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What the Trump Win Means For Tech and Science (arstechnica.com)
Republican nominee Donald Trump has won the US Presidential election to become the country's 45th president. Now that he is going to run the government, it's a good time to look back on the kind of policies and changes he is likely to bring in the United States. From an article on ArsTechnica:Trump's presidency could bring big changes to regulation of Internet service providers -- but most of them are difficult to predict because Trump rarely discussed telecom policy during his campaign. The Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules could be overturned or weakened, however, if Trump still feels the same way he did in 2014. At the time, he tweeted, "Obama's attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media. [...] With Trump's win, it's still not clear what a Trump administration would do on the issues of cybersecurity and encryption. As Ars reported last month, Trump and his campaign team have been vague on many such details. During the presidential debates, he brushed off the intelligence community's consensus that the attacks against the Democratic National Committee were perpetrated or silently condoned by the Russian government. But Trump did call for a boycott of Apple -- a boycott of which he didn't even abide by -- during Cupertino's fight with federal prosecutors about whether Apple should be forced to help the authorities unlock a killer's encrypted iPhone. [...] Trump's presidency, by some accounts, is likely to be a disaster for science. Most analyses of his proposed budgets indicate they will cause deficits to explode, and a relatively compliant Congress could mean at least some of these cuts will get enacted. That will force the government to figure out how to cut, or at least limit, spending. Will science funding be preserved during that process? Trump's given no indication that it would. Instead, many of his answers about specific areas of science focus on the hard choices that need to be made in light of budget constraints. With the exception of NASA, Trump hasn't identified any areas of science that he feels are worth supporting. More generally, Trump has indicated little respect for the findings of science.The Silicon Valley top heads were largely upset with the outcome of the Presidential Election, to say the least.
his position on climate change: doesn't exist, and we need to fire up america's coal mines again, regardless of the pollution.
What does the Trump win mean for tech? Not a clue.
And I seriously doubt anyone else has a clue either. But we should have a lot of fun poking holes in the Other Guy (tm) who thinks his WAG (wild-ass guess) is better than our WAG....
To be slightly more serious, ignore the Trump win, look at the House and Senate, and you might have less WA in your WAG....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I'm afraid . . . has disappeared completely up its own asshole.
Regarding the tech industry, let's look at Apple Inc. I think that article misses a really big issue: Tech Manufacturing.
Trump stated that he wanted Apple to make it's products here in the USA. That might be possible with a system of tariffs. But the bigger issue is that type of protectionism would push companies like Apple out of world markets due to not being able to be price competitive.
Under those kinda of pressures I think tech companies might just leave the US.
Back when I worked for Apple we had manufacturing in Ireland. The decision to do so was based (apparently) on the cost and taxes associated with "doing business". The argument that this hurt American workers might be valid- though it did not hurt American business and certainly bolstered Apple's bank account.
For the tech industry it depends on where you want to place the pressure to "bring American jobs back"... If you institute tariffs, you can price the company out of the world market or drive them out of the country. If you are permissive about allowing companies to operate outside the USA for manufacturing you lose worker bee jobs.
Since the above is true, without a mitigating factor to be found, the answer is not trying to return tech jobs to the USA. Given the lower costs abroad it doesn't seem possible.
However, retooling the workforce through education, development of new technology, and American innovation would work- assuming that the situation with international intellectual property law does not worsen. It also depends on a lack of anti-intellectualism. Which is at an all time high at the moment.
So most of the issues up in the air with this new situation have to do with issues which are only mitigated by policies this president-elect does not support.
Old-school big-industry manufacturing is gone. It's not coming back. The only way to rekindle those kinds of jobs is through the development of new products.
Which means science. And we are not going to see much of that.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
... for brick layers. Allegedly based near Big Bend National Park.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
LOL. Have you been paying attention to STEM in academia recently?
For the last few years it's been under constant assault from entryist feminists - evo psych and biology were the first targets, but even physics and maths have come under assault recently. It's all been coming from the gender studies/social science departments that spew out risible agenda research that's reprinted by the media.
Academia needs to be brutally... and I do mean brutally... cut back on. Not STEM subjects... fund them more, but axe all funding for bullshit social science and most humanities.
If you want those... fund them yourself.
Should learn to be less openly disrespectful of regular Americans.
Or what? They'll elect Donald Trump?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Yeah this campaign has been more bumper stickers and slogans than specific policy proposals, so we really don't know yet.
Having studied Trump as a businessman, I strongly suspect he doesn't know which policies he'll propose - that will depend on what he hears from the experts he hires. In his long business career, he hired really smart people and trusted their judgement, rather than micro-managing, thinking he knew everything betterv than everyone else. His role was threefold a) the public face, drumming up publicity, b) negotiating major deals and c) overall leadership. He largely left the operational details to the very competent people he hired.
Let's HOPE he does the same as President, signing off on foreign policy developed by foreign policy experts, economic policy developed by experts in economics, etc.
Also one in particular - another Republican leader, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is a budget nerd, who actually wrote several federal budgets and knows the federal budget perhaps better than anyone else. There's been tension between Trump and Paul Ryan during the campaign. Hopefully that tension is healed and Trump respects Ryan's significant expertise.
Like Venezuela is now?
Absolutely fscking true.
We may have a sexist buffoon for a president now, but at least democracy has a chance for another four years.
I propose a moratorium on all "what does the Trump victory mean for..." until the guy is actually in office and starts doing stuff, because right now no one has a clue (least of all him) what he's actually going to try to do.
I don't even know at this point whether the Republicans are going to play along with him.
Heck at this point I don't event think I'd be surprised if someone offed him before January.
The only issues that Trump was really firm about were ending free trade deals, curbing illegal immigration, and appointing pro-life Supreme Court justices.
What he's going to do about anything else is truly a mystery and it's probably best not to obsess over it.
Correct. Tech and science are not the same as policy and values. For example...
The scientific fact that carbon emissions raise global temperatures does not mean that the only possible policy is for government to restrict carbon emissions.
The scientific fact that there are racial and gender disparities does not mean that the only possible policy is for government to intervene in freedom of association.
Science and tech (i.e., people in those areas) are jumping from observations and scientific results to policy based on their own preferences and interests. Usually, it goes something like "we discovered this problem, and now give us a lot of power to try and fix it". Well, as you are discovering, voters are rejecting that.
And as a followup to the previous, for all the things that counted against Hillary Clinton, being a woman wasn't one of them.
Regardless of the hallucinations and rationalizations thrown from the left, the fact that she was a woman really didn't matter. The polls back this up.
The issue almost never came up. Trump responded when Hillary brought it up by saying that being a woman isn't a qualification for the job, but when Hillary dropped the issue so did Trump.
No one cares any more, just like no one cared that Obama was black. Obama never brought it up either - he never played the race card. It didn't matter.
There is no more glass ceiling. Hillary was judged not on the basis of her gender, but on her qualifications and (largely) her ethics.
We live in a world where a woman *actually could* be the next president. She'll be judged on her talent and abilities, but not her gender.
Hillary broke the glass ceiling.
Trump's main argument on Obamacare is that what employers and buyers need is a federal market where a buyer in one state can bypass their state and go directly to a seller in another state. I would have LOVED that a year ago before I changed employers. I was stuck with a crappy Blue Cross Blue Shield plan that covered half of my doctors. CIGNA covered everyone but they don't sell directly to Virginia residents like they do in the North East and elsewhere. Why? Probably because CIGNA hasn't found enough of a market to justify jumping through another set of regulatory hoops like a trained seal to sell to 3% of Virginia.
But imagine if I could just call their office in CT and say "Virginia resident here, ship me a quote. My Virginia doctors ALL take you. Would love to buy direct." No middle man, no bureaucrat. I say "give me the same plan you helped my self-insured employer XYZ sold." They give me a quote. That's it.
You know what I expect? Trump just might be the guy who tells the FCC to damn the torpedos and go full speed ahead on plowing under local franchise rules and monopolies. I expect that that case in NC where no one wanted to sell to a community but the state wouldn't let the community solve its own problems would rub Trump precisely the same way buying healthcare for his employees rubbed him. That is, very very raw at seeing regulators say "nuh uh cuz... uh nuh uh" and seeing his people get lower quality health care at higher prices.
Four years from now, we're all going to be living in the rubble and cooking squirrels over oil barrels.
So, no different to how the average Trump voter already lives.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Trump stated that he wanted Apple to make it's products here in the USA. That might be possible with a system of tariffs.
No it will not. Tariffs will not cause that to happen. The USA almost utterly lacks the infrastructure to build products like what Apple makes domestically. The supply chains are almost all in China and various parts of eastern Asia. We lost those a long time ago and they aren't coming back soon. And I'm not even getting into the labor cost differential which absolutely matters. It would cost a fortune to manufacture an iPhone domestically at this point. Even Apple doesn't make enough profit to make that idea feasible.
Under those kinda of pressures I think tech companies might just leave the US.
There is no might. They would be forced to leave.
Old-school big-industry manufacturing is gone. It's not coming back. The only way to rekindle those kinds of jobs is through the development of new products.
Complete nonsense. The USA has a manufacturing sector worth over $3 TRILLION annually. By itself it would be one of the ten largest economies in the world. I've worked in manufacturing for several decades in the US and news of it's demise is greatly exaggerated. The sector has become a shrinking portion of the overall jobs market but there is plenty of manufacturing going on and very profitable manufacturing at that. It's just capital intensive manufacturing rather than labor intensive. If you want to bring back labor intensive manufacturing jobs you had better be prepared to pay low wages competitive with those in China and elsewhere.
Regarding the tech industry, let's look at Apple Inc. I think that article misses a really big issue: Tech Manufacturing.
Trump stated that he wanted Apple to make it's products here in the USA. That might be possible with a system of tariffs. But the bigger issue is that type of protectionism would push companies like Apple out of world markets due to not being able to be price competitive.
And here is the basic fallacy of economics.
Our national economic health is measured by the total health of our companies. The welfare of the citizens is an afterthought in these calculations, a fake "unemployment rate" tells us how people are doing.
This is what fueled the recent election.
I don't particularly care what happens to Apple. The government shouldn't either. The government should look after its people.
If the people benefit while Apple has to struggle in world markets, would that be a bad thing?
It might also be possible with less regulation, lower labor costs, and lower corporate taxes
Translation: More corporate abuse and pollution, trampling worker rights, and a bigger national debt.
The costs abroad are only lower because we have artificially inflated US costs.
Only if you don't care about things like living wages, clean air, clean water, preventing corporate malfeasance, etc.
The election isn't about "getting your way", it's about "crowdsourcing a decision". The crowd chose not to go with Clinton, and there were a lot of votes in support of that decision.
Wrong, the crowd did chose Clinton over Trump. She had more votes. Your flawed electoral system crowned Trump however.
Like Brexit, just because you didn't get your way doesn't mean you stop trying. That's not how democracy works. Now Trump is in, people who opposed his policies before have their work cut out to limit the damage. Same as now that the UK has decided to leave the EU, we have to make sure we protect our rights, our economy and the interests of the 48% who wanted to stay.
It's extremely important that people keep opposing Trump and holding him to account, because now that the Republicans control both houses and soon the Supreme Court, someone has to.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Yes. The nuclear bombs only had a physical capability to damage the Internet. Trump will have legal authority to damage the Internet.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The electoral college has yet to vote.
This is exactly the kind of thing the institution was created to protect us from -- ill-considered actions by the voters; one of the critical flaws of democratic action by the masses. The wolves deciding what's for dinner.
The system allows for the EC to act on this by not voting him into the presidency. There are numerous strong reasons to do so.
There are 29 states (plus the District of Columbia) that require lockstep following of the voting public issue; they issue a small variety of rarely enforced punishments for electors that do not do so, including fines and misdemeanors. EC members have individually done this 157 times to date, so there's plenty of precedent on a per-elector basis.
Also... if they don't do this... then I submit that the EC has proved that the institution has no actual worth.
Another thing: this circumstance was brought about by a dissatisfied public. Imagine the levels of dissatisfaction as automation adds its impetus to the job losses we've already seen due to recent labor policies. Now consider the chaos Trump could add to the mix if he actually follows through on some of the things he said on the campaign trail.
Some of those include an increased willingness to use nuclear weapons; disruption of current trade patterns; economic problems (we're already seeing some of that, check the news on world financial market reaction this morning); Walking back major aspects of social progress - Roe v. Wade, LBGT rights, etc.; government using religion to select people for abusive treatment... It's quite a list. I find it a formidable counter-indication in terms of expecting the next four years to go well, and the follow-on effects may last for considerably longer than that.
Remember how long it took under the Obama administration to recover from Bush's bumbling economic moves? Then there's the whole question of who ends up in whatever supreme court seats go vacant. That alone could change the nation's path in many negative ways, as we have previously seen several times.
Think I'll go for a walk.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Can we drop the hyperbole here? For all the bluster in the abortion debate, it really stems down to a very basic worldview difference. Do you 1) believe that a person's humanity - their thoughts, their feelings, opinions, memories, hopes, dreams, everything that makes them them - is embodied by a soul granted at the moment of conception; or do you 2) believe that all of the above stems from thoughts within one's brain (regardless of whether you also believe in a soul or not)?
If you take view #1, then of course you're going to consider abortion murder, at any stage. If you take view #2, then of course you're not going to consider early-term abortion murder, because the fertilized egg doesn't even have a single nerve cell, let alone a brain. It takes six weeks just to organize a brain enough to manage to beat a heart, let alone think. So of course they're not going to see it as murder. Because they don't share your worldview.
Do you understand that?
Now things get more complicated the further along you get into pregnancies... in some ways. But they also in other ways get simpler.
As you get into a later term pregnancy, you start getting to the point where you have a cerebrum that's managing thought to some degree - and hence there start to be more moral issues which arise in a person with the latter worldview. Now, you're probably wanting to portray it as pro-life people saying "there's no moral issue right up birth, but 100% moral issues after birth". But that's your misunderstanding of how abortion works that's the problem.
"Late term" abortions are a vague term. It can be defined as beginning as early as the start of the second trimester, or as late as beginning near the end of the second trimester. Most pro-life people focus, when describing abortion, on D&E (Dilation and Extraction). Except that this is rarely the preferably route, and more to the point can't be conducted late in a pregnancy, the maximum cutoff usually being somewhere around the end of the second trimester. The preferable route, whenever the pregnancy is advanced enough to support it, is induced labour. So there's no such thing as a "8 or 9 month abortion" - that's known as a birth. And by both law, and by medical standards that existed independently of law, if a fetus is delivered alive and viable, all reasonable attempts are to be made to keep it alive, the same as for any other person regardless of their age. You can probably point to some counterexamples, like Dr. Kermit Gosnell. But then I'd have to point out that Gosnell was sentenced to life in prison for murder for killing viable fetuses delivered during abortions. I'll reiterate, for stress: abortions conducted late enough to deliver potentially viable pregnancies are done through birth, through induced labor, and a lack of attempt to save a viable fetus is murder.
The other issue at hand is that you should have an understanding of how common late-term abortions are, and why they're conducted. Just over 1% of abortions are "late term" (note the ambiguity above on how to define it). The later you're talking about, the rarer they get, by significant margins. Contrary to the pro-life myth that they're elective, or the pro-choice myth that they're for maternal health, the vast majority are conducted due to the inviability of the fetus. Randomly jumbling together genes is an inherently fault-prone process. Nearly half of all fertilized eggs miscarry before the mother even knows she was pregnant. Many pregnancies miscarry later. But some pregnancies don't miscarry, despite the fetus not being viable. Perhaps its brain never developed, or its lungs are deformed and ineffective. So put yourself in that mother's position. You're going around every day, people are smiling, asking you when you're due, etc, and you have to explain to each of them that the child that you've been looking so forward to meeting will
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.