← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · toddbrendanfahey
Thread ID: 8523 | Posts: 19 | Started: 2003-07-28
2003-07-28 11:23 | User Profile
Johnny Can't Add (But Suresh Venktasubramanian Can)
Americans outpaced in mathematics
by Fred Reed July 28, 2003
The other day I went to the Web site of Bell Labs, one of the country's premier research outfits. I clicked at random on a research project, Programmable Networks for Tomorrow. The scientists working on the project were Gisli Hjalmstysson, Nikos Anerousis, Pawan Goyal, K. K. Ramakrishnan, Jennifer Rexford, Kobus Van der Merwe, and Sneha Kumar Kasera. Clicking again at random, this time on the Information Visualization Research Group, the research team turned out to be John Ellson, Emden Gansner, John Mocenigo, Stephen North, Jeffery Korn, Eleftherios Koutsofios, Bin Wei, Shankar Krishnan, and Suresh Venktasubramanian.
Here is a pattern I've noticed in countless organizations at the high end of the research spectrum. In the personnel lists, certain groups are phenomenally over-represented with respect to their appearance in the general American population: Chinese, Koreans, Indians, and, though it doesn't show in the above lists, Jews. What the precise statistical breakdown across the world of American research might be, I don't know. An awful lot of personnel lists look like the foregoing.
Think about this: Asians make up a small percent of the population, yet there are company directories in Silicon Valley that read like a New Delhi phone book. Many of our premier universities have become heavily Asian, with many of these students going into the sciences. If Chinese citizens and Americans of Chinese descent left tomorrow for Beijing, American research, and graduate schools in the sciences and engineering, would be crippled...
[complete article here: [url=http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1140]http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=Ne...rticle&sid=1140[/url]]
2003-07-28 11:31 | User Profile
I'd rather have Asians or Indians run things than the Jews.
2003-07-28 11:43 | User Profile
False dichotomy (either/or).
Why is America needing to import Asians and Indians into the country, when the Smiths/Joneses can't perform the necessary functions? (Answer: Publik Skools Sistum...from which every libertarian, right-winger, white nationalist, et al., should have yanked their offspring long ago.)
2003-07-28 13:04 | User Profile
An extremely interesting post!, with some great info in your site. Will take a long look at it.
I'm not doubting for 2 seconds that many folks across the globe are superior (by effort or genetic, I don't know) at certain subjects than are the Smiths/Joneses of Amerika). What's sad is, that the denizens of the United States have become fat and slothful, and that there is the fundamental NEED to import persons from other nations to perform HIGH-LEVEL analytic functions; coupled with the supposed "need" to employ low-level, untrained immigrants to do "the jobs no American wants to do," the U.S. is set to suffer the nightmarish fate of every "white nationalist" on this Forum.
I'm not among the "white nationalists" here. I value achievement. If white Americans don't want to achieve, to learn, to push themselves, to strive, to perforce innovation, then f*ck 'em. That's their choice.
Here in South Korea, each child attends 2 to 5 after-school hagwon (private class centers, for different subjects); as a result (besides having kept me employed for a few years, between university gigs here), the Republic of Korea has more recipients of the Ph.D and Master's degree than any nation on Earth. And when they (South Koreans) come to America to study, they routinely kick the asses of Americans in nearly every subject (besides, possibly, high-level English literature).
Sad.
2003-07-28 13:43 | User Profile
great discussion-thread on this very article:
[url=http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_culture&Number=781460&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1&t=0#Post781460]http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?C...&t=0#Post781460[/url]
2003-07-28 13:47 | User Profile
In my job I constantly must deal with American universities buying material that I sell for my company. The people calling me to buy are Chinese, Indian, Arab or Russian and all speak terrible, non-intelligeable English. Pretty soon, when these students return to their countries, they'll be able to produce all the products that we sell, in their own homelands, which in turn, threatens my job security. Countries like China and India are rapidly closing in on matching the US in high-tech components and machines and machining. They'll sell them on the open market for a fraction of US prices thereby controlling the markets and driving countless Americans into poverty. Todd, it is going to be a nightmarish fate we face in this country and it's getting close. It is going to happen.
2003-07-28 13:51 | User Profile
The "white man" in Amerika is so lazy, fat and ill-educated, that I don't see a lot of hope in regaining "our primacy." The public schools (communist-inspired; John Dewey/Karl Marx) are a major factor in this travesty, but THAT'S THE FAULT OF EVERY PARENT WHO DOESN'T (immediately) YANK HIS CHILD FROM SAID SYSTEM.
F*ck 'em. If "white Americans" don't want to strive, to perforce innovation, to get off their collective ass, shut OFF the TV and begin reading, studying, playing musical instruments, whatever, white America will be lost. & it won't be the blame of Mexicans or blacks. It'll be because white Americans are lazy as hell.
2003-07-28 14:05 | User Profile
Todd, yes Americans have been degraded in many ways. I do think however, that the US government and US corporations and US jews and liberals have pushed the agenda so hard, with such unequal force that ordinary working Americans are nothing but sitting ducks for the coming shutdown.
I'm sure overwhelming amounts of Americans don't want to see millions of foreigners in our universities and companies, and of course, we don't like seeing our companies relocate in Asia. However, the juggernaut of the Controllers is too much for us to fight against.
The US gov't is doing nothing to motivate anybody to extraordinary thinking or actions. I'm not advocating an all-giving type of socialist government, but in global economics, the gov't must protect it's own people and nuture the best and brightest while protecting blue-collar industry. It's not all our fault.
2003-07-28 14:16 | User Profile
It's not all our fault.
Agreed. But if your children are still in publik skools, and if they're still watching sit-coms on cable TV for hours a day; or if your wife is a Home Shopping Channel addict, then it is, indeed, your fault.
We The People can only control so much of our environment; but that which we can control, we must control--and render useful. & if you ain't enforcing that unto your own family (or emphasizing it to friends & colleagues), then it truly is your/OUR fault.
2003-07-28 14:24 | User Profile
Agreed on every point, GodBlessCapitalist (which, according to the rules of grammar, oughtta read "GodBlessCapitalist[s]" or "God Bless Capitalis[m]", ho ho...
Just funnin' with y'.
But, yeah, the "white Americans won't do these jobs" is so much horsesh*t. & every unemployed American (black, white or purple) receiving one cent of "public assistance" should be forced, by horse-whip, to do some sort of menial job that "no one else will do."
That'd cure most of the "labor problem" in Amerika.
2003-07-28 14:30 | User Profile
Todd, just for the record I don't have kids and if I did I'd homeschool them before I'd ever send them to a public school.
Also, I do emphasize the critical situation that confronts this US nation to friends, family and strangers. Most don't care. Many think I'm nuts, but I know I'm right. We are in trouble and I liken the Americans to "lazy sunbathers" where they're so content and relaxed on a strip of beautiful beach but oblivious to the cities around them being destroyed.
I do agree with you for the most part. The devil is in the TV and whoever participates in that destructive behavior deserves the degradation he will receive.
America is the next South Africa, for sure.
2003-07-28 14:46 | User Profile
**In other words: if the products are cheaper, then American consumers benefit and American firms are forced to cut costs in order to keep up. Globalization is hardly making Americans poorer. **
And exactly how do they cut costs? By cutting labor costs. How does moving jobs offshore benefit Americans?
2003-07-28 15:16 | User Profile
Godless, I understand what you're saying although I only got a C in economics when I was in college.
Let me tell a story. My company uses a Rigging outfit to move and install large pieces of machinery when and if we buy a new machine to replace an old one. Recently, we purchased a new machine and the reliant riggers showed up to do the job. (We've used the same riggers for years and years).
Anyway, their boss and my boss got around to talking and the riggers told us that in the last 5 years they've packed up and moved 83 companies over to China. 83 companies in the last 5 years! Now, these companies are of the caliber of Pratt & Whitney and other high tech'ers and they're not coming back. The jobs that were here for Americans are gone. What will they do? How will they buy the items imorted from China? This is what I'm getting at. Whose fault is it that these companies are fleeing from America?
Did the workers of Pratt & Whitney say, "hey, mr boss man, you could really increase your profit margin if you fire us all and move this company to China. I won't mind if I have to work in K-Mart. Shoot, I'm only 48 years old. I can be re-trained on a cash register!"
2003-07-28 15:30 | User Profile
godlesscapitalist:
My apologies. Bad eyes or a bad computer screen. I thought your "handle" meant to say God Bless Capitalist[s].
Now I see the irony. "godlesscapitalist." ho ho... Me, dim. I get it now.
TBF
2003-07-28 15:51 | User Profile
indeed. Cheers (& I like your site; thought-provoking, in extremis).
2003-07-28 16:05 | User Profile
**In the same way, I think globalization will boost living standards for Americans. If GDP-per-capita ever stopped increasing (for reasons other than low IQ immigration), I'd eat my words and we'd start seeing if there's some aspect that I missed. But fundamentally, globalization, like the internet, means greasing the wheels of international capitalism...bringing goods and services to people at the lowest price possible in an ultra-competitive market. And IMO that's a very good thing. **
This is the Fortune magazine/WSJ view.
You are retrofitting international capitalism into Engine Charlie Wilson's What's good for GM is good for America. Replace GM with IC and there you have it.
Eventually all jobs, desirable creative ones and undesirable rote assembly ones, will move toward the lowest common denominator wage wise off shore or within our borders.
The same logic applies whether skilled, semi skilled or unskilled. The corporation has moved all assembly jobs overseas. Yet still the directors want lower costs. Will altruism prevent the CEO from doing the same to the accountants or the IT people? The reward for his altruism would simply to be replaced by a new CEO who has no compunctions against outsourcing the IT function.
I'm sorry but the Valhalla promised by the globalists hinges on the creation of new technologies which will supposedly be the engine that drives job creation. But all jobs created will be up for grabs. And I'm betting on the low bidder.
2003-07-28 18:26 | User Profile
I went to college back in the eighties with a young fellow from vietnam who was in my calculus class. He was extremely good not only at math but also with computer science and with physics. Being curious, I asked him "Van, when did you start learning higher mathematics?". He told me that while back in vietnam most hard science subjects were started in the equivalent of what our 5th grade is here in the USA. This is one reason we are losing the battle. Education is not emphasised, while feel-goodism is. White americans better get off of their butts and decide what is important in this life. Way to much mindless entertainment and not enough studying, learning and discovery.
2003-07-28 20:08 | User Profile
shamrock44:
I dig. & a great anecdote.
2003-07-29 05:28 | User Profile
I saw it, and saw your site, and--yeah, while it might not go over well with some of the contingent here--it's a reasoned argument.
Like I said, I live in South Korea, have since 1999, and I know that this nation is out-pacing Amerika in every known sector (per capita). Am I proud of that fact: Fck no, I'm not. I'd rather America kick ass (truly, not via this bullsht military command economy), but that's not the way things are shaping up.
So, cheers for a realistic view to the world. Your site has some incredibly interesting info. I'll be posting to it regularly, if you'll have me (from the S.K. via American viewpoint).
Best,
TBF
GOT TO CRASH now. Been up for 36 and can barely keep me eyes open.