventually wise up and stop listening to them, but they don't for several reasons. For one, our primary election system, for historical reasons, takes place in some of those 'crazier' states. Ohio for instance. You can very obviously see all the Republican candidates taking extremely socially conservative views while campaigning in the primaries. That gives the religious right national credibility when most of the candidates are spouting far right talking points.
And because the far religious right is so embedded in the Republican party now, it attracts big money. And that money, in the form of ads, tv time, etc.. gives a much greater voice to the far right than it naturally would have if the public was only evaluating their message based on merit.
I'd be more comfortable with removing the department of education if, for at least a generation, we had in place meaningful campaign finance reform to help remove 'big money' influence in elections and a restructuring of the primary system to favor more populated (and of more median ideology) states.
Cost Pressures on Tuition 1. In order to get quality students, hopefully better endowments, and better faculty, schools spend a lot to make themselves look good. Upgrade buildings, landscaping, new science equipment, etc... 2. Shared governance between faculty, administrators, trustees means that institutions are slow to react to changing costs/regulations. 3. The Feds broke up several collective agreements (which allowed them to share resources) between elite colleges in order to better target financial aid to students that had the greatest need. Also, Federal education grants have not kept pace with inflation. In 1975 the maximum BEOG was 4,000, in 1997 it was 2,700. 4. Local government pressures: permits to develop properties involve a lot of complex planning between the town and college. Environmentalists and historical preservationists also add cost. 5. As a school gains rank in "US News and World Reports", applicants increase, test scores increase, and the amount of financial aid required goes down (richer kids attend). Since the rankings are largely based on how well educated the graduating classes are, pressure to spend more and more to try to improve their education mounts. 6. Since Deans are typically hired, and later supported in place by faculty, it is difficult for administrators/the President, to remove bad Deans that aren't cooperating with cost savings initiatives.
I'm not sure how good this analysis is, and it does not attempt to weigh the 6 items. I'd tend to put most of the blame on the rise in demand (everyone must go to college) combined with the lack of proportionate federal/state funding. And the increased competition between schools causing them to try to outspend each other.
(I posted in another place above also. Posted it twice because I'm curious what other people think of the other factors.)
I forgot to add that I'm really surprised that the NIA article was modded +5 informative. A simple google search, without even reading the articles, shows that NIA isn't considered credible by a wide swath of organizations.
I'd never heard of NIA. I went to their site and read the 'about' section.
I got a bit suspicious when I saw this: "Our food inflation report was featured on FOX News by Glenn Beck, who called NIA a "very credible" organization." I don't consider Glenn Beck very credible.
And a ton of other articles basically saying that NIA is a scare scam to pump and dump gold/silver. Now it could very well be true that total student loans exceed pricey credit card debts, but does that 'fact' actually mean anything? More students than ever are going to school, largely because unskilled labor jobs are drying up. So its no surprise that there are more loans.
I'd rather build a business that had an educated population to hire from and live in a community that voted intelligently than cut back on federal loans.
Another question to ask is, why does a college education cost so much to begin with? Why has tuition increased so much faster than inflation, year after year?
Cost Pressures on Tuition 1. In order to get quality students, hopefully better endowments, and better faculty, schools spend a lot to make themselves look good. Upgrade buildings, landscaping, new science equipment, etc... 2. Shared governance between faculty, administrators, trustees means that institutions are slow to react to changing costs/regulations. 3. The Feds broke up several collective agreements (which allowed them to share resources) between elite colleges in order to better target financial aid to students that had the greatest need. Also, Federal education grants have not kept pace with inflation. 4. Local government pressures: permits to develop properties involve a lot of complex planning between the town and college. Environmentalists and historical preservationists also add cost. 5. As a school gains rank in "US News and World Reports", applicants increase, test scores increase, and the amount of financial aid required goes down (richer kids attend). Since the rankings are largely based on how well educated the graduating classes are, pressure to spend more and more to try to improve their education mounts. 6. Since Deans are typically hired, and later supported in place by faculty, it is difficult for administrators/the President, to remove bad Deans that aren't cooperating with cost savings initiatives.
I'm not sure how good this analysis is, and it does not attempt to weigh the 6 items. I'd tend to put most of the blame on the rise in demand (everyone must go to college) combined with the lack of proportionate federal/state funding. And the increased competition between schools causing them to try to outspend each other.
To the average user, yeah, computing hasn't changed too much.
But for scientists, the massive gains in computing power has allowed all sorts of progress in a variety of fields. Moore's law is still holding true: computing power is doubling every two years. Its predicted that we can match the raw computational power of the human mind in the next 20 years. Will have to wait to see whether that results in AI.
But what about Watson? IBM's computer that won Jeopardy? I doubt very many people in 1991 would have guessed that in 20 years a computer would win a spoken knowledge contest.
6: And the big one; fewer and fewer people will have traditional jobs, letting the robots/computers do the admin / manual work for them. Instead, we'll be exploring, learning, creating, having fun, or socializing (eventually mankind will realize that higher unemployment is a good thing, and not a bad)
People have been predicting that for a long time. Unfortunately history has proven that when productivity (efficiency, automation, etc..) increases, it isn't passed down to the common worker. Despite huge gains in productivity since the industrial revolution, the average worker still works all week long, it still requires 2 workers to own a home, etc.. that productivity gain goes directly into the profits of the companies.
Even if we invent nano-forges that can create anything out of dirt, I'd be willing to bet that the average person will still have to toil away 40 hours a week at 'something'.
That's a clear violation of freedom of speech. If I want to, with my own money, create an ad endorsing a candidate and express my views, then denying that by law would certainly be censorship.
When is the last time you saw a primary for senate or the house which had a truly independent, not corporate owned, candidate? It's pretty rare. Without adequate funding, it is nearly impossible for a 'good' candidate to run in the primaries.
We desperately need campaign finance reform in order to get quality candidates running in the primaries, but that change can only be accomplished by Congress. Good luck getting the source of the problem to fix itself.
The only way I can see things changing is if the states move to amend the constitution (partial public financing of elections, only small individual donations allowed, etc..).
Camping in the park has at least got the media ask "why are they angry". I've actually heard the words 'income inequality' a few times on prime time news!
Slashdot Mirror
Instead of loans, the Federal Government should massively increase funding of State schools with the caveat that school is free for anyone in that state. If all State schools were free to attend, private schools would have to compete on either price or value.
Yup. And it is actually pretty impressive, from a tech standpoint.
http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_stewart_how_youtube_thinks_about_copyright.html
If someone doesn't beat me to it, we need a petition for campaign finance reform. As far as I'm concerned, it is the one issue that affects all others. Right or left, we should all favor reversing the money race that candidates have to go through in order to stand a chance of winning.
The world managed to ban CFCs without sacrificing many jobs. A world wide agreement to change a major component in industry. Given that the US is both the largest consumer and the largest producer, our influence alone could mold the world, should we choose to do so.
Countries that don't play nice could have various penalties imposed. Anything from import/export duties, tariffs, etc.. These could be put in place slowly over time. But that is assuming that this is going to be costly, and that there isn't any incentive to change from a business perspective.
Watch http://www.ted.com/talks/amory_lovins_on_winning_the_oil_endgame.html
Or read http://www.rmi.org/rmi/ReinventingFire
Changing to new energy sources may actually grow the economy and create jobs! It doesn't need to be a painful migration. We don't lack the resources to change, we lack the political will.
So what do we do?
Get the word out. Pressure politicians. Hold news organizations accountable when they continue to 'debate the issue'. Unfortunately I am pretty skeptical of any grassroots movement having much of an effect until meaningful campaign finance reform is in place, but one can hope right?
There is enough evidence and economic incentive to start the migration to new energy sources right now.
The military, being a pragmatic organization, gets this concept. http://www.npr.org/2011/10/24/141548273/the-military-boosts-clean-energy-with-startup-help
Thanks for the response. I hadn't quite thought of it that way before, and I think you may have just changed my mind.
I'll have to think about this some more, but it does make sense that if things stay local, there is no way for extremely vocal radical groups to have national influence.
You are right in that the study is basically just now a 4th set of temperature records (nasa, noaa, cru) that agree. Just more evidence that the warming is real.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm
Assuming that climate models are fairly accurate (and hopefully getting more accurate over time with further research), they are predicting what the temperature should be minus humans. The real temperature is much higher than predicted.
It's my understanding that models use proxy data to look way further back than the ~200 years we normally see in graphs. Ice cores, tree rings, floral records, the sum of those supporting each other, etc.. and you can say with some amount of confidence that it was X temperature 5,000 years ago. Or even millions of years ago (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/), granted, with less confidence.
Regardless, I'm not sure why we don't want the air cleaner, electricity (eventually) cheaper, less ties to the middle east, to come faster rather than over the next 100 years. China is kicking our behinds in solar panel production and is poised to overtake wind turbine production. The US needs to be moving faster towards clean energy.
And if http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review#Treatment_of_uncertainty is even remotely close to right, its going to cost us a lot more later than if we spend some money now to 'go green'.
Question #2: Is it our fault, i.e. is it anthropogenic global warming (AGW)? Answer: This study doesn't have anything to say about that, but as others have pointed out, it is 'consistent with AGW models.' This seems to be the most difficult question because there are so many variables. The earth is warmer, sure; but it's been warmer before without our having done anything to it
The climate models do take into account long and short term cycles, sun spots, pretty much everything we know about what affects climate. The models can show what the temperature should be like based on those historical cycles, and then compare that to actual temperature data. Even 10,000 year cycles by using proxy data.
How accurate the models are is always open to speculation until we've seen them in action for thousands of years, but for those that are using the models, question 2 has been answered.
As to question 3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review
2% of GDP should be spent reducing emissions if you want to save 5% of GDP later when the effects hit.
What I'd like to see is all the models in a simple chart, that shows the estimated uncertainty in each prediction, and then have economists work up the cost for each prediction. The Stern Review likely used averages or something to reach such a simple conclusion, but it would be nice for political leaders to have a comparison chart that shows the range of costs involved.
Something like:
Temp. Increase | percent of models supporting this | cost to prevent | cost to do nothing
1c | 10% | 1% of GDP +/-0.2% of GDP | 5% of GDP
2c | 20% | 2% of GDP +/-0.2% of GDP | 7% of GDP
3c | 30% | 3% of GDP +/-0.2% of GDP | 9% of GDP
4c | 50% | 4% of GDP +/-0.2% of GDP | 11% of GDP
5c | 20% | 5% of GDP +/-0.2% of GDP | 14% of GDP
6c | 10% | 6% of GDP +/-0.2% of GDP | 18% of GDP
The only real difference between this research project and previous ones which came to the same conclusions was the personalities involved.
For me (at least to show my conservative family members) it's pretty big that the Koch Brothers were one of their donors.
Was the Economist article referring to this study, the Stern Review?"
The Stern Review's main conclusion is that the benefits of strong, early action on climate change far outweigh the costs of not acting.[3] The Review points to the potential impacts of climate change on water resources, food production, health, and the environment. According to the Review, without action, the overall costs of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global gross domestic product (GDP) each year, now and forever. Including a wider range of risks and impacts could increase this to 20% of GDP or more.
The Review proposes that one percent of global GDP per annum is required to be invested in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. In June 2008, Stern increased the estimate for the annual cost of achieving stabilisation between 500 and 550 ppm CO2e to 2% of GDP to account for faster than expected climate change.[4]
Well, when you go about doing that planning, others have found that it is likely way cheaper to reduce carbon emissions than it is to deal with the consequences.
There are still a lot of assumptions being made in studies like that though. The media, politicians, and others in power have spent far too long either denying that the planet is warming or then denying that man is part of the problem. With only a handful of exceptions, the entire Republican congress denies that AGW, at any level, is even happening.
If everyone agreed that we need to start planning, then there would likely be way more funding for global studies. How many people would X meters of sea level rise displace? What is the predicted range of X? When is the soonest and latest that X rise might happen? How costly is that to deal with X million people displaced? Etc.. start looking at all the factors.
Instead, because of political gridlock and a spineless media, our plan is going to be "wait until it gets so bad that we have to do something". That's not much of a plan.
The problem with that statement is the "unreasonable" part. Courts get to decide that case by case. And in most cases, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of law enforcement. Hence random sobriety checkpoints and other types of searches that do not require suspicion of a crime.
We need an election system that allows us to actually elect good politicians. 'We' can't do anything with our votes when its Mr. Wrong vs Mr. Wronger.
I just read 200 comments and not one mentioned increasing revenue.
Taxes are at historic lows. The wealthy survived just fine with > 50% taxes for decades. Likewise, all of us (middle/upper middle class) survived just fine with Clinton era rates.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3490
The bush tax cuts, the wars, and medicare part d, combined with the recession, are what is causing the deficit. If we just stop those three things and the economy recovers, the deficit will go away.
This thread is from yesterday, so you likely won't read this...but...
I've always thought that having a D. of Edu. makes sense because it sets a national standard. It helps prevent 'crazier' states from teaching non-factual things. I'm not sure what types of radical groups exist in Canada, but in the US the far religious right is pushing very hard to change education and it is a constant battle keeping their ideas out of the classroom. Attempts to change text books, banning certain books, banning sex education, pushing creationism, etc.. they are a small, but very vocal and very politically active group.
At first glance you'd assume that the majority would eventually wise up and stop listening to them, but they don't for several reasons. For one, our primary election system, for historical reasons, takes place in some of those 'crazier' states. Ohio for instance. You can very obviously see all the Republican candidates taking extremely socially conservative views while campaigning in the primaries. That gives the religious right national credibility when most of the candidates are spouting far right talking points.
And because the far religious right is so embedded in the Republican party now, it attracts big money. And that money, in the form of ads, tv time, etc.. gives a much greater voice to the far right than it naturally would have if the public was only evaluating their message based on merit.
I'd be more comfortable with removing the department of education if, for at least a generation, we had in place meaningful campaign finance reform to help remove 'big money' influence in elections and a restructuring of the primary system to favor more populated (and of more median ideology) states.
It is a bit more complex than that: Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much
Summary:
Cost Pressures on Tuition
1. In order to get quality students, hopefully better endowments, and better faculty, schools spend a lot to make themselves look good. Upgrade buildings, landscaping, new science equipment, etc...
2. Shared governance between faculty, administrators, trustees means that institutions are slow to react to changing costs/regulations.
3. The Feds broke up several collective agreements (which allowed them to share resources) between elite colleges in order to better target financial aid to students that had the greatest need. Also, Federal education grants have not kept pace with inflation. In 1975 the maximum BEOG was 4,000, in 1997 it was 2,700.
4. Local government pressures: permits to develop properties involve a lot of complex planning between the town and college. Environmentalists and historical preservationists also add cost.
5. As a school gains rank in "US News and World Reports", applicants increase, test scores increase, and the amount of financial aid required goes down (richer kids attend). Since the rankings are largely based on how well educated the graduating classes are, pressure to spend more and more to try to improve their education mounts.
6. Since Deans are typically hired, and later supported in place by faculty, it is difficult for administrators/the President, to remove bad Deans that aren't cooperating with cost savings initiatives.
I'm not sure how good this analysis is, and it does not attempt to weigh the 6 items. I'd tend to put most of the blame on the rise in demand (everyone must go to college) combined with the lack of proportionate federal/state funding. And the increased competition between schools causing them to try to outspend each other.
(I posted in another place above also. Posted it twice because I'm curious what other people think of the other factors.)
I forgot to add that I'm really surprised that the NIA article was modded +5 informative. A simple google search, without even reading the articles, shows that NIA isn't considered credible by a wide swath of organizations.
I'd never heard of NIA. I went to their site and read the 'about' section.
I got a bit suspicious when I saw this: "Our food inflation report was featured on FOX News by Glenn Beck, who called NIA a "very credible" organization." I don't consider Glenn Beck very credible.
Googling NIA lead me to this: National Inflation Association co-founder admits NIA is a FRAUD!
And a ton of other articles basically saying that NIA is a scare scam to pump and dump gold/silver. Now it could very well be true that total student loans exceed pricey credit card debts, but does that 'fact' actually mean anything? More students than ever are going to school, largely because unskilled labor jobs are drying up. So its no surprise that there are more loans.
I'd rather build a business that had an educated population to hire from and live in a community that voted intelligently than cut back on federal loans.
Heck, even if you are middle class you haven't kept up at all with inflating prices. The middle class haven't gotten a raise in 30 years.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/21/news/economy/middle_class_income/index.htm
Another question to ask is, why does a college education cost so much to begin with? Why has tuition increased so much faster than inflation, year after year?
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp0005s.pdf
Summary:
Cost Pressures on Tuition
1. In order to get quality students, hopefully better endowments, and better faculty, schools spend a lot to make themselves look good. Upgrade buildings, landscaping, new science equipment, etc...
2. Shared governance between faculty, administrators, trustees means that institutions are slow to react to changing costs/regulations.
3. The Feds broke up several collective agreements (which allowed them to share resources) between elite colleges in order to better target financial aid to students that had the greatest need. Also, Federal education grants have not kept pace with inflation.
4. Local government pressures: permits to develop properties involve a lot of complex planning between the town and college. Environmentalists and historical preservationists also add cost.
5. As a school gains rank in "US News and World Reports", applicants increase, test scores increase, and the amount of financial aid required goes down (richer kids attend). Since the rankings are largely based on how well educated the graduating classes are, pressure to spend more and more to try to improve their education mounts.
6. Since Deans are typically hired, and later supported in place by faculty, it is difficult for administrators/the President, to remove bad Deans that aren't cooperating with cost savings initiatives.
I'm not sure how good this analysis is, and it does not attempt to weigh the 6 items. I'd tend to put most of the blame on the rise in demand (everyone must go to college) combined with the lack of proportionate federal/state funding. And the increased competition between schools causing them to try to outspend each other.
Or they could do what IBM did with Watson and have a more sophisticated search routine.
To the average user, yeah, computing hasn't changed too much.
But for scientists, the massive gains in computing power has allowed all sorts of progress in a variety of fields. Moore's law is still holding true: computing power is doubling every two years. Its predicted that we can match the raw computational power of the human mind in the next 20 years. Will have to wait to see whether that results in AI.
But what about Watson? IBM's computer that won Jeopardy? I doubt very many people in 1991 would have guessed that in 20 years a computer would win a spoken knowledge contest.
6: And the big one; fewer and fewer people will have traditional jobs, letting the robots/computers do the admin / manual work for them. Instead, we'll be exploring, learning, creating, having fun, or socializing (eventually mankind will realize that higher unemployment is a good thing, and not a bad)
People have been predicting that for a long time. Unfortunately history has proven that when productivity (efficiency, automation, etc..) increases, it isn't passed down to the common worker. Despite huge gains in productivity since the industrial revolution, the average worker still works all week long, it still requires 2 workers to own a home, etc.. that productivity gain goes directly into the profits of the companies.
Even if we invent nano-forges that can create anything out of dirt, I'd be willing to bet that the average person will still have to toil away 40 hours a week at 'something'.
"and BAN private political advertising"
That's a clear violation of freedom of speech. If I want to, with my own money, create an ad endorsing a candidate and express my views, then denying that by law would certainly be censorship.
The states need to amend the constitution.
When is the last time you saw a primary for senate or the house which had a truly independent, not corporate owned, candidate? It's pretty rare. Without adequate funding, it is nearly impossible for a 'good' candidate to run in the primaries.
We desperately need campaign finance reform in order to get quality candidates running in the primaries, but that change can only be accomplished by Congress. Good luck getting the source of the problem to fix itself.
The only way I can see things changing is if the states move to amend the constitution (partial public financing of elections, only small individual donations allowed, etc..).
Camping in the park has at least got the media ask "why are they angry". I've actually heard the words 'income inequality' a few times on prime time news!