Why smart people are important

[YmirGF]

Same here, but I have an excuse: I write everything in binary.

I am so triggered by this!

*runs to nearest safe space*

 

[Revoltingest]

Socialism is inevitable. However, it won't happen until a new, more effective, decision-making model for governments replaces the current ones.

Sounds like I'll have to oppose effective decision making models for government.
So far, my effort is going well (today's budget agreement notwithstanding.)

 

[Enoch07]

Where is the science backing up your speculations here? You seem to want to claim insights, but you offer no evidence for them.

List of socialist states - Wikipedia

Explore this article. Note how many socialist states have already failed. Now note how many currently exist. How many of those current socialist states are failing? The answer is most.

Intellectuals like Trofim Lysenko - Wikipedia who had "brilliant" ideas to advance the agriculture industry. Who had any scientist that disagreed with his methods imprisoned and/or executed.

Soviet scientists who refused to renounce genetics were dismissed from their posts and left destitute. Hundreds if not thousands of others were imprisoned. Several were sentenced to death as enemies of the state, including the botanist Nikolai Vavilov. Scientific dissent from Lysenko's theories of environmentally acquired inheritance was formally outlawed in the Soviet Union in 1948.

Let's not forget the 30 million people that starved to death due to the famine created by Lysenkos methods.

Lysenko forced farmers to plant seeds very close together, since according to his “law of the life of species,” plants from the same “class” never compete with one another. An article in The Atlantic suggests that Lysenko played active role in the famines that killed millions of Soviet people, and that Lysenko’s practices prolonged and exacerbated the food shortages [13], but the arguments for this claim remain unclear. The Soviet Union’s allies suffered under Lysenkoism, too. Communist China adopted his methods in the late 1950s and endured even bigger famines. Peasants were reduced to eating tree bark and bird droppings. At least 30 million died of starvation.

No thanks

 

[Sunstone]

Not at all, we are a nation of immigrants, smart people are and come from everywhere, & Americans have a long tradition of valuing practical achievement, over academic qualification, intellectualism, social status etc which I think has served us well do you not?

Historically, the Chinese valued both practical and pure learning. I think that was a major reason they were once the world's leading nations, and a major reason why they will again be so. To only value practical learning will eventually place America in China's dust.

 

[dfnj]

While being the world leader in actual practical scientific discovery in almost every field you can think of.... coincidence?

I think the Chinese are beating us in every category of science and engineering.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Historically, the Chinese valued both practical and pure learning. I think that was a major reason they were once the world's leading nations, and a major reason why they will again be so. To only value practical learning will eventually place America in China's dust.

I agree with you entirely, China was a powerhouse before being shackled with several decades of intellectual elitism, without allowing it's smart people to be 'smart' by their own practical values..

I wish them the best, they deserve it, that's one history we should all leave in the dust!

 

[dfnj]

List of socialist states - Wikipedia

Explore this article. Note how many socialist states have already failed. Now note how many currently exist. How many of those current socialist states are failing? The answer is most.

Intellectuals like Trofim Lysenko - Wikipedia who had "brilliant" ideas to advance the agriculture industry. Who had any scientist that disagreed with his methods imprisoned and/or executed.

Soviet scientists who refused to renounce genetics were dismissed from their posts and left destitute. Hundreds if not thousands of others were imprisoned. Several were sentenced to death as enemies of the state, including the botanist Nikolai Vavilov. Scientific dissent from Lysenko's theories of environmentally acquired inheritance was formally outlawed in the Soviet Union in 1948.

Let's not forget the 30 million people that starved to death due to the famine created by Lysenkos methods.

Lysenko forced farmers to plant seeds very close together, since according to his “law of the life of species,” plants from the same “class” never compete with one another. An article in The Atlantic suggests that Lysenko played active role in the famines that killed millions of Soviet people, and that Lysenko’s practices prolonged and exacerbated the food shortages [13], but the arguments for this claim remain unclear. The Soviet Union’s allies suffered under Lysenkoism, too. Communist China adopted his methods in the late 1950s and endured even bigger famines. Peasants were reduced to eating tree bark and bird droppings. At least 30 million died of starvation.

No thanks

Correlation doesn't prove causation. There are right wing leaders who put people in prison also.

 

[Enoch07]

Socialism is inevitable.

It will never happen. This country will burn before that happens. It's a guaranteed civil war. A civil war socialist have no chance of winning.

I can fire off 10 rounds in under 30 seconds, 500 yards downrange with a 6 inch grouping. Thats with a junky old bolt action rifle made in 1948. A civil war is not what you want to happen.

 

[BSM1]

I think the Chinese are beating us in every category of science and engineering.

But we got them beat at buying cheap stuff and being able to breath in our largest cities.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I think the Chinese are beating us in every category of science and engineering.

As above, they have come a long way yes, and may well overtake everybody- by shifting their focus from intellectual/political ideals to practical productivity

 

[dfnj]

But we got them beat at buying cheap stuff and being able to breath in our largest cities.

We got beat because the Chinese pegged the Yuan 6 to 1 against the dollar. Dollar is unit labor cost. No worker can compete with 6 Chinese workers based on unit labor cost.

 

[Enoch07]

Proof of my original argument.

Correlation doesn't prove causation. There are right wing leaders who put people in prison also.

Totally ignoring history and the 30 million that died of starvation. Just so he can argue "correlation doesn't prove causation".

Thank you for proving my point.

 

[BSM1]

It will never happen. This country will burn before that happens. It's a guaranteed civil war. A civil war socialist have no chance of winning.

I can fire off 10 rounds in under 30 seconds, 500 yards downrange with a 6 inch grouping. Thats with a junky old bolt action rifle made in 1948. A civil war is not what you want to happen.

I am probably the worse shot ever, so I use something that covers a lot of real estate a little closer than 500 yds.

 

[joe1776]

Sounds like I'll have to oppose effective decision making models for government.
So far, my effort is going well (today's budget agreement notwithstanding.)

In the alternative, you might consider that in competitive efforts there are winners and losers. But in cooperative efforts everybody wins.

I'm sure that you and I can agree that governments are lousy at managing anything. And yet, in the USA, the most efficient healthcare system is Medicare. That has to tell you just how corrupt the free-market healthcare system is.

 

[Revoltingest]

In the alternative, you might consider that in competitive efforts there are winners and losers. But in cooperative efforts everybody wins.

competition also involves cooperation.
But socialist style cooperation sometimes results in everyone losing.

I'm sure that you and I can agree that governments are lousy at managing anything. And yet, in the USA, the most efficient healthcare system is Medicare. That has to tell you just how corrupt the free-market healthcare system is.

Of course, the private health care market is highly corrupted by government intervention,
eg, tort law, required free care, over-regulation.
And yet, our system beats what socialist countries have, eg, N Korea.

Improvement is necessary, but socialism is not the answer.

 

[YmirGF]

Personally, I found this Ted talk to be totally underwhelming.

 

[Enoch07]

I am probably the worse shot ever, so I use something that covers a lot of real estate a little closer than 500 yds.

Atchisson Assault Shotgun - Wikipedia with a couple of 20 round drums of 00 buck should fit the bill.

 

[Orbit]

As one of those "lefty-USA-destroying" professors, I find the "professor straw man" really tiresome. If you listen to Americans, we do what they would do if they could--indoctrinate poor, unsuspecting college students. I have news for them: this isn't how it works, and that kind of thing is actually monitored on student evaluation surveys at the end of every class, where the students rate you on how unbiased you were (among other things).

 

[joe1776]

It will never happen. This country will burn before that happens. It's a guaranteed civil war. A civil war socialist have no chance of winning.

Baloney. The USA is a cooperative endeavor, as such, a cooperative economy will evolve in time.

I can fire off 10 rounds in under 30 seconds, 500 yards downrange with a 6 inch grouping. Thats with a junky old bolt action rifle made in 1948. A civil war is not what you want to happen.

Oh, damn! Now you have me fearing for my life.

 

[Enoch07]

Baloney. The USA is a cooperative endeavor, as such, a cooperative economy will evolve in time.

I personally 100% guarantee you, that is not baloney.