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Here’s a question for you: In 1950, would it have been possible for anyone to know all of the goods and services that we would have at our disposal 50 years later? For example, who would have thought that we’d have cellphones, Bluetooth technology, small powerful computers, LASIK and airplanes with 525-passenger seating capacity? This list could be extended to include thousands of goods and services that could not have been thought of in 1950. In the face of this gross human ignorance, who should be in control of precursor goods and services? Seeing as it’s impossible for anyone to predict the future, any kind of governmental regulation should be extremely light-handed, so as not to sabotage technological advancement.

Compounding our ignorance is the fact that much of what we think we know is not true. Scientometrics is the study of measuring and analyzing science, technology and innovation. It holds that many of the “facts” you know have a half-life of about 50 years. Let’s look at a few examples.

You probably learned that Pluto is a planet. But since August 2006, Pluto has been considered a dwarf planet. It’s just another object in the Kuiper belt.

Because dinosaurs were seen as members of the class Reptilia, they were thought to be coldblooded. But recent research suggests that dinosaurs were fast-metabolizing endotherms whose activities were unconstrained by temperature.

Years ago, experts argued that increased K-12 spending and lower pupil-teacher ratios would boost students’ academic performance. It turned out that some of the worst academic performance has been at schools spending the most money and having the smallest class sizes. Washington, D.C., spends more than $29,000 per student every year, and the teacher-student ratio is 1-to-13; however, its students are among the nation’s poorest-performing pupils.

At one time, astronomers considered the size limit for a star to be 150 times the mass of our sun. But recently, a star (R136a1) was discovered that is 265 times the mass of our sun and had a birth weight that was 320 times that of our sun.

If you graduated from medical school in 1950, about half of what you learned is either wrong or outdated. For an interesting story on all this, check out Reason magazine (http://tinyurl.com/ydalh37g).

Ignorance can be devastating. Say that you recently purchased a house. Was it the best deal you could have gotten? Was there some other house within your budget that would have needed fewer extensive repairs 10 years later and had more likable neighbors and a better and safer environment for your children? What about the person you married? Was there another person available to you who would have made for a more pleasing and compatible spouse? Though these are important questions, the most intelligent answer you can give to all of them is: “I don’t know.” If you don’t know, who should be in charge of making those decisions? Would you delegate the responsibility to Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump, Ben Carson or some other national or state official?

You might say, “Stop it, Williams! Congressmen and other public officials are not making such monumental decisions affecting my life.” Try this. Suppose you are a 22-year-old healthy person. Rather than be forced to spend $3,000 a year for health insurance and have $7,000 deducted from your salary for Social Security, you’d prefer investing that money to buy equipment to start a landscaping business. Which would be the best use of the $10,000 you earned — purchasing health insurance and paying into Social Security or starting up a landscaping business? More importantly, who would be better able to make that decision — you or members of the United States Congress?

The bottom line is that ignorance is omnipresent. The worst kind of ignorance is not knowing just how ignorant we are. That leads to the devastating pretense of knowledge that’s part and parcel of the vision of intellectual elites and politicians.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Years ago, experts argued that increased K-12 spending and lower pupil-teacher ratios would boost students’ academic performance. It turned out that some of the worst academic performance has been at schools spending the most money and having the smallest class sizes. Washington, D.C., spends more than $29,000 per student every year, and the teacher-student ratio is 1-to-13; however, its students are among the nation’s poorest-performing pupils.

At one time, astronomers considered the size limit for a star to be 150 times the mass of our sun. But recently, a star (R136a1) was discovered that is 265 times the mass of our sun and had a birth weight that was 320 times that of our sun.

If you graduated from medical school in 1950, about half of what you learned is either wrong or outdated. For an interesting story on all this, check out Reason magazine (http://tinyurl.com/ydalh37g).

Ignorance can be devastating. Say that you recently purchased a house. Was it the best deal you could have gotten? Was there some other house within your budget that would have needed fewer extensive repairs 10 years later and had more likable neighbors and a better and safer environment for your children? What about the person you married? Was there another person available to you who would have made for a more pleasing and compatible spouse? Though these are important questions, the most intelligent answer you can give to all of them is: “I don’t know.” If you don’t know, who should be in charge of making those decisions? Would you delegate the responsibility to Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump, Ben Carson or some other national or state official?

You might say, “Stop it, Williams! Congressmen and other public officials are not making such monumental decisions affecting my life.” Try this. Suppose you are a 22-year-old healthy person. Rather than be forced to spend $3,000 a year for health insurance and have $7,000 deducted from your salary for Social Security, you’d prefer investing that money to buy equipment to start a landscaping business. Which would be the best use of the $10,000 you earned — purchasing health insurance and paying into Social Security or starting up a landscaping business? More importantly, who would be better able to make that decision — you or members of the United States Congress?

The bottom line is that ignorance is omnipresent. The worst kind of ignorance is not knowing just how ignorant we are. That leads to the devastating pretense of knowledge that’s part and parcel of the vision of intellectual elites and politicians.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

http://www.gopusa.com/how-ignorant-we-are/

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We all know the most ignorant are the ones teaching. I'm well
aware of the number of teachers having to hire someone to
take the qualifying test just to teach, meaning the wrong people
are in those rolls and have fail completely for a vast number of
years.
It takes twice as many teachers for small classes, sounds like
redistribution but no one will question this scam and it keeps
them happy and off the bridges, some of the time.
We are creating a caste system, who's going to profit from that.?
Kraven posted:
We all know the most ignorant are the ones teaching. I'm well
aware of the number of teachers having to hire someone to
take the qualifying test just to teach, meaning the wrong people
are in those rolls and have fail completely for a vast number of
years.
It takes twice as many teachers for small classes, sounds like
redistribution but no one will question this scam and it keeps
them happy and off the bridges, some of the time.
We are creating a caste system, who's going to profit from that.?

The neo-Confederate states like California, Oregon, Washington state, Massachusetts, Vermont and New York with a wealthy elite and a poorly paid low caste to serve them will profit (the wealthy ones, that is).  The old South's wealthy planters were served by slaves. King Cotton ensured their wealth.  Besides those neither slave, nor wealthy, there was a small middle class, but mostly poor whites and freedmen.  

Dire
  Besides those neither slave, nor wealthy, there was a small middle class, but mostly poor whites and freedmen.  

*********

And from that rose the mightiest and most successful nation
on earth. It's evolved now after three hundred and a few years later
into what we see today, the making of a one world government where
the world will cease to be free, except for that government of course...

Here’s a question for you: In 1950, would it have been possible for anyone to know all of the goods and services that we would have at our disposal 50 years later? For example, who would have thought that we’d have cellphones, Bluetooth technology, small powerful computers, LASIK and airplanes with 525-passenger seating capacity? ~ KRAVEN

Reading that I was reminded of Reagan.

  He [Reagan is quoiting someone] said, "You didn't grow up in an age of instant electronics, of jet travel, of space travel, and journeys to the Moon. You didn't have . . ." and he went on with all the things—cybernetics and all the things that we didn't have and so forth. And he talked just long enough—usually, you know, you don't think of the answer till they're gone—but he talked just long enough that, when he finished, I said, "You're absolutely right. Our generation, we didn't have those things when we were your age. We invented them."

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=42708

 

Around the late 1800's human knowledge doubled approximately
every century. By 1950 it was about every 25 years.
Today on average, knowledge is doubling every 14 months and
what's developing from computer/internet growth that may lead to
the doubling of that knowledge every 12 hours.
 
50 years ago could anyone guess the cell phone, no.
 
I believe we are starting to see some things we should expect to
see from our stored results pitted against what we hope to achieve.
 
Last edited by Kraven
Kraven posted:
Around the late 1800's human knowledge doubled approximately
every century. By 1950 it was about every 25 years.
Today on average, knowledge is doubling every 14 months and
what's developing from computer/internet growth that may lead to
the doubling of that knowledge every 12 hours.
 
50 years ago could anyone guess the cell phone, no.
 
I believe we are starting to see some things we should expect to
see from our stored results pitted against what we hope to achieve.
 

Yes, it coming was foreseen:

"

"How come," he asked as he came abreast, "they had to search for you?"

"Left my pocketphone in my other suit," Coburn returned briefly. "Did it on purpose - I wanted a little peace and quiet. No luck."

From Assignment in Eternity, by Robert Heinlein.
Published by Signet in 1953

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=595

Kraven posted:
We all know the most ignorant are the ones teaching. I'm well
aware of the number of teachers having to hire someone to
take the qualifying test just to teach, meaning the wrong people
are in those rolls and have fail completely for a vast number of
years.
It takes twice as many teachers for small classes, sounds like
redistribution but no one will question this scam and it keeps
them happy and off the bridges, some of the time.
We are creating a caste system, who's going to profit from that.?

Large corporations that want ignorant worker bees... 

Kraven posted:
Dire
  Besides those neither slave, nor wealthy, there was a small middle class, but mostly poor whites and freedmen.  

*********

And from that rose the mightiest and most successful nation
on earth. It's evolved now after three hundred and a few years later
into what we see today, the making of a one world government where
the world will cease to be free, except for that government of course...

Isn't that how peak capitalism works?  The rich become richer until they control everything.  Meanwhile, the rest of us point fingers at each other...

direstraits posted:
Kraven posted:
We all know the most ignorant are the ones teaching. I'm well
aware of the number of teachers having to hire someone to
take the qualifying test just to teach, meaning the wrong people
are in those rolls and have fail completely for a vast number of
years.
It takes twice as many teachers for small classes, sounds like
redistribution but no one will question this scam and it keeps
them happy and off the bridges, some of the time.
We are creating a caste system, who's going to profit from that.?

The neo-Confederate states like California, Oregon, Washington state, Massachusetts, Vermont and New York with a wealthy elite and a poorly paid low caste to serve them will profit (the wealthy ones, that is).  The old South's wealthy planters were served by slaves. King Cotton ensured their wealth.  Besides those neither slave, nor wealthy, there was a small middle class, but mostly poor whites and freedmen.  

https://thinkprogress.org/repo...shrink-5b10cd7f3f67/

Naio posted:
direstraits posted:
Kraven posted:
We all know the most ignorant are the ones teaching. I'm well
aware of the number of teachers having to hire someone to
take the qualifying test just to teach, meaning the wrong people
are in those rolls and have fail completely for a vast number of
years.
It takes twice as many teachers for small classes, sounds like
redistribution but no one will question this scam and it keeps
them happy and off the bridges, some of the time.
We are creating a caste system, who's going to profit from that.?

The neo-Confederate states like California, Oregon, Washington state, Massachusetts, Vermont and New York with a wealthy elite and a poorly paid low caste to serve them will profit (the wealthy ones, that is).  The old South's wealthy planters were served by slaves. King Cotton ensured their wealth.  Besides those neither slave, nor wealthy, there was a small middle class, but mostly poor whites and freedmen.  

https://thinkprogress.org/repo...shrink-5b10cd7f3f67/

No, Naio, wet sidewalks don't cause rain.  Typical left winger not able to reach a logic conclusion with available data.  Union membership dropped because members saw little advantage to membership.  Middle class is shrinking because companies are using foreigners, who work for less. The pressure of using illegals depresses the pay for those working towards the middle class.  Shipping industries overseas and making regulations that strangle domestic companies are other factors.  See, its more complicated and require upper brain functions.  

direstraits posted:
Naio posted:
direstraits posted:
Kraven posted:
We all know the most ignorant are the ones teaching. I'm well
aware of the number of teachers having to hire someone to
take the qualifying test just to teach, meaning the wrong people
are in those rolls and have fail completely for a vast number of
years.
It takes twice as many teachers for small classes, sounds like
redistribution but no one will question this scam and it keeps
them happy and off the bridges, some of the time.
We are creating a caste system, who's going to profit from that.?

The neo-Confederate states like California, Oregon, Washington state, Massachusetts, Vermont and New York with a wealthy elite and a poorly paid low caste to serve them will profit (the wealthy ones, that is).  The old South's wealthy planters were served by slaves. King Cotton ensured their wealth.  Besides those neither slave, nor wealthy, there was a small middle class, but mostly poor whites and freedmen.  

https://thinkprogress.org/repo...shrink-5b10cd7f3f67/

No, Naio, wet sidewalks don't cause rain.  Typical left winger not able to reach a logic conclusion with available data.  Union membership dropped because members saw little advantage to membership.  Middle class is shrinking because companies are using foreigners, who work for less. The pressure of using illegals depresses the pay for those working towards the middle class.  Shipping industries overseas and making regulations that strangle domestic companies are other factors.  See, its more complicated and require upper brain functions.  

Another lie from liarstraights... union membership went down with the introduction of the Republican's 'right to work' laws. Leave it up to Republicans to ignore facts and substitute their own reality, then scream about 'fake news'.

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