What is Digg?223 Comments
- itsallgeektome, on 10/12/2007, -8/+114Export more American Television. Specifically sitcoms and reality TV. Entertaining sometimes, IQ enhancing not so much.
- fyngyrz, on 10/12/2007, -30/+98Agreed, television, and also, export religion. The more gullible we can make the world, the less they'll feel the need to come to grips with reality. Plus, if you can get them to believe that the only rewards really worth having come after death, that'll help keep them from developing any particular ambition.
We could also export the current version of our political and legal system. That'll destroy any rights they might have had, slip in patents to cripple innovation, and introduce lawyers, which is kind of like throwing gravel into a finely-machined gearbox.
And don't forget sexual repression. The more time they have to spend sneaking around, the less time they'll have to be productive. - Technopundit, on 10/12/2007, -9/+51So what exactly can we do to keep the rest of the world stupid?
- MatttK, on 10/12/2007, -14/+51Invade their countries and destroy their infrastructure.
- breakneckridge, on 10/12/2007, -3/+34Europe is the source of a lot of trash tv that we think is American like Survivor and Idol. Too bad we don't import Europe's good tv at the same time.
- Drahkar, on 10/12/2007, -13/+41Maybe the population of the U.S. could step up and stop being stupid and greedy and attempt to take a larger role in the development of knowledge. There was a time that was important. But it seems that these days what is important is lining pocket books and looking good. Nobody is actually interested in curing anything. There is more money in treating it. Nobody is interested in correcting pollution for the same reason. More efficient cars? No way man, we need to be able to afford those gold coated cars.
- megashaun, on 10/12/2007, -13/+41Having faith does, however, make you superstitious and likely to force your superstitions on others.
- neurokaotix, on 10/12/2007, -10/+36It does not make you stupid, however so many people I know tend to prefer sitting back and saying "just because" rather than bothering to find out why (regarding matters of science). Not trying to be offensive, just being real.
- degree, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30CAPS>ALL
- venom8599, on 10/12/2007, -7/+30@birch25
Yeah, sure, try walking right up to the President. See how close you get...not very, especially if you are a protester of any sort. You're free to tell him that from a "Free Speech zone" several blocks away though. - BloodJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -9/+31Teach other countries' children in your schools.
- olliholliday, on 10/12/2007, -14/+35most of the west already is exporting religion, the number of "charities" that are actually religious missions is insane.
"do you want drugs for your baby? sure just become a christian and you can use our lovely clinic - did i mention it's the only one for 250 miles?" - wheremyarm, on 10/12/2007, -10/+29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiousness_and_intelligence
The general majority of scientific evidence disagrees with you. - anon52, on 10/12/2007, -17/+36Export our version of freedom and democracy.
Teach other countries' leaders how to lie to their people; sign bills with fingers crossed; snoop on all communications; reward big business with absurd tax cuts; use cronyism instead of merit; apply Ashcroft-style religious litmus tests; plant stories in the press; the list goes on and on.
Since Bush is prohibited running again as Chimp-In-Chief, maybe he and his cronies would like to go run another country into the ground, too. - Saint3k, on 10/12/2007, -22/+39Having faith does not make one stupid. Believing that all faiths and religions are contrary to science does.
- cius, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19It is truly the foolish that seek to repress others rather than demand more of themselves.
- animalmuther76, on 07/30/2008, -3/+20We should have a science city nation like the vatican is a reglious nation free to make thier own laws
- n00854180t, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Religious fanatics would quickly destroy any such city. Scientists wishing to participate would be bound by their own code of logical ethics. Religion isn't governed by logic, and thus religious fanatics can't be expected to abide by the same rules (i.e., don't go randomly crusading and blowing ***** up all the ***** time). Unfortunately, the number of people willing to blindly believe in man-made fantasy is far greater than the number of people that want to search for objective truths.
- quasipalm, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17@WarpFox
Terminally ill patients getting by for FREE on mass transit??? Oh the injustice! We must stop the advancement of the welfare state!!!!!
Get a life, idiot. There are real problems out there that need to be solved. - RevnCliffie, on 10/12/2007, -8/+21Ah good old anecdotal truth. There will always be "anecdotal truths" that people will point to. There are some on Welfare who don't need to be. There are homeless people asking for money who will buy alcohol with it. There are people abusing the system. Of course never mind that they might see some in the system who do need the help, because they saw someone abusing it tear the WHOLE thing down rather then mke repairs. The reason many jump so quickly to an "anecdotal truth" Is that in their minds it gives them a free pass. They just don't want to be bothered with any thought that people might be suffering and that maybe they could do something about it. Urine down economics will solve everything. Oh yeah, cut the education system while we are at it. Re-zone so more money can be spent in the affluent areas. Oh and throw in a Lottery so the Poorest part of the population can support the middle class college attenders.
- brhad56, on 10/12/2007, -7/+20"Having faith does not make one stupid."
Nope, just means one is brainwashed - stealthboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Unfortunately, the people who are more educated generally are more "career-focused" and therefore have fewer children. Let that go for a generation or two and you find yourself where we are now.
- Metman, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15Why not stop 'forcing' children to learn? Then we can spend our efforts (and money) on the students that want to learn. Lets stop using our school system as a babysitter and as an actual tool to increase the knowledge of our children.
How about stop teaching legend and myth as fact? (Christopher Columbus, Paul Revere and the "Holy" Crusades)
We spend 19% of our budget on 'below average' students to make them better. 77% on average students and a whopping 4% on 'above average' students... the ones who will actually put the education to use (in most cases). Look at how German and Asain schools are setup. If you do not want to learn, fine we will teach you a simple skill and you can go to work. No we cant do that. Why? Because every child is "special". B U L L S H I T ! Your kid is average at best and frankly at the rate we are going by the time he is 45 he will have cost the goverment more to 'educate/manage' then he will contribute in his lifetime. - anon52, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13There is a war on science when creationism and id are being suggested as valid scientific subjects.
The whole move towards "No Child Left Behind" is an attempt to use rote learning rather than fostering individual creative efforts.
Science can't be just a set of A,B,C,D choices on a government-mandated testing sheet. It also needs to allow exploration, questioning, and digging for the basis of the problems.
Any attempt to put religion of any type into a scientific environment is an attempt to quash questioning. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14with the decider in the whitehouse it isn't surprising there isn't much emphasis on education
- petertrepan, on 10/12/2007, -6/+17If faith yields to reason and evidence, can it be called faith? If science bends to accommodate beliefs that contradict reason or evidence, can it be called science?
Maybe you're using different definitions than I am, but they seem mutually incompatible. - Oobitsa, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14For what it's worth, the current form of reality TV is a European, not American, invention.
- Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Hey, this HIV thing sounds great, where can I get some?
- Metman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Man has not "caused" Global Warming, we simply contribute to it. No scientific study I have ever read has disputed that.
- kankerfist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10The utopian society in Atlas Shrugged was not founded on science. In fact one of the people Rand bashes the most in that book was the state funded science society.
- Corvidae, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Careful you don't confuse greed and ego with intelligence. You'll find that most of the highly intelligent think of money as a secondary annoyance in life. Of course you'll also find that amongst many of the simple minded as well. Many times what is taken as intelligence is simply assertive motivation. While a respectable trait at times, it does have it's limits.
- geekee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10No, this article isn't about politically motivated junk science, but instead about the general lack of interest in science by Americans that has been around longer than the Bush administration.
- theHM, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11China, Religion: Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism (no stats available); Muslim (14 million), Christian (7 million)
(source: http://sg.travel.yahoo.com/guide/asia/china/ )
o_O
Has there been some sort of genocide in the US? - petertrepan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10>>Thomas Jefferson? Benjamin Franklin? Issac Newton? Abraham Lincoln? Martin Luther King Jr.? These are but a few of some of the most influential people of our age and they're all christian.
Isaac Newton was apparently Christian. MLK was certainly Christian. But the founding fathers were nearly all Deist. Here are a few quotes for your amusement:
"...the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." - Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, Apr. 11, 1823
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason: The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle.-- Benjamin Franklin, the incompatibility of faith and reason, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758)
I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies.-- Benjamin Franklin, quoted from Victor J. Stenger, Has Science Found God? (2001)
My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.-- Abraham Lincoln, to Judge J. S. Wakefield, after Willie Lincoln's death
The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession.-- Abraham Lincoln, quoted by Joseph Lewis in "Lincoln the Freethinker"
Washington was not so explicit, but although he makes references to God in his speeches, Jesus or any items of Christian dogma are notably absent. He was probably a Deist as well. - kremvax, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12"...like most people, it really comes down to what pays well"
No. That would be confusing intelligence with greed. A lot of intelligent people place a higher value on altruism, or learning as a good in and of itself than greater disposable income.
Smart people don't necessarily sell their lives to the highest bidder.
Although it is one of those, "If I had to explain it to you, you probably wouldn't understand..." things.
Good luck with the materialistic fulfillment and all though! - rderveloy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8When I was in high school, we had a former college chemistry professor hired to teach our chemistry classes, and he actually had a PhD in chemistry. However, at the same time, our school's cheerleading coach taught the physics classes. She had no PhD, no specialization, and she was far more interested in coaching cheerleading than teaching physics.
For graduation, we had to take 4 science classes. Three of the courses were non-elective. The three non-elective ones were Biology 1, Chemistry 1, and Physics 1. Since I was more interested in physics at the time, I took them in that order as I expected I would take Physics 2 after Physics 1. After completing the Chemistry course, there was a stark difference in the quality of the physics and chemistry classes.
After I finished Physics 1, I found out that Physics 2 still had the school's cheerleading coach as the teacher, and she told me that all she was going to do was to read out of a college textbook, yet there wouldn't be any AP credit. So, even though I preferred physics over chemistry, I took AP Chemistry since I knew it would be much more worth my time.
My point is that our schools seem to place too much emphasis on sports and not enough on good science classes being taught by competent teachers. Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in that one needs to strive for a balance of the mind and body. However, a balance goes both ways, and it seems that Americans have a tendency to put too much weight on sports.
On an Ironic note, I think it's funny how we Americans are getting bigger and bigger with more and more emphasis being placed on sports, yet the population in countries that have a stronger foundation in science and engineering generally aren't nearly as overweight as we are. - Corvidae, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Where do they hand out this propaganda anyway? If you take a look at the statistics the countries that are kicking our butts in math/science have far larger welfare systems than we do. The countries with larger percentages of GDP devoted to welfare have lower instances of poverty, lower medical costs and a better education system.
Since every 'Conservative' for the past 30 years has massively increased the size of our government and our national spending/debt I would go into the big government comment. However we'll have to wait for an actual conservative to get into office to find out. - Corvidae, on 10/12/2007, -11/+19Put down the copy of Atlas Shrugged and walk away slowly. It is NOT a recipe for success.
- brhad56, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9When did you get time away from your busy sex life to type up such an insightful comment?
- n00854180t, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9A huge portion of those people that are religious view science as "the enemy" or more specifically, an enemy "religion" (which, anyone that understands the definition of natural philosophy can attest is far from the truth). These are people like Jack Chick. I'll never understand the reasoning that goes on in such people, considering their argument is the same for every situation and amounts to "A wizard did it."
- ModernTenshi, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12Clearly you're not smart enough to know that just because you're not one of the dumb Americans when it comes to math and science, it doesn't cover the rest of America. Even if it's just your school, there are far more out there that are just plain horrible. I didn't go to one of those, but living in central Ohio, there are a ton around me that are.
- RevnCliffie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I had heard a report considering the ethics of customizing embryo's before birth. Unfortuntately most of the parents asked if they would do this said yes....so their child could be a great athlete....and the weeping for our future continues.
- shortcircuit13, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Is it possible that you just happen to have not met many scientists?
I'm working at a hedge fund, and I have a physics and economics background.
Let me tell you, the smartest people here are the traders who have almost-instinctive economic genius and the quantitative traders who pair that genius with mathematical brilliance.
Civil trial lawyers? Come on now. Then again, it all depends on your own personal definition of intelligence.
I'm drawn by the Ferrari Factor, which is why I'm at a hedge fund, but I know plenty of very smart people who are drawn to research and the hard sciences because they want academic achievement and want to help the world.
Go to NIST, NIH, JPL, Lawrence Livermore, Fermilab, Los Alamos, etc. (and that's just in the US) You'll find some of the smartest people you'll ever meet there. But, you haven't been to those places and really talked with those people, now have you? - anon52, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11Some of the smartest people I've ever met were Jesuit priests. Even though they have a religious basis, they also have a very worldly viewpoint. Don't forget that many of the most conniving manipulators of kingdoms and populations come from the religious sphere. I credit the evangelicals and fanatics of many religions with great intelligence - if not honesty.
- wheremyarm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10"Regarding the Wikipedia article above... couldn't it be that people that believe in God are less likely to go into science in the first place, simply because they feel they already know the answers to "why" things are the way they are (God made it this way for a reason, etc.). So polling scientists as a way to measure whether intelligent people believe in God seems flawed to me."
Not all of the studies in the Wikipedia article were done on scientists, and I think the majority of them were not. The point was to find the correlation, if any, that religiousness has on intelligence. And I would say that someone who thinks they know answers as opposed to somone who actually does is indeed stupider. - Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -8/+15If we could just wall off the red states we'd be fine. The Northeast and the West coasts have always been sane, we dig science, and we're tax positive. Jesusland is nothing but a tax-sucking, ignorance-breeding sea of ***** with a few islands (cities such as Atlanta) desperately fighting for air.
I say we evacuate the few intelligent people left down there, then wall the rest of the ignorant bumpkins off and let them revert back to the Stone Age. - Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7On the other side of the coin, conservative fundamentalists are pumping out litters of 5-10 larvae per mating pair. Enough of that and you'll start to see a shift in the politics.. oh wait, we're seing that now, aren't we?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14the war on science is far move valid than the war on christians
- quasipalm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"Most of our society values the jocks, not the smart kids."
Uh, until you graduate from college. Don't worry -- I work with a lot of wealthy geeks and see a lot of former football stars working crap jobs every day in my city. The smart kids have nothing to worry about 'cept growing up. - kremvax, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7The truth about scientific consensus on global warming:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
In 2004 Science Magazine anylized 928 abstracts, published in peer reviewed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change".
Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position that fossil fuels were a major contributing factor to global climate change. There's no doubt about this among scientists.
The only controversy with this comes from politicians, oil companies, and the popular media. -
Show 51 - 100 of 221 discussions
The Digg Toolbar for Firefox lets you Digg, submit content, and keep track of Digg even when you're not on the Digg site. Download the official 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is