The only reason so far for the success of China is that it has copied
all the consumer products that have been invented in the West and as
much of the latest technology as it can lay its hands on. However,
since 1901, when Nobel prizes were instituted (and also when all the
technologies and scientific ideas of the West were almost fully
available to China), the country has won only 9 scientific prizes
whereas America, Germany and the UK have won over 320 between them.
Unless China were to radicalize its highly authoritarian education
system, which squeezes out the creativity of its children from their
earliest years, then it's unlikely to win more than a dozen more
scientific prizes in the next century (except, of course, for the
rapidly increasing number of Chinese scientists who will have been
taught in Western schools and who dare to think laterally because
they have absorbed the non-Confucian culture).
In balance of payments terms, China is going to be successful for a
long time yet. It will need another 20 years or so to bring its
coastline population of 600 million up to the average standard of
living of the West (or as we 'enjoyed' it prior to 2008). It will
take another 30 or so years for China to bring the rest of its 700
million rural population up to scratch even if all goes well with
sufficient available world resources (in competition against the
resource requirements of at least 2 billion in India, Brazil and Indonesia).
I cannot see the second phase occurring in China because the major
cities of the coastline will probably wrench their way out of
centralized control and become largely independent city-states as,
indeed, Hong Kong has largely remained since the British released
their (non-democratic) control in 1997. The new provinces will not
only monopolize the production of profitable exports but also the
resources that are imported. Like the 80-class (that is, inadequately
educated majority) of the Western countries, which is now
increasingly dependent on state welfare benefits, the poor of the
rural interior of China will, quite simply, not replenish themselves
in sufficient numbers and will largely die out.
What will be the future of the 20-class (that is, the adequately
educated and connected class) of the West? More specifically, what
will be the future of the 20-class in America, Germany and the UK?
Together with a small number of exceptionally creative cultures such
as Finland, Israel, Singapore or Switzerland, this is where the
leading edge of research in neuroscience and genetics is to be found
and likely to be maintained in the coming decades. The reason for
this that both of these research areas are so complex that they
increasingly require high connectivities between specialists
researchers and large teams of researchers. Thus nascent ideas and
commercial development in these two growth sectors will not be
anywhere near as copiable as they have been hitherto in, say,
engineering, nor can key personnel be recruited as individuals.
But the 20-class of the West is also not replenishing its numbers
itself at present. Will it, too, decide to fade away voluntarily as
the increasingly impoverished 80-class has been doing for the past 30
years? Hardly. As the population falls away, and as immigration
resistance of the West intensifies in order not to share their
increasingly meagre welfare benefits, then the beauties and
attractiveness of the natural world will be all the more available.
And, as any parent knows, such enjoyment is greatly reinforced when
there are children to share them with. The 20-class is likely to
start having family sizes above two children in the coming years as
they survive the present recession in good heart. But even if the
20-class doesn't breed enough children, neuroscience and genetics can
help them specifically (in addition to their broader commercial development).
Neuroscience tells us that large-scale rear-brain culling takes place
before puberty. Too much culling (because of a poor informational and
attention-ful family environment) is capable of blunting a child's
mind greatly by the age of 5 years-old and almost completely so by
the age of puberty. An inadequate brain is then largely irremediable.
Skills that haven't developed by then are never teachable from then
onwards to any high level. Also, genetics tells us that high
intelligence is not so much the product of a few special genes but
several hundred of them. High talent is more the product of DNA which
does not have too many sub-optimal genes, whether dominant or
recessive, rather than having anything unusual about it. Any
'ordinary' child, given a secure, affectionate upbringing with good
socializing and educational opportunities at a very young age, and
with good skill training to follow and a daily existence with
sufficient spare time to think can produce what we call 'genius' or
at least a 'brilliant' mind.
And how will the 20-class recruit the talented numbers they require
for continuation? It will do so in exactly the same way that the
Dalai Lama used to be recruited by the Buddhist monks of Tibet or the
Living Sun Goddess was (and continues to be) in Hindu Nepal. And if
you want to know how they were recruited without the modern benefits
of neuroscience and genetics, but fully consonant with them, please
write to me. I have gone on long enough this morning and breakfast calls.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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