Yep, that's what we left wing nutjobs are known for: fanatical devotion to free market capitalism and brutal insensitivity to the plight of inefficient/uncompetitive whiners who can't adapt to changing conditions.
I give the applicant my laptop, with a series of programming problems that should take no more than 15 minutes to solve.
Without exception, everybody fails or takes WAY too long to solve.
Yeah, I lost a job opportunity, but I still think I came out ahead -- whenever I think about the expression on your face when you realized I wasn't bringing your laptop back.
On the downside, I do hate your DVORAK keyboard layout. It took me 40 minutes to type this post. No wonder any of the other applicants ever finished their assignments.
The only thing "hard" about the question is that, yes, it's hard to quantify. We don't even know whether the number is positive or negative.
Too bad some programmers were obsoleted by (social) technology. Too bad they were duplicating effort, trying to carve small markets up into such tiny pieces that none were profitable. Too bad many were doing such mundane work that commodity components were able to compete with them. Too bad none of them were good enough at their craft, that no one wanted to hire for their labor; they were only good enough to produce products that could be sold with lock-in, which nobody wanted.
Face it, capitalism can be a bitch when you have to be one of the competitors.
Gates can, at any time, get out of the software business and take his huge fortune (power) and wield it to do something else. He can buy an island, put a huge laser cannon on top of its highest mountain, and populate it with a thousand expensive "escort companions" to satisfy his every whim, every night. Money is raw power that can be converted to many uses.
Linus can't do that. Linus can just dominate the software world, but his power is mostly limited to that subject. I don't think Linus will ever have a giant laser cannon.
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Yep, that's what we left wing nutjobs are known for: fanatical devotion to free market capitalism and brutal insensitivity to the plight of inefficient/uncompetitive whiners who can't adapt to changing conditions.
On the downside, I do hate your DVORAK keyboard layout. It took me 40 minutes to type this post. No wonder any of the other applicants ever finished their assignments.
Too bad some programmers were obsoleted by (social) technology. Too bad they were duplicating effort, trying to carve small markets up into such tiny pieces that none were profitable. Too bad many were doing such mundane work that commodity components were able to compete with them. Too bad none of them were good enough at their craft, that no one wanted to hire for their labor; they were only good enough to produce products that could be sold with lock-in, which nobody wanted.
Face it, capitalism can be a bitch when you have to be one of the competitors.
When you have a giant laser cannon, you don't worry about what the US govt will "let" you do.
Gates can, at any time, get out of the software business and take his huge fortune (power) and wield it to do something else. He can buy an island, put a huge laser cannon on top of its highest mountain, and populate it with a thousand expensive "escort companions" to satisfy his every whim, every night. Money is raw power that can be converted to many uses.
Linus can't do that. Linus can just dominate the software world, but his power is mostly limited to that subject. I don't think Linus will ever have a giant laser cannon.