| Tuesday,
Harry Erwin's Letter from England
has this year's predictions
We're back from Italy. We had a good time and some of
the pictures are posted on my blog: <http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/blog/index.php>
First, a look at the week's news. (The Independent and
the Telegraph now have RSS feeds, and some of these links come from those.
Please let me know if a link fails, so I can figure out how to do it right.)
A view of Gordon Brown (Tony Blair's anointed
successor) <http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1980628,00.html>
A possible Bill of Rights for the UK
<http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1980571,00.html>
Tax burden to rise for fifty years... <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/28/ ntax28.xml>
AB of Canterbury comments on education
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6216443.stm>
Wasting the talent of children
<http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1980537,00.html>
Yet another justification for ID cards--'to stop
bullying'. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6210977.stm>
Oxford dons reject reorganisation
<http://education.independent.co.uk/news/article2087564.ece>
<http://education.independent.co.uk/higher/article1222691.ece>
Apprenticeships unattractive
<http://education.independent.co.uk/news/article2067573.ece>
Top-up fees <http://education.independent.co.uk/news/article1963015.ece>
Health in the news:
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/1
2/29/ nlabour29.xml>
<http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1980578,00.html>
NHS cost cutting--consultants no longer to do
check-ups after surgery <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/
news/news.html? in_article_id=
425460&in_page_id=1770>
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6216193.stm>
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?
xml=/news/2006/12/30/
nhs30.xml>
Horace Rumpole challenges ASBO
<http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article2108201.ece>
Kendall comments on PC science
<http://education.independent.co.uk/higher/article1845109.ece>
Bologna Accord for higher education
<http://education.independent.co.uk/higher/article1795985.ece>
---
Next, my look into the future.
As Niels Bohr said: "Prediction is very difficult,
especially about the future."
Computer industry predictions and guesses:
1. The Feds will try to make an example of Steve Jobs.
2. Mac OS X 10.5 will be a success. I expect it to
incorporate BootCamp, allowing the user community to run Windows XP as
needed.
3. Vista DRM will be hacked quickly and decisively.
Economic prediction/guess:
4. A soft landing for the US economy.
Political predictions and guesses:
5. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will both pull out
of the 2008 presidential race.
6. Blair will hand over to Brown in the UK, who will
have things turn to s**t in his hands as people discover his infatuation
with central planning and his style of money management.
7. The UK NHS will continue to implode rapidly; as
will English higher education, more slowly.
8. The UK ID card programme will continue to increase
explosively in cost, as will the computerisation of NHS records.
9. Iraq will continue to evolve towards civil war.
10. China will *not* invade Taiwan.
11. North Korea will *not* invade South Korea.
12. The US will *not* invade Iran or Syria.
13. Osama bin Laden will *not* be captured.
14. The Bush Administration will be seriously
embarrassed by setbacks in Congress and the Supreme Court.
15. The Democratic Party will continue to do the wrong
thing whenever forced to make a decision.
16. Russia will continue evolving towards a
dictatorship.
17. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will continue
with *no* change.
18. The draft will *not* be reinstated.
19. There will be a major terrorist operation carried
out by Al Qaeda in western Europe or America.
Scientific predictions, hopes and guesses:
20. Bird flu will *not* become a pandemic.
21. Someone will show that even with inflation, the
state of the universe immediately after the big bang must be absolutely
uniform to avoid creating observable black holes at the current epoch--in
other words, they will show that inflation fails to smooth out lack of
gravitational uniformity as it does smooth out lack of electromagnetic
uniformity. (speculative)
22. Someone will come up with a viable model for
consciousness that shows how it can exist in a material system of non-linear
neurons and influence both sensation and behaviour. This will trigger some
important advances in AI. (speculative)
23. Someone will come up with a model of disk cells in
the inferior colliculus that explains *how* their detailed topology affects
their processing of sensory data.
24. Someone will show how long-term memory can play a
role in pattern matching in the hippocampus. This research will also begin
to explain the role the hippocampus plays in storing medium-term and
long-term memory.
25. Someone will come up with a model of working
memory that shows how it can represent plans. This will provide an
explanation of how goal-directed behaviour is able to reevaluate goal
payoffs when new data are available.
26. Someone will come up with an explanation of how
the cortex is able to predict the trajectories of objects so as to determine
whether or not (and when) two will collide. This will probably involve the
answer to question 25.
27. Someone will come up with a model of evolution at
the chromosomal level that begins to explain the hybridisation we see in the
paleontological evidence for the evolution of hominids and anthropoid apes.
Basically, they will show that anthropoid/homind speciation is a gradual
process that involves the accumulation of reversals in chromosomes so that
crossovers are prevented on an individual chromosome by chromosome basis and
hybrids become less and less likely to survive to breed over time. There
will be evidence that viable hybrids continued to be produced for very long
geological times, allowing characters to be mixed and matched, while still
preserving multiple species in a common area of distribution.
28. Someone will come up with a model for human
general intelligence that addresses the genetic and epigenetic variation
between populations, the Flynn Effect, and the indirect role played by
general intelligence in economic and social success. (speculative)
Classics predictions and guesses:
29. Something explosive will come out of Palestinian
archaeology about the origins of Christianity. This may be new
archaeological evidence, DNA analysis of old evidence, or a computerised
analysis of early Christian writings that will have some interesting
conclusions about the early evolution of the Way. (I've been hearing some
rumours...)
30. Something very interesting will be found in
underwater archaeology on the Sunda shelf. (speculative, has to do with very
early evidence of advanced settlement)
30. Someone will nail down evidence of early
settlement of the Americas.
-- "If they do that with marks and grades, should they
be trusted with experimental data?"
Harry Erwin, PhD
==========
Subject: How Old is the Grand Canyon? Park Service
Won't Say
Jerry:
I no nothing of this source but if true I am
appalled....but not surprised.
http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_48306.shtml
US
How Old is the Grand Canyon? Park Service
Won't Say
Author: Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility (PEER)
Published on Dec 28, 2006, 08:34
Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted
to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal
feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite
promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand
Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more
than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains
on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public
Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
"In order to avoid offending religious
fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend
its belief in geology," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "It is
disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the
geologic age of the Grand Canyon is 'no comment.'"<snip>
Well, I doubt that anyone now already
convinced will be converted by such books, nor do I think it would be
difficult to get the more conventional view that the Canyon was formed over
a long period of time. Censorship in the name of the free exchange of ideas
seems a bit bizarre to me; I would have thought that it was the ideologues
who wanted to suppress views contrary to the accepted opinion. It is strange
that the Park Rangers aren't allowed to express their own opinions; on the
other hand, I don't have any direct evidence that they are so forbidden. I
do know that in Chaco Canyon the rangers and docents seem to have no
problems expressing their views.
I recall a young Navajo ranger telling
Roberta and me about the year of the Synoptic Convergence at Chaco: in one
of the Kivas (which we believe were places for religious events during the
time of the Anasazi who built the palaces in Chaco) "A white man came out in
full regalia and did the Eagle dance. He did it pretty well, but I kept
wondering what was the point." Niven and I used the Anasazi and Atzlan
legends as the basis for our books The Burning City and Burning
Tower. Burning Tower was on sale at Chaco last time I was there
(the climax of the book takes place there, about 14,000 years ago just after
Atlantis sank).
=========
From Sue:
Subject: Locking Students from the Library,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/nyregion/02library.htm
January 2, 2007 Lock the Library! Rowdy
Students Are Taking Over By TINA KELLEY
MAPLEWOOD, N.J., Jan. 1 — Every afternoon
at Maplewood Middle School’s final bell, dozens of students pour across
Baker Street to the public library. Some study quietly.
Others, library officials say, fight,
urinate on the bathroom floor, scrawl graffiti on the walls, talk back
to librarians or refuse to leave when asked. One recently threatened to
burn down the branch library. Librarians call the police, sometimes
twice a day.
As a result, starting on Jan. 16, the
Maplewood Memorial Library will be closing its two buildings on weekdays
from 2:45 to 5 p.m., until further notice.
An institution that, like many nationwide,
strives to attract young people, even offering beading and cartooning
classes, will soon be shutting them out, along with the rest of the
public, at one of the busiest parts of its day.
Library employees will still be on the job,
working at tasks like paperwork, filing, and answering calls and online
questions.
“They almost knocked me down, and they run
in and out,” said Lila Silverman, a Maplewood resident who takes her
grandchildren to the library’s children’s room but called the front of
the library “a disaster area” after school. “I do try to avoid those
hours.”
This comfortable Essex County suburb of
23,000 residents, still proud of its 2002 mention in Money magazine on a
list of “Best Places to Live,” is no seedy outpost of urban violence.
But its library officials, like many across the country, have grown
frustrated by middle schoolers’ mix of pent-up energy, hormones and
nascent independence.
Increasingly, librarians are asking: What
part of “Shh!” don’t you understand?
About a year ago, the Wickliffe, Ohio,
library banned children under 14 during after-school hours unless they
were accompanied by adults. An Illinois library adopted a “three
strikes, you’re out” rule, suspending library privileges for repeat
offenders. And many libraries are adding security guards specifically
for the after-school hours.
In Euclid, Ohio, the library pumps
classical music into its lobby, bathrooms and front entry to calm
patrons, including those from the nearby high school.
In Wickliffe. Ironic indeed.
"Mustn't seek the Holy Grail in the Public
Library..."
(From Saroyan's wonderful play Jim
Dandy)
Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation
for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.
And on THAT subject:
Subject: The Enemy Within?
Jihad in Small Town America: Part I of a Series
http://www.lauramansfield.com/j/smalltownusa.asp
- Paul
========
Re: the white paint discussion
Has anyone considered the effect of the energy use in
making the paint? This would be to some extent a one-off, but there’s always
maintenance.
On a slightly more serious note; it seems to me that
legislation needs to be more subtle. It would make a lot of difference to
require better insulation in the walls and roofs of buildings. I live in the
UK, and about 2 years ago installed 8 inches of extra roof insulation and
cavity wall insulation (most houses in the UK are double-wall brick). The
annual heating bill has halved.
More radical solutions would include an upper limit on
the size and number of south-facing windows in new construction (in the
northern hemisphere) and a requirement to install some sort of heat-saving
doors in such places as warehouses. There is a reason why traditional
architecture in hot countries includes small windows.
In the cases, admittedly rare, where a new community
has to be built with included power generation, a requirement for a district
heating system might be the largest possible contribution. After all, the
maximum efficiency of a power station is about 40%, and the excess is simply
vented. Surely making use of some of this low-grade heat would be a good
idea?
It is possible to save energy without any great cost
either in lifestyle or cash. All it takes is the will, but in certain
quarters wasting energy is apparently seen as part of machismo. After all,
there has to be a reason for the popularity of enormous 4x4s, and it isn’t a
massive increase in off-road driving.
Regards
Ian Campbell
It is often unstated but the first
consideration in analyzing an energy conservation scheme should be to look
at the energy costs of the remedies.
Conserving energy may be a good idea, but
prosperity seems to correlate well with the availability of cheap energy to
the masses.
=========
Subject: Hammer in 2029 or 2036?
Hammer in 2029 or 2036?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2517816,00.html
- Roland Dobbins
Which may be the subject of our next novel.
Hitting the Earth with something big has been astonishingly lucrative...
=======
Subject: 2006 XG1 may impact on October 31, 2041
2006 XG1 is a newly discovered asteroid which may
impact on October 31, 2041, according to NASA. Check this link:
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2006xg1.html
It has been assigned an initial rating of 1 on the
Palermo scale.
It has a diameter of .7 kilometers, or roughly 2,300
feet. This compares to the diameter of Apophis, 2004MN4, which has a
diameter of .25 kilometers, or roughly 825 feet.
Not only is it roughly 3 times the size of Apophis,
it's coming in almost 50% faster. Apophis has an estimated impact velocity
of 12.59 kilometers per second; 2006XG1 has an impact velocity of 18.58
kilometers per second.
The impact, if it occurs, will be huge. Apophis would
strike with a force of about 400 megatons; 2006 XG1, if it hits, will hit
with a force of 19,000 megatons. By comparison, the atomic weapon dropped on
Hiroshima was 12 - 15 kilotons.
This means that 2006 XG1 will strike with a force
equal to approximately one million, three hundred and fifty thousand
Hiroshimas.
This bears watching. If it hits, it's going to make
for an interesting Halloween...
>Charlie
=========
Subject: Congratulations,
but.....
Dear Joi:
Congratulations on taking over Copyright
Commons....and a Merry Christmas too, of course. I'm in the opposite party
on the Commons, of course, because I actually make a living from what I
write. The mantra of people who want to abolish or limit copyright is that
"information wants to be free". No argument there. Information should be
free and readily accessible. The more information, the better. As long as
you can sort true content from all the noise that comes in the course of a
lively conversation.
But copyright is not about protecting or limiting the
distribution of information, but about protecting the expression of that
information. A fine, but essential distinction. As you know, I've had a blog
called "The Fight For Copyright" for about three years now. I've also sued
for copyright infringement and won twice in the last year. And the people I
sued were not defenseless little guys, but major corporations, the least of
which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. So, I've been thinking about
this. A lot.
In principle I have no objection to the various
Copyright Commons schemes. In a free society, people may do as they wish
with their own property. It is the flip side of that, when other people also
want to make free with their property that we have the problem. I put
copyright notices on everything, even though that is no longer required,
because I want to make the matter clear. This is my property and you may not
use it without my permission. Permission does not always equate to payment
in dollars. There are other ways to get paid. My mantra is always that I am
a professional and professionals get paid. Unfortunately, in current
society, the more payment you can demand, the more respect you get.
"Amateur" is a bit of a curse word.
But the main reason for copyright in the current
context is not money, but control. This was the argument between John Updike
and Kevin Kelley this year. Kelley wants an intellectual environment where
there are no boundaries and calls that freedom rather than anarchy. Updike
is a novelist. His writing is a singular act of communication between him
and the reader and he wants no interruptions, thank you. (I am also a
novelist and I feel the same way.) So much for "remix". Absent the specific
permission of the original author , remix is an immoral act of intellectual
vandalism much like the teenager who tags his name on a blank wall with a
can of spray paint. It alters the original expression dramatically and not
to the originators liking. Creative Commons does, I admit, provide a way for
that permission to be granted.
The problem is that it's very existence also provides
an excuse for those who find copyright law an inconvenience. Like "Fair Use"
it is subject to misinterpretation and great abuse. The big issue in
copyright is actually the Droit Morale; the moral right to control where,
when and how one's creation will be made public. This is why the clock on a
copyright begins when it is first published and not before.
Copyright Commons needs to take a stand in favor of
the Droit Morale and make it clear that the licenses are specific and
granted by those who create the expression of the information so licensed,
upon certain conditions and not blanket permission to "do as thou wilt".
You have have my permission to use this on your blog,
as does Jerry Pournelle to post it on Chaos Manor.
Sincerely,
Francis Hamit
==========
Subject: Studio Camouflage
Dr. Pournelle,
It looks as though the anecdote about the studio
executive demanding the Army camouflage his studio is false, but has a
kernal of underlying truth. The truth is that Warner Brothers did camouflage
their studio complex because they feared it being mistaken for the Douglas
Aircraft plant, after they worked with Douglas Aircraft to camouflage their
plant.
The real story gets even better. The Douglas Aircraft
company and the people from the Warner Brothers studio camouflaged 4.5
million square feet of the Douglas Santa Monica plant in 3-D to make it seem
to be a residential neighborhood. They also poured green paint onto the
runway to make it seem to be a grassy area. Pilots could not find the runwat,
and Douglas aircraft resorted to having employees wave red flags to attract
the incoming pilots' attention. See:
http://www.stelzriede.com/ms/html/mshwdoug.htm
and
http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/flying/douglas_dream_in_santa_monica.htm
I enjoyed researching this.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Rodger
=========
Subject: A few thoughts on
rooftops
Jerry--
A little background, just so you understand where I'm
coming from. - Several years ago, at the height of the CA power crisis, we
retrofitted my mom's house (aka my closet server colo) with solar power. The
4KW array we put on the roof (flat) generates an average of $170/month in
utility savings. _Average_. It, plus the battery array, provides sufficient
power to take the house off-grid in an emergency. Can't run the
washer/dryer, but that's about the extent of it. So, capital investment paid
out, and that house is now brownout-proof, earthquake-power-loss-proof, and
using significantly less net power. It should finish paying for itself in
about 6 years. - My ranch in New Mexico is completely solar-powered. Rather
than burn $100K pulling power lines out to the ranch, we wound up with a 7KW
solar array. We own it, it's ours, and if we need more power, it's
extensible. I've had thoughts about putting up a solar power generation
station, closer in to the county power mains. 2-3MW worth, if I can swing
it. - My previous-house-to-this was roofed in that white plastic spray-on
roofing stuff. Worked quite nicely, and was sufficient for a ~15 degree
temperature drop in summer, on 100 degree days, and for a net gain of about
10 degrees during cold winter nights. Note that the rest of the house was
uninsulated.
OK, WRT rooftop solar, all of the following is purely
IMHO: If you live in an urban area in California, putting solar panels on
your roof is a straightforward infrastructure improvement in your home. In
terms of cost, it should amortize out within 10 years, at which point it's
paid for, you own it, and it's a valued improvement. It is also a civil
defense statement, that you are prepared in that regard for the
earthquakes/etc. that are a fact of life in California. In _either_ regard,
it is worthwhile. When both are factored together, the logic is compelling,
if somewhat pricey.
WRT "white" roofs: They are effective. That being
said, thermodynamics applies, and that energy that you've reflected has to
go someplace.
WRT convertible-color/heat pumps: One would think that
having a silver-backed thin-film system that you could pump dark-colored
transfer fluid into would suffice quite nicely for a convertible system. We
used to have a solar hot-water system to deal with the pool, and it worked
well. You need a pump, obviously, but a small, 40 watt solar electric panel
would solve that problem nicely. That, plus some kind of radiant heating
system (and you can now retrofit those to existing wood-frame/joist houses,
rather than having to bury them in the slab per Eichler) would do just fine.
Mostly a matter of having sufficient heating area to handle the house heat
load. It also strikes me that you could use the same system, reversed, as a
heat radiator during summer.
Anyway, many random thoughts, with a leavening of BTDT
experience.
Charlie Prael
==========
Subject: the best easy book on IQ
Hello Jerry,
For people who aren’t up to reading Jensen’s
The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability (Human
Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence) <http://www.amazon.com/Factor-Science-
Evolution-Behavior-Intelligence/dp/0275961036
/sr=8-1/qid=1166654849/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-
0728062-5532901?ie=UTF8&s=books>
The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability
<http://www.amazon.com/Factor-Science-Evolution-Behavior-Intelligence/dp/0275961036/sr=8-1/qid=
1166654849/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-
0728062-5532901?ie=UTF8&s=books>
there is a quite good easy book that I can recommend:
Intelligence, Race, and Genetics: Conversations with
Arthur R. Jensen (Hardcover) by Arthur Robert Jensen
<http://www.amazon.com/s/102-0728062-5532901?ie=
UTF8&index=books&rank=-relevance%2C%2Bavailability%2
C-daterank&field-author-exact=Jensen%2C%20Arthur%20Robert> ,
Frank Miele
<http://www.amazon.com/s/102-0728062-5532901?
ie=UTF8&index=books&rank=-relevance%2
C%2Bavailability%2C-daterank&field-author-exact=Miele%2C%20Frank>
The essential book for those who doubt the
utility of IQ is Daniel Seligman, A
Question of Intelligence (link).
Seligman began with the usual assumptions that IQ is the bunk, most
scientists don't believe in the utility of IQ tests, it doesn't measure
intelligence, the Mismeasure of Man was a scientific book, etc., etc. Had he
written the book he started out to write it would still be in print and
probably on a best seller list. Instead he wrote the book the evidence drove
him to write. Before you write me on this subject, please read Seligman;
then deal with the evidence he assembles.
A great number of very intelligent people
write nonsense on this subject. It is nonsense because, like those who
denounced The Bell Curve without reading it because they were sure they knew
what it said, most of those who pontificate on this subject are entirely --
ENTIRELY -- ignorant of the evidence and data on the subject.
I don't insist that you read the primary
data or that you have advanced degrees in statistical inference. I do
suggest that it would be well to read a good presentation of the data.
Seligman begins with his initial assumptions and shows what happened to
them; and what data convinced him that he had been wrong.
That is not to denigrate the above books.
I met Arthur Jensen at at AAAS meeting 25
or 30 years ago. He was subject to catcalls and denunciations in a
scientific conference; and again those who were doing this (including in his
press conference) admitted to me they had never read one word Jensen had
read. Much the same happened to Bouchard of the Minnesota Twin IQ Studies;
his works seem to have vanished from public access.
The IQ Question is even more than Global
Warming subject to junk science and scientific Mau Mau tactics.
==========
Subject: In Praise Of Working
Skills
Dear Jerry,
>>As we no longer remember that a nation of high
school graduates built the >>Army, Navy, and Air Corps that won World
War II in a very few years.<< >>Since we don't know we ever did such
things, our teachers never try to do >>them.<<
It's worse than this. Even when they're still known,
they're suppressed for one reason or another. For example, the first year
"shop course" at our local high school has been whiffle-balled. It consists
of CAD instruction, which is good. But this is followed up by the shop
teacher mounting styrofoam on Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) tools to
'machine' parts.
'Back in my day' (early 1970s) high school shop was
mandatory for freshmen (emphasis on men). It consisted of "mechanical
drawing" (drafting), followed by the students woodworking with real wood and
sharp tools on table saws, bandsaws and lathes to make what they'd drawn.
Those who continued to the second year started working with metal lathes and
mills.
A healthy progression would have replaced mechanical
drawing and manual power tools with CAD and hands-on CNC work with wood and
metal. Instead there has been this degeneration which is spun as
'technological progress', and doubtless accompanied by heavy spending with
preferred politically correct vendors.
High school chemistry has been whiffle-balled, too. If
my high school's chemistry lab suddenly appeared today it would provoke a
combined raid by the FBI, BATF, EPA and Homeland Security, with close air
support orbiting overhead on-call. Wired Magazine documented the decline of
hands-on American science education.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/chemistry.html
High School Junior ROTC is another classic example.
Several years ago there was an uproar in Fort Myers, extended to the local
newspaper, over JROTC conducting marksmanship training with air guns. The
woman making most of the noise (and it's always seems to be women making
these noises in support of dumbing down local education for ostensibly good
reasons) would have drop fainted in her tracks if transported to *my* 1970
high school JROTC unit. The arms room contained 300 M-14s, about 20% with
full auto switches, and all with firing pins stored separately. Next to the
arms room was the .22 caliber indoor rifle range. The first two years was
mandatory for all male students, including mandatory .22 caliber
marksmanship training.
If you attended the voluntary two week summer camps
held at an Army base then you spent the first week firing the M-14s on old
known distance ranges. The second week was field maneuvers with blanks,
grenade simulators, hand-held parachute flares... Regular Special Forces A
teams served as the trainers, including training in how to kill and cook
live chickens. After which your dinner was dropped on the ground clucking
and scurrying away.
If you were on the combined regional 'Army' JROTC
rifle team like I was, then you spent six weeks of summer camp training for
the Camp Perry Nationals, followed by two weeks at the nationals. Now even
air-guns are often banned, lab chemistry is 'taught' with the teacher
demonstrating baking soda experiments and styrofoam is machined while the
students watch goggled from a safe distance.
And XCOR Aerospace can't find good machinists.
>>When I was in school, we had "vocational
education" for students who >>wanted to be technicians, electricians,
mechanics, etc. Whatever happened >>to that kind of education?<<
The start has been postponed until after high
school graduation. And it's become a profit center for banks issuing student
loans since the student is now supposed to pay the bills himself, unless his
employer does. This delay gives the 'universities' and 'colleges' a maximum
chance for selling 18 y/os on what are frequently overpriced useless
degrees. Degrees that land them at the shopping mall in low paid retail jobs
after graduation with big student loans tied to their backs.
>>I just don't understand how, in one generation,
public education has gone >>from having the solution already implemented
to having forgotten there was >>ever a problem, let alone what the
solution was!<<
It's no exaggeration to say the value of most
credential generating 'education' in America has gone down in inverse
proportion to its paper dollar cost.
Best Wishes,
Mark
Emphasis added.
==========
Subject: IQ discussion
As regards Gerald Knorr's note asking why blacks
should agonize over being lower-IQ when whites don't - it seems worth
pointing out that a certain percentage of whites DO. Why else the obsession
with Jews as being the source of all evil in the world? Mind you, these
whites have a certain point; Jews _are_ on average smarter and therefore
_are_ likely to be more represented in positions of power and influence that
depend on being smart. That such a simple fact of life gets converted into
massive conspiracy theories and Final Solutions is no less unreasonable than
blacks insisting any failure on their part is because the system is rigged.
Beyond that - it seems reasonable that whites would be
less prone to such thinking because they aren't as visibly low on the scale.
Being white, with average white abilities, is "normal", so it doesn't matter
too much if there are exceptions on the fringes. If whites become just
another minority in a country where higher-IQ groups are comparable in
population, I think you could see a drastic growth in the attitudes that
currently lead to antisemitism.
This is fundamentally the problem with openly
acknowledging IQ differences and taking an attitude of "just deal with it".
Being smart is absolutely essential (though not necessarily sufficient) for
success in a technological world. The letter about the adopted black son
with assorted non-egghead skills makes good points, but how can skills of
that sort be rewarded by a global market where technology drives everything?
If it is possible, that would be good, but I don't see it happening; and
that leaves such people permanently locked below a glass ceiling in terms of
what they can earn, and their consequent status in society. Being smart is
an aspect of personality that a given individual is absolutely helpless to
affect. When brought face to face with such a situation, where they are
locked into a certain segment of society with NO CHANCE to ever get out of
it - well, in a class-conscious society, where knowing one's place is
considered virtuous and normal, there would be no problem; but our current
culture tells everyone to shoot for the moon because you can make it if you
just try hard enough, because everyone is equal - which has been taken to
mean that everyone is basically the same.
What does equality mean, if we accept that different
groups are fundamentally different, and that the consequence of that is that
some groups will be rewarded with more money and others never will reach
that level? How does one value a human being, if not in the market sense -
in terms of how much money can be offered for them? How can "I'm just as
good as him" be reconciled with the fact that no matter how hard "I" work,
"he" gets all the fast cars and hot women and happy family and big house
without half trying, and how can "I" be expected to be satisfied with that
situation in a country where "anyone, even you, can grow up to be
President"?
Admitting that people are unequal and teaching them
what sort of things they will probably be good at, and what they should
reasonably expect out of life, seems to be the way out - the only way to
have a multiracial society that doesn't lie to itself. But that is a society
with castes, and it is not at all something that fits with what I've always
understood as the fundamental values of America.
I hope genetic engineering gets going fast enough and
effective enough so we can make ourselves as smart as we like or find
necessary without having to face this sort of thing.
Kent Peterson urquan@rocketmail.com
"... there was always a minority afraid of something,
and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the
past ..." - Ray Bradbury, _The Martian Chronicles_
Acknowledging that some people learn by
skill training and some by "education" does not make for a caste system: we
did things that way for a very long time in this republc. Now it's true
enough that Social and Economic Status -- SES -- was able to compensate for
IQ differences. The results were not a caste system, but sometimes it looked
that way. The Movie 'The Good Shepherd' (reviewed in
today's edition of Chaos Manor Reviews) shows some of that. Back when
Harvard and Yale and Princeton admitted children of alumni by preference
over "diversity", SES was often more important than IQ. Bright kids from
families without lots of money and former connections with the ruling class
-- I am a pretty good example of that -- never even thought of applying to
Harvard or Yale; at least I didn't. The University of Tennessee was about
the best I could shoot for (by pure luck I ended up at the University of
Iowa in time to study with George Mosse, Van Allen, Kurt Lewin, Harold
Bechtoldt, Wendell Johnson, and a host of other stars) despite my IQ and
academic high school grades.
For better or worse, we have converted the
republic from a mixed system of merit, SES, IQ, and personality to a
meritocracy; and we are now trying to convert the meritocracy to a
"diversity society." The meritocracy could have resembled a caste system --
this was one of the concerns of The Bell Curve but most critics of that work
didn't read that far. What we have now may be a lot worse.
Note that pure meritocracy can result in
military dictatorship rather easily; after which "merit" generally means
being smart enough to rise through the resulting bureaucracy. But no one
reads history now.
Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation
for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.
==============
Subject: Barking Mad.
Jerry,
According to the UK's Financial Times; Quote:-
"A report sponsored by Sir David King, the UK
government’s chief scientist. The paper covering robots’ rights was written
by a UK partnership of Outsights, the management consultancy, and Ipsos
Mori, the opinion research organisation. If we make conscious robots they
would want to have rights and they probably should,” said Henrik
Christensen, director of the Centre of Robotics and Intelligent Machines at
the Georgia Institute of Technology."
The full story is at
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5ae9b434-8f8e
-11db-9ba3-0000779e2340.html
Presumably this is after we all commute in private
aeroplanes and take food pills instead of eating meals.
Our tax pound at work.
John Edwards
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