"Dumb and Dumber"- Are Americans hostile to knowledge?

[paulb]

Paul, I don't know how many Muslims you have come to know in your life time,. On the other hand, you are free to learn about those people that you think deserve to be nuked, but you choose to hate them instead.

I admit, known very few. maybe 2 or 3.
Its not my personal opinion that they *deserve to be nuked*, nor do i *hate them*. Hate is not a  good thing in anyone's life.
Though Christ did say something to the effect: "if you do not *hate* your brothers, sisters ...you cannot be my diciple"
I know what Christ means to say here, but will not go into.
Islam is in its death throes, there is nothing that can stop this process. The fascists of russia and germany are all gone, these destructive movements have perished in a  horrific conflagration.
Islam has similar characteristics and will also perish. Its a  psychological law, has nothing to do with what I believe.

[paulb]

Don't believe me, go do your own research on who Mohamed was, and what his *religion* has become.
then come back and we can talk.

[Florestan]

The fascists of russia and germany are all gone

Maybe you mean the Russian Communists and the German Nazis. Fascism is quite another thing, capisci?

[paulb]

Maybe you mean the Russian Communists and the German Nazis. Fascism is quite another thing, capisci?

yes the nazis and communists who were set against the people, all in the name of lust for power.
At least thats how I see the fascist mind. Which islam shares a  common trait. Read the koran, look up mohamed;s like story.
pure fascism, lust for power.
"well you see Mohamed was doing a  good deed by uniting all the warring tribes, he brought lasting peace to a  war torn region and later his religion went on to establish schools and universities of the highest learning *

[MishaK]

Some recommended reading for everyone on this thread, particularly those who seem to think that Japanese civilians were just an extension of the military and deserve no human rights:









These are basically the memoirs of a Hiroshima survivor in manga form. Harrowing stuff. The English translation of Volume Five is due out some time this year.

[bwv 1080]

Some recommended reading for everyone on this thread, particularly those who seem to think that Japanese civilians were just an extension of the military and deserve no human rights:

And who exactly would those be?  The only argument I have seen put forward is that using nukes was a lesser evil than an invasion and continued firebombing

Where are the Nanjing or Death Railway Manga Comics BTW?

[MishaK]

And who exactly would those be?  The only argument I have seen put forward is that using nukes was a lesser evil than an invasion and continued firebombing

It's interesting that you thought my innocent post was a personal attack on you.

Where are the Nanjing or Death Railway Manga Comics BTW?

OK, so now a Hiroshima survivor should be blamed for the absence of those?

[bwv 1080]

OK, so now a Hiroshima survivor should be blamed for the absence of those?

No, just shows the level of denial in Japanese culture about WW2. 

[MishaK]

No, just shows the level of denial in Japanese culture about WW2. 

You might want to read those comics before making such harsh judgments. Again, not all members of a group are the same. That comic series is anti-militarist as they get.

[Lethevich]

Some recommended reading for everyone on this thread, particularly those who seem to think that Japanese civilians were just an extension of the military and deserve no human rights:

I have the first volume, it's striking indeed - focusing on "normal" life for almost the entire 250 pages before the bomb drop in the final few. I wasn't aware that there were any followup volumes though, thanks.

[greg]

Some recommended reading for everyone on this thread, particularly those who seem to think that Japanese civilians were just an extension of the military and deserve no human rights:









These are basically the memoirs of a Hiroshima survivor in manga form. Harrowing stuff. The English translation of Volume Five is due out some time this year.

those are some bizarre covers 

[head-case]

Some recommended reading for everyone on this thread, particularly those who seem to think that Japanese civilians were just an extension of the military and deserve no human rights:

Mr. Self-righteous, no one has expressed the view that Japanese civilians deserve no human rights.

In the battle of Iwo Jima, just a few months before the end of the war, the US needed to attack an island defended by 21,000 japanese troops with 100,000.  The Japanese did not relent until more than 20,000 were dead or captured.  Okinawa was only captured in June after more than 60,000 Japanese killed.  The notion that the war was essentially over when the bombs were dropped is ludicrous, in my view.  Japanese resistance to an invasion of its main island would likely have been equally tenacious and the losses (especially on the Japanese side) would likely have been extremely high.

[MishaK]

Mr. Self-righteous, no one has expressed the view that Japanese civilians deserve no human rights.

Ya' think?:

Genocide is when the people don't ask for it. The japanese asked. Just as the muslims are begging to get clobbered. One day someone will do it. And it will not be the USA.

I see no distinction between civilian and non civilian here.

'Nuff said.

In the battle of Iwo Jima, just a few months before the end of the war, the US needed to attack an island defended by 21,000 japanese troops with 100,000.  The Japanese did not relent until more than 20,000 were dead or captured.  Okinawa was only captured in June after more than 60,000 Japanese killed.  The notion that the war was essentially over when the bombs were dropped is ludicrous, in my view.  Japanese resistance to an invasion of its main island would likely have been equally tenacious and the losses (especially on the Japanese side) would likely have been extremely high.

Yes, that's the standard mantra. But if you look more closely, you will see (as I mentioned a few pages ago) that several of the top brass disagreed with the assessment and so no need whatsoever to use the bomb, among them McArthur and Nimitz. Also, the above is a false dilemma. You present it as if the only two options were to invade at a great cost and loss of life or to drop the bomb on civilian targets. One could have likewise a) left it to the Russians to finish them off, b) dropped a bomb on an uninhabited island as a demonstration (favored by many scientists and some of the military commanders) and many other possibilities.

Look, plain and simple: there is no morally defensible case that can be made for the first use of a nuclear weapon on a civilian target. Give it up. Whatever heinous crimes the Japanese military leadership may have committed, the crimes of others never excuse your own. And due to the fact that a nuclear weapon is an extremely imprecise and blunt instrument and does not distinguish between civilian and military personnel and leaves poisonous radiation behind for generations to come (including the military occupiers - you forget that tens of thousands American soldiers occupied Hiroshima and Nagasaki and suffered the consequences, except that the military doesn't want to talk about that), a nuclear weapon is inherently unuseable in a tactical military scenario. It's only practical purpose can be as a strategic deterrent.

[Josquin des Prez]

Oh, don't mistake my point for arguing anything about "inherent" cultural deficiencies. None of this is fixed. At the beginning of the Cold War, the US made a considerable push in improving public education, as it was perceived to be falling behind the Soviets. But as the Soviet threat subsided, so did support for public education.

So what you are saying here is that Americans are capable of academic achievement only when competing with others? Interesting notion there.

I wonder though, how did they manage to push for an improvement in education then but are seemingly incapable (or unwilling?) to do so today? What were the means for their success, and how aren't they being employed today?

As to scientific production, that's easy when you keep importing talent from outside.

It's also easy when your institutions are functional and well equipped, which is one of the reasons why foreign talents keep flooding into American laboratories and universities in the firs place, right? Somehow, i'm hard pressed believing that Americans could build such institutions while remaining cultural inimical to education or science, barring a couple of brief decades during the cold war, of course. 

The truth of the matter is that there is no such aversion towards science in America, at least not until recently (and the US is by far not the only victim of this trend so i'd be careful to blame it on them alone). To the contrary, it seems to me that science (and technology) have always been part of the American cultural landscape much more than what everybody gives them credit for this days, and this isn't isolated to the academies either, as can been seen by the sheer popularity of science fiction among the "general" population.

BTW, do you have any statistic that shows how many among the most prominent of American scientists and inventors were all foreign born and imported from abroad?

[Josquin des Prez]

And the only present superpower in the World is USA. With millions of immigrants working for its wealth.

What nonsense. After working in the states for so many years, the most enduring impression i received of Americans is that they are the most hard working and determined people i've ever seen. Most of the immigrants i've met pale in comparison, that including myself and all the lazy bums i've left behind since i'm moved out of Italy. Talk to anybody who has been living in the states for any number of years (Europeans in particular) and the most common complain is that American culture is too work obsessed. Always. You don't think that may be a factor? But hey, the world must surely look interesting when looked down upon from an ivory tower, huh?

[MishaK]

So what you are saying here is that Americans are capable of academic achievement only when competing with others? Interesting notion there.

I never said anything of the sort. Any nation can do well when they get their act together. I provided an example of the US getting its act together.

It's also easy when your institutions are functional and well equipped, which is one of the reasons why foreign talents keep flooding into American laboratories and universities in the firs place, right? Somehow, i'm hard pressed believing that Americans could build such institutions while remaining cultural inimical to education or science, barring a couple of brief decades during the cold war, of course. 

Sure, but that's not peculiarly American. Any power that was a dominant power in the world system politically and economically was able to attract foreign talent to its shores, whether it's late 20th century America or the Ottoman empire at its peak, or in musical terms late 19th century Vienna. The point is, there is nothing peculiarly American to scientific success paid with large wads of money and a lot of talent from outside (where would the Apollo program have been without Wernher von Braun, or the aforementioned nuclear weapons without Oppenheimer, Teller and Ulam? None of them was native).

You are also disregarding the main thrust of the article in the original . Nobody doubts that America has some of the finest academic and scientific institutions in the world that are so illustrious that they attract foreign talent (that's why I came here, after all). But the point is that besides a small handfull of really elite institutions the rest is abysmal crap. Which means that the majority of the population is underaducated compared with other nations that - while perhaps not having as illustrious elite institutions - do a much better job at providing general education. The latter is important, for it also determines the quality of the jobs that the majority of the population can hold and therefore their producitivity and ability to survive in a global market.

What nonsense. After working in the states for so many years, the most enduring impression i received of Americans is that they are the most hard working and determined people i've ever seen. Most of the immigrants i've met pale in comparison, that including myself and all the lazy bums i've left behind since i'm moved out of Italy. Talk to anybody who has been living in the states for any number of years (Europeans in particular) and the most common complain is that American culture is too work obsessed. Always. You don't think that may be a factor? But hey, the world must surely look interesting when looked down upon from an ivory tower, huh?

I'd wager that you've not met many people, let alone a representative sample of the American populace. Again, purely anecdotally, by far the most hardworking people I have ever met anywhere on the planet are Korean immigrants in America. So there. 

[Josquin des Prez]

But the point is that besides a small handfull of really elite institutions the rest is abysmal crap.

No, the point is that Americans are stupid. Duh.

Again, purely anecdotally, by far the most hardworking people I have ever met anywhere on the planet are Korean immigrants in America. So there. 

Well, you surely must have met more people then me, since i have yet to come across a single Korean.

[head-case]

Yes, that's the standard mantra. But if you look more closely, you will see (as I mentioned a few pages ago) that several of the top brass disagreed with the assessment and so no need whatsoever to use the bomb, among them McArthur and Nimitz. Also, the above is a false dilemma. You present it as if the only two options were to invade at a great cost and loss of life or to drop the bomb on civilian targets. One could have likewise a) left it to the Russians to finish them off, b) dropped a bomb on an uninhabited island as a demonstration (favored by many scientists and some of the military commanders) and many other possibilities.

In this case the "standard mantra" is correct.  Whatever war strategy you use there will be someone who disagrees.  The opinion of "many" unnamed "scientists" is irrelevant.  Compton, Lawrence, Oppenheimer and Fermi recommended immediate military use of the weapon.  Letting the Soviet Union "finish off" Japan would be more cruel to the Japanese than the nuclear attack. 

Look, plain and simple: there is no morally defensible case that can be made for the first use of a nuclear weapon on a civilian target. Give it up. Whatever heinous crimes the Japanese military leadership may have committed, the crimes of others never excuse your own. And due to the fact that a nuclear weapon is an extremely imprecise and blunt instrument and does not distinguish between civilian and military personnel and leaves poisonous radiation behind for generations to come (including the military occupiers - you forget that tens of thousands American soldiers occupied Hiroshima and Nagasaki and suffered the consequences, except that the military doesn't want to talk about that), a nuclear weapon is inherently unuseable in a tactical military scenario. It's only practical purpose can be as a strategic deterrent.

Your unequivocal statements are unjustified and don't prove anything.  The nuclear weapon was no less precise than the conventional weapons of the day, and the complications resulting from radiation exposure were not fully anticipated.  Conventional weapons can have equally appalling side effects, which were better understood at the time.  The most effective conventional attacks on Tokyo (which were critical to the war since they degraded Japans manufacturing capability) killed more civilians than the nuclear attacks.   The fact that the bombs produced an immediate unconditional surrender (which even more deadly convention attacks failed to do) makes your statement that the weapon is "inherently unusable" quite puzzling.  They were a tactical and strategic success.

[Josquin des Prez]

I never said anything of the sort. Any nation can do well when they get their act together. I provided an example of the US getting its act together.

No, what you did is twist an example of America doing well and pin it down on less then flattening terms: base competition. It seems that no matter what they do Americans just can't come out clean. Double talk at it's finest.

Sure, but that's not peculiarly American. Any power that was a dominant power in the world system politically and economically was able to attract foreign talent to its shores, whether it's late 20th century America or the Ottoman empire at its peak, or in musical terms late 19th century Vienna. The point is, there is nothing peculiarly American to scientific success paid with large wads of money and a lot of talent from outside (where would the Apollo program have been without Wernher von Braun, or the aforementioned nuclear weapons without Oppenheimer, Teller and Ulam? None of them was native).

The point is that's not all there is to it, which is pretty much your argument here. The implication is that without their wealth and power Americans would have never been able to achieve as much as they did. The problem is that Americans are as wealthy and powerful today as they were then, which was my point to begin with! Unless America had some form of cultural or societal predisposition for scientific progress it's hard to imagine they would have ever achieved as much as they did, regardless of how wealthy and powerful they were at the time. To argue that wealth and power (and foreign aid) was the only reason for their success is to belittle their achievements, which to me is not only unwarranted but it's a clear sign of personal bias. 

Of course, the fact that Americans were culturally and socially predisposed for scientific progress at one point (and well before the cold war i might add) it means that there's nothing intrinsically inherent to their society about their current academic woes, which is the general opinion today.   

You are also disregarding the main thrust of the article in the original .

The original article was rubbish. For one, the main claim that two thirds of Americans want to have creationism taught in schools is a bit suspect, if not deceiving (do those same Americans also want evolution out of schools?). As well, the idea that the left has relegated "African-American and Women's studies" to an academic ghetto instead then integrating them to the core curriculum is beyond idiotic. Neither are fit to be considered "core curriculum" and if anything the imperative to mingle politics with education is one of the real reasons for the general decline of education not only in America but in the west in general.

Most of all, her claim that Americans have a culture of anti-rationalism and anti-intellectuality is ludicrous. I did all my schooling in Italy and the level of anti-intellectualism was exactly the same. We also had our share of nerds and bookworms.

All in all, the author is just repeating old stereotypes while bringing nothing new to the table. She doesn't mention how for instance decline in scientific interest is as prevalent in the US as it is in certain European nations, like Britain. That alone is sufficient to buck any claim that America is facing a trend unique to their way of doing things. 

Nobody doubts that America has some of the finest academic and scientific institutions in the world that are so illustrious that they attract foreign talent (that's why I came here, after all). But the point is that besides a small handfull of really elite institutions the rest is abysmal crap.

Why are they so bad though? Not enough money? Bad teachers? Leftist intelligencia? What?

[MishaK]

In this case the "standard mantra" is correct.  Whatever war strategy you use there will be someone who disagrees.  The opinion of "many" unnamed "scientists" is irrelevant.  Compton, Lawrence, Oppenheimer and Fermi recommended immediate military use of the weapon.  Letting the Soviet Union "finish off" Japan would be more cruel to the Japanese than the nuclear attack. 

I refer you once again to my earlier post. Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral William D. Leahy, General Carl Spaatz and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz are not "unarmed scientists"!

Your unequivocal statements are unjustified and don't prove anything.  The nuclear weapon was no less precise than the conventional weapons of the day, and the complications resulting from radiation exposure were not fully anticipated.  Conventional weapons can have equally appalling side effects, which were better understood at the time.

OK. Let's try it your way. Under what circumstances is the first use of a nuclear bomb justified against a civilian population. Please explain.

No, what you did is twist an example of America doing well and pin it down on less then flattening terms: base competition. It seems that no matter what they do Americans just can't come out clean. Double talk at it's finest.

I did nothing of the sort. I provided one example of America getting the political willpower together to improve its education system. I never talked about "base competition". There is nothing base about it if it gets people off their bums. That was America at its finest. Now I am not even allowed to compliment America? All you want to see is hostility?

The point is that's not all there is to it, which is pretty much your argument here. The implication is that without their wealth and power Americans would have never been able to achieve as much as they did. The problem is that Americans are as wealthy and powerful today as they were then, which was my point to begin with! Unless America had some form of cultural or societal predisposition for scientific progress it's hard to imagine they would have ever achieved as much as they did, regardless of how wealthy and powerful they were at the time. To argue that wealth and power (and foreign aid) was the only reason for their success is to belittle their achievements, which to me is not only unwarranted but it's a clear sign of personal bias. 

I never said anywhere that wealth and power are the only reason for success. I never made such a retarded argument. Again, you have reading comprehension issues. I said that wealth and power attract foreign talent. Foreign talent helps in producing leading scientific achievements. But this isn't a good measure of overall education levels. No more no less.

Of course, the fact that Americans were culturally and socially predisposed for scientific progress at one point (and well before the cold war i might add) it means that there's nothing intrinsically inherent to their society about their current academic woes, which is the general opinion today.  

You may have missed this, so I'll spell it out for you. I NEVER SAID THERE IS ANYTHING INHERENT ABOUT AMERICANS THAT MAKES THEM PREDISPOSED AGAINST LEARNING OR SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS. Was that clear for you? You really need to work on reading comprehension. Every human being with a sufficient IQ is equally predisposed toward learning. How well society fosters that learning is a matter of the prevailing culture, political environment and economic resources. All of those are temporary things, not fixed and not inherited by blood. OK? America has indeed had better periods of higher general education levels (as compared to the standards of the time and discounting disadvantaged minorities), but the current state outside elite private institutions is abysmal.

The original article was rubbish. For one, the main claim that two thirds of Americans want to have creationism taught in schools is a bit suspect, if not deceiving (do those same Americans also want evolution out of schools?).

Yes! Dude, have you been living under a rock for the past decade and a half? I used to date the daughter of one of those reactionary creationist flat-earthers. (What's more amazing, he is the odd one out of a litter of seven. His own father was a college professor in chemistry and all of his siblings think he's nuts.) There is a whole political movement in this country to get evolution out of schools.

As well, the idea that the left has relegated "African-American and Women's studies" to an academic ghetto instead then integrating them to the core curriculum is beyond idiotic. Neither are fit to be considered "core curriculum" and if anything the imperative to mingle politics with education is one of the real reasons for the general decline of education not only in America but in the west in general.

You didn't grow up in the US, right? Did you go to college here? I think you misunderstand the cultural and political background. The point is that there are numerous highly worthy contributions from African-American authors and artists whose works were marginalized in the standard core curriculum if they were even thought at all (e.g. Toni Morrison). As a way to make amends, African-American studies programs were created. The author of the original article contends (and I would agree) that the effect of these programs was often couterproductive. Instead of introducing the works of African Americans into the core, they created a separate compartment, a separate set of courses, usually only attended by a few African Americans, while the general population remains ignorant of these works of literature and art.

Why are they so bad though? Not enough money? Bad teachers? Leftist intelligencia? What?

The first two, and a lot more.