GNOME 3, while awful, has been the least of my problems with 'modern' Linux. Weird problems with systemd often prevent my Linux system from booting far enough to even get to a login prompt. I'd switch to a different distro, but all of the major ones now use systemd. I don't want to use an archaic distro like Slackware, or a niche distro like Devuan, or a weird one like Gentoo. So recently I've been using NetBSD and really liking it. I don't know if I even want to go back to Linux.
Which DEs do NetBSD come w/? I've been using PC-BSD and now TrueOS, and love Lumina, but have gotten stuck at a particular version and can't even use the App Cafe. I plan to upgrade at some point so that I can, but until then, wanted to know how good the alternatives are within BSDland?
Except that Canonical has different distros for different DEs/WMs: Lubuntu, Xubuntu, and until they handed it off to someone else, Kubuntu. Their default options on the original Ubuntu were Unity and Gnome. Now that they've dropped Unity, Gnome is the one left. But really, they should have picked something else, like Razor-qt or LX/QT: Gnome 3 is, as you said, pretty ugly & unwieldy
Fully agree w/ you. Everywhere I've lived, I've had only ONE choice of broadband. It might have been different had I invited someone else, like say U-verse, but I needed broadband for my FaceTime & Vonage calls. Don't have a TV, so refused to buy a service. But bottom line: if I wanna get rid of, say, Xfinity, I'd have to change addresses. That's hardly choice of providers
Xfinity is the only choice in my condo apartment: only way I have a choice of ISPs is if I'm into DSL, and even on that, I'm not sure I can still get Earthlink. In the late 90s, there was a healthy market of DSL providers, but cable took forever, and that too, was just a handful. In Charlotte, all I had in my apartment was TWC, while in Atlanta, it was Charter Spectrum (this was before their acquisition of TWC).
It's not a competitive market if I have to change addresses to change ISPs
That's not what proponents of pot say. Even while they support aggressive campaigns against tobacco. The former is a behavior altering intoxicant. The latter is a health toxin, but not an intoxicant. Anybody who wants to legalize narcotics while outlawing tobacco is either insane, or an anarchist
That ploy can only happen ONCE: the first time, the 1% will take it in the gut. After that, they will go ahead, and either park their money overseas, or if things become bad enough, simply leave. It will be tough to support the economy once they're gone, since the economy ain't the reserves of gold, silver, platinum, diamonds and other precious metals and rare earths, but the productivity of the population. Sap that, and the economy will no longer have legs to stand on.
I mentioned this elsewhere in this page. A non-governmental mechanism would have to be created for this to work: government would have to be kept OUT of it. For the reasons you described, having government do this will be pure communism; however, if the free market is allowed to do this, w/ UBI built in, that would create a minimum standard of living. Yeah, there will be people who will live within their comfort zone, but there will also be others who will consider that inadequate, and trade w/ each other, and earn what they want to get the other things in life - a laptop, an iPhone, a 4K TV, et al
Automation is something that's already been recognized as an upcoming trend, and would over the period of time you mention, take over most unskilled labor. The preparations for it need to start and be phased in to accompany this trend, so that when it reaches a stable equilibrium, UBI would be in place to take care of the problem it creates - massive unemployment. While the employees of that era would have been prepared for that future either through advanced education, or through specialized trades, the employees of today and the transition period would be displaced. UBI needs to be phased in to make sure that they don't fall through the cracks through no fault of their own.
Alaska has a population less than a million, which is less than a lot of US cities. So for starters, it doesn't even scale. Second, it's a state that has plenty of oil, so that it can afford to pay that to the few people who live in those areas that they want them to live in.
There is no way such a plan could be implemented in MI, PA, CA, or most states on the mainland
Except that automation was not a factor threatening most jobs in that era, the way it is now. And everybody agrees that automation is a good thing: it increases process efficiency, and hence productivity, of most processes, saving companies money. Like your self service check-out aisles at Costco or Walmart, or replacing government bureaucrats w/ automation that includes OCR based application & approval processes. As more jobs get automated, leaving fewer jobs that people are capable of doing, the choices are either UBI, or homelessness and starvation.
But for the reasons you alluded to, I do think government has no business running any UBI schemes, and they should not be funded using tax money, or else, it'll be nothing but unadulterated socialism. Instead, there should be private mechanisms for private citizens to generate that basic income (like, say, Bitcoin mining) that would automatically cover home & food. Anything beyond that that they want, they can look for any job, but now they are free to choose only the ones they enjoy, not the ones they have to take to pay the bills.
Actually, if pot was regulated the way tobacco is - that relentless campaign against the latter - the war on drugs would be a lot more successful. Problem w/ most Leftists is that they wanna legalize pot but ban cigarettes/cigars/et al. Incidentally, hookahs are considered cool, despite being another tobacco source: had cigarettes or cigars had an Islamic heritage, they'd probably have been just as welcome as pot or hookahs.
America is almost always used to describe the US. If one wants to use a single term to combine North and South America, then one says 'The Americas', not America.
What you are describing is selling a service, not transferring wealth. Paying for building a road, or a school, or the police or fire departments is paying for a service, or in the latter cases, paying out the salaries of law enforcement to keep them employed full time. Transfer of wealth is taking money from Peter, who has a job, to pay Paul, who doesn't. Sooner or later, Peter will figure out that he has more to gain by slacking off (in honor of this site's new owner today) and living a lifestyle similar to Paul's, and then, government won't have the money to pay either Peter or Paul. You can argue that Peter would be more philanthropic and keep working like he did earlier, even though he's earning less, but statistically, most of the Peters out there will become Pauls, especially as they won't need to work to keep their homes or food: it'll automatically be paid for.
Which is why we need such a scheme to be a non-governmental scheme, so that it doesn't collapse under its own weight
UBI is a good idea for the reasons its proponents state: increased automation, and a disappearing job base. But making it a government program makes it undisguised socialism - particularly the way you've spelt it out. If taxes are gonna be increased to pay for it, it'll be like Obamacare: more and more people are gonna drop out of the tax pool and try and be UBI recipients, which will make the whole thing collapse of its own weight.
Better idea is to, ironically, automate the UBI program: have people automatically generate money (say, like Bitcoin miners), that would cover home & food. Anything beyond that - they'd have to earn, since it's a want, not a need. Then you'll get the benefits people are looking for: everybody only doing the jobs the actually enjoy doing. A good side effect is that the minimum wage could be eliminated, and also, the tax base of the US government would reduce so that there are only a few things that federal and state governments would be able to do.
Also, if this scheme is made global, er, universal, it will eliminate the mercenary reasons for people to immigrate to Western countries. The only reasons to immigrate would be things like cultural.
There has to be a private sector mechanism of paying for this. Any government run scheme would run the economy into the ground, and be a mere transfer of wealth.
UBI wouldn't increase that if everybody gets it: in such a scenario, everybody's basic needs are covered, and then it's upto people on whether they want to earn more, or are happy w/ their lot. Since everybody aspires for more money, you can be sure that that won't disappear: it's just that people will no longer be penalized for not having a job.
Very good point. I do think that any UBI scheme shouldn't be government driven, since government only gets money from taxes. A different mechanism should be sought. Maybe something akin to bitcoin, or another computing generated currency?
But like you say, once an UBI is in place, minimum wage laws can go away, and companies can resume hiring kids, for whom that's usually their first steps into the workplace. Also, such entry level jobs would be more interesting, since the grunt jobs would mostly have been automated. And as far as adults go, they can focus on doing what they really enjoy doing, be it coming out w/ gender neutral bathroom designs, or US border wall designs. And ways of getting paid for such activities would ultimately come to them.
UBI I'd basically giving everyone a trophy just for showing up, regardless of actually being productive. Millennials may love this, but it's terrible for productivity. Everyone needs to contribute in some way, but UBI discourages this. But everyone gets a trophy...
The theme here is that when it makes more sense to automate most jobs, including, increasingly, more of the jobs that people are capable of doing, the options before society is to let poverty & homelessness take over, as income sources get eliminated, or have something like UBI. That way, everybody gets to pay for their home & food, and anything beyond that, they have to earn
One thing I'll say, though: any UBI schemes should not be a government run scheme. Reason: governments, aside from being bad at doing anything, would need to raise money from taxes, which would be impossible to recoup from a shrunk income base. Better idea would be to devise ways that people can be compensated for doing the 'mundane' but necessary things, like raising a family, keeping each other entertained and so on.
Slashdot Mirror
Only thing: so far I miss Steam, but the latest TrueOS allows one to play that under WINE. But that's why I need the latest update.
GNOME 3, while awful, has been the least of my problems with 'modern' Linux. Weird problems with systemd often prevent my Linux system from booting far enough to even get to a login prompt. I'd switch to a different distro, but all of the major ones now use systemd. I don't want to use an archaic distro like Slackware, or a niche distro like Devuan, or a weird one like Gentoo. So recently I've been using NetBSD and really liking it. I don't know if I even want to go back to Linux.
Which DEs do NetBSD come w/? I've been using PC-BSD and now TrueOS, and love Lumina, but have gotten stuck at a particular version and can't even use the App Cafe. I plan to upgrade at some point so that I can, but until then, wanted to know how good the alternatives are within BSDland?
Except that Canonical has different distros for different DEs/WMs: Lubuntu, Xubuntu, and until they handed it off to someone else, Kubuntu. Their default options on the original Ubuntu were Unity and Gnome. Now that they've dropped Unity, Gnome is the one left. But really, they should have picked something else, like Razor-qt or LX/QT: Gnome 3 is, as you said, pretty ugly & unwieldy
Fully agree w/ you. Everywhere I've lived, I've had only ONE choice of broadband. It might have been different had I invited someone else, like say U-verse, but I needed broadband for my FaceTime & Vonage calls. Don't have a TV, so refused to buy a service. But bottom line: if I wanna get rid of, say, Xfinity, I'd have to change addresses. That's hardly choice of providers
Xfinity is the only choice in my condo apartment: only way I have a choice of ISPs is if I'm into DSL, and even on that, I'm not sure I can still get Earthlink. In the late 90s, there was a healthy market of DSL providers, but cable took forever, and that too, was just a handful. In Charlotte, all I had in my apartment was TWC, while in Atlanta, it was Charter Spectrum (this was before their acquisition of TWC).
It's not a competitive market if I have to change addresses to change ISPs
While that may be a trend, unemployment rates are still less than 10%. It would have to be above 50% for your statement to be even remotely true
That's not what proponents of pot say. Even while they support aggressive campaigns against tobacco. The former is a behavior altering intoxicant. The latter is a health toxin, but not an intoxicant. Anybody who wants to legalize narcotics while outlawing tobacco is either insane, or an anarchist
That ploy can only happen ONCE: the first time, the 1% will take it in the gut. After that, they will go ahead, and either park their money overseas, or if things become bad enough, simply leave. It will be tough to support the economy once they're gone, since the economy ain't the reserves of gold, silver, platinum, diamonds and other precious metals and rare earths, but the productivity of the population. Sap that, and the economy will no longer have legs to stand on.
The giveaway was right in the headline - 'Oh Wait, No It Wasn't. Never Mind'
I mentioned this elsewhere in this page. A non-governmental mechanism would have to be created for this to work: government would have to be kept OUT of it. For the reasons you described, having government do this will be pure communism; however, if the free market is allowed to do this, w/ UBI built in, that would create a minimum standard of living. Yeah, there will be people who will live within their comfort zone, but there will also be others who will consider that inadequate, and trade w/ each other, and earn what they want to get the other things in life - a laptop, an iPhone, a 4K TV, et al
Automation is something that's already been recognized as an upcoming trend, and would over the period of time you mention, take over most unskilled labor. The preparations for it need to start and be phased in to accompany this trend, so that when it reaches a stable equilibrium, UBI would be in place to take care of the problem it creates - massive unemployment. While the employees of that era would have been prepared for that future either through advanced education, or through specialized trades, the employees of today and the transition period would be displaced. UBI needs to be phased in to make sure that they don't fall through the cracks through no fault of their own.
Alaska has a population less than a million, which is less than a lot of US cities. So for starters, it doesn't even scale. Second, it's a state that has plenty of oil, so that it can afford to pay that to the few people who live in those areas that they want them to live in.
There is no way such a plan could be implemented in MI, PA, CA, or most states on the mainland
Except that automation was not a factor threatening most jobs in that era, the way it is now. And everybody agrees that automation is a good thing: it increases process efficiency, and hence productivity, of most processes, saving companies money. Like your self service check-out aisles at Costco or Walmart, or replacing government bureaucrats w/ automation that includes OCR based application & approval processes. As more jobs get automated, leaving fewer jobs that people are capable of doing, the choices are either UBI, or homelessness and starvation.
But for the reasons you alluded to, I do think government has no business running any UBI schemes, and they should not be funded using tax money, or else, it'll be nothing but unadulterated socialism. Instead, there should be private mechanisms for private citizens to generate that basic income (like, say, Bitcoin mining) that would automatically cover home & food. Anything beyond that that they want, they can look for any job, but now they are free to choose only the ones they enjoy, not the ones they have to take to pay the bills.
Actually, if pot was regulated the way tobacco is - that relentless campaign against the latter - the war on drugs would be a lot more successful. Problem w/ most Leftists is that they wanna legalize pot but ban cigarettes/cigars/et al. Incidentally, hookahs are considered cool, despite being another tobacco source: had cigarettes or cigars had an Islamic heritage, they'd probably have been just as welcome as pot or hookahs.
Actually, narcotic sales alone should be able to fund UBI
America is almost always used to describe the US. If one wants to use a single term to combine North and South America, then one says 'The Americas', not America.
What you are describing is selling a service, not transferring wealth. Paying for building a road, or a school, or the police or fire departments is paying for a service, or in the latter cases, paying out the salaries of law enforcement to keep them employed full time. Transfer of wealth is taking money from Peter, who has a job, to pay Paul, who doesn't. Sooner or later, Peter will figure out that he has more to gain by slacking off (in honor of this site's new owner today) and living a lifestyle similar to Paul's, and then, government won't have the money to pay either Peter or Paul. You can argue that Peter would be more philanthropic and keep working like he did earlier, even though he's earning less, but statistically, most of the Peters out there will become Pauls, especially as they won't need to work to keep their homes or food: it'll automatically be paid for.
Which is why we need such a scheme to be a non-governmental scheme, so that it doesn't collapse under its own weight
OS/2 has been sold to AMD to be ported and used on their ARM platform. It will be available exactly 3 years from today: 4/1/2020
"Slacker News" and a bad orange design? Hope this stays only on April 1st as a prank.
Yeah, I wondered whether the Slackware Linux project has gained possession of Slashdot?
UBI is a good idea for the reasons its proponents state: increased automation, and a disappearing job base. But making it a government program makes it undisguised socialism - particularly the way you've spelt it out. If taxes are gonna be increased to pay for it, it'll be like Obamacare: more and more people are gonna drop out of the tax pool and try and be UBI recipients, which will make the whole thing collapse of its own weight.
Better idea is to, ironically, automate the UBI program: have people automatically generate money (say, like Bitcoin miners), that would cover home & food. Anything beyond that - they'd have to earn, since it's a want, not a need. Then you'll get the benefits people are looking for: everybody only doing the jobs the actually enjoy doing. A good side effect is that the minimum wage could be eliminated, and also, the tax base of the US government would reduce so that there are only a few things that federal and state governments would be able to do.
Also, if this scheme is made global, er, universal, it will eliminate the mercenary reasons for people to immigrate to Western countries. The only reasons to immigrate would be things like cultural.
There has to be a private sector mechanism of paying for this. Any government run scheme would run the economy into the ground, and be a mere transfer of wealth.
UBI wouldn't increase that if everybody gets it: in such a scenario, everybody's basic needs are covered, and then it's upto people on whether they want to earn more, or are happy w/ their lot. Since everybody aspires for more money, you can be sure that that won't disappear: it's just that people will no longer be penalized for not having a job.
If this is driven & done by governments, it will be a disaster, just like you describe. There needs to be a private sector mechanism to fund all this.
Very good point. I do think that any UBI scheme shouldn't be government driven, since government only gets money from taxes. A different mechanism should be sought. Maybe something akin to bitcoin, or another computing generated currency?
But like you say, once an UBI is in place, minimum wage laws can go away, and companies can resume hiring kids, for whom that's usually their first steps into the workplace. Also, such entry level jobs would be more interesting, since the grunt jobs would mostly have been automated. And as far as adults go, they can focus on doing what they really enjoy doing, be it coming out w/ gender neutral bathroom designs, or US border wall designs. And ways of getting paid for such activities would ultimately come to them.
UBI I'd basically giving everyone a trophy just for showing up, regardless of actually being productive. Millennials may love this, but it's terrible for productivity. Everyone needs to contribute in some way, but UBI discourages this. But everyone gets a trophy...
The theme here is that when it makes more sense to automate most jobs, including, increasingly, more of the jobs that people are capable of doing, the options before society is to let poverty & homelessness take over, as income sources get eliminated, or have something like UBI. That way, everybody gets to pay for their home & food, and anything beyond that, they have to earn
One thing I'll say, though: any UBI schemes should not be a government run scheme. Reason: governments, aside from being bad at doing anything, would need to raise money from taxes, which would be impossible to recoup from a shrunk income base. Better idea would be to devise ways that people can be compensated for doing the 'mundane' but necessary things, like raising a family, keeping each other entertained and so on.