The industrial revolution in the 20th century was a golden child for catapulting the U.S. into superpower stardom. War — despite being the worst, most tragic consequence of humans working against each other instead of with each other — also had a big role to play in humanity. Namely, it pushed the U.S. into aggressively innovating and mass producing several advancements in electricity, electronic communication, medical care, machinery and automation, scientific theories, complex computing – and tying it all up with the birth of Information Technology and the almost surreal digital world in which we now live.
The 20th century also produced major advances in social sciences, humanities, arts, and a whole host of political, social, and religious ideologies that we still contend with to this day. After all, we humans are not only the product of biological evolution, but also sociological evolution. Call it the most grand, the most chaotic game of intellectual tug-of-war that we have ever played. It brings whole new meaning to the term “game player.” If we think that we are already drowning in manipulative game players throughout the social media, relationship, political, and business worlds, we apparently have not run out of oxygen yet, as the battle of ideas rages on.
That brings us to our current state-of-affairs here in the U.S.: What the hell do we exactly want for our country? If you are more conservative learning, particularly in its current form, you want small government; a rather broad interpretation of the Constitution (the 2nd Amendment, for example, has gone from the right to keep and bear arms and have a well-regulated militia to “go ahead and see what happens if you try to take my 30 AR-15s”); and now a religious-right based view on legislation (impose prayer in schools, make the U.S. a theocracy, stop pro-choice, deny freedoms to homosexuals based on a twisted view of religious freedom). In other words, the Right has largely become the Radical Right.
But the Left are not getting a get-out-jail-free card either: If you are more Left leaning, sure, you want healthcare and education for all, a fair distribution of wealth, and equal opportunity for men and women – however, a growing number of the Left also want to regulate speech according to whatever they choose to perceive as “hate speech,”; force a wide range of gender pronouns on every day conversation; and fallaciously rewrite U.S. history as an oppressive, tyrannical government. Meaning, the Left has substantially grown into a Radical Left.
So, for a moment, let’s say the Right pushes aside their guns, God, and glory rhetoric for a minute; and the Left puts down their college textbooks on Marxism and the oppression of women, and the rash of identity politics rhetoric, for a minute: Again, what exactly do we want for our country? What is it that we *all* have in common?
We can all agree that healthcare is important, no?
We can all agree that education is important, no?
We can all agree that our personal safety and human rights are important, no?
We can all agree that being a society that works constructively and reasonably progressively together produces a better society, no?
We can all agree that we the world has become exponentially more interconnected within the past generation, no?
We can all agree that the U.S. is primarily a land of immigrants, no?
We can all agree that other First World countries are investing in economical, political, environmental, and sociological innovations that appear to be providing much more value than harm those societies, no?
We can all agree that developing countries such as India and China, are fast becoming their own superpowers and have severely shaken the competitive edge here in the U.S., even if some of their tactics have come into question, no?
And we can all agree that our families, our kids, our best friends, our neighbors going through an unjustly hard time, should have as many opportunities as possible to become more productive members of society, no?
Keeping all of the above as a fundamental basis for how we should consider moving forward as a country, one of the above is the *bedrock* of keeping civilization moving forward. That is, **education**.
Yes, the word “education” has become a bit overused / cliché. To the point that, as what happens with many overused words or ideas, it is almost completely devoid of meaning altogether; it is often now just sound a sound bite for Leftist politicians to win elections, or for some social justice warriors (SJWs) to hold up protest signs and redefine what qualifies as education.
In recent years, especially since the dawn of the 21st century, several studies have showed the increasing divide between educational opportunity here in the U.S. vs. India and China. Namely, India and China have been producing four to five times the number of college graduates as here in the U.S., and many of those graduates in S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields.
Meanwhile, during my own studies over the years, and after having been a bit blown away by the enormous difference in output between India and China vs. the U.S., I conducted some of my own surveys to see what career fields have interested the average 18 to 25 year-old American. And almost unfailingly, I have heard the following, top three choices: Crime Scene Investigator (CSI) / forensics, Psychology, or Game Programming.
And while a field such as psychology is integral to human development and progress, I’ve had to ask many parents, and their 18 to 20-something year-old kids, these questions: Exactly how many homicidal maniacs do we have running around the U.S., that we need a “flood” of CSI experts, dusting for finger prints and profiling serial killers? And though video games (PC, console, and phone apps) have exploded in popularity within the past 20+ years, do we also really need a *flood* of game programmers?
Sure, it’s important to encourage kids to find their path in life / which profession really calls out to them, and which they must passionately pursue. However, as automation continues to replace manufacturing jobs – and will eventually eliminate practically all of them – as some industries of yesteryear continue to become a thing of the past and unfortunately force many families into uncertain futures; as careers in technology continue to expand out in just about every form of business imaginable; and as the need for continuous innovation in all fields becomes more and more demanding, the more that an education in a S.T.E.M. field will become highly necessary.
Yes, many general labor jobs are not going away anytime soon. But the world is moving away from them, slowly but quite surely.
So, that leaves us with a huge gap in how we are preparing the future versus how other countries, developing and First World, are preparing. Do we continue to fight to bring back manufacturing jobs? Do we continue to pour our money and energy into resources and professions that are getting close to their expiration date? How important are S.T.E.M. fields to us as a nation? And yes, contrary to the people out there who say, “When I am ever gonna use Algebra again in my life?” – math, including Algebra, has had a crucial role in engineering a more advanced society. Therefore, we must move past the mentality of “I am never going to use <fill in the blank>” ever again in my life”. That’s not to say that everyone must be a mathematician – but it is to say that we still **do need** mathematicians.
Granted, India and China, for example, each have a population that is three to four times larger than here in the U.S., so that can skew the statistics somewhat. But the point here is that even if India had the same population at the U.S., the percentage of S.T.E.M. graduates in would still be far superior to the percentage in the U.S.
Now, how do we get our fellow Americans excited about science, engineering, technology, or mathematics? Don’t we usually fall asleep during those classes in high school and in college? Isn’t it more exciting to be a game programmer, where most of your life involves being hyper-stimulated with nearly indescribable CGI landscapes, worlds, and creatures? Who doesn’t want to live in an eternal virtual reality where you are jacked full of muscles and spend your days annihilating aliens and zombies?
Yes, your everyday application or database developer in the world of IT, for example, does not exactly have a swashbuckling adventure of a job. However, in the grand scheme of human advancement, technology jobs that keep humans advancing — and increasingly safer from the various issues that plague humanity — have continually proven to add much more value than escapes into magical worlds
Believe me, I love a good escape from reality too. But that doesn’t eliminate reality. Reality still waits for us, from the moment we wake up to when we go to sleep.
Perhaps a better question is this: What kind of reality do we really want to create for our country? Do we want one where just continue fighting over ideologies, day in and day out? Or do we truly want to move into a much better future, where we not only continue to produce more conveniences, but eventually eliminate being semi-slaves to a disproportionate education system, which is counterproductively shrinking our status as a superpower?
What do YOU want?