Oh no no no no!!! You referenced "ax"! That's officially "ebonics" now. You can't question or criticize that or anything like it because that's racist... unless you're black, then you can say that all day long, in which case, please forgive me for talking down to you because I'm just a guilty white man.
This sort of honesty is rare. For the reasons that you stated.
Rare? It's pretty much all I hear these days: Subtle racism and then someone complaining if you object to it. Often they complain without anyone objecting (here two people complained). It's the new political correctness.
Recently SallieMae called to talk to me about one of my employees who's delinquent on his student loans. The caller was clearly Indian. I remarked that it hardly seems to help American students repay their loans,
Should SallieMae move the jobs on-shore, increase its expenses, reduce its other spending, and increase the interest rates it charges to the students?
Also, if Indians don't have jobs, they don't buy American products which means fewer jobs and less income available for those students.
Finally, those students might want to work for a foreign company some day; if we don''t hire in India, they won't hire here.
One drawback to cutting spending is that it reduces economic activity and growth, reducing tax revenue (not to mention increasing unemployment), resulting in higher interest rates on our debt and very possibly worsening our situation . Europe tried that approach.
Here's a better idea: chop the size of federal government down so it's no longer a big slush fund for social nuts on the left or military nuts on the right.
It would be great to get rid of the waste. The problem is, how do we eliminate the waste without eliminating the good and necessary things too? Unless someone comes up with a way to govern without corruption, we can't have one without the other.
I'm not saying there is nothing we can do, but it's easier said than done.
I doubt persons saying "ax" instead of ask are using an older form of English or German, since most of their ancestors originally spoke an African tongue. (Sorry; just speaking truth.) They are merely mispronouncing the word, in the same way that mispronounce "po" instead of poor.
You're missing the point. The point is that language and pronunciation changes. I bet yours is imperfect too.
What's really absurd is for so many Americans with so many regional accents and dialects, from the South to Boston 'Southie', to pick on one dialect as a problem but not the others. Their priority they put on proper pronunciation is also a little hard to fathom. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that it's not the dialect that they have a problem with.
Adjust tax policy to where the cost of an outsourced employee, as well as the cost of importing goods and materials for manufacturing (only if already locally available), are taxed at a rate so as to equal the cost +5% which in turn encourages usage of local resources, goods, and materials.
There are several drawbacks:
* If we increase the cost of producing American goods, then sales of those goods will decrease. Also, the costs for other American companies will go up too, because they use those goods as inputs (e.g., if the price of steel goes up, then GM and Ford must pay more to make cars).
* If we inhibit American companies from employing foreign workers, then foreign countries will inhibit their companies from employing Americans. Many Americans are employed by foreign companies, including in manufacturing. For example, the South has experienced a manufacturing boom due to foreign automakers building plants there, and Chrysler is now an Italian company.
This would also create an uptick in the demand for American manufacturing.
Maybe domestically, but not internationally, where people will lose jobs and trade will be discouraged. For many American companies, most of their sales are in other countries.
College is also another problem. Politicians seem to think unskilled labor should always go overseas, which forces people to pursue degrees that they may not want just to be safe. How is upwards of 30k in debt going to benefit someone that has a mindset for a completely different type of work? America needs blue collar work, because many Americans are blue collar. Phone support is entry level white collar, and we could use that too.
I think it's condescending and arrogant to tell people they are, a priori, not suitable for college and high paying jobs. What happened to the American Dream and the Land of Opportunity? Plus, ask anyone who does physical labor whether they'd rather sit at a desk, and how their back feels after 20 years of doing it every day, or their feet when their still on them all day at 60 years old.
Politicians think that American want to make more money, which I think is a safe assumption; to make more money, you need more valuable skills, which requires more education -- especially in a world where the most valuable skills are cognitive and not physical. Do Americans want to work for 10 cents an hour stitching shirts? I'm glad those jobs are gone.
Not only is it Good to help other people, including through job training, it's good for the United States on a purely self-interested level:
* If people in other countries don't have jobs, they can't buy American products or fund the production of products we want.
* If we help others, they are more likely to think well of us when we need political support. For example, if we don't help the Egyptian people, they might not see things our way when it comes to Mideast politics. Our 'soft power' is our greatest power.
If we don't help others, others won't help us or trust us.. What kind of world do you want to live in? Where nobody helps anyone else? Why should I help you?
What I, and many others, take issue with is that some of these people come over here and bring with them the very parts of their culture they were coming here to get away from. If you're going to come here to live your life exactly as you were living it in your home country, go back home. Immigrating to America is supposed to be about improving your life and our country; if you're not interested in doing at least one of those things, we're not interested in having you here.
People have been complaining about immigrants since the second one set foot here (and the Native Americans probably said the same about the first European settlers), and it's always been the same complaints, that they don't integrate into the culture, learn the language etc. It was said about the Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Latinos, Chinese, etc etc.. They said the same about your ancestors.
Lucky for them that they moved to a free country, where you have no more right to tell them how to live than visa-versa, and your interest in having them here is no more important than their interest in having you here.
Personally, I find narrow-minded bigotry and intolerance to be the only serious problem we face. The arrogance and short-sightedness astounds me. Don't they know where these attitudes lead? Who are they to think they are so much better than everyone else?
Yet another ad? This time we're even given prices and the colors it comes in. Is this the home shopping channel for nerds? There is nothing innovative or interesting about gimmick furniture with run-of-the-mill consumer electronics embedded in it. This isn't Google Glasses or a 3-D printer.
The editors may again protest that they didn't intend it as an ad. Either that's disingenuous or they are blind to what any reader can see. I wish they would put as much effort into finding great content as into spamming their own homepage.
Why does Slashdot still waste their readers' time with this debate? Are we going to have a series of posts of people questioning evolution and the second law of thermodynamics?
I know many Americans are too arrogant to grasp this, but most of the world's population don't actually know let alone care about most things that happen in the USA. Just like most Americans are ignorant of, say, Danish politics.
I can see how that might be your intuition but it's not true in practice. Foreign media report quite a bit about US politics and much else. For many the US is an object of fear, fascination, and admiration, and the leading source of global culture from music to fine arts to politics to the Internet to celebrity fodder. Remember the world-wide response to the election of Obama; he even received the Nobel Peace Prize almost purely for what he symbolized to the world.
Also, because the US is so influential, people in other countries have much at stake in American elections. For example, you might imagine that people in Iran, Israel, and various Persian Gulf nations (as well as Afghanistan, Taiwan, China, South Korea, North Korea, etc etc) have a strong interest in who the next President is and who controls Congress.
The core experience is the story selection and, most importantly, the discussion. As many others have posted, I'm not interested in the new features and gimmicks.
A couple ways to improve the experience:
* Better story selection. There are too many press releases (from Apple, MIT, etc.) and provocative fringe science or political posts. It's just filler. Spend some time seeking out innovative, consequential stories. Look at the most interesting developments in sources like Nature, Science, and IEEE Spectrum. Maybe more economics?. You have a community that enjoys intellectual challenges which really makes Slashdot unique. Differentiate yourselves.
* Fix the problem of discussions ending too quickly: It's an old problem that I think people just accept as fate, but it would improve the user experience: If I see a story a few hours after it's posted, it's too late to join the discussion; the posts will never be modded up. Maybe send more moderators to later posts, or somehow weigh those posts heavier.
Could you call it 'flag spam'? 'Flag abuse' feels like giving people the option to complain rather than to respond like an adult. It appears on every post which could affect the culture.
I haven't had any problem with spam, but maybe that's due to your efforts behind the scenes.
First, one story shouldn't be taken out of context. Thank you for many valuable and enjoyable hours Slashdot has filled in my life over the years. Personally, it's been my favorite site in the history of the web, no exaggeration.
I have asked the people who run Slashdot these days to handle videos differently, and I am refusing to have my name anywhere near the more blatantly promotional ones.
The problem is not the ads, but the coverup. Ads are fine. I know it's not your intent, but you're effectively deceiving people by presenting an ad as editorial content. If you lose that trust, we don't know what to believe -- maybe other stories are really ads, maybe submissions and comments are moderated by/for advertisers, etc. Also, people get angry when they are deceived, and rightfully so. Again, I know you don't intend that.
Just be transparent and open about it. Publish a policy on what Slashdot will or won't do for advertisers, and clearly mark ads and editorial. If the story was marked 'paid advertisement', nobody would object. If it's well-targeted, people might even enjoy it and find it valuable. How about presentations by 3-D printer manufacturers, Facebook or Mozilla engineers, physicists, with some Q&A?
I have asked the people who run Slashdot these days to handle videos differently, and I am refusing to have my name anywhere near the more blatantly promotional ones.
Be transparent about everything. You posted the story and now you are suggesting that someone else made the editorial decision to post it. Are they just using your name now?
I doubt it's their intent, but the editors should realize that it's deceitful to pretend an ad is editorial content. And from the readers' perspective it's worse, because we don't know what is an ad and what isn't. Readers can spot the obvious ads, but who knows what else on the site is also an ad. Other stories? Comments? Are comments moderated to suite advertisers?
Slashdot needs to publish a policy on journalistic ethics (and follow it, of course). There is nothing wrong with ads or paid content, but just be open and transparent about them.
The value of Slashdot has been its community, its shared interests and relatively high level of discussion. Can anyone suggest similar communities elsewhere?
Reddit is a different community, less scientifically oriented in its interests and thinking. Maybe Quora? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I hope Slashdot turns things around, but if not, where else can we go?
Perhaps the number of on-site robberies of physical currency plunged. I'm willing to bet the number of remote robberies of electronic currency more than compensated.
Slashdot Mirror
Is this a joke?
Oh no no no no!!! You referenced "ax"! That's officially "ebonics" now. You can't question or criticize that or anything like it because that's racist... unless you're black, then you can say that all day long, in which case, please forgive me for talking down to you because I'm just a guilty white man.
This sort of honesty is rare. For the reasons that you stated.
Rare? It's pretty much all I hear these days: Subtle racism and then someone complaining if you object to it. Often they complain without anyone objecting (here two people complained). It's the new political correctness.
Recently SallieMae called to talk to me about one of my employees who's delinquent on his student loans. The caller was clearly Indian. I remarked that it hardly seems to help American students repay their loans,
Should SallieMae move the jobs on-shore, increase its expenses, reduce its other spending, and increase the interest rates it charges to the students?
Also, if Indians don't have jobs, they don't buy American products which means fewer jobs and less income available for those students.
Finally, those students might want to work for a foreign company some day; if we don''t hire in India, they won't hire here.
Cut spending ...
Or increase revenue?
One drawback to cutting spending is that it reduces economic activity and growth, reducing tax revenue (not to mention increasing unemployment), resulting in higher interest rates on our debt and very possibly worsening our situation . Europe tried that approach.
So you admit that the two parties in charge are corrupt, and yet you still want to work in that system. See the problem yet?
What's the alternative? Name a political system, now or in history, that wasn't corrupt?
Out of curiosity, how did you happen to find this story on Slashdot?
Here's a better idea: chop the size of federal government down so it's no longer a big slush fund for social nuts on the left or military nuts on the right.
It would be great to get rid of the waste. The problem is, how do we eliminate the waste without eliminating the good and necessary things too? Unless someone comes up with a way to govern without corruption, we can't have one without the other.
I'm not saying there is nothing we can do, but it's easier said than done.
I don't see how bi-lingual forms impact you. It seems like a nice thing to do for the people who don't speak English well.
I also don't see how it impacts your economic well-being?
One thing is for sure: Anger and outrage have a long track record of unhappy consequences for everyone.
I doubt persons saying "ax" instead of ask are using an older form of English or German, since most of their ancestors originally spoke an African tongue. (Sorry; just speaking truth.) They are merely mispronouncing the word, in the same way that mispronounce "po" instead of poor.
You're missing the point. The point is that language and pronunciation changes. I bet yours is imperfect too.
What's really absurd is for so many Americans with so many regional accents and dialects, from the South to Boston 'Southie', to pick on one dialect as a problem but not the others. Their priority they put on proper pronunciation is also a little hard to fathom. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that it's not the dialect that they have a problem with.
Adjust tax policy to where the cost of an outsourced employee, as well as the cost of importing goods and materials for manufacturing (only if already locally available), are taxed at a rate so as to equal the cost +5% which in turn encourages usage of local resources, goods, and materials.
There are several drawbacks:
* If we increase the cost of producing American goods, then sales of those goods will decrease. Also, the costs for other American companies will go up too, because they use those goods as inputs (e.g., if the price of steel goes up, then GM and Ford must pay more to make cars).
* If we inhibit American companies from employing foreign workers, then foreign countries will inhibit their companies from employing Americans. Many Americans are employed by foreign companies, including in manufacturing. For example, the South has experienced a manufacturing boom due to foreign automakers building plants there, and Chrysler is now an Italian company.
This would also create an uptick in the demand for American manufacturing.
Maybe domestically, but not internationally, where people will lose jobs and trade will be discouraged. For many American companies, most of their sales are in other countries.
College is also another problem. Politicians seem to think unskilled labor should always go overseas, which forces people to pursue degrees that they may not want just to be safe. How is upwards of 30k in debt going to benefit someone that has a mindset for a completely different type of work? America needs blue collar work, because many Americans are blue collar. Phone support is entry level white collar, and we could use that too.
I think it's condescending and arrogant to tell people they are, a priori, not suitable for college and high paying jobs. What happened to the American Dream and the Land of Opportunity? Plus, ask anyone who does physical labor whether they'd rather sit at a desk, and how their back feels after 20 years of doing it every day, or their feet when their still on them all day at 60 years old.
Politicians think that American want to make more money, which I think is a safe assumption; to make more money, you need more valuable skills, which requires more education -- especially in a world where the most valuable skills are cognitive and not physical. Do Americans want to work for 10 cents an hour stitching shirts? I'm glad those jobs are gone.
Not only is it Good to help other people, including through job training, it's good for the United States on a purely self-interested level:
* If people in other countries don't have jobs, they can't buy American products or fund the production of products we want.
* If we help others, they are more likely to think well of us when we need political support. For example, if we don't help the Egyptian people, they might not see things our way when it comes to Mideast politics. Our 'soft power' is our greatest power.
If we don't help others, others won't help us or trust us.. What kind of world do you want to live in? Where nobody helps anyone else? Why should I help you?
What I, and many others, take issue with is that some of these people come over here and bring with them the very parts of their culture they were coming here to get away from. If you're going to come here to live your life exactly as you were living it in your home country, go back home. Immigrating to America is supposed to be about improving your life and our country; if you're not interested in doing at least one of those things, we're not interested in having you here.
People have been complaining about immigrants since the second one set foot here (and the Native Americans probably said the same about the first European settlers), and it's always been the same complaints, that they don't integrate into the culture, learn the language etc. It was said about the Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Latinos, Chinese, etc etc.. They said the same about your ancestors.
Lucky for them that they moved to a free country, where you have no more right to tell them how to live than visa-versa, and your interest in having them here is no more important than their interest in having you here.
Personally, I find narrow-minded bigotry and intolerance to be the only serious problem we face. The arrogance and short-sightedness astounds me. Don't they know where these attitudes lead? Who are they to think they are so much better than everyone else?
Yet another ad? This time we're even given prices and the colors it comes in. Is this the home shopping channel for nerds? There is nothing innovative or interesting about gimmick furniture with run-of-the-mill consumer electronics embedded in it. This isn't Google Glasses or a 3-D printer.
The editors may again protest that they didn't intend it as an ad. Either that's disingenuous or they are blind to what any reader can see. I wish they would put as much effort into finding great content as into spamming their own homepage.
Why does Slashdot still waste their readers' time with this debate? Are we going to have a series of posts of people questioning evolution and the second law of thermodynamics?
I know many Americans are too arrogant to grasp this, but most of the world's population don't actually know let alone care about most things that happen in the USA. Just like most Americans are ignorant of, say, Danish politics.
I can see how that might be your intuition but it's not true in practice. Foreign media report quite a bit about US politics and much else. For many the US is an object of fear, fascination, and admiration, and the leading source of global culture from music to fine arts to politics to the Internet to celebrity fodder. Remember the world-wide response to the election of Obama; he even received the Nobel Peace Prize almost purely for what he symbolized to the world.
Also, because the US is so influential, people in other countries have much at stake in American elections. For example, you might imagine that people in Iran, Israel, and various Persian Gulf nations (as well as Afghanistan, Taiwan, China, South Korea, North Korea, etc etc) have a strong interest in who the next President is and who controls Congress.
The core experience is the story selection and, most importantly, the discussion. As many others have posted, I'm not interested in the new features and gimmicks.
A couple ways to improve the experience:
* Better story selection. There are too many press releases (from Apple, MIT, etc.) and provocative fringe science or political posts. It's just filler. Spend some time seeking out innovative, consequential stories. Look at the most interesting developments in sources like Nature, Science, and IEEE Spectrum. Maybe more economics?. You have a community that enjoys intellectual challenges which really makes Slashdot unique. Differentiate yourselves.
* Fix the problem of discussions ending too quickly: It's an old problem that I think people just accept as fate, but it would improve the user experience: If I see a story a few hours after it's posted, it's too late to join the discussion; the posts will never be modded up. Maybe send more moderators to later posts, or somehow weigh those posts heavier.
A clear separation between ads and stories.
Agreed. The most important change is to be transparent about it.
Could you call it 'flag spam'? 'Flag abuse' feels like giving people the option to complain rather than to respond like an adult. It appears on every post which could affect the culture.
I haven't had any problem with spam, but maybe that's due to your efforts behind the scenes.
Thanks.
Robin -
First, one story shouldn't be taken out of context. Thank you for many valuable and enjoyable hours Slashdot has filled in my life over the years. Personally, it's been my favorite site in the history of the web, no exaggeration.
I have asked the people who run Slashdot these days to handle videos differently, and I am refusing to have my name anywhere near the more blatantly promotional ones.
The problem is not the ads, but the coverup. Ads are fine. I know it's not your intent, but you're effectively deceiving people by presenting an ad as editorial content. If you lose that trust, we don't know what to believe -- maybe other stories are really ads, maybe submissions and comments are moderated by/for advertisers, etc. Also, people get angry when they are deceived, and rightfully so. Again, I know you don't intend that.
Just be transparent and open about it. Publish a policy on what Slashdot will or won't do for advertisers, and clearly mark ads and editorial. If the story was marked 'paid advertisement', nobody would object. If it's well-targeted, people might even enjoy it and find it valuable. How about presentations by 3-D printer manufacturers, Facebook or Mozilla engineers, physicists, with some Q&A?
I have asked the people who run Slashdot these days to handle videos differently, and I am refusing to have my name anywhere near the more blatantly promotional ones.
Be transparent about everything. You posted the story and now you are suggesting that someone else made the editorial decision to post it. Are they just using your name now?
The problem isn't the ads, but the coverup.
I doubt it's their intent, but the editors should realize that it's deceitful to pretend an ad is editorial content. And from the readers' perspective it's worse, because we don't know what is an ad and what isn't. Readers can spot the obvious ads, but who knows what else on the site is also an ad. Other stories? Comments? Are comments moderated to suite advertisers?
Slashdot needs to publish a policy on journalistic ethics (and follow it, of course). There is nothing wrong with ads or paid content, but just be open and transparent about them.
The value of Slashdot has been its community, its shared interests and relatively high level of discussion. Can anyone suggest similar communities elsewhere?
Reddit is a different community, less scientifically oriented in its interests and thinking. Maybe Quora? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I hope Slashdot turns things around, but if not, where else can we go?
Any bets on whether a "guy around me" app would have raised any inkling of similar outcry?
Hmmm ... I wonder why it wouldn't. This was modded "insightful"?
I wonder why people think intentional ignorance will somehow yield good results for them or our society.
* Partisan opinion: Solar Power Is Booming â" Obama administration is killing it
* Partisan opinion masquerading as fact: Solar Power Is Booming â" Why Do We Want To Kill It?
Is this the new Slashdot TV: Fair and Balanced?
Perhaps the number of on-site robberies of physical currency plunged. I'm willing to bet the number of remote robberies of electronic currency more than compensated.
That's what the useful idiots always say. I'm sure that Germans in 1920 didn't expect to see mass extermination camps in their country either.
Sweden in 2012 is like Germany in 1920?
I agree, anything is possible, but I'm going to focus on the things that might actually happen.