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Why the United States has the best research universities

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Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#171

Post by themacguffinman »

andrewflnr wrote: post #88
tpmx wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ok, that's the wrong measure. Is it though? I guess that's the difference between Europe and US in CS. In the US they find a way to make money on the innovations.

Yes, it is wrong. Financial success is only one proxy for impact, and not an especially good one in my view. Lots of things that really maybe the world better will make no money, and in fact reduce a lot of companies' incomes by making purchases unnecessary. Open source software is a prime example.

The biggest and most useful open source projects are often either funded or created by financially successful corporations. The rest of open source is generally rife with useless junk that benefits almost no one (except maybe the author) precisely because there is no pressure to validate ideas and outcomes with money. This isn't an argument or discouragement against open source, but any financially successful product is a billion times more likely to be impactful and useful than sampling by almost any other factor like open source.

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#173

Post by WalterBright »

throwaway9980 wrote: post #136
rossdavidh wrote: post #117

So, the ascent of U.S. universities to high status on a worldwide scale, happened in the first half of the 20th century really. Why? Well, because Europe was tearing itself apart in two world wars, and the U.S. sat out the first half of both of those, while receiving a lot of talent fleeing those wars. If you have the money, and the former top-of-the-heap has bombed their wealth into rubble, it doesn't require any ma…

I think this is also the explanation for American success in the 20th century. The United States as we know it is, like all empires, built on the spoils of war. The United States was able to capture the best and brightest scientists. These people were brought into a system whose structure and demands were dictated by the needs of a growing government and military. This is the fuel that drove American exceptionalism.

The free market in the US explains it a lot better.

(The USSR also captured a lot of German scientists, the results of which were the Soviet successes with rockets and jet aircraft, for example.)

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#174

Post by WalterBright »

sk5t wrote: post #139
throwaway9980 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is also the explanation for American success in the 20th century. The United States as we know it is, like all empires, built on the spoils of war. The United States was able to capture the best and brightest scientists. These people were brought into a system whose structure and demands were dictated by the needs of a growing government and military. This is the fuel that drove American exceptionalism.

> built on the spoils of war Negative, you may have confused the US with Rome. The US is the beneficiary of tremendous natural resources, temperate climate across a vast geography, natural isolation from external threats, and mostly very stable governmental structures.

The Soviet Union had much more natural resources available.

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#175

Post by angry_octet »

ur-whale wrote: post #52
bla3 wrote: post #8

The US has the best research universities in part because it's socially accepted, even expected, to call anything remotely good "the best" over here. People are a bit more restrained elsewhere. For universities, they're admittedly the best by several objective measures too, but the willingness for self-promotion helps :)

Gosh, had I earned a dollar every time I heard someone in various US corporate environments declare something to be "amazing", "fantastic" when the thing in question was ... vaguely interesting. Over-emphasis is definitely and American trait and it leave precious little room in the language to aptly describe the really good stuff

Cross-cultural understanding is really important. It is notorious that Americans have praise inflation, like their GPAs. It's really quite rude to speak frankly in many American settings, or even to damn with faint praise. A positive performance review by a foreign supervisor could have unfortunate repercussions on an American, because it could well sound like they were underperforming.

Likewise, Europeans may seem standoffish and aloof to new world types -- people outside their social circle -- because they are! Don't expect work and social circles to mesh.

You might like to read: https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#176

Post by klodolph »

rajin444 wrote: post #145
klodolph wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those natural resources were acquired by conquering and displacing the original inhabitants.

That's a statement that applies to nearly every society ever. What's the point of saying it? The post you're replying to is talking about a unique distinction in how 2 societies maintained power.

> That's a statement that applies to nearly every society ever. What's the point of saying it?

There's something to be said for relevance. It may be true for nearly every society, but the amount of relevance varies. The US conquered an astonishing amount of territory in recent history, which makes it relevant.

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#177

Post by WalterBright »

birdyrooster wrote: post #161
wahern wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American South was built on slavery, but slavery was a limiting factor in the economic development of the United States and particularly the South. It's why the industrial revolution happened in the North. And as the largest market for Southern cotton Europe was at least as much a benefactor of American Slavery. Some people spin this narrative because they think it secures African-Americans' place as legitimate a…

> slavery was a limiting factor I would love a source for this >Also, don't forget that slavery was endemic to European colonialism in the Americas. AFAIU, only a fraction (less than 10%?) of African slaves ended up in the United States. Brazil alone, for example, may have received upwards of 40%. If slavery were the secret sauce to economic development, the U.S. should be one of the poorest countries in the Americas…

> I would love a source for this

For one thing, the Confederacy was crippled by its inability to supply its military. The Civil War was arguably the first industrial war, and the slave economy failed miserably at it.

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#178

Post by WalterBright »

birdyrooster wrote: post #160
Zhenya wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. US was the only country that had slaves and this gave them an unfair advantage ergo they had the best universities. My brain hurts stringing this logic together. Is that was you're implying?

Nope, I never said that. I am saying that the US was able to have the largest economy in the world by the turn of 20th century (before major international conflict) even despite an incredibly bloody civil war because of chattel slavery. Basically, in addition to how they stayed out of international conflict in WW1 and WW2, they had a big tail wind.

The slave economy of the Confederacy was literally burned to the ground by 1865. The legacy of that was poverty in the south.

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#179

Post by gorgoiler »

WalterBright wrote: post #178
birdyrooster wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, I never said that. I am saying that the US was able to have the largest economy in the world by the turn of 20th century (before major international conflict) even despite an incredibly bloody civil war because of chattel slavery. Basically, in addition to how they stayed out of international conflict in WW1 and WW2, they had a big tail wind.

The slave economy of the Confederacy was literally burned to the ground by 1865. The legacy of that was poverty in the south.

Repetitive flooding of the Mississippi didn’t help much either. Some natural disasters are hard to come back from.

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#180

Post by orbifold »

practicalpants wrote: post #153
rossdavidh wrote: post #117

So, the ascent of U.S. universities to high status on a worldwide scale, happened in the first half of the 20th century really. Why? Well, because Europe was tearing itself apart in two world wars, and the U.S. sat out the first half of both of those, while receiving a lot of talent fleeing those wars. If you have the money, and the former top-of-the-heap has bombed their wealth into rubble, it doesn't require any ma…

This is a general misconception you hear that America's dominance in the world (and universities) was due to the "old world" imploding in WWII. It obviously helped the US but already in the early second half of the 19th C America was dominating the industrial revolution, by a wide margin, and had cemented it's place as top GDP (overall and per capita), top global talent magnet, and top overall technical education lev…

This is just factually untrue the GDP of the British empire was much larger than that of the US and in terms of scientific innovation Germany was widely considered to be at the forefront with France and UK as equals. The US was largely a scientific backwater.
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