Did you know 3.0
February 21, 2009 1:25 PM Subscribe
Did You Know? (SLYT)
This post was deleted for the following reason: hrm -- cortex
That music wanted to make me gouge my ears out.
posted by desjardins at 1:34 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by desjardins at 1:34 PM on February 21, 2009
Yes.
posted by billysumday at 1:34 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by billysumday at 1:34 PM on February 21, 2009
I was hoping this had something to do with Bill Nye the Science Guy.
posted by alligatorman at 1:39 PM on February 21, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by alligatorman at 1:39 PM on February 21, 2009 [2 favorites]
"...today's learner will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38."
I'm 38 and I've had 14 jobs (including various fast-food and mob-wrangling jobs as a kid and several research and teaching positions in grad school). Future shock FAIL.
posted by The Tensor at 1:47 PM on February 21, 2009
I'm 38 and I've had 14 jobs (including various fast-food and mob-wrangling jobs as a kid and several research and teaching positions in grad school). Future shock FAIL.
posted by The Tensor at 1:47 PM on February 21, 2009
I did. And big beat music still sucks.
posted by wastelands at 1:49 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by wastelands at 1:49 PM on February 21, 2009
The dramatic claim that "we are living in exponential times" is somewhat diminished by a near-identical collection of factoids and figures appearing (with better music, desjardins) over two years ago on youtube.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:50 PM on February 21, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:50 PM on February 21, 2009 [3 favorites]
...mob-wrangling jobs...
Sigh. Mop-wrangling jobs. I never herded mafiosi.
posted by The Tensor at 1:53 PM on February 21, 2009
Sigh. Mop-wrangling jobs. I never herded mafiosi.
posted by The Tensor at 1:53 PM on February 21, 2009
Did you know that you can make stats to say anything you want?
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 1:54 PM on February 21, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 1:54 PM on February 21, 2009 [1 favorite]
Here's a whole site with useful useless trivia factoids about people, products and places.
posted by netbros at 1:58 PM on February 21, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by netbros at 1:58 PM on February 21, 2009 [2 favorites]
Did you know...there's a lot of crap on YouTube?
posted by m0nm0n at 2:00 PM on February 21, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by m0nm0n at 2:00 PM on February 21, 2009 [1 favorite]
They should put these under the caps on Snapple bottles, and have millions of question marks fly out when you open one!
Did you know I'm full of brilliant ideas?
posted by orme at 2:09 PM on February 21, 2009 [2 favorites]
Did you know I'm full of brilliant ideas?
posted by orme at 2:09 PM on February 21, 2009 [2 favorites]
I thought it was kind of stupid the way they arbitrarily tacked on that factoid about the number of illegal downloads in a presentation that was largely about vague largeness.
Definitely not the best of the web, and yah, that music made my gnaw my gums into pulp.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 2:16 PM on February 21, 2009
Definitely not the best of the web, and yah, that music made my gnaw my gums into pulp.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 2:16 PM on February 21, 2009
American's are stupid, Indians are geniuses, didn't you know?
posted by Brocktoon at 2:22 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by Brocktoon at 2:22 PM on February 21, 2009
Remember when a "pop-up" was something you saw at a baseball game, "cookies" made you think of Mrs. Fields, and "Zip drive" made you think of a giraffe made of marzipan?
posted by The White Hat at 2:29 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by The White Hat at 2:29 PM on February 21, 2009
American's are stupid, Indians are geniuses
hey just cause they have morer smart peeps than we have peeps alltogether doesn't meen that we is dumb!
posted by troy at 2:35 PM on February 21, 2009
hey just cause they have morer smart peeps than we have peeps alltogether doesn't meen that we is dumb!
posted by troy at 2:35 PM on February 21, 2009
RIGHT HERE! RIGHT NOW! *cabbage patch*
posted by katillathehun at 2:42 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by katillathehun at 2:42 PM on February 21, 2009
Lunit, was your context-free post some sort of meta-commentary on the content of the video itself? At any rate, I really wish I hadn't watched that for 5 minutes hoping for a pay-off. Even if the makers had been trying to sell me something, I would have something to think about. As it stands, a bunch of statistics presented without citations or towards any discernible conclusion falls dramatically short of my standard for "best of the web". In fact, since I tend to think of Metafilter as a place where I can turn for perspective and thoughtful conclusions, this is pretty much the antithesis of what I'd want to see.
(SLYT) is not some sort of defense for an ill-presented post. If you're going to present us with something, at least explain why we should look at it, if not why we should care about it.
posted by chudmonkey at 2:56 PM on February 21, 2009 [1 favorite]
(SLYT) is not some sort of defense for an ill-presented post. If you're going to present us with something, at least explain why we should look at it, if not why we should care about it.
posted by chudmonkey at 2:56 PM on February 21, 2009 [1 favorite]
Americans, Indians and Chinese certainly are living in interesting times.
posted by mattoxic at 3:13 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by mattoxic at 3:13 PM on February 21, 2009
I was hoping this had something to do with John Hodgman.
posted by jbickers at 3:27 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by jbickers at 3:27 PM on February 21, 2009
why we should care about it.
that's our job. I've already tabbed-away from two ponderous economic thumb-suckers on this but let me try a third.
We outconsume if not outproduce China/India by trillions of dollars of goods & services a year. This is curious since they outnumber us by a factor of 8 or so.
India has recently greatly benefited from their happenstance, if often questionable, English language ability, by leveraging this into greater integration into the full first-world economy (which speaks English as its mother tongue).
And as well all should know, since the Deng-era industrial policy reforms from 20+ years ago, China has become something of an industrial powerhouse, able to seemingly effortlessly fill the worlds' bigbox retailers with all kinds of useful goods. If you want something made these days, you get it made in China.
So what is going to happen as our economies become MORE interwoven. In the past 50+ years we have successfully IMPORTED and integrated China's best and brightest knowledge workers, but what happens when China reaches a combined critical mass of consumer wealth & English competency to keep these people working at home as if they were working in the states?
Homo Economicus -- Economic Man -- is wealthy when sufficiently fed, housed, clothed, healed, educated, groomed, transported, and entertained. Poverty is the lack of access to satisfying these human needs & wants.
With today's machines, the global economy has the capability to pump out enough wealth for some number of people to live first-class lives, and most of us in the US fall in this category (even if we are under what is considered the poverty line). On the micro scale the issue becomes a question of trade; how one produces new wealth of sufficient value to purchase what one desires. The micro scale is complicated by a web of overlaying rents we must pay to various rentiers -- copyright & patent holders, landlords, and the parasitical classes living off of inherited capital.
Here in the US the producers among us are *so* productive that the bulk of our economic activity is in the service sector; most of us living in shiny cities do not spend a moment's thought on were & how the wealth -- the buildings, the streets, the consumer goods, etc -- was originally created. Part of the fpp was also going on about knowledge work, how once the basics of food, clothing, and shelter are taken care of, economic activity is devoted to higher employment of human capital skills, like medical skill, instructional skill, and the creation of new IP like games, movies, and music.
Japan has been in the somewhat surprisingly unique position of benefitting from its "Gross National Cool" for over two decades now. Why can't Indians and Chinese get an increasing cut of this wealth-production capability this century? Japan itself is going to become a ghost of a nation; in 1990 there were 10M highschool-aged in Japan, by 2050 this will decrease to 4M, and will apparently continue to tail off from there.
The future is an interesting place. We may see technologic advances that will overcome our collective inability to focus our wealth-creation on creating an economy that benefits all adequately, or, everything will collapse in the usual dog-eat-dog grim-meathook mad-max collapse from unsustainability.
I lean toward the former future.
posted by troy at 3:36 PM on February 21, 2009 [3 favorites]
that's our job. I've already tabbed-away from two ponderous economic thumb-suckers on this but let me try a third.
We outconsume if not outproduce China/India by trillions of dollars of goods & services a year. This is curious since they outnumber us by a factor of 8 or so.
India has recently greatly benefited from their happenstance, if often questionable, English language ability, by leveraging this into greater integration into the full first-world economy (which speaks English as its mother tongue).
And as well all should know, since the Deng-era industrial policy reforms from 20+ years ago, China has become something of an industrial powerhouse, able to seemingly effortlessly fill the worlds' bigbox retailers with all kinds of useful goods. If you want something made these days, you get it made in China.
So what is going to happen as our economies become MORE interwoven. In the past 50+ years we have successfully IMPORTED and integrated China's best and brightest knowledge workers, but what happens when China reaches a combined critical mass of consumer wealth & English competency to keep these people working at home as if they were working in the states?
Homo Economicus -- Economic Man -- is wealthy when sufficiently fed, housed, clothed, healed, educated, groomed, transported, and entertained. Poverty is the lack of access to satisfying these human needs & wants.
With today's machines, the global economy has the capability to pump out enough wealth for some number of people to live first-class lives, and most of us in the US fall in this category (even if we are under what is considered the poverty line). On the micro scale the issue becomes a question of trade; how one produces new wealth of sufficient value to purchase what one desires. The micro scale is complicated by a web of overlaying rents we must pay to various rentiers -- copyright & patent holders, landlords, and the parasitical classes living off of inherited capital.
Here in the US the producers among us are *so* productive that the bulk of our economic activity is in the service sector; most of us living in shiny cities do not spend a moment's thought on were & how the wealth -- the buildings, the streets, the consumer goods, etc -- was originally created. Part of the fpp was also going on about knowledge work, how once the basics of food, clothing, and shelter are taken care of, economic activity is devoted to higher employment of human capital skills, like medical skill, instructional skill, and the creation of new IP like games, movies, and music.
Japan has been in the somewhat surprisingly unique position of benefitting from its "Gross National Cool" for over two decades now. Why can't Indians and Chinese get an increasing cut of this wealth-production capability this century? Japan itself is going to become a ghost of a nation; in 1990 there were 10M highschool-aged in Japan, by 2050 this will decrease to 4M, and will apparently continue to tail off from there.
The future is an interesting place. We may see technologic advances that will overcome our collective inability to focus our wealth-creation on creating an economy that benefits all adequately, or, everything will collapse in the usual dog-eat-dog grim-meathook mad-max collapse from unsustainability.
I lean toward the former future.
posted by troy at 3:36 PM on February 21, 2009 [3 favorites]
Everybody knows.
posted by Devils Rancher at 3:52 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by Devils Rancher at 3:52 PM on February 21, 2009
Japan itself is going to become a ghost of a nation; in 1990 there were 10M highschool-aged in Japan, by 2050 this will decrease to 4M, and will apparently continue to tail off from there.
This is a direct consequence of their predilection for mating with cartoon characters.
posted by fleetmouse at 3:59 PM on February 21, 2009
This is a direct consequence of their predilection for mating with cartoon characters.
posted by fleetmouse at 3:59 PM on February 21, 2009
Something in that drivel reminded me of the first time I saw a Mac:
"You can drag icons from one folder to another!"
and I said
"Wow!. It solves problems you never HAD before!" (bedop dop)
But seriously? That video (as others have noted) is seriously lame.
posted by hexatron at 4:02 PM on February 21, 2009
"You can drag icons from one folder to another!"
and I said
"Wow!. It solves problems you never HAD before!" (bedop dop)
But seriously? That video (as others have noted) is seriously lame.
posted by hexatron at 4:02 PM on February 21, 2009
Wow, this post is a spot-on simulator of reading a chain email from my grandpa. Except that, later, the post won't buy me a delicious pasta dinner on Federal Hill.
I am a big fan of the combination of vagueness and boldness, though. "We're teaching children that haven't been born yet how to build machines that haven't been invented yet with tools that don't exist, out of forms of matter that are only a dream. *Whoosh*"
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 4:25 PM on February 21, 2009 [1 favorite]
I am a big fan of the combination of vagueness and boldness, though. "We're teaching children that haven't been born yet how to build machines that haven't been invented yet with tools that don't exist, out of forms of matter that are only a dream. *Whoosh*"
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 4:25 PM on February 21, 2009 [1 favorite]
Right Now someone is highly dubious that in 20 years, they'll be desperately nostalgic for this video.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:46 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:46 PM on February 21, 2009
Do I give a rat's ass?
Because the Average American has three times as many rat's asses than only five years ago, and that number is expected to increase ten-fold by 2020!
posted by wendell at 4:53 PM on February 21, 2009
Because the Average American has three times as many rat's asses than only five years ago, and that number is expected to increase ten-fold by 2020!
posted by wendell at 4:53 PM on February 21, 2009
Did you know... that the top ten jobs in 2008 did not exist in 2004.
Uh, did you know... that the professional Mathematician has existed (at least) since Pythagoras?
posted by kid ichorous at 5:07 PM on February 21, 2009
Uh, did you know... that the professional Mathematician has existed (at least) since Pythagoras?
posted by kid ichorous at 5:07 PM on February 21, 2009
Uh, did you know... that the professional Mathematician has existed (at least) since Pythagoras?
Yeah, certain foundation knowledge never goes out of style.
I think the facts are interesting. The time to reach an audience of 50 million struck me. The implications of Chinese and India's burgeoning populations are indeed something to think about. But at the same time, there's more than a little unfocused breathlessness and gawking to the whole thing, and some misleading ideas.
Take the fact that the amount of technical knowledge is doubling every two years. Leaving aside the question of what that even means, why would this necessarily imply that half of what a student learns their first year of college becomes outdated? At least your field is engineering or hard sciences, it's likely that the modern foundations you'll learn in the first year (possibly even two) have been in place for decades if not centuries. In the nearly two decades since I started college, the only dramatic change I can think of is the introduction of the memristor, and even while that's going to reshape electronics it hardly invalidates everything else I learned. The biggest problem with my college education isn't how much of it's wrong now, it's how much I didn't understand well in the first place or can't remember now because I don't regularly use it.
Maybe it's different in other fields. I'd be interested to hear.
posted by weston at 6:22 PM on February 21, 2009
Yeah, certain foundation knowledge never goes out of style.
I think the facts are interesting. The time to reach an audience of 50 million struck me. The implications of Chinese and India's burgeoning populations are indeed something to think about. But at the same time, there's more than a little unfocused breathlessness and gawking to the whole thing, and some misleading ideas.
Take the fact that the amount of technical knowledge is doubling every two years. Leaving aside the question of what that even means, why would this necessarily imply that half of what a student learns their first year of college becomes outdated? At least your field is engineering or hard sciences, it's likely that the modern foundations you'll learn in the first year (possibly even two) have been in place for decades if not centuries. In the nearly two decades since I started college, the only dramatic change I can think of is the introduction of the memristor, and even while that's going to reshape electronics it hardly invalidates everything else I learned. The biggest problem with my college education isn't how much of it's wrong now, it's how much I didn't understand well in the first place or can't remember now because I don't regularly use it.
Maybe it's different in other fields. I'd be interested to hear.
posted by weston at 6:22 PM on February 21, 2009
why would this necessarily imply that half of what a student learns their first year of college becomes outdated?
I guess they're thinking of IT. by the time you graduate knowing Twix on Monorails everyone's using Objectified Lumps on Acid.
posted by fleetmouse at 6:53 PM on February 21, 2009 [3 favorites]
I guess they're thinking of IT. by the time you graduate knowing Twix on Monorails everyone's using Objectified Lumps on Acid.
posted by fleetmouse at 6:53 PM on February 21, 2009 [3 favorites]
I FUCKING LOVE BIG BEAT MEDIA
posted by humannaire at 6:59 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by humannaire at 6:59 PM on February 21, 2009
So here's the first time this appeared on MeFi. It was fucking stupid then, too.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:03 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:03 PM on February 21, 2009
One of the idiots on the time.com political blog linked to this the other day, gives you an idea how dumb the average MSMer is.
posted by delmoi at 8:46 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by delmoi at 8:46 PM on February 21, 2009
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posted by UbuRoivas at 1:30 PM on February 21, 2009