Re: [Phys-l] Cramster et al.

[Brian Whatcott <betwys1@sbcglobal.net>]

John Clement wrote:
> Actually experiments in psychology show that that the human species is built
> to cooperate.  Indeed cooperation appears to be stronger than competition.
>   
Hmmm...it is certainly the case that predators are often found in co 
operative
packs: lions, wolves come to mind. We are usually considered the top 
predator...
My personal prejudice is that women are in general MUCH better at 
cooperating
while the male propensity is for competing.
> Most countries have government supported higher education and they do score
> higher on tests, if one pays attention to that sort of thing.  The Japanese
> have an extremely strong cooperative society, and took over American ideas
> of both education and economic production.  They implemented them very
> successfully and essentially drove our auto makers into the ground.
>   
Hmmm...encouraging an industrial environment where Japanese line workers 
are encouraged to make product improvements, and are required to attempt 
to resolve production line quality issues in the available walk time, or 
else stop the line, makes a stark contrast with the ethos at some other 
US car plants where parts were placed in door panels expressly to annoy 
the new owner and where stopping the line was effectively a firing 
offense. This is not cooperation: it is management (for the long term)
> So the idea of government supported higher education is not far fetched,
> except the knee jerk economic conservatives would oppose it in the US.
Hmmm... in the US, it is not necessary to be a knee-jerk conservative 
radical in order to have a strong distrust of government activity. It 
goes with a pervasive US distrust of intellectuals.    Mention IQ to 
teachers and see the uproar!   As though there is not a range of talent 
skill or propensity for almost any human endeavor.
It is against this ethos, that people can support the idea of better 
education for kids with well-heeled parents, in place of the more 
talented (measured in any sensible dimension) students who are the 
offspring of poorer parents.   And it is here that one can see the 
greatest possible extremes of rewards provided by our splendid 
capitalist system:
The average physician grossing a quarter million on up (but that is 
stale data) - are they really so much superior to the teachers who 
inhabit this list? Or about the upper reaches of bankers: people who are 
brought face to face with the incomes of such folks - $100M per year 
etc...      CEOs versus mail-room workers...

But for me, the greatest sadness is about the impoverished women who 
must return to work in two weeks after parturition, for pressing 
economic need.
Should we be surprised that American neonates have poorer life expectancy
than most first world kids? - being more comparable to third world 
residents.
Why SHOULD they get prenatal care, vitamins and physican attention if 
they cannot afford it?

Still, the folks who rail against such obvious inequity get the last 
laugh, if that's what it could be called,  when they notice that the  
chances of the well-heeled going bankrupt and impoverished from medical 
bills in the US grow apace, as they grow old.

Brian W,
(fresh from flying his plane this evening, though neglecting his horse, 
and his sailboat more so....)
>   It
> is worth debating on its merits without ideological bias.  Even Adam Smith
> said that free markets do not always produce socially desirable outcomes.
> There is probably a wide range of possibilities for governmental control vs
> free market economics which will probably work well, with the extremes being
> the worst solution.  Just think at one time we had private fire fighters
> competing in cities.  The result was that if you called the wrong company
> they would let your house and neighboring houses burn down.  I suspect that
> most of the people on this list are actually on government "dole" because
> they work for state or public schools, or have research funded by the
> government.  Virtually all basic research is funded by the government now,
> with private money going into only research with a relatively quick payoff.
> Incidentally the "socialistic" Germans are among the top patenters!  They
> had social security in the 1800s!
>
> So the topic of governmental support for higher education should be
> discussed rationally not ideologically.
>
> John M. Clement
> Houston, TX
>
>