Discussions

@contextfree`:

Maybe Microsoft could contribute to Gnash.

@Maddus Mattus:

I understand all the problems of Keynesian economics and interestingly I'm also not a huge fan of big government. But the machine has made the romanticism and merits of self reliance a myth. It simply doesn't exist.

But most of us are professionals in the tech sector here, so lets look at economics through the bias of technology. Think about what is happening right now in the world. If you write some software that makes a business process more efficient what is the economic effects of that? It means like instead of having 100 people do some business process, you can do it with 5. What happens to those other 95 people?

Now I ask how the f**k is the private sector going to keep people employed, when they don't need people anymore for MANY things they used to do with human labor. Sometimes, as more company owner you just don't need more employees. You can just pocket the additional profit you make. I mean, isn't that the point??

Without government and without socialism, being unemployed is literally (yes, literally) a death sentence. And we as technologists may be helping this along by making people redundant. What do you suggest? They go back to school and learn new skills? With what money? "Free market" money they don't have?

Basically what I am getting as, as automation improves, so does the demand for socialism. Socialism and technology are related. It's no surprise that Marx appeared on the scene during the height of the industrial age changing the way of things in a very powerful way. The effects of the industrial age were all over his writings.

The solution is not to do all Luddite. That's stupid, technology can improve quality of life and wealth for everyone. But I think as a society we need to identify and react to the social ills of technology, find solutions to them instead of ignoring that they exist (which is what "the market will fix everything" basically is).

Without proper checks, we could end up with a situation where 99% of the work in the world is done by robots and computers owned by 1% of society. That is wealth inequality if it is lead to it's eventual conclusion.

1 minute ago, cbae wrote

*snip*

It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

People, my friend.

It's "<corporation> is". Corporations are people my friend.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/05/itc-judge-recommends-import-ban-on-microsofts-xbox/

Apple issued the following in response to Motorola and Microsoft running each other's business into the ground:

I had a Facebook profile for awhile but I shut it down. It was getting a little too creepy.

Yeah students can get the full version of Visual Studio for free. I got Visual Studio Professional for free since I'm still technically a student (graduate school).

1 minute ago, cbae wrote

*snip*

Accounting jobs are overhead. In the global economy, accounting has about the same value as a McDonald's worker. You can't package up "accounting" and sell it to consumers in another country. Accounting software OTOH...

That's incredibly insulting.

McDonalds workers have a lot of value.

@Maddus Mattus:

Damn right I'm jealous. I'm the one who deserves robot yachts and mansions. Not some old balding fat man from a city which is notable for having steaks sold by telemarketers named after it. That's my money bitches.

Rich people have good accountants. While they pay A LOT more taxes, the percentage they pay is actually quite less than a typical middle class person.

Warren Buffet, multibillionare, who has a net wealth greater than most governments, ie. really f**king rich (get the hint yet?), paid  $6.9 million dollars in taxes.

There is something wrong with this picture when I easily pay 30-40% of my shitty salary in taxes every year and billionaires who can afford armadas of yachts and houses and possibly a robot army to protect said yachts and houses pay what a mildly popular Radio Shack might make in a year. Just sayin'.