Not morons, just nervous about something they don't understand, like I am about law and accountancy, or flying a jumbo jet for that matter. Knowing about computers makes me knowledgeable about computers, not a superior being.
C is easy if you have the time to learn it, which a lot of us don't. I don't want things 'handed' to me, but if I wanted something low-level and complex I'd use assembler. High-level languages are supposed to allow the programmer to code in something resembling a spoken language, and although I'd never advocate something like COBOL (since I've been dealing with it on and off for nearly 11 years), the minimalism of C or Perl is too far the other way. So far the best language I've encountered that has the best balance between ease of use and power has been Rexx (let the flamewars commence:-))
I agree with your sentiments, but my father, the accountant, and my brother-in-law, the law professor are not morons merely because they don't understand something complex. Are you a moron because you don't understand the taxation system or the legal system? Of course not.
Yeah fair's fair. My family are always asking for help and being embarrassed because they don't know. I don't sneer at them, they know more than me about other stuff, but as you say I would be steering them towards Linux or BeOS should Microsoft make Windows and apps subscription-only.
In fact if the next Mandrake is up to snuff I'll try and steer them towards that.
I'm a technology worker and so far the fastest PC I've worked on is a PII-266. I'd love a faster PC, but I'm only going to get one when the department upgrades to Windows 2000 and it will be necessary. The 233 I've currently got is plenty fast for Explorer 4.01, Office 97, Lotus Notes, and various other software. Why upgrade any of the software. NT is good enough (although annoying at times), Office 97 is good enough and although Notes is horrible, that's nothing to do with the PC.
Another question is: will companies be prepared to sacrifice network bandwidth for the latest and greatest Office? Can you imagine Citibank ATMs with a message up saying 'Our systems will be unavailable for the next 12 hours while we update Office'? It might catch on with home broadband users, but IT management are fairly conservative so, as with Windows 2000, the take-up may take years as most wait for the technology to be proven.
Exactly all unions are bad, workers banding together in order to provide support to each other against a management who are solely focused on making money. Unions are the reason why you have a good education and work in safe conditions, rather than being a chimney sweep at 12 and crippled by lung disease by 40. The closed shop was in response to management paying higher wages to non-union workers in order to undermine strikes. Remember that the media disapproves of unions because of their owners not because organised labour is bad. Unions are not perfect, but what's the alternative? Treating people as expendable again because it's more profitable in the short-term?
Market forces work very well in highly skilled occupations where there are fewer staff than workers. That isn't the case in the semi- and unskilled area where there are many many more people than jobs. Market forces are unlikely to ever solve this, that's why government legislation was required in the 19th century to end the practice in the west. Look at the result - after a mere hundred years centuries of abject poverty are gone, and we've enjoyed the fastest period of technological growth in history. The arguments against ending worker exploitation have always been that the extra cost would cost so much that factory owners would have to lay off staff. It didn't happen then and it wouldn't happen now. The Chinese government isn't about to improve things, but there's nothing stopping Nike or Gap, except that it isn't economical. What I and others are trying to do is make it more economical to do this by not buying their products.
If market forces had always been allowed to run rampant in the west, slaves would still be picking cotton, children would still be working in dangerous conditions and women would be paid a great deal less than men. The market never takes a long-term view, it only cares about what sells now. But making workers richer means more profits in the future for a small profits hit now.
It protects companies that still make money from a creation from losing a lot of money. If the first Mickey Mouse film was to go into the public domain, Disney would lose all control of Mickey Mouse. This, of course, is their own fault for not progressing as a corporation and finding other ways to make money, but it's a lot cheaper to buy laws than to explore new revenue streams. To hell with fair use and common sense.
So I should say nothing and give Nike my money in the hopes that one day they might do something. Your argument reminds me of the '97 UK election when one of Labour's pledges was to reinstate the minimum wage, which had been abolished by the previous government, leading to local sweatshops. The business community were up in arms; prices would rise and workers would have to be laid off. Three years after the minimum wage was reintroduced, unemployment and inflation are both at thirty year lows. I don't doubt that similar arguments were used against giving our ancestors rights at work.
Finally, Nike do open factories in more developed countries. There are few to no western factories in Southern Africa (with the exception of South Africa) because it has been racked with war for decades. On the other hand, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Mexico have been relatively stable for decades, but the possibility of upheaval should be taken into account when companies prop up tin-pot dictators like Deng Xiao Ping or President Suharto.
Do you really believe that Nike will give up the cost-effectiveness of making shoes in Indonesia just because people 'browbeat' them. I'm not asking them to give their workers western wages, just western conditions. The cost to them would be relatively small and their sales would go up. For example I spend around $200 a month on clothes and suchlike and at the moment, Nike don't see a penny of this. My money may be a drop in the ocean, but then I'm not the only boycotter. A mere 500 people like me would see Nike losing $1million worth of sales a year. So you're right - Nike doesn't care about me in particular but throwing away $1 million of sales doesn't sound like good business sense to me.
It does depress me to hear people say 'what's the point?'. If that had always been the attitude, the US would still be a British colony, African slaves would be still be picking cotton and only rich men would have the vote. Nothing may get changed thanks to my protest, but guaranteed nothing would get done, if I just carried on buying Nike.
In what way would paying a living wage 'destroy' people's lives. Let me just ask a question: how much cheaper are Nike shoes now that their manufacturing costs are substantially lower? Not at all cheaper. So all of the savings have gone to profit. Now if Nike could still make a lot of money by paying people $15 an hour in the US, how is them paying $1 an hour going to cripple them. Their sales won't mysteriously disappear, their profits won't turn into a loss and prices won't have to rise. Nike are not 'substantially improving people's lives', they are just substituting one bad lifestyle for another, and for a small hit in profits they could do so much more. Also, if they reduce working hours to a realistic level of around 40-45 hours more workers will be required, reducing poverty that much more, After all, is this harrassment going to make Nike move back to the US and pay factory workers $15 an hour or is it going to convince them that they are losing customers and therefore pay their current workers $1 an hour and improve their conditions. A win win situation at a relatively small cost to Nike.
A clean safe factory in China that pays a living wage and doesn't employ children is still far cheaper than a similar one in the US. I doubt very much that Nike would move all production back to the US just because they had to pay $1 an hour instead of $1 a day. The more people that hit Nike's bottom line by refusing to support their exploitation of the poor, the faster conditions will improve and with the reduction in working hours more people will be required reducing poverty still further.
I remember the '97 election campaign in the UK when one of the Labour manifesto promises was to reinstate the minimum wage that had been abolished by the previous government and had led to the rise of local sweatshops. The business community was up in arms, claiming that prices would rise and companies would have to lay off workers. Three years after it's introduction unemployment is at a 20 year low and inflation is at the lowest point since it was first calculated. I haven't heard why this is, but I would imagine that people being paid a morereasonable wage led to them being better workers and adding value to the company. Doing the same for their workers in the Far East would give Nike some excellent PR and would improve the quality of output from their factories.
OK, but is hurting their brand going to make them improve conditions, or just close up shop?
Are you suggesting that Nike will give up making shoes because a few nasty activists give them a hard time? Or if they close up shop, where are they going to go? The only reason Nike use sweatshops now is because it's more economical. If consumers in the west stop buying Nike because they are abusing their workers then it becomes in their interest to improve conditions. One thing that all the pro-sweatshop people here fail to recognise is that if sweatshop workers are suddenly working 40 hours instead of 90 and children are no longer employed then more adult breadwinners will be required, reducing poverty still further. It may cost Nike a lot but so does good PR in general and they would get a lot of good PR for this.
Yeah right, like it wasn't the law or anything that forced them to change. There is no competition in those markets. There are plenty of poor people to exploit, and they will go on exploiting them as long as western consumers care more about their cool footwear than other people.
Governments have raised standards of living by fiat, that's why we have the minimum wage, working hours are limited (at least in Europe - I don't know about the US) and factory owners are required to conform to safety standards. We also have universal healthcare and protection against disability and unemployment. I don't think Nike should be solving all the problems in all the countries, but building safe factories, paying a living wage, limiting working hours and ending child labour can't be that difficult surely?
NO, NO, NO, NO , NO. You are completely wrong. The factories' safety should be improved, the wages should be enough to put food on the table and the working hours should be no more than 45. Implementing the third action would increase the requirement for workers and reduce the overall poverty in that country. Unfortunately it requires all the companies currently running sweatshops to behave, and only legislation is going to make that happen, just like it was required in the 19th century to protect our ancestors.
The campaign against sweatshops is to stop exploitation of poor people, similar to the one in the 19th century that means that workers cannot be treated as paid slaves. I don't want the sweatshops closed, I want them to be safe, and I want the people who work in them not to be compelled to work hours that even IT management would balk at imposing just to put food on the table. Just think how much less poverty there would be if 2 workers were required to do the work instead of one.
Starvation and death was always a possibility in Africa until the benevolent Europeans and Americans rescued them and gave them wonderful crop harvesting work. Just because it's less shit doesn't mean it's not shit. My alternative to sweatshops would be to pay a living wage and reduce working hours. Then more people would be required, reducing poverty that much more. BTW Thailand has many sweatshops, but it also has a minimum wage which the government doesn't enforce too strongly for fear of scaring off western 'investment'. Interesting that owners of designer brands come down heavily on ripped off goods and UK supermarkets selling their goods for less money, but they're quite happy to ignore laws that don't suit them.
Slashdot Mirror
I think IBM and HP also might have something to say on the matter.
It isn't open source that's supporting Alan Cox, it's the work he does for RedHat, oh errr...
Not morons, just nervous about something they don't understand, like I am about law and accountancy, or flying a jumbo jet for that matter. Knowing about computers makes me knowledgeable about computers, not a superior being.
C is easy if you have the time to learn it, which a lot of us don't. I don't want things 'handed' to me, but if I wanted something low-level and complex I'd use assembler. High-level languages are supposed to allow the programmer to code in something resembling a spoken language, and although I'd never advocate something like COBOL (since I've been dealing with it on and off for nearly 11 years), the minimalism of C or Perl is too far the other way. So far the best language I've encountered that has the best balance between ease of use and power has been Rexx (let the flamewars commence :-))
I agree with your sentiments, but my father, the accountant, and my brother-in-law, the law professor are not morons merely because they don't understand something complex. Are you a moron because you don't understand the taxation system or the legal system? Of course not.
Yeah fair's fair. My family are always asking for help and being embarrassed because they don't know. I don't sneer at them, they know more than me about other stuff, but as you say I would be steering them towards Linux or BeOS should Microsoft make Windows and apps subscription-only.
In fact if the next Mandrake is up to snuff I'll try and steer them towards that.
I'm a technology worker and so far the fastest PC I've worked on is a PII-266. I'd love a faster PC, but I'm only going to get one when the department upgrades to Windows 2000 and it will be necessary. The 233 I've currently got is plenty fast for Explorer 4.01, Office 97, Lotus Notes, and various other software. Why upgrade any of the software. NT is good enough (although annoying at times), Office 97 is good enough and although Notes is horrible, that's nothing to do with the PC.
Another question is: will companies be prepared to sacrifice network bandwidth for the latest and greatest Office? Can you imagine Citibank ATMs with a message up saying 'Our systems will be unavailable for the next 12 hours while we update Office'? It might catch on with home broadband users, but IT management are fairly conservative so, as with Windows 2000, the take-up may take years as most wait for the technology to be proven.
As a fairly long-time Slashdot member (5 digit id), he should really have known that some paranoid/anal geek would figure it out PDQ.
Half a second, that long?
Exactly all unions are bad, workers banding together in order to provide support to each other against a management who are solely focused on making money. Unions are the reason why you have a good education and work in safe conditions, rather than being a chimney sweep at 12 and crippled by lung disease by 40. The closed shop was in response to management paying higher wages to non-union workers in order to undermine strikes. Remember that the media disapproves of unions because of their owners not because organised labour is bad. Unions are not perfect, but what's the alternative? Treating people as expendable again because it's more profitable in the short-term?
You don't get out much do you?
Several words: I'm not going to pay $600 for something I know costs $250 in the States.
Yeah but that's because we know the one true way ;-)
Market forces work very well in highly skilled occupations where there are fewer staff than workers. That isn't the case in the semi- and unskilled area where there are many many more people than jobs. Market forces are unlikely to ever solve this, that's why government legislation was required in the 19th century to end the practice in the west. Look at the result - after a mere hundred years centuries of abject poverty are gone, and we've enjoyed the fastest period of technological growth in history. The arguments against ending worker exploitation have always been that the extra cost would cost so much that factory owners would have to lay off staff. It didn't happen then and it wouldn't happen now. The Chinese government isn't about to improve things, but there's nothing stopping Nike or Gap, except that it isn't economical. What I and others are trying to do is make it more economical to do this by not buying their products.
If market forces had always been allowed to run rampant in the west, slaves would still be picking cotton, children would still be working in dangerous conditions and women would be paid a great deal less than men. The market never takes a long-term view, it only cares about what sells now. But making workers richer means more profits in the future for a small profits hit now.
It protects companies that still make money from a creation from losing a lot of money. If the first Mickey Mouse film was to go into the public domain, Disney would lose all control of Mickey Mouse. This, of course, is their own fault for not progressing as a corporation and finding other ways to make money, but it's a lot cheaper to buy laws than to explore new revenue streams. To hell with fair use and common sense.
So I should say nothing and give Nike my money in the hopes that one day they might do something. Your argument reminds me of the '97 UK election when one of Labour's pledges was to reinstate the minimum wage, which had been abolished by the previous government, leading to local sweatshops. The business community were up in arms; prices would rise and workers would have to be laid off. Three years after the minimum wage was reintroduced, unemployment and inflation are both at thirty year lows. I don't doubt that similar arguments were used against giving our ancestors rights at work.
Finally, Nike do open factories in more developed countries. There are few to no western factories in Southern Africa (with the exception of South Africa) because it has been racked with war for decades. On the other hand, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Mexico have been relatively stable for decades, but the possibility of upheaval should be taken into account when companies prop up tin-pot dictators like Deng Xiao Ping or President Suharto.
Do you really believe that Nike will give up the cost-effectiveness of making shoes in Indonesia just because people 'browbeat' them. I'm not asking them to give their workers western wages, just western conditions. The cost to them would be relatively small and their sales would go up. For example I spend around $200 a month on clothes and suchlike and at the moment, Nike don't see a penny of this. My money may be a drop in the ocean, but then I'm not the only boycotter. A mere 500 people like me would see Nike losing $1million worth of sales a year. So you're right - Nike doesn't care about me in particular but throwing away $1 million of sales doesn't sound like good business sense to me.
It does depress me to hear people say 'what's the point?'. If that had always been the attitude, the US would still be a British colony, African slaves would be still be picking cotton and only rich men would have the vote. Nothing may get changed thanks to my protest, but guaranteed nothing would get done, if I just carried on buying Nike.
In what way would paying a living wage 'destroy' people's lives. Let me just ask a question: how much cheaper are Nike shoes now that their manufacturing costs are substantially lower? Not at all cheaper. So all of the savings have gone to profit. Now if Nike could still make a lot of money by paying people $15 an hour in the US, how is them paying $1 an hour going to cripple them. Their sales won't mysteriously disappear, their profits won't turn into a loss and prices won't have to rise. Nike are not 'substantially improving people's lives', they are just substituting one bad lifestyle for another, and for a small hit in profits they could do so much more. Also, if they reduce working hours to a realistic level of around 40-45 hours more workers will be required, reducing poverty that much more, After all, is this harrassment going to make Nike move back to the US and pay factory workers $15 an hour or is it going to convince them that they are losing customers and therefore pay their current workers $1 an hour and improve their conditions. A win win situation at a relatively small cost to Nike.
A clean safe factory in China that pays a living wage and doesn't employ children is still far cheaper than a similar one in the US. I doubt very much that Nike would move all production back to the US just because they had to pay $1 an hour instead of $1 a day. The more people that hit Nike's bottom line by refusing to support their exploitation of the poor, the faster conditions will improve and with the reduction in working hours more people will be required reducing poverty still further.
I remember the '97 election campaign in the UK when one of the Labour manifesto promises was to reinstate the minimum wage that had been abolished by the previous government and had led to the rise of local sweatshops. The business community was up in arms, claiming that prices would rise and companies would have to lay off workers. Three years after it's introduction unemployment is at a 20 year low and inflation is at the lowest point since it was first calculated. I haven't heard why this is, but I would imagine that people being paid a morereasonable wage led to them being better workers and adding value to the company. Doing the same for their workers in the Far East would give Nike some excellent PR and would improve the quality of output from their factories.
OK, but is hurting their brand going to make them improve conditions, or just close up shop?
Are you suggesting that Nike will give up making shoes because a few nasty activists give them a hard time? Or if they close up shop, where are they going to go? The only reason Nike use sweatshops now is because it's more economical. If consumers in the west stop buying Nike because they are abusing their workers then it becomes in their interest to improve conditions. One thing that all the pro-sweatshop people here fail to recognise is that if sweatshop workers are suddenly working 40 hours instead of 90 and children are no longer employed then more adult breadwinners will be required, reducing poverty still further. It may cost Nike a lot but so does good PR in general and they would get a lot of good PR for this.
Yeah right, like it wasn't the law or anything that forced them to change. There is no competition in those markets. There are plenty of poor people to exploit, and they will go on exploiting them as long as western consumers care more about their cool footwear than other people.
Governments have raised standards of living by fiat, that's why we have the minimum wage, working hours are limited (at least in Europe - I don't know about the US) and factory owners are required to conform to safety standards. We also have universal healthcare and protection against disability and unemployment. I don't think Nike should be solving all the problems in all the countries, but building safe factories, paying a living wage, limiting working hours and ending child labour can't be that difficult surely?
NO, NO, NO, NO , NO. You are completely wrong. The factories' safety should be improved, the wages should be enough to put food on the table and the working hours should be no more than 45. Implementing the third action would increase the requirement for workers and reduce the overall poverty in that country. Unfortunately it requires all the companies currently running sweatshops to behave, and only legislation is going to make that happen, just like it was required in the 19th century to protect our ancestors.
The campaign against sweatshops is to stop exploitation of poor people, similar to the one in the 19th century that means that workers cannot be treated as paid slaves. I don't want the sweatshops closed, I want them to be safe, and I want the people who work in them not to be compelled to work hours that even IT management would balk at imposing just to put food on the table. Just think how much less poverty there would be if 2 workers were required to do the work instead of one.
Starvation and death was always a possibility in Africa until the benevolent Europeans and Americans rescued them and gave them wonderful crop harvesting work. Just because it's less shit doesn't mean it's not shit. My alternative to sweatshops would be to pay a living wage and reduce working hours. Then more people would be required, reducing poverty that much more. BTW Thailand has many sweatshops, but it also has a minimum wage which the government doesn't enforce too strongly for fear of scaring off western 'investment'. Interesting that owners of designer brands come down heavily on ripped off goods and UK supermarkets selling their goods for less money, but they're quite happy to ignore laws that don't suit them.