I expect you're right. I'm still waiting for the death of the mainframe. So far as I can tell the introduction of new platforms creates new markets for computing devices, but hasn't eliminated any old ones.

I'm surprised you didn't get China in there, given that Mandarin has more speakers than any other language.

Er, do I need to remind you the terrorists that flew the planes into the WTC were mostly highly educated professionals who were hardly in a position where they needed to be bought off? What else could you have given them to buy them off? Perhaps not everyone is for sale.

Well, you know how it goes. Provide a socialist with a service, and in a week he'll be calling it a human right.

Not entirely pointless. Is it worth the resources to extensively educate somebody that has very little potential?

You'd guess wrong! The Boswell Sisters were the most popular jazz vocal groups of their time. In fact Ella Fitzgerald cited Conee Boswell as one of her primary influences.

Well, pop music in the not too distant past was also fairly complex (although obviously not as complex as classical). Take this 1933 recording from the Boswell Sisters, it's clearly a lot more harmonically sophisticated than 4 chords, and has a number of tempo changes. And this was pop music in it's time, music that people danced to, sang along with, etc, not some form of "art" music.

The twentieth century saw the progression of musical degeneration. First we lost the sophisticated song structures and harmonic constructions of the jazz age to rock, and then we lost the remaining melodic and lyrical competencies of rock to rap. Now we're merely reduced to drumming and chanting. What's left to lose?

That's been the state of affairs for about the last 6000 years, anyway, hasn't it?

Rather arrogant of you to be telling a being presumed to be omniscient, immortal and capable of creating universes how it should be running things, isn't it?

I submit that if He/She/It exists, it probably has a somewhat broader and more mature perspective than you do.

No. I'm pointing out that since patents weren't available to Stradivarius, his only means of protecting his intellectual property was to keep his methods a secret. To this day, nobody has been able to duplicate his instruments, rebutting the argument that his competitors would be able to simply tear it apart and figure out how to duplicate it.

Well, the economy was fine - you're problem is that it isn't the 1950s anymore. That is to say, our biggest possible competitor, Europe, isn't recovering from a recent world war, China and India aren't undergoing massive famines, Korea isn't in the midst of a civil war, and Made in Japan is no longer a synonym for cheap junk.

You could have a 90% tax in the 50's simply because there was no place else to go. Try that today and watch your industries and your wealth move off-shore even faster than they are now.

That's why violin makers have been duplicating the Stradivarius for centuries, right?

It's better because the states are forced to compete for citizens and businesses, which helps keep government growth in check. Notice which states are growing most rapidly in population and aren't on the brink of bankruptcy.

I don't know about that. It seems to be working pretty well for IBM.

One thing stood out for me was that of all the nations discussed as possible competitors to the US, China wasn't even mentioned once. This was made less than 30 years ago. Just goes to show you how quickly the unexpected can happen.