US No Longer Technology King 815
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that according to a recent report from the World Economic Forum the US has lost the leading spot for technology innovation. The new reigning champ is now apparently Denmark with other Nordic neighbors Sweden, Finland and Norway all claiming top spots as well. "Countries were judged on technological advancements in general business, the infrastructure available and the extent to which government policy creates a framework necessary for economic development and increased competitiveness."
Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's not really unexpected (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Telecomm (Score:3, Insightful)
What else do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blame Canada! (Score:4, Insightful)
Validity of the criteria? (Score:4, Insightful)
One small think they left off -- marginal tax rates. High rates like Sweden positively drive innovators away.
Agreed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Name one complete sub-assembly inside of your computer which had the majority of the R&D and Fabrication done in the USA.
Of that sub-assembly (assuming you have named one), which components are utilizing NEW technology developed here in the USA.
I would like to know why the USA (given a dedicated effort) could not take back the crown of technology power house without doing so by stifling our competition over seas.
There has to be enough room in the future technology development for us to foster and train our citizens to come up with new concepts which will not rely on foreign brains, labor, or money to develop, market, and sell.
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
Until the US fixes its priorities we're going to continue to fall. Perhaps the US can keep buying talent from other nations, with H1-B visas, but unless the scientists are given fruitful environments they simply aren't going to come up with anything new or revolutionary. What encouragement do the nation's thinkers have to keep improving their ideas when the laurels and rewards are going only to the people who manage them like a column of assets? It's plain demoralizing to continually refine a product for a year only to see executive support lost and funding slashed. Graduate students and post-docs, while they provide a significant source of intellectual labor, cannot compete with happy and eager experienced scientists in other parts of the world.
Extreme levels of government regulation, oversight, interaction, and micromanaging are probably a significant contributor to the death of American technological innovation as well.
Metric critique #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, if it was on a 100 point scale, the US could have slipped from, say, 99.9 to 99.8, and that would have been enough to slip from first to seventh. Or maybe the objective score would have been a much larger slide. Maybe the US objectively climbed, but just not at the same rate as the other countries. Being that all ten of the top countries have the same mature technological apparatus, I am imagining that whatever shuffling took place in the ratings was rather minor. The actual differences between technology adaption between the US and Iceland might be almost indistinguishable.
Key Words (Score:1, Insightful)
This isn't about technology, it's about politics. This is a damning of Bush, not of the American scientific and tech communities.
Ho-hum, it gets so tiresome. Wah wah America we hate you, you suck..... (can we have some more money?)
Re:Telecomm (Score:3, Insightful)
That cannot happen and the US retain their technological advantage.
Point of interest, America was having similer problems pre Sputnik, and when it flew overhead Congress ordered that Science be given a priority in the classroom, and that evolution be taught everywhere. The result? America's rise to technological dominance in the information age.
Now its happening all over again.
You have to ask yourselves, what will the next Sputnik be?
Whatever... (Score:4, Insightful)
No surprise... (Score:2, Insightful)
Something like only 20% of the availble stock of Stem Cells are still viable but the government makes it illegal to harvest more. Maybe I missed something, but every article I have seen on the process seams to make it appear no life is destroyed getting the stem cells. Its simply the old Science vs. Religion debate and the Religious Zeolots are winning and running the country into a sad deluded existance.
Re:This is a bogus study (Score:2, Insightful)
You might have a machine that solves any problem you give it, but if nobody has access to it, it may as well not be there.
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
What's interesting is not the mean, but rather the standard deviation. The U.S. has a large concentration along the coast, but a third of the population is rural. That's very unusual. Most countries with low population density tend to have very high density along the coast and almost nobody anywhere else. Sweden, for example, has 84% of its population spread over only 1.4% of its land area. The U.S. has 80% of its people in urban areas, so a lower percentage, and spread across a whopping 3%. Thus, assuming the definitions of urban vs. rural are similar between those two statistics (I'm not certain), the urban areas are only about half as dense, and the rural areas are roughly 25% more populous.
Education, immigration? (Score:5, Insightful)
Like software, Education and Immigration should be free and open. Providing innovation a fertile breeding ground.
I think that the cost of Education in the US has a big impact on this too. Sadly, a college degree has become a status symbol in the US for "upper class" citizens. A lot of people can't afford a student loan that is sometimes more than their mortgage!
A lot of European countries offer good incentives for people to study, including paying a state allowance for university students.
I'm not up to date on European immigration policy, but I'm sure it would be much more relaxed than the US when it comes to skilled labor. I couldn't imagine it being any more tighter.
Well, that's my 2 cents worth anyways...
Re:What else do you expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, no - it's only been in the last 15-20 years that we've -really- seen a lot of corporate abuse of their position (not that it didn't happen earlier, but it didn't necessarily happen at the same scale), and the predictable, to some, results.
Re:What else do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I'm blaming failing state controled services IN ALL ARENAS on corporations not paying for the services they use. Education of workers should be a primary value of any long range thinking company that needs skilled workers- yet for the past 20 years we've had a tax revolt removing money from the schools and making sure corporations pay a significantly lower percentage than they did in the 1950s. Education is just the most visible. Crime is second. But as a state worker working for Oregon Department of Transportation- I have to say roads and shipping are not far behind.
I bet the next Sputnik involves the middle east (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Got any facts to back that up?
According to the American Religious Identification Survey [cuny.edu] "The proportion of the [American] population that can be classified as Christian has declined from 86% in 1990 to 77% in 2001" and the number of people who believe in no religion AT ALL doubled from 1990 to 2001.
Sorry, homeboy. You're wrong.
Re:Telecomm (Score:1, Insightful)
"Religious" people aren't rejecting the kind of observational science that leads to inventions.
They are rejecting the wild guesses about the Big Bang (matter from nothing), Evolution (with no intermediate forms found and no proof of mutations that add DNA complexity), etc. They are part of the "scientific dogma" that must exist because otherwise there might be a God.
Benjamin Franklin was a very religious Christian (and even a Creationist!). That didn't stop him from inventing electrical generation or bifocals. And there are many other Christians that create new scientific inventions all the time.
Just because Christians don't necessarily believe wild stories about asteroids killing off dinosaurs (with absolutely zero proof other than verbal repetition), doesn't mean they are against science. (They have different wild stories from the Bible that they prefer to believe.)
Re:Blame Canada! (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh yeah, we're all real jealous of your freedom.
Freedom to be ruled by a religious nutcase.
Freedom to become homeless if you lose your job.
Freedom to watch "fair and unbiased" Republican propaganda on the Fox Network.
Freedom to die in a pointless war (that's Iraq, if you didn't get it).
Freedom to choke on the fumes of your SUV.
and, of course, the hatred has nothing to do with the fact that the US seems to take pleasure in invading countries once in a while, just so politicians can say the words "kick ass", and they can sell some more weapons.
</rant>
damn... I took the flamebait.... who needs karma, anyway?
It is not just manufacturing, design too (Score:3, Insightful)
While US companies are judged solely on profit, this trend will continue because it is the most lucrative way to bring something to market.
Re:Telecomm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
However, our military is one of the comparative few that has regularly spun off non-sensitive research into commercial applications. The old BMDO (Ballistic Missile Defense Organization) group (they've since changed their name) was primarily charged with seeding commercial ventures with government-funded research results. Worked rather well over the past couple decades.
So yes, if all that money simply goes into bigger and better weapons it could be considered a waste from a civilian perspective. But when it is shared and used to improve the private sector, it is anything but.
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, it is required for computer science. Evolutionary algorithms derived from the natural world are a major part of the field, with application to everything from DNA research
Corne, D. Meade, A. Sibly, R. 'Evolving core promoter signal motifs', Proceedings of the 2001 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, vol. 2, 1162-1169, 2001
to satellite placement:
Williams, Edwin, William Crossley and Thomas Lang, 'Average and maximum revisit time trade studies for satellite constellations using a multiobjective genetic algorithm', Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, 49, 3, 385-400 2001
No acceptance of evolution, no science...
Re:Validity of the criteria? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yawn.
Whatever happened to the notion that technological prowess was somehow a poor measure of true progress? I thought we had determined that social justice, economic fairness, non-Christian ratio, dietary fat, etc. were far better measures. I guess now that others are approaching or, indeed, surpassing the US technologically we'll be shedding that rubric.
Oh, and ScuttleMonkey, this tripe belongs under Politics, mkay? Thanks.
Re:Validity of the criteria? (Score:1, Insightful)
Why is a tax dumb? Simple: Any bills levied upon the corporation are paid for purely by the customers.
Re:Telecomm (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a crying shame.
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
Well if that shrinking minority of Christians just happens to be running the country, driving policy (banning gay marriage?) then people may well get that impression. Maybe less a growth in numbers and more a growth in power and influence. I suspect as the number of practising Christians continues to drop that desire to grab power and influence will only increase as an attempt to stop the slide.
Re:Telecomm (Score:2, Insightful)
No, sir, that's not enough. The examples you bring up are recent examples of issues which have existed since the inception of these religions. They are not new, and are not more prevalent now than they have ever been.
What you propose is that if you can cite an incident which happened recently, it means that said incidents are on the rise. This is simply not true, and is not supported by any study. Fewer religious people means that fewer people will have a religious objection to science. It's common sense.
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2123546.stm [bbc.co.uk]
To remind you of your original point:
You [the United States, presumably-- I'm not religious, nor do I export anything] are currently exporting extreme religions (yup, that's what a lot of uk people think of the Johovahs witnesses that come calling, nut jobs to be avoided at all costs),
To support your point that the US is exporting extreme religions, you link to an article about a church elder who abused a kid. How does that show extreme religions being exported in any way, shape or form? In what way does it prove that "uk people" are avoiding Jehovah's Witnesses? Hell, how do you even define what "extreme religions" are? How does it show anything other than, "hey one guy did one bad thing!"
How about finding a demographic study that shows the religion gaining influence over time, or perhaps an opinion poll from UK citizens about their acceptance of Jehovah's Witnesses? Those might actually be more relevant to your initial point than this 1-page newspaper article you Googled.
looking for the ark....
http://www.noahsarksearch.com/ [noahsarksearch.com]
There's nothing on that website about funding. For all I know the entire thing is a single guy with a lot of free time, and given the quality of the website that seems a good guess.
Then again, let's assume it is being funded by someone... so what? Unless you prove that the amount of funding goes towards finding Noah's Ark is increasing over time, this does nothing to support the original point.
(Or perhaps you think it should be illegal to fund searches for mythical objects? I, and a lot of other Americans, happen to believe in freedom. If someone wants to spent money to find the flying spaghetti monster, who am I to stop them? They can do what they want.)
the links between americans extreme religions and isreal/funding of end time stuff
http://www.wluml.org/english/newsfulltxt.shtml?cm
This link goes to a book review. I haven't read the book. If anybody reading this has, please comment on it.
(I will say that President Bush is not a "fervent Christian fundamentalist." If would be interesting to see what definition of "fundamentalist" includes President Bush.)
problems with science in the US classroom
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleU
"Not available" error.
That enough?
Not for me. And I'm not even Christian-- I just have a pretty well-developed BS filter.
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there may not be an actual upswing in the amount of people
Between the ongoing "we can teach creationism as if it's valid science", banning all forms of science which run afoul of the religious right, and and administration which seems to believe that God is personally on their side
However, maybe the rest of the USA are just so damned busy watching American Idol and following everything which is happening with Brittney Spears they're just too damned politically apathetic to stop the bullshit which seems to become policy. Either way, in terms of the way the US is projecting themselves nowadays, there might as well have been an uprising or a takeover or something.
Cheers
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
Canada, for example, has a population density of 3.2 on that chart. Yet it too has excellent broadband penetration (markedly superior to the united states) because despite having an average of 3.2 people per square kilometer, the vast majority of people live in dense cities along the southern border, while vast amounts of geography range from virtually to completely uninhabited.
Several of the nordic countries are similarly laid out. With dense urban populations, and large virtually unpopulated areas where its mountainous, glacial, or arctic tundra.
The GP's post which indicated that these countries had a higher population density than the US is of course patently false, however, he had the right idea. Broadband becomes viable as the population density reaches a threshold in the regions where the population density reaches that threshold. In a these Nordic countries (and Canada), nearly the entire population lives in regions where the population is "dense enough". While in regions where the population isn't that dense, there often isn't any population at all.
Thus despite Canada's excellent broadband availability to like 95% of its people, if you threw a dart at a map of canada, you'd more than likely hit a spot where there there wasn't access. Indeed, this is because you'd more than likely hit a spot where there wasn't any PEOPLE.
In the US, however, there are huge numbers of people living in regions that simply aren't that dense. You throw a dart at a map of the US and odds are there will be people living under it, but probably not enough of them to make broadband viable.
In other words, population density simply indicates the total number of people divided by the total amount of space, and says nothing about where they actually live. If you took everyone in the states and relocated them all to Texas the US would have the exact same population density it has now, but getting everybody broadband access would be comparatively trivial.
cheers,
Re:What else do you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Telecomm (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't need an entire page of links, just a single relevant one. The only one that MAY be relevant is the book review you linked to, but I'm not willing to comment on that until I've read the book myself.
Seems to me you just don't want to admit any problems.
Of course not. The US is flawed in many, many ways. But the way to solve those problems is to gather scientific evidence to understand the problem completely, not to make unfounded claims that have no relevance to the issue at hand.
And just for the record, I'd like to repeat again that I am not a Christian. I don't practice any religion, and I'd classify myself as agnostic if push came to shove.
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider US vs Canada http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/conten
Canada has a much lower population density, but it's far cheaper to lay fiber to 95% of the Canadian population than to 95% of the American population, because the average distance between two random Canadians is far less the average distance between two Americans.
Countries like the US/Britain/France/Germany, which are more evenly populated will simply require much more fiber/area for a given broadband penetration than countries like Canada/Australia/Brazil, which have huge clumps of people and vast areas of sparse population.
Re:broadband (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Telecomm (Score:2, Insightful)
By that logic, the reason PC prices are down over the last few years must be a program to institute motherboards and RAM chips in the US, funded by the Taiwanese government. After all, exporting stuff can ONLY be done by a government program...
Re:Telecomm (Score:2, Insightful)
The Chinese or Indians (or both in concert) landing a man on the moon.
I fully suspect that is what it's going to take.
To wake the US up I think it will take someone we can firmly identify as an enemy very visibly besting us in technological innovation. And terrorists getting nukes isn't cutting it, so I can't imagine one. Anyone have any ideas?
Re:I have to ask... (Score:5, Insightful)
38 years ago.
'What country invented the transistor, and later the microchip?'
Over 50 years ago.
'What country harnessed electricity, and set up the first electric lights?'
You'd be surprised. But that was over 120 years ago.
'What country set up the first assembly line, and mass produced the automobile?'
Again, 100 years ago.
'What country split the atom?'
63 years ago.
Now.
Which of the wealthy industrialized countries has the highest percentage of poor?
Which has least progressive taxation, ie rich pay higher percentage, indeed, pay taxes at all.
Which has lowest average wages.
Which has declining participation in the wealth generated by labor.
Which has worst ratio superrich to general population.
Which has giant trade imbalance.
Which has largest debt.
Which has biggest tax breaks for wealthiest people.
Which has collapsing real estate market.
Which has no manufacturing capacity for its own markets.
Which has worst schools.
Which has largest percentage of permanent poor.
Which has poorest representation of science in government.
Which has most money wasted on military and spy networks.
Which has religious belief that markets cure anything.
Which lost a major city and told its people to go to hell for being poor and stupid.
Which has the highest per capita spending on health care with the worst per capita coverage. Add: Which has businesses taking 30 percent or more of the health care expenditures as admin costs and profit.
Which has worst sex education, teen pregnancy rate and STD infection rate.
Which has worst newborn death rate.
Which has collapsing science funding.
Which has had science infiltrated by the operatives of a political party.
Which has a population so uneducated and unimaginative that they only finished 1/4 of a space station and forgot to build a shuttle to get to it. And can't understand why that would matter.
Which economy is about to explode, sinking belly up?
Which nation is exceedingly wealthy and well educated because they nationalized their oil fields, keeping all the profits? That would be Norway.
Which countries tax high, have excellent labor representation in business decisions, has excellent health care at reasonable cost, low poverty rates, lowest teen birth rates and STD infection rates, and now lead the world in tech development? Why, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and all the other countries mentioned.
Apparently the people of a nation taking control of their futures through their representative governments do better than those who abdicate their control to be ruled by corporate business. Who would have thought it.
US Universities (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Key Words (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Validity of the criteria? (Score:4, Insightful)
Americans culture has turned to shit. (Score:1, Insightful)
What we have in the USA is institutionalized beauracry running everything. It doesn't have anything to do with sceince or scientists or religion or anything like that. That's a red herring.
WE have Unions choking the profitability out of the people that employ them. They are paid to sit on their ass and if they don't get what they want they go on strike instead of getting a different job. They are litigating their ways out of a job. If it's not profitable to hire workers then workers don't get hired.
We have mega corporations running by paperwork alone were innovation and creativity have no outlet. They are run by people whose job it is to make sure nothing bad happesna and to hold the status quo. They do not have any competition and are institutionalised by government protections and government subsidies. They DON'T WANT INNOVATION BECAUSE INNOVATION WILL PUT THEM OUT OF A JOB.
We have a media that is obsessed with their own little political agendas. They are news people are paid to sell movies and TV shows. And as a end result you have dipshit rappers, druggies, and basketball stars who couldn't get a GED or graduate vocational school on their own are making millions of dollars and are held up as artists and celebreties. You have braindead morons like Britney spears or Paris Hilton as people of some consiquence or singificance when in reality they have could easily be replaced by a anatomically correct mannequines AND NOBODY WOULD BE ABLE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE.
No science is ever promoted. Nothing remarkable is ever proprosed to the public.
You have a patent system out of control.
Software patents are destroying innovation in the industry. On a DAILY basis you have literally HUNDREDS of software patents. This doesn't make any fucking sense. Meanwhile countries without software patents are eating American's company's lunch.
And it's only going to get worse.
People are taught that creativity is just being different for different sake. That somehow the type of haircut they have or how they dress is more important to them then their personality.
That the type of car you own matters. That if your pretty it will make a bigger difference to your life then if your smart.
That getting rich is lucky, that it's more like the lotto. That your desire to get something entitles you to getting it right now irregardless of the debt you aquire. That people are defined by what sort of stores they buy or coffee they drink.
Double latte, fat-free cream please makes you a better person, makes you healthier then somebody that drinks instant.
That hard work is pointless. WE are taught that it's pointless to give a shit aobut how things work. That if things are difficult they aren't worth doing. That easier is better and the less you know to get by the more time you have to have fun.
That feeling bad about something or protesting against something bad makes you a better person then somebody who doesn't do that. (hint: it doesn't).
That nerds only give a shit about stuff works. That Mechanics are low class. Engineering is something hire somebody else to do.
That the color of the walls in your house is important.
Complete BULLSHIT.
All of it.
This is what our culture is turning into. Completely vacent. Totally self-centered, youth obsessed. Shallow bullshit.
It used to be if you were a scientist you were a fucking hero. A Doctor, Scientist, Researcher. These people _mattered_. You were a complete asset to the USA. Top of the line individuals.
You were like kings. People looked up to you. People worked their asses off to get to be a scientist.
Now nobody gives a shit. Remember that hardwork is pointless.
Nowadays the best thing that you can do with your life is to get rich as 25 making a fancy website and retire to a life of leasure and trivia. Football stars are the most important to our culture now.
The problem is fucking society is turning to shit.
What constitutes America? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Blame Canada! (Score:2, Insightful)
Technology? What about GTA high scores? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
America is facing many urgent problems from runaway deficit spending to the continual erosion of federal agency responsiveness and even respect for fundamental human rights. Yet certain politicians seem obsessed with gay marriage during election season - the very time when we need to judge them on their positions and history regarding real issues that actually affect America.
In summary, I worry that Americans are extremely susceptible to distraction by highly irrelevant issues and that exploitation of this weakness gravely impacts the quality of their government. I think that we are seeing the results of this poor governance right now in lost jobs and expertise.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Branding does generate money (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, no. This isn't correct at all. People drink Coke for the same reason they eat too many Twinkies or doughnuts: it tastes good. It's as simple as that. If it tasted like crap, people wouldn't drink it. They might try it once because of some advertising, but people don't usually continue to eat or drink stuff that doesn't taste good, unless it gives them a drugged sensation (e.g., alcohol).
If you made an argument that people drank Coke rather than a competing cola drink because of advertising and marketing, you'd have a much better argument, but I'd counter with the argument that people choose a drink they think tastes better, and that different colas (branded or generic) have very different tastes. Pepsi, for instance, is much sweeter tasting than Coke.
As for toxins, I don't think there's anything in Coke that's a toxin. Caffeine is not a toxin; it's a drug. Just because something's not entirely healthy doesn't mean it's an outright poison. Caramel is just cooked sucrose, sugar isn't bad for you per se (it's the quantity versus your energy expenditure that's important), and CO2 is downright inert.
ipods are much the same really. They are a result of extremely good marketing (and I include ergonomics in marketing).
This is quite fallacious in my opinion. Ergonomics is not an element of marketing, it's an element of design, and actually falls under human factors engineering (part of industrial engineering in most schools). I don't think human factors engineers would appreciate being called marketers.
Human factors is what makes a product usable. If something's hard to use, it's simply not as functional as something that's easy to use. Suppose you had a race car with a crappy seat with no side support, no lumbar support, and in general very uncomfortable. The driver of that race car wouldn't perform very well compared to drivers in cars with well-designed seats, and the team would lose the race. There's no marketing there; it's performance, and it's human factors.
They are not particularly good in terms of sound quality and break often (a huge number of in wanrantee failures).
Most people don't have hearing good enough to discern minor differences in sound quality (especially with earbud headphones usually used for portability), and how often they fail is only relevant insofar as how the competition compares. I imagine most MP3 players (esp. hard drive ones) have a lot of failures because of their complexity and portability. Cellphones aren't known for their ruggedness either.
Sure, branding within an economy adds very little value within that economy. If a Coke costs $1 or $5 does not really matter within the USA. But on a global basis, branding is increasingly becoming a huge USA export earner. A Coke sold in Australia, for instance, which is made and bottled in Australia results in some money going back to Coke USA.
For this example, it's pretty simple, and I discussed it above. It's about taste. Coke made and bottled in Australia isn't just some generic cola with a Coke label slapped on; it's the super-secret Coke formula made to their specifications, so that it's the same product as what you buy in the USA. People apparently like the taste, so they buy it.
Anyway, back to the original point, as you say, ipod is made in the same factory as the technically equivalent YinYangMP3. So why would you spend $200 for the ipod and not spend $100 for the equivalent YinYang? Because of the branding.
No, at least in this example, it's because the YinYang is not the same product as the iPod. The YY has some buttons instead of a scroll wheel, has a different user interface, and doesn't work with iTunes (not that I'm a fan of iTunes, but many people are
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget the damn rural areas already. It's a nice excuse, but our infrastructure is still slapdash, crawling with shoddy and inconsistent speeds, and woefully behind, even in the largest metropolitan areas.
Mod Parent Informative (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Were you there? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoa, whoa. You were doing ok until here, where you slip up. It is perfectly reasonable to assume, given the existence of early Buddhists, that there was a Buddha. Was he in fact in possession of all of the traits they attributed to him? Probably not, from a skeptical outlook - most likely, he was just a very smart, insightful and charismatic individual. Likewise Jesus. The scant evidence does not prove he exists, but the simplest explanation is that such a person - not necessarily a divine one - did, in fact, exist. Don't mix up the existence of the supernatural Christ with a human Jesus. Don't compare the existence of the human Jesus to the existence of Xenu, these are completely different issues.
Scientology - there was a Ron L. Hubbard. Mormonism - there was a Joseph Smith. Religious movements nearly always start with a powerful leader figure. As skeptics, we would view those people as ('merely') exceptional human beings, not divine or supernatural as the adherents of those faiths would. But let's not deny the likely existence of the individual itself.
Re: Were you there? (Score:3, Insightful)
No. Let's retarget your comment, and see what happens:
You are conflating characters in a story with the authors of a story. There is no such relationship that automatically arises; that is only the case when the story is a history, and my entire point is that there is no evidence that confirms the bible's role in telling about Jesus as a historical one. Jesus did not write the bible (or anything else, even according to the bible.) The only conclusion you can draw from Jesus' presence in the stories in the bible is that since these are claimed to be tellings of history, then the reasonable thing to do is go searching elsewhere in history to get confirmation. That confirmation has, to date, not been forthcoming. This leaves the status of the bible as history unconfirmed. No matter how you want to cast Christ's role - human, hybrid, divine, alien - all you have to go on is what the bible says, simply because that's all we've found. The fact that the bible says something is not enough to come to the conclusion that said something represents a factual retelling of history. There are many books, many claims of divine and supernaturally powerful figures, many claims of humans who figure in those stories. This is the actual situation from which you pull your assertion that it is reasonable to presume there was a Christ.
People make up stories. You simply have to factor that in.
Re: Were you there? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Telecomm (Score:1, Insightful)
And so many people forget just how BIG the US is. You can fly for 6 hours and still be over the same country. Most people in Europe really don't understand the scale of the US...
Yeah,. it's not like we have any other countries of comparable size in Europe, like oh, I don't know, Russia, which has eleven different time zones.
Christ, I never thought I'd see the day when an American accused Europeans of being geographically ignorant.
Re:The last mile (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Telecomm (Score:3, Insightful)
I Call BS (Score:3, Insightful)
From the article:
That comment says it all right there. This has nothing to do with technology innovation and everything to do with the members of the World Economic Forum and their collective opinion of the current US administration.
Re:Telecomm (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately APCs are very expensive, so some of the brass decided to convert Humvees into crappy APCs. Which leaves us with a substandard vehicle being used for a purpose not envisioned for it during the design period. This is not a failure of the tool; it is a failure of those using the tool.