This could be solved with very high tax rates on corporate profits, dividends and income from stock sales.
Companies will be able to replace human drivers with robots, but they will still pay the humans the same money (through tax), just now the humans will be able to stay at home and watch TV.
Forced reboots are always bad. What if I am not at home for a week but may need to access my PC remotely? What if the update screws something up that makes my PC lose internet connection (say, like breaking the DHCP client)? Also, what if I really hate reboots and would rather do it once a month instead of randomly with two day warning?
You mean those versions will no longer get updates. Well, I think that after the forced updates to Windows 10 quite a few people have automatic updates disabled and won't notice anything. Software makers will continue to make compatible software as long as there is enough market share for the old versions.
The problem here is not that the streaming service is free, but that using it does not count toward your data cap, while using a competing streaming service (like Spotify) does.
So yes, you do pay double for using other streaming services.
1. Games (I may not be a "gamer", but I like to play games once in a while) 2. Windows-only software. I use Multisim for drawing circuit diagrams. It does not work on Linux. 3. Hardware compatibility. Find me a clamshell UMPC with x86 CPU (so I can use Wine) that completely supports Linux. I have a Viliv N5 with 1GB RAM and Windows XP (too little RAM for newer Windows). I tried installing Linux on it, but I could not get it to be stable.
Linux is great. I use it in my servers and in my desktop PC in the office. It works great, for desktop use LXDE does not take a lot of resources and looks good. KDE also looks good even though it uses more resources. I also am an admin for a lot of Linux servers and they all work great.
However, I also have problems with desktop Linux at home: 1. Most video games do not run on it (yes, there are Linux compatible games, but they are a subset of Windows-compatible games). 2. A lot of software I want to use (NI Multisim for example) does not run on Linux. 3. Mobile PCs (like my Viliv N5) have problems supporting Linux and I cannot exactly buy one that supports Linux, because there are very few options available and they all use some weird hardware that require special drivers. I am not that good a programmer to patch the kernel or write the drivers myself.
Because of these reasons I have to use Windows on my desktop PCs at home and even some servers.
I bought the GPD Win palmtop PC (not for games, really, but there was no alternative with an x86 CPU and this form factor and my Viliv N5 is a bit slow). It came with Windows 10. After failing to make Windows 8 work on it (sound driver didn't work properly and there was no display of remaining battery charge - kinda important for a mobile device) I had to go back to Windows 10 and spend a few days making it not send data to Microsoft and disabling updates (so my settings stay).
As an OS, Windows 10 is not that bad, though I still hate the UI (for me, Windows 2000/Classic look is the best, followed by XP and Aero), but what makes it awful is the forced updates and the data sharing. "Cloud storage" seems interesting, but only if "the cloud" is my own server.
This seems weird to me. In my country, if the letter/package is small enough to fit in my mailbox (which is locked, the postman will not put letters in mailboxes that are not locked), then it is put there. If not, either the package gets delivered to my house and I have to sign for it or I get a notice and have to go to the post office to pick it up.
Under no circumstances does the package get left unattended on the outside of the fence. Now, as my fence is relatively high (about 2 meters) compared to my neighbors, some couriers called me and asked if it was OK for them to just throw the package over the fence. Sometimes I let them (if I knew the items won't get damaged and I was coming home soon). In addition to making it difficult to access, the fence also prevents other people from seeing that the package is there (unless they saw the courier throw it), reducing the likelihood of theft.
I have Linux servers that I rarely reboot (and they usually spend more time booting the BIOS than booting Linux with SysV or Systemd).
My main PC is a Windows PC and I reboot it less frequently than the servers, because I cannot back up the "state" (that is, open programs, open files, window positions, open connections), while the servers reboot and autostart all that I need, I just have to ssh to them again when I need to.
I have a HTPC that I shut down when not in use, and I installed an SSD after its hard drive started acting up, but it doe not really speed up the boot process (that is, that PC is already at the login prompt when my TV "bots" and my amplifier warms up), but it makes it a bit faster after that.
I have UPS power for about an hour (more if I shut down a couple of the server in an effort to preserve the main PC running), but even if I need to reboot my main PC, I really do not care that it takes 5 minutes to boot as opposed to 1 minute, because I then spend 30 minutes restoring the "state".
For a laptop, the boot time is a bit more important, but I usually hibernate it and as such do not particularly care how long it takes to reboot (as long as it is under, say, 5 minutes).
While I did not have a lot of problems with SysV or Systemd, I wish I could make Systemd boot sequentially. Once I spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting a problem where a zpool would not mount at boot time. It turned out that the controller for the zfs hard drives was initialized too late for the boot process (system drives were on a different controller). This never happened with SysV and I wish I could set Systemd to mimic this as well, even if it adds some seconds to the boot time of a server I reboot once a year.
Debian jessie does well to hide Systemd. The usual commands work and I usually forget Systemd is even there, unless there is a race condition or I forget to do a "systemd daemon-reload" after editing some files in/etc/default/
He said that the statistic was too low because if you give up looking for a job (and I guess decide to live off welfare), you are no longer counted as unemployed.
I usually do not like repetitive work (though sometimes I want to do it, say, taking a caddy out of a server, removing the plastic, installing a hard drive, putting caddy back and doing that 30 times). However, if bolting panel A to panel B was my job, I would do it and would not like it if somebody decided to automate it (because it would mean I no longer get paid). If I myself could automate it (and still get paid as if I have done that myself) then it would be great. In short - I am lazy and do not like repetitive work, but I like getting paid and food.
I dislike spending money, so if I can do something myself (and am not too lazy) I do it. If I buy, say, a cellphone, I will use it until it irreparably fails (I used a Nokia N93 for probably 8-10 years (the phone pretty much disintegrated), then a Nokia E90 for maybe 4 (microphone failed and nobody can get me a new one), now I am looking for a "new to me" E90 because I love the form factor and have a parts phone), with the exception of PC hardware (here I buy a new video card maybe every 4 years). My goal is to spend less than half of what I earn. I sometimes manage to reach it. As you might have guessed, I have not borrowed money ever, either as a bank loan or credit card.
Growing your own food (if you live where you can do that) may be useful, well, at least you know what you used in growing it and it may have a better taste (even if the various insecticides etc used industrially may not be bad for health). My father brews his own beer and he (and my friends who tasted it) say that the taste is much better than what is available in the store. I do not like beer so I wouldn't know.
Some people certainly were worse off when automatic looms were invented. However, those people could either work with the automatic looms at the factory (for lower pay of course) or work at some other factory doing some other simple job (maybe instead of weaving they now work at a spinning factory). While the early factories obsoleted some jobs, they required new simple jobs, for example, somebody had to shovel coal into the furnace so the boiler can make steam for the factory.
If automation obsoletes most of the simple jobs (that is, jobs that do not require university/college education or many years of experience to do well) then there will be a problem. Most hand weavers could work with a power loom in a factory, or shovel coal. I am not so sure that most truck drivers can program, build web pages or design the new self-driving trucks.
However, there is about 20% unemployed people in the US (well, at least according to your new President). I do not know how true is that, but if it is true, then the number is too high in my opinion. There were a lot of unemployed people in my country too, but recently they moved to countries like the UK to work picking tomatoes etc.
I may be soviet in my views, I try to do as much as possible myself. The only reason I do not change the oil in my car is that I do not have a garage with a pit or a lift (and I do not particularly want to lift the car on a jack and then crawl under it. I do, however, fix my own electronics as much as possible and fix my car as much as possible (for example, changing the rubber parts in a carburetor, replacing the radiator, headlight reflectors), I cannot weld or do other major work on the body (so, I leave patching the rust holes to specialists), and I paid for installing AC in my car (because it requires special skills/tools, pit/lift and a lot of time).
I personally consider hiring someone to do some job usually as somewhat of a failure of myself - either I am incompetent to do it myself or too lazy.
I prefer working with small companies and individuals over large companies. If I pay the mechanic to patch a rust hole in my car, most of the money goes to feed his family. If I bought a new car, most of that money would end up in the back accounts of stock holders, managers, but not the people who actually did the work.
How will it work if you have 90% unemployment? Simple, it won't be that way for long. You will have massive unrest, and all of the horrors that would entail.
Or you will have high taxes and welfare for all those 90% (if give people bread and entertainment they are less likely to overthrow you). Which means that the investors and company owners will be paying the other people for watching TV all day instead of paying them to do useful work.
Here's the thing: anybody who was in a physical condition that was good enough to work in agriculture, could switch to working at a factory, even weaker people could do it. As factories/mines got more efficient, the same people still worked there but were able to produce more for the factory owner.
However, not everybody working in a factory can switch to R&D, inventions, web page design, programming, engineering etc. You need to be more educated for any of these jobs than you do to work with a power loom. The problem is that not everybody can be educated (let's face it, some people are better with, say, math than others) and even if they were able to learn as well as anyone else, education is expensive in some countries, but they cannot pay for it because they don't have money because they don't have a job anymore and when they had a job, the pay was barely enough to survive.
Now imagine two workers, Abby the Apple Pie Maker, and Betty the Basket Maker. Before the robots came along, Abby made a pie everyday, and Betty made a basket everyday, and then they traded a pie for a basket.
What if both Abby and Betty sold their products to other people and then bought food, paid their bills with the money and only sometimes exchanged their products with each other? Now that both their products are worth 10% of the original price, both of them will starve and be kicked out of their flats for not paying the bills.
There is a difference. You wrote a script to save yourself from doing a tedious task (I also do the same). Good. You can spend the time saved by doing something else (to get more money from another client) or watching youtube (the client probably expected you to take all day to do it, so you might as well say you did).
OTOH, imagine that copying the configuration to all devices was your primary job - someone else creates a template and you now have to apply it to all devices. Some time later, the admin who creates the templates finally figured out how to write a script to apply them automatically to all devices. Now you are no longer needed in the company.
The problem is that wealth creation is becoming more concentrated.
Let's say that I work for you and earn 1000EUR/month, while you (the boss) earn 5000EUR/month. You then decide to replace me with a robot (or a lower paid worker, maybe an immigrant), now I get zero, but since you save some money you now earn 10000EUR/month. It may be good for you, but I still will not like it. If the government asks me (as part of a referendum or an election) if I want to prevent you from using your current solution, I will vote for it. If it passes, you will have to take me back (or not earn any money at all) and go back to earning 5000 while paying me 1000. Our combined income (or GDP) is lower, but since I earn more, I like this situation much better than you earning more and me earning nothing.
If we agree that the states are different (somewhat different laws etc), then, to me, it seems logical to me that the people living in different stats have different views, opinions etc that they are more likely to have in common with other people living in the same state than people living in other states.
To me, it also seems logical that the people who chose to not vote are more likely to share the views of the people who voted in the same state (to me, not voting means "I don't care" and I would assume the default views for your area). Children cannot vote and I would assume that their parents know what's best for them.
In my opinion, the different views of the states should be represented (otherwise just scrap the "state" division and have one big government for everyone). This is done with EC in that all states get at least 3 votes irrespective of their population. So, smaller states get more votes than they would if the votes were based just on population so that they are not overshadowed by bigger states.
Popular vote really depends on turnout and I assume that convincing more people to come and vote for you is easier in a state where a lot of people likes you (for example, California for Clinton) than it is to convince the people of some other state to vote for you.
This means, that with strict popular vote, all, say, Clinton, has to do is to convince a lot of people in California to come and vote (to win California vote by a bigger percentage) to offset the votes of entire smaller states. As it is right now, whether 51% or 80% of Californians voted for Clinton, she still gets the same amount of EC votes.
Also, with popular vote, the opinion of those who chose to not vote is assumed to be with the majority of the entire country, not just their state, which is not completely correct, given that people in different states have different majority opinions/problems.
In short, popular vote would require convincing people in areas that like you to go and vote more, while with EC you need to convince people in more areas to vote for you.
Take the EU for example - the EU does not have an elected President and the elected positions are divided by country (each member country gets some number of seats). However, if there was an elected President, then the elections would have to be done with something similar to EC, otherwise the opinion of Berlin (one city) would matter more than the opinion of one or two Baltic countries (where people and conditions are really different).
Actually, it is based on population, with the understanding that the people who came to vote are also voting on behalf of other people living in that state (their children for example) who did not (or could not) vote.
Slashdot Mirror
This could be solved with very high tax rates on corporate profits, dividends and income from stock sales.
Companies will be able to replace human drivers with robots, but they will still pay the humans the same money (through tax), just now the humans will be able to stay at home and watch TV.
Forced reboots are always bad. What if I am not at home for a week but may need to access my PC remotely? What if the update screws something up that makes my PC lose internet connection (say, like breaking the DHCP client)? Also, what if I really hate reboots and would rather do it once a month instead of randomly with two day warning?
You mean those versions will no longer get updates. Well, I think that after the forced updates to Windows 10 quite a few people have automatic updates disabled and won't notice anything. Software makers will continue to make compatible software as long as there is enough market share for the old versions.
I think that wars would be much less frequent if the kings and presidents had to fight each other instead of just sending others to die for them.
The problem here is not that the streaming service is free, but that using it does not count toward your data cap, while using a competing streaming service (like Spotify) does.
So yes, you do pay double for using other streaming services.
1. Games (I may not be a "gamer", but I like to play games once in a while)
2. Windows-only software. I use Multisim for drawing circuit diagrams. It does not work on Linux.
3. Hardware compatibility. Find me a clamshell UMPC with x86 CPU (so I can use Wine) that completely supports Linux. I have a Viliv N5 with 1GB RAM and Windows XP (too little RAM for newer Windows). I tried installing Linux on it, but I could not get it to be stable.
Linux is great. I use it in my servers and in my desktop PC in the office. It works great, for desktop use LXDE does not take a lot of resources and looks good. KDE also looks good even though it uses more resources. I also am an admin for a lot of Linux servers and they all work great.
However, I also have problems with desktop Linux at home:
1. Most video games do not run on it (yes, there are Linux compatible games, but they are a subset of Windows-compatible games).
2. A lot of software I want to use (NI Multisim for example) does not run on Linux.
3. Mobile PCs (like my Viliv N5) have problems supporting Linux and I cannot exactly buy one that supports Linux, because there are very few options available and they all use some weird hardware that require special drivers. I am not that good a programmer to patch the kernel or write the drivers myself.
Because of these reasons I have to use Windows on my desktop PCs at home and even some servers.
I bought the GPD Win palmtop PC (not for games, really, but there was no alternative with an x86 CPU and this form factor and my Viliv N5 is a bit slow). It came with Windows 10. After failing to make Windows 8 work on it (sound driver didn't work properly and there was no display of remaining battery charge - kinda important for a mobile device) I had to go back to Windows 10 and spend a few days making it not send data to Microsoft and disabling updates (so my settings stay).
As an OS, Windows 10 is not that bad, though I still hate the UI (for me, Windows 2000/Classic look is the best, followed by XP and Aero), but what makes it awful is the forced updates and the data sharing. "Cloud storage" seems interesting, but only if "the cloud" is my own server.
This seems weird to me. In my country, if the letter/package is small enough to fit in my mailbox (which is locked, the postman will not put letters in mailboxes that are not locked), then it is put there. If not, either the package gets delivered to my house and I have to sign for it or I get a notice and have to go to the post office to pick it up.
Under no circumstances does the package get left unattended on the outside of the fence. Now, as my fence is relatively high (about 2 meters) compared to my neighbors, some couriers called me and asked if it was OK for them to just throw the package over the fence. Sometimes I let them (if I knew the items won't get damaged and I was coming home soon). In addition to making it difficult to access, the fence also prevents other people from seeing that the package is there (unless they saw the courier throw it), reducing the likelihood of theft.
I have Linux servers that I rarely reboot (and they usually spend more time booting the BIOS than booting Linux with SysV or Systemd).
My main PC is a Windows PC and I reboot it less frequently than the servers, because I cannot back up the "state" (that is, open programs, open files, window positions, open connections), while the servers reboot and autostart all that I need, I just have to ssh to them again when I need to.
I have a HTPC that I shut down when not in use, and I installed an SSD after its hard drive started acting up, but it doe not really speed up the boot process (that is, that PC is already at the login prompt when my TV "bots" and my amplifier warms up), but it makes it a bit faster after that.
I have UPS power for about an hour (more if I shut down a couple of the server in an effort to preserve the main PC running), but even if I need to reboot my main PC, I really do not care that it takes 5 minutes to boot as opposed to 1 minute, because I then spend 30 minutes restoring the "state".
For a laptop, the boot time is a bit more important, but I usually hibernate it and as such do not particularly care how long it takes to reboot (as long as it is under, say, 5 minutes).
When one has almost no money, one usually spends that money on food and cheap clothes instead of TVs. If one has no money, well...
While I did not have a lot of problems with SysV or Systemd, I wish I could make Systemd boot sequentially. Once I spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting a problem where a zpool would not mount at boot time. It turned out that the controller for the zfs hard drives was initialized too late for the boot process (system drives were on a different controller). This never happened with SysV and I wish I could set Systemd to mimic this as well, even if it adds some seconds to the boot time of a server I reboot once a year.
Debian jessie does well to hide Systemd. The usual commands work and I usually forget Systemd is even there, unless there is a race condition or I forget to do a "systemd daemon-reload" after editing some files in /etc/default/
.Actually, the first part was in my thoughts, though I though a bit differently:
Humans become irrelevant in making things - prices of stuff drop - money for most people (who used to work in manufacturing) runs out - big problems.
He said that the statistic was too low because if you give up looking for a job (and I guess decide to live off welfare), you are no longer counted as unemployed.
I usually do not like repetitive work (though sometimes I want to do it, say, taking a caddy out of a server, removing the plastic, installing a hard drive, putting caddy back and doing that 30 times). However, if bolting panel A to panel B was my job, I would do it and would not like it if somebody decided to automate it (because it would mean I no longer get paid). If I myself could automate it (and still get paid as if I have done that myself) then it would be great. In short - I am lazy and do not like repetitive work, but I like getting paid and food.
I dislike spending money, so if I can do something myself (and am not too lazy) I do it. If I buy, say, a cellphone, I will use it until it irreparably fails (I used a Nokia N93 for probably 8-10 years (the phone pretty much disintegrated), then a Nokia E90 for maybe 4 (microphone failed and nobody can get me a new one), now I am looking for a "new to me" E90 because I love the form factor and have a parts phone), with the exception of PC hardware (here I buy a new video card maybe every 4 years). My goal is to spend less than half of what I earn. I sometimes manage to reach it. As you might have guessed, I have not borrowed money ever, either as a bank loan or credit card.
Growing your own food (if you live where you can do that) may be useful, well, at least you know what you used in growing it and it may have a better taste (even if the various insecticides etc used industrially may not be bad for health). My father brews his own beer and he (and my friends who tasted it) say that the taste is much better than what is available in the store. I do not like beer so I wouldn't know.
Some people certainly were worse off when automatic looms were invented. However, those people could either work with the automatic looms at the factory (for lower pay of course) or work at some other factory doing some other simple job (maybe instead of weaving they now work at a spinning factory).
While the early factories obsoleted some jobs, they required new simple jobs, for example, somebody had to shovel coal into the furnace so the boiler can make steam for the factory.
If automation obsoletes most of the simple jobs (that is, jobs that do not require university/college education or many years of experience to do well) then there will be a problem. Most hand weavers could work with a power loom in a factory, or shovel coal. I am not so sure that most truck drivers can program, build web pages or design the new self-driving trucks.
However, there is about 20% unemployed people in the US (well, at least according to your new President). I do not know how true is that, but if it is true, then the number is too high in my opinion. There were a lot of unemployed people in my country too, but recently they moved to countries like the UK to work picking tomatoes etc.
I may be soviet in my views, I try to do as much as possible myself. The only reason I do not change the oil in my car is that I do not have a garage with a pit or a lift (and I do not particularly want to lift the car on a jack and then crawl under it. I do, however, fix my own electronics as much as possible and fix my car as much as possible (for example, changing the rubber parts in a carburetor, replacing the radiator, headlight reflectors), I cannot weld or do other major work on the body (so, I leave patching the rust holes to specialists), and I paid for installing AC in my car (because it requires special skills/tools, pit/lift and a lot of time).
I personally consider hiring someone to do some job usually as somewhat of a failure of myself - either I am incompetent to do it myself or too lazy.
I prefer working with small companies and individuals over large companies. If I pay the mechanic to patch a rust hole in my car, most of the money goes to feed his family. If I bought a new car, most of that money would end up in the back accounts of stock holders, managers, but not the people who actually did the work.
I work as a sysadmin as my day job btw.
How will it work if you have 90% unemployment? Simple, it won't be that way for long. You will have massive unrest, and all of the horrors that would entail.
Or you will have high taxes and welfare for all those 90% (if give people bread and entertainment they are less likely to overthrow you). Which means that the investors and company owners will be paying the other people for watching TV all day instead of paying them to do useful work.
Here's the thing: anybody who was in a physical condition that was good enough to work in agriculture, could switch to working at a factory, even weaker people could do it. As factories/mines got more efficient, the same people still worked there but were able to produce more for the factory owner.
However, not everybody working in a factory can switch to R&D, inventions, web page design, programming, engineering etc. You need to be more educated for any of these jobs than you do to work with a power loom. The problem is that not everybody can be educated (let's face it, some people are better with, say, math than others) and even if they were able to learn as well as anyone else, education is expensive in some countries, but they cannot pay for it because they don't have money because they don't have a job anymore and when they had a job, the pay was barely enough to survive.
Now imagine two workers, Abby the Apple Pie Maker, and Betty the Basket Maker. Before the robots came along, Abby made a pie everyday, and Betty made a basket everyday, and then they traded a pie for a basket.
What if both Abby and Betty sold their products to other people and then bought food, paid their bills with the money and only sometimes exchanged their products with each other? Now that both their products are worth 10% of the original price, both of them will starve and be kicked out of their flats for not paying the bills.
There is a difference. You wrote a script to save yourself from doing a tedious task (I also do the same). Good. You can spend the time saved by doing something else (to get more money from another client) or watching youtube (the client probably expected you to take all day to do it, so you might as well say you did).
OTOH, imagine that copying the configuration to all devices was your primary job - someone else creates a template and you now have to apply it to all devices. Some time later, the admin who creates the templates finally figured out how to write a script to apply them automatically to all devices. Now you are no longer needed in the company.
The problem is that wealth creation is becoming more concentrated.
Let's say that I work for you and earn 1000EUR/month, while you (the boss) earn 5000EUR/month. You then decide to replace me with a robot (or a lower paid worker, maybe an immigrant), now I get zero, but since you save some money you now earn 10000EUR/month. It may be good for you, but I still will not like it. If the government asks me (as part of a referendum or an election) if I want to prevent you from using your current solution, I will vote for it. If it passes, you will have to take me back (or not earn any money at all) and go back to earning 5000 while paying me 1000. Our combined income (or GDP) is lower, but since I earn more, I like this situation much better than you earning more and me earning nothing.
If we agree that the states are different (somewhat different laws etc), then, to me, it seems logical to me that the people living in different stats have different views, opinions etc that they are more likely to have in common with other people living in the same state than people living in other states.
To me, it also seems logical that the people who chose to not vote are more likely to share the views of the people who voted in the same state (to me, not voting means "I don't care" and I would assume the default views for your area). Children cannot vote and I would assume that their parents know what's best for them.
In my opinion, the different views of the states should be represented (otherwise just scrap the "state" division and have one big government for everyone). This is done with EC in that all states get at least 3 votes irrespective of their population. So, smaller states get more votes than they would if the votes were based just on population so that they are not overshadowed by bigger states.
Popular vote really depends on turnout and I assume that convincing more people to come and vote for you is easier in a state where a lot of people likes you (for example, California for Clinton) than it is to convince the people of some other state to vote for you.
This means, that with strict popular vote, all, say, Clinton, has to do is to convince a lot of people in California to come and vote (to win California vote by a bigger percentage) to offset the votes of entire smaller states. As it is right now, whether 51% or 80% of Californians voted for Clinton, she still gets the same amount of EC votes.
Also, with popular vote, the opinion of those who chose to not vote is assumed to be with the majority of the entire country, not just their state, which is not completely correct, given that people in different states have different majority opinions/problems.
In short, popular vote would require convincing people in areas that like you to go and vote more, while with EC you need to convince people in more areas to vote for you.
Take the EU for example - the EU does not have an elected President and the elected positions are divided by country (each member country gets some number of seats). However, if there was an elected President, then the elections would have to be done with something similar to EC, otherwise the opinion of Berlin (one city) would matter more than the opinion of one or two Baltic countries (where people and conditions are really different).
Actually, it is based on population, with the understanding that the people who came to vote are also voting on behalf of other people living in that state (their children for example) who did not (or could not) vote.