The knowledge economy myth

fergalr

nesf wrote: »

Ok, first the philosophical point:

Why have two things when one explains everything? Seriously, think about that and forget any ideas of free will or anything else (you don't want to get me started on free will ).

Philosophically you're talking about dualism. The mind being separate to the body. So where is the mind etc? How does it interact with the brain? Why can't we see any of this interaction going on in brain scans?

If your answer is that the mind is the soul, then well, we can stop arguing about it because we'll never agree.

I don't believe in free will; at least not in the traditional sense. I think determinism is a more logical standpoint, (which should not be confused with predictability, in a chaotic world.)

I also would not say I'm a dualist.

I think if you could, for example, fully reproduce the brain, atom for atom, in another place, you'd have a fully copy of the mind too. I doubt this is possible due to things like the uncertainty principle, and accumulating errors, but it should absolve you of the notion I'm a dualist :-)

Which isn't to say that making a distinction between the mind and the brain isn't useful and helpful and correct.
Your macbook runs OSX. OSX is not the same as the macbook. Does that make me a dualist?

EDIT: Just to be clear here, the answer I'm going for is 'No'. The macbook is the physical computer. OSX, the software, does run on the physical computer. Its very much associated with the physical computer its running on. But its not the same thing. I don't believe theres any logical error in giving OSX, the 'software', a name - neither do most computer scientists. That doesn't mean it is a soul or anything else.

fergalr

thebman wrote: »

A friend I have was recently sent a large portion of work to test precisely because the Chinese facility had mucked up testing the product.

Ideally, we need to be developing, not testing... ...but yeah, stories like this happen a fair bit.
To be honest, I think these are teething issues. In China when they get up to speed, I see no reason for them not to beat countries like Ireland in terms of reliability etc.

thebman wrote: »

Ignoring that we have cultural knowledge of the US market and British markets which are some of the largest markets for software. We speak English as our first language so have no problem reading the online documentation and less problems reading the code (as most keywords are English or maths in programming languages).

Whatever about docs, I think foreign programmers have pretty much zero problem reading the code. It doesn't take a smart Indian or chinese person very long to learn the 20 or so keywords that have an english origin in their programming language, in fairness.

Facility with english is a big thing for communication, I agree. But its not going to stop the indians and chinese getting better english (many of them already have excellent english) or give us a deciding competitive advantage forever.

thebman wrote: »

So I think we are in a good position to attract that kind of investment.

I don't like that phrase, about attracting investment. I think we attract very little in the way of 'knowledge economy' investment. Some, sure, but I don't think we are punching above our weight as is so frequently made out. Foreign direct investment for putting CDs in boxes, doing low skilled easily transferable QA, assembling computers - not the knowledge economy.

That is the big lie of the knowledge economy in Ireland...

thebman wrote: »

Then you have operations like the new data centre Microsoft built here as it is energy efficient because of extremely regular weather patterns that stay within a predictable range most of the time. With IT moving to cloud computing, there will be many more of these data centres built by companies which we could attract.

These facilities require internal networks that require maintenance which is more jobs and then the broadband networks they will need (which is where we fall down on our arse). Our biggest barriers in these areas IMO are electricity costs and broadband costs/speed/availability and we fail on all 3 of the broadband requirements

Data centers? meh. Yeah, its nice to have it. But as a boost for the knowledge economy? How many people will it really employ doing highly skilled tech work?
Sure, high end network admin on cloud server farms is skilled stuff, but the numbers involved will be small. Its not going to result in a large rapidly growing tech company.

People say 'wow! a 500m$ investment' but thats only a small part of the story.
5m$ invested by VCs in foreign startups locating here would have a much much bigger impact on our long term knowledge economy prospects.

I'd be more excited about facebooks extra hiring, or googles current offices, than I would about the data centre.

thebman

fergalr wrote: »

Ideally, we need to be developing, not testing... ...but yeah, stories like this happen a fair bit.
To be honest, I think these are teething issues. In China when they get up to speed, I see no reason for them not to beat countries like Ireland in terms of reliability etc.


Whatever about docs, I think foreign programmers have pretty much zero problem reading the code. It doesn't take a smart Indian or chinese person very long to learn the 20 or so keywords that have an english origin in their programming language, in fairness.

Facility with english is a big thing for communication, I agree. But its not going to stop the indians and chinese getting better english (many of them already have excellent english) or give us a deciding competitive advantage forever.

I don't believe they will get the cultural thing correct for years TBH. The rest of it is examples of simple things that they do or previously had problems doing.

Data centers? meh. Yeah, its nice to have it. But as a boost for the knowledge economy? How many people will it really employ doing highly skilled tech work?
Sure, high end network admin on cloud server farms is skilled stuff, but the numbers involved will be small. Its not going to result in a large rapidly growing tech company.

Well that ignores the jobs that come about that aren't highly skilled in these facilities. Not everyone will or can work in highly skilled areas.

Some will have to do support work for those jobs and many will be back working in shops when people employed in knowlege jobs come to buy new clothes/tech gadgets.

Anyway we still need normal industries to a certain extent too as knowledge jobs on their own won't be enough. Standard industry is going to have to be Irish owned and built up like that from now on, we can't expect foreign manufacturers to come to Ireland to setup.

fergalr

thebman wrote: »

Well that ignores the jobs that come about that aren't highly skilled in these facilities.

Yes it does - on purpose - I'm just talking about the 'knowledge economy' effects. While the government likes to tout these things as a $500m knowledge economy investment, Im just saying thats not the best way to think of it.

Certainly, the construction costs, the extra jobs etc should be good for the economy. My only issue is that for too long big chunks of FDI like this have allowed us to get distracted from the more important long term tasks of creating lasting, sustainable, indigenous, wealth generating, value adding activities. We've always liked to pretend we've much more of a high tech economy than we actually do. (But we still do some really good stuff - just not enough).

thebman wrote: »

Not everyone will or can work in highly skilled areas.

Sure. Never said everyone should.

thebman wrote: »

Some will have to do support work for those jobs and many will be back working in shops when people employed in knowlege jobs come to buy new clothes/tech gadgets.

Anyway we still need normal industries to a certain extent too as knowledge jobs on their own won't be enough. Standard industry is going to have to be Irish owned and built up like that from now on, we can't expect foreign manufacturers to come to Ireland to setup.

Absolutely, you can't just have the 'knowledge jobs' on their own.

It's just that if 'knowledge economy' is one of the big bets we're going to stake our economic future on (and seems to be said as such, and that seems to be a premise of some of the economic planning being done) then just hosting data centers won't be enough.

There will be some great jobs that comes out of that data centre, I'm sure. High availability, scalable, failure resistant data centre admin is serious work.

But those sort of things are only such a small amount of what we need, to the extent that they *politically* almost do more harm than good by providing a distraction from our real problems; the real problems we have to address if we want to be this knowledge economy powerhouse. (Which have already mentioned on the thread, but better maths and science education, more science grads and less estate agents, etc. would all be a start).

Thats all I is saying!

Noreen1

fergalr wrote: »

Off topic - is a gaelgoir someone who really likes the language or someone who is really good at it, or both? I'd have thought more the former?

I think Irish could be taught so much better than it currently is - I don't think anything like the level that could be achieved in the classroom is being so. Also, just look at all the hate for the language; its such a failure. Poor Irish, I think its a bit like Maths that way.

To me, the Gaelgoir is a native Irish speaker - capable of living their daily lives through the medium of Irish, without having to resort to mental translation before speaking, as some fluent speakers do. There are subtle differences in the thought processes used - though I find them difficult to define. The best I can offer is that my OH, who doesn't speak Irish, though he does understand it, protests that I seem "different" when I speak Irish. I assume that he's subconsciously detecting the Irish cultural influence becoming more pronounced when I speak Irish. So, I suppose one could say that Irish culture is one facet of my personality that is partially obscured by the words used in the English language. Not because the words to express the same sentiment don't exist in the English language, but rather because they are not commonly used in the same way.

I think anyone who is a native Irish speaker likes the language, though not everyone who likes the language is a native speaker.
In my personal experience, the majority of people who insist on speaking Irish to non-Irish speakers, tend to be those who have learned the language to a level of fluency, and for whatever reason, convince themselves that everyone should speak Irish. Personally, I find such people hugely irritating, and believe that they just add to the hatred of the language that is so common.

I agree that Irish could probably be taught to a higher standard than is currently the case, but within the current system, I can't see how it could be achieved without major changes. For example, to have someone forced to teach a language, that they are not proficient in, and frequently detest, is not conducive to a good learning environment.
Teachers are as varied in their skills as any other section of the population, therefore, it seems to me, that primary school teachers, no matter how dedicated, can only teach to the level of their own proficiency in any subject.
Would it not make more sense for the teacher who is excellent at teaching, say, Maths and possibly Science subjects, to devote their day to teaching just those subjects? And leave the teaching of Irish to someone who doesn't bring their own loathing of the subject into the classroom before any students have a chance to form an opinion of the subject.




[quote=fergalr;62794141}Actually, I found this quite interesting when I came across it a while back:
http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
Its interesting, and also attempts to outline some of whats wrong with how maths is taught in school and why people don't like it.

Any chance of a gaelgoirs lament? :-)[/quote]

Thank you for providing a very interesting link. I rather suspect I would have loved algebra and theorems as much as I loved arithmetic problems had I been taught Maths in that manner. As it was, I detested anything remotely resembling a Mathematical equation with a vengeange, yet I loved what used to be known as Arithmetic. I think if someone had explained the practical use of theorems etc., I probably would have embraced them with more enthusiasm, rather than regarding them as a necessary evil.

fergalr wrote: »

Yeah, works much better. Also, means people wouldn't finish school hating being forced to do it.

fergalr wrote: »

Exactly.

fergalr wrote: »

Doubt there are more words in Irish than in English... doubt have figured, but english is a huge language, surely..?

fergalr wrote: »

Agreed. But so is Irish. Most people are limited in their exposure to it, though, by the lack of a comprehensive Irish dictionary. Therefore, they are limited to direct translation from an English/Irish dictionary, and they tend to be quite limited, in terms of vocabulary. In addition, some Irish words have several meanings, depending on the context in which they are used, so does one count them as one word, or several?

fergalr wrote: »

That last is very interesting.
When you say you problem solve in Irish, what do you mean? If someone put a maths or logic puzzle to you, would you try and reason it out in Irish in your head? What sort of things would you say to yourself? I'm not sure I reason about puzzles or spatial things in a language as such - although I would probably for some sort of problems. If I was to use Irish I'd lack complex/specialist vocabulary pretty quickly. Be curious to hear more on this...

fergalr wrote: »

I would always do a Maths problem through Irish in my head - but that could be because I learned Maths through Irish.
However, when faced with an unfamiliar situation, where evaluation of the overall situation/ + creative thinking is required, I would generally use Irish in my head. Conversely, though, if I want to focus on a specific area of a problem, I tend to switch to English.

So, hypothetically, if I wanted to design, say, a new computer, then the overall concept, image, features etc. would be done through Irish.
Detailed features, like placement of the CPU on the Mainboard etc. would tend to be thought out in English.

If I'm presented with a delicate social situation, requiring tact or diplomacy, I would tend to think through Irish, though I may be speaking English at the time.

In logic puzzles, again, the overall problem is assessed through Irish, yet, if I want to work out whether say, Mary or Johnny wore the back coat, I think in English.

It probably sounds crazy, but it's the truth. Then again, maybe I'm just weird LOL.


Noreen

optocynic

Look at all the effort we have wasted on our native language.

I'm all for keeping it, it's our heritage.. etc.
But, come on, it is totally useless in the grand scheme of things!
Whe not replace it in schools with a language that would in fact offer our children an advantage in the future. Like Mandarin, or Hindi.. ?

Can someone give me a valid, non-emotional, arguement for keeping it oin our schoolsm and forcing it on our children?

Shea O'Meara

It's unfortunate we need to work at keeping the Irish language alive, but tradition isn't a valid reason. if you want to learn Irish go ahead.
As regards the knowledge economy; maybe we should be telling some farmers 'You're not making enough money at it? Do something else for a living.' Similarly with our former native tongue, why pump money and time into keeping something going for the pure sake of it?
If I was working as a butcher, but nobody was buying my meat, I'd have to look at another career. Why should the farming community be any different? I know it's not that straight forward but the days of being assigned your trade/career by sheer birthright, (my fathers father was a farmer) are long gone....unless you're from a slimebag political dynasty of course.

asdasd

I know it's not that straight forward but the days of being assigned your trade/career by sheer birthright, (my fathers father was a farmer) are long gone....unless you're from a slimebag political dynasty of course.

Heres a good reason for keeping farming alive - a blockade.

One of the reasons why the CAP and other farming subsidies were applied post war - was exactly that, the UK could have starved had the u-boats been better. Europe was also in difficulty.

One instance. If we lose "manufaturing" and the West is blockaded, we can take some time to learn ( re-learn) how to manufacture. If we lose food production that re-skilling - which is effectively father to son - will happen after we starve.

The knowledge economy is bollocks in that way too. Food is still the most important thing we produce. WE cant eat google.

( And in any case where ireland can be world class, and have a brand is food - certainly not software)

fergalr

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

It's unfortunate we need to work at keeping the Irish language alive, but tradition isn't a valid reason. if you want to learn Irish go ahead.

You don't think its a valid reason - fair enough. Obviously its a very subjective judgement whether tradition is or isnt a valid reason.

You could perhaps argue more objectively about whether it was economically worthwhile, which I think has probably been the more interesting angle on the thread.

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

As regards the knowledge economy; maybe we should be telling some farmers 'You're not making enough money at it? Do something else for a living.'

I think, economically, we should probably do more of this than we are doing.
People might argue that the traditional way of life should be supported for traditions sake - a less economic argument, so more subjective.

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

Similarly with our former native tongue, why pump money and time into keeping something going for the pure sake of it?

Because people like it, because they find it enriches them - look at Noreens posts for some excellent argument on this.
Like, whats the benefit to having english departments in universities?
Should we close down all the art galleries, and the national concert hall? These are done for the sake of it, right?

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

If I was working as a butcher, but nobody was buying my meat, I'd have to look at another career. Why should the farming community be any different?

Yeah, its a good point I think. It did occur to me what would happen if, in the event of a dotcom style bust, software engineers started doing denial of services attacks on the internet infrastructure, until they got more EU subsidies - by way of analogy with farmers barricading country towns with tractors.
I'm not saying its that simple or anything, there are certain social contracts too, but its worth keeping in mind.

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

I know it's not that straight forward but the days of being assigned your trade/career by sheer birthright, (my fathers father was a farmer) are long gone....unless you're from a slimebag political dynasty of course.

fergalr

asdasd wrote: »

Heres a good reason for keeping farming alive - a blockade.

One of the reasons why the CAP and other farming subsidies were applied post war - was exactly that, the UK could have starved had the u-boats been better. Europe was also in difficulty.

I do think theres a strategic value to a country being able to produce most of its own foodstuffs, or having the capacity to quickly do so. In case of a whole lot of potentially unforseeable scenarios - or even down to a spike in energy costs causing the value of food to go up as grain is converted into fuel; or climate change and crop failure; and or shipping becomes prohibitive for some reason.

BUT: I reckon we could guard mostly against contingencies like that with a few large farms, rather than the current setup.
I also think you'd have to ask big questions about the amount of beef, pork etc farming, which is very inefficient in a 'omg, theres no food' context. Veg and grain make a lot more sense.

Its an important thing to bear in mind, but not one thats a relevant defence of the current farming setup, imo. (I confess I don't know a huge amount about Irish argiculture).

asdasd wrote: »

One instance. If we lose "manufaturing" and the West is blockaded, we can take some time to learn ( re-learn) how to manufacture. If we lose food production that re-skilling - which is effectively father to son - will happen after we starve.

Ah, in fairness now, talking about blockades, a la WW2. You are essentially talking about military confrontation there, and if Ireland gets into a situation where theres a military confrontation with a power big enough to 'blockade the west' then there's probably bigger issues of escalation to worry about.

asdasd wrote: »

The knowledge economy is bollocks in that way too. Food is still the most important thing we produce. WE cant eat google.

This debate starts to get very philosophical an far ranging when you make statements like that. There are rather a lot of us in the world, and more all the time.
Without the knowledge economy, you are going to find it hard to produce the high efficiency industrial artefacts that you need to grow sufficient food effectively to feed close to everyone. Try guide your grain ships without GPS; or sow and harvest your US corn crop without weather satellites, supercomputers, computer designed tractors; or produce chemical fertiliser, pesticides, vaccines without high tech computation chemistry techniques.
People don't just do the knowledge economy stuff for the craic, you know - the efficiencies it leads to feed into most of the basic things we do as a species.

Also, if you are talking about threats to our survival, sure we can't eat computers, but try use your potatoes to produce a swine flu (or worse) vaccine or your cabbage to track incoming asteroids, and see how far you get. Again, we don't spend huge amounts of our resources building high level technology, just because its fun.

asdasd wrote: »

( And in any case where ireland can be world class, and have a brand is food - certainly not software)

We have some very good food brands, its true. But, while the future is unpredictable, the fact is that the trend over time is that food is becoming less valuable as a commodity. Sure, good planning takes into account the very unlikely catastrophic scenarios, (we tend to be bad at this) but it should also be mostly based on the most likely scenarios.
It seems to be most likely that food production will not sustain Ireland at its current level of GDP per head, and standard of living. Food is just not that valuable as an economic commodity anymore - partly because better technology has increased food yield per resources. Food technology is getting better all the time too. And the EU subsidies won't last forever. When they go itll suddenly be quite obvious that even though we are making some great food products, our agricultural economy just isn't worth enough in terms of international trade. Hell, its already obvious, even with the subsidies in place - just ask farmers how they are finding the prices for their produce.
We'll hopefully still do a bit of agriculture, and higher value agriculture, but do you really think its enough to base the Irish economy on, and will be valuable enough internationally in future?

Shea O'Meara

asdasd wrote: »

Heres a good reason for keeping farming alive - a blockade.

......WE cant eat google.

( And in any case where ireland can be world class, and have a brand is food - certainly not software)

I agree. I'm not for ending farming. Like all industries, if certain aspects aren't working, should we be trying to keep them afloat? We (speaking generally) can't on the one hand be arguing for capitalism and profit making, then looking for a dig out from tax payers when it suits.

Shea O'Meara

fergalr wrote: »

You don't think its a valid reason - fair enough. Obviously its a very subjective judgement whether tradition is or isnt a valid reason.

You could perhaps argue more objectively about whether it was economically worthwhile, which I think has probably been the more interesting angle on the thread.

That's a given in the fact that hardly anyone uses it in daily life, let alone in business.

fergalr wrote: »

Because people like it, because they find it enriches them - look at Noreens posts for some excellent argument on this.
Like, whats the benefit to having english departments in universities?
Should we close down all the art galleries, and the national concert hall? These are done for the sake of it, right?

Your analogy would work if hardly anybody looked at art, was interested in drawing/painting and the state funded daily trips to the National Concert hall even though only a small percentage of the public wanted to go.

If people want to learn it outside of the classroom there is nothing stopping them.

asdasd

Your analogy would work if hardly anybody looked at art, was interested in drawing/painting and the state funded daily trips to the National Concert hall even though only a small percentage of the public wanted to go.

That is the case for, say, classical music or the theatre. Both are subsidised.

Shea O'Meara

asdasd wrote: »

That is the case for, say, classical music or the theatre. Both are subsidised.

Most every aspect of the arts is subsidised. RTE is subsidised, as is most sport. The discussion will go on to what deserves funding based on merit and who decides etc. That's a much broader debate and further off topic.
The arts are usually the first to get hit in cut backs.

fergalr

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

Most every aspect of the arts is subsidised. RTE is subsidised, as is most sport. The discussion will go on to what deserves funding based on merit and who decides etc. That's a much broader debate and further off topic.
The arts are usually the first to get hit in cut backs.

You've given further examples of things we do 'for the pure sake of it', as you put it.
Certainly, what does and doesn't make sense to do, for reasons of cultural richness, is subjective, and debatable. But the point is that the arts (and to a lesser extend some sports) are supported by state funding, and not for their economic benefit - much 'for the pure sake of it'.

So, you are either attacking the idea of things being supported just 'for the sake of it' or you aren't. If you are, then you can't just single out Irish without some other reason (such as popularity etc). Given that you declare further debate on this off topic, I don't think its reasonable to just single out Irish.

nesf

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

Most every aspect of the arts is subsidised. RTE is subsidised, as is most sport. The discussion will go on to what deserves funding based on merit and who decides etc. That's a much broader debate and further off topic.
The arts are usually the first to get hit in cut backs.

Take a look at how funding is distributed by the Government in Sports. Seriously, Sport << Horse Racing Industry in this country.

A Working Paper by two UCC Economists on the topic: http://www.ucc.ie/en/economics/research/workingpaperseries/downloads/DocumentFile,60740,en.pdf

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Shea O'Meara

fergalr wrote: »

You've given further examples of things we do 'for the pure sake of it', as you put it.....But the point is that the arts (and to a lesser extend some sports) are supported by state funding, and not for their economic benefit - much 'for the pure sake of it'.

To recap;

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

Similarly with our former native tongue, why pump money and time into keeping something going for the pure sake of it?

Irish was the topic but I'll gladly discuss the arts also. My post was a follow on to the discussion at hand.
The point I am making is with the situation we are in we have to look at everything.
The arts usually get hit first. Personally I think it's a shame the only Cork Indie cinema has to close and the film board is getting screwed.
As regards Horse Racing; personaly I think the government would quite happily f*** us all over to save it. I myself have no love for it, but that's neither here nor there. However the reasons given by the government for extra funding and buildings based on the amount of people employed in the industry is a little weak as the same could be said for film.

fergalr wrote: »

So, you are either attacking the idea of things being supported just 'for the sake of it' or you aren't. If you are, then you can't just single out Irish without some other reason (such as popularity etc). Given that you declare further debate on this off topic, I don't think its reasonable to just single out Irish.

Again, we need to look at everything. Read my quote;

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

It's unfortunate we need to work at keeping the Irish language alive, but tradition isn't a valid reason. if you want to learn Irish go ahead.

The issue of 'should we be funding Irish?' was raised, so I commented on Irish alone.

'for the pure sake of it';)