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Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

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Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#111

Post by arvinsim »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #29
didibus wrote: post #19

> "America does not have enough people with those skills." Seriously, I feel the US has a big education problem, with part of it being cultural I think. Seems being educated, knowledgeable, having expertise, learning about science and technology, medicine and law, just isn't valued anymore, in fact it's almost being denigrated and shamed. What I see instead is people pushing for anti-intellectualism and valuing the "…

It's because people being educated has become 'being elite'. Even in our own profession, I find it difficult to communicate with smart people who lack foundational knowledge, falter, ask for help and then ask me how I knew the right answer. I've had more than person tell me that there's no way this was taught at a university (threading, OS knowledge)

Or could it be that the amount of information needed to be competent in our fields is getting too high?

It doesn't help that we are expected to have T-shape skills. We need to be both deep in one area and broad in other areas at the same time.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#112

Post by sorval »

fiblye wrote: post #47
didibus wrote: post #19

> "America does not have enough people with those skills." Seriously, I feel the US has a big education problem, with part of it being cultural I think. Seems being educated, knowledgeable, having expertise, learning about science and technology, medicine and law, just isn't valued anymore, in fact it's almost being denigrated and shamed. What I see instead is people pushing for anti-intellectualism and valuing the "…

> in fact it's almost being denigrated and shamed. "Almost" really isn't necessary there anymore. There's a growing group that believes virtually all doctors, scientists, and professionals within certain fields are "in on it" and part of some big conspiracy to do some vague, undefined thing that'll take down America and corrupt their children. These used to just be a fringe group. Now it feels like about half the peo…

Agreed. Its frustrating that the idea that "college is useless and a bad deal" is not challenged more. I see a real difference in terms of rigor, discipline, and professionalism from college grads vs those that didnt go.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#113

Post by arvinsim »

reducesuffering wrote: post #103
unishark wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Kids these days” have their eyes wide open. Just a few decades ago you used to have access to an affordable college education with good jobs on graduation. With a modest level of saving you’d have enough for the deposit on a house within a few years. Except if those kids would get degrees in the right areas (like the thread is complaining they aren't), they would absolutely be able to get excellent jobs upon gradu…

Further, GP notes > "they must take on a punishingly expensive college education or they’ll never amount to anything." Except that high school graduates have the option to do 2 years of community college (~5k) and 2 years at a state school (~13k). Generally possible to most while living at home for no additional rent. CS jobs are in high supply and 100k+ out of college. The college cost would be paid off in a year. T…

> Then there's the fact that many positions are not requiring a college education at all.

Tell that to companies who still are filtering applicants based on their college education.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#114

Post by sorval »

koolba wrote: post #108
akiselev wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a self fulfilling prophecy that's been ongoing since the 80s. An entire political party's ideology is based on the idea that government doesn't work and when in power they set out to prove it by making government dysfunctional by defunding agencies and confusing their mandates. That same party politicized clean air regulations, climate change, and wearing masks . This has crippled expertise because if one side c…

The cities and States with the worst public education systems and the highest crime rates have been run by one party, the Democrats, for 50+ years. Some 100+! They can and have continued to raise taxes and subsequently squander any money they collect. Any attempt to break that stranglehold, such as changing teachers union hiring practices or allowing for charter schools, is met with total resistance. You’re right tha…

Thats just utterly untrue and the reverse of whats actually true.

"states that were coded as blue based upon results from the 2004 presidential election were significantly higher in education funding than were states coded as red. Students in blue states scored significantly higher on outcome measures of math and reading in grades four and eight than did students in red states."

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED503486.pdf

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#115

Post by jbay808 »

ponker wrote: post #12
moneytide1 wrote: post #6

I saw a "Just Have A Think" YouTube channel video recently describing the 1MV HVDC line being built across China. It is part of Belt&Road infrastructure project and will allow them to distribute excess loads to different time zones without skin effect losses of an AC line. This is a part of their COVID stimulus injection. When American $1.2k per citizen landed in accounts, I remember checking local Walmarts in the we…

And those TVs created a lot of Chinese jobs.

I was basically going to make the same point -- putting money in people's pockets is letting them make decisions about their own best interest, which in this case, appears to be rewarding Chinese investments in flatscreen TV factories.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#116

Post by arvinsim »

ma2rten wrote: post #38

I am not sure what he is talking about. I work on AI/Machine Learning and I can't think of any major paper that came out of China.

I am ignorant on this field so please indulge me with this question:

Isn't in China's best interest not to make public any innovations that they can leverage against other countries?

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#117

Post by thrwysense »

ekianjo wrote: post #28
didibus wrote: post #19

> "America does not have enough people with those skills." Seriously, I feel the US has a big education problem, with part of it being cultural I think. Seems being educated, knowledgeable, having expertise, learning about science and technology, medicine and law, just isn't valued anymore, in fact it's almost being denigrated and shamed. What I see instead is people pushing for anti-intellectualism and valuing the "…

> There's also just the quality and access to education seems it's getting worse and worse. I don't know about access in other countries, but the quality of education is dropping like a stone pretty much in every developed country right now. (And it's not a recent trend, it's been years in the making)

Some thoughts:

* Inflation of people with college degrees. From 5% in 1940 to 35% in 2019. This dilutes the quality of both the student pool and of the professorial pool.

* Distance from the last major war, all the way back in 1945. Educate like your life depends on it has long faded from memory. In medicine, in engineering, in hard sciences.

* The mismatch between skills taught in academia and job market skills. By now everyone is jaded at the notion that the main point of education is the diploma, seen as a key to unlock the job market. Of second importance, networking, get into an Ivy to rub elbows with the right crowd. Knowledge and critical thinking come as a distant last.

* Or perhaps, even simpler, the dilution of the male spirit which sees competitiveness in excellence as an inherent moral good. Our forebears wore educational attainment as a peacock plumage. These days peacocks are outright vilified.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#118

Post by lotsofpulp »

mycall wrote: post #61
fiblye wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in fact it's almost being denigrated and shamed. "Almost" really isn't necessary there anymore. There's a growing group that believes virtually all doctors, scientists, and professionals within certain fields are "in on it" and part of some big conspiracy to do some vague, undefined thing that'll take down America and corrupt their children. These used to just be a fringe group. Now it feels like about half the peo…

The best I can think besides the usual suspects is a more rare one: "the more you know, the more you know you don't know" which is being read incorrectly as "why bother learning when everything is always wrong [describes 20 major problems with human race]". At that point, it is hard to follow.

I prefer the phrasing "the more you learn, the less you know".

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#119

Post by [deleted] »

bashinator wrote: post #66
Taek wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a BS in CS. 90% of the concurrency I know is self taught, 98% of the I/O I know is self taught , 85% of the networking I know is self taught. I went to RPI, which is not an ivy school but it is a good engineering school.

Is some of this a failure to distinguish between software engineering and computer science? Some famous CS person quipped that "CS is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." That's fine for studying applied information theory and whatnot, but it seems like maybe the time has come for a formal bifurcation of the fields.

[deleted]

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#120

Post by sunstone »

Qwertious wrote: post #79
natmaka wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it an effect of a feeling caused by governments using experts in a way letting (too often and a too large part of) the public think that they, at worst, are all (gov & experts alike) pushing their own short-termed and only self-beneficial agendas or, at best, nearly always devise some "Grand Plan" which then appears to cost much more than budgeted, gives less than promised and has unwanted unexpected side-effec…

I wouldn't blame the government here, but the media. Their job is literally to represent experts and their true image to the general public - as in, they're supposed to research and tell us whether the expert seems credible, and if the government is lying about experts (or anything else) it's the media's job to call them out on it.

You can't expect a private sector media organization to "do the right thing." It's the old hoping for behavior B while rewarding behavior A. The only way to get a media organization that serves the public is to fund it with public money and make it an independent institution just like the judiciary and the central bank (and sometimes the statistics organization).
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