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bigearl · 06-11-2010, 04:09 PM

Sorry to do this to you. I watched some footage of the shuttle launching and then I took a mountain bike ride at lunch (which usually relaxes me) and I got a little upset about where we are. This is not political because it's been happening for years over all administrations so don't push it that direction. Also I'm skipping some stuff to get me to why I'm mad.

America has ALWAYS been the leader at something big.

At first it was big ideas (freedom from monarchy and self governance and reliance. Other countries had kind of done this, but America succeeded in a big way where no one else had. And it has usually been poised to lead the world in the next big thing at just the right time.

Then came Big Tobacco, Big Cotton, Big Steel, Big Manufacturing -all came and then the world caught up.

But then we have big science. America became THE hub for science and engineering in the world. The best and brightest came to America to innovate or to escape persecution. America was becoming important for industry prior to this, but this immigration of scientists made America what it is. It's too exhaustive to name all of the amazing scientists, so I'll just name a few that immigrated here in the first half of the 1900's:

Fermi (nuclear reactors)
Alexander Graham Bell
Tesla (ac electrical systems)
Braun (rocket engineer)
Einstein....

We had generations of the worlds best and brightest coming to America and going to American Schools and teaching or learning. But more importantly we developed 2 of the best post-graduate school apprenticeship programs on earth: Nasa and the Military-Industrial complex. These people would not only get their education but then they had an advanced studies program to apply their genius.

Which brings me to where we are now. The American Military-Industrial complex has gradually been going global and being wittled down a bit at a time. We have given up a large share of our big budget American only projects (the f-22 for example) in favor of shared technology platforms like the JSF 35. Nothing against the 35 but it was designed all over the US and Europe for use all over NATO.

30 years ago there was only 1 country that could build something on the scale of the large hadron collider (the U.S.) and it would have been built in cooperation with the US Army corp of engineers. You'd be reading about scientist coming to America from all over the world to staff it too.

It was almost a cliche that a NASA scientist or engineer would work at NASA for 20 years then retire out and go start their own widget company, suddenly advancing the state of widgets by 20 years. We'd design the first of an innovative product and the world would copy us. Does it still happen that way? of course, sometimes, but nothing on the scale of the way it was just 20 years ago.

Now we're giving up these training grounds of mighty projects and allowing the talent to disperse. A bright young person from India will now go to MIT, then go home and innovate there. We have been losing the fight for mid-level engineering (consumer products type things) for years but we always had the high end with the best of the best.

Now American engineering schools are having difficult finding American engineering post-graduate candidates.

So NASA is nominally there, but we're basically handing the aerospace torch on to China. American projects are going to go to the space station on Russian rockets????? We still have a military industrial complex but it's shared with Europe. Scientists don't need to come to America anymore since the big projects are spreading everywhere since we aren't taking leadership in the huge.

The only place left that we are undisputably in the lead is in medical equipment technology and we seem to be hell-bent on giving up that advantage as quickly as we can.

We can't make this up with manufacturing either. Manufacturing is too competitive. The only way to compete at the mass consumer level would be to devalue the dollar enough for other countries to find our products more affordable. That just means a further diminishment in lifestyle. It's not enough to sell American products to Americans anymore. You've got to sell them across the world if you want to be world class.

I'm a capitalist at heart, but America got where it is today with innovation and we have got to invest heavily as a country in big ideas that bring the brightest people here to our shores.

And most annoyingly of all, American's have been known for years and appreciated for a self confident swagger filled lifestyle and attitude. Sure that annoyed some cultures, but winners are individuals-not cultures, and winners want to join the team that behaves like winners. We are being preached at to become more humble and sensitive to other cultures etc. People haven't been struggling to come to America for 350 years because they wanted to be a bunch of cowtowing pansies. People came to America because they wanted to sack up and make more of their lives.

Thanks for letting me rant. I apologize in advance to the TL/DR crowd.

06-11-2010, 04:09 PM	#1
bigearl Drives: 10 Camaro 2lt Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Napa Posts: 553	A little rant on the state of America Sorry to do this to you. I watched some footage of the shuttle launching and then I took a mountain bike ride at lunch (which usually relaxes me) and I got a little upset about where we are. This is not political because it's been happening for years over all administrations so don't push it that direction. Also I'm skipping some stuff to get me to why I'm mad. America has ALWAYS been the leader at something big. At first it was big ideas (freedom from monarchy and self governance and reliance. Other countries had kind of done this, but America succeeded in a big way where no one else had. And it has usually been poised to lead the world in the next big thing at just the right time. Then came Big Tobacco, Big Cotton, Big Steel, Big Manufacturing -all came and then the world caught up. But then we have big science. America became THE hub for science and engineering in the world. The best and brightest came to America to innovate or to escape persecution. America was becoming important for industry prior to this, but this immigration of scientists made America what it is. It's too exhaustive to name all of the amazing scientists, so I'll just name a few that immigrated here in the first half of the 1900's: Fermi (nuclear reactors) Alexander Graham Bell Tesla (ac electrical systems) Braun (rocket engineer) Einstein.... We had generations of the worlds best and brightest coming to America and going to American Schools and teaching or learning. But more importantly we developed 2 of the best post-graduate school apprenticeship programs on earth: Nasa and the Military-Industrial complex. These people would not only get their education but then they had an advanced studies program to apply their genius. Which brings me to where we are now. The American Military-Industrial complex has gradually been going global and being wittled down a bit at a time. We have given up a large share of our big budget American only projects (the f-22 for example) in favor of shared technology platforms like the JSF 35. Nothing against the 35 but it was designed all over the US and Europe for use all over NATO. 30 years ago there was only 1 country that could build something on the scale of the large hadron collider (the U.S.) and it would have been built in cooperation with the US Army corp of engineers. You'd be reading about scientist coming to America from all over the world to staff it too. It was almost a cliche that a NASA scientist or engineer would work at NASA for 20 years then retire out and go start their own widget company, suddenly advancing the state of widgets by 20 years. We'd design the first of an innovative product and the world would copy us. Does it still happen that way? of course, sometimes, but nothing on the scale of the way it was just 20 years ago. Now we're giving up these training grounds of mighty projects and allowing the talent to disperse. A bright young person from India will now go to MIT, then go home and innovate there. We have been losing the fight for mid-level engineering (consumer products type things) for years but we always had the high end with the best of the best. Now American engineering schools are having difficult finding American engineering post-graduate candidates. So NASA is nominally there, but we're basically handing the aerospace torch on to China. American projects are going to go to the space station on Russian rockets????? We still have a military industrial complex but it's shared with Europe. Scientists don't need to come to America anymore since the big projects are spreading everywhere since we aren't taking leadership in the huge. The only place left that we are undisputably in the lead is in medical equipment technology and we seem to be hell-bent on giving up that advantage as quickly as we can. We can't make this up with manufacturing either. Manufacturing is too competitive. The only way to compete at the mass consumer level would be to devalue the dollar enough for other countries to find our products more affordable. That just means a further diminishment in lifestyle. It's not enough to sell American products to Americans anymore. You've got to sell them across the world if you want to be world class. I'm a capitalist at heart, but America got where it is today with innovation and we have got to invest heavily as a country in big ideas that bring the brightest people here to our shores. And most annoyingly of all, American's have been known for years and appreciated for a self confident swagger filled lifestyle and attitude. Sure that annoyed some cultures, but winners are individuals-not cultures, and winners want to join the team that behaves like winners. We are being preached at to become more humble and sensitive to other cultures etc. People haven't been struggling to come to America for 350 years because they wanted to be a bunch of cowtowing pansies. People came to America because they wanted to sack up and make more of their lives. Thanks for letting me rant. I apologize in advance to the TL/DR crowd.