Sunday, October 16, 2005

There's a whole lot of Chinese over there, so we're bugging out

I remember hearing that phrase when I was watching a documentary about the Korean War. The phrase was coined to describe a massive, disorganized retreat of the American army in the face of an overwhelming Chinese force that was approaching from North Korea.

Now, China and India are coming right at the U.S. with a new overwhelming force. Except this time, they are hitting us right in the area which the U.S. has dominated since the end of the Cold War, science and technology. This article details a warning from the National Academy of Sciences which details how quickly China and India are becoming major players in science and technology. The numbers are devastating...

70,000 engineers were graduated in the United States last year, compared with 350,000 in India and 600,000 in China, the committee said in a new report.
When I see numbers like this I can't but think "sounds like the U.S. is bugging out" when it comes to science and technology. Stop cutting the NSF budget asshole.