Rare earths are not rare. However, processing rare earths are very polluting. By buying these materials from China, Europe doesn't need this polluting industry within it's borders. China can pollute itself for Europe's benefit.

If Europe doesn't want to deal with China, then it either needs to find another source or start processing rare earths within it's own territory and deal with the pollution itself.

Here is an interesting Wikipedia article that might lend another perspective on this discussion of semantics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

When in doubt, you can always refer to legal definitions and how different jurisdictions treat this issue in their legal systems. I have not heard anyone dispute the legitimacy of anyone who is officially licensed or registered in their jurisdiction, especially seeing how clearly defined the licensing/registration process is in those places that observe one. Of course, this is not to devalue the capabilities or education of someone who is not registered or licensed but it's clear that these people fall into more of a grey area, not regulated, which becomes subjective and I suppose this is the question underlying this discussion.

As to whether using the title is wrong, I would say anyone holding themselves out as a Professional, licensed or registered engineer when they are not, is out of bounds and probably even breaking the law. For everyone else, we're in the grey area.

Toward the bottom of there is an paragraph under "United States" that discusses legal protection of the term "professional engineer" and an industrial exemption for people to be called engineers under certain circumstances where their work is internal to a business entity that qualifies as an "exempt organization" and some tests for direct supervision are met. I think this might be where you see creative "engineer" titles arising.

Interesting that Wyoming would be the first state in the US to adopt licensing requirements because I would have thought of Wyoming to be less receptive to regulation than say New York or Massachusetts.

So am I an engineer? If licensed or registered - unequivocally yes. If not - maybe. Depends on circumstances.

Here is an interesting Wikipedia article that might lend another perspective on this discussion of semantics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

When in doubt, you can always refer to legal definitions and how different jurisdictions treat this issue in their legal systems. I have not heard anyone dispute the legitimacy of anyone who is officially licensed or registered in their jurisdiction, especially seeing how clearly defined the licensing/registration process is in those places that observe one. Of course, this is not to devalue the capabilities or education of someone who is not registered or licensed but it's clear that these people fall into more of a grey area, not regulated, which becomes subjective and I suppose this is the question underlying this discussion.

As to whether using the title is wrong, I would say anyone holding themselves out as a Professional, licensed or registered engineer when they are not, is out of bounds and probably even breaking the law. For everyone else, we're in the grey area.

Toward the bottom of there is an paragraph under "United States" that discusses legal protection of the term "professional engineer" and an industrial exemption for people to be called engineers under certain circumstances where their work is internal to a business entity that qualifies as an "exempt organization" and some tests for direct supervision are met. I think this might be where you see creative "engineer" titles arising.

Interesting that Wyoming would be the first state in the US to adopt licensing requirements because I would have thought of Wyoming to be less receptive to regulation than say New York or Massachusetts.

So am I an engineer? If licensed or registered - unequivocally yes. If not - maybe. Depends on circumstances.

2024 was when employers started implementing return to office across the entire economy. They also started pushing AI everywhere. And, they continued layoffs that started in 2023. Of course this made employees worse off.

The only objective measure of student performance that can't easily be cheated are standardized tests. Universities need to bring back the SAT or ACT. Schools need to limit admissions to those students with the top grades. Right now, it's far too easy to cheat the system and bring in students who can't do the work while denying good students who can do the work and refuse to cheat.

Colleges can collect ACT/SAT scores, high school grades, recommendations, and essays. We've seen grade inflation over the past few decades where students can all easily get A's regardless of whether they actually deserve them or not. Students can easily cheat on recommendations and essays. The only objective measure of a student that's not easily cheated are the ACT or SAT. Removing those requirements means that universities have exposed themselves to students interested in cheating their way into college. The result are universities accepting a group of mediocre students who can't do the work and denying good students who can do the work and refuse to cheat.

Lack of planning? All private companies, departments, and individual teams plan for the projects that they implement. All public city, county, and state organizations plan for the projects in their area. Decentralized planning may look like no planning to someone from China. But, that's certainly far from true. There's lots of planning going on. It's not controlled from some central location. One of the benefits of this model is that it tends not to overbuild and overspend when the need isn't necessary, such as what happens with central planning. Local municipalities and businesses tend to build what they need and are economically punished when they overbuild.

China has abject poverty in most of the country next to places that are wildly rich that are used for propaganda videos. In comparison, the US has done a much better job spreading the wealth from coast to coast.

Saudi doesn’t have its own supply of good tech labor. China does. China doesn’t have the same incentive to create these enclaves as Saudi.

These Chinese EVs are hitting the market at $8,000-10,000 new. The cheapest EVs in the US currently are about 3 times as much with the average EVs 5-6 times higher. At those prices, the Chinese EVs would be wildly popular. They'd arguably hurt the US automakers, which is why we're not allowing them into the market today.

Universities have a limited number of students they can admit during any given year. If 30% of admissions go to foreign students, those are seats not available to local students whose family taxes fund the school. The University of Washington was giving preference to foreign students in enrollment while also taking state and local funds from taxpayers. Quality local students were finding themselves unable to get admitted to the university. Taxpayers were outraged and forced the legislature to take action. The legislature then required the school to increase the percentage of local students admitted.

A few years ago, the University of Washington was admitting so many foreign students that it was noticeably hurting local admissions. The state legislature ending up passing a law limiting the number of foreign students that could be admitted considering the school is publicly funded by the local citizens for the purpose of educating the local population.

The US is also a society that actually cares and talks about it's racial issues. China is deeply racist. On top of that, China doesn't talk about or even acknowledge it's racism. China may attract people from other countries. But, it struggles to keep these people for any length of time.

The usage of English is a huge advantage for US. It's the default business language across the world due to the legacy of the British empire. India works in English in their own country. They actively learn it for their own use. It's easy for workers from India to move to the US since they already know the language. China has five different languages. They're all difficult to learn. The use of English doesn't go far in China. Workers from India are not going to flock to China the same way they flocked to the US.

The US is a prosperous first-world country that's had money for a long time. It's prosperity is more uniformly distributed across the country. You don't see the wild economic differences in the US that you see in a place like China.

Those are all advantages the US possesses before looking at the differences in government, which are huge.

Science? Really? There's a lot of soft-brained, unscientific and technophilic pseudo-religion in the article.

Let's work with the argument's load-bearing phrase, "exploration is an intrinsic part of the human spirit."

There are so many things to criticise in that single statement of bias. Suffice it to say there's a good case to be made that "provincial domesticity and tribalism are prevalent inherited traits in humans", without emotional appeals to a "spirit" not in evidence.

Or if it's even still readable. Intel when retrieving the 486 tape-in for the Edison project had to bake the tapes in an oven to remove moisture, and then had ONE CHANCE at imaging the tape as it crumbled to dust going through the reader.