What you have pointed out, Surak, is another sure sign of a dying empire. Although there exists problems, such as lack of inspiration, lack of ambition, lack of quality education, lack of recognition of merit (accomplishment), the root cause is complacency. Somebody else with design, invent and do. We are lazy with our accumulated wealth, our "smart phones", etc. We no longer strive for excellence and accomplishment. We are driven to mediocrity. When man no longer has the desire to achieve, he is trapped.
Somehow many students learned to be quiters long before they get to us. I turned all my exams take home, about 72 hours long, however the expectation is to present clearly weitten complete and correct arguments. not put right answer in a box. You would think I would have 99% A, 1% B as grade distribution. Nope. Passing rate ranges from about 50% to 70% depending on the course. People don't want to make the effort, don't know how to write, don't understand the purpose of it. And there's the groupie of 4 to 6 people that write the same wrong, weird, and unrelated thing hoping to get partial credit assuming I won't notice. On the bright side, about 1 out of 3 are doing ok, and some of these are doing pretty good.
Thank you for sharing your observations, doctor. Motivation - old-fashioned "gumption", as they used to say - is gone. One of the reasons for my intense interest in Robert F. Kennedy, Jr's success is what I have observed in the classroom: the gradual decline of the physical and mental health of our youth. It is a concern for me and my wife as we are in our early 60s and will not be independent forever.
Thanks for the share, Steve. Uh oh, 1 hour 15 minutes long. That's why I never end up listening to podcasts. If they had a transcript, that would be helpful.
Why is the ideal metric of world intellectual property power the sum of all patents and industrial design applications divided by the square root of the population rather than divided by the population?
Hi, Bob. Your proposed metric is discussed in the second paragraph underneath the map. On that metric, the most powerful country in the world is Liechtenstein, followed by San Marino, and I think number five is Monaco. This is a tribute to the intellectual prowess of those tiny countries, but it doesn't win them much influence on the world stage. That is why I choose to measure the geometric mean of the per capita measure and the aggregate measure. Size does matter.
If we used the latter measure alone, we would conclude that the world is dominated by Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Bermuda. I am sorry I lost the reference, but the author argued that his measure was well correlated with success in military confrontations.
Interestingly, at least one scholar has used a similar argument to measure the might of nations by GDP divided by the square root of population. This represents the geometric mean of the total size of the economy (GDP) and the productivity of the citizens (GDP/population).
What you have pointed out, Surak, is another sure sign of a dying empire. Although there exists problems, such as lack of inspiration, lack of ambition, lack of quality education, lack of recognition of merit (accomplishment), the root cause is complacency. Somebody else with design, invent and do. We are lazy with our accumulated wealth, our "smart phones", etc. We no longer strive for excellence and accomplishment. We are driven to mediocrity. When man no longer has the desire to achieve, he is trapped.
Somehow many students learned to be quiters long before they get to us. I turned all my exams take home, about 72 hours long, however the expectation is to present clearly weitten complete and correct arguments. not put right answer in a box. You would think I would have 99% A, 1% B as grade distribution. Nope. Passing rate ranges from about 50% to 70% depending on the course. People don't want to make the effort, don't know how to write, don't understand the purpose of it. And there's the groupie of 4 to 6 people that write the same wrong, weird, and unrelated thing hoping to get partial credit assuming I won't notice. On the bright side, about 1 out of 3 are doing ok, and some of these are doing pretty good.
Thank you for sharing your observations, doctor. Motivation - old-fashioned "gumption", as they used to say - is gone. One of the reasons for my intense interest in Robert F. Kennedy, Jr's success is what I have observed in the classroom: the gradual decline of the physical and mental health of our youth. It is a concern for me and my wife as we are in our early 60s and will not be independent forever.
Dennis Prager and Julie Hartman had a great discussion about this recently.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/dennis-julie/id1613744150?i=1000674631995
Thanks for the share, Steve. Uh oh, 1 hour 15 minutes long. That's why I never end up listening to podcasts. If they had a transcript, that would be helpful.
I listen while I’m walking to work or walking the dogs or whatever else I’m doing outdoors usually.
Why is the ideal metric of world intellectual property power the sum of all patents and industrial design applications divided by the square root of the population rather than divided by the population?
Hi, Bob. Your proposed metric is discussed in the second paragraph underneath the map. On that metric, the most powerful country in the world is Liechtenstein, followed by San Marino, and I think number five is Monaco. This is a tribute to the intellectual prowess of those tiny countries, but it doesn't win them much influence on the world stage. That is why I choose to measure the geometric mean of the per capita measure and the aggregate measure. Size does matter.
Sorry for the multiple replies. Something is wrong with how Substack is opening in my browser today. Maybe I need to update Brave.
If we used the latter measure alone, we would conclude that the world is dominated by Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Bermuda. I am sorry I lost the reference, but the author argued that his measure was well correlated with success in military confrontations.
Interestingly, at least one scholar has used a similar argument to measure the might of nations by GDP divided by the square root of population. This represents the geometric mean of the total size of the economy (GDP) and the productivity of the citizens (GDP/population).