Supporters of capitalism point out that the percentage of people in developing countries living below $1 per day have halved in only twenty years, especially in countries like China that have embraced capitalism.
http://www.worldbank.org/research/povmonitor
Life expectancy has almost...
Again regarding Sweden:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20040425-102740-9436r.htm
Political freedom in the world:
http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/survey2005.htm
Economic freedom in the world:
http://www.freetheworld.com/
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/
A theory is a better than the data it attempts to explain (describe) if the description is shorter than the data but describes all the data. A theory is better than another theory if it is shorter but describes the data equally well.
In essence, better compression of the data is better...
Oil will not suddenly disappear after the peak. It will become more expensive but there will be plenty of time to build for instance new nuclear reactors. Furthermore, there are large known coal reserves that can be converted to fuel. Something already done in South Africa on a large scale...
Is research in macro and micro physics becoming too expensive? It seems that new experimental data requires constantly more expensive devices. Not long ago the materials and devices were so cheap that even a single person could afford to make the experiments. Today the particle accelerators and...
But the US did face "regional" competition. At the time of independence it is very doubtful that the thirteen colonies were more powerful than Mexico. Not to mention the whole Spanish empire. And the threat from England was very real both from Canada and from the sea in the beginning. England...
The US had the great fortune to inherit much of its legal and technological system from England. And England had been in competition with other countries in Europe for several hundred years. A the time of US independence the industrial (capitalistic) revolution was already quite advanced in...
Regarding Finland and capitalism I note that Finland is a very capitalistic country. The most important thing in the capitalistic system is probably strong property rights and rule of law. These aspects are strong in Sweden and Finland and allow some economic growth even with high taxes and many...
I think all the explanations mentioned in the papers in my first post and in this thread are interesting.
But I think that most misses a vital fact. China made a conscious decision to reject the new technology. China was not completely isolated for hundreds of year and then suddenly found...
The drive to procreate is one of the strongest humans have. And human altruism is quite limited. I see it as extremely unlikely that many people would voluntarily abstain from having children. Furthermore, the least intelligent would be least affected by such intellectual arguments. I see no...
Well, then science has to find a better way to transport the natural gas. Or avoid using it.
But I agree that new technology will constantly make it easier to produce WMDs. So if 3 is chosen, this means that an ever increasing part of science and technology will be censored and monopolized by...