How do you pay for this? For one, change from taxing human labor, i.e. income, and instead tax the new source of production - robots. You could also get rid of all the other social safety net programs, because they're now redundant (and probably less efficient), and get rid of the minimum wage as it's no longer needed. When no one is forced to work to survive, markets can be allowed to freely set the price of labor, however low.
The moment you give people guaranteed basic income and replace them with robots - everything that robots can produce becomes FREE, with price of labor producing those products becoming zero. Because production scales up and cost goes down with number of robots added. Including the production of more robots.
Nothing changes in areas where you still need humans - other than the price of labor being replaced with price of QUALITY.
Not quality as in "this is a 5 stars product" but quality as in "this product is purple - I like purple". You can get the price of materials and labor down to zero with enough robots. There is no such thing as scarcity of LOVE AND DESIRE, nor is there an upper limit to the price we are willing to pay for certain things.
We already got examples of that with artists and performers being paid bajilions of dollars for songs and movies nobody actually likes. Paul Blarp: Mall Blarp 2 made about $62 million so far. It cost $30 million to make. It has 4% on Rotten Tomatoes, up from 0% it had last week.
There is no reason for that movie to cost so much OR make so much - other than people simply willing to pay for even a chance of entertainment of the kind of QUALITY they might expect from a Kevin James movie. There are people out there with DESIRE for that crap. Countries spending billions on nukes they hope they'll never use are the same thing. Only instead of paying for an illusion of entertainment they are paying for an illusion of security.
There are some things money can't buy. But that don't mean we should stop tryin.
They grow low on the ground, rot easily, bruise easily, have to be picked and shipped quickly... and are not cheap to produce either, with all that water they suck up, while the rodents just love eating them cause they are sweet. It is backbreaking work to pick them and it must be done quickly and be gentle about it.
The dirty little secret is that they were NEVER priced fairly - it's just that the cheap labor allowed farmers to shift the costs onto someone else's back. Quite literally.
It is a luxury item. Not food. Think almonds - only you can't just shake them down nor can you pick them all at once like almonds. Nor store them. Nor pack them dried. Nor ship them in bags. Nor...
Now think of the price of almonds per kilo... multiply it by all the things you can't do with strawberries but you can with almonds... And then imagine buying them at that "fair" price. Then imagine how much the farmer would sell at that price.
And then what? Force the "third world" to eat overpriced (for their wallets) strawberries while you don't get yours cause they are still rotting on the vine in the fields?
Strawberries are more perishable than corn. Also, you can't pick them all at once with a huge, field-leveling machine. Too gentle for that. Nor can you store them like corn. Nor can you turn them into HFCS or feed livestock with them. And it is literally a backbreaking job to pick them.
But you need them picked during a very short window, and you need a LOT of them picked fast... And pretty soon you're either employing armies of people who can still only pick your strawberries while there is light outside - or you got strawberries rotting in the field. After you've spent all that water and fertilizer on them. And then you have to sort them and rush them to the market before they rot in their little baskets.
So you can sell them cheap and fast - or close up shop and let those armies of pickers go. And just plant corn instead.
Notice how nobody questions the use of combines to pick corn instead of hiring "third world" do it by hand. Cause if anyone used people instead of machines to pick the corn it would rot "on the stalk", and the price of food would skyrocket and it would end up hurting the most the very people one would try to "raise from poverty".
Endgame is not to make everyone rich by paying more for simple work. It does not work that way. That would just be devaluing money until everyone is a millionaire while a loaf of bread costs two million. Or four. Or five.
The goal is to make expensive things cheap and affordable so that "poor" means "we only have two cars and our TV is too small". Make pickers into buyers.
If you can't find pickers for a certain price it no longer means that you don't want to pay them a decent wage. It means you can't AFFORD them at the wages they can now earn doing something else. They are no longer illiterate half-humans half-slaves willing to do any job just so as not to starve. They had to fight HARD to get to that point. And there is more road ahead.
Now the goal is to have robots pick so many strawberries, that you need to hire more people for your strawberry processing plant where you make jams, pies, ice creams... That's how you pay those pickers more - by creating better paying jobs.
That's because the Greek poets, the apostles, and William Shakespeare died more than 70 years ago. For example, translations of the Bible into modern language are still copyrighted.
NOPE. It's because culture, cultural artifacts and works by there very nature have no expiration date - unlike humans who are limited by their mortality.
You are confusing the rule we came up with to try to harness that natural quality of cultural works in order to monetize them - with the reason for the existence of said rules in the first place. I.e. You're engaging in circular reasoning where "old works can't belong to one person - because authors died so long ago that copyright ran out".
Which is another way of saying "There is no copyright - because it ran out". Which is an ignoratio elenchi claim regarding the issue why " works of CULTURE AND ART AND STORYTELLING... can [NOT] ultimately belong to one person or a group of persons".
I.e. That it is THAT very property... attribute... of the works of culture to transcend any physical limitations through which mortal humans might try to limit access to such works in order to monopolize their value - WHY we had do come up with the idea of copyright. Cause you can't expunge information and ideas from someone's mind.
You can't physically unhear a song or unsee an image or force others to do so if they don't want to pay for experiencing that work of culture. You can only create a rule that they MUST pay.
I really can't go into other "points" you make there, other than to point out that they are all based on more ignoratio elenchi. That is, ignoring that I am making points on WHY we have copyright laws instead of the HOW - i.e. particular nature and implementation of such laws. Sorry.
Animals don't have responsibilities, so why should they have rights?
Close. Animals are incapable of being held responsible.
Much like children or mentally challenged (i.e. retarded) humans who are not in control of their faculties or incapable of understanding or holding on to agreements, rules and contracts, including but not limited to social contracts.
A human child is literally millions of years ahead of a chimp in mental development, but no one with any sense would dream of treating a child as an adult, capable of agreeing to or signing contracts. Including those that the society one is born into has established for that child centuries and millennia ago. Do not steal, do not kill, do not attack other people, don't light fires on the carpet...
Accepting those preestablished societal RULES (i.e. responsibilities) is the basis of having RIGHTS - or the society puts you in a cage. Or, if you are REALLY incapable of following rules, keep hurting others and live in a place which practices a death penalty - society kills you to protect others from you.
And while you CAN explain such abstract concepts as good and bad to children or retarded adults, and have them obey the rules based on those concepts, you can't do that with animals.
You start treating animals like humans, you better plan for mass killing of said animals. Cause that's where it ends at, very quickly - as they CAN'T FOLLOW HUMAN RULES AND REGULATIONS. They will continue to break the rules they can't even understand, you will continue to punish them for that, until you either end up killing them or you get them to try to kill you. At which point someone will HAVE TO kill them.
Shutting the mouths of all those "Leave Earth alone!!!" nutcases arguing that it is humanity's duty to reduce it's numbers until it is not a burden to the planet?
That, and being actual... you know... science. Instead of... you know... a straw man troll in the same vein as "Why is this news for nerds?"
Seems like all movies that profit off of heinous acts should have to go to repay the victims of their crimes.
In ALL cases, every single one, EVER - victims became victims cause nobody heard or acted upon their cries for help. Victims are acutely aware of that.
And they are aware of how valuable and invaluable it is to just have someone tell their story to the world. Even if it is told badly. Like with "Mississippi Burning". Which beats almost every single movie about Vietnam war - a war that was totally only about Americans and how THEY suffered.
Which again beats every single movie NOT made about Jeju uprising, regarding the mass executions, burning of villages, rape and the following coverup which lasted for some 60 years. In a friendly, forward thinking, western democracy of South Korea. Just like the Bodo League massacre and systematic mass execution of hundreds of thousands of "communist sympathizers". Covered up for over 40 years... and clearly not considered a big deal. Not big enough to warrant a movie, anyway.
Movies, like books, are primarily works of CULTURE AND ART AND STORYTELLING - and neither of those can ultimately belong to one person or a group of persons any more than the works of Shakespeare or the Bible or the Greek myths do. Someone can own a block of wood with a Mona Lisa painted on it - but no one can own Mona Lisa no more than anyone can own the letter 'A'.
That's why we have copyright laws. To assure that those who create/produce that cultural wealth FOR EVERYONE get paid something in exchange for their effort in creating something that is only valuable if everyone has free access to it. Because you can't stop someone from seeing a movie or hearing a song - not if you ever want to make money out of showing them a movie or playing them a song. It must be free and available to everyone so you could charge money for it. Jerry Lewis can't charge people money for "The Day the Clown Cried". Even if he wanted to. Or if they did. And though they do.
Human art is designed to be appreciated and experienced and absorbed by other humans. If it wasn't so easy for humans to experience that art and culture without paying or even trying (just quiz yourself about a movie you are not at all interested in - like Twilight or 50 Shades of Gray) no regulation would be needed. Hell... you can chase down a thief and make him either burn up the calories in that apple he stole from you, beat it out of him or make him throw it up. No amount of force or persuasion can make someone unwatch a movie or unhear a song. Sadly, in many cases.
So we have laws to try to make sure that at least some people pay for what they willingly experience.
BUT... as those laws are about monetary compensation to the creators of that art, we are fed a story that it is "all about the money" and that the movies are "just business". Which is not true even for the most commercial of all art - pornography. We can joke that it does not matter as long as there's sex in it - but we can't ignore the fact that there are porn STARS, and then there are "others".
Meaning that even with a movie that is so cheap to produce, both artistically and monetarily, where actor's skills are down to simple physical attributes and looks, and which is produced to satisfy such a base need - people will demand more than just a "recording of two people fucking for money".
And people will favor those who produce more than just a "recording" - thus creating popularity and fame for those performers who do "more than just recording". That favoritism will not create MORE money though. It will only cut out of the picture those who produce only "recordings".
Even in such an utterly commercial field of film making, the goal is towards more than just money and money earned alone does not equal success nor is it the
A girl at my daughter's high school was a victim of revenge porn. She killed herself.
Sounds more like she was a victim of suicide. Caused by mental illness. And yes. I am saying that anyone who decides to kill themselves because of their "honor and reputation" being "sullied" is either mentally ill or a fucking moron. Or both.
This is not 1st century B.C. "Fate worse than death" and such shit is a retarded concept relegated to myth and bodice ripper literature. Or religious fanaticism.
If anyone, people parroting such messages of "OMG! Reputation!" to others should be put on trial for endangerment of mentally inept persons in their care. If someone's solution to trolling is suicide, that someone needs professional help. If their relatives/caretakers just shrugs off such obvious mental issues - they should be investigated and if possible prevented from doing similar harm in the future.
That is far from an isolated case.
By definition, what you are describing is a VERY isolated, ANECDOTAL case. Unless you have some well researched data pointing to an epidemic of kids offing themselves, clearly caused by someone they were dumb enough to let into their pants later posting a photo of their wee-wee without permission. And not something else... like undiagnosed mental illness and/or shitty parenting.
So your "not an isolated case" is PURE UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT!
To suggest that this isn't traumatic, and that the victims somehow deserve it, is asinine.
No. To suggest that there is an epidemic of pixel-related suicides is a vile and dishonest setup of a straw man. So is implying blame of "attacking a victim" on anyone saying otherwise. And same goes for putting words in other people's mouth.
On the other hand, all that bullshit straw man argumentation does not refute the fact that it is prudent to practice restraint with recordings of one's private parts or actions one does not want the whole world to see.
Also, suggesting that it was sextrolling that caused the suicide and not some other underlying issue... That's not just counterproductive - that's perpetuating a "suicide as solution for stained honor" myth.
People will go on for decades with untreated PTSD and years with clinical depression before they decide to "end it all". That's suffering daily mental torture and still pushing on. But a naked photo posted online will make a sane person snap instantly?
There is something VERY wrong with your view of the world if you believe that happy crap.
That guy he plays in that Amazing Stories episode - that's him in real life + acting career. 268 credits on imdb.
Anyway... It was mentioned in one of Kevin Smith's "Fatman on Batman" podcasts. Hamill asked if he could have one of every toys they were going to make. He thought it would be kinda cool. Imagine that, you know. You're in a movie, and they make a toy that's you in a movie... Crazy, I know! Nobody gave it a second thought, so they included that bit in his contract.
They are not designed with power efficiency in mind. They are designed to be functional, fashionable and cheap to produce. So, though the same setup could be designed with more power-efficient components or solutions... Why bother about a Watt or two or twenty lost on standby on a product that uses hundreds or thousands of Watts when working, right?
I think that my favorite on that list is the gas range that uses on average 1.13 Watts per hour on standby. GAS range. As in... it doesn't run on electricity.
That's about 6-15 kilowatts wasted every year, per household. Just so one could light the highly flammable gas with a press of a button instead of with a match or one of those piezoelectric gas lighters.
The proper verdict would have been to destroy both the KP partners and Pao as they all horrible human beings. ... The partner (?)... ... given to a loser... ... Indian sleazebag... ... an utter whore and slut... ... All I can say is, "Kill them with fire. All of them."
As for this part:
1. The partner (?) who did not want to invite the women in the company to a getaway with Al Gore because it would "kill the buzz." The buzz would be killed because the excluded party were women, not because they were unpleasant people.
And about that Al Gore dinner, Chien said that only 10 people could fit in the former vice president's living room, and only three of them were affiliated with Kleiner Perkins. Pao herself had actually suggested some invitees who were male: The CEOs of Yelp and Dropbox.
Chien insisted he'd never said anything about women killing the buzz. "Absolutely not," he said. Pao's filing was "the first time I had ever heard of the phrase."
And about the all-guy ski trip? Chien said he'd actually invited fellow Kleiner colleague Mary Meeker, but she couldn't make it. And besides, she has her own house in the area, he said.
... Could Path founder Dave Morin invite a female entrepreneur from a Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers portfolio company on the firm's 2012 ski trip to Colorado, organized by then senior partner Chi-Hua Chien?
He could not, Chien said. As he explained in an email at the time, "The issue is that we are staying in condos, and I was thinking that gents wouldn't mind sharing, but gals might. Why don't we punt on her and find 2 guys who are awesome. We can add 4-8 women next year." There were no women on the 2012 ski trip, and there would be no ski trip the next year.
Better Shelter will arrive in two cardboard boxes which are packed in subsequent building order. The two boxes can be individually lifted by four people and contain an assembly instruction image manual, which lets you assemble the shelter, together with three other people in 4-8 hours. Better Shelter is built in three sub-sequential steps:
Foundation
Roof with ventilation and solar panel
Walls with windows and door
Better Shelter is optimized to meet the high volume production condiÂtions and flat pack logistic demands required to be cost efficient.
Or do like we have hear, where leave is paid for out of a fund that all taxpayers contribute to, so nobody is penalized for taking it, and the employer doesn't pay it.
After all, people don't have to have babies. Countries on the other hand need a fresh supply of people - i.e. babies.
But that whole discussion above (as dictated by the OP who borderline blames women for getting knocked up) ignores the real issue with the whole baby producing thing.
That it is not something that can be permanently delayed or even planned 100% (and let's not even go into twins and triplets issues... or possible health issues), requiring from a woman to be absent from work during her most productive years - and to suffer from a reintegration gap once back at work. And higher up the ladder the job goes, the more it shows. Particularly at promotion time. Go away for half a year, return to find that your colleague with whom you shared a desk is now your boss.
Or that he simply has half a year of experience more, while you feel like a new recruit. Or that you no longer know anyone in your division as everyone moved on, or up - or that the whole division got restructured while you were away. On top of that, prolonged absences from "the grind", particularly coupled with significant changes in life, can and DO change the way one looks at their old workplace.
I got drafted two years into my first job, went away for 9 months. But even though my employer even pulled some strings to get me out on one occasion for couple of days cause they needed someone to do the job... I still returned to a company staffed with many different faces and a new boss. None of which was an issue - we used to have seasonal hirings so you get used to company blowing up then shrinking down, people coming and going, and my new boss was my old division boss who took over for our old boss... who incidentally just had a baby, and after her maternity leave went off to another company.
But you do get a different perspective... and you start noticing complaints other people make about things you took for granted. And so you start looking around. Or you get an offer. And so you jump ship and start over elsewhere.
As a single, young, unattached male, switching to another company and a similar job was simple. Sacrificed my vacation time in the process though. Which was NOT fun after previously losing vacation time on account of being drafted, coming back to work, changing jobs and then working for another year to accumulate vacation time again... Still... no biggie. But had I had a baby at home... and maybe no one to take care of it while I worked...
There ARE elements of the whole "baby issue" and its effect on the career path of a woman that can't just be covered by monetary compensation (but it DOES help - a lot), NOR can the men experience all those effects even with paternity leave and shared responsibilities. But even so - it is still the best strategy NOT to have babies, for both men and women. Which is a form of discrimination of its own - against those who have to work for a living.
The new solution is still sexist. It's just that this is the kind of sexism that is culturally acceptable at the moment.
A situation where one person can get a job based on a genetic flip of a coin, followed by a genetic role of the dice that lands one with a fashionable appearance - while others are disregarded based on the genetic flip of the coin alone.
You know... When sex of the person is a disqualifying trait on a job application - and it is not a job opening in a strip-bar. It's the same exact thing that makes "housewife" an acceptable "career choice" for a woman, while the same "career" choice for a man doesn't even have a noun of its own. It is instead described with pejorative terms ranging from "henpecked" and "timid" to "pussywhipped".
It's culturally acceptable sexism. No different than a burka - for women who consider that a part of their culture.
So the KKK can force a black or Jewish printer to print posters for their next rally, then?
If you answer no, you agree with the govenrnor of Indianapolis. If you answer yes, you're in favour of slavery (forcing the printer to serve against their will). Pick one.
Any business can reject customers already. So, that imaginary Jewish printer can reject that imaginary KKK customer - RIGHT NOW. It is their right as a business - not accepting to do a job they don't want.
What that imaginary Jewish printer can't do at this point, is pull a "religious discrimination/freedom" card should KKK complain about being discriminated for being KKK. And as that is SO gonna happen - both that false dichotomy of yours AND that strawman... they kinda stink.
Back in the real world, this law is a license for being a dick to ANYONE (not just customers). And should they complain one can just pull a religious script out of one's ass, with a highlighted passage which vaguely kinda gives one an excuse for being a dick. Because religion. At which point government (i.e. police and courts) just shrug their shoulders and go "What can we do? Religion." and may end up paying damages to the "person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened" - i.e. the penis in fabula.
But since you like the idea of Semitic examples so much... This law allows your Muslim neighbor to call to prayer 5 times a day as loud as possible, or to perform any other religious ceremony including but not limited to slaughtering live cows, goats and sheep in their driveway or on their balcony. And you have no one to complain to anymore.
Your boss can fire you on "religious grounds", you can get evicted for the same reason, your bank account can be charged "additional services" on account of you being a filthy unbeliever...
And boy are your female members of the family in for a surprise when they start getting pestered by men unless they are wearing a burka and are in a company of another man. Ain't no such thing as sexual harassment in the "holy books" - but there's plenty rules on how women should act in public and at home.
Also, how long until Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses figure out that they can just camp in front of your door 24/7 cause you can't call cops on them anymore?
Dr Oliver Jones, Senior Lecturer in Analytical Chemistry at RMIT University in Melbourne, said: "The study itself says that for all compounds, the evidence of human carcinogenicity was limited or considered inadequate." ... "People might be interested to know that there are over 70 other things IARC also classifies as 'probably carcinogenic', including night shifts." ... "While absence of evidence is not evidence of absence this does seem to me to be a precautionary rather than a reactionary change."
Prof Alan Boobis, Professor of Biochemical Pharmacology at Imperial College London, said: "The UK Committee on Carcinogenicity has evaluated possible links between pesticide exposure and cancer on several occasions. It has found little evidence for such a link. At most, the evidence was inconsistent and was considered insufficient to call for regulatory action.
"These conclusions of IARC are important and should be taken into account when evaluating these pesticides, but that must also take into account how the pesticides are used in the real world. In my view this report is not a cause for undue alarm."
Prof Sir Colin Berry, Emeritus Professor of Pathology at Queen Mary University of London, said: "The weight of evidence is against carcinogenicity" ... "This assessment has looked at a group of 43 diseases lumped into one category, multiple pesticides with very different chemistry, and has failed to include critical data. There is nothing here to suggest that the variety of genetic changes in these diseases could be caused by these pesticides. This appears to be a rather selective review."
Prof David Coggon, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of Southampton, said: "Thus, when evaluating the epidemiological evidence, one is looking for a consistent pattern of increased risk for one or more tumour types, which is unlikely to be explained by biases (often unavoidable) in the study methods. It is clear from the summary table in the Lancet report that clear and consistent evidence of this type was not found for any of the pesticides that were considered" ... "In contrast, studies in laboratory animals were judged to show clear evidence of carcinogenicity for four of the five compounds." ... "The IARC report does not raise immediate alarms. However, I would expect regulatory authorities around the world to take note of this new evaluation, and to consider whether it indicates a need to review their risk assessments for any of the pesticides that they currently approve."
Prof Tony Dayan, Emeritus Toxicologist, said: "In the present report the classification of glyphosate and malathion as carrying a Class IIA risk of causing cancer in humans reflects a variety of laboratory results with a small number of studies in man of varied quality and mixed conclusions.Detailed analysis of the nature and quality of the evidence overall does not support such a high level classification, which at the most should be Class IIB."
ONE expert made a very short remark saying that "study says glyphosate carcinogenic now" so gardeners should be careful when using pesticides.
Prof Andreas Kortenkamp, Professor in Human Toxicology at Brunel University London, said:
"IARC have carefully assessed new evidence about the cancer hazards of pesticides, and have now classified 5 pesticides as either 'probably' or 'possibly' carcinogenic to humans. The authorities in th
If you were forced by law to rub shit all over yourself once every four years - how many times would you have done it before looking into differences between types of shit you can rub into your skin? Or would you just go "Aaaah... it's all the same shit." But is it? Dog shit, elephant shit, shit harvested from hospitals, shit from prisons, baby shit, your own shit, your girlfriend's/wife's shit, shit of some Playboy bunny...
Claiming that mandatory voting will get money out of politics is one of the stupidest things anyone has said.
From the summary:
It would be transformative if everybody voted - that would counteract money more than anything," he said, adding it was the first time he had shared the idea publicly.
He didn't say "get money out". He's not stupid. He said "counteract money". Reduce influence of money by making it more expensive to control a significant number of votes by money and harder to achieve results against the simple will of the people.
In any case, mandatory voting is a bad idea no matter how many other countries do it. It is someone's right not to vote just as much as it is to vote, and encouraging people who otherwise have no interest in the process to vote is a mistake. Voting for voting's sake is a travesty of the process.
In other words - exercising one's freedom to take part in the process of maintaining or divesting of ALL freedoms is a travesty - because people should not be forced to use their freedom OR to be free. Because it is no longer freedom to choose if you are forced to choose.
Which is BULLSHIT. Along the lines that mandatory elementary education deprives people of their freedom to be uneducated or educated - as they choose fit.
You know what's the most hilarious part? They KNEW there'd be people like you out there. Back in 1776. But please... do keep the system you yourself know to be broken, for the reason of "it's a travesty" fallacy and cooky conspiracy theories about "the reason [which] can't be openly stated". Obama is after your precious bodily fluids, that's it. Has to be. Or he would state (openly) that he wasn't.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
After half a century of this I'm still not sure if it's a good thing or not, independents are more often than not fringe dwellers, radicals, and religious nutters.
Basic tests of "are you a crazy person?" and "how does government work?" for those wanting to be elected should fix a lot of that.
I mean... ANY job interview requires at least SOME qualification and basic sanity. If you're gonna serve food to people someone might want to know do you plan on poisoning anyone or do you understand the concept of food - just in case you are an alien (from space) or a robot from the future.
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How do you pay for this? For one, change from taxing human labor, i.e. income, and instead tax the new source of production - robots. You could also get rid of all the other social safety net programs, because they're now redundant (and probably less efficient), and get rid of the minimum wage as it's no longer needed. When no one is forced to work to survive, markets can be allowed to freely set the price of labor, however low.
The moment you give people guaranteed basic income and replace them with robots - everything that robots can produce becomes FREE, with price of labor producing those products becoming zero.
Because production scales up and cost goes down with number of robots added. Including the production of more robots.
Nothing changes in areas where you still need humans - other than the price of labor being replaced with price of QUALITY.
Not quality as in "this is a 5 stars product" but quality as in "this product is purple - I like purple".
You can get the price of materials and labor down to zero with enough robots.
There is no such thing as scarcity of LOVE AND DESIRE, nor is there an upper limit to the price we are willing to pay for certain things.
We already got examples of that with artists and performers being paid bajilions of dollars for songs and movies nobody actually likes.
Paul Blarp: Mall Blarp 2 made about $62 million so far. It cost $30 million to make.
It has 4% on Rotten Tomatoes, up from 0% it had last week.
There is no reason for that movie to cost so much OR make so much - other than people simply willing to pay for even a chance of entertainment of the kind of QUALITY they might expect from a Kevin James movie.
There are people out there with DESIRE for that crap.
Countries spending billions on nukes they hope they'll never use are the same thing.
Only instead of paying for an illusion of entertainment they are paying for an illusion of security.
There are some things money can't buy.
But that don't mean we should stop tryin.
Strawberries are not pizza or BigMacs.
They grow low on the ground, rot easily, bruise easily, have to be picked and shipped quickly... and are not cheap to produce either, with all that water they suck up, while the rodents just love eating them cause they are sweet.
It is backbreaking work to pick them and it must be done quickly and be gentle about it.
The dirty little secret is that they were NEVER priced fairly - it's just that the cheap labor allowed farmers to shift the costs onto someone else's back. Quite literally.
It is a luxury item. Not food.
Think almonds - only you can't just shake them down nor can you pick them all at once like almonds.
Nor store them. Nor pack them dried. Nor ship them in bags. Nor...
Now think of the price of almonds per kilo... multiply it by all the things you can't do with strawberries but you can with almonds...
And then imagine buying them at that "fair" price. Then imagine how much the farmer would sell at that price.
And then what?
Force the "third world" to eat overpriced (for their wallets) strawberries while you don't get yours cause they are still rotting on the vine in the fields?
Strawberries are more perishable than corn.
Also, you can't pick them all at once with a huge, field-leveling machine. Too gentle for that.
Nor can you store them like corn. Nor can you turn them into HFCS or feed livestock with them.
And it is literally a backbreaking job to pick them.
But you need them picked during a very short window, and you need a LOT of them picked fast...
And pretty soon you're either employing armies of people who can still only pick your strawberries while there is light outside - or you got strawberries rotting in the field. After you've spent all that water and fertilizer on them.
And then you have to sort them and rush them to the market before they rot in their little baskets.
So you can sell them cheap and fast - or close up shop and let those armies of pickers go.
And just plant corn instead.
Notice how nobody questions the use of combines to pick corn instead of hiring "third world" do it by hand.
Cause if anyone used people instead of machines to pick the corn it would rot "on the stalk", and the price of food would skyrocket and it would end up hurting the most the very people one would try to "raise from poverty".
Endgame is not to make everyone rich by paying more for simple work. It does not work that way.
That would just be devaluing money until everyone is a millionaire while a loaf of bread costs two million.
Or four. Or five.
The goal is to make expensive things cheap and affordable so that "poor" means "we only have two cars and our TV is too small".
Make pickers into buyers.
If you can't find pickers for a certain price it no longer means that you don't want to pay them a decent wage.
It means you can't AFFORD them at the wages they can now earn doing something else.
They are no longer illiterate half-humans half-slaves willing to do any job just so as not to starve.
They had to fight HARD to get to that point. And there is more road ahead.
Now the goal is to have robots pick so many strawberries, that you need to hire more people for your strawberry processing plant where you make jams, pies, ice creams...
That's how you pay those pickers more - by creating better paying jobs.
That's because the Greek poets, the apostles, and William Shakespeare died more than 70 years ago. For example, translations of the Bible into modern language are still copyrighted.
NOPE.
It's because culture, cultural artifacts and works by there very nature have no expiration date - unlike humans who are limited by their mortality.
You are confusing the rule we came up with to try to harness that natural quality of cultural works in order to monetize them - with the reason for the existence of said rules in the first place.
I.e. You're engaging in circular reasoning where "old works can't belong to one person - because authors died so long ago that copyright ran out".
Which is another way of saying "There is no copyright - because it ran out".
Which is an ignoratio elenchi claim regarding the issue why " works of CULTURE AND ART AND STORYTELLING... can [NOT] ultimately belong to one person or a group of persons".
I.e. That it is THAT very property... attribute... of the works of culture to transcend any physical limitations through which mortal humans might try to limit access to such works in order to monopolize their value - WHY we had do come up with the idea of copyright.
Cause you can't expunge information and ideas from someone's mind.
You can't physically unhear a song or unsee an image or force others to do so if they don't want to pay for experiencing that work of culture.
You can only create a rule that they MUST pay.
I really can't go into other "points" you make there, other than to point out that they are all based on more ignoratio elenchi.
That is, ignoring that I am making points on WHY we have copyright laws instead of the HOW - i.e. particular nature and implementation of such laws.
Sorry.
All in all you're just a-nother layer of sediment...
Animals don't have responsibilities, so why should they have rights?
Close.
Animals are incapable of being held responsible.
Much like children or mentally challenged (i.e. retarded) humans who are not in control of their faculties or incapable of understanding or holding on to agreements, rules and contracts, including but not limited to social contracts.
A human child is literally millions of years ahead of a chimp in mental development, but no one with any sense would dream of treating a child as an adult, capable of agreeing to or signing contracts.
Including those that the society one is born into has established for that child centuries and millennia ago.
Do not steal, do not kill, do not attack other people, don't light fires on the carpet...
Accepting those preestablished societal RULES (i.e. responsibilities) is the basis of having RIGHTS - or the society puts you in a cage.
Or, if you are REALLY incapable of following rules, keep hurting others and live in a place which practices a death penalty - society kills you to protect others from you.
And while you CAN explain such abstract concepts as good and bad to children or retarded adults, and have them obey the rules based on those concepts, you can't do that with animals.
You start treating animals like humans, you better plan for mass killing of said animals.
Cause that's where it ends at, very quickly - as they CAN'T FOLLOW HUMAN RULES AND REGULATIONS.
They will continue to break the rules they can't even understand, you will continue to punish them for that, until you either end up killing them or you get them to try to kill you.
At which point someone will HAVE TO kill them.
Shutting the mouths of all those "Leave Earth alone!!!" nutcases arguing that it is humanity's duty to reduce it's numbers until it is not a burden to the planet?
That, and being actual... you know... science.
Instead of... you know... a straw man troll in the same vein as "Why is this news for nerds?"
Seems like all movies that profit off of heinous acts should have to go to repay the victims of their crimes.
In ALL cases, every single one, EVER - victims became victims cause nobody heard or acted upon their cries for help.
Victims are acutely aware of that.
And they are aware of how valuable and invaluable it is to just have someone tell their story to the world.
Even if it is told badly. Like with "Mississippi Burning".
Which beats almost every single movie about Vietnam war - a war that was totally only about Americans and how THEY suffered.
Which again beats every single movie NOT made about Jeju uprising, regarding the mass executions, burning of villages, rape and the following coverup which lasted for some 60 years.
In a friendly, forward thinking, western democracy of South Korea.
Just like the Bodo League massacre and systematic mass execution of hundreds of thousands of "communist sympathizers".
Covered up for over 40 years... and clearly not considered a big deal.
Not big enough to warrant a movie, anyway.
Movies, like books, are primarily works of CULTURE AND ART AND STORYTELLING - and neither of those can ultimately belong to one person or a group of persons any more than the works of Shakespeare or the Bible or the Greek myths do.
Someone can own a block of wood with a Mona Lisa painted on it - but no one can own Mona Lisa no more than anyone can own the letter 'A'.
That's why we have copyright laws.
To assure that those who create/produce that cultural wealth FOR EVERYONE get paid something in exchange for their effort in creating something that is only valuable if everyone has free access to it.
Because you can't stop someone from seeing a movie or hearing a song - not if you ever want to make money out of showing them a movie or playing them a song.
It must be free and available to everyone so you could charge money for it.
Jerry Lewis can't charge people money for "The Day the Clown Cried". Even if he wanted to. Or if they did. And though they do.
Human art is designed to be appreciated and experienced and absorbed by other humans.
If it wasn't so easy for humans to experience that art and culture without paying or even trying (just quiz yourself about a movie you are not at all interested in - like Twilight or 50 Shades of Gray) no regulation would be needed.
Hell... you can chase down a thief and make him either burn up the calories in that apple he stole from you, beat it out of him or make him throw it up.
No amount of force or persuasion can make someone unwatch a movie or unhear a song. Sadly, in many cases.
So we have laws to try to make sure that at least some people pay for what they willingly experience.
BUT... as those laws are about monetary compensation to the creators of that art, we are fed a story that it is "all about the money" and that the movies are "just business".
Which is not true even for the most commercial of all art - pornography.
We can joke that it does not matter as long as there's sex in it - but we can't ignore the fact that there are porn STARS, and then there are "others".
Meaning that even with a movie that is so cheap to produce, both artistically and monetarily, where actor's skills are down to simple physical attributes and looks, and which is produced to satisfy such a base need - people will demand more than just a "recording of two people fucking for money".
And people will favor those who produce more than just a "recording" - thus creating popularity and fame for those performers who do "more than just recording".
That favoritism will not create MORE money though. It will only cut out of the picture those who produce only "recordings".
Even in such an utterly commercial field of film making, the goal is towards more than just money and money earned alone does not equal success nor is it the
A girl at my daughter's high school was a victim of revenge porn. She killed herself.
Sounds more like she was a victim of suicide. Caused by mental illness.
And yes.
I am saying that anyone who decides to kill themselves because of their "honor and reputation" being "sullied" is either mentally ill or a fucking moron. Or both.
This is not 1st century B.C.
"Fate worse than death" and such shit is a retarded concept relegated to myth and bodice ripper literature.
Or religious fanaticism.
If anyone, people parroting such messages of "OMG! Reputation!" to others should be put on trial for endangerment of mentally inept persons in their care.
If someone's solution to trolling is suicide, that someone needs professional help.
If their relatives/caretakers just shrugs off such obvious mental issues - they should be investigated and if possible prevented from doing similar harm in the future.
That is far from an isolated case.
By definition, what you are describing is a VERY isolated, ANECDOTAL case.
Unless you have some well researched data pointing to an epidemic of kids offing themselves, clearly caused by someone they were dumb enough to let into their pants later posting a photo of their wee-wee without permission.
And not something else... like undiagnosed mental illness and/or shitty parenting.
Also, it is bullshit. If it were true there'd be a huge Facebook-Twitter-whatever spike.
There isn't one. The rate of suicide among teens is pretty steady, and it is among lower rates.
Suicide rate also generally being FAR higher among males.
So your "not an isolated case" is PURE UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT!
To suggest that this isn't traumatic, and that the victims somehow deserve it, is asinine.
No.
To suggest that there is an epidemic of pixel-related suicides is a vile and dishonest setup of a straw man.
So is implying blame of "attacking a victim" on anyone saying otherwise.
And same goes for putting words in other people's mouth.
On the other hand, all that bullshit straw man argumentation does not refute the fact that it is prudent to practice restraint with recordings of one's private parts or actions one does not want the whole world to see.
Also, suggesting that it was sextrolling that caused the suicide and not some other underlying issue...
That's not just counterproductive - that's perpetuating a "suicide as solution for stained honor" myth.
People will go on for decades with untreated PTSD and years with clinical depression before they decide to "end it all".
That's suffering daily mental torture and still pushing on.
But a naked photo posted online will make a sane person snap instantly?
There is something VERY wrong with your view of the world if you believe that happy crap.
...full of Star Wars toys.
That guy he plays in that Amazing Stories episode - that's him in real life + acting career. 268 credits on imdb.
Anyway... It was mentioned in one of Kevin Smith's "Fatman on Batman" podcasts.
Hamill asked if he could have one of every toys they were going to make. He thought it would be kinda cool.
Imagine that, you know. You're in a movie, and they make a toy that's you in a movie... Crazy, I know!
Nobody gave it a second thought, so they included that bit in his contract.
One of every Star Wars toys. Ever.
What I want to know is do Angela Merkel's documents show that her real father was Adolf Hitler?
What's with all the "mulling"?
They are not designed with power efficiency in mind. They are designed to be functional, fashionable and cheap to produce.
So, though the same setup could be designed with more power-efficient components or solutions...
Why bother about a Watt or two or twenty lost on standby on a product that uses hundreds or thousands of Watts when working, right?
http://standby.lbl.gov/summary...
I think that my favorite on that list is the gas range that uses on average 1.13 Watts per hour on standby.
GAS range. As in... it doesn't run on electricity.
That's about 6-15 kilowatts wasted every year, per household.
Just so one could light the highly flammable gas with a press of a button instead of with a match or one of those piezoelectric gas lighters.
The proper verdict would have been to destroy both the KP partners and Pao as they all horrible human beings.
...
The partner (?)...
...
given to a loser...
...
Indian sleazebag...
...
an utter whore and slut...
...
All I can say is, "Kill them with fire. All of them."
As for this part:
1. The partner (?) who did not want to invite the women in the company to a getaway with Al Gore because it would "kill the buzz." The buzz would be killed because the excluded party were women, not because they were unpleasant people.
http://recode.net/2015/02/25/a...
And about that Al Gore dinner, Chien said that only 10 people could fit in the former vice president's living room, and only three of them were affiliated with Kleiner Perkins. Pao herself had actually suggested some invitees who were male: The CEOs of Yelp and Dropbox.
Chien insisted he'd never said anything about women killing the buzz. "Absolutely not," he said. Pao's filing was "the first time I had ever heard of the phrase."
And about the all-guy ski trip? Chien said he'd actually invited fellow Kleiner colleague Mary Meeker, but she couldn't make it. And besides, she has her own house in the area, he said.
...
Could Path founder Dave Morin invite a female entrepreneur from a Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers portfolio company on the firm's 2012 ski trip to Colorado, organized by then senior partner Chi-Hua Chien?
He could not, Chien said. As he explained in an email at the time, "The issue is that we are staying in condos, and I was thinking that gents wouldn't mind sharing, but gals might. Why don't we punt on her and find 2 guys who are awesome. We can add 4-8 women next year."
There were no women on the 2012 ski trip, and there would be no ski trip the next year.
More from TFS:
Logistically friendly and easy to build
Better Shelter will arrive in two cardboard boxes which are packed in subsequent building order.
The two boxes can be individually lifted by four people and contain an assembly instruction image manual, which lets you assemble the shelter, together with three other people in 4-8 hours.
Better Shelter is built in three sub-sequential steps:
Foundation
Roof with ventilation and solar panel
Walls with windows and door
Better Shelter is optimized to meet the high volume production condiÂtions and flat pack logistic demands required to be cost efficient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
...how will this reflect on her husband's Ponzi scheme lawsuits.
Those $16 million would have probably come in handy.
At least he reads the articles...
Because dads don't hate their own offspring?
Or do like we have hear, where leave is paid for out of a fund that all taxpayers contribute to, so nobody is penalized for taking it, and the employer doesn't pay it.
After all, people don't have to have babies.
Countries on the other hand need a fresh supply of people - i.e. babies.
But that whole discussion above (as dictated by the OP who borderline blames women for getting knocked up) ignores the real issue with the whole baby producing thing.
That it is not something that can be permanently delayed or even planned 100% (and let's not even go into twins and triplets issues... or possible health issues), requiring from a woman to be absent from work during her most productive years - and to suffer from a reintegration gap once back at work.
And higher up the ladder the job goes, the more it shows. Particularly at promotion time.
Go away for half a year, return to find that your colleague with whom you shared a desk is now your boss.
Or that he simply has half a year of experience more, while you feel like a new recruit.
Or that you no longer know anyone in your division as everyone moved on, or up - or that the whole division got restructured while you were away.
On top of that, prolonged absences from "the grind", particularly coupled with significant changes in life, can and DO change the way one looks at their old workplace.
I got drafted two years into my first job, went away for 9 months.
But even though my employer even pulled some strings to get me out on one occasion for couple of days cause they needed someone to do the job... I still returned to a company staffed with many different faces and a new boss.
None of which was an issue - we used to have seasonal hirings so you get used to company blowing up then shrinking down, people coming and going, and my new boss was my old division boss who took over for our old boss... who incidentally just had a baby, and after her maternity leave went off to another company.
But you do get a different perspective... and you start noticing complaints other people make about things you took for granted. And so you start looking around. Or you get an offer.
And so you jump ship and start over elsewhere.
As a single, young, unattached male, switching to another company and a similar job was simple.
Sacrificed my vacation time in the process though.
Which was NOT fun after previously losing vacation time on account of being drafted, coming back to work, changing jobs and then working for another year to accumulate vacation time again...
Still... no biggie.
But had I had a baby at home... and maybe no one to take care of it while I worked...
There ARE elements of the whole "baby issue" and its effect on the career path of a woman that can't just be covered by monetary compensation (but it DOES help - a lot), NOR can the men experience all those effects even with paternity leave and shared responsibilities.
But even so - it is still the best strategy NOT to have babies, for both men and women.
Which is a form of discrimination of its own - against those who have to work for a living.
Me neither.
The new solution is still sexist.
It's just that this is the kind of sexism that is culturally acceptable at the moment.
A situation where one person can get a job based on a genetic flip of a coin, followed by a genetic role of the dice that lands one with a fashionable appearance - while others are disregarded based on the genetic flip of the coin alone.
You know... When sex of the person is a disqualifying trait on a job application - and it is not a job opening in a strip-bar.
It's the same exact thing that makes "housewife" an acceptable "career choice" for a woman, while the same "career" choice for a man doesn't even have a noun of its own.
It is instead described with pejorative terms ranging from "henpecked" and "timid" to "pussywhipped".
It's culturally acceptable sexism.
No different than a burka - for women who consider that a part of their culture.
So the KKK can force a black or Jewish printer to print posters for their next rally, then?
If you answer no, you agree with the govenrnor of Indianapolis. If you answer yes, you're in favour of slavery (forcing the printer to serve against their will). Pick one.
Any business can reject customers already.
So, that imaginary Jewish printer can reject that imaginary KKK customer - RIGHT NOW.
It is their right as a business - not accepting to do a job they don't want.
What that imaginary Jewish printer can't do at this point, is pull a "religious discrimination/freedom" card should KKK complain about being discriminated for being KKK.
And as that is SO gonna happen - both that false dichotomy of yours AND that strawman... they kinda stink.
Back in the real world, this law is a license for being a dick to ANYONE (not just customers).
And should they complain one can just pull a religious script out of one's ass, with a highlighted passage which vaguely kinda gives one an excuse for being a dick.
Because religion.
At which point government (i.e. police and courts) just shrug their shoulders and go "What can we do? Religion." and may end up paying damages to the "person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened" - i.e. the penis in fabula.
But since you like the idea of Semitic examples so much...
This law allows your Muslim neighbor to call to prayer 5 times a day as loud as possible, or to perform any other religious ceremony including but not limited to slaughtering live cows, goats and sheep in their driveway or on their balcony.
And you have no one to complain to anymore.
Your boss can fire you on "religious grounds", you can get evicted for the same reason, your bank account can be charged "additional services" on account of you being a filthy unbeliever...
And boy are your female members of the family in for a surprise when they start getting pestered by men unless they are wearing a burka and are in a company of another man.
Ain't no such thing as sexual harassment in the "holy books" - but there's plenty rules on how women should act in public and at home.
Also, how long until Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses figure out that they can just camp in front of your door 24/7 cause you can't call cops on them anymore?
Experts reviewing the assessment conclude that there is no evidence for increased alarm.
http://www.sciencemediacentre....
Dr Oliver Jones, Senior Lecturer in Analytical Chemistry at RMIT University in Melbourne, said:
"The study itself says that for all compounds, the evidence of human carcinogenicity was limited or considered inadequate."
...
"People might be interested to know that there are over 70 other things IARC also classifies as 'probably carcinogenic', including night shifts."
...
"While absence of evidence is not evidence of absence this does seem to me to be a precautionary rather than a reactionary change."
Prof Alan Boobis, Professor of Biochemical Pharmacology at Imperial College London, said:
"The UK Committee on Carcinogenicity has evaluated possible links between pesticide exposure and cancer on several occasions. It has found little evidence for such a link. At most, the evidence was inconsistent and was considered insufficient to call for regulatory action.
"These conclusions of IARC are important and should be taken into account when evaluating these pesticides, but that must also take into account how the pesticides are used in the real world. In my view this report is not a cause for undue alarm."
Prof Sir Colin Berry, Emeritus Professor of Pathology at Queen Mary University of London, said:
"The weight of evidence is against carcinogenicity"
...
"This assessment has looked at a group of 43 diseases lumped into one category, multiple pesticides with very different chemistry, and has failed to include critical data. There is nothing here to suggest that the variety of genetic changes in these diseases could be caused by these pesticides. This appears to be a rather selective review."
Prof David Coggon, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of Southampton, said:
"Thus, when evaluating the epidemiological evidence, one is looking for a consistent pattern of increased risk for one or more tumour types, which is unlikely to be explained by biases (often unavoidable) in the study methods. It is clear from the summary table in the Lancet report that clear and consistent evidence of this type was not found for any of the pesticides that were considered"
...
"In contrast, studies in laboratory animals were judged to show clear evidence of carcinogenicity for four of the five compounds."
...
"The IARC report does not raise immediate alarms. However, I would expect regulatory authorities around the world to take note of this new evaluation, and to consider whether it indicates a need to review their risk assessments for any of the pesticides that they currently approve."
Prof Tony Dayan, Emeritus Toxicologist, said:
"In the present report the classification of glyphosate and malathion as carrying a Class IIA risk of causing cancer in humans reflects a variety of laboratory results with a small number of studies in man of varied quality and mixed conclusions. Detailed analysis of the nature and quality of the evidence overall does not support such a high level classification, which at the most should be Class IIB."
ONE expert made a very short remark saying that "study says glyphosate carcinogenic now" so gardeners should be careful when using pesticides.
Prof Andreas Kortenkamp, Professor in Human Toxicology at Brunel University London, said:
"IARC have carefully assessed new evidence about the cancer hazards of pesticides, and have now classified 5 pesticides as either 'probably' or 'possibly' carcinogenic to humans. The authorities in th
From the one who aren't interested, of course.
If you were forced by law to rub shit all over yourself once every four years - how many times would you have done it before looking into differences between types of shit you can rub into your skin?
Or would you just go "Aaaah... it's all the same shit."
But is it?
Dog shit, elephant shit, shit harvested from hospitals, shit from prisons, baby shit, your own shit, your girlfriend's/wife's shit, shit of some Playboy bunny...
Claiming that mandatory voting will get money out of politics is one of the stupidest things anyone has said.
From the summary:
It would be transformative if everybody voted - that would counteract money more than anything," he said, adding it was the first time he had shared the idea publicly.
He didn't say "get money out". He's not stupid. He said "counteract money".
Reduce influence of money by making it more expensive to control a significant number of votes by money and harder to achieve results against the simple will of the people.
In any case, mandatory voting is a bad idea no matter how many other countries do it. It is someone's right not to vote just as much as it is to vote, and encouraging people who otherwise have no interest in the process to vote is a mistake. Voting for voting's sake is a travesty of the process.
In other words - exercising one's freedom to take part in the process of maintaining or divesting of ALL freedoms is a travesty - because people should not be forced to use their freedom OR to be free.
Because it is no longer freedom to choose if you are forced to choose.
Which is BULLSHIT.
Along the lines that mandatory elementary education deprives people of their freedom to be uneducated or educated - as they choose fit.
You know what's the most hilarious part?
They KNEW there'd be people like you out there. Back in 1776.
But please... do keep the system you yourself know to be broken, for the reason of "it's a travesty" fallacy and cooky conspiracy theories about "the reason [which] can't be openly stated".
Obama is after your precious bodily fluids, that's it. Has to be. Or he would state (openly) that he wasn't.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibi...
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
After half a century of this I'm still not sure if it's a good thing or not, independents are more often than not fringe dwellers, radicals, and religious nutters.
Basic tests of "are you a crazy person?" and "how does government work?" for those wanting to be elected should fix a lot of that.
I mean... ANY job interview requires at least SOME qualification and basic sanity.
If you're gonna serve food to people someone might want to know do you plan on poisoning anyone or do you understand the concept of food - just in case you are an alien (from space) or a robot from the future.