This is just another reason why the Electoral College sucks: it makes elections look much less close than they are. The example you cite, Reagans 1984 victory, is the biggest landslide in memory. He got 59% of the votes. In any small-town mayoral race, that would be called close. And that's the biggest differential anyone can name. (History majors: Don't bother correcting me unless you've got one since most states adopted direct voting for President).
2000 was incredibly, mind-bogglingly close. Most presidential elections are merely incredibly close. And that closeness combined with the charming winner-take-all Electoral College system means it doesn't take much rigging, voter discouraging, or other shenanigans to make a real difference.
Currently candidates do ignore all but a handful of "swing" states; the number of voters candidates might as well ignore could hardly be worse. Well, maybe if we went with your counties idea...
Why shouldn't candidates try to appeal to more people rather than certain people? Why is it important to favor the relevance of rural dwellers over urban dwellers? Call me crazy, but I think candidates should concentrate more on places with more people. They should be trying to appeal to the most people, not the most places.
"The Condorcet is flawed. It ignores voter choice." I cannot fathom what you mean by this. Certainly a voter can only mark their first choice; this is equivalent to ranking all the other candidates equally (tied for your second choice). Of course, if you do have a preference between the other candidates, you can feel free to rank them too, it won't hurt your first choice in the least. The advantage of Condorcet is that if a third party candidate appeals to me, I don't have to debate between expressing my true preference and voting for the most acceptable major-party candidate so that my vote might actually make a difference. Perhaps more importantly, if I think one major party candidate is better than another, but they are both pretty bad, I don't have to think twice about running against them and spliting votes away from the better one.
Any flaws with simply changing it from a state level to a voter level? Why should some peoples votes count more than others?
That's the flaw I see with the state level: I don't like disproportionate representation. Moving to counties just makes it worse. Even your 500,000 system just over-represents counties with less than 500,000 voters.
The other flaw with any electoral college system is the winner-take-all. Why should some voters opinions be meaningless, just because significantly more than half of the people in their area either agree or disagree with them? I suspect your counties idea just makes this worse too (counties are more homogeneous than states).
So I see a couple disadvantages to your system, and no advantages. Unless you consider increasing the chances of electing Republicans who lose the popular vote to be an advantage, which I do not (and not just because they are Republicans).
Really, the way to improve our Presidential election process seems to me to be simple and obvious: Popular vote. I don't see how you can argue that anything else is better. (Well, Condorcet, but getting enough people to even understand it seems a sufficient hurdle that I don't see any point in proposing it.)
"Tax cuts don't increase the national debt. Spending increases the national debt"
Do you understand the meaning of "debt"? If you cut taxes without cutting spending, that you increases the debt.
If you cut taxes and increase spending that really increases the debt fast.
If you cut taxes and increase spending while saying you are against big government that makes you stupid or a liar.
If you cut taxes and increase spending by stupefyingly larger amounts than anyone else ever has, while saying you are against big government, and calling others fiscally iresponsible, you've pretty much got to be both stupid and a liar; which is to say, George W. Bush.
You do realize that the populations of counties are wildly divergent? To say your system prevents rural counties from being ignored is the understatement of the century. It also prevents urban counties, where the vast majority of the people live, from being considered.
I really don't understand what's wrong with just going with popular vote. Why should those who live in less populous areas get more of a say than those who live in populous areas? And why should those who live in an area trhat isn't closely split get no say at all?
I'll grant that the current system (but not your replacement) might have made more sense back in the 1780's when the State was considered the really important political entity, and the United States was to be just a loose association. But continuing to over-represent the less popular areas this long after the civil war just doesn't make sense.
(Unless of course you support the party that is more popular in rural areas and just want to ensure their victory whether it makes sense or not...)
"I didn't think I said anything about the end of Cryptonomicon"
You mean besides:
"but it just seems to me that there were so many loose ends at the end of Cryptonomicon"
Anyway, I'll admit I'm quick to jump on criticism of Stephensons endings, because I have no idea what people are talking about. It's like they picked a criticism at random, except that a lot of people seem to pick the same one. I don't get it.
I'm not privy to Stephensons writing plans either, but if the past is any guide, the direct sequel to Cryptonomicon you seek seems unlikely. Except in the case of the Baroque cycle, which he said would be a series up front, he has always gone off in another direction between one book and the next. Cryptonomicon to the Baroque cycle is a much closer connection by far anything previously.
I didn't like "In the Beginning was the command line", the charachter development just wasn't up to his usual standard... Seriously though, that book was just some essays he'd written for other forums that (I gather) a publisher slapped together knowing anything with his name on it would sell.
Uh, there isn't any he said she said research. All the research I can find is on my side. And despite the number of people arguing me, not one has provided any research at all showing that there has been a downward trend in literacy from the mid 1800s to today. Because there has not been. They all (including you) say education today is no good, and support it with anecdotal evidence. Where they have got the impression that I think public education in this country today is anywhere near as good as it should be, I have no idea. I simply assert, based on the numbers that I have been able to locate, that public education today is better than when it didn't exist.
All I have taken issue with is the candidates assertion that the rise of public education has caused a decline in literacy, and therefore that it should be abolished. Public education has caused an increase in literacy, albeit not as great an increase as I think it should have. Therefore I would expect the abolishment of public education to make the sitution you complain of worse. What percent of those aplicants do you think would be able to read up to your standards if, instead of going to the schools you (and I) think are sub-standard, they went to no school at all? Do you really think it would be a higher percentage? That is what the candidate is suggesting, so I think it is reasonable to point out that the only support he offers for this counter-intuitive notion is in fact a falsehood. And an easily discoverable one to boot.
As my point went over your head: A 30 second Google search yeilded not flimsy evidence, but a clear, definitive demonstration that the candidates statement was outright false. Obviously a google search proves nothing, it's the results that matter. My results were US Census reports of historical literacy rates from 1870 to 1979, showing an increase from ~80% to about ~90.6% over that period. Do you honestly suggest that if I only spend more time and look deeper, I will see that these numbers represent a "downward trend" in literacy?
Furthermore "Do a 30 second google search; find a definitive on-point page from a trusted source; Post" is frankly incredibly well-thought-out for a slashdot post. Whereas "Don't even spend 30 seconds looking up the easily available statistics before proposing massive governmental/societal changes" strikes me as a bit shy of well-thought-out for a Presidential candidates position on education. (call me crazy here)
All that said, I now notice he references Horace Manns role in establishing the education system. So, while I still don't feel I'm hypocritical to say his statement was not well-thought-out, I would like to revise my charge. I now beleive that his statement was in fact very well thought out. I beleive he carefully considered the matter, and maybe even threw in the historical reference specifically to reduce the chances anyone would check up on such an obvious, outright falsehood.
Those stats are (both) based on "Persons over the age of 14 able to read and write in any language". I would presume "able to read and write" means "at all". The numbers come from the census beareau. While we could debate definitions of literacy alot, but a "downward trend in literacy" ever since the mid 1800s is completely at odds with every bit of objective evidence I've been able to find in (now) quite a lot of looking. Please, enough with suspecting standards have slipped and arguing based on the reading material from the 1800s that is still around today in places you're likely to read it (by that standard, people in Shakespeares day were incredibly literate, everything I've read from then was way beyond what most prople can write today).
Go find some historical numbers. Dig into exactly how they were measured. It's just abundantly clear: Literacy has improved significantly since the mid 1800s. The candidate is ignorant or lying, and since he references a semi-obscure but on-point historical figure, I don't think he's ignorant.
Thanks, but my 99.4% figure was pulled from the nether regions of the US Census Bureau. They report (in 1979) an illiteracy rate of 0.6%, with illiteracy rate defined as the percentage of persons 14 and over unable to read or write in any language. The numbers are available here: http://nces.ed.gov/naal/historicaldata/illi teracy. asp amongst other places.
Speaking of pulling stuff from your nether regions, I followed the link you provided. I was not able to find any reference to 22%, anything described as "quite iliterate", or actually any reference to illiteracy at all.
Perhaps you're refering to it's finding that 23% of adults atained only "Literacy Level 1"? One of the examples of what someone at Literacy Level 1 can do is "Locate a single fact in a sports article" Which sort of implies they can read the article. Granted, if you read the whole description of Lit Lev 1, it's pretty sad, but it is not "quite illiterate".
All that aside, the claim I'm rebutting is: "Ever since the inception of government schooling in the 19th century under Horace Mann, the US has been on a downward trend in literacy..."
I say that's blatantly false, and I beleive the available statistics support me. You can rant all you want about how poorly educated people are today; the question is: Is today the bottom of a downward trend starting in 1837? (when Horace Mann became the head of the newly formed Massachusetts State Board of education) Or is the candidate (like you), someone who likes to throw in historical references (or Survey titles) to make themseleves seem knowledgeable, whilst actually talking out their ass?
Now that I think about, it's not that the candidate didn't bother to find out how literacy had changed since the inception of public education. He references Horace Mann, so he's at least looked into it. I can only conclude he knows he's lying and just figures we won't check up on him.
Funny, I thought I wrote an entire post, not just that one line. I thought it implied all of the following, but I'll try again:
I agree with you entirely that the laws you named are rotten to the core; an erosion of the very things that make this country great. They should be fought against tooth and nail.
On the other hand, you'll get laughed at (if not done violence to) if you try explaining that the DMCA has taken away your freedom to the point where life in the US sucks to residents of (roughly speaking): the eastern half of Europe, good portions of Central and South America, most of Asia, or anywhere in Africa.
So a little perspective please. We need to do a whole bunch of tweaking, some of it pretty serious and even urgent. But junking the whole thing to take a whole new roll in the how-good-a-place-to-live-is-your-country sweepstakes would be idiotic in the extreme.
I did a google search on "historical us literacy rates" - several of the top hits report the same table of figures for illiteracy over a span of years, which I took the converse of, and included the end years only in order to be breif. Looking at it again, the numbers appear to be based on Census Data early on and other government surveys for later years. In short, these are the "government's own figures on illiteracy rates". I am fascinated to hear that the govenment has other figures on illiteracy that do show a "downward spiral" since the advent of public education. Perhaps you could you point me to them? Precise sources would be great.
It's true that my reply was not very helpful. Mainly I get frustrated by the constant refrain that Stephenson can't write endings. All his endings have seemed entirely satisfactory to me. So the parent poster presented a list of "loose ends", none of which seemed like any mystery to me at all. Perhaps Grandma Waterhouse was actually far more fascinating than she appeared. Perhaps her harmless facade was merely cover, so no one would suspect she was a highly trained assassin. But in the absense of evidence to the contrary, it seems reasonable to assume she was the sort of person who'd be very nice to have as your Grandma, but wouldn't be very interesting to read a about at much length in novel. In any novel, I expect the author to show me all the interesting bits, and let me fill in the predictable bits myself. So if something isn't covered, and there is an obvious way it seems likely to work out, I'll assume it works that way. A writer will annoy me for failing to tie up loose ends when there is something left out that obviously is going to work out in some fascinating way, and I've no idea what it is. But it certainly seems spurious to accuse Stephenson of failing to write a good ending and of leaving important questions unanswered if your example of one of those questions is "What's up with Grandma Waterhouse?"
Anyway, now I'll try to say something that is helpful:
While I (obviously) love reading anything Neal Stephenson chooses to write, I would not recomend the Baroque Cycle to most people. They'd get about half way through the first section of Quicksilver, and vow to never take a book recomendation from me again. However, if you are at least mildly interested in the Baroque era, and (particularly) if your greatest complaint about Cryptonomicon is that it was not long enough, you will love it. Garaunteed.
"Waterhouse did *not* go to work in the new NSA under Comstock."
Uhm, true, and I don't think I implied he did.
I don't beleive Rudy actually endowed a chair for Waterhouse; indeed I beleive it's pretty clear he did not survive the submarine incident. Didn't he intentionally incinerate himself? Or was that Bichoff? In any case, the other makes it out the hatch, but based on the depth we know (from the moden day timeline) the sub was at, survival should have been impossible.
Waterhouse has already been offered a position (though not an endowed chair) at the Washington College, and intends to take it, and we know from the modern-day timeline he did in fact take it. Comstock thinks Waterhouse's intentions are silly, and that he'll be bored; he wants him for the NSA. Rudy, on the other hand, says "I'll endow a chair for you there", but (in my understanding) neither he nor Waterhouse really expects that to happen; rather, what Rudy is saying is "I'm going to set off in a jet powered submarine as part of a secret cabal, dodge all sorts of danger, try to recover a fortune in gold and become fabulously wealthy. But as your friend, I understand and respect your decision to settle down teach Math at a small college instead, and I wish you the best. Heck, if I do get fabulously wealthy, I'll endow a chair for you!"
Hypocritical? I think not. I imply nothing. I state that this particular respopnse is not well thought out because the "fact" on which it relies can be refuted with the barest minimum of research. Had I stated this without having done that research, that would be hypocritical. But I am not hypocritical because I, a mere slashdot poster, in fact did the 30 seconds of research. Whereas he, a supposed presidential candidate, apparently did not do 30 seconds of research before proposing to abolish the entire public education system. So I beleive I am being downright charitable by calling him merely ill-informed, as opposed to (to pick a random example) "a dangerous, ideologically blinded wacko who thank god has no chance of ever being put in a position of public responsibility"
Well, my statistics are actually the converse of some stats on illiteracy I found. Those stats measured the percent of persons 14 and above "unable to read in any language".
The Federalist Papers were perhaps written for the common literate educated man of the time, who was hardly common. I don't think the interviewee, or you are using any defined standard at all (particularly if you suggest the average education level is lower now than in the 18th century.)
This really goes to the heart of my reaction to this guy, and hard-core libertarians in general. They say "Look at the unbeleivably abismal state of this country, we need insanely radical change!" I look around and see that this country has about the highest standard of living in the world, and is right up there on personal freedoms, oportunity for economic advancement, etc.
I think some of our current policies are threatening the long term viability of that standard of living, and I get really up in arms about the threats I see to those freedoms, but lets not loose sight of the fact that we're doing roughly as well or better than any other country I can think of.
Could public education be a lot better than it is? Absolutely. Would it be better if we didn't have it at all? Of course not. The only reason you'd think so is if you were so convinced of your ideology, you assumed what it predicted was the case rather than looking at any of the available evidence. Which is what this guy has done. All available evidence shows that public education has improved the average education level dramatically. But he hasn't even looked, because his ideology predicts anything doen by government will be bad.
Re:I might one day read the Baroque cycle...
on
The System of the World
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· Score: 3, Insightful
So basically, you liked Cryptonomicon, and want more of the same. Based on Stephensons past work, whatever he writes in the future, what it will not be is the same as anything before. Except in the sense that it will, in my opinion, rock.
But I don't think any of your loose ends are particularly loose:
"What's to become of the Epiphyte corporation and its data crypt plan?"
Having aquired the requisite huge pile of gold, they establish the crypt, and it's chief initial application, secure digital cash.
"The relationship between modern-day Waterhouse and Ms. Shaftoe?"
Goes swimmingly, but probably isn't so interesting to read about. Their kids may have interseting adventures, being the unification of the technologist and adventurer archetypes.
"The impending creation of the NSA under (recently-post) WWII-era Waterhouse and the evil, scheming ex-IBM-er military intelligence officer?"
It gets created and is headquartered at Fort Meade. I didn't think he was necessarily evil though. Perhaps from Douglas MacArthur Shaftoes POV. In the WWII timeline I don't see it though. Sure, he tries strenuously to kill a bunch of our heroes, but they are aboard an enemy submarine at the time.
"What's up with Grandma Waterhouse, who is spoken of reverentially by modern-day Waterhouse? "
Where's the mystery? She groes up on a sheep farm in Australia, meets and maries Lawrence, has a very nice, if boring life in Washington State, is well loved by her Grandchildren. Sounds like a nice lady, but I don't want a novel about her.
"Gotta be more good stuff with (WWII) Waterhouse and Turing"
That was really good stuff, but it's not really a loose end. It would be fun to read more of it, but I think I'd rather have something different that Stephenson chooses to serve up. variety is the spice of life and all.
"The rebuilding of Japan under McArthur and Goto Dengo?"
Yeah! And what about our doctors? They're all rich guys too! Let's pass a law saying you can't be a doctor unless you're a "regular guy" you know, no education beyond a bachelors degree, or maybe even high school, that would be best....
I can divide any industry in to two types of people: Those who see a job as something they do to earn money, so they can spend the rest of their time doing things they like, and those who realize they'll spend about half their working hours doing their job, and so insist that it too be something they like.
"It is also funny to note that the US is always contrary to military action from other countries, when those countries are the target of terrorists (Israel...). "
Huh? The US sells Israel huge amounts of armaments at cost, after giving them the money in the first place.
I'm not sure what you mean by "independent of the axioms", but the continuum hypothesis is in fact either true or false. However, it has been proved that if it is true, it cannot be proved to be true. It is possible it could be proved to be false, but noone really thinks it is, so not much work is being done there.
Slashdot Mirror
This is just another reason why the Electoral College sucks: it makes elections look much less close than they are. The example you cite, Reagans 1984 victory, is the biggest landslide in memory. He got 59% of the votes. In any small-town mayoral race, that would be called close. And that's the biggest differential anyone can name. (History majors: Don't bother correcting me unless you've got one since most states adopted direct voting for President).
2000 was incredibly, mind-bogglingly close. Most presidential elections are merely incredibly close. And that closeness combined with the charming winner-take-all Electoral College system means it doesn't take much rigging, voter discouraging, or other shenanigans to make a real difference.
Currently candidates do ignore all but a handful of "swing" states; the number of voters candidates might as well ignore could hardly be worse. Well, maybe if we went with your counties idea...
Why shouldn't candidates try to appeal to more people rather than certain people? Why is it important to favor the relevance of rural dwellers over urban dwellers? Call me crazy, but I think candidates should concentrate more on places with more people. They should be trying to appeal to the most people, not the most places.
"The Condorcet is flawed. It ignores voter choice."
I cannot fathom what you mean by this. Certainly a voter can only mark their first choice; this is equivalent to ranking all the other candidates equally (tied for your second choice). Of course, if you do have a preference between the other candidates, you can feel free to rank them too, it won't hurt your first choice in the least. The advantage of Condorcet is that if a third party candidate appeals to me, I don't have to debate between expressing my true preference and voting for the most acceptable major-party candidate so that my vote might actually make a difference. Perhaps more importantly, if I think one major party candidate is better than another, but they are both pretty bad, I don't have to think twice about running against them and spliting votes away from the better one.
Any flaws with simply changing it from a state level to a voter level? Why should some peoples votes count more than others?
That's the flaw I see with the state level: I don't like disproportionate representation. Moving to counties just makes it worse. Even your 500,000 system just over-represents counties with less than 500,000 voters.
The other flaw with any electoral college system is the winner-take-all. Why should some voters opinions be meaningless, just because significantly more than half of the people in their area either agree or disagree with them? I suspect your counties idea just makes this worse too (counties are more homogeneous than states).
So I see a couple disadvantages to your system, and no advantages. Unless you consider increasing the chances of electing Republicans who lose the popular vote to be an advantage, which I do not (and not just because they are Republicans).
Really, the way to improve our Presidential election process seems to me to be simple and obvious: Popular vote. I don't see how you can argue that anything else is better. (Well, Condorcet, but getting enough people to even understand it seems a sufficient hurdle that I don't see any point in proposing it.)
"Tax cuts don't increase the national debt. Spending increases the national debt"
Do you understand the meaning of "debt"? If you cut taxes without cutting spending, that you increases the debt.
If you cut taxes and increase spending that really increases the debt fast.
If you cut taxes and increase spending while saying you are against big government that makes you stupid or a liar.
If you cut taxes and increase spending by stupefyingly larger amounts than anyone else ever has, while saying you are against big government, and calling others fiscally iresponsible, you've pretty much got to be both stupid and a liar; which is to say, George W. Bush.
You do realize that the populations of counties are wildly divergent? To say your system prevents rural counties from being ignored is the understatement of the century. It also prevents urban counties, where the vast majority of the people live, from being considered.
I really don't understand what's wrong with just going with popular vote. Why should those who live in less populous areas get more of a say than those who live in populous areas? And why should those who live in an area trhat isn't closely split get no say at all?
I'll grant that the current system (but not your replacement) might have made more sense back in the 1780's when the State was considered the really important political entity, and the United States was to be just a loose association. But continuing to over-represent the less popular areas this long after the civil war just doesn't make sense.
(Unless of course you support the party that is more popular in rural areas and just want to ensure their victory whether it makes sense or not...)
"I didn't think I said anything about the end of Cryptonomicon"
You mean besides:
"but it just seems to me that there were so many loose ends at the end of Cryptonomicon"
Anyway, I'll admit I'm quick to jump on criticism of Stephensons endings, because I have no idea what people are talking about. It's like they picked a criticism at random, except that a lot of people seem to pick the same one. I don't get it.
I'm not privy to Stephensons writing plans either, but if the past is any guide, the direct sequel to Cryptonomicon you seek seems unlikely. Except in the case of the Baroque cycle, which he said would be a series up front, he has always gone off in another direction between one book and the next. Cryptonomicon to the Baroque cycle is a much closer connection by far anything previously.
I didn't like "In the Beginning was the command line", the charachter development just wasn't up to his usual standard... Seriously though, that book was just some essays he'd written for other forums that (I gather) a publisher slapped together knowing anything with his name on it would sell.
Uh, there isn't any he said she said research. All the research I can find is on my side. And despite the number of people arguing me, not one has provided any research at all showing that there has been a downward trend in literacy from the mid 1800s to today. Because there has not been. They all (including you) say education today is no good, and support it with anecdotal evidence. Where they have got the impression that I think public education in this country today is anywhere near as good as it should be, I have no idea. I simply assert, based on the numbers that I have been able to locate, that public education today is better than when it didn't exist.
All I have taken issue with is the candidates assertion that the rise of public education has caused a decline in literacy, and therefore that it should be abolished. Public education has caused an increase in literacy, albeit not as great an increase as I think it should have. Therefore I would expect the abolishment of public education to make the sitution you complain of worse. What percent of those aplicants do you think would be able to read up to your standards if, instead of going to the schools you (and I) think are sub-standard, they went to no school at all? Do you really think it would be a higher percentage? That is what the candidate is suggesting, so I think it is reasonable to point out that the only support he offers for this counter-intuitive notion is in fact a falsehood. And an easily discoverable one to boot.
As my point went over your head: A 30 second Google search yeilded not flimsy evidence, but a clear, definitive demonstration that the candidates statement was outright false. Obviously a google search proves nothing, it's the results that matter. My results were US Census reports of historical literacy rates from 1870 to 1979, showing an increase from ~80% to about ~90.6% over that period. Do you honestly suggest that if I only spend more time and look deeper, I will see that these numbers represent a "downward trend" in literacy?
Furthermore "Do a 30 second google search; find a definitive on-point page from a trusted source; Post" is frankly incredibly well-thought-out for a slashdot post. Whereas "Don't even spend 30 seconds looking up the easily available statistics before proposing massive governmental/societal changes" strikes me as a bit shy of well-thought-out for a Presidential candidates position on education. (call me crazy here)
All that said, I now notice he references Horace Manns role in establishing the education system. So, while I still don't feel I'm hypocritical to say his statement was not well-thought-out, I would like to revise my charge. I now beleive that his statement was in fact very well thought out. I beleive he carefully considered the matter, and maybe even threw in the historical reference specifically to reduce the chances anyone would check up on such an obvious, outright falsehood.
Those stats are (both) based on "Persons over the age of 14 able to read and write in any language". I would presume "able to read and write" means "at all". The numbers come from the census beareau. While we could debate definitions of literacy alot, but a "downward trend in literacy" ever since the mid 1800s is completely at odds with every bit of objective evidence I've been able to find in (now) quite a lot of looking.
Please, enough with suspecting standards have slipped and arguing based on the reading material from the 1800s that is still around today in places you're likely to read it (by that standard, people in Shakespeares day were incredibly literate, everything I've read from then was way beyond what most prople can write today).
Go find some historical numbers. Dig into exactly how they were measured. It's just abundantly clear: Literacy has improved significantly since the mid 1800s. The candidate is ignorant or lying, and since he references a semi-obscure but on-point historical figure, I don't think he's ignorant.
Thanks, but my 99.4% figure was pulled from the nether regions of the US Census Bureau. They report (in 1979) an illiteracy rate of 0.6%, with illiteracy rate defined as the percentage of persons 14 and over unable to read or write in any language. The numbers are available here:
http://nces.ed.gov/naal/historicaldata/ill
amongst other places.
Speaking of pulling stuff from your nether regions, I followed the link you provided. I was not able to find any reference to 22%, anything described as "quite iliterate", or actually any reference to illiteracy at all.
Perhaps you're refering to it's finding that 23% of adults atained only "Literacy Level 1"? One of the examples of what someone at Literacy Level 1 can do is "Locate a single fact in a sports article" Which sort of implies they can read the article. Granted, if you read the whole description of Lit Lev 1, it's pretty sad, but it is not "quite illiterate".
All that aside, the claim I'm rebutting is:
"Ever since the inception of government schooling in the 19th century under Horace Mann, the US has been on a downward trend in literacy..."
I say that's blatantly false, and I beleive the available statistics support me. You can rant all you want about how poorly educated people are today; the question is:
Is today the bottom of a downward trend starting in 1837? (when Horace Mann became the head of the newly formed Massachusetts State Board of education) Or is the candidate (like you), someone who likes to throw in historical references (or Survey titles) to make themseleves seem knowledgeable, whilst actually talking out their ass?
Now that I think about, it's not that the candidate didn't bother to find out how literacy had changed since the inception of public education. He references Horace Mann, so he's at least looked into it. I can only conclude he knows he's lying and just figures we won't check up on him.
Funny, I thought I wrote an entire post, not just that one line. I thought it implied all of the following, but I'll try again:
I agree with you entirely that the laws you named are rotten to the core; an erosion of the very things that make this country great. They should be fought against tooth and nail.
On the other hand, you'll get laughed at (if not done violence to) if you try explaining that the DMCA has taken away your freedom to the point where life in the US sucks to residents of (roughly speaking): the eastern half of Europe, good portions of Central and South America, most of Asia, or anywhere in Africa.
So a little perspective please. We need to do a whole bunch of tweaking, some of it pretty serious and even urgent. But junking the whole thing to take a whole new roll in the how-good-a-place-to-live-is-your-country sweepstakes would be idiotic in the extreme.
I did a google search on "historical us literacy rates" - several of the top hits report the same table of figures for illiteracy over a span of years, which I took the converse of, and included the end years only in order to be breif. Looking at it again, the numbers appear to be based on Census Data early on and other government surveys for later years. In short, these are the "government's own figures on illiteracy rates".
I am fascinated to hear that the govenment has other figures on illiteracy that do show a "downward spiral" since the advent of public education. Perhaps you could you point me to them? Precise sources would be great.
It's true that my reply was not very helpful. Mainly I get frustrated by the constant refrain that Stephenson can't write endings. All his endings have seemed entirely satisfactory to me. So the parent poster presented a list of "loose ends", none of which seemed like any mystery to me at all. Perhaps Grandma Waterhouse was actually far more fascinating than she appeared. Perhaps her harmless facade was merely cover, so no one would suspect she was a highly trained assassin. But in the absense of evidence to the contrary, it seems reasonable to assume she was the sort of person who'd be very nice to have as your Grandma, but wouldn't be very interesting to read a about at much length in novel. In any novel, I expect the author to show me all the interesting bits, and let me fill in the predictable bits myself. So if something isn't covered, and there is an obvious way it seems likely to work out, I'll assume it works that way. A writer will annoy me for failing to tie up loose ends when there is something left out that obviously is going to work out in some fascinating way, and I've no idea what it is. But it certainly seems spurious to accuse Stephenson of failing to write a good ending and of leaving important questions unanswered if your example of one of those questions is "What's up with Grandma Waterhouse?"
Anyway, now I'll try to say something that is helpful:
While I (obviously) love reading anything Neal Stephenson chooses to write, I would not recomend the Baroque Cycle to most people. They'd get about half way through the first section of Quicksilver, and vow to never take a book recomendation from me again. However, if you are at least mildly interested in the Baroque era, and (particularly) if your greatest complaint about Cryptonomicon is that it was not long enough, you will love it. Garaunteed.
"Waterhouse did *not* go to work in the new NSA under Comstock."
Uhm, true, and I don't think I implied he did.
I don't beleive Rudy actually endowed a chair for Waterhouse; indeed I beleive it's pretty clear he did not survive the submarine incident. Didn't he intentionally incinerate himself? Or was that Bichoff? In any case, the other makes it out the hatch, but based on the depth we know (from the moden day timeline) the sub was at, survival should have been impossible.
Waterhouse has already been offered a position (though not an endowed chair) at the Washington College, and intends to take it, and we know from the modern-day timeline he did in fact take it. Comstock thinks Waterhouse's intentions are silly, and that he'll be bored; he wants him for the NSA. Rudy, on the other hand, says "I'll endow a chair for you there", but (in my understanding) neither he nor Waterhouse really expects that to happen; rather, what Rudy is saying is "I'm going to set off in a jet powered submarine as part of a secret cabal, dodge all sorts of danger, try to recover a fortune in gold and become fabulously wealthy. But as your friend, I understand and respect your decision to settle down teach Math at a small college instead, and I wish you the best. Heck, if I do get fabulously wealthy, I'll endow a chair for you!"
Hypocritical? I think not.
I imply nothing. I state that this particular respopnse is not well thought out because the "fact" on which it relies can be refuted with the barest minimum of research. Had I stated this without having done that research, that would be hypocritical. But I am not hypocritical because I, a mere slashdot poster, in fact did the 30 seconds of research. Whereas he, a supposed presidential candidate, apparently did not do 30 seconds of research before proposing to abolish the entire public education system. So I beleive I am being downright charitable by calling him merely ill-informed, as opposed to (to pick a random example) "a dangerous, ideologically blinded wacko who thank god has no chance of ever being put in a position of public responsibility"
Well, my statistics are actually the converse of some stats on illiteracy I found. Those stats measured the percent of persons 14 and above "unable to read in any language".
The Federalist Papers were perhaps written for the common literate educated man of the time, who was hardly common. I don't think the interviewee, or you are using any defined standard at all (particularly if you suggest the average education level is lower now than in the 18th century.)
This really goes to the heart of my reaction to this guy, and hard-core libertarians in general. They say "Look at the unbeleivably abismal state of this country, we need insanely radical change!" I look around and see that this country has about the highest standard of living in the world, and is right up there on personal freedoms, oportunity for economic advancement, etc.
I think some of our current policies are threatening the long term viability of that standard of living, and I get really up in arms about the threats I see to those freedoms, but lets not loose sight of the fact that we're doing roughly as well or better than any other country I can think of.
Could public education be a lot better than it is? Absolutely. Would it be better if we didn't have it at all? Of course not. The only reason you'd think so is if you were so convinced of your ideology, you assumed what it predicted was the case rather than looking at any of the available evidence. Which is what this guy has done. All available evidence shows that public education has improved the average education level dramatically. But he hasn't even looked, because his ideology predicts anything doen by government will be bad.
So basically, you liked Cryptonomicon, and want more of the same. Based on Stephensons past work, whatever he writes in the future, what it will not be is the same as anything before. Except in the sense that it will, in my opinion, rock.
But I don't think any of your loose ends are particularly loose:
"What's to become of the Epiphyte corporation and its data crypt plan?"
Having aquired the requisite huge pile of gold, they establish the crypt, and it's chief initial application, secure digital cash.
"The relationship between modern-day Waterhouse and Ms. Shaftoe?"
Goes swimmingly, but probably isn't so interesting to read about. Their kids may have interseting adventures, being the unification of the technologist and adventurer archetypes.
"The impending creation of the NSA under (recently-post) WWII-era Waterhouse and the evil, scheming ex-IBM-er military intelligence officer?"
It gets created and is headquartered at Fort Meade. I didn't think he was necessarily evil though. Perhaps from Douglas MacArthur Shaftoes POV. In the WWII timeline I don't see it though. Sure, he tries strenuously to kill a bunch of our heroes, but they are aboard an enemy submarine at the time.
"What's up with Grandma Waterhouse, who is spoken of reverentially by modern-day Waterhouse? "
Where's the mystery? She groes up on a sheep farm in Australia, meets and maries Lawrence, has a very nice, if boring life in Washington State, is well loved by her Grandchildren. Sounds like a nice lady, but I don't want a novel about her.
"Gotta be more good stuff with (WWII) Waterhouse and Turing"
That was really good stuff, but it's not really a loose end. It would be fun to read more of it, but I think I'd rather have something different that Stephenson chooses to serve up. variety is the spice of life and all.
"The rebuilding of Japan under McArthur and Goto Dengo?"
It gets rebuilt.
Yeah! And what about our doctors? They're all rich guys too! Let's pass a law saying you can't be a doctor unless you're a "regular guy" you know, no education beyond a bachelors degree, or maybe even high school, that would be best....
Well thought out? Here's a sample:
"Ever since the inception of government schooling in the 19th century under Horace Mann, the US has been on a downward trend in literacy..."
Literacy rate in 1870: 80%
Literacy Rate in 1979: 99.4%
And that's just what I found with a 30sec google search on the first fact I thought to check.
I can divide any industry in to two types of people: Those who see a job as something they do to earn money, so they can spend the rest of their time doing things they like, and those who realize they'll spend about half their working hours doing their job, and so insist that it too be something they like.
"She was thinking that the answer would be a googol, but alas, it is not to be."
I hope she wasn't thinking that for very long.
f(googol) = 1, pretty obviously.
Why should people who have more be allowed to continue having more at all? Why shouldn't those with less just take it away from them?
I'm guessing your answer to this is going to make some reference to the words "fair" or "just".
"It is also funny to note that the US is always contrary to military action from other countries, when those countries are the target of terrorists (Israel...). "
Huh? The US sells Israel huge amounts of armaments at cost, after giving them the money in the first place.
I'm not sure what you mean by "independent of the axioms", but the continuum hypothesis is in fact either true or false. However, it has been proved that if it is true, it cannot be proved to be true. It is possible it could be proved to be false, but noone really thinks it is, so not much work is being done there.
The Korean team represents South Korea. North Korea is not allowed to compete.