You can vote as much as you want, I'll tell you this. If you are a consumer, you only have the right to consume. Thus the label consumer, because you consume and consume. Your opinions do not matter, if your opinions mattered the politicians would be meeting with you and asking you for your opinions.
If you really worked for a politician like you say, you'd know that the average voter has little to no influence on what deals are made between leaders. If you want in, then get in, join the club, work for the company, invest! If you want, start an investment club.
Just talking about politics will change absolutely nothing. Politicians do not care about our opinions. The have experts to tell them what to care about, they have pollsters to tell them what our opinions are, and they can shape our opinions when they don't like what our opinions are. In the end, it's ultimately just about money. You can buy influence, you can buy politicians, you can buy just about any favor. It's about favors.
Teleco companies are VERY VERY powerful, they have infinite leverage over any politician. The telecos know everything, and had these abilities before the whole NSA wiretap scandal, so what politician is going to challenge the big telcos, or big oil? I wouldnt, you wouldnt, and a politician wouldnt for the same reasons we wont.
The best thing you can do is work with these big powerful corporate entities, and try to make policies which in a give and take fashion, where you make deals. If you expect to be a politician, it's a dirty business, it's a VERY dirty business, but ultimately it is a business, and the way to be successful is to do business with big business.
If you actually think you can be involved in politics, and that Google has more influence than telephone and oil companies, you are insane. The hardware companies have more influence than the software companies. The phone companies have more influence than the hardware companies. The energy companies have influence over ALL companies.
If you were smart, take an economics class and see how society is organized.
If you had any idea how this world works, you'd see that the economy is global, and when the economy is global, what is happening in the US is happening everywhere. The new laws get tested on the US population first, and then exported to our trading partners. The countries which don't accept our rules, well we know what happens to them. So I don't see your point.
I'm not saying the world population will go along with it, but the decision makers are all on the same team, and all profit together. Do you really think that lawmakers in the US are going to pass laws that the world leaders do not accept? The laws that get passed are precisely the laws that world leaders want passed.
Global opinion is not the same as Global leadership or Global decision making, or Global economics. The global economy is somewhat planned out in advance, the rules are decided on, there is a world bank, a world trade organization, and economic leaders meet to discuss these topics. So if we are discussing it now, they discussed it months or years ago and made decisions on it already.
This type of issue, requires a lot more creative touch in my opinion, than simply coming up with old ideas. We need revolutionary ideas to save the internet, and if you do not have them, then dedicate your brain power into creating the next internet. I do not think video franchising is the kind of idea that is revolutionary. Open Source was a revolutionary idea, maybe we should contact Richard Stallman and see what he has to say. Maybe we need a new set of internet protocols? The wiring is not the issue here, the issue here is an issue of how the internet is modeled.
The next internet for sure won't be modeled anything like this one. The client server model is what lead to this. When you model the internet in a slave/master type of frame work, the result you get is a top down internet hierarchy. Beyond the protocols, the technology itself is also top down. I think all of this will change eventually when the technology adapts and becomes smaller, but this issue is a lot more complicated than simply, legal. In fact, legalese language is meaningless in the long term. It's always about design.
If you do want to think of legal language, the language itself has to be strategicially designed. The invention of the internet will go down in history as being as important as the invention of the constitution or the bill of rights. Of course it was not going to last forever, but you have to put the internet itself into historical context.
Discussing politics is fine, but whats the point in discussing national politics? All of these issues are local, REALLY local.
If you don't want big federal government, why did you vote for it? This goes for Democrats and Republicans. Federal government is big under EITHER party. Most of us internet geeks seem to be libertarians, and as a result we can't feel comfortable in either party.
In the Democratic party of old ideas, we hear them discussing going back to the days of FDR, and that is completely unrealistic. The Republican party always talks about tax cuts, and smaller government, but somehow government is bigger than ever?
I think we need to drastically cut taxes, maybe go with just the sales tax, or even the negative income tax. There are a lot of ways to reform the tax system that will make EVERYONE happy. Once the tax system is reformed, and you can get more of your own money, that is how we all benefit. Social programs are a thing of the past, they worked when the population was smaller globally and nationally, they worked when we werent consuming this much, but time is running out and some changes have to be made.
You and I may never live to see social security, so why fight to save it if by the time we get it the world isnt going to exist and none of us will be here? I'd rather recieve the tax cuts and invest it.
Soon, the internet will be rendered a privilage in which you need a license to access. We've seen it happen with roads, its only a matter of time before it happens to the net. Also prepare for internet taxes.
Honestly, I don't understand how a conservative government can increase the size of government this much, and ask for internet regulations, I mean it does not follow the philosophy at all. Am I the only libertarian here?
When law making comes to the internet, another internet will be invented, just not anytime soon. My advice is, start the planning stages for the next internet, and then when there is the will to bring it forward, bring it forward. Let's just admit once and for all that it must have been Al Gore who gave us the internet, he did not invent it, but he handed it so us. Before that, the masses didnt know what the internet is, and the masses won't know what the next internet us when us geeks invent or find it, hey we mmight already have it.
Is that we have different people willing to kill huge numbers of different people. Religion has nothing to do with how people feel about other people, it cannot change a persons emotions, only a persons thinking. You cannot through religion force a person to love or hate their neighbor, You cannot teach emotion. Religion is just an excuse to kill people, if you want to kill of course you need the excuse to do it, and hey if God tells you to do it, thats the perfect excuse.
Birth Control would certainly slow the destruction down, but it's not a long term solution, it's a bandaid. The problem is, humans have emotional diseases. If the species is simply too emotional to exist, the result is the species kills itself.
It is certainly possible that our species can simply be too emotional to be rational. A rational species, would ignore all emotion, very much like ants and bees, and focus on what is important. Protecting yourself, protecting your family, protecting your country, and protecting your species. If you are emotional then you'll easily be confused into attacking your species, attacking your country, attacking your family, and attacking yourself.
It is possible that we can cure the human diseases which plague our species, but we enjoy being emotional too much to be rational. All of us have emotional vices, some of us have too much love to the point that we do something irrational like die saving others. Some of us have so much hate that we die killing others. And then you have the whole range of emotions in between that don't make much sense.
Currently, we don't really focus much on being rational, or on teaching young people to be rational. You can teach people the obvious math that 1+1=2, but if you don't explain the reasons why or the philosophy or even the religion behind it, it's not going to make a person rational.
Why should a person care about the species? If you remove the emotion from it, it's rational to care about yourself, caring about the human family, or about your brother or sister, is caring about yourself, and that is always rational. If every human cared about the people they dislike on a basic human level, the species would be fine. The only way the species will survive, is if we act like a family. You can start by treating your brothers and sisters of slashdot like family, And progress it to country, and then global.
Otherwise, nothing is going to change, people will hate their brothers and sisters, and hate themselves in the process. At this point our option is to hate ourselves to death, or change the rules so that we increase quality of life. We are working now to destroy ourselves, not to improve quality of life, or to improve length of lifespan. We are already a dead species. Mr. Hawking if he wants to change this, he's showing heart, but he's not really showing much intelligence if he think's random geeks on Slashdot can change this. To be honest, he should be meeting with decision makers, business owners, politicians, and billionares, millionares, the royal families, and discuss the issue with them. Maybe he can meet with Al Gore while he is at it, but I don't think WE geeks can do anything at this point, we have little to no power. If someone here does have power, then go ahead and discuss this issue, otherwise focus on making money and surviving and let Mr. Hawking spend his remaining years working on this.
I think brainpower and ideas arent the issue, I think surviving is the issue. Learn to survive, and help your friends and family survive, help slashdot survive, and thats about all you can do.
All we have to do to save humanity, is care about humanity. Stephen is in the minority here, most humans hate humanity, and hate each other and would rather die killing their enemies than die saving the planet and the species.
It's a matter of will, it's not a matter of methods. We have the technology to save humanity easily, we have enough surveillace, we have enough meds, whatever we need we have or can build, we have a global economy now.
Religion is not the answer nor is it the problem, Religion is as natural as science and math. If you want to follow science you are religious in the way Einstien was in believing that the universe can be solved by science and or math. If you want to believe in God the science proves there is a God, if you don't want to believe in God, then there are no answers, no solutions, and everything is random. It's not going to make a difference if people believe in God or not, the reason people have wars is simply, they enjoy it, they want to have wars, they like to hate, and it doesnt matter what God, the economy, science, or math says about it. It's an emotion, and it's irrational.
If humanity is to survive, humanity has to focus on survival. Lets see, we should be spending most of our money in life extending technologies. We should be spending most of our brain power on improving the quality of life. We should spend more time helping kids, especially kids in poor countries who can be adopted. We should spend more time on education, so that everyone can have the knowledge they need to protect themselves.
I don't think it's going to happen, someone like Mr. Hawking, and maybe a few of us geeks will decide to care about life and the species, but it's not we who make the decisions here. We work for people who make the decisions, often they are a lot older, seniority and rank decide many isues.
The point is, it's not a matter of ideas, it's not a matter of convincing the majority of the worlds population to care about the species. It's a matter of convincing the select few decision makers to care about the species and the planet, and that is impossible.
Since we are going to die out, the best thing you can do, if invest in the types of businesses which will profit from chaos, and profit as the world dies in front of you. It's not going to save the world, but at least you get to die in comfort. If the world does not end, you'll lose your money, but you'll keep your future.
Death has always varied through different tribes, families and societies. Some societies always had low death rates because they didnt have disease, wars, or the kinds of problems that Europe went through during the dark ages. I think that life expectancy changes every generation. I think there could have been times in the past where Japan had an aging population as well, but they were culturally equiped to handle this. Now that they have tried to westernize, they adopted our system but missed out on some of our strengths.
America likes immigration, always has. Japan dislikes immigration. I look at America and I don't see just one race or just one group, I see people from every country in the world, I look at Japan and I see like a much higher percentage of Japanese. There is also less inter-racial marriages in Japan while in the USA everyone marries everyone, even gays are getting married now. I look at Japan and a lot of aspects of their culture are modern, and then a lot of aspects of their culture just never modernized. The vanity and pride from the traditional periods never went away, so old people feel ashamed at being old and useless and young people feel suicidal if they are unable to get a job. In America it isnt this way, as American's have a very different history, filled with conflict. It's not that Japan is aging too much, nothing wrong with an aging population. The problem is Japan does not fully Americanize. If you are in Japan, by the time you are 80 years old you should have the money to pay someone to take care of you. If the money isnt there, this isnt because the population is too old to take care of itself, this is because culturally Japan never adapted.
America has this problem too, along with many other problems, but in America we built up nursing homes specifically for the purpose of allowing old people to be taken care of. Also culturally, it is the childrens responsibility to take care of their parents, as most children either pay for the nursing home or let their parents stay in either their home or in a home they pay for. In Japan young people due to culture are so focused on career success that they arent keeping a strong family structure. America has this problem too, but because we've had this problem for a longer period of time we've found some solutions to it.
Ultimately Japan has to solve this problem, and I don't think robots will work.
(more kids around today is more workers around 15 years from now, meaning either more taxes or more nurses or both)
This is another difference between USA and Japan. USA does not support social services. We are not a socialist system. We believe in small efficient government with low taxes. So in our case even if our population increases through the roof we won't raise taxes. Instead we will cut taxes to reward the successful and punish the unsuccessful. I think if Japan were to cut all social programs, the elderly would be able to take care of themselves if they invest. Young people will be able to create jobs for themselves as well as long as these robots don't take over, but I can guarentee you that if Japan builds lots of robots and raises taxes that in the future the economy will be even slower, and the youth will be in a situation very much like the situation in France.
So ultimately the point I'm making is I think the robot idea has no chance of working and will actually make the problem worse, and the only way to fix this problem is to encourage the elderly to work longer. Elderly can be investors, and the youth can take over.
Yeah you can blame problem 2 on problem 1, but problem 2 is still problem 2. You arent solving problem 1 by blaiming it on something else. If there arent enouh youth in Japan you arent encouraging more youth to want to live in Japan when you replace them with robots. I mean what kind of economy can function like this where old people just lay in bed all day while robots take care of them? I mean really, this is just doomed to fail.
If everything will be done by robots, why do we need people, and what should a young Japanese person reading this think?
I mean, if robots will replace all young people in Japan, this explain the high suicide rates of young people in Japan, its not a good message to send.
If Japan actually were more accepting of immigrants, they'd have higher birth rates, and they'd have people to take care of their elderly. The only reason this couldnt work is if the elderly were completely racist and were going to insult the immigrant workers. In that case the robots would be the only option. Under any situation, this looks bad for Japan's national image.
It is basically fact that there is Xenophobia in Japan. There is Xenophobia in America as well.
I think Xenophobia is not the same thing as racism. A person can be Xenophobic in that they may not trust or like how someone else looks, but racism is a religious belief system. Xenophobia can be removed over time as a person learns more about other people, and this happens when immigration occurs and people are around and have with with many different people. Racism on the other hand never ends because it is a religious belief. No science, no math, no evidence will ever sway a true racist from believing in their beliefs. The science can prove that there is no such thing as race and if someone is a true racist they'll ignore the science and follow what their bible tells them. I think the science says that our racial problems are temporary, and in 100 years we will all be one race. I think basically through science and technology, people will be able to choose the race of their children and in the future the racial problems we have now will be solved through technology. Simple, if someone is born the wrong race in the future, it will be because their parents choose that race. Today, people don't get to choose their race, and that is the difference.
The same applies to sexuality, if we find out that there is a homosexual gene, and parents decide to give that gene to their child thats the parents fault. The parent would have had the choice in this case to give the child the straight gene. This also applies to diseases, if a parent chooses to, they will be able to shut off genes which cause diseases. This is the future, and it will be here in less than a decade. In 10 years, the racial issues will start to solve themselves as people basically treat race as a medical problem.
I think that America has racism too, but America cares more about the economy than religion. If you look at our religious beliefs, all of these beliefs are ignored if its bad for the economy.
Race is a religious belief, it's not supported by science, it's a religion. The science basically has found the cure for race, and that cure is stem cell research and genetic engineering. So the arguement that race is preventing Japan from solving it's economic problems, well, if Japan solved it's economic problems the racial problems would solve themselves. It's simple, if you are a Japanese female and pregnant by someone of a different race and you want your child to be Japanese, you simply tell the genes to express the Japanese side and the child will be Japanese. This is what the science says. The religion believe in purity of race, but in reality there is no such thing as pure anything. All races have genes from other races which means anyone from any race can select their race. So Japan's solution would be to simply create the racial engineering industry, in which genetic engineering solves the racial problem. If you want your kid to be Japanese you can select the Japanese genes and activate them. If you want your kid to not have asthma you can shut those genes off, along with disease genes of other sorts, but its somewhat foolish to not reproduce at all in fear of some religious racial impurity. A baby has both sets of genes, the mother and the father, if the mother is Japanese or the father is Japanese, the doctor can tell the genes to choose Japanese expression and the child will be Japanese.
This also means that if two Japanese people mate, and they decide to design their baby to be aryan, if they have just a few people in their genetic line who were from Europe, this will be possible as well. So the times are changing quickly, and I think racism is a problem which will be solved by the medical and healthcare industry, not by robots. I see robots are making the problem worse, and I see robots as choosing pride over solutions. When pride becomes the problem, it can slow the economy.
Aging has existed since society has existed. How do you deal with an aging society? The youth should get paid to take care of the elderly. Does it really make sense for the youth to create robots to replace themselves?
If you are really from Japan and involved in this, can you please explain the logic to me on how this benefits the old or the young?
What kind of society is a society in which the elderly and the youth are completely disconnected? I mean how exactly is knowledge going to pass down from generation to generation?
Racism, as far as racism, this is religion. Racism is simply a religion. It's outdated, because soon we will have the technology to allow mothers to choose the race of their baby. Race is defined by only a few genes, so in the future I expect all of us to be one race.
It's really simple, if you want to solve racism, then let's decide what the official dominant race should be, if we decide it is to be the aryan race, then the government can decide to either let parents choose the race of their child, or if simply make it illegal to be any race but the dominant race. Suddenly racism is solved.
I think the issue with robots on the other hand is the next problem of the future, because race does not really matter, its changeable, skin color, hair texture, these are genes which can be shut off. Once robots take over society, there won't be enough jobs anymore for the youth and the old will basically die out.
All of us have to think about what other people feel about what we say. They say these things as if language were a recent invention and that people in Japan have not mastered it or something? Seriously, I know not everyone has social skills, I'm not a social genius myself, but is it really that difficult to take care of grandpa or grandma? Is it really difficult to have compassion for the elderly?
Even if you have no compassion and no heart at all, is it really that difficult to accept their money? Why give up enough free jobs to give every student and young person in Japan not only work but a possible mentor, to give it to a robot? This makes the old person in Japan somewhat useless because they have no one to pass their wisdom to. This also makes the young person useless. So you'll have an old person slowly dying in front of a robot who they can't teach anything to, and you'll have young people with no connection to the previous generation. And the reasoning for this is because in Japan people are afraid to hurt each others feelings? They are going to pass up billions of dollars and hundreds of million of jobs over that?
Meanwhile suicide rates in Japan are among the highest in the world.
America has a stronger economy because we use technology to support and improve our economy. We have super computers calculating for us on industry growth and projections. We have it down to a science, and we have mastered economics. Japan has not mastered the economic fundamentals. Japan's economy right now is not as fast because they don't have immigrants. America has an illegal immigration problem, but in general immigration is neccessary to keep an economy strong.
I also think that in America, we arent building machines to do work which humans can do better. Robots? How exactly are robots going to replace nurses, and if robots replace nurses, how is it a good thing exactly to replace people with machines? This is a debate America is having. American's therefore are focusing on business and economics to try and figure out the best way to use these machines. In Japan they build the machines and robots first and then deal with the damages to their economy later.
Robots are good for certain things, but I would not want a robot for a wife/companion. I would not prefer a virtual girlfriend over a real girlfriend. I do not want to play a dating sim over real dating. I think there is a place for the virtual economy and I think the virtual economy will be huge someday, but I don't think the virtual economy should completely replace the traditional economy.
The only way these robots and this virtual economy will be good, is if people actually as families own patents. Even if people as families own patents, you'll still need to have population growth and immigration just so your money can be worth something. Your money is only worth something if theres many people with less money. If the population doesnt grow at all eventually the economy begins to slow down and stop, as young people won't exist anymore to continue and move the economy forward. I don't think you can expect an 80 year old to be the lead consumer of Japan, and I don't think you can expect an 80 year old to fuel the economy in the future. I also don't expect an 80 year old to buy all the music, movies and so on.
I think old people have an important function in the economy,but young people have a function too. Young people are the consumers, and old people are the ones who sell the products, over time the young people can take care of the old people and sell services back. This works in the USA, where young people do almost all the retail and service work and old people hold all the positions of power and status. So young college kids will serve you your coffee, and deliver your pizza. In Japan robots will be doing this, so what will young people do?
This will become a major problem, I'd think Japan could see what is happening in France now, but I guess Japan wants to build robots? Can someone please explain the economic logic in this and please explain how this makes Japans aging society stronger? Otherwise if this is the direction Japan plans to take to their society, you can expect China to start building robots and you can expect America to start creating the AI software along with India. Cheap robots for Japan if that is what Japan wants.
What exactly, are the aging Japanese population going to do? Let robots replace the youth in their society? I just don't get it.
I understand that perhaps we have an over populated world, but I don't see how building robots actually solves the problem. The more robots you build, the less jobs you have in your community unless your community builds the robots, and I highly doubt that people will buy expensive robots build in Japan when they can buy robots made in China.
I think sure it's a new industry, but it won't be good for the youth in Japan, and maybe this is fueled by Xenophobia. Maybe Japan decided that instead of inviting immigration, that it is better to just build robots, but if this is the case, that is Japan's option. If Japan wanted youth to take care of the elderly they could open their borders, plenty of Americans would flood into Japan and do the job for less money than a Japanese worker would do it, and plenty of people from China and other places would also do these jobs.
If the goal is to create a new industry that is less profitable than the old industry, its basically a stupid idea. Yes robots can be used to help humans take care of the elderly, but in this case they are trying to mass produce andriods to do it. This in my opinion is BAD for the economy, because its basically telling the youth that
"Hey kids, sons, daughters, we are going to replace you with these andriods"
I think it's a ridiculously stupid message to send the youth. It's going to drive the youth out of Japan even further, during a time when Japan's population is in decline. It will not create new jobs, and while it may create new money, creating new money or saving money for the elderly is kinda pointless if the money isnt passed down to the youth.
I may be completely wrong, I'm not an economist, but I think suicide rates in Japan are high enough as it is, and moves like this only encourage it further.
I don't think Japan knows it yet, but the only reason the American economy is doing so well is because we actually do have a service economy. Japan is basically going to become a robot society, where everyone has a robot to do all the service jobs, so what exactly will Japanese people do? Expect 20%+ unemployement for the youth if there is any youth, and without massive immigration, their population will continue to decline.
I honestly don't understand the logic of Japan's economic decisions, I do not understand why the Japanese economists believe it is good to promote robotic technology when their economy is suffering as it is. I don't understand why Japan thinks that promoting robotics will be good for Japan when China will most likely be building these robots. So in general, this looks to be bad for Japan.
I'm not Japanese, so I guess it does not matter if Japan wants to give up one of it's most profitable industries to robots, but hey, if Japan is aging and not having kids, and eventually robots replace their kids by doing all the neccessary service jobs, then that is ultimately Japan's choice.
I think in America, while we should have robotics, I wouldnt want a robot to take care of me when I can hire a person. If I'm an old man, unmarried, I'd rather hire a young lady to take care of me than a robot, and if I'm a married man, I'd rather hire the youth in my community to do the job.
Japan building robots to take care of the elderly just means less jobs for their youth, which means less incentive to have kids in the first place.
If Japan is going fully into a robotic society, how exactly is this good in the long term? In the short term sure it seems like it could help the economy but in the long term its just less jobs and a slower economy for Japan. So they could either pay people to take care of the elderly, or build robots. If Japan builds robots, then there will be less service jobs for Japanese workers and more jobs for factory workers in China.
I think we have to look into the economic risks associated with these decisions, and I don't think Japan is doing a good job improving their economy.
It's not what people say, its how they think. People say a lot of stuff, because most people just arent so serious about what they are saying in a lot of cases, or because they just say what the feel in the moment. It's more important to understand a person and their behavior then to just take some words they've said. It's not like people are running for office or something, it's just a job, and if getting a job becomes like running for office, then all of us are going to have said or did something in the past that was stupid.
It's basically impossible to go your entire life and not say or do something stupid, and if everything is logged on the internet, so what? What matters more is the psychological profile, and if the people or persons involved have learned from it.
When you are trying to get a snapshot of someones personality, you are going to gather as much information as you can, and their religion, sexuality, and politics are all information. These types of information can change over time so its not as reliable as a psychological profile, but I'm sure if you've been to see a psychiatrist or went to some sort of therapy, your psychological profile is in record somewhere.
There are certain types of jobs which are best suited for people with certain psychological profiles. If you have the right personality type you'll have the job, and it's not just security. Do you really think that if someone wants to hire you to do accounting or deal with money that they'll not look at your psychological and medical records to see if you are prone to stealing? Do you think people won't look at your psychology to see what you are likely to do? Yes they will, and they'll also look at your criminal history. Combined altogether in general, they can get a precise snapshot of how loyal you'll be, what you'll do or wont do, and so on. If you don't want to hire a con artist, you don't have to.
Slashdot Mirror
Do servers have owners?
You can vote as much as you want, I'll tell you this. If you are a consumer, you only have the right to consume. Thus the label consumer, because you consume and consume. Your opinions do not matter, if your opinions mattered the politicians would be meeting with you and asking you for your opinions.
If you really worked for a politician like you say, you'd know that the average voter has little to no influence on what deals are made between leaders. If you want in, then get in, join the club, work for the company, invest! If you want, start an investment club.
Just talking about politics will change absolutely nothing. Politicians do not care about our opinions. The have experts to tell them what to care about, they have pollsters to tell them what our opinions are, and they can shape our opinions when they don't like what our opinions are. In the end, it's ultimately just about money. You can buy influence, you can buy politicians, you can buy just about any favor. It's about favors.
Teleco companies are VERY VERY powerful, they have infinite leverage over any politician. The telecos know everything, and had these abilities before the whole NSA wiretap scandal, so what politician is going to challenge the big telcos, or big oil? I wouldnt, you wouldnt, and a politician wouldnt for the same reasons we wont.
The best thing you can do is work with these big powerful corporate entities, and try to make policies which in a give and take fashion, where you make deals. If you expect to be a politician, it's a dirty business, it's a VERY dirty business, but ultimately it is a business, and the way to be successful is to do business with big business.
If you actually think you can be involved in politics, and that Google has more influence than telephone and oil companies, you are insane. The hardware companies have more influence than the software companies. The phone companies have more influence than the hardware companies. The energy companies have influence over ALL companies.
If you were smart, take an economics class and see how society is organized.
If you had any idea how this world works, you'd see that the economy is global, and when the economy is global, what is happening in the US is happening everywhere. The new laws get tested on the US population first, and then exported to our trading partners. The countries which don't accept our rules, well we know what happens to them. So I don't see your point.
I'm not saying the world population will go along with it, but the decision makers are all on the same team, and all profit together. Do you really think that lawmakers in the US are going to pass laws that the world leaders do not accept? The laws that get passed are precisely the laws that world leaders want passed.
Global opinion is not the same as Global leadership or Global decision making, or Global economics. The global economy is somewhat planned out in advance, the rules are decided on, there is a world bank, a world trade organization, and economic leaders meet to discuss these topics. So if we are discussing it now, they discussed it months or years ago and made decisions on it already.
This type of issue, requires a lot more creative touch in my opinion, than simply coming up with old ideas. We need revolutionary ideas to save the internet, and if you do not have them, then dedicate your brain power into creating the next internet. I do not think video franchising is the kind of idea that is revolutionary. Open Source was a revolutionary idea, maybe we should contact Richard Stallman and see what he has to say. Maybe we need a new set of internet protocols? The wiring is not the issue here, the issue here is an issue of how the internet is modeled.
The next internet for sure won't be modeled anything like this one. The client server model is what lead to this. When you model the internet in a slave/master type of frame work, the result you get is a top down internet hierarchy. Beyond the protocols, the technology itself is also top down. I think all of this will change eventually when the technology adapts and becomes smaller, but this issue is a lot more complicated than simply, legal. In fact, legalese language is meaningless in the long term. It's always about design.
If you do want to think of legal language, the language itself has to be strategicially designed. The invention of the internet will go down in history as being as important as the invention of the constitution or the bill of rights. Of course it was not going to last forever, but you have to put the internet itself into historical context.
Discussing politics is fine, but whats the point in discussing national politics? All of these issues are local, REALLY local.
If you don't want big federal government, why did you vote for it? This goes for Democrats and Republicans. Federal government is big under EITHER party. Most of us internet geeks seem to be libertarians, and as a result we can't feel comfortable in either party.
In the Democratic party of old ideas, we hear them discussing going back to the days of FDR, and that is completely unrealistic. The Republican party always talks about tax cuts, and smaller government, but somehow government is bigger than ever?
I think we need to drastically cut taxes, maybe go with just the sales tax, or even the negative income tax. There are a lot of ways to reform the tax system that will make EVERYONE happy. Once the tax system is reformed, and you can get more of your own money, that is how we all benefit. Social programs are a thing of the past, they worked when the population was smaller globally and nationally, they worked when we werent consuming this much, but time is running out and some changes have to be made.
You and I may never live to see social security, so why fight to save it if by the time we get it the world isnt going to exist and none of us will be here? I'd rather recieve the tax cuts and invest it.
Soon, the internet will be rendered a privilage in which you need a license to access. We've seen it happen with roads, its only a matter of time before it happens to the net. Also prepare for internet taxes.
Honestly, I don't understand how a conservative government can increase the size of government this much, and ask for internet regulations, I mean it does not follow the philosophy at all. Am I the only libertarian here?
When law making comes to the internet, another internet will be invented, just not anytime soon. My advice is, start the planning stages for the next internet, and then when there is the will to bring it forward, bring it forward. Let's just admit once and for all that it must have been Al Gore who gave us the internet, he did not invent it, but he handed it so us. Before that, the masses didnt know what the internet is, and the masses won't know what the next internet us when us geeks invent or find it, hey we mmight already have it.
Is that we have different people willing to kill huge numbers of different people. Religion has nothing to do with how people feel about other people, it cannot change a persons emotions, only a persons thinking. You cannot through religion force a person to love or hate their neighbor, You cannot teach emotion. Religion is just an excuse to kill people, if you want to kill of course you need the excuse to do it, and hey if God tells you to do it, thats the perfect excuse.
Birth Control would certainly slow the destruction down, but it's not a long term solution, it's a bandaid. The problem is, humans have emotional diseases. If the species is simply too emotional to exist, the result is the species kills itself.
It is certainly possible that our species can simply be too emotional to be rational. A rational species, would ignore all emotion, very much like ants and bees, and focus on what is important. Protecting yourself, protecting your family, protecting your country, and protecting your species. If you are emotional then you'll easily be confused into attacking your species, attacking your country, attacking your family, and attacking yourself.
It is possible that we can cure the human diseases which plague our species, but we enjoy being emotional too much to be rational. All of us have emotional vices, some of us have too much love to the point that we do something irrational like die saving others. Some of us have so much hate that we die killing others. And then you have the whole range of emotions in between that don't make much sense.
Currently, we don't really focus much on being rational, or on teaching young people to be rational. You can teach people the obvious math that 1+1=2, but if you don't explain the reasons why or the philosophy or even the religion behind it, it's not going to make a person rational.
Why should a person care about the species? If you remove the emotion from it, it's rational to care about yourself, caring about the human family, or about your brother or sister, is caring about yourself, and that is always rational. If every human cared about the people they dislike on a basic human level, the species would be fine. The only way the species will survive, is if we act like a family. You can start by treating your brothers and sisters of slashdot like family, And progress it to country, and then global.
Otherwise, nothing is going to change, people will hate their brothers and sisters, and hate themselves in the process. At this point our option is to hate ourselves to death, or change the rules so that we increase quality of life. We are working now to destroy ourselves, not to improve quality of life, or to improve length of lifespan. We are already a dead species. Mr. Hawking if he wants to change this, he's showing heart, but he's not really showing much intelligence if he think's random geeks on Slashdot can change this. To be honest, he should be meeting with decision makers, business owners, politicians, and billionares, millionares, the royal families, and discuss the issue with them. Maybe he can meet with Al Gore while he is at it, but I don't think WE geeks can do anything at this point, we have little to no power. If someone here does have power, then go ahead and discuss this issue, otherwise focus on making money and surviving and let Mr. Hawking spend his remaining years working on this.
I think brainpower and ideas arent the issue, I think surviving is the issue. Learn to survive, and help your friends and family survive, help slashdot survive, and thats about all you can do.
All we have to do to save humanity, is care about humanity. Stephen is in the minority here, most humans hate humanity, and hate each other and would rather die killing their enemies than die saving the planet and the species.
It's a matter of will, it's not a matter of methods. We have the technology to save humanity easily, we have enough surveillace, we have enough meds, whatever we need we have or can build, we have a global economy now.
Religion is not the answer nor is it the problem, Religion is as natural as science and math. If you want to follow science you are religious in the way Einstien was in believing that the universe can be solved by science and or math. If you want to believe in God the science proves there is a God, if you don't want to believe in God, then there are no answers, no solutions, and everything is random. It's not going to make a difference if people believe in God or not, the reason people have wars is simply, they enjoy it, they want to have wars, they like to hate, and it doesnt matter what God, the economy, science, or math says about it. It's an emotion, and it's irrational.
If humanity is to survive, humanity has to focus on survival. Lets see, we should be spending most of our money in life extending technologies. We should be spending most of our brain power on improving the quality of life. We should spend more time helping kids, especially kids in poor countries who can be adopted. We should spend more time on education, so that everyone can have the knowledge they need to protect themselves.
I don't think it's going to happen, someone like Mr. Hawking, and maybe a few of us geeks will decide to care about life and the species, but it's not we who make the decisions here. We work for people who make the decisions, often they are a lot older, seniority and rank decide many isues.
The point is, it's not a matter of ideas, it's not a matter of convincing the majority of the worlds population to care about the species. It's a matter of convincing the select few decision makers to care about the species and the planet, and that is impossible.
Since we are going to die out, the best thing you can do, if invest in the types of businesses which will profit from chaos, and profit as the world dies in front of you. It's not going to save the world, but at least you get to die in comfort. If the world does not end, you'll lose your money, but you'll keep your future.
Death has always varied through different tribes, families and societies. Some societies always had low death rates because they didnt have disease, wars, or the kinds of problems that Europe went through during the dark ages. I think that life expectancy changes every generation. I think there could have been times in the past where Japan had an aging population as well, but they were culturally equiped to handle this. Now that they have tried to westernize, they adopted our system but missed out on some of our strengths.
America likes immigration, always has. Japan dislikes immigration. I look at America and I don't see just one race or just one group, I see people from every country in the world, I look at Japan and I see like a much higher percentage of Japanese. There is also less inter-racial marriages in Japan while in the USA everyone marries everyone, even gays are getting married now. I look at Japan and a lot of aspects of their culture are modern, and then a lot of aspects of their culture just never modernized. The vanity and pride from the traditional periods never went away, so old people feel ashamed at being old and useless and young people feel suicidal if they are unable to get a job. In America it isnt this way, as American's have a very different history, filled with conflict. It's not that Japan is aging too much, nothing wrong with an aging population. The problem is Japan does not fully Americanize. If you are in Japan, by the time you are 80 years old you should have the money to pay someone to take care of you. If the money isnt there, this isnt because the population is too old to take care of itself, this is because culturally Japan never adapted.
America has this problem too, along with many other problems, but in America we built up nursing homes specifically for the purpose of allowing old people to be taken care of. Also culturally, it is the childrens responsibility to take care of their parents, as most children either pay for the nursing home or let their parents stay in either their home or in a home they pay for. In Japan young people due to culture are so focused on career success that they arent keeping a strong family structure. America has this problem too, but because we've had this problem for a longer period of time we've found some solutions to it.
Ultimately Japan has to solve this problem, and I don't think robots will work.
(more kids around today is more workers around 15 years from now, meaning either more taxes or more nurses or both)
This is another difference between USA and Japan. USA does not support social services. We are not a socialist system. We believe in small efficient government with low taxes. So in our case even if our population increases through the roof we won't raise taxes. Instead we will cut taxes to reward the successful and punish the unsuccessful. I think if Japan were to cut all social programs, the elderly would be able to take care of themselves if they invest. Young people will be able to create jobs for themselves as well as long as these robots don't take over, but I can guarentee you that if Japan builds lots of robots and raises taxes that in the future the economy will be even slower, and the youth will be in a situation very much like the situation in France.
So ultimately the point I'm making is I think the robot idea has no chance of working and will actually make the problem worse, and the only way to fix this problem is to encourage the elderly to work longer. Elderly can be investors, and the youth can take over.
Yeah you can blame problem 2 on problem 1, but problem 2 is still problem 2. You arent solving problem 1 by blaiming it on something else. If there arent enouh youth in Japan you arent encouraging more youth to want to live in Japan when you replace them with robots. I mean what kind of economy can function like this where old people just lay in bed all day while robots take care of them? I mean really, this is just doomed to fail.
If everything will be done by robots, why do we need people, and what should a young Japanese person reading this think?
I mean, if robots will replace all young people in Japan, this explain the high suicide rates of young people in Japan, its not a good message to send.
If Japan actually were more accepting of immigrants, they'd have higher birth rates, and they'd have people to take care of their elderly. The only reason this couldnt work is if the elderly were completely racist and were going to insult the immigrant workers. In that case the robots would be the only option. Under any situation, this looks bad for Japan's national image.
It is basically fact that there is Xenophobia in Japan. There is Xenophobia in America as well.
I think Xenophobia is not the same thing as racism. A person can be Xenophobic in that they may not trust or like how someone else looks, but racism is a religious belief system. Xenophobia can be removed over time as a person learns more about other people, and this happens when immigration occurs and people are around and have with with many different people. Racism on the other hand never ends because it is a religious belief. No science, no math, no evidence will ever sway a true racist from believing in their beliefs. The science can prove that there is no such thing as race and if someone is a true racist they'll ignore the science and follow what their bible tells them. I think the science says that our racial problems are temporary, and in 100 years we will all be one race. I think basically through science and technology, people will be able to choose the race of their children and in the future the racial problems we have now will be solved through technology. Simple, if someone is born the wrong race in the future, it will be because their parents choose that race. Today, people don't get to choose their race, and that is the difference.
The same applies to sexuality, if we find out that there is a homosexual gene, and parents decide to give that gene to their child thats the parents fault. The parent would have had the choice in this case to give the child the straight gene. This also applies to diseases, if a parent chooses to, they will be able to shut off genes which cause diseases. This is the future, and it will be here in less than a decade. In 10 years, the racial issues will start to solve themselves as people basically treat race as a medical problem.
I think that America has racism too, but America cares more about the economy than religion. If you look at our religious beliefs, all of these beliefs are ignored if its bad for the economy.
Race is a religious belief, it's not supported by science, it's a religion. The science basically has found the cure for race, and that cure is stem cell research and genetic engineering. So the arguement that race is preventing Japan from solving it's economic problems, well, if Japan solved it's economic problems the racial problems would solve themselves. It's simple, if you are a Japanese female and pregnant by someone of a different race and you want your child to be Japanese, you simply tell the genes to express the Japanese side and the child will be Japanese. This is what the science says. The religion believe in purity of race, but in reality there is no such thing as pure anything. All races have genes from other races which means anyone from any race can select their race. So Japan's solution would be to simply create the racial engineering industry, in which genetic engineering solves the racial problem. If you want your kid to be Japanese you can select the Japanese genes and activate them. If you want your kid to not have asthma you can shut those genes off, along with disease genes of other sorts, but its somewhat foolish to not reproduce at all in fear of some religious racial impurity. A baby has both sets of genes, the mother and the father, if the mother is Japanese or the father is Japanese, the doctor can tell the genes to choose Japanese expression and the child will be Japanese.
This also means that if two Japanese people mate, and they decide to design their baby to be aryan, if they have just a few people in their genetic line who were from Europe, this will be possible as well. So the times are changing quickly, and I think racism is a problem which will be solved by the medical and healthcare industry, not by robots. I see robots are making the problem worse, and I see robots as choosing pride over solutions. When pride becomes the problem, it can slow the economy.
Aging has existed since society has existed. How do you deal with an aging society? The youth should get paid to take care of the elderly. Does it really make sense for the youth to create robots to replace themselves?
If you are really from Japan and involved in this, can you please explain the logic to me on how this benefits the old or the young?
What kind of society is a society in which the elderly and the youth are completely disconnected? I mean how exactly is knowledge going to pass down from generation to generation?
Racism, as far as racism, this is religion. Racism is simply a religion. It's outdated, because soon we will have the technology to allow mothers to choose the race of their baby. Race is defined by only a few genes, so in the future I expect all of us to be one race.
It's really simple, if you want to solve racism, then let's decide what the official dominant race should be, if we decide it is to be the aryan race, then the government can decide to either let parents choose the race of their child, or if simply make it illegal to be any race but the dominant race. Suddenly racism is solved.
I think the issue with robots on the other hand is the next problem of the future, because race does not really matter, its changeable, skin color, hair texture, these are genes which can be shut off. Once robots take over society, there won't be enough jobs anymore for the youth and the old will basically die out.
All of us have to think about what other people feel about what we say. They say these things as if language were a recent invention and that people in Japan have not mastered it or something? Seriously, I know not everyone has social skills, I'm not a social genius myself, but is it really that difficult to take care of grandpa or grandma? Is it really difficult to have compassion for the elderly?
Even if you have no compassion and no heart at all, is it really that difficult to accept their money? Why give up enough free jobs to give every student and young person in Japan not only work but a possible mentor, to give it to a robot? This makes the old person in Japan somewhat useless because they have no one to pass their wisdom to. This also makes the young person useless. So you'll have an old person slowly dying in front of a robot who they can't teach anything to, and you'll have young people with no connection to the previous generation. And the reasoning for this is because in Japan people are afraid to hurt each others feelings? They are going to pass up billions of dollars and hundreds of million of jobs over that?
Meanwhile suicide rates in Japan are among the highest in the world.
America has a stronger economy because we use technology to support and improve our economy. We have super computers calculating for us on industry growth and projections. We have it down to a science, and we have mastered economics. Japan has not mastered the economic fundamentals. Japan's economy right now is not as fast because they don't have immigrants. America has an illegal immigration problem, but in general immigration is neccessary to keep an economy strong.
I also think that in America, we arent building machines to do work which humans can do better. Robots? How exactly are robots going to replace nurses, and if robots replace nurses, how is it a good thing exactly to replace people with machines? This is a debate America is having. American's therefore are focusing on business and economics to try and figure out the best way to use these machines. In Japan they build the machines and robots first and then deal with the damages to their economy later.
Robots are good for certain things, but I would not want a robot for a wife/companion. I would not prefer a virtual girlfriend over a real girlfriend. I do not want to play a dating sim over real dating. I think there is a place for the virtual economy and I think the virtual economy will be huge someday, but I don't think the virtual economy should completely replace the traditional economy.
The only way these robots and this virtual economy will be good, is if people actually as families own patents. Even if people as families own patents, you'll still need to have population growth and immigration just so your money can be worth something. Your money is only worth something if theres many people with less money. If the population doesnt grow at all eventually the economy begins to slow down and stop, as young people won't exist anymore to continue and move the economy forward. I don't think you can expect an 80 year old to be the lead consumer of Japan, and I don't think you can expect an 80 year old to fuel the economy in the future. I also don't expect an 80 year old to buy all the music, movies and so on.
I think old people have an important function in the economy,but young people have a function too. Young people are the consumers, and old people are the ones who sell the products, over time the young people can take care of the old people and sell services back. This works in the USA, where young people do almost all the retail and service work and old people hold all the positions of power and status. So young college kids will serve you your coffee, and deliver your pizza. In Japan robots will be doing this, so what will young people do?
This will become a major problem, I'd think Japan could see what is happening in France now, but I guess Japan wants to build robots? Can someone please explain the economic logic in this and please explain how this makes Japans aging society stronger? Otherwise if this is the direction Japan plans to take to their society, you can expect China to start building robots and you can expect America to start creating the AI software along with India. Cheap robots for Japan if that is what Japan wants.
What exactly, are the aging Japanese population going to do? Let robots replace the youth in their society? I just don't get it.
I understand that perhaps we have an over populated world, but I don't see how building robots actually solves the problem. The more robots you build, the less jobs you have in your community unless your community builds the robots, and I highly doubt that people will buy expensive robots build in Japan when they can buy robots made in China.
I think sure it's a new industry, but it won't be good for the youth in Japan, and maybe this is fueled by Xenophobia. Maybe Japan decided that instead of inviting immigration, that it is better to just build robots, but if this is the case, that is Japan's option. If Japan wanted youth to take care of the elderly they could open their borders, plenty of Americans would flood into Japan and do the job for less money than a Japanese worker would do it, and plenty of people from China and other places would also do these jobs.
If the goal is to create a new industry that is less profitable than the old industry, its basically a stupid idea. Yes robots can be used to help humans take care of the elderly, but in this case they are trying to mass produce andriods to do it. This in my opinion is BAD for the economy, because its basically telling the youth that
"Hey kids, sons, daughters, we are going to replace you with these andriods"
I think it's a ridiculously stupid message to send the youth. It's going to drive the youth out of Japan even further, during a time when Japan's population is in decline. It will not create new jobs, and while it may create new money, creating new money or saving money for the elderly is kinda pointless if the money isnt passed down to the youth.
I may be completely wrong, I'm not an economist, but I think suicide rates in Japan are high enough as it is, and moves like this only encourage it further.
I don't think Japan knows it yet, but the only reason the American economy is doing so well is because we actually do have a service economy. Japan is basically going to become a robot society, where everyone has a robot to do all the service jobs, so what exactly will Japanese people do? Expect 20%+ unemployement for the youth if there is any youth, and without massive immigration, their population will continue to decline.
I honestly don't understand the logic of Japan's economic decisions, I do not understand why the Japanese economists believe it is good to promote robotic technology when their economy is suffering as it is. I don't understand why Japan thinks that promoting robotics will be good for Japan when China will most likely be building these robots. So in general, this looks to be bad for Japan.
I'm not Japanese, so I guess it does not matter if Japan wants to give up one of it's most profitable industries to robots, but hey, if Japan is aging and not having kids, and eventually robots replace their kids by doing all the neccessary service jobs, then that is ultimately Japan's choice.
I think in America, while we should have robotics, I wouldnt want a robot to take care of me when I can hire a person. If I'm an old man, unmarried, I'd rather hire a young lady to take care of me than a robot, and if I'm a married man, I'd rather hire the youth in my community to do the job.
Japan building robots to take care of the elderly just means less jobs for their youth, which means less incentive to have kids in the first place.
If Japan is going fully into a robotic society, how exactly is this good in the long term? In the short term sure it seems like it could help the economy but in the long term its just less jobs and a slower economy for Japan. So they could either pay people to take care of the elderly, or build robots. If Japan builds robots, then there will be less service jobs for Japanese workers and more jobs for factory workers in China.
I think we have to look into the economic risks associated with these decisions, and I don't think Japan is doing a good job improving their economy.
It's not what people say, its how they think. People say a lot of stuff, because most people just arent so serious about what they are saying in a lot of cases, or because they just say what the feel in the moment. It's more important to understand a person and their behavior then to just take some words they've said. It's not like people are running for office or something, it's just a job, and if getting a job becomes like running for office, then all of us are going to have said or did something in the past that was stupid.
It's basically impossible to go your entire life and not say or do something stupid, and if everything is logged on the internet, so what? What matters more is the psychological profile, and if the people or persons involved have learned from it.
When you are trying to get a snapshot of someones personality, you are going to gather as much information as you can, and their religion, sexuality, and politics are all information. These types of information can change over time so its not as reliable as a psychological profile, but I'm sure if you've been to see a psychiatrist or went to some sort of therapy, your psychological profile is in record somewhere.
There are certain types of jobs which are best suited for people with certain psychological profiles. If you have the right personality type you'll have the job, and it's not just security. Do you really think that if someone wants to hire you to do accounting or deal with money that they'll not look at your psychological and medical records to see if you are prone to stealing? Do you think people won't look at your psychology to see what you are likely to do? Yes they will, and they'll also look at your criminal history. Combined altogether in general, they can get a precise snapshot of how loyal you'll be, what you'll do or wont do, and so on. If you don't want to hire a con artist, you don't have to.