We need less Chemo and Surgery and more "Voom."

[Surferbeetle]

Fuchs, Bill, all,

As we think about contributions towards 'the betterment of world' one place to look would be:

List of Nobel laureates by country, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...tes_by_country

[Bill Moore]

Fuchs, Bill, all,

As we think about contributions towards 'the betterment of world' one place to look would be:

List of Nobel laureates by country, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...tes_by_country

Good catch, this is one measure of what nation has made the most (and continues to do) contributions to the betterment of mankind, but it still doesn't capture the essence of our national character to do well for others (this character is separate from our government).

[Backwards Observer]

Good catch, this is one measure of what nation has made the most (and continues to do) contributions to the betterment of mankind, but it still doesn't capture the essence of our national character to do well for others (this character is separate from our government).

Agree.

[Dayuhan]

List of Nobel laureates by country, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...tes_by_country

This might be a better reference:

List of countries by Nobel laureates per capita:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...tes_per_capita

Availability of research funding in different countries would also need to be factored in to get a relevant comparison.

[Backwards Observer]

This might be a better reference:

List of countries by Nobel laureates per capita:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...tes_per_capita

Availability of research funding in different countries would also need to be factored in to get a relevant comparison.

No doubt your added perspective is useful. My agreement with Bill Moore and Surferbeetle on this score is based in part on the following anecdote.

A relative of mine went from Singapore to Caltech in the eighties studying interplanetary geophysics; moved on to JPL and ended up working on the Mars Observer, which the Martians unfortunately shot down in '93.

This same kid once sat for hours in front of her family's first washing machine (front loader) in the late seventies watching it like it was left behind by ancient astronauts.

The semi-autistic nerds she studied with at Caltech are some of the most supportive and helpful oddballs one could imagine and for the most part remain a close-knit group to this day. She now teaches high school. What does any of this mean? I don't know, but it impresses me for some reason.

(In fairness to Fuchs, the washing machine may have been a Grundig, if memory serves)

[Surferbeetle]

Posted by Bill Moore

Good catch, this is one measure of what nation has made the most (and continues to do) contributions to the betterment of mankind, but it still doesn't capture the essence of our national character to do well for others (this character is separate from our government).

Bill,

Like you, I have traveled and seen enough to know that America is in many instances a force for good.

Perhaps part of the underlying concept we are wrestling with (the elephant and the blind men describing it's various parts) is appreciation/trust/reliability? Sunrises (across Nicaraguan jungles, Iraqi rivers, Euro mountain ranges, US seacoasts, etc) and and nighttime cityscapes (San Salvador, Baghdad, Barcelona, Munich, Ciudad Juarez, or wherever) often provide me with daily hope and inspiration. Like me, you know that a basic meal, clean water, shelter, electricity, and security are pretty big deals in many parts of the world. Systems - technical, economic, and governance have to successfully mesh every day/night to make these basics available, and that meshing requires appreciation/trust/reliability.

Are fuel deliveries dependable? Is the fuel sufficiently pure to spin the turbine? Is the turbine sufficiently engineered and maintained to generate power? Are the transmission and distribution systems capable and sufficiently placed? Are generators the answer instead? Will the 'schools' persist for long enough to educate the number of minds needed to carry the new generation along while caring for old one and the future one to come?

What organizations/countries/clusters are known/trusted for turbines (Hitachi, Siemens, GE, etc), fuel (coal, oil, natural gas, etc), food (wheat, soybeans, etc), education (universities), information (newspapers, internet, telecommunications, etc)?

War and death, however, literally make many gun-shy. That's double edged of course, good for our enemies (few of them) and bad for our friends, admirers, and business/economics partners (many of those). Shorthand wise, we are out of balance and we need to get back to focusing on the many versus the few. Akin to - waaayyyy too much time & resources spent on the screw-ups to the detriment of the unit as a whole...

This might be a better reference:

List of countries by Nobel laureates per capita:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...tes_per_capita

Ratio's are very helpful for gaining additional insights and context that numbers in isolation do not always provide.

Growing and building things for a better tomorrow versus arbitrarily imposing them.

Free markets (in many instances the theoretical ideal, bounded by messy reality of course) and coalition building? Globalization?

Backwards,

Perhaps a sitcom for you...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bang_Theory

[Backwards Observer]

Backwards,

Perhaps a sitcom for you...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bang_Theory

Call me Nigel.

[Dayuhan]

The semi-autistic nerds she studied with at Caltech are some of the most supportive and helpful oddballs one could imagine and for the most part remain a close-knit group to this day. She now teaches high school. What does any of this mean? I don't know, but it impresses me for some reason.

I've often noted that even people who truly dislike the United States routinely comment that individual Americans seem to be very nice people. They sometimes seem to find this a bit disconcerting, as if the world would be a more consistent place for them if we were all A-holes.

Like me, you know that a basic meal, clean water, shelter, electricity, and security are pretty big deals in many parts of the world. Systems - technical, economic, and governance have to successfully mesh every day/night to make these basics available, and that meshing requires appreciation/trust/reliability.

I agree... but too often Americans think such systems can simply be installed, and this misimpression often leads to all manner of well intentioned mess.

[Backwards Observer]

I've often noted that even people who truly dislike the United States routinely comment that individual Americans seem to be very nice people. They sometimes seem to find this a bit disconcerting, as if the world would be a more consistent place for them if we were all A-holes.

People who are able to muster up the energy to 'truly dislike' entire countries probably find a-hole lot of things disconcerting.

[Dayuhan]

People who are able to muster up the energy to 'truly dislike' entire countries probably find a-hole lot of things disconcerting.

A surprising number of people seem to feel bereft without someone to loathe, and generic loathing seems every bit as satisfying as specific loathing, maybe more so. Grace Slick didn't quite sing "don't you want somebody to hate", but she might have...

[Backwards Observer]

A surprising number of people seem to feel bereft without someone to loathe, and generic loathing seems every bit as satisfying as specific loathing, maybe more so. Grace Slick didn't quite sing "don't you want somebody to hate", but she might have...

I'm straining the memory banks here, but I seem to recall being instructed that Marlowe uses the Mephistopheles character in Doctor Faustus to suggest that there is at root a form of self-loathing proportional to our distance from the Divine. YMMV.

Why this is hell, nor am I out of it. Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God and tasted the eternal joy of heaven, am not tormented with ten thousand hells in being deprived of everlasting bliss?
Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus

[Bob's World]

I've often noted that even people who truly dislike the United States routinely comment that individual Americans seem to be very nice people. They sometimes seem to find this a bit disconcerting, as if the world would be a more consistent place for them if we were all A-holes.

In many ways, this is the crux of the problem for the US. What we often chalk up broadly as "anti-Americanism" is in fact much more "anti-American Foreign Policy and how we seek to pursue the same."

As noted here, we create an environment at home where individuals can excel, as noted by the many Nobel prizes awarded to Americans; yet when our government seeks to determine what our national interests are abroad, and how to best secure those interests, we make decisions, implement policies, and pursue actions that far too often deny for others who live in those places the very things we demand for ourselves at home.

The US must come to grips with this dichotomy. If a handful of AQ operatives were working across the US Midwest conducting UW, just as they are currently across the Magreb in Africa, would we pursue the same policies and rules of engagement in Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska that we are in countries such as Mali, Algeria and Libya?

If a governor in North Dakota, a new oil-rich state, suddenly grabbed vast powers from the other branches of government and the people he is supposed to serve and vested those powers in his self, would we rationalize that the oil from that state is too important to risk a disruption of losing that particular leader and our relationship with him? Would we then act to help him expand the capacity of the state police and national guard so that they could more effectively protect the government from the illegal violent acts coming from that populace? After all, as Bill reminds us, a government as the right to defend itself. Equally the US has a right to pursue its interests.

The US is not an evil country or even very oppressive as major global powers in history go. In fact, history will likely find us to be this oddly conflicted giant, who sought great control, power and influence on one hand, but was so torn by guilt that it paid full retail prices for what it could have taken by force, and ultimately went broke as it enriched and protected those it had imposed itself upon abroad. I'm not sure history will know what to do with that, as it is indeed "American exceptionalism" at work. I suspect the Chinese already scratch their heads in wonder as they shape their own long-range plans, always keen to avoid the mistakes of others.

[wm]

The US must come to grips with this dichotomy. If a handful of AQ operatives were working across the US Midwest conducting UW, just as they are currently across the Magreb in Africa, would we pursue the same policies and rules of engagement in Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska that we are in countries such as Mali, Algeria and Libya?

If a governor in North Dakota, a new oil-rich state, suddenly grabbed vast powers from the other branches of government and the people he is supposed to serve and vested those powers in his self, would we rationalize that the oil from that state is too important to risk a disruption of losing that particular leader and our relationship with him? Would we then act to help him expand the capacity of the state police and national guard so that they could more effectively protect the government from the illegal violent acts coming from that populace? After all, as Bill reminds us, a government as the right to defend itself. Equally the US has a right to pursue its interests.

The dichotomy identified is based on analogies that have far too many relevant dissimilarities to make them a useful tool for drawing conclusions. What a government does/may do legitimately within its own borders is very different from what it does/may do legitimately elsewhere, if for no other reason than the differences in sovereign power in the two arenas.

In an earlier post, Bob's World identified a correlation between rights and duties, noting that the having of a right spawns a correlative duty. One of the things that I think he got wrong was that the correlation does not exist within a single holder. That is, my rights to, e.g., life, liberty, and property (from Locke) do not produce duties for me to protect my life, not to enslave myself, and to seek to acquire property. Instead, my right to life (if I have one) engenders a correspondiong duty in others not to deprive me of my life without good reason.

I add the " without good reason" because I doubt rights are absolute. As Justice Holmes noted in Schnenk v. US (249 U.S. 47, 1919)

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.

I also submit that Bob's World has the primacy of rights over duties just backwards, Rather than saying that my possession of a right spawns a correlative duty in others, I would suggest that a more correct view of the relation between rights and duties looks like the following: because each of us has duties, others may make rights claims against us in light of those duties.

Finally, I am unclear from whence Bill and Bob derive this "right" of self defence for governments. The right of self defence for a nation is derived, in an a argument found in St Augustine's writings, from the right of individual self defense. But that is an argument from analogy, not a deduction, and the analogy may be as suspect as Bob's two analogies quoted above. Additionally, a nation is much more than just its government.

[Surferbeetle]

Finally, I am unclear from whence Bill and Bob derive this "right" of self defence for governments. The right of self defence for a nation is derived, in an a argument found in St Augustine's writings, from the right of individual self defense. But that is an argument from analogy, not a deduction, and the analogy may be as suspect as Bob's two analogies quoted above. Additionally, a nation is much more than just its government.

Wm,

One for the reading list

Scottexalonia Rising, By ROGER COHEN, Published: November 26, 2012, IHT, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/op...tml?ref=europe

Of course, immigration, lust and love have mixed the blood of the Scottish, Texan and Catalonian tribes (Call them “Scottexalonia” in their shared separation itch.) “I’m a mutt,” Barack Obama once said. So, increasingly, is a wired, remittance-linked world where many live with, say, one foot in Birmingham and another in Lahore.

In 1996, I began a piece called “Global forces batter politics” with these words: “Throughout much of the world today, politics lags behind economics, like a horse and buggy haplessly trailing a sports car. While politicians go through the motions of national elections — offering chimerical programs and slogans — world markets, the Internet and the furious pace of trade involve people in a global game in which elected representatives figure as little more than bit players.”

Extrapolate out 16 years from that. National politics, as President François Hollande of France is only the latest to discover, is often no more than tweaking at the margins in the exiguous political space left by markets and other global forces. And that is in France!