many people choose to download a song instead of rip it from a CD because it's easier.
3D scanners will likely be the same. especially as scanning never gives a perfect copy. Plus, if you had the original piece to scan, you probably don't need the new one!
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
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· Score: 1
One of my classmates drove his $500 car to and from school every day of our 3 month course that just ended, his commute was about 2 hours each way. A friend of mine bought a car for $500, drove it for almost 5 years, then sold if for $500 to another friend who drove it for 4 more years. Heck, you can get a brand new car for just a hair over $10,000 so I'm not sure why you don't think you can find a reliable used one for half that.
I just looked on a local online classifieds site and the first result in the "under $5k" category in my city was a 1995 Pontiac with a 6 month warranty for under $2,000 and it looks good in the pictures too. I see quite a few cars in there in the $200 -$500 range running "well" (according to the seller, but at least they run) In fact there are tons of cars on there in the $1000 to $2000 category that look pretty good at first sight (obviously you should check them out before buying, but I would be strongly surprised if most of the weren't quite reliable, even if not the newest/flashiest set of wheels)
now... but if their parts department starts loosing enough customers, will they adapt and sell patterns? or do like the current media companies and just try to sue anyone who provides patterns? They won't know you're printing it... but they can always troll the P2P networks looking for people sharing pattern files
Everyone will have a device, but nobody will be allowed to use it because anything you could conceivably print will infringe someone's patent or copyright and it will be cheaper to just buy the item than to license it... (the devices will also come with mandatory circuitry to detect such infringement and refuse to print if detected)
Or maybe that's just my cynical side and in actual fact maybe we'll transition in to a society where everyone can have any item they want for what basically boils down to "free"...
My Ubuntu machine tells me I need a reboot, but doesn't do anything to force it on me, I have to tell it when I'm ready. My company issued Windows XP machine forces reboots after upgrades, however it has a timer that allows me to delay it until I'm ready (seems to vary in length, sometimes 3 hours, other times 12 not sure what the deal is with that, I personally think it should be 24 (most people do sleep at some point in every 24 hr period))
I prefer the Ubuntu system where it doesn't reboot until I'm ready, but I can also see the requirement to force it like the windows XP system we have at work, what I can't understand is any reason to force a reboot "NOW" instead of later when it may be more convenient (for example when you go to bed that night)
Re:Most economists think this isn't enough?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
So don't sell the house, sell the camcorder, the DVD player, cut off your cable, stop drinking and smoking, etc. Not all spending is essential, and often you have to tighten your belt during the bad times so that you'll make it through to the good times. Amazingly enough a lot of little savings can make a big difference while not affecting your quality of life by all that much. And the same is true for the government.
Government spending keeps increasing, regardless of good or bad economy, and large amounts of it have little to no positive influence on anything (except possibly some congress-critter's rich friend)
The government needs to cut out millions of little things that waste money yet provide no benefit. then possibly yes, they may need to continue deficit spending during the recession, but when the recession ends they need to do something they are absolutely horrid at, and that is to use the money earned in the boom times to pay down debt. That way when the NEXT recession comes, they start out with a surplus instead of a record debt. In your example you wouldn't recommend your minimum wage earner to get his degree, get a good job, and continue to rack up an even larger debt. At some point he needs to start getting his spending under control.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
You can buy a car for under $500, and you can usually find a quite reliable one for under $1000. You likely paid more in interest than you actually had to pay to get what you actually needed.
Now it's possible that you WANTED better than a $1000 car, and if you can afford the interest, then it's not entirely a bad thing. But just because you want something doesn't mean that you need it.
Now if you had said that part of the job requirement was that you had to transport customers in your car, that would be a different story, then you need a car that is not only reliable, but also presents the appropriate corporate image (usually a $1000 car doesn't do that). In that case then maybe you do "need" the more expensive car, and then, as you pointed out, you can simply deduct the cost of that vehicle from the additional earnings you make at that job.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
But most people find it hard to function well in society without some kind of debt.
I'll give you the fact that it is sometimes necessary to go in to debt temporarily in order to get to the position you want to be in in the long run. But I also think most people who have large amounts of debt have no good reason to have that debt except for poor fiscal management.
My job as a telecommunications technician doesn't pay badly, but it hardly puts me in to the wealthy category, I am after all a tradesman, and not a CEO or even a manager. But I also have zero debt. I own my own home outright with no mortgage, I own my car outright with no car loan.
The answer is simple, I don't spend money I don't have. I learned to budget my money so that I'm not "rich" on payday and "poor" the rest of the month. My house is nice, and in a nice area, but it's not a mansion, and it is 40 years old. My car is nice, and I'm proud of it, but it's also 15 years old. My computer is at least 5 years old. I don't pay for cable or a home phone, My clothing isn't designer label. I mostly eat at home (groceries are a LOT cheaper than restaurants!) I don't spend money on cigarettes or alcohol. I'm not afraid to buy things second hand.
Do I want more? I wouldn't be human if I didn't. Do I need more? no, I don't. No matter how much you have, there will always be something more that you want, if you realize this, and prioritize your spending, you can have a very good life without breaking the bank.
Have I ever been in debt? Yes, once, and only once, I had a mortgage, I paid it off in 8 years by throwing every last penny I could spare at it. (doing so saved me approximately 20,000 in interest, more if interest rates were to increase)
I have friends who I know for a fact earn more than I do, and have huge debts, and to be honest, they don't even really have anything more to show for it than I do. Some have more expensive houses, but in less desirable areas. Some have newer cars (but not as practical, they keep calling me whenever they need to haul anything, or any time a large group of us do a road trip). Some have more gadgets, though I can't think of any that I have any real use for that I don't already have. And some just simply drink it all away.
If you have massive debt it is quite likely that you have made the decision to do so, even if not consciously.
I too am looking at the Toshiba Thrive, but to be honest, I don't think "replaceable battery" is as big a deal as they try to make it out to be. The odds of still using the same device by the time the battery needs to be replaced are slim to none, and the idea of having 2 batteries for a device with enough battery life to go more than a full day between charges, especially when the only way to charge the spare battery is in the device itself, seems less than necessary.
The reason I'm looking at the Thrive is that is is the only tablet that has full size USB and HDMI ports and a full size SD card slot, completely negating the need to carry around any adapters to connect devices. The ability to use any SD card you have lying around, or pull the one out of your camera to transfer photos is quite appealing, as is the ability to plug in any USB thumb drive someone hands you. Full HDMI output to use this device as an HD video player just completes the package.
Now if only they'd get their butts in gear and release the thing in Canada already!
On a side note, I was offered a steep discount on the Xoom through work, and seriously considered it (what with it already being available in Canada, and the discount, I was willing to live with having to carry adapters around with it) unfortunately what I couldn't live with was the fact that in Canada Motorola still refuses to release the 3.1 update, even though they're working on 3.2 for the USA already, meaning Canadians still aren't allowed to use the SD card slot.
We live in a global economy, I really wish tech companies would wake up to this and quit discriminating against those of us who don't live in the USA.
then give them a time limit, but don't force them to do it now, give them 24 hours, somewhere in there they can find a convenient time. but forcing an immediate reboot just pisses people off and makes them turn off updates at all.
Any update system that forces a reboot at an arbitrary time without giving the user the option of when is convenient for them is defective. I'll reboot, on MY schedule, not the computer's. There is no excuse to not offer this flexibility.
Why only 60? Media companies get far more than that, and they didn't even have to do the work in the first place, they got someone else to do it for little to no reward.
If copyright was of a sane duration, it would be worth following. As it is though I can certainly see the appeal of civil disobedience to take back what should rightly be public property.
But we don't go after poachers by mandating lower speed limits for pickup trucks, or outlawing them completely. We go after poachers by catching people in the act of hunting without a permit. Similarly we shouldn't go after copyright infringement by throttling or blocking bittorrent traffic.
Ignoring trackers for very specific uses - such as Blizzard's tracker for distributing WoW patches, the bulk of the torrents would almost certainly be infringing content.
Should we also ignore the linux distro ISO files? the creative commons media? the public domain content? all legitimate uses? If you are looking to see what percentage of the traffic is legitimate, I recommend you don't start by ignoring trackers for legitimate uses. Unless of course you want to make *IAA style statistics...
I don't know what the actual numbers look like, but you won't find the truth by ignoring the parts that don't fit your preconceived notions.
When was the last time you found a cell phone that worked at 3-5 watts? The old bricks and bag phones from the mid 80s were 3 watts, today's phones are about 1/10th of that. Additionally there is a reason that microwave ovens work at the specific frequency that they do, it's because that frequency causes the energy to be transferred to water molecules and cause them to heat up, if you changed to either a higher, or a lower, frequency the microwave oven would stop being able to cook your food. Cell phones do not operate at the same frequency as microwave ovens (though wireless routers, baby monitors, and cordless phones do, but I guess those don't make for as exciting sensationalist headlines so nobody tries to twist the facts to make those evil)
And this is precisely why I don't have either an iPad, or a Xoom. one of my requirements was an SD card slot. And I don't count any feature as existing until it works. I never count on companies to provide "upgrades" to enable functionality, experience has taught me better than that.
It's no wonder that android is starting to really take over the market though, the Ipad2 has about half the features of most of the new android tablets that are coming out now, and the ipad2 is more expensive too... give it some time for a few more android tablets to become available and apple will be relegated back to their usual minority market position.
The article used the correct term, infringement. Piracy is a term that has been co-opted to try to make the act seem worse than it is by equating it to murder and theft on the high seas instead of what it truly is, the unauthorized copying of someone else's published works, an act properly known as copyright infringement.
They aren't "dancing around it", they are one of the very few places actually using the correct term. The only one saying something "obviously false" is you by equating copyright infringement with theft (a completely different act) and criticizing the correct use of the term while suggesting one that is meant more to inflame emotions than to correct identify the act.
Note, I'm not taking a position on what is "right" or "wrong" in relation to copyright, only that the original article used the correct term, without comparing it to something completely unrelated.
What takedown notices are legally required to be followed in the UK? Do they have a DMCA with the same provisions as the American one? Remember this was not a US site, was not on US soil, and the person running it was not a US citizen, and not on US soil.
The only REAL difference is that Google has money and lawyers. That's why the **AAs don't go after them.
How does this work? if he broke the law in the UK, he should be tried in the UK. Under what grounds would extradition to the US make sense? he'd have to have committed a crime in US territory, and if the site wasn't there, and he wasn't there, then the answer to this seems pretty clear... If you want to try him for a crime allegedly committed in the UK, try him in the UK, not the US. And if the UK laws don't allow you to try him in the UK because what he did wasn't a crime there, then too bad for you!
Because we sure as hell do *NOT* live in a world where every conceivable useful job is already being performed
The key word here would be "yet"... and this is why our economic and social system work as well as they do. but over time as more and more things get automated we will get to the point where we are in that situation. Where there simply is no work to be had except for a select few (and who knows, maybe even those jobs will vanish eventually) For now surplus workers can be moved to other jobs, but that won't always be the case.
And if we *did* live in that world, would it really be so bad ? Is work a goal in itself, or is it just a necessary evil in order to produce the necessary goods and services ?
Here we are in agreement, it's not that "work" is a goal in itself, but the problem is that under the current situation in the world, it's not a matter of those 18 relaxing in luxury, it's a matter of those 18 suffering in poverty.
As a Canadian myself I'm familiar with a system that is not exclusively capitalism at all costs, but even here, if you aren't able/willing to work, you will likely only be able to find enough government services and such to keep a roof over your head and food in your stomach, along with medical care and such, but it's hardly a life of luxury "reaping the rewards" of society.
For a truly post-automation society to function well, and for the world to get to a point where people don't need to work, the level of "welfare" given out to those not employed would have to be huge, in fact so huge that anyone actually still working would be very upset indeed (if 1 in 100 people were working, the tax rate to support the rest in a similar level of comfort would have to be over 99%) Our entire economic model breaks down in such situations. A new way of distributing the wealth would need to be found. Once again, don't take this as despair, I truly believe it is possible, I just don't think it will be an easy transition, and I think it will be VERY messy when it eventually happens.
There are several possible situations that arrise through automation, at one end of the spectrum we have the ability to simply be more productive, where previously you had 20 people and had to decide which 2 projects requiring 10 people each to do, you can now select 10 projects that each only require 2 people. This allows society as a whole to do more. At the other end of the spectrum you have a situation where you simply don't have anything for the other 18 people to do anymore, and only 2 are employed.
So far we are closer to the former situation than the latter, however over time that balance will shift. Where exactly we are on that spectrum at any given time is a very difficult thing to judge with accuracy.
Eventually though we will have to find a way to transition to a different societal model as the numbers required to work decrease substantially (imagine a world with NO entry level jobs...) eventually we get to a point where research and design are the only jobs left... and how long until even that is brought to the point where it's only valuable as a hobby? Now in all fairness, we probably have a long time yet before we reach any critical problem, but progress is one of those finicky things that is hard to guess a timeline on.
As you said, capitalism generates wealth well... but socialism/communism distribute it better. We all know that communism "doesn't work"... but I think the world is in the process of learning that capitalism doesn't either. For now we probably need a hybrid of the 2, and eventually communism may well be the way to go (though not implemented in a way that we have ever seen before) (as an unrelated side note... why does communism always seem to go with dictatorships, and capitalism with democracy... logically shouldn't it be the other way around? (in communism, theoretically everyone is equal, thus equal votes, in capitalism you buy your way to the top, hence a dictatorship))
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many people choose to download a song instead of rip it from a CD because it's easier.
3D scanners will likely be the same. especially as scanning never gives a perfect copy. Plus, if you had the original piece to scan, you probably don't need the new one!
One of my classmates drove his $500 car to and from school every day of our 3 month course that just ended, his commute was about 2 hours each way. A friend of mine bought a car for $500, drove it for almost 5 years, then sold if for $500 to another friend who drove it for 4 more years.
Heck, you can get a brand new car for just a hair over $10,000 so I'm not sure why you don't think you can find a reliable used one for half that.
I just looked on a local online classifieds site and the first result in the "under $5k" category in my city was a 1995 Pontiac with a 6 month warranty for under $2,000 and it looks good in the pictures too. I see quite a few cars in there in the $200 -$500 range running "well" (according to the seller, but at least they run) In fact there are tons of cars on there in the $1000 to $2000 category that look pretty good at first sight (obviously you should check them out before buying, but I would be strongly surprised if most of the weren't quite reliable, even if not the newest/flashiest set of wheels)
now... but if their parts department starts loosing enough customers, will they adapt and sell patterns? or do like the current media companies and just try to sue anyone who provides patterns?
They won't know you're printing it... but they can always troll the P2P networks looking for people sharing pattern files
Everyone will have a device, but nobody will be allowed to use it because anything you could conceivably print will infringe someone's patent or copyright and it will be cheaper to just buy the item than to license it... (the devices will also come with mandatory circuitry to detect such infringement and refuse to print if detected)
Or maybe that's just my cynical side and in actual fact maybe we'll transition in to a society where everyone can have any item they want for what basically boils down to "free"...
My Ubuntu machine tells me I need a reboot, but doesn't do anything to force it on me, I have to tell it when I'm ready.
My company issued Windows XP machine forces reboots after upgrades, however it has a timer that allows me to delay it until I'm ready (seems to vary in length, sometimes 3 hours, other times 12 not sure what the deal is with that, I personally think it should be 24 (most people do sleep at some point in every 24 hr period))
I prefer the Ubuntu system where it doesn't reboot until I'm ready, but I can also see the requirement to force it like the windows XP system we have at work, what I can't understand is any reason to force a reboot "NOW" instead of later when it may be more convenient (for example when you go to bed that night)
So don't sell the house, sell the camcorder, the DVD player, cut off your cable, stop drinking and smoking, etc. Not all spending is essential, and often you have to tighten your belt during the bad times so that you'll make it through to the good times. Amazingly enough a lot of little savings can make a big difference while not affecting your quality of life by all that much. And the same is true for the government.
Government spending keeps increasing, regardless of good or bad economy, and large amounts of it have little to no positive influence on anything (except possibly some congress-critter's rich friend)
The government needs to cut out millions of little things that waste money yet provide no benefit. then possibly yes, they may need to continue deficit spending during the recession, but when the recession ends they need to do something they are absolutely horrid at, and that is to use the money earned in the boom times to pay down debt. That way when the NEXT recession comes, they start out with a surplus instead of a record debt. In your example you wouldn't recommend your minimum wage earner to get his degree, get a good job, and continue to rack up an even larger debt. At some point he needs to start getting his spending under control.
You can buy a car for under $500, and you can usually find a quite reliable one for under $1000. You likely paid more in interest than you actually had to pay to get what you actually needed.
Now it's possible that you WANTED better than a $1000 car, and if you can afford the interest, then it's not entirely a bad thing. But just because you want something doesn't mean that you need it.
Now if you had said that part of the job requirement was that you had to transport customers in your car, that would be a different story, then you need a car that is not only reliable, but also presents the appropriate corporate image (usually a $1000 car doesn't do that). In that case then maybe you do "need" the more expensive car, and then, as you pointed out, you can simply deduct the cost of that vehicle from the additional earnings you make at that job.
But most people find it hard to function well in society without some kind of debt.
I'll give you the fact that it is sometimes necessary to go in to debt temporarily in order to get to the position you want to be in in the long run. But I also think most people who have large amounts of debt have no good reason to have that debt except for poor fiscal management.
My job as a telecommunications technician doesn't pay badly, but it hardly puts me in to the wealthy category, I am after all a tradesman, and not a CEO or even a manager. But I also have zero debt. I own my own home outright with no mortgage, I own my car outright with no car loan.
The answer is simple, I don't spend money I don't have. I learned to budget my money so that I'm not "rich" on payday and "poor" the rest of the month. My house is nice, and in a nice area, but it's not a mansion, and it is 40 years old. My car is nice, and I'm proud of it, but it's also 15 years old. My computer is at least 5 years old. I don't pay for cable or a home phone, My clothing isn't designer label. I mostly eat at home (groceries are a LOT cheaper than restaurants!) I don't spend money on cigarettes or alcohol. I'm not afraid to buy things second hand.
Do I want more? I wouldn't be human if I didn't. Do I need more? no, I don't. No matter how much you have, there will always be something more that you want, if you realize this, and prioritize your spending, you can have a very good life without breaking the bank.
Have I ever been in debt? Yes, once, and only once, I had a mortgage, I paid it off in 8 years by throwing every last penny I could spare at it. (doing so saved me approximately 20,000 in interest, more if interest rates were to increase)
I have friends who I know for a fact earn more than I do, and have huge debts, and to be honest, they don't even really have anything more to show for it than I do. Some have more expensive houses, but in less desirable areas. Some have newer cars (but not as practical, they keep calling me whenever they need to haul anything, or any time a large group of us do a road trip). Some have more gadgets, though I can't think of any that I have any real use for that I don't already have. And some just simply drink it all away.
If you have massive debt it is quite likely that you have made the decision to do so, even if not consciously.
I too am looking at the Toshiba Thrive, but to be honest, I don't think "replaceable battery" is as big a deal as they try to make it out to be. The odds of still using the same device by the time the battery needs to be replaced are slim to none, and the idea of having 2 batteries for a device with enough battery life to go more than a full day between charges, especially when the only way to charge the spare battery is in the device itself, seems less than necessary.
The reason I'm looking at the Thrive is that is is the only tablet that has full size USB and HDMI ports and a full size SD card slot, completely negating the need to carry around any adapters to connect devices. The ability to use any SD card you have lying around, or pull the one out of your camera to transfer photos is quite appealing, as is the ability to plug in any USB thumb drive someone hands you. Full HDMI output to use this device as an HD video player just completes the package.
Now if only they'd get their butts in gear and release the thing in Canada already!
On a side note, I was offered a steep discount on the Xoom through work, and seriously considered it (what with it already being available in Canada, and the discount, I was willing to live with having to carry adapters around with it) unfortunately what I couldn't live with was the fact that in Canada Motorola still refuses to release the 3.1 update, even though they're working on 3.2 for the USA already, meaning Canadians still aren't allowed to use the SD card slot.
We live in a global economy, I really wish tech companies would wake up to this and quit discriminating against those of us who don't live in the USA.
then give them a time limit, but don't force them to do it now, give them 24 hours, somewhere in there they can find a convenient time. but forcing an immediate reboot just pisses people off and makes them turn off updates at all.
Any update system that forces a reboot at an arbitrary time without giving the user the option of when is convenient for them is defective. I'll reboot, on MY schedule, not the computer's. There is no excuse to not offer this flexibility.
Why only 60? Media companies get far more than that, and they didn't even have to do the work in the first place, they got someone else to do it for little to no reward.
If copyright was of a sane duration, it would be worth following. As it is though I can certainly see the appeal of civil disobedience to take back what should rightly be public property.
But we don't go after poachers by mandating lower speed limits for pickup trucks, or outlawing them completely. We go after poachers by catching people in the act of hunting without a permit.
Similarly we shouldn't go after copyright infringement by throttling or blocking bittorrent traffic.
Ignoring trackers for very specific uses - such as Blizzard's tracker for distributing WoW patches, the bulk of the torrents would almost certainly be infringing content.
Should we also ignore the linux distro ISO files? the creative commons media? the public domain content? all legitimate uses? If you are looking to see what percentage of the traffic is legitimate, I recommend you don't start by ignoring trackers for legitimate uses. Unless of course you want to make *IAA style statistics...
I don't know what the actual numbers look like, but you won't find the truth by ignoring the parts that don't fit your preconceived notions.
being that there isn't even a remote possibility... I'm happy to keep my smart phone.
When was the last time you found a cell phone that worked at 3-5 watts? The old bricks and bag phones from the mid 80s were 3 watts, today's phones are about 1/10th of that. Additionally there is a reason that microwave ovens work at the specific frequency that they do, it's because that frequency causes the energy to be transferred to water molecules and cause them to heat up, if you changed to either a higher, or a lower, frequency the microwave oven would stop being able to cook your food. Cell phones do not operate at the same frequency as microwave ovens (though wireless routers, baby monitors, and cordless phones do, but I guess those don't make for as exciting sensationalist headlines so nobody tries to twist the facts to make those evil)
I'm still waiting for a jurisdiction to exist with a free market... government granted monopolies don't qualify...
And this is precisely why I don't have either an iPad, or a Xoom. one of my requirements was an SD card slot. And I don't count any feature as existing until it works. I never count on companies to provide "upgrades" to enable functionality, experience has taught me better than that.
It's no wonder that android is starting to really take over the market though, the Ipad2 has about half the features of most of the new android tablets that are coming out now, and the ipad2 is more expensive too... give it some time for a few more android tablets to become available and apple will be relegated back to their usual minority market position.
The article used the correct term, infringement. Piracy is a term that has been co-opted to try to make the act seem worse than it is by equating it to murder and theft on the high seas instead of what it truly is, the unauthorized copying of someone else's published works, an act properly known as copyright infringement.
They aren't "dancing around it", they are one of the very few places actually using the correct term. The only one saying something "obviously false" is you by equating copyright infringement with theft (a completely different act) and criticizing the correct use of the term while suggesting one that is meant more to inflame emotions than to correct identify the act.
Note, I'm not taking a position on what is "right" or "wrong" in relation to copyright, only that the original article used the correct term, without comparing it to something completely unrelated.
Hollywood has become the National Socialist Party and they see everyone who uses the internet as a dirty Jew.
I think you need to look up the definition of Socialism.... If Hollywood was socialist the movies would be free for everyone.
What takedown notices are legally required to be followed in the UK? Do they have a DMCA with the same provisions as the American one? Remember this was not a US site, was not on US soil, and the person running it was not a US citizen, and not on US soil.
The only REAL difference is that Google has money and lawyers. That's why the **AAs don't go after them.
How does this work? if he broke the law in the UK, he should be tried in the UK. Under what grounds would extradition to the US make sense? he'd have to have committed a crime in US territory, and if the site wasn't there, and he wasn't there, then the answer to this seems pretty clear...
If you want to try him for a crime allegedly committed in the UK, try him in the UK, not the US. And if the UK laws don't allow you to try him in the UK because what he did wasn't a crime there, then too bad for you!
Because we sure as hell do *NOT* live in a world where every conceivable useful job is already being performed
The key word here would be "yet"... and this is why our economic and social system work as well as they do. but over time as more and more things get automated we will get to the point where we are in that situation. Where there simply is no work to be had except for a select few (and who knows, maybe even those jobs will vanish eventually) For now surplus workers can be moved to other jobs, but that won't always be the case.
And if we *did* live in that world, would it really be so bad ? Is work a goal in itself, or is it just a necessary evil in order to produce the necessary goods and services ?
Here we are in agreement, it's not that "work" is a goal in itself, but the problem is that under the current situation in the world, it's not a matter of those 18 relaxing in luxury, it's a matter of those 18 suffering in poverty.
As a Canadian myself I'm familiar with a system that is not exclusively capitalism at all costs, but even here, if you aren't able/willing to work, you will likely only be able to find enough government services and such to keep a roof over your head and food in your stomach, along with medical care and such, but it's hardly a life of luxury "reaping the rewards" of society.
For a truly post-automation society to function well, and for the world to get to a point where people don't need to work, the level of "welfare" given out to those not employed would have to be huge, in fact so huge that anyone actually still working would be very upset indeed (if 1 in 100 people were working, the tax rate to support the rest in a similar level of comfort would have to be over 99%) Our entire economic model breaks down in such situations. A new way of distributing the wealth would need to be found. Once again, don't take this as despair, I truly believe it is possible, I just don't think it will be an easy transition, and I think it will be VERY messy when it eventually happens.
And what makes you think either of those platforms are any better?
At least on Android you always see what permissions an app is requesting before you install it. The same is not true on iOS
There are several possible situations that arrise through automation, at one end of the spectrum we have the ability to simply be more productive, where previously you had 20 people and had to decide which 2 projects requiring 10 people each to do, you can now select 10 projects that each only require 2 people. This allows society as a whole to do more. At the other end of the spectrum you have a situation where you simply don't have anything for the other 18 people to do anymore, and only 2 are employed.
So far we are closer to the former situation than the latter, however over time that balance will shift. Where exactly we are on that spectrum at any given time is a very difficult thing to judge with accuracy.
Eventually though we will have to find a way to transition to a different societal model as the numbers required to work decrease substantially (imagine a world with NO entry level jobs...) eventually we get to a point where research and design are the only jobs left... and how long until even that is brought to the point where it's only valuable as a hobby? Now in all fairness, we probably have a long time yet before we reach any critical problem, but progress is one of those finicky things that is hard to guess a timeline on.
As you said, capitalism generates wealth well... but socialism/communism distribute it better.
We all know that communism "doesn't work"... but I think the world is in the process of learning that capitalism doesn't either. For now we probably need a hybrid of the 2, and eventually communism may well be the way to go (though not implemented in a way that we have ever seen before) (as an unrelated side note... why does communism always seem to go with dictatorships, and capitalism with democracy... logically shouldn't it be the other way around? (in communism, theoretically everyone is equal, thus equal votes, in capitalism you buy your way to the top, hence a dictatorship))