I’m pretty sure **John Mace **was being ironic. I believe he was saying:
“[Americans are perfectly able to] educate themselves in areas with great employment potential and high wages. And when they actually are too stupid, we have thousands of foreigners dying to immigrate here and fill those slots that Americans are too stupid to fill.”
IOW, in response to the OPs suggestion that we will run out of entry level computer geeks, Mace is saying that if there is a demand for those skills, Americans will either train to do them or we can import those skills if needed.
Touched a nerve, did I?
Not surprising given your screwed up views of where the center is.
It must be a very twitchy world you inhabit. John may not be the paradigm of what I consider an honest debater, but at least he has some idea of where he stands on the political spectrum, and is truthful about it.
But here’s the problem. I kinda figured the Straight Dope guys would see this far but apparently The Unpopular One[tm] has gotta spell this one out even more basically.
Since it is fairly clear to those with a clue that Americans are in fact STAMPEDING AWAY from IT and have been doing so for the last 7 or so years, to the point that we’ve seen a 45% drop in CS degrees (for instance) between 2003 and 2007…
essentially, according to John Mace, Americans ARE in fact stupid, because while Americans are stampeding away from this field, the Department of Labor projects that this is the 4th fastest growing job field.
And that’s why I consider you one of the few actual independents around, as opposed to the people who claim they’re independent yet cleave unwaveringly to one doctrine or another.
I’m a moderate that shades to the right. On this board, that makes me one of the more conservative posters. John is pretty clearly to left of me…but still reasonable. This board skews so overwhelmingly liberal, it confuses the normal political roadmap.
Oh let’s see now, DARPA says enrollment has been dropping all the way up to 2007 and these guys are saying it’s been up since 2005. Well, a handful of universities are saying CS enrollment is up, but these guys say it’s still down.
If it says “Roadmap of United States Politics,” you have a point. But if it says, for example, “Roadmap of Western Democratic Politics,” the politics of this board aren’t far out of line with the mainstream.
I recognize that this board is based in the United States, and that US posters constitute the majority of members, but there are plenty of people here from elsewhere as well, and i don’t recall there being a rule that every facet of this board need be evaluated by how closely it conforms to middle America.
You don’t like being wrong about John’s poltical bent, do you?
Did I mention that you were wrong when you claimed John was a lefty?
That was an error on your part.
Your attempts at obfuscation do not cover up the plain fact of your wrongness from anyone who bothers to read this thread.
That’s too bad for you, isn’t it now?
Poor, poor Oakminster, wrong, and unable to cover it up.
It’s a goin to school in your underwear kind of feeling for you, isn’t it, Oakie?
Look, people got spooked after the dot com boom, and were reticent to major in CS. Rightly so. Things changed, and now CS is booming again. Not like it was in the 90s (which is probably a good thing), but there is no doubt that people are flocking back to CS and not running away.
Your cites say that since 2007 enrollment was up a “whopping” 6-8%. That’s not coming anywhere close to making up for the previous 45% drop you fucking retard.
That’s not people flocking back to CS. Not even close. That’s not even on the level of a sucker’s rally.