When the truth is less interesting than the story, the story usually wins.
Be that as it may, legally-enforced Internet filtering is still censorship. People want to be able to trade information with each other, and when an authority steps in to silence them, they rebel. This is just basic human nature (as the inclination for those with authority to step in and stop people from doing anything that might threaten said authority, whether it is just or not).
All of this has happened before and this will all happen again.
If the economy depends on the imposition of artificial scarcity on an abundant good, then the terms have to be reasonable.
20 year copyright term limits are very reasonable. The current term limits + options to extend are absolutely unreasonable, and they drive people to rebellion.
Also, while it is true that a punishment should be a deterrent to crime, the punishment must also be within the order-of-magnitude of actual damages in order to be just. The current punishments are outright ridiculous, and they also drive people to rebellion.
Make fair laws and enforce them fairly, and watch the people happily fall in line.
If you are moving to an enterprise architect role, read up on modern industry practices/tools first. Don't assume that your development experience alone qualifies you as an EA. The experience is an absolute prerequesite, but it is not enough. The mistakes you can make as an EA can cause a lot of pain to a lot of people for a long time, so those lessons are ones you really can't afford to learn the hard way.
Also, if you are looking for something different, you could also consider staying as a regular developer but target an entirely different domain. Have you done hardware controllers? If so, interested in trying desktop apps or web apps instead? Just food for thought.
Realize that being wealthy isn't just about having lots of money. Our money is fiat money and its value is volatile, so one must diversify one's holdings. Being wealthy is also about owning and controlling things that have value.
Digital data exactly qualifies. Everyone wants it, so it has tremendous value. Therefore, maintaining ownership and control over such data, while simultaneously deriving rent from it, keeps one a lot wealthier than simply selling it would.
Even if they lose a lot of money in potential sales, maintaining control is more valuable, because it keeps their holdings diversified and ultimately keeps them wealthy.
I had a calculus tutor in high school, he was retired and had to have been at least 70, but he was brilliant and his analytical skills don't seem to have declined at all.
I would expect that the amount you exercise your brain, and how healthy you eat/exercise, plays a big role.
Education, and logical argument based on the realities of the technology, won't make our representatives budge. The only way to get them to change their position is to apply real political force. That means forming lobbies and throwing actual money at the problem, just like the large corporations do. It also means getting enough people ready and willing to vote for candidates who will actually represent them.
Of course, producing that level of political force requires a huge amount of cooperation (and hence understanding) from the governed. *THAT* is hard to do. Most American people, even the ones who vote and consider themselves politically involved, don't understand these issues well enough to self-organize properly. That is why the wealthy corporations (which for all practical purposes are already well-organized political armies with a handful of people calling the shots) have such an easy time of pushing the rest of us around.
THEY aren't the ones who don't understand. We are.
How are you going to go outside and have fun if you can't afford food because you don't have a job?
You mention research...but where does the funding come from? Private businesses only fund where they think there is low risk and high yield, which limits the amount of jobs that creates. The government could fund more, but of course the government must get its money from somewhere.
All of the salesmen, engineers, and managers that you mention get paid by the people who buy the machine *and no one else.*
That means that the total cost of ownership of that machine is enough to cover all their salaries.
Someone will only buy a machine if its total cost of ownership is less than the total cost of hiring people to do the same work.
You see, if every person who lost his job to a machine instead got a job maintaining that machine, then the machines would be so expensive that nobody would buy them.
So, once a machine is so affordable and productive that people will buy it (and reduce their human staff), *less money* is flowing into the hands of the machine producers/maintainers than was previously flowing into the hands of human workers.
So the machines create less work than they eliminate, and that's what we like about them.
But as we invent more and more of them, we continue to remove demand for human workers from the economy. Eventually, there aren't enough jobs for all the people.
We can't all get richer by doing each other's laundry, and the inventions only need to be invented once, so not every displaced worker can get a better (or even different) job.
If we don't want to reject machines for the sake of creating jobs, we will have to instead pay a lot of people to sit around and do nothing. Or at least feed and clothe them.
Which is exactly what we do once we put people in jail for trying to steal food because they couldn't find a job because the machines are doing all the work.
I say put out the fire and bill him $7500+. If he don't pay put a lien on the house and take the house.
So then he can sue them claiming that since he didn't sign a contract for their help, they shouldn't have helped, and therefore can't charge him for help, and therefore can't take his house. Further, if they made him sign a contract on the spot, he can try to get it invalidated by saying he wasn't of sound mind and body when he signed it (since his house was on fire).
I think the firefighters should go to jail. What has his world come to when the people sworn to serve and protect decide not to? Sounds like anarchy.
They didn't swear to serve and protect the public. They get paid to protect the people who pay them. They have no obligation to work for free, any more than you have an obligation to do your job for free.
David Hume pointed all of this out hundreds of years ago. And he backed up all his claims with plenty of evidence that was readily available at the time.
Religion is not science and science is not religion. There's no link between the two, people need to stop trying to "reconcile" them.
They are both axiomatic systems. The axioms upon which they are based are different. Science has fewer axioms and many people find them to be more intuitive than those held by the world's great religions. But the metaphysical assumptions are sitting at the foundation of modern science, and they are unprovable, thus requiring "faith."
Some people get all huffy when I point this out. Emotional attachment to forgone conclusions will do that to you (as will a failure to understand the philosophical movements that gave rise to modern science). Here are examples of some of the metaphysical assumptions that underlie the scientific method:
1) There are a set of unchanging and infinitely-scoped principles that define our existence. (google "idealism," "relativism," and "nihilism" for some interesting alternatives). 2) These principles are accessible by means of our senses, which give reliable information to us about reality. (google "skepticism" for interesting challenges to this principle). 3) That which happens a specific way repeatedly, under controlled circumstances, will continue to happen that way in the future, and at any location, so long as the conditions are similarly controlled (this is known "induction" and was directly challenged as being irrational by Hume).
Those are the basic ones. There are other more subtle ones that are understood differently by different schools of science...such as materialism (the basic bits of "stuff" that comprise reality are completely passive and beholden to behavior patterns that are imposed upon them from the outside (known as laws)) vs "imminence" (the bits of "stuff" contain as part of their identity all potential interactions they could have with other bits of stuff, thus actively creating the effect of "laws"). But these get really hard to talk about with people who aren't educated in the appropriate technical vocabulary. Suffice it to say that one's metaphysical assumptions directly motivate the kinds of hypothesis one will form, and the kinds of tests one will think are worth doing, and the kinds of conclusions one will draw from the available evidence. None of these assumptions can really be disproven...they just change the character of the science that one performs.
Also, check out "existentialism for dummies" for a enjoyable read about a philosophical movement that sees science as being more similar to religion than different, and rejects its authority on those grounds, and reflects on the universe from a completely non-objective, "inside" perspective.
Sometimes people will become so emotionally-invested in a scientific "fact" that they will refuse to accept any evidence to the contrary.
Even if the evidence is gathered by the most rigorous scientific methodologies and the global scientific community as a whole accepts the new fact as an update to the old.
These are some of the most people to talk to, because they think they have science on their side, even though they don't.
After an adjustment period, most people would be right back where they were in terms of net income.
You're trolling right? People will stop putting forth effort because they get to keep more of what they put forth effort to get? It's a disincentive to keep what you earn?
No, that isn't what I was getting at.
People who hold a job that is typically worth...say...80k/year...but who don't like it would be willing to find a different, but similar, job for 70k. Why? Because even after the pay cut, they would still be taking home more.
So the ambient bidding-war between employees (for jobs) would suddenly see a price drop, since people will easily be able to under bid their competition while still gaining a higher income.
Over time (and not much time) things will settle down to about what they were before the cut in terms of take-home. 80k jobs will now be worth closer to 40k on the open market, and so the net-effect will be the same.
if I keep you working for 8 hours a day, but only let you keep the rewards from 4 hours of your work, this will be more of a motivation to put forth more effort than if I allow you keep the rewards of 7 out of the 8 hours you work?
Well I wasn't talking about long hours. I was talking about the economics of wages. Apparently I failed to make that clear.
If I ask you to work an extra 4 hours
If you do this a lot, I would start looking for a job that didn't do this. And I would be willing to accept a pay-cut for such a job, since I could still make more than I had been making before the tax-cut. Of course, not EVERYONE would do this...but you would easily be able to say things to me like "you must justify your salary since I am getting resumes submitted to me from people who want to do the same work you are for half the money." I am sure some people would work twice as hard for that kind of money...but most people want some semblance of work-life balance so eventually you would replace me with someone cheaper or I would move on to a lower-paid position. As would the majority of people, thus pulling wages down generally.
Under which scheme would you have more disposable income,
What I was getting at is that if everyone has more disposable income, the value of the dollar changes. Inflation goes up to compensate. It must.
A large working class is a necessity (someone has to scrub those toilets, grow the food, fix your air conditioner, etc). If you let everyone save to the point that they can retire early, suddenly your working class gets too small and you need a way to force many of those people back into it. Generally no evil-government conspiracy is needed...the value of the dollar changes as a simple function of economics, and that keeps the workers poor enough that they have to keep working in order to eat.
If everyone is rich, who will harvest the crops, ship them, prepare them, serve them?
Who will clean the toilets, maintain the sewers, fix your broken pipes?
Who will maintain the roads, buildings, storefronts, and so on?
Whenever a society starts reaching a point where too many people are wealthy enough that they don't have to work, a financial adjustment of some sort happens to correct the situation. Inflation usually but also stock market and wage fluctuation etc.
I see my original post got modded troll as of this writing. I am not entirely sure how I feel about that.
Realize that the forces that have the greater portion of control of the government are the very rich.
In order for the rich to stay rich, the poor must stay poor. The imbalance of wealth is what gives wealth its motivational power.
How do you motivate a farmer to grow food for you? By paying him. But if he is already nearly as wealthy as you, then the money you would give will lack that motivational power, and you would have to grow your own food yourself (which, obviously, is utterly unacceptable).
So the government takes half the money away from anyone trying to climb out of middle class, ostensibly to fund the military and infrastructure, but with the beneficial side-effect of ensuring that there are enough workers to keep things moving.
If we did eliminate that income tax as you suggest, I predict the first impact would be lower wages. People would be willing to work less since they get to keep more of it. After an adjustment period, most people would be right back where they were in terms of net income.
There would also be faster inflation.
Longer-term I would predict a very stagnant stock market (or perhaps another adjustment like the one we just saw). Once too many members of the upper-middle class think they can retire, and start cashing in, the values will drop and force many of them back into the working world, as always happens when our economy gets too stock-wealthy.
It is a noble idea you have, but the net effect wouldn't be what you are aiming for. The notion that every American can work hard to better his lot (and that of his children) is only true if a small handful actually do it. When the poor class as a while starts reaching up, adjustments are made to keep them down.
You want to know how to arrange your developers? Why in the world don't you just ask them? Why are you asking slashdot?
Your developers know their preferences and corporate culture better than a bunch of strangers on a web forum. And they will happily tell you what they think would be optimal and why.
I don't understand why it is so popular for managers to think that they can maximize the productivity of their team by ignoring input from the team. It is utterly ridiculous. What...are you hiring children? Bums off the street, perhaps? Retards? Or are you hiring intelligent, professional, problem-solving specialists who are predisposed to have an interest in effeciency?
Art is any conscious creation that adds beauty or significance to our otherwise empty existence. (That's my own personal definition).
To quote Nietzsche, "Art is the proper task of life."
Games, much like the opera, are a combination of many distinct forms of art (imagery, music, storytelling, etc), and also constitute a form of art unto themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
When the truth is less interesting than the story, the story usually wins.
Be that as it may, legally-enforced Internet filtering is still censorship. People want to be able to trade information with each other, and when an authority steps in to silence them, they rebel. This is just basic human nature (as the inclination for those with authority to step in and stop people from doing anything that might threaten said authority, whether it is just or not).
All of this has happened before and this will all happen again.
If the economy depends on the imposition of artificial scarcity on an abundant good, then the terms have to be reasonable.
20 year copyright term limits are very reasonable. The current term limits + options to extend are absolutely unreasonable, and they drive people to rebellion.
Also, while it is true that a punishment should be a deterrent to crime, the punishment must also be within the order-of-magnitude of actual damages in order to be just. The current punishments are outright ridiculous, and they also drive people to rebellion.
Make fair laws and enforce them fairly, and watch the people happily fall in line.
If you are moving to an enterprise architect role, read up on modern industry practices/tools first. Don't assume that your development experience alone qualifies you as an EA. The experience is an absolute prerequesite, but it is not enough. The mistakes you can make as an EA can cause a lot of pain to a lot of people for a long time, so those lessons are ones you really can't afford to learn the hard way.
Also, if you are looking for something different, you could also consider staying as a regular developer but target an entirely different domain. Have you done hardware controllers? If so, interested in trying desktop apps or web apps instead? Just food for thought.
Realize that being wealthy isn't just about having lots of money. Our money is fiat money and its value is volatile, so one must diversify one's holdings. Being wealthy is also about owning and controlling things that have value.
Digital data exactly qualifies. Everyone wants it, so it has tremendous value. Therefore, maintaining ownership and control over such data, while simultaneously deriving rent from it, keeps one a lot wealthier than simply selling it would.
Even if they lose a lot of money in potential sales, maintaining control is more valuable, because it keeps their holdings diversified and ultimately keeps them wealthy.
The people who would have to take action in order to make this amendment real are the very people who stand to lose the most from it.
That doesn't mean it is impossible, but it means that the amount of political force that must be brought to bear is tremendous.
This is an uphill battle, to say the least.
The laws of physics work the same way there that they do here
That is a metaphysical assumption of physics, not an observed fact. We won't know that for sure until we go there.
Of course...it is probably true.
I had a calculus tutor in high school, he was retired and had to have been at least 70, but he was brilliant and his analytical skills don't seem to have declined at all.
I would expect that the amount you exercise your brain, and how healthy you eat/exercise, plays a big role.
Education, and logical argument based on the realities of the technology, won't make our representatives budge. The only way to get them to change their position is to apply real political force. That means forming lobbies and throwing actual money at the problem, just like the large corporations do. It also means getting enough people ready and willing to vote for candidates who will actually represent them.
Of course, producing that level of political force requires a huge amount of cooperation (and hence understanding) from the governed. *THAT* is hard to do. Most American people, even the ones who vote and consider themselves politically involved, don't understand these issues well enough to self-organize properly. That is why the wealthy corporations (which for all practical purposes are already well-organized political armies with a handful of people calling the shots) have such an easy time of pushing the rest of us around.
THEY aren't the ones who don't understand. We are.
Yes, I am smarter than HEY check out the huge head on that ant!
How are you going to go outside and have fun if you can't afford food because you don't have a job?
You mention research...but where does the funding come from? Private businesses only fund where they think there is low risk and high yield, which limits the amount of jobs that creates. The government could fund more, but of course the government must get its money from somewhere.
All of the salesmen, engineers, and managers that you mention get paid by the people who buy the machine *and no one else.*
That means that the total cost of ownership of that machine is enough to cover all their salaries.
Someone will only buy a machine if its total cost of ownership is less than the total cost of hiring people to do the same work.
You see, if every person who lost his job to a machine instead got a job maintaining that machine, then the machines would be so expensive that nobody would buy them.
So, once a machine is so affordable and productive that people will buy it (and reduce their human staff), *less money* is flowing into the hands of the machine producers/maintainers than was previously flowing into the hands of human workers.
So the machines create less work than they eliminate, and that's what we like about them.
But as we invent more and more of them, we continue to remove demand for human workers from the economy. Eventually, there aren't enough jobs for all the people.
We can't all get richer by doing each other's laundry, and the inventions only need to be invented once, so not every displaced worker can get a better (or even different) job.
If we don't want to reject machines for the sake of creating jobs, we will have to instead pay a lot of people to sit around and do nothing. Or at least feed and clothe them.
Which is exactly what we do once we put people in jail for trying to steal food because they couldn't find a job because the machines are doing all the work.
Welcome to the future.
And who signs your paychecks while you play?
If it was easy for people to implement their own ideas, then it would be a whole lot harder to sell software.
I say put out the fire and bill him $7500+. If he don't pay put a lien on the house and take the house.
So then he can sue them claiming that since he didn't sign a contract for their help, they shouldn't have helped, and therefore can't charge him for help, and therefore can't take his house. Further, if they made him sign a contract on the spot, he can try to get it invalidated by saying he wasn't of sound mind and body when he signed it (since his house was on fire).
I think the firefighters should go to jail. What has his world come to when the people sworn to serve and protect decide not to? Sounds like anarchy.
They didn't swear to serve and protect the public. They get paid to protect the people who pay them. They have no obligation to work for free, any more than you have an obligation to do your job for free.
Guild Wars gives all those benefits, with no monthly fees.
And Guild Wars 2 is just around the corner, and promises to be superior to WoW in basically every respect.
Check it out.
David Hume pointed all of this out hundreds of years ago. And he backed up all his claims with plenty of evidence that was readily available at the time.
I wonder if Kathryn Schulz's is aware of this?
Religion is not science and science is not religion. There's no link between the two, people need to stop trying to "reconcile" them.
They are both axiomatic systems. The axioms upon which they are based are different. Science has fewer axioms and many people find them to be more intuitive than those held by the world's great religions. But the metaphysical assumptions are sitting at the foundation of modern science, and they are unprovable, thus requiring "faith."
Some people get all huffy when I point this out. Emotional attachment to forgone conclusions will do that to you (as will a failure to understand the philosophical movements that gave rise to modern science). Here are examples of some of the metaphysical assumptions that underlie the scientific method:
1) There are a set of unchanging and infinitely-scoped principles that define our existence. (google "idealism," "relativism," and "nihilism" for some interesting alternatives).
2) These principles are accessible by means of our senses, which give reliable information to us about reality. (google "skepticism" for interesting challenges to this principle).
3) That which happens a specific way repeatedly, under controlled circumstances, will continue to happen that way in the future, and at any location, so long as the conditions are similarly controlled (this is known "induction" and was directly challenged as being irrational by Hume).
Those are the basic ones. There are other more subtle ones that are understood differently by different schools of science...such as materialism (the basic bits of "stuff" that comprise reality are completely passive and beholden to behavior patterns that are imposed upon them from the outside (known as laws)) vs "imminence" (the bits of "stuff" contain as part of their identity all potential interactions they could have with other bits of stuff, thus actively creating the effect of "laws"). But these get really hard to talk about with people who aren't educated in the appropriate technical vocabulary. Suffice it to say that one's metaphysical assumptions directly motivate the kinds of hypothesis one will form, and the kinds of tests one will think are worth doing, and the kinds of conclusions one will draw from the available evidence. None of these assumptions can really be disproven...they just change the character of the science that one performs.
Also, check out "existentialism for dummies" for a enjoyable read about a philosophical movement that sees science as being more similar to religion than different, and rejects its authority on those grounds, and reflects on the universe from a completely non-objective, "inside" perspective.
These are some of the most people to talk to,
Most DIFFICULT. I meant most DIFFICULT. I wish my spell checker could catch missing words.
Sometimes people will become so emotionally-invested in a scientific "fact" that they will refuse to accept any evidence to the contrary.
Even if the evidence is gathered by the most rigorous scientific methodologies and the global scientific community as a whole accepts the new fact as an update to the old.
These are some of the most people to talk to, because they think they have science on their side, even though they don't.
After an adjustment period, most people would be right back where they were in terms of net income.
You're trolling right? People will stop putting forth effort because they get to keep more of what they put forth effort to get? It's a disincentive to keep what you earn?
No, that isn't what I was getting at.
People who hold a job that is typically worth...say...80k/year...but who don't like it would be willing to find a different, but similar, job for 70k. Why? Because even after the pay cut, they would still be taking home more.
So the ambient bidding-war between employees (for jobs) would suddenly see a price drop, since people will easily be able to under bid their competition while still gaining a higher income.
Over time (and not much time) things will settle down to about what they were before the cut in terms of take-home. 80k jobs will now be worth closer to 40k on the open market, and so the net-effect will be the same.
if I keep you working for 8 hours a day, but only let you keep the rewards from 4 hours of your work, this will be more of a motivation to put forth more effort than if I allow you keep the rewards of 7 out of the 8 hours you work?
Well I wasn't talking about long hours. I was talking about the economics of wages. Apparently I failed to make that clear.
If I ask you to work an extra 4 hours
If you do this a lot, I would start looking for a job that didn't do this. And I would be willing to accept a pay-cut for such a job, since I could still make more than I had been making before the tax-cut. Of course, not EVERYONE would do this...but you would easily be able to say things to me like "you must justify your salary since I am getting resumes submitted to me from people who want to do the same work you are for half the money." I am sure some people would work twice as hard for that kind of money...but most people want some semblance of work-life balance so eventually you would replace me with someone cheaper or I would move on to a lower-paid position. As would the majority of people, thus pulling wages down generally.
Under which scheme would you have more disposable income,
What I was getting at is that if everyone has more disposable income, the value of the dollar changes. Inflation goes up to compensate. It must.
A large working class is a necessity (someone has to scrub those toilets, grow the food, fix your air conditioner, etc). If you let everyone save to the point that they can retire early, suddenly your working class gets too small and you need a way to force many of those people back into it. Generally no evil-government conspiracy is needed...the value of the dollar changes as a simple function of economics, and that keeps the workers poor enough that they have to keep working in order to eat.
Civilized life requires even more labor.
If everyone is rich, who will harvest the crops, ship them, prepare them, serve them?
Who will clean the toilets, maintain the sewers, fix your broken pipes?
Who will maintain the roads, buildings, storefronts, and so on?
Whenever a society starts reaching a point where too many people are wealthy enough that they don't have to work, a financial adjustment of some sort happens to correct the situation. Inflation usually but also stock market and wage fluctuation etc.
I see my original post got modded troll as of this writing. I am not entirely sure how I feel about that.
eliminate income tax for everyone below $100,000
Good luck with THAT.
Realize that the forces that have the greater portion of control of the government are the very rich.
In order for the rich to stay rich, the poor must stay poor. The imbalance of wealth is what gives wealth its motivational power.
How do you motivate a farmer to grow food for you? By paying him. But if he is already nearly as wealthy as you, then the money you would give will lack that motivational power, and you would have to grow your own food yourself (which, obviously, is utterly unacceptable).
So the government takes half the money away from anyone trying to climb out of middle class, ostensibly to fund the military and infrastructure, but with the beneficial side-effect of ensuring that there are enough workers to keep things moving.
If we did eliminate that income tax as you suggest, I predict the first impact would be lower wages. People would be willing to work less since they get to keep more of it. After an adjustment period, most people would be right back where they were in terms of net income.
There would also be faster inflation.
Longer-term I would predict a very stagnant stock market (or perhaps another adjustment like the one we just saw). Once too many members of the upper-middle class think they can retire, and start cashing in, the values will drop and force many of them back into the working world, as always happens when our economy gets too stock-wealthy.
It is a noble idea you have, but the net effect wouldn't be what you are aiming for. The notion that every American can work hard to better his lot (and that of his children) is only true if a small handful actually do it. When the poor class as a while starts reaching up, adjustments are made to keep them down.
You want to know how to arrange your developers? Why in the world don't you just ask them? Why are you asking slashdot?
Your developers know their preferences and corporate culture better than a bunch of strangers on a web forum. And they will happily tell you what they think would be optimal and why.
I don't understand why it is so popular for managers to think that they can maximize the productivity of their team by ignoring input from the team. It is utterly ridiculous. What...are you hiring children? Bums off the street, perhaps? Retards? Or are you hiring intelligent, professional, problem-solving specialists who are predisposed to have an interest in effeciency?
Sheesh.
Art is any conscious creation that adds beauty or significance to our otherwise empty existence. (That's my own personal definition).
To quote Nietzsche, "Art is the proper task of life."
Games, much like the opera, are a combination of many distinct forms of art (imagery, music, storytelling, etc), and also constitute a form of art unto themselves.
Ebert can stuff it.
There are not enough jobs that require math, science, and technology skills.
The jobs that exist don't pay squat.
Furthermore, brainy kids are treated terribly by their peers.
Therefore, neither kids nor adults have real incentives to develop themselves intellectually.
Pouring more money into schools will not change any of that.