Following the "troop surge" of January 2007, the rate of insurgent attacks in Iraq was low and trending lower.
If the level of U.S. security assistance had been modulated by facts on the ground, Iraq's democratic institutions would have continued to take root and there would have been no ISIS.
When you are operating a brand new nuclear reactor, you don't say "our simulator says we should be able to pull the control rods all the way out, and there won't be a meltdown, so let's pull the control rods all the way out." No, you very cautiously pull the control rods out, a millimeter at a time, to verify that the system reacts as the simulator predicts.
Iraq should have been handled just as cautiously. Instead, the control rods were abruptly pulled all the way out, and we got the meltdown of ISIS.
The "Status of Forces Agreement" is not an excuse for cutting and running. Imagine Japanese officials in 1947 saying "we do not renew the Status of Forces Agreement, therefore the U.S. occupation must end." Douglas MacArthur would have laughed his ass off!
I would place some blame on the U.S. electorate, for being more receptive to this brain-dead campaign promise: "I will bring our troops home!" than to this nuanced campaign promise: "The level of U.S. security assistance to Iraq will be modulated by facts on the ground, so that Iraq's democratic institutions will continue to take root and terror groups will continue to be weakened."
When you are operating a brand new nuclear reactor, you don't say "our simulator says we should be able to pull the control rods all the way out, and there won't be a meltdown, so let's pull the control rods all the way out." No, you very cautiously pull the control rods out, a millimeter at a time, to verify that the system reacts as the simulator predicts.
Iraq should have been handled just as cautiously. Instead, the control rods were abruptly pulled all the way out, and we got the meltdown of ISIS.
The "Status of Forces Agreement" is not an excuse. Imagine Japanese officials in 1947 saying "we do not wish to extend the a Status of Forces Agreement, so the U.S. occupation must end." Douglas MacArthur would have laughed his ass off!
Following the "troop surge" of January 2007, the rate of insurgent attacks in Iraq was low and trending lower.
If the level of U.S. security assistance had been modulated by facts on the ground, Iraq's democratic institutions would have continued to take root and there would have been no ISIS.
When you are operating a brand new nuclear reactor, you don't say "our simulator says we should be able to pull the control rods all the way out, and there won't be a meltdown, so let's pull the control rods all the way out." No, you very cautiously pull the control rods out, a millimeter at a time, to verify that the system reacts as the simulator predicts.
Iraq should have been handled just as cautiously. Instead, the control rods were abruptly pulled all the way out, and we got the meltdown of ISIS.
The "Status of Forces Agreement" is not an excuse. Imagine Japanese officials in 1947 saying "we are not extending the Status of Forces Agreement, so the U.S. occupation must end." Douglas MacArthur would have laughed his ass off!
Following the "troop surge" of January 2007, the rate of insurgent attacks in Iraq was low and trending lower.
If the level of U.S. security assistance had been modulated by facts on the ground, Iraq's democratic institutions would have continued to take root and there would have been no ISIS.
When you are operating a brand new nuclear reactor, you don't say "our simulator says we should be able to pull the control rods all the way out, and there won't be a meltdown, so let's pull the control rods all the way out." No, you very cautiously pull the control rods out, a millimeter at a time, to verify that the system reacts as the simulator predicts.
Iraq should have been handled just as cautiously. Instead, the control rods were abruptly pulled all the way out, and we got the meltdown of ISIS.
The "Status of Forces Agreement" is not an excuse. Imagine Japanese officials in 1947 saying "we do not wish to extend the Status of Forces Agreement, so the U.S. occupation must end." Douglas MacArthur would have laughed his ass off!
Given all the turmoil Iraq has suffered, going all the way back to 1963 when the Ba'ath Party violently seized power, Iraq has a surprisingly high GDP per capita right now. It's higher than Costa Rica, a very peaceful place.
As such, it's quite wrong to blame economic conditions for the rise of ISIS.
Following the "troop surge" of January 2007, the rate of insurgent attacks in Iraq was low and trending lower.
If the level of U.S. security assistance had been modulated by facts on the ground, Iraq's democratic institutions would have continued to take root and there would have been no ISIS.
When you are operating a brand new nuclear reactor, you don't say "our simulator says we should be able to pull the control rods all the way out, and there won't be a meltdown, so let's pull the control rods all the way out." No, you very cautiously pull the control rods out, a millimeter at a time, to verify that the system reacts as the simulator predicts.
Iraq should have been handled just as cautiously. Instead, the control rods were abruptly pulled all the way out, and we got the meltdown of ISIS.
The Bush Administration's "Status of Forces Agreement" is not an excuse for cutting and running. Imagine Japanese officials in 1947 saying "we don't want to extend the Status of Forces Agreement, therefore the U.S. occupation must end." Douglas MacArthur would have laughed his ass off!
The removal of him and failure to provide Iraq with a functional government lead to the formation if Isis
Following the "troop surge" of January 2007, the rate of insurgent attacks in Iraq was low and trending lower.
If the level of U.S. security assistance had been modulated by facts on the ground, Iraq's democratic institutions would have continued to take root and there would have been no ISIS.
When you are operating a brand new nuclear reactor, you don't say "our simulator says we should be able to pull the control rods all the way out, and there won't be a meltdown, so let's pull the control rods all the way out." No, you very cautiously pull the control rods out, a millimeter at a time, to verify that the system reacts as the simulator predicts.
Iraq should have been handled just as cautiously. Instead, the control rods were abruptly pulled all the way out, and we got the meltdown of ISIS.
The "Status of Forces Agreement" is not an excuse. Imagine Japanese officials in 1947 saying "we have not signed a Status of Forces Agreement, so the U.S. occupation must end." Douglas MacArthur would have laughed his ass off!
There's no way in hell the private industry can do it cheaper when they have to make a profit and report to shareholders
Why not apply that argument to every industry, then?
All auto manufacturing should be taken over by a government agency -- there's no way private industry can do it cheaper when they have to make a profit and report to shareholders.
Intel, AMD, Apple and Samsung... their fabs and engineering activities should be taken over by a government agency -- there's no way private industry can do it cheaper when they have to make a profit and report to shareholders.
Food is an even more basic human need than healthcare. So all farming, food distribution, and restaurants should be taken over by a government agency -- there's no way private industry can do it cheaper when they have to make a profit and report to shareholders.
Actually, because they have to make a profit is precisely why private enterprises have demonstrated time and time again that they are more efficient and innovative than government agencies -- which use other people's money, coercively obtained, to continue their operations.
That would be a win for everyone else. A race to the bottom is really a race to the top for everyone else.
More accurately, it's a win for the general interest, and a lose for special interests (the manufacturers who are squeezed).
A true test of character is whether you vote against policies that help a special interest at the expense of the general interest -- even if that special interest is YOU.
Oh, and what you call a "shit job" is, to the person who does it, the best job they can get. By definition. If they could switch to a better job, they would.
I had never heard of ReactOS, but your post got me curious so I looked into it.
And I learned that it targets compatibility with Windows Server 2003.
Does that not make it a dead-end OS? Is there any software house that still supports Windows Server 2003?
Here's another commenter who recently came to the same conclusion:
ReactOS is a dead end, Linux works on everything nowadays and is way more stable, plus it has better compatibility with Windows software as it receives Wine updates, while ReactOS lacks a proper update platform AFAIK.
Buffett and his secretary pay exactly the same tax rate on their respective capital gains.
And unless Mr. Buffett is an incredibly stingy SOB, his secretary is in the top tax bracket; therefore he and his secretary pay exactly the same tax rate on earned income.
On the other hand if he is an incredibly stingy SOB, his secretary pays a lower rate than he does on earned income.
Either way, his fib has deceived millions of people.
I know nothing about cryptography. Maybe I have a misconception that you can correct.
What you're saying is, that you can generate all possible 34-bit passwords in one second.
But simply generating all those passwords is a far cry from hacking someone's account, is it not?
You have to make a login attempt with each one of those passwords, and wait for the server to respond with a "password incorrect" error before moving on to the next one. Each failed attempt would take at least a few milliseconds. (Assuming the server allows millions of rapid-fire failed login attempts.)
So associating a time of "one second" with 32-bit space is not realistic. Or, what am I missing?
But, would you agree that this is largely due to oil exports? If oil suddenly became a worthless commodity, would Norway fall to approximately the same place as Sweden in this ranking?
Humans have always been the wielder or controller of the tools. Qualitatively that has never changed, even as the tools grew orders of magnitude more powerful. (Grain used to be harvested by a scythe with a bronze blade; now it's harvested with one of these.)
So no, you and I are not a tool (the ox).
The humans who direct the actions of robots are simply the next step in the pattern that has existed for hundreds of years now: each generation wields more powerful tools than the previous generation.
A corporation may write its check to the Internal Revenue Service for payment of the corporate income tax, but that money must come from somewhere
And that is why "stimulus" plans don't stimulate.
Investors naturally seek out enterprises that will provide high return-on-investment (ROI). And an enterprise that provides high ROI will, by definition, create more jobs than an enterprise that provides low ROI.
When government taxes money away from investors, and spends it on a "stimulus" project instead, it is transferring capital into lower-ROI enterprises at the expense of high-ROI enterprises. (A handful of bureaucrats cannot pick winners better than the crowdsourced wisdom of millions of investors participating in free financial markets.)
To the extent that the "stimulus" money is borrowed, the expansion of lower-ROI enterprises comes at the expense of future job creation, as future taxpayers are forced to service the debt instead of investing their money in high-ROI enterprises.
nobody can identify the new fields that are replacing the old ones, unlike the past
Nobody can identify the new fields, which is exactly like the past.
In 1940, nobody predicted that millions would someday be employed in the IT industry.
In 1890, nobody predicted that millions would someday be employed in the automotive industry (and supporting industries, like road construction).
In 1840, nobody predicted that billions would someday be employed in fields that depend on electric power.
Every new technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed. Moderately disruptive technologies cause a moderate amount of net job creation. Massively disruptive technologies cause a massive amount of net job creation.
The pessimists look at only the negative effects of an innovation. You have to look at both sides of the ledger to get the full picture; the net effect.
For every newspaper worker displaced by Craigslist, there are multiple workers who gained jobs, because people who use Craigslist to conveniently buy and sell used goods (which otherwise would have ended up in a landfill) now have more disposable income with which they can stimulate the general economy.
If you believe the opposite is true, then why stop at shutting down Craigslist? You should also ban all printing presses. Paying people to make hand-written signs that advertise your wares would employ more people than taking out an ad in a newspaper. (And for God's sake, don't communicate with those signmakers by telephone. Paying couriers to hand-carry your messages would employ more people.)
Thank you Solandri for being one of the few voices of reason around here. There is just one thing to add.
That the rich have gotten richer [faster] than the poor have gotten richer is certainly a valid complaint.
Actually, it's not. "Income inequality" is not the problem; poverty is the problem. Read on for the proof.
Suppose there was a magic switch that would increase every individual's annual income by this formula: new_income = 3 * old_income + $60,000
In other words, toggling that switch would eliminate poverty because everyone would have an income of at least $60,000. At the same time, it would greatly increase "income inequality," because if your old income was $1 million, your new income would be $3,060,000.
Would you throw that switch, and forever eliminate poverty from our world?
Or, have you been so brainwashed by those mindlessly railing against "income inequality" -- in other words, is your spite for the rich so great -- that you would refrain from throwing that switch, thereby keeping billions of people in grinding poverty?
I'm pretty sure Solandri would throw the switch. But sadly, there are many Slashdotters who wouldn't.
(By the way, such a switch does exist, although the results can't be obtained instantaneously. It's called pursuing pro-growth economic policies for a few more decades. See this post for a discussion of what would happen if there was so much economic growth, that a robust social safety net could be funded entirely by voluntary contributions.)
Bill Gates is only going to buy so many TVs, cars, and houses. Doubling his wealth is not going to change his spending habits.
Actually, I can say with high confidence that his spending habits would change. If his income increased by 100%, the amount he gives to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would increase by more than 100%.
That's simply how philanthropy works. A group of poor people, as much as they might want to engage in philanthropy, simply doesn't have the means to. If their situation improves, such that their own basic needs are taken care of, they tend to become philanthropists who donate a small percentage of their income. If the group's situation improves further, such that their basic needs as well as their more frivolous wants are taken care of, they tend to become philanthropists who donate a large percentage of their income. (There are, of course, exceptions to every rule.)
I look forward to the day when the economy has grown to the point where the social safety net can be funded entirely by voluntary contributions, as opposed to tax revenue that is collected coercively, even while providing more robust services than it does today.
That idea is not farfetched. Americans gave $373.25 billion to charity in 2015. I.e., about 16% of wealth redistribution was voluntary, while the other 84% was coercive. (Ok, the second statistic was from 2012; sorry I don't have something more current.) A few more decades of robust growth in Americans' incomes -- which would result in even more robust growth in their charitable contributions -- would bring us into a much better situation, where it is no longer necessary to redistribute any assets coercively. Imagine how much political rancor would dry up in that situation.
It's true that Boards of Directors often approve very large compensation packages for CEOs. They don't do this for lulz, or because they like to squander the company's resources. They do it because of a sincere belief that it's worth it; that the overall health of the company will be optimized by providing the kind of compensation it takes to attract a top-quality CEO.
Critical thinking should be applied to everything, including those who would second-guess Boards of Directors. What makes them qualified to do so? Have they ever even served on a Board of Directors? They often claim that CEO pay structure is not based on actual scarcities. Actually, top-quality CEOs are quite scarce. It's not a job I could do.
A pallet of CRTs is damn heavy, and shipping heavy items by air is vastly more expensive than shipping them by rail or container ship. (The Chunnel made rail shipment in/out of the UK a viable option.)
Air-freighting heavy items is only done if you're in a hurry to get them to their destination. Who's in a hurry to get these CRTs into their landfill?
a warehouse full of dead monitors that will basically just sit forever is still a way better scenario than having them polluting a landfill.
How did SuperKendall arrive at that conclusion?
In a deep landfill, a given quantity of CRTs will occupy much less land area than in a one-story warehouse. Furthermore, lead can't leach out of a properly-constructed landfill that is lined with clay. The same can't be said for an unwanted, unmaintained warehouse whose roof will eventually leak.
A warehouse indefinitely full of CRTs is a real estate asset that can no longer be used for productive purposes, and whose value has become negative (the owner would have to pay someone to take it off their hands, because of the massive expense of disposing of the CRTs). As its assessed value is negative, it will not generate any tax revenue for the local school district or other government entities.
IMDb's message boards are no longer providing a positive, useful experience for the vast majority of our more than 250 million monthly users worldwide,"
So what if only a minority find it useful? Turning off functionality that works, and took a fair amount of resources to create, is a waste and a shame.
You know how pedestrian crosswalk signals make a beeping sound for the benefit of the visually impaired? It's a very small minority that finds that useful. By IMDB's logic, that feature should be shut down.
Slashdot Mirror
It's cool that you found it.
It's not exactly on the market though... the article says "The product was not expected to be released until 2020."
Following the "troop surge" of January 2007, the rate of insurgent attacks in Iraq was low and trending lower.
If the level of U.S. security assistance had been modulated by facts on the ground, Iraq's democratic institutions would have continued to take root and there would have been no ISIS.
When you are operating a brand new nuclear reactor, you don't say "our simulator says we should be able to pull the control rods all the way out, and there won't be a meltdown, so let's pull the control rods all the way out." No, you very cautiously pull the control rods out, a millimeter at a time, to verify that the system reacts as the simulator predicts.
Iraq should have been handled just as cautiously. Instead, the control rods were abruptly pulled all the way out, and we got the meltdown of ISIS.
The "Status of Forces Agreement" is not an excuse for cutting and running. Imagine Japanese officials in 1947 saying "we do not renew the Status of Forces Agreement, therefore the U.S. occupation must end." Douglas MacArthur would have laughed his ass off!
I would place some blame on the U.S. electorate, for being more receptive to this brain-dead campaign promise:
"I will bring our troops home!"
than to this nuanced campaign promise:
"The level of U.S. security assistance to Iraq will be modulated by facts on the ground, so that Iraq's democratic institutions will continue to take root and terror groups will continue to be weakened."
When you are operating a brand new nuclear reactor, you don't say "our simulator says we should be able to pull the control rods all the way out, and there won't be a meltdown, so let's pull the control rods all the way out." No, you very cautiously pull the control rods out, a millimeter at a time, to verify that the system reacts as the simulator predicts.
Iraq should have been handled just as cautiously. Instead, the control rods were abruptly pulled all the way out, and we got the meltdown of ISIS.
The "Status of Forces Agreement" is not an excuse. Imagine Japanese officials in 1947 saying "we do not wish to extend the a Status of Forces Agreement, so the U.S. occupation must end." Douglas MacArthur would have laughed his ass off!
Following the "troop surge" of January 2007, the rate of insurgent attacks in Iraq was low and trending lower.
If the level of U.S. security assistance had been modulated by facts on the ground, Iraq's democratic institutions would have continued to take root and there would have been no ISIS.
When you are operating a brand new nuclear reactor, you don't say "our simulator says we should be able to pull the control rods all the way out, and there won't be a meltdown, so let's pull the control rods all the way out." No, you very cautiously pull the control rods out, a millimeter at a time, to verify that the system reacts as the simulator predicts.
Iraq should have been handled just as cautiously. Instead, the control rods were abruptly pulled all the way out, and we got the meltdown of ISIS.
The "Status of Forces Agreement" is not an excuse. Imagine Japanese officials in 1947 saying "we are not extending the Status of Forces Agreement, so the U.S. occupation must end." Douglas MacArthur would have laughed his ass off!
Following the "troop surge" of January 2007, the rate of insurgent attacks in Iraq was low and trending lower.
If the level of U.S. security assistance had been modulated by facts on the ground, Iraq's democratic institutions would have continued to take root and there would have been no ISIS.
When you are operating a brand new nuclear reactor, you don't say "our simulator says we should be able to pull the control rods all the way out, and there won't be a meltdown, so let's pull the control rods all the way out." No, you very cautiously pull the control rods out, a millimeter at a time, to verify that the system reacts as the simulator predicts.
Iraq should have been handled just as cautiously. Instead, the control rods were abruptly pulled all the way out, and we got the meltdown of ISIS.
The "Status of Forces Agreement" is not an excuse. Imagine Japanese officials in 1947 saying "we do not wish to extend the Status of Forces Agreement, so the U.S. occupation must end." Douglas MacArthur would have laughed his ass off!
Given all the turmoil Iraq has suffered, going all the way back to 1963 when the Ba'ath Party violently seized power, Iraq has a surprisingly high GDP per capita right now. It's higher than Costa Rica, a very peaceful place.
As such, it's quite wrong to blame economic conditions for the rise of ISIS.
Following the "troop surge" of January 2007, the rate of insurgent attacks in Iraq was low and trending lower.
If the level of U.S. security assistance had been modulated by facts on the ground, Iraq's democratic institutions would have continued to take root and there would have been no ISIS.
When you are operating a brand new nuclear reactor, you don't say "our simulator says we should be able to pull the control rods all the way out, and there won't be a meltdown, so let's pull the control rods all the way out." No, you very cautiously pull the control rods out, a millimeter at a time, to verify that the system reacts as the simulator predicts.
Iraq should have been handled just as cautiously. Instead, the control rods were abruptly pulled all the way out, and we got the meltdown of ISIS.
The Bush Administration's "Status of Forces Agreement" is not an excuse for cutting and running. Imagine Japanese officials in 1947 saying "we don't want to extend the Status of Forces Agreement, therefore the U.S. occupation must end." Douglas MacArthur would have laughed his ass off!
The removal of him and failure to provide Iraq with a functional government lead to the formation if Isis
Following the "troop surge" of January 2007, the rate of insurgent attacks in Iraq was low and trending lower.
If the level of U.S. security assistance had been modulated by facts on the ground, Iraq's democratic institutions would have continued to take root and there would have been no ISIS.
When you are operating a brand new nuclear reactor, you don't say "our simulator says we should be able to pull the control rods all the way out, and there won't be a meltdown, so let's pull the control rods all the way out." No, you very cautiously pull the control rods out, a millimeter at a time, to verify that the system reacts as the simulator predicts.
Iraq should have been handled just as cautiously. Instead, the control rods were abruptly pulled all the way out, and we got the meltdown of ISIS.
The "Status of Forces Agreement" is not an excuse. Imagine Japanese officials in 1947 saying "we have not signed a Status of Forces Agreement, so the U.S. occupation must end." Douglas MacArthur would have laughed his ass off!
There's no way in hell the private industry can do it cheaper when they have to make a profit and report to shareholders
Why not apply that argument to every industry, then?
All auto manufacturing should be taken over by a government agency -- there's no way private industry can do it cheaper when they have to make a profit and report to shareholders.
Intel, AMD, Apple and Samsung... their fabs and engineering activities should be taken over by a government agency -- there's no way private industry can do it cheaper when they have to make a profit and report to shareholders.
Food is an even more basic human need than healthcare. So all farming, food distribution, and restaurants should be taken over by a government agency -- there's no way private industry can do it cheaper when they have to make a profit and report to shareholders.
Actually, because they have to make a profit is precisely why private enterprises have demonstrated time and time again that they are more efficient and innovative than government agencies -- which use other people's money, coercively obtained, to continue their operations.
That would be a win for everyone else. A race to the bottom is really a race to the top for everyone else.
More accurately, it's a win for the general interest, and a lose for special interests (the manufacturers who are squeezed).
A true test of character is whether you vote against policies that help a special interest at the expense of the general interest -- even if that special interest is YOU.
Oh, and what you call a "shit job" is, to the person who does it, the best job they can get. By definition. If they could switch to a better job, they would.
I had never heard of ReactOS, but your post got me curious so I looked into it.
And I learned that it targets compatibility with Windows Server 2003.
Does that not make it a dead-end OS? Is there any software house that still supports Windows Server 2003?
Here's another commenter who recently came to the same conclusion:
ReactOS is a dead end, Linux works on everything nowadays and is way more stable, plus it has better compatibility with Windows software as it receives Wine updates, while ReactOS lacks a proper update platform
AFAIK.
Buffett and his secretary pay exactly the same tax rate on their respective capital gains.
And unless Mr. Buffett is an incredibly stingy SOB, his secretary is in the top tax bracket; therefore he and his secretary pay exactly the same tax rate on earned income.
On the other hand if he is an incredibly stingy SOB, his secretary pays a lower rate than he does on earned income.
Either way, his fib has deceived millions of people.
I know nothing about cryptography. Maybe I have a misconception that you can correct.
What you're saying is, that you can generate all possible 34-bit passwords in one second.
But simply generating all those passwords is a far cry from hacking someone's account, is it not?
You have to make a login attempt with each one of those passwords, and wait for the server to respond with a "password incorrect" error before moving on to the next one. Each failed attempt would take at least a few milliseconds. (Assuming the server allows millions of rapid-fire failed login attempts.)
So associating a time of "one second" with 32-bit space is not realistic. Or, what am I missing?
That is interesting. It's because the source data also has only one Korea.
The source is the International Monetary Fund... a pretty weighty organization. I won't second-guess their list.
Norway has nice standing in the GDP per capita rankings: http://statisticstimes.com/eco...
But, would you agree that this is largely due to oil exports? If oil suddenly became a worthless commodity, would Norway fall to approximately the same place as Sweden in this ranking?
in this scenario you are the ox
Humans have always been the wielder or controller of the tools. Qualitatively that has never changed, even as the tools grew orders of magnitude more powerful. (Grain used to be harvested by a scythe with a bronze blade; now it's harvested with one of these.)
So no, you and I are not a tool (the ox).
The humans who direct the actions of robots are simply the next step in the pattern that has existed for hundreds of years now: each generation wields more powerful tools than the previous generation.
A corporation may write its check to the Internal Revenue Service for payment of the corporate income tax, but that money must come from somewhere
And that is why "stimulus" plans don't stimulate.
Investors naturally seek out enterprises that will provide high return-on-investment (ROI). And an enterprise that provides high ROI will, by definition, create more jobs than an enterprise that provides low ROI.
When government taxes money away from investors, and spends it on a "stimulus" project instead, it is transferring capital into lower-ROI enterprises at the expense of high-ROI enterprises. (A handful of bureaucrats cannot pick winners better than the crowdsourced wisdom of millions of investors participating in free financial markets.)
To the extent that the "stimulus" money is borrowed, the expansion of lower-ROI enterprises comes at the expense of future job creation, as future taxpayers are forced to service the debt instead of investing their money in high-ROI enterprises.
nobody can identify the new fields that are replacing the old ones, unlike the past
Nobody can identify the new fields, which is exactly like the past.
In 1940, nobody predicted that millions would someday be employed in the IT industry.
In 1890, nobody predicted that millions would someday be employed in the automotive industry (and supporting industries, like road construction).
In 1840, nobody predicted that billions would someday be employed in fields that depend on electric power.
Every new technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed. Moderately disruptive technologies cause a moderate amount of net job creation. Massively disruptive technologies cause a massive amount of net job creation.
The pessimists look at only the negative effects of an innovation. You have to look at both sides of the ledger to get the full picture; the net effect.
For every newspaper worker displaced by Craigslist, there are multiple workers who gained jobs, because people who use Craigslist to conveniently buy and sell used goods (which otherwise would have ended up in a landfill) now have more disposable income with which they can stimulate the general economy.
If you believe the opposite is true, then why stop at shutting down Craigslist? You should also ban all printing presses. Paying people to make hand-written signs that advertise your wares would employ more people than taking out an ad in a newspaper. (And for God's sake, don't communicate with those signmakers by telephone. Paying couriers to hand-carry your messages would employ more people.)
Thank you Solandri for being one of the few voices of reason around here. There is just one thing to add.
That the rich have gotten richer [faster] than the poor have gotten richer is certainly a valid complaint.
Actually, it's not. "Income inequality" is not the problem; poverty is the problem. Read on for the proof.
Suppose there was a magic switch that would increase every individual's annual income by this formula: new_income = 3 * old_income + $60,000
In other words, toggling that switch would eliminate poverty because everyone would have an income of at least $60,000. At the same time, it would greatly increase "income inequality," because if your old income was $1 million, your new income would be $3,060,000.
Would you throw that switch, and forever eliminate poverty from our world?
Or, have you been so brainwashed by those mindlessly railing against "income inequality" -- in other words, is your spite for the rich so great -- that you would refrain from throwing that switch, thereby keeping billions of people in grinding poverty?
I'm pretty sure Solandri would throw the switch. But sadly, there are many Slashdotters who wouldn't.
(By the way, such a switch does exist, although the results can't be obtained instantaneously. It's called pursuing pro-growth economic policies for a few more decades. See this post for a discussion of what would happen if there was so much economic growth, that a robust social safety net could be funded entirely by voluntary contributions.)
Bill Gates is only going to buy so many TVs, cars, and houses. Doubling his wealth is not going to change his spending habits.
Actually, I can say with high confidence that his spending habits would change. If his income increased by 100%, the amount he gives to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would increase by more than 100%.
That's simply how philanthropy works. A group of poor people, as much as they might want to engage in philanthropy, simply doesn't have the means to. If their situation improves, such that their own basic needs are taken care of, they tend to become philanthropists who donate a small percentage of their income. If the group's situation improves further, such that their basic needs as well as their more frivolous wants are taken care of, they tend to become philanthropists who donate a large percentage of their income. (There are, of course, exceptions to every rule.)
I look forward to the day when the economy has grown to the point where the social safety net can be funded entirely by voluntary contributions, as opposed to tax revenue that is collected coercively, even while providing more robust services than it does today.
That idea is not farfetched. Americans gave $373.25 billion to charity in 2015. I.e., about 16% of wealth redistribution was voluntary, while the other 84% was coercive. (Ok, the second statistic was from 2012; sorry I don't have something more current.) A few more decades of robust growth in Americans' incomes -- which would result in even more robust growth in their charitable contributions -- would bring us into a much better situation, where it is no longer necessary to redistribute any assets coercively. Imagine how much political rancor would dry up in that situation.
It's true that Boards of Directors often approve very large compensation packages for CEOs. They don't do this for lulz, or because they like to squander the company's resources. They do it because of a sincere belief that it's worth it; that the overall health of the company will be optimized by providing the kind of compensation it takes to attract a top-quality CEO.
Critical thinking should be applied to everything, including those who would second-guess Boards of Directors. What makes them qualified to do so? Have they ever even served on a Board of Directors? They often claim that CEO pay structure is not based on actual scarcities. Actually, top-quality CEOs are quite scarce. It's not a job I could do.
They are loaded on a plane.
That's very surprising.
A pallet of CRTs is damn heavy, and shipping heavy items by air is vastly more expensive than shipping them by rail or container ship. (The Chunnel made rail shipment in/out of the UK a viable option.)
Air-freighting heavy items is only done if you're in a hurry to get them to their destination. Who's in a hurry to get these CRTs into their landfill?
Which situation is more likely to lead to lead leaching into groundwater?
(a) CRTs stored in an abandoned warehouse, whose roof will eventually leak
(b) CRTs in a properly-constructed, lined landfill
a warehouse full of dead monitors that will basically just sit forever is still a way better scenario than having them polluting a landfill.
How did SuperKendall arrive at that conclusion?
In a deep landfill, a given quantity of CRTs will occupy much less land area than in a one-story warehouse. Furthermore, lead can't leach out of a properly-constructed landfill that is lined with clay. The same can't be said for an unwanted, unmaintained warehouse whose roof will eventually leak.
A warehouse indefinitely full of CRTs is a real estate asset that can no longer be used for productive purposes, and whose value has become negative (the owner would have to pay someone to take it off their hands, because of the massive expense of disposing of the CRTs). As its assessed value is negative, it will not generate any tax revenue for the local school district or other government entities.
IMDb's message boards are no longer providing a positive, useful experience for the vast majority of our more than 250 million monthly users worldwide,"
So what if only a minority find it useful? Turning off functionality that works, and took a fair amount of resources to create, is a waste and a shame.
You know how pedestrian crosswalk signals make a beeping sound for the benefit of the visually impaired? It's a very small minority that finds that useful. By IMDB's logic, that feature should be shut down.
These people never once claimed their math represents reality, and never claimed there is any such thing as a force of repulsion being proved here.
To be fair, they named this thing that isn't doing any repelling the "Dipole Repeller." That's an implicit claim of repulsion.