Carlhole wrote:Predict when peak Science will occur and then come and argue with me. So far, nothing gives any indication that progress in Science & Technology is slowing down whatsoever.
Across the Greater Middle East from Tunisia and Egypt to Bahrain and Yemen, democratic protests are threatening to sweep away subordinate elites crucial to the wielding of American power. Of course, all modern empires have relied on dependable surrogates to translate their global power into local control -- and for most of them, the moment when those elites began to stir, talk back, and set their own agendas was also the moment when it became clear that imperial collapse was in the cards.
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When civilian presidents proved insubordinate, the Central Intelligence Agency went to work, promoting coups that would install reliable military successors --replacing Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq, who tried to nationalize his country's oil, with General Fazlollah Zahedi (and then the young Shah) in 1953; President Sukarno with General Suharto in Indonesia during the next decade; and of course President Salvador Allende with General Augusto Pinochet in Chile in 1973, to name just three such moments.
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As U.S. power and influence declined, Washington’s attempts to control its subordinate elites began to fail, often spectacularly -- including its efforts to topple bête noire Hugo Chavez of Venezuela in a badly bungled 2002 coup, to detach ally Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia from Russia’s orbit in 2008, and to oust nemesis Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2009 Iranian elections. Where a CIA coup or covert cash once sufficed to defeat an antagonist, the Bush administration needed a massive invasion to topple just one troublesome dictator, Saddam Hussein.
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For more than 50 years, Washington has been served well by a system of global power based on subordinate elites. That system once facilitated the extension of American influence worldwide with a surprising efficiency and (relatively speaking) an economy of force. Now, however, those loyal allies increasingly look like an empire of failed or insubordinate states. Make no mistake: the degradation of, or ending of, half a century of such ties is likely to leave Washington on the rocks.
radon wrote:The scientific progress does falter now, and very seriously, and the points above illustrate it. What is now perceived as a rapid advancement of the scientific development is in fact mostly restricted to the consumer-related fields: number of functions in your held hand device, broadband connection speed etc. And to some military applications. This is why some observers talk about the "law of diminishing returns of technological advance", quite justifiably.
By contrast, the areas crucial to the fates of humanity remain underdeveloped. But this is not as much a scientific problem as it is a human resource/management one. The existing organizational arrangements appear to be structurally unable to advance these areas.
Absolutely right. Economic priorities=consumer priorities. Many people on this board have been expressing a view that these priorities are driving us to abyss.AgentR11 wrote:A lot of what you suggest as measurements though, is just a question of economic priorities. More people want faster/better/more internet/media ...
You may well be right here. On a personal level, I totally agree with you. I did not intend to advocate the idea of usefulness of the manned space exploration. In my view it would be much wiser nowadays to focus all the resources on issues more urgent than the research of the outer space.Personally, I think flying humans in space is a stupid practice; especially, if the humans are of the "go and come back" variety.
This is actually a very nuanced question.So, is it a sign of progress to do something stupid?
This is interesting. Contain science in order to give humans some breathing space. Can this work?Scientific advancements are rightly focused on areas that effect the most people; communications, medical, food, military; all of those have continued to advance at incredible rates; perhaps even faster than would be really best for us as humans.
Multi-core processors were invented and implemented long long ago, some time in 1960s probably. Supercomputers have long used multi-core (or multi-processor) models of parallel computations. However, parallel computations work poorly for many real life tasks, because this tasks involve many conditionals that cannot be broken in parallel computational branches that can be processed simultaneously. Parallel computations are most effective in physics, meteorology and alike areas that involve simultaneous processing of very large arrays of uniform data.Today we talk about dual core, quad core; and they are rightly impressive to us. Yet, I distinctly remember being impressed with what I could accomplish on a 4.7 mhz 8088; and the advancements to 286, and then 25mhz 386 lines; all seemed equally staggering. We are again at that entry point. Project the same... what kind of processes will people have when we are talking about an 8 kilocore processor?
This is because people want them in the short term. In the longer term people will want survival and sustainable development. Eat and don't lose sleep, in other words.Now imagine the handhelds people will have when slightly less powerful processors can run on 1watt of power. These are not insignificant advancements; they are central to people's daily lives with technology and science; and they rightly hold a central focus for research and development efforts.
It seems that I have already partly responded to this thesis of yours, but I'll have a thought and feed in a bit more a bit later, perhaps.AgentR11 wrote:Quite the contrary, it is specifically those areas that are crucial to our fate as a species that are being developed to the fullest right now. You just disagree with what others deem crucial.
americandream wrote:Wots the bet you're a Ad hom deleted ?
We're still behind the times down here seein as we don't have buses.
Small towns and settlements are pretty much buggered as oil prices rise. As it is, there's something of a flight from places like Seddon where house prices are plummeting. I can see a return back to the '80's when small town New Zealand was solo mum land.
I'm in two minds about what's happening. On the one hand, I reckon it will devastate small communities, on the other I see it as inevitable and a perhaps necessary step to weaning us off imports of trash which no one needs. I reckon all this poncy convenience has made us a bit lazy, arrogant and soft. You just don't see op shops these days and no one will buy secondhand...well most anyways. This may well trigger some sort of local spirit of community enterprise and support.
Your proposal to dump senior citizens in the sea is insane. China is not going to do that, stop posting such nonsense. And without your 'solution', China's pension problems are going to dwarf the pension problems of the US.wallythacker wrote:The chinese gov will simply round up the old people and dump them at sea. problem solved. do you really think old people are going to stand in the way of china becoming the economic superpower?
the US, on the other hand, being broke and destitute and reduced to a 3rd world economy will slowly strip medicare and medicaid provisions away from their aged and watch them die terrible slow lingering deaths.
the chinese way is ultimately more humane.
5. Our preferred adjustment strategy entails a reduction of the federal structural primary deficit at a uniform pace over the next five years, within a fully-specified and politically-backed consolidation plan. Fiscal adjustment should start in FY2012 to guard against the risk of a disruptive loss in fiscal credibility.
(snip) Consideration could also be given to a national VAT or sales tax and carbon taxes, consistent with past advice by Fund staff.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary-mainmenu-43/8051-imf-wants-us-debt-ceiling-raised-immediately
The June 20th report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the United States strongly recommended that the debt ceiling be raised because “if the debt ceiling is not raised soon…[it] would have significant global repercussions, given the central role of U. S. Treasury bonds in world markets. ” In announcing the report, John Lipsky (picture, left), acting managing director for the IMF, said:
We’re confident that the participants are well aware of the potential risks of a debt default in the U. S. and will avoid those dangers. It should be self-evident [that] a debt default by the U. S. government debt market would have very serious, far-reaching, dramatic repercussions and that’s why we’re confident that it will be avoided.
The IMF reort was full of other suggestions to assist the U.S. in regaining its financial footing, including
1. Don’t cut spending too much — it might impede the economic recovery
2. Keep interest rates low for a long time
3. Keep an eye on inflation
4. Keep stimulating the housing market, it’ll eventually come back
5. Enforce “cramdowns” by banks holding mortgages in order to clear the market more quickly
6. Fully implement the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, with full funding to complete the bill’s potential to regulate further the financial markets
7. Allocate more money for federal job training.
8. Consolidate the government’s present 50 different job programs into a single program
9. Institute a national sales tax, or value-added-tax (VAT)
The IMF describes itself as “an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty. ” Remarkably, none of these statements is true.
Founded in 1944 along with the World Bank, the IMF essentially represents one half of a tag team to offer loans (through the bank) to corrupt governments who then spend the money recklessly or steal it, putting repayment of the loans into jeopardy. The IMF then comes to the rescue, offering incentives (called “considerations”) as a condition to receive bailouts, which usually involve austerity measures to attack and pauperize the middle class, increase the governments' control over its citizens, and sell off private assets (“privatization”) that are often then sold at discount prices to banks and other interests affiliated with the Anglo-American establishment.
(snip)
With friends like the IMF looking over the shoulder of the American government, no one needs enemies. The suggestions made by the IMF in its latest interference into American sovereignty promotes more, larger, more intrusive, and more expensive government.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary-mainmenu-43/8051-imf-wants-us-debt-ceiling-raised-immediately
Sixstrings wrote:
You know what, I'm starting to realize that the Republican Party is important. All those Southern Bible thumping doomer wingnuts are very important. They're all that stand between us and a NATIONAL SALES TAX. And carbon taxes. The IMF needs to go have coffee in some Vienna cafe and bother Greece because there is NO WAY the Republican base will ever allow a national sales tax to pass.
Sixstrings wrote:Founded in 1944 along with the World Bank, the IMF...
careinke wrote:Actually quite a few Republicans support a sales tax.
GASMON wrote:In what Treasury officials viewed as one of the most outrageous power grabs in recent memory, they demanded the right to raise a Europe-wide sales tax.
Brussels bosses also called for a new financial transaction tax,
Also they unveiled plans to let Brussels grab a chunk of green taxes which are already being levied on polluters.
In total, the commission demanded nearly £100billion extra[/i]
The global economy, international banks, the powers that be, the elite. Their grand scheme slowly comes to fruition. You and me are the loosers - we will lose everything to "The system", even our kids futures. Then we really will all eat s**t.
pup55 wrote:If the government wants to raise taxes, and has a legitimate reason for doing so, they need to come forward and ask the public directly, and maybe if we think we need it, we'll go along with it.
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