When in the States there is so much societal pressure to be athletic/look athletic/enjoy the spectacle of sports, I think we are in trouble where Asian tigers l

When in the States there is so much societal pressure to be athletic/look athletic/enjoy the spectacle of sports, I think we are in trouble where Asian tigers like China have societal pressure and strong peer approval to study hard and aspire to become engineers. The strongest push in the US (and it's not even close) is to make money. The intense materialism here will insulate the country from most of its truly dangerous fools simply because capitalism works so well. Tocqueville, back in the early 19th century, made a note of the anti-intellectual streak in the US and said that a scholar would generally be happier in Europe unless they could occupy themselves with the challenge of earning dough. Times have not changed. Except for a burst of scientific enthusiasm at the peak of the Cold War (1946-1964), commerce has driven most innovation.