Noam Chomsky sits in paradise, spits on the floor.

[angrysoba]

So...how many third-world countries have 150-mph passenger trains? You know, besides the US?

Good point.

The US is probably more technologically advanced in terms of transportation infrastructure than all of the Third World.

 

[Number Six]

I'm reminded of the Phil Plait talk at TAM or wherever it was, titled "Don't Be A Dick." It's great advice. I didn't watch the video in the OP in this thread before but I've seen Chomsky on several occasions in the past and he is a dick, which BTW is why I didn't bother to watch him this time.

He's not alone. A lot of commentators, etc, of many different political, social, economic stripes, etc, are essentially professional dicks. It's a little distressing that more and more people are able to make a living by being a professional dick. (I realize that Chomsky's living came as a professor and that being a dick was a side activity for him BTW.)

 

[portlandatheist]

Chomsky seems to be attacking the English language itself:
America is a "third world country" and a "dictatorship"
Holocaust deniers are "apolitical"
Accusing Pol Pot of mass murder is "propaganda"
Israel is like the "Third Reich" and "apartheid"
Additionally, it seems impossible for him talk about any event, past or present, without bringing up a supposed equivalent misdeed by the US or Israel no matter how non sequitur it is to the topic at hand. It's like this one time at band camp....

On the other hand, it´s impossible to bring up any Republican´s or other right-winger´s misdeeds without the right-wingers going all "but the Democrats...".

True enough, plenty of Republican's can't help themselves to go all tu quoque but I don't see Chomsky's issue as a right/left issue or even tu quoque per se for that matter.
The man is so consumed and so obsessed with his hatred and vitriol that its difficult for him to have a normal conversation about some other place or some other event in history (or anything else for that matter) without bringing up the objects of his hatred and obsession.
The majority of both liberals and conservatives are able to hold normal conversations about other things without going completely non sequitor on unrelated countries and unrelated events. Chomsky's anti US and anti Israel venom never ends regardless of what the topic at hand actually is.

 

[egslim]

The US is probably more technologically advanced in terms of transportation infrastructure than all of the Third World.

China is strictly speaking not a third world country, but it is a developing one. Yet it has one of the first operational maglev trains. The US is way behind.

Chomsky is a jerk, and we ARE trying to turn ourselves into a miserable 3rd world country held down by the Christian Taliban.

The most annoying jerks are those that are right. Which is probably why the guy gets so much hate in this thread.

I blame the small government fetish as well. Many major developments, such as large infrastructure networks, universal healthcare and space exploration, are beyond the free market.
In the US too many people nowadays oppose the government taking on such projects, so development is either half-hearted or stagnates altogether.

Using technology invented in the US.

The technology is often the unimportant part. What matters is the willingness to take risks and make major investments.
The US built a large interstate highway system, in the 60s it developed space travel. Those were ambitious projects, and major advances. I don't see anything similar has been going on in the US for the past 20 years.

 

[Virus]

The US built a large interstate highway system, in the 60s it developed space travel. Those were ambitious projects, and major advances. I don't see anything similar has been going on in the US for the past 20 years.

Internet?

 

[Checkmite]

The technology is often the unimportant part. What matters is the willingness to take risks and make major investments.

What? No it isn't. "Willingness to take risks and make major investments" has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any commonly accepted definition of the characteristics of first-world versus second-world versus third-world countries.

Basically, "third-world country" does not mean what Noam Chomsky thinks it does. He's made up his own singular definition.

 

[MinnesotaBrant]

I think that anybody who has played Railroad Tycoon knows that Choamsky is getting at. You know that insurance companies don't fund fertility treatments because congress was afraid of insulting infertile couples by labeling them infertile.