You aren't that anonymous. Sorry if you didn't realize that.
(OTOH, all they could really pin you down to is your TCP/IP connection id, so maybe if you quickly shut down TCP and flush the connection it will be snarfed up by someone else.)
While theoretically Roman slaves could buy themselves free, in practice it rarely happened. It definitely wasn't the practice in the Southern US. That was lifetime not only for the slave, but also for any children she might have. (Not sure about Rome on that matter.)
Also, though I'm less certain, I believe that Greek slaves were slaves for life. It's true, though, that there are many times and places where I don't know what the custom was.
Actually, that's an only slightly morphed Barry Goldwater quote:
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
and I'm told that that, in turn, was a paraphrase of Cicero (who would have said it in Latin).
If I understood correctly, it came in with a name attached as the modifier, but the owner of the name denied making the change. Sounds like *something* nefarious to me, even if nobody knows who did it.
The commerce clause can be interpreted widely enough to give the federal government more-or-less any power at all though.
Yes. I don't accept that the interpretations are legitimate, or just, or honorable, or reasonable, but the powerful like them, so they are made and accepted. But with enough bafflegab you can interpret black as being white...if you've got enough power backing you.
My experience was a lot different, but then I knew exactly what I wanted...a used Toyota Station Wagon. And I wasn't interested in anything that wasn't a cash down deal. Perhaps that made a difference.
I went into two dealerships that didn't have what I wanted. The third did. I bought. I didn't haggle for the best price, but I let them know ahead of time that I wouldn't, and if the price they offered wasn't satisfactory, I'd check somewhere else...I'm pretty sure I didn't also indicate what I though would be a reasonable price.
Since then I've bought a second car there, another used Toyota Station Wagon. When this one gets decrepit, I don't know what I'll pick, as for a number of years Toyota didn't make station wagons, and I doubt that Volkswagen makes them of equivalent quality. Perhaps I'll be able to wait long enough that the new Prius Station Wagons are on the used market.
According to, I believe, the 10th amendment the powers of the FEDERAL governent are enumerated. All others are reserved to the state governments and the individual people.
Mind you, this amendment is never paid any attention to, but it's in the constitution.
It's not the model that's the problem, it's the decision.
Probably Samsung won't even fight vigouously to overturn the ban (though of course they'll go through the forms). But the rationale for the decision is quite disturbing. This isn't the first decison making the decision to opt for publishing a patent FRAND dubious.
OTOH, perhaps that's just as well. If there are fewer FRAND patents, there may be more research. But I wouldn't bet on it. More likely there will just be more consolidation into a few large companies, with patents freely shareable within the company.
But if by joining a FRAND pool you commit yourself to not asking "reasonable" prices of someone who doesn't join that pool, and is asking "unreasonable" prices of you, then nobody is going to join those pools.
Possibly the reason for these court decisions is to slow down technical changes. If that's not the reason, it will be the effect anyway.
This isn't helped when POTUS gives the non-pool company a free pass, and calls penalty on the pool company. You can talk about reasons as much as you want, but the message appears to be "Don't contribute your patents to an FRAND pool."
I only pay attention to their predictions if I already agree with them. If I do, I don't let the fact that Gartner has predicted it discourage me. A stopped clock is right twice a day (if it's not a digital clock).
Well, law can't be automated because those who make the decisions don't want it to be automated.
As for the others...I don't know. One of the most popular pop musicians (singers?) in Japan is/was a computer program. With a remarkable stage presence. She gives/gave "live" perfomances using a "hologram". (I doubt that it was a real hologram, but I don't know for sure.)
Sorry, but there won't be any "knowledge worker" jobs for their kids. In fact, there won't be any "knowledge worker" jobs for many people now holding down those jobs in 5 years. The number of computers keeps increasing, but the amount of care and feeding they take is decreasing rapidly.
Somebody earlier said that Cromebooks will obsolesce system operators. That's probably an exaggeration, but it will decrease the number that are required. Wait a couple of years and the jobs will start disappearing. But it's the next product, or the one after that, that will eliminate those jobs. Programmer/System Analyst will take a bit longer, because the jobs are currently less well defined. Expect them to be going (and not just overseas) within 10 years, though. Probably not totally gone for 20 years.
For that matter, it may be easier to automate, say, programmer, than garbage collector. Recognizing what's garbage and what's not is a bit difficult, and probably requires not only a very flexible robot body, but training a neural net for a long period of time.
We really should consider how to implement an AI with a strong moral sense. This, however, makes designing the AI in the first place a harder job, so it probably isn't going to happen, except by accident.
Take what? Money only has value because society agrees that it has value. Deeds to property are social agreements. Etc.
I don't particularly like "Might makes right", but that applies when the might is exerted by the government, too.
The when Athenian democracy was at its healthiest, the richest men in town were around 50 times as wealthy as the poorest. An argument can be made that a larger society needs a greater degree of inequality, but it should have a fan out like a B+Tree, (probably one with an order of around 10, though that's a rough guess) and the separation between levels should be approximately equal. And those on the very lowest level should have a "living wage". The US was doing things about right during the 1950's, though I'd argue for a more regular income tax with NO exemptions. Even a simple linear tax (i.e., straight percentage) would be ok if the intercept were adjusted so that those who didn't earn enough to live on got a negative tax (at the same straight percentage).
If you don't recognize the equation already, it's: y = mx + b where y is taxes owed, m is the tax rate, x is income, and b is a constant used to allow those without an income to survive. (But you've got to count all income. Long term capital gains are income. Income from rental properties are income. etc. You turn it into accessible money, it's income. Hold onto it, and it stays an investment. Sell your house, and it's income. Buy a new one...sorry, no tax benefit. If you want to support that, put it in a separate law. [Yes, I'm in favor of supporting that. But it shouldn't be a valid argument to write loopholes into the tax code.])
Just remember that the high-end jobs are also temporary. Eventually the only job will be "owner" or "manager". And eventually is probably only around 30 years away. And it's not going to happen in a sudden jump. It's been creeping up on us for at least... well, since sometime in the 1980's. Perhaps a bit earlier. The speed of change, however, has not be constant, though it's been generally increasing. I expect that systems administrators are going to find their jobs first deskilled and then replaced within the next 10 years. Programmers and systems analysts will take longer, but probably within the 10 years following that. So then the CIO is the only employee within the tech services department. But notice that the other departments have been experiencing the same "ephemeralization". So you've got around 5 top level managers, and they're managing a robotic/automatic staff. Which is getting smarter. And which they already don't understand. And as people retire they aren't replaced except as legally required. (So they'll probably end up with three: A general manager, a treasurer, and a secretary unless the laws change.) That's around 30 years from now, and all three managers are going to be 70 or older...and they won't understand the "brave new world that has such creatures in it". But their "staff" will tell them what to decide...if they weren't of a mind to follow the suggestions, their business would have already failed.
So the question is: What about everyone else? There are several plausible scenarios. Most of them rather unpleasant, but some of the quite utopian. One of the nicer ones is that everyone else retires to play computer games. (Full sens-around immersion environment with haptic feedback.) Though if you want to see how that plays out, look up a rather old story called "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster. (It wouldn't actually play out that way, as by that time the machines would be independent, and probably considerably more intelligent than humans. They might decide to keep humans as pets (depending on their original programming). It's not clear at what level the automation would be an individual. It could be that the entire world could think of itself as one individual. I doubt that each "robot" would be individual. With em connections there's no speed penalty for haveing the brains be separate from the body. And that would allow one "brain" to control several bodies.
These "immersive game" scenarios tend to have a population crash as an automatic consequence of people not directly interacting with other people. If the erotic possibilities are well developed, then the chief mode of reproduction might become artificial insemination.
The post-labor world is around 30 years away. Perhaps a bit shorter or longer depending largely on decisions that we make right now.
The question is, "How do we survive the transition?"
Making everyone have a job for survival is a near sure-fire guarantee of huge civil unrest. The automated soldiers that are currently being built[*] will get a thorough test.
[*] Yes, the current model is really a telefactor. That's temporary. And the design is on-going. Built may be the wrong word, but so would "designed" be. Evolved might be closer, as more advanced models replace earlier models.
It's actually more subtle than that. Most economists are telling the truth, as they see it. And only the ones who believe in government choose to work in government, only the ones who believe in corporatism choose to work for corporations, etc.
The analysis of economic consequences is not "hard" enough that if you don't like a conclusion you can be forced to it anyway. All you need to do is make the appropriate selection from the existing available facts and you can reach nearly any conclusion you may desire.
I'm no longer estimating 2030, however. Probably more like 2035. But we are well into the ramp up period that leads to it.
The thing is people tend to see the short term problems of implementation, not the shape of the final beast. So they scoff and say "That again! That never works." And it's true that, e.g., automated translation isn't perfect. But it's a lot better than it was 10 years ago. Self driving cars aren't yet practical in uncontrolled environments. But there are a few out on the streets. Look at what people were saying 10 years ago. You got both wild eyed promisses of "IN TWO YEARS!" and pessimists saying "It'll never happen.". Well, it took a lot longer than two years, but it's happening right now. Slowly.
P.S.: The technological singularity is a good way to visualize it, but it's not a true singularity. There's no real point of discontinuity. It's just change happening too fast for people to understand it. And we are already there, for some people. (Actually, for most people, in areas that they aren't actively watching.) One reason we have increasingly narrow specialists is that a wide view is impossible. Not only is there too much for any one person to learn, but it doesn't stay still while you aren't watching it.
P.P.S.: There is, indeed, an excellent chance that humanity will not survive the "singularity". But without it we definitely won't survive. Human leaders are too unstable to be trusted with weapons of mass distruction. I'm a bit surprised that we've survived so far. Another century seems quite unlikely. Two beyond belief...unless governments aren't any longer controlled by human leaders. (They may well remain in place as figureheads, but that's something quite different, as the current Queen Elizabeth would admit. [Figureheads aren't necessarily powerless, they just don't control things.])
WalMart shouldn't stay in business. It only stays in business by violating labor laws wholesale in principle, if not in fine technicality.
If you fire someone every 6 months to avoid having to actually hire someone, you are firing without just cause (particularly since you just immediately hire someone else that you fired a month ago). This either actually is, or should be, illegal under the proper interpretation of the laws. (This might be a legal bug. I'm not a lawyer.) To do this to avoid having to give benefits is just cause for terminating the right of a company to do business.
Actually they probably just aren't among the most important nutjobs he's looking for. Commercial entities are commerecial entities. This could make the NSA a profit center, like the CIA. Which means that they CAN'T be controlled by congress. Currently they could be, it's just that it would be political suicide. Once the NSA has a marketable product, though... and allowing them to sell it to commercial interests gives them that marketable product.
I was right behing him through "scented inserts". Those *should* be banned, or tightly regulated. I started to waver at "metallic type". Eventually it was clear that he was being sarcastic.
So what I want to know is why he thinks scented inserts should be allowed.
You're probably right. And Ford wasn't that... evasive. (OTOH, he got lots of mileage out of his reputation for stupidity. So he probably wasn't.)
I must admit my main memory of Nixon is him standing up in front of TV cameras and solemnly saying "I am not a crook". But I don't think he ever said that under oath.
I'm sure, though, that I remember Nixon testifying at the impeachment hearings. But being sure isn't proof.
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You aren't that anonymous. Sorry if you didn't realize that.
(OTOH, all they could really pin you down to is your TCP/IP connection id, so maybe if you quickly shut down TCP and flush the connection it will be snarfed up by someone else.)
Most slavery was temporary too.
Citation?
While theoretically Roman slaves could buy themselves free, in practice it rarely happened. It definitely wasn't the practice in the Southern US. That was lifetime not only for the slave, but also for any children she might have. (Not sure about Rome on that matter.)
Also, though I'm less certain, I believe that Greek slaves were slaves for life. It's true, though, that there are many times and places where I don't know what the custom was.
Actually, that's an only slightly morphed Barry Goldwater quote:
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
and I'm told that that, in turn, was a paraphrase of Cicero (who would have said it in Latin).
The difference is that it's temporary. I might be legitimate to refer to them as indentured, however.
That was the marker that was intended to ensure that you recognized it as sarcasm.
If I understood correctly, it came in with a name attached as the modifier, but the owner of the name denied making the change. Sounds like *something* nefarious to me, even if nobody knows who did it.
The commerce clause can be interpreted widely enough to give the federal government more-or-less any power at all though.
Yes. I don't accept that the interpretations are legitimate, or just, or honorable, or reasonable, but the powerful like them, so they are made and accepted. But with enough bafflegab you can interpret black as being white...if you've got enough power backing you.
My experience was a lot different, but then I knew exactly what I wanted...a used Toyota Station Wagon. And I wasn't interested in anything that wasn't a cash down deal. Perhaps that made a difference.
I went into two dealerships that didn't have what I wanted. The third did. I bought. I didn't haggle for the best price, but I let them know ahead of time that I wouldn't, and if the price they offered wasn't satisfactory, I'd check somewhere else...I'm pretty sure I didn't also indicate what I though would be a reasonable price.
Since then I've bought a second car there, another used Toyota Station Wagon. When this one gets decrepit, I don't know what I'll pick, as for a number of years Toyota didn't make station wagons, and I doubt that Volkswagen makes them of equivalent quality. Perhaps I'll be able to wait long enough that the new Prius Station Wagons are on the used market.
According to, I believe, the 10th amendment the powers of the FEDERAL governent are enumerated. All others are reserved to the state governments and the individual people.
Mind you, this amendment is never paid any attention to, but it's in the constitution.
It's not the model that's the problem, it's the decision.
Probably Samsung won't even fight vigouously to overturn the ban (though of course they'll go through the forms). But the rationale for the decision is quite disturbing. This isn't the first decison making the decision to opt for publishing a patent FRAND dubious.
OTOH, perhaps that's just as well. If there are fewer FRAND patents, there may be more research. But I wouldn't bet on it. More likely there will just be more consolidation into a few large companies, with patents freely shareable within the company.
But if by joining a FRAND pool you commit yourself to not asking "reasonable" prices of someone who doesn't join that pool, and is asking "unreasonable" prices of you, then nobody is going to join those pools.
Possibly the reason for these court decisions is to slow down technical changes. If that's not the reason, it will be the effect anyway.
This isn't helped when POTUS gives the non-pool company a free pass, and calls penalty on the pool company. You can talk about reasons as much as you want, but the message appears to be "Don't contribute your patents to an FRAND pool."
I only pay attention to their predictions if I already agree with them. If I do, I don't let the fact that Gartner has predicted it discourage me. A stopped clock is right twice a day (if it's not a digital clock).
Well, law can't be automated because those who make the decisions don't want it to be automated.
As for the others...I don't know. One of the most popular pop musicians (singers?) in Japan is/was a computer program. With a remarkable stage presence. She gives/gave "live" perfomances using a "hologram". (I doubt that it was a real hologram, but I don't know for sure.)
Sorry, but there won't be any "knowledge worker" jobs for their kids. In fact, there won't be any "knowledge worker" jobs for many people now holding down those jobs in 5 years. The number of computers keeps increasing, but the amount of care and feeding they take is decreasing rapidly.
Somebody earlier said that Cromebooks will obsolesce system operators. That's probably an exaggeration, but it will decrease the number that are required. Wait a couple of years and the jobs will start disappearing. But it's the next product, or the one after that, that will eliminate those jobs. Programmer/System Analyst will take a bit longer, because the jobs are currently less well defined. Expect them to be going (and not just overseas) within 10 years, though. Probably not totally gone for 20 years.
For that matter, it may be easier to automate, say, programmer, than garbage collector. Recognizing what's garbage and what's not is a bit difficult, and probably requires not only a very flexible robot body, but training a neural net for a long period of time.
We really should consider how to implement an AI with a strong moral sense. This, however, makes designing the AI in the first place a harder job, so it probably isn't going to happen, except by accident.
Take what? Money only has value because society agrees that it has value. Deeds to property are social agreements. Etc.
I don't particularly like "Might makes right", but that applies when the might is exerted by the government, too.
The when Athenian democracy was at its healthiest, the richest men in town were around 50 times as wealthy as the poorest. An argument can be made that a larger society needs a greater degree of inequality, but it should have a fan out like a B+Tree, (probably one with an order of around 10, though that's a rough guess) and the separation between levels should be approximately equal. And those on the very lowest level should have a "living wage". The US was doing things about right during the 1950's, though I'd argue for a more regular income tax with NO exemptions. Even a simple linear tax (i.e., straight percentage) would be ok if the intercept were adjusted so that those who didn't earn enough to live on got a negative tax (at the same straight percentage).
If you don't recognize the equation already, it's:
y = mx + b
where y is taxes owed, m is the tax rate, x is income, and b is a constant used to allow those without an income to survive. (But you've got to count all income. Long term capital gains are income. Income from rental properties are income. etc. You turn it into accessible money, it's income. Hold onto it, and it stays an investment. Sell your house, and it's income. Buy a new one...sorry, no tax benefit. If you want to support that, put it in a separate law. [Yes, I'm in favor of supporting that. But it shouldn't be a valid argument to write loopholes into the tax code.])
Just remember that the high-end jobs are also temporary. Eventually the only job will be "owner" or "manager". And eventually is probably only around 30 years away. And it's not going to happen in a sudden jump. It's been creeping up on us for at least ... well, since sometime in the 1980's. Perhaps a bit earlier. The speed of change, however, has not be constant, though it's been generally increasing. I expect that systems administrators are going to find their jobs first deskilled and then replaced within the next 10 years. Programmers and systems analysts will take longer, but probably within the 10 years following that. So then the CIO is the only employee within the tech services department. But notice that the other departments have been experiencing the same "ephemeralization". So you've got around 5 top level managers, and they're managing a robotic/automatic staff. Which is getting smarter. And which they already don't understand. And as people retire they aren't replaced except as legally required. (So they'll probably end up with three: A general manager, a treasurer, and a secretary unless the laws change.) That's around 30 years from now, and all three managers are going to be 70 or older...and they won't understand the "brave new world that has such creatures in it". But their "staff" will tell them what to decide...if they weren't of a mind to follow the suggestions, their business would have already failed.
So the question is: What about everyone else? There are several plausible scenarios. Most of them rather unpleasant, but some of the quite utopian. One of the nicer ones is that everyone else retires to play computer games. (Full sens-around immersion environment with haptic feedback.) Though if you want to see how that plays out, look up a rather old story called "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster. (It wouldn't actually play out that way, as by that time the machines would be independent, and probably considerably more intelligent than humans. They might decide to keep humans as pets (depending on their original programming). It's not clear at what level the automation would be an individual. It could be that the entire world could think of itself as one individual. I doubt that each "robot" would be individual. With em connections there's no speed penalty for haveing the brains be separate from the body. And that would allow one "brain" to control several bodies.
These "immersive game" scenarios tend to have a population crash as an automatic consequence of people not directly interacting with other people. If the erotic possibilities are well developed, then the chief mode of reproduction might become artificial insemination.
The post-labor world is around 30 years away. Perhaps a bit shorter or longer depending largely on decisions that we make right now.
The question is, "How do we survive the transition?"
Making everyone have a job for survival is a near sure-fire guarantee of huge civil unrest. The automated soldiers that are currently being built[*] will get a thorough test.
[*] Yes, the current model is really a telefactor. That's temporary. And the design is on-going. Built may be the wrong word, but so would "designed" be. Evolved might be closer, as more advanced models replace earlier models.
It's actually more subtle than that. Most economists are telling the truth, as they see it. And only the ones who believe in government choose to work in government, only the ones who believe in corporatism choose to work for corporations, etc.
The analysis of economic consequences is not "hard" enough that if you don't like a conclusion you can be forced to it anyway. All you need to do is make the appropriate selection from the existing available facts and you can reach nearly any conclusion you may desire.
I'm no longer estimating 2030, however. Probably more like 2035. But we are well into the ramp up period that leads to it.
The thing is people tend to see the short term problems of implementation, not the shape of the final beast. So they scoff and say "That again! That never works." And it's true that, e.g., automated translation isn't perfect. But it's a lot better than it was 10 years ago. Self driving cars aren't yet practical in uncontrolled environments. But there are a few out on the streets. Look at what people were saying 10 years ago. You got both wild eyed promisses of "IN TWO YEARS!" and pessimists saying "It'll never happen.". Well, it took a lot longer than two years, but it's happening right now. Slowly.
P.S.: The technological singularity is a good way to visualize it, but it's not a true singularity. There's no real point of discontinuity. It's just change happening too fast for people to understand it. And we are already there, for some people. (Actually, for most people, in areas that they aren't actively watching.) One reason we have increasingly narrow specialists is that a wide view is impossible. Not only is there too much for any one person to learn, but it doesn't stay still while you aren't watching it.
P.P.S.: There is, indeed, an excellent chance that humanity will not survive the "singularity". But without it we definitely won't survive. Human leaders are too unstable to be trusted with weapons of mass distruction. I'm a bit surprised that we've survived so far. Another century seems quite unlikely. Two beyond belief...unless governments aren't any longer controlled by human leaders. (They may well remain in place as figureheads, but that's something quite different, as the current Queen Elizabeth would admit. [Figureheads aren't necessarily powerless, they just don't control things.])
WalMart shouldn't stay in business. It only stays in business by violating labor laws wholesale in principle, if not in fine technicality.
If you fire someone every 6 months to avoid having to actually hire someone, you are firing without just cause (particularly since you just immediately hire someone else that you fired a month ago). This either actually is, or should be, illegal under the proper interpretation of the laws. (This might be a legal bug. I'm not a lawyer.) To do this to avoid having to give benefits is just cause for terminating the right of a company to do business.
Actually they probably just aren't among the most important nutjobs he's looking for. Commercial entities are commerecial entities. This could make the NSA a profit center, like the CIA. Which means that they CAN'T be controlled by congress. Currently they could be, it's just that it would be political suicide. Once the NSA has a marketable product, though... and allowing them to sell it to commercial interests gives them that marketable product.
Sometimes you get both.
He was later granted a visa, however. So your point fails.
I was right behing him through "scented inserts". Those *should* be banned, or tightly regulated. I started to waver at "metallic type". Eventually it was clear that he was being sarcastic.
So what I want to know is why he thinks scented inserts should be allowed.
You're probably right. And Ford wasn't that ... evasive. (OTOH, he got lots of mileage out of his reputation for stupidity. So he probably wasn't.)
I must admit my main memory of Nixon is him standing up in front of TV cameras and solemnly saying "I am not a crook". But I don't think he ever said that under oath.
I'm sure, though, that I remember Nixon testifying at the impeachment hearings. But being sure isn't proof.