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User: stenvar

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  1. Re:How about on U.S. Gov't Still Fighting the Man Behind Buckyballs; Guess Who's Winning? · · Score: 1

    But with buckeyballs it was a product that was very fun, and the cause of injury was not immediately apparent.

    The cause of injury may not be readily apparent with most dangerous adult things when you give them to kids.

    You should only give your kids things you understand and know to be safe for them. If you give them anything else, it is your fault.

  2. Re:Banning automation is bad on 45% of U.S. Jobs Vulnerable To Automation · · Score: 1

    If firing 250 workers saves the corporation but either results in the death of those 250 workers or increases the cost to the rest of society dramatically then you also have a problem.

    What a great concept. Why don't we start applying this concept with you? We could reduce unemployment by simply forcing you to hire a nanny. You may not need a nanny, but so what? You're much better off than the unemployed nanny, you can afford it, and so you should be required to hire her. And even if you don't need her, you should make her feel good by actually letting her be in your living room during the day and pretend that she is actually working by giving her a baby doll. That, in essence, is what you're proposing, just on a larger scale.

    And some of them are now executives at other businesses.

    Yet, for all their faults, they are still doing a better job than you ever could, because otherwise you would be hired instead of them.

    One really has to wonder where the mind-numbing stupidity of your kind of arguments comes from.

  3. Re:Banning automation is bad on 45% of U.S. Jobs Vulnerable To Automation · · Score: 1

    Because if one company lays off the 250 then they are more profitable.

    Only if these workers weren't actually needed. If they were needed to produce the product, they will be making less product, and hence less profit.

    And then they buy out the competition and spread their practice.

    If firing 250 workers actually improves profit, then that is absolutely the right thing to do, not just economically but morally.

  4. Re:Banning automation is bad on 45% of U.S. Jobs Vulnerable To Automation · · Score: 1

    If your factory has 1000 workers each doing 40 hours a week, and automation makes 250 of those human jobs unnecessary, instead of laying off 250 people altogether while keeping the remaining 750 on a 40 hour schedule, keep everyone on board at 30 hours a week.

    That's the right idea, but your thinking about the mechanisms is wrong. The reason we have 40 hour work weeks is because that's effectively imposed by government regulations; trying to work half time is a real problem because things like benefits etc. just don't work out right. If employers and employees could negotiate more freely over working hours, people would and could naturally reduce their working hours.

    Even if you pay them the same hourly wage (because you’re a greedy asshole who’ll be first against the wall when the revolution comes,) thirty hours is better than zero hours.

    It's not a question of greed. People get paid roughly what they are worth, based on supply and demand for labor, and what they produce. Automation generally replaces many low paid jobs with fewer high paid jobs, saving the company a small percentage in the process. The people who "lose their jobs" then go on to other jobs, often after investing in some more training to be able to make themselves more valuable.

  5. and we'll all be better off for it on 45% of U.S. Jobs Vulnerable To Automation · · Score: 1

    Jobs in services, sales, and construction may also be lost in this first stage.

    Yes, and more and better jobs will appear in sectors of the economy that we can't even imagine today, just like they always have.

    If automation hadn't release large numbers of people from slaving in factories and on fields, people who are software engineers, game designers, yoga instructors, etc. would be forced to work in those jobs. We'd all be much worse off.

    Politicians have been yelling themselves hoarse over the jobs issue in this country for the past few years, and the current situation isn't anywhere near as bad. At what point will we start seeing legislation forbidding the automation of certain industries?"

    Hopefully never, because it's a extremely stupid idea. If you want people to do useless jobs, why even bother with that? Why not ensure that there are tons of jobs digging ditches and forbidding anything more complicated? That also eliminates inequality at the same time: everybody will be dirt poor.

  6. "out of phase" or subspace? on It Takes 2.99 Gigajoules To Vaporize a Human Body · · Score: 1

    The only "reasonable" explanation within the Star Trek canon (if the term applies) is that the corpses are pushed "out of phase" or into subspace or something. Otherwise, there really is no place for the mass to go.

  7. Re:Bad science on It Takes 2.99 Gigajoules To Vaporize a Human Body · · Score: 1

    That's called a defabricator, and it's a whole lot more fun.

  8. no rewards on Study Shows Professors With Tenure Are Worse Teachers · · Score: 1

    Tenured or not, universities have plenty of ways to reward and punish faculty. Tenured faculty aren't rewarded for good teaching, they are rewarded for bringing in money, serving in visible positions outside the universities, and generating buzz and publications. So that's where they spend their time and effort.

  9. Re:no ghettos pre-internet? on Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? · · Score: 1

    so legitimate and justified the 911 operator told him it wasn't necessary.

    And when the 911 operator told him that, he actually stopped following Martin and returned to his car. Legally, he could have continued following Martin.

    I'd love to see how you would react to being persistently followed by a stranger.

    I have been persistently followed by a stranger, in particular in gated communities. That is common, and in no way related to race. I've also been followed and gotten mugged, and the sensible thing even in that case, if you can't run, is to comply and be non-violent. Martin's reaction was wrong and stupid, and it got him killed.

    If the last few days haven't gotten you Zimmerman apologists to rethink what kind of person you're defending you're hopeless.

    I can't stand Zimmerman: he is a wannabe cop busybody with psychological problems, but that doesn't change the facts of the case. And it doesn't change the fact that kids like Martin will continue to get killed if they behave as stupidly as he did.

    It also doesn't change the fact that white guys killing black guys is extremely rare, and even rarer when it happens out of racist motives.

  10. Re:I don't get it on Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? · · Score: 1

    When self-righteous pricks like you tell me there is no "real" racism anymore, I don't listen.

    Which part of this didn't you get?

    I've been in mixed race relationships, I know there is racism, both from some whites and some blacks. It's hurtful, harmful, and stressful. But that racism does not and cannot account for the vast disparities in crime or SES, not even close.

    Yes, you obviously don't listen, you just insult.

  11. Re:I don't get it on Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? · · Score: 1

    The racism does account for SES. The number one predictor of lifetime income is lifetime income of your parents. When generations of low-SES was guaranteed by racism (yes, even going back to slavery), one can claim that the disparity today is the result of racism and social inertia.

    Yes, the disparity today is the result of past racism. I said as much.

    But you said that the disparity is a consequence of the fact that the system "is" racist, and that's not true.

    We know how to get rid of racism in our current society, and have done so fairly well, to the extent that government intervention can do this at all.

    But there is nothing that we can do about past racism because we can't even do a proper accounting and because current generations have no responsibility for the crimes of a small group of rich slave owners in the South.

  12. Re:I don't get it on Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? · · Score: 1

    The studies I've seen show they are. There was a relatively recent study I saw where names were grouped by ethnicity, and resumes were pulled from job sites and submitted to jobs

    We were discussing disparate sentencing, not employment discrimination.

    Julie was more likely to get a call/interview than Shawanda.

    "Shawanda" isn't so much a marker of race but a marker of low class and bad parenting. "Bobby Jo" and "Brandyne" (both white redneck names) would also fare worse than "Julie".

    And there's a simple way out: change your name. Most of my ancestral relatives anglicized their names when they came to the US (different branches did it differently). Asian families figured that out long ago too. "Zhang Xiu" long ago became "Steve Zhang" for the purposes of interacting with Westerners, or even "Steve Archer" if the family decided it just wasn't worth the hassle keeping their Chinese name.

    The rule is the same for all races: you want your kid to succeed? Call him/her Peter, Anne, Jane, Michael, John, Susan, etc. Simple, and good parenting. If you break that rule, you and your kids have to live with the consequences.

    I'm discussing what is, you are discussing what "should be".

    I don't think you even have discussed "what is". You have discussed what a shrill minority of blacks and their progressive white allies are concerned with. Most blacks I know realize that there is still some racism, but it doesn't dominate their lives, and more and more are getting tired of all this discussion altogether; just listen to Cosby, Cain, and Freeman.

  13. You can be a feminist without being a nut job cunt.

    That doesn't matter. People at tech conferences should behave professionally. That means: dressing conservatively, conservative hair styles, refraining from publicly talking about non-tech subjects, refraining from listening in on other people's private conversations, and refraining from dragging politics or sexuality into the conference.

    Tech conferences are no more the place for feminism or achieving women's equality than they are for titstare.com jokes. Feminists are as unprofessional and out of place at tech conferences as the people they criticize. Both kinds of people should be banned, because both are behaving unprofessionally.

  14. Re:Should have done it on MTV on Sexist Presentations At Startup Competition Prompt TechCrunch Apology · · Score: 1

    The fight for legal equality did not end with the 19th Amendment.

    No, but lots of people are fighting for legal equality, and not everybody who does is a feminist. Although feminists claim they encompass everybody who wants to achieve equality for women, they clearly don't in practice. Feminism in practice is a particular ideological and political stance, one that I happen to think does more harm than good.

    This current discussion shows that. Feminists have constructed some elaborate theory about how objectification of women causes harm, and you pretty much have to accept that to be a feminist. I think they are full of sh*t, but that doesn't mean I oppose equal rights and responsibility for women.

  15. Re:I don't get it on Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? · · Score: 1

    The rich white kid caught shoplifting doesn't get a conviction. The poor Black kid does

    First, we are talking modest percentage differences, not such "black and white" differences. Furthermore, juvenile records are sealed, so they can't hurt job prospects.

    Most importantly, those differences are generally not accidental or directly race related. Juvenile courts have to take the family and social environment into consideration when deciding how to rehabilitate a kid, and that is objectively much worse for black kids on average. They often can't let them go because that would be even worse.

    Because it teaches the Black community that they'll be treated unfairly no matter what they do

    That just doesn't square with the facts. The primary cause of differences in outcomes in the legal system is due to SES, family environment, recidivism, etc. Actual different treatment due to racism in the justice system is only detected through careful statistical analysis, and even that is controversial and recent. Black youth don't base their worldview on academic studies.

    And if, hypothetically, only 60% of criminals in white communities are convicted, while 90% of criminals in black communities are convicted, I think it's white communities that are being treated unfairly.

    so they might as well be as bad as everyone presumes they are, they have no other choice.

    Of course they have another choice, and a large and successful black middle class attests to it. The reaction to unfair treatment shouldn't be to throw in the towel, it should be to recognize it and try to succeed despite of it. Anything else is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

  16. Re:I don't get it on Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? · · Score: 1

    I've been in mixed race relationships, I know there is racism, both from some whites and some blacks. It's hurtful, harmful, and stressful. But that racism does not and cannot account for the vast disparities in crime or SES, not even close.

    The best thing is to vote with your feet: leave racist and segregated communities and move to safe, accepting, preferably mixed communities.

  17. Re:Congratulations on Sexist Presentations At Startup Competition Prompt TechCrunch Apology · · Score: 1

    Maybe if you live up north, but down here the differences are a lot less dramatic. "Stop talking about racism" will be a good idea eventually, but we're not to the point yet where we can just let it drop.

    The way many people talk about it, they are pissing off the people up north by lumping all whites together as racists, and all men as oppressors of women. On balance, that makes things worse, not better.

  18. Re:Manners on Sexist Presentations At Startup Competition Prompt TechCrunch Apology · · Score: 1

    Because it is good manners to do so.

    It also used to be good manners not to show your breasts in public.

    Now that women do show them, why shouldn't men stare at them?

  19. Re:Should have done it on MTV on Sexist Presentations At Startup Competition Prompt TechCrunch Apology · · Score: 1

    Supporting feminism has nothing to do with your gender or sexual preference.

    Feminism has the goal of helping women, but it is also a specific philosophy and approach of achieving that. Whether that approach actually works is an open question.

    Originally, feminism made positive contributions, namely a fight for legal equality.

    These days, it is something entirely different, and feminism today probably hurts women's causes more than helping them.

  20. Objectification is conventionally considered sexism even when it doesn't contain explicit stereotypes, because it's implicitly dehumanizing. You don't consider it sexism.

    It's considered sexism by feminists. The rest of us don't give a damn, we're having too much fun objectifying each other, you know, as part of normal human sexuality, eroticism, and loving relationships.

    Can we please just ban feminists from tech conferences?

  21. Re:I don't get it on Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? · · Score: 1

    I asked for evidence for your statement:

    And a blak with no criminal record is no more likely to commit a murder than a white

    That is an absolutely unbelievable statement because black males disproportionately grow up in broken homes, bad neighborhoods, and with relatives convicted of violent crimes. It would be amazing if their murder rates were still the same as the population average.

    So, I'd still like to see evidence for this.

    It seems to me that you believe that the small amount of racism people believe they identify in the criminal justice system supports your statement, but it does not. Differences in murder rates (and other crime rates) are much larger than any possible racism in the legal system could account for. And even that "racism" is a shaky statistical inference, not solid proof.

    I saw a nice single study that showed that, when you correct for SES and recividism, a black man serves a greater percent of his sentence for a given time sentenced, and is given a longer sentence for the same crime, and is more likely to be convicted, and is more likely to be prosecuted, and is more likely to be charged, and so on. The conclusion was that it's the racism of the system that causes the problem, and not the Black people.

    There probably is some degree of racism in the system. But all those studies show differences that are far too small to account for the 1-2 orders of magnitude differences in crime rates.

    Furthermore, most of what you list affects people who have actually committed crimes. Tell me: why would it be better for the black community to return criminals into the community sooner and not prosecute crime in black communities very vigorously?

    In fact, it is neither racism nor the fault of blacks; you simply have a group of people of low SES growing up in neighborhoods with lots of criminal activity and broken families, and the pattern is self-sustaining. The process got started through race because of forced segregation, but it is now sustained voluntarily by the very people it hurts, because of irrational fears of mainstream society and delusions that something like a separate "Black culture" exists.

    If we could eliminate racially segregated neighborhoods and force people to integrate, all the racial disparities would disappear within a few generations. As things stand, people choose to continue to live in misery because they don't understand what they are doing and don't know how to get out of it.

  22. Re:I don't get it on Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? · · Score: 1

    And you're the asshole because you don't see that it is the same thing, only less of it.

    Life's a struggle for everybody to some degree. As a society, we have created a few legally protected categories for groups that have historically experienced vicious and extraordinary persecution. You clearly don't fall into that category, given what you have said about your background and history. Common decency and self-respect should dictate that people like you refrain from claiming to be a member of such a group, but obviously you think differently. Of course, you'll eventually discover that you're mainly hurting yourself anyway.

  23. Re:I don't get it on Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? · · Score: 1

    And a blak with no criminal record is no more likely to commit a murder than a white

    Source? Evidence?

    The only explanation is that the system is racist.

    Oh, there are much simpler explanations, like the fact that 70% of black youths come from single parent households and that many of them are surrounded by criminal activity. Racism probably initiated that cycle of crime and broken families, but there is no clear evidence that it is still required or contributes significantly to these differences in outcomes.

    Yeah, because a black person in a white neighborhood is likely to have someone go all Zimmerman on them.

    Likely? You can take the FBI crime statistics and easily compute murder rates per 100000 population of each race:

    black-on-black: 5.9
    black-on-white: 1.1
    white-on-white: 1.0
    white-on-black: 0.07

    White on black murders are so ridiculously uncommon that a white neighborhood is probably the safest place for a black person to be. And the large difference between black-on-white and white-on-black rates shows that these differences aren't (just) due to lack of opportunity.

    (Of course, Martin wouldn't have been counted in those statistics. But there were 326 justifiable homicide / self-defense killings; I can't find the race data for that, but even if they had been all white-on-black, it still wouldn't change the conclusion.)

    http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6

  24. Re:I don't get it on Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? · · Score: 1

    I only started thinking of myself as a Mexican when I became that people were racially biased against me

    Big f*cking deal. I also experienced people being racially biased against me. Some people just make a big deal about it and demand special treatment, while the rest of us just ignore it, go on, and try to integrate as well we can.

    If you cannot conceive that someone can be racially profiled without even being seen

    I can conceive of it very well. If it bothers you, just change your last name and you don't have to deal with it, since you keep confirming that otherwise, there doesn't seem to be anything about you that makes you non-white. I and others just wish if we could avoid discrimination and prejudice that easily.

    You're a stupid asshole because you're telling me how I supposedly feel about other people who are less privileged than I am, because they look Mexican.

    I'm saying you're an "asshole" for putting yourself into the same category of people who actually are experiencing discrimination and for whom life actually is a struggle.

    No, you're still being a stupid dipshit victim-blaming racist

    You're not a victim, you're a whiny privileged white person who thinks he is entitled to special treatment because of a Spanish-sounding last name and because he has some bizarre notions that he is somehow in the same boat as Mexican immigrants.

    And take it from someone who hires people (I'm going by your Google+ picture and profile): your problems are your grooming and your attitude, not your last name.

  25. Re:I don't get it on Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? · · Score: 1

    Identifying racist behavior doesn't make one a racist.

    You're a racist because you divide people into racial groups and then demand special treatment because of that. Not only do you do that, you look perfectly white, middle class American and presumably also sound it, yet dig out your "poor, disadvantaged minority" label when it suits you. And when people (in this case, someone who didn't enjoy any of the privileges growing up that you did) tell you that you're a bloody hypocrite, you accuse them of racism.

    It's no wonder my last boyfriend (also an immigrant) was actually offended when people called him a "Hispanic", even though he certainly had much more right to use that label than you; he didn't want to be associated with people like you, Americans who derive a sense of privilege and entitlements from random labels they attach to themselves.