If country A makes and achieves its goal to give the next generation an average IQ of 130, and country B makes its goal to encourage the next generation to do something meaningful (to them), B will serve A before long.
I somewhat doubt it. Let's use something you're likely to be familiar with, smartphone apps... Now it's arguable that the skills required to develop a smartphone app implies a reasonable level of intelligence, yet look at any app store and you'll see huge numbers of uninspired, lowest common denominator shovelware. Does the world really need hundreds of todo apps? Do you really think people are driven to make those apps for anything greater than the "prestige" of being an app developer or a desperate attempt at making money?
Compare and contrast with a society that values the outcome of the work rather than how book smart you need to be able to do it. For example nature conservation is pretty easy to understand how to do right, and there's a tangible lasting benefit.
Guess it depends on what you view as a society worth having.
Maybe. Or lots of people from country B will get into country A as "refugees", bring along their families, and have taxpayers in country A pay for them while they do what they can to be racist and criminal against native people from country A.
It depends on the moral sensibilities of the A'ers.
>Poor are poor not just because they don't have money but also because they are unable to get out of it. They have to go through unspeakable ordeal just to get one meal a day and this places enormous cognitive load on the entire family.
That seems like it should be true intuitively, but if it were true, you'd expect higher benefit levels to correlate with higher rates of getting out of poverty. The data points to the opposite happening.
That study is the complete opposite of the experience of Nordic and Northern European countries with very strong welfare programs and very high class mobility.
Methinks that given the political bias of the study and the fact that it takes a particularly period for the American economy, that there's not much to learn from it.
Also, the fact that single mothers who were on welfare are now working is not actually a good indicator for me. I want the single mothers to have to raise their children in decent environments though maternal leave and good family policies, instead of seeing them work full-time out of necessity.
I think welfare is only one tool against poverty, far from being the whole solution. Actually nordish countries have many more tools against equality, like health coverage and free education. Welfare, even in those countries, is the last "fallback", nothing more. So the study is really biased on the people with the most problems. No surprise they don't get out of it well.
He was an ardent atheist who underwent a deathbed conversion. The person who administered the last sacraments to him - Father Anselm Strittmatter - said that he was so terrified of dying that he did his best to distract himself from that prospect. Even spending time reciting Goethe's Faust to his brother.
He was a brilliant man and he was understandably terrified of the very mortal fate that awaits all of us.
Any organization with secrets worth keeping must try to detect spies and repel infiltrators.
It may reduce disastrous false negatives at the cost of an increase in false positives.
In the 1940s, the Soviet Union had hundreds of agents in the executive branch of the US government. KGB records opened in the last 20 years largely vindicate McCarthy (Edit: in that the threat was real; infiltration had happened; most of his targets were Soviet agents, Communists, or associated with Communists; and security risks had to be removed from positions in which they could do harm for the good of freedom-loving people everywhere).
I don't see that evidence of spies in government vindicates MCCarthy.
It might do if he had restricted himself to the threat of spies in the government, rather than instituting a campaign against communists and homosexuals throughout much of US society.
Spies in the executive does not justify Hollywood blacklists, the censoring of library books resulting in book burnings, attacks on the clergy, attacks on academics, the 10000 people forced into unemployment by the loyalty review boards or the repeated burglaries against lawyers who would represent those who were targeted.
> historian John Earl Haynes concluded that, of 159 people identified on lists used or referenced by McCarthy, evidence was substantial that nine had aided Soviet espionage efforts.
You know, the problem with lists like this is that, once you've made the list, any organization with a cover-your-ass mentality (eg, every organization) is going to treat it as sacrosanct. Regardless of how flimsy the list was to start with, no amount of evidence can ever clear someone well enough. The risk isn't "chance of being wrong * real-world consequences of being wrong", it's "chance of being wrong * (real-world consequences of being wrong + career consequences of 'letting the guy on the known-threat list slip through')". The career consequences have infinite weight, so the chance of being wrong can never be low enough.
Why don't you quote the next sentence? "He suggested that a majority of those on the lists could legitimately have been considered security risks, but that a substantial minority could not."
Because it's nearly tautological: everyone on that list got there for some reason. The fact that a majority of those reasons weren't entirely made up isn't an indication of their quality as predictors of espionage.
Since we now have access to the ground truth we can compute the actual false positive rate. The great-grandparent post suggests that such an examination would vindicate McCarthy, but I have trouble sympathizing with this view. A 94% false-positive rate (96% if you use McCarthy's original figure) is bad no matter how you slice it.
McCarthy identified several agents actively engaged in espionage. KGB records identify hundreds more that he missed.
McCarthy identified many more people in sensitive positions who were security risks, many with Communist associations. Even if those people were not actively engaged in espionage, they should not have held sensitive positions.
KGB/NKVD archives reveal they had hundreds of agents in the executive branch in the 1940s. McCarthy spurred the removal of Soviet moles, Communist sympathizers, and other security risks from sensitive positions. In this, he did the US a great service, as regrettable as false accusations are.
Edit: In response to your questions, it's as if you didn't read what I just wrote. Regarding the Soviet records of infiltration, several books have been written on these records and their revelations.
I have zero sympathy for the view that people who disagree with current social/economic/espionage policy should be removed from office on that basis alone. On the contrary, such disagreement is central to how democracy works and those who would threaten it are the true threats to our society.
That said, we continue to disagree about the numbers, and I would like to know the resolution. Could you expand on your claim that "KGB/NKVD archives reveal they had hundreds of agents in the executive branch in the 1940s"? Did McCarthy have a very high false negative rate (thereby finding only 9 of the hundreds of spies)? Are you counting "security risks" as "agents"? What gives?
Communists, meaning people who were members of the Communist Party or identified as Communists and associated with other Communists, were more likely to have come into contact with Soviet agents and been persuaded to spy or subvert US aims. We are talking about security risks not security certainties. It's entirely reasonable to remove risky people from sensitive positions. Any organization that failed to do so would fail to achieve the objectives given to it through the democratic process; it would serve another master. This is entirely separate from the question of who should choose the objectives of the government.
Ironically, Communists wished to overthrow the US government and were anti-democratic.
What are the risks, what's the error rate, and what are the consequences?
To start, what defines a sensitive position?
For example, Pete Seeger was a member of the Communist party in the US. He's a singer. He was castigated for his association with Communists, subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and found guilty of contempt of Congress before an appeals court overturned it.
Is singing a sensitive position? What about screenwriting or directing movies?
We know that "Israel's espionage activities in America are unrivaled and unseemly" (see http://www.newsweek.com/israel-wont-stop-spying-us-249757 ) . That makes Israeli citizens a risk, no? What about Israeli sympathizers in sensitive positions? At what point do we declare that any Americans with a pro-Israeli viewpoint are a security risk and should be barred from sensitive positions? (Including singing?)
You mentioned overthrowing the government. Should all people with such ideas be removed from any sensitive position? We know that various US citizens to this day 'demand the dissolution of the Federal government', as for example http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/adam-kokesh-and-pete-santil... , as just one example of people who call for a peaceful overthrow.
My answer to all of those is "no". Having a strongly held belief which happens to be aligned with a foreign power's stated goals does not immediately make one a security risk.
Consider that in South Africa during Apartheid, and after abandoning the Native Republic policy in 1948, the South African Communist Party was one of the few that called for the end of Apartheid and equality of the races. The Suppression of Communism Act in 1950 formally banned the party and all those who supported communists. In practice then, that power was used to prosecute anyone against apartheid, since after all their aims were aligned with the presumed aims of communism.
Mandela was a member of the SACP and served on its Central Committee. As he wrote, "There will always be those who say that the Communists were using us. But who is to say that we were not using them?"
>I have zero sympathy for the view that people who disagree with current social/economic/espionage policy should be removed from office on that basis alone.
Why? They'll just do a shitty job anyway. People rightfully get up in arms when Republicans want to see an opponent of the EPA appointed to the EPA, or department of education, because they know why it's being done, to undermine it. HUAC was set up to rout out Nazi sympathizers before it started going after communism, should they have been left alone?
Removing enemy agents from positions is not unAmerican.
Removing people with known security risks from sensitive positions is not unAmerican.
He missed hundreds of agents, identified several agents and many more security risks, and spurred heightened security awareness that was a very good thing at the time. Expecting him to know the identity of every Soviet agent before attempting to remove any security risks is unreasonable.
Just because some members of the American Communist party were working for the Soviets, does not mean that every member was. Guilt by association is generally not a crime under common law.
I don't know what 'unamerican' means, I know how it was used, but I don't think anyone really knows what it means. Therefore I'm bringing up common law. Whether something is unamerican or not is irrelevant. We're supposed to live in a nation of laws, not arbitrary standards.
We're talking about presumed security risks, where there is a model justifying its validity but where the validity has not been demonstrated.
American citizens of Japanese ancestry were labeled "security risks" during WWII and sent to internment camps.
Do you agree that they were risks and therefore should be removed from all sensitive positions? And if so, what defines "sensitive position"?
(We know, by the way, that there absolutely were spies for Japan in the US. http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/04/sorelle/poetry/wwii/... says that 10 were found, and none were Japanese. The only one I found by name was Velvalee Dickinson. Perhaps the risk factor was actually not having Japanese ancestry?)
If there was a risk, why the lack of serious sabotage, espionage, etc. on Hawaii, where 1/3rd of the population had Japanese ancestry and therefore economically infeasible to intern them? Was it only because the islands were under martial law, and if so, how does that make a difference?
Or do you agree with the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians that there was, in fact, little evidence of disloyalty? Do you agree with U.S. legislation saying that the "security risk" label was actually due to "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership"?
If the latter, how does one distinguish between a (supposed true) claim for being a security risk based on political party affiliation and a (demonstrably false) claim for being a security risk based on ancestry?
All I see in the history is "McCarthy identified several agents actively engaged in espionage. KGB records identify hundreds more that he missed. / McCarthy identified many more people in sensitive positions who were security risks, many with Communist associations."
I see nothing which says that "sensitive positions" is or was meant as a term limited to the executive branch or to administrative positions.
Wouldn't a non-administrative physicist on the atomic bomb project, like Theodore Hall, count as a "sensitive position"? Since I'm pretty sure that was the view back then.
Keeping people in an internment camp rather made it difficult to have an administrative position, so I don't really see the difference. Well, there's a different mechanism, but the same end goal - keep Japanese/Communists out of possible sensitive positions because some people who are Japanese/Communists are the enemy. No?
A potential spy does (potentially) subvert democracy. But removing an elected official from office definitely subverts democracy. You need to be pretty darn certain of the former before the latter becomes the lesser of two evils. Assuming my numbers are correct, "security risk" is far too poor of a standard to decide in favor of removal from office.
On the other hand, it sure is a handy standard if your actual goal is to remove your opponents from office...
Consider Victor Berger, elected as a Representative from Wisconsin in 1918. The House refused to let him serve, since he was a convicted felon (he violated the horrid Espionage Act) and war opponent.
This was justified by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment:
> No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
Following the logic that birthed the foul Espionage Act, "not wanting to go to war" = "aiding the enemy", hence Berger wasn't seated in 1919 nor, after rewinning the election, in 1920.
He was a Socialist, not a Communist. Not that it really matters; an anti-war Communist would have had no better chance.
That said, I'm as confused as you about jjoonathan' comment, as removing (or at least preventing) elected officials from holding office was at best a contingency plan during the Red Scares.
If it's unreasonable to call this a shit screening process, what would you consider reasonable?!
In any case, it seems virtually certain that McCarthy's accusations were far more effective as political tools rather than as filters against soviet subversion, in accordance with the traditional narrative.
I would qualify that to allow certain bona fide exceptions.
If a nuclear missile launch team has the position that nuclear weapons are unjustified and that pacifistic solutions are the only correct solution to national disagreements, then I think it's okay to remove them from their position, even if they've never acted on their views by not launching when the launch order came.
> removing people from their positions for the views they hold is _unamerican_.
If you're going to argue about a hiring preference being "unamerican" or not instead of its inherent morality, I don't know what game you're playing. Did you get your posting techniques from the Simple Sabotage Field Manual?
Edit: Someone is wrong on the Internet and that person is me. ;-) When I quoted the 3,370 number I missed the "(end-of-fiscal-year count, excluding Postal Service, in thousands)
[ChrisIsWrong]
The number of employees in the executive branch in the 1940's peaked at 3,370. [1] So by "hundreds of agents in the executive branch" do you mean that say, 10% of the executive branch were communist agents? [/ChrisIsWrong]
My Dad remembers McCarthy and his famous speech but doesn't know that he was discredited or even what the term "McCartheism" means.
In this, as in all classification schemes, there is a real risk of falling into a "dropping FN will raise FP" category error. The core issue may be be that your algorithm is bad, and you can find another with bother better FN and better FP.
I think what he's trying to point out is that "it's currently socially-acceptable to effectively discriminate (or in this case ignore for 'equality') against those that are currently-viewed as privileged".
Personally, I've given up trying to argue with people on this matter. Some view this sort of reverse-discrimination as some sort of noble social-correction mechanism, I just view as what it is. Because, to me, at the end of the day, we are dealing with individuals. And sure, we may be uplifting certain individuals, but at a cost of other individuals purely because their gender/race was previously benefited in some way.
"At the same time, there is no financial pressure to lower the prices of its unchanged and rather low-tech graphing calculators since consumers are happy to keep buying them."
When I think of local food production personally I am envisioning taking advantage of the latest in technology in order to create the most efficient and self-sufficient process possible. For now that means things like hydroponics and aquaponics. In the future that could be more sophisticated biotechnology or nanotechnology of some sort.
Its sort of a localization and distribution mindset.
One basic idea is that if food is produced far away, as it is often produced hundred or thousands of miles away, some energy must be expended to transport it. So if a tomato grows hydroponically in the corner of the room, the distance it needs to travel to my mouth in order for me to eat it may be say 10 feet. If it grows in the ground 500 miles away, it would need to travel 500 miles (plus 10 feet). Certainly the energy required to move a tomato 500 miles is greater than zero. Add that up for everything you eat, and there is a fair amount of inefficiency.
Another idea is that producing food or other needs locally means less dependence on more centralized control and distribution systems, which means more security for individuals and families. Its sort of like extending the idea of solar panels and 3d printing. If we can get our own energy from the sun, and print out our own products, why do we have to go to the store to buy food that was grown 400 or 4000 miles away?
It's something that's occurring elsewhere in the world on the basis of a) a population wanting to consume a thirsty crop such as rice, which requires water they don't have; and, b) not wanting to give up its food security and rely on traditional imports.
I don't know that this is something the US has done but the motivators noted above still stand.
