The one that spawned your devil soul! I was responding to both you and one of the replies to you and mistakenly labeled it 'parent' when I meant 'grandparent'. His (her?) point was indeed the one I pointed out. Sorry for the confusion.
By extension of your logic, the Mona Lisa is only art because it's on canvas. Would it be any less beautiful if it was created on a tablet PC? Would Michelangelo's eye for the human anatomy be any less impressive if David was a model of polygons? For that matter, would Hamlet be any less art if it were an ebook?
Shortly: yes, yes, and no. The medium can often have an impact on the message. Anyone who has been to an art museum knows that it is quite a different experience seeing a painting in person than it is to see a reproduction, either electronic or physical. Michelangelo's eye, and not incidentally his craft, are particularly impressive because he used the tools at his disposal (which do not give themselves as readily to accuracy as manifold polygons) and crafted an enduring physical representation, not a mere picture. I'll give you the Shakespeare only because it is art primarily when it is performed (and so its written medium doesn't much matter), but I would add that a Shakespearean play is much different acted on a stage than on the siver screen or on television.
The value of some work of art is not merely in the data trapped in the piece but also the entire context of the piece, which includes its medium and its creator (and his/her craft).
...essentially, that a medium substantially the same as paper would be around forever. Text is a remarkably efficient way of storing information, give or take, and can be reproduced on many two-dimensional mediums with ease (that ease factor going up steadily for the past 3000 years), and seeing that it is so efficient, and seeing that nearly all of humanity's information-product is in written form (hence a huge investment), it is not likely to go away anytime soon. Now, of course it is likely there will be another major hard-copy-material improvement soon analogous to the papyrus-parchment-paper evolution. But writing (on 'paper') is, I think, pretty much here to stay.
What does Marcellus Wallace...no wait, never mind. We are using different definitions of faith; I'm using the technical one "belief in the alethiological value of statements not in evidence" which is what an axiomatic, i.e. truth by definition, statement is: an ungrounded statement that sets up a framework for deductive analysis. My point was, admittedly, rather remote from the context of the conversation; I simply get annoyed when people flippantly say things like "depend on reason alone; eschew faith" or somesuch, because it is not a very good blanket rule, IMO, and does not apply to the vast majority of situations where one must rely upon information that is not substantiated or guaranteed in another method. At a certain point in any investigation, conversation, or what have you, there must be a point where the conversants agree upon the framework of the conversation (usually implicitly), otherwise conversation cannot occur.
On the other hand, this point bears weight on the subject of trusting people and statements made by those people; at a certain point, one must assume credibility (or not) after sufficient analysis of credentials and other factors, because ultimately you can track those factors back to an axiomatic statement which is unfounded except by itself and assumed to be true.
So in Asimov's books the robot wouldn't be able to come to this conclusion, that the first Law must be ascrificed for the good of the humans, the robots would break even thinking such a thing.
VIKI, the aformentioned robot in the movie, did NOT 'sacrifice' the first law or any such thing; she even flat out states, she reinterprets the First Law to mean something closer to the Zeroth law (survival and welfare of the collective the human species, more important than individuals.) According to how her program evolved, she wasn't breaking the First law, hence she wouldn't turn into a steaming pile of positronic goo. I thought it was a pretty clever meditation on how a sufficiently advanced mind can abstract away from the literal interpretation of some set of rules, and a good explication of the evolution of the Zeroth law that Asimov postulated would happen in sufficiently advanced robot minds. It also did a good job of showing why the Zeroth law sucked so very, very much.
(This is not directed at Parent) And I for the life of me cannot figure out why 'I, Robot' the film is the geek community's favorite red-headed step-child. I liked it immensely as faithful to the spirit and tone of Asimov's works, it was beautifully rendered (as parent mentioned), decently acted, well written, and above all, entertaining. Unlike most hollywood faire passed up the opportunity to do the 'Frankenstein' remake that most of these movies take (pretty explicitly in dialogue, in fact, probably because Asimov routinely bitched about Robot Frankensteins in sci-fi). If people are going to bitch about movies, there are much better choices.
...that the Universe wasn't created intact thirty seconds ago?
...that the laws of physics are the same as they were yesterday and will be tomorrow?
There's an answer, and it sure isn't 'reasoning'. Deductive logic can only carry you someplace after there are established axiomatic statements which, definitionally, must be taken on faith. In any reasonable conversation, particularly one in which one is not an expert on the subject at hand, a modicum of faith in the statement of facts is not only reasonable, but also practically necessary. How far that faith should extend is a function of trust in those sources, which I believe is what the GP argument is all about.
Hence my comment about it being a little crazy. While the mafia metaphor may be apropos, I think it slightly misses the point; after all, the Mob does govern, in a sense, those spheres that it influences strongly, just not in a way that is particularly pleasant or egalitarian.
Anarchism can mean no government, but in many of its forms what it really means is voluntary or what I call buy-in government. In other words, there are still mechanisms of political organization, but their power over an indivdual depends upon a (entirely revocable) voluntary association with that government. See also: Anarchosyndicalism.
Now, that's not to say it isn't crazy on its own merits, but let's not throw labels around casually.
It unfortunately turns out that electricity power generation contributes a relatively small fraction of the total CO2 output. Hence, increasing the output from other sources (like Nuclear) won't really make much of a dent.
Korea and the War of 1812 were basically draws that resulted in a stalemate.
Stalemates of very different sorts; the War of 1812 was far more embarrassing, certainly, and fought on home soil. Whenever your capital gets sacked, that's a bad sign.
The Civil War is a special circumstance.
I agree. That's why I didn't include it amongst my 'three nominees' but stated it as a fairly instructive special case immediately following.
And yes, Vietnam was certainly an embarrassing loss. But it didn't leave the U.S. international reputation in complete tatters. Nor did it pose a grave threat to the U.S. status as world superpower
No so. The USSR got a ton of political mileage out of our embarrassing loss, gaining political credit particularly in the Middle East as a result of the defeat. The whole mess also emboldedned the Third World to a great degree, thereby enhancing the political position of China (and certainly one of the primary motivators for Nixon later normalizing relations with them, as well as the obvious one of obening agricultural markets). The situation didn't equalize until the USSR did an equivalently stupid thing in Afghanistan, which ironically more or less directly led to the current conflict.
This Iraq War is going to be a loss too. But it will also likely mark the beginning of the end of U.S. status as world superpower. And it has absolutely devastated our foreign relations standing, as well as encouraging the nuclear ambitions of countries like Iran and North Korea (who fear that they might be the next preemptive war on King George's list).
I agree that the US is starting what will likely be an excruciatingly long decline, but I think the reasons will have more to do with economics than with our military misadventures.
And it's financial costs are just BEGINNING to be tallied. Combined the hit to U.S. foreign relations, and the rise of Chinese/Indian economic power, it could very well lead the U.S. to eventual insolvency and "debtor nation" status.
We are already a 'debtor nation' (we haven't been a creditor nation for a while now), with our current account deficits becoming progressively worse and our nation debt becoming unsustainable through financing. But I agree, the diplomatic costs of this war will be incalculably severe.
To be perfectly honest, the UK and the USA are both as bad as each other in most if not all respects.
For one thing, your Parliament is way more fun than our Congress. Seriously, if ANY of our politicians had to endure that much direct questioning from the opposition leader, they would have a meltdown. I'm sure your political system has its foibles, but at least your politicians can articulate off the cuff with some impressive verbal dexterity.
The least successful war in U.S. history is probably going to be the costliest too.
Least successful war? I nominate three others...
Vietnam, which we LOST. Many more allied casualties than this war, war aims not achieved, one million Vietnamese dead.
Korea, which was a DRAW. Also many more casualies than this war, war aims not achieved, barely held on to S. Korea, lots of Koreans dead.
The War of 1812, which we LOST. Washington DC sacked and burned to the ground. More American casualties than this war, and signifiant homeground damage due to British invasion. Oh yeah, and it made Andrew Jackson the indian-killing moron a war hero.
I might also mention the American Civil War, but at least a few good things came out of that one. Also some bad things, like one out of three American males dead. But hey, who's counting?
If you calculate the cost of these wars in constant dollars, some of them, particularly Korea if you include reconstruction (which I assume people are including in the Iraq cost), approaches the current cost of the Iraq War. It is likely that before the end, the Iraq War and reconstruction will end up costing more than Korea, but not by much.
Now, I think that the Iraq War is an expensive and miserable failure, same as the next guy, but hyperbole really weakens the case, don't you think?
Yes! For the love of all that is holy, blow up the goddamn parliament building! Before it's too late and no longer chic to commit terrorism in cool historical masks (thanks, Hollywood!), do us all a favor and kill all those oppressive politicos!
So are many over the counter pain-killers like Tylenol, which are mainly used to treat an acute condition. There are 7.3 billion adult Tylenol tablets sold a year. Don't you think that this drug that mainly treats acute conditions is profitable?
Oddly enough, bacterial infections are much more occasional than serious bacteriological infection. If an acute condition is common enough, then sure it it can be profitable.
It's odd you mentioned pain medications, because like antibiotics we are scientifically scraping the bottom of the barrel in both fields given current medical understanding both in pain treatment and in killing bacteria. In order to really make an advance in either, we need quite serious advances, advances which tend to require copious money and time, and so a diminishing return on investment.
Viagra: At most half the world's population and only those with a particular condition. Not used by those under, say 30. Really only needed in the first-world (I can't see a third-world person choosing this over food). Government would never stockpile this.
I didn't say they would. I said rather that they are lucrative because it is something that rich people desire and will pay money for. It makes little sense from a business point of view to make something that only people who can't pay you desire.
The difference, as has been noted in other threads at other times, is that unlike many other medications, antibiotics are notorious for their short usage profile, because they are almost always used to treat acute conditions. The real money in the pharma industry is made two places: treatment of chronic conditions (the pop one-a-day for the rest of your life sort of pills) and physical 'enhancement' (read: Viagra) that nobody really needs but still really want and wealthy people can afford. Antibiotics suck from a business point of view because it's at most pop 20 pills and you are done.
Hence, antibiotic research lags behind many other areas. Why sell ten pills when you can sell one hundred?
When soccer was invented, it was a very different world than now. Sure, it is a rationalization, but it is much more comprehensive than it seems. When someone is rationalizing the necessity of technology in their lives, it is not usually disingenuous; the modern world requires the IT tech, doctor, EMT to be on call and reachable by some telecommunications device or other. The social expectations have changes with the integration of these technologies in society, and it is not dishonest to say it is very difficult now to live without them. Before cars, we didn't need gas stations. Now, they are pretty necessary. In time, it is likely they will be displaced by some new necessity interlocked with some other transportation technology.
On the other hand, who knows whether we were happier with out all the the tech. I suspect that it comes down to comparing apples and oranges. In an age when a paper cut could kill you, and the feudal lord's word was law, people had very different stressors and concerns than they do now. More tightly integrated and insular communities made a great support network, but also made social ostracism more serious, if not downright deadly. I personally prefer worrying about checking my messages over worrying about the plague, and I enjoy being able to disagree with my neighbor about religion without being attacked by a mob, but I imagine if I had grown up in those times, my values might be altogether different.
I held out as long as humanly possible before geeting a cell-phone, as I do not like the particular ways that telecommunications technologies affect the ways people interact and I find them just viscerally annoying (especially cute ringtones). But I gave in. It remains practical to resist a paradigm shift for only so long.;)
Abraham Lincoln, who was in turn quoting an anonymous 'eastern wise man', and the actual quote was:
'and this too shall pass away.'
And the original context was, roughly:
"An eastern king once asked his wise men to come up with a phrase to etch on a piece of stone which would be true for all time, and after some time they replied 'and this too shall pass away.' "
1. Most Americans aren't Mormons. Mormonism hasn't even existed as long as the US. How could your religion (and your faith, which derives from said religion) have influenced "values that have always been America's morality" before it existed.
It bootstraps the same way that Islam and before it Christianity bootstraps, onto the religion that came before. Mormons do not repudiate pre-Mormon Christianity, and see themselves as a continuation of that same tradition. Thus, from their point of view they can claim that their values were part of a temporally contiguous tradition that did exist at the founding of the republic, even though Mormonism itself did not.
Now, this is not to say that he isn't crazy. Points two through five are plenty of material for a basting. Although I find myself unfortunately agreeing with him on one small point, in that he is opposed to Hate-crime legislation, which I also find redundant and silly. It irritates me I have anything in commmon with his positions at all.
Some educational system is obviously indicated for a society of the size and complexity that any modern civilzation possesses. Mechanisms for socialization are pretty important, especially in cosmopolitan societies. My issue is that the present system's model is designed specifically to dumb people down, socialize them to be docile, effective desk jockeys (used to be factory ants). That's the major thesis of both those books I mentioned; the evolution of our school system was not accidental, it was intentional, it is wildly successful at what it was designed to do.
Sometimes people meet each other through school and then have underage sex... I don't hear any claims that school is a "danger to teens". It's time we stopped blaming technology for merely giving people opportunities to show their moral fibre.
School is a danger to teens! There, you see? I claimed it. But seriously, many professionals in the area of education have said, after many years in the secondary ed industry, that school is in fact a real danger to growing minds' ability to develop critical thinking skills; it is almost as if those of us that possess them do so despite school rather than because of it.
For specific such professionals, I would refer you to John Taylor Gatto, The Underground History of American Education, and perhaps Neil Postman, Teaching as a Subversive Activity. Both are well respected educators who think that schools on the whole are, in the words of Jon Stewart, 'Hurting America'.
Programming Voting Machines isn't exactly designing rockets, you know. When the task is fairly simple, any anomalies require for explanation either an escalating (and unlikely) level of incompetence...or malfeasance. It's not crazy to say: these machines are made to count and for this simple task they fail depressingly often. WTF? Now, given no direct evidence of specific malfeasance that obviously benefits one party over another, conspiracy theories are premature. However, starting to look in this direction based soley on the failure rate is not as crazy as you make it out to be.
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The one that spawned your devil soul! I was responding to both you and one of the replies to you and mistakenly labeled it 'parent' when I meant 'grandparent'. His (her?) point was indeed the one I pointed out. Sorry for the confusion.
Still enough to be more than a little uncomfortable.
By extension of your logic, the Mona Lisa is only art because it's on canvas. Would it be any less beautiful if it was created on a tablet PC? Would Michelangelo's eye for the human anatomy be any less impressive if David was a model of polygons? For that matter, would Hamlet be any less art if it were an ebook?
Shortly: yes, yes, and no. The medium can often have an impact on the message. Anyone who has been to an art museum knows that it is quite a different experience seeing a painting in person than it is to see a reproduction, either electronic or physical. Michelangelo's eye, and not incidentally his craft, are particularly impressive because he used the tools at his disposal (which do not give themselves as readily to accuracy as manifold polygons) and crafted an enduring physical representation, not a mere picture. I'll give you the Shakespeare only because it is art primarily when it is performed (and so its written medium doesn't much matter), but I would add that a Shakespearean play is much different acted on a stage than on the siver screen or on television.
The value of some work of art is not merely in the data trapped in the piece but also the entire context of the piece, which includes its medium and its creator (and his/her craft).
...essentially, that a medium substantially the same as paper would be around forever. Text is a remarkably efficient way of storing information, give or take, and can be reproduced on many two-dimensional mediums with ease (that ease factor going up steadily for the past 3000 years), and seeing that it is so efficient, and seeing that nearly all of humanity's information-product is in written form (hence a huge investment), it is not likely to go away anytime soon. Now, of course it is likely there will be another major hard-copy-material improvement soon analogous to the papyrus-parchment-paper evolution. But writing (on 'paper') is, I think, pretty much here to stay.
What does Marcellus Wallace...no wait, never mind. We are using different definitions of faith; I'm using the technical one "belief in the alethiological value of statements not in evidence" which is what an axiomatic, i.e. truth by definition, statement is: an ungrounded statement that sets up a framework for deductive analysis. My point was, admittedly, rather remote from the context of the conversation; I simply get annoyed when people flippantly say things like "depend on reason alone; eschew faith" or somesuch, because it is not a very good blanket rule, IMO, and does not apply to the vast majority of situations where one must rely upon information that is not substantiated or guaranteed in another method. At a certain point in any investigation, conversation, or what have you, there must be a point where the conversants agree upon the framework of the conversation (usually implicitly), otherwise conversation cannot occur.
On the other hand, this point bears weight on the subject of trusting people and statements made by those people; at a certain point, one must assume credibility (or not) after sufficient analysis of credentials and other factors, because ultimately you can track those factors back to an axiomatic statement which is unfounded except by itself and assumed to be true.
VIKI, the aformentioned robot in the movie, did NOT 'sacrifice' the first law or any such thing; she even flat out states, she reinterprets the First Law to mean something closer to the Zeroth law (survival and welfare of the collective the human species, more important than individuals.) According to how her program evolved, she wasn't breaking the First law, hence she wouldn't turn into a steaming pile of positronic goo. I thought it was a pretty clever meditation on how a sufficiently advanced mind can abstract away from the literal interpretation of some set of rules, and a good explication of the evolution of the Zeroth law that Asimov postulated would happen in sufficiently advanced robot minds. It also did a good job of showing why the Zeroth law sucked so very, very much.
(This is not directed at Parent) And I for the life of me cannot figure out why 'I, Robot' the film is the geek community's favorite red-headed step-child. I liked it immensely as faithful to the spirit and tone of Asimov's works, it was beautifully rendered (as parent mentioned), decently acted, well written, and above all, entertaining. Unlike most hollywood faire passed up the opportunity to do the 'Frankenstein' remake that most of these movies take (pretty explicitly in dialogue, in fact, probably because Asimov routinely bitched about Robot Frankensteins in sci-fi). If people are going to bitch about movies, there are much better choices.
How do you know you are not a brain in a vat?
...that the Universe wasn't created intact thirty seconds ago?
...that the laws of physics are the same as they were yesterday and will be tomorrow?
There's an answer, and it sure isn't 'reasoning'. Deductive logic can only carry you someplace after there are established axiomatic statements which, definitionally, must be taken on faith. In any reasonable conversation, particularly one in which one is not an expert on the subject at hand, a modicum of faith in the statement of facts is not only reasonable, but also practically necessary. How far that faith should extend is a function of trust in those sources, which I believe is what the GP argument is all about.
Hence my comment about it being a little crazy. While the mafia metaphor may be apropos, I think it slightly misses the point; after all, the Mob does govern, in a sense, those spheres that it influences strongly, just not in a way that is particularly pleasant or egalitarian.
Now, that's not to say it isn't crazy on its own merits, but let's not throw labels around casually.
It unfortunately turns out that electricity power generation contributes a relatively small fraction of the total CO2 output. Hence, increasing the output from other sources (like Nuclear) won't really make much of a dent.
Stalemates of very different sorts; the War of 1812 was far more embarrassing, certainly, and fought on home soil. Whenever your capital gets sacked, that's a bad sign.
The Civil War is a special circumstance.
I agree. That's why I didn't include it amongst my 'three nominees' but stated it as a fairly instructive special case immediately following.
And yes, Vietnam was certainly an embarrassing loss. But it didn't leave the U.S. international reputation in complete tatters. Nor did it pose a grave threat to the U.S. status as world superpower
No so. The USSR got a ton of political mileage out of our embarrassing loss, gaining political credit particularly in the Middle East as a result of the defeat. The whole mess also emboldedned the Third World to a great degree, thereby enhancing the political position of China (and certainly one of the primary motivators for Nixon later normalizing relations with them, as well as the obvious one of obening agricultural markets). The situation didn't equalize until the USSR did an equivalently stupid thing in Afghanistan, which ironically more or less directly led to the current conflict.
This Iraq War is going to be a loss too. But it will also likely mark the beginning of the end of U.S. status as world superpower. And it has absolutely devastated our foreign relations standing, as well as encouraging the nuclear ambitions of countries like Iran and North Korea (who fear that they might be the next preemptive war on King George's list).
I agree that the US is starting what will likely be an excruciatingly long decline, but I think the reasons will have more to do with economics than with our military misadventures.
And it's financial costs are just BEGINNING to be tallied. Combined the hit to U.S. foreign relations, and the rise of Chinese/Indian economic power, it could very well lead the U.S. to eventual insolvency and "debtor nation" status.
We are already a 'debtor nation' (we haven't been a creditor nation for a while now), with our current account deficits becoming progressively worse and our nation debt becoming unsustainable through financing. But I agree, the diplomatic costs of this war will be incalculably severe.
For one thing, your Parliament is way more fun than our Congress. Seriously, if ANY of our politicians had to endure that much direct questioning from the opposition leader, they would have a meltdown. I'm sure your political system has its foibles, but at least your politicians can articulate off the cuff with some impressive verbal dexterity.
Least successful war? I nominate three others...
Vietnam, which we LOST. Many more allied casualties than this war, war aims not achieved, one million Vietnamese dead.
Korea, which was a DRAW. Also many more casualies than this war, war aims not achieved, barely held on to S. Korea, lots of Koreans dead.
The War of 1812, which we LOST. Washington DC sacked and burned to the ground. More American casualties than this war, and signifiant homeground damage due to British invasion. Oh yeah, and it made Andrew Jackson the indian-killing moron a war hero.
I might also mention the American Civil War, but at least a few good things came out of that one. Also some bad things, like one out of three American males dead. But hey, who's counting?
If you calculate the cost of these wars in constant dollars, some of them, particularly Korea if you include reconstruction (which I assume people are including in the Iraq cost), approaches the current cost of the Iraq War. It is likely that before the end, the Iraq War and reconstruction will end up costing more than Korea, but not by much.
Now, I think that the Iraq War is an expensive and miserable failure, same as the next guy, but hyperbole really weakens the case, don't you think?
Please?
Oh, never mind.
Because in that case, the kid is the toy. A blubbery interactive toy. Bouncy, too.
Oddly enough, bacterial infections are much more occasional than serious bacteriological infection. If an acute condition is common enough, then sure it it can be profitable.
It's odd you mentioned pain medications, because like antibiotics we are scientifically scraping the bottom of the barrel in both fields given current medical understanding both in pain treatment and in killing bacteria. In order to really make an advance in either, we need quite serious advances, advances which tend to require copious money and time, and so a diminishing return on investment.
Viagra: At most half the world's population and only those with a particular condition. Not used by those under, say 30. Really only needed in the first-world (I can't see a third-world person choosing this over food). Government would never stockpile this.
I didn't say they would. I said rather that they are lucrative because it is something that rich people desire and will pay money for. It makes little sense from a business point of view to make something that only people who can't pay you desire.
Hence, antibiotic research lags behind many other areas. Why sell ten pills when you can sell one hundred?
On the other hand, who knows whether we were happier with out all the the tech. I suspect that it comes down to comparing apples and oranges. In an age when a paper cut could kill you, and the feudal lord's word was law, people had very different stressors and concerns than they do now. More tightly integrated and insular communities made a great support network, but also made social ostracism more serious, if not downright deadly. I personally prefer worrying about checking my messages over worrying about the plague, and I enjoy being able to disagree with my neighbor about religion without being attacked by a mob, but I imagine if I had grown up in those times, my values might be altogether different.
I held out as long as humanly possible before geeting a cell-phone, as I do not like the particular ways that telecommunications technologies affect the ways people interact and I find them just viscerally annoying (especially cute ringtones). But I gave in. It remains practical to resist a paradigm shift for only so long. ;)
Lotsa butta.
'and this too shall pass away.'
And the original context was, roughly:
"An eastern king once asked his wise men to come up with a phrase to etch on a piece of stone which would be true for all time, and after some time they replied 'and this too shall pass away.' "
It bootstraps the same way that Islam and before it Christianity bootstraps, onto the religion that came before. Mormons do not repudiate pre-Mormon Christianity, and see themselves as a continuation of that same tradition. Thus, from their point of view they can claim that their values were part of a temporally contiguous tradition that did exist at the founding of the republic, even though Mormonism itself did not.
Now, this is not to say that he isn't crazy. Points two through five are plenty of material for a basting. Although I find myself unfortunately agreeing with him on one small point, in that he is opposed to Hate-crime legislation, which I also find redundant and silly. It irritates me I have anything in commmon with his positions at all.
Some educational system is obviously indicated for a society of the size and complexity that any modern civilzation possesses. Mechanisms for socialization are pretty important, especially in cosmopolitan societies. My issue is that the present system's model is designed specifically to dumb people down, socialize them to be docile, effective desk jockeys (used to be factory ants). That's the major thesis of both those books I mentioned; the evolution of our school system was not accidental, it was intentional, it is wildly successful at what it was designed to do.
Sometimes people meet each other through school and then have underage sex... I don't hear any claims that school is a "danger to teens". It's time we stopped blaming technology for merely giving people opportunities to show their moral fibre.
School is a danger to teens! There, you see? I claimed it. But seriously, many professionals in the area of education have said, after many years in the secondary ed industry, that school is in fact a real danger to growing minds' ability to develop critical thinking skills; it is almost as if those of us that possess them do so despite school rather than because of it.
For specific such professionals, I would refer you to John Taylor Gatto, The Underground History of American Education, and perhaps Neil Postman, Teaching as a Subversive Activity. Both are well respected educators who think that schools on the whole are, in the words of Jon Stewart, 'Hurting America'.
Programming Voting Machines isn't exactly designing rockets, you know. When the task is fairly simple, any anomalies require for explanation either an escalating (and unlikely) level of incompetence...or malfeasance. It's not crazy to say: these machines are made to count and for this simple task they fail depressingly often. WTF? Now, given no direct evidence of specific malfeasance that obviously benefits one party over another, conspiracy theories are premature. However, starting to look in this direction based soley on the failure rate is not as crazy as you make it out to be.
If Google made a controller, it would be free, but in China it would have only one (state-approved) button.