Well, all this is interesting to me, anyway, and that's what matters here. The Internet is a terrible thing for someone like me, who finds almost everything interesting.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Technological leadership
The above video is in Mandarin Chinese, but this website describes what's going on. It's a technological innovation allowing passengers to get on and off a high-speed bullet train, without the train ever stopping. Neat, huh?
Arriving passengers board that connector cabin before the bullet train arrives. Then, when the train zooms through the station, it picks up the cabin (which slides along the roof of the train) while simultaneously dropping off a similar cabin containing departing passengers. Passengers move between the cabin and the train, through the roof of the train, while the train is speeding between stations.
This is really cool, but it's happening in China, not the U.S. Don't get me wrong, it's great that technology is advancing worldwide. But it's China that seems to be taking the lead on all of this stuff these days, and as an American, I'm jealous. Also, China is a dictatorship, with no respect for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or any rights of minorities. That may change someday, but until it does, they're certainly not suited to lead the world.
But while we Americans are timidly refusing to move into the 21st Century, China is spending billions on alternate energy research, determined to control the market for advanced technology and lessen their reliance on foreign oil. While we're struggling to fill potholes because of our never-ending quest for lower taxes, China is building futuristic bullet trains. While many American cities have high school graduation rates below 50%, China has 6 million university students and almost 400 million Internet users (more than the entire population of the U.S.).
In America, politicians proudly proclaim their disbelief in evolution, and school boards work to replace science with religion. Republican leaders complain about studying fruit flies (in complete ignorance of how useful that's been to basic research) and even about monitoring volcanoes. They eagerly proclaim that global warming is just a scam, some massive conspiracy (for no logical reason) from climatologists. They leap to fund abstinence-only sex education, which doesn't work, but use political tricks to stop funding for basic scientific research, which does.
In the media, scientists are portrayed either as laughably-inept geeks or madmen eager to "play God." The hero's gut feeling is always right, not the hard work of professional scientists. In a nation which has led the world in science and technology (to our immense prosperity), only military research now gets any respect at all. At the end of World War II, the G.I. Bill led to the best-educated labor force in the world. Now, education is for "liberal elites." Regular Joes just want lower taxes for the rich, like God intended.
It's not just that China is taking the technological lead from America, but that we seem to be eager to abandon it to them. We're not even interested in competing. No, we've unilaterally surrendered. In the most advanced nation on Earth, we no longer seem to see any value in science and technology. If we just pray often enough, we'll get all that we want, right? And whatever happens, God must have wanted it that way. Meanwhile, it's TV celebrities and sports stars who are the real heroes, and what did book-larnin' ever do for them?
OK, there are still a few people in America who think science is important and who aren't threatened by higher education, but it seems to be an increasingly small minority. And many of those are children of immigrants, whose parents - unlike native-born Americans - still see a value in such things. Unfortunately, with the current anti-immigrant fervor, I wonder if we're moving towards shutting down even that source of skilled people.
Well, to show that all is not lost, here's another great video, this one from the Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab at the University of Southern California:
Obviously, we're still doing neat stuff in America (actually, in collaboration with scientists around the world, which is how science should be done.) But although it's cool, it's not nearly as bold as going to the Moon, or even building bullet trains. We apparently don't have the money or even the will for bold efforts these days. And research into robots has military applications (both of these were funded by DARPA), which is probably why we do it. Just as prisons now seem to be the only civilian growth industry in America, so too does the military seem to be the only ready source of research money, at least for cutting edge technology.
But come on! Do Republicans really think we can continue to have the most advanced military in the world if we're passed up in civilian science and technology? Military power is based on economic power. Without a highly-educated workforce, high-tech industries, and heavy research into basic science, we'll eventually be forced to buy weapons from other countries - when they're willing to sell them (i.e. probably not while they're still cutting-edge).
I don't want to give the wrong impression here. I want to be absolutely clear that we can compete with China. As I say, I get the feeling that a lot of Americans have already just given up (those who can be bothered to think about this at all). Remember in the 1980's when Japan was the unstoppable economic juggernaut? America just could not compete, so why even try? Except that we could, and we did.
It's the same way now. I've seen us taking the wrong path for decades now, but it doesn't have to be that way. Although we've gotten a terrible start to the 21st Century, suffering for eight years under the worst presidential administration in U.S. history, we're still the high-tech leader of the world, we've still got the world's most powerful economy, and we've still got a diverse society united in a tradition of innovation and risk-taking, with personal freedom that's essential for a unfettered marketplace of ideas.
If every nation on Earth were free and democratic (majority rules/minority rights: two sides of the same coin), I suppose it wouldn't matter much which nation led the world in science and technology. But right now, it does. And if we continue as we are now, as we have been for some time, we won't lead anyone much longer.
I'm a skeptic. I think it makes sense to have reasons for what I believe, so I apportion my belief to the evidence. You're welcome to disagree. Please, tell me I'm wrong. I probably don't agree with anyone about everything. Why should disagreement be a problem? Check the Pages section below for series posts and links to book reviews and game posts, as well as contact info. Unfortunately, I rarely blog at all, anymore. So don't expect new posts. - Bill
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. - Robert Wilensky
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong - Richard Feynman
The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other. - Sir Francis Bacon
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you've only founded a superstition. If you test it, you've started a science. - Hal Clement
No matter how many times a theory meets its tests successfully, there can be no certainty that it will not be overthrown by the next observation. This, then, is a cornerstone of modern natural philosophy. It makes no claim of attaining ultimate truth. In fact, the phrase "ultimate truth" becomes meaningless, because there is no way in which enough observations can be made to make truth certain and, therefore, "ultimate". - Isaac Asimov
The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. - Treaty of Tripoli, passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate and signed by President John Adams (1797)
I don't doubt the sincerity of dowsers, but even after we've demonstrated that they can't produce results that are any better than chance they'll still go away believing in their abilities... It is like the mother whose son is caught shoplifting on tape. She wonders why someone would want to frame her child by producing a fake video. - James Randi
During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church ... imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. - Mark Twain
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. - Bertrand Russell
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. - Friedrich Nietzsche
I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. - Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.
This is not about proof. Science does not use proof. We favor evidence, and the work consists largely of the slow accumulation of evidence in support of ideas, not magically potent proofs that establish an idea as unassailable. - PZ Myers
No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. - President Barack Obama
The formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat. - Shekhar Gupta
We are prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs. - Carl Sagan
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. - Sam Harris
To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man. - Michael Servetus, burned at the stake in 1553
Democracy is not about majority rule; it is about minority rights. If there is no culture of not simply tolerating minorities, but actually treating them with equal rights, real democracy can't take root. - Thomas L. Friedman
We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us and with just as much apparent reason. - Thomas Macauley, 1830
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men. - Edward R. Murrow
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Science is simply common sense at its best - that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. - Thomas Huxley
There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. - Arthur Schopenhauer
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. ... Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. - President Thomas Jefferson
To be elected in America, no matter from what party, the candidates have no choice but to year after year pledge to lower taxes further and further. We have become the nation of Ken and Barbie, looking good but very poor at the math. - Rack Jite
Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them. - Steve Eley
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. - President Franklin D. Roosevelt
I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle. - Molly Ivins
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. - H. L. Mencken
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill
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