The UK government, and top American universities, are now beating the
bushes for the brightest among the young of what I call the 80-class
(those whose children are being generally dumbed down by state
schools). The Conservative government is pushing a sluggish
Department of Education, and avoiding aggressive tactics by teachers'
unions, in order to carry out its new policy of 'free schools' (those
initiated by parents but claiming state funds) with teachers who are
natural teachers, not necessarily with teacher-training diplomas.
Harvard, Yale. MIT and others are increasingly surveying the
brightest students at UK state secondary schools in order to offer
them scholarships.
The reason is that the various power-groups of what I call the
20-class (generally those who have been privately educated)
increasingly need many more numerate, scientifically-trained recruits
than ever before in order to keep on running the show. Of course,
some of the brightest young people of the 80-class find their way
with difficulty into the 20-class via elite universities, new
businesses or some specific marketable talent (stand-up comedy is
currently fashionable), but many do not, unlike America.
But if the UK is only, let us say, 20% efficient in identifying and
helping talent at a young enough age at present, America is far from
100%. Even the college/university entrance SAT exam has been dumbed
down over the years and many more parents are having to pay for
additional cramming. (America and the UK are becoming more like China
in this respect.)
However, as massive debts will have to be paid off (or inflated by
money-printing) over the next 10-30 years in Western Europe and
America, the 20-class will still have to continue to pay the bulk of
the income and corporation taxation needed to keep the 80-class
alive, particularly the growing number of young adults without jobs,
even if the huge cost of cradle-to-grave welfare is steadily reduced
to basic food-, heating- or television-channel-stamps (in order to
prevent them rioting in the streets too frequently). If this can be
maintained for 30 years or so then the worst will be over because
populations will then be slimming down at a fast rate (the rest of
the world, mostly within 30 or 40 super-metropolises, doing so a
generation later).
But there is one flaw in this pull-the-ladder-up-Jack strategy
(unconscious though it may be at the present time among the
20-class). This is that it will work only if the 20-class in the
advanced countries get very close indeed to 100% efficiency in
selecting the brightest talent. If they overlook more than a few of
these, then there'll be many more groups of self-taught, highly
expert Internet hackers than there are now. Such hackers are already
constantly able to penetrate the most crucial electronic systems on
which we are now totally dependent. Indeed, some
poachers-turned-gamekeepers of the hacking world have already said
that they are surprised that major breakdowns of whole countries have
not already happened. Rumours have it that some hackers have already
been bought off by governments and banks. But they will have been the
sane hackers.
Governments know what to do -- at least in the US and UK where are
more than enough clues from advanced genetics research. Twenty years
ago it was naively believed that high intelligence was owed to one or
two 'special' genes. It soon became apparent that hundreds, if not
thousands, of genes are involved. After skin cells, nerve development
is the first stage in the growing foetus. Probably pretty well all
our 20,000+ genes -- as they come on stream in the foetus -- are
involved directly or indirectly in brain development. In short, most
healthy full-term babies born without handicaps or seriously harmful
genes, are capable in an ideal environment of potential intelligence
as high as is necessary in any high-tech economy.
A currency catastrophe (or a very long economic recession) is
inevitable. But getting over, or through, either of these will be as
decorous as a vicar's tea party compared with what a malevolent
hacker, or group of them, could do. Disruption of electricity in our
cities and cessation of financial information between banks for more
than a day or two would plunge us immediately into a hunter-gatherer
existence -- albeit via a generation of savagery as populations thin
themselves out accordingly. Go to it, advanced governments, as fast as you can!
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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