living sounds said:
JohnRoberts said:
Thanks for trying to explain. I don't get the same sense of American culture that you do, but I have only lived here 63 years. "The means justify the end"?? Wha? The ends justifying the means, is widely discredited, and not a tenet of American culture IMO. That sounds more like the justification for socialism or communism, where forfeiting personal choice is for the greater good. The American culture is all about hope and opportunity for anybody and everybody... not some guaranteed job, doing government make work. We all have opportunity, but we still must work for it (not just show up, but work, and think, and create).
This was probably exaggerated, from personal experience I know this is not how everyone thinks. Yea, mixed up that idiom, but I wasn't all sober when I typed it. ;-) But I think selfish behaviour is not seen as negative as in other cultures. For example, over here taking a position in government for a few years to subsequently move on and make money off it in the private (or semi-private = government contractors) sector is widely regarded as - at the very least - disloyal. When our former chancellor Schröder went on to work for russian gas giant Gazprom the move was almost unilaterally condemned. On the whole I think it's still a rare occurence here. Career politicians are, of course, the opposite negative example...
I was drinking when I first read it and that didn't help... the post made me angry, but reading it sober the next day was better.
In my judgement, back when government work, was lower paid than the private sector, people did it either for sense of service, or for job security, with the promise of no heavy lifting, manual or mental. Jumping from public service to the private sector to capitalize on experience about the system, and contacts is generally frowned upon, but so common it isn't widely reported. In some areas it is explicitly prohibited (like jumping to military contractors after working in the Pentagon. But there are many similar career paths that aren't explicitly illegal, like ex-congressmen becoming high paid lobbyists so they can keep their fingers in the slop trough, with a lower public profile. Ex senator Dodd is now the top lobbyist for hollywood, from my state Trent Lott who resigned under the shadow of possible involvement with a local judge bribery case, has earned $16M lobbying with another ex-Senator for La. If the lobbyists earn that kind of money, how much is the handle on tax dollars they are helping secure for clients? :-[ yes, not only should this be stopped, but it isn't even illegal for congress to trade in the stock market based on inside information they know about pending legislation... crooks in suits.
Maybe the overall success the US has enjoyed for so long now has created a widespread feeling of entitlement. I probably tend to see this more, for example, in the bonuses for ultimately parasitic speculative traders, you do, for example, in unionized government workers whose huge and early pensions ruin state finances. Lewis talks about how everyone in the US is absorbed with preserving their status quo at any cost. Some of the examples in the book of, e.g., police officers in a city in California who after 5 years of service get a lifelong pension exceeding their original salary are just outragous. And again, the salary negotiations follow a strongly adversarial procedure, even "binary" in that it's either the worker's proposal or the one of the government that will be followed, but no way to compromise. Now the opposite move, to abolish regulations or ban collective bargaining is equally extreme. I think this polar thinking (reflected very much in the two-party system, too) combined with the heavily competivtive and individual streak has serious unintended negative consequences. California is bankrupt because almost everyone believes they deserve a lot from the government, but almost nobody is actually willing to pay for it...
California is our version of Greece.. They are bankrupt but don't realize it yet.
Unionized government workers are even more conflicted as a quid pro quo can exist between contract largess and election support. Chicago is a poster boy for union excesses.. (three workers to change a street light bulb.).
What gets cut first is not the outragous salaries or unnessessary subsedies, but essential infrastructure and public services, often the ones the next generation needs...
This is true of all bureaucracies, where the self interest of the bureaucracy is survival of the bureaucracy... that's why we are always forming new government agencies but never closing old ones.
Once again huh?? Criminal trials, or all trials for that matter are pretty much about provable objective facts vis a vis the law(s). Only up at the Supreme court is there some subjective discussion about founder's intent and letter of the laws.
What I meant is the following: In the US criminial justice system the prosecuter isn't bound by objective truth, he's very much biased and his job is to present a one-sided picture, to make a case. He even gets elected and is rated on his success in terms of convictions (the latter holds true for the police as well). The incentive structure rewards success, not honesty and adherance to facts. The result is a lot of wrongful convictions.
This cuts both ways as the defendant is entitled to the same degree of advocacy. While the prosecutor may pursue an innocent man he believes is guilty, and the defense can likewise defend a guilty defendant who has the presumption of innocence in our system. The judge and/or jury determine who is guilty, the lawyer's job is advocacy for one side or the other, all within the law.
While either side may present objective true facts in such a fashion to present an untrue impression, the prosecution can not (legally) withhold exculpatory evidence from the defense (so if they know he is innocent they must share that information with the defense), and lying under oath is perjury (a crime by itself). Lots of people end up in jail for that rather than the real crime they were investigated for (ask Martha Stewart about lying to the feds).
While no doubt there is plenty of overzealous prosecutions (Elliot Spitzer), and guilty criminals go free. Our system is biased toward guilty going free to avoid innocent citizens being wrongly convicted, but no doubt stuff happens.
The last jury trial I served on, i had some reasonable doubt about how convincing the case evidence that we were allowed to see was. I held out for a while, then finally capitulated to agree with the rest of the jury (I am not one angry man). Coincidentally I ran into the same police officer who was involved in the case about a month later when he stopped me for speeding (who me?). After we were finished with that little piece of business I asked him about the case, and about the rest of the evidence we weren't allowed to see. The perp had dumped some drugs from his pockets into the back seat of the police car, and his lawyer had that information suppressed due to a technicality. So the sucker was guilty as hell, while his lawyer argued well and effectively for his defense (he had me doubting for a while).
There is a definite aspect to this by people trying to gain control. Climate is chaotic and opinions even from experts remains mixed. I find Al Gore entirely unconvincing. I am far more concerned about mercury and other toxins in coal exhaust than CO2. I'm repeating myself but the second Freakonomics book gives a good economic treatment of practical remedies for global temperature. The favored strategy from progressives seems heavy on control on light on results.
Even though I like these books a lot I think I read that they had to backpedal on their claims as far as global warming is concerned. The scientific consensus is well-established in this field. But I wouldn't go to Gore for my science either.
I have followed this all pretty closely for decades, even back when it was warnings about a global winter, not melting ice caps. ;D.. Some new research suggests that cosmic rays from the solar wind have an impact on cloud formation which is another variable in not so conclusive science. The scientific consensus was that the earth was flat at one time.
I know that I'm not smart enough to figure this out from simple observation, and the science is not conclusive from where I sit. I hear some scientists speak on the subject that seem credible, and others that are selling their book... This is not different than lots of established science where there is a party line, and outliers.
If you really believe this, it explains a lot. Do you think you could build a Microsoft, or an Apple, if you just were in the same. place and same time as Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs? Or all the many nameless millionaires and billionaires, who have created massive wealth, from there skills, ingenuity, and force of will.
Nah, I don't believe I could or would do what they did. I've got a pretty creative brain, am aware that most people haven't, but this requires marketing skills, an interest in selling stuff and a pretty unusual drive. Steve Jobs arguably wasn't even the inventor, innovator, but rather really good at marketing. That's a completely different mind- and skillset IMO. Many scientists are content with finding stuff out and have their name attached to it, and it's very similar for a lot of highly creative people in the arts as well in my experience. They usually don't want to be bothered at all with economic stuff.
It's not just marketing, but indeed all the recent fawning over the late Steve Jobs suggest that he can do everything short of walk on water. Woz was the engineer, Steve was the salesman, but more than that, he had a vision of what the product should look like and what it should do, and Woz make it so. Of course even they did not envision the thousands of new applications people would put this affordable small business tool into use accomplishing.
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have pushed for and made availible actual innovation, even if other people did a lot of the actual "inventing". But Warren Buffett, the Koch brothers, Donald Trump? And would Bill Gates not have done what he did if his fortunes were "only" - say - 500 million instead of the 60 billion (I'm not at all sure on that number, and I know about their foundation)? But my point was that both Jobs and Gates grew up in precisely the right environment to enable them to have this kind of success. They owed a lot to the infrastructure they had access to that made it possible. Drive and intellect alone aren't nearly enough.
Again i repeat myself, but the infrastructure needed by small business, is property rights (so they can keep enough of what they make to justify the effort and reinvest), rule of law (so big companies can not simply squash them before they stand up), and risk capital rules (where investors can invest in common stock of a company like a partial owner and share the capital appreciation of the business without being held responsible for all the businesses liability should it fail as so many do. After that, indifference from government is more productive than picking winners and losers.
I believe there would be a lot more innovation if we used more resources to level the playing field and opened up opportunities to more people. And tweaked the incentives more to get more productive outcome and less overhead. And this ultimately means to cut away from the 1% profiteers, of whom many are parasitic in many ways.
You need to be more specific. I hear lots of progressive claims about how government programs are the source of major innovation, and while no doubt some comes from military and space spending. In my experience invention is a solitary exercise. usually the result of a single person looking at old problems in new ways. there is no way to formalize this into a recipe or government program to get more of it. Educate people and set them free to operate in their own self interest and they will invent stuff.
if I was unemployed for two years, i would have started two businesses by now, and if they failed I 'd start another.
I started an operated small businesses back in the 70s/80, and more recently... Now is far easier, mostly thanks to advances in computer technology and software driven by the free market. No thanks to government.
I have not been silent on this either. We spend a ton of money on education, and do not get the results our children deserve. According to No Child Left behind legislation, by 2012 the schools were supposed to have students performing up to their grade level... Nothing spectacular, just having 7th graders performing at 7th grade level. The trajectory of past and recent testing suggests they won't make it. One democratic senator has proposed repealing the requirement. The problem is not as simple as throwing money at it, we've tried that. The heavily unionized teachers, have so far resisted strong management based on the test results. While opinions vary with lots of excuses, this seems like simple management 101. Measure, adjust, measure adjust, measure.... if the teachers can't teach effectively, get them out of the classrooms and replace them with someone who can. A good education is part of the American culture, that I received, and I fear we have dropped the ball on delivering to recent generations. Kids today are being promoted for just showing up and not causing trouble. How can they perform in the workplace if that is their model for success. In any job they must create value or they won't be paid. Note: This isn't just as simple as firing a few teachers, the parents seem to have taken their eye off the ball too... I don't know how to get parents more involved, but they need to be.
I'm sure opinions vary about all this... mine certainly varies from yours, but thats business as usual.
Blaming and simply requiring teachers to have their students perform better looks exactly like the dreaded "central planning" to me, and sounds a lot like requiring all car manufacturers to produce and market inexpensive battery powered cars with lot's of range by tomorrow. Since you mentioned the Freakonomics book (I've read and enjoyed both), they make a convincing argument that teachers got worse because highly intelligent women nowadays choose other jobs, whereas half a century or more ago teaching was more or less the only profession open for them, so the cleverest women were mostly teachers.
No doubt that was a factor, while there were other gender receptive jobs where smart women could use their brains, but rarely ever got credit. Many executive secretaries did far more than their job description. Many nurses did more than change bandages and bedpans.
Back when teachers were poorly paid, they likely did it for better reasons than people teach today. I am not talking about central planning telling teacher how to teach. Just applying some management 101. Measure the results and if the results aren't right figure out why. It is not the job of legislators in DC to tell local schools who to fire, but by definition if 7th graders are not performing at 7th grade level, we need to figure out why. This has been a several year program, so it was not a recent surprise they weren't successful. Perhaps educators see failure as acceptable, in business failure once or twice can be a learning experience, failure every time is evidence that the task is impossible or the person is not capable. Since it is not impossible to teach 7th graders to perform at 7th grade level, something else is the problem. if not the teacher than the system. How many years should we spend trying to figure out which?
I don't pretend this is trivial, and I find the parents are complicit in this deterioration of education. But this is too important to fail our children the way we are doing. Business has a stake in the success of school system, since business needs educated workers. Perhaps some cooperative effort where local businesses get more involved in local school systems.
Besides that, the media, relentless marketing, self-esteem BS, poverty, vastly different living conditions and values as a whole play a huge role. I've watched all seaons of "The Wire", arguably the best fictional TV show ever made and hyper-realistic, it's crystal clear that even the best teachers don't stand a chance with these kids. Even the failied "war on drugs" plays a role, so do all the economic hardship middle class and below families in the US had to go through in the last decades.
Sorry I missed those,,, I guess our taste in entertainment run in different channels.
If the kids are unteachable, we don't need to pay teacher more. Maybe we need to arm them.
Also, neuroscience shows that information overload is detrimental to learning, and in this day and age information overload is the norm. In all honesty, I don't see a convincing solution there either.
Lots of things are detrimental to learning. Human's adapt and children are far better than their parents at dealing with all the additional information that is pushed at us. I can't remember the last time I saw a TV picture where there wasn't multiple unrelated things scrolling across the bottom. popping up to promote something, and generally supplying more input on top of the regular program to keep our attention engaged.
Interesting new data tidbit about education... scientists have discovered that teenage IQ can change up or down something like 20% during mid teen years. This is dramatically different than the old understanding of IQ. While they don't know why the IQ changes, this suggests perhaps even more importance to nurture over nature.
Of course i could be all wrong.
JR