The 'natural monopoly' argument just doesn't hold water. The cable companies have a monopoly because government gives them a monopoly. If the government stopped doing that, you would see competition by new players almost immediately. The fact that the phone and cable companies are regularly using the courts to prevent competition from entering their markets is pretty solid proof of this.
Part of the problem with the teacher hours claims is that they make a conglomerate of all the worst scenarios. A first year teacher is going to spend a lot of time on curriculum planning. By the 3rd of 4th year, most of the major planning should be done and only minor tweaks need to be done. Teachers that are assigning a lot of writing assignments are going to spend a lot of time grading papers. On the other hand, any claim that kindergarten teachers are spending any significant amount of time grading papers is ridiculous. You will hear about the teacher needing to spend hours a week chaperoning school events, or having to monitor the playground during lunch. The reality is that every teacher is not out doing those things. A few teachers are doing them.
What happens is that a mythical teacher is created from all of the extra tasks that are spread out across different teachers, and that mythical amount of work is attributed to all teachers.
It really needs to go a step farther. I have many a friend that doesn't realize their 8 hour work day + 1 hour lunch + 1.5 hour commute each way means that they are spending 12 hours a day on work. And that is when they are not working overtime. That's why, when I calculate my pay for a job, I calculate, my doorstep to my doorstep, and then recalculate the amount I want to the employer's doorstep. I have seen people think they got a raise with a job change but actually make less per hour committed to work.
During the height of the housing bubble, my wife was doing 80. She was getting paid for it, so a lot of it was double time. When she got pregnant and told them that she was going to have to reduce her work week to no more than 60, they fired her. That is when we found out that labor laws are not for everyone.
I am amazed at the number of people that think salary means you don't get paid more to work over 40 hours, but you get docked pay to work less than 40.
That is exactly the attitude the company wants you to have. They will happily hold your coworkers hostage so that you will stick around for them to cheat and abuse.
Hugh Hefner would be evidence to the contrary. There is nothing illegal about having a harem. There are only laws against marrying more than one person. Thus, the legalities of marriage boil down to property rights. Give how our current property rights work, I don't see that polygamy would complicate the process, and the loss of resources would severely discourage the forming of too big of harems. Plus, if it became fashinable for the ultra wealthy to form harems, the inevitable divorces would be a pretty kind way to redistribute wealth.
While I don't fall into that category. I would say it is because we think and therefor we are. We are our minds. If a mad scientist could (without killing me) take out my brain and put it in a jar, hooked up to a speaker and microphone, the brain in the jar would be me. The lump of flesh with the hollowed out skull would not be me.
Since I perceive my self as my mind, and my body is just a tool for my mind to control, given the choice, I would much rather have my body modified to match my mind than the other way around.
The fact that most people can't tell the difference between genius and crazy doesn't mean there isn't a difference. By the same token that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, doesn't mean that there is no difference. it just means that some people are not smart enough to tell the difference.
I'm not going to say that these people are not sure, but having to go through hell isn't proof of it. People decide to put themselves through all sorts of hell for attention. Again, I am not saying that transgender don't have a tough time of it, or that they are not sure. Just that making one's life hard is not really evidence of anything.
I don't know about that. There is a good chance the the reduction in population is a middle ground. How much of the 1st world's population reduction is because one can achieve our current quality of life but only if one does not have too many children. If resources expand, we may find that people have more children again. I know that the reason I only had two children is because by the time I had the resources to have children, I only had time to have two.
The fact that you would say that proves my point. I can walk into any house and point out ten times the number of flaws that you could find in a MS product in 10 years. Heck, it is so bad that we don't even try to fix the flaws in houses. We have just figured out way to make them less noticable. Why do you think we texture walls? It's because no one is going to spend the time, effort, and money necessary to make a flat wall. The texturing is there to camoflage the massive amount of "Close Enough" work that is done on walls.
In software, it is considered a design flaw if the software CAN crash. The fact that my car can crash at all is a failure at the design level. It has just been decided that we won't count that. We will just blame it on the driver. With software, we don't get to blame the user for putting text into a date field. In software, that is considered a flaw in the software.
Lucky you. I have never gotten that luxory. If my software is supposed to supposed to output then gross revenue from a product, close enough isn't close enough. If my software is supposed to have a button that is 100px wide, 98px isn't going to cut it. I'm not going to say that "Close enough" never happens in software, but it happens a lot less often than in something like home construction.
On the other hand, in engineering if no one dies, the defects will continue forever, whereas in software development, lawsuits can result from minor cosmetic problems.
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The 'natural monopoly' argument just doesn't hold water. The cable companies have a monopoly because government gives them a monopoly. If the government stopped doing that, you would see competition by new players almost immediately. The fact that the phone and cable companies are regularly using the courts to prevent competition from entering their markets is pretty solid proof of this.
Because I don't ask people "how stupid are you?"
Hmmm....
No. You described that you do. That is why it is clear that you don't read your own posts.
You apparently don't read your own posts....
Part of the problem with the teacher hours claims is that they make a conglomerate of all the worst scenarios. A first year teacher is going to spend a lot of time on curriculum planning. By the 3rd of 4th year, most of the major planning should be done and only minor tweaks need to be done. Teachers that are assigning a lot of writing assignments are going to spend a lot of time grading papers. On the other hand, any claim that kindergarten teachers are spending any significant amount of time grading papers is ridiculous. You will hear about the teacher needing to spend hours a week chaperoning school events, or having to monitor the playground during lunch. The reality is that every teacher is not out doing those things. A few teachers are doing them.
What happens is that a mythical teacher is created from all of the extra tasks that are spread out across different teachers, and that mythical amount of work is attributed to all teachers.
It really needs to go a step farther. I have many a friend that doesn't realize their 8 hour work day + 1 hour lunch + 1.5 hour commute each way means that they are spending 12 hours a day on work. And that is when they are not working overtime. That's why, when I calculate my pay for a job, I calculate, my doorstep to my doorstep, and then recalculate the amount I want to the employer's doorstep. I have seen people think they got a raise with a job change but actually make less per hour committed to work.
During the height of the housing bubble, my wife was doing 80. She was getting paid for it, so a lot of it was double time. When she got pregnant and told them that she was going to have to reduce her work week to no more than 60, they fired her. That is when we found out that labor laws are not for everyone.
I am amazed at the number of people that think salary means you don't get paid more to work over 40 hours, but you get docked pay to work less than 40.
That is exactly the attitude the company wants you to have. They will happily hold your coworkers hostage so that you will stick around for them to cheat and abuse.
No, add 8 hours. That way his boss cans say "You blow me and I'll owe you one."
An education that is totally useless for most of the jobs that now require it.
Hugh Hefner would be evidence to the contrary. There is nothing illegal about having a harem. There are only laws against marrying more than one person. Thus, the legalities of marriage boil down to property rights. Give how our current property rights work, I don't see that polygamy would complicate the process, and the loss of resources would severely discourage the forming of too big of harems. Plus, if it became fashinable for the ultra wealthy to form harems, the inevitable divorces would be a pretty kind way to redistribute wealth.
And once we give up on the black and white definition of gender, you have infinite shades of gray on multiple axis.
While I don't fall into that category. I would say it is because we think and therefor we are. We are our minds. If a mad scientist could (without killing me) take out my brain and put it in a jar, hooked up to a speaker and microphone, the brain in the jar would be me. The lump of flesh with the hollowed out skull would not be me.
Since I perceive my self as my mind, and my body is just a tool for my mind to control, given the choice, I would much rather have my body modified to match my mind than the other way around.
I say, unless you are trying to have sex with me, I only need to know if you want me to use the pronoun, he, she, or they (as gender neutral).
The fact that most people can't tell the difference between genius and crazy doesn't mean there isn't a difference. By the same token that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, doesn't mean that there is no difference. it just means that some people are not smart enough to tell the difference.
Look up the WWF wrestler China's sex tape. I believe it is called, "One night in China". She has what would be an example of "ambiguous genitalia".
I'm not going to say that these people are not sure, but having to go through hell isn't proof of it. People decide to put themselves through all sorts of hell for attention. Again, I am not saying that transgender don't have a tough time of it, or that they are not sure. Just that making one's life hard is not really evidence of anything.
I don't know about that. There is a good chance the the reduction in population is a middle ground. How much of the 1st world's population reduction is because one can achieve our current quality of life but only if one does not have too many children. If resources expand, we may find that people have more children again. I know that the reason I only had two children is because by the time I had the resources to have children, I only had time to have two.
In other words, you agree completely.
The fact that you would say that proves my point. I can walk into any house and point out ten times the number of flaws that you could find in a MS product in 10 years. Heck, it is so bad that we don't even try to fix the flaws in houses. We have just figured out way to make them less noticable. Why do you think we texture walls? It's because no one is going to spend the time, effort, and money necessary to make a flat wall. The texturing is there to camoflage the massive amount of "Close Enough" work that is done on walls.
In software, it is considered a design flaw if the software CAN crash. The fact that my car can crash at all is a failure at the design level. It has just been decided that we won't count that. We will just blame it on the driver. With software, we don't get to blame the user for putting text into a date field. In software, that is considered a flaw in the software.
Lucky you. I have never gotten that luxory. If my software is supposed to supposed to output then gross revenue from a product, close enough isn't close enough. If my software is supposed to have a button that is 100px wide, 98px isn't going to cut it. I'm not going to say that "Close enough" never happens in software, but it happens a lot less often than in something like home construction.
That's not true. If my house burns down, no engineer is going to be sued. If my car crashes, no engineer is going to be sued.
On the other hand, in engineering if no one dies, the defects will continue forever, whereas in software development, lawsuits can result from minor cosmetic problems.