I couldn't find stats either way on median individual income, but given that the inequity is dramatically smaller in Europe, and the PPP per capita is almost the same, it stands to reason that the median PPP there is higher. The claim is in conclusive, I'll give you that. But unless you find stats on median income per hour adjusted for cost of basic necessities, its not refuted.
The US is a corpratocracy. Signing your life over to your corporate overlords is so ingrained in the culture that nobody even thinks about it anymore. We only have a federal government so that we can keep up appearances.
this is a list of income inequality by country. Measuring PPP per capita is stupid, because it doesn't have anything to do with the median income, only the mean. You have still failed to show that the average person is any better off in the US, and the HDI that you pointed out early on, then retracted once you found out how low we actually are on there, is a much better measurement of quality of life.
Then the GeForce came out. I almost had to sue an online retailer because it took him 2 months to send my damn video card after he had already cashed the check.
There's no point discussing this any further. I can pull out statistics, you can pull out statistics, but neither of us is going to change the other's mind. I think quality of life and fairness of opportunity are more important than money and greed, you believe the opposite. We're at an impasse, so lets just leave it at that.
That's what wikileaks is for, man. If you're telling the truth, then you have an obligation to see that the data is released so that it can be evaluated, tested, and verified (or debunked).
I think the engineers' preference for simplicity and determinism is a large part of the fundamentalism problem. Simplicity is fine, and is a great thing when you're designing a closed system, but it doesn't work so well when you throw people into the equation. All too often, an engineer is so biased toward a "simple" solution that may not actually be a "correct" solution.
It's much easier to take a prescribed set of ethics from an authority (such as religion) than to have to delve into a complicated subject that doesn't really have a foundational base. I think this is also why so many/.ers are Libertarians. The Libertarian economic model is simple. It's dead fucking wrong, but it's simple, and that can be appealing (speaking as a former registered LP member, so don't give me that shit about how I don't *really* understand it).
Engineering education is very dogmatic. Unlike proper scientists, Engineers are trained to accept a certain subset of physics/chemistry/biology, and use that to build stuff. This is not exactly a bad thing -- this is the most efficient way to train people to build stuff. But Engineers seem to forget sometimes that their understanding of the world isn't "the way it is", but merely "my understanding and perception of the world".
Programmers are like this too, often to an even greater extent. I think this mainly stems from the "that last guy was an idiot because he didn't code this in the same way I would have" mentality. Programmers probably aren't as good of candidates for terrorism, though, since they're less knowledgable in the explosion/bioweapons area.
Because I prefer syntax that doesn't make my eyes hurt, or because I don't care about a programming language that is only used by RMS and 6 of the crums on his beard? But hey, if knowing lisp helps you cope with your small penis and the fact that nobody likes you, then more power to you.
Indeed. I learned to use version control, to restrict access to resources, and to not trust that someone understands what you tell him just because he insists that he does understand and that he will follow directions. And I really think you gloss over the stated fact that the guy did not contribute at all to the project except to screw things up. We tried to get him to write the user manual since he couldn't code, but he failed at that too.
The biggest problem with Indian programmers is that they're usually afraid to admit when they don't know or understand something. This becomes even more of a problem when language barriers get in the way. The second biggest problem is the rampant academic fraud, and the result that you have guys who claim to have an MS in computer science, but don't understand what the floor function is (this happened with another Indian programmer I worked with).
The point is that companies need to learn that being a developer requires skill and talent, not just a certain nationality and a willingness to work for peanuts. I don't mind Indian programmers, as long as they're good at their job. Also, for the record, I have even less patience for shitty American programmers, because they don't have the language barrier as an excuse.
No, and I don't see a point in learning it, unless I want to be uber in emacs. Prolog was okay though, and learning Haskell is on my new years resolution list. But really, the point isn't what language you program in, but what you build with it. The language is just a tool.
What... the... hell? Two hours prior to RELEASE, you were BUILDING the product? Wow, you allocated what, an hour, for release testing? Or you just kinda skip that part? You don't freeze your code base months or weeks prior to release? You don't have a revision control system that allows you to roll back a bonehead change? Yes, there certainly is some incompetence at your company, but it's not the Indian.
It was a project for the capstone course at my university, where the point of the course was supposed to teach us to work together. The university just allotted us a simple FTP account instead of giving us an SVN account or something. Yes, I probably should have insisted that we needed real version-control at the time, but we had a system where everyone was supposed to only upload to their own directory, and I would take care of the "release" directory manually. Unfortunately, a couple hours before we were supposed to turn it it, this jackass uploaded over the release directory and screwed everything. We got marked off for not having it working on time. I had the code at home, but that did me no good while I was at school.
You are confusing Indian coders working in India who receive outsourced jobs from the US, with Indian coders that are brought to the US on H-1B visas. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is generally understood that many, many Indian coders working in the US are of a much, much higher quality than the recipients of outsourcing working in India.
I'll correct you, then. Every Indian programmer I've worked with was completely incompetant, and some actually were harmful, like the guy whose only contribution to a project was breaking the build 2 hours before a major release. I'm sure there are good Indian programmers out there... But the good ones aren't going to work for the salaries they want to pay them.
---And I'm a damn good coder today. That being said, I would suggest teaching the kid something he can do something neat in, or he'll likely lose interest. Maybe GameMaker or those robotic lego things.. Then move him into Python when he grows past those.
That we make less per hour than anywhere in the developed world (even when adjusted for cost of living), that one instance of a poorly managed implementation is not a cogent argument against the fundamental concept of socialism, that making sure everyone's basic needs are met increases fairness of opportunity, and that Socialism is not the same thing as Communism.
>>Purchasing power is higher, but we have to pay for health care and education out of pocket.
It doesn't actually matter if we pay for it out of pocket or if the government taxes us and then pays for it for us, except from an equity point of view.
That's quite the exception. I have trouble paying for health care, and I have a good job. I shudder to think what would happen to me if I had been less fortunate in the job market.
>>Yet all around me people bitch about how public health care will be unaffordable
Perhaps it is because Medicare is fundamentally bankrupt, and runs itself like a Ponzi scheme, paying out much more money than it takes in, relying only on new signups to keep itself afloat?
We already have socialized medicine in America, as Michael Moore points out (about half of all medical payments in America is from the government), but nobody can claim it is a well run program with a straight face.
You do understand that it's so poorly managed because we have to hide the fact that the government pays for it, right? Instead of having a working single-payer system, we have this bastardized corporate welfare bullshit because Rebublicans have a hard on for 'teh free market!!'. "You need to do another scan? Why? Because you make more money that way? Oh, okay, it's all going to help the economy anyhow!".
>>Americans work more hours than anywhere else in the developed world, and we have a huge wealth disparity.
Neither of which are bad, in and of itself. Socialists focus on wealth disparity, believing that keeping everyone in an equal, abject level of poverty is the ideal social state. I believe, however, that a system that allows everyone to make more money is much more ethically good than one that encourages poverty and starvation.
Working more hours is bad only when a person feels they're working too much (i.e. by impacting their family or social life). Everyone can decide for themselves how much they want to work, but there is a large cultural binding as to how many hours is appropriate. (And if you think Americans work a lot, you should visit Japan some time - a salaryman there rarely sees his wife.)
I can't tell if this is an intentional straw man, or if you actually believe this crap about socialism trying to make everyone equal. In case its the latter, I should let you know that what you're talking about is called communism, and it is a generally accepted fact that communism doesn't work. Socialism, on the other hand, is about trying to make things as fair as possible. So if we all have our basic needs met (including medical care, and education to the extent of each person's innate capability), then we're on a more even playing field when it comes to finding our lot in life. Sure, it will never be truly fair, but at least everyone gets a chance.
And since you think that we're still working at Industrial Revolution rates, it's important to point out the number of hours American workers work has fallen almost in half since 1850. The low work hours in France is one of the reasons their economy is crap.
You should have addressed this about 10 posts ago, but yes, you caught me in a bit of hyperbole. Congratulations. But really, you think the French are so bad off? I think I wouldn't mind making slightly less if I could work 35 hours a week (compared to the 50-60 hours the average American coder has to work) and take 2 months off a year (compared to 2 weeks, if you're lucky enough to not be on contract). And if you don't agree, you're either a greedy son of a bitch, or you really hate your family.
He wrote code, but it was nothing special. You're acting like he's fucking Donald Knuth or Dennis Ritchie. He was an average coder. Maybe even slightly above-average. But he was not some sort of programming god as you seem to think. He did something that any other good programmer could do given the time, the motivation, and the access to a computer. Contrary to what you seem to think, access to a computer was kind of a big deal back then, especially when working on your own pet project.
Purchasing power is higher, but we have to pay for health care and education out of pocket. Not to mention that, for the most part, lower cost of living in the US is based on availability of land. Americans work more hours than anywhere else in the developed world, and we have a huge wealth disparity. To put things into perspective, i pay more in insurance premiums than a full time Walmart worker makes. Yet all around me people bitch about how public health care will be unaffordable. For a country that's supposedly 'Christian' (as the anti-health care camp claims), we sure do a shitty job of loving our neighbors.
I did give him credit for what he did -- he got the contract. I don't understand why being a good opportunist is the same thing to you as being a good programmer.
According to this, we only make slightly more than France, which has a poor immigrant population significantly above 10%. You should look things up before you say that we're 3rd in the world in per capita. We're at #17, according to the CIA factbook.
Slashdot Mirror
I couldn't find stats either way on median individual income, but given that the inequity is dramatically smaller in Europe, and the PPP per capita is almost the same, it stands to reason that the median PPP there is higher. The claim is in conclusive, I'll give you that. But unless you find stats on median income per hour adjusted for cost of basic necessities, its not refuted.
The US is a corpratocracy. Signing your life over to your corporate overlords is so ingrained in the culture that nobody even thinks about it anymore. We only have a federal government so that we can keep up appearances.
here is the link
this is a list of income inequality by country. Measuring PPP per capita is stupid, because it doesn't have anything to do with the median income, only the mean. You have still failed to show that the average person is any better off in the US, and the HDI that you pointed out early on, then retracted once you found out how low we actually are on there, is a much better measurement of quality of life.
I was so put off by having to write more comments than code in college that I have a hard time forcing myself to comment.
Then the GeForce came out. I almost had to sue an online retailer because it took him 2 months to send my damn video card after he had already cashed the check.
They should rebrand as the love shack, and sell porn.. That's a market that will never have a recession.
There's no point discussing this any further. I can pull out statistics, you can pull out statistics, but neither of us is going to change the other's mind. I think quality of life and fairness of opportunity are more important than money and greed, you believe the opposite. We're at an impasse, so lets just leave it at that.
That's what wikileaks is for, man. If you're telling the truth, then you have an obligation to see that the data is released so that it can be evaluated, tested, and verified (or debunked).
I think the engineers' preference for simplicity and determinism is a large part of the fundamentalism problem. Simplicity is fine, and is a great thing when you're designing a closed system, but it doesn't work so well when you throw people into the equation. All too often, an engineer is so biased toward a "simple" solution that may not actually be a "correct" solution.
/.ers are Libertarians. The Libertarian economic model is simple. It's dead fucking wrong, but it's simple, and that can be appealing (speaking as a former registered LP member, so don't give me that shit about how I don't *really* understand it).
It's much easier to take a prescribed set of ethics from an authority (such as religion) than to have to delve into a complicated subject that doesn't really have a foundational base. I think this is also why so many
Engineering education is very dogmatic. Unlike proper scientists, Engineers are trained to accept a certain subset of physics/chemistry/biology, and use that to build stuff. This is not exactly a bad thing -- this is the most efficient way to train people to build stuff. But Engineers seem to forget sometimes that their understanding of the world isn't "the way it is", but merely "my understanding and perception of the world".
Programmers are like this too, often to an even greater extent. I think this mainly stems from the "that last guy was an idiot because he didn't code this in the same way I would have" mentality. Programmers probably aren't as good of candidates for terrorism, though, since they're less knowledgable in the explosion/bioweapons area.
Because I prefer syntax that doesn't make my eyes hurt, or because I don't care about a programming language that is only used by RMS and 6 of the crums on his beard? But hey, if knowing lisp helps you cope with your small penis and the fact that nobody likes you, then more power to you.
Indeed. I learned to use version control, to restrict access to resources, and to not trust that someone understands what you tell him just because he insists that he does understand and that he will follow directions. And I really think you gloss over the stated fact that the guy did not contribute at all to the project except to screw things up. We tried to get him to write the user manual since he couldn't code, but he failed at that too.
The biggest problem with Indian programmers is that they're usually afraid to admit when they don't know or understand something. This becomes even more of a problem when language barriers get in the way. The second biggest problem is the rampant academic fraud, and the result that you have guys who claim to have an MS in computer science, but don't understand what the floor function is (this happened with another Indian programmer I worked with).
The point is that companies need to learn that being a developer requires skill and talent, not just a certain nationality and a willingness to work for peanuts. I don't mind Indian programmers, as long as they're good at their job. Also, for the record, I have even less patience for shitty American programmers, because they don't have the language barrier as an excuse.
No, and I don't see a point in learning it, unless I want to be uber in emacs. Prolog was okay though, and learning Haskell is on my new years resolution list. But really, the point isn't what language you program in, but what you build with it. The language is just a tool.
What... the... hell? Two hours prior to RELEASE, you were BUILDING the product? Wow, you allocated what, an hour, for release testing? Or you just kinda skip that part? You don't freeze your code base months or weeks prior to release? You don't have a revision control system that allows you to roll back a bonehead change? Yes, there certainly is some incompetence at your company, but it's not the Indian.
It was a project for the capstone course at my university, where the point of the course was supposed to teach us to work together. The university just allotted us a simple FTP account instead of giving us an SVN account or something. Yes, I probably should have insisted that we needed real version-control at the time, but we had a system where everyone was supposed to only upload to their own directory, and I would take care of the "release" directory manually. Unfortunately, a couple hours before we were supposed to turn it it, this jackass uploaded over the release directory and screwed everything. We got marked off for not having it working on time. I had the code at home, but that did me no good while I was at school.
You are confusing Indian coders working in India who receive outsourced jobs from the US, with Indian coders that are brought to the US on H-1B visas. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is generally understood that many, many Indian coders working in the US are of a much, much higher quality than the recipients of outsourcing working in India.
I'll correct you, then. Every Indian programmer I've worked with was completely incompetant, and some actually were harmful, like the guy whose only contribution to a project was breaking the build 2 hours before a major release. I'm sure there are good Indian programmers out there... But the good ones aren't going to work for the salaries they want to pay them.
---And I'm a damn good coder today. That being said, I would suggest teaching the kid something he can do something neat in, or he'll likely lose interest. Maybe GameMaker or those robotic lego things.. Then move him into Python when he grows past those.
What points?
That we make less per hour than anywhere in the developed world (even when adjusted for cost of living), that one instance of a poorly managed implementation is not a cogent argument against the fundamental concept of socialism, that making sure everyone's basic needs are met increases fairness of opportunity, and that Socialism is not the same thing as Communism.
I notice that you chopped up the argument and didn't respond to any relevant points. Nice.
>>Purchasing power is higher, but we have to pay for health care and education out of pocket.
It doesn't actually matter if we pay for it out of pocket or if the government taxes us and then pays for it for us, except from an equity point of view.
That's quite the exception. I have trouble paying for health care, and I have a good job. I shudder to think what would happen to me if I had been less fortunate in the job market.
>>Yet all around me people bitch about how public health care will be unaffordable
Perhaps it is because Medicare is fundamentally bankrupt, and runs itself like a Ponzi scheme, paying out much more money than it takes in, relying only on new signups to keep itself afloat?
We already have socialized medicine in America, as Michael Moore points out (about half of all medical payments in America is from the government), but nobody can claim it is a well run program with a straight face.
You do understand that it's so poorly managed because we have to hide the fact that the government pays for it, right? Instead of having a working single-payer system, we have this bastardized corporate welfare bullshit because Rebublicans have a hard on for 'teh free market!!'. "You need to do another scan? Why? Because you make more money that way? Oh, okay, it's all going to help the economy anyhow!".
>>Americans work more hours than anywhere else in the developed world, and we have a huge wealth disparity.
Neither of which are bad, in and of itself. Socialists focus on wealth disparity, believing that keeping everyone in an equal, abject level of poverty is the ideal social state. I believe, however, that a system that allows everyone to make more money is much more ethically good than one that encourages poverty and starvation.
Working more hours is bad only when a person feels they're working too much (i.e. by impacting their family or social life). Everyone can decide for themselves how much they want to work, but there is a large cultural binding as to how many hours is appropriate. (And if you think Americans work a lot, you should visit Japan some time - a salaryman there rarely sees his wife.)
I can't tell if this is an intentional straw man, or if you actually believe this crap about socialism trying to make everyone equal. In case its the latter, I should let you know that what you're talking about is called communism, and it is a generally accepted fact that communism doesn't work. Socialism, on the other hand, is about trying to make things as fair as possible. So if we all have our basic needs met (including medical care, and education to the extent of each person's innate capability), then we're on a more even playing field when it comes to finding our lot in life. Sure, it will never be truly fair, but at least everyone gets a chance.
And since you think that we're still working at Industrial Revolution rates, it's important to point out the number of hours American workers work has fallen almost in half since 1850. The low work hours in France is one of the reasons their economy is crap.
You should have addressed this about 10 posts ago, but yes, you caught me in a bit of hyperbole. Congratulations. But really, you think the French are so bad off? I think I wouldn't mind making slightly less if I could work 35 hours a week (compared to the 50-60 hours the average American coder has to work) and take 2 months off a year (compared to 2 weeks, if you're lucky enough to not be on contract). And if you don't agree, you're either a greedy son of a bitch, or you really hate your family.
He wrote code, but it was nothing special. You're acting like he's fucking Donald Knuth or Dennis Ritchie. He was an average coder. Maybe even slightly above-average. But he was not some sort of programming god as you seem to think. He did something that any other good programmer could do given the time, the motivation, and the access to a computer. Contrary to what you seem to think, access to a computer was kind of a big deal back then, especially when working on your own pet project.
Purchasing power is higher, but we have to pay for health care and education out of pocket. Not to mention that, for the most part, lower cost of living in the US is based on availability of land. Americans work more hours than anywhere else in the developed world, and we have a huge wealth disparity. To put things into perspective, i pay more in insurance premiums than a full time Walmart worker makes. Yet all around me people bitch about how public health care will be unaffordable. For a country that's supposedly 'Christian' (as the anti-health care camp claims), we sure do a shitty job of loving our neighbors.
I did give him credit for what he did -- he got the contract. I don't understand why being a good opportunist is the same thing to you as being a good programmer.
According to this, we only make slightly more than France, which has a poor immigrant population significantly above 10%. You should look things up before you say that we're 3rd in the world in per capita. We're at #17, according to the CIA factbook.
If you don't see how money and business connections are an advantage in this regard, then I guess we're at an impasse.