Category Archives: Education

The Israel-Kinect Connection

Business, Economy, Education, Family, Free Markets, Human Accomplishment, Israel, Media, Regulation, Science, Socialism, Technology

Who do you think invented Microsoft’s “Kinect,” which is in the Guinness Book of Records as the “Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device” ever? Microsoft would like to claim the credit, but it belongs to an Israeli outfit called PrimeSense.

It’s my guess—and CNN’s Zombie Zakaria might wish to investigate this—that, overall, those who invent these silly contraptions are not necessarily the same sort of people who use them obsessively. (I recently watched a boy bob up-and-down and sideways like an automaton for over an hour in front of the Kinect. Back in the day, my own, now-grown girl would have been building Lego, painting, reading, or “inventing” creative games in the yard.)

Yes, the fogies of “60 Minutes” are obsessed with kids; errant American adults cater to, and worship, but never guide, their kids. The outcome of deification without direction is that the current crop of fattened little Buddhas is not that great.

Truth be told, the hybrid, hi-tech workforce—comprised as it is of local and outsourced talent—is manned, generally, by terribly smart, much older people with advanced engineering degrees. (That’s too much like hard work which is hardly “fun.”) The truth is that the people designing gadgets for America’s (face it, dumb) kids are older and highly educated. Some are Americans; others are Asians (South more than East, but both) and Israelis. The hi-tech endeavor is thus all about the older generation—veteran techies—uniting to supply their young, twittering twits with the playthings that keep their brainwaves from flatlining.

Back to the point: Some of my readers refer to Israel’s economy as a socialistic one, a fact that could reflect a general media bias (against Israel, not socialism). Although Israel’s economy is by no means unfettered, it is not much different from Western Europe’s Third-Way, mixed economies, with a respectable per capita GDP. Warren Buffett has invested billions in Israel’s private sector, with good returns. The country’s high-tech industry has certainly been on the cutting edge for sometime.

Significant is the trend. And it is unmistakable: “Emerging markets,” as Israel is, are becoming freer, whereas America is becoming less free. The devil is in this detail.

I am affiliated with the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies. Those who’re interested in tracking the effort to liberalize Israel’s economy will get a good idea by following JIMS’ remarkable work out of Jerusalem.

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For a third day in a row, my book, Into The Cannibal’s Pot, is Amazon’s #1 in the category on Social Policy. The Publisher (link here) is not charging for shipping. This is valuable for our South African readers. Kindle will be up by, I am told by the best man possible, early this week, probably tomorrow.

UPDATED: Deadend Debates (& State Death Squads)

Constitution, Education, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Journalism, Justice, Law, Media, Military, Political Philosophy, Reason, The Zeitgeist

Be they pundits, politicians, government watchdogs, and other dogs (no offense to the canine community), most “critics” of our ever-accreting Nanny State don’t pose the right questions. This is because they appear to lack the requisite philosophical (constitutional or other) and logical frameworks. Unless these players begin directing the arrows in their quiver at the philosophical issues—what is the proper role of the state in this republic, RIP—we will be left with the silly, “To Spend of Not to Spend” debate. (Lackluster logic is harder to fix.)

One example is this Drudge headline (click “Go Back One Page” to view actual headline): “FEDS SPEND MILLIONS STUDYING SHRIMP ON TREADMILLS?? ‘GELATIN WRESTLING’ IN ANTARCTICA??” All the screeching CAPITAL LETTERS and question marks in the world will not fill in the blanks: Is the objection to this particular spending based on considerations of frugality? Or is Drudge’s outrage over the flouting of the Constitution by Feds? A better headline would begin to steer the Idiocracy in the right, critical direction.

The founders bequeathed a central government of delegated and enumerated powers. Intellectual property laws are the only constitutional means at Congress’s disposal with which to “promote the Progress of Science.” (About their merit Thomas Jefferson, himself an inventor, was unconvinced.) The Constitution gives Congress only 18 specific legislative powers. Research and development spending—even for crucial matters as “Jell-O wrestling at the South Pole” and the “shrimp’s exercise ability”—are nowhere among them.

Rights and the Constitution aside, once we we begin to focus on the right issues and questions, the right answers will be likelier to present themselves.

Take the fuzzy discussion facilitated by Neil Cavuto, today, with two mushy-headed women about the right of a school to fine parents for pupil tardiness.

Lis Wiehl, a lawyer no less, was of one (mushy) mind with the other guest, a mother. Both believe that it’s simply unfair, in these tough times, for schools to penalize busy parents when kids are late for school.

The question here is, of course, not only about pedagogic purview; it’s about individual responsibility. Kids of a certain age ought to be responsible for their actions. Teachers are supposed to be able to enforce minimal attendance standards. If a child in high-school is tardy, he or she ought to be punished, not his parents.

But pedagogues, parents, pundits and most politicians are all-over-the-map—incapable of articulating the simple issues at hand. If thinking is so disordered and illogical, solutions will be no better. (In the last example: teachers should wait for better economic times before they fine parents for the actions of their kids.)

UPDATE (May 27): STATE DEATH SQUADS. With grim determination William N. Grigg dogs the perps in Police State America. Here they are breaking and entering and, then, killing the occupant of the invaded private property. Look at the goons! Talk about “The Myth of Posse Comitatus.” What is this if not the deployment of the US military against the people?

A YouTube poster appended an excerpt from our dead-letter Constitution: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The speedy execution of Jose Guerena (“it’s complex,” say officials) was mislabeled by our official cognoscenti. FoxNews bobbleheads debated whether this bloodbath amounted to the use of excess force, and entertained an apologist for the SWAT fucks who shed tears over the split-second decisions these, our great defenders, undertake in the course of defending us against alleged tokers.

The only relevant debate here is: whose property is it anyway? Does a man have the absolute right to defend his abode from invaders whomever, however? The only answer: “YES, YES, YES.” If you’re vaguely compos mentis, this is the only debate you should dignify.

[For those of you who await the weekly, WND.COM column: it will be back next week. I’ve been under the weather.]

This Is Who We Are

Barack Obama, Education, Homeland Security, Jihad, Middle East, Military, Nationhood, Political Philosophy, Terrorism, War

The following is from this week’s WND.COM column, “This Is Who We Are”:

“… By the estimate of “Yahoo! Search Trends,” teens ages 13-17 … made up 66 percent of searches for ‘who is osama bin laden?’” “The figures give a revealing insight into the lack of current affairs and general knowledge among teenagers,” quipped the Daily Mail’s correspondent.

The twits were indeed atwitter:

Tara: I’m probably retarded for asking this, but who is Osama and why is it good that he died?
Cory: Who is Osama and why is it important we killed him?
Shawn: who is Osama Bin Laden? Is he in the band as well?

Reptilian brains like these took their spring-break behavior to the streets when the news about bin Laden’s demise broke. They too are who we are.

Why not own our atavism? There will always be a marginalized, underbelly of genius and ingenuity in America. But for the rest, we have morphed into a militant, mindless people.

In its clodhopper’s traipse around the world, our military has caused the deaths and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, squandered trillions of our debased dollars, destroyed at least two countries, and crippled the American economy. Had the ‘Pac Men Of The Universe’ undertaken and achieved a precision operation after 9/11—it would be worth celebrating. But not now.

Conga lines of jubilant Americans must, by sad necessity, give way to welfare lines. If recent news reports are to be believed, one in seven Americans stands in-line for food stamps from the government.

That is now the alpha and omega of American life. …”

Read the complete column, “This Is Who We Are is,” now on WND.COM.

UPDATE II: Pleasure Me, Now!

Debt, Education, Ethics, Federal Reserve Bank, Morality, Pop-Culture, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, The Zeitgeist

The following is from my new, WND column, “Pleasure Me, Now!”:

“Our society revolves around the pleasure principle. Unless something is pleasurable, it excites suspicion and is deemed unworthy of pursuit. This is one reason so many American youngsters entering the job market are dumb, difficult and will be, ultimately, dispensable. They’ve been taught, by parents and pedagogues — falsely — that learning and work must be jolly fun all the time. If your field of endeavor is no fun, quit it.

Anyone who has studied seriously, or worked to master a craft, knows that nothing worth learning or mastering is easy or enjoyable, at first — unless you’re a genius, a natural, or both. Most of us are not. For proof of the fact of mediocrity, look no further than the normal distribution, the Bell Curve.

With mastery, however, comes enjoyment. And mastery generally means hard work.

‘The value of hard work is overrated. Laziness is the mother of invention’: these were riffs offered up against my case by one of the bloggers at BarelyABlog.com. The writer, a physicist, makes my point for me: He happens to be a relative of Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, recipient of the 1945 Nobel Prize in physics!

No, not everyone can ‘work smart.’ Whereas graft is within each person’s reach; genius is not.

The pleasure principle is at play in the realm of both personal and public finances. Saving for the future is not fun. It means postponing pleasure for the sake of solvency or other more ambitious future gains.

Tellingly, a survey by the ‘National Foundation for Credit Counseling’ has revealed that … ’26 percent of adults in the U.S. admit that they’re spending more than they did a year ago. And 40 percent of consumers are still battling unpaid credit card debt month to month.'” …

Read the complete column, “Pleasure Me, Now!”, on WND.COM.

UPDATE I (April 22): In the Comments section, Annette makes important points. Running my own tiny enterprise, as I do, I agree with her. When us oldies die-out, the American workforce is close to toast! However, home-schooled kids give me hope. I’m working with one such gentleman (a kid, really) whose work ethic, method of problem solving, and cognitive skills match mine. As my husband would put it, “A normal person.” But the “mature” “professionals” who came before him, all with fancy offices downtown, gave new meaning to the concept of outsourcing.

Let me parrot, once again, “Your Kids: Dumb, Difficult And Dispensable”:

“The hybrid, hi-tech workforce ? comprised as it is of local and outsourced talent ? is manned, generally, by terribly smart older people with advanced engineering degrees. Yes, the people designing gadgets for our grandiose gimps are often Asians, many of whom are older. They beaver away under fewer, also terribly smart, older Americans. The hi-tech endeavor is thus all about (older) Americans and Asians uniting to supply young, twittering twits with the playthings that keep their brainwaves from flatlining.
My source in the industry tells me that the millennial generation will be another nail in the coffin of flailing American productivity. I am told too that for every useless, self-important millennial, a respectful, bright, industrious (East) Asian, with a wicked work ethic, waits in the wings.
Let the lazy American youngster look down at his superiors, and live-off his delusions and his parents. His young Asian counterpart harbors a different sensibility and skill; he is hungrily learning from his higher-ups with a view to displacing artificially fattened geese like Meghan McCain.”

UPDATE II (April 23): Myron, Right you are. My source behind enemy lines—one of the biggest, most prestigious American corporations—is reduced to working in his garage, where he has better lab equipment, solving the company’s technical problems.