Yep, the catch with this offer is you are going to need have exceptional skills before they fly you out here. We have shortages in the tech area but they are not with basic programmers and the like, I doubt something like a couple of years with C# are going to get you a look in.
I grew up in Wellington and now live in Auckland. The stats are more hours of sunshine in Wellington than Auckland and the reported temperatures are similar. The real catch with Wellington is the common icy cold winds coming up from down south often ruin what could be a lovely day. I ride a motorcycle often so I care about the weather and Auckland is much better. That said Wellington is still going to be a lot better than some places I have visited. Simply put what you think of Wellington weather is going to depend on where you come from, what you are used to.
I suspect that is because you can retire at 65 so they are basically saying they expect 10 years work from you for their investment. From what I hear age is a big issue in Silicon Valley but is is not here in New Zealand, the only problem I find as an older employee (54), is that my pay expectations are now too high for a lot of companies. If I didn't mind a pay cut I would expect I could find work at almost any tech company in New Zealand as skills and ability to fit in with the existing teams are the main thing employers are looking for here.
About Wellington, they say "You can't beat Wellington on a good day" and that is true, but they do have a lot of windy days there, you have been warned. Depending on where you come from you may find Wellington has a very small feel about it but it does have great people and a good culture so is worth checking out.
No, I would actually agree with you, especially in this case. It seems clear my co-worker was targeted based on his race and as you say it was "made worse by the gun problem". In posting I was hoping to get people thinking, but the knee jerk reactions should not have surprised me. To be honest I have found some of the opinions put forward rather disturbing and I am less keen to spend time there if that is really how people are thinking.
From the outside looking in the first thing we see is a high death rate per capita and and a high gun ownership rate per capita so we assume that is the general problem but we fail to understand the deeper issue, since we don't live there, that there is more underlying issues, in this case hate. I get a sense that the inherent trust I have have my fellow New Zealander is much more deep that American's mutual trust of each other. I guess I should not be surprised, having lived in Ukraine and China the average person there has low trust of their fellow countrymen but in that case it is clear to see whereas in America it seems hidden further below the surface. I guess what I am saying is the public image that America likes to project about itself is at odds with how they really feel. That would explain the mixed messages you guys send in many of your posts.
Thank you for your reasoned response. I agree that numbers by themselves paint a too simple view of a complex issue and I acknowledge there is no quick fix. I just wish people would take the time to think about things and to wonder what are the options. At the risk of creating further offense I notice the USA is very inward looking. My last trip there was for 2 weeks and during my time there I only saw two TV news stories about what was happening outside the USA, all the other news was internal.
You need to follow the full thread, my 'here' is New Zealand. You do make my point, you do have 3000 times the fatal shootings for 70 times the population. But, hey, freedom ra ra ra!
Thank you for the well reasoned and thought out argument. Most of the responses have seen here have been, from the outside looking in, irrational so I think the core issue is my culture sees things fundamentally different from yours.
When I consider your statement "Guns are a tool to that enables the citizenry to protect themselves from rogue agitators to state aggression" I guess I can't speculate on that in the USA context but I don't think it is true for New Zealand and similar countries. I do wonder if modern communications has changed the balance of things too. For example many people ask why cars are not banned since they kill people too. So lets say my government fixes this problem by banning all private transport and mandates people must use government supplied buses that run twice a day. People would protest in parliament in huge numbers and would probably enter the parliament buildings and stage a sit in until the law was reversed and new elections called. The police are not armed but have access to fire arms. They would never wear fire arms in such a situations, they would use batons. The protesters would not be armed. We have a lot of significant size protests and I have never in my 54 years hear of a protester caring a fire arm and the police have never carried then against protesters. The police would form a chain armed with riot shields and batons, the sheer number of protesters would push them over. There would be injuries, the most serious of which would broken bones. If a corrupt government ordered the police to use lethal force against unarmed protesters our police would refuse. Likewise our military would refuse to get involved. Both the police and military here know it would be both illegal and immoral and in the face of overwhelming public protest would respect the power of the people. For example for any small protest people are likely to be arrested for blocking roads and distributing order but left alone if well behaved. Large protests are allowed to break the law and block roads as the police take the pragmatic view it is what the public want. I have faith that here at least the public can over throw an unjust government without the need to arm the masses.
On the other hand I do lament the gradual erosion of freedoms by governments world wide, including here, but can't see how the right bear arms would help fix that here.
My thinking is employers should be required to pay immigrants the same as locals to stop employers bring them in just to save money. Here in New Zealand you get entry based on points and high paying skilled workers get more points and are therefore more likely to get in. To meet their visa requirements they need to prove their pay is above a certain threshold. Not foolproof but does stop the worst cases of the abuses of the system.
You don't need a visa to work short term in the USA if your are employed elsewhere. I am a New Zealand citizen and work for Garmin in New Zealand but will sometimes to travel to Olathe and our USA based customers to sort out problems. It is classed as business travel and is only a short term thing, typically only a few days.
Try browsing with all comments enabled, as you are meant to if moderating. A guy died and yet all some people can post is hateful, racist and often off topic rants. The worst posts are by anonymous cowards. After you have read some of those, usually already mod to -1, tell me you wouldn't mod them down too? Slashdot does not allow you to both mod and comment in the same post, which is a fair restriction. I chose to post as I take the death of a coworker personally and think it is something to be talked about constructively and like adults.
BTW when I mod I almost always mod up, not down, and I try to mod based in the value of the content, not my view. If I disagree with a view I will not mod it down for that reason.
I would note that most post that attack me lack any real arguments, they are just rhetoric. Some are well reason, even if I disagree, I will at least try and understand their view point and respond appropriately.
I had trouble getting figures for here, based on 0.09 per 100,000 over 4 million that looks to be about 4 fatal shooting a year currently. I think that figure jumps up if you include hunting accidents. Our car deaths run at about 300 a year so compared to your 3:1 car to gun death ration I guess we are really bad drivers? It is hard to get figures here as the leading causes of death are mostly health related due to poor diet. Shooting probably would not make the top 100 of our list of causes of death.
And to answer your first statement road safety is debated here a lot more often than gun control. There is little demand to do something about gun control here but plenty of demand to do something about road deaths. No body talks about taking cars off people but changes here have brought the car death rate down from a peak of 600.
Yes, you point about accidents in interesting. One friend I visited in the USA was talking about guns. They said they had three and asked if I would like to see them. I had never seen a hand gun in person, only rifles, so I said yes. Several minutes later they came back with two and an animated debate ensued about where the third one was. This was a house that normally only had adults resident but there was some concern expressed as another friend on a recent brought a child there and may be they had moved it. Eye opening.
My nervousness is about the presence of firearms. I see the police wearing them, I see guns for sale at Walmart and I see signs about gun policies on the entrances to building. Combine that with the news reports and statistics and it is concerning. I use the rational side of brain to remind me that the media do hype things up and while it is much more dangerous than back home the risk is still small as long as I don't do anything stupid I should be fine. As a result I normally enjoy my visits and I like 99% of the people I meet.
Thanks for the well reasoned argument. I have thought about maybe living in the USA for a year to two and wonder if I would arm myself for self defence in my home. I suspect I would more go down the route I did when I live in Ukraine for a while. The apartment I lived in had a huge thick metal door that was the only way in. I could sleep sound at night. Of course it did no make me safer when I went out which I take as one of your valid points.
So yes, in the reality of your country arming yourself is a valid consideration. I would ask you to take a step back and think about what kind of society you actually want to live in and how you could get there over the long term?
Yes, can imagine that happing in some companies but I very much doubt it is happening at Garmin. I have been lucky enough to deal with management at reasonably senior level and they seem to take their social responsibilities seriously. I deal mainly with New Zealand, Taiwan and the USA and all three groups are patriotically proud of what they do while managing to respect the others. In that respect it is a good company to work for.
Thank you for your reasoned response. Rifles are common here and not to hard to get but you never see then in the city, only on farms, at the homes of hunters and out the bush. I would image it possible to get a hand gun but I'm 54 and in my entire life I have never seen one here outside of a gun shop or on the police at Auckland International Airport (rare even there).
Yes, knives etc are an issue in bar fights etc but are a magnitude less dangerous and I think your average bouncer would consider take on such a person.
Thanks, that is the first reasoned response I recall. Actually we have reasonably high gun ownership in New Zealand but they are normally rifles for sport or farming and hand guns are rare. We have debates here about arming our police but I think we have it right where none are armed but many have access when needed in a lock box in their vehicle. Here I do not live in fear. I feel safe have in drink in all but the worst bars, walking almost any street at night and never fear being pulled over by the cops. I don't fear someone breaking into my home at night, they will wait until I go to work to break in. I don't lock my car when I drive or get nervous when I stop at the traffic lights.
I like visiting the USA but do feel nervous about where I go and what I do. I have thought about working there for a year or two as the place does have some merits but I would not immigrate, life is too much better here.
I was not trying to start a flame ware, I was talking about the loss of a coworker, the first time in my near 40 years of working. Was not surprised at the response I got but I was disappointed, I figured Slashdotters would be reasoned in their responses, I guess I over estimated them. I think for real improvements to happen there there has to be a change of thinking more that a change of law and I would hope people there would look at the other sane countries and maybe wonder why things are different and try and envision a better future for themselves.
Not surprised at the huge negative response. Most of the responses back my statement "They genuinely believe that the right to bear arms is a good thing". My point is if you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... you will see you are 10 times more likely to be shot to death than places like New Zealand. Some of you claim it is need to defend your democracy but there is nothing wrong with democracy here. We rise up and protest as needed and if the worst came I am sure people could overthrow an unjust government without mass arming of ourselves.
One poster pointed our that to disarm your country would result on mass deaths. I think that poster was right and wouldn't suggest trying that. They easy no easy fix for your problem, and I am not proposing any. I am suggesting that you are in denial that a problem even exists, despite the figures, and before you can improve things there you need to change you way of thinking.
Actually there is a "correct" side, the side that says my coworker would not be dead if he meet the same type mentally deranged guy in New Zealand, Australia, Britain, China and most of Europe. If that had happened here my coworker would be in the office the next day with a broken nose and the other guy would be in court on an assault charge.
I work for Garmin in New Zealand and have been to Olathe a few times. Garmin has great inclusive culture to it and I am genuinely saddened to hear of Srinivas' death.
I am disappointed to read posts that somehow infer that Srinivas' employment in the Olathe office was at the expense of a US resident getting a job. That is simply not true. There is a world wide shortage of skilled workers. We have two US employees in our Auckland office and no one here complains about them taking our jobs. We employee every skilled Kiwi we can find but the shortage means over half my team are from China and Taiwan. We welcome them as we need more skilled people to get keep our business competitive. None of the locals, such as myself, see these people as stealing our jobs.
It is the same in Olathe, they will employ any US citizen with suitable skills ahead of a foreign worker as it is less hassle but they can not get enough staff with right skills, in part because Garmin set the bar quite high when it comes to skill levels. I have meet people with a wide range of backgrounds in the US Garmin offices and have never seen even a hint of racism or sexism.
My mind can not comprehend how the shooter could feel justified in taking a life even if he really thought immigrant were taking local jobs. These kind of people need to stop blaming immigrants for stealing jobs and take a good hard look at themselves.
I work for Garmin at a different location and information I got from a co-worker, who used to be based in Olathe, was that the shooter drove to another bar where he told the staff he was in hiding from police. The staff there then called police who arrested him.
I have been to the USA often and have friends there. The one thing I know is you can not have a rational discussion with them about gun control. They genuinely believe that the right to bear arms is a good thing and the deaths that result, while tragic, are the price of freedom. I realise that any critique of US gun control or freedom means I will now be modded down.
I have 15 mod points now that I can't use since I am posting here. I could have used them to mod down the hateful posts but I want to post. I am genuinely saddened to hear of the death of a co-worker and such a needless death is so hard to understand. I have no idea how to fix the gun problem in the USA, if it was easy it would have been done already. Sorry America, you have a problem and the stats are pretty clear on that point.
My thoughts go our to Srinivas' family, I am sorry for your loss.
Lots of discussions about why people think their job can't be replaced but not much about why the discrepancy between peoples option of robots replacing other jobs as being different from their self perception.
I think almost every job has an element that could be automated and therefore could be taken over by robots and also has an element that take human adaptability and could not be done by a robot. It is that later part I think people under estimate in other jobs and over estimate in there own jobs. For example I tend to think of my job as embedded systems engineer more secure that that of a business systems program. I tend think the business programmers do simple stuff of taking a spread sheet and spiting out a report, which could easily be automated, whereas I do analysis of how my product interacts with the real world and low level hardware coding that does not use off the shelf libraries so therefore my job can not easily be automated. So I fit the description of thinking my job safer than others. However a business programmer may think I have under estimated their job as they have to interact with customers to understand what the contents of the spreadsheet really mean and what the report actually needs to show and it only the coding in between that could be automated so their job is secure. They then look at my job and think the only reason it needs skill is a lack of libraries for real world access and low level access and once that was done it could be automated so their job is more secure.
The reality is jobs will change so the parts that a can be automated will disappear and the part that are hard to automate will remain. As the automation improves the human roles will become more specialised. I do worry the labour market and teaching institutes that support feeding them may be too slow to adapt and some people are going to fall below the intelligence thresholds need for the remaining jobs and this will become a bigger problem over time,
Thanks for the link, your post needs voted up as informative. It does explain why you are at a shipping cost disadvantage. If that was fixed you still need to fix the attitude of most USA based sellers who only ship inside the USA. I assume the logic is the local USA market is big enough and international customer are too much hassle or risk.
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Yep, the catch with this offer is you are going to need have exceptional skills before they fly you out here. We have shortages in the tech area but they are not with basic programmers and the like, I doubt something like a couple of years with C# are going to get you a look in.
I grew up in Wellington and now live in Auckland. The stats are more hours of sunshine in Wellington than Auckland and the reported temperatures are similar. The real catch with Wellington is the common icy cold winds coming up from down south often ruin what could be a lovely day. I ride a motorcycle often so I care about the weather and Auckland is much better. That said Wellington is still going to be a lot better than some places I have visited. Simply put what you think of Wellington weather is going to depend on where you come from, what you are used to.
I suspect that is because you can retire at 65 so they are basically saying they expect 10 years work from you for their investment. From what I hear age is a big issue in Silicon Valley but is is not here in New Zealand, the only problem I find as an older employee (54), is that my pay expectations are now too high for a lot of companies. If I didn't mind a pay cut I would expect I could find work at almost any tech company in New Zealand as skills and ability to fit in with the existing teams are the main thing employers are looking for here.
About Wellington, they say "You can't beat Wellington on a good day" and that is true, but they do have a lot of windy days there, you have been warned. Depending on where you come from you may find Wellington has a very small feel about it but it does have great people and a good culture so is worth checking out.
No, I would actually agree with you, especially in this case. It seems clear my co-worker was targeted based on his race and as you say it was "made worse by the gun problem". In posting I was hoping to get people thinking, but the knee jerk reactions should not have surprised me. To be honest I have found some of the opinions put forward rather disturbing and I am less keen to spend time there if that is really how people are thinking.
From the outside looking in the first thing we see is a high death rate per capita and and a high gun ownership rate per capita so we assume that is the general problem but we fail to understand the deeper issue, since we don't live there, that there is more underlying issues, in this case hate. I get a sense that the inherent trust I have have my fellow New Zealander is much more deep that American's mutual trust of each other. I guess I should not be surprised, having lived in Ukraine and China the average person there has low trust of their fellow countrymen but in that case it is clear to see whereas in America it seems hidden further below the surface. I guess what I am saying is the public image that America likes to project about itself is at odds with how they really feel. That would explain the mixed messages you guys send in many of your posts.
Thank you for your reasoned response. I agree that numbers by themselves paint a too simple view of a complex issue and I acknowledge there is no quick fix. I just wish people would take the time to think about things and to wonder what are the options. At the risk of creating further offense I notice the USA is very inward looking. My last trip there was for 2 weeks and during my time there I only saw two TV news stories about what was happening outside the USA, all the other news was internal.
You need to follow the full thread, my 'here' is New Zealand. You do make my point, you do have 3000 times the fatal shootings for 70 times the population. But, hey, freedom ra ra ra!
Thank you for the well reasoned and thought out argument. Most of the responses have seen here have been, from the outside looking in, irrational so I think the core issue is my culture sees things fundamentally different from yours.
When I consider your statement "Guns are a tool to that enables the citizenry to protect themselves from rogue agitators to state aggression" I guess I can't speculate on that in the USA context but I don't think it is true for New Zealand and similar countries. I do wonder if modern communications has changed the balance of things too. For example many people ask why cars are not banned since they kill people too. So lets say my government fixes this problem by banning all private transport and mandates people must use government supplied buses that run twice a day. People would protest in parliament in huge numbers and would probably enter the parliament buildings and stage a sit in until the law was reversed and new elections called. The police are not armed but have access to fire arms. They would never wear fire arms in such a situations, they would use batons. The protesters would not be armed. We have a lot of significant size protests and I have never in my 54 years hear of a protester caring a fire arm and the police have never carried then against protesters. The police would form a chain armed with riot shields and batons, the sheer number of protesters would push them over. There would be injuries, the most serious of which would broken bones. If a corrupt government ordered the police to use lethal force against unarmed protesters our police would refuse. Likewise our military would refuse to get involved. Both the police and military here know it would be both illegal and immoral and in the face of overwhelming public protest would respect the power of the people. For example for any small protest people are likely to be arrested for blocking roads and distributing order but left alone if well behaved. Large protests are allowed to break the law and block roads as the police take the pragmatic view it is what the public want. I have faith that here at least the public can over throw an unjust government without the need to arm the masses.
On the other hand I do lament the gradual erosion of freedoms by governments world wide, including here, but can't see how the right bear arms would help fix that here.
My thinking is employers should be required to pay immigrants the same as locals to stop employers bring them in just to save money. Here in New Zealand you get entry based on points and high paying skilled workers get more points and are therefore more likely to get in. To meet their visa requirements they need to prove their pay is above a certain threshold. Not foolproof but does stop the worst cases of the abuses of the system.
You don't need a visa to work short term in the USA if your are employed elsewhere. I am a New Zealand citizen and work for Garmin in New Zealand but will sometimes to travel to Olathe and our USA based customers to sort out problems. It is classed as business travel and is only a short term thing, typically only a few days.
Try browsing with all comments enabled, as you are meant to if moderating. A guy died and yet all some people can post is hateful, racist and often off topic rants. The worst posts are by anonymous cowards. After you have read some of those, usually already mod to -1, tell me you wouldn't mod them down too? Slashdot does not allow you to both mod and comment in the same post, which is a fair restriction. I chose to post as I take the death of a coworker personally and think it is something to be talked about constructively and like adults.
BTW when I mod I almost always mod up, not down, and I try to mod based in the value of the content, not my view. If I disagree with a view I will not mod it down for that reason.
I would note that most post that attack me lack any real arguments, they are just rhetoric. Some are well reason, even if I disagree, I will at least try and understand their view point and respond appropriately.
I had trouble getting figures for here, based on 0.09 per 100,000 over 4 million that looks to be about 4 fatal shooting a year currently. I think that figure jumps up if you include hunting accidents. Our car deaths run at about 300 a year so compared to your 3:1 car to gun death ration I guess we are really bad drivers? It is hard to get figures here as the leading causes of death are mostly health related due to poor diet. Shooting probably would not make the top 100 of our list of causes of death.
And to answer your first statement road safety is debated here a lot more often than gun control. There is little demand to do something about gun control here but plenty of demand to do something about road deaths. No body talks about taking cars off people but changes here have brought the car death rate down from a peak of 600.
Yes, you point about accidents in interesting. One friend I visited in the USA was talking about guns. They said they had three and asked if I would like to see them. I had never seen a hand gun in person, only rifles, so I said yes. Several minutes later they came back with two and an animated debate ensued about where the third one was. This was a house that normally only had adults resident but there was some concern expressed as another friend on a recent brought a child there and may be they had moved it. Eye opening.
My nervousness is about the presence of firearms. I see the police wearing them, I see guns for sale at Walmart and I see signs about gun policies on the entrances to building. Combine that with the news reports and statistics and it is concerning. I use the rational side of brain to remind me that the media do hype things up and while it is much more dangerous than back home the risk is still small as long as I don't do anything stupid I should be fine. As a result I normally enjoy my visits and I like 99% of the people I meet.
Thanks for the well reasoned argument. I have thought about maybe living in the USA for a year to two and wonder if I would arm myself for self defence in my home. I suspect I would more go down the route I did when I live in Ukraine for a while. The apartment I lived in had a huge thick metal door that was the only way in. I could sleep sound at night. Of course it did no make me safer when I went out which I take as one of your valid points.
So yes, in the reality of your country arming yourself is a valid consideration. I would ask you to take a step back and think about what kind of society you actually want to live in and how you could get there over the long term?
Yes, can imagine that happing in some companies but I very much doubt it is happening at Garmin. I have been lucky enough to deal with management at reasonably senior level and they seem to take their social responsibilities seriously. I deal mainly with New Zealand, Taiwan and the USA and all three groups are patriotically proud of what they do while managing to respect the others. In that respect it is a good company to work for.
Thank you for your reasoned response. Rifles are common here and not to hard to get but you never see then in the city, only on farms, at the homes of hunters and out the bush. I would image it possible to get a hand gun but I'm 54 and in my entire life I have never seen one here outside of a gun shop or on the police at Auckland International Airport (rare even there).
Yes, knives etc are an issue in bar fights etc but are a magnitude less dangerous and I think your average bouncer would consider take on such a person.
Thanks, that is the first reasoned response I recall. Actually we have reasonably high gun ownership in New Zealand but they are normally rifles for sport or farming and hand guns are rare. We have debates here about arming our police but I think we have it right where none are armed but many have access when needed in a lock box in their vehicle. Here I do not live in fear. I feel safe have in drink in all but the worst bars, walking almost any street at night and never fear being pulled over by the cops. I don't fear someone breaking into my home at night, they will wait until I go to work to break in. I don't lock my car when I drive or get nervous when I stop at the traffic lights.
I like visiting the USA but do feel nervous about where I go and what I do. I have thought about working there for a year or two as the place does have some merits but I would not immigrate, life is too much better here.
I was not trying to start a flame ware, I was talking about the loss of a coworker, the first time in my near 40 years of working. Was not surprised at the response I got but I was disappointed, I figured Slashdotters would be reasoned in their responses, I guess I over estimated them. I think for real improvements to happen there there has to be a change of thinking more that a change of law and I would hope people there would look at the other sane countries and maybe wonder why things are different and try and envision a better future for themselves.
Not surprised at the huge negative response. Most of the responses back my statement "They genuinely believe that the right to bear arms is a good thing". My point is if you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... you will see you are 10 times more likely to be shot to death than places like New Zealand. Some of you claim it is need to defend your democracy but there is nothing wrong with democracy here. We rise up and protest as needed and if the worst came I am sure people could overthrow an unjust government without mass arming of ourselves.
One poster pointed our that to disarm your country would result on mass deaths. I think that poster was right and wouldn't suggest trying that. They easy no easy fix for your problem, and I am not proposing any. I am suggesting that you are in denial that a problem even exists, despite the figures, and before you can improve things there you need to change you way of thinking.
My coworker is dead because of your right to bear arms, tell me again how that is a good thing?
Actually there is a "correct" side, the side that says my coworker would not be dead if he meet the same type mentally deranged guy in New Zealand, Australia, Britain, China and most of Europe. If that had happened here my coworker would be in the office the next day with a broken nose and the other guy would be in court on an assault charge.
I work for Garmin in New Zealand and have been to Olathe a few times. Garmin has great inclusive culture to it and I am genuinely saddened to hear of Srinivas' death.
I am disappointed to read posts that somehow infer that Srinivas' employment in the Olathe office was at the expense of a US resident getting a job. That is simply not true. There is a world wide shortage of skilled workers. We have two US employees in our Auckland office and no one here complains about them taking our jobs. We employee every skilled Kiwi we can find but the shortage means over half my team are from China and Taiwan. We welcome them as we need more skilled people to get keep our business competitive. None of the locals, such as myself, see these people as stealing our jobs.
It is the same in Olathe, they will employ any US citizen with suitable skills ahead of a foreign worker as it is less hassle but they can not get enough staff with right skills, in part because Garmin set the bar quite high when it comes to skill levels. I have meet people with a wide range of backgrounds in the US Garmin offices and have never seen even a hint of racism or sexism.
My mind can not comprehend how the shooter could feel justified in taking a life even if he really thought immigrant were taking local jobs. These kind of people need to stop blaming immigrants for stealing jobs and take a good hard look at themselves.
I work for Garmin at a different location and information I got from a co-worker, who used to be based in Olathe, was that the shooter drove to another bar where he told the staff he was in hiding from police. The staff there then called police who arrested him.
I have been to the USA often and have friends there. The one thing I know is you can not have a rational discussion with them about gun control. They genuinely believe that the right to bear arms is a good thing and the deaths that result, while tragic, are the price of freedom. I realise that any critique of US gun control or freedom means I will now be modded down.
I have 15 mod points now that I can't use since I am posting here. I could have used them to mod down the hateful posts but I want to post. I am genuinely saddened to hear of the death of a co-worker and such a needless death is so hard to understand. I have no idea how to fix the gun problem in the USA, if it was easy it would have been done already. Sorry America, you have a problem and the stats are pretty clear on that point.
My thoughts go our to Srinivas' family, I am sorry for your loss.
Lots of discussions about why people think their job can't be replaced but not much about why the discrepancy between peoples option of robots replacing other jobs as being different from their self perception.
I think almost every job has an element that could be automated and therefore could be taken over by robots and also has an element that take human adaptability and could not be done by a robot. It is that later part I think people under estimate in other jobs and over estimate in there own jobs. For example I tend to think of my job as embedded systems engineer more secure that that of a business systems program. I tend think the business programmers do simple stuff of taking a spread sheet and spiting out a report, which could easily be automated, whereas I do analysis of how my product interacts with the real world and low level hardware coding that does not use off the shelf libraries so therefore my job can not easily be automated. So I fit the description of thinking my job safer than others. However a business programmer may think I have under estimated their job as they have to interact with customers to understand what the contents of the spreadsheet really mean and what the report actually needs to show and it only the coding in between that could be automated so their job is secure. They then look at my job and think the only reason it needs skill is a lack of libraries for real world access and low level access and once that was done it could be automated so their job is more secure.
The reality is jobs will change so the parts that a can be automated will disappear and the part that are hard to automate will remain. As the automation improves the human roles will become more specialised. I do worry the labour market and teaching institutes that support feeding them may be too slow to adapt and some people are going to fall below the intelligence thresholds need for the remaining jobs and this will become a bigger problem over time,
Thanks for the link, your post needs voted up as informative. It does explain why you are at a shipping cost disadvantage. If that was fixed you still need to fix the attitude of most USA based sellers who only ship inside the USA. I assume the logic is the local USA market is big enough and international customer are too much hassle or risk.
Yay, my own continent at last! Take that Australia now we have one too!