Study Reveals The Most Googled 'Should I' Questions In Each State (bgr.com)

An anonymous reader quotes BGR: One of the more interesting 2018 retrospectives we've seen focuses on which Google searches were the most popular across each state. Specifically, AT&T tapped into data from Google Trends and came up with a rather amusing look at the most popular "should I..." questions on a state by state basis.

"Should I vote" was the most-popular question in seven states, which isn't surprising, given the exciting races in many areas. Indiana and Michigan, on the other hand, are more concerned with the other four-letter v-word: vape.
Other interesting results:

• The most popular question in Washington was "Should I delete Facebook?"

• The most popular question in California was "Should I move out?"

• The most popular question in Texas was "Should I apologize?"

• The most popular question in both Nevada and New Hampshire was "Should I buy bitcoin?"

Although the article warns that "If you're asking Google what you should or shouldn't do, you probably already know the answer."

Comments

Should I

[Anonymous Coward]

Should I post first?

Re: Should I

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you should not.

Re:Should I

[arglebargle_xiv]

In Colorado it's "should I light up another one or save it for tomorrow?"

In Arkansas it's "should I worry whether Cousin Mom and Uncle Dad are my real parents?"

In Alaska it's "should I buy my husband a new set of seal clubs for Christmas?"

In Oklahoma it's "should I have deep-fried bread, deep-fried cornflakes, or deep-fried omelets for breakfast?"

Re:Should I

[ls671]

What seems worrying to me is that it looks like people are actually asking Google for advice in how to conduct their personal life like if they were talking to a psychologist or something.

Re: Should I

[Anonymous Coward]

Well he did anyway.

Re:Should I

[JustOK]

And how does that make you feel about they were talking to a psychologist or something?

Re:Should I

[Anonymous Coward]

people are actually asking Google for advice in how to conduct their personal life

No, not really.
People are actually asking other people (through information in blogs / forums / site articles) and Google only searches for the relevant data for them.

Re:Should I

[Joce640k]

So.... in the next elections all the Russians need to do is get google to answer "Yes" when people ask "Should I vote for Trump". Election won!

Democracy at its finest.

Re:Should I

[reboot246]

use Google to search?

Re: Should I

[Anonymous Coward]

So whatâ(TM)s the answer? I wanna google âoeshould I have commented on thisâ

Re:Should I

[arglebargle_xiv]

Are you saying no just to be negative?

Re: Should I

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a bad psychologist. First you get the money. Then you ask about the feels.

Re: Should I

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you get the women?

Re:Should I

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has become the New Magic 8 Ball.

Re:Should I

[HatofPig]

No, obviously you should use it like a magic eight ball, or a natural-language command line.

Re: Should I

[Type44Q]

n Oklahoma it's "should I have deep-fried bread, deep-fried cornflakes, or deep-fried omelets for breakfast?"

That sounds more like Texas. In Oklahoma, if it's not Chicken-Fried Steak, then it either came from a fastfood joint or the supermarket freezer section... and their number one search question should be "is it okay to treat my dog's mange with used engine oil?" however it's generally assumed that that is a "yes" and they just go ahead and use used engine oil.

No, really.

Re:Should I

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that the most frequent one was "Should I vote" from red states, it is troubling.

Though my guess is they probably folded in a lot of similar meaning phrases, because rarely do people just go "should I ..." as an open ended question. the auto-complete usually ends up being the next word, so whatever letter they typed in was the complete question. eg, if I type this in right now

Should I upgrade to mojave
Should I stay or should I go lyrics
Should I get a flu shot
Should I get bangs
Should I quit my job
Should I upgrade to ios 12
Should I cut my hair
Should I install mojave
Should I text him
Should I get a dog

Note how two of those are "cut my hair", three are "upgrade my device os", and one is a song lyrics. The cut my hair, and upgrade to ios 12 show up in the "should I" list for a few states.

Re:Should I

[Aighearach]

Might as well treat it like Eliza, since it no longer works using operators to construct a search as a code fragment.

In the old days searching was about selecting the combination of keywords that would be most likely to appear in the results. Even that doesn't work well anymore.

Instead, ask the most similar stupid question that is common, and you'll get better results. Sad but true. And then the results you have to do the opposite, look for the page that answered a better question.

Re:Should I

[Lost Race]

Obviously by putting a phrase like "should i vote" in the search box they are searching for pages that contain the phrase "should i vote," i.e. forum topics in which people ask that question and presumably others answer.

There's nothing weird or worrysome about it. People are not trying to have conversations with search engines. They are using search engines to search for pages containing a specific phrase, as intended.

Should I...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Keep visiting Slashdot?

California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm constantly being told California is a paradise. Why would anyone want to leave? And more importantly, how can we stop them moving to other states and turning them into a similar 'paradise'? I think we all need to get behind Calexit.

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Snowhite's stepmother believed herself the prettiest, but she kept asking the mirror every day.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[psycho12345]

Paradise is expensive. And no, you can't stop them, not as long as California property values stay high. Until California real estate crashes (and I mean a real crash, ie drops below previous peaks), then Californian's will continue to sell their properties, and go to any other state and buy out the locals. Ironically, the anti tax nature of a lot of places means they have no way to dissuade this, short of raising property taxes, and we know how well that will go over with the locals.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Joce640k]

I'm constantly being told California is a paradise. Why would anyone want to leave?

It's expensive to live in a nice place.

People can sell their house in California and buy a place twice as big somewhere else.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Jarwulf]

Its bad for middle class and working class folk. Rich folk who have the money and connections to be isolated from the politics still have a place there as well as their very poor slaves. Its rapidly becoming tiny wealthy enclaves surrounded by a sea of poverty like most liberal places.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to the seas of poverty with no wealth to speak of you find in most conservative places.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

Exactly how the ultra rich like it to be for us.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Jarwulf]

Middle class and working class people are net moving out of California, middle class and working class people are moving out of places like San Francisco or is this fake news? Pretty strange thing to do if they're paradise compared to the more conservative places they're going to.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, nice potshot at Californians.
It says 'move out', which usually refers to an apartment or house, not necessarily the state you're in. If you google "should I move out" most of the results are about the parent's house or divorces. Go figure.

And since we're talking about leaving paradise, what about those searches from Hawaii? Isn't that supposed to be a tropical paradise?

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

but she kept asking the mirror every day.

Well at least she had more sense than asking Google.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[markdavis]

>"Paradise is expensive."

I think that depends on your definition of paradise. In many, many ways (besides financial), California is far from a paradise. I did have to laugh when I saw the "should I move out?".

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Nite_Hawk]

These numbers are a little old (2010), but if you look at a list of states ranked by gini coefficient:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

You will indeed see places like California, New York, and DC ranked poorly, but you will also see places like Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky. On the other end of the scale the states with the least inequality include places like Utah, New Hampshire, Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota. Both ends of the spectrum include a number of liberal states and both ends include conservative states.

If you compare this with the list of states by poverty:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

There's a correlation between states that have high income inequality and high levels of poverty and states that have low income inequality and low levels of poverty. IE, if we think that poverty is bad for society, reducing income inequality might help.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean economically liberal? The USA has a vastly larger sea of poverty when compared to the socially liberal countries like those in Northern Europe. Nice try but you need to get out more.

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Twice as big. Oh, that's rich. $800k from California can easily get you 3x to 4x as big in many states.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[alvinrod]

It's never going to crash enough relative to other markets for that to stop happening though. There are more people who want the kind of weather that Southern California offers as opposed to Montana.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[alvinrod]

IE, if we think that poverty is bad for society, reducing income inequality might help.

The measures are likely entangled in such a way that the conclusion you draw isn't valid, or you're at the very least attempting to draw a causal relationship from a correlation. It's pretty easy to look at parts of the world where almost everyone is impoverished, yet because they're all about equally dirt poor, there's not much income inequality.

On the other end you can get something like Hong Kong which has a high (comparable to Haiti using the CIA's numbers) Gini coefficient. Everyone there is extremely well off by the standards of the rest of the planet, but there are some people there who are so incredibly wealthy that they just blow the numbers out.

If you look at World Bank numbers, Liberia and Switzerland have about the same Gini coefficient (in 2014), but are quite obviously on different ends of the poverty spectrum.

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

You fix the inequality by helping people gain skills which can be used to earn more money, not by taking money from those who have more. The first method is more difficult and takes longer, but improves the economy and standard of living for everyone. The second approach simply results in a nation of paupers.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[drinkypoo]

Paradise is expensive.

Paradise just burned the fuck down. Bet you can get lots cheap there right now from desperate underinsured who need to get paid and get out ASAP.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Anubis IV]

They weren’t talking about leaving the state. They were talking about moving out of their parent’s basement. With housing prices higher there than anywhere else in the nation, however, the answer is nearly always, “no”.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[hey!]

Happens to any place that people in general want to go, because money destroys what it loves. Key West used to be a funky, bohemian place; now the interesting oddball who serves you your drinks doesn't crash nearby anymore; he drives for a couple hours to get home when his shift is over.

Places that money loves, like Key West or San Francisco, gets turned into an Epcot Center versions of themselves. But California is a vast state.It is slightly larger in land area than Sweden. When somebody asks whether they want to move, they could well be moving to some place in-state. An hour's drive can make a three-fold difference in housing costs. People of moderate means get expelled from valuable real estate by expense or pulled by savings. That's capitalism for you. There's no such places as "your community"; if you rent in a place that catches the eye of the wealthy, you're going to have to find a new one.

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

You fix the inequality by helping people gain skills which can be used to earn more money, not by taking money from those who have more.

How do you "[help] people gain skills"? Government spending, which means taxes. If the population is generally at lower income but with some higher income individuals, how do you tax them sufficiently to pay them to gain those skills? Obviously by having higher tax rates on those with more income. Option B is do something like Government guaranteed loans, so that even those without collateral can move towards gaining skills. When some percentage of those loans fail and the government pays the difference, where does that money come from? Again, probably in large part on higher income individuals.

I definitely agree that taxing people who are well off to make them less well off is the wrong approach. But nearly any step to try to elevate those at lower income will invariably result in a need to tax those at the top more because they're the ones with a substantial amount of the income in the area; a flat tax simply won't be sufficient (unless it's virtually the same rate as the highest income earner which would be short term crippling for nearly everyone not well off). Indirectly, having more skilled workers will almost certainly stall or reduce wages on many people who are well off--look no further than the current situation with doctors in the US caused heavily by a shortage produced in part based on AMA recommendations.

So, you're right that the solution is more difficult and takes longer, and we're clearly not working towards actually solving the problem because those who could help don't--companies, for exaple, reject on-the-job training more and more for anything skilled and have moved towards as much temporary/part-time workers as possible--and of course the government itself has twisted funds meant for such purposes into spending on other things, be it Welfare or Military spending. Tax cuts have not been met with reduced spending, so those are a non-starter. Until people actively seek politicians who are fiscally responsible and trying to make the appropriate changes, appropriate changes are unlikely to come.

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[FuzzyDaddy2]

I am at a loss as to how a conservative approach - lower taxes and less funding for schools and social services - would reduce the wealth inequality you see in California. Explain how that works?

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

The measures are likely entangled in such a way that the conclusion you draw isn't valid.

You quoted a postulation, not a conclusion.

If and might are speculative.

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you "[help] people gain skills"? Government spending, which means taxes.

Most of my skills were gained either through work or by personal effort.

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Billly Gates]

On Facebook it's assumed it's because of socialism and the extreme poverty and lack of jobs that California and Europe that is causing the moves. Fox news parrots this everyday. Mention California's high GDP and they won't believe you!

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of my skills were gained either through work or by personal effort.

So, you mostly helped yourself. That's in directing contradiction to the point of the GP of the need in "helping people". Yes, government could do relatively inexpensive things like asking employers to do more on-the-job skill training, but most businesses aren't going to change just because the government asks nicely. Similarly, the government could try to provide information directing people to free resources where they can gain skills on their own, but that is usually of limited reach as many skills that are required for jobs aren't ones one can learn on one's own. Computer skills are one major exception, and people can become proficient in general computer usage for work. However, that skill is often only a minor needed skill where many others are critical ones that still keep such jobs out of the reach of many people.

This, I think, is one of the major issues I see with the argument of helping people gain skills to improve their income. Principally, one needs to be trained in specific skills needed for specific jobs. General skills are needed as well, but there needs to be a direct connection between there being actual jobs available at the end of training for the skills gained or whosever time or money is effectively wasted. In theory businesses could provide funding to an organization to do the training or each business could do on-the-job training, but again plenty of businesses are a part of the free rider problem. Those that aren't, like Facebook, are interested more to dilute the wages of current workers by making an oversupply of competent individuals.

I'm not saying I think government must be a major part of the solution. It's just clear that it's not enough to argue the need to help people and then revert to expecting individuals to alone gain the needed skills when frequently they aren't made aware of what skills to learn nor is there reasonably a way to learn them with substantial expense on someone's part and few people on any side willing to cover the bill on a hypothetical wage increase.

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[MadCat221]

My sister works as a mortgage underwriter and on a lark managed to find an identical-layout house to our childhood home in Missouri. Ours goes for $150k. Out in Cali? >$1 million.

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice strawman there, describing your fantasy evil-conservative.

In case you were actually curious, the extreme government interference in housing and business drives up the costs for people to live - which invariably hits the poor disproportionately hard. Even before you consider taxes, fees, and other government costs that disproportionately harm the poor, there's the effect on the market. Costs are so high that $82,000 is considered "low-income" in San Francisco, and in San Diego, the average person spends 55% of their income on basics like food and housing.

Nationally, 30% is considered a "burden" by the Federal government.

You wonder why people in CA stay poor? Because they can never save money because the government has made even the most basic necessities cost so much.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Aighearach]

A real estate crash won't be enough, their land prices are so high they'd find a hard floor at the property value of their neighbors, and so flight funded by selling would still be reasonable.

In Oregon we tried adding warning labels on our border, but even that didn't stop them.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Californians do not like to sell their properties because of prop 13.

If they sell their property, the person who buys it has to pay property taxes in today's dollars instead of 1978's.

So rich people bought up the properties and rent them out before the prices got out of control. So there is likely an immense amount of property hoarding by millionaire and billionaire class of people that they only get away with because of prop 13.

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Lower taxes means more spending in the economy, more vibrancy.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[novakyu]

California is far from a paradise

Speak for yourself. California literally has a Paradise. (... With apologies to 2018 victims.)

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

> Lower taxes means more spending in the economy, more vibrancy.

That's the theory the supply-siders have been pushing for 40 years, and experience shows it to be false.

A rising tide should lift all boats, but what actually happens is the rich folks' yachts get lifted and the rest of us get swamped. The minuscule difference in decreased tax rates for the lower and middle class just means they use less credit.

The economy depends on consumer spending, and the rich simply don't spend proportionally to the difference in income. As one multimillionaire said in an op/ed piece, "I own 3 cars, not 3000."

Now, we have a bigger problem: trillions in debt owed by the gov't, and the burden will fall not on today's taxpayers (who are getting a break) but their grandchildren. Who's going to pay off that debt? The poor? They don't have any money. The middle class? They're rapidly becoming the poor thanks to billionaires and corporations controlling the legislature. The ONLY solution is to tax the rich more and pay the workers more, and the rich would allow that over their dead bodies (which may be sooner than they think).

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

We could just gun them down at the boarder.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

The only good Californian is a dead Californian.

Re: California - "Should I move out?"

[Anonymous Coward]

GDP is an average, doesn't mean those at the bottom aren't poor...

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Plus1Entropy]

I agree, California is a shit-hole, which is why no one lives there.

It's also a socialist boondoggle, which is why the economy is such shit and no companies want to be based there.

Clearly whenever someone asks "Should I move out?" with no other context, they must mean "out of their State", right? That's by far the most common usage of the phrase.

I mean, if California is such a paradise, how come it's not the most populous state with the largest economy? Checkmate, libtards.

Re:California - "Should I move out?"

[Plus1Entropy]

I love how everyone is so quick to make these super deep jumps in logic using only this single 1-dimensional metric.

"Should I move out?" could mean California has more basement neck-beards than everywhere else. But it could just as easily mean that the basement neck-beards in California are at least considering moving out, whereas everywhere else they don't even bother.

Obligatory xkcd.

Should I...

[Anonymous Coward]

Should I link to an article that links to the source and then one sentence later link directly to the source, which is better written and with less pointless commentary than the article written about the source page?

Should I use a hosts file? YES... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject, this link & decide if YOU should use a hosts file too https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...

* Our /. peers speak for me w/ Security PROS & such + undeniable. verifiable, concrete HARD evidences etc. all shown in that FULL discussion tree in that link.

APK

P.S..=> Should I? Should I use hosts?? I do as do 100's of /.ers in the know I had to put raymorris in his place w/ (I respect him though) + swillden "Google Security Engineer" https://slashdot.org/comments.... lmao (who has links by the score leading to raymorris too, all upmodded, for me, on hosts & where 100's who use hosts praising them on /. are shown, circa 2004-present (almost, that was YEARS AGO w/ raymorris now, too bad, again he does good things too)) & just ask arth1 IF MODERN LINUX DISTROS SHOULD (they do but prepare to LYAO at arth1) https://linux.slashdot.org/com... lol ... apk

GIGO you never get more than what you pay for

[Anonymous Coward]

Garbage in, garbage out. That sums up web search results.

Remember, you never get more than what you pay for, except for charity, and most sites on the internet are not charities.

should starvation & deception be #1 killers of

[Anonymous Coward]

that's a tough one? how many digits in that answer?

should poison be added to our oxygen/food supply?

[Anonymous Coward]

another easy one.. ai may not be up to speed on some stuff yet? learnoids?

Should I use DuckDuckGo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, use DuckDuckGo, it doesn't track your searches, location, devices, devices around you, your identify, your phone number, your contacts, what you watch, where you were facing at the time, who you were with.

Damn Illinois

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there so many girls wanting to break up with their boyfriends there!?
I guess that's a bad place to be as a man looking for a long term relationship.

Re:GNAA HAY GAY NIGGERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA GNA

[Anonymous Coward]

You again? Do you just copy paste this trash into every thread? Please. leave the planet.

Kentucky

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprised that the "should I" for Kentucky wasn't "should I marry my cousin?"

Re:Kentucky

[Anonymous Coward]

Dummy. The question would rather be "shouldn't I marry my cousin?"

We're asking the wrong person.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google, why did you have to kill Jeeves? I loved asking him all kinds of shit.

Should I RTFA...

[owlaf]

Should I RTFA or make wild assumptions and post inflammatory uninformed counter replies?

Texas: "Should I buy another gun?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Should I shoot myself and then my entire family?

Kansas barbecue?

[helpfulcorn]

From TFA: In Kansas and Tennessee, for example, the most popular “Should I” query was “Should I diet?” This of course isn’t terribly shocking given that both states know a thing or two about barbecue.

Since when is Kansas known for their barbecue? I both love barbecue and have lived in Kansas, and while there were a few barbecue restaurants in Wichita, I don't recall anyone ever talking about barbecue like Tennessee or Texas. People in Kansas sure love to eat, a lot, but barbecue restaurants are far less common than burgers, fried chicken, and Mexican, in fact aside from chain fast food, Mexican is definitely extremely common. Plus the barbecue there really, really, really sucks and isn't worthy of note.

Re:Kansas barbecue?

[Ol Olsoc]

People in Kansas sure love to eat, a lot, but barbecue restaurants are far less common than burgers, fried chicken, and Mexican, in fact aside from chain fast food, Mexican is definitely extremely common. Plus the barbecue there really, really, really sucks and isn't worthy of note.

I'm surprised they allow Mexican.

Re:Kansas barbecue?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Since when is Kansas known for their barbecue? I both love barbecue and have lived in Kansas, and while there were a few barbecue restaurants in Wichita

There's your problem right there. Try Kansas City.

(What? Whaddya mean it's in Missouri??)

Re:Kansas barbecue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about Kansas City, MO, but I do know that Kansas City, KS certainly has plenty of barbecue joints, and the place I went was as good as everyone says.

Should I ask Google what I should do?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I'm trying to make a life decision and Google's corporate slogan is "Don't be evil" so I trust Google enough to advise me. /sarcasm

I hate it when

[Ol Olsoc]

A Chinchilla eats the universe

When Voldemort uses my shampoo

Those search autofinish would be a little amusing at least.

Hard to imagine that this article got published anywhere. I'm only here because I can't look away from a train wreck.

Re:I hate it when

[magarity]

When Voldemort uses my shampoo

He was bald. I hate it more when he uses the dining room to feed other guests to his snake.

Re:I hate it when

[Aighearach]

It knows who you are, and what content you consume. That's why it says that stuff to you.

Should I shampoo? No. You should shave the whole monstrosity off. It smells like chinchilla.

And stop trying to eat the Universe. You don't have to eat just because you're rewatching a movie you already saw two thousand times.

And you know why you're really here.

Re:I hate it when

[SWPadnos]

When Voldemort uses my shampoo

He was bald. [...]

That's what's so annoying. HE DOESN'T EVEN NEED IT!!!

Should I vape?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only one state has their priorities right.

Very simple arithmetic

[raymorris]

State A:
Neighborhood 1 average income $100,000
Neighborhood 2 average income $50,000
Inequality = $50,000

State B:
Neighborhood 1 average income $100,000
Neighborhood 2 average income $30,000
Inequality = $70,000

Having a bunch of broke people mathematically means you'll have higher inequality, if you also have anyone doing well.

The sane thing to do is for state B to look at state A and ask "how we can help our lower income people make $50,000 like they do in the other state? What is state A doing that makes their lower-income tier earn more than out lower-income tier?"

Your "solution" is to ask "how can we harm our high-earners so they can only make $30,000, making everyone equally poor?". Please stay in California.

Re:Very simple arithmetic

[Anonymous Coward]

B2's money went somewhere, and I doubt Joe Sixpack got it. Whether kept-in-hand or billed away is irrelevant to the net scenario.

I'm not saying your intended point was wrong, but I wouldn't want us to be unclear on the thermodynamics.

Should I click on the puff-piece clickbait?

[Anonymous Coward]

And post on it?

Nope.

Oh shit.

bad methodology and dumb article title

[clovis]

The method used was to find the most distinct query for each state from a list of the top 100 queries for all states. This nearly guarantees that the result will NOT be the most popular query for any state,

Re:bad methodology and dumb article title

[Aighearach]

That explains it, I knew people in Idaho weren't really that caring.

Re:bad methodology and dumb article title

[fermion]

XKCD covered why these maps are stupid.

Paradise

[Texmaize]

From the perspective as a Texan, we would like to welcome our California brethren fleeing paradise lost. But, for the love of fuck, please understand that Ca is exactly screwed up for a reason, and do NOT bring that failed culture to other places. There is a word to describe those who eat out a healthy host and move on to a new one...

Re:Paradise

[Aighearach]

Well, don't expect English speakers to see "failed" as a synonym for, "Yer bee-leafs are differunt than miine."

The answer is ...

[fahrbot-bot]

The most popular question in Texas was "Should I apologize?"

... yes.

Re:The answer is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

>> The most popular question in Texas was "Should I apologize?"
> ... yes.

What would an intellectual do?
What would Plato do?

Most of these questions are by women..

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut my nails lose weight. Text him...etc

Most of these top questions in the survey are by women..

Only if they made it

[raymorris]

Money represents economic value. "Making money" is a shorthand way of saying "creating economic value". Someone who "makes $30,000" is someone who produces finding valued at $30,000.

Based on your comment, you might be surprised to learn people are not in fact born with $10 million shoved up their ass which then "went somewhere", to use your words. The balance, the "thermodynamics" is that their economic income matches their economic outflow. If you build tables in your garage, and each week someo, someone buys one of your tables for $500, your income is $500 precisely because your outflow is $500 worth of table.

If your weekly output is "played 45 video games", your weekly income will have the exact same economic value as what you produced - zero.

Btw that doesn't change if you and a friend make the tables together, or if you and 100 friends do. If 90 friends build tables and ten friends but all the tools and build the shop, they'll get income equal to the market value of what they did.

If someone's income is $30,000 and someone else's income is $50,000, that's because one person produced stuff with an economic value of $30,000 and the other person $50,000. The first person didn't misplace $20,000, they simply didn't create as much.

Re:Only if they made it

[tap]

You're limiting the concept of income to that which is produced through labor. But that's not the only source of income, or even primary source for the highest earners. There is also income via rents. Which has many forms, interest on borrowed money, dividends to investors, and rent for use of property.

Someone who "makes $1,000,000" might not get any of that via labor, but entirely because what they own entitles them to it. While capitalism tells us that capital creates more value, someone who inherited a real estate empire or a billion dollar portfolio has done nothing to create any capital or any value.

Consider that by flipping a few bits of ownership information, the investment that entitles someone who "makes $1,000,000" could be shifted to instead entitle another who "made $30,000" to that income. They go from $30,000 to $1,030,000 in an instant, but do no alter their life or production of tables in any way. And the former real estate baron goes from $1,000,000 to $0 in an instant, also without altering their life or anything they produce. Nothing produced has changed, no one has become more or less productive, yet a massive change in the distribution of wealth has occurred. In this case, creating economic value clearly is not related to income.

Wrong assumptions -- you are trusting the Goog!

[Anonymous Coward]

What it is actually telling you is what Google most wants to give you advice about in order to show you ads. What people actually want to know is not the subject of their interest.

Right and wrong

[raymorris]

You've come to a correct conclusion regarding individual action, while being confused about some basic terminology.

You also seem to missed part of what I wrote, stating I didn't say anything about investment when in fact I did. Remember "if ten of them but all the tools and build the factory"? Yeah, that's investment.

> [Labor] But that's not the only source of income, or even primary source for the highest earners.

You are 100% correct that for the vast majority of high earners, the earnings are multiplied by investment - by not spending all their money the moment they get it, but by delayed gratification. That's hugely important for anyone who wants to ever be financially comfortable.

There are two reasons why. The amount of labor you can put into an enterprise is limited. You can work about 40 hours per week, maybe 60. The amount you can invest us unlimited - you can grow your money, then grow the growth, where a little investment becomes more, then since it's more, there is even more growth, in a cycle of exploding wealth. It literally grows exponentially, the math number "e" for exponential refers to this type of growth.

The other reason is that human nature is wired toward short-term thinking, instant gratification, compared to the natural gains from delayed gratification. Whether it's eating crappy for, ditching class, or goofing off reading Slashdot while we're supposed to be working, human nature tends to favor getting a little bit now rather than getting a lot later. Those who overcome this desire for instant gratification, making investment available for use, are well-rewarded vs their peers.

> There is also income via rents. Which has many forms, interest on borrowed money, dividends to investors, and rent for use of property.

You might want to look up what economic rent is. Rent applies to items for which there is a hard limit, nobody can make more. That may be natural, as in the case of land, or artificial, in the case of taxi medallions and such. Governments in certain places LOVE to put these artificial limits in place so there donors can extract rent.

There is no hard limit on money, investment, capital. There is a LOT more capital today than there was 100 years ago - probably ten times as much. You can build capital equipment yourself in your garage, if you're so inclined. Therefore there can be no rent, the cost of capital is controlled by supply and demand. Rent on capital would be possible only if government limited your ability to invest.

That's no big - one doesn't need to know much about economic theory as long as you understand the actionable conclusion - investment is how you get rich. Our tax system gives an extra bonus there, and employer 401k matching adds another 50% or so increase.

California was destroyed by liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

Human faeces and needles everywhere. Overwhelmed with illegal immigration too.

Should I use your software? NO...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment is off-topic spam, and you are a notorious spammer. Spammers, scammers, and malware authors are cut from the same cloth. Your work should not be trusted any more than I'd trust a virus creator to create software to secure my computer. It's more likely that the supposed security software is actually malware.

Some of your linked comments are misleading, if not outright dishonest. BronsCon specifically retracted his endorsement for your software, yet you continue to post his comment as if he still recommends your work. That's highly dishonest. You've also provided zero evidence that China copied your software, noting only that you released your software before China did. Most likely, Chinese officials aren't aware of your software at all.

Although you've had Steven Burn audit your source code, you've provided zero evidence that the code he audited is the same code used to build your binaries. Without reproducible builds and signed binaries, your code cannot be trusted. Your excuses that poorly protected keys can lead to abuse is bogus. Your method for supposedly preventing malicious modifications to your software is ineffective. It also uses methods similar to those of malware, which is possibly why antivirus products flagged your software as malware.

While you frequently use allegations of stalking to deflect from legitimate criticisms of your work, you really do stalk people on Slashdot, including you recently stalking arth1 with "unidentifiable" anonymous posts and posts signed with your initials. Previously, you stalked ZIP with posts like this and this. Plenty of other users like Ash-Fox, Zontar The Mindless, and c6gunner have been victims of your harassment, too. You've alleged that trolls threatened to make malicious versions of software but have refused to provide any evidence to support that claim, strongly suggesting that you lied about it. You repeatedly post a long anti-semitic rant that is off-topic, then repost it over and over when it gets modded down. Simply put, you have numerous well-documented character issues that prevent you from being trustworthy.

I strongly recommend that your software be avoided like the plague.

Aw, I see you're JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie", lol... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Aw, I see you're JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie" that 100,000++ users & DOZENS of /.ers like & use my program, not your 'notthereware'...

* What a HYPOCRITE: You constantly STALK me by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous posts & have the nerve to spout your bs you just did? Please...

APK

P.S.=> When YOU do better? Then, you can TALK (but for YEARS now all you & 'your kind' DO, is mere talk - no action to help the problems out there online (OR in the world))... apk

“AT&T tapped”

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol I see what you did there...

Demographics

[MonteCarloMethod]

This is a really interesting list. I'm particularly amused by the groupings of the north-west-ish indicating that they feel their vote doesn't matter, the midwest which seems to correlate with the food desert that those states are, and the northeast which seems to be broadly covered by the term "first world problems". Also, being a Washington native and Oregon resident I am supremely proud of both my home state and adopted home for their outlooks on life.