"If you're able to work at McDonalds, chances are any other average assembly line job is well within your grasp."
...until they're automated out of existence. I think that's the real driving force here... as low end work becomes more and more automated, we need fewer low end workers, which drives down the market value of their labor.
The fact is, there is a growing number of people for which nobody has any use at all.
This problem is being corrected by the collapsing housing market, yet people act like lower house prices are a bad thing.
They ARE a bad thing, if you were dumb enough to get yourself saddled with a huge loan during the runup, but there's an easy remedy for that: Stop paying, let the bank bank forclose and eat your losses, take your credit hit, and move on. You even get 2 or 3 years free rent while the bank futzes around.
So what happens when John Deer moves to Muncie and can make and sell the product cheaper? Everybody buys the cheap product, Caterpillar goes out of business, and the employees make 0.
Corporate greed isn't the only driving force here. Individual greed is a major contributor.
I knew one of you "it's not theft" language lawyers would show up. It's fucking theft. Period.
The guys at Megaupload made huge amounts of money facilitating theft. They flaunted it, lived like greedy mafia pigs, and here you are defending them.
As for the second point, that's just toddler logic. Some rich pricks get away with murder, rape, torture, and any number of other crimes. You want to stop prosecuting those crimes too?
After my last app release was pirated by a 10 to 1 ratio, I just said "screw it" and learned to cling to a rock and photosynthesize. I don't write apps anymore.
... back in the go go 90's. It was a good gig for a while, but I got bored with it, topped out on income, saw outsourcing transforming my perceived role from genius to janitor and went back for a CPE degree. It really showed up the fact that I hadn't know what the hell I was doing before, and the only thing that had been making me look good was the spectacular incompetence of my competition.
Now I have a new company, and make 3d games, which I had previously thought was way beyond my reach.
College dragged me into realms of study I would have neglected, the boring, theoretical stuff that now serves as a foundation for my work, and makes me able to learn new stuff much, much more easily. It greatly expanded the depth, satisfaction, and earning potential of my career, and I got to ogle hot young chicks for a few years in the bargain.
For every hit, there are 4 or 5 or 10 flops. The income from the hit funds subsequent development. There's no money fairy that waves her wand and makes this happen. There is no daddy in the payroll office cutting checks.
I guess as a wage slave that's beyond your comprehension. You sell your soul for a safe, steady income to pay your lifelong debts, and then bitch about the people that take the big chances that made the company you work for exist in the first place. I'm no corporate weasel, I'm just a guy that has invested thousands of hours to get to the point where I can make things that people want. You're just a guy that can't stand on his own two feet, who's envious of those who can, and manufactures bullshit reasons for why it's ok for you to steal from us.
You've probably already ripped me off, so you don't need to avoid my apps.
You want me to become a slave, bend my will to the corporatocracy, and crank out safe, derivative corporate garbage in return for a paycheck, all so people can justify stealing my crappy, unoriginal work because it's now owned by some big, evil megacorp?
Can you see where I might have a problem with that? Can't you see how that might stifle innovation just a tad?
We'd be left with people that can't afford to invest the time into acquiring anywhere near the virtuosity we have come to expect, for the simple reason they're working 14 hours a day at Wendy's to try and keep themselves fed.
I'd have more sympathy for the argument if it were about food or something else people can't live without, but I just can't think of any way to justify theft of something that is consumed only for entertainment.
Slashdot Mirror
That's why some of us put off pumping out kids and getting into mortgages to acquire the skills that will make us enough to live on.
Others think graduating high school, knocking up their girl, and buying a no money down house qualifies them to receive the American Dream.
Evidence indicates one of these groups are misguided.
You have children. They make you happy. He has money. That makes him happy.
Yet you envy him, and attack. Why is that?
Looks to me like you're a "Gimme mine, because I deserve it" type that can't defend his position and storms off in a huff.
"If you're able to work at McDonalds, chances are any other average assembly line job is well within your grasp."
The fact is, there is a growing number of people for which nobody has any use at all.
This problem is being corrected by the collapsing housing market, yet people act like lower house prices are a bad thing.
They ARE a bad thing, if you were dumb enough to get yourself saddled with a huge loan during the runup, but there's an easy remedy for that: Stop paying, let the bank bank forclose and eat your losses, take your credit hit, and move on. You even get 2 or 3 years free rent while the bank futzes around.
So what happens when John Deer moves to Muncie and can make and sell the product cheaper? Everybody buys the cheap product, Caterpillar goes out of business, and the employees make 0.
Corporate greed isn't the only driving force here. Individual greed is a major contributor.
Works for us. We get shiny, cheap tech toys, and in return they get paper that will ultimately be worth less than the scrap the toys will become.
I knew one of you "it's not theft" language lawyers would show up. It's fucking theft. Period.
The guys at Megaupload made huge amounts of money facilitating theft. They flaunted it, lived like greedy mafia pigs, and here you are defending them.
As for the second point, that's just toddler logic. Some rich pricks get away with murder, rape, torture, and any number of other crimes. You want to stop prosecuting those crimes too?
You sound like a thief.
Yep, thieves are thieves. Were it up to me, they'd all be in jail.
Not into letting some go because others get away with it. That's toddler logic.
Thieves should rot in jail.
After my last app release was pirated by a 10 to 1 ratio, I just said "screw it" and learned to cling to a rock and photosynthesize. I don't write apps anymore.
...there is significant cost in producing that app before the duplication takes place, and many app developers like to eat.
I had no trouble seeing it all coming in 2005, and was universally told I was out of my mind.
How soon people forget.
Scratch the previous post. You're already hilarious!
You're going to be hilarious when you get old.
I watched armchair economists predict the housing bubble and burst in great detail, while the 'real' economists denied it even existed.
You go right ahead and follow your experts off their cliff.
... back in the go go 90's. It was a good gig for a while, but I got bored with it, topped out on income, saw outsourcing transforming my perceived role from genius to janitor and went back for a CPE degree. It really showed up the fact that I hadn't know what the hell I was doing before, and the only thing that had been making me look good was the spectacular incompetence of my competition.
Now I have a new company, and make 3d games, which I had previously thought was way beyond my reach.
College dragged me into realms of study I would have neglected, the boring, theoretical stuff that now serves as a foundation for my work, and makes me able to learn new stuff much, much more easily. It greatly expanded the depth, satisfaction, and earning potential of my career, and I got to ogle hot young chicks for a few years in the bargain.
... just wait till your app is out in the wild, trying to run on dozens of very different devices. It aint pretty.
...and platform fragmentation, perhaps?
...there's no impediment to people wasting your time. Just Don't Do It.
For every hit, there are 4 or 5 or 10 flops. The income from the hit funds subsequent development. There's no money fairy that waves her wand and makes this happen. There is no daddy in the payroll office cutting checks.
I guess as a wage slave that's beyond your comprehension. You sell your soul for a safe, steady income to pay your lifelong debts, and then bitch about the people that take the big chances that made the company you work for exist in the first place. I'm no corporate weasel, I'm just a guy that has invested thousands of hours to get to the point where I can make things that people want. You're just a guy that can't stand on his own two feet, who's envious of those who can, and manufactures bullshit reasons for why it's ok for you to steal from us.
You've probably already ripped me off, so you don't need to avoid my apps.
They wouldn't get that first glass of milk, either. What are they going to pay me with?
You want me to become a slave, bend my will to the corporatocracy, and crank out safe, derivative corporate garbage in return for a paycheck, all so people can justify stealing my crappy, unoriginal work because it's now owned by some big, evil megacorp?
Can you see where I might have a problem with that? Can't you see how that might stifle innovation just a tad?
We'd be left with people that can't afford to invest the time into acquiring anywhere near the virtuosity we have come to expect, for the simple reason they're working 14 hours a day at Wendy's to try and keep themselves fed.
I'd have more sympathy for the argument if it were about food or something else people can't live without, but I just can't think of any way to justify theft of something that is consumed only for entertainment.