It also means you need to know a little about nature as well, knowledge it's sometimes difficult to develop in a technology smitten world.

Which is the dependent variable, technology or nature? Which one can be perfected? If you can answer the last one, please don't study business.

Alternative short answer: No... not unless you can find an alternative to what passes for biznez in Corporus Decaetum Internationalis. Learn something useful like environmental economics and find a way to fund a startup based on cooperative systems theory.

I am 50+ and remember my 4th grade science teacher telling me that that the theory of plate tectonics was so new that it wasn't taught when she was in school. She brought it up because she wanted us little school kiddies to understand that scientific theory evolves with the adoption of new, peer reviewed, debated, experimentally validated hypotheses that depend upon specific and consistent use of language and method. All of this together is supposed to advance the state of human knowledge and hopefully the human condition. It's plain as the nose on Rupert Murdoch's ugly puss that Fox has no respect for anything but revenue and their editorial staff can't distinguish a science from a seance or a fact from a fascist, so why does anyone waste other people's time posting the stupid crap that spews forth from this maw of mediocrity? Is it really that addictive, or is revenue the least common denominator for the Nuu Slashdot as well? An Oreo from Cowboy Neal's chuck wagon for the first cogent response?

I assumed that methane digestion would form the basis of this type project. India can't possibly do anything else, can it?

By definition, the reason the price of ____ is ____ is because, "that is what the market will bear."

Fundamentally, the idea that neoclassical economics should be allowed to determine the course of human events or the development of civilization has revealed itself to be false. That's the upshot of The Enlightenment as viewed from the midst of the third wave of globalization wrapped in the second wave of industrialization, just before the shit hits the impeller. So the question becomes how to identify the necessary set of values which should replace those that were misidentifed and championed by the Cult of Adam Smith's Incredibly Invisible Hand.

It's officially one world now, according to all good wealthy western outsourcerers, and unless we're going to discriminate against those born to poverty and abandon them to the accident of birth, then redirecting the behemoth will require sacrifice from the first world to the rest. That means subsidized technological development where it's necessary to equalize the chasm of poverty, population decreases and environmental remediation to preserve the ecological integrity of a global system that's in decline and real discussion about what will characterize a heathy, sustainable system of natural and interconnected artifical human systems. It implies far better cooperation than the UN framework for (fill-in-the-blank).

Electrifying rural everwhere, if it can actually done with a net negative impact would be great. If it can't be done without increasing "globalization" as we have come to know it, then it won't matter much in 3 or 4 generations because the catastrophes associated with environmental degradation will include reductions in agricultural output, famine and social dystonia. Since we've "decided" that the natural world is the defacto sewer of industrial man, you can bet that increased envronmental stresses will usher in decreased health to go along with a few panicked incidences of pestilence requiring a little martial law. Don't be afraid, it will all be done for the good of all.

I can't say I believe any of these entrepreneurislisms holds much promise on its own, especially when they are measured in isolation. But if there is hope to be found in any of them, it will become apparent when any of them can be shown to fit into a systemic paradigm with multiple attributes that allow for energy efficiency, reduced environmental pollution, distributed and sustainable local economic development and reduced climatological impacts and a renewed respect man as an ecological participant as well as a social being. We need to establish a new metric for an acceptable level of the energetics of civilization, in much the same way scientists determine the needs of other biological species. Better yet, in the manner of parasitology which requires knowledge of interrelated species and their ecologies.

When you look at today's developments in that light, it's all quite simple.

Sorry, the above quote was from Dr. Michio Kaku. (mkaku.org)

Contrary to what seems to be your belief, deforestation is a choice and it's not made exclusively by the poor. Nor are the poor resposible for the vast majority of habitat destruction such as deforestation. But it is universally the institutionalized quest for wealth in the hands of the ecologically ignorant that leads educated people to sacrifice the natural world without consideration for the concern for the consequences. In the words of Michio Kali, "Classical economics (in the absence of valuation of natural systems) is a form of brain damage.

It's self-promotion, pure and simple. It's obviously not a scientific experiment. It's a "hand wavy" sort of thing, an estimate, a facsimile, a wild-ass guess. It's like reality TV. There should be a term of art to describe and distinguish it from a formal experiment or legitimate research. Maybe Science should create a new category, like "reality typing."

After all, they are asking us to look askance at anything outside their rarified realm of the rigorous standards they claim to uphold. Why do their editors believe they should be able to get away without meeting the same level of scrutiny? Perhaps all is not what it seems at the top?

Exactly what and where were you studying that you felt pressured to publish as an undergrad?

It seems odd that a prof would push so hard unless you had a very specific and competitive grad study program in mind, something important to offer or you prof didn't.

He didn't mean knowledge, he meant worldliness (experince that challenges belief when God doesn't smite you), verily.

Scientific methodologies used to develop knowledge don't require belief, but they demand a rational mind and offer discrete explanations. Religious sytems don't require a rational mind, but they do demand belief, offers no explanation but dogma.

The difference is in the intended purpose of each. Science seeks to explain the external world and allow people to manipulate it. Morality is an after thought. Religion seeks define the internal world, control the definition of morality and manipulate the people outside it.

Gold and silver were coined because they were shiny (desirable), didn't tarnish, relatively rare and controllable as a commodity because the state owned the land (and the mines). There isn't any longer enough of those elements on the planet to serve as modern physical currency. We use crap metals now in order to more accurately reflect the intrinsic value of fiat currency in an era ruled by fractional reserve banking. Ask A K, he'll be happy to explain what that means.

Quality

Even if anyone accepts your argument, an example does not constitute a proof. Beside which you are confusing price or cost with value, relative or otherwise.

see Quality

Worse yet, law "enforcement" which results in tiny fines with no meaningful penalty (as they were designed) hold no deterrent effect. Business managers who measure everything by its budgetary effect are free to interpret the chance of such "penalty" as a marginal cost of doing business as usual. In fact, if you build it into the budget and you don't get caught, your bottom line is improved.

So much for the hypothetical value of H1B visas. In this light they look like what they always have been, business tools which expand the workforce and extend the capital interests. Greater supply of indentured employees makes for a pliable workforce who will work their asses off for whatever they offered and love every second of it. Far better to hire people in this circumstance than suffer people with experience and expectations.

The world is your oyster if you are IBM and you can buy your "self" a sympathetic lawmaker connected to a compliant judiciary. Welcome to capitalistc competition. Where everything is exactly what it seems to be, if you are a total cynic.