Borders are about to be history. It is only a matter of time. The more connected the people of the world are the less accepted it will be to draw arbitrary lines in the sand to divide us up.

-karl

R. Buckminster Fuller wrote, "There can be no planetary equity until all the sovereign nations are abolished and we have but one accounting system [i.e. electrical energy]."

&

"The 150 nations act as 150 blood clots in blocking the flow of recirculating metals and other traffic essential to realization of the design science revolution."

Lovely, spot on as usual. Fuck you Nick Griffin and the BNP.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Friday, September 2nd, 2011 3:32pm PDT - promote requested by alien_concept.

@swedishfriend How's it going in Sweden trying to get the descendants of immigrants to perform at comparable levels to Swedes in school performance? Do you predict the achievement gap closes before the year 2100?

I have lived in the USA since 1986. I am not up on current events in Sweden. I know that policies change quickly there since they are such a small and very politically active population.

Is that a real statistic? Seems to me that maybe half the population are immigrants or descendants of immigrants if you go back a couple of generations.
>> ^chilaxe:

@swedishfriend How's it going in Sweden trying to get the descendants of immigrants to perform at comparable levels to Swedes in school performance? Do you predict the achievement gap closes before the year 2100?

@swedishfriend

1. "Compared to their native Swedish peers, immigrant students, on average, have weaker education outcomes at all levels of education. Nearing the end of compulsory education, at age 15, there are very significant performance disadvantages for immigrant students." Source.



2a. Generally, in the modern era, the achievement gap between the descendants of immigrants and the host population correlates with the achievement gap between the immigrants' nation of origin and the host nation. For example, expect US achievement gaps to be with us for the long-term:
NYT: "Triumph Fades on Racial Gap in City Schools"

2b. US school test scores are virtually the best in the world once you break down test scores by region of ancestry. Asian Americans do better than Asians in Asia; Latino Americans do better than Latinos in Latin America; African Americans do better than Africans in Africa; European Americans do better than Europeans in Europe. The illusion that US scores aren't the best in the world is caused by the demographic composition of the US, not by US school policy.

2c. Indeed, as expected from the US's dominance of international test scores (once broken down by country of origin), descendants of Swedes living in Minnesota significantly outperform Swedes living in Sweden. (Search that post for "achievement gap" to read more about the achievement gap in Sweden between natives and descendants of immigants.)



3. Exceptions: US Muslims, such as Iranian-Americans, significantly outperform other US groups, including the majority group, because they were drawn from high performers in their country of origin, such as scientists.