[quote]steveo5801 wrote:
Who cares what they think? It is not like we depend upon England for anything except Marmite (which is very good on nice bread with some tea).
Otherwise, who cares?[/quote]
Who cares what you think ?
Try joining a gym and training.
[quote]NealRaymond2 wrote:
hspder wrote:
One of the main reasons the Stanford GSB attracts so many Entrepreneurs … we teach how to positively influence people and get what we want from them without using conditioning or force.
What does “conditioning” mean in this context?[/quote]
It means (Classical or Operant) Conditioning. What else could it mean? Hair Products? 
The “uninitiated” can argue that the techniques we teach are Positive Reinforcement at heart, and hence constitute Operant Conditioning, but our approach is different from Operant Conditioning in just about everything else, so we try to distance ourselves to prevent students that did study (or use) Operant Conditioning from sticking to old, extremely ineffective, habits most of them have developed.
[quote]Dr. Stig wrote:
Who cares what you think ? [/quote]
He apparently likes Marmite aka “The Spread of Disgust”, which I believe was invented by the English to get the Welsh and the Scots so grossed out right at breakfast time they wouldn’t be able to think clearly about the best strategy to “euthanize” the English.
He must be really happy that’s now available in a Squeeze Me version.
He can now gross out people 10x faster!
[quote]hspder wrote:
Dr. Stig wrote:
Who cares what you think ?
He apparently likes Marmite aka “The Spread of Disgust”, which I believe was invented by the English to get the Welsh and the Scots so grossed out right at breakfast time they wouldn’t be able to think clearly about the best strategy to “euthanize” the English.
He must be really happy that’s now available in a Squeeze Me version.
He can now gross out people 10x faster!
[/quote]
That stuff is spreadable vomit. Nibbling bits of bread and sipping tea, now that’s massive eating isn’t it.
[quote]hspder wrote:
Dr. Stig wrote:
Who cares what you think ?
He apparently likes Marmite aka “The Spread of Disgust”, which I believe was invented by the English to get the Welsh and the Scots so grossed out right at breakfast time they wouldn’t be able to think clearly about the best strategy to “euthanize” the English.
He must be really happy that’s now available in a Squeeze Me version.
He can now gross out people 10x faster!
[/quote]
let me introduce you to the horror that is Vegimite!!!
[quote]hspder wrote:
One of the main reasons the Stanford GSB attracts so many Entrepreneurs (rather than pencil pushers, like other GSBs do) is because of our marketing philosophy. We teach our students (or, at least, try) to learn what motivates everyone they have to deal with – (co-)workers, partners, competitors, governments, war lords, whatever.
And we teach how to deal with those obstacles. And we’ve actually had our share of students that were high ranking people from some of those unstable countries you seem to frown upon. Between the two, we teach how to positively influence people and get what we want from them without using conditioning or force. And considering the tremendous success of our Alumni, even internationally, it works.
(if I sound like an ad for Stanford’s GSB, I’m sorry – I’ve actually been working on our brochures, so I’m in Salesman mode)
[/quote]
I think the conditioning didn’t work on the nutjob who runs Venezuela, what with his new extortions (excuse me, taxes) and new ‘enforced partnerships’. He needs more conditioning.
Do you honestly think that tinpot dictators and savages would play by the rules, if there wasn’t a boat load of Marines on the ready?
HH
[quote]Dr. Stig wrote:
steveo5801 wrote:
Who cares what they think? It is not like we depend upon England for anything except Marmite (which is very good on nice bread with some tea).
Otherwise, who cares?
Who cares what you think ?
Try joining a gym and training.
[/quote]
As we say here in the great USA – 'been there, done that, doing it…"
BTW – I could care less that you don’t care what we think about you. I could care less about that, and most Americans couldn’t care less about what Europe thinks about us. Just wait until you are attacked – you will come running to us once again. Why don’t you people train an army and start helping us out instead of blasting your mouths? Hm…???
[quote]steveo5801 wrote:
Dr. Stig wrote:
steveo5801 wrote:
Who cares what they think? It is not like we depend upon England for anything except Marmite (which is very good on nice bread with some tea).
Otherwise, who cares?
Who cares what you think ?
Try joining a gym and training.
As we say here in the great USA – 'been there, done that, doing it…"
BTW – I could care less that you don’t care what we think about you. I could care less about that, and most Americans couldn’t care less about what Europe thinks about us. Just wait until you are attacked – you will come running to us once again. Why don’t you people train an army and start helping us out instead of blasting your mouths? Hm…???
[/quote]
I made no comment about what you think about ‘England’ its not important.
BTW - I was actually in the Army and my OC actually trained American Troops, how ironic !
Proves you know jack shit.
[quote]orion wrote:
let me introduce you to the horror that is Vegimite!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegimite[/quote]
G’Day Mate! I knew you were from down under.
[quote]JeffR wrote:
So shit-can that stupid argument. When you insult him (President Bush), you insult the majority of us.
JeffR[/quote]
The majority is not insulted when foreign idiots insult one of our politicans and the includes the POTUS.
If America is such a vulgar Empire which is judged so harshly in the rest of the world, then why, in 2005, did;
-over 600,000 immigrants apply for and get awarded citizen ship? This includes over 8,000 from the UK and over 200,000 from Asia where the US is most involved militarily
-53,000 apply for and were awarded asylum? Especially if America is “flirting with fascim” as stated in other threads. Interestingly, this includes almost 2,000 Iranians. I looked for stats of how many Americans were granted asylum elsewhere, but couldn’t find any.
-122,000 applied for and got awarded permanent resident status in the United States? That includes over 19,000 Britons.
The truth is you may feel the United States government is evil, or American people are not up to your standard of civility. But the bottom line and truth of the matter is that the United States is one of the best countries if not the best country to be a citizen of. This is considering the freedoms we have, the economy, schools, etc. Of course, many of those areas have serious faults, but I am considering what the nation as a whole has to offer.
And on another note about US interventionism; look as Darfur and many other parts of sub Saharan Africa. Those are areas of the world where no Western Nations are seriously intervening and they are real Hell On Earth. However, many Western charitable organizations, including Christian groups contribute greatly to those areas. Should those areas be intervened? With troops? American troops? Austrian, Australian, British? Or not at all, maybe?
Look at US interventionism in Kosovo. Was that inappropriate? How about trying to bring some peace to Somalia in the early 90s? Granted, these interventions had serious mistakes in execution and were under Democrats, so it’s not jsut the Republicans who can screw it up. But, you can’t honestly call the United States uncivilized, especially when we try to intervene for the sake of hummanity in many cases. Look at any major natural disaster in the world, and who is usually one of the first outside players on the scene? Tidal wave in Asia, mud slides in the Phillipines, earthquake in IRAN? HIV/AIDS medications to Africa? We’ve even played nice with North Korea repeatedly by giving them food beyond imagination. America is a generous country, both from a government aid standpoint and from private relief organizations as well.
If we are so bad at interventionism, show us how to do it correctly in a way that fits into the real-world. And don’t even try to bring up the UN. Its nothing but a paper tiger when it comes to solving world issues. They can’t even maintain their own buildings.
I am not going to put down the UK, or Australia, or Austria. I’m sure I have in other threads to varying degrees, but I probably shouldn’t have and I won’t here. I don’t want to have a cock fight about whose country is best, as I’m sure good arguments exist for many candidates. I want you to show me examples of how your respective countries are getting results in areas of the world that need a helping hand. Or do any of you think the unfortunate of the world should be on their own?
And, yes, I do believe invading Iraq was a mistake. That is a whole different rant, and right now, I’m spent. (Just got back from the gym). But, I look forward to your thoughtful responses.
Later
Patrick
Patrick,
That was a damnned good post! Truly enjoyed reading it.
I seriously think the rest of the world is so nihilistic that they actually want to be destroyed. They lick the hand of their enemies and spit in the face of those who protect them (mostly us). Read Hspder’s statement in the Zinn thread (I think) where an American businessman would’ve been sent packing, for being American).
They seriously have a death wish.
Perhaps the moral premise behind their philosphies is that of Death. Our premise is that of Life. That’s why we’re hated.
HH
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
The truth is you may feel the United States government is evil, or American people are not up to your standard of civility. But the bottom line and truth of the matter is that the United States is one of the best countries if not the best country to be a citizen of. This is considering the freedoms we have, the economy, schools, etc. Of course, many of those areas have serious faults, but I am considering what the nation as a whole has to offer.[/quote]
Having lived elsewhere, I could not agree more. Amen to that.
However, I disagree with the assertion that somehow makes any criticism weaker. On the contrary. It is precisely because we are the best that we are targets of great scrutiny – a scrutiny that is in fact in our best interest, because it allows to “keep it real” and we can use the criticism to actually improve things around here even further, making this an even better place to live in. Because, as you said, there is still a LOT of work to do, not only for us, but for several generations to come.
Great leaders take criticism with a smile, are thankful for it, take it into account and give it thought.
The fact to the matter is that, because of this administration’s attitude, currently, the people we are attracting and retaining are not the people we want to be attracting and retaining if we want to continue to be a world leader. Currently, most of the foreign students that come here will leave the moment they graduate, because the DHS tries to throw them out immediately after graduation and they have very little incentive to stay and fight the DHS. Gone are the days where almost everyone who graduated here actually stayed and used their talents to push this country forward, along with the rest of us. Apparently, intelligent, creative, educated people are not welcome anymore in this country.
We do seem to now have an almost endless supply of cheap labor – that seems to be very welcome, but I think it is very obvious to everyone that’s not what pushes a country forward. It’s great to keep our bellies full, but not our minds.
[quote]hspder wrote:
However, I disagree with the assertion that somehow makes any criticism weaker. On the contrary. It is precisely because we are the best that we are targets of great scrutiny – a scrutiny that is in fact in our best interest, because it allows to “keep it real” and we can use the criticism to actually improve things around here even further, making this an even better place to live in. Because, as you said, there is still a LOT of work to do, not only for us, but for several generations to come.
Great leaders take criticism with a smile, are thankful for it, take it into account and give it thought.[/quote]
Thanks for the thoughtful and respectful response. I agree nobody is above critisism. But I believe that contrary to many peoples opinions, the Bush administration can accomplish some good, if given the chance. Take the line item veto, for example. This one tool of a sitting president has the potential to eliminate trillions of dollars of pork barrel spending, so I consider it a good thing. The administration would like to push this issue, but they need public support to do this. But they don’t get the chance to deal with it on the public forum because of all the media noise about Iraq and Gitmmo, or Valerie Plame or whatever the story de jour is. This extreme, never-ending type of criticism completely paralyzes the administration. I would rather have a couple years of progress out of this government rather than hounding him into lame-duckness. And I am not saying give him a free-pass on any issue, but we should let him get some time to try to accomplish something besides constantly react to Iraq/Gitmo critisism. I think the criticism is out of proportion to the whole spectrumm of other real issues facing this country.
Some of you will surely say Bush is the anti-Christ and nothing good can possibly comme from his administration except a good-bye address. That’s simply childish Kool Aid regurgitation.
[quote]The fact to the matter is that, because of this administration’s attitude, currently, the people we are attracting and retaining are not the people we want to be attracting and retaining if we want to continue to be a world leader. Currently, most of the foreign students that come here will leave the moment they graduate, because the DHS tries to throw them out immediately after graduation and they have very little incentive to stay and fight the DHS. Gone are the days where almost everyone who graduated here actually stayed and used their talents to push this country forward, along with the rest of us. Apparently, intelligent, creative, educated people are not welcome anymore in this country.
We do seem to now have an almost endless supply of cheap labor – that seems to be very welcome, but I think it is very obvious to everyone that’s not what pushes a country forward. It’s great to keep our bellies full, but not our minds.
[/quote]
I agree about having plenty of cheap labor. Automation has really devreased our need for it in most industries except for agriculture and service.
However, I disagree with the assertion that the US is disadvantaged by having foreign students attend universities here then return to their home country or elsewhere. I think this is actually a good thing for the world, especially in the world of medicine, to have their intelligent, creative, educated people return home. The rest of the world needs more education to get their economies stimulated, which I think would help establish more stability in some of those areas we would like to avoid intervening in. As long as these students are not taking scholarships that would otherwise go to US citizens, are paying tuition, and obey our laws, I have no problem with them getting an education and going back to where they came from.
As far as the US need for a higher percentage of a university trained segment of the workforce, I agree we need more, but we should work to have it homegrown. Tuitions, even for state schools are getting more and more prohibitive. I don’t know what the right answer is to that. I don’t like the idea of federal government regulation of anything more than absolutely necessary, so federal tuition caps are not appealing to me. I don’t like the idea of higher taxes to pay for grants, but its a possibility, I suppose. It doesn’t seem to fit the free market model as far as supply and demand. Unless the supply is so short or the demand so high, I just don’t realize it. Anyway, I would like to see the funding side of the university systems in the US get fixed (translate to reduced) to meet our higher workforce demands.
Since this is a Body Building site, I’d like to mention this. I just got back from the gym (again, Waterbury HFT variation, so two workouts today) and set a new PR for my deadlift, 501 lbs. Not remarkable by a long shot, but it was a goal I had for awhile. Just started lifting again this past Feb, and hadn’t lifted in 20 years. 73" tall and 230 lbs, about 17% BF. Now I just need to get my squat and bench up where I want them.
Patrick
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
I would rather have a couple years of progress out of this government rather than hounding him into lame-duckness. And I am not saying give him a free-pass on any issue, but we should let him get some time to try to accomplish something besides constantly react to Iraq/Gitmo critisism. I think the criticism is out of proportion to the whole spectrumm of other real issues facing this country.[/quote]
I agree. But I am also cynical about it: people tend to have 5 second attention spans and only respond to 5-second executive summaries. Most people want to simply think “Bush is bad” or “Bush is good”, and the media is serving that audience, which is, indeed, the overwhelming majority of electorate. People want to be told what to think. Saying “Bush screwed up X, Y, Z but he has some pretty good ideas in A, B, C” takes over 5 seconds to say, and requires – gasp! – ANALYZING the situation. And I believe you know as well as I do that very few people want to even consider making the effort of analyzing anything on their own. They want the pre-digested stuff…
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
Some of you will surely say Bush is the anti-Christ[/quote]
I know a couple of Baptist pastors that actually believe that… Seriously. But most people just think he can’t be trusted, and that just kills any chance he might have to do anything good. It’s unfortunate, yes, but when you lose somebody’s confidence, you have to be willing to bend over backwards to gain it back, and he clearly is not willing to do that…
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
That’s simply childish Kool Aid regurgitation. [/quote]
How many people do you know that you’d characterize as being mature and wise? Seriously, I’m asking because I’m curious. It’s not a rhetorical question.
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
However, I disagree with the assertion that the US is disadvantaged by having foreign students attend universities here then return to their home country or elsewhere. I think this is actually a good thing for the world, especially in the world of medicine, to have their intelligent, creative, educated people return home. The rest of the world needs more education to get their economies stimulated,[/quote]
That is a very noble thought – seriously – but realize that it is a tremendous waste. Nothing else out there compares to Top American Universities when it comes to resources. If you combine the endowment of JUST my favorite three institutions – Stanford, Harvard and Princeton – you get a number that is actually higher than most country’s GDP. We have resources here in campus that most countries can only dream of ever even seeing. When you spend 6 years here, learning how to become a Scientist, a Doctor or an Engineer, you have access to all of this – but then if you back, you suddenly lose all of it (except, maybe, for a few lucky Europeans and Japanese who do have similar resources at home), and, trust me, it is NOT the same. A Scientist, a Doctor or an Engineer without resources is like a poet without a pen, or a painter without paint. You can still do things in your mind, and make up with what you do have, but it is a tremendous waste of talent.
Furthermore, and from a purely selfish point of view, we NEED the best and the brightest the world has to offer to stay around. There are simply not enough bright young kids surviving the mind-numbing torture that is High School. A disproportionate amount of great new scientific breakthroughs that we have made in the past 50 years were made by scientists and engineers that were NOT born here, but, given our resources and our contagious entrepreneurial spirit, were able to make great discoveries. They need us and we need them…
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
As long as these students are not taking scholarships that would otherwise go to US citizens, are paying tuition, and obey our laws, I have no problem with them getting an education and going back to where they came from.[/quote]
I don’t have a problem per se, I just believe, as I say above, it is a tremendous waste of talent for them to lose access to our world-class resources.
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
As far as the US need for a higher percentage of a university trained segment of the workforce, I agree we need more, but we should work to have it homegrown.[/quote]
Although I agree that would be ideal, the fact is that it is basically impossible to compensate for lack of foreign talent, even if we magically fixed our High Schools. For two reasons: one, is sheer numbers – we are simply not making enough babies, while there are plenty of babies being made outside the US. Two, is culture. Mainstream American culture is simply not particularly focused on the kind of values that give kids an incentive to excel at these types of jobs. And if convincing people to have more babies is hard, getting them to change their culture is even harder.
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
It doesn’t seem to fit the free market model as far as supply and demand. Unless the supply is so short or the demand so high, I just don’t realize it.[/quote]
Well, as a Keynesianist, I could go on for several pages on demand-side economics and demand elasticity and explain in great detail why tuition is so high, but that’s what books are for…
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
Anyway, I would like to see the funding side of the university systems in the US get fixed (translate to reduced) to meet our higher workforce demands. [/quote]
Reducing funding would make things worse, not better. The easiest and fastest way to reduce costs and rebalance budgets would be to dramatically reduce admissions. Have no doubt that’s what would happen.
[quote]hspder wrote:
Patrick Williams wrote:
That’s simply childish Kool Aid regurgitation.
How many people do you know that you’d characterize as being mature and wise? Seriously, I’m asking because I’m curious. It’s not a rhetorical question. [/quote]
A couple of dozen.
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
Anyway, I would like to see the funding side of the university systems in the US get fixed (translate to reduced) to meet our higher workforce demands.
Reducing funding would make things worse, not better. The easiest and fastest way to reduce costs and rebalance budgets would be to dramatically reduce admissions. Have no doubt that’s what would happen.
[/quote]
You’re absolutely correct there. I simply used the wrong word, meant to say I want tuition reduced to make this excellent education less cost prohibitive. Reduced admissions would be counterproductive to building the segment of the workforce we are discussing. Would you agree?
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
How many people do you know that you’d characterize as being mature and wise? Seriously, I’m asking because I’m curious. It’s not a rhetorical question.
A couple of dozen.[/quote]
I can honestly say you should consider yourself a very lucky person for that.
Do you mind if I asked you where you live? Just the general region or even the State would be fine – I don’t expect you to share your full address with us, nor I want to be able to find you, I’m just curious.
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
You’re absolutely correct there. I simply used the wrong word, meant to say I want tuition reduced to make this excellent education less cost prohibitive.[/quote]
Well, honestly the only way a reduction in tuition can be achieved without any undesired side-effects (like lower admissions or reduced quality of education) is through large-scale government intervention (tuition caps, subsidies, standards of education, etc.) – but most people in this country do, much like you, reject that on principle (and no, I do not resent it, even though I disagree), so I’m pretty sure that even suggesting that is political suicide.
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
Reduced admissions would be counterproductive to building the segment of the workforce we are discussing. Would you agree?[/quote]
That depends a lot on where you are reducing them. Some colleges I’d rather see go away altogether – they are simply a waste of time and money. The problem is that reducing budgets usually hits the admissions exactly in the best colleges, and, yes, reducing admissions in good colleges is very counterproductive.
[quote]steveo5801 wrote:
Who cares what they think? It is not like we depend upon England for anything except Marmite (which is very good on nice bread with some tea).
Otherwise, who cares?[/quote]
And it’s not a nice easy pathway into Europe for you? I don’t think you shoud discount how important Britain is to you.
I’m not happy about it but we ARE your greatest ally. Although the fact that even WE as a nation aren’t that crazy about you (already stated my PERSONAL beliefs on the US, before I get flamed) says less about us and more about your standing in the world’s eyes.
Marmite is pure concentrated evil. It’s made from crushed-up poor people that they took from the English workhouses - hence the plebian tang and bitter aftertaste.
1-pack
Been meaning to ask you about something off this topic, since your a Scot. Is there a standard favorite single malt Scotch among Scots? I’m pretty much set on Macallan, but I’d like your opinion. I’m planning on taking a vacation to Scotland in a couple of years, just to tour the distilleries for a week, and maybe some golf, if I’m not too drunk.
Anyway, let me know.
Thanks
Patrick
[quote]Patrick Williams wrote:
1-pack
Been meaning to ask you about something off this topic, since your a Scot. Is there a standard favorite single malt Scotch among Scots? I’m pretty much set on Macallan, but I’d like your opinion. I’m planning on taking a vacation to Scotland in a couple of years, just to tour the distilleries for a week, and maybe some golf, if I’m not too drunk.
Anyway, let me know.
Thanks
Patrick[/quote]
Well technically I’d call myself an Englishman as it’s where I was born and raised and my parents left Scotland aged 18 or so but…
…to answer your question the following are all pretty special IMO (garnered from extensive, ahem… testing) but understand most jocks I know are content with a nice Glenmorangie.
Macallan 15 year-old
Balvenie DoubleWood 12-Year-Old
Scapa 12-Year-Old
BTW Can I recommend the Edinburgh distillery tour?