Trump

[pogo]

Also from WWs I and II the post-war social consensus emerged. This enabled a far broader range of people to go into higher education and then into STEM fields, driving progress in the late 60s through to now.

Post-war just means after war, not that it was caused by war. The social changes going on were mostly happening already. The Labour Party was founded in 1900. Women’s suffrage got started even earlier. Or much later: the massive expansion in higher education happened mostly in the last 20 years, after Thatcher.

War can be an agent for change, but often it is not positive change. Russia’s Revolution got started during WW I and was a disaster for Russia and much of Europe and Asia. Russia and its neighbours are still suffering the consequences of it. China’s civil war, started during WWII, led to the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao replacing a democratic government and leading to the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution. China has recovered rapidly since but the CCP still has a tight grip on the country, severely limiting freedom. Many dictators get started by conflict, in a coup or coming out top in a civil war. The ones that use purely democratic means are exceptional which is why they stand out.

[KlaxonCow]

I'm making the point that global conflict has lead to huge advances and that the instigation of wars is often a shitload of irrationality.

Denying that seems reactionary to me.

I'm not denying it.

I'm just of the opinion that, doing the overall cost / benefit analysis, we'd be better off without the shitloads of irrationality.

Even if it did slow things down. Because the advances would still eventually be made anyway.

Put another way, what's the rush?

A million people have to die and crucial infrastructure has to be wrecked, so that one thing is advanced by a decade or so? No, I'm fine. I can wait. Take your time.

[gravy]

I'm making the point that global conflict has lead to huge advances and that the instigation of wars is often a shitload of irrationality.

Denying that seems reactionary to me.

I'm not denying it.

I'm just of the opinion that, doing the overall cost / benefit analysis, we'd be better off without the shitloads of irrationality.

Even if it did slow things down. Because the advances would still eventually be made anyway.

Put another way, what's the rush?

A million people have to die and crucial infrastructure has to be wrecked, so that one thing is advanced by a decade or so? No, I'm fine. I can wait. Take your time.

The manhattan project cost in 2016 money is around $26bn. Maybe some advances need that level of investment whereas a trickle of money over a longer amount of time will never achieve a step change.

If we knew an asteroid was going to fuck us completely in 5 years my guess is you'd see huge advances in a short period of time and some that could never be made without multi-state investment.

You are right, advances are just a thing. They're not necessarily good but for wholly irrational reasons it is something we prize and strive towards.

[venusian]

Also from WWs I and II the post-war social consensus emerged. This enabled a far broader range of people to go into higher education and then into STEM fields, driving progress in the late 60s through to now.

Post-war just means after war, not that it was caused by war. The social changes going on were mostly happening already. The Labour Party was founded in 1900. Women’s suffrage got started even earlier.

Well duh. The "post war social consensus" isn't a descriptive term. It's referring to a specific collection of social/economic changes which were precipitated by the wars.

Or much later: the massive expansion in higher education happened mostly in the last 20 years, after Thatcher.

Utter bollocks.

From here a House of Common publication "A Century of Change: Trends in UK statistics since 1900".

Look at the second graph. The sea change occurs in the late 60s as the post-war children (yes, the children born after the war, not caused by war) came of age. It continued to grow through the Thatcher years, basically unaffected by them.

From another House of Commons publication "Education: Historical perspectives".

Overall participation in higher education increased from 3.4% in 1950, to 8.4% in 1970, 19.3% in 1990 and 33% in 2000.

So up by 2.5x in the 20 years from 1950 to 1970, up by 2.2x in the 20 years from 1970 to 1990, up by 1.7x in the 10 years to 2000. The "massive expansion...most in the last 20 years" is a continuation of a trend that started in the 40s as a result of the country going through two socially devastating wars.

[gravy]

Fucking hell mate, don't bring FACTS into it. Anyone can prove anything with facts

[pogo]

My own evidence is more anecdotal. When I was at school and university the assumption was under 20% of school leavers followed that route. O-levels were the great filterer, and only those with grades A-C went on to A-levels and university. This changed though with the introduction of GCSEs, and associated changes in A-level, and rapid expansion in university spaces to take all the new students. Now 50% of school leavers go on to university. Most of the change happened since 1990, so does not appear on the 1922 – 1993 graph.

Participation rates: now we are 50

[venusian]

The rate has of attendance has had a roughly 2.5x boost every 20 years since 1950: 3.4 in 1950, 8.5 in 1970, 21 in 1990, around 50% in 2010. Prior to 1950 it was pretty flat. That most of the increase occurred at the end of this period only because the growth is exponential. The trend has been pretty constant.

We've yet to see what effect Blair, Brown and Cameron will have. There's a 10-20 year lag.

[pogo]

The most important of those ‘2.5x’ is the last one. I mean, sure it rose by 2.5x between 1950 and 1970. But that still meant over 90% of school leavers were excluded, and the social and economic impact was minimal.

The biggest driver of it has been peace, not war. In particular since WWII although there has been many conflicts the world has been at peace, growing steadily with trade growing even faster. Unable to compete with economies in Asia the British economy has transformed from manufacturing to services, and that has required a much better educated workforce.

[Little stoned kiwi]

Attendence numbers don't mean much unless the institutions and level of education remain relative. Education is big money and modern institutions profit from bums on seats enrolled in mediocre subjects.
Worse still is catering to foreign students. Their parents pay bigger money and expect it to buy their children a qualification.

[venusian]

The most important of those ‘2.5x’ is the last one.

As I said:

That most of the increase occurred at the end of this period only because the growth is exponential.

It's a virtuous circle of growth: children of degree holding parents are more likely to become degree level educated themselves. As the process is self perpetuating (with its genesis in the post-war settlement). All subsequent governments had to do was not fuck it up.

Unable to compete with economies in Asia the British economy has transformed from manufacturing to services, and that has required a much better educated workforce.

The causality was the other way around. The economy was able to transform because of the growth in education that had already occurred.

The key factor, IMO, was a national, social responsibility for education, free at the point of delivery, something the current government is busy dismantling.

[pogo]

Free at the point of delivery was not sustainable, economically or politically. The only way to continue expanding the number of places was with a contribution from students, introduced by the last Labour government, not the current one.

[gumboot]

If we knew an asteroid was going to fuck us completely in 5 years my guess is you'd see huge advances in a short period of time and some that could never be made without multi-state investment.

I think it'd turn out like global warming, with everybody either denying it or insisting that somebody else has to take responsibility for it.

[gravy]

I was pretty specific using the word's 'if we knew'

The reaction to global warming is a good example of no direct conflict meaning no direct action and thinking being utterly useless.

I'm certain there's going to be some amazingly bright things done when access to food becomes an issue and there's deaths in the tens of millions.

[Darkflame]

Yeah, its easy to avoid thinking about a threat to your children or childrens children.
The gap for denile is bigger.

Also, we will have artificial meat any day now. Any day now for the last decades.

I'm not tieing electric cars to the war.
I'm agreeing with Gumboots point that ego driven vanity projects can also command considerable resources.
But also saying that both commercialized space travel and electric cars are refinements on existing tech .

True, but if the "existing tech" doesn't come from war doesn't it amount to the same thing overall? Sure its not just one guy - but it never really is.
Seems to me if your looking for war/non-war tech space can be extrapolated from war, but not electric cars - regardless of if they are "refinements on existing". The whole tech tree of them doesn't seem very war related and I think it probably wouldn't have happened without peacetime economics.

--

Oh, and I'll defend Mr Musk - as far as millionaires go hes hero. I mean if your going to get rich thats exactly the shit should be doing, vanity or not. Big arse projects no governments going to do. Longshots are needed, even if they fail.
Money shouldn't be a high score in - but what you do with it? If you get 6 spaceship boasters landed safely in a year, then your entitled to that ego

That said. Fuck paypal.

[pogo]

The first debate is tomorrow/later today (Monday night in the US so early Tuesday morning here), and it’s getting way more attention than usual. Trump of course is the reason. He has never done anything like this before. The primary debates worked very differently as there were far more people on the stage. Trump also had an easy time of it. Not only was he able to respond in short soundbites with no danger of challenge (his opponents spent more time going after each other) but he only had to appeal to 30-40% of Republican voters to win. This will be very different, structurally and in who he needs to persuade.

The question is which Donald Trump will turn up? The scripted one, reading from notes or a teleprompter, who sounds pretty sensible? Or the “authentic” one from his rallies, who says whatever comes into his head first? I imagine his advisers and handlers will want the scripted one, but that’s hard enough at the best of times, and may be impossible in the heat of the debate.

The other question is how will Clinton handle him? That probably depends which Donald turns up, and how sensible and coherent he is. She may have done prep for two or three different scenarios, with the least likely being a straightforward debate on the issues.