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How the U.S. became a science superpower

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Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#301

Post by Retric »

consumer451 wrote: post #264
Retric wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you need to consider history if you think this is a new thing. People literally paid for indentured servants, even outside of the slave trade. Importing cheap labor has been a constant throughout the countries history, look at camps of people building the railroads you’ll see lots of Chinese people etc.

But if we zoom out, there is an end to this. We run out of poor people to be migrants eventually, right? I don't just mean as the USA, or any country, but as the Earth. How do we solve the issue of the end state, where all economies have reached our current level of advancement? I assume we solve it, or we go extinct, and that would be an odd reason to do so after millions of years, wouldn't it?

Countries are just arbitrary here. What happens long term is there’s massive selective pressure because children of people that reproduce in wealthy economies are the only people to be around in 200+ years.

The USA as a whole has 1.7 births per woman which is really close to the ~2.1 needed. However that isn’t evenly distributed ethic Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander’s living in the US actually sit just above replacement rate. Give it 200 years and that may very well increase.

Really 3 kids needs to be seen as normal long term because some people just aren’t going to have any.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#302

Post by WalterBright »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #294
WalterBright wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth in a free market is not "concentrated", it is created. The total wealth in a free market country rises, which can only be explained by wealth being created rather than shifted around. > Clearly we want everyone to have an education not just the uber wealthy. Educational materials abound in this country, even for free. For example, I took some MIT courses that were on youtube, for free. I found my college textb…

It is not only about learning material being available. It is also about live circumstances of people. Think about when you are doing your learning. When do you have opportunity to learn. Think about what other people might be doing at that time, that prevents them from learning. Think about the mental framework you have, that enables you to learn and that others might not have. Many times when I see some idle shop k…

My friend Eric Engstrom (yes, that guy) got a programming job at Microsoft despite having zero education beyond high school. He became a team leader for DirectX.

I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering, not software. Yet I got jobs as a software developer with zero certifications.

At the D Language Foundation, we have never asked any of our participants for there certifications. Some have PhDs, some have high school diplomas. We only care about what they can do.

You don't need to have any certifications whatsoever in order to start your own software business and do contract work.

You cannot buy an education. It's necessary to put in the work to learn it one way or another. I learned that the hard way in college. No work, no pass.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#303

Post by int_19h »

patagurbon wrote: post #222
consumer451 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but this only works if one is willing to accept a changing racial profile/culture. It appears that many people do not accept this idea. Not just in the USA, but look at Japan or South Korea, for example. To me, the really interesting question is how to stop what appears to have been inevitable for the last 40+ years: when an economy becomes "advanced," the birth rates drop to tragic levels. I believe what co…

The US was very good for a very long time at integrating immigrants. It should continue that tradition and work even harder at it. I believe it was some Republican president who said something to the effect of “if you move to Germany you may be a citizen but you are not a German… But if you move to America and become a citizen you are an American ”. It’s worth noting that not all advanced societies have fared as badl…

The US was historically rather hostile towards new waves of immigrants in practice, treating them very much like second class citizens (Irish, Italians, Latinos etc), effectively pressuring them to assimilate by becoming "more American than Americans" to avoid such attitudes. One can argue that the system kinda sorta worked in the long run, but I don't think it makes it worthy of emulation.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#304

Post by zelphirkalt »

WalterBright wrote: post #302
zelphirkalt wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not only about learning material being available. It is also about live circumstances of people. Think about when you are doing your learning. When do you have opportunity to learn. Think about what other people might be doing at that time, that prevents them from learning. Think about the mental framework you have, that enables you to learn and that others might not have. Many times when I see some idle shop k…

My friend Eric Engstrom (yes, that guy) got a programming job at Microsoft despite having zero education beyond high school. He became a team leader for DirectX. I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering, not software. Yet I got jobs as a software developer with zero certifications. At the D Language Foundation, we have never asked any of our participants for there certifications. Some have PhDs, some have high schoo…

While what you say is true, I think it is a failure of generalization. A few special cases show it is possible, but what you don't mention is how extraordinary these cases are and at what time they happened and what background, including ideas, information, location, and motivation the people had.

You can very much buy an education in many places. Money from parents pays for the best universities, no, actually schools already, the best teachers, the best atmosphere/setting for learning. While some children work on a farm, rich people's children will already be learning, simply because the parents can afford it.

There are many places, where it doesn't work like in your extraordinary examples. Just because something is possible for a few, it doesn't mean, that it is generalizable and that it can be done for everyone.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#305

Post by Fomite »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #68
oldprogrammer2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Systems don’t remain constant, though, and every system gets “gamed” once the incentives are well understood. I’m 100% for investment in scientific research, but I’m skeptical that the current system is efficient at allocating the funds. We’ve seen so many reports of celebrity scientists committing fraud at our most elite institutions, and a publish or perish model that encourages that bad behavior as well as junk sc…

Sure, but what has that to do with the administration's attack on funding and independence? As someone whose lost a grant award under the current administration's attack on science, I can tell you with assurance that this is more about political power and revenge than it is about improving scientific rigor. If we continue on this path, we will only get worse at science as a nation. There are reforms that should be pu…

Echoing this. I've had two grants pulled in the last admin, and one in this one, and all of them were very sweeping - and wildly inefficient, killing projects during the phase of ramping up, rather than productively working.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#306

Post by Fomite »

homieg33 wrote: post #75
SubiculumCode wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but what has that to do with the administration's attack on funding and independence? As someone whose lost a grant award under the current administration's attack on science, I can tell you with assurance that this is more about political power and revenge than it is about improving scientific rigor. If we continue on this path, we will only get worse at science as a nation. There are reforms that should be pu…

> As someone whose lost a grant award under the current administration's attack on science, I can tell you with assurance that this is more about political power and revenge than it is about improving scientific rigor. I'm sorry to hear this, but curious what makes you certain of this? Revenge for what? I ask, because I hear this same template over and over with this administration. eg. DOGE isn't about government ef…

If for no other reason, if you terminate a grant for cause, you have to specify why.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#307

Post by Retric »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #246
XorNot wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop trying to solve problems 100 years from now in other countries though. The US is an enormously attractive immigration target and can easily bring in enormous numbers of new workers if it wants to. It's so good at this that it actually has and those people pay taxes but don't get government benefits.

There is no "other countries", it's a global economy. Mexico exports $450B worth of stuff to the US every year. When their fertility rate was 6 and then one or two of those kids immigrate to the US, that's fine for them. Now that their fertility rate is below the population replacement rate too, if their kids emigrate their country is screwed. Then there's nobody to make that $450B worth of stuff, because the kids wh…

Assuming current trends are unchanged we’re still talking about having billions of humans for hundreds of years. On that kind of timescale we might see significant life extension, artificial wombs, and hard core genetic engineering.

Some countries like South Korea are going to face major challenges far sooner, but frankly having the most extreme examples collapse means the average stays higher.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#308

Post by energy123 »

dv_dt wrote: post #59
duxup wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like for all the silliness and inefficiency that comes with a decentralized system ... the decentralized nature of US science research allowed for more "possibilities" and that paid off economically in spades. Like speech, ideas require an open field with a lot of garbage to hit many home runs.

I think a lot of the decentralization also correlated up with a wide range of directions, with decisions to pursue activity made at much lower levels than happens today.

Decentralization overcomes the local knowledge problem.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#309

Post by ethanwillis »

WalterBright wrote: post #302
zelphirkalt wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not only about learning material being available. It is also about live circumstances of people. Think about when you are doing your learning. When do you have opportunity to learn. Think about what other people might be doing at that time, that prevents them from learning. Think about the mental framework you have, that enables you to learn and that others might not have. Many times when I see some idle shop k…

My friend Eric Engstrom (yes, that guy) got a programming job at Microsoft despite having zero education beyond high school. He became a team leader for DirectX. I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering, not software. Yet I got jobs as a software developer with zero certifications. At the D Language Foundation, we have never asked any of our participants for there certifications. Some have PhDs, some have high schoo…

"One of the important ways we make use of donations is in awarding scholarships to highly skilled students. Each $5 you donate contributes to approximately one hour of work by a talented graduate student" from the dlang website.

I think it's good that scholarships are awarded, some money goes to graduate students doing work (even if I think the amount per hour is low), etc.

But I can't square your implications that this type of education is equivalent to self-taught when your own foundation seems to put an emphasis on it. Or is it just marketing for an audience that might believe that they're not equivalent?

Why is there this focus on people from formal education backgrounds or supporting people through scholarships to get a formal education when describing what a donation would go to?

I want to re-iterate. It's not that I believe you can just go sit in a class without focusing and acquire an education. I also don't believe that someone can't learn outside of a formal setting or even that they can't get superior results!

But, it seems to me that there's definitely some sort of difference between equally motivated people in a formal setting and in a self taught setting. And it seems to me that even the dlang foundation acknowledges that implicitly. Obviously there are lots of free resources provided by the foundation as well, so I can't argue there's a strong preference. But, if they were equivalent the foundation could just support one of them. And if a choice was to be made wouldn't the freely available resources be a more efficient allocation of donations?

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