George Rebane
A socialist believes that human nature can be legislated.
IEEE reports that ‘Robots are not killing jobs’ in an interview with Dr Henrik Christensen, Director of the Center for Robotics and Intelligent Machines at Georgia Tech. His argument to support the proposition is to invoke the same ol’ same ol’ – technology, including robotics, is just going through the classic creative destruction, destroying some jobs while making new ones. To bring along the recently arrived on the planet, he cites the example of the displaced typing pool employees who had the opportunity to become administrative assistants for executives. What the good professor, and the many who have not thought much about the problem, fall prey to is the fact that the new jobs, if any, always require a bit more between the ears than the bygone jobs did. And that makes a good fraction of any new jobs inaccessible to the laid off workers. I illustrated this problem fully in ‘edX meets the workforce’. From reading the interview you can tell that even Dr Christensen is not completely comfortable with his thesis.
Obama’s $100M BRAIN initiative is poorly conceived and will wind up pissing away the tax dollars poured into it. This is the (my rephrased) position taken by Dr Don Stein, a Distinguished Professor In the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Emory University. His argument is clear and persuasive; Obama’s BRAIN program seeks to follow in the footsteps of the Apollo Moon Landing and the Human Genome Programs, both of which had clear objectives and means of measuring progress along the way. BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) has none of these, and is typical of the way this administration has cobbled together policy, legislation, and national initiatives. Please read ‘The BRAIN Map Initiative Needs Rethinking’ (also picked up by Kurzweil).
Finally, we have another excellent dissertation on my favorite communist website, truthout.com (consider all hot buttons pushed). Dr Gar Alperovitz, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland who knows not the definitions of system and systemic, writes the extensive, easy to read, and passionate (and scary) ‘The Question of Socialism (and Beyond!) Is About to Open Up in These United States’. Among the sobering tidbits (H-bombs?) that decorate and bolster his case are –
Leading polling organizations have found converging results among younger Americans. Two recent Rasmussen surveys, for instance, discovered that Americans younger than 30 are almost equally divided as to whether capitalism or socialism is preferable. Another Pew survey found those aged 18 to 29 have a more favorable reaction to the term “socialism” by a margin of 49 to 43 percent.
Who says teachers’ unions and progressive profs have not been doing their job? Our young have been carefully taught, and I’m afraid we have seen nothing yet. Republicans, call your office.
rebanesruminations.com 
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