America Losing Its Edge In Innovation 757
jaywhybee writes "Forbes has an interesting article about America losing its edge in innovation because engineers and scientists in the US are not as respected as they are in other countries, and thus fewer youths aspire to become one. Quoting: 'I’ve visited more than 100 countries in the past several years, meeting people from all walks of life, from impoverished children in India to heads of state. Almost every adult I’ve talked with in these countries shares a belief that the path to success is paved with science and engineering. In fact, scientists and engineers are celebrities in most countries. They’re not seen as geeks or misfits, as they too often are in the US, but rather as society’s leaders and innovators. In China, eight of the top nine political posts are held by engineers. In the US, almost no engineers or scientists are engaged in high-level politics, and there is a virtual absence of engineers in our public policy debates.'"
Only... (Score:5, Insightful)
Only brainless jocks are perceived to have leader quality in the US, as long as you are tough and aggressive.
People think that fear is respect and thus think that the one instilling most fear has to be respected most.
No time.. (Score:4, Insightful)
No time to read this article, I have to see what my favourite hollywood actress is doing with her hair this week
News flash (Score:5, Insightful)
People tend to gravitate towards professions that pay better. For instance, your typical Wall St analyst has about the same level of education as an engineer. If somebody is looking at those two options (because they're good with numbers and analysis), and wants to make the big bucks, which one are they going to pick, the one that will pull in $120K a year or the one that will pull in $250K a year?
The wonderful thing about using the numbers here is that it's a completely objective measure. Unlike "respect" which is harder to quantify.
Innovation without borders (Score:2, Insightful)
I was just thinking of this the other day.... (Score:5, Insightful)
follow the money (Score:5, Insightful)
why is it always the cynical capitalists that complain
about lack of engineering talent. it's not like they're willing
to pay for them.
if you're a bright kid and want to make money, you don't
go get an engineering degree. you go into finance.
And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares? Can't we just outsource that, too? Actually, *don't* we just outsource that, too?
Anyway, America is about money, jesus, and big tits. Success is about catering to the common denominator. Intellectual advancement and pursuit is for "elitist" pricks with their fancy words and all. Anyway, America loves Jesus and Jesus doesn't give a shit about it. Jesus cares about celebrity and sports. If you need proof, just think of the last time you heard a scientist thank jesus for their discovery? Never! Because jesus only helps football players blond bimbos accepting their Golden Globes.
And society reinforces this. I've been a jock and a nerd my entire life and I probably don't need to tell anyone what activities and accomplishments got audiences, rewards, cheerleaders, public acknowledgement, and respect . . . and which didn't.
Nationalism or capitalism. Pick one. (Score:5, Insightful)
In America, you purchase respect. America losing its edge in innovation because engineers and scientists in the US are not as well paid as they are in other countries relative to local prices. Why would anyone spend 4 years training to become a low paid engineer when they could become a highly paid lawyer or financier or manager?
Now you notice?? (Score:4, Insightful)
From watching US TV series I learn that brains have been replaced by God or other mysticism. Pseudoscience galore and the good science (from PBS) has no viewers.
Universities are graduation foreign students in the sciences and Americans with lawyers and political degrees. Luckily you still have a private sector that has a lot of innovation and hires brains from other countries. That keeps a lot of the patents and wealth in USA.
Re:News flash (Score:2, Insightful)
Funnily enough, making $250k on Wall St will net you a relatively modest apartment in craptastic Manhattan, while $120k in much of the rest of the country can afford a nice home and plenty of luxuries. Maybe it's just me, but apartments suck monkey balls. Particularly in NYC.
Or rather, maybe it's more scary than funny. I mean, it's the people who chose in work in our financial sector who are the ones unable to make this observation...
Imaginary property law is the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Imaginary property law shifts the balance of power away from engineers and towards the paper pushers. It doesn't matter how smart an engineer you are if some lawyer waving a patent gets to determine what all engineers can and cannot build. By definition, patent monopoly grants prevent a free market in engineering services, distorting the market so that it's more profitable to be a lawyer with the right to control what thousands of engineers can do and horsetrading those rights. So smart americans aspire to be lawyers not engineers, because in america it's the lawyers in charge, thanks to patent grants. You have to really love engineering to become an engineer in america, because it's a fundamentally irrational choice to do so in america.
Patents are a "right" to prevent other people doing something - engineers, psychologically, typically simply don't want to do that (there are exceptions, and lo, they are giant douchebags hated by most actual engineers - see edison vs. tesla...).
Re:Instead... (Score:1, Insightful)
Politicians in America (especially at the higher levels) are almost exclusively lawyers, with a handful of businessmen and sports or movie stars. The only exception are the two or maybe three former doctors that I can think of out of about a thousand in the house and senate. There are a few religious nuts sprinkled in, too -- but for the most part, almost 100% of politicians merely cater to the religious nut angle, because that's the lowest common denominator which consistently wins them elections.
Surprised? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They once were (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure that a lack of respect for science is necessarily somehow tied to the reduction of male television parts being reduced to blubbering buffoon that natters at his wife's apron strings.
I think a better example of the changes can be seen by recalling how much astronauts were admired and their pursuits followed by every man, woman, and child in the country (and outside of it), when my mom was growing up. The names and accomplishments stick with us today. Their generation watched it live on television in absolute awe.
In my life, the only big events were two exploding shuttles about twenty years apart. The only time there is television coverage is during the launch of the shuttle that directly follows the one that just blew up. The only modern astronauts any of us can think of are the crazy cross-country-driving adult-diaper lady and the husband of the blonde chick that was shot in the head a couple weeks ago. There is no major mission expected in the foreseeable future and most of us don't expect to have an experience like our parents in our life time. Exploration and advancement is seen as a waste. I don't need me no space explorations -- I need the potholes in mah gawd-dayum street fixed and a bigger social security check, so I can afford me some smokes when I go play bingo!
What's missing from this article? (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems that the article's author leaps to the conclusion that a lack of engineers and scientists in politics is a bad thing for innovation. I would like to see evidence of that.
In fact, one can argue the opposite: that engineers and scientists focused on engineering and science, rather than politics, is a better way to insure innovation.
But since this article was probably not written by a scientist, I suppose we're unlikely to see any scientific methods used in his argument.
TV shows? (Score:5, Insightful)
We had an Astronaut/physics guy as the main character in I dream of Jeanie, A senior marketing executive as the husband of a witch in Bewitched, and many many others
Well, if someone thinks a "senior marketing executive" is a position that inspires technical innovation, I think I've found why the US is losing its edge.
In other TV shows of the time there was "Get Smart" with the most incompetent secret agent you can imagine and "Gilligan's Island" with the most incompetent sailor you can imagine. Of course, in the 1960s you also had "Hogan's Heroes" with a bunch of pretty competent fliers. Then in the 1980s there was "MacGyver" which is the epitome of technological ingenuity.
No, I don't think you can get much information on this trend from TV shows.
Re:News flash (Score:4, Insightful)
The one that doesn't require me to work 80 hours a week under insane stress levels. Money per hour factoring in living expenses is a much better metric to use.
The real problem is that the question you're asking when choosing jobs is the wrong one. Personally I'd aim for the job that is most likely to make me happy. In case you're wondering studies have noted that money does not correlate with happiness (assuming one's above the poverty line). Work satisfaction on the other hand is heavily correlated. So is health, relationship satisfaction/love and social life satisfaction. In other words all things that an intense high stress high hour job makes very difficult to keep up.
Gone are the days of sanity... (Score:5, Insightful)
The popular belief these days is that everyone is allowed to a have 'democratic' opinion on any subject regardless if they have any clue [wikipedia.org] as to what they are talking about.
No more do we look up, listen to and expect people with expertise to give us the benefit of their experience. Rather we shun 'experts' with their 'facts', since surely that sort of commitment to their field has made them biased and unreliable sources. Only the truly uneducated and ignorant are 'pure' in their innocence, only the most intuitive, simplistic and superficial description of the world maybe be considered honest. Anyone with an explanation longer than a sound bite, let alone a formula, is a charlatan, using his book-knowledge to fool us!
Trust your gut feelings, your most primitive prejudice, that which you share with those who are the loudest. Because they are the ones in charge now, they are the ones who get what they want in this world. Who gives a toss about the laws of physics, logic or math, when the truth is determined by everyone - with mod points.
Re:Gone are the days of sanity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Grats on pointing out the thesis of The Colbert Report since 2005.
Funding is part of the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What's missing from this article? (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, one can argue the opposite: that engineers and scientists focused on engineering and science, rather than politics, is a better way to insure innovation.
I've seen what science & engineering can do to improve everyday life. I'd be willing to take the chance that they can improve politics if they'd just give it a chance.
The utter illogic of TFA (Score:2, Insightful)
From TFA: "Already, 70% of engineers with PhD’s who graduate from U.S. universities are foreign-born. Increasingly, these talented individuals are not staying in the U.S – instead, they’re returning home, where they find greater opportunities.
Part of the problem is the lack of priority U.S. parents place on core education. But there are also problems inherent in our public education system. We simply don’t have enough qualified math and science teachers. Many of those teaching math and science have never taken a university-level course in those subjects."
Um. If the jobs aren't there for US grads, it's the fault of their parents and teachers? Logic much? Seems like a rational choice to avoid areas where there's not a lot of work on.
Why not look at how entrepreneurs are funded -- by VCs who fund almost exclusively men, even though businesses started by and run by women are twice as likely to succeed.
Why not look at the gross discrimination against women in engineering, science and mathematics at all levels -- we could easily double the pool of US engineering talent by simply developing more objective measures of success, or at least heeding them where available.
Re:They once were (Score:5, Insightful)
Think back to the TV shows of the '50's and '60's. We had an Astronaut/physics guy as the main character in I dream of Jeanie, A senior marketing executive as the husband of a witch in Bewitched, and many many others. The key factor was, they were all intelligent.
These days we have Homer Simpson and the King of queens, et al.
That has a lot to do with man bashing. Intelligent women are permitted on prime time, just not intelligent while normal men, for purely political reasons.
Re:public policy is made by real economics (Score:2, Insightful)
From an outsider's perspective, I'd have to disagree. I don't see your government doing that much differently than it has in the past.
- which past? If we are talking about the last 98 years, then you are right, the gov't is doing mostly the same thing (safe for Harding, who actually cut gov't by 70%, fired 70% of federal gov't to fight the Fed caused recession in 1920, which was a huge success, the recession was over in 1 year).
But the chickens came home to roost. The inflationary policies of the Fed and gov't, the borrowing, the spending, the growth of gov't, the growth of spending of borrowed money, the wars, the ever growing size of list of business regulations, the growing monopolization of all industries by gov't intervention, yes, all of those things have been happening in one form or another, but now, the USA is no longer a producer of goods. It's running 50+ Billion USD/month trade deficit because it cannot supply itself with goods, energy and even food (thank you, department of Agriculture). The USA cannot supply itself with educated people (thank you, department of Education.) USA has a gov't, which caused massive problems in everything, from foreign policies to civil rights. Yes, imagine, I am one of the people who is against all rules and regulations, including the part of the Civil Rights act, which concerns private establishments. Why, do you ask? Am I a racist? No. I am looking at this and seeing the exact same thing: backfiring. Before the Civil Rights act the young black people in USA from ages of 16-24 had 85% employment. Today they are 50% unemployed. That's not good, but the society is NOT more racist today, far from it. But the policy of the government has created this problem, it backfired, because the small businesses cannot afford any lawsuits and thus they would rather avoid hiring anybody who is a minority, than hire them, then risk having a lawsuit on their hands - be it a woman, and a possible sexual harassment lawsuit, be it a minority, and a possible discrimination lawsuit resulting from trying to fire them.
But you see, people were always hired and fired, but once you have gov't laws on your side, you can now try and apply them for any situation, and even situations that have nothing to do with you being fired.
Gov't policy on agriculture subsidies and food price fixing policies have backfired and caused massive obesity in population because fructose is in everything [youtube.com], because it's subsidized and cheap, while prices on food are 'fixed' by gov't and so instead of having them fluctuate, the companies look for the most efficient ways to lower costs all the time - thus ingredients that are worse and worse.
Gov't foreign policy is constantly backfiring. All of the intervention, the wars - Vietnam, Korea, Grenada, Iraq, Kuwait, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and all the other 'unseen' wars, Columbia... The drug wars.
The war on poverty - well, here is another war that gov't started and again, the poverty is winning.
-
I am of an opinion that anything that gov't does can be understood completely by just turning it on its head, upside down and looking at the opposite of what gov't is proposing, and then you will see the real meaning, the real results.
If gov't is 'fighting poverty', then it means gov't will increase poverty.
If gov't is 'fighting drugs', then there will be more deaths associated with that and more drug problems.
If gov't is helping Osama Bin Laden, then he'll be eventually trying to kill US citizens.
If gov't is helping Saddam Hussein, then eventually there will be a war with him.
If gov't is setting a liability cap of 10Million dollars to let deep water oil drilling while simultaneously prohibiting shallow water oil drilling - prepare for a disaster.
If gov't is saying: everybody must have a house, then NOBODY will have a house.
If gov't is saying: we will insure your bank deposits with FDIC, then they w
Re:What's missing from this article? (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems that the article's author leaps to the conclusion that a lack of engineers and scientists in politics is a bad thing for innovation. I would like to see evidence of that.
Then you've not bothered to look at corporate America. Nor have you bothered to look at modern politics or the state of the global economy. The former of the two have have become, "What's mine", and "Fuck the rest of you."
In fact, one can argue the opposite: that engineers and scientists focused on engineering and science, rather than politics, is a better way to insure innovation.
Only so long as one can independently operate of the other. But they can't. Which means science is under foot of politics. Which means any time science is in conflict with, "What's mine", or, "Fuck the rest of you", politics wins and science loses. Oddly enough, that's exactly what we see everywhere.
Lastly, the current state of the economy and global markets is exactly what you get when greed becomes your mantra and literal sociopaths becomes the ideal corporate heads. Unless things change, such as what the article suggests, it can only lead to one end game; the destruction of America. Hardly surprising the world recently got a glance at what's just over the horizon.
Re:They once were (Score:1, Insightful)
Unless he has a 4-year degree in engineering, he is not an engineer. Its very unfortunate that the job title "engineer" is so commonly misused in the US.
Unless he has a 4 year degree in photography, he is not a photographer. Unless he has a 4 year degree in english lit, he is not a writer. Unless he has a 4 year degree in business, he is not a manager. Repetition of a meme is not proof of a meme.
Re:What's missing from this article? (Score:1, Insightful)
It's happened before... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Arabic countries led by the Muslims were the most advanced scientists and engineers in the world, until they let the religious crazies take over. Just sayin', America...
Re:The utter illogic of TFA (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not sure I understand that logic. Certain fields have a scarcity of people, because they aren't rewarding enough to entice people. But when it comes to a specific gender within those fields, it requires some sort of artificial assistance? If I don't want to be an engineer, it's because the field doesn't have enough reward to justify it but if I had breasts it would be because I'm being discriminated against?
This sounds like the same old thing. Boo hoo, the numbers are not 50/50, so women must be discriminated against. Or . . . maybe they just don't want a career in engineer, when they can find a husband in a career in engineering and they can leave work to start breeding a family?
Re:They once were (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:!Surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny... that stuff was also taught in the early 1900s as well... didnt we become a superpower in that timeframe?
Salesman & marketing pukes run my company... (Score:3, Insightful)
Salesman & marketing pukes run my company that was founded & ran for it's first 50 years by engineers. Now we do nothing unless it's chasing the competition. At that point our leaders point & claim how our engineers dropped the ball & did not come through with the innovative product. All the while outsourcing more & more tech work to India & China. & we wonder why kids don't want to go into engineering.
We get no respect. We get little resources. None of them ask for our will listen to our opinions. All we can do it work more hours (to keep our jobs) while looking for work elsewhere. From what I read in my user groups, marketing pukes running the company is becoming quite common.
Re:What's missing from this article? (Score:5, Insightful)
In a nation of approximately 300,000,000, we can spare a few people from each field for other purposes. For example, Steven Chu [wikipedia.org] has done a decent job as Secretary of Energy, and he is a physicist. I think science-minded people are good for representing us in government: when you elect lawyers and businessmen, that is when you engage in politics, as opposed to representation. Let most of the scientists and engineers focus on their disciplines, yes, but take a few for government as well. I would apply the same logic to plumbers, car mechanics, teachers, chefs, call center representatives... every walk of life. We need that diversity in our government if we are going to succeed at the intent of our Constitution.
Remember, the preamble to the Constitution says "people," not "lawyers and society's elite:"
As an Engineer... (Score:5, Insightful)
As an engineer I work on things everyday that have direct and immediate consequences in the physical world. Hence my errors of judgment or bias have a direct feedback to me. The physical world is a hard unforgiving taskmaster.
A politician is buffered from any consequences or feedbacks to his actions by distance; the bureaucracy surrounding him as well as the physical disconnect.
As an engineer I must compromise between contradictory and opposite qualities and find practical combinations that satisfy a multitude of specifications and demands. I must accommodate as well as critically evaluate the demands of users, marketing and design and architecture people, and come up with a mutual understanding of what they actually want within the means of what is possible.
A politician is defined only by what that supports him in power - those who fund and elect him for the next term.
The limits with my work are the laws of physics - both direct resources: money, time, people - as well as all kinds of non-intuitive ones: scaling, flow rate, logistic function, probability distribution. Hence my sense for the 'truth' is not based on passion but experimentation, and I appear unsure and as having no confidence in my 'opinions' - which I don't really have at all, as most people understand them. An opinion for me is always something I can explain - at least to myself - and most of the time to others. It is this process that both helps me understand my own reasoning better (keeps me honest to myself), as well as provides a further insight into my cognition as well as to some extent of those of others.
A politician swims in the superficial memes of popular sentiment. He maybe an ideologue but a successful one is also a pragmatist: he shapes truth into what is most convenient for the occasion and in doing so may actually benefit from self-delusion, even intentional and conscious.
It maybe be argued that in this way a politician is more 'human' than an engineer and thus is more suited to lead us. And that my friends is the conclusion that cost me my mod points.
Burn baby burn!
Re:Too busy at sports practice (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, your answer kind of dances around the real problem - the high-paying jobs are not in science. In fact, it is unbelievably difficult for recent science grads to find any kind of job right now, and universities can't get enough funding for tons of grad students, even if there were enough professors to support them academically.
I mean, how exactly did all those well-off parents get to be where they are today? Evidently it was not by doing well in school, or else they would probably encourage their kids to do that more than sports and so on.
Re: Now you notice?? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not familiar with the last two, but a scientist is the star of at least the first three series. I don't know much about Criminal Minds, but I gather science and smart people (instead of action or magic) are also central to that show. Presumably Medium is just about mysticism though :-P
Re:42 years ago Americans were on the Moon (Score:5, Insightful)
There's just so much absurdity and stupidity in that sentence I *have* to answer. In the 1960s half the planet was computerized. The 1960s were THE decade of computer innovation. It's sad that you remember the '60s as the decade that put a lot of kerosene into a metal tube and not the decade that gave us the mother of all demos and sketchpad.
The Mother of All Demos by the man who invented the mouse in the '60s [youtube.com]
Yeah, guess what, the mouse wasn't invented by Apple.
Sketchpad. As a youtube commenter puts it: ooooomg.... 1962/1963 !!! I just can't believe it! Way cooler than going to the moon! [youtube.com]
Computer on the Saturn V [wikipedia.org]
And as for your assertion that there was no prior art, that's just fucking stupid. What the hell do you think NASA took the best Germans for? Their potato salad recipe? Do you honestly believe all these heroic Americans just invented everything out of thin air in less than a decade because going to the Moon is just so useful? Get your head out of your ass. America went to the Moon as the biggest stunt in history using the developped technological base that came out of WWII and business and science needs that drove the computer industry. NASA was a *USER*, not a developper of computers.
You probably think we only have computers today because of the Moon missions when it's the other way around.
Look, in 1959 there were already experimental graphic design tools for making CARS. *Nothing* to do with rockets or going to the Moon.
Picture [javeriana.edu.co]
Learn some history [javeriana.edu.co] I've rarely seen such pig-ignorance, and in an era of instant information access, it's PATHETIC.
And as for your retarded spelling of "cosmonaughts", Jesus wept, man, Jesus wept.
Re:What's missing from this article? (Score:4, Insightful)
This. As an engineer who "got my feet wet" with a stint in local politics, because it was like dealing with a bunch of children. Everyone hated everyone else, it was full of petty rivalries and such. It does show that Diplomacy is actually quite accurate, but that doesn't mean that I wanted to do it for real.
Re:Too busy at sports practice (Score:5, Insightful)
Well-connected people don't need technical or scientific skills. They only need personal and networking skills, and the understanding of how to leverage their contacts to take advantage of the less fortunate. Therefore it makes sense for them to work to succeed in sports since that will increase their cachet among their peers, and they will be able to parlay that into influence among those same peers later when those peers have influence of their own to exert against society.
On the other hand, for the disadvantaged, education is everything, since only a statistically insignificant percentage of the population will become a sports hero or a music legend. Unfortunately, they are still trying to emulate the rich without understanding that acting like you're #1 only serves to make you into a #2.
Re:It's happened before... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate when people say they disagree just to proceed to lay out some unrelated bit of knowledge they have floating around in their head, for their own gratification...
Please realize that the fact of the Persians being the most advanced civilization before the Arabs/Muslims is in fact orthogonal to the Muslims being the most advanced later on. The downfall of the Persian empire may have enabled it somewhat, but in no way can you disagree that there was a period of superiority by the Arab Muslim civilization, nor does the fact of Arab Muslims' conquest of the Persian empire in any way diminish the Arab empire's superiority in science and engineering later on.
Re:It's happened before... (Score:3, Insightful)
You're nearly right.
It was the Mongol invasions that destroyed Mesopotamia. One of the most significant losses was the sacking of the library of Baghdad. Eye witness accounts of this wrote that the river Tigris went black from the ink of the books that were thrown in.
It was the religious crazies that stopped it from regaining that knowledge.
That said, just because you aren't 100% correct about the Arabic countries doesn't mean that a nutter religious fanatic like Sarah Palin (who has said she wants creationism taught in science classes) should be allowed to run a country. IMHO I don't think the has enough about her to run her own bank account. People like this are weakening our gene pool and should not be allowed to breed.
Engineering (Score:5, Insightful)
So anybody at all can be an engineer if they just decide so?
Yes! exactly. Engineering is about a state of mind. You can sit in a school all you like but you'll never become an engineer.
An engineer is someone who makes things, makes things better, as is passionate about it. The questions is: when did I become an engineer?
When I took apart my first machine and put it back together?
When I designed my first circuit, programmed my first code?
When I sold my first design, setup and registered my own business?
You can cry into your pillow all you like about formal qualifications - the most successful and inspiring engineers I know never benefited from or cared much for the education they went through - they were already engineers.
It's less about engineering and science.. (Score:5, Insightful)
and more about a lack of respect for any sort of intellect. At least here in the US.
Turn on Fox News.. at least once during every host's shift you'll see a casting of all things liberal and intellectual as evil and bad for america. 'My politics are right. Yours just aren't wrong, they're evil.' (Jon Stewart comment iirc)
It's an inferiority complex. Dumb people are just smart enough to know they are dumber than intellectuals. And like every insecure bully ever, they lash out.
Re:They once were (Score:2, Insightful)
...(which begs the question, whom is more stupid?)...
who, not whom
Re:!Surprise (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny... that stuff was also taught in the early 1900s as well... didnt we become a superpower in that timeframe?
Uhm, no? You became a superpower when Europe was torn apart by wars, and many scientists fled to the US to continue their work.
Re: Now you notice?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Grey's Anatomy is, like its spiritual predecessor ER, all about rich doctors humping each other in between fits of jealousy, the actual practice of medicine is driven *far* into the background. Bones is an embarrassment, their use of Liberal Arts Science makes CSI look like a well-researched documentary by comparison, and Fringe is... look, the show has multiple instances of characters running around, coming from separate alternate universes. It's *that* kind of show.
So, sex, science-as-magic, and science-as-magic-as-visualized-by-the-nuttier-elements-of-society. Not good. Medium is, as you say, all about mysticism (yet still manages to make more sense than Fringe), leaving us with Criminal Minds, which in spite of reminding me a bit of Law & Order, where you could easily tell the writers' political leanings from episode to episode, manages to be actually watchable and its mere existence not a complete embarrassment to society.
being a leader is a pain (Score:4, Insightful)
Any engineer or scientist who doesn't want the responsibility can easily duck it, and usually does. They know doing an honest job of it is hard work. They know leaders are targets. And there is an unending supply of loudmouthed suckers who will leap at a chance to be The Man because they think "it's good to be the king", think they'd enjoy calling the shots. They think the ones doing it now are a bunch of idiots and doing better than them will be easy. Or they don't give a damn, and just want the bigger paycheck. All the engineers have to do is be quiet, and the loudmouth will look proactive, "can do", and energetic. The higher ups or customers will fall for it almost every time. Once in a leadership position, they find it very convenient to blame problems on the "incompetent" engineers, as if they could do any better. Everyone else sees the bosses slanging the engineers, so what to they do? Pile on of course. Galling to work under someone who has no clue how hard or easy the work is, and who has caused many of the problems being blamed on the engineers. As if mere technical problems aren't plenty hard enough, have to deal with all the politicking too.
The opinionated loudmouths are the ones who shouldn't be leading, but they end up in a disproportionate number of leadership positions. Even when the engineer wants to take on the responsibility, it's tough to compete with the flashy, smooth-talking, boot licking Man with a Plan who understands the Realities of Business. And if the quiet engineer somehow wins the job anyway, then this guy is a constant thorn in the side. He's angry, and he's looking for any chance to take the engineer down. And being the sort of fool he is, he may well do it even if that leads to disaster, and gets everyone fired or causes the company to tank.
Re:What's missing from this article? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that the article's author leaps to the conclusion that a lack of engineers and scientists in politics is a bad thing for innovation.
That was one point he made. I agree with you that he's out to lunch on that.
He claims that the reason young people in the US don't pursue engineering careers is because engineering isn't respected. Ummmm, no. It's because the market works. There's little market demand for engineers today. We're not using the engineers we already have and don't need more. Engineering jobs have been offshored even faster than the manufacturing jobs which preceded them. No doubt the spectacle of their peers working their butts off in engineering school for 5+ years only to graduate to diminishing job prospects was probably enough to persuade many not to follow in their footsteps.
Next he proclaims the schools are broken, that we need to train more engineers and scientists, fund more research, etc.. No. That's what we've been doing all along and the jobs disappeared anyway.
Former Intel Andy Grove has a much better understanding of our situation. How to Make an American Job Before It's Too Late: Andy Grove [bloomberg.com]
Andy understands that scaling up innovation is what makes innovation matter and it's the scaling up that is not taking place in America anymore. Scaling up is my specialty. I don't much care for pure research. But if you want to make a million of 'em, I'm your man. All this business has been airmailed to China to make big bonuses for corporate CEOs. And now everyone wonders why we don't make things anymore.
I have news for Norm Augustine. Flogging ourselves about the schools is not going to bring those jobs back. Further, America is not losing it's edge in innovation. The edge he refers to disappeared almost 2 decades ago.
Re:It's happened before... (Score:4, Insightful)
The downfall of the Persian empire may have enabled it somewhat, but in no way can you disagree that there was a period of superiority by the Arab Muslim civilization, nor does the fact of Arab Muslims' conquest of the Persian empire in any way diminish the Arab empire's superiority in science and engineering later on.
Yes it does. If the act of invading and acculturating the Persian empire, the Arab culture may have picked up a few techniques and smart groups for a time - ...
Are you asserting this as an actual fact or are you just spinning a random scenario? The accomplishments of Arab scientists through the Western Middle Ages is very lengthy and very well know. Any hypothesis that they were all really Persians in Arab-drag is a foolish one. Not knowing of this lengthy list makes the hypothesis fatally uninformed.
Re:"experts" are sometimes wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Experts can be wrong too.
No shit? Everyone screws up from time to time, but take a guess at who is more likely to be right, an expert or an idiot. That experts are periodically wrong does not mean we should trust ignorance instead, which is what a lot of people seem to be doing these days.
Forbes article is just pro-H1B propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)
The slashdot story comes from this article in Forbes. As expected, the forbes article is just another cookie-cutter pro-H1B propaganda article. Same old "arguments." Basically, they are saying "because of the desperate shortages of US tech workers, we need to temporarily allow more H1Bs, just until US schools get up to speed."
This corporate propaganda has been fully disproved many times, but the flood of these cookie-cutter articles, continues. Tell a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth.
From Forbes:
Jan 20, 2011
Danger: America Is Losing Its Edge In Innovation
* Improve K-12 science and math education.
* Invest in long-term basic research.
* Attract and retain the best and brightest students, scientists and engineers in the U.S. and around the world.
* Create and sustain incentives for innovation and research investment.
http://blogs.forbes.com/ciocentral/2011/01/20/danger-america-is-losing-its-edge-in-innovation/
Here is the real situation:
Duke University study reporting no shortage of US Engineers:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/Study-There-Is-No-Shortage-of-US-Engineers/
PISA Scores Show Demography Is Destiny In Education Too—But Washington Doesn’t Want You To Know
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/101219_pisa.htm
Re:"experts" are sometimes wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:!Surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-intellectualism, and declining opportunities in the US as opposed to other immigrant destinations has diminished this desirable in-migration. The same factors that discourage native-born citizens from entering technical professions also discourage immigrants
The interesting thing is that's tons of immigrants here, especially illegal ones. I live in Arizona, ground zero for illegal immigration, and they're everywhere. But these people aren't exactly pro-intellectualism either, they're exactly the opposite. They're basically just like dumb white rednecks, except their skin's a little bit darker and they speak Spanish, and they're much more interested in starting fistfights to prove their manhood.
Basically, we're allowing in a bunch of uneducated, backwards immigrants, because businesses like having an ultra-cheap labor pool, while no longer being attractive to the highly educated and skilled immigrants who are the people you want to come to your country.
Re:What's missing from this article? (Score:5, Insightful)
They have some things in common
A lot of engineers and artists are decently educated. Some of them even went to college.
The big thing they have in common is that very few of them are proud of being ignorant. If they come accross something they don't know, they will either try and find it out or decide that it does not matter to them.
A lot of people - especially those in charge feel that they are superior to creative and technical people specifically because they are not. Some of them run newspapers, others run businesses and others become politicans.
Re:What's missing from this article? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's little demand for *entry level* engineering positions. Many places here in the US are dying for senior people. Problem is, there's few paths to get from basic to expert in high-tech. People in the low end can have their jobs outsourced, and potentially get easier positions that pay more and carry less demands. Plus, with the societal focus on popularity and fame, they're not seeing tech jobs as someplace where they can hit the spotlight, but undesirable as cogs in the machine.
Many of these factors work into draining the low end out of tech, meaning as time marches on there are fewer high-end experts in the field to keep entrepreneurship, strong technical leadership, and R&D alive in American companies. (and this probably spreads to more of the "West" than just the USA)
Re:What's missing from this article? (Score:5, Insightful)
"There's little market demand for engineers today."
Not so. Its just that the market doesn't want to pay for their services, so they get employed in India, China and elsewhere, where salaries are lower and what they do get constitutes a living wage.
"Next he proclaims that schools are broken, that we need to train more engineers and scientists, fund more researh, etc. No. That's what we've been doing all along and the jobs are disappeared anyway".
No so. If you look at the total cost of entire budget dedicated toward paying scientists and teachers of science, it hardly amounts to a couple of ships, a few planes, and a few trainloads of ammo. The military spends way more in a week, what would fund NSF for a year. Likewise, for the total expenditures of most US corporations. The expenditure toward R&D is a small fraction of what they pay the top 5% of their corporate managers.
"Scaling up innovation" is what has caused the Amazon to disappear, rivers to be polluted, the earth to warm via carbon dioxide, the oceans to acidify, and biodiversity everywhere to disappear. The only thing humans will be scaling up in the next 50-100 years will likely be their extinction.
Re:A lot of problems. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, what are we supposed to be, great leader? Automatically submit to authority no matter what just so we can earn its favor and maybe some cash too?
You didn't get it.
There is a very important difference between being "good" and being "unique". When everyone is "unique", the term loses all meaning. It becomes a triviality. And besides, it matters little. What matters is if you're ok, good, a positive being. So what if everyone else is also ok?
That, in a nutshell, is the problem of american culture. That it isn't sufficient to be good at something, you have to be exceptional. It doesn't matter how good you are, if you aren't unique and special, you don't count. That creates a culture of opposition and hostility, because you can't accept that someone else is also good - it would devalue you.
In reality, this system of thought continually devalues you, because no matter who you are and how good you are, you will always find someone who is better at something. Subscribing to this belief is setting yourself up for disappointment.
The other mindset, the more asian one, is that it matters how good you are, and if someone else is also good, or even better, that's ok. You may strive to become as good if he's better, but it doesn't reduce your own value - you are still good.
Basically, americans consider personal value to be a relative measure - how you relate to others. If someone else is 2 points ahead of you, your value is -2. If someone else is 10 points behind you, your value is +10.
Asians (and some europeans, though the number is decreasing) see personal value is an absolute measure - how you relate to the world. If you are a 15, then you are always a 15, no matter how others score. Seeing that someone else is a 17 makes it clear that you can do better, but you are still a 15, not a -2. Likewise, seeing that everyone else is a 5 makes it clear that you are indeed very good, but your personal value isn't +10, it is still 15.
None of the systems is perfect. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. One of the disadvantages we found out about the hard way is that the relative system combined with the demand to be special and unique leads to frustration, depression and low self-esteem. Because you're putting up a goal that is impossible to reach. If the goal is to be among the top 1% in anything, then automatically 99% of the participants will fail no matter how well they do.