On Progress

Forgive my rambling in advance for this, but for the last few days, I've been thinking that what is most fundamentally wrong with the United States is that we have become allergic to progress. And by this I mean that we, as a people and society seem far less optimistic and directed toward what we want our society to be and far more concerned with what it once may have been (and probably never really was).

To combat that, at least here, I propose that we make a list of what we would like our country to be in principle and practice. What would make America great? What should we be striving for? What should be important to us as a people? I figure if we can at least agree upon this, the discussions regarding policies and methods should, in theory, be easier ones to have.

I'll start it off.

I think America should provide more educational opportunity for all Americans than it did in any time in the historical past. I own a business in the inner city and get to witness the daily atrocity of lost opportunity every time someone applies for a job as a cashier and he/she lacks a high school diploma or can't read at a 5th grade level. Given how rich we are as a nation, the fact that we can not provide the best education on the planet is an absurd and ongoing tragedy. There is no excuse solid enough for why we do not have the best educated population on earth.

Space.

Colonies. Mining. Energy farms. Zero-G Manufacturing.

My main goal ties heavily into yours, and our downward trend in this area is likely a result of our failures in your goal.

America needs to be pushing the boundaries of science and technology. We need to increase our focus, support, and funding for science and technology. In particular, NASA and space technology. On May 1st 1961 the United States sent it's first citizen into space, on July 21st 2011, we retired our space shuttle program.

Increasing our funding for Education and Scientific research would be a big step for us.

Rezzy wrote:

Space.

Colonies. Mining. Energy farms. Zero-G Manufacturing.

IMAGE(http://i53.tinypic.com/b63711.jpg)

KrazyTacoFO wrote:

IMAGE(http://i53.tinypic.com/b63711.jpg)

Or oblivion will take us...

Need more lesbian gas...

Agreed. An America that is a leader in science and technology is important to American identity.

Only three drones and no map vision - yes, America is screwed

Bear wrote:

I think we need to transition away from the "everyone needs to go to college" ideology. There are plenty of brilliant people who can and will go to college but we must also provide for those who won't.

I just heard a discussion today with John Ratzenburger. He's got a big movement to restore trade skill training in schools. There are estimates that in the year 2020 there may be as many as 10M unfilled jobs that require people trained in specific trade skills. The average age right now for tradesmen nationwide is close to 56. When they retire there is simply no one for fill their shoes. These are the people that are largely responsible for actually making this country run.

We've devalued the importance of people who and do "hands on" stuff. Carpenters, sheet metal workers, pipefitters, plumbers, sewer workers.....they hold this society together. Without them you have a lot of highly educated people without running water.

Yet schools are throwing out all of the programs that teach kids these trade skills. We've decided that everyone should go to college and if that's not your path then we've go nothing for you in the modern school system.

Anyway, here's a link to the article:
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/10/03/john-ratzenberger-on-why-were-becoming-a-third-world-country/

And if you haven't seen Mike Rowe's discussion on the issue. This is a MUST WATCH!

Makes me want to go to a trade school and become a carpenter.

LGBT rights and a large reduction in the median income between whites and other races.

Reduced college enrollment or the expansion of the college system to include technical schools.

Increase in teacher's pay or benefits to compete with private sector jobs.

Separation of emergency and community services (education, police, fire, etc) in Local, State, and Federal Gov't budgets from being a % of total revenue.

Recognition in Local, State, and Fed Gov't budgets of the likelihood of boom and bust cycles

Complete transparency in government and lobbying monies and extremely stiff penalties for offenders

Rollback of corporate personhood

What Bear said to start with.

I'd also like to see our elections, at the least the big ones like POTUS be set up like a March Madness bracket. Maybe people would be more informed about candidates like Huntsman if they had to choose between him and a one other candidate.

I think we need to transition away from the "everyone needs to go to college" ideology. There are plenty of brilliant people who can and will go to college but we must also provide for those who won't.

I just heard a discussion today with John Ratzenburger. He's behind a movement to restore trade skill training in schools. There are estimates that in the year 2020 there may be as many as 10M unfilled jobs that require people trained in specific trade skills. The average age right now for tradesmen nationwide is close to 56. When they retire there is simply no one to fill their shoes. These are the people that are largely responsible for actually making this country run.

We've devalued the importance of people who do "hands on" stuff. Carpenters, sheet metal workers, pipefitters, plumbers, sewer workers.....they hold this society together. Without them you have a lot of highly educated people without running water.

Yet schools are throwing out all of the programs that teach kids these trade skills. We've decided that everyone should go to college and if that's not your path then we've go nothing for you in the modern school system. It's also shown that there is a massive spike in the drop-out rate when these programs are abolished.

Not everyone is going to be a aeronautical engineer and not everyone WANTS to be an engineer. Let's not forget that the average working man/woman actually built this country. I've know a few engineers with brilliant ideas who are personally incapable of changing their own oil.

Anyway, here's a link to the article:
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/10/03/john-ratzenberger-on-why-were-becoming-a-third-world-country/

And if you haven't seen Mike Rowe's discussion on the issue. This is a MUST WATCH!

Saw a great article by Neal Stephenson on this front yesterday.

Linky clicky.

Can we get back to where we actually thought being an "elite" was a good thing? I thought the idea of America wasn't that we hate elites, it's that we hate elites who are deemed such by circumstance of birth. The whole point was to decide someone was an elite based on talent, not to get rid of elites altogether, wasn't it?

CheezePavilion wrote:

Can we get back to where we actually thought being an "elite" was a good thing? I thought the idea of America wasn't that we hate elites, it's that we hate elites who are deemed such by circumstance of birth. The whole point was to decide someone was an elite based on talent, not to get rid of elites altogether, wasn't it?

I like this idea, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

I would totally become a maverick carpenter with Paleocon.
Can we get taco to be our electrician?

Being a good neighbour?

i would like to see the distrust of the "elite" shifted to the super rich. Assuming Cheeze and Taco were referring to the intellectual elite.

I would also like to see the some sort of thing where employees had to own a certain percentage of any company above xxx amount of revenue.

boogle wrote:

I would totally become a maverick carpenter with Paleocon.
Can we get taco to be our electrician?

Only if Jolly Bill will be our plumber.

Kraint wrote:

Saw a great article by Neal Stephenson on this front yesterday.

Linky clicky.

Good article, yet somehow depressing.

KrazyTacoFO wrote:
boogle wrote:

I would totally become a maverick carpenter with Paleocon.
Can we get taco to be our electrician?

Only if Jolly Bill will be our plumber.

We'll call it 3 white nerds and an armed asian construction.

boogle wrote:
KrazyTacoFO wrote:
boogle wrote:

I would totally become a maverick carpenter with Paleocon.
Can we get taco to be our electrician?

Only if Jolly Bill will be our plumber.

We'll call it 3 white nerds and an armed asian construction.

I demand that you turn up to all jobs in full videogaming cosplay appropriate to your roles. Yes, Jolly Bill, that means that you get to choose red or green overalls.

Jonman wrote:
boogle wrote:
KrazyTacoFO wrote:
boogle wrote:

I would totally become a maverick carpenter with Paleocon.
Can we get taco to be our electrician?

Only if Jolly Bill will be our plumber.

We'll call it 3 white nerds and an armed asian construction.

I demand that you turn up to all jobs in full videogaming cosplay appropriate to your roles. Yes, Jolly Bill, that means that you get to choose red or green overalls.

Hey Jonman, you want a job as Assistant to the Regional Manager?

Free tuition to anyone in a math/science/technology program, or a trade school.

Swap the military and NASA budgets. (Joking, but only half.)

KrazyTacoFO wrote:
Jonman wrote:
boogle wrote:
KrazyTacoFO wrote:
boogle wrote:

I would totally become a maverick carpenter with Paleocon.
Can we get taco to be our electrician?

Only if Jolly Bill will be our plumber.

We'll call it 3 white nerds and an armed asian construction.

I demand that you turn up to all jobs in full videogaming cosplay appropriate to your roles. Yes, Jolly Bill, that means that you get to choose red or green overalls.

Hey Jonman, you want a job as Assistant to the Regional Manager?

Let's talk remuneration packages. How much bacon would this role pay?

clover wrote:

Swap the military and NASA budgets. (Joking, but only half.)

Just militarize NASA then. That would get most of the conservatives on board and the general "U-S-A! U-S-A!" crowd could get behind it because we could talk about developing a precision orbital bombardment ability with our Star Destroyers to keep other pesky terrestrial nations in line. Sadly, as a country we only want to spend money on blowing stuff up while viewing every other expenditure as waste. $3 million for a single bomb? Yay! $20 to transport a Twinkie into the middle of the desert so a soldier can eat it for a snack? Waste of the highest order!

So, for me, I'd like to de-deify the military and have it treated like any other national expense that people can begin to analyze on a realistic cost/benefit basis.

clover wrote:

Free tuition to anyone in a math/science/technology program, or a trade school.

Swap the military and NASA budgets. (Joking, but only half.)

This might be he single most brilliant thing I've ever read here.

It would re-establish "elite"
We become a world leader in ways other than militarily
We provide a technological utopia for high tech jobs
The innovation that would come out of these endeavors would be staggering!

Bear wrote:

I think we need to transition away from the "everyone needs to go to college" ideology. There are plenty of brilliant people who can and will go to college but we must also provide for those who won't.

I just heard a discussion today with John Ratzenburger. He's behind a movement to restore trade skill training in schools. There are estimates that in the year 2020 there may be as many as 10M unfilled jobs that require people trained in specific trade skills. The average age right now for tradesmen nationwide is close to 56. When they retire there is simply no one to fill their shoes. These are the people that are largely responsible for actually making this country run.

We've devalued the importance of people who do "hands on" stuff. Carpenters, sheet metal workers, pipefitters, plumbers, sewer workers.....they hold this society together. Without them you have a lot of highly educated people without running water.

Yet schools are throwing out all of the programs that teach kids these trade skills. We've decided that everyone should go to college and if that's not your path then we've go nothing for you in the modern school system. It's also shown that there is a massive spike in the drop-out rate when these programs are abolished.

Not everyone is going to be a aeronautical engineer and not everyone WANTS to be an engineer. Let's not forget that the average working man/woman actually built this country. I've know a few engineers with brilliant ideas who are personally incapable of changing their own oil.

Anyway, here's a link to the article:
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/10/03/john-ratzenberger-on-why-were-becoming-a-third-world-country/

And if you haven't seen Mike Rowe's discussion on the issue. This is a MUST WATCH!

See also Mike Rowe's testimony to Senate Committee on the same theme.

clover wrote:

Swap the military and NASA budgets. (Joking, but only half.)

This, a million times this. Instead of military bases in all the states that are such sacred cows, guess what we'd get? Rocket bases. Either making, fitting, launching, or landing orbital craft. Or the support thereof.

I'm not sure how far I want to discuss this because so far this isn't a typical P&C thread (not that I don't...love those!) but something struck me:

Interesting quote from that article:

"I could see that most of the workers were over 50 years old. And I started digging a little deeper, and CEOs would tell me, 'Yeah, we just don't know where the next generation of workers is coming from.'"

Why would a CEO care where the next generation of workers is coming from? He's responsible for the value of his company today, not next generation.

Maybe the reason we think everyone needs to go to college is because it's only the college jobs that the forces at work in the economy can get rich off of? Carpenters, sheet metal workers, pipefitters, plumbers, sewer workers: one thing they all have in common is that it's very hard for a stockholder corporation to make money off of the labor of those people. For the most part, those are small businesses. Occasionally you get a Toll Brothers or something, but it's hard to get Joe the Plumber & Sons listed on a stock exchange.

Maybe the problem is our economy has been geared towards producing the most *profitable* American workers to people who invest, not in creating the most *useful* American workers to the American economy?

Americans have been taught that no bachelor's degree = destitute, illiterate peasant. College used to be the golden key to success and upward mobility, and people can't wrap their heads around the idea that that's not really the case anymore.

Any real change has to somehow address the fact that people here have been taught to look down on trades.

Edit: Bear already wrote this! I'm smrt.