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."
"Dumbing down of America" (Score:5, Interesting)
I am starting to agree with my wife, given evidence like: Bush family buying massive amounts of land in South America, Dick Cheney primarily investing his own money overseas, etc.
I believe that people with real power in the USA are "cutting loose" the middle class and lower class. I write about this in my blog a lot: the best thing to do is to invest heavily in yourself: education, personal learning, pay off debt, invest, and save.
Re:SHUT UP! ENOUGH WITH THE OVERLORDS! (Score:2, Interesting)
tertiary focus (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Telecomm (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought the moon was a place in the outback where people hadn't been before (I was only four).
Re:What else do you expect? (Score:3, Interesting)
Dubious eurononsense -- Don't believe a word of it (Score:1, Interesting)
- environment for ICT offered by a country or community
- readiness of the community's key stakeholders (individuals, business and governments)
- usage of ICT among these stakeholders."
http://www.weforum.org/en/media/Latest%20Press%20
http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%
Gosh even after pouring over their press materials, just a simple general idea of how their three proprietary parameters of "ICT" are actually calculated is suspiciously elusive. Are these Europeans being intentionally discreet?
Pfffft. The fact is, the per capita 'ICT' output and gross 'ICT' GDP of United States of America is stunningly far ahead of even her runner up, the aggregate of all of Europe, "EU" as they call themselves now....
Ask yourself what their motives are before believing a byte of it.
Re:Telecomm (Score:2, Interesting)
Jimmy Carter vs Reagan (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Telecomm (Score:3, Interesting)
You 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), and working in other countries to prop up creationism. Also there's the funding going to the search for the Ark, and the money being sent to Israel to fund the end time preparation...
Also lots of colleges and universities in the US are having to spend time just convincing religious students to learn scientific subjects, including needing support groups and reassuring people that you can believe in god and study science.
The very fact that the US is having to deal with holding back the upswelling of anti science philosophy in the classroom is evidence.
And I actually admire the US, if only you could get over this period.
Re:Telecomm (Score:2, Interesting)
"Hi. My name is Evidence. I'm missing. Can you find me?"
See, for instance, this summary [religioustolerance.org] of many studies of Christianity in the United States. Here are a couple nice representative quotes:
"There does not seem to be revival taking place in America. Whether that is measured by church attendance, born again status, or theological purity, the statistics simply do not reflect a surge of any noticeable proportions." George Barna.
14.1% do not follow any organized religion. This is an unusually rapid increase -- almost a doubling -- from only 8% in 1990. There are more Americans who say they are not affiliated with any organized religion than there are Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans taken together.
For some reason, people have gotten the idea in their head that there's some kind of huge Christian uprising or takeover happening in the US, and it's simply not there at all. Sorry. Given that you don't bother to support your initial point, I'm going to just ignore the rest of the post. Hope you don't mind.
Re:Heres the solution for you Americans : (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_i
Ironic, I just read that article Monday, and now lo and behold here comes some Turk lecturing me on how to run my own government.
Alas, the majority of us voters here in the USA disagree with you, sir -- we vote Republican because we think our economy is grows stronger when taxes are low and national interests are defended boldly.
This week's Science Magazine (Score:2, Interesting)
Two powerful champions of biomedical research blasted the White House's proposal to cut funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2008 and invited research leaders to vent their own frustrations at a Senate hearing this week.
Another story last month
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/315/58
*Research Rises--and Falls--in the President's Spending Plan*
Just as he has stayed the course in Iraq, President George W. Bush has stuck to his guns with his budget proposals. On 5 February, he sent Congress a 2008 budget request for science that favors a handful of agencies supporting the physical sciences and puts the squeeze on most of the rest of the federal research establishment as part of an overall $2.9 trillion plan that clamps down on most civilian spending....
Is this "study" worth used toilet paper? (Score:2, Interesting)
But, is the "World Economic Forum" just another one of those USA hating jack-off organizations? I read TFA, as far as I can tell, they are just making this stuff up as they go.
India is in 4th place? Ever been to India? A huge percentage of the population have never used anything as technologically advanced as a toilet. I mean not even an outhouse - they go right outside.
Re:Telecomm (Score:2, Interesting)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2123546.stm [bbc.co.uk]
looking for the ark....
http://www.noahsarksearch.com/ [noahsarksearch.com]
the links between americans extreme religions and isreal/funding of end time stuff
http://www.wluml.org/english/newsfulltxt.shtml?cm
problems with science in the US classroom
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleU
That enough?
Re:Telecomm (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, but a lot of things "seem" true and aren't. That toilets flush clockwise on one hemisphere and counter-clockwise on the opposite one seems true to millions of people, but it's not.
Between the ongoing "we can teach creationism as if it's valid science"
That's been ongoing since at least the 1920s (when was the Scopes trial?) Nobody's arguing that the debate isn't ongoing, the argument is whether the strength of the pro-creationism side has increased in recent years. If it hasn't, then the ongoing debate isn't an indicator of anything except the status quo.
Certainly, the religious right gets to say all sorts of hateful, vile crap, and the mainstream media doesn't view them as cooks. It views them as having an informed position.
That's because the mainstream media wants to get them on next week's show also so they get the ratings boost. Calling them wackjobs would scare them away, and they'd have to find something else for sweeps week. It's no different than Adam Corolla calling up that crazy religious wacko every couple of weeks on his radio show, except he's honest with himself and calls it "entertainment" not "news."
American IP law (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm curious as to what kind of IP structure Denmark has, as well as the other top tech countries, even China. Do all these governments get their IP laws dicated to them by big money corporations?
Poor excuse! US population centers much larger (Score:2, Interesting)
It's always interesting.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Not only that but the Euro-wienies and elitists from other countries come out of the woodwork and try to lecture people in the US on topics ranging from government to their general superiority. What the actual reality is is that the US still performs more research and development (in dollars) than every other nation on earth combined and the US also provides more breakthroughs in science on whole than all the rest of the world combined and there are more scientists devoted to basic research and development than any other country on a per capita basis.
Yea, we know Bush is a fvcking retard, yes we are going to be rid of him in 2008 and possibly even sooner. But NONE of that has ANYTHING to do with basic research and development. Yes, the US has been exporting a lot of basic manufacturing. No, that isn't relevant to the US lead in Research and Development because even if we don't build it, we invented it, our engineers perfected it, our banks finance it and all the executives and most of the white collar jobs are in the US. Ever seen an article where China complains about being only basic manufacturing with no higher level sustainable jobs?
Do you realize with high fuel prices China's advantage as a basic manufacturer will evaporate when their wages move beyond slave rates, in that high fuel and transport costs will hurt all globalization in basic blue collar jobs. And for all the European's trash talk, lets not forget that 90% of the worlds hot zones these days, including Iraq, Palestine, and Iran, tie back to what European colonialization (primarily British) for the previous 300 years has done to the world.
Re:Telecomm (Score:5, Interesting)
You didn't hear these kind of excuses when the telegraph was the big communications network - it went to every town. And you didn't hear it when rail travel became prevalent - those tracks went everywhere, and if a mountain needed blasting to make way, the mountain got blasted. You can claim the Chinese worked like slaves to lay track - which may be true, but there is no shortage of cheap foreign labor in the US today - and they could be laying fiber (in fact, a lot of them are - just not enough).
The problem, as usual, is the self-serving traitorous bastards running Washington (the White House *and* congress - especially congress). When WW I started up, the US needed planes. Did they let the Wright Brothers push them around because they had some patent? No. They were like "look, guys, we need planes for the war, and you can't make them fast enough, so were throwing out your patent."
What happens now when we need equipment for the war? The multinational corporation making hummers whines "but we've got a contract - we make hummers and that's what we're gonna make." So what happens? We buy hummers that get our soldiers killed instead of the anti-road-bomb armored equipment we really need. (check this [go.com] out). What's that about? Some greedy frackin senators with their palms greased, that's what!
No more excuses. Build the infrastructure we need, make the equipment we need, and quick dicking around with the greedy corporations.
Re:What else do you expect? (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing that the anti-corporate crowd doesn't seem to understand is that most legislation presented as "protecting us from corporations" is designed to HELP corporations. For example, what effect does FDA regulations, that drive drug testing cost up into the billions, have on the drug market? Well, it means you need a billion dollars to develop a single drug - and the only people who have a billion dollars to test a new drug are the big-pharma multinationals. So drug legislation that is presented as "protecting us from big-pharma" (and the anti-corporate crowd defend tooth and nail), essentially insures an oligarchy of big multinational corporations dominate drug development. It also means that no-one is able to develop drugs for poor people or developing countries, because the regulatory liabilities far outstrip any profit a company can make.
Same thing for automobile development. Why do we have such strict safety standards for automobiles? They say that regulations are designed to protect us from the big evil automotive manufactures. So what effect does the huge billion dollar barrier to entry for testing and liability have on the market? Once again, only a few huge multinational corporations have the billions of dollars in capital to comply with regulations... With the exception of small kit built firms, who are legally prevented from mass producing automobiles, it is impossible to start a new auto company in the U.S.. If you developed a new super-effient hybrid engine automobile, that would drasticly cut CO2 emmisions and help fight global warming, you would not be able to mass produce it and sell it - there is no way anyone could get the billions in capital you would need in order to comply with government regulations and liability. Perhaps you could licence the technology to the big auto companies, but I doubt it because they have a different agenda. The regulations that every Ralph Nadarite will insist are created to keep the big auto companies in check give them an oligarchy on automobile manufacturing. And in the long run, it hurts safety because new innovations from small companies are not allowed to come to market.
I want to buy a crazy French car that runs on air ( http://www.theaircar.com/ [theaircar.com] ), but they are too "unsafe" for use in the United States. Apparently huge metal monsters that smash apart anything in their path and destroy the envoirnment with CO2 are "safe", but these things aren't. Yeah, thanks for sticking it to those big corporations like Air Car, and protecting the little guys like Ford and GM, Ralph Nader!
The ascendancy of corporations in the U.S. is largely a product of the policies of misguided folks who think they are keeping the corporations in check, and are totally unclear that government regulation is an essential part of Corporatism! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism [wikipedia.org]
Big Corporations love Big Government, and hate laissez faire.
And speaking of comparing the U.S. to Scandinavia... most Scandinavian countries have a LOWER corporate tax rate than the United States (which they make up for with a higher income tax). There are far fewer government regulations that companies need to comply with. The Swedish Social Democratic Party (who are supposedly "left wing socialists") can propose allowing citizens to invest 20% of their social insurance deductions into the free market and it isn't controversial at all, but in the supposedly "capitalist" United States even a Republican President and Congress can't allow U.S. citizens to invest 9% of their social security deductions into the free market without being accused of "trying to starve old people". It is a myth, an absolute myth, that the U.S. is somehow a "free market" country, and the Scan
Re:Validity of the criteria? (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, you can't improve if you don't acknowledge that there's a problem, so wake up and smell the roses! Contrary to what people like you might think, you're not automatically the first, best and greatest in everything simply by virtue of being the USA. So if you want to change that, stop that ridiculous paranoia and start working on improving things.
But then, maybe I shouldn't tell you about this. I'm one of those America-hatin' pinko commie hippie fascists from Europe as well, after all, so naturally, I plot and scheme for the downfall of the USA. Maybe I should just let you keep your delusions in order to accelerate your demise.
Very True (Score:3, Interesting)
And they had to spend that much time at the 9 houses on the same road as me. So 6 men spending 9 days gets 9 families connected to fiber.
By the way, "analysts" are now criticizing Verizon for spending so much time and money to get that last mile hooked up. What the chances that anyone else would invest that much in infrastructure? Especially now, since the money guys are now skittish about spending big to get fiber back to homes?
I think one of the previous posters said it best... people who criticize the US don't understand the scale of what has to be done here.