Well, the USA has thrived on draining brain from the rest of the world for most of its existence. Space program? Thank the german rocket engineers...

It's part of the american system - offer really cool universities that are way too large for ourselves (which is why they get filled up with football players and crap) so they attract the brightest minds from elsewhere.

True in parts and yet horribly wrong in others.

Disclaimer: I was a "gifted child" and yes, I was bored in school, so much that my parents sent me to a psychologist (who told them there's nothing wrong with me except that I'm bored) and then to special gifted-child after-school courses. I had my first chemistry course 5 years before I had it in school, and I had computer lessons and shortly after my own computer in 6th grade, at a time when computer stuff was an optional course in high school.

And yet, I don't blame school for ruining my chances. On the contrary, I believe school should be much like it used to, i.e. roll back the dumbing down you've done to it just because you want better PISA scores. Schools purpose is to create a baseline, a solid level of basic education that later on in life you can expect everyone to have. As such, it has to be so that everyone can acquire it. Some easily, some will struggle, but it is a (low) standard and exactly because of that it is useful.

What needs to change is the attitude that school covers everything. These days, not only have people largely stopped understanding that you can (*gasp*!) educate yourself out of school, in addition to whatever you get there, but you should also (*big gasp*!!) let the school do the teaching and keep things like teaching manners and basic social skills at home with the parents who desperately need to stop thinking they can outsource the raising of a child.

If more people understood school correctly as a standardized base-level, less people would send their kids to school and think that covers their parental responsibilities and aside from that it's just feeding and housing the brat.

No, you utter imbecile. The problem of the western culture is not fund distribution. It's attitude.

Our "stars" are musicians, actors and professional athletes. Certainly people who work hard and having natural talent definitely helps - but it's not the smart, gifted people we adore in our culture. There's no science-based equivalent of the Super Bowl. The closest we get is that we sometimes thing astronauts are pretty cool.

You want more smart people in your country? I don't have a magic pill for that, but I can give you an indicator of how close you are: When the sexy girls fuck the geeks instead of the football studs, you're getting somewhere. When this map has more scientists on it than coaches, you're pretty close. When we pay two-digit millions in salary not to people who pretend to be a robot from the future on camera, or throwing an air-filled dead pig gut around, but to people who work on curing cancer or inventing new methods for energy production, then you won't have to worry about not having enough brains in the country.

The funding thing is just a small part of that culture.

I can tell if you're the sort of person who enjoys programming. I'd take a high school dropout over someone with a Master's, if the high school dropout had a substantial portfolio of open source code he could show me.

So well-rounded candidates who enjoy programming but have other hobbies are screwed?

We already knew why people/dogs do that: saliva contains blood clotting agents.

I said "99%". You came up with the other 1%. Congratulations, here's your cookie, now sod off.

Cannabis is a better choice than alcohol, without the nasty killing liver and brain cells side effects.

Depression is one of the areas I don't like to joke about. /. and the Internet in general do not count, and there are studies to back that up but I can't be arsed to google them for you. You actually need to go outside and physically meet other people to get the benefits of social activities.

Alcohol has been shown to be not effective in people suffering from depression. I'm not aware of any studies with sex, though it stands to reason that it will have short-term benefits.

Not that I'd argue pro-religion, that's on the same page as alcohol - even if it helps, you don't want all the payload unless you are already insane. Unfortunately, religions know very well how they work and do prey on the weak.

Yes, believing in some soothing bullshit lessens your stress levels, which has all kinds of benefits.

Believing aliens from outer space will save you at the last second will certainly make going into war easier to cope with as well.

Is there a difference between these? Not really, no. It's just that one is socially acceptable thanks to millenia of indoctrination, while the other one strike almost everyone as ridiculous bullshit.

See, the problem with believing in nonsense is that even if it reduces your stress and makes you feel happy and whatever else, ultimately, you still believe in nonsense and with all the downsides that has. There've been a few recent articles on that. For example, the "let's-destroy-the-planet-for-profit" mindset would have a much harder time if its proponents wouldn't believe in an afterlife and would realize this life on this planet is all we've got.

I've had this argument a hundred times, and it never changes. Yes, religion does some good. And for every good it does, it does two evils.

Not all possible, but 99% of them: Make it inaccessible from the inside of the aircraft.

So they don't shoot you down. If you wanted to commit suicide in this matter, you probably don't want just the plane, you want to fly it into something (9/11 probably gave you the idea).

So no, it doesn't add up - unless some nation shot it down and doesn't want to admit it. But that's as much speculation as anything else.

Americans aren't smart enough to make a 300 horsepower four wheel drive small car....

The Cadillac ATS V6 AWD fits that description (but your Suburu or Mitsubishi is almost certainly still better and/or cheaper, of course).

That's the point: at least Zenni is allowed to exist, unlike Tesla direct sales!