The Samson Option (Book)

Now fourteen-year-old kids can juggle seven balls, no problem. Now they have these books, like Juggling for Dummies, and kits that will teach you how to juggle. So they've just upped the standard.” As goes juggling, so goes the world. These are our real choices: to try to put up walls of protection or to keep marching forward with the confidence that American society still has the right stuff, even in a flatter world. I say march forward. As long as we keep tending to the secrets of our sauce, we will do fine. There are so many things about the American system that are ideally suited for nurturing individuals who can compete and thrive in a flat world. How so? It starts with America's research universities, which spin off a steady stream of competitive experiments, innovations, and scientific breakthroughs—from mathematics to biology to physics to chemistry. It is a truism, but the more educated you are, the more options you will have in a flat world. “Our university system is the best,” said Bill Gates. “We fund our universities to do a lot of research and that is an amazing thing ...»