Dr. Michio Kaku Says America Has A Secret Super Weapon

[Storm]

[YOUTUBE]e7D3_eGaO5k[/YOUTUBE]

More @ http://bigthink.com/ideas/19054

[Jake Featherston]

This video is poasted under false pretenses. I don't recommend viewing it if you're interested in some physicist's take on a secret weapon, in other words. Its not about that.

[Phil75231]

Beside the point, Jake - though in Storm's defense that was the title of the video. To be sure, maybe Storm could have titled it something else, but there's nothing we can do about that now.

The secret weapon he talks about is much more important than the technology itself (including weapons). That weapon is the people capable of creating the weapon in the first place - namely foreign-born high tech PhD candidates who are able to staff our highest-end industries (50% of all PhD candidates are foreign-born).

It's an explanation of why the US ranks near the top in high tech industries but at or near the bottom of the economically advanced world in science knowledge and education. Our prosperity depends on science and innovation, and thus depend on immigrants (mostly Chinese and Indians) for our very prosperity.

To be fair, his discussion opponent does say that US universities run science, technology,math, and engineering intro courses as flunk-out courses. This distorts the educational system in such a way that there are naturally going to be fewer such native-born graduates in these programs. Still, the opponent does agree with Kaku about the importance of the H-1B visa.

[Raskolnikov]

To be fair, his discussion opponent does say that US universities run science, technology,math, and engineering intro courses as flunk-out courses. This distorts the educational system in such a way that there are naturally going to be fewer such native-born graduates in these programs. Still, the opponent does agree with Kaku about the importance of the H-1B visa.

What does that mean?

[Phil75231]

What does that mean?

Weed-out, as in pulling weeds out of the garden.

In this case, it means the course is designed not so much to teach and inspire freshman STEM* majors as it is to discourage students from getting a degree in that field. I presume it's under the assumption that a very difficult mandatory introductory course will filter out mediocre or non-dedicated students from the start; thereby leaving only the students who do pass with flying colors will be the ones populating the academic major. In other words, it's the boot camp philosophy transferred to academia.

This may sound sensible in the abstract, but Kaku's discussion opponent has doubts. The opponent states this is actually discouraging from the STEM fields people who - had they been guided and encouraged instead of weeded out - would have been quite competent and creative engineers. Whether he's right or wrong is up for debate (as is Kaku's claims).

[Raskolnikov]

Oh, ok. That's what I thought. That might've happened to me. I always out-scored people in math but early on in college I failed a calculus class and was put off from going into a math or science major.

Edit: The idea that it's some Japanese guy speaking in globalist lingo about how much we need to immigrants is infuriating.