A Shortage Of Skilled American Workers At Microsoft?

Full article here (Microsoft).

In some ways, Microsoft’s problem is an American problem: there are not enough skilled local workers, or perhaps even American workers available to do the jobs that many Indian, Asian and other foreign workers are well-trained and willing to do. On top of this, new visa restrictions are making it harder to keep even non-citizen workers in the U.S, and so Microsoft’s competitive edge is threatened.

One factor I’ve heard mentioned is the tendency in developing economies, like India’s for example, to place tremendous pressure upon their children (boys especially) to succeed in math and science, leading some to careers as software engineers. Above all, these children are responding to the economic needs of their families and their cultures, and somehow, the idea goes, America is not keeping up.

Some people I’ve talked to are wont to blame the American educational system. Kids are not getting a systematic and rigorous education in Mathematics. At the very least, they aren’t being inspired to learn about some of the deeper and fascinating counter-intuitive thinking that go into computer design, artificial intelligence, and even basic hardware maintenance.

I’m not sure where I fall on this. It’s good to attract highly skilled workers, and to have the economic and legal conditions to do so, but there could be some long-term concerns here…

Microsoft Corporation - 1978    by  Brajeshwar 

Addition:  The Economist has a piece about how Congress is making it hard to attract and keep talented workers.

Monday Poem: Walt Whitman

When I Heard The Learn’d Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. 

-Walt Whitman

Addition: The Chronicle Of Higher Education has a piece about Whitman.  The old poet-prophet theme.

From The Volokh Conspiracy: Multiculturalism As A Traditional American Value

Full post here.

I’ve got two questions:

1. Can you separate multi-culturalism from cultural relativism…or are there deeper ideas to which multiculturalism can appeal outside of “value” speak?

2. Doesn’t multiculturalism reward tribal/separatist tendencies within a dangerous idealism?

I had an emailer suggest that many of the tendencies you typically might find outside of multiculturalism i.e. racist, nationalist, totalitarian impulses…lie waiting to be expressed within multiculturalism…we’re humans after all.

Do you find Volokh’s utilitarian argument compelling…have we been multicultural all along?

Monument to Multiculturalism at Union Station

…in Toronto

Christopher Hedges Criticizes The New Atheists

Chris Hedges is the son of a Presbyterian minister who takes the new Atheists to task (Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins) for engaging in modern day utopianism.  For Hedges, their fallacy lies in simply believing in a kind of rationalism or “Science,” and not providing sufficient justification for that belief. 

“Science” is leading us foward they claim, technology is making human progress possible. From such a position they write books with hyperbolic titles, claiming that religion is bad and is poisoning everything etc…

For Hedges, they are engaging in precisely what they criticize religion for doing: over-simpifying complex matters within an ideological doctrine.  In rallying around their cause, they are engaging in one of the oldest human games…

I’d say Hedges takes a refreshing view on these new atheists.  I especially like his individualistic view of all institutions, especially the church (institutions are not capable of the depth of moral sacrifice that individuals make, and so the good they do comes at the cost of the individual…).    

One problem I might have with Hedges is in making such arguments as he does, he falls back into the metaphysical thinking of Christian theology (the importance of orginal sin, for example).   I would suggest the works of Immanuel Kant as a possible response.  Here I am thinking of his title as “Der Alleszammer” or all destroyer.

Kant’s metaphysics pretty much invalidate the arguments for God, though perhaps not an existence of that which lies beyond us.

Thanks for reading.

See Also: Hedges’ interview on KUOW, the local Seattle NPR station.  Also, my post “A Brief Defense Of Agnosticism,” 

Addition:  A brief excerpt of a debate between Hedges and Hitchens.

From Treehugger: Snow White Was Really Green

Of course, the writer is in London, where the moon of cultural relativity is just about full…

Yes, green has gone glitz, and apart from some of the more patently moralistic (good people ride bikes, you should too) arguments for going green, treehugger has decided to show you pictures that support the work of two academics who praise Walt Disney. Apparently, he gets children to create a relationship with nature…

…full article here

Clearly, this is how I want smart people spending their time…thinking about nature (though, in this case, mostly just poorly understood political ideas) through the lens of Snow White.

Addition:  I get an angry email each time I write something like this:  Why bother those who are trying to do some good?  Maybe due to Disney’s lush backdrops, children will become more interested in nature… 

This is perhaps true but also moralistic…it’s sloppy thinking..because there are ultimately consequences to everything  we think about and most importantly, how  we think about them.   Hopefully, that point gets across, despite the tone.

Making such unclear, sentimental and now commercialized arguments for ’nature’ may do us more harm in the long run…but then again, now I’m being moralistic.

If you’re interested, see the comments on this post.

Arthur Schopenhauer: Wednesday Quotation

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

Howell Raines At Portfolio.Com: We Must Save The Times From The Dread Pirate Murdoch

Full piece here. 

Howell Raines writes that the Gray Lady may soon have to sell itself, much to our loss.  There’s a case to be made here, but I’m not sure Raines makes it.

I’ve been frustrated with the Times lately (and from the comments section, I’m surely not alone). 

1.  Have they purposefully walled themselves off from rational debate?  It seems like they’ve developed a deep inability to critique they’re own ideas and thus engage intelligently with a variety of well-argued, differing ideas.    

2.  This has led to vaguely argued pieces in favor of global warming, an almost fetishistic coverage of the arts (art will save us all, if we just believe), and a soft-headed advocacy of diversity.   Perhaps even diversity on the cheap, to use Barack’s words.

3.  Sadly, they seem to be fairly representing many arguments of liberalism on larger scale, especially in New York City.

This is the kind of stuff that produces Ann Coulters. 

To praise the Times, I may disagree with Andrew Revkin about his interpretation of global warming science, but at least he’s a thorough reporter.  He could be really daring and question whether or not it’s happening…but still…

Bloggingheads is a welcome addition…the Science section is a little loopy, but decent…the maps of Baghdad and war coverage has been very good…

I guess I would like to find more to respectfully disagree with in the New York Times, the key word being…respectfully.

Milton Friedman On Greed

…and….is that…Donahue?

I don’t like Einstein as an example of successful economic policy, because very, very few people know what Einstein was thinking.  Hubris?  Perhaps.  

Am I a Friedman lackey?  No, I know too little to challenge his arguments, and perhaps not enough to promote him unreservedly as many others do.

I admire the depth and clarity of his thinking.

30 minute video here and 4 ways to spend $.

Race and Obama’s Wright Speech

It’s really worth listening to:

And here is a bloggingheads response: 

These are two of the best discussions about race I’ve heard in a long time.  Like you probably do, I loathe the media’s inability to recognize the depth, importance and fragility of these ideas, and their tendency is to place new ideas into the old ideas (and such partisan ideas at that). 

Then again, it’s not wise to expect much more than that from major outlets.

Obama has dug deep, taken great risk and been very honest, so honest, in fact, it’s a little unnerving.  I may not agree with what policy plans he has put foward, nor even vote for him, but I admire him.

Addition:  Ross Douthat at the Atlantic has a piece from the conservative point of view.

Roger Sandall’s Blog: What Are Right And Left Anyways?

Here’s Roger Sandall’s blog (smart arguments against romanticism, among other good ideas).  I’ll snag two quotes:

His own description of his essays:

They attack modern decadence, defend science, and laugh at academic follies. Sometimes controversial but never party political, they might praise the Pope in one place and Al Gore in another.”

and…

“His [Sandall's] guiding philosophy is suggested by the saying that life is a comedy for those who think, and a tragedy for those who feel.”

There certainly is a place for Sandall and I recommend the blog.   He seems to remain intellectually nimble.

I can’t help but think that Sandall is one who felt deeply, and wanted to express those feelings through his art and somehow along the way, like so many others, outgrew his art, or outgrew the ideas behind the art.  

Might this still make him more susceptible to radical rightist thinking, or not to see the failings of totalitarianism/authoritarianism?  

Maybe, maybe not.

Reading his blog reminded me of the differences between John Stuart Mill and Thomas Carlyle as expressed in this New Yorker article.

What struck me most is that Mill applies highly rational thinking to liberal principles.  This seems strange in light of our current two-party split, where liberalism is too readily associated with “feeling.”  It’s odd to think that of the two men, Carlyle (who grew more conservative) is the more choleric, intuitive, and less rational in many ways, and Mill the more tempered, logical and rational.

I could be persuaded that investigation into liberal, rational principles wouldn’t hurt right now, and of course, I’m not the first or last to think such thoughts.

See Also:  Christopher Hitchens’ long arc from committed Marxist to anti-Marxist to anti-religion atheist…but maybe what I’m noticing here is that habit and one’s relation to the passions (artististic or otherwise) die hard.  I was glad that the Independent noticed it too.

Addition:  Review of a new Mill biography here.