Indeed... which is why when some union goon shows up with an effective labor monopoly, puts his shoes on your desk... and then presumes to tell you how it is going to be... you might sit there with a twinkle in your eye and say "yes yes... everything you want."... and then as the barbarian leaves... to very deliberately annihilate his position in a manner that he has no defense against.
It is the "oh really?!" response. You go too far and you there are consequences. The Unions with bad reps got them by crossing that line repeatedly with impunity.
Do you have something to back up that insult or are you going to stop with an entirely baseless statement that is literally of no value?
I love the idiot non-falsifiable statements from trolls on the political issues. They always show up, say some bullshit that can't actually be argued against because they didn't make a proper logical argument, and then they run away like the fucking intellectual cowards and idiots they are.
Prove me wrong, shit for brains. Make an argument. That is provide a logical position to base your conclusion upon.
Double dog dare you, you slimy pustular fecal wart.:-)
Their reputation extends well beyond the fucking 1930s and anyone that thinks their name is clean is deluded. They show up at a negotiation table and everyone on the other side tenses up as a result. Take it from people that have been there and not from the fucking 1930s.
But I'm not interested in arguing this with you. Just the fact that you're trying to pretend that this all stopped in the 1930s means I have no more patience for this tangent. Believe what you like.
If they behave themselves then maybe everything will be fine. I hope things work out well... I really do.
I have personal insight in that specific company. They wanted to stay in the area. The union's behavior pissed management off and scared them. They moved the whole operation to Korea as a result. It was sad. But it could have been avoided to at least limited in scope.
They shouldn't have sent a teamster goon to push them around.
It was what I like to call an "oh really?!" moment. That slap to the face that questions whether your mother was a whore and you like to fuck goats. You either respond or are diminished by your lack of response.
To moving plants down to the south... yep... and their manufacturing base is growing while the manufacturing base in the north continues to crumble.
The answer to your little riddle is already in evidence in the past and present.
First, we're transitioning out of the industrial era. And just as the transition out of the agricultural era there are going to be people that can't adapt. Their children will but they will not. In the past transition these people generally starved, were forced into petty crime, begged, etc. We have welfare now. So... they can drink beer, live in a mobile home, and be bitter. Its vastly more then they had the last time and society can afford it so long as the new economy continues to provide.
Second, it is a TRANSITION... industrial jobs are going to get automated in the same way that agricultural jobs were automated before. About 80 percent of the labor force was in agriculture before the industrial revolution. What happened to all those jobs? Today less then 5 percent of the labor force is in agriculture and we are a net exporter of food. There is no reason we couldn't be an industrial power house while only 5 percent of our population works in what were traditionally thought of as industrial jobs.
You can't just assume that because your existing paradigm is collapsing that the only alternative is death. Paradigms have collapsed for thousands of years and it is generally better for everyone after people have adapted. Would you prefer to go back to being a hunter gatherer? The transition to sedentary farmers was not an easy one. Our hunter gatherer ancestors were roughly the size we are today. They were well fed, physically more fit then we are today... spent their time roaming the world... and frankly lived quite well. When they transitioned to farmers they were terrible at it as evidenced by the fossil record. They were smaller, malnourished, disease ridden, and generally a great deal less healthy. But they stuck at it and over varying lengths of time got better at it. But it is not until modern times that our nutrition has improved enough that we have achieved our hunter gather stature. That's thousands of years of time.
Now the industrial revolution was painful as well... but it only took us about a generation or two to really adapt to it. The computer revolution is upon us for lack of a better term... and a great many people are not going to be able to adapt. We have infrastructure in place to keep them comfortable. The transition might take a generation or two to fully process. And then we can move forward. God knows what comes after... I assume the genetic or some sort of bioegineering innovation that could change everything.
We are marching towards the singularity. No one said there wouldn't be causalities.
Your comment doesn't make sense. I didn't say there was a by gone era when unions were not controversial and no one had a problem with them. Just because the Pinkertons got called on the unions or the president was literally called in to break a strike doesn't mean they weren't doing something genuinely good.
And just because they're pissing people off today doesn't mean they're doing anything useful what so ever.
Pissing people off is not a measure of one's value to society.
Sometimes really good people that are doing really good things piss a lot of people off. And sometimes you're just an asshole.
My statement was that at one time they were doing something good... then they took those good things that had been done and thought they were an eternal license to be jackasses for the rest of time. And as a result, there are quite a few unions that no one likes.
Find me someone that likes the dockworker's union for example. They're universal assholes.
They used to save lives. Like a lot of things that had a point once... their time has past.
I mentioned several times that unions have done some really good things in the past. And really, I have no problem with unions in principle. However, there are bad unions that need to just die. And the teamsters are on that list.
The teamsters, the dock workers, the auto workers union, and a couple others are not helping anyone besides the union leadership. Pissing off the companies or making it unprofitable to operate in various areas doesn't help the workers. It costs jobs and closes factories and encourages outsourcing.
If the unions stuck to making sure work environments were safe they wouldn't have the reputation they've earned.
You're going to have to deal with that reputation. Is google full of angels? Nope... but they're not full of retarded assholes either. And the teamsters is that.
Again... they have a rep. And my father personally dealt with them and confirms it.
My father just so you understand probably one of the most peaceful kind quiet men you'll ever meet in your life. As I said above, the company he was working for sent him to get the teamster's terms from their negotiator and the guy basically suggested he was going to beat my father up... In the conference room.
They're fucking baboons. You want to tell me about the good things unions do? I'm not talking about all unions. I'm talking about THAT union and any union like them. There are a bunch of unions that have a bad reputation of intimidation, vandalism, extortion, and general thuggery. Not all unions have that reputation. There are lots of unions that are on great terms with their industry partners and always have been. These are the unions that understand that the only way they get paid is if the company makes money and if business happens. They go to negotiating tables and understand they're not going to get everything they want.
Look at the shit the dock workers union is pulling RIGHT NOW. Its going to cost the US economy around 30 or so billion dollars and that was as of the last time I checked. And why? Because the wages they're getting paid that lots of people would fucking kill for aren't enough.
And here is my big problem with unions like that... often there is no alternative. It is a monopoly on labor.
If at the very least a given company could bargain between a few competing unions then at least they might be able to have a REAL negotiation. But when only ONE organization controls ALL the labor... you're fucked. The union knows you're fucked. And so the stupid ones fuck you. And companies don't like to get fucked. You fuck them enough and they start to think of ANY way what so ever out of that situation.
And while it might take some time... they tend to find a way out. The Unions that have been losing membership for generations are largely doing so because they over played their hands. There are several unions that haven't lost that much membership. Oh yes. Unions that are roughly as strong as they ever were... and they tend to have much better relationships with everyone because they don't play power games. Most of these unions represent skilled labor and the unions tend to restrict themselves to setting safety policy or working conditions. They actually tend to avoid involving themselves in wage negotiations leaving that up their members to work out individually. I know, that seems odd. But such unions exist.
And they do what you said... they save lives. That is where they start and that is where they stop. If the teamsters did that, they'd have a much different reputation. But they don't... and they have the rep they have.
They're going to turn a little project these people are doing because they think its neat into something they do to get even.
It will not only happen faster if they slap these people around... it will happen in a manner designed to twist the knife... and possibly a bit of salt and lemon juice might get sprinkled in there just followed by an ironic kiss kiss.
But you know what... go full Leroy Jinken's on that bitch. I can't think of anything more fitting then these fucktards going out in a blaze of self destructive half baked/half cocked idiocy. They will die as they have lived.
It doesn't even matter. Google shares a community with those companies. Find a need - Fill a need. If their neighbors start getting pissed at the teamsters then engineers from google will go over there and say "hey guys, want to try out our new automated buses?"...
If I were the teamsters, I would give that whole area a wide berth. They piss off anyone in that area and they're liable to create a test case for some start up or google or someone building an AI driver to replace them.
And the first time one of those experiments actually works well enough to replace a human driver... its over. Not just in some small part of california but across the whole country. They're going to start losing long haul trucking contracts. All of it.
In the end, its gone anyway. that's just the future and you can't fight it. But pissing off people that can make it happen faster is what a complete fool does. And the teamsters are certainly going to do that because that is their culture. They get control and then start slapping people around to get what they want. slapping people around that are building the machines that will replace them... is moronic. And that is apparently their little brainchild.
Of course not. When big national unions come in to take over labor its all roses and rainbows. The flayed men and pyres of burning bodies come later.
I judge the teamsters by their previous conduct and their reputation in other markets. As any rational person should when judging such an organization. They have a long standing reputation which people I personally know can attest to of intimidation, unreasonable demands, and basically leveraging any bargaining position past the point of breakage.
They're the sort of union that if they don't get what they want they sometimes break equipment, throw bricks through windows with murder threats on them, and other fucking insane bullshit.
Were this a union group without that reputation then I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. But this is the teamsters. They've a reputation of being rough with people that don't give them what they want. And the reality is that no one has patience for that shit anymore. These old unions still think it is the 1930s. It isn't. And if they try to start slapping around the likes of Google/Apple with this shit... they're going to get replaced with robots.
Like so many of the movies, tv shows, and books that are coming out these days there isn't some old silver screen good guy and an evil guy with a black hat and a big mustache on the opposite side.
Its all a gray area.
I'll agree that google etc aren't good guys so long as you admit there aren't any good guys left on any side.
They don't exist. There are just people with interests.
The modern unions as you've admitted are stupid assholes. Google and apple aren't stupid assholes. They might do some self serving shit with regularity but at least they're not intentionally trying to be assholes and at least they're not stupid.
Readjust your white balance. You know how your camera finds the closest thing to white and then just defines that as white and readjusts the whole image on that basis? Do that. You're not going to find true textbook good anywhere on this planet and certainly not in the hands of anyone with the power to change anything.
You find the closest thing you can and thank your deity of choice that it was even that close. Hold out for perfect and you're going to see the closest thing burn for lack of allies while the greater evils eat everything alive.
I'll support google and apple for this reason... They are effective, rational, and productive. The unions are not. They frequently work against their own interests, are batshit insane with regularity, and seem to be happiest when they're doing fucking nothing.
So... fuck em. They're bad for my society. I wish they weren't. I wish the unions lived up to their ideals. But they stopped even trying long before I was born. So fuck em. I'm sure there are some good unions that have made a point of not being assholes. I believe I know of a few that have great relations with their industry partners and generally have done very well for a very long time because they've gone out of their way to be reasonable. Those can survive. Nothing is wrong with those. The militant unions that like to shit all over everything? They can choke horse semen.
This is perhaps one of the most stupid places the teamsters could possibly make a push.
Nothing is going to inspire the likes of google and apple to build driveless cars faster than getting dicked around with by these retrograde knuckle dragging union goons.
The teamsters have lots of union works across the country that drive things. Most of their customers don't own design teams working on driverless cars. If they poke a stick in google and apple's eye over this issue they're just going to redouble their efforts.
And what happens when they succeed? Not only will the teamsters lose Silicon Valley which will have all its people driven around by robots... but their other union members all over the country will probably start losing their jobs as well. Because the various companies that employ them won't have to pay union scale anymore. They can pay robot scale. Which is low. No healthcare. No overtime. No paid vacations. No pensions.
And THAT is the company you want to piss off? This is straight up idiocy. Whomever is running the teamsters is a fucktard.
Which isn't surprising to me. My father had to negotiate with them once. Company he worked for assigned him to talk to a teamster negociator that the union had brought in to talk to the company. My dad didn't really have authority to do anything. He was just listening to the proposal so he could relay it back to management.
Anyway, the teamster guy was a giant red faced baboon that basically tried to physically intimidate my dad. My dad is not a large or physical man. He's an intellectual type guy... quiet, reasonable, believes in being nice just because. And this asshole teamster in a simple query of terms thought it was reasonable to imply he was going to beat my father up. I mean... what the fuck?
Anyway... management responded by giving the union everything they asked for. Literally everything. They just said yes down the line. Win for the teamsters right? Well, management was also massively pissed off. So they immediately started setting up an alternative operation. Takes years to set up. But the new contract would be in force for years. When the contract expired, the union sent the same asshole to ask for even more stuff. The company responded by firing them all and relocating the operation to the new site.
Does that suck? Yep. Ideally it would be nice if differences could have been resolved. But the teamsters don't negotiate. They make demands. And if you don't give them what they want, then they go into full primate mode... turning tables over, beating their chest, humping various things, throwing their poop around... and basically doing everything they can to burn all their bridges.
They're terrible at their jobs. They're really good at getting what they want TODAY. But they piss people off and no one wants to do business with them in the long term. Their whole business model is to monopolize labor so that you can't do business with anyone else. And using that as leverage they just make fucking rediculious demands. You're left with two options... either give them what they want or you have no labor period. Well... that's not fucking acceptable. If I could do business with a dozen different unions and none of them wanted to give me my price that would be one thing. But if I can only deal with ONE union then its the same as dealing with one corporation. They're under no pressure to be reasonable because you have no options.
And that just inspires companies to think of ways to get away from that bullshit. The big drive to outsource everything to asia is in large part a consequence of the unions. They drove labor over seas. And once the unions in the US are no longer a factor, we should see a significant return of that manufacturing etc to the US. It is already starting. We're seeing a lot of manufacturing growth in the South East and South West... specifically in states where the unions are weak. The unions killed the rust belt. The reason it went to rust in the first place is because they gave themselves
Your dog would let you ride him. Big dogs are happy enough with small children on their backs.
What is more, most of the problem with horses is that they are so stupid. A smarter horse could be better trained. You might want to do some instinctual programming if you're that much of a genetics master... ideally make them imprint the way dogs do... but the intelligence alone would be interesting.
Dolphins would be another fun one... Fisherman could use them. Some sort of symbiosis could be established. Or just raise the young in captivity so they don't know how to be wild.
Could be useful.
Really, I just like the idea of smarter animals. I value intelligence in everything. I like animals that are more clever and generally dislike animals that are stupid. I'd prefer for most animals to be smarter. Obviously not cows, pigs, chickens and other animals we eat. They if anything could have their intelligence toned down.
As to wanting a person, I would suggest that might be a generational divide.
Ask people over 70 and they're still pissed that they have to get out of the car to pump gas. They'd prefer a guy come up and pump it for them.
Where as my generation is much happier to avoid the check out line that has a person checking people out and just use the check out robot.
Same thing with ordering pizza... my father or mother for example would much rather call a number and talk to someone to order their pizza. I'd much rather log into a website, fill out a form, and then wait for a cell phone call when the pizza arrives.
My attitude with medical technology is similar. Consider that a lot of the lab equipment you're talking about could be consumerized. If I can buy a digital blood sugar detector at the pharmacy for 20 dollars or a pregnancy test for 5 dollars then why can't I buy any number of tests and perform them myself? If a teenage girl is competent to pee on a stick and note if the color on the strip changes color or a diabetic is competent to manage their blood sugar on a daily basis... then why can't I check for a million other things?
All you need to do is provide me with a consumerizzed test. I've seen some DNA scanners for sale that are less then a 1000 dollars. If you can sell me a machine that scans DNA for less then a thousand then I should think pretty much any blood or urine test should be something you could consumerize. What if rather then going to see a doctor twice a year, I buy some of this equipment and just test myself... going through the expense of buying new consumables for the various tests as required. I can test not only myself but my entire family. I can then feed the test data into a medical database that analyzes the information and makes formulaic medical diagnosis.
I am generally not a big fan of the FDA... but if I have to see a doctor to get a prescription then so be it. I have family that have long standing medical conditions that are not going to improve yet they have to go to the doctor at intervals to get their prescriptions renewed. They shouldn't have to do that. They should just go to the pharmacy and buy the drug. That is a different discussion however.
The big mistake in the healthcare reform push was to try and increase coverage rather then decrease costs. Costs have gone up as a result while the change in coverage is debatable. The thing I like about this technology is that it lowers costs and bypasses increasingly over priced medical institutions that are bound in legal requirements that are unreasonable... and again... mostly serve to make healthcare costs higher. Rather then put up with that bullshit, I'd like to just buy the tests myself and self diagnose.
Here you might ask "where is my medical degree?"... I'm entitled to see to my own medical diagnosis if I choose to do that. Some may want to do it another way... that is also their right. But I suspect economics alone will encourage people to my way of looking at it.
Often the estimate includes an estimate of how many times the client will change something or whatever. And really THAT has to be made a part of the estimation system.
Estimate a time if they basically don't say anything more and provide required information promptly.
Then say ANY change to that what so ever is going to change the estimate in UNPREDICTABLE ways because you don't know what they're going to do.
Here someone is going to say that this is well understood and that developers deal with this all the time. I'm not saying anything else. I am saying that you can't estimate projection completion times with that variable because it is totally unpredictable.
Are you saying that if I am a small ISP, under the new rules local governments and rival establishment ISPs can't stop me from running cable? Please say that is true. If it is... then I will probably take a 180 on this whole thing. That would be beautiful.
I have no doubt a lot of jobs are going to disapeare. But I see it in a different context.
Prior to the industrial revolution about 70 to 80 percent of all human labor was involved in agriculture. Today less then 5 percent of the labor force is in agriculture. Think of the job loss there.
You're seeing similar losses in industrial work. A lot of people conflate jobs where people work at desks with "information" or "white collar" work. But most of the jobs being threatened by the computers are actually factory work. It is factory work at a desk moving paper but you're not really being creative or using your special knowledge more then a guy working on a factory assembly line. You have a quieter and probably less dangerous environment but you're also probably not paid as well as the guy doing that work in overalls... look up the numbers. Guys working on factory lines often make more money then people working behind desks.
But the factory jobs are going to get automated. And that includes both the factory jobs on the machine shop floor and in the cubical farms.
It wouldn't surprise me if 90 percent of those jobs are ultimately automated. And the jobs that remain are not going to be the same sorts of jobs any more then the farm jobs after the industrial revolution were analogous to the farm jobs before it.
The factory jobs and farm jobs of the industrial revolution required a knowledge and facility with machinery. Instead of going out into the field and literally pushing the seeds into the dirt and then manually going out into the fields and harvesting the crops... you are going out with a machine that does one then another machine that does the other. And the job is the proper use of that machine.
What we're seeing in the factories is that increasingly machines are doing jobs that people used to do. Often a given feed material such as plate steel comes into a factory. It goes into a press perhaps that molds the steel to given forms. Then those forms are cut out of the steel using a different machine. Then those cut parts are taken to a different machine that smooths the edges of the cuts and begins the finishing process. Next the parts are sanded and possibly cut further by a CNC machine. And then those parts are often painted at this stage. And then some sort of assembly happens where lots of different parts that have all gone through their own little process are all brought together and assembled into a marketable product.
What is happening is that automation machines are being introduced that move parts from one machine to the next automatically, put them correctly into each machine, and often do some sort of quality control at each stage so that damaged parts can be removed from the line without wasting the time or energy of subsequent machines.
How does this relate to the office where some people are starting to freak out? Well... did you buy auto insurance recently? Did you use a human being to buy it or price it for you? Probably not. You probably did the whole thing online. Insurance agents are only really required for insurance claims where some human intelligence is required.
It isn't the big threat you're making it out to be. The one place I'd love to see automation totally dominate is retail sales and fast food. Those dehumanizing jobs that teenagers get where they're treated like garbage because the company cannot value them. They literally can't. They actually try and it is impossible. No chain has been able to pull it off. Automate those jobs though... and suddenly you can treat the robot like crap and not feel badly about it.
What jobs will people get when the robots and expert systems have automated all this stuff? Jobs requiring human intelligence and ingenuity. They exist. And if your company isn't spending all that money on the robot people then you have money freed up in your payroll for other positions.
What is more, consider the impact on small business. Suddenly a small mom and pop operation can cheaply expand what they do without h
While that is true that people can lie about what their data is the vast majority of traffic won't lie and it should be pretty obvious what is in the first place. I mean, do you really think an ISP is going to have to try really hard to tell the difference between a torrent stream and a VoIP stream? They're totally different.
What is more, I'm not talking about slowing anyone down a lot. Just a little and only when there is a problem. If your torrents are really slamming my system during peak usage and I can improve quality for everyone by slowing your service down by 20 percent so that VoIP works for other people... then you're an asshole if you think I shouldn't do that. You're not even going to notice I slowed your torrent down. You're probably not even sitting near your computer. The whole thing is probably an automated fucking download that you check on every couple days. And that being the case... why would I let a congestion issue ruin people's VoIP calls when I can just fix everything by slowing down a few things here and there that no one will even notice.
Keep in mind... I am NOT in favor of the more aggressive QoS strategies or the greedy policies where they basically say they'll slow you down for no reason unless you pay them money. That is bullshit. When Verizon said they'd slow Netflix specifically unless they got paid that was fucking bullshit. USERS pay the ISP. THAT is how they get paid. And the ISP should not have policies that relate to any specific company. But slowing down some types of traffic to generally make everyone happy? Yeah... that's reasonable. Its called QoS and it is totally acceptable so long as it is done with the honest intent to make the largest number of people happy on the network.
That doesn't make any sense. Bundling services is something everyone does.
If I go to a food court and buy the lunch meal at some establishment they're going to give me a package discount on the purchase. Buy these four things together and we'll knock 20 percent of the cost. I could as easily buy one burger at one place, one french fries from another, and a soda from a third... but I'll be paying more in pretty much every case.
What T Mobile is doing is offering a package discount.
Same thing happens with the cable companies that offer you a discount if you buy tv, internet, and phone service all in a package. You can buy each separately from a different outlet but you'll probably pay more.
It should also be noted that T Mobile is precisely the sort of company that is going to get fucked by regulations because they don't have the lobbying muscle of Verizon or Comcast. And anything that T Mobile does that might pose a problem for Verizon specifically is going to subjected to a certain amount of political backstabbing.
An example of something that was somewhat similar happened in France not long ago. There was a big environmental bill that passed into French law before being struck down by the French courts. And that law put big CO2 taxes on companies and individuals that emitted CO2. Excluded from the regs were older established industries that didn't have to pay anything. Basically this fucked over their competition while securing their position in the market as the only profitable supplier because anyone that wanted to compete with them would have to pay that tax while they were exempted.
Tale as old as time, friendo. These rules do nothing to break up the monopolies or make it easier to for new companies to compete with them. All you've done is fix a problem created by government regulation by increasing the government regulation... and at the same time further cementing their monopolies. Good work. Comcast and Verizon will rule forever under your regime...
Under the policies people like me advocate... we'd get a dynamic market place where companies like Comcast and Verizon would have to struggle for market share which would naturally make anti consumer activity like fucking with your data a great way to go out of business.
Under your policy... it doesn't matter what they do because no one can compete with them. Good work.
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To the contrary I think they're jackasses. There were well known to be greedy, sometimes illegal, massively egomanical, and petty.
You don't know me.
The company for all that had deep roots where it was and shifting production like that was a huge risk.
Anyway, I have no patience for fucktards that presume to mind read someone through a few posts.
You don't know me and you never will.
Indeed... which is why when some union goon shows up with an effective labor monopoly, puts his shoes on your desk... and then presumes to tell you how it is going to be... you might sit there with a twinkle in your eye and say "yes yes... everything you want."... and then as the barbarian leaves... to very deliberately annihilate his position in a manner that he has no defense against.
It is the "oh really?!" response. You go too far and you there are consequences. The Unions with bad reps got them by crossing that line repeatedly with impunity.
More non falsifiable arguments.
Contradiction is not an argument, you ignorant waste of oxygen.
Here's a funny primer on how to make a rational argument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Have fun with that, and then try again.
Do you have something to back up that insult or are you going to stop with an entirely baseless statement that is literally of no value?
I love the idiot non-falsifiable statements from trolls on the political issues. They always show up, say some bullshit that can't actually be argued against because they didn't make a proper logical argument, and then they run away like the fucking intellectual cowards and idiots they are.
Prove me wrong, shit for brains. Make an argument. That is provide a logical position to base your conclusion upon.
Double dog dare you, you slimy pustular fecal wart. :-)
So says another AC troll that throws out a lot of baseless insults backed up by nothing.
Eat a chainsaw in your mangina sideways. ;-)
Their reputation extends well beyond the fucking 1930s and anyone that thinks their name is clean is deluded. They show up at a negotiation table and everyone on the other side tenses up as a result. Take it from people that have been there and not from the fucking 1930s.
But I'm not interested in arguing this with you. Just the fact that you're trying to pretend that this all stopped in the 1930s means I have no more patience for this tangent. Believe what you like.
If they behave themselves then maybe everything will be fine. I hope things work out well... I really do.
Good day.
That's fine... if they behave themselves then maybe everything will be fine. We'll see.
Yes because anything short of your very narrow interpretation of how economics worked mostly in the 1920s and then briefly in the 1950s is slavery.
Get real.
I have personal insight in that specific company. They wanted to stay in the area. The union's behavior pissed management off and scared them. They moved the whole operation to Korea as a result. It was sad. But it could have been avoided to at least limited in scope.
They shouldn't have sent a teamster goon to push them around.
It was what I like to call an "oh really?!" moment. That slap to the face that questions whether your mother was a whore and you like to fuck goats. You either respond or are diminished by your lack of response.
To moving plants down to the south... yep... and their manufacturing base is growing while the manufacturing base in the north continues to crumble.
Adapt or die.
The answer to your little riddle is already in evidence in the past and present.
First, we're transitioning out of the industrial era. And just as the transition out of the agricultural era there are going to be people that can't adapt. Their children will but they will not. In the past transition these people generally starved, were forced into petty crime, begged, etc. We have welfare now. So... they can drink beer, live in a mobile home, and be bitter. Its vastly more then they had the last time and society can afford it so long as the new economy continues to provide.
Second, it is a TRANSITION... industrial jobs are going to get automated in the same way that agricultural jobs were automated before. About 80 percent of the labor force was in agriculture before the industrial revolution. What happened to all those jobs? Today less then 5 percent of the labor force is in agriculture and we are a net exporter of food. There is no reason we couldn't be an industrial power house while only 5 percent of our population works in what were traditionally thought of as industrial jobs.
You can't just assume that because your existing paradigm is collapsing that the only alternative is death. Paradigms have collapsed for thousands of years and it is generally better for everyone after people have adapted. Would you prefer to go back to being a hunter gatherer? The transition to sedentary farmers was not an easy one. Our hunter gatherer ancestors were roughly the size we are today. They were well fed, physically more fit then we are today... spent their time roaming the world... and frankly lived quite well. When they transitioned to farmers they were terrible at it as evidenced by the fossil record. They were smaller, malnourished, disease ridden, and generally a great deal less healthy. But they stuck at it and over varying lengths of time got better at it. But it is not until modern times that our nutrition has improved enough that we have achieved our hunter gather stature. That's thousands of years of time.
Now the industrial revolution was painful as well... but it only took us about a generation or two to really adapt to it. The computer revolution is upon us for lack of a better term... and a great many people are not going to be able to adapt. We have infrastructure in place to keep them comfortable. The transition might take a generation or two to fully process. And then we can move forward. God knows what comes after... I assume the genetic or some sort of bioegineering innovation that could change everything.
We are marching towards the singularity. No one said there wouldn't be causalities.
Your comment doesn't make sense. I didn't say there was a by gone era when unions were not controversial and no one had a problem with them. Just because the Pinkertons got called on the unions or the president was literally called in to break a strike doesn't mean they weren't doing something genuinely good.
And just because they're pissing people off today doesn't mean they're doing anything useful what so ever.
Pissing people off is not a measure of one's value to society.
Sometimes really good people that are doing really good things piss a lot of people off. And sometimes you're just an asshole.
My statement was that at one time they were doing something good... then they took those good things that had been done and thought they were an eternal license to be jackasses for the rest of time. And as a result, there are quite a few unions that no one likes.
Find me someone that likes the dockworker's union for example. They're universal assholes.
They used to save lives. Like a lot of things that had a point once... their time has past.
I mentioned several times that unions have done some really good things in the past. And really, I have no problem with unions in principle. However, there are bad unions that need to just die. And the teamsters are on that list.
The teamsters, the dock workers, the auto workers union, and a couple others are not helping anyone besides the union leadership. Pissing off the companies or making it unprofitable to operate in various areas doesn't help the workers. It costs jobs and closes factories and encourages outsourcing.
If the unions stuck to making sure work environments were safe they wouldn't have the reputation they've earned.
You're going to have to deal with that reputation. Is google full of angels? Nope... but they're not full of retarded assholes either. And the teamsters is that.
Again... they have a rep. And my father personally dealt with them and confirms it.
My father just so you understand probably one of the most peaceful kind quiet men you'll ever meet in your life. As I said above, the company he was working for sent him to get the teamster's terms from their negotiator and the guy basically suggested he was going to beat my father up... In the conference room.
They're fucking baboons. You want to tell me about the good things unions do? I'm not talking about all unions. I'm talking about THAT union and any union like them. There are a bunch of unions that have a bad reputation of intimidation, vandalism, extortion, and general thuggery. Not all unions have that reputation. There are lots of unions that are on great terms with their industry partners and always have been. These are the unions that understand that the only way they get paid is if the company makes money and if business happens. They go to negotiating tables and understand they're not going to get everything they want.
Look at the shit the dock workers union is pulling RIGHT NOW. Its going to cost the US economy around 30 or so billion dollars and that was as of the last time I checked. And why? Because the wages they're getting paid that lots of people would fucking kill for aren't enough.
And here is my big problem with unions like that... often there is no alternative. It is a monopoly on labor.
If at the very least a given company could bargain between a few competing unions then at least they might be able to have a REAL negotiation. But when only ONE organization controls ALL the labor... you're fucked. The union knows you're fucked. And so the stupid ones fuck you. And companies don't like to get fucked. You fuck them enough and they start to think of ANY way what so ever out of that situation.
And while it might take some time... they tend to find a way out. The Unions that have been losing membership for generations are largely doing so because they over played their hands. There are several unions that haven't lost that much membership. Oh yes. Unions that are roughly as strong as they ever were... and they tend to have much better relationships with everyone because they don't play power games. Most of these unions represent skilled labor and the unions tend to restrict themselves to setting safety policy or working conditions. They actually tend to avoid involving themselves in wage negotiations leaving that up their members to work out individually. I know, that seems odd. But such unions exist.
And they do what you said... they save lives. That is where they start and that is where they stop. If the teamsters did that, they'd have a much different reputation. But they don't... and they have the rep they have.
They're going to turn a little project these people are doing because they think its neat into something they do to get even.
It will not only happen faster if they slap these people around... it will happen in a manner designed to twist the knife... and possibly a bit of salt and lemon juice might get sprinkled in there just followed by an ironic kiss kiss.
But you know what... go full Leroy Jinken's on that bitch. I can't think of anything more fitting then these fucktards going out in a blaze of self destructive half baked/half cocked idiocy. They will die as they have lived.
It doesn't even matter. Google shares a community with those companies. Find a need - Fill a need. If their neighbors start getting pissed at the teamsters then engineers from google will go over there and say "hey guys, want to try out our new automated buses?"...
If I were the teamsters, I would give that whole area a wide berth. They piss off anyone in that area and they're liable to create a test case for some start up or google or someone building an AI driver to replace them.
And the first time one of those experiments actually works well enough to replace a human driver... its over. Not just in some small part of california but across the whole country. They're going to start losing long haul trucking contracts. All of it.
In the end, its gone anyway. that's just the future and you can't fight it. But pissing off people that can make it happen faster is what a complete fool does. And the teamsters are certainly going to do that because that is their culture. They get control and then start slapping people around to get what they want. slapping people around that are building the machines that will replace them... is moronic. And that is apparently their little brainchild.
Of course not. When big national unions come in to take over labor its all roses and rainbows. The flayed men and pyres of burning bodies come later.
I judge the teamsters by their previous conduct and their reputation in other markets. As any rational person should when judging such an organization. They have a long standing reputation which people I personally know can attest to of intimidation, unreasonable demands, and basically leveraging any bargaining position past the point of breakage.
They're the sort of union that if they don't get what they want they sometimes break equipment, throw bricks through windows with murder threats on them, and other fucking insane bullshit.
Were this a union group without that reputation then I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. But this is the teamsters. They've a reputation of being rough with people that don't give them what they want. And the reality is that no one has patience for that shit anymore. These old unions still think it is the 1930s. It isn't. And if they try to start slapping around the likes of Google/Apple with this shit... they're going to get replaced with robots.
Like so many of the movies, tv shows, and books that are coming out these days there isn't some old silver screen good guy and an evil guy with a black hat and a big mustache on the opposite side.
Its all a gray area.
I'll agree that google etc aren't good guys so long as you admit there aren't any good guys left on any side.
They don't exist. There are just people with interests.
The modern unions as you've admitted are stupid assholes. Google and apple aren't stupid assholes. They might do some self serving shit with regularity but at least they're not intentionally trying to be assholes and at least they're not stupid.
Readjust your white balance. You know how your camera finds the closest thing to white and then just defines that as white and readjusts the whole image on that basis? Do that. You're not going to find true textbook good anywhere on this planet and certainly not in the hands of anyone with the power to change anything.
You find the closest thing you can and thank your deity of choice that it was even that close. Hold out for perfect and you're going to see the closest thing burn for lack of allies while the greater evils eat everything alive.
I'll support google and apple for this reason... They are effective, rational, and productive. The unions are not. They frequently work against their own interests, are batshit insane with regularity, and seem to be happiest when they're doing fucking nothing.
So... fuck em. They're bad for my society. I wish they weren't. I wish the unions lived up to their ideals. But they stopped even trying long before I was born. So fuck em. I'm sure there are some good unions that have made a point of not being assholes. I believe I know of a few that have great relations with their industry partners and generally have done very well for a very long time because they've gone out of their way to be reasonable. Those can survive. Nothing is wrong with those. The militant unions that like to shit all over everything? They can choke horse semen.
This is perhaps one of the most stupid places the teamsters could possibly make a push.
Nothing is going to inspire the likes of google and apple to build driveless cars faster than getting dicked around with by these retrograde knuckle dragging union goons.
The teamsters have lots of union works across the country that drive things. Most of their customers don't own design teams working on driverless cars. If they poke a stick in google and apple's eye over this issue they're just going to redouble their efforts.
And what happens when they succeed? Not only will the teamsters lose Silicon Valley which will have all its people driven around by robots... but their other union members all over the country will probably start losing their jobs as well. Because the various companies that employ them won't have to pay union scale anymore. They can pay robot scale. Which is low. No healthcare. No overtime. No paid vacations. No pensions.
And THAT is the company you want to piss off? This is straight up idiocy. Whomever is running the teamsters is a fucktard.
Which isn't surprising to me. My father had to negotiate with them once. Company he worked for assigned him to talk to a teamster negociator that the union had brought in to talk to the company. My dad didn't really have authority to do anything. He was just listening to the proposal so he could relay it back to management.
Anyway, the teamster guy was a giant red faced baboon that basically tried to physically intimidate my dad. My dad is not a large or physical man. He's an intellectual type guy... quiet, reasonable, believes in being nice just because. And this asshole teamster in a simple query of terms thought it was reasonable to imply he was going to beat my father up. I mean... what the fuck?
Anyway... management responded by giving the union everything they asked for. Literally everything. They just said yes down the line. Win for the teamsters right? Well, management was also massively pissed off. So they immediately started setting up an alternative operation. Takes years to set up. But the new contract would be in force for years. When the contract expired, the union sent the same asshole to ask for even more stuff. The company responded by firing them all and relocating the operation to the new site.
Does that suck? Yep. Ideally it would be nice if differences could have been resolved. But the teamsters don't negotiate. They make demands. And if you don't give them what they want, then they go into full primate mode... turning tables over, beating their chest, humping various things, throwing their poop around... and basically doing everything they can to burn all their bridges.
They're terrible at their jobs. They're really good at getting what they want TODAY. But they piss people off and no one wants to do business with them in the long term. Their whole business model is to monopolize labor so that you can't do business with anyone else. And using that as leverage they just make fucking rediculious demands. You're left with two options... either give them what they want or you have no labor period. Well... that's not fucking acceptable. If I could do business with a dozen different unions and none of them wanted to give me my price that would be one thing. But if I can only deal with ONE union then its the same as dealing with one corporation. They're under no pressure to be reasonable because you have no options.
And that just inspires companies to think of ways to get away from that bullshit. The big drive to outsource everything to asia is in large part a consequence of the unions. They drove labor over seas. And once the unions in the US are no longer a factor, we should see a significant return of that manufacturing etc to the US. It is already starting. We're seeing a lot of manufacturing growth in the South East and South West... specifically in states where the unions are weak. The unions killed the rust belt. The reason it went to rust in the first place is because they gave themselves
Your dog would let you ride him. Big dogs are happy enough with small children on their backs.
What is more, most of the problem with horses is that they are so stupid. A smarter horse could be better trained. You might want to do some instinctual programming if you're that much of a genetics master... ideally make them imprint the way dogs do... but the intelligence alone would be interesting.
Dolphins would be another fun one... Fisherman could use them. Some sort of symbiosis could be established. Or just raise the young in captivity so they don't know how to be wild.
Could be useful.
Really, I just like the idea of smarter animals. I value intelligence in everything. I like animals that are more clever and generally dislike animals that are stupid. I'd prefer for most animals to be smarter. Obviously not cows, pigs, chickens and other animals we eat. They if anything could have their intelligence toned down.
As to wanting a person, I would suggest that might be a generational divide.
Ask people over 70 and they're still pissed that they have to get out of the car to pump gas. They'd prefer a guy come up and pump it for them.
Where as my generation is much happier to avoid the check out line that has a person checking people out and just use the check out robot.
Same thing with ordering pizza... my father or mother for example would much rather call a number and talk to someone to order their pizza. I'd much rather log into a website, fill out a form, and then wait for a cell phone call when the pizza arrives.
My attitude with medical technology is similar. Consider that a lot of the lab equipment you're talking about could be consumerized. If I can buy a digital blood sugar detector at the pharmacy for 20 dollars or a pregnancy test for 5 dollars then why can't I buy any number of tests and perform them myself? If a teenage girl is competent to pee on a stick and note if the color on the strip changes color or a diabetic is competent to manage their blood sugar on a daily basis... then why can't I check for a million other things?
All you need to do is provide me with a consumerizzed test. I've seen some DNA scanners for sale that are less then a 1000 dollars. If you can sell me a machine that scans DNA for less then a thousand then I should think pretty much any blood or urine test should be something you could consumerize. What if rather then going to see a doctor twice a year, I buy some of this equipment and just test myself... going through the expense of buying new consumables for the various tests as required. I can test not only myself but my entire family. I can then feed the test data into a medical database that analyzes the information and makes formulaic medical diagnosis.
I am generally not a big fan of the FDA... but if I have to see a doctor to get a prescription then so be it. I have family that have long standing medical conditions that are not going to improve yet they have to go to the doctor at intervals to get their prescriptions renewed. They shouldn't have to do that. They should just go to the pharmacy and buy the drug. That is a different discussion however.
The big mistake in the healthcare reform push was to try and increase coverage rather then decrease costs. Costs have gone up as a result while the change in coverage is debatable. The thing I like about this technology is that it lowers costs and bypasses increasingly over priced medical institutions that are bound in legal requirements that are unreasonable... and again... mostly serve to make healthcare costs higher. Rather then put up with that bullshit, I'd like to just buy the tests myself and self diagnose.
Here you might ask "where is my medical degree?"... I'm entitled to see to my own medical diagnosis if I choose to do that. Some may want to do it another way... that is also their right. But I suspect economics alone will encourage people to my way of looking at it.
Often the estimate includes an estimate of how many times the client will change something or whatever. And really THAT has to be made a part of the estimation system.
Estimate a time if they basically don't say anything more and provide required information promptly.
Then say ANY change to that what so ever is going to change the estimate in UNPREDICTABLE ways because you don't know what they're going to do.
Here someone is going to say that this is well understood and that developers deal with this all the time. I'm not saying anything else. I am saying that you can't estimate projection completion times with that variable because it is totally unpredictable.
Are you saying that if I am a small ISP, under the new rules local governments and rival establishment ISPs can't stop me from running cable? Please say that is true. If it is... then I will probably take a 180 on this whole thing. That would be beautiful.
I have no doubt a lot of jobs are going to disapeare. But I see it in a different context.
Prior to the industrial revolution about 70 to 80 percent of all human labor was involved in agriculture. Today less then 5 percent of the labor force is in agriculture. Think of the job loss there.
You're seeing similar losses in industrial work. A lot of people conflate jobs where people work at desks with "information" or "white collar" work. But most of the jobs being threatened by the computers are actually factory work. It is factory work at a desk moving paper but you're not really being creative or using your special knowledge more then a guy working on a factory assembly line. You have a quieter and probably less dangerous environment but you're also probably not paid as well as the guy doing that work in overalls... look up the numbers. Guys working on factory lines often make more money then people working behind desks.
But the factory jobs are going to get automated. And that includes both the factory jobs on the machine shop floor and in the cubical farms.
It wouldn't surprise me if 90 percent of those jobs are ultimately automated. And the jobs that remain are not going to be the same sorts of jobs any more then the farm jobs after the industrial revolution were analogous to the farm jobs before it.
The factory jobs and farm jobs of the industrial revolution required a knowledge and facility with machinery. Instead of going out into the field and literally pushing the seeds into the dirt and then manually going out into the fields and harvesting the crops... you are going out with a machine that does one then another machine that does the other. And the job is the proper use of that machine.
What we're seeing in the factories is that increasingly machines are doing jobs that people used to do. Often a given feed material such as plate steel comes into a factory. It goes into a press perhaps that molds the steel to given forms. Then those forms are cut out of the steel using a different machine. Then those cut parts are taken to a different machine that smooths the edges of the cuts and begins the finishing process. Next the parts are sanded and possibly cut further by a CNC machine. And then those parts are often painted at this stage. And then some sort of assembly happens where lots of different parts that have all gone through their own little process are all brought together and assembled into a marketable product.
What is happening is that automation machines are being introduced that move parts from one machine to the next automatically, put them correctly into each machine, and often do some sort of quality control at each stage so that damaged parts can be removed from the line without wasting the time or energy of subsequent machines.
How does this relate to the office where some people are starting to freak out? Well... did you buy auto insurance recently? Did you use a human being to buy it or price it for you? Probably not. You probably did the whole thing online. Insurance agents are only really required for insurance claims where some human intelligence is required.
It isn't the big threat you're making it out to be. The one place I'd love to see automation totally dominate is retail sales and fast food. Those dehumanizing jobs that teenagers get where they're treated like garbage because the company cannot value them. They literally can't. They actually try and it is impossible. No chain has been able to pull it off. Automate those jobs though... and suddenly you can treat the robot like crap and not feel badly about it.
What jobs will people get when the robots and expert systems have automated all this stuff? Jobs requiring human intelligence and ingenuity. They exist. And if your company isn't spending all that money on the robot people then you have money freed up in your payroll for other positions.
What is more, consider the impact on small business. Suddenly a small mom and pop operation can cheaply expand what they do without h
Really, I may be doing a 180 on my opinion of this change.
You're saying if I want to run MY OWN cable as a competing ISP... local governments and rival ISPs now can't stop me or say it is illegal?
Really? Please tell me that is what is going on... because that could break the monopolies.
While that is true that people can lie about what their data is the vast majority of traffic won't lie and it should be pretty obvious what is in the first place. I mean, do you really think an ISP is going to have to try really hard to tell the difference between a torrent stream and a VoIP stream? They're totally different.
What is more, I'm not talking about slowing anyone down a lot. Just a little and only when there is a problem. If your torrents are really slamming my system during peak usage and I can improve quality for everyone by slowing your service down by 20 percent so that VoIP works for other people... then you're an asshole if you think I shouldn't do that. You're not even going to notice I slowed your torrent down. You're probably not even sitting near your computer. The whole thing is probably an automated fucking download that you check on every couple days. And that being the case... why would I let a congestion issue ruin people's VoIP calls when I can just fix everything by slowing down a few things here and there that no one will even notice.
Keep in mind... I am NOT in favor of the more aggressive QoS strategies or the greedy policies where they basically say they'll slow you down for no reason unless you pay them money. That is bullshit. When Verizon said they'd slow Netflix specifically unless they got paid that was fucking bullshit. USERS pay the ISP. THAT is how they get paid. And the ISP should not have policies that relate to any specific company. But slowing down some types of traffic to generally make everyone happy? Yeah... that's reasonable. Its called QoS and it is totally acceptable so long as it is done with the honest intent to make the largest number of people happy on the network.
That doesn't make any sense. Bundling services is something everyone does.
If I go to a food court and buy the lunch meal at some establishment they're going to give me a package discount on the purchase. Buy these four things together and we'll knock 20 percent of the cost. I could as easily buy one burger at one place, one french fries from another, and a soda from a third... but I'll be paying more in pretty much every case.
What T Mobile is doing is offering a package discount.
Same thing happens with the cable companies that offer you a discount if you buy tv, internet, and phone service all in a package. You can buy each separately from a different outlet but you'll probably pay more.
It should also be noted that T Mobile is precisely the sort of company that is going to get fucked by regulations because they don't have the lobbying muscle of Verizon or Comcast. And anything that T Mobile does that might pose a problem for Verizon specifically is going to subjected to a certain amount of political backstabbing.
An example of something that was somewhat similar happened in France not long ago. There was a big environmental bill that passed into French law before being struck down by the French courts. And that law put big CO2 taxes on companies and individuals that emitted CO2. Excluded from the regs were older established industries that didn't have to pay anything. Basically this fucked over their competition while securing their position in the market as the only profitable supplier because anyone that wanted to compete with them would have to pay that tax while they were exempted.
Tale as old as time, friendo. These rules do nothing to break up the monopolies or make it easier to for new companies to compete with them. All you've done is fix a problem created by government regulation by increasing the government regulation... and at the same time further cementing their monopolies. Good work. Comcast and Verizon will rule forever under your regime...
Under the policies people like me advocate... we'd get a dynamic market place where companies like Comcast and Verizon would have to struggle for market share which would naturally make anti consumer activity like fucking with your data a great way to go out of business.
Under your policy... it doesn't matter what they do because no one can compete with them. Good work.