possibly a big blimp... and then drop it from the blimp... AA would be an issue but we can assume that's been pacified before something big is dropped.
30,000 pounds seems pretty close to the limit on how big you can make one of these before you need a whole new cargo plane to drop it.
They can't even use bombers to drop the existing MOAB...
Maybe a better idea would be to drop lots of smaller bombs and just "dig"... I suppose they've thought of all that.
Anyway... at some point they're going to have to build these bombs to attach like the Space Shuttle to that specially retrofitted 757 that can carry it on it's roof.
Look, my family actually farms amongst other things and so I know of what I speak here.
You don't know what you're talking about and I really don't have the patience to give you an education in... everything.
No offense... if you want to have a different opinion... whatever. That isn't how the world works and I have first hand experience with things you were probably fed and don't properly understand. I find that I'm explaining these things people three times a day... it's just too much.
I'm sorry.
Have a good life and try to be a bit more humble in your positions until you actually know what you're talking about. Truly... best of luck.
Ideally the initial development costs could be put towards other games. Look at Bethesda or Valve for example. How many times has Bethesda reused the same engine and game code? And look at Valve... once they had the source engine they made and licensed dozens of games using the same core technology.
So that isn't really an issue. The game dev should have a platform for games that can be turned towards different applications and ideas. If one doesn't work out. Kill it and shift to another idea based on the same technology. You don't even need to invent it yourself. License the engine from Unreal, valve, etc... and just run with it. Make a small proof of concept game that is worth a couple bucks and see if people like where you're going with it. Then offer the next installment for another 2 dollars and so on. ideally each component should be individual and shouldn't depend upon prior segments. That is to say I should be able to buy episodes two and five without buying or downloading episodes 1,3, or 4.
As to sequels, actually they do tend to sell well.... that's why they make so many of them.
Super mario 1. Super mario 2 Super mario 3 Super mario etc
Legend of zelda?
Sonic the hedgehog?
Serious Sam?
Unreal?
Halflife?
Warcraft 1 warcraft 2 warcraft 3 World of warcraft
Starcraft 1 Starcraft broodwars
Starcraft 2 part 1 Starcraft 2 part 2 Starcract 2 part 3
Diablo Diablo 2 Diable 2 expansion Diablo 3
Homeworld?
Doom?
warhammer 40k Warhammer 40k winter assault Warhammer 40k whatever the thing on kronos was warhammer 40k soulstorm
Warhammer 40k 2 Warhammer 40k 2 first expansion was there a second expansion? I forget.
Castlevania?
Silent hill?
Street fighter?
Mortal combat...
The whole industry is like 80 percent sequels. It just goes on and on and on and on.
I mean... you couldn't possibly have been more wrong.
*cooks up some crow with the feathers left on*... you're going to need to eat that before we continue here because that was just an absurd statement.
And most people have a little more patience with most other companies. This sort of negative attitude towards content creators is unique. No one treats their farmers this way. No one treats their accountants this way.
Everyone understands that everyone else has a right to get paid for services rendered, to reward loyal customers, and to try and punish people that steal their work.
This is no different. You don't like this specific method? Fine. But don't say the very attempt itself is immoral. it's entirely understandable and reasonable.
Do I approve of this specific method? I don't see why anyone actually cares? it doesn't hurt anyone besides perhaps resellers but honestly who is buying used PC games at this point? And really if the DLC or unlock is actually worth a damn then there are probably a dozen different freely downloadable patches that will do the unlock for you or one of the torrent networks will give you the DLC. It just doesn't matter.
I can only assume that the people that are mad about this are just mad because they like being mad about something. Just calm down... this is meaningless.
and where did the money for that salary come from? From the savings or past profits of the company or the savings or past profits of the publisher.
It's all done on speculation. When a game dies they're out time and money and have precious little to show for it.
As to building a world like oblivion in episodes... yes you can. You just don't build the whole world at once. You build part of it. And with every addon you get another piece of the world added.
Lets say episode one is entirely within a castle... so you only need to build the part of the world that is in the castle. Then episode two is in a nearby town... so you need to make all the land between the castle and the town and then make the town. Then episode three is... etc.
If you find the edge then its up to the game dev to decide how to communicate that. Maybe they put in an invisible wall. maybe they let you walk off the edge of the earth. Maybe all the ground is still there but the textures turn white and it's clear there's nothing out there but more blank space.
Stay within the module/episode and you won't encounter any of that.
What happens when you walk off the edge of the earth in Oblivion? Same difference.
As to making money, I doubt he went into the business to make a quick buck. It's a terrible business for that. Most people in teh game business are in it because they love it. There are better ways to make money if that's all you care about.
Anyway, your attitude is not constructive. Try to actually understand the issue rather then spewing bile.
They are doing their best in a very tough industry.
It's very easy to work really hard, put your heart into a project, and then have it die with NOTHING to show for it.
Even the guy flipping burgers knows he's going to get paid even though not very much. These game devs will sometimes work on projects for years spending profits from old projects or savings on the hope that the new project will be worth the effort.
Great game studios go out of business all the time for lack of sales, poor marketing, or just bad luck.
I'm not commenting on this specific technology they're trying here... I'm just saying... give them a break. They're trying really hard to stay in a business they love and we the gamers enjoy.
One thing which I wish the game companies would try more of is serialized game development. There have been some experiments with this but I really feel this is the solution to a lot of problems. Rather then making the game all in one shot, focus on sorting out the engine, netcode, etc out and then release the game in little packets good for an hour or so of gameplay.
Then the investment isn't as large. If people aren't buying the game then stop development after a couple episodes rather then completing a full season which should be roughly equivalent to a large full release game.
Further, if the game is a success and sales are good you can just keep releasing episodes ultimately making a much larger game then you'd otherwise release. And the game dev gets rewarded for making larger games.
Right now in the current game market you can charge maybe 50-60 dollars for a AAA game title. If you release a game that is twice as big as most games on the market you can't charge 120 dollars even if its' well worth it. Gamers just won't pay it.
However, if you packaged the game into episodes then you could charge 2-5 dollars per episode, release a new episode every month or so, and then keep making them for as long as people bought them.
That gives you all the long lasting profits of an MMO with all the great single player goodness we've been missing from MMO titles.
My only experience with this model so far has been the games from TellTale Games. I preordered the whole Monkey's Island series and was very happy with the process. I think I paid 40 dollars or something for the whole series and they released a new title every two months over the course of a year. I can't speak for everyone but I was very happy with the arrangement and if anything would have been very happy to buy a second season.
In any case... that's my suggestion. Break the games up into bits small enough that you can afford to fail and expandable enough that if you have a hit you can milk it for all it's worth. That's why some TV shows only have two episodes and others go on for 10 years. If it's a flop you're out the cost of a pilot. If people like it you can just keep making them until people get tired of them or you decide to retire you private island.
I'm bored with the space station... de-orbit it for all I care. I want a lunar base. I don't even need people on it. You can have it fully staffed with robots for all I care. But make them capable of doing if only by remote control everything a human being could do on the moon.
As to automation creating unequal rewards. That's only true if people will unequally contribute to the new economy.
I see no reason why most of the population can't make a valuable contribution.
The biggest thing automation will do is allow the economy IN GENERAL to make money. If your method of creating equality is to reduce the amount of money the economy makes in general then you're only creating equality by spreading poverty.
Old labor systems won't work in the future any more then old farm practices will work. Automation is not a silver bullet. It is AN ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENT FOR COMPETITION.
It is non-negotiable. We must automate to survive economically. No options. Promoting equality after that is a different and unrelated problem. First we must be competitive. Then you can worry about everything else.
Our manufacturing can be very competitive globally if we increase automation. We won't need to keep transferring our technology to other countries for free just to get affordable labor. Factory labor in general will have been made irrelevant to product costs.
As to jobs being a byproduct... I'm also saying those five jobs you created in the factory are also a byproduct. All jobs are a byproduct. When you buy an apple are you trying to employ fruit pickers? No... you want an apple. The jobs created by your purchase of the apple are an unintentional byproduct of your choices.
My point is that productivity... just making things... making money... it creates jobs... without even trying to create jobs... it just happens. If wealth is being generated somewhere doing something then people are going to be employed to service that area or that industry. They will need things. The jobs will happen if the money is being made.
As to money only having value in inequality that isn't actually how it works. It's a lot more complicated then that and I'm not going into it unless you insist.
As to product saturation creating a brave new world situation... not at all. Brave new world was centrally managed with the idea of keeping everyone happy by keeping everyone in their place. What I am proposing is the opposite. I am proposing we keep everyone interested in new things and growth by constantly changing things and constantly giving people rewards for aiding in the growth and process of the society with no interest in what place anyone should have at all.
The concepts here are very complex... I don't feel they can be discussed properly unless explored on their own which would take awhile.
Suffice to say, the US economy can be competitive in manufacturing without treating its workers poorly or paying them poorly. What needs to change is that each worker must become massively more productive without costing much more then they currently cost. Or many times more productive even that that and then we can pay them more.
The only way I can see to do that is through automation. The math doesn't work otherwise.
We'll leave other considerations for isolated and detailed discussions that are specific to those issues.
Yeah you did miss something. But it was clearly pointed out above so... either you know that already or you're not really participating in the discussion.
What I am offering is superior in every way to what we currently have and inferior in no way not present in the previous system.
All things being equal if we switched to the system I proposed it would make none of your complaints worse. It might not make them better but it wouldn't make them worse.
If you have an idea as to how to make them better or a complaint about something that would be made worse that would be relevant. Please try not to make irrelevant or moot comments.
1st: We're trying to make money. If the money is made in the US you will see a benefit from it even if there aren't many direct jobs from it. Furthermore you're getting more American jobs from this then you would if were just outsourced to china.
2nd: Jobs are a BYPRODUCT of productivity. If you want full employment we can have that tomorrow. The military can just recruit everyone. There you go... full employment. What we need to do is get the US manufacturing sector heated up again and back into export mode. After that there will be a lot of jobs if not from it then as a direct byproduct of it. factories have to be built and maintained and that probably won't be by machine. Then the factories have to be serviced by technicians. And then you need truck drivers and all sorts of other stuff that has nothing to do with the actual machines. And then you have job that come as a result of those people having jobs and spending money. All those people are going to need houses which need to be built. All those people are going to go out to restaurants which will need waiters. All those people will buy cloths at the local shops etc.
3rd: If we try and set the factory up to create jobs first and be profitable second then the factory will go out of business and there will be no jobs. If you want jobs you have to first focus on profitability which relates to sustainability of the factory. If the factory is sustainable then the jobs will stay.
4th: Read "Brave New World" by Aldus Huxley... you seem to aspire to that sort of world... it's a dead end. Make work jobs won't help our economy. we want our workers to be super productive so we can pay them more. Don't worry about them saturating the market place. If we shift to an export economy we can saturate the world... not just the US market place. And if we saturate the world we can just create new products people didn't even know they wanted before. Productivity is good.
Just because I might not look at everything personally doesn't excuse the scientist from being honor bound to offer up everything and for the system by which he is judged to be transparent.
If I or anyone else happens to not audit him then so be it. But if the system is set up we can remedy that situation in an instant.
This is good for scientists and laymen. I appreciate the reactionary elements that simply want to preserve the status quo. But the reality is that we have new systems we can try now and there are credibility problems with the existing journal system.
I think a little transparency is not much to request. really... I think scientists should demand it of themselves indifferent to the lay community. After all, how can they trust their own journals if they can't audit them. And they're clearly no less opaque to the science community then to the lay community. Why are we mutually trusting these bodies to just "do the right thing" without any ability to actually check them?
Oh sure... they're respectable... but you can slit throats by night and remain quiet respectable. Lets not pretend respectability isn't a fungible quality.
It isn't a joke. It's a statistical inevitability.
It's math.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong... eventually. The variable is how likely it is to go wrong. In this case that's impossible to calculate specifically but I would estimate it as likely given that it doesn't seem that hard and there is significant incentive to game the system.
No madoff was not respected because he had money. he was respected because BEFORE he made that pyramid scheme he contributed meaningfully to the development of the finance industry. He was well respected those quarters for a lot of things.
It would be like... Heisenberg suddenly going crazy and faking a bunch of experiments and then releasing a bunch of false theories based on those faked experiments.
A lot of people including scientists would believe it because it's Heisenberg... he's trustworthy... he's a great man... he's proved himself.
But of course it's all lies. And think how hard it would be to fight him if he did everything in his power to make you look like a fool? First, he's smarter then you are even if he's lying. Second, he has status and will use it to crush you. Third, practically no one is actually going to repeat the experiments and all of them will be afraid to publish contrary results. In fact, most of them will assume they made a mistake if they get bad results.
This isn't science's fault. This is just people. Humanity.
Scientists are people... and being people they follow human rules. People do this sort of thing.
If your system is vulnerable to something like this and it's human nature to exploit it then it will be exploited.
1. It's cheapness is sometimes a false economy. That is only appears cheaper.
2. Mechanization is almost always faster then labor intensive methods. Almost without exception.
3. Easier? I don't know what that means. Qualify that.
4. Machines are reliable once they're broken in and understood. If they're still having teething issues then sure. Otherwise machines win again.
As to the rest... we'll just agree to disagree. I've seen what you're talking about blow up in the face of more then a few companies. They followed your logic and ended the company. So given that perspective I just can't agree with you.
Look if human labor were better then machines then we'd still have slavery throughout most of the world including probably in the US. Machines made slaves obsolete. And if we take it to the next level we can make sweat shops obsolete as well.
A university would have to vouch to verify your degree.
And if you spam the system you would get banned... and if any university gets known for pumping spammers into the system then the whole university might be put on probation or something.
Its a trivial issue. Very easy to stop it because we're talking about a much smaller group of people and you're requiring the university to participate in authentication.
As to how science works, I'm not that ignorant. You don't need to actually be a practicing scientist to know how science works. And any scientist that isn't blowing wind up your skirt will tell you people are biased in various ways. For one thing people don't like to give results or findings that are different from the accepted answer. This is a known and verified problem. I can cite a couple famous examples of this if you want.
I'd rather not write an essay on the subject... lets just admit for the sake of argument that scientists are people too. Can we admit that... that scientists are human beings? Okay... well there are consequences.
WIkipedia only costs about 10 million to run a year and they're a much higher traffic system then what we're talking about.
If you spread the cost amongst the universities we're talking about such a small amount of money it could be funded outright with an endowment and then perhaps an extremely nominal fee is charged from the universities for the privilege of POSTING or submitting articles. I think reading the system should be free and open to everyone especially laymen. The cost won't matter though. It will be much less then they're spending on journals with more features. So... less money for better service.
For one thing, control. If you're not actually making the product then you don't control it. Why do you think apple had that problem with fake apple stores in China? Those stores were stocked with products stolen from apple factories which apple paid for because they had been listed as defective. They weren't defective. They were stolen.
For another, there's a big difference between designing something and actually building it as far as UNDERSTANDING what you're building. If you work with fabric all day for example you're going to have a deeper understanding of what is possible then if only work with a colored pencil. An issue many companies have had in outsourcing jobs is that at some point they're outsourced their key business model. In your example, why does that indian company need you at all? They can advertise their suit making operation directly in your city and direct market their clothing to your customers. By outsourcing to them you might have not only taught them how to do it but you would have shown them the market exists. After all, if your customers are willing to give you clothing, wait for you to send it to india, and then have you hand it back to them. Then couldn't the indian company just cut you out of the loop? What exactly are you offering that's worth anything?
As to not wanting to hire programmers... that's the future. Everyone is going to hire them. Some sort of deep proficiency in programming is going to become like literacy at some point. Do you need to hire people that can read? For some jobs it might not matter. But no modern business can function without at least a clerical staff that can read and write. Likewise, you're going to find that some sort of programming knowledge even if its basic will become increasingly common. Programmed computers will be our partners in all industry and having some programming ability will give businesses flexibility. We can set up cheats for this for a long time... simple tools that give people flexibility without programming knowledge. But eventually simple programming will have to go mainstream.
I could go on... but in my opinion at least your argument is a false economy. Out sourcing is fine if you don't effectively lose the expertise within your company. For example, I have no problem with letting another company sort my mail. It's not that complicated. But if I out source ALL of a certain type of skilled labor from my business then I lose that capability and my company becomes less flexible and more dependent. Lots of companies have made a lot of money doing what you're suggesting... and then gone out of business overnight.
If I'm sounding arrogant, then I apologize. Despite whatever impression I might be projecting I am well aware of my own ignorance.
I humbly accept counter proposals. The only thing I won't accept is that opaque unaccountable entities be trusted simply because they're "respectable."
I am human. I know they're human. I know what that means. Whatever else I don't know, I know that much. And with and by that little bit I do know... I know that can't be trusted.
So there has to be transparency and record keeping as to rejections and admissions to the journals. Or the journal system needs to be replaced with something else that inherently has these properties.
If you know more about it then me... then suggest the nature of the reform. The only place where I will put my foot down is when people start using the ad verecundiam fallacy. Scientists sadly have gotten very comfortable with using this against laymen and they do neither themselves for the laypeople they serve justice by that sort of treatment. Don't tell me they should be trusted without audit simply because they are respectable.
Trust but verify. Which is a nice way of saying "be respectful of the entity but trust absolutely nothing they say until verified."
We depend on the legitimacy of these institutions too much to not have this level of transparency.
The lay community of which I am a part depends upon scientists. We need to trust them. But they're human and that means some of them are going to lie to us. In fact, because they're human whole groups of them will lie to us. Via peer pressure large groups might misrepresent information without even realizing they're lying to us. There will be factions and power blocks and all the predictable human social structures our species always generates. That's unavoidable. So the system has to keep a record of it all.
I like the social networking idea because I like the idea of the whole peer review process happening out in the open. I think that's a neat idea. But maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. That's fine. I have stupid ideas about things... at least I'm trying.
But don't tell me to just shut up and have blind faith in things. I may not be an expert in everything but I'm not stupid or so credulous as to fall for that. I only say that to warn you that my mind is very open but on that issue specifically I will take it as a sign of bad faith if you press for a "just trust us" approach.
We just need to do away with old labor intensive methods of manufacturing.
If we mechanize enough then the labor costs become irrelevant and we can bring the manufacturing home.
To that end, we should invest heavily in additive manufacturing and other technologies that will let us leap frog the competition while rendering their cheap labor irrelevant.
Slashdot Mirror
possibly a big blimp... and then drop it from the blimp... AA would be an issue but we can assume that's been pacified before something big is dropped.
30,000 pounds seems pretty close to the limit on how big you can make one of these before you need a whole new cargo plane to drop it.
They can't even use bombers to drop the existing MOAB...
Maybe a better idea would be to drop lots of smaller bombs and just "dig"... I suppose they've thought of all that.
Anyway... at some point they're going to have to build these bombs to attach like the Space Shuttle to that specially retrofitted 757 that can carry it on it's roof.
Look, my family actually farms amongst other things and so I know of what I speak here.
You don't know what you're talking about and I really don't have the patience to give you an education in... everything.
No offense... if you want to have a different opinion... whatever. That isn't how the world works and I have first hand experience with things you were probably fed and don't properly understand. I find that I'm explaining these things people three times a day... it's just too much.
I'm sorry.
Have a good life and try to be a bit more humble in your positions until you actually know what you're talking about. Truly... best of luck.
Ideally the initial development costs could be put towards other games. Look at Bethesda or Valve for example. How many times has Bethesda reused the same engine and game code? And look at Valve... once they had the source engine they made and licensed dozens of games using the same core technology.
So that isn't really an issue. The game dev should have a platform for games that can be turned towards different applications and ideas. If one doesn't work out. Kill it and shift to another idea based on the same technology. You don't even need to invent it yourself. License the engine from Unreal, valve, etc... and just run with it. Make a small proof of concept game that is worth a couple bucks and see if people like where you're going with it. Then offer the next installment for another 2 dollars and so on. ideally each component should be individual and shouldn't depend upon prior segments. That is to say I should be able to buy episodes two and five without buying or downloading episodes 1,3, or 4.
As to sequels, actually they do tend to sell well.... that's why they make so many of them.
Super mario 1.
Super mario 2
Super mario 3
Super mario etc
Legend of zelda?
Sonic the hedgehog?
Serious Sam?
Unreal?
Halflife?
Warcraft 1
warcraft 2
warcraft 3
World of warcraft
Starcraft 1
Starcraft broodwars
Starcraft 2 part 1
Starcraft 2 part 2
Starcract 2 part 3
Diablo
Diablo 2
Diable 2 expansion
Diablo 3
Homeworld?
Doom?
warhammer 40k
Warhammer 40k winter assault
Warhammer 40k whatever the thing on kronos was
warhammer 40k soulstorm
Warhammer 40k 2
Warhammer 40k 2 first expansion
was there a second expansion? I forget.
Castlevania?
Silent hill?
Street fighter?
Mortal combat...
The whole industry is like 80 percent sequels.
It just goes on and on and on and on.
I mean... you couldn't possibly have been more wrong.
*cooks up some crow with the feathers left on*... you're going to need to eat that before we continue here because that was just an absurd statement.
And most people have a little more patience with most other companies. This sort of negative attitude towards content creators is unique. No one treats their farmers this way. No one treats their accountants this way.
Everyone understands that everyone else has a right to get paid for services rendered, to reward loyal customers, and to try and punish people that steal their work.
This is no different. You don't like this specific method? Fine. But don't say the very attempt itself is immoral. it's entirely understandable and reasonable.
Do I approve of this specific method? I don't see why anyone actually cares? it doesn't hurt anyone besides perhaps resellers but honestly who is buying used PC games at this point? And really if the DLC or unlock is actually worth a damn then there are probably a dozen different freely downloadable patches that will do the unlock for you or one of the torrent networks will give you the DLC. It just doesn't matter.
I can only assume that the people that are mad about this are just mad because they like being mad about something. Just calm down... this is meaningless.
and where did the money for that salary come from? From the savings or past profits of the company or the savings or past profits of the publisher.
It's all done on speculation. When a game dies they're out time and money and have precious little to show for it.
As to building a world like oblivion in episodes... yes you can. You just don't build the whole world at once. You build part of it. And with every addon you get another piece of the world added.
Lets say episode one is entirely within a castle... so you only need to build the part of the world that is in the castle. Then episode two is in a nearby town... so you need to make all the land between the castle and the town and then make the town. Then episode three is... etc.
If you find the edge then its up to the game dev to decide how to communicate that. Maybe they put in an invisible wall. maybe they let you walk off the edge of the earth. Maybe all the ground is still there but the textures turn white and it's clear there's nothing out there but more blank space.
Stay within the module/episode and you won't encounter any of that.
What happens when you walk off the edge of the earth in Oblivion? Same difference.
As to making money, I doubt he went into the business to make a quick buck. It's a terrible business for that. Most people in teh game business are in it because they love it. There are better ways to make money if that's all you care about.
Anyway, your attitude is not constructive. Try to actually understand the issue rather then spewing bile.
No point getting upset about it. If it's a stupid idea it will fail. If it's a good idea it will succeed.
He has every right to try to do this... he's breaking no laws.
So whether an assmonkey or not, he is entitled to do this... whether or not he makes money doing it is at question.
They are doing their best in a very tough industry.
It's very easy to work really hard, put your heart into a project, and then have it die with NOTHING to show for it.
Even the guy flipping burgers knows he's going to get paid even though not very much. These game devs will sometimes work on projects for years spending profits from old projects or savings on the hope that the new project will be worth the effort.
Great game studios go out of business all the time for lack of sales, poor marketing, or just bad luck.
I'm not commenting on this specific technology they're trying here... I'm just saying... give them a break. They're trying really hard to stay in a business they love and we the gamers enjoy.
One thing which I wish the game companies would try more of is serialized game development. There have been some experiments with this but I really feel this is the solution to a lot of problems. Rather then making the game all in one shot, focus on sorting out the engine, netcode, etc out and then release the game in little packets good for an hour or so of gameplay.
Then the investment isn't as large. If people aren't buying the game then stop development after a couple episodes rather then completing a full season which should be roughly equivalent to a large full release game.
Further, if the game is a success and sales are good you can just keep releasing episodes ultimately making a much larger game then you'd otherwise release. And the game dev gets rewarded for making larger games.
Right now in the current game market you can charge maybe 50-60 dollars for a AAA game title. If you release a game that is twice as big as most games on the market you can't charge 120 dollars even if its' well worth it. Gamers just won't pay it.
However, if you packaged the game into episodes then you could charge 2-5 dollars per episode, release a new episode every month or so, and then keep making them for as long as people bought them.
That gives you all the long lasting profits of an MMO with all the great single player goodness we've been missing from MMO titles.
My only experience with this model so far has been the games from TellTale Games. I preordered the whole Monkey's Island series and was very happy with the process. I think I paid 40 dollars or something for the whole series and they released a new title every two months over the course of a year. I can't speak for everyone but I was very happy with the arrangement and if anything would have been very happy to buy a second season.
In any case... that's my suggestion. Break the games up into bits small enough that you can afford to fail and expandable enough that if you have a hit you can milk it for all it's worth. That's why some TV shows only have two episodes and others go on for 10 years. If it's a flop you're out the cost of a pilot. If people like it you can just keep making them until people get tired of them or you decide to retire you private island.
I'm bored with the space station... de-orbit it for all I care. I want a lunar base. I don't even need people on it. You can have it fully staffed with robots for all I care. But make them capable of doing if only by remote control everything a human being could do on the moon.
As to automation creating unequal rewards. That's only true if people will unequally contribute to the new economy.
I see no reason why most of the population can't make a valuable contribution.
The biggest thing automation will do is allow the economy IN GENERAL to make money. If your method of creating equality is to reduce the amount of money the economy makes in general then you're only creating equality by spreading poverty.
Old labor systems won't work in the future any more then old farm practices will work. Automation is not a silver bullet. It is AN ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENT FOR COMPETITION.
It is non-negotiable. We must automate to survive economically. No options. Promoting equality after that is a different and unrelated problem. First we must be competitive. Then you can worry about everything else.
Our manufacturing can be very competitive globally if we increase automation. We won't need to keep transferring our technology to other countries for free just to get affordable labor. Factory labor in general will have been made irrelevant to product costs.
As to jobs being a byproduct... I'm also saying those five jobs you created in the factory are also a byproduct. All jobs are a byproduct. When you buy an apple are you trying to employ fruit pickers? No... you want an apple. The jobs created by your purchase of the apple are an unintentional byproduct of your choices.
My point is that productivity... just making things... making money... it creates jobs... without even trying to create jobs... it just happens. If wealth is being generated somewhere doing something then people are going to be employed to service that area or that industry. They will need things. The jobs will happen if the money is being made.
As to money only having value in inequality that isn't actually how it works. It's a lot more complicated then that and I'm not going into it unless you insist.
As to product saturation creating a brave new world situation... not at all. Brave new world was centrally managed with the idea of keeping everyone happy by keeping everyone in their place. What I am proposing is the opposite. I am proposing we keep everyone interested in new things and growth by constantly changing things and constantly giving people rewards for aiding in the growth and process of the society with no interest in what place anyone should have at all.
The concepts here are very complex... I don't feel they can be discussed properly unless explored on their own which would take awhile.
Suffice to say, the US economy can be competitive in manufacturing without treating its workers poorly or paying them poorly. What needs to change is that each worker must become massively more productive without costing much more then they currently cost. Or many times more productive even that that and then we can pay them more.
The only way I can see to do that is through automation. The math doesn't work otherwise.
We'll leave other considerations for isolated and detailed discussions that are specific to those issues.
Yeah you did miss something. But it was clearly pointed out above so... either you know that already or you're not really participating in the discussion.
Then your complaint is moot.
What I am offering is superior in every way to what we currently have and inferior in no way not present in the previous system.
All things being equal if we switched to the system I proposed it would make none of your complaints worse. It might not make them better but it wouldn't make them worse.
If you have an idea as to how to make them better or a complaint about something that would be made worse that would be relevant. Please try not to make irrelevant or moot comments.
Really, so if I submitted a work to Nature or the Lancet but didn't in fact have any kind of degree they'd put it through peer review?
1st: We're trying to make money. If the money is made in the US you will see a benefit from it even if there aren't many direct jobs from it. Furthermore you're getting more American jobs from this then you would if were just outsourced to china.
2nd: Jobs are a BYPRODUCT of productivity. If you want full employment we can have that tomorrow. The military can just recruit everyone. There you go... full employment. What we need to do is get the US manufacturing sector heated up again and back into export mode. After that there will be a lot of jobs if not from it then as a direct byproduct of it. factories have to be built and maintained and that probably won't be by machine. Then the factories have to be serviced by technicians. And then you need truck drivers and all sorts of other stuff that has nothing to do with the actual machines. And then you have job that come as a result of those people having jobs and spending money. All those people are going to need houses which need to be built. All those people are going to go out to restaurants which will need waiters. All those people will buy cloths at the local shops etc.
3rd: If we try and set the factory up to create jobs first and be profitable second then the factory will go out of business and there will be no jobs. If you want jobs you have to first focus on profitability which relates to sustainability of the factory. If the factory is sustainable then the jobs will stay.
4th: Read "Brave New World" by Aldus Huxley... you seem to aspire to that sort of world... it's a dead end. Make work jobs won't help our economy. we want our workers to be super productive so we can pay them more. Don't worry about them saturating the market place. If we shift to an export economy we can saturate the world... not just the US market place. And if we saturate the world we can just create new products people didn't even know they wanted before. Productivity is good.
You think any of the existing journals will let you publish without a degree? Come now.
Do you know how completely useless this system would be if it were opened up to the whole planet?
But maybe that's your point? Rather then offering constructive criticism you're just trolling to wreck it?
Well you win. Your version of my idea doesn't work. Congratulations.
That's totally meaningless. Please offer constructive ideas instead of just trying to wreck it.
Just because I might not look at everything personally doesn't excuse the scientist from being honor bound to offer up everything and for the system by which he is judged to be transparent.
If I or anyone else happens to not audit him then so be it. But if the system is set up we can remedy that situation in an instant.
This is good for scientists and laymen. I appreciate the reactionary elements that simply want to preserve the status quo. But the reality is that we have new systems we can try now and there are credibility problems with the existing journal system.
I think a little transparency is not much to request. really... I think scientists should demand it of themselves indifferent to the lay community. After all, how can they trust their own journals if they can't audit them. And they're clearly no less opaque to the science community then to the lay community. Why are we mutually trusting these bodies to just "do the right thing" without any ability to actually check them?
Oh sure... they're respectable... but you can slit throats by night and remain quiet respectable. Lets not pretend respectability isn't a fungible quality.
It isn't a joke. It's a statistical inevitability.
It's math.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong... eventually. The variable is how likely it is to go wrong. In this case that's impossible to calculate specifically but I would estimate it as likely given that it doesn't seem that hard and there is significant incentive to game the system.
No madoff was not respected because he had money. he was respected because BEFORE he made that pyramid scheme he contributed meaningfully to the development of the finance industry. He was well respected those quarters for a lot of things.
It would be like... Heisenberg suddenly going crazy and faking a bunch of experiments and then releasing a bunch of false theories based on those faked experiments.
A lot of people including scientists would believe it because it's Heisenberg... he's trustworthy... he's a great man... he's proved himself.
But of course it's all lies. And think how hard it would be to fight him if he did everything in his power to make you look like a fool? First, he's smarter then you are even if he's lying. Second, he has status and will use it to crush you. Third, practically no one is actually going to repeat the experiments and all of them will be afraid to publish contrary results. In fact, most of them will assume they made a mistake if they get bad results.
This isn't science's fault. This is just people. Humanity.
Scientists are people... and being people they follow human rules. People do this sort of thing.
If your system is vulnerable to something like this and it's human nature to exploit it then it will be exploited.
Period.
1. It's cheapness is sometimes a false economy. That is only appears cheaper.
2. Mechanization is almost always faster then labor intensive methods. Almost without exception.
3. Easier? I don't know what that means. Qualify that.
4. Machines are reliable once they're broken in and understood. If they're still having teething issues then sure. Otherwise machines win again.
As to the rest... we'll just agree to disagree. I've seen what you're talking about blow up in the face of more then a few companies. They followed your logic and ended the company. So given that perspective I just can't agree with you.
Look if human labor were better then machines then we'd still have slavery throughout most of the world including probably in the US. Machines made slaves obsolete. And if we take it to the next level we can make sweat shops obsolete as well.
A university would have to vouch to verify your degree.
And if you spam the system you would get banned... and if any university gets known for pumping spammers into the system then the whole university might be put on probation or something.
Its a trivial issue. Very easy to stop it because we're talking about a much smaller group of people and you're requiring the university to participate in authentication.
As to how science works, I'm not that ignorant. You don't need to actually be a practicing scientist to know how science works. And any scientist that isn't blowing wind up your skirt will tell you people are biased in various ways. For one thing people don't like to give results or findings that are different from the accepted answer. This is a known and verified problem. I can cite a couple famous examples of this if you want.
I'd rather not write an essay on the subject... lets just admit for the sake of argument that scientists are people too. Can we admit that... that scientists are human beings? Okay... well there are consequences.
WIkipedia only costs about 10 million to run a year and they're a much higher traffic system then what we're talking about.
If you spread the cost amongst the universities we're talking about such a small amount of money it could be funded outright with an endowment and then perhaps an extremely nominal fee is charged from the universities for the privilege of POSTING or submitting articles. I think reading the system should be free and open to everyone especially laymen. The cost won't matter though. It will be much less then they're spending on journals with more features. So... less money for better service.
Your competitors will laugh their way to the bank.
ATT already is having a hard time competing. If they raise prices they might as well go out of business.
For one thing, control. If you're not actually making the product then you don't control it. Why do you think apple had that problem with fake apple stores in China? Those stores were stocked with products stolen from apple factories which apple paid for because they had been listed as defective. They weren't defective. They were stolen.
For another, there's a big difference between designing something and actually building it as far as UNDERSTANDING what you're building. If you work with fabric all day for example you're going to have a deeper understanding of what is possible then if only work with a colored pencil. An issue many companies have had in outsourcing jobs is that at some point they're outsourced their key business model. In your example, why does that indian company need you at all? They can advertise their suit making operation directly in your city and direct market their clothing to your customers. By outsourcing to them you might have not only taught them how to do it but you would have shown them the market exists. After all, if your customers are willing to give you clothing, wait for you to send it to india, and then have you hand it back to them. Then couldn't the indian company just cut you out of the loop? What exactly are you offering that's worth anything?
As to not wanting to hire programmers... that's the future. Everyone is going to hire them. Some sort of deep proficiency in programming is going to become like literacy at some point. Do you need to hire people that can read? For some jobs it might not matter. But no modern business can function without at least a clerical staff that can read and write. Likewise, you're going to find that some sort of programming knowledge even if its basic will become increasingly common. Programmed computers will be our partners in all industry and having some programming ability will give businesses flexibility. We can set up cheats for this for a long time... simple tools that give people flexibility without programming knowledge. But eventually simple programming will have to go mainstream.
I could go on... but in my opinion at least your argument is a false economy. Out sourcing is fine if you don't effectively lose the expertise within your company. For example, I have no problem with letting another company sort my mail. It's not that complicated. But if I out source ALL of a certain type of skilled labor from my business then I lose that capability and my company becomes less flexible and more dependent. Lots of companies have made a lot of money doing what you're suggesting... and then gone out of business overnight.
If I'm sounding arrogant, then I apologize. Despite whatever impression I might be projecting I am well aware of my own ignorance.
I humbly accept counter proposals. The only thing I won't accept is that opaque unaccountable entities be trusted simply because they're "respectable."
I am human. I know they're human. I know what that means. Whatever else I don't know, I know that much. And with and by that little bit I do know... I know that can't be trusted.
So there has to be transparency and record keeping as to rejections and admissions to the journals. Or the journal system needs to be replaced with something else that inherently has these properties.
If you know more about it then me... then suggest the nature of the reform. The only place where I will put my foot down is when people start using the ad verecundiam fallacy. Scientists sadly have gotten very comfortable with using this against laymen and they do neither themselves for the laypeople they serve justice by that sort of treatment. Don't tell me they should be trusted without audit simply because they are respectable.
Trust but verify. Which is a nice way of saying "be respectful of the entity but trust absolutely nothing they say until verified."
We depend on the legitimacy of these institutions too much to not have this level of transparency.
The lay community of which I am a part depends upon scientists. We need to trust them. But they're human and that means some of them are going to lie to us. In fact, because they're human whole groups of them will lie to us. Via peer pressure large groups might misrepresent information without even realizing they're lying to us. There will be factions and power blocks and all the predictable human social structures our species always generates. That's unavoidable. So the system has to keep a record of it all.
I like the social networking idea because I like the idea of the whole peer review process happening out in the open. I think that's a neat idea. But maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. That's fine. I have stupid ideas about things... at least I'm trying.
But don't tell me to just shut up and have blind faith in things. I may not be an expert in everything but I'm not stupid or so credulous as to fall for that. I only say that to warn you that my mind is very open but on that issue specifically I will take it as a sign of bad faith if you press for a "just trust us" approach.
We just need to do away with old labor intensive methods of manufacturing.
If we mechanize enough then the labor costs become irrelevant and we can bring the manufacturing home.
To that end, we should invest heavily in additive manufacturing and other technologies that will let us leap frog the competition while rendering their cheap labor irrelevant.