Our ability to think of numbers as abstract concepts is probably innate and even babies barely a few hours old seem to have the ability, researchers say.
Abstract numerical thought is the ability to perceive numbers as entities, independently of specific things. It can be demonstrated by the humans capacity to link a certain number of objects to the same number of sounds, irrespective of what the specific sounds or objects are. But whether this ability is innate or learned through culture or language wasn't known.
(New Scientist)
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><span style=""><span style="">The most important aspect of the United States is not simply its sheer size, but the size of its usable land. Russia and China may both be similar-sized in absolute terms, but the vast majority of Russian and Chinese land is useless for agriculture, habitation or development. In contrast, courtesy of the Midwest, the United States boasts the world's largest contiguous mass of arable land — and that mass does not include the hardly inconsequential chunks of usable territory on both the West and East coasts. </span></span>
ReplyDelete<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><span style=""><span style="">Second is the American maritime transport system. The Mississippi River, linked as it is to the Red, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee rivers, comprises the largest interconnected network of navigable rivers in the world. In the San Francisco Bay, Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound/New York Bay, the United States has three of the world's largest and best natural harbors. The series of barrier islands a few miles off the shores of Texas and the East Coast form a water-based highway — an Intercoastal Waterway — that shields American coastal shipping from all but the worst that the elements can throw at ships and ports.</span></span>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style=""><span style="">The real beauty is that the two overlap with near perfect symmetry. The Intercoastal Waterway and most of the bays link up with agricultural regions and their own local river systems (such as the series of rivers that descend from the Appalachians to the East Coast), while the Greater Mississippi river network is the circulatory system of the Midwest. Even without the addition of canals, it is possible for ships to reach nearly any part of the Midwest from nearly any part of the Gulf or East coasts. The result is not just a massive ability to grow a massive amount of crops — and not just the ability to easily and cheaply move the crops to local, regional and global markets — but also the ability to use that same transport network for any other economic purpose without having to worry about food supplies.</span></span>
ReplyDelete<p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style=""><span style="">The implications of such a confluence are deep and sustained. Where most countries need to scrape together capital to build roads and rail to establish the very foundation of an economy, transport capability, geography granted the United States a near-perfect system at no cost. That frees up U.S. capital for other pursuits and almost condemns the United States to be capital-rich. Any additional infrastructure the United States constructs is icing on the cake. (The cake itself is free — and, incidentally, the United States had so much free capital that it was able to go on to build one of the best road-and-rail networks anyway, resulting in even greater economic advantages over competitors.)</span></span>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style=""><span style="">With geography empowering the United States and hindering Canada and Mexico, the United States does not need to maintain a large standing military force to counter either. The Canadian border is almost completely unguarded, and the Mexican border is no more than a fence in most locations — a far cry from the sort of military standoffs that have marked more adversarial borders in human history. Not only are Canada and Mexico not major threats, but the U.S. transport network allows the United States the luxury of being able to quickly move a smaller force to deal with occasional problems rather than requiring it to station large static forces on its borders.</span></span>
ReplyDelete<p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style=""><span style="">Like the transport network, this also helps the U.S. focus its resources on other things.</span></span>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style=""><span style="">Taken together, the integrated transport network, large tracts of usable land and lack of a need for a standing military have one critical implication: The U.S. government tends to take a hands-off approach to economic management, because geography has not cursed the United States with any endemic problems. This may mean that the United States — and especially its government — comes across as disorganized, but it shifts massive amounts of labor and capital to the private sector, which for the most part allows resources to flow to wherever they will achieve the most efficient and productive results.</span></span>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style=""><span style="">Laissez-faire capitalism has its flaws. Inequality and social stress are just two of many less-than-desirable side effects. The side effects most relevant to the current situation are, of course, the speculative bubbles that cause recessions when they pop. But in terms of long-term economic efficiency and growth, a free capital system is unrivaled. For the United States, the end result has proved clear: The United States has exited each decade since post-Civil War Reconstruction more powerful than it was when it entered it. While there are many forces in the modern world that threaten various aspects of U.S. economic standing, there is not one that actually threatens the U.S. base geographic advantages.</span></span>
ReplyDelete<p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style=""><span style="">Is the United States in recession? Of course. Will it be forever? Of course not. So long as U.S. geographic advantages remain intact, it takes no small amount of paranoia and pessimism to envision anything but long-term economic expansion for such a chunk of territory. In fact, there are a number of factors hinting that the United States may even be on the cusp of recovery</span></span>
Social experience shapes the details of brain psychology, the infants brain is made to fit into the culture in which it was born. Six month old's can hear and make every sound in virtually every human language, the very physical existence of neurons to the tune of 50% are naturally forced to commit pre-programmed cell suicide to fit into the larger framework of the cultural pattern! Babies, one or two years old that see another infant hurt, or hear it crying, do not merely ape the childs distress, they share it empathetically.
ReplyDeleteTHE COLLECTIVE MIND/OUR MENTAL PRISON(S)
http://notinhisname.blogdrive.com/archive/cm-02_cy-2006_m-02_d-23_y-2006_o-0.html
"the United States does not need to maintain a large standing military force"
ReplyDeletehttp://risingpowers.foreignpolicyblogs.com/files/2009/03/up-in-arms1.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XRyDF3c2S-s/SPHbCZSYkyI/AAAAAAAABwU/FyhUUmwEC6k/s1600-h/country-distribution-2008.png
Nice try r.s., but you might want to think through your next rebuttle attemt before responding reflexlively. Especially with information everyone already knows.
ReplyDeleteThere is a BIG difference between a standing military and a defense budget. A standing military consists of paying people salaries, maintaining bases and other non value add items.
Much of the US defense budget is invested in technological advancements, which include high tech weapon systems but go beyond to encompass medical treatments, communications, transportation, etc. As is well known, for example the internet and GPS are the civilian off-shoots of what started out as military projects.
Thus, by not having to maintain a large domestic military, the US can invest in developing technologies that often have both civilain and military application. This helps the US maintain its significant technological lead on the world - and certainly on that "part" of the world in which we are engaged militarily. Or perhaps you have noticed unmaned enemy drones circling the White House?
Because Canada and Mexico are relatively benign neighbors, the US does not need a large military population domiciled in the US. This make it mcuh easier for the US military to spread itself out around the world --as is often pointed out and bitched about here.
Everyone knows our defense budget is very large. We just dont need a large standing military, especially true during times we are NOT at war.
<span><span>"...there are a number of factors hinting that the United States may even be on the cusp of recovery"</span></span>
ReplyDeleteFor whom?
I will give you the same answer I gave anand in an above post -
ReplyDeleteYou know Anand, you and fleming are like matching stupid bookends. There is only a few that a "national security state" benefits, not the people. It sucks the people dry both foreign and domestic, it results in the destruction of all the institutions that are for the benefit of the people. This has REPEATEDLY been the case throughout history - but you do not learn from history, you are an ignorant sot without a conscience, why don't you just off yourself and decrease the surplus population.
You do not need to marry advance to destructive military activity - it is done only to benefit a small cadre. You can appeal till you are blue in the face about the "wonderful things" that came out of military applications - actually it is not true, it came from public sector institutions for the most part participating in that destructive process. Because when a military is expanded like this it only means one thing - imperialism, and imperialism is never good for any people foreign or domestic.
I will give you the same answer I gave anand in an above post -
ReplyDeleteYou know Anand, you and fleming are like matching stupid bookends. There is only a few that a "national security state" benefits, not the people. It sucks the people dry both foreign and domestic, it results in the destruction of all the institutions that are for the benefit of the people. This has REPEATEDLY been the case throughout history - but you do not learn from history, you are an ignorant sot without a conscience, why don't you just off yourself and decrease the surplus population.
You do not need to marry advance to destructive military activity - it is done only to benefit a small cadre. You can appeal till you are blue in the face about the "wonderful things" that came out of military applications - actually it is not true, it came from public sector institutions for the most part participating in that destructive process. Because when a military is expanded like this it only means one thing - imperialism, and imperialism is never good for any people foreign or domestic - only for the dogs of war.