I'm in Phoenix, Az and we've already got smog days. I can't think of a good reason not to have free public transportation besides the classic line "But who's gonna pay for it?"...
I'm pointing out that you don't need a lot of customers to make a ton of money. That you can sell a few luxury goods and still have a profitable market. Apple exemplifies this. In your rush to defend Apple you missed the point by a country mile.
but this is what we get for abandoning the blue collar working class. I can't tell you the number of techies who laughed and derided the blue collar guys for not retraining when their factory jobs were shipped to Mexico in the wake of NAFTA. A lot of those folks went to the poll for Trump and a lot who didn't stayed home instead of throwing in for Hilary....
The working class has lost solidarity. And without that we're getting picked apart.
I'm fully confident America has plenty of talent for Silicon Valley. China's welcome to flood their job market with cheap labor and devalue their Middle Class. I'm looking forward to the Chinese equivalent of Donald Trump pushing a popularist message when outsourcing and insourcing wrecks their economy too.
but I do need to be able to shut down opposition in order to advance any large scale plan.
I don't think we'll see massive civil unrest again. Go look at how the Occupy Wallstreet movement was shut down if you want to see why. If it gets bigger then they can just bring in drones. I'd like to say our military won't fire on civilians but I know better. Today's Military wouldn't, but what about 20 years from now? What if they're worried about feeding their families?
I'll give you credit for one thing though, "Tax the Robots" is a fantastic phrase.
makes me nervous. By all accounts we just beat back a fairly major problem in the form of Zika. It was done with quick and decisive action. The incoming Administration seems to fall into that belief system that gov't, especially national gov't, should stay out of things. Leave it to the states. But lots of poor states just don't have the resources or political will. And it's not like epidemics observe state lines. What's gonna happen if we have a bird flu or a Zika or an Ebola while people who believe government is incapable of doing anything useful are in charge?
+5. And it should be self evident to anyone reading this that the ruling class don't need customers. They'll do what France did: Create a small aristocracy to perpetuate the system, a (very slightly) larger group of technocrats to keep the machines running (especially the military drones) and the remaining 95% of civilization will live in abject and horrifying poverty. They'll do this because money is power, and power feels _good_. And the worst thing is we're giving it all to them on a silver platter.
They have fewer customers than MIcrosoft but are much, much more profitable. You can do just fine thank you selling a $2000 PC instead of a $500 one.
And the ruling calss don't need customers when they can claim everything for themselves. The 99% will fall over themselves backward to get a piece of the scraps. They'll be the new kings, deciding who lives and who dies based on who gets to work for them (and who gets food, shelter, health care, etc). And they'll have an automated military to enforce their will. This isn't a hard thing to grasp. You just have to think like a ruler and not like an employee.
you're thinking like an employee, not a member of the ruling class. If 1% of the population claims 90% of the wealth then the remaining 99% will fall over themselves backwards to get a little of it.
Money is always about power. It's about making people do things you want. Put another way, what good is being rich if you can't threaten people with poverty?
Unless you can answer that question in a way that feels right to the electorate then you're gonna lose out in the basic income debate. Nobody, and I mean nobody, likes the idea of having their money taken away from them and given to somebody else. Especially by force (which is what you're doing). The closest to an argument I've heard is we'll tax factory output instead of income, but that doesn't work. You'll be accused of seizing factories ala Communism.
If we're ever going to see socialism work in the long term we need to come up with a once sentence answer to "Who's gonna pay for it?" that passes the gut test. Elections are won on feelings. Donald Trump just proved that.
tech internships are an end run around visa limitations, and that would explain the pay disparity more than anything else. I keep seeing this patter. The company brings in somebody from India on a student visa for an Internship. The "student" already knows how to do the job. There's no training involved, which is the point. The company gets a worker that needs zero training.
Back in my day before the visa programs we used to call people who did useful work 'employees' and they were paid as such...
being watched by your parents in near real time. I'm a pretty lazy parent (single father for a variety of reasons, none of them good) so I wasn't very protective. The upshot to this is my kid doesn't have a lot to rebel against besides her old man's crap job. So instead of wasting her time rebelling against them 'man' she's focused on studying so as to avoid the mistakes I made, most of which she can see the results of through observation rather than by me hammering them into her skull.
A lot of/.ers will say if you're dumb enough to fall for fake news that's your problem. You're ignoring what happens to millions of people's brains as they age. Not everyone has their full mental facilities in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Unless you're going to start administering tests to decide who gets to vote (and please God, let/.ers be smart enough to know why that's a bad idea) then the problem of fake news needs to be faced head on.
they should have long since denounced it and took a firm position that they would not help Trump build the registry. This shouldn't even be a story. It's like asking if we should round up all the Jews. It's not something you 'just ask', and if anyone does the answer should be: "No, and what the hell is wrong with you?"
that these companies should have already made official statements that they won't work with Trump on this. The fact that they haven't (and that their PR depts can't just repeat an already well defined position when asked) is just bad juju all around.
he's more like the second coming of Mussolini. Hitler was more competent than Trump (at least until the syphilis took over) and had more support from his population...
I almost think this is a trap (along with that new law putting E85 into cars). It's a damned if you do/damned if you don't. On the one hand it's exactly the kind of law Trump opposes (he wants to expand liable law and make a more UK-like system over here) but OTOH it's a very popular law with billions of dollars behind it (Yelp, Google, Uber, Amazon. Basically any web based company that deals in information).
1. What do you do in the meantime while the job losses are going on?
2. Once all that wealth and power has concentrated into the hands of the factory owners how do we get them to give it up? They're going to have automatic guns attached to their drones and no compunction about using them. In the past revolutions happened because even the military elite turned against the ruling class. That won't happen when the military elite is 5 guys watching over the drones and another 20 keeping them running...
Basically we need to do something now before it all goes to shit and we enter a 1000 year dark age, but I can't figure out how to get people to be willing to solve problems before they happen:(.
via birth control if we let it. Look at Japan and the Netherlands. If anything under population will be a problem (not enough youngins to take care of the old farts).
That''s all solvable too, but I'm not sure we can keep a lid on the Christians and their Anti-Birth Control crusades. We just put a certifiable nutter into the VP slot. Basically, what happens next is entirely dependent on whether we can keep our religious minority from throwing human civilization under a bus like they did for a thousand years during the Dark Ages.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm in Phoenix, Az and we've already got smog days. I can't think of a good reason not to have free public transportation besides the classic line "But who's gonna pay for it?"...
I'm pointing out that you don't need a lot of customers to make a ton of money. That you can sell a few luxury goods and still have a profitable market. Apple exemplifies this. In your rush to defend Apple you missed the point by a country mile.
but this is what we get for abandoning the blue collar working class. I can't tell you the number of techies who laughed and derided the blue collar guys for not retraining when their factory jobs were shipped to Mexico in the wake of NAFTA. A lot of those folks went to the poll for Trump and a lot who didn't stayed home instead of throwing in for Hilary....
The working class has lost solidarity. And without that we're getting picked apart.
if you're not able to tell the difference? Sure, maybe 20 million could and didn't care. But I'd say there's at least 40 million who couldn't...
then he's worse. He's someone who cynically manipulates racists to meet his ends. I'll take a genuine racist over that any day of the week.
anymore? When was China _ever_ communist? They've always been the same thing, a Kleptocracy.
she lost, too. On the plus side Austria just kicked theirs to the curb. On the downside the Philippians elected theirs...
it'll just continue to come from overseas like it always has. Kids don't learn in school, we live one world rule..
I'm fully confident America has plenty of talent for Silicon Valley. China's welcome to flood their job market with cheap labor and devalue their Middle Class. I'm looking forward to the Chinese equivalent of Donald Trump pushing a popularist message when outsourcing and insourcing wrecks their economy too.
but I do need to be able to shut down opposition in order to advance any large scale plan.
I don't think we'll see massive civil unrest again. Go look at how the Occupy Wallstreet movement was shut down if you want to see why. If it gets bigger then they can just bring in drones. I'd like to say our military won't fire on civilians but I know better. Today's Military wouldn't, but what about 20 years from now? What if they're worried about feeding their families?
I'll give you credit for one thing though, "Tax the Robots" is a fantastic phrase.
makes me nervous. By all accounts we just beat back a fairly major problem in the form of Zika. It was done with quick and decisive action. The incoming Administration seems to fall into that belief system that gov't, especially national gov't, should stay out of things. Leave it to the states. But lots of poor states just don't have the resources or political will. And it's not like epidemics observe state lines. What's gonna happen if we have a bird flu or a Zika or an Ebola while people who believe government is incapable of doing anything useful are in charge?
+5. And it should be self evident to anyone reading this that the ruling class don't need customers. They'll do what France did: Create a small aristocracy to perpetuate the system, a (very slightly) larger group of technocrats to keep the machines running (especially the military drones) and the remaining 95% of civilization will live in abject and horrifying poverty. They'll do this because money is power, and power feels _good_. And the worst thing is we're giving it all to them on a silver platter.
They have fewer customers than MIcrosoft but are much, much more profitable. You can do just fine thank you selling a $2000 PC instead of a $500 one.
And the ruling calss don't need customers when they can claim everything for themselves. The 99% will fall over themselves backward to get a piece of the scraps. They'll be the new kings, deciding who lives and who dies based on who gets to work for them (and who gets food, shelter, health care, etc). And they'll have an automated military to enforce their will. This isn't a hard thing to grasp. You just have to think like a ruler and not like an employee.
you're thinking like an employee, not a member of the ruling class. If 1% of the population claims 90% of the wealth then the remaining 99% will fall over themselves backwards to get a little of it.
Money is always about power. It's about making people do things you want. Put another way, what good is being rich if you can't threaten people with poverty?
Unless you can answer that question in a way that feels right to the electorate then you're gonna lose out in the basic income debate. Nobody, and I mean nobody, likes the idea of having their money taken away from them and given to somebody else. Especially by force (which is what you're doing). The closest to an argument I've heard is we'll tax factory output instead of income, but that doesn't work. You'll be accused of seizing factories ala Communism.
If we're ever going to see socialism work in the long term we need to come up with a once sentence answer to "Who's gonna pay for it?" that passes the gut test. Elections are won on feelings. Donald Trump just proved that.
tech internships are an end run around visa limitations, and that would explain the pay disparity more than anything else. I keep seeing this patter. The company brings in somebody from India on a student visa for an Internship. The "student" already knows how to do the job. There's no training involved, which is the point. The company gets a worker that needs zero training.
Back in my day before the visa programs we used to call people who did useful work 'employees' and they were paid as such...
being watched by your parents in near real time. I'm a pretty lazy parent (single father for a variety of reasons, none of them good) so I wasn't very protective. The upshot to this is my kid doesn't have a lot to rebel against besides her old man's crap job. So instead of wasting her time rebelling against them 'man' she's focused on studying so as to avoid the mistakes I made, most of which she can see the results of through observation rather than by me hammering them into her skull.
A lot of /.ers will say if you're dumb enough to fall for fake news that's your problem. You're ignoring what happens to millions of people's brains as they age. Not everyone has their full mental facilities in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Unless you're going to start administering tests to decide who gets to vote (and please God, let /.ers be smart enough to know why that's a bad idea) then the problem of fake news needs to be faced head on.
they should have long since denounced it and took a firm position that they would not help Trump build the registry. This shouldn't even be a story. It's like asking if we should round up all the Jews. It's not something you 'just ask', and if anyone does the answer should be: "No, and what the hell is wrong with you?"
see here. There's nothing useful to add to that process that is not also oppressive and evil.
that these companies should have already made official statements that they won't work with Trump on this. The fact that they haven't (and that their PR depts can't just repeat an already well defined position when asked) is just bad juju all around.
he's more like the second coming of Mussolini. Hitler was more competent than Trump (at least until the syphilis took over) and had more support from his population...
I almost think this is a trap (along with that new law putting E85 into cars). It's a damned if you do/damned if you don't. On the one hand it's exactly the kind of law Trump opposes (he wants to expand liable law and make a more UK-like system over here) but OTOH it's a very popular law with billions of dollars behind it (Yelp, Google, Uber, Amazon. Basically any web based company that deals in information).
over to the factories.
:(.
1. What do you do in the meantime while the job losses are going on?
2. Once all that wealth and power has concentrated into the hands of the factory owners how do we get them to give it up? They're going to have automatic guns attached to their drones and no compunction about using them. In the past revolutions happened because even the military elite turned against the ruling class. That won't happen when the military elite is 5 guys watching over the drones and another 20 keeping them running...
Basically we need to do something now before it all goes to shit and we enter a 1000 year dark age, but I can't figure out how to get people to be willing to solve problems before they happen
via birth control if we let it. Look at Japan and the Netherlands. If anything under population will be a problem (not enough youngins to take care of the old farts).
That''s all solvable too, but I'm not sure we can keep a lid on the Christians and their Anti-Birth Control crusades. We just put a certifiable nutter into the VP slot. Basically, what happens next is entirely dependent on whether we can keep our religious minority from throwing human civilization under a bus like they did for a thousand years during the Dark Ages.