What's happening, long-term, is a greater and greater separation between the rich and the poor, and the middle class is drying up and disappearing.
Long-term? You mean like longer than your adult life (which I reckon, given your lack of perspective, is about ten years)? Try a long term of sixty years at a minimum. Even better, try a hundred year, or two hundred years. Back then, nearly everyone was scratching the earth for a living. Since then, there's been more and more of the thing you claim is making us poorer, and yet we've become richer and richer.
At this point in history even the poorest person in free-market societies is wealthier than nearly anybody two hundred years ago. Specialization and trade have accomplished this, and yet you say that is exactly what makes us poorer.
The point that I was trying to make is that you can't "compete" with a factory in an area with substantially lower costs (i.e. the Third World) by using technology and making your process more efficient.
You can't make that blanket statement. It depends on the cost of capital versus the cost of labor. These can and do change overnight -- consider the the cost of labor is soon to go up in the US, which will make it cheaper to fire the least productive workers (who are the ones who REALLY need the help) and substitute capital.
Dangerous code should look dangerous. In PHP, if you say "include $variable", and an attacker can set the value of $variable, then attacker 0wns your machine. Name another language in which include executes remote code.
The problem with PHP is that insecure code doesn't look like insecure code... unless you're a PHP expert. And yet PHP is pitched to people as an easy way to write websites -- which it is.
If the "include" primitive was renamed to "includehostilecode", it would still be useful, but its sharp edges would be exposed.
The obvious answer to iPhone closedness is OpemMoko's openness. Vote with your dollars: go buy an OpenMoko when they hit the market in a few months. http://openmoko.com/
Actually, no. The proper translation of this statement of course is "Our network security is so poor that we cannot take the risk of anybody connecting to it in a programmatic fashion".
Careful. You're starting to annoy the Angry Economist. Increases in productivity do not result in an aggregate loss of jobs. If it did, then we should have had a loss in jobs over the last N years (you pick N). Since the exact opposite as your theory predicts occurred, I call BS. Why do smart people get this wrong, decade after decade?
Of course, as the OP said, it can result in the loss of YOUR job. People sacrifice for the long term all the time, so suck it up and find another job like an adult.
I don't think there's anything wrong with giving people what they want.
You are correct. On the other hand, the tax laws are written such that you get a business subsidy for buying heavy vehicles (e.g. an SUV). Are people really getting what they want if we have to pay them to want it?
You mean a little Bluetooth keyboard like my Chordite? It's not in production yet, but I'll make a custom one for anybody who asks politely. s/ask politely/asks politely and has $200 to spare/.
Buy one. Buy it today. Buy a bluetooth GPS receiver. Install Maemo-Mapper and configure it to download maps. Happy Happy Joy Joy. Crunch GPS map goodness.
So... he worked at Iowa State University, he got his BS, his MS, and his PhD from Iowa State University, and he's teaching at Iowa State University. Is there any evidence that this guy knows anything except what happens to be taught at Iowa State University? Has he even ever LEFT Iowa at any time?
"Chagrin"? Unix filesystems don't need ACLs; they already have fine-grained permissions in user / group / other permissions. Yes, it requires better (translation: automated) management of groups than most people pursue, but everything you want is there.
Yes, some idiots (e.g. Jim Thompson) claim that Eric isn't a good programmer, and yet he somehow has gotten the insight to write this book. Wonder of wonders!
If they ever paid their staff more, it was a matter of necessity not choice.
And yet.... over the long term, corporations have had to pay people more and more and more money. What does that say about your race to the bottom? Pretty much refuted by the facts.
As it is, we give illiterate peasants the choice to starve, or work for starvation wages in sweatshops.
You don't help the poor by looking at their list of options and eliminating the one they actually chose.
I merely point out the idiots who think that outsourcing is bad for American businesses. If you aren't one of those idiots, well, consider yourself blessed.
the US has run a TRADE DEFICIT with the rest of the world for 30 YEARS!
There is no such thing as a trade deficit between countries; any more than there is a trade deficit between you and your local supermarket. They never buy anything from you, and yet you keep buying stuff from them. It's *exactly* the same situation between US and India.
Errr, I've been to India three times in the last 12 months, and I'm headed back next month. I call it "reverse outsourcing." You see, if Indians never buy anything from us, all they've gotten for their efforts are pretty green pictures of dead white presidents.
Rule #1 of economics: the only reason to export something (in India's case, labor) is so that you can import things.
If business were a race to the bottom, then why have people been paid more and more and more over the last five hundred years. Think about all the black slaves in America. Think about all the serfs in Russia. Think about the bonded laborers. Ever heard of anybody being "bonded out" these days? Hell no, they stopped doing that 150 years ago.
I mean, read your own argument. In your supposed race to the bottom, capital is actually having to flit from here to there because EVERYBODY THEY PAY gets BETTER AND BETTER OFF, and demands higher and higher pay. That's not a race to the bottom. It's a desperate search for vanishing cheap labor.
Slashdot Mirror
Long-term? You mean like longer than your adult life (which I reckon, given your lack of perspective, is about ten years)? Try a long term of sixty years at a minimum. Even better, try a hundred year, or two hundred years. Back then, nearly everyone was scratching the earth for a living. Since then, there's been more and more of the thing you claim is making us poorer, and yet we've become richer and richer.
At this point in history even the poorest person in free-market societies is wealthier than nearly anybody two hundred years ago. Specialization and trade have accomplished this, and yet you say that is exactly what makes us poorer.
You can't make that blanket statement. It depends on the cost of capital versus the cost of labor. These can and do change overnight -- consider the the cost of labor is soon to go up in the US, which will make it cheaper to fire the least productive workers (who are the ones who REALLY need the help) and substitute capital.
Dangerous code should look dangerous. In PHP, if you say "include $variable", and an attacker can set the value of $variable, then attacker 0wns your machine. Name another language in which include executes remote code.
... unless you're a PHP expert. And yet PHP is pitched to people as an easy way to write websites -- which it is.
The problem with PHP is that insecure code doesn't look like insecure code
If the "include" primitive was renamed to "includehostilecode", it would still be useful, but its sharp edges would be exposed.
The obvious answer to iPhone closedness is OpemMoko's openness. Vote with your dollars: go buy an OpenMoko when they hit the market in a few months. http://openmoko.com/
Actually, no. The proper translation of this statement of course is "Our network security is so poor that we cannot take the risk of anybody connecting to it in a programmatic fashion".
Openmoko.com.
Careful. You're starting to annoy the Angry Economist. Increases in productivity do not result in an aggregate loss of jobs. If it did, then we should have had a loss in jobs over the last N years (you pick N). Since the exact opposite as your theory predicts occurred, I call BS. Why do smart people get this wrong, decade after decade?
Of course, as the OP said, it can result in the loss of YOUR job. People sacrifice for the long term all the time, so suck it up and find another job like an adult.
A desktop is all about the device. Linux will always have better device drivers htan any other open source os.
I don't think there's anything wrong with giving people what they want.
You are correct. On the other hand, the tax laws are written such that you get a business subsidy for buying heavy vehicles (e.g. an SUV). Are people really getting what they want if we have to pay them to want it?
I'd rather have a Nokia N800 which fits in one product, and a cellphone which fits in another, than a brick which fits in neither.
You mean a little Bluetooth keyboard like my Chordite? It's not in production yet, but I'll make a custom one for anybody who asks politely.
s/ask politely/asks politely and has $200 to spare/.
There's a LOT more programs available for X than there are for Qt.
I think you can click on links like that, and go to a different web page.
my ideal moving maps / GPS platform.
Buy one. Buy it today. Buy a bluetooth GPS receiver. Install Maemo-Mapper and configure it to download maps. Happy Happy Joy Joy. Crunch GPS map goodness.
So ... he worked at Iowa State University, he got his BS, his MS, and his PhD from Iowa State University, and he's teaching at Iowa State University. Is there any evidence that this guy knows anything except what happens to be taught at Iowa State University? Has he even ever LEFT Iowa at any time?
On the other hand, maybe he just can't get through more than a few pages of books he doesn't like?
"Chagrin"? Unix filesystems don't need ACLs; they already have fine-grained permissions in user / group / other permissions. Yes, it requires better (translation: automated) management of groups than most people pursue, but everything you want is there.
Yes, some idiots (e.g. Jim Thompson) claim that Eric isn't a good programmer, and yet he somehow has gotten the insight to write this book. Wonder of wonders!
In that case, do this:
mkdir -p tmp/a/b/c; cd tmp/a/b/c
And yet
You don't help the poor by looking at their list of options and eliminating the one they actually chose.
I might be wrong, but I don't lie. http://blog.russnelson.com/economics/shareholders- or-customers.html
I merely point out the idiots who think that outsourcing is bad for American businesses. If you aren't one of those idiots, well, consider yourself blessed.
Oh, fuck! You mean we can't be obscene on the Internet anymore? Fuck that!
the US has run a TRADE DEFICIT with the rest of the world for 30 YEARS!
There is no such thing as a trade deficit between countries; any more than there is a trade deficit between you and your local supermarket. They never buy anything from you, and yet you keep buying stuff from them. It's *exactly* the same situation between US and India.
Errr, I've been to India three times in the last 12 months, and I'm headed back next month. I call it "reverse outsourcing." You see, if Indians never buy anything from us, all they've gotten for their efforts are pretty green pictures of dead white presidents.
Rule #1 of economics: the only reason to export something (in India's case, labor) is so that you can import things.
It is truly a race to the bottom
#define truly 0
or in Python:
truly = False
If business were a race to the bottom, then why have people been paid more and more and more over the last five hundred years. Think about all the black slaves in America. Think about all the serfs in Russia. Think about the bonded laborers. Ever heard of anybody being "bonded out" these days? Hell no, they stopped doing that 150 years ago.
I mean, read your own argument. In your supposed race to the bottom, capital is actually having to flit from here to there because EVERYBODY THEY PAY gets BETTER AND BETTER OFF, and demands higher and higher pay. That's not a race to the bottom. It's a desperate search for vanishing cheap labor.