The average person doesn't respond to appeals to logic. Otherwise we'd be walking, bicycling, and taking public transit instead, just from an economic point of view. And people would have a lot less garbage to haul out on garbage day because they'd recycle. And we'd be admitting that we went over the tipping point in the 70s. And nobody should have more than 1 or 2 children. And many more would be telecommuting. And the Tea Party wouldn't exist. And Sarah Palin wouldn't be on anyone's radar.
Unfortunately, we don't live in that alternate reality.
Last I read, they are targeting a price point of $20k for those robots. Considering they could probably replace 2 workers each, the payback time would be less than a year.
How many people would buy the "Kate" model just so they can say "Kate, make me a sammich"?
Football especially, where all those players are regularly inflicting chronic brain damage on themselves with every head-first impact, in addition to the occasional broken bones and other traumatic injuries that take them off the field
So I guess those stories of going to a football game and seeing a hockey match break out are true:-)
Where is Blinky the 3-eyed fish when you need him?
Just because we've gotten lucky so far (if you discount TMI and Chernobyl and Fukushima) doesn't mean we shouldn't do better. The better the standards, the more acceptable it becomes. This is the political reality of nuclear power, and you can scream FUD all you won't it won't change that reality.
Of course, various studies have shown that in trade between countries with highly restrictive import rules and high tariffs and countries with limited import rules and tariffs, it is the latter which fair better economically
The studies are kind of flawed (to say the least) when looked at through the lens of reality. Look at the US. NAFTA was signed in 1994, so that's a good place to start, Since then, major parts of the economy hollowed out, and China is poised to pass the US as the #1 world economy. China, of course, has more trade restrictions. So imposing trade restrictions seems to have worked quite well for them.
In 1994, the United States' national debt was $4.692 trillion. It's expected to be $18.713 trillion this year. In 1994, the US trade deficit was $151 billion. Last year, it was $661 billion. So in 20 years, the deficit has ballooned by almost 4x the total amount for the previous 200 years.
Worse is that in 1994, US imports only exceeded that year's exports by 30%. Today, it's 50%. It's quite simply getting worse no matter how you look at it. And then we can also point to the decline of the middle class, not because they've benefited, but because they've joined the ranks of the poor.
As I pointed out, big data is being used by people who shouldn't be in the position to make decisions. You can't make right decisions if you ask the wrong questions.
A lot of the stuff you buy today is simply not repairable by tinkering around. To repair my toaster, I had to drill the rivets out of the bottom and replace them with screws, then figure out what was wrong. Repairing my microwave by taking it apart got me a couple more years out of it, but last year it would have cost more just for the part than the whole thing had originally cost, so I got a new one for half the price I paid for the old one. I've got a 15-year-old desktop computer taking up space that I will get around to tossing, same as I've tossed other computers over the last 25 years. At some point they're just not worth fixing. Not when I can buy a new laptop with 4x the (much faster) ram and 4 cores just for the cost of the ram and equivalent hard drive (and I'd still be stuck with a single core 32 bit cpu).
There's a cost-benefit curve associated with electronics that is different from most everything else because of the rapid pace of improvements and lowering costs. Just like I stopped fixing people's vcrs (remember those things) when they were going for $25 new.
About the only thing that hasn't been obsoleted is fixing bicycles. It seems that nobody else knows how to fix a flat - or if they do, they do it wrong and wonder why their "fix" only lasted a few hours.
Your first argument is a real over-reach. Why not give them exposure to cosmetology, cleaning bedpans, running heavy equipment, etc. Hey, get real - we're talking kids in grades 5 to 8. NOBODY is going to make a lifetime decision based on that, and people shouldn't be making career choices based on what they've been exposed to in class at ANY age. Life doesn't really work like that.
Also, the vast majority of people in other crafts are not obsoleted by the time they're 40 and have to look for another trade, so no, programmers do NOT face the same problems as other professions, except maybe fashion models.
Programming wasn't a "young persons job" until way too many people got into it - it was called the tech bubble for a reason. It's one reason "kiddie languages" are so popular with "programmers" - there is no way 99% of the programmers out there could make it with just assembler and c.
And no - when "be valuable to your employer" means working all sorts of crazy hours with impossible deadlines all the time has become the norm because the whole industry is f*d up, at one point you'll be thrown under the bus because someone above you has screwed the pooch and is looking to be seen as doing something about it. This industry is too full of people who, whenever they promise too much and you deliver, take it as permission to make even more outlandish promises rather than realize the they just dodged a bullet.
I think the best advice I didn't take was "If you enjoy doing something, don't turn it into work - that will take the fun out of it." While I miss it, in a way I'm relieved that I'm out of it, even if it meant losing most of my vision for a few years.
Of course, your turn will come. Just give it time.
What part of "it's not really bendable" did you have a hard time understanding, wanker?
That's the whole problem - it's not bendable, so when it bends, it's due to a design defect. Apple knew about this during development and had placed reinforcing on both sides, but it was compromised by the cut-outs for the external buttons. So, bendy-phone.
I think that this is a first step to, if not dismantling those agreements, rendering them more or less irrelevant. The EU and OECD are also looking at ways to close up the loopholes. There are really only two options - fix this, or realize that in the race to the bottom there will always be players willing to play musical chairs.
Some people are going to shout "protectionism", but I think that the lower and middle classes are realizing that some things are worth protecting.
That's a nice strawman argument you got going there.
People who have an understanding of their business will achieve far better results than a random distribution. The CEO of Ford saw it coming several years in advance, and prepared (via tens of billions of borrowing against every company asset, including their logo) to have enough funds to weather it out, while changing their product line-up to match the new reality.
There is no "silver bullet" to replace competence.
There's lies, damn lies, and statistics. Big data is just the 3rd repackaged, snake oil for people who (a) don't understand the business they're in (or they wouldn't need consultants telling them big data will tell them how to better run their business), (b) don't know which data is relevant, (c) don't know what questions are important, and (d) should be fired.
Big data wouldn't have prevented GM from going bankrupt. GM head idiot Wagoneer didn't understand that the nature of the business had changed (point a). Also didn't understand that those big sales figures for Hummer were irrelevant, because they were a product that was soon answering the "wrong question" (point b). He failed to address the crunch others knew was coming, so he didn't ask "what happens when..." (point c). As for point d, he was finally fired, but too late.
Big data is just a new twist of online dating. "Given enough people, we can match any two." Yeah, right.
But what you are talking about can be picked up by users on their own time, or their own dime. No formal education needed, especially in the target group of this study - grades 5 to 8.
And it's not that hard to pick up enough html to get by on Slashdot's broken implementation.
Pretty much every clued-in educator knows that a "how to handle money" course would be a good thing in both late elementary and a refresher in high school. Heck, it might have made people less gullible for all those sub-prime low-rate-for-one-year-and-then-look-out deals.
We're not talking university or trade school - we're talking about kids who haven't mastered the basics. And with the continuous dumbing down of grade school and high school education, and university degree inflation as a direct consequence, something's gotta give.
The problem is unmotivated teachers and unmotivated kids being raised by unmotivated parents. Homework (when it's given) isn't taken seriously. Kids who should be held back aren't. Teachers who are incompetent can't be fired unless there's a bunch of complaints about inappropriate touching - and even then it's not easy. It's hard to make headway when the average person (teacher, student, or parent) now has been conditioned to have the attention span of a tweet, and if anyone says anything negative, even if it's true, people will "block" them, same as on facebook.
Don't try to relegate their latest goofs, such as updates that crash the computer or don't check to make sure there's enough room to successfully install, and their latest bendable phone as "stale wankery." These all happened in the last year.
So why don't we throw in teaching them about how stoves and ovens and tvs and cars and all those other things work? Because for 99%, it's useless information and a waste of time. Same as we don't teach everyone the inner workings of a nuclear power plant.
Hint: you took those courses in university. Grades 5-8 (the students in the study) don't have the same educational needs.
Also, the "how the technology around us works and why things function the way they do" argument is SO totally bogus. Do we teach everyone the inner workings of how a car or a tv or a radio or a washing machine or a camera or a microwave or an oven or an air conditioner or a fridge works? Nope. There's no point. 99% of them will never use that knowledge. When it's broke, they either get someone else to fix it or buy a new one.
Instead of that, better off teaching them how to apply flow charting to making real-life decisions. At least it teaches them a logical approach to breaking down many everyday problems.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it will happen, but by then everyone reading this today will be 61+.
Adoption is going to be slow. The current perl is like XP with one important difference - it's still being distributed.
The average person doesn't respond to appeals to logic. Otherwise we'd be walking, bicycling, and taking public transit instead, just from an economic point of view. And people would have a lot less garbage to haul out on garbage day because they'd recycle. And we'd be admitting that we went over the tipping point in the 70s. And nobody should have more than 1 or 2 children. And many more would be telecommuting. And the Tea Party wouldn't exist. And Sarah Palin wouldn't be on anyone's radar.
Unfortunately, we don't live in that alternate reality.
Easy way to neutralize them - just have them watch online pr0n for a while.
Last I read, they are targeting a price point of $20k for those robots. Considering they could probably replace 2 workers each, the payback time would be less than a year.
How many people would buy the "Kate" model just so they can say "Kate, make me a sammich"?
Football especially, where all those players are regularly inflicting chronic brain damage on themselves with every head-first impact, in addition to the occasional broken bones and other traumatic injuries that take them off the field
So I guess those stories of going to a football game and seeing a hockey match break out are true :-)
Where is Blinky the 3-eyed fish when you need him?
Just because we've gotten lucky so far (if you discount TMI and Chernobyl and Fukushima) doesn't mean we shouldn't do better. The better the standards, the more acceptable it becomes. This is the political reality of nuclear power, and you can scream FUD all you won't it won't change that reality.
Of course, various studies have shown that in trade between countries with highly restrictive import rules and high tariffs and countries with limited import rules and tariffs, it is the latter which fair better economically
The studies are kind of flawed (to say the least) when looked at through the lens of reality. Look at the US. NAFTA was signed in 1994, so that's a good place to start, Since then, major parts of the economy hollowed out, and China is poised to pass the US as the #1 world economy. China, of course, has more trade restrictions. So imposing trade restrictions seems to have worked quite well for them.
In 1994, the United States' national debt was $4.692 trillion. It's expected to be $18.713 trillion this year. In 1994, the US trade deficit was $151 billion. Last year, it was $661 billion. So in 20 years, the deficit has ballooned by almost 4x the total amount for the previous 200 years.
Worse is that in 1994, US imports only exceeded that year's exports by 30%. Today, it's 50%. It's quite simply getting worse no matter how you look at it. And then we can also point to the decline of the middle class, not because they've benefited, but because they've joined the ranks of the poor.
So, how's that free trade working for you again?
As I pointed out, big data is being used by people who shouldn't be in the position to make decisions. You can't make right decisions if you ask the wrong questions.
A lot of the stuff you buy today is simply not repairable by tinkering around. To repair my toaster, I had to drill the rivets out of the bottom and replace them with screws, then figure out what was wrong. Repairing my microwave by taking it apart got me a couple more years out of it, but last year it would have cost more just for the part than the whole thing had originally cost, so I got a new one for half the price I paid for the old one. I've got a 15-year-old desktop computer taking up space that I will get around to tossing, same as I've tossed other computers over the last 25 years. At some point they're just not worth fixing. Not when I can buy a new laptop with 4x the (much faster) ram and 4 cores just for the cost of the ram and equivalent hard drive (and I'd still be stuck with a single core 32 bit cpu).
There's a cost-benefit curve associated with electronics that is different from most everything else because of the rapid pace of improvements and lowering costs. Just like I stopped fixing people's vcrs (remember those things) when they were going for $25 new.
About the only thing that hasn't been obsoleted is fixing bicycles. It seems that nobody else knows how to fix a flat - or if they do, they do it wrong and wonder why their "fix" only lasted a few hours.
Your first argument is a real over-reach. Why not give them exposure to cosmetology, cleaning bedpans, running heavy equipment, etc. Hey, get real - we're talking kids in grades 5 to 8. NOBODY is going to make a lifetime decision based on that, and people shouldn't be making career choices based on what they've been exposed to in class at ANY age. Life doesn't really work like that.
Also, the vast majority of people in other crafts are not obsoleted by the time they're 40 and have to look for another trade, so no, programmers do NOT face the same problems as other professions, except maybe fashion models.
Programming wasn't a "young persons job" until way too many people got into it - it was called the tech bubble for a reason. It's one reason "kiddie languages" are so popular with "programmers" - there is no way 99% of the programmers out there could make it with just assembler and c.
And no - when "be valuable to your employer" means working all sorts of crazy hours with impossible deadlines all the time has become the norm because the whole industry is f*d up, at one point you'll be thrown under the bus because someone above you has screwed the pooch and is looking to be seen as doing something about it. This industry is too full of people who, whenever they promise too much and you deliver, take it as permission to make even more outlandish promises rather than realize the they just dodged a bullet.
I think the best advice I didn't take was "If you enjoy doing something, don't turn it into work - that will take the fun out of it." While I miss it, in a way I'm relieved that I'm out of it, even if it meant losing most of my vision for a few years.
Of course, your turn will come. Just give it time.
What part of "it's not really bendable" did you have a hard time understanding, wanker?
That's the whole problem - it's not bendable, so when it bends, it's due to a design defect. Apple knew about this during development and had placed reinforcing on both sides, but it was compromised by the cut-outs for the external buttons. So, bendy-phone.
I think that this is a first step to, if not dismantling those agreements, rendering them more or less irrelevant. The EU and OECD are also looking at ways to close up the loopholes. There are really only two options - fix this, or realize that in the race to the bottom there will always be players willing to play musical chairs.
Some people are going to shout "protectionism", but I think that the lower and middle classes are realizing that some things are worth protecting.
That's a nice strawman argument you got going there.
People who have an understanding of their business will achieve far better results than a random distribution. The CEO of Ford saw it coming several years in advance, and prepared (via tens of billions of borrowing against every company asset, including their logo) to have enough funds to weather it out, while changing their product line-up to match the new reality.
There is no "silver bullet" to replace competence.
There's lies, damn lies, and statistics. Big data is just the 3rd repackaged, snake oil for people who (a) don't understand the business they're in (or they wouldn't need consultants telling them big data will tell them how to better run their business), (b) don't know which data is relevant, (c) don't know what questions are important, and (d) should be fired.
Big data wouldn't have prevented GM from going bankrupt. GM head idiot Wagoneer didn't understand that the nature of the business had changed (point a). Also didn't understand that those big sales figures for Hummer were irrelevant, because they were a product that was soon answering the "wrong question" (point b). He failed to address the crunch others knew was coming, so he didn't ask "what happens when ..." (point c). As for point d, he was finally fired, but too late.
Big data is just a new twist of online dating. "Given enough people, we can match any two." Yeah, right.
Or we can start dismantling the various free trade agreements, since they just turned the global economy into a huge rush to the bottom.
In other words, when it comes to big data, you're doing it wrong - and if you change how you're doing it, you're still going to be doing it wrong.
Big data fails to live up to hype - news at 11.
Not really - the EU also wants to close this loophole.
But what you are talking about can be picked up by users on their own time, or their own dime. No formal education needed, especially in the target group of this study - grades 5 to 8.
And it's not that hard to pick up enough html to get by on Slashdot's broken implementation.
Pretty much every clued-in educator knows that a "how to handle money" course would be a good thing in both late elementary and a refresher in high school. Heck, it might have made people less gullible for all those sub-prime low-rate-for-one-year-and-then-look-out deals.
We're not talking university or trade school - we're talking about kids who haven't mastered the basics. And with the continuous dumbing down of grade school and high school education, and university degree inflation as a direct consequence, something's gotta give.
If you're going to go the trade route, programming isn't it. The majority of programmers leave the field by 40. I'm glad my daughters didn't go into it, and in retrospect, I regret that I did.
The problem is unmotivated teachers and unmotivated kids being raised by unmotivated parents. Homework (when it's given) isn't taken seriously. Kids who should be held back aren't. Teachers who are incompetent can't be fired unless there's a bunch of complaints about inappropriate touching - and even then it's not easy. It's hard to make headway when the average person (teacher, student, or parent) now has been conditioned to have the attention span of a tweet, and if anyone says anything negative, even if it's true, people will "block" them, same as on facebook.
Don't try to relegate their latest goofs, such as updates that crash the computer or don't check to make sure there's enough room to successfully install, and their latest bendable phone as "stale wankery." These all happened in the last year.
So why don't we throw in teaching them about how stoves and ovens and tvs and cars and all those other things work? Because for 99%, it's useless information and a waste of time. Same as we don't teach everyone the inner workings of a nuclear power plant.
Hint: you took those courses in university. Grades 5-8 (the students in the study) don't have the same educational needs.
Also, the "how the technology around us works and why things function the way they do" argument is SO totally bogus. Do we teach everyone the inner workings of how a car or a tv or a radio or a washing machine or a camera or a microwave or an oven or an air conditioner or a fridge works? Nope. There's no point. 99% of them will never use that knowledge. When it's broke, they either get someone else to fix it or buy a new one.
Instead of that, better off teaching them how to apply flow charting to making real-life decisions. At least it teaches them a logical approach to breaking down many everyday problems.