Skills are skills. Even if you don't have the latest iPhone or Android flavor TangoUniformVoo 8.9.
Considering that i'm a bit rusty (no allusion intended), if i'm certified in Sun's Java 1.5/5.0, can i still program in OracleJava, and what about Google'sJava? ....Though maybe it takes a little bit of elbow grease and sharp elbows to push the script-kiddies currently in HRManagement aside.
"Protectionist trade policies are common in Japan too...."
There are advantages to the way Asian economists do it.
For example, not only in Japan, but especially in Korea, cell phones were standard even by the mid-90's....EVERYONE had one. And the rates were quite reasonable, too. (No contracts, either. IfIRememberRight.)
But there are(/were) disadvantages to Asian Tiger economics too. After the Asian bubble burst, the Korean Wan [SouthKorean money] depreciated to the point that USArmy Sergeants were trying to buy cars (even Fords, not just Kias and Daewoos) made (or rather bought) in Korea. (The US Dollar-to-Wan rate was so out of wack that it was still more economical to buy AND ship a car back to the US across the Pacific on a boat. Unfortunately emissions standards were different; Korean cars didn't pass EPA muster.) ~circa 1998
"Ayn Rand's ideas come from a propaganda campaign launched eight years after she published the Fountainhead?"
Yes, I have to wonder how much of "Rational Choice Theory/Philosophy" originated at RAND. And I wonder even more, how much (that is little) of modern individualism originated with Rational Choice Theory - contrary to the main point of the article.
I'm not sure I'd dismiss your argument so quickly. If one considers the "just" to be the best decision, given the circumstances, then most criminals are trying to be just. They may badly need money for their family. Or perhaps to feed a drug habit (In which case, as you said, perhaps they are ignorant of what really is just.) If they didn't think it was the best decision, for some good, why would they do it?
What struck me was close to the opposite. The proposals in the article make me fear a future dystopia, where no one believes in free will, where the average person is degraded by a dehumanizing science. Like some science fiction horror story.
henryw's summary is good, but it misses that point: an important part of the article is developing the mind over time. The same way one gradually learns a skill like programming, one can learn to develop some of the things mentioned in the article. (I only wish I would have read such an article 10 years ago and gotten that point.)
Most of the things that I thought made it interesting are actually done by Java's Robot API: http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/awt/Robot....
For example, being able to automate double clicking and getting screen captures (for edge-detection).
I think the number 107,000 is the number of janitors and cleaners with degrees, not total janitors and cleaners. Note the author says "Over 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degree" - 317,000 is in the same column as the 107,000.
Maybe it shouldn't be that surprising that most of the big ideas seem to be behind us in computing. Automobiles have been fundamentally the same for decades (speaking broadly). It could be that new areas of technology are more like explorers finding new lands. The newer finds don't tend to be as big within that area after a while.
Coincidentally, Freeman Dyson recently said that physics has been undergoing such a slowing down. (His daughter was mentioned in the article). He also mentioned that the field of biology is speeding up. (Link to his Charlie Rose interview http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10560 (doesn't go into much detail concerning the given point, but it is Freeman Dyson.)