I think that language is mostly used by people for forming bonds with other people. That's the purpose of most conversations. It is emotionally fulfilling. But autistic people typically respond emotionally more to things than to people. (This is something that many here should be able to understand to some degree.) Watch the video. She talks about a "conversation" with her surroundings. I think that's what she means by "language". She specifically says that her language doesn't have any semantic content, if that is what is bothering you.
"(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active."
In the following passage Orwell is describing a particular type of bad writing. Notice however that every single sentence is passive. Notice especially the first sentence. It contains an irony bomb.
"In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and so on and so forth."
Another parallel: Willful ignorance of evolutionary theory is to conservatives as willful ignorance of economics is to liberals. (Liberals in the American sense.)
Pushing it a bit further, Keynesian economics corresponds to Intelligent Design in the above parallel.
It's true that we were the world leader once upon a time. From the 20's to the early 40's, we had a major competitive advantage: our factories didn't explode much, whereas European and Japanese factories did. In the late 30's and early 40's, there were also trade barriers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-boat, http://www.navy.mil) preventing the US from receiving Japanese and European exports.
However, in 1945, Europe and Japan figured out how to build non-exploding factories. The trade barriers were also removed. We retained our competitive advantage for some time after that, since it took them time to build up an industrial base.
But it is silly to expect us to be world leaders to the extent we were back then. That epidemic of factory explosions was a one time occurrence.
From the executive summary at the link I provided: "And despite all the stories about the erosion of U.S. manufacturing primacy, the United States remains the world's most prolific manufacturer--producing two and a half times more output than those vaunted Chinese factories in 2006."
Hardly: the US exports more than $1 trillion USD of goods per year. The fact that it imports more than that doesn't mean that "no one wants US exports", or that the US "has essentially lost its production capability". Your argument would be more persuasive if you cut out the hyperbole.
Ok, I'm being dramatic. But that export number includes, for example, when Ford produces a car in Mexico, with Mexican labor, and sells it in Mexico.
We've been outsourcing not just blue-collar work, but more and more white-collar work as well. While this is essentially inevitable, it will, in the end, demote America to a second-world country, divided into starkly wealthy areas and dirt poor areas.
It's not that they don't want what we produce. It's that they are stupid enough to trade us stuff for our fiat pieces of paper that we send in exchange that they hold in reserve.
I think the point was that the educational system is extremely expensive and overpriced and was designed in the 19th century for primitive and scarce information flow even though we're now in the 21st century and the system is woefully inadequate to the actual needs of modern students.
That was a very slick way to communicate the idea.
I don't think there was just one single message you were supposed to get, other than the link at the end.
It's not a normal propaganda piece like you're probably used to seeing. Where a propaganda video is based on the idea that the problem is already solved if only people would pay attention. It's presenting unsolved problems and looking for ideas.
