Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
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I will respond to questions and comments as time permits, but if you want to take issuewith any position expressed here, you first have to answer this question:
What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?
I simply will not reply to challenges that do not address this question. Refutabilityis one of the classic determinants of whether a theory can be called scientific. Moreover,I have found it to be a great general-purpose cut-through-the-crap question to determinewhether somebody is interested in serious intellectual inquiry or just playing mind games.Note, by the way, that I am assuming the burden of proof here - all youhave to do is commit to a criterion for testing.It's easy to criticize science for being "closed-minded". Are you open-mindedenough to consider whether your ideas might be wrong?
An address delivered at the XXIV Political Science Symposium, University of California, Berkeley, Prefecture of Northern California, Pacific Rim Co-Prosperity Sphere, May 14, 2115.
Sweeping changes in geopolitics can happen with astonishing speed. Examples from the last few centuries include Japan's leap from feudalism to technological mastery between 1850 and 1900, the rapprochement of Britain and France in the early 20th century, when former military and political rivals became firm allies, the sudden dissolution of colonial empires in the mid-20th century, and the equally sudden dissolution of the Communist Empire a few decades later. But surely the most dramatic must be the decline of the United States from the only global superpower in 2000 to an impoverished region economically dissected into spheres of influence by more advanced nations. This decline, coinciding with the social, economic and political collapse of Europe, has led for the first time in world history to Asia being globally dominant, economically and technologically.
One of the most salient characteristics of underdeveloped countries is that upward mobility tends to be channeled into unproductive and parasitic occupations. Instead of founding a technical university, using national revenues to fund it and pay its instructors well, and then pay the graduates to address national needs, a typical Third World country creates a complex bureaucracy that creates nothing, consumes resources, and erects endless obstacles to those few innovators who do attempt to do something constructive. Citizens who do want to excel are forced to emigrate to foreign centers of learning, and once there, typically realize the futility of attempting to succeed in their homeland. Foreign investors typically find themselves beset with endless paperwork and administrative fees, as well as subtle and not so subtle requests for bribes. They either give up in disgust or go along, perpetuating the corruption of the bureaucracy and its stranglehold on the society.
Many of the indicators typically cited to show this process in the United States are overblown. True, entertainers, athletes, and corporate executives were paid exorbitant salaries, but on the scale of the United States economy of 2000 the total amount was insignificant. Educators routinely grumbled about pay and funding, but in point of fact salaries were decent and educational institutions were well supported. As many studies have shown, satisfaction is less a function of absolute wealth and far more a matter of comparative wealth; the real irritation for American intellectuals was the simple fact that they were shown on a daily basis that their society valued non-productive activities like dribbling a basketball more highly.
The really corrosive influence in the United States was that, increasingly, graduates avoided careers in science, technology, mathematics, foreign languages, or any other field perceived as difficult. There were lucrative careers in all those fields, but it was just as easy to find a lucrative bureaucratic career in government or industry. The problem was not that there were no rewards for choosing science and technology as a career, but the rewards were insufficient to entice enough people to enter those fields. A commonly cited example was that a scientist who developed a new product for his employer would often be paid much less than the lawyer who drew up the patent application or the marketer who advertised it.
The American reward system became increasingly Third World in the 21st century. Political activists of all flavors espoused disdain for hard work, typically asserting that the System was controlled by vested interests that rendered individual effort pointless. American entertainment came to be dominated by fantasies of instant wealth or celebrity, encouraging many Americans to devote endless hours to improving their skills in entertainment or sports instead of something more substantive. Gambling wore down all legal restraints against it and became ubiquitous, destroying what little was left of Americans' instinct to save.
As services became more scarce, Americans decided to abandon some luxuries to be able to afford others. As the economy stagnated, Americans increasingly insisted that the state supply their life support needs. They wanted the rich to supply that money and the rich did the predictable thing: emigrated or quit producing.
For a simple model, almost a controlled experiment, consider the case of Uruguay half a century earlier in the mid twentieth century. Uruguay was a small country, neither required to maintain a massive military machine nor threatened from without. Uruguay at the time boasted a humane, democratic government, good relations with its neighbors, and some of the most generous social programs in the world. It was called "The Switzerland of South America."
During the 1950's, however, Uruguay's balance of trade began to suffer as foreign competition eroded sales of beef, its principal export and the mainstay of its economy. Uruguay's ability to sustain its generous programs began to suffer, but cuts, instead of being seen as painful necessities, were seen as erosions of basic rights. An urban guerilla movement launched a terrorist campaign, which in turn triggered a military coup and harsh repression. The insane hope of the guerillas was that repression would lead to a general revolution, but instead it merely led to repression. Although Uruguay restored democracy in the 1970's, it was never able to regain its former prosperity.
The future is unknowable, and nations cannot make the fatal mistake of promising absolute benefits. Conservative Americans were once fond of quoting the following words, attributed to the 18th century writer Alexander Tytler.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.
This is one of those quotes, like Voltaire's "I disagree with what you say but I will defend to your death your right to say it," that was never actually uttered by the alleged speaker. The energy devoted to debunking Tytler's fictitious remarks is ironic, for while the saying is apocryphal, the real issue is whether the saying is true.
People with the energy and motivation to do science will seek their fortunes elsewhere.
People will certainly decide they have better things to spend money on than taxes for schools.
We'll decide that vocational training is cheaper and faster, and you don't need to know whether the earth goes around the sun to cut a 2x4 or install a motherboard.
We'll decide we don't need liberal education.
As the rest of the world advances, we probably won't fall below the global lowest common denominator, but bear in mind that countries near the global mean for GDP per capita include Mexico, Brazil, Iran, Turkey and Russia.
Europe, which had long boasted that it led America in social programs, led America over the brink. For decades the generous European social welfare programs were supported jointly by a willingness to contribute to the society in the form of taxes, and a strong work ethic that resisted the temptation to abuse the benefits. By the early 21st Century, however, the social pressures against abuse began to erode, and young Europeans increasingly considered themselves entitled to support at state expense. The "brain drain" to America that had periodically plagued European societies simultaneously accelerated Europe's decline while delaying that of America. Politicians and observers in both societies who saw what was happening were unable to mobilize enough political support to overcome the votes of those who craved state life support.
Even as the United States suffered increasingly from foreign competition, most Americans clung to the myth that foreign languages were unnecessary, much as the French before them clung to the illusion that their language would remain the preferred form of communication. Students who did take foreign languages overwhelmingly chose Spanish. Given the huge Latin American influx around 2000 and the growth in jobs that required Spanish proficiency, that tendency was understandable. However, it also should be noted that Spanish had always been widely considered the easiest major foreign language for Americans to learn and therefore the path of least resistance. Schools that increased their offerings in Spanish usually did so by cutting other languages like French and German. Less frequently taught languages, like Russian, Arabic, Farsi, Korean, Japanese, or Chinese, which are more difficult for English speakers to master, were still avoided by most students even after it became glaringly obvious that knowledge of these languages was critical to American interests.
The American military devoted enormous resources to foreign language training but still suffered from some fatal flaws in its approach. One military observer once noted that in war "the side with the simplest uniforms wins." As American uniforms became increasingly cluttered with bric-a-brac, the American military obsession with appearance over substance nullified whatever advantages the U.S. military had in language training. Once linguists were assigned to units, they were frequently assigned to menial duties and unproductive training instead of continued training in their language. Even at the Defense Language Institute itself, enlisted students were assigned to work details during their course of study. Troops who failed to meet various physical fitness and weight standards were denied promotion and discharged regardless of fluency. Ironically, those who failed marksmanship were not subject to penalties. The U.S. military, in effect, said it didn't matter whether soldiers could shoot straight as long as they looked sharp. The result was inevitable. The military might spend over a year raising a soldier to basic fluency in Arabic. That soldier might well never be assigned to duties requiring fluency, would have scant opportunity to maintain or improve fluency, and would leave as soon as possible. Few of the departing linguists maintained their proficiency or were sufficiently fluent to find civilian employment as translators. For the fluency needed to achieve real intelligence value: the ability to speak fluently on the telephone, understand casual conversations on the street or picked up by listening devices, the U.S. was forced to rely on interpreters who had learned the language in childhood, or on foreign interpreters of often questionable reliability. As a result, American military security in foreign countries leaked like a sieve.
It is only for the sake of completeness that I note what all historians know; that the U.S. defeat in the War on Terror was a direct result of American disdain for languages. Moles among the foreign interpreters successfully maneuvered two American battalions in Iran into a full-scale battle with each other on April 22, 2024, complete with air strikes, and the resulting political backlash resulted in a rash of high level courts-martial and the impeachment of the President. His successor ordered an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East, a withdrawal that turned into a series of desperate rear guard actions. To his credit, the new President recognized the source of the problem and proposed a massive program to fund language instruction at America's universities, but the plan ran into an impenetrable thicket of obstacles. The plan was denounced as racist because it included Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages but not Spanish, it was attacked as elitist because it rewarded students willing to take difficult languages, it was denounced by specialists in other fields for emphasizing only languages, and it was denounced as too costly by everybody. The plan degenerated into a general tuition assistance program, funded at a token level, and achieved nothing.
Americans could indulge the fantasy that they could get along only with English because for a long time it was true. A trip from Lisbon to Moscow takes a traveler across a dozen language areas; a trip from Miami to Seattle, a similar distance, requires only English. Although Chinese always had a larger number of speakers, during the 20th century English had no rival as a global language, its position buttressed first by the British Empire and later by its American successor. With the economic decline of the United States reducing it to a second-rank market, the appeal of learning English has lessened considerably. Foreigners wishing to trade with the Americas are now as likely to learn Spanish and Portuguese as English, and those wishing to do business in high technology are more likely to learn Chinese and Japanese. In Europe, French and German always vied with English as common languages, and easily supplanted English once the United States went into free-fall. Even India, which for a long time used English as a lingua franca to unite its linguistic minorities, has begun a campaign to replace English with Hindi. With English no longer the dominant global language, and thus no longer automatically a route to the top in Indian society, it is far easier to sell Hindi as the national language.
Although bureaucratic problems were certainly significant in America's schools, the real fatal problem in the American educational system was precisely the feature most often touted as its greatest strength: local control. Advocates of local control claimed it empowered parents to decide what was best for their children. In practice, local control was more often a vehicle for watering down standards, diluting the curriculum by removing anything that might be offensive to some vocal pressure group, and intimidating or dismissing teachers and administrators who resisted.
The free market in education, touted by its supporters as the key to reforming American education, failed to live up to its promise. First, once voucher and reimbursement programs were in place, hordes of inferior private schools sprang up, with inadequate curricula and poorly paid, unmotivated teachers. Innumerable subterfuges were devised to funnel voucher funds back to parents as an incentive for enrolling in these cut-rate institutions. The parents, delighted by reduced tax bills and the illicit rebates, held enough voting power to elect legislators willing to block any attempts at reform. For every family in poverty that used school choice to improve their children's education, there were ten middle class families who settled for the lowest common denominator. Students, who sat through classes with minimal demands, easy grades and lax attendance requirements, and that frequently adjourned early, saw no reason to complain.
Free competition failed to raise quality in the public schools for a variety of reasons. First, the third-rate private schools showed clearly that many parents simply did not care about quality in education. Some public schools slashed costs and quality in an attempt to recapture their lost market share. Others simply realized that offering high quality simply carried no competitive advantages. And those schools that did try to compete by raising quality encountered stiff opposition from parents and a complete lack of support from school boards, legislatures, and the courts.
One of the selling points advanced by backers of vouchers and school choice was that competition would raise the quality of public schools. And so it might have, if market forces had been allowed to work. Unfortunately, they were not. Public schools that attempted to retain standards found themselves beleaguered by lawsuits, often filed by activist groups. As motivated students left, the schools, far from being able to respond to the challenge, became increasingly dominated by parents who were determined to defend their children against authority against any cost. They drove good administrators from office and voted in school boards who were equally antagonistic to academic rigor. The American educational system became increasingly stratified, with a minority of motivated students in high quality schools, and the rest, including those most in need of quality education, in mediocre schools. As the effects of this educational stratification began to become apparent, legislatures passed laws prohibiting colleges and universities from differentiating among schools in admissions, or employers in hiring.
Most Americans at the dawn of the 21st century, were, like most people everywhere and at all times, passive consumers of the fruits of science with no real understanding of how science worked. But America was a nation whose power and prosperity depended to an unprecedented degree on science and technology.
As more Americans lived in urban settings, cut off from nature, and lived increasingly in virtual reality worlds, they saw less and less need for science education. For a while, America covered its shortfall of scientists, engineers and technologists from outside, but as the society became increasingly self-satisfied and anti-intellectual, the rewards for science lagged behind those for less productive jobs. As other nations overtook the U.S., eventually the U.S. stopped being an attractive destination for scientists, engineers and technologists.
One by one, America began abandoning scientific and technological enterprises. Shipbuilding virtually disappeared from America, as did mining. America found it could live without a space program because other nations were fully space-capable by 2000 (thanks in large part to American development of the technology) and Americans could rely on foreign weather and communications satellites. The Federal and state governments decided they didn't need geological surveys any more because the mapping had all been done and it was already known where all the faults and resources were. Geological surveys were particularly vulnerable to attack. Environmental extremists wanted them dismantled because of their role in promoting mining. Right-wing political extremists wanted them dismantled because they obstructed projects in hazardous or sensitive areas, delivered unwelcome news about energy and climate change, and cost tax dollars. Religious extremists wanted them shut down because geological surveys insisted on an ancient earth and on evolution.
Eventually, America reached the point where the technological degradation began to pinch. The wealthiest fraction of the population was able to go on living an affluent lifestyle, generally by purchasing foreign goods and services, but the rest of the society saw a steady erosion. Rarely did the decline mean the sudden loss of something once seen as a necessity. Instead, as older workers retired, at greater ages than their parents, younger workers were hired into lower paying jobs. Goods were typically produced in cheaper but lower quality versions until many consumers decided they were no longer worth the trouble. Parts once made of durable metal were now made of plastic. Furniture once made of wood was now made of pressed sawdust. Upgrades of equipment were postponed, repairs made less frequently, and services became less reliable and more costly. The experience with air travel was typical. In the 1960's air travel was regarded as a luxury and even coach passengers were pampered. Soon the demand for low cost air travel had spawned numerous "no frills" airlines where passengers traded some loss of comfort for lower fares. In an aviation version of Gresham's Law, the pressure for low fares soon drove out the last vestiges of luxury in coach class, while the swelling tide of passengers cramped airports, increased delays, and made the whole experience an ordeal. The slide of the American economy eventually meant that fewer Americans could afford air travel, but as the market contracted, airlines were financially unable to offer attractive incentives.
It is ironic that the earth is still habitable in large part because of the United States. The concept of national parks originated there, as did the environmental movement. Although less developed countries long derided environmentalism as a fad of sated and wealthy Americans, the economic benefits of preserving wildlife and open space provided concrete incentives to preserve the environment. Also, intellectuals and visionaries in less developed countries saw clearly that the future quality of life in their own countries required conservation.
The American passion for the environment that was so widespread in the late 20th century bore an ominous resemblance to the resurgence of affection displayed by many children just before they outgrow a favorite toy. When the American economy stagnated, Americans reluctantly gave up endangered species as they became expendable. Whooping cranes and condors were symbols of a vanishing past, but most people had never seen them, preferred to spend preservation moneys on services of more immediate personal benefit, and didn't miss them when they finally became extinct. Americans preferred jobs to the preservation of endangered species. Besides, the American disdain for history, the declining quality of education, and the machinations of various political groups meant that fewer and fewer Americans were aware of their frontier past or inclined to respect it.
At first, only non-conspicuous species were deemed expendable, but when habitat destruction, contamination, and lack of funding wiped out condors and whooping cranes, Americans mourned briefly and then shrugged. The recovery of wolves, mountain lions and grizzly bears proved problematical as they began impinging on human livestock and settlements. Increasingly, the American divorce from nature meant that more and more people felt that it was just as good to see species in zoos or virtual reality as in the natural world. Species like wolves and bald eagles that had recovered from the brink of extinction were regarded as success stories, no longer in need of protection, and thereafter neglected. So while Americans never went back to wholesale and wanton destruction of wildlife, the steady attrition of rare species, habitat destruction, and general lack of funding for protection cased a steady erosion of biodiversity, leaving America with an ecological lowest common denominator of species who can tolerate human proximity and stressed habitats. Ironically, while Siberian tigers and great pandas are, for the moment, secure, California condors and whooping cranes are extinct.
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