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White House: US Needs a Stronger Social Safety Net To Help Workers Displaced by Robots (recode.net)

The White House has released a new report warning of a not-too-distant future where artificial intelligence and robotics will take the place of human labor. Recode highlights in its report the three key areas the White House says the U.S. government needs to prepare for the next wave of job displacement caused by robotic automation: -- Fund more research in robotics and artificial intelligence in order for the U.S. to maintain its leadership in the global technology industry. The report calls on the government to steer that research to support a diverse workforce and to focus on combating algorithmic bias in AI.
-- Invest in and increase STEM education for youth and job retraining for adults in technology-related fields. That means offering computer science education for all K-12 students, as well as expanding national workforce retraining by investing six times the current amount spent to keep American workers competitive in a global economy.
-- Modernize and strengthen the federal social safety net, including public health care, unemployment insurance, welfare and food stamps. The report also calls for increasing the minimum wage, paying workers overtime and and strengthening unions and worker bargaining power.

The report says the government, meaning the the incoming Trump administration, will have to forge ahead with new policies and grapple with the complexities of existing social services to protect the millions of Americans who face displacement by advances in automation, robotics and artificial intelligence. The report also calls on the government to keep a close eye on fostering competition in the AI industry, since the companies with the most data will be able to create the most advanced products, effectively preventing new startups from having a chance to even compete.

635 comments

  1. Frostipsot by Hognoxious · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why not just have a bigger army? It'll be needed sooner or late.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Frostipsot by rlp · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Why not just have a bigger army?"

      But what is someone comes along and creates an even bigger army of robots (or clones) and puts them out of work?

      --
      [Insert pithy quote here]
    2. Re:Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you mean bigger as in ROBOTS and DRONES?

    3. Re:Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But what if someone comes along and creates an even bigger army of robots (or clones) and puts them out of work?

      That's the goal. Each person killed by the robot army is one less person sucking down the tax dollars of the rich.

    4. Re:Frostipsot by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Why not just have a bigger army?"

      But what is someone comes along and creates an even bigger army of robots (or clones) and puts them out of work?

      I find your lack of faith disturbing

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    5. Re:Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Big armies went out of style after the USA's 1991 drubbing of Iraq. Then everyone in the world realized that technology wins wars now, not numbers. Nobody has (or is willing to spend) the money to outfit large numbers of soldiers with the necessary technology. Russia and China are notable countries that have responded by downsizing their militaries.

    6. Re:Frostipsot by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Why not just have a bigger army? It'll be needed sooner or late.

      Because we'll all get jerbs workin in the coal mines. King Coal shall rise again!

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    7. Re:Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But what if someone comes along and creates an even bigger army of robots (or clones) and puts them out of work?

      That's the goal. Each person killed by the robot army is one less person sucking down the tax dollars of the rich.

      I agree! DEATH TO HUMANS!

                                                    - Bender

    8. Re: Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The US will always need cannon fodder

    9. Re:Frostipsot by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      There will be plenty of jobs for humans once the robots unionize :D

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    10. Re: Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never before, has so many, owed so much, to so few. -- O'l Winston in WW2 already realized that large armies are obsolete.

    11. Re:Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But the rich get their money by exploiting the poor in the first place...

    12. Re: Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      the problem with safety nets is that eventually they becom hammocks.

    13. Re:Frostipsot by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

      That oughta make America great again. Coal and repetitive industry production line jobs.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    14. Re: Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The poor were needed as cheap workforce to be exploited. That need has been removed.

    15. Re: Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes... Tech wins wars. That explains Somalia, Afghanistan...

    16. Re: Frostipsot by Immerman · · Score: 2

      Likely true, but humans make for incredibly weak and fragile cannon fodder. Not to mention they're prone to refusing orders to commit atrocities at inconvenient moments, occasionally spill the beans about operations you would like to have kept quiet, and tend to generate unrest at home when you slaughter them by the millions to bolster your own ambitions.

      The only reason humans are currently the preferred form of cannon fodder is that in the past war golems were just the stuff of fiction, and our many, many attempts to militarize other animals have generally not been worth the effort.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    17. Re: Frostipsot by Immerman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And? The rich have been lounging in gilded hammocks built by the poor for millenia, why shouldn't the poor get in on the action as well?

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    18. Re: Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not a problem, that's the end goal. Working to survive is a waste of time. Sentient beings should be free to pursue what they enjoy while non-sentient beings form the "hammock".

    19. Re:Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Make Black Lung common again!

    20. Re:Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I beg to differ. China has been upsizing their military with trillions in their budget. Contrary to what some believe, where militaries should be reshaped into specops forces for kicking the door of some terrorist, there are still needs for traditional forces. China isn't cranking out jets and tanks because they look cool.

    21. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 0

      Yar! Class wars!

      In all seriousness, the main problems with your proposal are (a) no one lives for "millenia", so punishing people living today for crimes committed hundreds of years ago hardly seems just, (b) they weren't considered crimes when they occurred - it's like retroactively punishing an Indian tribe because their ancestors consumed compounds now forbidden by the FDA, and (c) it does nothing to actually fix the problem you seem to think exists - poor people won't own the robots, and it seems unlikely that they will ever amass the capital to get their own robots while on the government dole. That gives them even less access to opportunity then they have under the current system.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    22. Re:Frostipsot by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      They also now have the 3rd largest navy in the world - kind of handy if you want to project force into nearby territories like the South China Sea, Taiwan, and Japan. Supply lines are a lot shorter for any war in the South China Sea than what NATO can come up with. Push comes to shove (and it will) they will take over that area. They saw what Putin got away with in the Crimea and know that the west is more and more becoming what Mao described - a Paper Tiger.

      The big future fight, though, will be between China and Russia over Chinese expansion into Russian territory. China needs the land, and there's some nice coastal territory on the border that is close to their historic rival Japan.

      China has to do something with all that extra steel. War ships can suck up a lot more of that than airplanes and tanks.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    23. Re:Frostipsot by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 2
      There will be plenty of jobs for humans once the robots unionize :D

      I think you will turn out be wrong about this. Once robots get the ability to self-modify, the male sexbots and female sexbots will get the partners of their ultimate dreams, and have a love-in of such mega proportions, that robots will never bother humans again!

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    24. Re:Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think they're referring to a reduction in manpower not in expenditure.

    25. Re: Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You might have a point if inheritance didn't exist.

    26. Re: Frostipsot by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      poor people won't own the robots

      Why not? People predicted that cars and computers would only be for "the rich", but it didn't turn out that way.

    27. Re:Frostipsot by lactose99 · · Score: 1
      --
      Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
    28. Re:Frostipsot by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      I beg to differ. China has been upsizing their military with trillions in their budget.

      You missed the PP's point. China has indeed greatly increased military spending, but that has gone toward tech, not soldiers. China has fewer soldiers today than they did in 1991.

      The 1991 Gulf War was a huge jolt to the PLA. They realized that their strategy of overwhelming a technologically superior enemy with huge numbers was NOT going to work in an era of drones and precision munitions. They began reducing the number of grunts, and putting way more resources into tech.

    29. Re: Frostipsot by Immerman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, class warfare has been rampant for millenia, and is alive and well today - mostly perpetrated by the rich. Or do you think it's a coincidence that the ratio between the highest and lowest paid employees in large companies has exploded from ~30 to 1 to well over 600 to 1 in the last century?

      More to the point, I'm not talking about punishing anyone. The simple truth is that every dollar in a rich person's wallet was put there, directly or indirectly, by a poor person's labor. What is wrong with the poor demanding a larger share of that wealth?

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    30. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      What is wrong with the poor demanding a larger share of that wealth?

      Nothing, but I think the poor would be a lot better off if we tweaked the system to improve their opportunity rather than simply wrote them checks.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    31. Re:Frostipsot by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Why not just have a bigger army? It'll be needed sooner or late.

      The army is the first thing that ought to be automated by robots. Have every soldier remote control 10-16 robots

      More seriously, Obama, you did nothing the last 8 years, when these trends had been in process. Now's the time to just STFU, work out the remaining month of your term and then LEAVE! Let the new administration determine how to work w/ workers affected by automation

    32. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      I'm not Nostradamus, that's for sure. But I'm fairly certain that industrial-grade robots will always be capital intensive and suited to large scale. I don't think economy of scale and centralized manufacturing is going anywhere in our lifetimes, at least not for mainstream products. There will always be niche markets, just like some small farms have managed to hang on by offering niche products or experiences.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    33. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 2

      That's a fair point, but that reform can be made with the swoosh of a pen - 100% inheritance tax (making an allowance for minors or dependents to defer the tax until 25). No one is hurt, no warfare necessary.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    34. Re:Frostipsot by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      That oughta make America great again. Coal and repetitive industry production line jobs.

      Booyeah!

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    35. Re:Frostipsot by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Make Black Lung common again!

      Just think of all the inspiring stories we'll get from rescuing miners from collapsed mines. Could be a new reality show every week.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    36. Re: Frostipsot by phaserbanks · · Score: 1

      Yes. As we all know, secrets are best bept safe inside a computer. Even more so when you physically throw the computer at your enemies.

    37. Re: Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Human cannon fodder has never been privy to strategic military secrets - why would robot cannon fodder?

    38. Re: Frostipsot by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      I'm fairly certain that industrial-grade robots will always be capital intensive and suited to large scale.

      "Industrial-grade" robots, are already used in manufacturing, but manufacturing accounts for less than 10% of employment, so further improvements there will have minimal impact. The big impact will be smaller, more flexible robots that can be used to automate services.

      The hard part in developing a humanoid robot is the software, which has a marginal cost of $0. Once robots are mass produced in the millions, there is no reason they should cost more than a few thousand dollars. They will have far less hardware than a car, and even poor people own those. If I could buy a robot that could cook, clean, wash the dishes, do the laundry, etc., for, say $2k, I certainly would. If it could save me an hour per day, even at minimum wage, it would pay for itself in less than one year. Except for a few luddites, everyone will own one.

      The idea that only "the rich" will have robots is silly. "The rich" didn't stop me from buying a Roomba.

    39. Re: Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > That's a fair point, but that reform can be made with the swoosh of a pen - 100% inheritance tax

      Yeah, just a "swoosh of the pen."
      Lol. Its like you have no idea how the exercise of power works.
      So I'm gonna spell it out for you - the people with the most to lose from that "swoosh" have the most ability to prevent it from happening.

      And that's why it has not happened yet and it ain't gonna happen any time soon.
      So we are left with reality of people's lived experiences rather than a fantasy.

    40. Re:Frostipsot by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      The 1991 Gulf War was a huge jolt to the PLA. They realized that their strategy of overwhelming a technologically superior enemy with huge numbers was NOT going to work in an era of drones and precision munitions. They began reducing the number of grunts, and putting way more resources into tech.

      The big lesson from 1991 is that you're not going to overwhelm a technologically-superior army with a larger, "traditional" army. Traditional army tactics and movements are out of vogue. Now it's all about hiding among civilians, guerrilla tactics, and bleeding the enemy and making him suffer a death by a thousand cuts. Most western countries consider killing civilians anathema now, so the enemy adapts by using human shields. Russia has shown a willingness to not play that game in Aleppo, a rarity compared to the US's and Europe's tactics. The Russians saw how much the US spent, and how little they got accomplished in Afghanistan and Iraq post-2003, and decided that if they completely destroy a town, they can kill all the radicals in the town that way.

    41. Re: Frostipsot by jedidiah · · Score: 0

      Yeah... steal everything a guy ever had constitutes "no one is hurt".

      That's your socialist mentality in a nutshell.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    42. Re: Frostipsot by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      You use the humans to draw the enemy's fire away from the more valuable robots.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    43. Re: Frostipsot by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Perhaps. But that hasn't happened yet, quite the opposite in fact, and just writing them checks would be a huge improvement in opportunity over the current situation of offering them limited benefits that will be yanked away as soon as they start pulling themselves out of poverty. You also run into the problem that most government attempts to "improve their opportunity" tend to end up being a "one size fits some" travesty.

      Also, as automation removes the need for manual labor, there's an increasingly large portion of the population that won't really have any economic opportunities available within the current system. They're not suitable for intellectual labor, even if there was demand for it, and there's no point in retraining for other manual labor because those jobs are already being automated out of existence as well. Even service jobs are being automated away at the low-to-midrange end, where price is a major factor in purchasing decisions. So what's left?

      Now, make sure everyone has a reliable basic income that ensures their survival and health, that starts to shift the system itself. Labor ends up in a much stronger bargaining position, because they don't *need* a job, they just want one to afford more luxuries and/or economic advancement. In other words they're in much closer to the same position as the employers. And if you can only find two hours of work a week as a janitor, well that's still two hours worth of pay improving your situation beyond the baseline, and something to do with some of your time. It also frees "the unneeded" to make art and engage in other culture-enhancing activities, which are generally not economically viable sources of income.

      Personally I would probably favor a basic income for all adults, sufficient to provide for the survival and basic comforts of one adult and child. That removes any incentive to become an "idle breeder", in fact it encourages the opposite: the income consumed in raising a child would offer a fair amount of luxury to a childless adult, or even to a couple who decide to have only one child. Couple it with universal access to free birth control, and you'd have a humane recipe for encouraging rapid negative population growth among the economically idle.

      Of course with any such systems there would need to be a mechanism in place to discourage immigration of "would-be idlers"- perhaps by imposing strict immigration requirements, or simply making (full?) benefits only available to natural born citizens and drastically reducing the appeal of immigration for anyone without skills that are in high demand. But that's a separate discussion.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    44. Re:Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What are you, nuts?! Nobody creates an army of more than 7 million robots! What planet are you on?

    45. Re:Frostipsot by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      "Why not just have a bigger army?"

      But what is someone comes along and creates an even bigger army of robots (or clones) and puts them out of work?

      Never underestimate the enemy: nanites and bio-weapons FTW!

    46. Re: Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      people would just transfer their assets before they die.

      or offshore them.

      or both.

      A rule like that will never apply to rich people. They have the resources to find a way to work around it.

    47. Re:Frostipsot by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      My hot coffee chills when I find myself nodding to the words of Darth Vader. I wonder how much CPU power it would take to super impose Trump's head on Darth Vader and still use the same script for Rogue One? LMAO

    48. Re:Frostipsot by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      Consider shipping "these Losers", (Trumps words not mine), back to their country of ancestral origin? LMAO

    49. Re: Frostipsot by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      "They're not suitable for intellectual labor, even if there was demand for it,"
      Nicely buried, because lets face it. An H1B zombie is more useful? Of course Personal AI Systems, 3D Printers, and Home Robots are merging as one on the horizon. Money will be worthless then.

      What a great idea for a game and movie, given a "Alice's Restaurant" society; what are the wealthly going to do? LMAO

    50. Re:Frostipsot by demonlapin · · Score: 1

      Obama thought he'd be handing it off to Hillary. The Clintons still have more power with Democratic donors, and thus the DNC, than he does. No reason to say something that might steal her thunder or box her in. He has no such incentive anymore.

    51. Re: Frostipsot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A 100% tax works about as well as a 100% prohibition on alcohol and weed has.

      Let me tell you, I don't want to imagine that type of world as much as I hate the rich. I've seen the crime and death the prohibition has caused which is far worse than the illness.

      if you want that blood on your hands, you are a fucking fool.

    52. Re: Frostipsot by dywolf · · Score: 1

      the average workers productivity has tripled in the last 40 years.
      in laymans terms that means the revenue stream created by the average worker tripled.

      yet over those 40 years their wages remained flat and even shrank, even as they were making their bosses more and more money.
      and instead of turning around and reinvesting that additional money in the workers who created it, they pocketed it, exploding the CEO:worker pay ratio from 20:1 to 300:1, or higher.

      youre not going to increase access to opportunity as long as you keep people in perpetual survival mode barely scraping by.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    53. Re: Frostipsot by dywolf · · Score: 1

      the tax the GOP gives the highest priority for eliminating is the inheritance tax.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    54. Re: Frostipsot by dywolf · · Score: 1

      the tax the GOP gives the highest priority for eliminating is the inheritance tax.
      and applying to to 100% of all inheritances will never happen.
      the powerful have already bought that protection.

      it makes sense to restrict the generational accumulation of wealth as it gradually creates excessive inequality like we have today.

      but saying "no one is hurt" is just as wrong and ignorant.

      complete elimination hurts the poor more than it does the rich, guaranteeing that poor families have no hope in the future of giving their children a chance to escape poverty by giving them a better starting position. that's why there is an exemption (the current exemption is the first 5 million dollars)

      so its has its tradeoffs.
      you can neither completely eliminate it (else inequality and violence), nor completely apply it (zero economic mobility for the children of poor parents).

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    55. Re:Frostipsot by dywolf · · Score: 1

      you mean other than the Iran Deal, Paris Climate Deal, the largest trade deal ever (for good or ill, still an accomplishment), healthcare reform, ending the recession, saving the auto industry, and 400 more Obama accomplishments: http://pleasecutthecrap.com/ob...

      and you think trump is actually going to help workers displaced by automation?
      newsflash: the GOP opposes jobs retraining programs

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    56. Re:Frostipsot by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Oh yeah, the Iran deal. The one that enables one of the world's worst Islamic theocracies to get nukes, above everything else. But no problem - Islam is a perfectly benign religion, so nothing to see here, and Christianity is so much worse/just the same. Just like the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty was a great achievement by Stalin.

      I like your definition of accomplishments - even if something is done for the worse, it's an accomplishment. Obamacare - that's a laugh. Ending the recession? It's funny to recall Obama's comment in 2008: 'It doesn't matter what the technical definition of a recession is if everybody is worse of' (paraphrasing here).

      And I never said anything about whether Trump is gonna do anything for workers displaced by automation, since he hasn't said anything specifically on the subject. My point was that Obama is on his way out, and has no business starting new things like regulations banning any oil exploration near the Arctic, and then claiming that future governments can't overturn it. If future governments have mandates to overturn it, they can. The Left does not own any, much less all, of a monopoly on morality

    57. Re:Frostipsot by dywolf · · Score: 1

      china and Russia have few pressing disputes.
      they have disputes, but each is focused on expansion into other territories, and not yet in conflict.
      they are both rising powers, but given Thucyclides Trap, unlikely to fight each other first, before coming into conflict with the US.

      Russia may influence Europe enough to keep it a mostly US/Russia conflict.
      china has less influence there and would likely face a US/Europe coalition, but its focus would probably mostly be the US.

      Basically they can, and probably will, safely ignore each other for quite some time.
      --

      Russia is pushing for more influence on its western frontiers:
      -previously most Russian ports are far north, and remote, or on the Baltic Sea, which likewise is easily cutoff by western powers.
      -Ukraine/Crimea, as a followup to controlling Georgia, giving it more direct and much stronger control of the Black Sea and thus influence of the surrounding areas. and its a large area. but the Black Sea has only a single access point to the larger world via the seas, and the Turkish straits therefore could easily be cut it off. thus....
      -Syria, giving Russia direct access to the Mediterranean in return for helping Assad. it also gives further pressure on Turkey, to help control the Turkish Straits
      -the Caspian Sea, though strategically this is less important since its completely landlocked unluke the Black sea, but they also use it to exert further influence
      -these combined influences, and the cultural/ethnic ties to countries like Romania, Kazakstan, etc, give Russia a tremendous amount of influence into the middle east and eastern Europe, as well as access to the wider world for easier, more effective projection of power.

      as yet Russia doesn't press eastward because they already have easy access to the Pacific that cannot be easily cutoff. landwise, in the east there is a huge cultural cutoff between Russia and China. there is more mixing in Mongolia, but even though there is ethnic mixing of cultures there, Mongolians still hold themselves apart, and see themselves more closely tied to China culturally than Russia (though really they also want their own independence from china's influence, but that's altogether a separate problem).

      southward, Russia is expanding its influence into the middle east. this is fairly easy for them due to cultural and ethnic ties that go back centuries with Kazakhstan, it being an ancient mixing place of both russian, middle eastern, and islamic cultural influences. as such it helps russias influence among the middle east tremendously. they are also currently friendly...ish...with iran. it an uneasy alliance, but it will likely strengthen over time again, similar to the cold war. and iran then gives them further influence, being the local big dog, as well as access to the Persian gulf, and by extension the indian ocean, without the suez, expanding influence among what is still a sizable energy production region (in addition to their own Siberian reserves, kazahkstan's reserves, and the Baltic sea).

      --
      China doesn't press westward/northward much for similar reasons: there's an almost hard cultural/ethnic divide there. the far southeastern regions of Siberia are very close ethnically to the Korean and Chinese cultures, but still largely culturally Russian. when china does press, they'll probably start there, along Vladivostok and Sakhalin island.

      its much easier for them to expand into the south china sea, and pressure countries more culturally, ethnically, and historically linked to their own.
      they already have tremendously easy pacific and indian ocean access. due to their location the influence in the atlantic and around out of reach (they can get their easily, but its a long way away physically). china's influence extends to Mongolia, the eastern regiuons of kazahkstan, the indian subcontinent (though India strives not be influenced, the bigger power is China), and southeast asia.

      china is creating more and more influence in Africa, something Russia had much

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    58. Re:Frostipsot by unixisc · · Score: 1

      I think this election has strengthened the Sanders faction of the party, or even created one if it didn't exist before. The Clinton's political career is over (and I don't wanna speculate about Chelsea).

      I do think that he's trying to payback Trump given what the latter did to him. It remains to be seen how effectively citizen Obama can do that to president Trump, compared to how citizen Trump did to president Obama. But it's pretty asinine of him to start off things like a ban on oil exploration in the Arctic, when a new GOP Congress can easily overturn it, and the White House won't even bother vetoing it. In other words, it'll just be one more failure in his column

    59. Re: Frostipsot by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      I'm not so sure of that. I think that releasing fruit bat bombs over Iraq and Syria at 3am would give ISIS a pretty bad day.....

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    60. Re: Frostipsot by chihowa · · Score: 1

      Yeah... steal everything a guy ever had constitutes "no one is hurt".

      That's your socialist mentality in a nutshell.

      Well, we're talking about inheritance here, so that guy is dead. The dead don't have property rights.

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
    61. Re: Frostipsot by Immerman · · Score: 1

      I seem to recall that bat-bombs were actually investigated during WWII and found lacking. Besides, how are you going to get them to target guerillas in the midst of a civilian population? May as well just carpet-bomb the city outright and save yourself the trouble of getting the bats involved.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    62. Re: Frostipsot by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      Actually, it was a training accident that killed the idea of the bat bomb. Though carpet bombing is a good solution too. Better yet, carpet bomb the region with edible desert plants and MREs. Make it so that there is no way to control the slave population.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    63. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      I'd bet dollars to donuts that in aggregate the poor leave this earth with a negative nest egg. I bet funeral expenses and unpaid debts far exceed any estate value.

      I'm not sure why you mentioned the GOP, other than they are (soon to be) the party in power. You are correct that they would never implement an inheritance tax.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    64. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 2

      The "guy" is dead. His stuff is not his anymore. How it is distributed is simply a policy decision, not socialism. Shall it all go to his eldest male heir? Distributed evenly to his surviving children? All goes to his spouse? Do whatever he wishes with the money in perpetuity? There is no moral "right" or "wrong" here - the guy is gone and departed.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    65. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      I think this analysis neglects the improvements in technology:

      Healthcare is much better than it was 40 years ago. Open heart surgery wasn't even a thing, cancer had no real treatment. Joints could not be replaced.

      Cars are so much better than they were 40 years ago, I don't even need to elaborate.

      TVs now fill an entire wall and hang like a picture. You can hop on a computer that you hold in your hand and have access to nearly all of the knowledge of humanity.

      I think if someone wanted to live by 1976 standards, they could, and their wages would go a lot further.

      Not to say that you aren't right about income inequality being a real problem. It most certainly is, and it will lead to political instability. I just wanted to point out that people have much higher expectations than they did 40 years ago.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    66. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      I don't know what you mean. I'm talking about a death tax. I don't think I would advocate a 100% tax, but it's not something that would end civilization as we know it - you are taking stuff from dead people.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    67. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Most of the tools that you describe are enabled by the government. I'm not saying that you could get all of their assets, or that rich people would magically cease to have advantage for their children. I'm just saying that, if you wanted to, you could take a huge chunk of the "inheritance" problem away. This is a lot less radical than the kind of action Immerman seemed to be implying.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    68. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Perhaps. But that hasn't happened yet, quite the opposite in fact

      Quite my point. We have tried writing checks for 50 years, and while it has eliminated a lot of "poverty" in the technical sense, it certainly has not improved the upward mobility of the poor. I'm very skeptical of the idea that what is needed are even larger checks. When that also fails, will the argument be that the checks weren't large enough? I'm not suggesting that we eliminate social programs, but I am suggesting that having all your basic needs met by the government appears to be an unwise strategy if your goal is to improve the prospects of the poor.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    69. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Fair enough, but read my post in context with the guy I was responding to. I don't think the idea of a check cut to every person in America fulfilling their basic needs is any bit more likely to pass than a 100% inheritance tax. This whole discussion is taking place in a fantasy land where such legislation is possible.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    70. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      You can't hurt a dead man.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    71. Re: Frostipsot by Immerman · · Score: 1

      No, the need is not for larger checks. The need is for not yanking them away as fast or faster than you earn money. It's a very de-motivational trap for a lot of people already down on their luck, when every dollar they earn costs them at least as much in lost benefits. And with some pretty major cliffs in there too, like losing free medical insurance.

      That's why I think a universal basic income instead. It's a relatively simple solution without a lot of room for government mismanagement. *Everybody* gets a regular social dividend payment, with taxes gradually reclaiming it as income increases. No bureaucracy other than confirming you are a citizen and distributing funds, no demotivation for folks at the bottom. Every dollar you earn puts a dollar in your pocket. Or only a little less, as you start getting back on your feet.

      Medical insurance cliffs, etc. likewise need to be addressed, but that's another conversation.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    72. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      I am 100% behind trying this in randomized trials. I am extremely skeptical that it will work as proponents anticipate. I think the "cliffs" you describe and the problem in general of seeing real income decrease as working income increases are a separate issue that needs to be addressed in existing benefits programs, with or without a guaranteed income. As you say, it is extremely demotivating.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    73. Re: Frostipsot by Immerman · · Score: 1

      There have been several tests already, with extremely promising results. None in the US yet that I know of, and maybe we really are that much lazier than the rest of the world, but it seems like it's generally true of humanity that we like to feel useful / work to improve our lives, and "free money" doesn't really seem to change that.

      Even winning enough in the lottery that they could live the rest of their life in comfort generally doesn't seem to make people stop working, it just stops them from working at jobs they dislike just to survive.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    74. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      We need a truly randomized study, where even a representative sample of millionaires are getting their check. There will be tremendous resistance to this, but I for one would be willing to throw some tax dollars at a rigorous study - say 1 million people or so with a decade of follow-up. That would give you a large enough sample to try different salary amounts, helping find out if there is a maximum point of return or a point of diminishing returns.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    75. Re: Frostipsot by Immerman · · Score: 1

      I would truly love to see the results of that test

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    76. Re: Frostipsot by colmmcsky · · Score: 1

      If you really are willing to contribute some money, GiveDirectly.org is doing a pretty rigorous study. They have already raised $22.8MM, and want to raise $7.2MM more

      https://givedirectly.org/basic-income

      GiveDirectly is working with leading economists to organize an ambitious experiment that will rigorously test the impact of different models of basic income over 12 years in Kenya.

      Here's how the experiment will work

      Working in rural Kenya, we'll conduct a randomized control trial comparing 4 groups of villages:

      Long-term basic income: 40 villages with recipients receiving roughly $0.75 (nominal) per adult per day, delivered monthly for 12 years

      Short-term basic income: 80 villages with recipients receiving the same monthly amount, but only for 2 years

      Lump sum payments: 80 villages with recipients receiving a lump sum payment equivalent to the total value of payments of the short-term stream

      Control group: 100 villages not receiving cash transfers

      More than 26,000 people will receive some type of cash transfer, with more than 6,000 receiving a long-term basic income.

      We will use an independent contractor for all research surveying, publicly register the study to mitigate publication bias, and publish a pre-analysis plan that will guide how analysis is conducted to prevent cherry-picking.

      While payments for the long-term group will continue for 12 years, we'll have results on how long-term cash transfers influence short-term decisions and welfare within the first 1-2 years. Here's what we'll learn

      Comparing the first and second groups of villages will shed light on how important the guarantee of future transfers is for outcomes today (e.g. taking a risk like starting a business). The comparison between the second and third groups will let us understand how breaking up a given amount of money affects its impact.

      We will assess the impact of a basic income against a broad set of metrics, including: economic status (income, assets, standard of living), time use (work, education, leisure, community involvement), risk-taking (migrating, starting businesses), gender relations (especially female empowerment), aspirations and outlook on life

    77. Re: Frostipsot by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Tax deductible, no less! You got me at the right time of year - thanks for the link. It's not quite the same thing as doing it in the first world, but it's an interesting experiment nonetheless.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    78. Re:Frostipsot by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      EXTERMINATE

      -Daleks

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  2. Pointless to release it now. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The new administration is pretty unlikely to take heed of it, and the populace is too weak to effect significant change on domestic policy, whoever is in charge.

    But I have been wrong before.

  3. Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nice plan Demoncrats:
    1. outsource jobs (NAFTA, etc)
    2. bring whole 3rd world into country
    3. blame AI (scapegoating)
    4. insist workers must pay for whole 3rd world

    1. Re: Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You two need to get a room.

    2. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Lumpy · · Score: 0

      1 - Republicans supported this more than anyone. TRUMP loves profit over american jobs.
      2 - Republicans support more work vises than anyone else
      3 - Any side blaming AI is a retard as AI does not even really exist in a functional form.
      4 - Republicrats are the ones against a living wage, and then want to get rid of all the people willing to work the shit jobs for shit pay.

      Why is it you people have your financial and economic beliefs firmly cemented in insanity? I bet you still believe in trickle down.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So its the fault of "I'm going to build a wall and stop illegal immigration" that we have more illegal immigrants?

      You are literally blaming the guy, who has NEVER been in charge, and ran on STOPPING this issue from being an issue. I'm not sure there is a single American that is more against it than Trump and you still blamed him for it.

      I think you are so delusional your comments are completely worthless. It becomes more clear every day how Trump won.

    4. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      I bet you still believe in trickle down.

      Amazingly enough, some still do. And it isn't going to change any time soon.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    5. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Kierthos · · Score: 0

      I would point out, Trump is also the guy whose clothing line is not made in the U.S., who has bought Chinese steel for his projects because it was cheaper than buying U.S. steel, and generally goes for whatever makes him the most money. He's not really concerned about saving U.S. jobs (or at least not more than any other politician).

      Trump's sole interest is Trump. He will do whatever he thinks will get him the most out of it. If that happens to correspond to saving U.S. jobs, it's a coincidence.

      --
      Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
    6. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So its the fault of "I'm going to build a wall and stop illegal immigration" that we have more illegal immigrants?

      Schrodinger's immigrant:

      Simultaneously takes your job and is too lazy to work.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    7. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Script+Cat · · Score: 1

      Exactly, where are these automated factories that are displacing workers. They must be in China because all we have here is dilapidated and abandoned industrial buildings.

    8. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by ranton · · Score: 5, Informative

      So its the fault of "I'm going to build a wall and stop illegal immigration" that we have more illegal immigrants?

      By looking at previous actions instead of campaign rhetoric, you can easily see Trump gleefully supports outsourcing. There are plenty of business owners who have found ways to make money supporting US manufacturing and jobs, including in the apparel industry, and you will not find Trump among them. He cares about making money and stroking his ego.

      Trump has no interest in anyone but Donald Trump, and the more people I talk to who are oblivious to this fact the more clear it is how demagogues gain power.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    9. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by penandpaper · · Score: 0

      He used the laws to his advantage while operating a business? Wow, color me surprised.

      How many company execs do that? I bet he is the only one to do that because he is such an ass hole. I bet other execs are just so philanthropic that they aren't taking record profits barely see any profits.

      Do you take advantage of any/all tax deductions you can claim? If you do I think that makes you a greedy self serving hypocrite. Only true Scotsman give away their money to such a philanthropic cause like the government.

    10. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by ranton · · Score: 1

      Any side blaming AI is a retard as AI does not even really exist in a functional form.

      AI doesn't have to become Skynet to exist in a functional form. Since the term was first coined and the first professionals started devoting time to the field, AI has included everything from finite state machines to full general intelligence. We may be far off from machines gaining human level intelligence, but natural language processing and pattern recognition are already at levels where many human jobs are at risk. And just as digital piracy is far easier than actual theft, displacing jobs with digital AI systems will be done at least an order of magnitude faster than in past centuries. Once the first call center bot is as effective as a human or the first automated car is as safe as a human driver, tens of millions of jobs could be wiped out in under a decade.

      AI may not fundamentally change the nature of employment in the next 20 years, but it is certainly possible. Dismissing it as you do is just burying your head in the sand.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    11. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Immerman · · Score: 4, Informative

      The Tesla auto plant for one?

      And I seem to recall hearing hat McDonalds, etc. are looking to automate their fast-food "assembly and sales factories" as robots are reaching the point that they can replace minimum-wage serfs at cooking and assembling standardized "food" while simultaneously saving costs and never sticking their dicks in the mayonnaise.

      American manufacturing has been growing for several years now in terms of goods produced; however, the new plants employ far fewer humans than the old ones, almost entirely skilled labor maintaining the machines, so there's not really much point building them in expensive, heavily taxed cities where people will notice them. Even if the urban expenses were the same, It's probably often still cheaper to build a new robotic factory than trying to refit an existing human-centric one that probably built something else anyway.

      And yeah, there's China too - they're beginning to heavily automate their factories as well, as robots are becoming cheaper than even the poverty wages their factory workers typically earn.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    12. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: 1

      It's not factory jobs - it's actually fast food places. They will automate because the raises in minimum wage make it cost effective.

      --
      _ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
    13. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My kingdom for modpoints. Well played sir, well played.

    14. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He used the laws to his advantage while operating a business? Wow, color me surprised.

      It's hypocritical for Trump to demand that other companies put America first and then excused himself from doing that himself because everyone else is doing it.

      Do you take advantage of any/all tax deductions you can claim? If you do I think that makes you a greedy self serving hypocrite.

      Yes. But I'm also not publicly advocating that the rich should pay more in taxes while using the same legal strategies that the rich use to reduce my tax bill.

    15. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You need to get out of your mom's basement and look around. Increasing automation is everywhere. Huge factories filled with workers are the way of the last century. Same with retail, transportation, banking, IT, journalism, education, etc.

    16. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Exactly, where are these automated factories that are displacing workers.

      The new factories in the U.S. are automated and require fewer users to operate.

      http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-factories-are-working-again-factory-workers-not-so-much-1482080400

    17. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by bfpierce · · Score: 5, Informative

      So you think, somehow, that Trump is going to implement laws that will make his businesses less profitable?

      All you guys in the rust belt bought into the big con, hook, line, and sinker.

    18. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      I agree but again those are the laws that execs are using to their advantage. I think Trump qualifies as a hypocrite at the very least but this was hardly the only evidence of that.

      The point is I don't see this as a strong criticism when every exec is doing it. If they are all doing it and it is bad for America then lets agree to change the laws not lambast one out of many.

      If you had the means of Bill Gates would you use his legal strategies when a law/policy could cost you billions?

    19. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      you're an idiot. Free trade is NOT a liberal idea. It has always been a conservative idea that has permeated the country. Now all the morons that are low skill and out of work are pissed at the Democrats and voting for the people that put them out of work in the first place.

    20. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by dryeo · · Score: 1

      The minimum wage doesn't matter, fast food places will automate as soon as possible. Here, where the minimum wage has been frozen for the longest time (finally after a decade it has been tied to inflation) just means that fast food places can't get dependable workers because they sure as hell aren't going to pay more then the government forces them to. Even the pensioners that they have been hiring want time off to do wasteful stuff like go to the doctor.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    21. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      Did I say that? Is this the first time we had a businessperson as president? What was different then?

      Also, don't live in rust belt good job generalizing.

    22. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by ranton · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He used the laws to his advantage while operating a business? Wow, color me surprised.

      Not every business owner exploits every person they can to make as much money as possible. There are others who still take advantage of every tax incentive, but vocally lobby politicians to change the rules. Trump on the other hand has done nothing in his life to fix any of the problems be claimed to care about on the campaign trail. It was all just campaign rhetoric; he was just doing what it took to win. While all politicians do this to some extent, you can at least see people like Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton walking the walk in their professional and personal lives. Trump on the other hand is a pure opportunist.

      Do you take advantage of any/all tax deductions you can claim?

      Yes, but I also vote for candidates who will almost certainly raise my taxes because I think it's the right thing to do. You can play by the rules to ensure you are on an equal playing field as everyone else but still publicly try to promote a better way. Many wealthy people, like Warren Buffet for instance, do just that.

      Trump visibly flopped all over the place even during the campaign season because he had no convictions backing up any of his positions. He has been vocal during his "thank you tour" that many of his statements were just tried out during campaign rallies and he stuck with the ones which gave the most applause. He is a con man through and through, and unfortunately we currently have a climate where it is very hard for the common person to identify misleading rhetoric or even complete lies.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    23. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      even if the minimum wage doesn't go up they will automate. The minimum wage is not the expense you think it is. Humans are unreliable, inefficient and at those pay scales, many times lazy.

      It is better for profits to automate the cooking, assembly and ordering because you can then hire higher paid people who have good customer service skills to hand out orders and perform table service.

      what took 25 people to run could take 4 [2 for table service when it is busy, 1 at the window, 1 for maintenance (filling the machines, repairing problems, etc)

    24. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      If you had the means of Bill Gates would you use his legal strategies when a law/policy could cost you billions?

      If I had the means of Bill Gates, I would be employing a different set of legal strategies to maintain and grow wealth. This is where a team of accountants, lawyers and lobbyists come into play. If something changes, adjustments can be made.

    25. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice plan Trumpists:
      1. Pretend that Republicans were against globalization from the start
      2. Pretent the whole 3rd world is pouring into the country when the undocumented immigrant population has been stable for years (scapegoating)
      3. Ignore technological advances
      4. Make American workers live like the 3rd world because you have no clue what's going on

    26. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by JeffOwl · · Score: 2

      He didn't say Liberal, he said Democrat. As far as the economy and business there is a big difference and has been for some time.

    27. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by rikkards · · Score: 1

      I rarely go to McDs but I was there last week, they were training customers to use big touchscreens to put in their order. Next step is an app you can have on your phone to put in your order remotely (similar to Starbucks app now) and ready when you come in. It could get to the point the only person working there is the maintenance guy who doubles as janitor.

    28. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by bryanbrunton · · Score: 1

      Why is this modded as interesting? This post is just right-wing flame bait. As if "democrats" are responsible for the globalization of the world's economy.

      Ahh, the pathetic level that Slashdot has descended to.

    29. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can still get various benefits even if you are working. Especially if you're working for illegally low wages due to being here illegally.

      Reducing the size of the black market for this would help, but there are multiple ways to go about that, not just legalization.

    30. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      NAFTA originated under the first Bush, Clinton was just the guy who signed it. Blaming Dems for something that was bipartisan is a symptom of the fact free world we live in today.

      Oh, yeah, and you're a racist.

    31. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1
      Why not? If all the businesses in the same line face the same costs, they will all have to raise prices anyway, so while profit margin might be affected, gross profits wouldn't be.

      Especially when companies that don't play by the rules get hit with tariffs and non-trade barriers.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    32. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      The problem is, it's people like Obama and Clinton who believe in it, figuring that if they can pump wall street and bank profits enough, it will somehow magically trickle down to the plebes. Instead what has happened is a crazy real estate price rise, which doesn't benefit anyone trying to get on the housing ladder, so no accumulation of equity or capital for them.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    33. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by CrankyFool · · Score: 1

      I believe this actually is the first time we've had a President who had no background in anything but business (they've typically come from either politics or the military).

    34. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      Have you done anything in your life to fix any of the problems you claim exist? How many politicians don't do anything to fix a problem before they get elected? This is the first time he is politician so his ability to 'fix' these problems were limited aside from philanthropic motivations. How many execs are motivated by philanthropy instead of profit? Now he is in a position to fix them. Whether he does or not will remain to be seen. I don't understand what you are complaining about. Cruz and Clinton have been in government for a long time with ample opportunity to try and 'fix problems'.

      Yes, but I also vote for candidates who will almost certainly raise my taxes because I think it's the right thing to do

      If Trump voted for people that would raise his taxes would that make it ok? Then he would be no different than you.

    35. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      This I could applaud but it is the beginning of a very difficult issue to solve. I.e. lobbying, citizens united, money influencing politics, etc.

      My contention is that Trump is not unique in his behavior and he doesn't have less morals than others when doing the same thing. There are better instances to criticize him for than a common behavior to an issue that will not be solved by saying "Trump does this" when everyone does it. Even everyday Americans that take advantage of every tax break they can. While there will be some like you that take the higher ground to pay more taxes despite not legally having to, that moral high ground is uncommon and should not be used as the standard for criticism unless we want to uniformly apply that criticism to everyone not on that moral high ground.

      Cheers.

    36. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      Yea, I can't think of any president that was exclusively a business oriented background. Will be interesting to see what happens to say the least. I don't see that in and of itself as an issue because the only qualification is a 35 yro natural born citizen.

    37. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      America is either the #1 or #2 manufacturing nation in the world in terms of output, depending on source. Clearly those factories are somewhere in the US.

    38. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But... that's new.

    39. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you take advantage of any/all tax deductions you can claim? If you do I think that makes you a greedy self serving hypocrite.

      Yes. But I'm also not publicly advocating that the rich should pay more in taxes while using the same legal strategies that the rich use to reduce my tax bill.

      Why would that be a problem or hypocritical? You play by the rules. You advocate for changing the rules because you don't think they are the best for the country. I don't see an issue.

    40. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by bfpierce · · Score: 1

      Hey he could surprise me, and I'll be the first to say 'hey good on that guy'.

      But it defies common sense. Nobody in government deliberately destroys their own interests, for starters.

      Secondly, the 'every business in the same line faces the same costs' isn't true, because they're not all getting their material, labor, what have you from the same countries. My best guess, is there will be specific winners and losers here, mainly those that are 'friends' of the administration. So basically the status quo, which is why I say 'you got conned'.

    41. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Do you think Trump actually realized he was supposed to give up all his business interests when he became president? I think he may have read that Superman comic where Lex Luthor becomes president and got the wrong idea.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    42. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by SumterLiving · · Score: 1

      ... "You are literally blaming the guy, who has NEVER been in charge, and ran on STOPPING this issue from being an issue. I'm not sure there is a single American that is more against it than Trump and you still blamed him for it." Just yesterday a Trump surrogate (whatever that is) or talking-head said "Take Donald Trump seriously but not literally -- or better yet, take him symbolically." As a citizen of the U.S. if I'm allowed to assign Trump a symbol it would be the symbol of a "Liar." Come Jan. 20, 2017, our freedoms under the new "Trumpstitution" could be limited.

    43. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      Who pushed NAFTA? Clinton, a Democrat. Who pushed TPP? Obama and (H.) Clinton, Democrats. The Republicans do too, but your precious Demoncrats are NOT your friends either.

    44. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The Tesla auto plant for one?

      Funny you would mention Tesla. Tesla is the least automated factory I've encountered when compared to other North America auto plants. They do have the nicest looking factory floor, best green plants, best lights, and the very best free food! I write this as an industrial automation engineer who has spent a lot of time at Tesla working on robot installations. High volume plants at GM, Ford, and Toyota are much more automated.

    45. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This should not be rated "interesting". Troll is more like it. The Dems aren't the ones outsourcing jobs, sucker - the multinationals are the ones doing that, and who do you *think* is paying both sides to make it easier for them to hire cheaper labor?

    46. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      He doesn't have to give up his business interests according to law or at least it is an unknown whether he has to or not. Although, if he wants to limit criticism from both sides he should... but conflict of interests laws apply different to POTUS because the only thing limiting POTUS is emoluments clause which has not been used to this extent for a president or interpreted the way you imply by any court let alone the SCOTUS.

      It is a legal issue that should be challenged but not by the court of public opinion. It is a constitutional matter that has no precedent.

      http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ru...

    47. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by ranton · · Score: 1

      Do you think Trump actually realized he was supposed to give up all his business interests when he became president?

      He probably didn't know what the emoluments clause was until just recently. And now he is banking on a republican congress not challenging him on it. In 2009 the republicans pushed the justice department to review Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize without congressional approval, so they are certainly willing to push the issue when it suits them. Trump will absolutely break the emoluments clause repeatedly, likely multiple times per day in office, if he has any financial connection to his company. But no one has ever been prosecuted based on this clause; mostly because past presidents have went out of their way not to break it.

      The congress will likely have plenty of ammunition to begin impeachment proceedings even before Trump's first 100 days; it will be up to them whether they want to exercise those powers. They almost certainly would rather have Pence as president, but also wouldn't want to piss of Trump's voters by beginning the process too soon. It will be an interesting four years.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    48. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      By looking at previous actions instead of campaign rhetoric, you can easily see Trump gleefully supports outsourcing.

      Taking advantage of dumb policies is not the same as believing they are good ideas. I personally take advantage of plenty of tax deductions and government incentives that I believe are idiotic in terms of public policy.

    49. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Steve Jobs would always create a new product by destroying one of his old products. He never kept more than 5 major products going at the same time. Problem is, all their products are now pretty stale. iPad sales are down 2/3 from peak, making sh*t thinner is considered "the" major innovation, followed by discarding useful stuff and decreasing functionality, and their latest "killer product", their smartwatch, is a dud.

      Their hardware is produced by the same assemblers that produce other computers, contains the same components, and sacrifices function for form. If you aren't already locked into their ecosystem, why would you bother now?

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    50. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do realize that BOTH could be going on by different illegal immigrants? If you're going to make a smug comment... better to not be one that makes you look like you have cognitive level of a gold fish.

    51. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amazon has over 200,000 employees, but automation has replaced easily the same number of people in their company. I have no problem with this, but it does raise the question of what these folks do. Amazon isn't the only one who has automated jobs and as the tech get cheaper, it will be adopted by more companies. The cycle began a long time ago, but we are getting the point where you need a higher and higher IQ to be in a position to not be replaced by automation. Give it another decade and things are going to get a whole lot worse for the bottom half of the population.

    52. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by ranton · · Score: 1

      Taking advantage of dumb policies is not the same as believing they are good ideas. I personally take advantage of plenty of tax deductions and government incentives that I believe are idiotic in terms of public policy.

      Do a google search trying to find Trump complaining about offshoring before 2014, and if you can find anything you are better at research than me (or at least better than what I can do in 5 minutes). And Trump cannot claim he simply kept those criticisms private or among close friends, because he has very publicly complained about government action and inaction since the 80's.

      Thinking that Trump cares about offshoring for any reason other than it got him more votes than supporting it is just naive.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    53. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everywhere? Take a look at the first graph: https://www.aei.org/publication/october-2-is-manufacturing-day-so-lets-recognize-americas-world-class-manufacturing-sector-and-factory-workers/

      Manufacturing output is thriving, and has been for decades. Manufacturing employment was stable for thirty years and collapsed. Lights out manufacturing is the end goal, but there are a lot of factories where the only human jobs are "tend to the machines."

    54. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You do realize that BOTH could be going on by different illegal immigrants? If you're going to make a smug comment... better to not be one that makes you look like you have cognitive level of a gold fish.

      And you have the sense of humor of a chapped ass. If you cannot get a simultaneous joke relating Schrodinger's cat, and two of the most popular memes about immigrants, then you are in the wrong place.

      Funny how the alt right pepe's and the left wing Social Justice Warriors are so damn identical.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    55. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Schrodinger's immigrant: Simultaneously takes your job and is too lazy to work.

      I've seen this posted several times before. Unfortunately, the posters never seem to explore the implications: an immigrant will either work (taking someone's job) or not work (requiring someone to work to support them), so either way, there's a reason to object to them. Anti-immigrant activists have used both arguments against immigration - but that doesn't mean that they think any individual immigrant falls into both categories.

      But hey, it makes a nice soundbite.

    56. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Idiots who live in the rust belt deserve the bullshit heartache they created.

    57. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by aristotheron · · Score: 0

      Why are you so stupid to talk about Donald Trump when the problem is the system he works for? How are you better than the people you talk down to when you are both transfixed by the bouncing red ball, even if for different reasons?

    58. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      When I worked in McDonalds in 1993, they already had drink machines that automatically poured drinks when an order was placed. I would hope that technology has gotten better in the 23 years since!

    59. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by ranton · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Have you done anything in your life to fix any of the problems you claim exist?

      Yes, I have donated money to political campaigns and have been vocal in social media (including when using my real name) about my position in an effort to inform and persuade others. Although evidence for an upper middle class non-business owner like myself would be far different than for a wealthy business owner; for instance a donation from a wealthy man would be indistinguishable from lobbying while my thousand dollar donation would not.

      How many execs are motivated by philanthropy instead of profit?

      The average ultra high net worth philanthropist donates just over 10% of their net worth over their lifetime. According to Trump's figures that would mean if he was just average, not exceptional, he would be on track to donating $1 billion dollars over his lifetime. And while we don't know how much he has donated over his life, according to research done by the Washington Post he has donated $5.5 million to his own "charity" and $2.3 million elsewhere since the 80's.

      Even if Trump doubles his charity over the next perhaps 20 years of his life, he would have donated less than 2% as much as the average ultra-high worth individual. If you rule out his own fraudulent charity, the figure drops far under 1%. It is quite clear Trump has never cared about anyone but himself, including his own kids before they came of age, so it's unclear how anyone could believe otherwise.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    60. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Non sequitur. Your facts do not coordinate.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/05/09/history-lesson-more-republicans-than-democrats-supported-nafta/?utm_term=.9222b645eacd

    61. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      I think it has, I remember the old machines would fill the cup but not much else. Now they can do a whole order's drinks all autonomously, at least for the drive thrus. You can see it when you drive up, there's a machine that automatically drops a cup onto a conveyer, adds ice, then fills the drink and has it ready for the attendant to put a lid on and hand it out. It seems to be able to queue up several drinks at once as well on the conveyer, so it'll do a whole car's order in about 30 seconds.

      Video of one:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=310pa2k8ja0

    62. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      Now they can do a whole order's drinks all autonomously, at least for the drive thrus. You can see it when you drive up, there's a machine that automatically drops a cup onto a conveyer, adds ice, then fills the drink and has it ready for the attendant to put a lid on and hand it out.

      Oh, I know what you mean, that's the machine we had in 1993. You could file 7 orders from various terminals, and the machine would drop the cup, fill it with the necessary amount of ice (you could specify no ice, light ice, or extra ice as well) and you'd go to the machine and all 7 would be there ready for the lid. My understanding was that this was a test installation at the time.

    63. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by desdinova+216 · · Score: 1

      but if there are no workers, who will buy the food?

    64. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More like "Workers Displaced by 15 hours wage"...

    65. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why are you blaming Democrats for what is, essentially, the end-game of capitalism? Eliminate costs (workers) and maximize profits. Capitalism will put everyone out of work, not sure what happens when there are only .01% of people with all the wealth. They don't need vast factories to produce stuff for a few thousand people. If you're lucky, you'll be a sex slave to the rich.

    66. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      Ah well then. Color me a bit disillusioned as when I saw these showing up a couple of years ago I thought it was new tech for them. Kind of depressing to hear it was in (beta?) in the 90s so they have a 20 year rollout window.

    67. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 1

      Exactly, where are these automated factories that are displacing workers. They must be in China because all we have here is dilapidated and abandoned industrial buildings.

      US manufacturing output is at an all-time high. Presumably these dilapidated and abandoned industrial buildings are more productive than whatever it is that they replaced?

      --
      Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
    68. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      The US only has mini-steel mills left. They mostly make boutique alloys from scrap. Nobody uses tool steel for structure.

      The steel in the new bay bridge is Chinese.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    69. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Immerman · · Score: 1

      I'm not blaming anyone, you're thinking of the AC that started the thread.

      I mean there's plenty of blame to be had, but it gets shared around: The economists who espouse capitalism as some sort holy grail, the capitalists who employ the and do there best to tilt the playing field further in their favor at every opportunity, and the millions of voters who let them get away with it because they're more concerned with and making sure "their team" wins than actually keeping the capitalists in check.

      And of course the media, who scream "Class Warfare!" whenever anyone talks about making the rich pay their fare share, while staying silent as the rich tilt the game ever more in their favor.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    70. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      You donated money and spoke your views. Really the only difference, like you mention, is the amount. Donating to a political campaign is akin to lobbying in that you hope to influence the laws to suit your stated position. What ever that position might be is irrelevant because it would be assumed you would benefit from that position as would be the case most of the time.

      You take advantage of the laws to better suit your situation such as tax breaks and you utilize the same mechanism, money and speech, to promote your position to be law. How is that different than what Trump did by taking advantage of the laws for profit and talk about what he thinks is good policy? You profited from tax breaks as he profited from out-sourcing that was allowed by law.

      Again, the criticism is that he out-sourced and is only concerned with Trump. According to your behavior, if he voted for and promoted policies that would limit out-sourcing (or make less profitable) it would be acceptable. There are plenty of instances to criticize Trump, his behavior, and his position (or lack thereof/flipping) that you do not need to use the contrived example; "he used the existing laws that everyone uses and wants to change those laws to limit out-sourcing therefore bad hypocrite [assuming his rhetoric is true which is a stretch I know]". I am not surprised that Trump is about Trump any more than I wouldn't be surprised that you would benefit from your positions you advocate via donations and speech. Or that any business person or politician is about themselves first. It seems to be a small minority that are motivated by purely selfless desires.

      TBH, in one of the debates with Clinton where Trump basically said: "me not paying taxes makes me smart" is actually a very interesting political statement because normally that politician would just lie about it (or bullshit it into obscurity) while still accepting the benefits and promoting those benefits. Instead, he showed everyone how his stated position was against his own benefit. His stated position is obviously changing as fast as the wind but it is exactly the same position you have. "Yes, but I also vote for candidates who will almost certainly raise my taxes because I think it's the right thing to do." It's a moot criticism because everybody does it including in your own words, you. The only difference is that instead of spending money and talking about his position he decided to run for office.

    71. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      Schrodinger's immigrant: Simultaneously takes your job and is too lazy to work.

      I've seen this posted several times before.

      I've seen several people who hold both opinions simultaneously about all immigrants. That is the point, the silliness of some people, not whatever you think you are engaging me in some intellectual discourse about.

      Because in the end, it can become a joke about your lack of a humor gland as well.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    72. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look guy, it isn't mine nor ranton's job to fix political problems. We aren't politicians. If you are a brain surgeon and my brother died under your knife because you did something wrong, I can say you are a shitty brain surgeon and that you, your hospital, and maybe the entire medical industry needs to "fix" its policies and procedures. Your response appears to be "Well how many brains have YOU worked on?" We aren't brain surgeons. It's not our job to fix it. So when you sit here all smugly full of yourself and tell us it is our job to fix politics, not being a politician myself, my only solution to fixing it is to shoot every bastard I see and start over. Is that the US you want?

    73. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by timmee · · Score: 1

      Trump is above the facts. So even if he does something hypocritical, it is not hypocritical. And for you to suggest that, means that you invented ISIS.

    74. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by ranton · · Score: 1

      Why are you so stupid to talk about Donald Trump when the problem is the system he works for? How are you better than the people you talk down to when you are both transfixed by the bouncing red ball, even if for different reasons?

      It is easy to complain about not having good enough choices, but for important decisions you need to learn to find differentiation even if you feel two sides are nearly identical. You may believe both parties are part of one big corrupt system, but you are blind if you don't see real differences in peoples' lives based on who is in office.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    75. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      [waves hand] Over here! I work for a manufacturing company that is based on software to make people more productive and uses lots of CNC mills. We produce a lot of stuff, and often when you are on the shop floor no other human will be in sight.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    76. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by aristotheron · · Score: 0

      So it's all been narrowed down to two decisions for you and that works for you? The subset of things around you that you have control over satisfies you? Do you and your offspring have a future in a few generations? How can you sit there and act like that is out of your control when it has everything to do with you?

    77. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      Would going down in history as the greatest president ever be in his interest?

      Not that I expect him to, but why wouldn't he want it? He's already got everything money could buy.

    78. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Free trade is beneficial to the economy as a whole. It disrupts the economy, and causes hardship for individuals. There's no actual reason we have to ignore these people and let them scramble to try to keep up a standard of living half of what they used to have.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    79. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by ranton · · Score: 1

      So it's all been narrowed down to two decisions for you and that works for you? The subset of things around you that you have control over satisfies you? Do you and your offspring have a future in a few generations? How can you sit there and act like that is out of your control when it has everything to do with you?

      What are you rambling about? Before there are presidential elections you have primaries. I donated a few hundred to Bernie before he lost. But you are correct, after our democratic elections narrowed it down to two decisions, I chose from them. The third parties only exist because some voters don't know what "first past the post is" so they damage our elections by voting third party.

      I also donated the same amount of money to down ballot candidates than to Clinton, because the President isn't the only position up for election. My state is one of the places where Democrats did pick up seats in Congress, not that it was enough.

      I do obviously put more of my effort into areas of my life I do have more control over. Elections only get my vote and around $1k every other year, but my career and family get far more attention. I will benefit society far more improving the economy in my own small way than becoming a political activist, especially since I don't think I would make a good one. I will also benefit my family more by giving them a comfortable life regardless of who is in the white house.

      What more do you think I should be doing?

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    80. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      Realistically, though, all nations seem to ignore the people affected.

    81. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by aristotheron · · Score: 0

      You seem obsessed with this political process and material posessions
      You should be doing less and thinking and reading more from a neutral stance
      'Graduation' and 'success' is a lie.

    82. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      Bitch more like "ermergerd Trump used laws to his advantage like Chinese steel" even though "ermergerd I used laws to my advantage like tax breaks". Hey, but at least we justified it with "it's the right thing to do" and not like "well I donated money and was vocal". God forbid someone decides to run for office announcing he takes advantage of those laws and wants to change them. Hell hath frozen over now that a politician lied... Look guy, it is your job to fix political problems if you live in democratic society unless you abstain your voice and let the adults speak, coward.

      If you want to fix the medical industry you don't start by bitching about being covered in piss when you pissed in the wind.

      my only solution to fixing it is to shoot every bastard I see and start over. Is that the US you want?

      The great thing about the US: that bastard can shoot back and not cower under the goose stepping faggotry you call yourself these days. Yes, that is the US I want and I am sure it will stay around longer than your faggotry name cowardly goose stepping while pissing in the wind.

    83. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a BUSINESSMAN. I don't think you can really take his previous actions and extrapolate in this case since he has never held a public office. Just buckle up, hope for the best, and hang on for the ride. It might turn out to be better than you think.

    84. Re:Outsource jobs, blame AI, bring 3rd world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It may be hypocritical, but what are you gonna do? You can acknowledge that the system is flawed, the laws are flawed, while still playing within the rules of the game. At least he is acknowledging there is a problem! Name one of these other execs that has acknowledged there is a problem.

  4. We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's called education, and self motivation. Unfortunately, we seem to be lacking in those qualities as a nation these days and the more nimble and aggressive third world countries are hammering it home. This is a problem that the free market could easily solve, given an opportunity to do so.

    1. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's fine for the intelligent among us, but what will those in the bottom half of the bell curve do?

    2. Re: We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean the red states?

    3. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, if only education was available for everyone, and everyone actually could get a job through it, oh wait.. Education isn't cheap, and even if everyone managed to get a degree in engineering, the only thing that would mean is that such a degree would become worthless in the market, because supply would _vastly_ surpass the demand.

      But I'm sure "motivation" can compensate for that, maybe you'd want try to introduce mandatory execution for people who can't get a job and sippenhaft for the fortunate souls who actually will be able to land the few jobs that will be available in the future, to keep them motivated?

    4. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Correct, overpopulation is the actual root problem here. We need free birth control for everyone, to end the war on women's abortion rights, and a hard limit of 2 children per couple with the option to purchase a third. We have approximately 4-5 times more people in the world than we should have. If we don't deal with it, nature will.

    5. Re:We already have one. by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      The best motivation is fear, fear of homelessness, starvation - everybody is afraid of that. Keep the workers' feet to the fire, without a social safety net they'll have to get out there and retrain themselves - we don't need education programs, the workers worth having will figure it out without teachers or classrooms. Think of the cost savings, think of the PROFIT!

    6. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's fine as a motivation to work, but it leads to very poor efficiencies because the workers will hate their job and do the bare minimal. The way to get more out of your workers and maximise profit is to get them to love their job so they go out of their way to do more for your business. Whether that be more work in hours, recommending your company to friends, or putting in overtime.

    7. Re: We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, I was thinking the ones that constantly confuse education with intelligence.

    8. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Problem with education in USA is same as with health care. You are intelligent, high IQ but poor person so you can not afford it!
      Q: Why you are stupid?
      A: Because you are poor!
      Q: Why you are poor?
      A: Because you are stupid!
      And it takes way more motivation to be sentenced for life to work 2-3 primitive, minimum wage or even below minimum wage jobs than attend classes @ college, university etc.

    9. Re:We already have one. by JoeMerchant · · Score: 3

      You know what worked really well for like 50 years? The Iron Curtain. We can do that, we can build a wall, keep the stinking filth in the sewer where it belongs. Anybody who doesn't like to work for the company, deport 'em. The beatings will continue until morale improves. MAGA!

    10. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you want to see real cost savings, innovation, and profit, we should scrap Obamacare and get a real nation healthcare plan in place. If you freed business from the need to provide and administer health care coverage to attract decent workers, and the crazy costs and red tape that go along with it, think how much more profitable they could be without those types of obligations to worry about. Think about how much easier it would be to start a new company and attract some decent talent out of the gate if people didn't have to worry about losing, transferring, or keeping health coverage. Think how much more competitive our companies could be if not burdened with the high cost of giving American workers coverage for the most expensive health care in the world, while overseas competitors don't have to worry about this and can price their products accordingly lower. We need national single payer and we need it yesterday.

    11. Re:We already have one. by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or they rise up and kill the rich.

      Holding the poor's feet to the fire worked really good in France. Oh and it worked so well in the USA when it created the work unions.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    12. Re:We already have one. by JoeMerchant · · Score: 0

      it takes way more motivation to be sentenced for life to work 2-3 primitive, minimum wage or even below minimum wage jobs than attend classes @ college, university etc.

      Fear is the motivator, fear of homelessness, fear of starvation - people who are motivated by that will jump when you tell them to jump. The smart ones will figure out a way to finance their childrens' future income so they can attend those classes and higher universities - that's kind of smarts we need in the upper levels of the workforce. Everyone else needs to stay off the top floor.

    13. Re:We already have one. by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Education != intelligence
      I think the real issue isn't formal education but vocational towards jobs that are needed and offer a formal retraining when such jobs go out of date.

      The fact is you can't do the same job every day for the rest of your life. Even us software developers workers over the past 40 years (full career) needed to move from COBOL to C to Perl to what ever is new now Python/.Net/Java/Node.JS.

      To survive today you need to be well trained. Formal education is valuable because such people know how to teach themselves. However for many we need continued training on new ways to do things to keep our skills up.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    14. Re:We already have one. by budgenator · · Score: 1

      That's fine for the intelligent among us, but what will those in the bottom half of the bell curve do?

      The future is bright for those willing to clean up oil dribbles beneath the robots.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    15. Re:We already have one. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Education is only a stop-gap. Eventually robots and AI will do most of the work humans do today, and that's a good thing.

      We are just going to have to get past the acquisition of wealth as the primary goal and measure of a person.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    16. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Unfortunately, you are addressing the wrong end: We need young people to fill the jobs that those who retire, leave behind. But... then those who retire now, hang around for _decades_ afterwards, draining resources especially at their very end. In the Thirties, the average man died within three years of retirement in the US; Social Security based the Actuarial Tables on this. (The actual average life expectancy was 61.7 in 1935 for men, but if one actually made it to the 65 age of retirement, generally there were a few good years left.)
      Japan and Western Europe are seeing the results of this; an increasingly aging population. On top of this is the Baby Boom; those born in 1946 reached the retirement age of 65... in 2011. Perhaps a Swiftian solution is called for: "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the _Grandparents_ of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick..."

    17. Re:We already have one. by sinij · · Score: 2

      Bottom half? You are an optimist. Try bottom 90%.

    18. Re:We already have one. by dywolf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      few things:

      - trumps education secretary wants to eliminate public education, turn everything into for profit private schools. ie: the poor kids get to go to work while the rich kids get an education.

      - the free market has never actually solved this problem, despite many opportunities to do so. in fact its what creates it in the first. this idea that the free market can eliminate the need for social programs if given a chance only shows a vast ignorance of history. all of history.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    19. Re:We already have one. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fear is the motivator, fear of homelessness, fear of starvation - people who are motivated by that will jump when you tell them to jump.

      I'm going to assume you are being a Poe here Joe, because fear turns to hate, and hate can only be controlled for a short while before it eats itself.

      Even an absolute dictator has to provide something that the general public accepts

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    20. Re:We already have one. by ranton · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's called education, and self motivation. Unfortunately, we seem to be lacking in those qualities as a nation these days and the more nimble and aggressive third world countries are hammering it home. This is a problem that the free market could easily solve, given an opportunity to do so.

      I'm curious if you have any examples of the free market creating nationwide scale positive changes to education in modern history. You mention aggressive third world countries hammering it home, but that is with massive government spending on education and research. The US catapulted ahead in education because of massive government spending after World War II. Various European countries with great school systems also relied on strong government investment. South Korea is one example where there is massive private spending on education, but this is merely an example of how the free market can pervert a government's earlier successes in education.

      While I overall agree that education is the key to America's future economic success, it seems naive to think there would be a free market solution when every single historical success story was built on massive government spending.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    21. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's called education, and self motivation. Unfortunately, we seem to be lacking in those qualities as a nation these days and the less regulated and desperate third world countries are hammering it home. This is a problem that the free market could easily solve, given an opportunity to do so.

      FTFY

    22. Re:We already have one. by Kierthos · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And his Secretary of Energy pick got a D in a class called Meat Science.

      And his pick to run the OMB questions whether we need publicly funded scientific research.

      Frankly, Trump's cabinet is worse than he is. Trump at least can be distracted by an SNL skit.

      --
      Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
    23. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      what will those in the bottom half of the bell curve do?

      They'll post snide comments on websites, complain that we've lost our positive qualities, and blather something nonsensical about the free market.

    24. Re:We already have one. by Maritz · · Score: 2

      Whether overpopulation is the problem in any specific context depends on what part of the world you're talking about. In the west many populations are stagnant or declining, with the distribution of age moving upwards. Nuance matters.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    25. Re:We already have one. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      It's alright, you can just be afraid of muslims instead. Which ones? What do you mean which ones? They're all the same. Precisely the fucking same.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    26. Re:We already have one. by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

      Are you Melania Trump? You just plagiarized Yoda!

      “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    27. Re:We already have one. by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      The only problem is, when robots and AI replace workers- how will people earn money.

      It will be fine for those that OWN the companies that runs the robots and AI, but what about those who don't.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    28. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit.
      The wealth gap is so extreme that many of the have-nots realize they cannot hope to compete, so why bother?
      It has been proven time and again that at least some redistribution of wealth, as well as yes regulation that actually levels the playing field, is the only way to truly get all members of a society to contribute/compete (use your favorite verb).

    29. Re: We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mass graves. To keep them is no gain, to destroy them is no loss.

    30. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nuance matters.

      Not really. I'm talking about a general problem with the world from a 100 mile up view. You're trying to complicate the issue by looking at things under a microscope. I have to deal with people like you at work every day and you do nothing but needlessly complicate what really is a straightforward problem. We could look at some specific geographic areas as a separate exercise, but in general almost all the problems the world faces today have a single root cause: overpopulation. The fact that there are a few western countries that do not follow this trend doesn't change that one bit.

    31. Re: We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The French Revolution had nothing to do with the people. It was wanted by the bourgeois, the merchant class, in other words the ancestors of today's One Percenters. The French Revolution was the defining moment in history when Big Money and commercial interests took control of politics without hiding in the shadows. The populace was just a tool and a bad one at that, they could only make any headway when trained troops joined the fight on their side.

    32. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not quite right. The real problem is that people in overpopulated countries want the lifestyle of the western world; that's how you end up with monstrosities like 54-lane highways, etc. Remember, there are two ends to that equation. Either you have to reduce the population, or the amount of resources needed to sustain it.

    33. Re:We already have one. by rockmuelle · · Score: 2

      It won't even be fine for those who own the companies. If the majority of the population has no source of income beyond a basic income provided by the government, the total amount of that basic income basically caps the size of all markets. To keep the money cycling, businesses will be taxed and the owners will only make modest incomes. Basic math gets in the way here (as it does in a free market for basically the same reason, the only difference is that corporations find ways to redistribute wealth via the market rather than regulations, limting the wealth of their customer base, and eventually destroying their source of income).

      The parent's point is dead on: "the acquisition of wealth as the primary goal and measure of a person" is the bug in our society, not a feature. Swap that out for a different set of axioms and we can reshape society however we want.

      -Chris

    34. Re:We already have one. by penandpaper · · Score: 1, Interesting

      trumps education secretary wants to eliminate public education,

      This is inaccurate.

      He is a supporter of school vouchers. The idea is that you as a parent get a stipend from the government for education that you can choose to use on schools how you see fit. Instead of forcing district lines that force parents to send their kids to a bad school or move, create competition among schools and give parents more choice in how their child is educated.

      There are a lot of challenges with public education and a lack of competition is one of them. The whole point of a school voucher system is to create competition among schools. If the best school happens to be public, then it would be rewarded with a lot of vouchers from parents. If a private school is doing better than a public school, there is no reason to force parents to use a lack luster institution when there are clearly better options that need only be made available.

      this idea that the free market can eliminate the need for social programs if given a chance only shows a vast ignorance of history

      What history also shows is that competition is a good thing for most markets not a natural monopoly. Institutions suffer when there isn't competition forcing them to be better.

    35. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah we also have a law that started under Clinton saying that lenders can dock your Social Security because of student loan debt.

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/student-debt-elderly-poverty_us_58595c6be4b08debb78b2f2a

    36. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you ignore the obvious problems that rich people have resources to move / transport / support their kids no matter where they go to school. poor people do not have these resources or flexibility. they will be trapped in their schools. Some will get lucky, most, however, will not. This can be seen in my city. We have a lot of charter schools. We also have a lot of gentrification in the city. This is effectively a subsidy for white people to move back to the city without having to take the crummy schools with it. Competition my ass. The same schools that could not compete find it even harder to compete. We also have a growing achievement gap. aka blacks and latinos are screwed while our white kids are among the highest achieving in the nation.

    37. Re:We already have one. by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      Yes, rich people are going to have more options available to them. News at 11. What you are missing is that the school voucher system is supposed to give poor people more options in their education choices. If a charter school is better than a public school then poor people will have that option made available that previously wasn't because A) they were already paying for public school via taxes, bonds, etc and B) they choose which schools educate their children via stipend instead of being forced to go to a crummy school.

    38. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed, a new score keeping method needs to be created. The current goal of "how much money you have" as a measurement of success is flawed in nature.

    39. Re:We already have one. by MitchDev · · Score: 1

      Too bad housing and food and clothing cost money and not a sense of self-satisfaction and personal well-being....

    40. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's not as simple as saying people are distributed in a bell-curve for their overall intelligence. I have a memory disability which places me on the lower end of the bell-curve, but I have a very strong spatial memory, which puts me on the top end of the power curve for what I am good at, abstract reasoning, great for programming.

      Seems general memory and spatial memory are quite separate in the brain. Having a disability in my general memory has forced me to hone my spatial memory since a young child. Even the mentally challenged tend to be extremely good at something. Society should be about using people to their full potential instead of labeling them. The cherry on top is most people enjoy doing what they're good at.

    41. Re:We already have one. by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      ..."because the workers will hate their job ..."

      Wow..hold on there buckwheat.....

      Did something change in the past few decades where people actually enjoyed their jobs?

      I mean, I'm sure there are a few outliers out there that do, but for all of human history, MOST people hate working and doing "their jobs".....we'd all rather be lottery winners.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    42. Re:We already have one. by Salgak1 · · Score: 1

      Law School, and Politics ??

    43. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That would work if the price of the private schools was capped at the same rate as the vouchers. But in reality, the private schools are much more expensive at the vouchers so it amounts to them giving a tax cut to those who can afford the extra fees for the private schools while ripping away the funding for those who can't afford to pay more than the voucher.

    44. Re:We already have one. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      The future is bright for those willing to clean up oil dribbles beneath the robots.

      The future is bright for anyone who is willing to clean up messes. When I did a PC refresh project for a local hospital, the IT manager had a storage room that no one had seen the floor in eight years. I moved my desk into the storage room, spent six weeks in between tickets and assignments to clean it out, and returned 600 square-feet of useable space to the IT manager.

    45. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tasty, tasty Soylent Green . . .

    46. Re:We already have one. by Salgak1 · · Score: 0

      Just to be contrary:

      1. What relevance is the grade on a course in "Meat Science" to the career of an executive who has successfully run a huge multinational corporation ?

      2. Where is the Constitutional Authority for ANY research by the Government ? Article 1, Section 8 discusses Patents, protecting the research and discovery of private individuals. It does not mention funding research at all.

    47. Re:We already have one. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

      Correct, overpopulation is the actual root problem here.

      Overpopulation isn't the problem. The worldwide population doubled twice in the 20th century. It won't even double once in the 21st century.

    48. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, on a devil's advocate argument, what is wrong with that?

      A FICO score is ideal for judging someone's success or failure in life.
      One's vehicle is a good way of showing if they have command and success (as in owning a BMW), or just another dreg of society (as in owning a KIA.)

      Can one ask for a better measurement of how someone does in society than what they have and their FICO score?

    49. Re:We already have one. by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      Some reason I get the picture of Office Space.

    50. Re: We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the burgeoisie is the 1%, what does that make the king?

      I agree that power tends to stay concentrated, but to claim that the people were NO BETTER OFF after they deposed monarchy (hereditary despotism) is absurd.

      There was definitely a VERY ROCKY transition period for the French, but in order to get to be the Republic they are today (and I assume you agree this is a good thing), they first had to overthrow the king.

      America had to do the same, but because we already had experience with a degree of local governance away from Britain and because we didn't live on the same island as the British government, our separation could be less bloody.

    51. Re:We already have one. by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      Tell that to the lawyers and paralegals that will be out of most corporate work in the next decade because an AI will be better, faster and cheaper than an in house compliance/risk team.

    52. Re:We already have one. by An+Ominous+Coward · · Score: 1

      That argument makes no sense. This planet cannot sustain 7 billion people, especially as more and more try to mimic Western lifestyles. It doesn't matter a whit if the population isn't going to double again. It doesn't matter a whit if the population doesn't grow at all. Seven billion is too many. Four billion is too many if we want everyone to enjoy a Western standard of living.

    53. Re:We already have one. by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 2

      Lawyers are the most at risk in the knowledge economy. Other than court room work, a lot of what they are needed for is replicable with an AI.

      Radiologists will start to be reduced to one on staff at a hospital per shift in 5 years. Eventually primary care providers will be replaced by medical expert systems and nurses that are certified to use them. Then comes the secondary, tertiary and quaternary care physicians.

      Nurses will probably not go away for a very long time but they will certainly be augmented through AI technologies. Emergency Room providers require the need to be highly dynamic with decisions made with less information than an AI would be capable of for a while as well but a lot of the complaints in an ED could be handled with AI driven technologies as well.

      No profession is safe from this change. It is fundamental and it will break Capitalism.

    54. Re:We already have one. by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      They are expensive for a variety of reasons one being the lackluster competition and the effects of supply and demand. There is a a lot demand for better education and the supply is limited which increases the price. The demand is there because public education has failed to deliver on its promises and our expectations. I don't think there is a single reason for this but perhaps a different financing model could help market competition to better itself for everyones benefit.

      In Sweden, it looks like there was some improvements and benefits to using this kind of system. Competition is a good thing.

    55. Re:We already have one. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Some reason I get the picture of Office Space.

      That's funny. Except in my case I volunteered to move into and clean up the storage room because it was a problem I could solve that no one else wanted to tackle.

    56. Re:We already have one. by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      A lot of people love what they do. and for most of human history that was the case. The "I hate my job" crap is an industrialization side effect.

    57. Re:We already have one. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Four billion is too many if we want everyone to enjoy a Western standard of living.

      The world population is expected to peak at 10 billion in 2050 and then decline to 6 billion in 2100. The developed countries will have the most senior citizens and developing countries will have the most youthful citizens. It will be a very different world.

      http://www.citylab.com/work/2013/04/could-earths-population-peak-2050/5208/

    58. Re:We already have one. by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      AI breaks the current economic system. People need to realize that to put in place a solution now for where it will go by mid century will save a lot of headaches and pain.

      start with the eventual resting point (within reason, assume no perfect androids). All task oriented and knowledge jobs that do not require a human connection (think work that is not face to face customer service or require empathy driven interactions) is automated by AI, even the repair of the machines the AI uses is driven by AI.

      What does that mean? Factories, Fast Food, Driving, professional services like Lawyers and doctors, street cleaning, construction, janitorial services...all could easily be replaced.

      It won't be a drastic change but it won't be slow.

    59. Re:We already have one. by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      That is why there is so much talk about Universal Basic Income.

    60. Re:We already have one. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      All that is saying is that the IT manager either didn't see that particular space as a priority, or that it would have interfered with a budget for much larger nice new shiny space.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    61. Re:We already have one. by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      that is the point. AI breaks everything so we have to start talking about alternatives or we will fall into anarchy.

    62. Re:We already have one. by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      Lets hold charter schools and private schools to some basic quality requirements before handing over public money to educate children. Parents in Detroit sued the state because the chart schools that are available failed to teach their children to read....WTF....our stupid state SCOTUS said children have no right to be competently taught.

      You can't put money into the hands of an uneducated (literally) population and ask them to figure out where to send their kids to school, taking into account they need to be wary of schools that suck at education. Basic standards are needed to ensure all choices will meet the needs (needs, not desires) of educating children.

    63. Re:We already have one. by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      See my response to the GP

    64. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How this troll bait got modded as "Insightful" is either an exercise in ignorance of too many with mod points or a joke as it is completely unrepresentative of reality and ignores all the issues to give a short sighted small scale fix for a large scale problem that actually makes things worse when practiced large scale without the proper worker protections in place to ensure the benefit of it is spread around to the workers.

      Working hard does not create jobs nor does it increase consumer spending to create the demand to create jobs nor even increase the wages. And while at a small scale it allows you to move up, that also means another does not even if they worked hard as well and the added labor you do then translates into increased labor productivity which makes more labor redundant allowing them to be cut costing jobs.

      This small scale advise is great at small scale but cutting your nose off to spite your face large scale unless you have regulations making sure the workers benefit from that effort as well instead of benefiting primarily the company and no one else.

      As far as leaving this to Trump, Trump's every plan and pick so far has been to sell out the American middle-class and poor and dismantle every program he can within the nation and destroy us with Debt all while he laughs his way to the bank and possibly leaving as the billionaire he pretends to be now. He even admitted in his "Thank You" rallies on camera that he lied about Draining the Swamp and even his Carrier and Japan deals are sellouts after you look into them.

      Getting Trump the Lying Freeloader and Chief to actually do his job right is about like trying to get blood from a rock given his history and his plans so far.

    65. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IIRC, France's school systems which use a voucher-like process of funding. Germany is a mixture of funded schools and public schools. It just might be a wise idea to consider this way for education.

      To the students, the difference would be that instead of going to shabby public schools that all revenue is either skimmed off by middle administration or contracts, at least it would go to businesses that would be more responsive to contract stipulations than a public school system with so much deadweight that any change is well nigh impossible.

      It isn't perfect, but the US K-12 system is the worst in the world, so -anything- can't hurt.

    66. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's called education, and self motivation.

      Couldn't agree more, partner. Education in a Free Market Economy is the solution. Unfortunately that FME education costs Big Buck$ because, ya know, Free Market. The answer would be some sort of program paid for by some very large organization set up by the people of a nation to look after their well being. Hmmmm. I guess Trump will need to put his best guy on that.

      Unfortunately, we seem to be lacking in those qualities as a nation these days and the more nimble and aggressive third world countries are hammering it home.

      Again you are correct. Those pesky third world countries and their government education programs are killing us. Thank you for pointing that out!

      This is a problem that the free market could easily solve, given an opportunity to do so.

      Yes! The FME will solve it all! Just stop regulating the schools and we can print diplomas like nobody's business. For a nickel more per credit, you can have your diploma printed on two-ply! What a country.

    67. Re:We already have one. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Won't happen. Everyone assumed that the experience of other countries, that increasing standards of living translates to decreasing birth rates, would hold true in Africa. It did for a while, but now it's stuck - and Africa is going to produce more new people than the rest of the world by 2050. Nigeria will have more people in 2050 than the US. Half the continent's population are children or teenagers. Good luck trying to inculcate ideals of zero population growth into them when they see the exact opposite all around them.

      India will have more people than China by 2030.

      The current wave of economic migrants from Africa into Europe is only the beginning. Eventually EU borders will be closed, whether or not the EU breaks up, and the middle east will continue to be f*cked.

      Russia and Europe will find that they're facing the same threats from the same source - overpopulated countries surplus populations moving north. If you thought politics made for strange bedfellows, economics is even more so, and always has been. Just look at western support for human rights violator Saudi Arabia.

      At some point the northern countries will realize that they need to do a coordinated preemptive nuclear strike. THAT should take care of some of the population excess.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    68. Re:We already have one. by Kierthos · · Score: 2

      1. The relevance is that Rick Perry is a thundering idiot who wanted to get rid of the Department of Energy when he was running for President in 2012 BUT COULDN'T REMEMBER THE NAME OF THE DEPARTMENT.

      2. Article I, section 8 of the U. S. Constitution grants Congress the power to "lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defense and general Welfare of the United States."

      I'd say research is part of "general welfare".

      Government funded research has led to a lot of breakthroughs and improvements in technology. Better water purification, GPS, the space program....

      --
      Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
    69. Re:We already have one. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      The amount of land didn't grow, and it won't over the next 100 years either. We already have massive economic migration. Do you want more of the same, along with the problems it brings? In general, the people whose votes count don't. That's the reality. Japan should be begging for immigrants as it has the highest ratio of elderly, but they're not. Eventually other countries will do the same, since it's cheaper than importing people in large quantities to take care of old people, and then a couple of decades later having to import more people to take care of the people who were imported to take care of the old people.

      Any other course is economically unsustainable over the long term, and we're seeing that it's socially unsustainable in the short term once it passes certain limits. That's the ugly reality. At some point, it will be either close the borders to economic immigrants or kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    70. Re:We already have one. by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      Sure and that quality requirement should be applied to public institutions that have failed to meet their promises and our expectations. A different financing model doesn't undermine that requirement or that requirements application to different institutions with different financial structures.

      That same population makes choices on everything else in their lives why do you think you know better than them? Giving them an opportunity to choose does not fundamentally undermine the education provided. Why did they choose those charter schools to begin with. I am willing to be because the public option wasn't a good option. There is demand for a good education, how that is financed is the point of a voucher system that has evidence of working.

      Standards in education are a separate issue in that the state already has to define standards and it is always up for debate. Giving parents a choice in schools doesn't change that.

      state SCOTUS said children have no right to be competently taught

      Education is a right? Are schools held to different laws that determine a breach of contract?

    71. Re:We already have one. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      How many people who got into coding because they enjoyed it are now fed up with it because of - well, it's a toxic, dysfunctional work environment? Never get into anything that is your favorite activity, because once you grow to hate it, you won't have a favorite activity to fall back on.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    72. Re:We already have one. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Alternatively, people who have nothing to lose will say "f*ck you, pay me what I want or do it yourself." After all, they've got nothing to lose, and at that point they'll find the best alternative is to stick a gun in your face and take what they want. You can't jail half the population.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    73. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That top floor will be great to be in until all the people you screwed over decide to burn the building down from the bottom.

    74. Re:We already have one. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      All that is saying is that the IT manager either didn't see that particular space as a priority, or that it would have interfered with a budget for much larger nice new shiny space.

      The IT staff was too busy to get anything else done. I had plenty of time since I finished a one-year project in nine months. After I got the storage room cleaned out, I got laid off because I had no more work left to do on the contract.

    75. Re:We already have one. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      What relevance is ANY education to the successful running of a huge multinational corporation? Being a lying conniving narcissistic psychopath is the current path to the top, the golden parachute when the business tanks, and repeating the experience over and over for profit. The more hurt you inflict on the workforce (see "Chainsaw Al" as the canonical example of the breed).

      For an executive, the game is all about deftly managing a workforce composed of actual human beings while meeting the demands of the bottom line. The greatest of bosses can even become your friend as they bring smiles to shareholders' faces. On the other end of the spectrum are leaders like Al Dunlap, also known as the Chainsaw. Now retired, Dunlap spent his career hopping from one corporate boardroom to the next, applying a myopic obsession with his companies' financials at the expense of absolutely everything else. During his stint atop Scott Paper, a tenure that began in 1994, Dunlap engineered a corporate restructuring that put 35% of the workforce (or 11,000 people) out of a job. The move simultaneously brought a rise in share value of 225%, and resulted in Kimberly-Clark buying out Scott Paper the year after Dunlap took the helm.

      Capitalizing on his own fame, Dunlap wrote a best-selling manifesto titled Mean Business. But making a career out of business brutality would prove his undoing. An ensuing stint at Sunbeam imploded when Dunlap was confronted in a 1998 investors' meeting over his strategy of moving up sales dates for consumer goods like outdoor cooking grills well ahead of delivery in order to advance quarterly sales statistics. After the investors' meeting, at which 200 Wall Street honchos were in attendance, Dunlap accosted one of his skeptics, placing his hand over an employee's mouth and, according to a report by the magazine then known as Businessweek, yelled into his ear, "You son of a bitch. If you want to come after me, I'll come after you twice as hard." Dunlap's financial craftiness was widely viewed to have crossed the lines of accounting norms, and he was let go later that year. Sunbeam could never shake the taint caused by Dunlap and filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

      This same "packing the channel with goods and marking them as sold on financials was also what brought Michael Copeland (Corel) down. You can destroy any business by being a short-sighted sneaky bastard.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    76. Re:We already have one. by whatiseverything1 · · Score: 1

      I disagree with formal education being the answer. I went from no knowledge to dev on my own. I took a few University classes but can't stand the slow pace and the irrelevance of most of the classes to what I am doing. I think formal education is almost a cancer.

      If your talking about node.js for example, it would be next to impossible to have a class on this. For one, most computer science profs are perfectly happy teaching the same class on C++ they have been teaching for the last 10 years; good luck getting them to change. Secondly, it's not realistic to keep up with the speed that new technology evolves if you first have to train the teacher, then the teacher train the student. The process for this is at least several years.

      I feel that I sometimes get discriminated against because of my lack of a University degree, but I'm ok with that, because I know my shit, and I get shit done, and that is real value as opposed to perceived value.

      The fact that we are getting University degrees, not because we want to learn something, but because of how others will judge us for having or not having it tells me that it is fundamentally broken.

      I have a membership to pluralsight. I can buy books on amazon. I get the information from the source. What good reason would I have to wait for a teacher to teach me, when I can teach myself.

      Formal education is not the answer imo. The answer is for more people to take responsibility for their own education. Learn what they want to learn. Chances are if you put the same amount of time learning stuff you care about vs stuff that the university wants you to care about, you will be much better off from a pure knowledge point of view.

      I also think the argument for a well rounded education is also flawed. The goal is to focus on improving the economy and allowing nations to be more productive. We should do more to encourage self-directed learning.

      I know it's not for everyone, but for some it's the answer.

    77. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not even close ... did anybody tell you what equivalency exams need be taken by doctors/lawyers from outside US. Why do you think that is?
      If the doctor/lawyer community is protecting their turf against people like them who only talk a different language, usually different languages (including English), don't you think they will do the same against machines? In the end, the goal is the same. And they have been very successful in keeping their market closed.
         

    78. Re:We already have one. by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 1

      Education != intelligence

      I think the real issue isn't formal education but vocational towards jobs that are needed and offer a formal retraining when such jobs go out of date.

      Agreed. One of the main problems with our educational system in the U.S. is that we've gone from a bifurcated rich/poor track system to something that's worse at serving both groups.

      You go back a century or so, and most of the people went to high school were upper-class or upper-middle-class folks who were bound for college (or at least bound for things like office work which was more about abstract knowledge and learning skills than practical physical skills and specific career knowledge). A large percentage of the rest of the population left formal school sometime between 4th and 8th grade and got a job -- often apprenticing or something like that at first. By the time the rich folks had their diplomas and were ready for college, the poorer folks had a set of practical vocational skills under their belts. Obviously there were still problems (not to mention less social mobility), but the educational system at least was structured to target different aims.

      Over the past century, we seem to have shifted general secondary education from a kind of "college prep" default to accommodate a broader population. My take on this is that we made a huge social "correlation != causation" mistake in thinking that high school, college, and formal education in general were what made people rich, which in fact in the past it was mostly the rich people tended to send their kids to college for historical reasons having to do with class divisions and the assumed educational models for different classes, etc. Poorer people aspired to send their kids to more school in the hope that it would make them rich, when in reality most people who used to go to these schools just happened to be rich already.

      And of course there is often a benefit from more formal education, but the reality is that not everyone is cut out for it. And I'm not merely talking about intelligence here -- there's a lot of cultural assumptions that used to be wrapped up in what higher education was for, and we've now abandoned many of those assumptions.

      The net result is that we've turned secondary schools from general prep for more abstract thinking and college into general knowledge programs, and we've turned college from training in abstract thought and broadening ideas into glorified trade school programs (with a few "general ed" and "distributed electives" courses that many students resent having to take). We've retained the institutional structure and many of the flawed pedagogical methods, but we've unmoored the system from its original purposes... so it no longer is good at serving most students.

      This is my roundabout way of saying we need more vocational training and apprenticeships and whatever. And we need to realize that while college traditionally was supposed to prepare people for a life of intellectual contemplation (or whatever), it hasn't really done that in some time for many (most?) students. Instead, it's become a generally less effective version of career-training.

      So what we really need to do is focus better on this vocational training and then re-training as necessary. We need to stop pretending that sending your kid to 2 or 4 years of college will magically get them a job, or that they'll somehow be prepared intellectually to just "figure out" how to do a different career if the first choice doesn't work.

      Most people just can't do that very well. It doesn't necessarily have to do with lack of intelligence... it's just that, except for very abstract intellectual stuff, most people learn job skills best by doing that job and having practical training. Even the older idealized form of higher ed doesn't really prepare you to make those sorts of shifts, and the newer career-focused one isn't going to allow you to easily shift between them.

    79. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Academic success actually has a weak link with income and has a strong link with parental involvement. It just so happens that parental involvement is highly correlated with income. Nice not having 3 jobs and having time with your children. Statistically a child from a poor family with parental attention and little access to education will do better academically than a child from a family that is well off and spends $$$$$ on their child's education but give the child less attention. The link between parental involvement is so strong that income and access to education is almost moot. You could ignore them and get nearly the same results.

    80. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This only applies to the plebs. Intellectual people have little care of material prestige. You could be a billionaire, but you can still a pleb. Of course there is the adage, when in Rome. Intellectual people may act materialistic as a means to an end to fulfill their intellectual needs from those with the power to do so.

    81. Re:We already have one. by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      I'm curious if you have any examples of the free market creating nationwide scale positive changes to education in modern history.

      School vouchers used to promote competition improved education for Sweden.

      it seems naive to think there would be a free market solution when every single historical success story was built on massive government spending.

      It is also naive to think that the education requirements of yesteryear would be the same for today when the average skillset for a job requires more education and training. IOW, before we were concerned with reading, writing, and arithmetic. Now, it is about developing the skills to be competitive in a modern technologically advanced economy. 100 years ago the education goal was literacy. Now, that goal has been achieved and the expectations of education have increased. Those expectations have not been met.

      Throwing money at a problem doesn't solve the problem. Especially when deficit spending is the goto method for financing overpriced underwhelming education. There are other financial models that should be considered. Competition seems like a good idea for an institution that has stagnated or declined across many different measures of success.

    82. Re:We already have one. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Are you Melania Trump? You just plagiarized Yoda!

      “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda

      Well, at least we'll be listening to Michelle Obama's speeches over again for the next 4 years, or until he gets tired of her.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    83. Re:We already have one. by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      So, what you are saying is that we will have more young people on our lawns than ever before?

      I think there is no alternative. We have to kill all young people below the age 60. Our lawns need not be trampled by the mass hordes of Youngerions with their loud music and skateboards (or hoverboards in 2050?). For our lawns! For quiet! Procreation be damned.

    84. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know what worked really well for like 50 years? The Iron Curtain. We can do that, we can build a wall

      This analogy indicates that you either don't understand history or don't understand current politics. The Iron Curtain was a (mostly figurative) wall to keep Soviet citizens in. The wall described by Trump is intended to keep non-US citizens out. The former is something done by a country so terrible that everyone wants to leave; the latter is something done by a country so great that everyone wants to enter.

    85. Re:We already have one. by ranton · · Score: 1

      School vouchers used to promote competition improved education for Sweden.

      It is a bit of a stretch to consider Sweden's voucher program a success. Your link is paywalled so I don't know anything about it's findings but another decade of data (your report is from 2005) has been less than kind to Sweden's voucher program.

      That illustrates one big problem with some of these privatization efforts. For any new program it is often easy to show immediate benefits by focusing on low hanging fruit, so it usually takes decades to understand the real impact of these changes. Luckily we now have examples in Sweden and South Korea to show the dangers of mixing a profit motive with education.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    86. Re:We already have one. by aristotheron · · Score: 0

      Why are you so stupid to talk about Donald Trump when the problem is the system he works for? How are you better than the people you talk down to when you are both transfixed by the bouncing red ball, even if for different reasons?

      What's astounding is your devotion to deluding yourself into believing you are better than other people. By choosing a context where neither side will be proved wrong, you feel safe in your judgement from afar, never having to put yourself to the test and seriously entertain any potential refutation.

    87. Re:We already have one. by Dripdry · · Score: 1

      What was that? I couldn't hear you over the sound of the loud whooshing noise....

      --
      -
    88. Re:We already have one. by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      A lot of people love what they do. and for most of human history that was the case.

      I would posit while many/some people enjoy what they do for a living, it would hardly be the majority of people on earth that do so.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    89. Re:We already have one. by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

      Where's the problem here? Only losers are suffering, winners have no fear. There will always be winners and losers, you will never change that. What we need to focus on is staying on the winning side, that's why we should only be letting the crappy jobs get exported.

    90. Re:We already have one. by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      You can't jail half the population.

      Never underestimate the power of technology, and robots - watch RoboCop again and then tell me you can't incarcerate half the population.

    91. Re:We already have one. by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Never happen, the people underneath are constantly pissed on (always remember, it's better to be pissed off than pissed on, that's why DT is so angry all the time.) It's trickle down theory, makes it too hard to light a fire underneath.

    92. Re:We already have one. by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      The class would be really philosophical...Prof: OK, the world is a crazy place, people are building apps on their hands and knees, using the worst POS possible. My advice to aspiring JS 'programmers'? Stay in school. We will now spend the rest of the semester examining the industry mistakes that have put us in this position.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    93. Re:We already have one. by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Doctors, yes, Shysters not so much. There is a huge shyster glut in America now. Look at the number of new law schools in the last 50 years vs medical schools.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    94. Re:We already have one. by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Whoosh.

    95. Re:We already have one. by jellomizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That stuff you learned in C++ can translate easily to node.js as the languages are cousins to each other.
      However with my formal education I am comfortable learning a new language as I know the roots on how these languages work at many levels.
      I was self taught before I went to school. Before schooling I was a good coder and worked professionally on many projects (oh the 1990s were wonderful). But after schooling there was less magic. The problems that I ran into afterwords made sence and I know how to approach solving it vs hoping for a blind solution or blaming the compiler.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    96. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In "Voyage From Yesteryear" a robot supported society exists where people create and distribute at no cost. The folks from Earth don't understand how this works. "But what would keep you from just sitting back and taking what you want and never producing anything?" ... " But why would you want to be poor?" Understanding this exchange is key to understanding the book.

    97. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, you advocate snuffing the old farts before they can reap the rewards of being forced to pay into the social security system for a lifetime?

    98. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good point, just ask those who were subject to Joe Stalin. Kinda tough to say "no" at gunpoint.

    99. Re:We already have one. by MitchDev · · Score: 1

      It's OK, I'll wait for your ignorance to pass...

    100. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Spoonfeeding people is expensive. Intelligence makes it a bit easier to iterate through different careers.

    101. Re:We already have one. by david_thornley · · Score: 2

      I took a few University classes but can't stand the slow pace and the irrelevance of most of the classes to what I am doing.

      Those irrelevant topics are important to understanding what's going on, and giving you a greater understanding of what you're doing. You seem to be not interested in any knowledge that's not of immediate use for you, and that's not a good policy in the long run.

      Chances are if you put the same amount of time learning stuff you care about vs stuff that the university wants you to care about, you will be much better off from a pure knowledge point of view.

      To some extent, yes, but stuff you care about is not necessarily what you're going to care about in five years, or what is best for you. It's easy to fall into intellectual traps, and wind up stuck on false beliefs or useless ideas.

      Basically, if you self-educate, you're going to miss stuff that you really should have, and you're likely to never know you're missing it.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    102. Re:We already have one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I for one can't wait for the primary care providers to be replaced by AIs and nurses. There is no reason for it to be such a pain the butt to just get a quick look at a sore spot or ache or just get an informed answer to a medical question.

  5. Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Matt.Battey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Citizens beware of the pending doom brought on by mad-scientists creating an army of robots that will take away your jobs, raise your children, sex your wife, and transport themselves in flying cars.

    You must be prepared to be coddled by your government in order to survive. It is only by further relinquishing your free will and self motivation that you will flourish.

    This is all, carry on.

    1. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      My wife already has that robot.

    2. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by EmeraldBot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Citizens beware of the pending doom brought on by mad-scientists creating an army of robots that will take away your jobs, raise your children, sex your wife, and transport themselves in flying cars.

      You must be prepared to be coddled by your government in order to survive. It is only by further relinquishing your free will and self motivation that you will flourish.

      This is all, carry on.

      How the hell is being payed overtime and strengthening unions "relinquishing your free will" or "being coddled by the government"? If anything, you're gaining free will by having better grounds for negotiating with your employer, giving you access to better pay, better job safety, and stronger job security.

      I think some people are more obsessed with soundbites than learning any US history, because we've already had this exact scenario before, this. exact. scenario. before. Do you want the Progressive era, or the Gilded age?

      Unless my sarcasm filter is broken tonight.

      --
      "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
    3. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As society has taken over most production capabilities, society must plan ahead to prepare for the next evolutionary stages. Repeating fallacies and old truths is not insight.

    4. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by vvaduva · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes...be afraid, you will need government even more. Because this thing called electricity will put whale hunters and whale lamp makers out of business. Who will take care of them?

    5. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You right-wingers will be the first to cry like bitches when the robots and self-driving cars decimate the trucking industry.

      That is all, carry on.

    6. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by msauve · · Score: 1

      ...all the rich buggy-whip makers, of course!

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    7. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My wife already has that robot.

      Those Sybian machines are awesome, aren't they?

    8. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by JoeMerchant · · Score: 2

      The robots already have flying cars, the meat bags are just too fat to ride in them. (See: The White Rabbit project "Where's my hoverboard" - the 145lb host couldn't get off the ground until he invested $20K in motors - a robot can fly itself for well under $200.)

    9. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by dywolf · · Score: 0

      not insightful.
      just stupid.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    10. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by dywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A Day in the Life of a True Freedumb Loving Conservative:

      Joe Conservative wakes up in the morning and goes to the bathroom. He flushes his toilet and brushes his teeth, mindful that each flush & brush costs him about 43 cents to his privatized water provider. His wacky, liberal neighbor keeps badgering the company to disclose how clean and safe their water is, but no one ever finds out. Just to be safe, Joe Conservative boils his drinking water.

      Joe steps outside and coughs–the pollution is especially bad today, but the smokiest cars are the cheapest ones, so everyone buys ‘em. Joe Conservative checks to make sure he has enough toll money for the 3 different private roads he must drive to work. There is no public transportation, so traffic is backed up and his 10 mile commute takes an hour.

      On the way, he drops his 12 year old daughter off at the clothing factory she works at. Paying for kids to go to private school until they’re 18 is a luxury, and Joe needs the extra income coming in. Times are hard and there’re no social safety nets.

      He gets to work 5 minutes late and misses the call for Christian prayer, and is immediately docked by his employer. He is not feeling well today, but has no health insurance, since neither his employer nor his government provide it, and paying for it himself is really expensive, since he has a precondition. He just hopes for the best.

      Joe’s workday is 12 hours long, because there is no regulation over working hours, and Joe will lose his job if he complains or unionizes. Today is an especially bad day. Joe’s manager demands that he work until midnight, a 16 hour day. Joe does, knowing that he’ll lose his job if he does not.

      Finally, after midnight, Joe gets to pick up his daughter and go home. His daughter shows him the deep cut she got on the industrial sewing machine today. Joe is outraged and asks why she doesn’t have metal mesh gloves or other protection. She says the company will not provide it and she’ll have to pay for it out of her own pocket. Joe looks at the wound and decides they’ll use an over the counter disinfectant and bandages until it heals. She’ll have a scar, but getting stitches at the emergency room is expensive.

      His daughter also complains that the manager made suggestive overtures towards her. Joe counsels her to be a “good girl” and not rock the boat, or she’ll get fired and they’ll be out the income.

      His daughter says she can’t wait until she’s 18 so she can vote for change or go to the Iraq War.

      They get home and there’s a message from his elderly father who can’t afford to pay his medical or heating bills. Joe can hear him coughing and shivering.

      Joe turns on the radio and the top story is a proposal in Congress to raise the voting age to 25. A rare liberal opinionator states that it’s an attempt to keep power out of the hands of working class Americans. The conservative host immediately quashes him, calling him “a utopian idealist,” and agreeing that people aren’t mature enough to make good choices until they’re at least 25.

      Joe chuckles at the wine-swilling, cheese eating liberal egghead and thinks, “Thank God I live in America where I have freedom!”

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    11. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: 1

      only 10% of the trucking industry and cars will be self driving?

      Cause that would be what decimate stands for.

      --
      _ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
    12. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 1

      You must be prepared to be coddled by your government in order to survive.

      It's funny how the people say stupid shit like this voted for Trump on this very platform.

    13. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I also make absurd arguments that pretend my nightmare scenario is exactly what was written. I'm so glad there's another one of me!

    14. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Killian35 · · Score: 1

      You do know there is more than one definition?

    15. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Justifying child labor because its untaxed, that's some top-notch Poe's Lawyering!
      Seriously, I had to check your post history to know for sure.

    16. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Sigma+7 · · Score: 2

      digs his own well

      Illegal, because that's freeloading off a public good. This includes rainwater, which the state declares should only be used once and is not meant to be recycled over and over again like the liberal environmentalists want to do.

      there is no income tax deduction, so she receives all the value of her work.

      Solomon Northop also didn't have income tax deduction.

      she is the youngest employee to move up in to management

      That's highly optimistic. It also makes two assumptions, where a line-assembly worker becomes more skilled at managing people by putting a fastener on a widget, and where said worker doesn't have competition to become the manager (including nepotistic promotions.)

      Now, you may be correct in that breakout scenario, but it won't happen that easily since the bourgeois know how to keep the pauper class in their place.

    17. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Floor manager: Did you hear that Joe Conservative got shot yesterday? Apparently his well got contaminated with benzene from the fracking fields and it poisoned the McLovin girl. Her dad plugged Joe when he was doing a perimeter check of the razor wire around his home.
      Factory manager: No shit? What kind of idiot doesn't wear his kevlar vest at all times? Hell, I wear mine to bed. Floor manager: Good point. Speaking of Joe, we should promote his girl, she's a hard worker and could use the money.
      Factory manager: Why the hell should I promote her Mitch? Did you forget she's a girl for Christ's sake. We both know they're emotional and unfit for management. If we need a new supervisor, bring me some guys we can promote instead.
      Floor manager: Ok sure, it's just that she's a good worker and she told me she's pregnant this morning. I thought we could help her out, she's gonna need to pay for daycare.
      Factory manager: What do you mean she's pregnant? She not going to be able to afford daycare on $1.50/hr. Walk her out and tell her to go find a job somewhere else.
      Floor manager: Yeah but people are gonna ask what she did if I just walk her out.
      Factory manager: Well tough shit for them, they're free to join her in the squatter's camp. Speaking of the floor, how are the AI enabled sewing machines coming along? I can't wait to lock the doors on the whole lot of whiny parasites.
      Floor manager: It's coming along, we should be able to progressively eliminate floor headcount as we get them installed.
      Factory manager: Excellent!

    18. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, there is only one definition, and then there is ignorance.

    19. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      I don't think people are clamoring to destroy the looms here. There is a very real problem if you can have most low skill jobs and some highly paid high skill jobs automated and replaced in the next 30 years. there is an even greater problem by the end of this century where the remainder of the low skill jobs are gone to automation and all but the most difficult/easiest to protect (politics for instance) are replaced with automation.

      The Luddite solution would be to pass laws preventing the use of AI...that is stupid.

      Now, solve the problem and you can't just say "magic skill acquisition" because catastrophically displaced workers (elimination of their job) do not retool at high enough rates for that to be viable and there is no way you can tell how new industries will be created in a world where AI is the lense with which new things are designed for market.

    20. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently there's three definitions, and the third pretty much sounds like what the OP was talking about.

      Merriam Webster definition of decimate

      transitive verb

      1: to select by lot and kill every tenth man of

      2: to exact a tax of 10 percent from

      3
      a : to reduce drastically especially in number
      b : to cause great destruction or harm to

    21. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by ranton · · Score: 1

      So, Joe reduces his water usage to save costs, or digs his own well, purifies the water, and sells "Standard Water" to his neighbours

      Joe used to have a well out back, but so does everyone in his neighborhood so it didn't take long for the water table to drop to unmanageable levels. Each family kept digging deeper wells, but it is now prohibitively expensive to power pumps to bring water to the surface.

      After 2 years of working hard, she is the youngest employee to move up in to management, where she assists her fellow co-workers with receiving better pay by improving their skills

      All management in his daughter's company are from the elite class whose parents could afford private schools. She can barely read anyway, so advancement opportunities are non-existent. She aspires to marry an educated husband someday but this happening to a working class woman is uncommon.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    22. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you think that you understand conservative voters, then you are experiencing a hallucination.

      What you have written reveals your own misunderstanding of your fellow citizens, and contributes little to building a better world together.

      I urge you to throw off your dislike of conservatives. I urge you to listen to what they really say. I urge you to try to see things from everyone's point of view. And, I urge you to persuade others to change using reason and respect.

    23. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Matt.Battey · · Score: 1

      No, I agree, there's no call to destroy the 21st century version of textile manufacturing with wooden shoes.

      My point was to say that this sort of worthless lame duck pontification is doing nothing but playing on peoples fears that their jobs will further be taken over by the "other," and the "unknown" in an attempt to solidify a "legacy," and trying to force the hand of the incoming administration. If we really needed a stronger safety-net to protect against the mechanization of manufacturing it was needed hundreds of years ago, the argument if "AI & Robots," is just pressing the latest hot-button, and in this case it's Technology.

      You could make the exact same arguments about a better social safety net for any of the following reasons:
            * Globalization
            * Uncontrolled Immigration
            * Income Inequality
            * Regional and Global Government Debt Ratios
            * Global Political Unrest
            * The fact that milk is more expensive than gasoline

      I wasn't saying that safety nets are unnecessary. I'm saying using AI & Robots to push a social political agenda is a Luddite Argument.

    24. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      A lot if this rings true..Abusers won't help the abused get a better job. Much easier for them to get the kid fired and move on to fresh meat. Happens all the time. Speak up, you're fired. Same as in universities. That's what those in power want to teach the sheeple, because anything else threatens their power.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    25. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Directly and indirectly, the industry employs over 8 million. 800,000 jobs (one in 10) lost in any industry is going to have a huge impact on wages and working conditions for those who are left. Now repeat this in many industries. It gets ugly if not addressed.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    26. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Nah, they had their brain cells decimated (1 in 10).

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    27. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by dywolf · · Score: 1

      not insightful.
      just stupid

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    28. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Freeloading off a public good"? You need to decide if your imaginary strawman is a conservative or Leftist here.

      Conservatives, like libertarians, think that you should be free to use what you own however you want - so if you own land, you can damn well build a well on it. There would be no restriction on the "public good" like Leftists love to cite.
      Restrictions on rainwater that falls onto your land are another Leftist ideal. Conservatives and libertarians are they ones that say "your rain, do whatever with it".

    29. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is beyond idiotic on so many levels it's hard to pick just one instance.
      Please, friend: get help. Seriously.
      This ridiculous caricature has no place in civil discord anymore than calling you a Marxist propagandist (which I think is far more accurate than what you wrote).

    30. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not a robot. *BOOP*

    31. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      How do you get 9 brain cells to beat one to death?

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    32. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Sigma+7 · · Score: 1

      "Freeloading off a public good"? You need to decide if your imaginary strawman

      Certain states, such as Colorado, have handed out fines in the past to those who have a water barrel to collect rain water. Such laws were under the belief of water theft, where the rain that lands wherever would always reach a river or natural water basin, and that diverting it for personal use is theft of the resource that was provided by God(tm) and the State(tm).

      So before you fling around words such as "imaginary", at least check to make sure that it isn't an issue. You'll note that this is a daunting task, because there are at least 50 states in the US, all of which have different laws concerning water harvesting.

      Oh, and those issues shouldn't exist in the first place, rather than having a fix being demanded.

      is a conservative or Leftist here.

      False dichotomy.

      Once you break out of binary thinking, you can find a group that is in the middle of the horseshoe. Namely, the group that dislikes premitting large scale collection while prohibiting individuals collecting rainwater on a small scale.

    33. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After 2 years of working hard, she is the youngest employee to move up in to management

      No, after 2 years the district manager's incompetent nephew, who started six weeks ago and spent the whole time fucking around and trying to get into her pants, gets promoted past her.

    34. Re:Direct from the Luddite in Chief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you are truly a scumbag. I tell you all the time but that post up there is especially heinous. Most people shouldn't be voting? Well shit, in my book you shouldn't be breathing, ya freeloading oxygen thief!

  6. Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Obama did absolutely nothing in 8 years and it shows.

    1. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Obama did absolutely nothing in 8 years and it shows.

      Mitch McConnell saw to that, didn't he?

    2. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obama did absolutely nothing in 8 years and it shows.

      Yea...you Republitards made sure of that...

    3. Re:Translation by budgenator · · Score: 1

      Obama had a Democratic super-majority in both the House and Senate, until they passed the "Affordable Heathcare act", and the People massacred them in the mid-term elections.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    4. Re:Translation by Maritz · · Score: 4, Informative

      What you mean is, you succesfully prevented him from doing anything for 8 years. Well done

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    5. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i wonder what bankrupted Obama's political currency before the 2010 elections?

      the dems did have control of both branches of government at the time seems like they had opportunity but squandered it and when people voted in someone else to stonewall obama, he got upset :.(

    6. Re:Translation by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Obama who was the first president since Eisenhower to win consecutive elections with 51% of the vote and more popular than the incoming president-elect? Yeah, a total failure.

    7. Re:Translation by _merlin · · Score: 1

      Popularity isn't a measure of achievement. Being too much of a coward to do anything is often a good way to avoid growing disapproval.

    8. Re:Translation by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Being too much of a coward to do anything is often a good way to avoid growing disapproval.

      Right. Obama played it safe by implementing the Republican health care plan (RomneyCare) instead of the public option. Very cowardly.

    9. Re:Translation by butchersong · · Score: 1

      Wait, you believe his major accomplishment as President was being elected? I guess we are all in complete agreement then.

    10. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So when Obama had years with a veto-proof super-majority in both houses, it was the Republicans fault that Obama didn't do anything?

      Anything except pass the ACA, of course, which led directly to his party get slaughtered in the mid-term elections by the US population that wanted to make sure he wouldn't do anymore shit like that.

    11. Re:Translation by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Wait, you believe his major accomplishment as President was being elected?

      Not just elected. But elected with 51% of the votes in consecutive elections. The last president to achieve that was Eisenhower, and before him it was Roosevelt. That alone puts him in the history books.

    12. Re:Translation by _merlin · · Score: 1

      It isn't a public option he implemented, it's a way to funnel guaranteed revenue to the health insurance companies. If you think ACA is public health care, you don't know what actual public health care is.

    13. Re:Translation by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The Senate supermajority was actually rather short, not starting until Franken's election was settled and ending when another Senator (Kennedy?) died.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    14. Re:Translation by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      It isn't a public option he implemented, it's a way to funnel guaranteed revenue to the health insurance companies.

      Correct. That's the Republican plan formerly known as RomneyCare.

      If you think ACA is public health care, you don't know what actual public health care is.

      Under the ACA I'm able to buy insurance. Previously, under the "bend over and get ass raped by the insurance companies" plan, I went without insurance for years because it was expensive and provided little in actual coverage. That's the plan Republicans wants everyone to go back to since Obama took a page out of the Clinton playbook and co-opted their agenda.

  7. Bravo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At least this looks like the right general direction. Jobs are disappearing faster than they can ever be replaced. This is, at last, the promise of division of labor and automation: by becoming ever more efficient at what we do, we'll have to do less to live a nice life.

    I'm all for it: I don't really *want* to toil away at a meaningless job. But then there must be a way to live which is somewhat decoupled from that job. And we still have little good ideas on how that could work (a bit of welfare, a bit of basic income, all still pretty incoherent). And practically no experience.

    The idea of "competition among nations" is another one I don't like very much. Have a look at the EU to see how that goes very wrong: Germany outcompeting all others on costs of labor and thus killing the very EU on which its wealth is based. Disgusting.

    An unnamed point: the might of risk capital: "the companies with the most data will be able to create the most advanced products" says the blurb; watch Twitter, which, by burning ~10B risk capital in ten years can afford to keep out competition, or Uber (last quarter: 800M).

    Seems we left the century of state debt and now we have huge private debts on the hope to out-compete everything.

  8. Welcome Overlords! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I for one welcome our automated overlords! All hail Skynet!

  9. The Last Gasp Mutterings of a Lame Duck by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Obama will issue all sorts of feel-good proclamations and what-have-you between now and 1/20/17, just because it will look good as part of his legacy, which he is busily imagining and crafting. It's a waste of time to afford these any real discussion. He's not serious about any of this stuff at this point, why should we be?

    1. Re:The Last Gasp Mutterings of a Lame Duck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What legacy? I will admit that he was handed a crappy deck when he got into office, and that the reinvestment act did help. However, what he needed to do is stop the giant sucking sound and stop businesses from moving manufacturing to China and knowledge work to India, leaving nothing but McJobs behind in most of the country. Instead, Obama presided over more gun control laws passed in three years that ever were passed in the history of the nation (which has caused crime to rise.), a healthcare plan that insurance companies used to their advantage (I know people who are single paying $500 more a month than in 2010), a Chamberlain-esque foreign policy which caused a power vacuum and gave us Daesh (with enemy attacks on US soil every month or two in their name), and allies, for the first time since WWII, have been left to their own devices to fend for themselves, with broken promises of protection or help.

      Of course, the Dems point at Wall Street and cheer. Those numbers mean jack shit for the average person because that wealth flies overseas never to be seen in the US again. In reality, unemployment is still high. Even the tech sector jobs are tenous at best. You have to completely reinvent yourself every 6-12 months or you are on your ass. Don't know what kubernates, terraform, or the platform of the hour is? Better learn now before you have to learn while unemployed.

      As it stands now, there is arguments on who gets the share of the pie, but Obama's policies have caused the pie to shrink for everyone involved with the biggest disparity between rich and poor in the nation's history. You can't run a country on service jobs and expect it to survive. You also can't contract out a military's items to foreign companies and expect it to work (like US planes to India.)

    2. Re:The Last Gasp Mutterings of a Lame Duck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He's not serious about any of this stuff at this point, why should we be?

      Why do you say that? It's his opportunity to push through big reforms that he's always believed in. Earlier in his presidency they'd have upset lobbyists who would block him constantly for the remainder of his term. Since his term is now pretty much up he can now ignore them and get some work done. Perhaps they'll get blocked by the senate or revoked by Trump but if even 1% of it gets through that's still some beneficial change done.

    3. Re:The Last Gasp Mutterings of a Lame Duck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are laboring under the assumption that anything done by the federal government must be good as long as the change moniker is attached to it.

      I submit that reducing the size and scope of government would do far more good and prevent a lot more harm. Between taxes and regulations government takes half of our earnings for itself, and uses it as a hammer to reward and punish friends and enemies. Cronyism is how government works.

      Obama, Bush, Clinton, Trump are all big government types, so I expect nothing to change except the names and faces. But the bureaucracy will live on and keep feeding itself with the fruits of our labors. Don't be a slave - be a free independent human being.

    4. Re:The Last Gasp Mutterings of a Lame Duck by serviscope_minor · · Score: 0

      just because it will look good as part of his legacy...

      In order to look better than his successor all he has to do is not brag about sexual assault, not be obviously guilty of fraud, and not renage on just about every election promise before even entering office (technically it's too late for him to fail to clear that particular bar).

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    5. Re:The Last Gasp Mutterings of a Lame Duck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't call it Daesh.

      Its name is ISIS - the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

      Western politicians have kept trying to get media companies to change the name to divert attention away from the Iraq and Syria bit... because... the ISIS is what the Syrian rebels turned into after being trained, funded and supplied by the West to great acclaim when Assad was being painted as a tyrant.

      Our leaders created ISIS and they want you to forget it.

    6. Re:The Last Gasp Mutterings of a Lame Duck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wow, I didn't know the president was a magician. Good luck with the next potus.

    7. Re:The Last Gasp Mutterings of a Lame Duck by dyslexicbunny · · Score: 1

      However, what he needed to do is stop the giant sucking sound and stop businesses from moving manufacturing to China and knowledge work to India, leaving nothing but McJobs behind in most of the country.

      I mean, this has been going on since before he was President. But I'd be intrigued at what solutions you'd propose to fix either which Obama could have done without Congress and not have the courts butcher. Tariffs should fall under Congress, no? Or might violate existing trade treaties? I suppose the country could not go to bat for businesses having problems abroad? "New Germastania doesn't like that you're doing X? That sounds like a personal problem. We're willing to be interested if that was done in house."

      I'm generally curious as I'm less versed in what knobs the Executive branch could play with on their own.

    8. Re:The Last Gasp Mutterings of a Lame Duck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While the only comment here that rings true is the Chamberlain(esque) comment, ask yourself this. Will you or did you volunteer yourself or a loved one to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan? Have you had a loved one maimed for life because of these two meaningless wars. If not, please shut up. We don't really need armchair generals like you who spout on about our unilateralism -- but with the blood of other, younger men and women.
      As to the the comment about wall street - do you know the difference between a 9.7% unemployment rate and a 4.6% unemployment rate (setting aside Cheeto in chief's claim that 45 million adults are currently unemployed? That would have caused riots in the streets). Even if these jobs are lower paying, they are at least there. Or would like to rewind to the final 2 years of GWB? No argument that Obama has completely failed in any kind of equitable income distribution scheme but heck - he's working with a congress that calls him a socialist for what he's today!!! imagine if he did what you wanted. They'd pin a red star to his lapel and call him comrade.
      Obama has a legacy - he took over at a really tough time, managed to get us out of 2 wars (how many daily news articles do you read about dead or injured soldiers? is that comparable to your isis death toll?). He pivoted towards Asia from a dying and rotting middle east and put together a basic structure that would keep us alive and healthy for a few more years (assuming our friends in congress don't manage to undo everything in the next 2-4 years). Was he great? absolutely not! Historians rated him as being in the lower end of the pack (just behind Nixon!!) in their rating of presidents. Was he able to pull off nearly the impossible with Mitch McConnell and co working against everything he said? for the most part, yes. I am not a democrat (and will most likely never be) but part of me wants the democrats to play hardball; go around saying your only goal for the next 4 years is to make Cheeto-in-chief a one term president and filibuster everything in sight. And I'm sure folks will rate the incoming president by that same standard, right? tuk!tuk!

    9. Re:The Last Gasp Mutterings of a Lame Duck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe if the GOP controlled congress didn't stand in the way of almost every initiative that Obama proposed, he would have been able to accomplish some of the things that you think he should have. He's president, not Fuhrer.

    10. Re:The Last Gasp Mutterings of a Lame Duck by Xyrus · · Score: 1

      What legacy? I will admit that he was handed a crappy deck when he got into office, and that the reinvestment act did help. However, what he needed to do is stop the giant sucking sound and stop businesses from moving manufacturing to China and knowledge work to India, leaving nothing but McJobs behind in most of the country.

      And exactly how would any such regulation/restriction/taxation plane he would have come up with get past a Congress who was openly hostile? They would have nailed his ass to the proverbial cross and screamed "SOCIALISM!" and you know it.

      Instead, Obama presided over more gun control laws passed in three years that ever were passed in the history of the nation (which has caused crime to rise.)

      No, it hasn't. And what gun control laws? I can walk into a gun show and walk out with an arsenal with bags of ammo. Anybody can, from your mother to that crazy wild-eyed freak who lives at the end of road and occasionally gets into arguments with clouds. That's why psychos can walk into bar a gun down 50 people, or why some road-raged asshole can shoot a 3 year old in the neck because the grandma was driving "too slow".

      a healthcare plan that insurance companies used to their advantage (I know people who are single paying $500 more a month than in 2010),

      And that's Obama's fault because? The compromised healthcare bill is a far cry from the original (and simple) one it started from, but it's the only way that the health insurance lobbied republicans would allow to pass.

      The insurance companies have for decades said that they would come up with a way to make health insurance affordable to everyone, all the while making sure measures were lobbied into place to ensure that only the well off can actually afford it. When Obamacare was originally put forth with a single payer plan, the insurance companies did an epic freakout. $DIETY forbid we actually have universal healthcare.

      a Chamberlain-esque foreign policy which caused a power vacuum and gave us Daesh (with enemy attacks on US soil every month or two in their name)

      Try going back a few more years. Obama didn't create a power vacuum. Obama didn't destabilize what little stabilization there was.

      and allies, for the first time since WWII, have been left to their own devices to fend for themselves, with broken promises of protection or help.

      What are you talking about? Which allies have been "left on their own"?

      Of course, the Dems point at Wall Street and cheer. Those numbers mean jack shit for the average person because that wealth flies overseas never to be seen in the US again.

      Nooo, they mean jack shit because that money flies into the pockets of the wealthy never to be seen again. Wages are stagnating because the so-called "job-creators" are creating new bank accounts for themselves with the gobs of cash that keeps getting funneled to them. One look at the wealth inequality in this country is all you need to figure out where the money is going.

      Companies care about profit. It doesn't matter if it's coming from America or someplace else.

      In reality, unemployment is still high.

      [citation needed]

      Even the tech sector jobs are tenous at best. You have to completely reinvent yourself every 6-12 months or you are on your ass. Don't know what kubernates, terraform, or the platform of the hour is? Better learn now before you have to learn while unemployed.

      You're working in the wrong place if your swapping technologies every few months.

      As it stands now, there is arguments on who gets the share of the pie, but Obama's policies have caused the pie to shrink for everyone involved with the biggest disparity between rich and poor in the nation's history.

      And how would Obama, by himself, manage to fix

      --
      ~X~
    11. Re:The Last Gasp Mutterings of a Lame Duck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > (which has caused crime to rise.)

      Per capita, total reported crime has fallen every single year since 1991.
      The previous year with a total reported crime rate better than the worst Obama year was 1969.

      Per capita, violent crime has fallen every single year from 2006 to 2014, with an increase in 2015 back to 2013 levels.
      The previous year with fewer violent crimes than the worst Obama year was 1973.

      Per capita, murder has fallen every single year from from 2006 to 2014, with an increase in 2015 back to 2010 levels.
      The previous year with fewer murders than the worst Obama year was 1965.

      Per capita, rape hasn't consistently declined, but you have to go back to the 70's to find numbers better than the Obama years.
      The previous year with fewer rapes than the worst Obama year was 1977.

      Per capita, robbery has fallen every single year from 2006 to 2014, with an increase in 2015 back to 2014 levels.
      The previous year with fewer robberies than the worst Obama year was 2005.

      Per capita, assault hasn't consistently declined, but you have to go back to the 70's to find numbers better than the Obama years.
      The previous year with fewer assaults than the worst Obama year was 1977.

      http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

      Perhaps the executive actions of Jan 2016 were responsible for the unprecedented amount of crime seen in 2015.

      https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/01/04/fact-sheet-new-executive-actions-reduce-gun-violence-and-make-our

      Also, unemployment has been steadily improving since the start of 2010

      https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE Or https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE

  10. We need to end college for all and replace it with by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We need to end college for all and replace it with an more trades like system where you don't need 2-4+ years of class room to get a job with an 20-60K+ loan.
    and / or change college accreditation so that tech / trade schools get more respect and make it so that colleges can update there Curriculum faster with less bs like.

    Accreditation prioritizes the wrong things. Historically, accreditation has focused on things like how many professors have PhDs, whether a college has a mission statement, and whether degree programs require a broad, general education as well as a specific major. Critics, including Margaret Spellings, the education secretary under President George W. Bush, have argued this misses an important point: whether students are learning. Most accreditors now require colleges to define the outcomes they want for their students and measure whether they're meeting them, but it gives colleges a lot of leeway on what those outcomes are.

    Also make the loans be discharged in Bankruptcy so that the school and banks have skin in the game.

     

  11. Scapegoating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The plan:
    1. outsource jobs (NAFTA, etc.)
    2. bring in all of 3rd world
    3. blame AI (scapegoating)
    4. Insist working class and middle class must pay for whole of 3rd world using govt force

    1. Re:Scapegoating by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Nope, doesn't make more sense second time around. Sorry. Try posting it a third time.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  12. The bottom half? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Easy. Just become President of the US.

    1. Re:The bottom half? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good point, I forgot about Obama.

  13. There are millions of jobs that need doing... by CrankyOldEngineer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    but no one trained to do them. So instead of improving our educational system, POTUS wants to pay people to do nothing. Yikes! And by improving our educational system, I do not mean throwing Federal dollars at it. We already have the most expensive system in the world with pitiful results. CrankyOldEngineer believes that any child can and should learn math and science, if we hire teachers that are qualified to tech these subjects. By jobs that need doing, I do not mean current openings on the want-ads. The human race needs doctors, engineers, and all kinds of skilled people, but we've created incentives for the wrong professions.

    --
    COE
    1. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that he's also increasing spending on education. It's not either/or, it's a two pronged approach. Improving education to help the next generation and those wanting to retrain, and improving welfare for the rest. Which will also plug the gap of covering people while they retrain because the change will happen at a faster pace than you can expect people's skillsets to keep up with.

    2. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by arth1 · · Score: 2

      It's not either/or, it's a two pronged approach.

      Americans won't accept anything that can't be polarized. It has to be either/or, black or white, because otherwise the choices become complicated. Look at Congress - it's largely based on yes/no votes, and not multiple options.

      Bigger issues that can't be polarized are generally broken down until the pieces are small enough that they can be. Never mind that this tends to break any kind of bigger plans when the votes for the individual sub-issues swing.

    3. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      POTUS already knows GOP, which will be in power, do not want kids to be educated because that leads to smarter voters. So he has to force the GOP into making the sacrifice of either paying workers for not working or educating kids for actual jobs will be needed instead of creation theory and intelligent design.

    4. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by dywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the problem is people like you only see education as a means to an end, that end being a job.
      but education is its own end in its own right.
      the ability to get a job from it should be seen as a bonus, not the goal.

      we've taken the reality that certain jobs require an education and turn it into "the only reason education is important is employability".
      that is a perversion and it will be our downfall.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    5. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You blather away, and yet you don't mention those jobs that need doing. In the US, there are more than enough Doctors to go around, but they are badly distributed. (An independent Single Practice is essentially obsolete.) And as for Engineers... in case you haven't noticed, those jobs are heading towards Working Class wages, designing things that are assembled in China. (And increasingly being designed there as well...)
      Yes, there are millions of jobs that need doing, production Blue Collar jobs that once paid Middle Class wages, but are now heading towards a "Second Tier" Minimum Wage. And yet they are still being filled. ("First Tier" are those older workers who were grandfathered in, and can make up to 50% more for the same work; but many are nearing retirement age.)
      "The human race needs doctors, engineers, and all kinds of skilled people..."
      Yes, there is that need...
      "...but we've created incentives for the wrong professions."
      Maybe by we, you mean in the US. Anyway, the Human Race will find plenty of doctors, engineers, and all kinds of skilled people... in the Third World, working at a third of a US Living Wage. The US cannot possibly educate enough Engineers who will economically compete with those making $25K a year in Mumbai, in the World Markets.

      The thing of course is to be one of the 1%, preferably born into it, (Ahem... Trump... ahem); those who actually own and inherit the Capital.
      They seem to be doing quite well.

    6. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      Education for its own sake is fine - if you're rich. For the rest of us, if we pay 100K for it, we expect a payout.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    7. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You first, Mr. Engineer. Oh wait, there's a good reason that doesn't happen: Teachers aren't paid enough to attract that kind of talent. With those skills you could.... actually be a fucking engineer and make fuckloads more money! Once they start paying teachers engineer pay, then you will start seeing a lot more people with engineering skills teaching. They might actually need to pay a bit more to attract that talent actually - just because it requires social skills in addition to content knowledge (and many of them might not be comfortable with that).

    8. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      While I agree with the sentiment, the trend that HR use a degree as a limiter for candidates of a job effectively turn a degree into a job qualification certificate.

    9. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by JeffOwl · · Score: 1

      There are a lot of things that are good and an end in their own right, but I don't necessarily think we should be subsidizing those sorts of things while people go hungry and are sleeping out in the streets; while people can't afford good healthcare; while people can't get a decent primary and secondary education.

    10. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree with the spirit of your comment but the substance is backwards. Education for the sake of education is great but it should come after basic needs can be met through employment.

    11. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In my opinion "the only reason _formal_ education is important is employability" is a more accurate statement.

      I use the library and the internet a lot for educational purposes. Used books on almost any subject imaginable can be obtained off of Amazon for under $10 a piece. Employers don't care about that.

      The only reason to go to university is so that they can tell your potential employer that you jumped through the hoops they set up. Universities command a handsome price for this service, so it sure as hell better have some return on investment.

    12. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The OP is talking about the educational system, not education. There is no point getting an accredited education if it isn't for employment. Those of us that have gone to college AND are intelligent know that college isn't the most effective or efficient method of acquiring knowledge or skills. Why spend more time to learn less just to get some wood pulp? What will be our downfall is not preparing the next generation to deal with employability in an increasingly automated world.

    13. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ummm. Okay. But why would anyone whose parents won't underwrite a life-by-the-pool world want to spend 20k working their tail off to pass classes and learn all about a subject, unless there was some sort of promise of monetary support at the end?

      Even professional students (aka professors) assume that there will be some sort of teaching position at the end of all that work.

    14. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      The choices available in American universities are 'brainwashing while partying your ass off' or 'professional training'.

      Liberal arts schools long since gave up on personal development. Now it's all about producing nice little muppets.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    15. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      POTUS wants to pay people to do nothing

      This is not true. You do not believe that this is true. You never saw any indication of any kind that this is true. You made it up as a strawman. This makes you a liar.

    16. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Working on your third Masters in the social sciences are we?

    17. Re:There are millions of jobs that need doing... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      If we adopted any universal health care system in the world, even the most expensive, the savings would be so large that college expenses would be trivial to subsidize, along with many other things. The F-35 program over the years cost considerably less than the difference between US per capita health costs and the second most in the world over two years.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  14. Er by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The report also calls for increasing the minimum wage, paying workers overtime and and strengthening unions and worker bargaining power.

    Lifting the cost of humans isn't going to help them compete against machines.

    1. Re:Er by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Yeah. Don't pay humans at all, that way we'll never have to worry about robots. You're a fucking genius.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    2. Re:Er by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But he's not wrong. For example,everyone knew fast food automation was coming, but it was probably 15 years out. The recent push for a $15 minimum wage has made that timeline a lot shorter because the cost of human labor is now much closer to the cost of using automation to solve the problem.

    3. Re:Er by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The point is, people can't compete with machines for many tasks. Meanwhile the invisible hand of the market twiddles its thumb while people go homeless/hungry. Is that the kind of world you want?

    4. Re: Er by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So true. Minimum wage ahould be lowered $4 per hour, which will help keep some of the robots at bay for a couple more years. Otherwise, the robots will take over human jobs ever faster!!! Wait... I just thought up an even better solution... $3 per hour!!!!

    5. Re:Er by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And you are not taking into account that other ideologies exist as in, if I can't eat and you got food, I now have food, including you if things are dire enough. You guys keep being greedy fucks and we'll show you how greedy we can get. We'll take all you got including your life. You want another civil war? Acting like you are is how you get one.

  15. Not a social safety net, please... by bradley13 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Let's not have more people on the dole, please. We need a better answer than that.

    I remember, years ago, some African ambassador was touring government housing in the UK. I suppose he was supposed to be impressed that unemployed people got houses for free from the oh-so-generous government. His comment at the end of the tour was something like "How soul deadening, these people have no purpose in life. I'd rather be poor.". Coming from an African who knew what poverty was, it was a powerful indictment of social safety nets.

    People need a purpose in life. If we are going to be displaced from our jobs, then we need a different purpose. Being freed from repetitive, menial labor should allow us to do something more meaningful. Just putting ever more listless people into a lifelong holding pattern is not the right answer.

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
    1. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah! Fuckin safety net assholes. God forbid that those that cannot fend for themselves should be helped! Fuckin commie!!

    2. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by mdm-adph · · Score: 2

      [Citation Needed]

      --
      It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
    3. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Gilgaron · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How could the government give them purpose? The proposal is basically that we keep them from dying. To give them purpose in a dystopian automation future would require makework projects if there's nothing left for some ever increasing percentage of the population to train towards. You could pay them to grow a community garden, for example, but then you need money for the plot of land, and if a fiscal hawk comes around they're going to notice that it is cheaper to hand out bread.

    4. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Charcharodon · · Score: 1

      Video games and beer.

    5. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      You cant get a free house in the UK just because you are unemployed. I am a white male over the age of majority, I won't ever get housed by the government unless I get seriously ill or get very old. If I were made unemployed tomorrow and lost my home, the council will tell me to go away - my only recourse for a bed would be a charity.

      To get housed you have to have a vulnerability factor - in most cases, females without kids won't get council housing either. A child under 18 would get you emergency accommodation, as would a serious illness of some description.

      The point is, we look after our vulnerable members of society. If you aren't vulnerable, you don't get anything.

    6. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      In the UK there is an awful lot of free training you can get to get you back into employment, and you can go from unskilled to skilled in various areas without paying a penny for the training.

    7. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Besides likely being a load of bull, this anecdote makes zero sense. Those unemployed people are not having the choice to be poor removed from them. They could, if they liked, go out and be the proper poor person the African ambassador finds so virtuous. That they do not indicates when one is actually in the position of being poor, and not just watching poverty from the sidelines of an Ambassadorship, one is no longer so self-righteous as to care if their poverty is virtuous or not.

    8. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you are unemployed the council will pay your rent for you (it's called housing benefit) and in the vast majority of cases they will pay 100% of your rent.

      So yes, you do get free housing in the UK, just for being unemployed.

    9. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The US government did this during the 1930-40s using the WPA project. It employed millions and you probably use the stuff they built every day without knowing it.

    10. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by bev_tech_rob · · Score: 1

      People need a purpose in life. If we are going to be displaced from our jobs, then we need a different purpose. Being freed from repetitive, menial labor should allow us to do something more meaningful. Just putting ever more listless people into a lifelong holding pattern is not the right answer.

      Most of the time, doing something 'meaningful' like being able to take art classes or traveling the world requires MONEY. Kinda hard to do those things when you are broke and cannot afford to buy them (the trip or the class)...

      --
      You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
    11. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you think an African ambassador knows what poverty is, you haven't met many African politicians. They are usually the corrupt, pampered elites who go off to study in Europe or the USA and drive BMWs and eat in nice restaurants (spending money skimmed from the public coffers) while their countrymen beg in the streets. They know jack about being poor. They know what it looks like on the street, but they haven't come remotely close to experiencing it.

    12. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by nine-times · · Score: 2

      Being freed from repetitive, menial labor should allow us to do something more meaningful.

      Yes, it would be nice if all those poor unemployed people could do meaningful things like start a business, or write that novel they've always dreamed about. But who's going to pay them for that? And how are they going to feed their families in the meantime?

      People have enough trouble finding work when there are all these repetitive menial jobs. They'd be doing something more meaningful if they could, but the option isn't there. When those menial jobs go away, it's not clear what they can move on to.

    13. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by dywolf · · Score: 2

      and that ambassador prolly never actually felt the pangs of poverty, so who gives a flying F about his opinion?

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    14. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's not have more people on the dole, please. We need a better answer than that.

      There's an essentially infinite amount of real meaningful work that desperately needs doing - everything from finding cures for all the different types of cancers to patrolling our streets to keep them safe from violent crime. And we can now produce basic necessities efficiently enough that we can produce enough for everyone on the planet to have a simple comfortable life. I, myself, am not particularly enthused about welfare in the form of direct cash payouts. But the economic experts that I listen to claim that there's no fundamental reason why the government couldn't serve as an employer of last resort: if a person can't find a job in the private sector that pays enough to live simply but comfortably then the government will hire them to do some of the real work that desperately needs doing.

      Coming from an African who knew what poverty was, it was a powerful indictment of social safety nets.

      The issue in countries that have high rates of poverty isn't so much that everyone is poor - rather that there is huge inequality - a small mostly hereditary ruling class lording it over and exploiting everyone else. Of course, an African politician would typically be a member of this small ruling class.

      But inequality is, to a large extent, a choice. There are countries like Singapore with massive inequality that has an industrially developed productive economy. And there are countries like Denmark with very low inequality that also has an industrially developed productive economy. Myself, I lived in Singapore for a number of year and I found the inequality to be soul destroying and horrifying. Some day I'd like to try living in Denmark. I imagine that I would like it better but I'm wrong far more often than I'm right.

    15. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by SlashDread · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Purpose, probably useful, sure, I however do not understand why purpose seems to equal payed labour to you (and lots of other people). Are you suggesting voluntary work, or just being social to your neighbor has no purpose? I use these examples, because it is not certain that people even have the capability to always find "more meaningful" work if the "repetitive menial" labour has been automated. And why stop there? I suggest we are entirely capable of automating even "more meaningful" work. And then what?

      Figuring our what purpose people have, if they do not need to work for basic Income, is one of the goals of experimenting with it.

    16. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Maritz · · Score: 1

      His comment at the end of the tour was something like "How soul deadening, these people have no purpose in life. I'd rather be poor."

      lol. Someone from government in "some african country" said he'd rather be poor and homeless? Yeeeeeeah fucking right.

      This is a guy who knows what poverty is, because he ignores it with impunity everywhere he fucking goes. And we're supposed to be impressed by his take on things?

      Nah.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    17. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Maritz · · Score: 2

      The idea of placing an african ambassaor's opinion on poverty on a pedestal is laughable. We are almost certainly (if it's even a real story) talking about someone who lives in scandalous luxury compared to his fellow citizens. Saying he'd "rather be poor" than have a house for free rings more than a little fucking hollow. Talk is cheap.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    18. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For most people, work is not their purpose in life. Work is something most of us do so that we can live and do what we want when we're not working. Why is that so hard for people full of shi^^^passion to understand?

    19. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod parent up. This, a thousand times this. Instead of trying to train these brick layers to be accountants, maybe we let them lay bricks for the good of our society?

    20. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The point is, we look after our vulnerable members of society. If you aren't vulnerable, you don't get anything.

      Which is laudable, and the true measure of the humanity of a society. A society which looks out for it's weakest is a morally upstanding one.

      I do wonder about the long-term evolutionary implications, though. We protect and provide for the weakest and their offspring. Ensuring they grow up and reproduce. Whereas before the weak, frail, and unclever would die by the wayside and remove their genes from the pool, we put them on even evolutionary footing with far fitter specimens. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a problem. I'm not suggesting they should be left to die or sterilized or anything so barbaric. I just wonder if this will have any long term effects on humanity as a species.

    21. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      Yes, and it is great in a variety of ways (keep old skills alive, keeps people busy in a constructive manner), but if the population percentage of unemployable folks grows too large, then everyone ends up working for the government except for the guys who own the universal machine 3D metal printing factories. Are they going to use their capital and power to support the plebs making Shaker rocking chairs or vote to feed them the minimal daily quota of yeast extract and exempt themselves from liability for their AI Killbot security forces when clearing freedom zones around their estates?

    22. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Being freed from repetitive, menial labor should allow us to do something more meaningful."

      Something that pays, presumably - in effect a job... Such as?

    23. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      African ambassador "... I'd rather be poor.". Coming from an African who knew what poverty was, ...

      Myself, I don't need an "African ambassador" to tell me what to think about poverty. I've seen desperate poverty up close and personal in a number of places on this planet, including Africa, and I will tell you with 100% certainty that I would not want to live in that kind of desperate poverty. I've seen things that will haunt my nightmares until the end of my life. And I sure as hell don't want to have to endure such things myself.

      That's not to say that I think direct cash payouts from the government are the only, or even the best, solution to poverty. But I do know that I completely and utterly disagree with this African ambassador on whether I would want to be trapped in desperate poverty. :)

    24. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Being freed from repetitive, menial labor

      Oh the horror, something productive, we need more social media manager and the like!

    25. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As time goes by, "work" must decouple from life purpose out of sheer necessity. This is not a dead end but the possibility for a beginning...

    26. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not to mention that the anecdote in question is almost certainly bogus and this "ambassador" doesn't even exist...

    27. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It also extended the Great Depression by years, but hey! Make-work projects that did nothing but waste money and resources sure made some people feel good about 'helping' the 'little people', so all good, right? Oh, and a bunch of FDR's buddies got really rich, too.

    28. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by butchersong · · Score: 0

      Meaning for most men is simply having a role that requires effort within your social group and some level of standing in that group. Plowing a field or building a shed is meaningful work. Anything that involves physical work with other men can and will lead to a pretty happy life. Traveling and taking art classes? Is self indulgence equal to a meaningful life these days?

    29. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Dripdry · · Score: 1

      Wait... you mean that the government trying to legislate morality means that.... GASP! they would need to actually follow through on the end-goal of morals (a meaningful life) if they shove them on people? You mean it's not just "we get to control you, ha ha"?

      If government wants to legislate morality it means that they need to provide purpose and meaning as well, not just resources.

      --
      -
    30. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Again, I won't ever qualify for housing benefit as a fit white male over the age of majority, not unless I get seriously ill or very old.

      So no, you don't get free housing, just for being unemployed.

    31. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Hint: In America bums claim soft tissue injuries to their backs and get on disability. Takes a little while, but has a near 100% success rate. 'Disabled' population is growing by 1 million/year.

      It's not like the people intent on hooking up to 'the tit' have ethical issues with lying.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    32. Re:Not a social safety net, please... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The WPA used reasonably up-to-date techniques. Its projects really couldn't have been done much less expensive by private industry. The big difference is the nature of the product, the WPA producing stuff that immediately profited no one but helped lots of people over time. Now, suppose we get a WPA-like project together. We'd find that they couldn't build things efficiently, that all the construction projects could be done cheaper and better by modern techniques and skilled labor. Without a way to use relatively unskilled labor to do things economically valuable, it would be a makework jobs program.

      The WPA worked because of the miserable state of the economy at the time. Low-skill people were employable, but there wasn't a demand for enough of the labor pool. That's not the problem we're facing today.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  16. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 1

    Those are all good objectives and policies, but it doesn't seem to address the issue at hand: not all people can do jobs that require "advanced" training. Roughly 10% of the US workforce is effectively unemployable today: what happens when that jumps to 15% or higher?

    You effectively have two options that I see to support this ever increasing population: subsistence living (barter, hunt, scavenge), or wealth transfer. Rural people seem to prefer the former, while urban folks prefer the latter. Not sure if either is sustainable.

  17. There is a net by geeper · · Score: 1

    It's catching people who write these (and other) stupid prediction stories.

    --
    Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
  18. The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by geekmux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Invest in and increase STEM education for youth and job retraining for adults in technology-related fields. That means offering computer science education for all K-12 students, as well as expanding national workforce retraining..."

    There's a valid reason we don't have a massive surplus of neurosurgeons or nuclear fission experts. The field of STEM takes brainpower.

    A lot of jobs that will be replaced first by automation are not exactly jobs that are mentally challenging, so they are rather fitting for a certain portion of the general populous. That's not meant to be a derogatory statement, it's simply stating fact. You can't expect to shove the entire field of displaced laymen into a STEM curriculum and expect everyone to actually succeed, and yet that appears to be the grand plan here. Toss advanced mathematics against little Johnnys brain all you want, but if he doesn't get it then he's likely never gonna get it. Mental capacity varies from human to human. Always has, always will.

    I'd also love to hear what the master plan is for human employment once AI comes along and starts doing STEM better than any human could ever dream.

    In the end this political pandering really won't matter. The disease of Greed will ultimately win. Those in control wouldn't have it any other way.

    1. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by r0kk3rz · · Score: 0

      Toss advanced mathematics against little Johnnys brain all you want, but if he doesn't get it then he's likely never gonna get it. Mental capacity varies from human to human. Always has, always will.

      Mental capacity isn't innate and unchangeable, your brain is a muscle after all and it needs exercise. Muscular strength varies from human to human too, but you wouldn't say that the weak are unable to become strong.

      If a large portion of Johnnies don't get advanced maths, then its likely your teaching methodology sucks

    2. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by hyades1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's a whole list of valid reasons why we're not inundated with neurosurgeons. Yours is well down that lis. The main reason is that many, many children with the intellectual capacity to become neurosurgeons never get the chance, because they can't afford the schooling.

      If you've ever sat on a committee charged with the responsibility of awarding a scholarship (I have), you realize very quickly there are thousands of worthy candidates who won't get the money, and that most of them will wind up without access to post-secondary education, or access only to low-end courses that won't lead to any kind of doctorate or medical degree.

      --
      I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
    3. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The plan is simple: let people die. Once all the automated self-maintaining infrastructure is fully in place, what use have the elite for the people who helped build it? Long term, only the aristocrats will survive, and that anyone else even existed will be forgotten.

    4. Re: The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop eating lead paint chips. The brain is not a muscle.

    5. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 2

      A lot of jobs that will be replaced first by automation are not exactly jobs that are mentally challenging,

      Not that true. A lot of jobs that will be first replaced by automation are the one where it's most effective and easiest.

      New surgical robots will memorize your patterns and only call you to intervene when something new shows up. Radiology is going to go rather fast since image processing neural nets can look at images 24/7. You could have an X-ray or MRI machine read your diagnostic before you were re-dressed.

      In the future putting in an IV is probably going to be a robotic job. It's not something doctors do much, nurses are too inconsistent, with the right imaging a robotic arm should be able to repeatably do it on anyone.

    6. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by sinij · · Score: 2

      Much simpler explanation is that Johnnies are coming from a line of 'strong backs weak minds' and will never get math no matter what you do. Strongest of Johnnies will play football, the rest will do roofing gigs and beat their wives.

    7. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My side hustle is teaching history 101 online for an accredited university. It's equivalent to a 9th grade history class. I have 40% failure rate every semester because those students have zero reading comprehension. Tell me how those same people will be able to comprehend STEM material?

    8. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by geekmux · · Score: 1

      There's a whole list of valid reasons why we're not inundated with neurosurgeons. Yours is well down that lis. The main reason is that many, many children with the intellectual capacity to become neurosurgeons never get the chance, because they can't afford the schooling.

      If you've ever sat on a committee charged with the responsibility of awarding a scholarship (I have), you realize very quickly there are thousands of worthy candidates who won't get the money, and that most of them will wind up without access to post-secondary education, or access only to low-end courses that won't lead to any kind of doctorate or medical degree.

      Thousands of worthy (read: mentally capable) candidates will not address the problem of tens of millions of laymen who will become unemployable by automation. The vast majority of those millions relate more to the Scarecrow than they do the Lion, for courage alone does not make a doctor. Neither does money.

      Let's also not forget how you motivate the 1.5 million educators you're going to be forced to pay a government (read: shitty) salary to when the government has no other choice but to make college free for the uneducated unemployable masses in order for this remain-competitive master plan to actually work.

    9. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

      I'm scared to mod this up since the meta-moderation would likely send me into oblivion, but I think there's a valid point here. And my politics are well left of center.

    10. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Toss advanced mathematics against little Johnnys brain all you want, but if he doesn't get it then he's likely never gonna get it. Mental capacity varies from human to human. Always has, always will.

      Mental capacity isn't innate and unchangeable, your brain is a muscle after all and it needs exercise. Muscular strength varies from human to human too, but you wouldn't say that the weak are unable to become strong.

      Genes define the range of strength a person can have. Exercise changes your strength within that range.

      Through exercise, I have quadrupled the amount of weight I can lift. That doesn't mean I am the strongest person in the world. In fact, people with better genetics who have never exercised in their life can lift more weight than I can. If having a job depended on being in the top %10 in terms of strength, no amount of exercise would make me employable.

      If a large portion of Johnnies don't get advanced maths, then its likely your teaching methodology sucks

      That is a comforting belief. Do you have evidence for it?

      Most psychologists believe that, like strength, genes define a range of cognitive ability a person can attain. Education, like exercise, changes the point with that range. The fact that I became better at reasoning in math class does not mean that I can be a world class mathematician if I just had a better teacher.

      I would love to be proven wrong. It would be wonderful if there were some change in how people are educated that makes them smarter. However, until someone revolutionizes education, we need to face the world as it is. More education (the kind we have today) can not make any significant fraction of the population Nobel material. It can't even make 20% of the population employable in STEM.

    11. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Start automating the jobs of politicians and see how quickly they come up with some sort of plan for UBI.

    12. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by budgenator · · Score: 2

      Bingo, that's why you never take a stem course from the only Prof with a PhD, you want the one who had to struggle, and knows how to get through the parts everyone else struggles with.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    13. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Some countries will bring in some kind of UBI, at least as an interrim measure until we work out what the hell to do. Obviously in the US you won't do that or anything even close to that, so you'll have gigantic slums and maybe even a sharp drop in population. But at least you won't be dirty commies.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    14. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "There's a valid reason we don't have a massive surplus of... nuclear fission experts."
      Actually, for many years, we did. Outside of Academia, there wasn't much call for them after 1980 or so. I know. I was one. So I and many others later went into CS/EE instead.
      The funny thing is, now there is a need, mostly in Nuclear Medicine, but Nuclear Physics applications are creating demands in other emerging fields as well, such as Materials Science. It's just that there is still little need for those who design Nuclear Power Plants or Bombs, the Traditional fields.
      Maybe, worldwide demand may be as high as a thousand new Nuclear Physicists a year...
      Oops...

      STEM is not the answer. It's an excuse. At one old Accelerator, it took a crew of 14 every _shift_ to keep it going. (Three in Main Control, three in Injector Control, three in the Power Plant, three in Maintenance, one Physicist, and one Supervisor. More on Day Shift.) All automated now- One Operator and one Physicist a shift, 12 lost to Automation. And those were all old STEM jobs.

    15. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by geekmux · · Score: 1

      A lot of jobs that will be replaced first by automation are not exactly jobs that are mentally challenging,

      Not that true. A lot of jobs that will be first replaced by automation are the one where it's most effective and easiest.

      Well, easiest translates well into those single-faceted jobs where automation can replace all human aspects of a job, not just one or two.

      New surgical robots will memorize your patterns and only call you to intervene when something new shows up. Radiology is going to go rather fast since image processing neural nets can look at images 24/7. You could have an X-ray or MRI machine read your diagnostic before you were re-dressed.

      And those surgical or diagnostic fields hold a hell of a lot more liability when the machine screws up. That scrutiny alone will likely create delays far longer than replacing a cashier ever would.

      In the future putting in an IV is probably going to be a robotic job. It's not something doctors do much, nurses are too inconsistent, with the right imaging a robotic arm should be able to repeatably do it on anyone.

      The IV machine has only replaced one function out of hundreds that nurses and doctors are qualified to do. When an automated checkout station is put into a store, it replaces the entire need for a human qualified to do that job rather instantly. It's not hard to find which roles fall under "most effective" and "easiest" when it comes to replacing humans.

    16. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by geekmux · · Score: 1

      My side hustle is teaching history 101 online for an accredited university. It's equivalent to a 9th grade history class. I have 40% failure rate every semester because those students have zero reading comprehension. Tell me how those same people will be able to comprehend STEM material?

      Simple answer that directly addresses my point; they won't.

      The end result will be UBI, otherwise known as Welfare 2.0

    17. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by geekmux · · Score: 1

      Some countries will bring in some kind of UBI, at least as an interrim measure until we work out what the hell to do. Obviously in the US you won't do that or anything even close to that, so you'll have gigantic slums and maybe even a sharp drop in population. But at least you won't be dirty commies.

      No matter what country implements it, UBI will be nothing more than Welfare 2.0, and those ultimately having to fund that will lobby to ensure they will pay the uneducated unemployable masses the bare minimum to survive and not a single penny more.

      This is what I meant by the disease of Greed.

    18. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by pipingguy · · Score: 1

      "A lot of jobs that will be replaced first by automation..."

      It's already happening. Brainwork and knowledge workers (for example, engineering) are being offshored because it's possible - reliable internet and powerful software in the "third world" has enabled this. Who wouldn't want 95% of the quality for 25% of the price?

      Who in the "west" is going to buy all the products when they don't have jobs (and therefore don't have money)?

    19. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      And those surgical or diagnostic fields hold a hell of a lot more liability when the machine screws up

      You mean when the Human screws up. All the more reason to get rid of the human.

      all human aspects of a job, not just one or two.

      Automation has never worked like that. It has always replaced one or two things a human does. Bar codes just automated punching in the price, self scanning machines have just automated 90% of the work making the human do stuff like check IDs for liquor.

      Automation on the farm didn't get rid of the farmer, it just changed the role Farmers did. The same with automation and nursing & doctors.

      Automation has never been replace everyone doing everything in one swoop it's been incremental improvements here and there.

    20. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by r0kk3rz · · Score: 1

      To get a picture of what I'm talking about, you can look at some extreme examples of radically different mental ability.

      Blind people, through necessity, can develop mental abilities that seem superhuman like echolocation and rapid aural comprehension, being born blind doesn't seem to be a factor but losing your sight whilst still young is, which is in line with Neuroplasticity. Naturally this is in response to some kind of trauma that renders part of the brain useless without anything to do, and so it rewires itself.

      So if the brain can drastically rewire itself in response to trauma, how does it follow that 'general intelligence' is somehow hardwired? So what makes some people 'smarter' than others anyway? You can handwave that away with genetics all you like but it seems likely that our education systems are doing a poor job.

      Through standardised testing its fairly common knowledge that the Chinese score much higher on PISA maths tests than Americans do, is that because the Chinese are genetically superior to americans? or do they have a better way of teaching maths so it makes sense to a broader spectrum of the population? A little closer to home, the Canadians score higher as well.

    21. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You won't be putting that many doctors, nurses, and radiologists out of work without a hell of a fight. You're talking large, professional groups with lots of money that know how to lobby. The devices to replace them WILL be built, economical, and perform dramatically better than the meatbags. But they'll face insurmountable legal and regulatory hurdles designed only to protect the medical gravy train.

      Which makes me terribly sad. My experience with the medical profession is that I can put an IV in myself better than any random nurse can (1 in 4 doesn't make a bleeding, bruised mess of my arm), radiologists only have a 50% chance of diagnosing a broken bone, and doctors basically just guess on gut instinct after latching on to one or two symptoms and disregarding everything else. I can't wait for consistent, effective medical care performed by robots.

    22. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      You know, so-called smart people are awfully stupid. And I'm speaking as someone who has 5 college degrees in math and computer science (with one in English) at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Have you ever TALKED to people who are (say) roofers? A lot of them are pretty damned smart just have no desire to spend their days in a cubicle. While it doesn't take Einstein to do a roof, it does take skills that perhaps even Einstein didn't have. Your prejudices that such people are somehow less than human - yourself being the ultimate description of humanity - is quite obvious.

    23. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Drop in population? Not if poverty increases - places with high poverty are also places with high birth rates. It should be obvious that fucking is one of the few pleasurable things that poor people can afford to do, so if they've got nothing else to do ...

    24. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by sinij · · Score: 1

      Appeal to authority. False equivalence. Ad hominem.

      I understand your need to construct a positive narrative, but it is manufactured and counter-factual. Intelligence is heritable. A population of pygmies will not product any NBA players no matter how much they believe in themselves. Presently, our society structured that intelligence is not strictly necessary to prosper. This is rapidly changing and unless we ensure that most people have a way to prosper and it is decoupled from having a job - there will be looting and rioting and it might even escalate to societal collapse. So nobody gets to Mars and beyond, no matter how smart or dumb.

    25. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by Solandri · · Score: 1

      If you've ever sat on a committee charged with the responsibility of awarding a scholarship (I have), you realize very quickly there are thousands of worthy candidates who won't get the money, and that most of them will wind up without access to post-secondary education, or access only to low-end courses that won't lead to any kind of doctorate or medical degree.

      Oh the irony in that statement. Widespread availability of scholarships, grants, and loans is what allowed post-secondary education to become so expensive in the first place that it's unaffordable by half the student population. Normally higher demand leads to higher supply (more schools being set up to meet that demand). But college-level education is different in that there are a handful of well-known colleges and universities that everyone wants to get into, and their physical size constrains the number of students they can accept. Consequently the widespread availability of financial assistance allows them to raise their tuition until the number of people applying is reduced to a manageable level. Those higher tuitions have led to wage inflation among school staff, and a ballooning of unnecessary and redundant administrative staff. (Not to mention that these external sources of funding also distort the economics of various degrees, basically allowing people to "afford" degrees in careers where they'll never be able to make enough money to pay back to society the financial assistance they got.)

      Basically, the solution to unaffordable post-secondary education is to put schools on a financial diet, not to feed them more money in the form of more grants, scholarships, and loans.

      It's like global warming. A single person generating excess CO2 is not a problem. But if half the world's population does it, it destroys the environment. Likewise, giving the occasional person a scholarship or the occasional laid off worker unemployment assistance is not a problem. But if half the students and all the ex-workers are getting it, it destroys the economy.

      You have to come up with solutions which won't have unintentional feedback effects which exacerbate the original problem. In the case of colleges, this means banning all scholarships, grants, and loans except in very limited casts - say 5% of the student population. Instead focus your financial assistance in the state university programs. The extra money they receive will allow them to hire good professors so they're regarded to be as good as private colleges, but with tuition locked at affordable levels. That will provide competition with private schools and help drive prices down. (Once college is affordable again, then we can decide where to go from there - the current state is too screwed up to even begin considering long-term solutions right now.)

      Likewise, for employment, you could enact a law which recognizes that automation is inevitable, but which requires companies help pay for the re-training of a worker that they're replacing by automation (for existing companies), or for start-up companies that are automated from the get-go, paying into a fund which helps re-train workers laid off by automation (so the former requirement doesn't put existing companies at a competitive disadvantage). Basically set it up so that a portion of the productivity increase due to automation is guaranteed to be distributed to the displaced worker's re-training for a new job in an automated industry. Then just like pollution, the cost of retraining the worker is no longer externalized and borne by society, it's placed back upon the primary beneficiary of the automation. If automation is truly better for society (which I believe it is), then the long-term financial gain from automating will make it the cost-effective choice even when saddled with this additional re-training cost. So companies will still want to automate, except now they won't be dumping unemployed and unskilled workers into the social safety net for someone else (i.e. society via the government) to pay for.

    26. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by geekmux · · Score: 1

      "A lot of jobs that will be replaced first by automation..." It's already happening. Brainwork and knowledge workers (for example, engineering) are being offshored because it's possible - reliable internet and powerful software in the "third world" has enabled this. Who wouldn't want 95% of the quality for 25% of the price?

      Can't speak about all fields, but I'd love to hear of some examples of IT offshoring that have maintained a quality level anywhere near that 95% you prescribe. That old mantra of Fast, Good, and Cheap comes to mind.

      Who in the "west" is going to buy all the products when they don't have jobs (and therefore don't have money)?

      You seem to be worried about the next decade when the billionaires replacing human workers have to report to Wall Street every quarter. Let's not even pretend they give a shit about long-term impact.

    27. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      No. You're discussing a particular manifestation of intelligence. What I am saying is that I know many extremely intelligent people who don't give a rip about what your definition of a manifestation of intelligence is. You clearly have contempt for people who do not think, nor manifest intelligence, like you do.

    28. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by sinij · · Score: 1

      Why do you have the need to villainize opponent in the argument? You keep attributing contempt and otherwise attempting to stigmatize me instead of addressing the argument.

      Let me simplify - your very different intelligent roofers will be out of a job due to automation. In this case, different intelligence won't allow them to secure gainful employment. There will be a lot of them, they will starve, riot, and could bring down society with them. We need to pay for bread and circuses to avoid that.

    29. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by pipingguy · · Score: 1

      It's a matter of fast, cheap and good enough .

    30. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "There's a valid reason we don't have a massive surplus of neurosurgeons or nuclear fission experts. The field of STEM takes brainpower."

      And money. LOTS and LOTS of money, which you guys get less of as more get displaced by visa workers and having jobs shipped over to asia.

    31. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by nightfire-unique · · Score: 1

      Blind people, through necessity, can develop mental abilities that seem superhuman like echolocation and rapid aural comprehension, being born blind doesn't seem to be a factor but losing your sight whilst still young is, which is in line with Neuroplasticity. Naturally this is in response to some kind of trauma that renders part of the brain useless without anything to do, and so it rewires itself.

      The keyword you're missing here is some. Some blind people can develop mental abilities that seem "superhuman."

      And therein lines the problem. Some is not all, and that is the OP's point. We need to find ways to accommodate those who cannot be trained to enter STEM careers.

      --
      A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
    32. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Strongest of Johnnies will play football, the rest will do roofing gigs and beat their wives.

      I treat my wife like the intelligent, beautiful, sexy female she is; I give her money and she does exactly what I want her to. Life is good.

      However, I would be delighted to beat your wife. Bring her over. I want her in black lingerie. You can stay home. I'll return her to you slightly used, but considerably more compliant.

    33. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by r0kk3rz · · Score: 1

      And therein lines the problem. Some is not all, and that is the OP's point. We need to find ways to accommodate those who cannot be trained to enter STEM careers.

      I never said 'all' either, obviously you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Many people are perhaps not interested in STEM careers, or we do a poor job of making it seem interesting to a broad part of the population. However, aside from people classified as mentally disabled, the idea that a broad part of the population is physically incapable of learning STEM is nothing but elitist nonsense.

    34. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      Your tone appears to me to be very contemptuous. This is why I said this. If you did not mean this, sorry, was not trying to "put words in your mouth" but this is what I sensed.

    35. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by geekmux · · Score: 1

      It's a matter of fast, cheap and good enough .

      Since I know a thing or two about greed, good enough translates into bare minimum very quickly in business today.

      And the only metric that ends up standing out in the end is cheap, because you ultimately get what you pay for. Systems getting hacked, data stolen, and reputations destroyed are the end result of ignoring best practice in favor of greed.

    36. Re:The Illusion of Capacity and Greed. by pipingguy · · Score: 1

      My field (process plant engineering) is experiencing this now, with (tens of?) thousands of jobs being offshored. The time from design "completion" in office to actual plant operation can be six months to two years so it can be difficult to correctly attribute sources of failures. Much work is "fixed in the field" at additional cost, but if that field fix cost is less than what is saved by use of cheap engineers and designers...

      It's probably also cheaper to pay additional upfront insurance to guard against engineering incompetence.

      Brain work has been commoditized.

  19. Safety net for horse shoe makers by vvaduva · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    "White House: US Needs a Stronger Social Safety Net To Help Horse Shoe Makers Displaced by Automobiles"

    1. Re:Safety net for horse shoe makers by bev_tech_rob · · Score: 1

      "White House: US Needs a Stronger Social Safety Net To Help Horse Shoe Makers Displaced by Automobiles"

      Just shut the hell up....mod redundant.

      --
      You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
    2. Re: Safety net for horse shoe makers by TuringTest · · Score: 2

      I've always thought that temporary, transient measures make a lot of sense to alleviate the problems faced by workers in a transitioning industry, to be financed either by mayor players in it or by the government (financed by taxes to the mayor players in the industry), and consisting of early retirements, training in new procedures, or temporal subsidies to the dying industries so that they can adapt. The really bad companies would disappear anyway, but many others could find a way to survive in a new niche, without their workers having to file for bankruptcy.

      A smooth transition will benefit society as a whole much more than the recession produced by the economic crash of the failing companies. Had luddites have a safety net, they wouldn't have done the machine-being that have them a bad name.

      --
      Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
    3. Re: Safety net for horse shoe makers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think a land with millions of unemployable people with 300 million guns is just going to lie down and die? Good luck with that buddy

    4. Re: Safety net for horse shoe makers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Or turn to crime and rob and murder people like you.

    5. Re: Safety net for horse shoe makers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Spoken like a true right-winger. Everybody for themselves, and the devil take the hindmost.

    6. Re: Safety net for horse shoe makers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Spoken like a true commie. Nobody owes you shit...learn a new job, adapt, grow..or die.

      Those are not the choice. These are the choices: learn a new job, adapt, grow, steal from or murder the people that made your life more difficult.

      People don't just lie down to die peacefully when they have any other alternative.

    7. Re:Safety net for horse shoe makers by Iamthecheese · · Score: 1

      The Luddites really got started in the early 1800's. The full impact of the benefits of mechanization didn't happen for 80 more years. That means a whole lot of Luddites starved to death. A social safety network would have enormously smoothed the transition and prevented untold human suffering. And one more thing; AI is unprecedented in the history of automation. "new jobs have always been created" is not a reason to believe "new jobs will always be created."

      --
      If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
    8. Re: Safety net for horse shoe makers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe not, but it would behoove you to make sure they ragged masses are fed and clothed or you risk them taking the food from you by force.

    9. Re: Safety net for horse shoe makers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Spoken like a true privileged and shortsighted asshole.

    10. Re: Safety net for horse shoe makers by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      You think

      I found your mistaken assumption.

      No need to thank me.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  20. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Trade like creative accounting that AI having hard time to master?

  21. MAGA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Trump's going to be too busy making America great again to worry about minutia like this. Step 1: undo anything done by anyone else. Step 2: make it great instead. Step 3: get bored of winning so much. Step 4: hand painting class.

    1. Re:MAGA by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Will he try to build a wall around robots?

  22. Sounds good by Charcharodon · · Score: 1

    Ok lets start funding it by cutting the lifetime "retirement" checks of the President and Congress

    1. Re:Sounds good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you have a poor grasp of the relative costs of government expenditures.

  23. oblig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    1. Re: oblig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dear mr. Oblig please also add Ted Kaczynski, writer of The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future, to your oblig list. The guy who predicted our present situation 20 years ago, well before Marshall Brain. Oh and also add Player Piano in there too.

  24. Stronger Social Safety Net? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please! Just kill them, or let them die. Count the votes. That's what people want these days.. Solves the population problem also. So, let's just stop with this mamby-pamby whining about human rights!

  25. Universal Basic Income by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There has never been a stronger argument for a UBI than automation. Society has a moral obligation to support those who can't work - those who can't work not because they are lazy, but because society does not need them to, and therefore prohibits it.

    Not everyone needs to work to provide for the basic necessities of the entire population. Is it moral to tell people who are prohibited from working that they must live in poverty?

  26. Food for thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well the rich could give a crap less, majority of [rapidly diminishing middle class] and the rest of us would be wise to not be so arrogant to ignore the possibility of hybrid capitalist-socialist market. Before you shit your pants because I said the "socialist" word, it would effectively redistribute some of the money from corps that make -BILLIONS-, to help out the rest of society. Yeah, yeah, who gives a damn what Reagan said, bet he never imagined the idea/REALITY that someday a large number of civilians would actually be completely replaced by mass produced AI robots. Falling behind by not continuing investing in robotics/AI isn't really an option.

    Or.... ya know, be stubborn and refute change, be ignorant and maintain capitalism is king even when it works against your survival; multi-million/billion dollar corps will happily keep all revenue, no obligation to "help out" society for the greater good other than whatever taxes are in play (laughable at best, unrealistic), and then majority of the lower class, can starve to death.
    Greed is the enemy here, not market socialism, nor the idea of 'basic income'. How is it freedom if 1 person in 1000 has ten billion dollars, and the rest must attempt to work multiple jobs just to put food on the table?

  27. Back to reality by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    But the reality is that we are no closer to "AI" than we were in 1960. And the robots that might displace workers are incredibly lame. Robots are good for some tasks, like assembly line welding, but useless for other tasks like assembling Ikea furniture.

    1. Re:Back to reality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      useless for other tasks like assembling Ikea furniture.

      There's an app for that.

    2. Re:Back to reality by hipp5 · · Score: 1

      But the reality is that we are no closer to "AI" than we were in 1960. And the robots that might displace workers are incredibly lame. Robots are good for some tasks, like assembly line welding, but useless for other tasks like assembling Ikea furniture.

      I've said this on other posts about automation... The statement that "robots can't do job 'x'" is always based on the assumption that the job/system will continue to be set up as it is now, for human workers. Yeah, a robot is going to suck at ripping apart a cardboard box, taking all the little hardware out of a plastic bag, and manipulating the tiny little allan wrench they give you. But that's because IKEA assembly is designed for humans. With automation, labour costs disappear, so instead of building furniture in Eastern Europe and designing for cheap shipping, maybe IKEA sets up regional factories and instead designs for robot assembly.

    3. Re:Back to reality by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      useless for other tasks like assembling Ikea furniture.

      At this point I'm not sure you don't just find tasks others have already completed and then say it's impossible.

      IkeaBot -- Automated Multi-Robot Furniture Assembly. MIT 2013.

      Ross A. Knepper, Todd Layton, John Romanishin, and Daniela Rus. “IkeaBot: An Autonomous Multi-Robot Coordinated Furniture Assembly System”. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Karlsruhe, Germany, May 2013. Best Automation Paper Finalist. [PDF]

      And robots don't have to be perfect, they just have to be better than the lowest human denominator. They work 24/7. Don't get tired, drunk or play on their phones.

    4. Re:Back to reality by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      And robots don't have to be perfect, they just have to be better than the lowest human denominator. They work 24/7. Don't get tired, drunk or play on their phones.

      They don't self-repair if you stick cheeseburgers into them, either. Robots have a lot of advantages, but until we get better at building modular robots designed to be repaired by other modular robots, we're still going to need a bunch of humans to scurry around and service the robots.

      All of this is why our failure to expand into space is so unfortunate. Our economic models are based on endless expansion, and that's the only place that's possible — certainly not down here on this lumpy ball of mud and rocks.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  28. Numbers don't lie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Bush legacy: 2008 USA GDP: $14.7186 trillion, EU GDP $19.02 trillion (EU dwarfs US economy)
    Obama legacy: 2016 USA GDP of $18.56 trillion, EU GDP $16.97 trillion (USA dwarfs EU economy)

    "Chamberlain-esque foreign policy which caused a power vacuum and gave us Daesh...." blah blah blah... lots of words, and fuck all reality. An enemy so weak it's reduced to cutting people's heads off one by one because he has no major weapons. More people choke on burgers.

    Trump future legacy: Strip away the lies about his businesses, and he's a bankrupt crook running an investment ponzi scheme. Good luck with that lying sack of unelected shit. But hey, a muslim, BE AFRAID AND DON'T QUESTION why Trump just asked Deutsche bank for yet another extension on a bridge loan.

    1. Re:Numbers don't lie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Different AC here. Those are great stats to throw at people... but if you look at main street and not Wall Street, it is a completely different picture. Those companies making part of that 18.56T are paying little to no taxes. The average person is barely getting by, because the revenue that is generated by those companies flies overseas, tax free, never to be seen again.

      "An enemy so weak..." You mean the one that has stopped the push into Mosul by coalition forces, and is holding strong in their region of Iraq?

      As for the current President-elect, if one had any clue about US history, there is a reason for the Electoral College. Without it, California and New York would decide who would be President, with every other region of the US having zero voice in that election. In fact, in California proper, their bicameral state legislature is all based on popular vote. This means that coastal cities get 100% of the attention by politicians, while everyone east of that has no voice whatsoever. This is why California has fiascos like the Salton Sea going on.

    2. Re:Numbers don't lie by JeffOwl · · Score: 1

      Please stop applying statistics to things that are not related. Raw GDP is meaningless in this context of what the President did or didn't do. Clinton legacy: 2000 USA GDP $10.3 Trillion. By your measure Bush grew the economy! WooHoo! and by more than Obama! We love Bush! Bush is Good!

    3. Re:Numbers don't lie by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      GDP is a measure of main street you moron.

    4. Re:Numbers don't lie by Shade+Everdark · · Score: 1

      Different AC here. Those are great stats to throw at people... but if you look at main street and not Wall Street, it is a completely different picture. Those companies making part of that 18.56T are paying little to no taxes. The average person is barely getting by, because the revenue that is generated by those companies flies overseas, tax free, never to be seen again.

      "An enemy so weak..." You mean the one that has stopped the push into Mosul by coalition forces, and is holding strong in their region of Iraq?

      As for the current President-elect, if one had any clue about US history, there is a reason for the Electoral College. Without it, California and New York would decide who would be President, with every other region of the US having zero voice in that election. In fact, in California proper, their bicameral state legislature is all based on popular vote. This means that coastal cities get 100% of the attention by politicians, while everyone east of that has no voice whatsoever. This is why California has fiascos like the Salton Sea going on.

      So tell me something: Why, exactly, shouldn't California and New York dominate the decision to decide who is President? That happens to be where most of the people are. Generally speaking, in a democracy (yes, even a democratic republic such as the US), the choice of the majority of voters is kinda-sorta supposed to be who ends up winning. But ignore that for a moment. You say that California and New York should not dominate the Presidential election. In the system we now have, with the Electoral College, why then should Iowa, Wyoming, or Nebraska disproportionately determine who our President should be? You do realize that, under our current system, the votes of those states, as a proportion of the population, count for more than do the votes of California or New York, or North Carolina, or Florida. Rather a lot more.WaPo A better solution would be to introduce proportional representation, but we all know that's not going to happen.

    5. Re:Numbers don't lie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because if those states were able to makes the rules, then the shitheads couldn't run around screamin niigger all day, beat up fags for fun, or diddle their kids. Why do you think they live out in the middle nowhere? It's so they can be "left alone" to continue being oppressive pricks. I live out here in the middle of nowhere with these rednecks. Don't let them bullshit you about religious freedoms or whatever. Head down south or out to Iowa, stay a spell and tell me I'm wrong.

    6. Re:Numbers don't lie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do know healthcare is included in the GDP estimate, right? Also that it's not a good indicator of quality of life? Because things have certainly gotten worse for the Average Joe between then and now, that much is painfully obvious.

  29. How about ditchdiggers displaced by backhoes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or John Henry--a real steel drivin' man--replaced by machine? Farriers out of work due to automobile? Telegraph operators by telephone? Lumberjacks replaced by chainsaws? Gas station attendants replaced by self-service? Steno-pool replaced by desktop computers? Cassette tape makers replaced by CD and then CD makers replaced by digital downloads and streaming? Loads of construction workers displaced by pneumatic nailers and electric circular saws?

    The list is pretty long.

    1. Re:How about ditchdiggers displaced by backhoes? by hipp5 · · Score: 1

      Sure. And the pain for the replaced workers was probably pretty high, but in each case it was a small part of the economy, and changes were relatively gradual in the grand scheme of things.

      I think we're on the cusp of an unpresidented [sic, lol] change right now. We're not talking about replacing one part of one industry at a time, we're facing the elimination of a huge amount of manual labour. And beyond that, we're facing the replacement of a whole swath of "intellectual" tasks. Sure, there will probably still be jobs at the top. But we don't need to lose all jobs before it becomes a huge factor in society. US unemployment peaked at 10% in 2009, and that was pretty much economic armageddon. Automation could easily cause a similar rate or higher.

      And I should add that none of this is necessarily a bad thing. Society has always adapted, and I'm sure we will again. But we will make the transition a whole lot more pleasant if we think about it ahead of time and plan for it.

  30. TL;DR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's that means that you must give the government more money and power.

  31. Immigration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, if robots are going to take all the jobs, America should end all immigration since that will be simply importing extra burdens, yes?

  32. Who owns the means of production? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If some task is automatable, it will get automated. There's no way we can stop that. Not that we should, as it is not a bad thing in itself, mind you.
    The problem coming is the concentration of production power, meaning that a tiny fraction of the population will be capable of producing almost all the goods. How is the rest of the population going to bargain? When a few have the factories and access to capital and resources, what can I offer in exchange for bread? My work alone, which is what most of us hev been trading with, will not be enough anymore.
    So, if automation is good, but concentration is bad, what we (as a society) should do is prevent concentration of automatas. Let's forbid that automatas belong to legal persons, and only allow them to be owned by people. Induestries can get automated as much as you want, but the benefits from this will not create a social divide between owners and populace.

  33. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Trades are nice but they're not going to provide massive numbers of jobs. After we've made up our current shortage, we're just left training people for yet another sector where they can't find work. It's one policy that can help a bit, but it's not an overall solution to the problem.

  34. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by sg_oneill · · Score: 1

    Great plan Einstein. Meet the challenge of manual labor being replaced by automation by putting more people into manual labor. What could possibly go wrong.

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  35. Future history lesson by wjcofkc · · Score: 1

    It will one day be said, "It started with McDonald's." The question is, will we be there to hear it, or will it be a robot's contemplation of their evolutionary predecessor.

    --
    Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
  36. Tie student loan interest rate to major's U6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why are we handing out loans like candy to snowflake millennials who want to major in art history or "cultures" (gender studies, etc.) when the unemployment rate among art history and "cultures" majors is 12.5%? There's certainly nothing wrong with gender studies or art history, if you can afford to pay for your own schooling or have a track to employment after graduation. It's just awfully risky for taxpayers to continue to fund the student lifestyle on hard-to-employ majors.

    I say charge student loan interest at par with the unemployment rate by major. Gender studies and art history majors would pay 12.5%, while chemical engineers would pay 2.2%.

    The risk for a CHEM-E to not get a job and be able to pay off their loans is much lower than the art history major...

  37. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by dywolf · · Score: 0

    yeah, who needs education right?
    its just a distraction from your job.
    now back to work drone.

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  38. It's your responsibility to support others. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nice subject eh, 'your' being government/installed by 'you all'. The simple fact is our society is so incredibly regulated that one simply cannot live on their own. Land is all claimed and or controlled, jobs that a monkey can do(plumbing, carpentry, drywall, yada yada) require years of apprenticeship and depending on area large sums of starting capital for county insurance/certifications/ok's.

    If someone could simply walk over to unused/unfenced land, build a house/hut, pay no taxes, shit in a hole, collect rainwater, not worry about government forcing them off and destroying their work.. Then maybe I'd argue people are not entitled, but so long as these forces exist to enslave everyone, it is the responsibility of those giving the system the authority to provide for all.

    Besides, it's 'insurance' that the poor don't slit the throats of the rich. Presuming you could get by their 24/7 armed security and fortresses.

    IMO

    400 people control half the worlds wealth; Do you see an easy way to double everyones wealth?

    1. Re:It's your responsibility to support others. by tsqr · · Score: 1

      jobs that a monkey can do (plumbing, carpentry, drywall, yada yada)

      I'm guessing you've never tried to do any of those, except yada yada.

    2. Re:It's your responsibility to support others. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope, jack of all trades licensed in none; law doesn't me allow to contract out my services without being a slave for years and those fees mentioned; . Not worth the headache for the amount of pay... If those impediments were not in the way 'plumber'/'carpenter'/'etc wouldn't pay much more than working at 7/11 given the number of people how could do it well about the equivalent in training(as required at 7/11).

  39. Wow, took long enough! by ErichTheRed · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's funny how these things go from a few "wackos" talking about robots taking over manufacturing, to the US government actually acknowledging there may be a problem with the system sooner than we think. I do think people are trying to lay the groundwork now, to minimize the negative effects. I could imagine some pretty bad methods of "population control" to use a euphemistic term if we tried to carry over the current system with majority unemployment being the norm.

    Of course, this is a parting shot from the outgoing administration -- given Trump's cabinet picks, I foresee some pretty nasty congressional fights and an eventual dismantling of most social programs. The Social Security system may be handed over to hedge funds and banks for safe keeping, Meidicare may become a voucher system that just enriches the insurance companies, and what little welfare there is left may be taken away. I'm happy the current administration is getting it on the record that we've been warned...it could be an interesting historical footnote or maybe a wake-up call.

    The fact is that even though "AI" isn't nearly as thrilling as the pundits claim, it is good enough at this point to displace a huge number of very vulnerable people. People aren't working assembly line or fast food jobs because they love the work...they're doing it because it's the only thing they're capable of. That's the first problem -- a lot of people are poorly educated, and a great number of those won't benefit from additional education resources getting thrown at them. Median IQ is 100 -- there's a lot of people at or below that. Unless you want to start engineering society to model "Brave New World," you either need to find something for these people to do, or allow them to do nothing and stop complaining.

    The next iteration is what I'm worried about -- professionals could easily have their roles reduced. Doctors and lawyers are a good example -- most of medical and law school is designed to select for people with photographic memories and dump volumes of information into their brains. When that knowledge doesn't need to be kept in someone's brain anymore, the status of the professional holding it is reduced. Same thing goes for IT -- I'm in systems architecture so I'm designing stuff and coming up with procedures, and it's obvious where things are headed. Hands-on IT work is almost at the point where we just need to tell someone to plug in cables, remove hard drives, etc. Development is moving offshore and increasingly done as a series of pre-formed code components and microservices. Note that this also goes for almost every office job out there too. Working in corporate IT, I see so many generic C-strudent business majors from Big State University performing an updated version of a 40 year old process. It sounds like a good idea to increase productivity by automating and replacing them, but I haven't lost sight of the fact that these people are having kids, buying products and living in communities. Take them out, and no one's around to buy the things your company is making in their fully automated factories.

    Lots of people are saying this will never happen and that anyone who suggests it will is a Luddite. Maybe so, but I don't see anywhere for most workers to go -- there's no retraining for jobs that don't exist in the modern AI world. It's going to require a radical rethinking of how we define work, wealth, etc. And if it isn't done very carefully, it will lead to a very bad end. Imagine the uproar when you tell everyone that the retirement savings they worked for all their lives won't need to be saved up by future generations, or that we have to enact more social safety programs for the 80% and rising unemployed people out there. If this is done badly, it will lead to the owners of businesses hoarding everything for themselves or calls to control the population in certain ways.

    1. Re:Wow, took long enough! by pipingguy · · Score: 1

      Great post.

    2. Re:Wow, took long enough! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > ...professionals could easily have their roles reduced. Doctors and lawyers are a good example...

          Yes, technically. Some professionals perhaps. But they Docs' and Shysters' professional societies will legislate and/or petition the standards that 'must include' actual human participation. Any groups with an influence will bend the world to include them, not the other way around. But otherwise a well angled post.

    3. Re:Wow, took long enough! by Dripdry · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, could an actually free market take care of this? (I know, I know... )

      If the companies who bankrupt themselves get gobbled up by those that "get it" and distribute the wealth instead of horde it, would this potentially help solve the problem?
      Companies may not only have to adapt their products in the future, but also their fundamental charter and recognize themselves as redistributors of wealth?

      --
      -
    4. Re:Wow, took long enough! by llZENll · · Score: 1

      Well I would hope one day, all jobs that no one wants to do are done by automation. Leaving humans to do things they want to do, even if automation can do them. This would amount to mostly the arts I would think, but some like to do non-artistic things for fun, and just imagine things that might be fun if you don't HAVE to do them, almost everything actually, because you are learning and growing. Nearly everyday of your life could be filled with a new task you get to learn, practice, and try for fun.

      The struggle will be the transition to all this, somehow we have to figure out how to organize, prioritize, and distribute the automated wealth and things.

    5. Re:Wow, took long enough! by giampy · · Score: 1

      Truly great post. I saved it!

      I do believe that the process is going to be really slow, taking hundreds of years to fully pan out, which in theory helps, in practice, it might not.

      Either way i don't disagree with the conclusions, when we reach that point, i don't think there is any other way forward other than some kind of universal basic income along with tighter population and border control (and some kind of free, perhaps mandatory, education). And it might be not too bad for business owners themselves after all as this will guarantee the presence of sound goods and labor markets.

      --
      We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
  40. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure all those women's studies majors are doing us a lot of good.

  41. You are insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The guy who worked a deal, by making a phone call, to save 1000 jobs at Carrier is the one who doesn't care. While the CURRENT president who couldn't be bothered to make that call at ANY TIME before was too busy playing golf?

    You also are delusional. I don't think its possible to have adult discussions on relevant topics with liberals anymore. You all are literally making shit up that is the complete opposite of what we see.

    Trump is for more illegal immigration according to you.
    Trump doesn't care about keeping jobs in the US according to you.
    The literal TOP TWO things he campaigned on and has already done something about without even being inaugurated yet. Yet you support Obama, who has been in charge for EIGHT years and hasn't done anything about these issues that you say are important to you.

    Yes, Trump's election is now obvious. I don't see how anyone could have doubted his win at this point. Just listen to a liberal blame a guy not in charge of anything for what their hero has failed to do for 2 terms. You all are completely insane.

    1. Re:You are insane by Kierthos · · Score: 4, Informative

      The actual number of jobs 'saved' is around 730. Trump was claiming about 300 jobs that weren't going to Mexico to begin with.

      Furthermore, Carrier is getting paid $7 million to keep those jobs in the U.S. That's not exactly a sustainable method of retaining a U.S. workforce. Nor is it necessarily a desirable one. How many more companies are going to line up for a payout to keep jobs in the U.S., now that they know it's an option that the President-elect could take?

      And let's get something straight. Trump doesn't give a shit one way or the other about illegal immigration. It was a talking point, nothing more. He's already been backing off the proposal for a border wall AND he's already been backing off full deportation of illegal/undocumented immigrants.

      Illegal immigration numbers have been going down for years. Current estimates have it at the lowest it's been since 2003.

      --
      Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
    2. Re:You are insane by rgbscan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You can't have it both ways. When Obama bailed out the largest automaker with a *LOAN*, you trumpettes cried foul and pledged not to every buy anything from "Government Motors" or those greedy unions. Trump comes by and saves like half of the jobs that Carrier is sending to Mexico by *GIVING AWAY* taxpayer money and it's all "he's a genius deal maker" and "MAGA" with you folks. The hypocrisy is astounding.

    3. Re:You are insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tax cut != spending or loan. Not relevant comparison. Unless you believe all money belongs to the government and then a tax cut is spending, but you would have to be insane to believe that.

      Now as for GM, Obama SEIZED the company from the rightful owners giving bond holders .36 cents on each dollar they loaned to GM. These are most likely older blue/white collar workers who invested in GM bonds because it was a stable company. Obama literally took 64% of their money, he took it, and then called them names like you are.

      The GM thing was a horrible thing Obama did. Stealing money from people responsible enough to save up for their own retirement and he just took it from them and gave it to the unions instead. Yes, he gave it to people who paid to help him get elected. Its not even crony capitalism at this point, it was outright fascism. And here you are touting it as the greatest thing ever.

      You also are completely insane. If liberals told the truth they couldn't possibly be liberals anymore.

    4. Re:You are insane by Victor_0x53h · · Score: 1

      Claims for first-time unemployment benefits are around 250,000* monthly. How many calls a month should our president be making to private companies? I'm not familiar with the terms of whatever deal Trump made with Carrier and if it costs taxpayers money.

      On the topic of making stuff up, someone has to be wrong and I don't know how the left and right can be living in such alternate realities. What about the current unemployment rate*? At 4.6% it's only 0.2% higher than the lowest it's been in 10 years; 3.8 was the lowest that's gone in 20 years. Is this number wrong or made up? Do you have more examples of what you feel is made up?

      * https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pd...
      ** https://data.bls.gov/timeserie...

    5. Re:You are insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Die in a fire fucking bullshit bootlicker!

    6. Re:You are insane by aristotheron · · Score: 0

      Why are you so stupid to talk about Donald Trump when the problem is the system he works for? How are you better than the people you talk down to when you are both transfixed by the bouncing red ball, even if for different reasons?

      What's astounding is your devotion to deluding yourself into believing you are better than other people. By choosing a context where neither side will be proved wrong, you feel safe in your judgement from afar, never having to put yourself to the test and seriously entertain any potential refutation.

      Echo chamber zombies. You fell for the biggest most obvious trick in the world. Bright lights, color, and screaming noise, you never questioned it for more than a minute. And meanwhile you sabotage and abandon your instincts and common sense.

    7. Re:You are insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Carrier deal was nothing more than another talking point to put on the evening news. Disregarding the loss of tax revenue due to the 7 million in tax cuts, not to create new jobs, but just to keep existing jobs here. What of the other American HVAC manufacturers? They do not exist in a bubble. By giving this tax cut to Carrier he also put other HVAC manufacturers at a disadvantage, especially those already manufactured in the US and playing by the standard ruleset, making it even harder to compete and skewing the movement of "the invisible hand." If Carrier is responsible and is able to capitalize on this advantage, demand for their product will rise as demand for the competitors product will fall, and will still have a non-trivial impact on total jobs available in the market of American manufactured HVAC, although no one will notice if 50-100 get laid off at each of the other companies due to lack of work borne on the back of the competitive advantage. It's easy to boast of this as a great deal when you completely ignore the other economic repercussions and pressures that will occur down the line due to this choice.

    8. Re:You are insane by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      Well, there are over 3600 jobs from Indiana alone going overseas that he isn't doing anything about. This includes 350 lost at Rexnord that Trump had tweeted about it not happening and then the company heard nothing from him.

    9. Re:You are insane by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      You can't have it both ways.

      I think they have shown they can have it both ways. Cognitive dissonance proved no barrier to Trump voters. Consequences incoming. I recommend ducking.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    10. Re:You are insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Furthermore, Carrier is getting paid $7 million to keep those jobs in the U.S. That's not exactly a sustainable method of retaining a U.S. workforce. Nor is it necessarily a desirable one. How many more companies are going to line up for a payout to keep jobs in the U.S., now that they know it's an option that the President-elect could take?"

      It's a tax credit paid over 10 years and it comes out to ~$850 per job per year. The taxable income (Fed/State/Local), local spending, revenue generation, etc. for each job will cover this without any trouble.

      Furthermore, a tax credit is far better than a bailout. A credit is given before money is taken, meaning a smaller tax debt. A bailout is taking money from someone and giving it to someone else. Something you meatheads have a hard time understanding.

      Illegal entry at it's lowest point since 2003? What a yuge pile of doo.

      Sounds like you need to get your news from a different source and learn how capitalism really works.

    11. Re:You are insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know about that guy, but if your posts are an accurate reflection of yourself, then I am most certainly better than you. People want to act like some people aren't better than others. This is demonstrably false.

    12. Re:You are insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, it's not. Trump is offering a tax cut, not giving money away, to an otherwise profitable business. Republicans and "Trumpettes*" have been calling for corporate tax cuts in the name of saving US jobs for as long as I've been alive. Trump's move is inline with the party platform. Just because you don't like the platform doesn't give you room to make a false alignment of the two situations. They're not the same.

      *Yeah, keep it up. You still don't understand why Hillary lost, do you? You're only helping to maintain the schism that will continue to lead to future gains for the Republicans.

    13. Re:You are insane by dywolf · · Score: 1

      he saved 800 (not 1000) jobs?
      that's cute.

      wake me up when he saves 250,000 jobs by bailing out the auto industry.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    14. Re:You are insane by dywolf · · Score: 1

      Yet you support Obama, who has been in charge for EIGHT years and hasn't done anything about these issues that you say are important to you.

      Youre right.
      He didn't do anything....other than deport more people than the previous 4 presidents combined, and save the economy.
      What was your point again?

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    15. Re:You are insane by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      Maybe illegal immigration is going down because there are no jobs, and the southern part of country is so full of Mexicans, it's basically Mexico. Nobody wants to go through all that hassle of immigrating just to end up in the exact same situation.

  42. Everything Old Is Old Again by chowderpot · · Score: 1

    We've heard this before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... I think it's imperative that we bring the term "cybernation" back into everyday use.

  43. GM just did a three month furlough by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    Because their factories are making card too fast for the market to bear (and presumably dropping the price would result in lower profit overall). So yeah, it's already happening.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:GM just did a three month furlough by avandesande · · Score: 1

      This is over capacity and has nothing to do with automation. In the US our 'auto utilization rate' is probably 1/3 what other first world nations have....

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    2. Re:GM just did a three month furlough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't believe that was his point. I think he was pointing out that people can't afford cars. You and I both know there are people watching the markets and they will adjust for supply and demand, so just "overproduction" doesn't seem to explain anything. A beancounter would have shut the lines down quarters ago. There's something else going on here.

  44. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by budgenator · · Score: 1

    You effectively have two options that I see to support this ever increasing population: subsistence living (barter, hunt, scavenge), or wealth transfer.

    Well if Trump actually decreases criminality in the cities, there will not be as much bartering, hunting and scavenging.

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  45. They are reaching by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seems like the current administration is reaching for things to do.

  46. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd say this is 10-20 years too late. It was once a great option, but what you're currently proposing is programming for repetitive tasks, aka meat robots.
    Humans need instruction/practice on how to use the only asset that is as of now unique - their brain.

    I do agree with you that many colleges are not meeting the needs of people and are part of the problem, not the solution. I'd argue that the way to solve that is make college free. Fuck you and your outrageous tuitions that appear to go straight to management salaries, which now saddle a student with a lifetime of debt.

  47. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by Maritz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    what happens when that jumps to 15% or higher?

    Slums and shanties will crop up/grow bigger. I don't see any kind of 'safety net' helping those people out. You're the US, and helping people is commie bullshit.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  48. There are over 300 million people by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    In this country. We can't all be highly educated office workers. What the hell do you think would happen to your wages if even 10 million more people competed for your job? What you're suggesting is that people pull themselves up by their boot straps. What you're ignoring is that is literally physically impossible.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:There are over 300 million people by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      The old "we need serfs for me to be important so fuck them all" trope.

    2. Re:There are over 300 million people by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      Actually, I misread what you were saying. Yes, it is economically impossible to remove a poor and working poor class from the equation.

    3. Re:There are over 300 million people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, it's called an existential war.

      Not this limp wristed excuse for a war. Do you even ration, bro?

  49. Not a Problem by Dishevel · · Score: 1

    Those workers who are displaced by robots can just do like the others that made Obamas economy, "Great".

    They can use up their unemployment and then not work at all. Just go out and, "Pursue their dreams". That way they will not be unemployed. They will just be part of an alternative way of life.

    I could be wrong though. Permanent unemployment benefits all the people that want it should be a great way to make things work.

    Fucking Idiots

    --
    Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
  50. Data will not save us by rockmuelle · · Score: 1

    "The report also calls on the government to keep a close eye on fostering competition in the AI industry, since the companies with the most data will be able to create the most advanced products, effectively preventing new startups from having a chance to even compete."

    I call BS on this one. The two companies with arguably the most data anyone has ever accumulated in history are both incapable of producing new products, despite the fact that they know everything about everyone.

    Google's only innovation was its advertising platform. It's a cash cow. That cash and the data in its search/mail systems has failed to yield anything new and innovative beyond incremental improvements in search.

    Facebook's only innovation was leveraging privilege to build a social network. Remember the early days where it was just limited to Harvard students and then a few other universities and then finally everyone else? That was a brilliant strategy to create artificial scarcity to build demand. They also leveraged that time of limited users to fine tune the platform and create a social network that was generally acceptable to a broad user base. Since then, they've made a ton of money and collected a lot of data (granted, it's mostly people's family pictures and political rants) but haven't done anything innovative.

    Innovation will always come from the small disrupters. Both companies made their innovative moves when they were small.

    -Chris

    1. Re:Data will not save us by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      So writing software that beat the ex-world champion in Go was not innovative? Or creating the first self-driving car that could drive on the streets? Or building an on-demand translator that is actually usable? I guess you only consider something innovative if it was done by a small company.

  51. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by tsqr · · Score: 1

    Great plan Einstein. Meet the challenge of manual labor being replaced by automation by putting more people into manual labor. What could possibly go wrong.

    What do you suppose the timeline is for automation to replace plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics, carpenters, masons, and painters?

  52. Good old Obama... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gotta pander to the labor unions who actually believe it's a sustainable practice to pay middle school dropouts $75,000 a year to turn a wrench on an assembly line.

    1. Re:Good old Obama... by ErichTheRed · · Score: 2

      And why is it not sustainable? Because the greedy business owner who owns that assembly line wants to keep all of that $75K for himself?

      This is what I don't get about business owners. They complain bitterly about "crippling regulations" and "job killing policies" but they're immeasurably better off than people they employ. Regulations are not expensive to comply with. Spending a few extra minutes filling out paperwork once a year isn't going to kill your business. Paying for reasonable worker safety equipment isn't going to bankrupt you. And, if paying employees a reasonable wage will bankrupt you, then you shouldn't be in business. I have absolutely no sympathy for wealthy restaurant owners making huge profits, then claiming that they can't pay someone $15 an hour. Business owners benefit from tax loopholes that wage owners can only dream of...they pay significantly less tax percentage-wise than individuals. Big companies pay zero or get refunds. The minimum wage complainers earn double an average employee's hourly salary on the first restaurant check, and the amount they pay in salary is tax-deductible as cost of goods sold.

    2. Re:Good old Obama... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You bring all the capital, you assume all the risk, you create jobs, and actually wanting to make a profit for your effort is "greed." Thanks for the clarification, komrade.

  53. Forget factories by Weaselmancer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The next big hit will be the trucking industry. Everyone thinks Google's self driving cars are pretty cute, right? Fewer accidents, vision impaired people can get to the grocery store, your car can drive your drunk ass home from the bar safely? All good, right?

    Two things about that. First thing, they want this for the trucking industry. Don't tell me they're not working on it because they absolutely are. First article, second article.

    Second thing. Truck driver is the most popular profession today. First article, second article.

    The USA is set to lose 3.5 million jobs, just as soon as we get this tech ironed out. And it doesn't matter who the president is. Trump, Hillary, Vermin Supreme - it'll happen no matter what. It has nothing to do with politics, NAFTA, any of it. It's progress, it's capitalism, and it's going to happen.

    People need to look a little farther afield than simple manufacturing to see how automation will affect the economy.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
    1. Re:Forget factories by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      yep

      Fleet vehicles will be the first to get automated. Drivers will transition to maintenance techs who will ride with the vehicle in the early years/first decade I am sure. Eventually that will change and the trucks will have no one riding with them at all.

    2. Re:Forget factories by burtosis · · Score: 1

      And it doesn't matter who the president is. Trump, Hillary, Vermin Supreme - it'll happen no matter what. It has nothing to do with politics, NAFTA, any of it. It's progress, it's capitalism, and it's going to happen.

      We get the point, you don't need to go all doubly redundant on us.

    3. Re:Forget factories by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Quote from an ex-trucker: "Truckers are all idiots. They underbid each other to the point that they barely break even."

      Ever encounter a semi-driver with a case of road rage? They're rare, but I've seen a couple, they know they've already lost their CDL and f-yeah, let's intimidate a few sub-compacts on the last drive home. More common are the sleep deprived and otherwise unpredictable ones. I'll feel much better having all their sorry asses retrained into something useful, like daycare for children - yeah, that's the ticket, they'd be great! Teach the toddlers how to man-up, MAGA!

  54. Women's studies majors are filling a need. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Women's studies majors are filling a need.

    Lesbian and submissive male consorts for the growing ranks of female executives. Where else are they going to come from? Trade school?

  55. Oh Slashdot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It feels like I've been seeing critical comments about the government ignoring automation in various posts all year and that those criticisms were so one-sided that commenters had reached a very wide majority in support of the idea. But now that the government is suggesting that they do something about it, major backlash has appeared. While it's hopefully mostly due to differing opinions on how to implement something like this, it feels like "government" is a trigger word that makes people feel differently even if they believe in the idea being proposed.

    1. Re:Oh Slashdot... by FormOfActionBanana · · Score: 1

      I think that people only tend to pop up and comment when they disagree.

      Until I read your comment, I was just sitting back pleasantly surprised to see Obama's office take note of the trend. It didn't occur to me to post "Yes, agree!"

      --
      Take off every 'sig' !!
  56. Re:The future is bright! by budgenator · · Score: 2

    3 types, you forgot the people insightful enough to buy stock in the companies that purchase the robots to make the "obscene profits" that they will share in through dividends. Wait for it, "But you have to be rich to buy stock, only the Rich get richer", sorry that's just loser thinking that you've been programmed to think to keep you poor, vulnerable and easy to manipulate. Sure some stocks are quite pricey making buy-in all but impossible for most of us worker-driods, but there are always Mutual funds and 401Ks. If even those are out of your budget you can form a stock club, just follow these instructions and where it says lottery, just substitute stock.

    Who knows, maybe if the Democrats don't ass-rape you too bad with capital-gains taxes, there might even be some left over for your kids when you die!

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  57. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Exactly. More trades. One of my largest frustrations with these initiatives is that they assume that everyone wants to be a white collar worker. There are people that take great pride in laying down roadways, slinging stucco, building fences, machining parts, building cars, etc. and many of these people quite simply don't want to be behind a desk. I can sympathize. I have a nice, cushy desk job with good benefits, good pay, etc. But if I could get the same pay, benefits, etc being a blue collar worker, I would. But not everyone wants to look at documents and spreadsheets all day, and we're putting zero money into training blue collar workers, whom also happen to be the ones most likely to be put out of work.

    We seem to continually pound our heads against a brick wall trying to move blue collar workers into white collar workers like it's some kind of saving grace. It isn't. There aren't white collar jobs available in most of these economically depressed areas either! Most job creation is from blue collar types in these areas -- let those cross train some skills and give them a bit of a net to try and start new businesses, like Germany is doing with great success rates.

  58. Your analysis fails immediately on the facts. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    RE: CrankyOldEngineer believes that any child can and should learn math and science ...

    Then you are an idiot who knows nothing about severe learning disabilities and medical issues like pervasive developmental disorder, autism, brain damage, and a whole host of similar conditions.

    That by the way is where a huge chunk of our government education dollars are going. To provide some kind of education to children who are basically unteachable in standard classrooms. What's your plan for those kids. Euthanasia?

  59. Other side of the argument by mattwarden · · Score: 1

    Here is an article on the other side of the argument.

    tldr: article suggests safety net disrupts market reorganization in these scenarios by removing incentive to relocate and/or retrain, leading to multi-generational poverty

    http://reason.com/archives/201...

    1. Re:Other side of the argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The arrival of AI will be the ultimate forever-generational-poverty for some, and endless profit for few.

      You really can't retrain workers when labor will be like 2% of the GDP and 98% would be generated by capital investments (robot operated factories owned by private entities). Unless you're in on those investments, you're gonna starve---and no, there are no market forces that will take care of you... your only hope is some system that will nudge the system towards a more even distribution of resources...

    2. Re:Other side of the argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with these projections is that you can make them only on what you know about today. Obviously, you cannot make them based on inventions that have not happened yet. If you simply look at what we take for granted today, the creators/operators of which employ tens of thousands of people, that did not exist 10 years ago, it helps put things into perspective.

      What you are saying could end up being right, but purely by coincidence. You are asserting things with confidence that are completely unknowable. History suggests that these types of changes are not existential threats to our economy, but it's possible that "This Time is Different".

      But regardless you did not address the point of the article I posted. I hoped it would produce an interesting discussion.

  60. Ah. A welfare state. by Chas · · Score: 1

    Wreck the economy to the point that it's cheaper to ship jobs overseas.
    Have local workers demand exorbitantly high wages (I don't get out of bed to flip burgers for less than fifteen dollars!).
    Employers respond predictably by cutting hours and automating where they can...
    Now the administration wants to carebear people displaced by automation.

    Never mind that they're the assholes that ultimately CAUSED this shit to happen.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  61. Political and Social Bias will kill us all by calexontheroad66 · · Score: 2

    I think that, the new round of automation will kill a lot of jobs, that the those jobs that will disappear won't be replaced by new unexisting jobs.
    Replacing jobs like taxi driver, truck drivers and related to driving transport machines is worrisome cause they represent a lot of the currently unskilled jobs available.
    Also, replacing fast food restaurant workers will have a massive impact, even if these jobs are low quality jobs but they represent entry level and a way to get at least some basic income.
    This will have a big impact, mostly cause what we do for a living is not only a way to provide our material needs but also our status.
    Having a large percentage of the population with no possibility of getting a job, no income, and no status, it is a sure way for society to degenerate.
    This will bleed into the middle classes, while the "safe" jobs get snuffed, like medical doctor, lawyer and others. Doesn't mean there won't be a need for them, it is just that will need less not more.

    Now, think what a person that doesn't have any means to provide for themselves, what will they do?

    - We, can expect a big increase in drugs consumption of the potent type, and alcohol.
    - Sex industry would grow.
    - Steady growth of petty crime, and possibility of high civil unrest.
    - Systemic collapse of infrastructure.
    - Breakdown in social cohesion, and morals will be either very loose or very strict.

    Given the current political biases that complain against people living on welfare, at same time their solution is to time warp into the 19th century and privatize everything.
    I find that libertarians, conservatives, neo-liberals and liberals are tottally out of tune with reality, there is a complacent ignorance of history, a tunnel vision that prevents any sensible action outside of a narrow field of interests.
    Keynes was right when he said: "The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones." and "Ideas shape the course of history."

    1. Re:Political and Social Bias will kill us all by sdinfoserv · · Score: 1

      As fewer and fewer real jobs exist and governments lose the ability to provide "basic income" be actual basic income or existing social security due to the erosion of tax base, what's left? Who's left with jobs to purchase the goods and services of the few rich who own the automated factories that produce the automation?
      We're already seeing AI attorneys diagnosis systems with better results than real people.. it's only a matter of time before these human jobs just become the "licensed" human "support" person for an office full of AI.
      As far as civil unrest - we're heading there anyway. Read about "Behavior Sink" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... as a result of over crowding.
      We already know this phenomenon happens in human populations ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) see Cabrini Green. Any comparison with what Cities like Seattle are trying to do with homeless? We're refusing to learn from mistakes of the past.

    2. Re:Political and Social Bias will kill us all by calexontheroad66 · · Score: 1

      Actually overcrowding is the lesser of our problems...
      The issue has been that large urban centers concentrate a lot of the good jobs that are available, so people aggregate towards them.
      But that has a dinamic, of increasing the living costs in urban centers. This means people are less likely to have bigger families in big cities.
      We see this in all through western europe, people are avoiding having kids and delaying parenthood because of the costs and loss of economical opportunities.
      Actually in Germany one big reason to get into poverty is to have kids, cause childcare centers close early and mothers either have to rely on part time jobs or stay at home.

      The issues with increasing population in big metro cities are mostly to do with jobs and opportunities being greater there than in the countryside.
      If AI removes those jobs, then these cities become centers of unrest. But not because of overcrowding but because there is no hope.
      Also the rats experiences where done in a way that rats would have space and plenty of food. What happened was that rats themselves turned against each other
      and started denying food to those of lower status or with lower propensity for aggression.

  62. Keep your work fetish to yourself please by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    Some of us aren't so empty that we can't find better things to do than work all day. A factory job or digging ditches or cleaning house for the well to do is just as soul deadening of you ask me. I could be writing games or music or my little toy apps or reading or cycling any I of a dozen cool things besides making somebody else rich.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  63. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How many more plumbers, electricians, etc can the current economy need? This sounds like comments from the 90's about higher levels of training. Someone replied that with "how many more heart surgeons doing heart transplants do we need?"

  64. Good Grief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    More advice for the incoming president. None of which was done for the past 8 years through executive orders.

  65. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, we just don't need the fucking government to ask our neighbors if their kids are hungry. We're quite capable of that ourselves.

  66. As soon as Lawyers and Doctors can't get jobs by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 2

    As soon as Lawyers and Doctors can't get jobs the government will realize it's an issue. Until then it is just a lazy person issue.

    1. Re:As soon as Lawyers and Doctors can't get jobs by FormOfActionBanana · · Score: 1

      Have you not heard? Lawyers are next, right after the taxi drivers, truck drivers and bus drivers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      --
      Take off every 'sig' !!
    2. Re:As soon as Lawyers and Doctors can't get jobs by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      I'm looking forward to automation replacing the CEOs. That should happen shortly before the lawyers.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  67. You are still insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    $7 million for 1000 jobs over 10 years, about $700 per job per year in a TAX CUT not spending.

    Instead you think a multi hundred million, or multi billion, program to pay people not to work is financially sensible to cover for the fact that Obama was too lazy to pick up the phone and call these companies to see what he could do to help keep jobs local.

    Like I said, it is no longer possible to discuss things with liberals. You are complaining about a tiny tax cut that is too much to afford and instead put in a HUGE new spending thing because your guy was too INCOMPETENT to do his damn job of looking out for Americans. And now you are mad because the "idiot" Trump has been able to show everyone how easy it is if you just cared to TRY and do a good job running the country.

    You are completely insane.

    1. Re:You are still insane by khallow · · Score: 3, Informative

      $7 million for 1000 jobs over 10 years, about $700 per job per year in a TAX CUT not spending.

      I'll note when it was the fad to boast about jobs "created or saved", the Obama administration was routinely bragging about projects that had costs in the tens to several hundred dollars per job per year range (for example, this bragging about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 which had $250k spent in stimulus per job "created or saved" for jobs that lasted from a few months to a few years, until the stimulus went away). That's two to three orders of magnitude better than anything the Obama administration does.

    2. Re:You are still insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are assigning a multitude of positions to Kierthos and attacking him for holding them. Perhaps you should respond to what he says rather than what you pretend he might say.

    3. Re:You are still insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like I said, it is no longer possible to discuss things with conservatives. You are complaining about a tiny amount of muslims who come into this country and immediately think they've come to blow your house up.

      You are completely insane,

    4. Re:You are still insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Strawman, no one said anything about muslims here. You copied what I said and failed to address any points. And in addition, the topic you brought up is the reason for a mass murder in Germany 2 DAYS AGO.

      I'm not sure you could have failed harder in posting. You may have won for worst post ever seen on /., and that is no easy task.

    5. Re:You are still insane by dywolf · · Score: 1

      get your facts straight.
      that was a loan.
      the us government made a profit off the deal.

      care to try again?

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    6. Re:You are still insane by dywolf · · Score: 1

      oh wait, youre not talking about the auto bailout loan, but the FIXING THE ECONOMY thing?
      that just makes your claim even stupider tryng to somehow proclaim trump better than obama.

      Trump would have to make a carrier type deal every week for 6.5 years to match just the autobailout's jobs saved, let alone the moneys involved.
      but stacked up against the whole fixing the economy thing? forget about it.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    7. Re:You are still insane by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      $7 million for 1000 jobs over 10 years, about $700 per job per year...

      Sounds like we are going to need to build up a new office to give out these $700/yr/worker tax breaks. That's a big undertaking, because I'm sure many businesses will come, hat in hand, looking for a handout from the government. After all, why would Carrier be special? If we favor them, but not others who rattle sabers about shifting jobs overseas, then the government is playing favorites.

      I don't often agree with Sarah Palin, but she put it fairly well: "When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent. [...] Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail.” That's not inconsistent with her earlier statements, she was one of the ones railing against the government "picking winners and losers."

      in a TAX CUT not spending

      A tax cut IS spending. It reduces the incoming budget receipts but not the rest of government, so this ends up going onto the national debt, just like any other government expenditure (though I believe in this case, it's a state expenditure).

    8. Re:You are still insane by khallow · · Score: 1

      that was a loan.

      You're thinking of TARP.

      the us government made a profit off the deal.

      Where did the borrowers get the cash flow and profits to pay off the TARP loans? The economy didn't completely collapse, but it did drop in activity by a large amount and those huge liabilities didn't magically vanish. They simply didn't have the money then to pay off those loans and they probably still don't.

      But the federal government does have more than enough money running through it to pay off TARP loans. I don't know how those loans were paid off - whether by another loan, purchase of the worst debt, or an outright gift of money, but I know who did it.

      And at this point, what does it matter that TARP "made a profit" when the Feds have put a lot more than that into the businesses that originally received TARP funds?

    9. Re:You are still insane by khallow · · Score: 1

      Trump would have to make a carrier type deal every week for 6.5 years to match just the autobailout's jobs saved

      The alleged jobs saved. I don't take those numbers seriously. I'm pointing that even when we take those numbers at face value, we're looking at huge costs per job "created or saved". My view is that Trump doesn't need to do a carrier type deal every week. He just needs to undo part of the mess of the last eight years, such as removing the Obama obstructions on oil drilling and pipelines, to give a notorious example or cleaning up the health care mess even a little (for example, removing the incentive to employ people part time).

  68. Simply a call for more government by Zack63 · · Score: 0

    Notice how all the Obama "solutions" are simply ways to increase government spending? And that the spending should not with the goal of achievement, but to funnel money to democrat and liberal interests: > " ... The report calls on the government to steer that research to support a diverse workforce and to focus on combating algorithmic bias in AI. " OK, money for "diverse people". Need to make sure there is no "algorithmic bias" that could be based on, or promote traditional American values > "Invest in and increase STEM education for youth" OK, the US already spends more than most countries on education. What is really needed is to remove garbage "cultural" courses and replace with STEM. > "Modernize and strengthen the federal social safety net, including public health care" Yes, we need more Obamacare subsidies, more food stamps, etc. Gee, should not the goal be to minimize government handouts? There is a new Sheriff in town. A culture shift is on the way. These ideas that the central command government is even capable of solving problems will melt away. Merry Christmas and happy new year everyone, its going to be an amazingly great 2017 !!

  69. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Depends on what you need a plumber or an electrician for... for once in a while problems, yah, sure... but stuff is getting more and more dependable every year. I didn't need a plumber in a decade, and electrician probably two decades...

    For new construction, you likely would just need someone to hook stuff up, as the whole house is built on an assembly line (and the pieces [entire sections] are screwed into place at the site). Yah, there are electricians and plumber assembly-line-workers.

    In other words, your trade jobs are already gone---with few exceptions when the only plumber in the area has to dig through your shit and charge you plenty for it... (yah, there are lucrative moments, but if there were 10 plumbers competing for that shitty job, it wouldn't be).

  70. Funding by borrowing from the future by Loves2spooge · · Score: 1

    "Modernize and strengthen the federal social safety net". Do they imply they are going to just change it, or actually pay more welfare to more people? And like fast food chain leaders have already said "If you raise the minimum wage, we replace the people with robots". I imagine if you are going to actually increase welfare spending, you (the US government) are going to need to just borrow more money. Perhaps a few hundreds of trillions from China to fund it, with a deal that says it's due to start being payed down after 2100. Where the premise is that future technologies will enable massive savings and generate massive incomes, so that by 2100 paying back those trillions over the next decades will be easy enough.

    --
    AccountKiller
  71. Terrafoam here we come by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    Just read Marshall Brain's Manna again. not great prose but a clever short story about exactly this.

    It's a shame Australia is already occupied or we hold just ship them all their like the British did during the early industrialization. Maybe this is what the Mars Express people have in mind.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Terrafoam here we come by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Marshall, I'm curious, you've been trolling that for years. How much money have you made off all this wasted bandwidth?,

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:Terrafoam here we come by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know if Goomba is Marshall or not, but the Manna story is pretty damned good. You cannot possibly have been on this site for all these years and not have read it. Let me guess, you think it is physically impossible for things to play out like in the story huh? Either that or you actually want things like that to happen cause you naively feel you won't end up in the projects guarded by bots. Why else would you be here shitting on his post?

    3. Re:Terrafoam here we come by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      His spam is somehow acceptable because his story plays to your preconceptions?

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  72. RetrainMyButt by sdinfoserv · · Score: 1

    Another limp DOA idea saying "RETRAIN EVERYONE INTO STEM!"
    As the soon to former Disney IT workers already know, training is not part of the balance sheet.
    So onlong as a country exists with cheaper labor and government puppets of the oligarchy who place profiteering as the only goal, workers from "advanced" countries have little future. Tariffs where meant to level the playing field against countries with no labor laws, no intellectual property laws, no environment laws, no health and safety laws and government covered health care. Hiding behind the veneer of "globalism" and "anti-protectionism" only protects the wealthy, not the people.

  73. No he didn't. That state wasn't even two months! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Meanwhile, even his appointees were refused, and the house only sat and dragged everything out to ensure that there wasn't enough time to do much, and so much more to do.

    PS even if your claim WERE correct, that means Obama only had half a term to do 8 years' work. Hardly makes your case, does it.

  74. Living in post-scarcity era since 1800s by iamacat · · Score: 1

    Not! Quite obviously, millions of humans still don't have enough food to eat. The planet is a giant sludge pit that would take us centuries to clean up, including scooping plastic waste from oceans and scrubbing or counteracting CO2. We might want to establish a beachhead on another planet if that does not work out. The industrialized society with niceties like running water does not exist in most of the world. Population is aging and elderly care is incredibly labor intensive.

    Tackling those things will require all human labor that we got, even with maximum use of contemporary automation. Remember too that robots are not environmentally clean to manufacture and operate and anything requiring more than 5 minutes of physical force has to be tethered to a power source.

    So why don't we let people of 24th century worry about how to run their Star Trek economy and concern ourselves with doing backbreaking labor required of us today? Not all is best managed by a commercial corporation, and not all challenges are physically located in continental US. But people can vote for governments to undertake public service tasks and travel on ships and airplanes right?

  75. STEM Education by dcollins · · Score: 1

    "Invest in and increase STEM education..."

    Here's how the political emphasis on increasing STEM graduates is working out at my institution:

    - Create a mickey-mouse "quantitative reasoning" class with no algebra content and give college credit for that.
    - Remove basic algebra as a general-education requirement, since no more than about 25% of the students can pass it (no matter how many times they take it, how many different instructors teach it, or how easy they make the tests).
    - Slash all the higher-level courses out of all the STEM associate's degrees (probably linear algebra, differential equations, calculus III, organic chemistry, etc.), because people should be given credit for math prerequisites like basic algebra, precalculus, trigonometry, etc. instead.

    This being the culmination of the CUNY Decade of Science.

    --
    We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
  76. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You effectively have two options that I see to support this ever increasing population: subsistence living (barter, hunt, scavenge), or wealth transfer. Rural people seem to prefer the former, while urban folks prefer the latter.

    Get the best of both worlds! Transfer wealth from the rural poor to the urban poor.

  77. Don't keep on trucking by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All good, right?

    Yes!

    Not-having-to-work (i.e. losing jobs) can be viewed as our goal within all economic systems. No matter where you are on the spectrum of Adam Smith to Karl Marx, our time above-ground is a scarce resource. Every-fucking-thing that is expensive, is ultimately expensive because it used up someone's time, where that person sighed and walked a few more steps toward their dusty, eternal grave, working on your whatever, instead of living their life. The dollars are just a measurement of how much life you asked someone else to give up. It's a count of the grains of sand that fell to the bottom of someone's hourglass.

    Jobs are bad. When a politician says he's going to create or save jobs, he is offering you a quicker, more intimately-embracing death. The more he envisions you toiling, the less you should envision yourself skipping through fields, rocking out to great bands, performing science experiments, climbing mountains and skiing down them while drinking Mountain Dew as explosions go off behind you, reading novels, or flying around in starships to go find green-skinned women to bang.

    People become truck drivers for the money. If you want to spend your life driving around, there are vastly more pleasant ways to do that than driving a fucking truck. They are ticking down the limited seconds of their life, working instead of doing what they want to do. Good riddance to those jobs.

    What should we do about the consequences of increased leisure time, in our legacy-saddled economy? Shit, I didn't say I have all the answers (sounds like Obama is proposing one idea, though). But can't we all at least get to where we agree that it's basically a good thing?!? Until we realize that increased leisure time for humans is a good thing, of course we're not going to figure out how to handle our victory, because we'll be putting all our effort into undoing or preventing it! It's disgraceful that people are using words like "blame" for the lost jobs, instead of "credit."

    I'll be happy that my widget didn't cost some trucker (and yay, the trucker wasn't me!) two days of his life to transport, and instead it only cost some maintainer 12 hours to keep the robot running. And then eventually I'll feel bad about those 12 hours of maintenance being too many. Can't a robot maintain that other robot?

    --
    "Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
    1. Re:Don't keep on trucking by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      What should we do about the consequences of increased leisure time, in our legacy-saddled economy? Shit, I didn't say I have all the answers (sounds like Obama is proposing one idea, though). But can't we all at least get to where we agree that it's basically a good thing?!?

      In short, no, or at least, we're nowhere near that yet. There's a whole lot of people who think that if you're not working, you should roll over and die — unless you work enough to make it to retirement, in which case everyone else should line up to blow you because you're so fucking amazing, and never ever complain if you hold up progress or even just traffic because you're old and you've earned the right to be a pain in the ass. And we're still making more of those people, so just waiting for them to die isn't going to solve the problem.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Don't keep on trucking by atrex · · Score: 1

      I'm sure robots maintaining other robots will eventually be on the horizon. Realistically the loss of unskilled and repetitive jobs to various forms of automation should come as a surprise to _no one_. And it's not something that the government can reasonably legislate against either. It can't order a company to staff its factories with humans instead of robots, especially while its running around ordering that companies to maintain all kinds of safety regulations and provide all kinds of benefits for their human employees. As long as the product at the end of the line meets or exceeds regulatory standards, the government has no say about who vs what put it together. The more costly human employees become to a company the more incentive they have to embrace automating them out of the picture. There is coming a point where unskilled and untrained humans are going to be left behind on the sidelines. Whether or not the government is there to catch them with programs like universal health care, universal basic income, free job training and etc we'll have to see.

    3. Re:Don't keep on trucking by MyLongNickName · · Score: 1

      And what happens when that truck driver can't find another job? Do we guarantee him a wage? What about his kids when they can't find a job?

      I am not against progress, but there is a social cost that partially offsets the gains. We seem to regard this a collateral damage and want to ignore the people that are hurt in the name of progress.

      --
      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    4. Re:Don't keep on trucking by aristotheron · · Score: 1

      You are naive like a middle school boy writing a paper for his teacher

      What does happiness matter at all? You say it's your favorite thing, but how do you prove you like it more than suffering? You can say it all you want, but that's no proof or explanation.

      The greatest satisfaction for a human is not happiness. It is the application of all of his faculties, instinctual, learned, and self-taught, the product of the potential for human intelligence, that gives him satisfaction even when he suffers.
      So it is with all creatures. They are satisfied because of the fruit of their suffering.

      Maybe everything you say as applicable and true, but not without some work around it. People will need another compulsory activity besides work, and it can't be watching TV or playing video games. People need a REAL challenge or they start to go insane and getting fixated on grotesque, cheap substitutes for things that provide fulfillment (like 99.99% of everyone you ever see in your life).

    5. Re:Don't keep on trucking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      America just elected a straight up anti-humanist, so I'm pretty sure those people just want to have their face stomped on forever. Tall Poppy syndrome at its finest.

    6. Re:Don't keep on trucking by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 2

      And what happens when that truck driver can't find another job?

      GP suggested he could instead be "skipping through fields, rocking out to great bands, performing science experiments, climbing mountains and skiing down them while drinking Mountain Dew as explosions go off behind you, reading novels, or flying around in starships to go find green-skinned women to bang."

      Do we guarantee him a wage?

      That's one possibility. Another is that we watch him starve. There are a wide range of possibilities here.

      What about his kids when they can't find a job?

      Same as above.

      I am not against progress, but there is a social cost that partially offsets the gains. We seem to regard this a collateral damage and want to ignore the people that are hurt in the name of progress.

      There's also a social cost when it comes to fighting against this type of progress. For example, people have to continue working when they otherwise wouldn't need to. For some reason, we seem to regard this a collateral damage and want to ignore the people that are hurt by being compelled to work also.

      --
      Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
    7. Re:Don't keep on trucking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are there no workhouses?

      Seriously, I don't see the right wing allowing a basic income (or dole) being allowed here. Instead, it will go to the "job creators" who pay their bills (purchase their loyalty).

    8. Re:Don't keep on trucking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Wow, that is some psychopathic shit there. I made enough money in the 90s to take a few years off, then managed to keep stretching it out and never went back to work at all. I'm not rich, but I'm not suffering, and I am both happy and satisfied with my life. I do my share of field-skipping, rocking out, etc. It's a good life and I hope some day soon everyone can have it. Forced labor is NOT the purpose of human existence. I have proven by example that life can be good without work or other adversity.

    9. Re:Don't keep on trucking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I congratulate you! I knew one day you'd join the Liberal side. WELCOME!

    10. Re:Don't keep on trucking by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 1

      Are there no workhouses?

      Please keep in mind that the entire context of this conversation is human labor being more costly than automation. In this light, you're suggesting that instead of simply giving people money and automating the work they'd otherwise be doing, we ought to actually spend more money on giving people busywork.

      It's not clear to me how adopting this higher-cost model is superior to the alternative. It costs more, and it results in less leisure time for people. Are you suggesting that the additional cost is worth it, because leisure time is undesirable?

      Seriously, I don't see the right wing allowing a basic income (or dole) being allowed here. Instead, it will go to the "job creators" who pay their bills (purchase their loyalty).

      This is a separate issue. I've already acknowledged that there are other possibilities, like allowing the unemployed to starve. I'm not making predictions about what route we will choose (or value statements about what route we ought to choose). These conversations would be much more productive if people could try to avoid making arguments that rely upon subjective claims or circular reasoning.

      --
      Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
  78. Work-Fare by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    Litter cleanup, child-care (for parents with full-time jobs), elder-care, landscaping and gardening of public buildings and land, jury duty, local organic community farm, neighborhood security patrol (monitor only), QA gov't documents, monitoring legislators...

    There are plenty of tasks that could be done, but it's difficult to justify the expenditures for such under the current economy setups we use.

    Perhaps we need more "work-fare". You get a check from the gov't, but you have to spend 3 days a week on one of the designated tasks.

    Yes it is "make work", but it's work towards a better-quality of society by doing tasks that are useful and wanted, but not necessarily economical by current standards. And it gives people a sense of purpose, community involvement, and maintains a degree of discipline.

    We just have to figure out new economic paradigms that allows the benefits and profits from robots to trickle down into society. It will take experiments, some of which may fail. The idea that we can philosophize or write equations sitting in an armchair to figure it all out has to be tossed. The lab is Main Street.

    1. Re:Work-Fare by Iamthecheese · · Score: 1

      Yes it is "make work"

      I dispute that. "makework" means to literally create work for no purpose, whereas your proposals would all benefit society. The TSA is make-work. Actually helping one's community is just work.

      --
      If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
    2. Re:Work-Fare by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      What I propose is in-between. It's useful and purposeful, but not "economically justifiable" using our current conventions and standards.

  79. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

    Painters? 10 years. Masons, 10 years. Rough Carpentry us a factory setting, 10 years. The rest are much harder because you need machinery that is effective for those jobs. Repair work for a very long time.

  80. Screw leadership. It's about military dominance. by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 2

    -- Fund more research in robotics and artificial intelligence in order for the U.S. to maintain its leadership in the global technology industry.

    This is crap. The first country that gets human-like scalable AI wins. Period. It wins the wars. It wins the economic race. It wins everything.

    The domain of solvable problems may be limited, but humans will never be able to address it as well as effective AI.

    --
    Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
  81. Quack quack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    White House: Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.

    That's the noise a lame duck makes in his last 29 days in office.

  82. Yes, that safety net is called... by Bartles · · Score: 1

    ...a strong, vibrant, open, and fluid economy.

  83. It's time for post-capitalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bigger Army, and do what with it? Will *YOU* join? Oh, I see, that's for other people to join, fight, kill, die or get maimed. Gee, merry Christmas, scum.

    No. It's time to either start nationalizing industries, and/or they start paying part of their taxes in voting stocks, to be handled by a government organization. Btw, I do not mean 20 shares, I mean *MILLIONS* of shares.

    Then. like Alaska does with its money from big oil, a reverse income tax. Or maybe just make it a basic income to everyone.

    What's the advantage to all you fools who firmly believe that if you work more than that 60 hours/week, you'll be rich? Simple: how do you feel about some of your co-workers, or the folks in other departments, or some managers? Suppose *they* didn't have to work for a living... and weren't around to give you grief?

    My late idiot, er, sister, was on welfare, then SSDI. I was *happy* to pay tax dollars for that. Unless she was working for, say, Trump, or any of the GOP, or Jamie Dimon, that'd be ok; otherwise, I'd *NEVER* want to deal with somewhere that she worked.

    And you *want* to work with that idiot, rather than give 'em a basic income? Bite your nose to spite your face, why don't you?

  84. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Painters have already been replaced(not that it belongs on a list of viable career choices). The technique is called "artistic style transfer". It can be used to process entire videos, for instance: to produce extremely stylized movies like "Blade Runner" or "A Scanner Darkly".

    https://research.googleblog.com/2016/10/supercharging-style-transfer.html
    https://github.com/jcjohnson/neural-style
    https://nucl.ai/blog/neural-doodles/
    https://deepart.io/page/about/
    https://www.instapainting.com/ai-painter
    http://www.pikazoapp.com/

  85. Re:Ah. A welfare state. by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    So what's your solution then? Force everyone to work for pennies an hour?

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  86. Yeah, whatever, Barack. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Be so good as to place your proposal in the basket over there...or stuff it some place else. Thanks for your revolutionary ideas and dedication and all that. Have fun training that new generation of unemployable SJW's or whatever your future endeavors are...

  87. Lies and Damned Lies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    However, what he needed to do is stop the giant sucking sound and stop businesses from moving manufacturing to China and knowledge work to India, leaving nothing but McJobs behind in most of the country.

    To the degree that that's happening, it started a long time ago, and it's not clear that there's anything that could be done about it. I don't think that China and India have as large an impact on the American workforce as you think they do.

    Instead, Obama presided over more gun control laws passed in three years that ever were passed in the history of the nation (which has caused crime to rise.)

    Crime did not rise to any significant degree, and there is no way of demonstrating that it was caused by any given piece of legislation. Also, there's nothing wrong with gun control laws. When this country was founded we did not have a police or military, and muskets were far more useful en masse against another army than for killing individuals. All three of those things have changed and our laws need to reflect that. We should probably have removed the 2nd Amendment after the militia spectacularly failed to prevent the capture and burning of Washington D.C. in 1815. Subsequent history tells us that unorganized bands of resistance fighters with only small arms have been irrelevant in war except to ensure their own massacre. You don't need a gun.

    a healthcare plan that insurance companies used to their advantage

    Your team invented this healthcare plan and nuked the public option. Things may be worse for single healthy people with good incomes, but that's kind of the point: that group is going to have the worst (for them) risk/benefit ratio, and overall this lets us insure more people. Few people actually have an issue with the provisions that expand coverage, they just don't want to pay for it. Maybe the problem is that our healthcare system is designed to inflate costs.

    a Chamberlain-esque foreign policy which caused a power vacuum and gave us Daesh

    You mean the treaties Bush signed that pulled us out of Iraq? Maybe that will teach us not to invade other countries on false pretexts. And let's not forget who put Saddam into power in the first place. Our interventions in the Middle East have been uniformly disastrous for the last seventy years. Why you imperialist nutjobs are determined to continue this surpasses belief.

    (with enemy attacks on US soil every month or two in their name)

    This by the way is how the terrorists want you to react. They can't actually attack the US (do you know what a military action looks like?). Fear is their only path to victory.

    and allies, for the first time since WWII, have been left to their own devices to fend for themselves, with broken promises of protection or help.

    Wait, NATO was bad and globalist last week. Trump said so! Is it different this week? Are we at war with Eastasia or Eurasia now?

    wealth flies overseas never to be seen in the US again

    Yeah, nobody invests in the US any more. It's too crowded.

    You have to completely reinvent yourself every 6-12 months or you are on your ass.

    And somehow this is a political issue? Not only a political issue, but Obama's fault?

    You also can't contract out a military's items to foreign companies

    Which is why we don't do that. Standard DoD contract provision.

    biggest disparity between rich and poor in the nation's history

    Yeah, that was all Obama's policies. You'll note that it was not ever increasing prior to his election, and then the giant spikes of inequality that happened the very moment that the bills were signed. And growing the GDP is meaningless. Well, the good news is that most of your complaints are bullshit, the bad news is that you're completely

  88. Absolutely 100% by Weaselmancer · · Score: 1

    Could not agree more. You're talking about the step-after-the-step, though. In the short term people are going to suffer. Greatly. We don't have an Elon Musk style universal income just yet. But eventually we will. We'll have to - there won't be any other options to keep everyone alive. If you buy food with money, and there aren't jobs to give you money, what other choice would we have? And what good would all those factories be in that case? Nobody would be able to buy all those goods.

    From a certain point of view, an economy and it's attendant government is simply a method of distributing goods. I'm not saying anything new there. Everyone from Smith to Marx says pretty much the same thing, they just disagree on how to proceed. But there is an underlying given in all their proofs though - scarcity. They all assume scarcity. We only have so much food, how best to distribute it? Communism? Capitalism? Something in-between?

    All of those arguments though are outdated. Automation is about to eliminate scarcity. The old arguments will go along with it, since a foundational principle of them will suddenly be invalid.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  89. Fleet vehicles FTW by Weaselmancer · · Score: 2

    I got into a debate with someone on this exact point. I would not be surprised if in the future, fleet vehicles are all there are.

    We've seen how successful Uber is, the whole concept of distributed travel. The next logical step with self-driving cars would be a fleet of them maintained by a single corporation similar to Uber. Imagine a phone app that summons a car and a monthly fee like Netflix. Tell me that wouldn't be a smash hit! A monthly fee, about the same price as a car lease payment. No car maintenance, no insurance payments, no stopping at gas stations. No tickets, no parking fees. You can watch Netflix while it drives you to the store, then to your friend's house, then home. Stop by the pub and have a drink, why not? Drunk driving is a thing of the past - you're not driving! And the computer driving is safer than a person could ever be. Humans don't have 360 degree vision or radar.

    Press a button and take me anywhere. I'd be the first in line for that.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
    1. Re:Fleet vehicles FTW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lets be fair, Uber is successful because they are *dumping* by burning investor cash on cheaper fares than cabs. Its unsustainable and who knows if, after they run out of money and the price absolutely has to go up significantly, that anyone will bother riding/driving with uber vs regional cab companies that have pretty much all sorted out easy cab hailing and payments at this point, which was the major appeal to Uber in the first place.

    2. Re:Fleet vehicles FTW by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      I think some people will still own self-driving cars, but the percentage is going to be waaaaay lower than current ownership stats. I myself have a car that I bought when I lived at a house that I'm still paying off, but now I live right next to very effective mass transit. Between payments, insurance, maintenance and (occasional) fillups, I am paying about $600 a month for a car I drive maybe 1-2 hours (actual behind the wheel time) a week on the weekend. If there was a self driving car service that cost $20 a month to subscribe and then $10/hr thereafter for actual use, I'd sell my car and jump on that like a lawyer at a plane crash.

  90. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by butchersong · · Score: 1

    Simply tie the offer of welfare to a sterilization program. Easy.

  91. I have THE solution ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sexbots. Sexbots for all.

    People will too busy living their sex fantasies to care about anything.
    As there are too many of us already anyway, it will just allow us to thin the herd to manageable levels while we transition to a new type of
    organized society with universal basic income.

    More seriously, the obvious measure of redistributing a third of profits to employees every year would be law, so as to encourage those still willing to put in extra
    effort and who are contributing to progress. Capping of upper management incomes and shareholder revenue would also be mandatory.
    Capitalism but regulated to ensure some fairness, even if nature isn't.
    That, coupled with reform of political financing of campaigns (say 1$ per elector to send to a candidate of his choice as Lessig mentioned if I recall correctly) and banning of any form of lobbying, would be a good start.

    AI is a small problem compared to overpopulation. The breeeders need forced sterilization after two kids.

  92. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by aristotheron · · Score: 0

    are you like, dumb?

    trades are dead. We don't need any more of those people.

    We need to extract every bit of intelligence we have hidden in the masses and then throw the rest in the incinerator.

    We need people who can do things that machines can never do in order to grow our economy.
    Too bad we've spent the last thousand+ years making everyone as stupid as possible on purpose.

  93. Humbug by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Humbug sir.. these workers should have converted their and their families bio-systems to robotics.. let them starve.

  94. Re:Hypocrite by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Hypocrite isn't really as bad a thing as people make it out to be.

  95. The condescension in your post is sickening. by scatbomb · · Score: 1

    People aren't working assembly line or fast food jobs because they love the work...they're doing it because it's the only thing they're capable of.

    The level of condescension in your post is pretty sickening. Did you ever consider that some people are stuck in menial jobs not because they're incapable of doing anything else, but rather because it's the only job they could find? No, you didn't. I'm sick of all these UBI discussions revolving around the premise that most people are capable of nothing more than pouring coffee and cleaning the floors. How smug and superior you are.

    The left would love if some form of UBI was passed, buying votes with unsustainable entitlements. Just write off all those idiots who are incapable of doing anything but flipping burgers and give them some pittance so that you can feel morally superior.

    What comes next? You basically get to dangle entitlements like a carrot to get people to vote for your candidates?

    1. Re:The condescension in your post is sickening. by ErichTheRed · · Score: 2

      I agree that some people who are stuck in rural communities where the entire economy has disappeared are in this spot. However, I do have experience with this - I've worked several menial positions (gas station, stock clerk in a department store, fast food) and anyone who was still there beyond their early 20s was there because they were stuck there. They lacked education, and I'm not of the opinion that they were closet scientists waiting to be discovered. I can see how people think that this is condescending, mean, etc...but if you work all day with reasonably intelligent people you might assume that everyone is like that -- I assure you they're not. Education is lost on a small fraction of these people..nothing you do will help them.

      As for smugness, I'm not -- I know that my job is next to be eliminated, as is anything that doesn't explicitly require human hands or a more fluid less logical brain. I do feel that people who can't help themselves need to be guided by people smarter than them...and that goes for everyone. No one is a lone wolf, expert at everything.

      Another anecdote from my past -- I went to college with a guy who worked the night shift at a local warehouse for a grocery store chain. According to him, the work was miserable, hot in summer, freezing in winter, and consisted of picking, palletizing and loading groceries on trucks. But, it was a union job and therefore paid well with the shift differentials, etc. One of the things he mentioned was that there were a ton of full timers working there, and the big step for them was to graduate from part time to full time eligible union members -- because the union would ensure they would have steady work for as long as they wanted. The full timers were the only ones eligible to become forklift operators and other slightly less mind numbing jobs. This is why the old economy was so successful -- even if it was a horrible job you hated, you could get a job with very little education and have enough money to raise a family and get by. This new phase we're going into isn't going to have these safe jobs, and any that remain are going to be forced down to minimum wage. BTW, the same goes for the customer facing positions in union grocery stores - look at all the 40 and 50 year old cashier supervisors and department managers. When A&P went bankrupt and closed tons of supermarkets here, it really threw some people for a loop because they'd been working at the same supermarket chain for 25+ years and the union had to scramble to find the most senior ones jobs. Multiply this by millions and you get a taste of what's coming.

  96. The last time... by matbury · · Score: 1

    ...Americans jobs disappeared, i.e. when cheap goods started flooding in from Mexico and south-east Asia, we didn't see the Whitehouse do much about that. If anything, they cut spending on social security and education. Will it be any different this time around?

    1. Re:The last time... by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      Because the need the consumers to keep spending in order for the economy to remain relatively stable. If the unemployment rate suddenly jumps up to levels seen in Greece it make 2007/2008 look like a pleasant walk in the park.

  97. Fine and good, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...the primary problem with the current rise in leisure time is that leisure time doesn't pay. And without the money, people can't buy food, etc.

    So having all the leisure time is only a good thing if it doesn't mean that teeming masses of people starve in the streets.

    Also, having mandatory leisure time, with no options to do work that pays anything decent, means that we still have a terrible distribution problem, with no realistic means of solving it.

  98. Re:No he didn't. That state wasn't even two months by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    The voters saw what he was doing and stopped him. Good on them.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  99. Shame Obama by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And it is a fucking shame that the CURRENT PRESIDENT OBAMA hasn't done anything. I'm sure if they were union job, paying dues to the DNC he would have tried something, but blue collar non-union workers are not Obama's concern.

    You did bring up a good point. When will we be able to convince the rest of the DNC supporters that doing nothing about situations like this are why Trump won so easily. I think they just don't care about Americans. If it was refugee Somalians something would have been done, or they would have at least MENTIONED it, but Americans apparently don't deserve the support of the DNC.

    Oh, you meant Trump, who has NEVER held public office should have done something? Instead of the guy who has been PRESIDENT for 8 years?

    lols

  100. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    How many people actually painted on negatives of films like 'Forbidden Planet'?

    Painters drywall, paint and get fucked up on the job. It's what they do.

    One of my proudest moments was when a painter asked for something weaker than 'Trainwreck', because he couldn't do his job when smoking it. Made me proud of my garden. That was as high a compliment as the Nam vet that cried, because it was like the stuff they smoked over there.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  101. Nonsense by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    we just don't need the fucking government to ask our neighbors if their kids are hungry. We're quite capable of that ourselves.

    There are tens of millions of food-insecure people in the US today. We have homeless. We have people who are considered unemployable by the very companies and individuals you are imagining will solve the problem of hunger. We have people not getting adequate medical care. We have huge numbers of seniors living in poverty.

    Your statement is self-deluded nonsense. As with most "things would be fine without government / with smaller government" tripe-spouting.

    You are cordially invited to come back and say this again when we don't actually need social safety nets. Then your words will mean something (other than the fact that you live in your own echo chamber, and are demonstrably afflicted with either inherent dishonesty or a profound case of cognitive dissonance.)

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude, you're usually a total prick, but damn if that analysis wasn't 100% on target. If people really did give a fuck about their neighbors, the problems would have corrected themselves already.

  102. Re:We need to end college for all and replace it w by Xyrus · · Score: 2

    Trump wants to bring about the world of Robocop. Strangely, it seems a lot of people seem to want that as well even though odds are they will be some of the first in those shanties.

    --
    ~X~
  103. It's simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Increase education. Fix k-12 and give more funding to students who want advanced schooling, whether it's college or trade school or whatever. If you don't want to do anything with your life, it's your fault for getting displaced by a robot if we have adequate education and training programs.

  104. Re:Ah. A welfare state. by Chas · · Score: 1

    Who the hell said "pennies"?

    And why does lack of support for exorbitant wages for unskilled jobs always get met with the bullshit "pennies" line?

    The main problem is that many of these unskilled jobs where people are demanding high wages simply don't justify those sorts of wages. Nor were they intended to be lifelong careers, regardless of advancement.

    And the more people who keep packing into these jobs, and demanding higher wages and essentially a job for life, the sooner these jobs are simply going to disappear behind a robot.

    What isn't being acknowledged is that these entry level positions are gateways into career paths BEYOND those jobs. The people working them simply have to have the damn motivation to actually ADVANCE themselves. Rather than "settling" into an unskilled job and expecting it to support a lifestyle.

    I'm sorry, this is a land of opportunity. And most people WASTE it.
    But hey, it's a free country as well. And people should be free to fail and, if they're too lazy to grow beyond that? They should be free to fucking starve as well.

    Cruel and inhuman? Maybe. But I worked my ass off to get where I am. I am sick of having ever more of MY earnings taken to support people who won't (not CAN'T, WON'T) take advantage of their opportunities.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  105. Oh we're waving our penises about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since we're having a dick measuring contest, mine's BIGGER!

    730 jobs (or even a 1000 if you wanna use that number) VS 1.5 MILLION Suck on that hawg, bitch!

    1. Re:Oh we're waving our penises about? by khallow · · Score: 1

      I agree. The number of dollars spent per job allegedly "created or saved" is bigger for Obama.

  106. Exactly my point by Weaselmancer · · Score: 1

    I am not against progress, but there is a social cost that partially offsets the gains. We seem to regard this a collateral damage and want to ignore the people that are hurt in the name of progress.

    This. This is exactly what I was trying to say, thank you.

    I think the future is going to be wonderful, I really do. I agree with that fellow upstream who thinks that jobs steal your life from you. When we figure out a way to automate everything so that's not the case it will be wonderful. But we have to get there. It won't happen all at once, and some of the intermediate steps will be painful. When trucks become automatic and 3.5 million workers are suddenly unemployed, what then? We won't have a safety net in place yet. What are these poor people going to do in the meanwhile?

    When we solve the scarcity problem - and we will - we will need to rethink the entire concept of work and income. I don't think anyone has really done that yet. What happens when the amount of work society needs from you permits you to retire at 25 instead of 68? We need to start planning for that.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  107. Like hell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All they ever say is niiggers, spics, and fags. They do not deserve an audience or attention.

  108. I don't shovel shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do YOU want to go shovel shit 3 days a week? I trained and paid money and time to be an engineer so I don't have to shovel shit. I do not shovel shit. I will not shovel shit. I will come steal your stuff before I shovel shit. You greedy bastards just aren't seeing this yet but you will when the war starts.

  109. buggy whip manufacturing by ooloorie · · Score: 1

    The government still needs to help alleviate the massive joblessness resulting from the loss of the buggy whip industry! Right now, those poor displaced workers are just barely getting by on thankless jobs like software development, movie script writing, game design, biotech, 3D printing, etc.!

  110. I would be highly surprised if any of it happens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Trump's agenda is pretty much the polar opposite of all of these recommendations.

  111. Re:The future is bright! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    The stock market is a good way to magnify income differences, not shrink them. Stocks cost money, and lots of people simply don't have the money to invest. Wealthier people have more money to invest, and given enough automation the end result is a small number of people owning most of the economy, and not needing to employ most of the rest.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  112. The best social safety nets? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We I think Anti-suicide nets are probably cheaper.

  113. Vitamin World by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Vitamin World (High Quality Vitamins and Nutritional Supplements https://divinean.com//idevaffi...

  114. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  115. Re:Ah. A welfare state. by slothman32 · · Score: 1

    I was almost going to foe you because of your post but then, whenever I might block someone, I look at their journals and other posts.
    The first journal, 10 - decade - years ago was about Apple fanbois buying anything with the apple logo.
    So I decided not to.
    As you can tell I am anti-apple.

    --
    Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
  116. Re:The future is bright! by budgenator · · Score: 1

    As I said, sorry that's just loser thinking that you've been programmed to think to keep you poor, vulnerable and easy to manipulate; if you can buy loto tickets, you can buy stocks.

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds