Yeah, the US is still crushing it in innovation in pretty much every field, including quantum computing. Which is not to say our primary schools don't suck.

The story I was referencing (which I posted about yesterday) was a plan to launch several thousand new internet satellites, which would obviously be a massive acceleration however you measure it.

I think it's mostly their smaller populations and their lack of serious militaries.

I think Britain, Germany, India, Indonesia, and The Philippines all have a paltry number of satellites because of their legacy or horrible capitalist misgovernment. After having mostly recovered from the deleterious effects of its 19th century collision with capitalism China is on it's way to burying you imperialist dogs.

Ok, I don't really think that, but I think that reasoning is about as good as knee jerk reactionary "horrible communist misgovernment" talk. Yes there was misgovernment and yes they were communists, but there's a lot of misgovernment in the world and most of it isn't communist.

China's delay in economic and technological development was mostly (90%) due to communist misgovernment. There is nothing knee jerk in that statement at all.

Was it the misgovernment or was it the Communist part?

How about the technical accomplishments of the USSR? Consider their situation in 1945. About 20% of their population died in World War II. They were not even that far removed from feudalism. And yet, they achieved a massive amount of technical success including being the first nation in space. They beat the hell out of all capitalist countries except for one.

I think you can accurately blame the struggles of India, Indonesia and the Philippines on horrible capitalist misgovernment. Germany and Britain seem pretty well-governed these days.

And I submit that China would not be nearly as successful as it has been without a period of communism. It would have ended up as the giant Banana Republic that it was on the road to being before World War 2.

It's possible. My own view is that a Chinese government under Chiang and the KMT could have delivered substantial growth, but I guess we will never know...

Yeah, could be. My only point is that it's often said China, Cuba, Venezula? The Lol socialism lol communism reaction has two problems. One that there are lots of non-socialist failures as well and the other that all these communist/socialist countries have a lot of other things to consider that have affected them in the past and things like sanctions in the present.

I dont understand this defense of Communism. To borrow from your post on the 2nd best Conservative poster and the 2nd worst liberal poster, misgovernment under communism produces much worse results than misgovernment under capitalism and optimal government under communism produces much worse results than optimal government under capitalism.

But we do know, per capital GDP for Taiwan is 4x the per capital GDP of China.

China still has 30 millIon people living in caves. There are a lot of issues. Some of them are related to who owned the means of production for 40 years, some aren't.

It wasn't misgovernment exactly. At least Mao wouldn't see it that way for a while. It was that Mao and The Gang of Four led a group of reds that put communist ideology over economic productivity. He considered this period a purification of the country: one where only true believers in Mao's ideology would remain. It was actually exactly what he wanted. It failed in the end and probably saw it as a failure when it was over (probably part of why he gave up power willingly) but the purge was initially what he wanted.

People conformed to Mao's ideology often by force and were essentially brainwashed at some point. So they were dead set on preserving that ideology even if it cost them their lives which made the transition to a market based economy extremely difficult. When Zhou Enlai, who never fully bought into the Cultural Revolution and was one of the few moderates left, attempted to address the economic woes, he was cast off and died of cancer shortly after.

Despite this, you can go to Beijing, wait on line for 45 minutes to look at his statue for a minute or two but no pictures are permitted. Some may even lay a flower or two in front of it. I know because I did it (minus the flower part). Didn't know what it was at the time but figured it was something good if so many people were waiting. Once I was told, I had been waiting so long that I might as well wait the rest of the way.

We may see a variation of this in the future with Donald Trump if he gets the power he dreams of. Class struggle is something he would love to see because of how tilted in favor of the rich the struggle would be. Non-believers would be purged and believers would be brainwashed into accepting their lives and being happy with it because Dear Leader is in power. They would be no different from the people in North Korea. They'd pledge everything to Trump and think that everything he does is for their own benefit while the truth is that he's robbing them blind.

Another factor is the attitude of students who aren't into these subjects. I suspect that in other countries they are less likely to shun the geeks.

This isn't the 1970s David. Geek culture is much more mainstream. Hell, I know extroverted, well-adjusted people who have geeky conversations about Doctor Who with less socially-adjusted fans and speak to each other as equals.

I think you are talking about a different type of geek than I am. Liking video games or science fiction is different than being fascinated by a new proof of the Pythagorean formula or the periodic table of elements.

Students aren't shunned for liking certain subjects, they are shunned for being socially awkward, but some of the socially awkward like to pretend otherwise because it's a bit less painful than admitting the truth.

Too many geeks, not enough nerds. Probably just the right amount of dorks.

Am I the only one who cannot see embedded tweets anymore? I just got a new computer so it might be a me problem.

Continuing my leftist propaganda. ..

What led America to taking over the world?

The New Deal and our incredibly favorable position during and right after WW2. What was that? Socialism like the public education system including massive investment in research universities and public private partnerships like defense contractors and the interstate highway system that might be more like a fascist economic model than socialism and is certainly not laissez-faire capitalism. Very little of the credit for satellites goes to capitalism

The superabundance of cheap, fertile land and natural resources meant it was always inevitable under any non-restrictive system.

My title was a bit too on-the-nose.

a system of government that worked pretty well (if you were white) made america rich. and europe destroying itself with two world wars, communism, and fascism made america all the more powerful.

It was a pretty good run.

what browser?

i can't see them since i switched to opera with javascript disabled