News that makes us laugh, cry, or both

[Maxus]

Truly.

That is why I cannot stand Palin.

I won't say she's lying. My opinion of her intellect is such that I think there's a chance she actually believes what she says. So I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and just say she's

WRONG!

And furthermore, she is 100%, verifiably wrong in front of other countries. She has not taken any time to make sure that what she's saying is factual. That would be forgivable if it were an isolated incident, but whenever she opens her mouth in front of a crowd, she does this. Maybe she's being used to get people to pay attention or she's intentionally rousing up the lower ranks of conservative 'Murrika, or she may just be, in fact, deluded enough to believe that the world is actually how she thinks it is. In all three cases, I have very little sympathy.

So, yes, in Palin's world, Obama is responsible for the economic troubles. Nevermind that they got kicked off at the end of the Bush administration because the sub-prime mortgage market crashed, and had been aiming to do so for years due to the unchecked greed of the mortgage companies who went for the short-term buck and didn't think if it was sustainable.

[Draco_Argentum]

Saving money in IT? == Less jobs.

Access on net? == Less secure.

Hardware independent of the PC it is installed in? == Double insecure

Yes, less jobs, just like industrial robots are less jobs. Get the hell used to progress. I'm a VMWare admin as one of my many hats. I destroy server hardware maintenance jobs. We're down to one third the amount of hardware compared to three years ago and will be getting rid of more. Progress is about letting society do something new or do something we can already do with less resources. Then the saved resources can go into other projects.

I have remote disk access to every PC in a 1500 seat network. This isn't less secure, it just saves booting up a PC remotely, which I can already do. Since any real network has a firewall its not going to be open to internet attack. An internal attacker has better things to do than hunt desktops for stray data that is being stored in violation of policy.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Yes, less jobs, just like industrial robots are less jobs.

Industrial robots are not less jobs. They just shift the jobs to designing, programming, building, and maintaining robots. There may actually be *more* jobs post-robots.

[Heath Robinson]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090924/w ... hailand_us

[Maxus]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090924/w ... hailand_us

*BACKFLIP*

[Lago PARANOIA]

Oh, wow.

The 30% reduction isn't a whole lot, but the fact that there's a vaccine at all is pretty rad.

[Avoraciopoctules]

This does indeed sound rather fantabulous. I'm a little skeptical at the difference of around 20 people between the infected in each group, but it was a massive enough trial of the vaccine to keep those doubts pretty minor.

[Gelare]

I dismissed it when I saw the headline, thinking it was probably journalists trying to cook up excitement for some extremely preliminary work, but for something as serious as HIV, heck, a 30% success rate? I'd say that's something to get excited over.

[Crissa]

Studies show that replacing workers with robots reduces the total number of jobs. One operator and one mechanic replaces five welders a manager and a mechanic.

Capitalism does not embrace full employment.

-Crissa

[NativeJovian]

Saving money in IT? == Less jobs.

Tell me what job this technology removes. Really, I'd love to hear it. All it does is keep an IT admin from having to remote boot a computer before remote accessing it.

Incidentally, you mean "fewer" jobs, not "less". Fewer is used in reference to things that can be discretely counted (like jobs), less in reference to things that are measured instead.

Access on net? == Less secure.

Except that that data is already accessible. It's not like remote access to networked computers is a new concept.

Hardware independent of the PC it is installed in? == Double insecure.

I don't even know what you're trying to say here. "Hardware independent of the PC it is installed in" is an oxymoron. If it's installed in a computer, it's not independent of the computer. Care to fill me in?

Why are you arguing with me?

Because you're wrong.

Studies show that replacing workers with robots reduces the total number of jobs. One operator and one mechanic replaces five welders a manager and a mechanic.

Capitalism does not embrace full employment.

-Crissa

You cannot possibly be saying what I think you're saying. Are you really arguing for deliberate inefficiencies in order to employ more people?

Well hell, then, why don't we go back to farming with hand tools instead of agricultural machinery? We'll certainly employ more people that way! Actually, why stop there? If we stop using hand tools and make people farm with nothing but their bare hands, we'll employ even more people!

[violence in the media]

Well hell, then, why don't we go back to farming with hand tools instead of agricultural machinery? We'll certainly employ more people that way! Actually, why stop there? If we stop using hand tools and make people farm with nothing but their bare hands, we'll employ even more people!

I think the issue is that when the robots are doing all of the work, there will be nothing left for most people to do but starve. When 1 person +technology can do the work of 10,000 people, what are the other 9999 supposed to do? How many service personnel do we need? I don't know what the solution is, other than society either restricting population growth or accepting the idea that greater swaths of people are simply going to become Eloi.

[NativeJovian]

When technology replaces jobs, new jobs become available that deal with that technology. And, at the same time, that technology makes whatever-it's-producing cheaper and thus more affordable to everyone. This doesn't do anything to console an auto worker who was replaced by a welding robot (you need proper education and retraining programs to do that) but the point is that "jobs" vs "labor-saving technology" isn't a zero-sum game. There's not a finite amount of work to be done such that every job replaced by technology is equivalent to a rise in the unemployment rate.

[Crissa]

Jovian, you add nothing to this conversation. You didn't bother to actually digest the article and the technology involved in it, nor did you accept any of their marketing. You're arguing in circles, choosing not to address any of my comments, aside from picking at semantics. It's not like you've actually attacked my basic argument which is 'network accessible computers are less secure', 'proprietary technology is less secure', and lastly, 'this technology messes with users who think their data is safe when their computer is off.'

Anyhow.

Luckily, production gains generally make things cheaper, so that more people can buy said things, even though they are not employed in making them.

However, that still leaves us with less people employed. The capitalist system intends to throw them away, literally.

-Crissa

[NativeJovian]

Jovian, you add nothing to this conversation. You didn't bother to actually digest the article and the technology involved in it, nor did you accept any of their marketing.

I can pretty much guarantee that I understand the article and the technology it describes better than you do. Seriously. I work in IT for a living; I used to be the network admin for a school with dozens of teacher/administrative computers and hundreds of student computers... all of which were accessible to me via the network. The world didn't explode.

You're arguing in circles, choosing not to address any of my comments, aside from picking at semantics.

I have been; you just haven't liked my responses. But we'll go through it one more time if you like.

It's not like you've actually attacked my basic argument which is 'network accessible computers are less secure',

But the benefits are worth it. Network accessible computers are hardly a new technology, and they're widely used precisely because the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. You cannot honestly say otherwise if you have any knowledge whatsoever of the IT industry.

'proprietary technology is less secure',

Than what, open source stuff? Open source is nice for the individual as long as they have the knowledge and the free time to fiddle with it and get what they want, but for a large organization that relies on the technology to function, proprietary software is nearly a must because of the built-in support. If you're using open-source software and you can't get it to work, you're SOL. If you're using proprietary technology and you can't get it to work, you can call up the company and they'll help you make it work. This is a large part of the reason why even large companies with in-house IT staff buy Dell computers loaded with Microsoft software even though it'd be fantastically cheaper to order computer parts to be assembled and loaded with open-source software by IT staff. Because the hidden costs (repair, maintenance, and support) are vast and a good way of dealing with that is to buy it from someone else and make them do it.

tl;dr -- proprietary technology is cheaper than the alternative and still gets the job done, so that's what people use.

and lastly, 'this technology messes with users who think their data is safe when their computer is off.'

Computers aren't "safe" when their computers are off even without this technology -- there are network commands to turn them back on, at which point you can do whatever you want with them. The only difference between the technology described in the article you linked and other, previously-existing technology is that this new thing doesn't actually have to power the computer completely on in order to access its hard drive. It's no greater a threat to security than other already widely-used technology is.

[Draco_Argentum]

'network accessible computers are less secure',

No shit. They're also so vastly more useful that the suggestion that networking computers is a bad idea is flat out retarded. Show me a single government department which isn't using networked computes.

I don't know what the solution is, other than society either restricting population growth or accepting the idea that greater swaths of people are simply going to become Eloi.

Thats what will happen. Or they get killed. Theres only so far reducing the working hours in a week will take you before people don't work enough to become truly skilled. So some people will have to stop working, preferably the stupid people. Then either they get paid for no work or shot, pick one.

tl;dr -- proprietary technology is cheaper than the alternative and still gets the job done, so that's what people use.

Not necessarily. RHEL is good because you can buy support for it. Or you can be a huge organisation with the budget to employ a team of hard core Linux techs. We run Linux at work because we have a support contract to cover emergencies. You still get the non-financial benefits of open source.

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[tzor]

Studies show that replacing workers with robots reduces the total number of jobs. One operator and one mechanic replaces five welders a manager and a mechanic.

Yes but that one worker is more powerful than those five welders. As the robots become more advanced so does the operator who generally speaking is now knowlegable enough to reprogram the robots for changes to the production line.

This is why, in an ironic twist of fate, many industrial workers in china are actually worried about their competition in the United States.

This is not a problem of capitalism but a problem of technology. We no longer need manual labor to pick many crops as well. Overall employment numbers decrease but the quality of the jobs that remain increase, as does their pay and benefits.

[violence in the media]

[Overall employment numbers decrease but the quality of the jobs that remain increase, as does their pay and benefits.

Why does anyone who is not that guy care that his job is better than the ones they previously had? Why should they?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Because they don't matter. Capitalism is dirty business, if you can't market your skills you deserve to starve. Only the winners matter.

[Heath Robinson]

Mechanical loom.

Automation has been around for over 2 centuries. Why the fuck are we doom'n'glooming now, of all times?

[violence in the media]

Because they don't matter. Capitalism is dirty business, if you can't market your skills you deserve to starve. Only the winners matter.

I think it's interesting that you use the distinction of an inability to market instead of an inability in general.

How did we arrive at the point that we collectively decided to allow the few to prevail over the many?

[Kaelik]

Because they don't matter. Capitalism is dirty business, if you can't market your skills you deserve to starve. Only the winners matter.

I think it's interesting that you use the distinction of an inability to market instead of an inability in general.

How did we arrive at the point that we collectively decided to allow the few to prevail over the many?

Probably because the few are better than the many.

I'd rather have 12 guys growing enough food for 1000 guys, instead of 900 guys growing enough food for 1000 guys.

It greatly increases the chance that I don't have to be one of those guys growing the food, and by extension, I can devote my time to writing trashy porn literature for all 1000 guys to jack off to.

[violence in the media]

[quote="Kaelik']Probably because the few are better than the many.

I'd rather have 12 guys growing enough food for 1000 guys, instead of 900 guys growing enough food for 1000 guys.

It greatly increases the chance that I don't have to be one of those guys growing the food, and by extension, I can devote my time to writing trashy porn literature for all 1000 guys to jack off to.[/quote]

I don't disagree with this, as sustaining the population for other pursuits beyond mere survival is a good thing. I'm arguing that the problem is that when 12 guys grow food for 1000 that it doesn't actually relieve 988 guys of the necessity of acquiring food.

Actually, even that phraseology is incorrect. While those 12 people may be growing food capable of feeding 1000 people, they are not growing it for them. Each one of them has a food production capacity to support 83.33 people. Say one of them decides he wants to keep all the food for himself? Why shouldn't the 83 people he's starving with that action take it from him by force and have someone else replace him as one of the growers? Why does one person's rights to property supercede another person's rights to life? Why do the other 988 have to become monkeys to dance to the whims and desires of the 12 food-growers? What if the 12 food growers don't want your porn literature? What if they're not interested in any of your talents? What if they're actively interested in keeping you hungry and submissive?

Wouldn't it be in the best interests of the 988 to institute the most communally-minded food growers they could, even if they needed to have 24 of them instead of 12?

[shau]

Mechanical loom.

Automation has been around for over 2 centuries. Why the fuck are we doom'n'glooming now, of all times?

This isn't anything new. The luddites seriously started as a group devoted to smashing looms. More people are dooming'n'glooming now because unemployment is currently more of a problem than more efficient industries. As soon as we find work for people to do robots will be awesome again.

Unless they try to take over and enslave us. Which they almost certainly will.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Unless they try to take over and enslave us. Which they almost certainly will.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Because they don't matter. Capitalism is dirty business, if you can't market your skills you deserve to starve. Only the winners matter.

I think it's interesting that you use the distinction of an inability to market instead of an inability in general.

One thing I learned in my time of getting many jobs that I neither deserved nor was qualified for: You don't have to be able to do your job, you just have to convince others that you are. Everything else is details.