Then there's no possible way for anything to meet your exacting standards of accuracy.
Exactly why I have a problem with people citing facts.
If you have authority, then you have credibility that can be cited elsewhere. When someone tells you that you're wrong in your contribution to Wikipedia, you can then pull up your citations supporting your facts that are not based on Wikipedia, like say you wrote a Mathematics textbook, and you contribute something to Wikipedia based upon information from that textbook. You're going to tell me that it's wrong, because it's suddenly now public information on Wikipedia?
No, I'm going to tell you that authority is largely a joke to begin with- and even more on a website that puts forth public infomation as fact that can be edited by anybody. There's no way to prove one way or another that the entry hadn't been edited since you last looked at it unless you look at it again- and edit it again.
The same as EVERY authoritive source, and this doesn't "short circuit" the learning process. You may be frustrated that it doesn't involve critical though, but it's still learning!
Unless it involves critical thought, it's not learning, it's just rote memorization. And not even that if it's a just rote memorization of a pointer to the actual information.
Sometimes, there are things that need to be given a source and can't be supported by simple thought or logic alone. Not requiring a credible source for information is no better than appealing to common sense, which as in physic, we know cannot be trusted.
If you can't support it by simple thought or logic alone, then what you're really citing is a myth- a religious belief. There are no credible sources of information- only differing opinions based on assumptions and axioms, which are mythical beliefs.
So, I'm getting from this post that it's apparent that you don't believe in authority of information in the first place. You're such an anarchist of information that you feel the need to attack the collaboration of anarchists towards information.
Not quite- more that there is no authority of information, and thus no truth. You can't be right, you can't "win", you can only choose to incorporate or not to incorporate myths and models into your personal worldview. The point of debate is NOT to win- it's to collect new myths and models.
It is appearing to me from your responses here that you don't feel that ANYONE has ANY credibility beyond what can be logically established. Well, some arguments just don't work that way, and not all of us have the time to thoroughly prove everything logically. In fact, in mathematical proofs, one often make use of well-known and well-established theories that someone a lot smarter than they have proven to be correct, and which they can then use to "short-circuit" their proofs. So that I don't have to prove that addition is commutative, I can just use the fact that addition is commutative.
The problem is, that's not a fact- it's just a shared myth, an axiom upon which we base other models. Everybody thinks somebody "smarter" proved it- but in reality it's just a myth that fits in with the other myths that build up a model of a system that mimics reality enough to be useful. It isn't reality itself- there might not even be a reality itself- it's just a model.
You essentially are denying the worth of any authority in an argument, and that everyone should just use logical bases and "learning" to get closer to the truth. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Actually, we can't get closer to the truth- all we can do is improve our collection of models. To that extent, wikipedia is useful- not as proof, but as additional models.
Unfortunately, things don't work that way usually. I never had to prove the communative nature of addition, I just used it in school... damn that short-circuited learning process.
You're about 3 years and 3 months too late for that one. But I hope that I do frighten you- for it is only through fear do we find satori, can we find the new models that change how we view the world.
Exactly. I find Wikipedia useful for two things: First, if you know nothing about some topic, it can provide an introduction, and indication of where to look for information. Second, Wikipedia entries (including their history and talk pages) are useful for learning about any controversy that may exist about a particular topic.
Yes- that's correct. It's also pretty good at storing collective opinions about popular (and not-so-popular) entertainment.
I also find Wikipedia's entries on mathematical topics to be fairly useful, mainly because there is usually little or no controversy surrounding them.
Well, I find those less useful than you do- but I'll admit that given the current axioms of the mainstream mathematical community, those enteries are fairly non-contraversial.
Might have. Might not have. We have no way of knowing which is which- or in fact if any of it is true or false.
It's not guarenteed fact, but it's still full of facts. Yes, there is opinion in there, and myths, and urban legends, what have you. But the fact still remains that someone just speaking about a topic has NO CREDIBILITY OF HIS OWN, unless he's an authority on the subject.
Nobody can possibly be an authority on anything at all. Human beings are incapable of being objective. If authority is your measure of credibility, then I'm not sure if you're just being naive, or if you're actually trying to grasp something beyond your capabilities.
And supplying as a citation something that's at least mostly fact, is a hell of a lot better than a simple "because I say so."
No, actually it isn't. It's abdicating the responsibility of holding up your end of the debate, substituting the duty of writing convincing prose in favor of an unassailable citation of fact. All that does is lead us back to the old model; it doesn't help us to discover new models.
But you *can* argue with the authority of Wikipedia. You can stipulate with a differing authority that the Wikipedia article is wrong, and you can get on Wikipedia, and actually contribute to the accuracy of Wikipedia by supplying that information.
Groups of human beings are incapable of accuracy; that's the whole problem with peer-reviewed systems to begin with.
If you have credibility in a field, and you disagree with something in Wikipedia, and bothering to complain that it's wrong, without contributing to make it better, then that's your own damn fault.
Unless of course you're wrong too. In which case you're contributing to the inaccuracy of Wikipedia.
But if neither side of an argument has any credibility in the field of discussion, then Wikipedia is a valid source of support.
Actually, it's even worse in that case- because it short circuits the learning process.
Again, the whole PURPOSE of citation is to say that this idea is not my own, and this is the source of my information/position, or this source backs up my personal information/position.
Which means it's a cop out to actually using thought and logic to support your position.
Would you rather everyone not source Wikipedia and just start claiming what Wikipedia states as fact without any citation, so you can't even tell that person that "Wikipedia is an insufficiently credible source." Then you get suck in a pissing match where everyone's right just because they say they are.
I'd rather that people not get as hung up on being "right" or "wrong". No human being is ever capable of being right anyway- the closest we can come is a model based on myth that is sometimes right and sometimes wrong.
Yeah, real good solution for the problem right there.
What we need are more models. Solutions are beyond the human experience; that's what the "problem" is actually saying.
My school's got a subscription to the Encyclopedia Britannica i can use, but if i were to reference the link to you in a debate, you'd have to pay for the priviledge. I find the ability to link to a Wikipedia article easy and mostly useful, especially if trusted sites are referenced (BBC News articles etc.).
I'm not sure I trust the other sites referenced, but that's just my general distrust of everything. What this would be is an argument for an advertising supported encyclopedia, NOT a community supported experiment in shared ignorances.
I mostly use Wikipedia to look up something of interest, especially if it's something factual, scientific or mathematical. Those can often be impossible to find easily elsewhere but can hardly be full of bias.
Wikipedia is the last place I'd look for accurate facts, science, or mathematics. For facts I'm not sure where to look, or even if it's possible for human beings to be factual without bias. But science and mathematics have been full of bias and politics and religion since the begining of time; widening the peer group does not erase the basic errors of peer review to begin with. It only makes those errors more interesting.
I'd rather that people THINK instead of bowing out to anonymous authorities in an attempt to "prove" something.
Wikipedia is just worse than most because it's essentially a peer reviewed group without actual peer control. That means it's prone to myths within the community and ignorances from the original writers of the articles, as well as political and religious biases brought from outside the community.
I completely agree it's a fascinating experiment in electronic democracy and group hive minds. It's just not a repository of facts or anything resembling facts.
The key is to understand what it's reliable for- it's an awesome searchable collection of the collective ignorance and opinions of the worldwide culture. It is decidedly NOT a repository of fact or knowledge.
Sure, some of the time the facts might be wrong, but in that case, the other person is free to counter it with a more authorative source. It's only when the citer then responds "that can't be right because Wikipedia says otherwise" that it becomes a problem. I don't think I've ever seen that happen. Have you?
About 20% of the debates I've been involved in end with that statement, and a link to the "relevant" wikipedia article. Of course, I have a tendency to flamebait in an effort to get people to think, so I'm involved in more online debates than most people. I consider *anybody* refering to an authoritative source rather than actually thinking the situation throught themselves to be a failure in that.
Especially since it's rare that any of the debates I'm involved in are fact based to begin with. I've even been known to deny that facts actually exist- at best we have models of myths that represent facts, human brains aren't capable of getting closer to truth than that. Wikipedia is just a peer review system- and as such is prone to the same mistakes of all peer review systems- mythology in the community.
Back when I was in high school a quarter century ago, it was a popular, if a bit geeky, thing to do on team-based school trips: pull in with a busload of 30 kids and all order Happy Meals.
I think the point is to bring the behavior back by offering something today's teenager would think was neaty keano; make the prize compatible with the bigger kids, and they'll not only buy the Happy Meal, they'll spend the extra $.50 for a Big Kids meal with the better prize and the download code.
Or the dictator raking in money from both of the other two groups? Face it- WWIII is being waged now. We have two main groups of enemies- Islamics stuck in the 10th century who want to terrorize us, and Communists fullfilling Breshnev's prophecy that they can sell the capitalists the rope to hang themselves. Against both groups we are currently losing; our strategy does not match their will.
What is worrisome is the number of people who cite Wikipedia in online debates- as if it actually proves anything other than that the person doing the citing is an idiot who can't tell truth from fiction.
What, you mean you don't collect them for the neat little bits inside? One of these days I'm going to perfect my made-for-a-scott-e-vest personal defense system: A couple of wires, a rechargeable battery, and as many capacitors hooked up in parallel with a trigger that changes to serial really quickly for discharge...
Am I the only one that feels this way? Anyone else notice it's Disney again creating all the damn trash? (Or, the ideas that create all the damn theoretical trash?)
It's not like they're a very environmentally friendly company to begin with. Despite going to cardboard and wax paper for hamburger packaging, their Big Breakfast still comes in styrofoam with plastic utensils. On the plus side, someday somebody will notice that if you liquify plastic with the right solvents, it makes a pretty darn good fuel source....
Yeah- that sounds a whole lot more likely...though the bit about Wi-Fi in the stores doesn't quite fit, the COST in relation to a happy meal certainly does.
I wish the workers in my local McD's were that intelligent. Most of them say "Welcum to Madonna's" and stare at me blankly when I request a Wifi code with my extra-value meal....
The price could be brought quite down to size with limited memory, a smaller B&W LCD screen (which allows for the limited memory because the movie file can be *much* smaller), and a specialized processor. Add to that the fact that the profit on a Happy Meal is already about $2, and specialized manufacturing, and you've got something that fits, probably for about $7-$10 manufacturing cost. Plus you wouldn't necessarily hand out a player with *every* Happy Meal- you ask the customer the age of the child, younger children (under 3) get the same crap plush toys they always did, preteens get the hard plastic crap toys, teenagers get asked if they *already have the player* in which case they get, instead of a new player, a card with a download URI on it for the next section of the file. Oh yeah, and adults ordering the "Smart Meals" still get debit cards preloaded with $1.....
And hundreds of geeks start ordering happy meals- not for the meal, but for the WiFi media player, which will soon be hacked to refer to any arbitrary URI, and creative commons content.
Great Zimbabwe, the rock-hewn St Giyorgis church at Lalibella in Ethiopia and the great mosque of Djenne in Mali.""
I sure hope it includes some other sites- given how American politics has infected science lately, this whole datatabase could be criticized for being more religious than scientific.....
And people think I'm crazy when I say that China has become a major economic as well as military threat- and are *already* effectively waging economic warfare against us.
Are you sick? WW2 was for capitalism? Now you will tell me they didn't round up jews and anyone else they didn't like and kill them.
Oh, they did- but remember the reason given for rounding up the Jews- they were entrapreneurs whose greedy ways had supposedly caused Germany's Great Depression. The hatred of capitalism (in the form of Jewish banks and businesses) was how Hitler got into office to begin with. We didn't actually know about the death camps until far later- we were fighting to keep the world free- as in safe for the free market (Germany was sinking our trade vessels, Japan was looking at us for oil and scap metal, and neither had a free market system at the time).
I wouldn't call your attitude "racist". You may or may not be, I don't know you, but nothing in what you've said indicates that you think people of different races are inferior. Besides, the people of the USA are comprised of many different races so if you were anything, you would be nationalist. It's perfectly reasonable to want to keep production local and if you would respect other nations' right to do the same, then that would seem fair.
I'm perfectly willing to respect other nations' right to do the same- in fact, I'd encourage it. The multinationals *claim* that they're investing in other countries- what they're really doing is putting in infrastructure that they own, they control, and often, they don't share. US and European agriculture subsidies, originally meant to encourage local production of food, are now being misused to undersell and destroy family farms in the third world. One of the major reforms I'd ask Congress for if I was President was a restriction on all corporate welfare to businesses that don't import or export. I see no reason why the American taxpayer should be paying to destroy another nation's food supply.
Of course the best way to achieve what you want, and gain trading partners, is to help the rest of the world achieve equality with the USA. Perhaps through education programs or carefully invested aid.
I no longer believe this- but the problem isn't with the rest of the world's ability to learn and change for the better. It's that the USA has way too many trading partners already- and if we thought of our entire economy as a single business, that business has been running on red ink for 40 years now. It's been that long since we've had a positive trade balance. Trade is not good for America anymore- if it ever really was. Best bet would be to cut the trade programs entirely- and use our agricultural surplus to export seed as pure aid programs. And none of that stupid GM stuff that requires the third world to buy more seed either- I'm talking permaculture, not business opportunities. In addition to that, export our old computers, for free, to the third world for connection to the internet. And stop enforcing our intellectual property laws outside of the United States. In 10 years or so they'll all catch up- THEN we can reexamine fair trade. Free trade is a total loss and should never happen again.
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Then there's no possible way for anything to meet your exacting standards of accuracy.
Exactly why I have a problem with people citing facts.
If you have authority, then you have credibility that can be cited elsewhere. When someone tells you that you're wrong in your contribution to Wikipedia, you can then pull up your citations supporting your facts that are not based on Wikipedia, like say you wrote a Mathematics textbook, and you contribute something to Wikipedia based upon information from that textbook. You're going to tell me that it's wrong, because it's suddenly now public information on Wikipedia?
No, I'm going to tell you that authority is largely a joke to begin with- and even more on a website that puts forth public infomation as fact that can be edited by anybody. There's no way to prove one way or another that the entry hadn't been edited since you last looked at it unless you look at it again- and edit it again.
The same as EVERY authoritive source, and this doesn't "short circuit" the learning process. You may be frustrated that it doesn't involve critical though, but it's still learning!
Unless it involves critical thought, it's not learning, it's just rote memorization. And not even that if it's a just rote memorization of a pointer to the actual information.
Sometimes, there are things that need to be given a source and can't be supported by simple thought or logic alone. Not requiring a credible source for information is no better than appealing to common sense, which as in physic, we know cannot be trusted.
If you can't support it by simple thought or logic alone, then what you're really citing is a myth- a religious belief. There are no credible sources of information- only differing opinions based on assumptions and axioms, which are mythical beliefs.
So, I'm getting from this post that it's apparent that you don't believe in authority of information in the first place. You're such an anarchist of information that you feel the need to attack the collaboration of anarchists towards information.
Not quite- more that there is no authority of information, and thus no truth. You can't be right, you can't "win", you can only choose to incorporate or not to incorporate myths and models into your personal worldview. The point of debate is NOT to win- it's to collect new myths and models.
It is appearing to me from your responses here that you don't feel that ANYONE has ANY credibility beyond what can be logically established. Well, some arguments just don't work that way, and not all of us have the time to thoroughly prove everything logically. In fact, in mathematical proofs, one often make use of well-known and well-established theories that someone a lot smarter than they have proven to be correct, and which they can then use to "short-circuit" their proofs. So that I don't have to prove that addition is commutative, I can just use the fact that addition is commutative.
The problem is, that's not a fact- it's just a shared myth, an axiom upon which we base other models. Everybody thinks somebody "smarter" proved it- but in reality it's just a myth that fits in with the other myths that build up a model of a system that mimics reality enough to be useful. It isn't reality itself- there might not even be a reality itself- it's just a model.
You essentially are denying the worth of any authority in an argument, and that everyone should just use logical bases and "learning" to get closer to the truth. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Actually, we can't get closer to the truth- all we can do is improve our collection of models. To that extent, wikipedia is useful- not as proof, but as additional models.
Unfortunately, things don't work that way usually. I never had to prove the communative nature of addition, I just used it in school... damn that short-circuited learning process.
Well, public and private schools today a
You frighten me. Please don't breed.
You're about 3 years and 3 months too late for that one. But I hope that I do frighten you- for it is only through fear do we find satori, can we find the new models that change how we view the world.
Exactly. I find Wikipedia useful for two things: First, if you know nothing about some topic, it can provide an introduction, and indication of where to look for information. Second, Wikipedia entries (including their history and talk pages) are useful for learning about any controversy that may exist about a particular topic.
Yes- that's correct. It's also pretty good at storing collective opinions about popular (and not-so-popular) entertainment.
I also find Wikipedia's entries on mathematical topics to be fairly useful, mainly because there is usually little or no controversy surrounding them.
Well, I find those less useful than you do- but I'll admit that given the current axioms of the mainstream mathematical community, those enteries are fairly non-contraversial.
Right, because Lord knows, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_9 none of that stuff happened on November 9th...
Might have. Might not have. We have no way of knowing which is which- or in fact if any of it is true or false.
It's not guarenteed fact, but it's still full of facts. Yes, there is opinion in there, and myths, and urban legends, what have you. But the fact still remains that someone just speaking about a topic has NO CREDIBILITY OF HIS OWN, unless he's an authority on the subject.
Nobody can possibly be an authority on anything at all. Human beings are incapable of being objective. If authority is your measure of credibility, then I'm not sure if you're just being naive, or if you're actually trying to grasp something beyond your capabilities.
And supplying as a citation something that's at least mostly fact, is a hell of a lot better than a simple "because I say so."
No, actually it isn't. It's abdicating the responsibility of holding up your end of the debate, substituting the duty of writing convincing prose in favor of an unassailable citation of fact. All that does is lead us back to the old model; it doesn't help us to discover new models.
But you *can* argue with the authority of Wikipedia. You can stipulate with a differing authority that the Wikipedia article is wrong, and you can get on Wikipedia, and actually contribute to the accuracy of Wikipedia by supplying that information.
Groups of human beings are incapable of accuracy; that's the whole problem with peer-reviewed systems to begin with.
If you have credibility in a field, and you disagree with something in Wikipedia, and bothering to complain that it's wrong, without contributing to make it better, then that's your own damn fault.
Unless of course you're wrong too. In which case you're contributing to the inaccuracy of Wikipedia.
But if neither side of an argument has any credibility in the field of discussion, then Wikipedia is a valid source of support.
Actually, it's even worse in that case- because it short circuits the learning process.
Again, the whole PURPOSE of citation is to say that this idea is not my own, and this is the source of my information/position, or this source backs up my personal information/position.
Which means it's a cop out to actually using thought and logic to support your position.
Would you rather everyone not source Wikipedia and just start claiming what Wikipedia states as fact without any citation, so you can't even tell that person that "Wikipedia is an insufficiently credible source." Then you get suck in a pissing match where everyone's right just because they say they are.
I'd rather that people not get as hung up on being "right" or "wrong". No human being is ever capable of being right anyway- the closest we can come is a model based on myth that is sometimes right and sometimes wrong.
Yeah, real good solution for the problem right there.
What we need are more models. Solutions are beyond the human experience; that's what the "problem" is actually saying.
My school's got a subscription to the Encyclopedia Britannica i can use, but if i were to reference the link to you in a debate, you'd have to pay for the priviledge. I find the ability to link to a Wikipedia article easy and mostly useful, especially if trusted sites are referenced (BBC News articles etc.).
I'm not sure I trust the other sites referenced, but that's just my general distrust of everything. What this would be is an argument for an advertising supported encyclopedia, NOT a community supported experiment in shared ignorances.
I mostly use Wikipedia to look up something of interest, especially if it's something factual, scientific or mathematical. Those can often be impossible to find easily elsewhere but can hardly be full of bias.
Wikipedia is the last place I'd look for accurate facts, science, or mathematics. For facts I'm not sure where to look, or even if it's possible for human beings to be factual without bias. But science and mathematics have been full of bias and politics and religion since the begining of time; widening the peer group does not erase the basic errors of peer review to begin with. It only makes those errors more interesting.
I'd rather that people THINK instead of bowing out to anonymous authorities in an attempt to "prove" something.
Wikipedia is just worse than most because it's essentially a peer reviewed group without actual peer control. That means it's prone to myths within the community and ignorances from the original writers of the articles, as well as political and religious biases brought from outside the community.
I completely agree it's a fascinating experiment in electronic democracy and group hive minds. It's just not a repository of facts or anything resembling facts.
Except for you can't argue with an anonymous authority- it's better to bow out of the debate entirely than to refer to an anonymous authority.
The key is to understand what it's reliable for- it's an awesome searchable collection of the collective ignorance and opinions of the worldwide culture. It is decidedly NOT a repository of fact or knowledge.
Sure, some of the time the facts might be wrong, but in that case, the other person is free to counter it with a more authorative source. It's only when the citer then responds "that can't be right because Wikipedia says otherwise" that it becomes a problem. I don't think I've ever seen that happen. Have you?
About 20% of the debates I've been involved in end with that statement, and a link to the "relevant" wikipedia article. Of course, I have a tendency to flamebait in an effort to get people to think, so I'm involved in more online debates than most people. I consider *anybody* refering to an authoritative source rather than actually thinking the situation throught themselves to be a failure in that.
Especially since it's rare that any of the debates I'm involved in are fact based to begin with. I've even been known to deny that facts actually exist- at best we have models of myths that represent facts, human brains aren't capable of getting closer to truth than that. Wikipedia is just a peer review system- and as such is prone to the same mistakes of all peer review systems- mythology in the community.
Back when I was in high school a quarter century ago, it was a popular, if a bit geeky, thing to do on team-based school trips: pull in with a busload of 30 kids and all order Happy Meals.
I think the point is to bring the behavior back by offering something today's teenager would think was neaty keano; make the prize compatible with the bigger kids, and they'll not only buy the Happy Meal, they'll spend the extra $.50 for a Big Kids meal with the better prize and the download code.
Or the dictator raking in money from both of the other two groups? Face it- WWIII is being waged now. We have two main groups of enemies- Islamics stuck in the 10th century who want to terrorize us, and Communists fullfilling Breshnev's prophecy that they can sell the capitalists the rope to hang themselves. Against both groups we are currently losing; our strategy does not match their will.
What is worrisome is the number of people who cite Wikipedia in online debates- as if it actually proves anything other than that the person doing the citing is an idiot who can't tell truth from fiction.
What, you mean you don't collect them for the neat little bits inside? One of these days I'm going to perfect my made-for-a-scott-e-vest personal defense system: A couple of wires, a rechargeable battery, and as many capacitors hooked up in parallel with a trigger that changes to serial really quickly for discharge...
Chances are, it would be more like the tamagotchi giveaway- RTFA.
Am I the only one that feels this way? Anyone else notice it's Disney again creating all the damn trash? (Or, the ideas that create all the damn theoretical trash?)
It's not like they're a very environmentally friendly company to begin with. Despite going to cardboard and wax paper for hamburger packaging, their Big Breakfast still comes in styrofoam with plastic utensils. On the plus side, someday somebody will notice that if you liquify plastic with the right solvents, it makes a pretty darn good fuel source....
Yeah- that sounds a whole lot more likely...though the bit about Wi-Fi in the stores doesn't quite fit, the COST in relation to a happy meal certainly does.
I wish the workers in my local McD's were that intelligent. Most of them say "Welcum to Madonna's" and stare at me blankly when I request a Wifi code with my extra-value meal....
The price could be brought quite down to size with limited memory, a smaller B&W LCD screen (which allows for the limited memory because the movie file can be *much* smaller), and a specialized processor. Add to that the fact that the profit on a Happy Meal is already about $2, and specialized manufacturing, and you've got something that fits, probably for about $7-$10 manufacturing cost. Plus you wouldn't necessarily hand out a player with *every* Happy Meal- you ask the customer the age of the child, younger children (under 3) get the same crap plush toys they always did, preteens get the hard plastic crap toys, teenagers get asked if they *already have the player* in which case they get, instead of a new player, a card with a download URI on it for the next section of the file. Oh yeah, and adults ordering the "Smart Meals" still get debit cards preloaded with $1.....
And hundreds of geeks start ordering happy meals- not for the meal, but for the WiFi media player, which will soon be hacked to refer to any arbitrary URI, and creative commons content.
Great Zimbabwe, the rock-hewn St Giyorgis church at Lalibella in Ethiopia and the great mosque of Djenne in Mali.""
I sure hope it includes some other sites- given how American politics has infected science lately, this whole datatabase could be criticized for being more religious than scientific.....
And people think I'm crazy when I say that China has become a major economic as well as military threat- and are *already* effectively waging economic warfare against us.
If it's got web, word processing, e-mail, spreadsheet, and minesweeper then it will have more than most of my users ever bother with.
Are you sick? WW2 was for capitalism? Now you will tell me they didn't round up jews and anyone else they didn't like and kill them.
Oh, they did- but remember the reason given for rounding up the Jews- they were entrapreneurs whose greedy ways had supposedly caused Germany's Great Depression. The hatred of capitalism (in the form of Jewish banks and businesses) was how Hitler got into office to begin with. We didn't actually know about the death camps until far later- we were fighting to keep the world free- as in safe for the free market (Germany was sinking our trade vessels, Japan was looking at us for oil and scap metal, and neither had a free market system at the time).
I wouldn't call your attitude "racist". You may or may not be, I don't know you, but nothing in what you've said indicates that you think people of different races are inferior. Besides, the people of the USA are comprised of many different races so if you were anything, you would be nationalist. It's perfectly reasonable to want to keep production local and if you would respect other nations' right to do the same, then that would seem fair.
I'm perfectly willing to respect other nations' right to do the same- in fact, I'd encourage it. The multinationals *claim* that they're investing in other countries- what they're really doing is putting in infrastructure that they own, they control, and often, they don't share. US and European agriculture subsidies, originally meant to encourage local production of food, are now being misused to undersell and destroy family farms in the third world. One of the major reforms I'd ask Congress for if I was President was a restriction on all corporate welfare to businesses that don't import or export. I see no reason why the American taxpayer should be paying to destroy another nation's food supply.
Of course the best way to achieve what you want, and gain trading partners, is to help the rest of the world achieve equality with the USA. Perhaps through education programs or carefully invested aid.
I no longer believe this- but the problem isn't with the rest of the world's ability to learn and change for the better. It's that the USA has way too many trading partners already- and if we thought of our entire economy as a single business, that business has been running on red ink for 40 years now. It's been that long since we've had a positive trade balance. Trade is not good for America anymore- if it ever really was. Best bet would be to cut the trade programs entirely- and use our agricultural surplus to export seed as pure aid programs. And none of that stupid GM stuff that requires the third world to buy more seed either- I'm talking permaculture, not business opportunities. In addition to that, export our old computers, for free, to the third world for connection to the internet. And stop enforcing our intellectual property laws outside of the United States. In 10 years or so they'll all catch up- THEN we can reexamine fair trade. Free trade is a total loss and should never happen again.