FIRST becoming more critical in the future?

[thegathering]

http://www.cio.com/archive/071506/china.html?CID=22985
(may be slow due to indirect ddos'ing)

This is an article about China's newest five year plan to surpass the US in internet technologies by creating a second internet dubbed CNGI (China's Next Generation Internet ).

Their plan is to make CNGI totally IPv6 (the successor of IPv4 which is used currently) and by doing so, be able to hold control over any emerging technologies. Japan and Korea have already determined to move to the IPv6 protocol, a benefit for CNGI once it becomes implemented.

CNGI is planned to be unveiled to the world in the 2008 Olympics, but is already connecting universities and institutions in China. China has before attempted to progress in technologies by encouraging math and engineering degrees.


This is exactly what Dean Kamen's senator had originally warned us about with developing nations taking over the science and engineering fields from the United States, eventually leading to a shift in dominance amoung nations.

How big of a threat do you feel this new internet could pose? Do you think China could eventually overtake the US in technology? Is the US taking the critical steps it needs to to protect it's dominance? How do you feel about FIRST's role in the change?

Discuss

Also, this will most likely turn into a debate. Please remember to be respectful of other points of views and provide logical arguments to support your own view.

[Tristan Lall]

Sounds like a simple plan to ensure more stringent governmental control of what goes on over the 'net; the existing internet is effectively a lost cause, as far as censorship is concerned. But I wonder how they'll manage to isolate it from the rest of the world—after all, what stops me from linking to it (assuming that IPv6 is supported all around)?

Originally Posted by thegathering

[This is exactly what Dean Kamen had originally warned us about with developing nations taking over the science and engineering fields from the United States, eventually leading to a shift in dominance amoung nations.

How big of a threat do you feel this new internet could pose? Do you think China could eventually overtake the US in technology? Is the US taking the critical steps it needs to to protect it's dominance? How do you feel about FIRST's role in the change?

Why are you (and by extension, why is the U.S.) so concerned with dominance? Describing these things as "critical" indicates a predisposition to forget about the rest of the world, doesn't it?

[thegathering]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Why are you (and by extension, why is the U.S.) so concerned with dominance? Describing these things as "critical" indicates a predisposition to forget about the rest of the world, doesn't it?

The US has always felt threatened by communism. There is still the Cold War era ideal of a purely democratic world. The US has always feared that if communism spread, the amount of oppressed people in the world would also rise.

The US is a large nation and all large nations tend to focus inward (China, USSR, India) and concern themselves with their own issues. I can't say if dominance predisposes Americans to forget the rest of the world, but the preservation of dominance has a large part of also being able to preserve democracy in other nations.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by thegathering

The US has always felt threatened by communism. There is still the Cold War era ideal of a purely democratic world. The US has always feared that if communism spread, the amount of oppressed people in the world would also rise.

Ironically, it's an increasingly capitalist China that seems to be worrying people.

[thegathering]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Ironically, it's an increasingly capitalist China that seems to be worrying people.

True, but China's censorship policies also seem to be increasing as the peoples' freedoms are not.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by thegathering

True, but China's censorship policies also seem to be increasing as the peoples' freedoms are not.

To the contrary, the current Internet has been instrumental in revealing the actual, uncensored world to the Chinese population. Trust me, the Chinese government doesn't want to build their own internet just to have it be better than everyone else. They are doing it to have some semblance of control.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Personally, I could care less if China surpasses the US in technology. They aren't developing new stuff, just using the stuff that's been invented already. The US is still contributing towards the good by creating new technologies. I don't think the US has been at the top of the technology peak for a long time now. Japan is definitely right there, alone at the top.

Everyone's competing, or thinking they are. I've always envied Canada because they don't meddle in anyone else's business and they are concerned about their well-being first and foremost.

[Bill Moore]

Personally, I could care less if China surpasses the US in technology. They aren't developing new stuff, just using the stuff that's been invented already.

This statement comes very close to the statements made about all the Japanese goods being sold in America during the 1960's. You cannot ignore an economic powerhouse, and that is exactly what China is becoming.

The U.S. remains a highly preferred location for a foreign student to come and get an advanced degree, but in the past, most of those students would invariably stay, become citizens and use their knowledge working for companies here. The trend these days is that a larger and larger percentage of these students are now choosing to go back to their homelands and develop their careers there. We do not have a monopoly on knowledge or innovation, and we need to be more mindful of that fact.

[dominic26]

It is obvious that the US has been falling behind in the technological race. FIRST, among other scholastic initiatives, highlights the interest that our government has in being dominant. China's adoption of a new Internet protocol fits into the picture painted by the previous posts; I doubt that it poses an immediate threat. However, I do agree that the US needs to catch up in order to maintain economic leverage, foreign interest, and ultimately quality of life.