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Which is why immigration is a necessary component of the United States to stay competitive. But, I got news for you Alex, there are many people technical organizations within the country who are not foreigners (ever heard of Bill Gates?). I'm not saying that the educational system doesn't need to be improved, I'm saying that our economic system is *so* much more superior that despite these disadvantages we continue to maintain strength as a superpower not only militarily, but economically, technically, as well as, I think, mentally and spiritually. The US is one of the greatest countries that has ever come along. A unique idea of humanity was forged by a small collection of colonialists and the world is all the better for it. You are just one of those whose life has been tremendously benefited.
The Soviet Union, despite the great educational system, despite the great minds that Russia consistently produced in its long history, despite being the largest mineral/oil rich country in the world, despite its usage of other people resources around the world (e.g., Eastern Europe) couldn't come near the West's usage of the market driven economies. Had the Soviet Union remained, the Soviet system would have fallen further and further behind. Successful spying can only aid so far if there isn't an infrastructure to support such a system. Eventually the high technical/production requirements of microcircuit production and other soon coming refined production would have expanded the technical gap between the Soviet Union and the rest of the West. Eventually the Soviet Union would have fallen so far behind in technology that the citizens would no longer be able to take it. The collapse was inevitable from a purely economic point of view.
I'm surprised that this isn't clear as day to you. You should be glad for the people of the former Soviet Union, they are now on a path (although, long and hard) to economic and technical fortune.
The US has a long way to go in developing the memes to improve educational opportunities, however this will naturally happen because it has to happen in a market driven economy. That is, if the market required factory and steel workers as it did 20 years ago and earlier, then the market economy will produce factory and steel workers (educational system is not so important, etc). However, if the market economy needs a much higher percentage of technical workers (as it is now the case), the market economy will open a huge demand for such workers (as it is now doing). To temporarily fill that demand (due to the unpreparedness of the population configured for factory production), the demand will be filled first by people who are more desperate for economic success (never had it before, the cream of the crop of other countries need to work and the demand is available in the US, etc). But, as the market economy continues to demand more and more technical workers and less and less factory workers (moving to SE Asia, Mexico, South America, etc), then the market economy will demand higher technical skills from the youth. The youth will be taught memes of survival and the politicians will pass stricter educational standards to ensure economic success for future work force, etc, and whola, the market economy will produce a whole new generation where the youth coming into the educational system are among the elite in the world. Right here on USA soil.
It takes time for memes to switchover. However, it also takes disappointing experience where one sees their future outlook as grim if they don't catch up. I think this is now happening in the US after about 20 years in the information age economy. Unfortunately it isn't happening fast enough, but the market demand for information age jobs is still under 20% of all jobs (I'm guessing to the exact numbers). Once that number goes higher then the market will place higher and higher demand on domestic education.
In this manner the world's problems are somewhat solved as far as poor education. The market naturally 'cures' the effects of poor education (e.g., street crime, prejudice, etc) once people become more educated. Of course, higher education can be a problem if criminals become higher educated (e.g., hackers), but for the most part people higher economic outlook means less crime.
Warm regards, Harv |
