Have you seen the pictures? It looks awesome. Sure it killed some kids, and that sucks, but usually interesting geological features are horribly inconvenient to get to. Here you can have a chalupa mid-ride down. Basement floor #30 would be a classy bar called Satan's hollow.
Getting rid of work probably means getting rid of physical labor or menial informational tasks. This would free up more of your time to pursue other physical or intellectual enjoyments.
Dude, we HAVE this. (we, here, at slasdhot). We are knowledge workers. The amount of physical labor and menial office tasks has been cut way WAY down. There is a direct comparison to the change that happened during the industrial revolution. And yet, people still work all day.
Food is one of those resources that's part of "national security". Cut off the farms we don't need, and if we ever need them we're SOL. It's just throwing money away, but a smidge better then having the military piss it away.
That's why I'm all for ethanol as it would be an alternative use for farmland so there wouldn't be excess supply and we could eliminate the food subsidies.
The design of the workerbot is trivial and meaningless, there is no monopoly. The moonbase is important because, let's say, it's holds workerbotium which makes the best bots. Even with infinite technology there will always be resources and natural monopolies. You're in power there because you got there first and/or your daddy's clone gifted it to you.
You're looking at it from the perspective of the buyer. The consumer who wants things. Congratulations, you're an American.
I was looking from the perspective of the seller? Why sell to you? If all my needs are met by non-humans, i.e. mystical future-technology, then why would I suffer the presence of other humans?
All needs, social included.
Sure, it's the fear of kings when all his power is trivialized, but there WILL BE kings of some sort on our way there. If a CEO could run his entire empire without the need of employees, don't you think he'd fire everyone? During the Industrial revolution, machines took over jobs and there was a glut of non-working, un-needed craftsmen. They suffered for it. The people in power reaped the benefits, while the workers got the axe.
When humanity is so advanced that no one needs to work anymore, then everyone will be bums out of a job.
Okay, what are you personally doing to fight the spread of CCTV throughout the public realm?
Not much. If there was a political candidate that argued on similar grounds, I'd vote for him. I'd casually do what I could to spread his fame for it. You know, not being a-political.
What are you personally doing to fight the creation of linked databases from multiple sources (e.g. your employment records, health records, telephone records, amazon.com purchase history, etc.) that perform datamining on the population?
Arguing against programming similar activities at work on ethical and liability grounds. It really didn't do much when the ethics came up, but pulling in HR and asking how we could get sued put on the breaks.
What are you personally doing to fight the pervasive monitoring of all communication media, including the response you are thinking about crafting right now?
I encrypt where I can. I tell others to do likewise and show them how. As for public communications? Not much. I suppose I could post anonymously, but [poet]I'll stand tall by the flag of privacy even as the hidden snipers pick me apart.[/poet]
Believe it or not, I'm on your side here.
Oh yeah, I picked up on that. I just saw your cynical comments as detrimental to "the cause". I understand how dire the situation looks, but rather then accept it, I'd rather rally against it. As long as it's, you know, over lunch on slashdot...
Yeah, I hate Minority Report. I was ready to write off Cruise as a useless nutcase and then this movie came out and showed me that he could still act and entertain. It like Stranger then Fiction. I was nice and comfortable with hating Farrel and then he actually did a fair job in this movie. Of course, that just made me hate him even more now that I know under that idiot grin there is a real actor under there.
Yes, there is a lot of information out there. Most of it isn't private. Most of it pictures of cats.
But some of it is private, and some of it is actually secrets that people are putting out there. But I ascribe the vast majority of that to idiots and ignorance. But some of it is complacency. And so, spreading the news about all the vectors that private information can be lost is a good thing because it helps people control their information.
But saying things like "privacy is a myth" is just an attack on the notion of privacy. Its an effort to makes people accept the reduction of privacy. Fuck that, and fuck you anon. Don't just give up, fight it.
Ok, so you're afraid of tiny spy-drones with CAMERAS on them and x-ray like devices peering into your home. As the sibling post mentions, that would be a clear violation of current privacy laws. It doesn't really relate to the redefinition of public that the orginal poster was talking about or the article about analyzing footage. If you fear the government or corporations then invest in some security. It'll put your little paranoid mind at ease. If it gets to the point where such invasions are trivial and they try to secretly deploy them against the masses, I'd hope to invent some affordable method of detecting such invasions. And then suing the pants off them.
You are going overboard. The player-piano did not destroy the artisans of America.
Camera: A device to capture images.
So how do you expect activities in a house to be surveyed if not with a camera?
Mind-readers? DNA bias? what? Seriously, cough up an example or you're just diluting the issue here with vague doom-saying. Sop that.
It's 100 years from now with all the sci-fi inventions you can dream of.
You control a nation/corporation/moon that does important work. Like you make the worker-bots or something. You have resources, power, prestige, all that jazz.
What purpose do people serve you? Why have fellow humans hang around?
You control the process and machine that makes the worker-bots that get shit done. But other then giving you resources to build more worker-bots in exchange for completed worker-bots, why perform that process at all? What's your motivation for giving worker-bots to the people that need work done?
The dream of getting rid of work would turn into the nightmare of trivializing humanity.
No. Too far. Don't stretch this into something it isn't. You detract from the privacy concerns by claiming the slippery slope of installing cameras in your own home. Because that is what it would take to violate your privacy in said home. Right now, of course, you're out on the internet, which is a lot like "out in public". And if your router broadcasts your IP to the masses in the street, that's also public area.
There are definitely privacy concerns, but don't go overboard.
If by "great" you mean "iconic", sure. And in TV land the two are probably synonymous. But back in my day, you had to conquer Asia-Minor to be considered "great".
Yeeeaaaaah... well officially declaring war is specifically a congress thing. But sending in troops to go kill everyone is a power of the president. It's considered a "policing action" or a "military engagement". Which is bullshit. Congress DOES hold the purse-strings though. If he can't pay for it, the president can't sustain such actions.
It's actually a sore point for me right now. I agree that the US prez shouldn't have that much power. But as for voting for a party rather then a president? Aw hell naw. That gets you a class of ruling elites. Career politicians who don't have the best interests of the people are heart. You don't vote for who controls the party do you? The USA is shifting towards blind faith in parties rather then examining individuals, and I see it destroying us. No, I have to agree with Mr. Washington, parties are useful for ousting dictators, but after the fact, disband the party and go it alone.
By the way, Bush did start and refer to Iraq as a war instead of a vague military action, so he's probably guilty of technical treason and breaking the rules of the constitution.
After an election you would need a coalition with a majority to rule, so you always need at least a combined 51%
How very European of you. After the election, there ain't jack shit that congress has to do other then sit in their chairs once a year. And stopping congress from acting would probably be the main interest of very powerful and wealthy banks right now. US politicians don't do so great at forming "coalitions". Any republican stepping out of line right now or even thinking about agreeing with anything Obama says would assuredly get him kicked out of the party.
And ok, one last time. USA, two-party system, third party trying to bust in. Theoretical limit to how many people can go unrepresented = ~33%.
In addition to representatives, there are also state senators. If the third party loses by 49% in each district to EITHER red or blue people, then they're still going to get a seat in the senate, and probably both, because the other two parties would only have ~25% of the state on the whole.
But there is no unified third option. If people vote third party, they don't do it collectively, and they vote for their dog or Ron Paul or some such. Unless things drastically change, I don't see a third party OR a non-party gaining any amount of real power in the USA. And don't point to Lieberman.
Walk austrailia clock back to Europe, both clocks are still the same time
Well since you'd have to cross the equator with it, that clock would have traveled faster, and experienced less time. Then it would actually read ever-so-slightly slower when it got back to Europe. See twins paradox. Plus your clock would get wet if you walked it.
ah yes, the ol' "They burn gasoline to produce gasoline, so it's silly" argument. But technically you're right. If it takes a gallon of gas to make a half-gallon of gas, then the system is broke. But that scenario is nowhere near correct in explaining the process of extracting oil from tar sands. It's more expensive, but it doesn't consume more oil then it makes. The expense is paid into resources that are something other then oil. Like electricity, or man-hours, or fighting off grizzlies.
And even if the truck of gasoline had to burn 3/4th of it's payload to get it to timbuktu, if they'll pay enough for the product in target location, then it makes economical sense to get it there.
The vast majority of the food grown in Iowa is feed corn. Rather then let our cows eat grass, we feed them corn, because it makes them fatter and tastier. We have so much food we feed our food food. This makes economical sense, as beef is worth a lot more per pound then corn, but if there was anything like a famine going down, we could shift to sweet corn and let the cows eat grass/hay/brains. Remember, the biggest threat to USA farmers and the food supply is there being too much food on the market, the price bottoming out, and all the farmers go broke. So then next year no one plants, and then we all starve. Oh alright, then we call have to pay more then $0.30 for a weeks worth of bread.
No. That's not quite what I said.
In that scenario the choices were red/blue/other. All the states/districts would go red or blue. That's 60% of the populace represented in congress. That maximum populace that could go unrepresented is still only ~30%.
And no, in the USA, the district is pretty much the smallest slice of federal government you get. There are 435 reps, or roughly 1 per 700,000 people. So unless you can convince the majority of your 700K nearest neighbors (the ones that vote at least) then you're not going to have any say in the federal government. All the states are a little different and kooky in their own right, but they more or less follow the district thing, so you probably won't get anyone in the state government either. However, you could go for the city government or something even smaller like an ombudsman. Which is like a neighborhood spokesperson with little to no power over anyone.
But not to give you too much hope, lemme explain another worst case scenario:
So the two-party system gets thrown out and you have 100 parties all vieing for control. It's a big election year and the president is getting replaced. If it's really close, as little as 1/99th of the nation will elect the president. Or more then likely, 1/99th of California will elect the president, as all of it's votes go for one candidate and it has the most votes. So around 373,000 people can vote in the dude who can arbitrarily declare war on nations and stick us in a quagmire.
Pizza delivery is a very important job.
Fed-ex has been replaced by skater-punks.
Foreseeing that cheap gasoline will run out is reasonable. Having robot unicorns as the main alternative form of transportation simply because one of the characters likes unicorns is unreasonable, and makes for a shitty book.
Well you just need 51% to make the other guy lose. But assuming all the districts either go red or blue more or less evenly between the two major parties, then statewide the highest you could go without any representation is more like 30%.
Of course, there's always a myriad of obscure parties, so it's not like there is one unified third-party choice.
And then there's the issue where even the majority of the people could want X on issue Y, but neither party A or B will touch it. Since it's just one issue, everyone is still going to vote for A or B.
The current two-party system definitely punishes non-conformity.
You actually got that backwards. Lab prototypes are sexy, new, unheard-of, exotic pieces of dream fluff made real. Mass-produced plastic crap is common and unsexy. It's the difference between the stage-shot and airbrushed playboy vs. the average walmart cashier.
Think about mp3 players. Back when they were lab products, the idea of portable music that used digital copies instead of lugging around CDs or *gasp* cassettes was a sexy idea. Today they're impulse items for $10 in Menard's.
Now, when the prototype becomes the bleeding edge product that only the stupidly wealthy or those with a wealth of stupidity will go buy, it retains some sexiness as only those elite few can have it. It's still exotic, but less so. But you're not looking for that, you specifically want something that's "reasonably-priced". When that happens, they will no longer be sexy. Because they're so common. Because demand has gone down. Because they're no longer sexy.
Yeah, just swap out Japan and insert China. If we keep borrowing money from them it might actually happen.
But no, Snowcrash wouldn't work so well. It's written for preteen script kiddies who think that second life is the future. Now, I may be a little biased. I got to the part where the bad-ass gunwielding katana-preffering main character turns out to be a pizza boy and I had to put the book down for 5 years. That was on page two or three I believe. I nearly put the book down again when it was revealed that pizza delivery is actually somewhat important. It's just sort of a logical gag reflex I have.
It's a decent book, but only you realize it's a satirical parody of reality and the world is shaped by the two main characters viewpoints. While it has a lot of neat ideas, the overall book sucks. And, come on, the ending? Killing people with ancient Summarian mind-hacks? Really?
A lot.
The diverse set of small parties is supposed to be covered by the house of representatives, but reps are tied to physical regions. So if you have 49% of every district chanting for the pirate party, the 51% will still vote in the usual red or blue dudes. Elbridge Gerry took advantage of this to screw over the other party and got the term gerrymandering coined after him.
So, theoretically, 49% of the populace. Democracies kind of a bitch like that, but it's the best we've had so far.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you seen the pictures? It looks awesome. Sure it killed some kids, and that sucks, but usually interesting geological features are horribly inconvenient to get to. Here you can have a chalupa mid-ride down. Basement floor #30 would be a classy bar called Satan's hollow.
Getting rid of work probably means getting rid of physical labor or menial informational tasks. This would free up more of your time to pursue other physical or intellectual enjoyments.
Dude, we HAVE this. (we, here, at slasdhot). We are knowledge workers. The amount of physical labor and menial office tasks has been cut way WAY down. There is a direct comparison to the change that happened during the industrial revolution. And yet, people still work all day.
Right. Surplus production in case of emergency.
Food is one of those resources that's part of "national security". Cut off the farms we don't need, and if we ever need them we're SOL. It's just throwing money away, but a smidge better then having the military piss it away.
That's why I'm all for ethanol as it would be an alternative use for farmland so there wouldn't be excess supply and we could eliminate the food subsidies.
The design of the workerbot is trivial and meaningless, there is no monopoly. The moonbase is important because, let's say, it's holds workerbotium which makes the best bots. Even with infinite technology there will always be resources and natural monopolies. You're in power there because you got there first and/or your daddy's clone gifted it to you.
You're looking at it from the perspective of the buyer. The consumer who wants things. Congratulations, you're an American.
I was looking from the perspective of the seller? Why sell to you? If all my needs are met by non-humans, i.e. mystical future-technology, then why would I suffer the presence of other humans?
All needs, social included.
Sure, it's the fear of kings when all his power is trivialized, but there WILL BE kings of some sort on our way there. If a CEO could run his entire empire without the need of employees, don't you think he'd fire everyone? During the Industrial revolution, machines took over jobs and there was a glut of non-working, un-needed craftsmen. They suffered for it. The people in power reaped the benefits, while the workers got the axe.
When humanity is so advanced that no one needs to work anymore, then everyone will be bums out of a job.
Okay, what are you personally doing to fight the spread of CCTV throughout the public realm?
Not much. If there was a political candidate that argued on similar grounds, I'd vote for him. I'd casually do what I could to spread his fame for it. You know, not being a-political.
What are you personally doing to fight the creation of linked databases from multiple sources (e.g. your employment records, health records, telephone records, amazon.com purchase history, etc.) that perform datamining on the population?
Arguing against programming similar activities at work on ethical and liability grounds. It really didn't do much when the ethics came up, but pulling in HR and asking how we could get sued put on the breaks.
What are you personally doing to fight the pervasive monitoring of all communication media, including the response you are thinking about crafting right now?
I encrypt where I can. I tell others to do likewise and show them how. As for public communications? Not much. I suppose I could post anonymously, but [poet]I'll stand tall by the flag of privacy even as the hidden snipers pick me apart.[/poet]
Believe it or not, I'm on your side here.
Oh yeah, I picked up on that. I just saw your cynical comments as detrimental to "the cause". I understand how dire the situation looks, but rather then accept it, I'd rather rally against it. As long as it's, you know, over lunch on slashdot...
As a three-can a day addict, I'd say this pretty much fits.
Yeah, I hate Minority Report. I was ready to write off Cruise as a useless nutcase and then this movie came out and showed me that he could still act and entertain. It like Stranger then Fiction. I was nice and comfortable with hating Farrel and then he actually did a fair job in this movie. Of course, that just made me hate him even more now that I know under that idiot grin there is a real actor under there.
Yes, there is a lot of information out there. Most of it isn't private. Most of it pictures of cats.
But some of it is private, and some of it is actually secrets that people are putting out there. But I ascribe the vast majority of that to idiots and ignorance. But some of it is complacency. And so, spreading the news about all the vectors that private information can be lost is a good thing because it helps people control their information.
But saying things like "privacy is a myth" is just an attack on the notion of privacy. Its an effort to makes people accept the reduction of privacy. Fuck that, and fuck you anon. Don't just give up, fight it.
Ok, so you're afraid of tiny spy-drones with CAMERAS on them and x-ray like devices peering into your home. As the sibling post mentions, that would be a clear violation of current privacy laws. It doesn't really relate to the redefinition of public that the orginal poster was talking about or the article about analyzing footage. If you fear the government or corporations then invest in some security. It'll put your little paranoid mind at ease. If it gets to the point where such invasions are trivial and they try to secretly deploy them against the masses, I'd hope to invent some affordable method of detecting such invasions. And then suing the pants off them.
You are going overboard. The player-piano did not destroy the artisans of America.
Camera: A device to capture images.
So how do you expect activities in a house to be surveyed if not with a camera?
Mind-readers? DNA bias? what? Seriously, cough up an example or you're just diluting the issue here with vague doom-saying. Sop that.
It's 100 years from now with all the sci-fi inventions you can dream of.
You control a nation/corporation/moon that does important work. Like you make the worker-bots or something. You have resources, power, prestige, all that jazz.
What purpose do people serve you? Why have fellow humans hang around?
You control the process and machine that makes the worker-bots that get shit done. But other then giving you resources to build more worker-bots in exchange for completed worker-bots, why perform that process at all? What's your motivation for giving worker-bots to the people that need work done?
The dream of getting rid of work would turn into the nightmare of trivializing humanity.
No. Too far. Don't stretch this into something it isn't. You detract from the privacy concerns by claiming the slippery slope of installing cameras in your own home. Because that is what it would take to violate your privacy in said home. Right now, of course, you're out on the internet, which is a lot like "out in public". And if your router broadcasts your IP to the masses in the street, that's also public area.
There are definitely privacy concerns, but don't go overboard.
If by "great" you mean "iconic", sure. And in TV land the two are probably synonymous. But back in my day, you had to conquer Asia-Minor to be considered "great".
It's actually a sore point for me right now. I agree that the US prez shouldn't have that much power. But as for voting for a party rather then a president? Aw hell naw. That gets you a class of ruling elites. Career politicians who don't have the best interests of the people are heart. You don't vote for who controls the party do you? The USA is shifting towards blind faith in parties rather then examining individuals, and I see it destroying us. No, I have to agree with Mr. Washington, parties are useful for ousting dictators, but after the fact, disband the party and go it alone.
By the way, Bush did start and refer to Iraq as a war instead of a vague military action, so he's probably guilty of technical treason and breaking the rules of the constitution.
After an election you would need a coalition with a majority to rule, so you always need at least a combined 51%
How very European of you. After the election, there ain't jack shit that congress has to do other then sit in their chairs once a year. And stopping congress from acting would probably be the main interest of very powerful and wealthy banks right now. US politicians don't do so great at forming "coalitions". Any republican stepping out of line right now or even thinking about agreeing with anything Obama says would assuredly get him kicked out of the party.
And ok, one last time. USA, two-party system, third party trying to bust in. Theoretical limit to how many people can go unrepresented = ~33%.
In addition to representatives, there are also state senators. If the third party loses by 49% in each district to EITHER red or blue people, then they're still going to get a seat in the senate, and probably both, because the other two parties would only have ~25% of the state on the whole.
But there is no unified third option. If people vote third party, they don't do it collectively, and they vote for their dog or Ron Paul or some such. Unless things drastically change, I don't see a third party OR a non-party gaining any amount of real power in the USA. And don't point to Lieberman.
Walk austrailia clock back to Europe, both clocks are still the same time
Well since you'd have to cross the equator with it, that clock would have traveled faster, and experienced less time. Then it would actually read ever-so-slightly slower when it got back to Europe. See twins paradox. Plus your clock would get wet if you walked it.
The universe doesn't work like you think it does.
ah yes, the ol' "They burn gasoline to produce gasoline, so it's silly" argument.
But technically you're right. If it takes a gallon of gas to make a half-gallon of gas, then the system is broke. But that scenario is nowhere near correct in explaining the process of extracting oil from tar sands. It's more expensive, but it doesn't consume more oil then it makes. The expense is paid into resources that are something other then oil. Like electricity, or man-hours, or fighting off grizzlies.
And even if the truck of gasoline had to burn 3/4th of it's payload to get it to timbuktu, if they'll pay enough for the product in target location, then it makes economical sense to get it there.
Aye, as a midwestener, let me stress his point.
The vast majority of the food grown in Iowa is feed corn. Rather then let our cows eat grass, we feed them corn, because it makes them fatter and tastier. We have so much food we feed our food food. This makes economical sense, as beef is worth a lot more per pound then corn, but if there was anything like a famine going down, we could shift to sweet corn and let the cows eat grass/hay/brains. Remember, the biggest threat to USA farmers and the food supply is there being too much food on the market, the price bottoming out, and all the farmers go broke. So then next year no one plants, and then we all starve. Oh alright, then we call have to pay more then $0.30 for a weeks worth of bread.
Yeah, that was going all sorts of places until "& blade". The geeky race is doomed.
No. That's not quite what I said.
In that scenario the choices were red/blue/other. All the states/districts would go red or blue. That's 60% of the populace represented in congress. That maximum populace that could go unrepresented is still only ~30%.
And no, in the USA, the district is pretty much the smallest slice of federal government you get. There are 435 reps, or roughly 1 per 700,000 people. So unless you can convince the majority of your 700K nearest neighbors (the ones that vote at least) then you're not going to have any say in the federal government. All the states are a little different and kooky in their own right, but they more or less follow the district thing, so you probably won't get anyone in the state government either. However, you could go for the city government or something even smaller like an ombudsman. Which is like a neighborhood spokesperson with little to no power over anyone.
But not to give you too much hope, lemme explain another worst case scenario:
So the two-party system gets thrown out and you have 100 parties all vieing for control. It's a big election year and the president is getting replaced. If it's really close, as little as 1/99th of the nation will elect the president. Or more then likely, 1/99th of California will elect the president, as all of it's votes go for one candidate and it has the most votes. So around 373,000 people can vote in the dude who can arbitrarily declare war on nations and stick us in a quagmire.
Pizza delivery is a very important job.
Fed-ex has been replaced by skater-punks.
Foreseeing that cheap gasoline will run out is reasonable. Having robot unicorns as the main alternative form of transportation simply because one of the characters likes unicorns is unreasonable, and makes for a shitty book.
Well you just need 51% to make the other guy lose.
But assuming all the districts either go red or blue more or less evenly between the two major parties, then statewide the highest you could go without any representation is more like 30%.
Of course, there's always a myriad of obscure parties, so it's not like there is one unified third-party choice.
And then there's the issue where even the majority of the people could want X on issue Y, but neither party A or B will touch it. Since it's just one issue, everyone is still going to vote for A or B.
The current two-party system definitely punishes non-conformity.
Lab toys are cute, but real products are sexy.
You actually got that backwards. Lab prototypes are sexy, new, unheard-of, exotic pieces of dream fluff made real. Mass-produced plastic crap is common and unsexy. It's the difference between the stage-shot and airbrushed playboy vs. the average walmart cashier.
Think about mp3 players. Back when they were lab products, the idea of portable music that used digital copies instead of lugging around CDs or *gasp* cassettes was a sexy idea. Today they're impulse items for $10 in Menard's.
Now, when the prototype becomes the bleeding edge product that only the stupidly wealthy or those with a wealth of stupidity will go buy, it retains some sexiness as only those elite few can have it. It's still exotic, but less so. But you're not looking for that, you specifically want something that's "reasonably-priced". When that happens, they will no longer be sexy. Because they're so common. Because demand has gone down. Because they're no longer sexy.
Yeah, just swap out Japan and insert China. If we keep borrowing money from them it might actually happen.
But no, Snowcrash wouldn't work so well. It's written for preteen script kiddies who think that second life is the future. Now, I may be a little biased. I got to the part where the bad-ass gunwielding katana-preffering main character turns out to be a pizza boy and I had to put the book down for 5 years. That was on page two or three I believe. I nearly put the book down again when it was revealed that pizza delivery is actually somewhat important. It's just sort of a logical gag reflex I have.
It's a decent book, but only you realize it's a satirical parody of reality and the world is shaped by the two main characters viewpoints. While it has a lot of neat ideas, the overall book sucks. And, come on, the ending? Killing people with ancient Summarian mind-hacks? Really?
A lot.
The diverse set of small parties is supposed to be covered by the house of representatives, but reps are tied to physical regions. So if you have 49% of every district chanting for the pirate party, the 51% will still vote in the usual red or blue dudes. Elbridge Gerry took advantage of this to screw over the other party and got the term gerrymandering coined after him.
So, theoretically, 49% of the populace. Democracies kind of a bitch like that, but it's the best we've had so far.
That's beautiful yo. Posts like yours are the reason I read slashdot comments.