X-Message-Number: 23953 Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 11:16:49 -0700 From: James Swayze <> Subject: (US) Losing Our Edge? Since there has been previous complaint about posting here links only to articles that require subscription to open and read, even free ones such as this NY Times article, I am pasting the entire article. Here is the link, below is the article in entirety between the two **: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/22/opinion/22FRIE.html?th This article has some political commentary but the reason I post it is because as Immortalists we need to watch all trends and gage the winds of change to better push our memes for ensuring our own survival and that of all peoples. We've been largely banking on the US development for certain technologies and having the US stay the foremost in technological edge for safety sake but this may not always be true. As this article points out the US is losing it's edge to mostly Asia and so we may want to begin NOW a strategy of fomenting Physical Immortality memes in Asia to begin immediately in newer generations to either augment or replace their largely 'recycling of souls' current beliefs that make, to them, Physical Immortality quite unnecessary. In short, if we must someday depend on Asia for the very same technologies that can also provide Physical Immortality, among other uses, we need to make sure those in charge of producing them will recognize and be friendly to those same uses of that technology that can provide Physical Immortality. The following article expresses concern that the US is losing it's lead in technology, especially emerging technologies, and worst among these trends losing the interest of the young in learning the sciences that produce them. I believe that as the youth of asia already show signs of a great love of all that is 'new tech' and gadgetry and all things "Western" and "glam" they could also quickly enlighten to the transhumanist meme. ** NYTimes -- Losing Our Edge? By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: April 22, 2004 was just out in Silicon Valley, checking in with high-tech entrepreneurs about the state of their business. I wouldn't say they were universally gloomy, but I did detect something I hadn't detected before: a real undertow of concern that America is losing its competitive edge vis- -vis China, India, Japan and other Asian tigers, and that the Bush team is deaf, dumb and blind to this situation. Several executives explained to me that they were opening new plants in Asia not because of cheaper labor. Labor is a small component now in an automated high-tech manufacturing plant. It is because governments in these countries are so eager for employment and the transfer of technology to their young populations that they are offering huge tax holidays for U.S. manufacturers who will set up shop. Because most of these countries also offer some form of national health insurance, U.S. companies shed that huge open liability as well. Other executives complained bitterly that the Department of Homeland Security is making it so hard for legitimate foreigners to get visas to study or work in America that many have given up the age-old dream of coming here. Instead, they are studying in England and other Western European nations, and even China. This is leading to a twofold disaster. First, one of America's greatest assets its ability to skim the cream off the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world and bring them to our shores to innovate will be diminished, and that in turn will shrink our talent pool. And second, we could lose a whole generation of foreigners who would normally come here to study, and then would take American ideas and American relationships back home. In a decade we will feel that loss in America's standing around the world. Still others pointed out that the percentage of Americans graduating with bachelor's degrees in science and engineering is less than half of the comparable percentage in China and Japan, and that U.S. government investments are flagging in basic research in physics, chemistry and engineering. Anyone who thinks that all the Indian and Chinese techies are doing is answering call-center phones or solving tech problems for Dell customers is sadly mistaken. U.S. firms are moving serious research and development to India and China. The bottom line: we are actually in the middle of two struggles right now. One is against the Islamist terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere, and the other is a competitiveness-and-innovation struggle against India, China, Japan and their neighbors. And while we are all fixated on the former (I've been no exception), we are completely ignoring the latter. We have got to get our focus back in balance, not to mention our budget. We can't wage war on income taxes and terrorism and a war for innovation at the same time. Craig Barrett, the C.E.O. of Intel, noted that Intel sponsors an international science competition every year. This year it attracted some 50,000 American high school kids. "I was in China 10 days ago," Mr. Barrett said, "and I asked them how many kids in China participated in the local science fairs that feed into the national fair [and ultimately the Intel finals]. They told me six million kids." For now, the U.S. still excels at teaching science and engineering at the graduate level, and also in university research. But as the Chinese get more feeder stock coming up through their high schools and colleges, "they will get to the same level as us after a decade," Mr. Barrett said. "We are not graduating the volume, we do not have a lock on the infrastructure, we do not have a lock on the new ideas, and we are either flat-lining, or in real dollars cutting back, our investments in physical science." And what is the Bush strategy? Let's go to Mars. Hello? Right now we should have a Manhattan Project to develop a hydrogen-based energy economy it's within reach and would serve our economy, our environment and our foreign policy by diminishing our dependence on foreign oil. Instead, the Bush team says let's go to Mars. Where is Congress? Out to lunch or, worse, obsessed with trying to keep Susie Smith's job at the local pillow factory that is moving to the Caribbean without thinking about a national competitiveness strategy. And where is Wall Street? So many of the plutocrats there know that the Bush fiscal policy is a long-term disaster. They know it but they won't say a word because they are too greedy or too gutless. The only crisis the U.S. thinks it's in today is the war on terrorism, Mr. Barrett said. "It's not." ** We cannot afford to keep all our eggs in one basket, especially as the US seems self doomed to revive a highly myopic Puritanical social standard to the detriment of all and against all reason. James -- Member: Cryonics Institute of Michigan http://www.cryonics.org The Immortalist Society http://www.cryonics.org/info.html The Society for Venturism http://www.venturist.org Immortality Institute http://www.imminst.org Methuselah Foundation http://www.methuselahfoundation.org Methuselah Mouse Prize http://www.methuselahmouse.org [Give $$$ for life!] World Transhumanist Association http://www.transhumanism.org/ Marijuana Policy Project http://www.mpp.org American Civil Liberties Union http://www.aclu.org Nat. Resources Defense Council http://www.nrdc.org Act For Change http://www.actforchange.org People for American Way http://www.pfaw.org MY WEBSITE: http://www.davidpascal.com/swayze/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23953