1. There is a limited amount of essential jobs, therefore as the population/amount of people on the planet goes up, the value of life and work goes down. It's not complicated.
2. There is a limit to the amount of natural resources, therefore as the population/amount of people on the planet goes up, the energy requirements also rise. It's not complicated.
The more people we have, the more essential jobs must be discovered or created. We are no longer in an era where jobs are guarenteed. If we have 10 billion people, or 6 billion people, maybe at best 1-2 billion will have essential jobs. Essential jobs are jobs which actually maintain the system itself, or maintain the people. Lawyer, Economist, Doctor, and then you have all the business related jobs which come and go. Service jobs like Mc Donalds and Walmart, are on borrowed time because these jobs can and will eventually be replaced by bots. You essentially have to create jobs which are irreplaceable, and which only you, or few others can do. This means you must be highly specialized, either through increased education, skill, experience, or esoteric knowledge. The nature of work is going to change, as knowledge, at least in the professional world, will be far more secret and esoteric than things are today. You'll be able to go to school to learn just enough to be useless, and if you want to learn anything more, you'll have to find a mentor and become an apprentice. Jobs will be passed from person to person once again, just read in the history books and all the knowledge you need to know about how the economy works is right there. Find your niche, and don't share it. Let the public share the public knowledge, and keep your business ideas to yourself, or at least learn to sell it.
You just answered your own question here. How do you expect to support 6 billion or 10 billion people if you don't create 6 billion or 10 billion jobs? Even if you create 6 billion or 10 billion jobs, how exactly do you manage 10 billion people? In order to create jobs, you have to actually have a purpose behind it. You cannot just create people, and then expect the jobs to just appear out of thin air.
Find jobs which need to be done, find about 6 billion, or 10 billion even. I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks we have 10 billion jobs at this time. In fact I see the shift headed towards less jobs not more.
It's not a case that everyone needs to be rich, or wants to be rich, but you certainly want to be rich, and the majority of this 6 billion wants to be rich. If you think the world still works the way it did the last century you are wrong. We are in a globalized world now, where everyone wants to live just like you do. They want to have medicine when they get sick, they want good food, they want clean water, and this requires money.
If you want to make people more useful, create more jobs, it's all about the economy. If you sit around saying we know what to do with 6 billion people and you don't create the jobs, then obviously we don't know what to do with 6 billion people until we have at least 6 billion jobs. We won't have 10 billion jobs for a long time.
We could have 6 billion programming jobs, if computers do not learn to automate themselves. We could have 6 billion high tech jobs, or 6 billion jobs in medicine, or 6 billion jobs in new industries not yet invented, but we absolutely will not have 6 billion service jobs. There's only so many personal chefs and maids we can hire. Theres only so many people who we can hire to cut our grass. Theres only so many who we can hire to fix our computers. Theres only so many we can hire to cut our hair. Service jobs cannot make up the rest of the 6 billion jobs because honestly, robots can do some of these jobs.
If you want to bring jobs, figure out the economics first, figure out how to create billions of valueable jobs.
This is not going to happen. Many people believe that the world is way over populated, and you go on to say that because we have 6 billion people that we can afford, energywise, to put them all online? Be realitic.
While I don't know what will happen in the future, it looks like we don't have 6 billion jobs, and with computers coming, I don't think we will ever have 6 billion jobs. Computers and AI, thise reduces jobs, the machines replace people and replace jobs. So what is your point? What do we need these 6 billion people for? When you can figure this out then post.
Why do you assume innovation is good and big business is bad? Innovation can be bad and big business can be good, it certainly depends on the businesses and innovations we are talking about here.
Innovation is good or bad, big business is good or bad. What matters is profits, if your innovation is profitable, it will create big businesses, and it will make many people rich, this is good. If your business and innovation sucks then it will be small, and this is bad.
IBM is a big business, and because of IBM you have the open source movement. Google is a big business, and because of Google, Firefox is being funded. Microsoft is a big business, and because of Microsoft we have the Xbox and PC gaming. What is more important is how profitable these big businesses are, and how many jobs they provide. If they provide you with a job, or with stock, then big businesses is good. If they won't hire you and they arent selling stock, then we have something to debate. I suggest you just buy stock in the big businesses. Buy stock in Microsoft and Google, buy stock in IBM, buy stock in all the big businesses that profit.
I innovate, you innovate, we all innovate. Most of us here at Slashdot are intelligent. That is not the point. The point is, innovation and intelligence is useless if you don't give your ideas to the right people, and have access to people who have the money to fund your ideas. You could have the greatest most profitable idea in the last 100 years, and it will be useless because you don't have anyone to give the idea to, while someone else who happens to have a rich cousin, who who happens to know the CEO of IBM, might be able to take their idea to the right people and be given access to the kinds of capital required to start a business.
Ideas and capital are not always one in the same. Businesses are started on capital, not on ideas. I don't know if anyone here has taken an economics course, but ideas can be purshased, while capital has to be found.
Wealth has little to do with intelligence and hard work. Yes it takes intelligence and hard work to be successful at anything, but being wealth takes instinct, the abiltiy to organize yourself and others, the ability to plan and have a strategy, and the social skills to have the friendships and connections you require to actually put plans into action.
Wealth is anything but guarenteed, and if wealth were guarenteed then we'd have a lot more wealthy people than we have. Wealth is not guarenteed, nor is it supposed to be. Wealth is something which we compete for, on every level, and this does not just mean on the level of academics. Going to MIT does not guarentee you'll become as rich as Bill Gates. Many models and movie stars become wealthy with no intelligence at all. Many people win the lottery. Many people become wealth on instinct, they just know how to make money. Many people become wealthy because they know how to take what they want and ask for what they don't really need. Then you have the rare few, who actually study their way to wealthy, impressing their boss, and asking for raises until slowly they get given wealth.
If you have learned anything outside the classroom, it's that wealth is not something you get by just asking for it. Everyone wants wealth, and only a few people get it. Millions of intelligent people never become billionaires, and chances are you won't either.
Ok someone here has some common sense. You are correct, disruptive change cannot work unless the people want disruptive change, and guess what, we don't.
People want to just survive, make a profit, maybe retire better off than when they started. People do not want disruptive change. The simple fact is, most people are conservatives, you have people who are progressive, but the problem is this:
1. progressive thinking almost never leads to progressive action or a progressive reality.
2. progressive ideas usually become conservative over time.
The internet, radio, television, all of our current technology and ideas may have started out as progressive ideas, disruptive change ideas, but they are now conservative. Everything starts out new, but later on once society figures it out, it becomes something different. So instead of building technology for a progressive agenda, try building technology for a conservative agenda. Technology does not have to be political at all, but if it is going to be political, DONT label your technology as a "disruptive" technology. I mean common sense, who really wants a disruptive technology anyway? We are struggling with nano technology and stem cell research! Do you really think we need 10 new technologies to struggle with?
The more disruption you do with this technology, the more laws will be created to reverse the disruption. You can have any technology you want, and it's not going to change that fact that unless the internet promotes conservative values, and respects the fact that people don't want disruption, then the result will be a less free internet.
If your goal is to have more freedom, you'll want to govern the internet properly yourself, otherwise the internet will be governed the way everything else is governed. There was once a time when television and radio was open like this too, there was a time when technology was like this in many industries, but when a technology is free and people abuse this freedom to "disrupt" and act as activists, the result is that the technology itself becomes the enemy.
I think this is a mistake. I don't think MIT has the ability to create laws which govern the internet, and honestly I don't think any of these will matter. All of this disruptive technology will be worthless, and it will simply piss people off.
The goal should NOT be disruptive technology. Disruptive technology will only lead to blowback, as many people will blame the internet, and science for change, and as a result the internet and science will face new laws to control them.
Ultimately, disruptive technologies does harm to the technology and to science itself. If you want to promote science, do so in the right way, promote science in a culturally sensitive way which respects conservative values. If you promote science in an overly disruptive way, all that will be accomplished by this is, well, you'll make technology into the enemy.
Honestly, I like technology, but I don't think you should focus on "disruption" as the goal with technology. Technology can be used to promote order and structure. Technology can be used to enhance security. Technology can be used to promote conservative values. Technology can be used in a non partisan way. The one mistake you don't want to make, if any of you read Linus's last posting, is you don't want to turn science and technology into activism. I think it is a huge mistake to do this. Innovation is good, but innovate in ways which society can accept and not in a way in which you'll make yourself into a tech-activist. If technology and science becomes activism, then how exactly is this good for us internet users? I like technology, but I agree with Linus, activism is not a good idea. Technology must be non partisan.
All disruptive change will lead to, is a reversal of those changes. Instead of trying to change, we should take a more conservative approach. Most people are not looking forward to change.
Can't we discuss this without bringing in partisan politics? Diebold is a company, companies don't hack banks. Rogues hack banks, in specific, hacker groups.
What is more important in the was against terrorism than financial security? Financial security is the most important kind of security that exists! If you cannot secure the money, what exactly is national security about?
If it is theft, theft by whom? What conspiracy theories are you talking about? I find it more likely that people could be tricked into giving their pin numbers to a high priest or marketing genius than to hear about some computer glitch or worse, a global conspiracy theory. Obviously something went wrong, but I think this goes beyond politics, this is money.
Even our luggage is given more security than our pin numbers. It's ridiculous because out of all things we must secure in the war against terrorism, you'd think the bank accounts would be the single greatest priority. Bank security should be the number #1 priority, because if banks can be hacked we are in serious trouble.
Imagine if it had been your pin stolen, or imagine Bill Gates waking up and discovering someone stole his pin.
This only prevents violent crime.
on
Cisco Aquires SyPixx
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
Criminals will still exist, but the violent criminals wont. Fair enough, I don't think anyone wants violent crime. This does not mean crime will cease to exist, criminals will just have to be smarter and more sophisticated, because the petty criminals who rape and murder will be caught. The thieves will be caught, and hey because I'm not a petty criminal, I don't worry about that.
I worry about the price of these technologies, but I think if the price is right, it will take off. I could easily see many small businesses, in fact the majority of them, buying into this technology. I'd buy Cisco stock if they handle this right.
What is their pricing strategy? What are the costs? This technology is fine, if the price is right, but if this technology costs tens of thousands of dollars its ultimately going to be something which does not apply to the majority of small businesses.
I say if it's under the $5000 price range, it take off like wild fire, but over this price point and it will be too costly for most small businesses.
Surveillance is not bad. It's good! So lets all agree that surveillance is good for national security, in specific if we are going to protect our business interests we NEED surveillance.
If we are going to go with open source web surveillance, I actually think it would be one of the best ideas we have to fight the war against terrorism. When you can upload the surveillance to many eyes, or at least to the eyes within your business, it's the best security you can have.
So in a way, I think Cisco is making the correct move. I don't know why people are thinking like this is a bad move when we are in a war against terrorism, we SHOULD be moving towards global surveillance, we should be moving towards better security related technologies, and we SHOULD be doing this in an open source model, because this would make the technology much cheaper, and free. I guess for some reason people on Slashdot have the old era style of thinking that we don't need any security, and that if you just leave your businesses unguarded that everything will be okay. Look, we HAVE no security unless we create it, we HAVE no security if we don't even have surveillance, the most basic of basic in security technology.
In the future, everyone will know everything about everybody, and it will be searchable through Google, or bought and sold through the market. This is just the way things are headed, and I do not blame Cisco for making the obvious business decision of being ahead of the curve.
surveillance is good for business. Now, the cost?
on
Cisco Aquires SyPixx
·
· Score: 1
Surveillance is and always was good for business. What is important is that this surveillance technology be cheap enough so that all businesses and businessmen can afford to buy it. If Cisco does not bring down the price, then I'll be against THEIR surveillance solution. If the price is cheap enough, or if there are open source alternatives, bring on the surveillance.
I don't care what you say, surveillance works.
on
Cisco Aquires SyPixx
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Surveillance is good for security. If you want to have security you need surveillance, there is no other way to protect yourself or your property, so I think this surveillance is a good thing as long as the price is cheap enough for the average person to buy.
On the collective level, Surviellance is good for America and good for national security. There are no drawbacks to surveillance. When you have better surveillance you don't need as many police officers, you also have better evidence to use against criminals who commit crimes. If you arent a criminal and arent commiting crimes what do you have to worry about?
Thats not true either. If India did not educate people, people would buy books. If people cannot afford books people would borrow books. If people could not borrow books people would steal books. If people cannot steal books people will pass the information through mentoring. Programming is a trade, to be a programmer you do not need to be a rocket scientist and go to school for 4 years. I admit if you want to be a very good programmer making games or working on something complex you need years of school, if you want to make the next Google, or Quake Engine, you need school. Most Indian programmers are not making new wheels, they are simply maintaining the wheel. There are better programmers coming out of Japan, but its not like Japan started out innovating either, they started out copying the cars and computers inventing in America.
The point is this, school and books, this is one way to educate. Churches and mentoring are another. The market is all that matters, there was a time when public schools did not exist, and public schools in America arent so great that you have to defend them. When it comes to college maybe you have a point, but when it comes to public school, I don't think it matters, and I don't think most Indians are going to college. I also don't think most Indian public schools are great. I agree you need libraries, I agree you need churches, or in general just access to information, but I also believe in the free market.
No, it is not the free market fundamentalists who "undo" help to the third world. The free market fundamentalists are helping the third world through globalization. A global economy benefits the third world. China and India were once the third world, now they are entering into the first world. Because of the global economy, people in the third world can get jobs and start businesses. Google has expanded to China, along with the internet. In India, many programming jobs are being given. The third world is being helped as we speak.
Now, if you want to speed this process up, the only solution IS free trade. The only way to help the third world is through trade. If you want the third world to do better, then trade, and fix the economy of the third world. Invest.
Just because the economy is bad does not mean there will be no economy. People will still trade. People who previously had a lot of property will have more to trade with.
I don't see that society, look at the third world. I don't see how our society is so organized to help the third world. So I don't know what you are talking about. If you want to care for the weak, care for the weak, but it is not the federal governments job to care for the weak, it's the job of the church to care for the weak. It's a job for the individual. If you use tax dollars to care for the weak, and people are FORCED collectively to do it, you create anger and hatred towards the weak, ultimately harming the people you are trying to protect with your taxes. So I'm actually saying that smaller more efficient government is a good thing. I know that FDR created these social programs, and now people are addicted to the way things were, but it should be obvious even to you that things cannot stay that way forever. Social security just does not work, it is broken. It's broken because it does not work culturally. It is broken because it is not the traditional way to care for the poor. Before social security was invented, the church existed to do this. The church was made tax exempt to that people could care for the poor. The church does work. If you want to help people, join the church, just don't do it through tax dollars because A. It pisses people off who do not want to be forced to pay. B. It is not very efficient. C. It increases the size and bulk of the government. D. It is not the traditional way of doing this kind of work.
Slashdot Mirror
As a set of rules
1. There is a limited amount of essential jobs, therefore as the population/amount of people on the planet goes up, the value of life and work goes down. It's not complicated.
2. There is a limit to the amount of natural resources, therefore as the population/amount of people on the planet goes up, the energy requirements also rise. It's not complicated.
The more people we have, the more essential jobs must be discovered or created. We are no longer in an era where jobs are guarenteed. If we have 10 billion people, or 6 billion people, maybe at best 1-2 billion will have essential jobs. Essential jobs are jobs which actually maintain the system itself, or maintain the people. Lawyer, Economist, Doctor, and then you have all the business related jobs which come and go. Service jobs like Mc Donalds and Walmart, are on borrowed time because these jobs can and will eventually be replaced by bots. You essentially have to create jobs which are irreplaceable, and which only you, or few others can do. This means you must be highly specialized, either through increased education, skill, experience, or esoteric knowledge. The nature of work is going to change, as knowledge, at least in the professional world, will be far more secret and esoteric than things are today. You'll be able to go to school to learn just enough to be useless, and if you want to learn anything more, you'll have to find a mentor and become an apprentice. Jobs will be passed from person to person once again, just read in the history books and all the knowledge you need to know about how the economy works is right there. Find your niche, and don't share it. Let the public share the public knowledge, and keep your business ideas to yourself, or at least learn to sell it.
You just answered your own question here. How do you expect to support 6 billion or 10 billion people if you don't create 6 billion or 10 billion jobs? Even if you create 6 billion or 10 billion jobs, how exactly do you manage 10 billion people? In order to create jobs, you have to actually have a purpose behind it. You cannot just create people, and then expect the jobs to just appear out of thin air.
Find jobs which need to be done, find about 6 billion, or 10 billion even. I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks we have 10 billion jobs at this time. In fact I see the shift headed towards less jobs not more.
It's not a case that everyone needs to be rich, or wants to be rich, but you certainly want to be rich, and the majority of this 6 billion wants to be rich. If you think the world still works the way it did the last century you are wrong. We are in a globalized world now, where everyone wants to live just like you do. They want to have medicine when they get sick, they want good food, they want clean water, and this requires money.
If you want to make people more useful, create more jobs, it's all about the economy. If you sit around saying we know what to do with 6 billion people and you don't create the jobs, then obviously we don't know what to do with 6 billion people until we have at least 6 billion jobs. We won't have 10 billion jobs for a long time.
We could have 6 billion programming jobs, if computers do not learn to automate themselves. We could have 6 billion high tech jobs, or 6 billion jobs in medicine, or 6 billion jobs in new industries not yet invented, but we absolutely will not have 6 billion service jobs. There's only so many personal chefs and maids we can hire. Theres only so many people who we can hire to cut our grass. Theres only so many who we can hire to fix our computers. Theres only so many we can hire to cut our hair. Service jobs cannot make up the rest of the 6 billion jobs because honestly, robots can do some of these jobs.
If you want to bring jobs, figure out the economics first, figure out how to create billions of valueable jobs.
Surveillance is for the security of the workplace. I think we need more of it not less.
This is not going to happen. Many people believe that the world is way over populated, and you go on to say that because we have 6 billion people that we can afford, energywise, to put them all online? Be realitic.
While I don't know what will happen in the future, it looks like we don't have 6 billion jobs, and with computers coming, I don't think we will ever have 6 billion jobs. Computers and AI, thise reduces jobs, the machines replace people and replace jobs. So what is your point? What do we need these 6 billion people for? When you can figure this out then post.
Why do you assume innovation is good and big business is bad?
Innovation can be bad and big business can be good, it certainly depends on the businesses and innovations we are talking about here.
Innovation is good or bad, big business is good or bad. What matters is profits, if your innovation is profitable, it will create big businesses, and it will make many people rich, this is good. If your business and innovation sucks then it will be small, and this is bad.
IBM is a big business, and because of IBM you have the open source movement. Google is a big business, and because of Google, Firefox is being funded. Microsoft is a big business, and because of Microsoft we have the Xbox and PC gaming. What is more important is how profitable these big businesses are, and how many jobs they provide. If they provide you with a job, or with stock, then big businesses is good. If they won't hire you and they arent selling stock, then we have something to debate. I suggest you just buy stock in the big businesses. Buy stock in Microsoft and Google, buy stock in IBM, buy stock in all the big businesses that profit.
I innovate, you innovate, we all innovate. Most of us here at Slashdot are intelligent. That is not the point. The point is, innovation and intelligence is useless if you don't give your ideas to the right people, and have access to people who have the money to fund your ideas. You could have the greatest most profitable idea in the last 100 years, and it will be useless because you don't have anyone to give the idea to, while someone else who happens to have a rich cousin, who who happens to know the CEO of IBM, might be able to take their idea to the right people and be given access to the kinds of capital required to start a business.
Ideas and capital are not always one in the same. Businesses are started on capital, not on ideas. I don't know if anyone here has taken an economics course, but ideas can be purshased, while capital has to be found.
Wealth has little to do with intelligence and hard work. Yes it takes intelligence and hard work to be successful at anything, but being wealth takes instinct, the abiltiy to organize yourself and others, the ability to plan and have a strategy, and the social skills to have the friendships and connections you require to actually put plans into action.
Wealth is anything but guarenteed, and if wealth were guarenteed then we'd have a lot more wealthy people than we have. Wealth is not guarenteed, nor is it supposed to be. Wealth is something which we compete for, on every level, and this does not just mean on the level of academics. Going to MIT does not guarentee you'll become as rich as Bill Gates. Many models and movie stars become wealthy with no intelligence at all. Many people win the lottery. Many people become wealth on instinct, they just know how to make money. Many people become wealthy because they know how to take what they want and ask for what they don't really need. Then you have the rare few, who actually study their way to wealthy, impressing their boss, and asking for raises until slowly they get given wealth.
If you have learned anything outside the classroom, it's that wealth is not something you get by just asking for it. Everyone wants wealth, and only a few people get it. Millions of intelligent people never become billionaires, and chances are you won't either.
Ok someone here has some common sense. You are correct, disruptive change cannot work unless the people want disruptive change, and guess what, we don't.
People want to just survive, make a profit, maybe retire better off than when they started. People do not want disruptive change. The simple fact is, most people are conservatives, you have people who are progressive, but the problem is this:
1. progressive thinking almost never leads to progressive action or a progressive reality.
2. progressive ideas usually become conservative over time.
The internet, radio, television, all of our current technology and ideas may have started out as progressive ideas, disruptive change ideas, but they are now conservative. Everything starts out new, but later on once society figures it out, it becomes something different. So instead of building technology for a progressive agenda, try building technology for a conservative agenda. Technology does not have to be political at all, but if it is going to be political, DONT label your technology as a "disruptive" technology. I mean common sense, who really wants a disruptive technology anyway? We are struggling with nano technology and stem cell research! Do you really think we need 10 new technologies to struggle with?
The more disruption you do with this technology, the more laws will be created to reverse the disruption. You can have any technology you want, and it's not going to change that fact that unless the internet promotes conservative values, and respects the fact that people don't want disruption, then the result will be a less free internet.
If your goal is to have more freedom, you'll want to govern the internet properly yourself, otherwise the internet will be governed the way everything else is governed. There was once a time when television and radio was open like this too, there was a time when technology was like this in many industries, but when a technology is free and people abuse this freedom to "disrupt" and act as activists, the result is that the technology itself becomes the enemy.
I think this is a mistake. I don't think MIT has the ability to create laws which govern the internet, and honestly I don't think any of these will matter. All of this disruptive technology will be worthless, and it will simply piss people off.
The goal should NOT be disruptive technology. Disruptive technology will only lead to blowback, as many people will blame the internet, and science for change, and as a result the internet and science will face new laws to control them.
Ultimately, disruptive technologies does harm to the technology and to science itself. If you want to promote science, do so in the right way, promote science in a culturally sensitive way which respects conservative values. If you promote science in an overly disruptive way, all that will be accomplished by this is, well, you'll make technology into the enemy.
Honestly, I like technology, but I don't think you should focus on "disruption" as the goal with technology. Technology can be used to promote order and structure. Technology can be used to enhance security. Technology can be used to promote conservative values. Technology can be used in a non partisan way. The one mistake you don't want to make, if any of you read Linus's last posting, is you don't want to turn science and technology into activism. I think it is a huge mistake to do this. Innovation is good, but innovate in ways which society can accept and not in a way in which you'll make yourself into a tech-activist. If technology and science becomes activism, then how exactly is this good for us internet users? I like technology, but I agree with Linus, activism is not a good idea. Technology must be non partisan.
All disruptive change will lead to, is a reversal of those changes. Instead of trying to change, we should take a more conservative approach. Most people are not looking forward to change.
Can't we discuss this without bringing in partisan politics? Diebold is a company, companies don't hack banks. Rogues hack banks, in specific, hacker groups.
What is more important in the was against terrorism than financial security? Financial security is the most important kind of security that exists! If you cannot secure the money, what exactly is national security about?
If it is theft, theft by whom? What conspiracy theories are you talking about? I find it more likely that people could be tricked into giving their pin numbers to a high priest or marketing genius than to hear about some computer glitch or worse, a global conspiracy theory. Obviously something went wrong, but I think this goes beyond politics, this is money.
Even our luggage is given more security than our pin numbers. It's ridiculous because out of all things we must secure in the war against terrorism, you'd think the bank accounts would be the single greatest priority. Bank security should be the number #1 priority, because if banks can be hacked we are in serious trouble.
Imagine if it had been your pin stolen, or imagine Bill Gates waking up and discovering someone stole his pin.
Criminals will still exist, but the violent criminals wont. Fair enough, I don't think anyone wants violent crime. This does not mean crime will cease to exist, criminals will just have to be smarter and more sophisticated, because the petty criminals who rape and murder will be caught. The thieves will be caught, and hey because I'm not a petty criminal, I don't worry about that.
I worry about the price of these technologies, but I think if the price is right, it will take off. I could easily see many small businesses, in fact the majority of them, buying into this technology. I'd buy Cisco stock if they handle this right.
What is their pricing strategy? What are the costs? This technology is fine, if the price is right, but if this technology costs tens of thousands of dollars its ultimately going to be something which does not apply to the majority of small businesses.
I say if it's under the $5000 price range, it take off like wild fire, but over this price point and it will be too costly for most small businesses.
Surveillance is not bad. It's good! So lets all agree that surveillance is good for national security, in specific if we are going to protect our business interests we NEED surveillance.
If we are going to go with open source web surveillance, I actually think it would be one of the best ideas we have to fight the war against terrorism. When you can upload the surveillance to many eyes, or at least to the eyes within your business, it's the best security you can have.
So in a way, I think Cisco is making the correct move. I don't know why people are thinking like this is a bad move when we are in a war against terrorism, we SHOULD be moving towards global surveillance, we should be moving towards better security related technologies, and we SHOULD be doing this in an open source model, because this would make the technology much cheaper, and free. I guess for some reason people on Slashdot have the old era style of thinking that we don't need any security, and that if you just leave your businesses unguarded that everything will be okay. Look, we HAVE no security unless we create it, we HAVE no security if we don't even have surveillance, the most basic of basic in security technology.
In the future, everyone will know everything about everybody, and it will be searchable through Google, or bought and sold through the market. This is just the way things are headed, and I do not blame Cisco for making the obvious business decision of being ahead of the curve.
Surveillance is and always was good for business. What is important is that this surveillance technology be cheap enough so that all businesses and businessmen can afford to buy it. If Cisco does not bring down the price, then I'll be against THEIR surveillance solution. If the price is cheap enough, or if there are open source alternatives, bring on the surveillance.
Surveillance is good for security. If you want to have security you need surveillance, there is no other way to protect yourself or your property, so I think this surveillance is a good thing as long as the price is cheap enough for the average person to buy.
On the collective level, Surviellance is good for America and good for national security. There are no drawbacks to surveillance. When you have better surveillance you don't need as many police officers, you also have better evidence to use against criminals who commit crimes. If you arent a criminal and arent commiting crimes what do you have to worry about?
Thats not true either. If India did not educate people, people would buy books. If people cannot afford books people would borrow books. If people could not borrow books people would steal books. If people cannot steal books people will pass the information through mentoring. Programming is a trade, to be a programmer you do not need to be a rocket scientist and go to school for 4 years. I admit if you want to be a very good programmer making games or working on something complex you need years of school, if you want to make the next Google, or Quake Engine, you need school. Most Indian programmers are not making new wheels, they are simply maintaining the wheel. There are better programmers coming out of Japan, but its not like Japan started out innovating either, they started out copying the cars and computers inventing in America.
The point is this, school and books, this is one way to educate. Churches and mentoring are another. The market is all that matters, there was a time when public schools did not exist, and public schools in America arent so great that you have to defend them. When it comes to college maybe you have a point, but when it comes to public school, I don't think it matters, and I don't think most Indians are going to college. I also don't think most Indian public schools are great. I agree you need libraries, I agree you need churches, or in general just access to information, but I also believe in the free market.
No, it is not the free market fundamentalists who "undo" help to the third world. The free market fundamentalists are helping the third world through globalization. A global economy benefits the third world. China and India were once the third world, now they are entering into the first world. Because of the global economy, people in the third world can get jobs and start businesses. Google has expanded to China, along with the internet. In India, many programming jobs are being given. The third world is being helped as we speak.
Now, if you want to speed this process up, the only solution IS free trade. The only way to help the third world is through trade. If you want the third world to do better, then trade, and fix the economy of the third world. Invest.
Just because the economy is bad does not mean there will be no economy. People will still trade. People who previously had a lot of property will have more to trade with.
I don't see that society, look at the third world. I don't see how our society is so organized to help the third world. So I don't know what you are talking about. If you want to care for the weak, care for the weak, but it is not the federal governments job to care for the weak, it's the job of the church to care for the weak. It's a job for the individual. If you use tax dollars to care for the weak, and people are FORCED collectively to do it, you create anger and hatred towards the weak, ultimately harming the people you are trying to protect with your taxes. So I'm actually saying that smaller more efficient government is a good thing. I know that FDR created these social programs, and now people are addicted to the way things were, but it should be obvious even to you that things cannot stay that way forever. Social security just does not work, it is broken. It's broken because it does not work culturally. It is broken because it is not the traditional way to care for the poor. Before social security was invented, the church existed to do this. The church was made tax exempt to that people could care for the poor. The church does work. If you want to help people, join the church, just don't do it through tax dollars because A. It pisses people off who do not want to be forced to pay. B. It is not very efficient. C. It increases the size and bulk of the government. D. It is not the traditional way of doing this kind of work.