 kapilThe Kapil
join:2000-04-26
Chicago, IL | You Fools! Those of you with arguments along the lines of ..."would result in higher taxes" "korea is much smaller than the US" and the like just do not get it.
The United States is at a turning point. You cannot compare it to anything else because no nation in the history of nations has ever been at this turning point. There is nothing to compare this to, consequently there is no way to predict the result based on extrapolation of past experiences.
Just a few decades ago, we put a man on the moon. Thing of the gravity of that....we put a human being on the god damn moon...using vacuum tubes!!!!! and analog technology.
How did we put a man on the moon? That was a time when hard work, fairness and social justice, working for a greater cause, national pride, education, science actually meant something.
We have been coasting on the goodwill of the previous generation. Today we have an America where nothing matters more than money and personal selfish interests. No one cares if we stop using foreign oil, as long as we have enough money in the bank to pay for our next tank. No one cares if our kids are failing Math and Science classes...as long as our kid can beg or steal a job. We don't care about universal Health Care as long as our employer gives us insurance.
No one goes to college for engineering. Go to UIC or UofI in Illinois...and native Americans are outnumbered by foreigners in math and science related majors by 10 to 1. And the natives you will find won't be white or black...more likely Indian or Chinese.
Large US corporations still "invent" the bulk of new technology...but where is Microsoft writing its code? Redmond or Bangalore? Where is Intel researching its newest chip? Who has better broadband penetration than the US? Cisco bought Linksys...where was Linksys developing its gear? Name 1 "corporate" website, like your bank, utility company etc....and I'll bet you it was coded overseas.
America has backed itself into a corner. The only weapon we have left is money...and even that is borrowed from foreigners.
Say what you will...but if you're defending where we have ended up as a nation, you need to take the blinders off...and even if we reverse course today, it is virtually guaranteed that our decline will continue unabated. It is already too late. |
|
 WOW
@dsl.bell.ca | good point. |
|
|
|
 Guru5
join:2005-12-01
Canada | reply to kapil
You gotta run for presidential election! 
I especially agree strongly on the fact that no smart kid goes to something like engineering anymore, which is what we really need for the future.
People would rather go into business or become a clinical doctor and think only about making large amount of money. |
|
| reply to kapil
said by kapil:The United States is at a turning point. You cannot compare it to anything else because no nation in the history of nations has ever been at this turning point. Uh, Rome. |
|
kapilThe Kapil
join:2000-04-26
Chicago, IL | Not quite. Rome didn't have technology, multiple nations on the brink of becoming global powerhouses, nuclear weapons, global warming, overpopulation, etc. etc. etc.
Quite simply, "now" has never happened before. Ever. |
|
| You really could draw parallels to the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Rome certainly had technology - they were the model engineers of their day. Throughout their collapse, the insurgent barbarian tribes began to become dominant forces, such as the Goths, Vandals, Huns, and later the Franks.
Rome did have a usurping of power by non-governmental entites (the Church) - al la Religious Right dominance of US politics during the early part of this decade.
Of course no analogy is fool proof, but come on kapil, give the guy a break. |
|
| reply to kapil
Talking about historic parallels, Rome really was lost in today's Iraq & Iran.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of···n_Empire
Peter Heather offers an alternate theory of the decline of the Roman Empire in the work The Fall of the Roman Empire (2005). Heather maintains the Roman imperial system with its sometimes violent imperial transitions and problematic communications notwithstanding, was in fairly good shape during the first, second, and part of the third centuries A.D. According to Heather, the first real indication of trouble was the emergence in Iran of the Sassanid Persian empire (226-651). Heather says:
"The Sassanids were sufficiently powerful and internally cohesive to push back Roman legions from the Euphrates and from much of Armenia and southeast Turkey. Much as modern readers tend to think of the "Huns" as the nemesis of the Roman Empire, for the entire period under discussion it was the Persians who held the attention and concern of Rome and Constantinople. Indeed, 20-25% of the military might of the Roman Army was addressing the Persian threat from the late third century onward ... and upwards of 40% of the troops under the Eastern Emperors." [3]
Heather goes on to state ― and he is confirmed by Gibbon and Bury ― that it took the Roman Empire about half a century to cope with the Sassanid threat, which it did by stripping the western provincial towns and cities of their regional taxation income. The resulting expansion of military forces in the Middle East was finally successful in stabilizing the frontiers with the Sassanids, but the reduction of real income in the provinces of the Empire led to two trends which, Heather says, had a negative long term impact. Firstly, the incentive for local officials to spend their time and money in the development of local infrastructure disappeared. Public buildings from the 4th century onward tended to be much more modest and funded from central budgets, as the regional taxes had dried up. Secondly, Heather says "the landowning provincial literati now shifted their attention to where the money was ... away from provincial and local politics to the imperial bureaucracies." |
|
| reply to kapil
good point.
My double in comp engineering and info systems gets me okay tech jobs but I should have became a doctor. maybe then i could afford to get married and buy a house in a reasonable section of my city. |
|
