Well, really, Russia was never ON the rails; they had a brief opening after the breakup of the URSS, but it didn't last. Most Russians appear perfectly OK with a dictatorship that maintains the illusion they're still a world power.
That would be fair, if true. You're using the company's resources, you should pay them one way or another - either directly, via some subscription, or through ads.
The huge problem is that companies like Google and Facebook don't abide by this implicit contract. They have developed so many sneaky ways of tracking you that they don't need you to sign off with them at all. Google grabs your credit card transactions from brick and mortar stores; Facebook plunders friends' contacts and builds shadow profiles for you. They can and do track you even if you don't use any of their resources and they don't care whether you have consented to any tracking or not.
This unfettered and shameless tracking has IMHO poisoned the internet. The two big data vampires (and a multitude of lesser ones) are so omnipresent and so insidious that it's practically impossible for a normal person to use the internet and retain any shred of privacy anymore. Stopping an Android phone from snitching on you every minute of the day means disabling so many features that it becomes pretty much unusable. Even giving up on Android altogether and buying an iPhone or a plain featurephone is not enough - because Verizon and the other mobile operators will sell you out to Google anyway.
picking single examples makes not your original statement true.
What, did you expect an exhaustive list? What would be the point if I told you some guy was named a professor of Political Economy, then got a PhD and, to boot, became a general too, despite having only completed seven years of school (that was Ilie Ceausescu, BTW)? Or that some Suceava county prime-secretary got the job even though he hadn't even finished high school? You'd have no way to verify whatever I'm writing. By contrast, Elena Ceausescu is well documented - heck, she even has a page on Wikipedia -, so you can check yourself and see I'm not just making things up. Moreover, your statement is absolute "... never get a job...", so a single counter-example is enough to falsify it.
Not every job is just given away by "connections". And in limits you can switch job as you which.
Not every job, sure. But most of the good ones. If you weren't politically active, or had relatives abroad, or had parents that had been priests, or "bourgeois", or, god forbid, you were a person of interest to the Securitate - then it was very difficult to get a good job, no matter how skilled you were. And that's the point I was trying to make. Communists countries didn't have UBI, as the grand-parent suggested - they just stuck you in a crappy job and boasted about zero unemployment.
Nonsense. Your education might have been based on family ties, you never got a good job based on it, if you lacked the education.
You're so full of it, I can't even believe. I spent the first half of my life in a former communist country for chrissake, and you show up with this nonsense.
Look - the better the jobs, the more the political clout mattered. In particular, you couldn't get a leadership job without being a party member in good standing. Yes, many skilled people did play the political game as a necessary step in the search for a good job, and make no mistake: it was the political activity that got them the jobs - that they were any good was not a requirement, but at most a bonus. In some cases, it was even a point of suspicion.
Here's an immediate counter-example to your "never get a good job if you lacked the education": Romania's Elena Ceausescu. Her highest education level was primary school - when she tried to go to night school she got expelled for cheating. Despite being an absolute intellectual nullity, she got a job as a research scientist at ICECHIM (the National Institute for Chemical Research) - a really good position for somebody in the field of chemistry. She even got a PhD and got elected to the Romanian Academy - her title (that she never got tired of repeating) ended up being "Academician Doctor Engineer".
And if you're unwilling to work, the only way you survive is on the charity of others.
There are quite a few things wrong with this statement.
First, the assumption that poverty's unique cause is "being a lazy fuck", when all it takes is "willingness to work". Unfortunately this is absolutely wrong - and pretty much invalidates the rest of your argument. There are lots of cases where willingness is not enough. You need to be of the right age, be relatively healthy, have no major handicaps, have the skills that happen to be in demand, and live in an area where jobs are available and pay enough to live. Just willingness won't help if you're too young or too old, if you're sick, if you simply don't have the capability to do some jobs. Not everybody can lift heavy loads, for example, or be a coder or a musician, or whatever. And, with technology automating more and more jobs, many people will simply be left behind - no matter how willing they are to work, the available jobs won't lift them out of poverty. This becomes more and more of an issue - and brings us to the second fault with your statement.
Your second wrong assumption is that charity is the only way to survive. It's not. When pushed too hard, when too many people become impoverished, they will not "STARVE" quietly in a corner. Instead, they'll turn to the other way to survive: they'll take what they need from the people who have it in surplus - via theft, revolt, revolution. The resulting social upheaval will impact everybody - even you.
Are people not reading even the article titles anymore before replying? The title clearly says recipients are happier and more secure. You can perhaps argue the price is not worth it, but this is a benefit right there.
Neither of those had any kind of UBI, nor did any communist country ever. They had something more akin to the Republicans' work for welfare (yes, I know it was signed by Bill Clinton, but it was part of Gingrich's Contract with America). You weren't given money, you were given a job, which you had to take - hence the communist countries' boast that they have zero unemployment. The jobs were based not so much on your preferences or skills, but on political activity and/or family ties. If you refused the job you were given, you ended up in work camps.
financial security makes people feel financially secure.
But the study also shows UBI doesn't make people stop working. This, IMHO, is the most important result of this study because it removes one of the biggest objections to UBI. As an added bonus, if UBI is work neutral but increases happiness and reduces stress, it will also improve general health (hence reducing load on health services) and reduce criminality - with the corresponding savings in social and police work.
It seems to me the case for UBI is becoming stronger by the day.
I'm thinking about replacing my 16 years old Sony projection TV - which has performed like a champ, but is getting a bit long in the tooth. Sony was the top contender - not only because they have some pretty good offerings, but specifically because they didn't put ads on my screen.
Now Sony is also out, joining Samsung, LG and Visio. I'm starting to think the issue is actually with Android. Everywhere you get Android, ads will follow sooner or later, like a rash. Not to mention that you have to sign on with Google every bloody time.
Can we break Google in an Android company that makes and sells the software, and an add conglomerate that can FOAD?
Lots of people do. The DOT, for example. They think the value of an American's life is a bit under 10 million.
And, before you get the pitchforks out, this is actually pretty good - in Russia, for example, public opinion polls put the value a human life to ~$71500.
It may turn out that people prefer real strippers and even real waiters and bartenders.
I doubt both of your points. The abundance of anime porn shows lots of folks don't feel real humans are necessary. In fact, I think a strip joint featuring anime characters (a la the Vocaloid shows) could be quite successful. And really, Slashdot still can't handle even a basic accented a?
As to waiters, they're more of a luxury item - McDonalds and their ilk are doing fine without them. And, at least as far as I'm concerned, I'm not going to a restaurant because of the meaningful interaction I have with waiters. While a good waiter is nice to have, there are enough cases when they're more of a nuisance, and where I'd gladly take a robot instead.
In reality, given enough free time, people start doing useful things by themselves!
I'm surprised this isn't obvious to everybody. Lots of people don't stop working once they make their first million(s), even though they could retire and spend the rest of their lives on the couch, watching TV. I have colleagues I know for sure are multimillionaires; they're still putting lots of effort in the job, and pushing themselves hard. Heck, even the subject of this post, Andreessen himself could have retired young with the 53 million he got - instead, he kept working and trying to make the world better (at least by his lights).
IMO this is also a good argument for universal basic income: if people would not be stuck to boring soul-killing jobs by the threat of starvation, they'd be able to try this new thing they've been thinking about but never had the chance to work on. This should unleash a lot of human creativity.
I apologize for the double reply - I thought a bit and I believe I have a better formulation for the idea I'm trying to convey:
Your statement seems to imply that freedom is something you gain: people start in a state of non-freedom, and obtain freedom by "doing what they should do".
My opinion is the opposite. I think that in a free society freedom is something to lose. All people are born in a state of freedom. They can only lose this state by doing what they're not supposed to do - that is, what is explicitly forbidden by laws.
I'd say there is a certain justification for Facebook to track users - those are, after all, people who have intentionally created an account (even though they may not have been aware of the hidden tracking), and who are using the resources Facebook provides. However, tracking non-users doesn't even have this weak excuse, and should be an absolute no-no. The same is true for Google and all other data vampires.
You seem to advocate that people should only be free to do what the laws specifically allow.
In what way?
Your statement was "Freedom only functions for those that do what they should do". My statement would be "freedom functions for everybody who doesn't do what they are forbidden to do by laws".
Suppose somebody comes up with some new thing. In your case they're forbidden to do it by default - until some new law comes around that explicitly permits it. In my case, they're free to do it; if proven detrimental to society, then laws explicitly forbidding it may be written.
You're comparing: "me saying that people that like to watch murder should go have a mental eval" to "Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union". Why?
Because it's the same thing, albeit at a different scale. You appear to try to defend censorship by stating "people who want to watch this video must be bonkers, so not allowing them to watch what they want is justified".
Labeling opponents as psychopaths is an immediate blocker for any meaningful discussion, and lets you act without listening to the opponent's opinions or even taking his rights into account anymore. This is why it's a favorite tool of authoritarian societies everywhere.
Freedom only functions for those that do what they should do.
Used to be, people were free to do whatever laws didn't specifically forbid. You seem to advocate that people should only be free to do what the laws specifically allow. That's not freedom. That's a cage.
the words "narcissist" and "sociopath" come to mind
Yes, people who behave in non-approved ways clearly have psychiatric problems and, for the good of society, need to be treated - preferably in isolated places where they don't risk to infect the general populace with their madness. There are some great precedents too.
You surely understand that terrorism is far more effective when the terrorist himself is able to speak directly, right? You do understand that those who deliberately amplify, or ignore that they're amplifying, the words of terrorists are ultimately complicit?
You surely understand that opposition to the government is far more effective when the opposant himself is able to speak directly, right? You do understand that those who deliberately amplify, or ignore that they're amplifying, the words of opposition members are ultimately complicit?
You surely understand that opposition to apartheid is far more effective when the opposant himself is able to speak directly, right? You do understand that those who deliberately amplify, or ignore that they're amplifying, the words of anti-apartheid advocates are ultimately complicit?
You surely understand that social change is far more effective when the social change proponents themselves are able to speak directly, right? You do understand that those who deliberately amplify, or ignore that they're amplifying, the words of advocates for change are ultimately complicit?
You 8chan edgelords who think death threats, racism, child porn, etc are the height of clever discourse can only blame yourselves for this. At some point, people will say, "enough" and just shut you the fuck down. So now you spoil things for the rest of us who believe in free speech.
You're deceiving yourself. You don't believe in freedom of speech. The kind of "freedom of speech" you advocate for is a curated, moderated, castrated one, only applying to approved or popular points of view. This is pretty much the opposite of freedom of speech.
The whole point of freedom of speech is to protect unpopular speech - and yes, this specifically includes politically sensitive, distasteful or loathsome subjects. Otherwise, you end up with Soviet Russia - which, by your definition, was a great place for freedom of speech: edgelords who thought talking about gulags, freedom, the evils of communism were the height of clever discourse could only blame themselves for being shut the fuck down (with extreme prejudice, in many cases). They only spoiled things for the rest of the Russians, who believed in communist free speech.
How d'ya reckon that? The 8086's design started in early 1976, and it became available commercially in 1979. The first two major RISC projects (Standford's MIPS and Berkeley RISC, who evolved into the SPARC architecture) both started in the 1980s and became available commercially years later.
Some people point to the IBM 801 as a forerunner of the RISC concepts, but even this only became available commercially in 1980, and, as a single chip, only in 1981. It wasn't successful, but it was used as a base for the development of the RS/6000 - who, however was launched in 1990, 11 years after the x86
Why bother going to all this effort to get details of the heart rate sensor when they could just buy an Apple watch, rip it open and take a look for themselves?
That's rather... naive, to be kind.
Of course, they'll rip open the device, as you suggest, but that is only good enough for a iFixit YouTube video. Somebody who wants to mass-produce copies needs much more than that. To be able to mass-produce copies competitively, you need to know not only what parts is a device made of, but also HOW and WHY. This crucial knowledge can't be easily got from simply opening some device and peering inside. Why use a specific part here, and not replace it with a cheaper equivalent? Why use this special glue, and what treatment do you apply so it doesn't fall apart? Where are the bottlenecks in the process? And so on, and so on - there are thousand of gotchas in mass-production of devices - issues the maker had to solve.
Huawei could, of course, develop their own process - they do have the expertise. But that would take time and cost money and resources for R&D. It's much simpler and cheaper to steal as much of this info as they can, from the actual suppliers - who did go though the process and have solved the difficulties already.
I agree, though I think vampires were there before the zombies.
As to story, I'm afraid this boat has sailed. Rejoice though, you'll get more and bigger explosions and plenty of incomprehensible actions scenes with frantic editing and unruly camera movements.
When idiots and people with bad intent are given as loud a voice as people with expertise and good intention
That's kind of the point of democracy though, isn't it? "One man, one vote", remember? Else, deciding who should get the loud voice, and whose voices should be stifled is a straight way to authoritarianism. Over the years, there were lots of people who thought like you (and there still are) - except maybe, replacing "expertise and good intention" with "good breeding", "wealth", "religion", "sex", "race" or others.
, the result is anarchy, schemes like Bitcoin, and unqualified people getting elected to public office.
A very similar argument (BECAUSE it is unwise to risk the good we already have for the evil which may occur.) was brought up against women's suffrage.
The only ways to combat it are to teach critical thinking skills and start requiring some basic qualifications other than having access to a computer, to gain access to platforms that amplify a person's influence.
I saw an idea being discussed at some point: the ballot would have a couple a questions related to the item being voted, and the vote would be weighted against the number of correct answers in the quiz. That seems to be a proper balance, favoring the votes of better informed voters, and at the same time not discriminating against people on base of things they don't have a choice on, like their race.
Slashdot Mirror
Russia fell off the rails so badly
Well, really, Russia was never ON the rails; they had a brief opening after the breakup of the URSS, but it didn't last. Most Russians appear perfectly OK with a dictatorship that maintains the illusion they're still a world power.
Andrew Yang Plans To Use a 3D Hologram For Remote Campaigning
I was just planning to use a 3D hologram for remote jeering!
If they cared, they'd stop using the services.
That would be fair, if true. You're using the company's resources, you should pay them one way or another - either directly, via some subscription, or through ads.
The huge problem is that companies like Google and Facebook don't abide by this implicit contract. They have developed so many sneaky ways of tracking you that they don't need you to sign off with them at all. Google grabs your credit card transactions from brick and mortar stores; Facebook plunders friends' contacts and builds shadow profiles for you. They can and do track you even if you don't use any of their resources and they don't care whether you have consented to any tracking or not.
This unfettered and shameless tracking has IMHO poisoned the internet. The two big data vampires (and a multitude of lesser ones) are so omnipresent and so insidious that it's practically impossible for a normal person to use the internet and retain any shred of privacy anymore. Stopping an Android phone from snitching on you every minute of the day means disabling so many features that it becomes pretty much unusable. Even giving up on Android altogether and buying an iPhone or a plain featurephone is not enough - because Verizon and the other mobile operators will sell you out to Google anyway.
picking single examples makes not your original statement true.
What, did you expect an exhaustive list? What would be the point if I told you some guy was named a professor of Political Economy, then got a PhD and, to boot, became a general too, despite having only completed seven years of school (that was Ilie Ceausescu, BTW)? Or that some Suceava county prime-secretary got the job even though he hadn't even finished high school? You'd have no way to verify whatever I'm writing. By contrast, Elena Ceausescu is well documented - heck, she even has a page on Wikipedia -, so you can check yourself and see I'm not just making things up. Moreover, your statement is absolute "... never get a job ...", so a single counter-example is enough to falsify it.
Not every job is just given away by "connections". And in limits you can switch job as you which.
Not every job, sure. But most of the good ones. If you weren't politically active, or had relatives abroad, or had parents that had been priests, or "bourgeois", or, god forbid, you were a person of interest to the Securitate - then it was very difficult to get a good job, no matter how skilled you were. And that's the point I was trying to make. Communists countries didn't have UBI, as the grand-parent suggested - they just stuck you in a crappy job and boasted about zero unemployment.
Nonsense. Your education might have been based on family ties, you never got a good job based on it, if you lacked the education.
You're so full of it, I can't even believe. I spent the first half of my life in a former communist country for chrissake, and you show up with this nonsense.
Look - the better the jobs, the more the political clout mattered. In particular, you couldn't get a leadership job without being a party member in good standing. Yes, many skilled people did play the political game as a necessary step in the search for a good job, and make no mistake: it was the political activity that got them the jobs - that they were any good was not a requirement, but at most a bonus. In some cases, it was even a point of suspicion.
Here's an immediate counter-example to your "never get a good job if you lacked the education": Romania's Elena Ceausescu. Her highest education level was primary school - when she tried to go to night school she got expelled for cheating. Despite being an absolute intellectual nullity, she got a job as a research scientist at ICECHIM (the National Institute for Chemical Research) - a really good position for somebody in the field of chemistry. She even got a PhD and got elected to the Romanian Academy - her title (that she never got tired of repeating) ended up being "Academician Doctor Engineer".
And if you're unwilling to work, the only way you survive is on the charity of others.
There are quite a few things wrong with this statement.
First, the assumption that poverty's unique cause is "being a lazy fuck", when all it takes is "willingness to work". Unfortunately this is absolutely wrong - and pretty much invalidates the rest of your argument. There are lots of cases where willingness is not enough. You need to be of the right age, be relatively healthy, have no major handicaps, have the skills that happen to be in demand, and live in an area where jobs are available and pay enough to live. Just willingness won't help if you're too young or too old, if you're sick, if you simply don't have the capability to do some jobs. Not everybody can lift heavy loads, for example, or be a coder or a musician, or whatever. And, with technology automating more and more jobs, many people will simply be left behind - no matter how willing they are to work, the available jobs won't lift them out of poverty. This becomes more and more of an issue - and brings us to the second fault with your statement.
Your second wrong assumption is that charity is the only way to survive. It's not. When pushed too hard, when too many people become impoverished, they will not "STARVE" quietly in a corner. Instead, they'll turn to the other way to survive: they'll take what they need from the people who have it in surplus - via theft, revolt, revolution. The resulting social upheaval will impact everybody - even you.
...no benefit.
Are people not reading even the article titles anymore before replying? The title clearly says recipients are happier and more secure. You can perhaps argue the price is not worth it, but this is a benefit right there.
Talk about a strawman.
Neither of those had any kind of UBI, nor did any communist country ever. They had something more akin to the Republicans' work for welfare (yes, I know it was signed by Bill Clinton, but it was part of Gingrich's Contract with America). You weren't given money, you were given a job, which you had to take - hence the communist countries' boast that they have zero unemployment. The jobs were based not so much on your preferences or skills, but on political activity and/or family ties. If you refused the job you were given, you ended up in work camps.
financial security makes people feel financially secure.
But the study also shows UBI doesn't make people stop working. This, IMHO, is the most important result of this study because it removes one of the biggest objections to UBI. As an added bonus, if UBI is work neutral but increases happiness and reduces stress, it will also improve general health (hence reducing load on health services) and reduce criminality - with the corresponding savings in social and police work.
It seems to me the case for UBI is becoming stronger by the day.
I'm thinking about replacing my 16 years old Sony projection TV - which has performed like a champ, but is getting a bit long in the tooth. Sony was the top contender - not only because they have some pretty good offerings, but specifically because they didn't put ads on my screen.
Now Sony is also out, joining Samsung, LG and Visio. I'm starting to think the issue is actually with Android. Everywhere you get Android, ads will follow sooner or later, like a rash. Not to mention that you have to sign on with Google every bloody time.
Can we break Google in an Android company that makes and sells the software, and an add conglomerate that can FOAD?
Who gets to determine the "value" of someone?
Lots of people do. The DOT, for example. They think the value of an American's life is a bit under 10 million.
And, before you get the pitchforks out, this is actually pretty good - in Russia, for example, public opinion polls put the value a human life to ~$71500.
It may turn out that people prefer real strippers and even real waiters and bartenders.
I doubt both of your points. The abundance of anime porn shows lots of folks don't feel real humans are necessary. In fact, I think a strip joint featuring anime characters (a la the Vocaloid shows) could be quite successful. And really, Slashdot still can't handle even a basic accented a?
As to waiters, they're more of a luxury item - McDonalds and their ilk are doing fine without them. And, at least as far as I'm concerned, I'm not going to a restaurant because of the meaningful interaction I have with waiters. While a good waiter is nice to have, there are enough cases when they're more of a nuisance, and where I'd gladly take a robot instead.
In reality, given enough free time, people start doing useful things by themselves!
I'm surprised this isn't obvious to everybody. Lots of people don't stop working once they make their first million(s), even though they could retire and spend the rest of their lives on the couch, watching TV. I have colleagues I know for sure are multimillionaires; they're still putting lots of effort in the job, and pushing themselves hard. Heck, even the subject of this post, Andreessen himself could have retired young with the 53 million he got - instead, he kept working and trying to make the world better (at least by his lights).
IMO this is also a good argument for universal basic income: if people would not be stuck to boring soul-killing jobs by the threat of starvation, they'd be able to try this new thing they've been thinking about but never had the chance to work on. This should unleash a lot of human creativity.
I apologize for the double reply - I thought a bit and I believe I have a better formulation for the idea I'm trying to convey:
Your statement seems to imply that freedom is something you gain: people start in a state of non-freedom, and obtain freedom by "doing what they should do".
My opinion is the opposite. I think that in a free society freedom is something to lose. All people are born in a state of freedom. They can only lose this state by doing what they're not supposed to do - that is, what is explicitly forbidden by laws.
and even non-users
I'd say there is a certain justification for Facebook to track users - those are, after all, people who have intentionally created an account (even though they may not have been aware of the hidden tracking), and who are using the resources Facebook provides. However, tracking non-users doesn't even have this weak excuse, and should be an absolute no-no. The same is true for Google and all other data vampires.
You seem to advocate that people should only be free to do what the laws specifically allow.
In what way?
Your statement was "Freedom only functions for those that do what they should do". My statement would be "freedom functions for everybody who doesn't do what they are forbidden to do by laws".
Suppose somebody comes up with some new thing. In your case they're forbidden to do it by default - until some new law comes around that explicitly permits it. In my case, they're free to do it; if proven detrimental to society, then laws explicitly forbidding it may be written.
You're comparing: "me saying that people that like to watch murder should go have a mental eval" to "Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union". Why?
Because it's the same thing, albeit at a different scale. You appear to try to defend censorship by stating "people who want to watch this video must be bonkers, so not allowing them to watch what they want is justified".
Labeling opponents as psychopaths is an immediate blocker for any meaningful discussion, and lets you act without listening to the opponent's opinions or even taking his rights into account anymore. This is why it's a favorite tool of authoritarian societies everywhere.
Freedom only functions for those that do what they should do.
Used to be, people were free to do whatever laws didn't specifically forbid. You seem to advocate that people should only be free to do what the laws specifically allow. That's not freedom. That's a cage.
the words "narcissist" and "sociopath" come to mind
Yes, people who behave in non-approved ways clearly have psychiatric problems and, for the good of society, need to be treated - preferably in isolated places where they don't risk to infect the general populace with their madness. There are some great precedents too.
You surely understand that terrorism is far more effective when the terrorist himself is able to speak directly, right? You do understand that those who deliberately amplify, or ignore that they're amplifying, the words of terrorists are ultimately complicit?
You surely understand that opposition to the government is far more effective when the opposant himself is able to speak directly, right? You do understand that those who deliberately amplify, or ignore that they're amplifying, the words of opposition members are ultimately complicit?
You surely understand that opposition to apartheid is far more effective when the opposant himself is able to speak directly, right? You do understand that those who deliberately amplify, or ignore that they're amplifying, the words of anti-apartheid advocates are ultimately complicit?
You surely understand that social change is far more effective when the social change proponents themselves are able to speak directly, right? You do understand that those who deliberately amplify, or ignore that they're amplifying, the words of advocates for change are ultimately complicit?
See how this works?
You 8chan edgelords who think death threats, racism, child porn, etc are the height of clever discourse can only blame yourselves for this. At some point, people will say, "enough" and just shut you the fuck down. So now you spoil things for the rest of us who believe in free speech.
You're deceiving yourself. You don't believe in freedom of speech. The kind of "freedom of speech" you advocate for is a curated, moderated, castrated one, only applying to approved or popular points of view. This is pretty much the opposite of freedom of speech.
The whole point of freedom of speech is to protect unpopular speech - and yes, this specifically includes politically sensitive, distasteful or loathsome subjects. Otherwise, you end up with Soviet Russia - which, by your definition, was a great place for freedom of speech: edgelords who thought talking about gulags, freedom, the evils of communism were the height of clever discourse could only blame themselves for being shut the fuck down (with extreme prejudice, in many cases). They only spoiled things for the rest of the Russians, who believed in communist free speech.
RISC has been alive longer than the x86.
How d'ya reckon that? The 8086's design started in early 1976, and it became available commercially in 1979. The first two major RISC projects (Standford's MIPS and Berkeley RISC, who evolved into the SPARC architecture) both started in the 1980s and became available commercially years later.
Some people point to the IBM 801 as a forerunner of the RISC concepts, but even this only became available commercially in 1980, and, as a single chip, only in 1981. It wasn't successful, but it was used as a base for the development of the RS/6000 - who, however was launched in 1990, 11 years after the x86
Why bother going to all this effort to get details of the heart rate sensor when they could just buy an Apple watch, rip it open and take a look for themselves?
That's rather... naive, to be kind.
Of course, they'll rip open the device, as you suggest, but that is only good enough for a iFixit YouTube video. Somebody who wants to mass-produce copies needs much more than that. To be able to mass-produce copies competitively, you need to know not only what parts is a device made of, but also HOW and WHY. This crucial knowledge can't be easily got from simply opening some device and peering inside. Why use a specific part here, and not replace it with a cheaper equivalent? Why use this special glue, and what treatment do you apply so it doesn't fall apart? Where are the bottlenecks in the process? And so on, and so on - there are thousand of gotchas in mass-production of devices - issues the maker had to solve.
Huawei could, of course, develop their own process - they do have the expertise. But that would take time and cost money and resources for R&D. It's much simpler and cheaper to steal as much of this info as they can, from the actual suppliers - who did go though the process and have solved the difficulties already.
I agree, though I think vampires were there before the zombies.
As to story, I'm afraid this boat has sailed. Rejoice though, you'll get more and bigger explosions and plenty of incomprehensible actions scenes with frantic editing and unruly camera movements.
"What language is the humans' cerebral cortex written in?"
Brainfuck, duh!
Google or Amazon could end you.
God, that's just what I need - more of my data handed over to Google...
When idiots and people with bad intent are given as loud a voice as people with expertise and good intention
That's kind of the point of democracy though, isn't it? "One man, one vote", remember? Else, deciding who should get the loud voice, and whose voices should be stifled is a straight way to authoritarianism. Over the years, there were lots of people who thought like you (and there still are) - except maybe, replacing "expertise and good intention" with "good breeding", "wealth", "religion", "sex", "race" or others.
, the result is anarchy, schemes like Bitcoin, and unqualified people getting elected to public office.
A very similar argument (BECAUSE it is unwise to risk the good we already have for the evil which may occur.) was brought up against women's suffrage.
The only ways to combat it are to teach critical thinking skills and start requiring some basic qualifications other than having access to a computer, to gain access to platforms that amplify a person's influence.
I saw an idea being discussed at some point: the ballot would have a couple a questions related to the item being voted, and the vote would be weighted against the number of correct answers in the quiz. That seems to be a proper balance, favoring the votes of better informed voters, and at the same time not discriminating against people on base of things they don't have a choice on, like their race.