OK, so we agree that we're talking about a class of people here - people whose jobs are going away because of automation (among other reasons).
There are various ways to structure economies - choices that are made. I think in this country choices are being made that result in more and more of the country looking like pockets of the Third World. For example, in 2004 the infant mortality rate in the U.S. was higher than that of Cuba. Going along with that, we have more and more people who are unable to earn a living wage for themselves and their families.
The choices made for the U.S. economy, by U.S. corporations and politicians, have been to allow jobs to easily move to lower-wage regions, if not here then overseas. Other choices made in the past, forced to a large extent by labor pressure, have been to allow U.S. workers decent jobs with a livable wage, eight-hour workdays, benefits, provisions for retirement, etc.
I think automation and job "exports" are two sides of the same coin - do what you can to increase profits and also reduce the control workers have over corporate decisions. There's nothing wrong with automation in of itself. It's just a tool, to be used for good or ill. But so far in the U.S. it's mostly been used to de-skill workers. It would be one thing it automation were used for labor-saving such that everyone could enjoy more leisure, but that's not how it's been designed. Instead, it's used to increase profits and control.
Unless we make decisions to give people a decent education (generally, I don't think they get that in today's public schools) and some hope for the future in terms of employment, we will continue to have people who aren't going to be able to make it. And like I said, it isn't just blue-collar people that are being affected by such technological marvels.
And I'm afraid that no one at the top of the food chain is going to 'give' these people very much. They are going to have to take what they need themselves. That's the way it's always happened - look at the labor movement, civil rights, the feminist movement.
Oh, wow. This isn't directed at you personally, but at what you said.
That's a great argument for eugenics, sure. Sounds like good Nazi-speak, really.
It's not that people are stupid, it's just that they're written off. I remember when we were shedding jobs right and left in the '90s, and there was all kinds of noise coming out of the Clinton administration about retraining people and about "knowledge-based" jobs or something like that. So yeah, industry felt more free, I think, to fire people and run overseas to find all the cheap cheap practically-slave labor in places like China or India (they were going to do that anyway, right - this just gave them better press). And you'd see people training to become IT people or whatever they were going to do in the "new economy."
Of course, trouble was there just weren't the jobs for these people in the new economy, period. Just like you're saying, these people have become superfluous to U.S.-based corporations.
And it's not just these people. Tell me that people training in IT to often have a lot of trouble finding a job.
It's not about jobs, it's about profits.
But come on - "... you just can't go and kill all those folks who are no longer needed. Ideally we could get rid of those in society as we replaced them with machines." Ideally? Hmmm...tell that to all these people who aren't able to get work. Tell the guy working two or three jobs to keep his family afloat that we want robots and computers to do his jobs, and ideally we'd just like to get rid of him. Heil Hitler, right?
Hope there's not too many people smarter than you concentrating their wealth at the top of the pile (and from the sounds of it, there just might be, buddy...) They might want to get rid of you once they can figure out how to program and sysadmin without you.
In the meantime, if you do have any problems, think about India! Business is booming. I'm sure you can find a nice job there. And if salaries become too burdensome there (don't want too many programmers demanding 8 or 9 dollars an hour) - there's always Africa!
I think what you're trying to do is a great effort. One of the problems with learning science today, I think, is that people don't understand how it fits into the larger picture of the world. Most of us learn science in very narrow ways, and do not learn how to apply it to other areas and to our lives in general. This is true of all subjects taught in most schools, actually. History is removed from the real world and from relevance, for example. Why did our history classes always stop around, oh, say, 1945 or so? Why never any discussion of Vietnam?
I agree with what many others have said here - Asimov is great, for example.
Some books that I've enjoyed:
"The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins
"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins (controversial & excellent)
"A Brief History of Time" - Stephen Hawking
"Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" - Charles Seife
"Comets" - David Levy
Two excellent books on logic - very readable for students:
"Nonsense" - Robert J. Gula
"Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric" - Howard Kahane & Nancy Cavender (great textbook)
Fiction:
"Contact" - Carl Sagan
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" - Phillip K Dick
It absolutely rocks - I would definitely look into it. It inspired me to continue on learning programming. When I started Python, I had already taken a course in C. I learned Python completely online, without books, which was inspirational. Here is the tutorialstarted with. Python is not difficult to learn, though it is a serious language that can do some heavy lifting. You can read about Python's "real world" uses on the python.org site - for example both Google and Industrial Light and Magic use it. I started it in sort of an offhand way, not really thinking much would come of it, and felt I really had some serious work down within a year, without trying very hard. After that I moved on to Perl and now I'm learning Java. I can't recommend it more highly.
I understand your concern about the Patriot Act, but less government control doesn't mean the government can't get involved. Look at how private booksellers are being questioned by the feds, just like public librarians. If Homeland Security wants to get involved, often enough private owners are more than willing to let it - and often enough those in the public sector are more than willing to fight such actions, such as public librarians around the country. If there is any serious, comprehensive evidence to justify this I'd like to see it.
What a miserable article. It makes me sick. "Hackers gone wild." (It's always hackers, right? It's never, ever crackers, or phreaks, or software/music pirates, or whatever. Hackers, yes. Drill it home. Though the author does seem to know about other terms - like "warez", which the article carefully defines.) Love the SW reference. Can you picture righteous Obi Wan Ashcroft? "IRC... you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." A breeding ground for terrorists. OK, all set. Pack it up - we're done. Why read any more? We'll just have to outlaw this, along with guns, 747's, non-GPS cellphones, non-M$ systems, boxcutters, etc.
"It is still possible, though sometimes a bit difficult, to find mature technical discussions..." Oh, come on! Which is it? Is it careening toward almost impossible, or do you just not know how to use IRC or what to look for? Then they have Bill Beer^h^h^h^h Bierman from U. of Hawaii who talks about how the "kids" use it to "go nuts." Girls Gone Wild - IRC!! "...seem to be...dedicated to every sexual fetish!" Love this article! It's got everything! Violence, fear, sex, depravity. You have to admit - this kind of thing will sell newspapers.
The Commodore 64 was my first computer. At the time, it was amazing. I bought it at a toy store - Child World. This was sometime in 1982, I think, when I was in high school. At first, I had no disk drive - instead I had a cassette tape drive, which appeared to use regular cassettes, like music cassettes. You would press play and patiently wait for your programs to load. I had it hooked up to a TV set at first, before I got my first real monitor. I had a modem for it, and used it to connect to BBS's, and was also able to connect to a friend's C-64. He somehow got possession of a phone number to a satellite link, and so was able to read data from the satellite, which was quite a trip at the time.
I hear you. For me, Debian just works, and that's the main thing I expect from a Linux system. The installation was straightforward and clean, as are the upgrades. I know I can always put something newer on when I need it. I can easily make similar criticisms of other distros in the same way some have been writing about Debian. For me, the political aspect of Debian is just as important (just as it is in some other systems like Gentoo). Though I don't have a problem with people using Open Source to make money, the commercial aspects of other distros are disquieting to me - in the sense that I believe they will result in restrictions somewhere down the line (SCO is actually a case in point, in a broad sense). I think Debian, and Linux in general, show in an amazing and inspiring way exactly what people can accomplish outside of typical commercial structures, on their own. Happy Birthday Debian!
I have to agree with this, mostly. I just installed Debian a few nights ago for the first time - and really, it just wasn't that bad. As a matter of fact, the installation went more smoothly than others I've put on my Mac Powerbook G3. The only slight problems I had were related to the fact that I didn't RTFM at all. I think that even if a somewhat new user read the manuals carefully, in detail, the install would be fine and interesting. So far things are working quite well - my wife got X working in about 10 minutes and had a wireless card going in about an hour.
Like the United States. Those who live in the region of the Middle East might remember the U.S. bombing (and invasion) of a certain country (against international law?).
The terrorists were members of the U.S. military, with support from certain high-ranking members of the U.S. political establishment. The U.S. government made a deal with the British government where they would agree to invade whether or not any other country or group of countries had anything to say about it, and once the war was over (which war? I find it all very confusing. The War against Iraq? The war against Terror? Is it over? Is it rhetorical or real?) the Iraqi people would be set "free." We'll see how that shakes down.
So, the U.S. has Weapons of Mass Destruction and proven terrorist links... and oil! The conditions for war are met! Watch out for the imminent invasion, from somewhere... What level alert are we at today? I forget - orange, yellow... Orange is worse, right?
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There are various ways to structure economies - choices that are made. I think in this country choices are being made that result in more and more of the country looking like pockets of the Third World. For example, in 2004 the infant mortality rate in the U.S. was higher than that of Cuba. Going along with that, we have more and more people who are unable to earn a living wage for themselves and their families.
The choices made for the U.S. economy, by U.S. corporations and politicians, have been to allow jobs to easily move to lower-wage regions, if not here then overseas. Other choices made in the past, forced to a large extent by labor pressure, have been to allow U.S. workers decent jobs with a livable wage, eight-hour workdays, benefits, provisions for retirement, etc.
I think automation and job "exports" are two sides of the same coin - do what you can to increase profits and also reduce the control workers have over corporate decisions. There's nothing wrong with automation in of itself. It's just a tool, to be used for good or ill. But so far in the U.S. it's mostly been used to de-skill workers. It would be one thing it automation were used for labor-saving such that everyone could enjoy more leisure, but that's not how it's been designed. Instead, it's used to increase profits and control.
Unless we make decisions to give people a decent education (generally, I don't think they get that in today's public schools) and some hope for the future in terms of employment, we will continue to have people who aren't going to be able to make it. And like I said, it isn't just blue-collar people that are being affected by such technological marvels.
And I'm afraid that no one at the top of the food chain is going to 'give' these people very much. They are going to have to take what they need themselves. That's the way it's always happened - look at the labor movement, civil rights, the feminist movement.
That's a great argument for eugenics, sure. Sounds like good Nazi-speak, really.
It's not that people are stupid, it's just that they're written off. I remember when we were shedding jobs right and left in the '90s, and there was all kinds of noise coming out of the Clinton administration about retraining people and about "knowledge-based" jobs or something like that. So yeah, industry felt more free, I think, to fire people and run overseas to find all the cheap cheap practically-slave labor in places like China or India (they were going to do that anyway, right - this just gave them better press). And you'd see people training to become IT people or whatever they were going to do in the "new economy."
Of course, trouble was there just weren't the jobs for these people in the new economy, period. Just like you're saying, these people have become superfluous to U.S.-based corporations.
And it's not just these people. Tell me that people training in IT to often have a lot of trouble finding a job.
It's not about jobs, it's about profits.
But come on - "... you just can't go and kill all those folks who are no longer needed. Ideally we could get rid of those in society as we replaced them with machines." Ideally? Hmmm...tell that to all these people who aren't able to get work. Tell the guy working two or three jobs to keep his family afloat that we want robots and computers to do his jobs, and ideally we'd just like to get rid of him. Heil Hitler, right?
Hope there's not too many people smarter than you concentrating their wealth at the top of the pile (and from the sounds of it, there just might be, buddy...) They might want to get rid of you once they can figure out how to program and sysadmin without you.
In the meantime, if you do have any problems, think about India! Business is booming. I'm sure you can find a nice job there. And if salaries become too burdensome there (don't want too many programmers demanding 8 or 9 dollars an hour) - there's always Africa!
I agree with what many others have said here - Asimov is great, for example.
Some books that I've enjoyed:
"The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins
"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins (controversial & excellent)
"A Brief History of Time" - Stephen Hawking
"Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" - Charles Seife
"Comets" - David Levy
Two excellent books on logic - very readable for students:
"Nonsense" - Robert J. Gula
"Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric" - Howard Kahane & Nancy Cavender (great textbook)
Fiction:
"Contact" - Carl Sagan
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" - Phillip K Dick
It absolutely rocks - I would definitely look into it. It inspired me to continue on learning programming. When I started Python, I had already taken a course in C. I learned Python completely online, without books, which was inspirational. Here is the tutorialstarted with. Python is not difficult to learn, though it is a serious language that can do some heavy lifting. You can read about Python's "real world" uses on the python.org site - for example both Google and Industrial Light and Magic use it. I started it in sort of an offhand way, not really thinking much would come of it, and felt I really had some serious work down within a year, without trying very hard. After that I moved on to Perl and now I'm learning Java. I can't recommend it more highly.
I understand your concern about the Patriot Act, but less government control doesn't mean the government can't get involved. Look at how private booksellers are being questioned by the feds, just like public librarians. If Homeland Security wants to get involved, often enough private owners are more than willing to let it - and often enough those in the public sector are more than willing to fight such actions, such as public librarians around the country. If there is any serious, comprehensive evidence to justify this I'd like to see it.
"It is still possible, though sometimes a bit difficult, to find mature technical discussions..." Oh, come on! Which is it? Is it careening toward almost impossible, or do you just not know how to use IRC or what to look for? Then they have Bill Beer^h^h^h^h Bierman from U. of Hawaii who talks about how the "kids" use it to "go nuts." Girls Gone Wild - IRC!! "...seem to be ...dedicated to every sexual fetish!" Love this article! It's got everything! Violence, fear, sex, depravity. You have to admit - this kind of thing will sell newspapers.
The Commodore 64 was my first computer. At the time, it was amazing. I bought it at a toy store - Child World. This was sometime in 1982, I think, when I was in high school. At first, I had no disk drive - instead I had a cassette tape drive, which appeared to use regular cassettes, like music cassettes. You would press play and patiently wait for your programs to load. I had it hooked up to a TV set at first, before I got my first real monitor. I had a modem for it, and used it to connect to BBS's, and was also able to connect to a friend's C-64. He somehow got possession of a phone number to a satellite link, and so was able to read data from the satellite, which was quite a trip at the time.
I hear you. For me, Debian just works, and that's the main thing I expect from a Linux system. The installation was straightforward and clean, as are the upgrades. I know I can always put something newer on when I need it. I can easily make similar criticisms of other distros in the same way some have been writing about Debian. For me, the political aspect of Debian is just as important (just as it is in some other systems like Gentoo). Though I don't have a problem with people using Open Source to make money, the commercial aspects of other distros are disquieting to me - in the sense that I believe they will result in restrictions somewhere down the line (SCO is actually a case in point, in a broad sense). I think Debian, and Linux in general, show in an amazing and inspiring way exactly what people can accomplish outside of typical commercial structures, on their own. Happy Birthday Debian!
I have to agree with this, mostly. I just installed Debian a few nights ago for the first time - and really, it just wasn't that bad. As a matter of fact, the installation went more smoothly than others I've put on my Mac Powerbook G3. The only slight problems I had were related to the fact that I didn't RTFM at all. I think that even if a somewhat new user read the manuals carefully, in detail, the install would be fine and interesting. So far things are working quite well - my wife got X working in about 10 minutes and had a wireless card going in about an hour.
Like the United States. Those who live in the region of the Middle East might remember the U.S. bombing (and invasion) of a certain country (against international law?). The terrorists were members of the U.S. military, with support from certain high-ranking members of the U.S. political establishment. The U.S. government made a deal with the British government where they would agree to invade whether or not any other country or group of countries had anything to say about it, and once the war was over (which war? I find it all very confusing. The War against Iraq? The war against Terror? Is it over? Is it rhetorical or real?) the Iraqi people would be set "free." We'll see how that shakes down. So, the U.S. has Weapons of Mass Destruction and proven terrorist links ... and oil! The conditions for war are met! Watch out for the imminent invasion, from somewhere... What level alert are we at today? I forget - orange, yellow... Orange is worse, right?