China vs US: Will Science & Tech Lead to World Rule?

[arildno]

So, do you think equal efforts and talents results in the same education in the US?

 

[Milo Hobgoblin]

So, do you think equal efforts and talents results in the same education in the US?

Yes I do. And there are way too many examples of ghetto and backwater schools producing exceptional students to state the contrary.


I think most of the statistics that appear to dispute my claims such as the overall dismal performance of the general populace attending many of these schools.. the effect only supports my claim that groups of people who simply lack the innate ability to succeed will fall behind.

Now.. if you would like me to provide you of lists with countless names of exceptional individuals who attended primary schooling at these ghetto or backwater institutions .. I would be glad to do so. (it will take me a while.. I am actually at work LOL)

But it only takes ONE to prove me right. because according to your theories.. if EVERYONE is equal in ability and talent.. then NO ONE should succeed coming from these schools..

Only one proves that the majority of schools provide more than enough opportunity to get ahead... and that those who fall behind do so because of their lack of innate ability.

Try as you may.. you cannot excuse the lazy and dim witted.

 

[arildno]

Really?
From what I know, there are several extremely mediocre students who, due to their inheritance, still manage to get into prestigious institutions that OTHER INDIVIDUALS IN THE SAME CATEGORY OF COMPETENCE AS THEMSELVES never would have gotten into.

One of them happens to be the current president of the US.

 

[russ_watters]

I can't argue against oversimplifications. I can only state that they are just that.
It is not a valid argument, precisely because it oversimplifies issues.

So...your no argument at all is better than an oversimplified one?

Seriously, arildno, what are you doing here? Your contribution to this thread is utterly pointless.

 

[arildno]

So...your no argument at all is better than an oversimplified one?

Seriously, arildno, what are you doing here? Your contribution to this thread is utterly pointless.

Really?
The fact that the 1% most talented part of the population in ANY society will do well, irrespective of initial differences in wealth, cannot (or should not!) be the basis of your social views.

If you don't think the other 99% count, in which unequal distributions of initial wealth DO matter, that's your problem.

 

[raolduke]

the simple fact is this.. The vast majority of citizens in the US do have equal ACCESS to education.. they just choose not to use it, as to their succcess, that depends completely upon the work ethic, ambition and intelligence of the INDIVIDUAL.

This is completely true. Americans have just as many, I am betting more, venues as the Chinese for education. But the problem is like you said is the willingness of each others citizens to learn. In China they are willing to learn English. In America we learn one tounge. And I've rarely seen English used that well by most Americans (including me).
Besides the willingness to learn they also have 2 billion people that are willing to expand their culture.

 

[arildno]

No, it is not true at all.
Kids growing up in poor areas do not have access to schools that offers a better, and more expensive, education.

So, no, kids in the US do NOT have equal access to education.

The sole relevant criterium is whether each kid has access to an education that can be termed sufficient, where at the very least, I think about a majority of the kids do have such access.

 

[raolduke]

I never said that we have as many kids that are willing to learn/ that are learning.. We have more outlets than the chinese for learning. Example - Public libraries and public education. Both are free and both have been available for all citizens and their children for many years. Even in poor parts of town you still may have access to a library or internet.

 

[arildno]

Again, you choose to ignore the most obvious source of unequal access.

As long as you do, you are not really ready to discuss these issues.

 

[raolduke]

What is the most obvious source of unequal access?

 

[arildno]

What is the most obvious source of unequal access?

As I said, you are not ready to discuss these issues.

 

[raolduke]

How do you know that I don't know? How would I know unless you told me? Why wouldn't you like to enlighten me?

 

[arildno]

It has already been told you. You still choose to ignore it.

 

[KvnBushi]

This had the potential to be a pretty interesting thread.

 

[AFG34]

chinese people in general are very hard working..they have potential.

 

[DrClapeyron]

I grew up taking Karate lessons, and I always felt it was a very solid, rigid and strong martial art. There was a lot of emphasis on striking, blocking and grapling. Kung-fu I felt was very passive, artistic and painful, you have to be very flexible for kung-fu.

The Chinese have a very pacive lifestyle compared to their neighbors. I won't deny they can be as cruel as any other country, to me they are the Italians of the East with the Japanese the Germans. I don't think strength is always in numbers. Take the English; a small island nation that founded a very wealth and large empire.

Chinese and Indian societies had been far more populous than the English, yet they both came under jurisdiction of British naval law. I shouldn't see why things have changed within the last 200 years.

 

[W3pcq]

If China were to make new advances in science, do you think we would even know about it. They keep everything secret. They have ancient ruins that they keep secret from there own people.

 

[W3pcq]

China is definitely becoming more and more powerful. They are still in the process of industrial revolution. They use more and more oil every. They are beginning to have a middle class. I think that having einsteins is irrellivant. The real power today is in economics. They are going to dominate us economically. They are smart and they don't give up.

Wealth is definitely the biggest factor in determining educational opportunity.

 

[W3pcq]

Have you ever seen that Chinese movie where the kid is taken into the city from a poor village because he was a fast runner. The village he was from spent their entire yearly budget on chalk. They had no computers, no power. Some were kept out of school to help the parents work.

 

[paledim]

to the original question (im a little late on the post), china versus u.s.? now there's a lot of avenues to go down on this one. there are many "systems" that are intertwined. first of all there is no China versus U.S. due to allies etc... (political system). Now I am writting very raw and unspecific. China depends on U.S. and vice versa (economic system). To the very ends of the Earth would be a nuclear war and that would just kill everything, because we all know that if 1 nuke hits, North Korea, China, U.S. Canada, Pakistan etc... will just unleash their arsenal...

Aside from that, there is also a cultural war going on that no one seems to be paying attention to. And culture involves all systems political, religious, economical etc... So, there if there is a "cold war" happening today, it's on both waepon/military and cultural fronts.

 

[paledim]

how do you propose they "beat America"? Remember that nearly everyone (if not everyone) in the United States owns some kind of weapon. Also, Americans are very proud of their country. Let's say for example that China was to invade (not using nuclear power) by sea. It would be impossible. US has the largest navy/advanced tech. Even if China had more advanced tech, technically speaking there are some nearly 100 million people on the Western US Coast all easily capable of buying firearms. China would be suicidal to drop military in US.

Howver, there is also the nano war. The thing is, America has no yet been completely explouited of natural resources and Asia is not a very wealthy/easy to produce resources as opposed to America. America (inc. Canada) could be self sufficient.

In my opinion. If China or any axis of US wanted to hit US hard, it would be to first remove its allies (like Israel etc...). This being on the cultural war front.

 

[oldtobor]

as to their succcess, that depends completely upon the work ethic, ambition and intelligence of the INDIVIDUAL.

This in fact is the ideology of success that represses people psychologically; you can never do enough:

1) work ethic can mean 80 hours a week, but if the boss wants 100 hours and you don't deliver, well you don't have the work ethic, it is always your fault, no matter how hard you worked in the last 3 years. And in fact I know many people who were layed off after working very hard, they had the work ethic, a corporate decision on the other side of the planet closed their offices;

2) You are never intelligent enough; you couldn't find the bug in that 50,000 line program in a few days ? not smart enough! you couldn't reach the sales target ? not smart enough, etc.

The problem with this outlook is that the worker is always constantly at fault, is always guilty of not achieving some moving target, the guilt is always self inflicted.

This is very convenient to big companies, keep workers always blaming themselves while we make them work harder and harder. You can constantly change the moving target in any of a hundred ways and find some way that any even great worker can't reach it.

In truth 99 million american workers are on the lower pay scale only 100,000 make a lot more, so they are the only ones that deserve more, one in a thousand. Are you one of those?

 

[oldtobor]

they got there by busting their asses in school and working some 14 hour days for years on end and biotech firms, construction companies, stock firms etc...

This is another example of psychologically repressing the more unfortunate. Many people have studied all their lives, but didn't become wealthy, many people all over the world have a very high degree of knowledge and aren't wealthy. Oh but they had to work "14 hours a day" for years. Why ? Slicing and dicing stocks ? working with stocks is like playing poker, sometimes you guess right and win and make money sometimes you guess wrong and lose. Is that actually work ? or is it play ? The guy who works at construction did he actually build the homes with his own hands, or did some mexican slave do it for 5 dollars an hour ? who actually worked there ? biotech should be very much study and thinking, you can do that on a beach even better, or do you have to show some boss that you are "putting in the hours" and "face time" ?

I am tired of hearing the same old story of "hard work", "work ethic" etc. when in reality it is a game to fool people.

If those people were successful, it was because they were LUCKY, KNEW HOW TO DEAL WITH PEOPLE AND SELL THEMSELVES WELL, and also they did their homework, studied and applied what they studied well. It can be done well working 5 hours a day, if you work well.

Give me an example of a typical 14 hour a day job and where all the work is being put in if I'm wrong. Useless meetings don't count since that is just an elaborate form of partying.

 

[hinella]

Can't remeber how many times I have read similar debates. The real flaw of all these kinds of debates is based on generalizing particular cases. Each and every person, job, experience is unique, may have some general properties amongst them, but each case is a single case. So you will find an entire spectrum of people from those who "worked hard" and failed to those who didn't do anything and became rich. OF course common sense dictates that by applying yourself constantly you should get better results. But it is just common sense, your mileage may vary greatly.

 

[mheslep]

The Franklin Institute lists some of the many Chinese inventions that came before US confederation here:

http://www.fi.edu/tfi/info/current/inventions.html

Including: gunpowder, the compass, spaghetti, and many more.

Yes though unfortunately little to nothing innovative came out of China after the establishment of the US, that is, while China was closed to the rest of the world.

 

[W3pcq]

I believe that during the korean war China, along with the Soviet Union were far ahead of us in mind control technique. Discovery of these techniques being used on pows in korea led to the famous Mkultra project. After that it became a technology race in the mind control department. They were the innovators of that technology. Information on how the technology has advanced, or even how advanced it was is largely classified, so me or you couldn't really say who is ahead, or how advanced it is now.

I suspect that there is a lot of classified technology on both sides which is unavailable to the public, so I think that the op's question is going to always be a mystery to the public.

Certain kinds of technology are better weapons when made public, certain types are not.
One example is the atomic bomb. We have it and we can strike, so we say don't mess with us, and we gain lots of power. On the other hand biological warfare, for example selectively bread antibiotic resistant small pox. That technology is more powerful kept secret because it can be used in a sneaky way, and making it public would cause efforts on the other side to defend. The same with mind control, it is better left a secret. You never know what kind of advancements they have on the sneaky department.

 

[Salish99]

On the note of how China and the US (and Russia) can collaborate or compete, I can recommend this article:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2008.09.007