sl4shd0rk writes:
"Bill Gates says everyone needs to prepare to be out of work in 20 years due to Robots/software taking over most jobs. In preparation for this, Gates recommends people 'should basically get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans' and reduce operating overhead for businesses by 'eliminating payroll and corporate income taxes while also not raising the minimum wage'. Bill Gates, you may recall, is the former CEO of Microsoft whose business acumen has brought the technology sector such things as Metro, Windows Phone and Xbox One.
BusinessInsider took a similar theme earlier this year."
Related Stories
gewg_ writes:
"In case you missed your previous opportunity to get a Diebold Accuvote voting machine so that you could practice manipulating the American electoral system, Brad Friedman reports that there are now ES&S (Elections Systems & Software) voting machines available on eBay for $499.99 or 'Best Offer.'"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by cybro on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:08AM
It might be what Bill wishes would happen.
But obviously that will not happen, unless true AI is invented.
(Score: 3, Funny) by xlefay on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:12AM
Another attempt by Skynet to keep its existence secret..
(Score: 5, Funny) by clone141166 on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:14AM
If Skynet is built on Windows 8, I think we're pretty safe.
(Score: 2) by xlefay on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:15AM
You humans so gullible! errr, wait.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tftp on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:19AM
You do not need true AI to have a few mechanics oversee a huge robotic factory. This is happening already, right now. BG may be right - there will be no need for workers in the fiture; and there will be not much need for workers tomorrow. Machines replace thousands of laborers. CNCs outperform human operators. Bulldozers and cranes remove lots of workforce from construction sites. Fruit picking robots reduce the need in seasonal labor. None of that is dependent on true AI. Sure, it would be handy; but it's not required. A single manufacturing line of sewing needles "eliminated" at least a million steelworkers, who'd be making one needle per hour. In the nearest future the only wanted workers would be higher level techs, and engineers. If you are a lathe or a mill operator you are no longer wanted, unless you do MasterCAM and SolidWorks. Anyone with lesser skills will be forever unemployable - or employable only in personal services, where robots are not a good fit yet.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:05AM
I think in 20yrs lots of humans will still be employed, but the majority of remaining human jobs will be working for the government. Don't under estimate government bureaucracy and inefficiency. Having worked for the government myself in the past, it is quite amazing how many people can be employed to just shuffle papers around and collect signatures. I can see a return of FDR style make-work programs.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @08:38AM
FDR put 15 million unemployed Americans to work when the Capitalists weren't hiring (and hadn't been hiring for years).
The Civil Works Administration, Tennessee Valley Authority, Rural Electrification Administration, and Civilian Conservation Corps built/rebuilt badly needed/dilapidated infrastructure.
(Remember the I-35 bridge that fell into the river in 2007? The engineer's guild has been giving USA's infrastructure failing grades for years and years.)
The insides of public buildings of that era also looked awesome after the gov't hired artists. [google.com]
A demoralized working class that had been clobbered with 33 percent unemployment also had their morale lifted when writers, actors, musicians, and artists hired by the gov't brought their art to remote communities.
The greatest inefficiency is having working class people unemployed and with no money to spend. [wikipedia.org] 66 percent of the economy is just ordinary people buying ordinary stuff; a few yachts and mansions don't affect the big picture very much.
FDR's only big mistake was that he kept Capitalism alive when it had failed yet again [wikipedia.org] as it does every 80 years or so.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:28PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @03:06PM
True, it is a comparatively good economic system. But to copy the style,
Capitalism - one of the worst government systems around, just beats out Monarchy/Dictatorship.
I miss Democracy.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @10:11PM
One of the giant problems with Capitalism is that people defend it when they don't even understand what it is.[1]
As the AC you replied to noted, Capitalism is an *economic* system, NOT a governmental system.
Capitalism:
You go to your workplace and you are told by someone what you will produce, how you will produce it, and you have no say in what is done with the profits from the production process.
Capitalism is dictatorial; you leave Democracy at the door.
Marxism:
You go to your workplace and you and your coworkers decide what you will produce, you and your coworkers decide how you will produce it, and you and your coworkers decide what is done with the profits.
Marxism is very democratic.
Where it is tried, Marxism is very successful. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [wikipedia.org]
Note also that that particular operation has been successful since 1956.
There's one region in northern Italy [wikimedia.org] where worker cooperatives are common. [google.com]
Here's an adjoining region [wikimedia.org] where they have lots of fruit, wine, and dairy cooperatives.
Now, here is what that brand of clueless defenders of Capitalism have missed:
The two systems are defined by who owns the means of production. (See also "Socialism", below.)
When the workers are also the owners, the owners don't export their own jobs.
Paris Hilton sitting on her ass waiting for a check to arrive is an example of Capitalism because she (and her ancestors) make/made money, not by doing labor, but by making money from money.
There's also a third system [googleusercontent.com] (VERY GOOD ARTICLE)[2](orig) [dissidentvoice.org] where the gov't (read: taxpayers) own the means of production; that is called Socialism.
Where democracy is working well (read: governmental transparency), Socialism also works great. [wikipedia.org]
(I have service from Edison and the capitalists suck by comparison.)
In a healthy economy, all 3 economic systems can exist concurrently.
[1] People often confuse Markets and Capitalism; if all the capitalists had died yesterday, markets would still exist without any capitalists.
[2] ...and none of the governments that have called themselves "communist" have been Marxist at all. As Mr. Johnston notes, those have been examples of State Capitalism; centrally planned economies, single-party governments, and top-down governance are antithetical to Marxism. Again, Marxism is very democratic.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 20 2014, @12:42AM
I don't really consider Mondragon to be Marxism. I think it's more a form of democratic capitalism (which is something that really hasn't been tried in the USA).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 20 2014, @08:40PM
Mondragon [is] more a form of democratic capitalism
The reason you think that that is Capitalism is because, again, you are one those who doesn't understand what Capitalism actually is (but will defend it anyway).
When SOMEONE ELSE owns the company and you are simply a disposable employee with no voice in the direction the company takes (e.g. whether your job will be exported), THAT is Capitalism.
Mondragon is nothing like that. Everyone there is an owner and everyone there makes money by his LABOR; there is no separate "investor" class involved (e.g. Paris Hilton sitting on her ass waiting for a check to arrive).
Note: I really hate it when I hear "Middle Class". That is bullshit; there are only 2 classes: workers who make their money from labor (The Proletariat) and capitalists who make their money from money (The Bourgeoisie).
.
hasn't been tried in the USA
You have a lot of opinions, but are seriously lacking on facts:
Because Der Bingle was already popular at the time, his little brother's name was the one used by the larger configuration of The Bobcats--but he was NOT "The Boss" [google.com] (indeed, he couldn't read music nor play an instrument, making him the least-able of the lot).
There were also other bands of that era that operated the same way (as democracies). That goes back about 90 years.
Here's one of my favorite recent stories about workers taking over a workplace [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [libcom.org] when a damned useless corporation tries to screw them.
When employee ownership in the USA comes up, Dunn-Edwards Paints springs immediately to mind.
For good measure, here's another 99 companies in the USA where the majority ownership is the employees. [nceo.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 21 2014, @11:25PM
No, I think you are actually the one who is misunderstanding what capitalism is. It's when the means of production are privately owned. It doesn't matter whether they're in the hands of one, or ten, or a thousand people. A privately held corporation that's wholly employee-owned is still capitalistic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2014, @04:19AM
Employees == Capitalism
Worker-owned operation == Marxism
Your feeble Reactionary attempts to redefine words don't change the facts.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2014, @10:31PM
Employees are a necessary but not sufficient condition for capitalism.
Worker-owned operation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for Marxism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23 2014, @03:46AM
You know absolutely nothing about the subject.
You're another of those "my opinions are as good as your facts" guys who conflate Capitalism with markets, profit, private ownership, and every other thing under the sun.
You don't even realize how ridiculous are.
You need to stop consuming lamestream media, particularly TeeVee and especially Fox so-called News. It fills your head with useless nonsense.
At some point you should try picking up a book and reading. Start with a dictionary and move on to a text on Comparative Economics.
Oh, and when you're in over your head, STOP DIGGING.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2014, @01:59AM
I didn't say there were no employee-owned companies (or cooperatives) in the USA. What I mean is, it's not the norm. Corporations are the last refuge of kings and their courts. We like a hierarchical, dictatorial style of management and Big Business is clearly the dominant form of capitalism in the USA today.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:31AM
Lathe or mill operators could much more cheaply and readily be repurposed into maintenance mechanics, which unlike most engineers(and many drafters) actually have a lot of experience fixing shit. You know, actually replacing motors or servos or gears with their own two hands instead of clicking on drawings and breakpoints all day. Or, if the manufacturing plant went full-retard and hired a bunch of Mexicans, they would lose their ISO certification and credibility after one their aircraft parts breaks in midair and sinks that 777 airliner.
" ¡Ay, Jefe, I thought SI was yes do eet, not "S.I." uneets! I used eenches! ¡Ay!"
¡Ay, Chingada!
(Score: 1) by tftp on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:55AM
Lathe or mill operators could much more cheaply and readily be repurposed into maintenance mechanics
Yes, but how many of them are needed?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday March 18 2014, @11:27AM
And the corollary, once practically no one has a job, who's going to buy anything?
No point in making commuter cars if there's no commuters.
Finally this is all monday morning quarterbacking. I've been driving the same commute road for a decade, thankfully with a variety of flex time options. Got stuck in "rush" hour last night, unusually, which a decade ago would have meant an hour plus extra for construction and/or accidents. Home in 35 minutes. Comically they're rebuilding roads and interchanges to assume 25% job growth, LOL. Probably lifetime peak 9-5 cubie dweller white collar employment was back in '07. We're going to have a great, empty, interstate system here.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:28AM
It'll never happen. Those scum sucking wastes of human skin (corporate execs) can't sit on top of an empire made of 99% AI, 1% parasite.
If you don't pay the plebes they can't in turn give the money back for the shiny.
What do you have with starving plebes bereft of their shiny? Dead execs and 1%'ers after their visit to the guillotine.
If there is one thing abundantly clear about life in Rome (we are in the final days of it), is that you don't fuck with the people past a certain point, and by Zeus' thundering testicles, don't screw with Panem et Circes.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tftp on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:12AM
If you don't pay the plebes they can't in turn give the money back for the shiny.
Yes, this is a very good question... and I haven't seen the answer to that in any discussion that debates how to transition from the modern capitalism to the society of the future (essentially, communism) where stuff is made by robots and is free, and where money is not used anymore.
One thing is certain, though. If there is a way to run fully robotic factories, they will be made and they will be ran. This is necessary because (a) it is cheaper in the short term, and (b) it is necessary to manufacture things that humans cannot assemble. (Think of IC dies, for example.)
Businessmen who go for this will depend on "someone else" who will be employing "someone else" who would be paid salary to buy their products. As more and more businesses convert to robotic labor, fewer and fewer workers will be employed.
However before the manufacturers start noticing that there are too few buyers for their wares, one more thing happens. Workers get hungry. This happens usually way before those workers need another TV or another smartphone. But as the workers do not work, they don't have money to buy food.
Then the government steps in. It imposes new taxes onto owners of robotic factories, and uses these monies to feed the workers. As a side effect, those workers are now able to buy the output of those factories.
In the end, the owner of the robotic plant ends up earning just a bit more than the "freeloaders." This essentially completes the transition. Robots make products, people consume those products, and nobody is really working (except those few owners, but they get paid somewhat more for this work.) As most of the robotic plant is now taxed, the ownership becomes nominal, and it can be easily sold or bought because all you sell is just a job of a manager of that plant.
I cannot say much about disappearance of money, though. Humans are great inventors in the hoarding department. Money will remain around to prevent that hoarding. Also, money will be necessary to reward (with larger consumption) those who want to work. There will be always jobs for humans - such as in the government, which will be responsible for setting prices for the factory's output and for determining the allowance that is paid to every human regardless of his employment status. Welcome to USSR!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by monster on Tuesday March 18 2014, @08:59AM
You forget one grim possibility:
As taxes over the robotic factories increase, the owners start outsourcing production to third world countries where a military elite keeps the population on check, giving them some money in exchange of less taxes. As the robotic factories leave for greener pastures, first world countries find that they no longer can tax them and must either increase indirect taxes (like VAT), put tariffs in place (anathema!) or decrease government aid (austerity FTW!) and let those "freeloaders" starve and die, or at least live harshly in poverty.
Never understimate the willpower to avoid taxes.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tftp on Tuesday March 18 2014, @10:01AM
As taxes over the robotic factories increase, the owners start outsourcing production to third world countries where a military elite keeps the population on check, giving them some money in exchange of less taxes
Robotic factories do not depend on cities and population to operate. In fact, they do better away from people. This means that they can be constructed (by robots, ultimately) in a place without significant population. On the sea floor (for complete independence,) or on islands, or in Antarctica. Your proposed 3rd world locations are also usable; the corrupt rulers will simply lease the land on favorable (to them personally) conditions.
But in the end a capitalist economy needs the buyers just as much as the sellers. If I own a plant that can make anything, what do I do with it as a capitalist if nobody else can afford my products? Sure, I can give the products away, but outside of philantropy what reasons would I have to risk my capital to build such a plant? I want some return on that investment.
Furthermore, with robots doing all the work and thus making most of human effort pointless, what kind of money do I want? Gold? No, my robots will mine as much as I need. Only something that cannot be made by robots would be valuable to me as such an owner. Fresh human organs and blood to let me live forever? A harem for 100,000 occupants? Gladiators fighting to death to entertain me? I don't know. But once you have automated factories, this is the kind of stuff you may want for your products.
At the same time, what will the people back at the USA, for example, do? As they are unable to buy my products, and as I employ none of them, their best option is... to ignore my factories. Sure, you can sell your unused kidney and buy my 4D holovision set. But you can also show me the finger and open your own business, one that does not ask for a blood sacrifice. It will produce crude products, compared to the finesse of mine, but those products will be affordable to people because it will create local employment.
This scenario can be tested against a hypothesis: Outsiders show up in a large ship and park it on the Earth orbit. They have anything you can think of, and plenty that you can't. They want newborn humans for food. What will happen? How many trades will be made? If they don't ask for newborns, what else they can possibly ask for that they cannot get on any other planet?
Does this mean that communism (as in unlimited supply of anything) is impossible? Maybe not; but you will need to make a sudden jump between capitalism and communism. The government would have to stop political bickering and instead focus on things that matter. For example, it may build robotic factories, or nationalize existing ones. Then the capitalists will just fade away. But then you still need to deal with the problem of idle hands of your population. Humans cannot sit idly; the idea that they are useless will destroy their minds. Crime rate will shoot through the roof, as people will be free to seek entertainment in whatever sick way they can imagine.
The reason for the crime will be very simple. What is the most valuable thing that you cannot get for free from a robot factory? You can't get power over other humans. And that is one of most powerful lures in the history of this world. Crime will be driven by the feeling of power over others. It's already like that - those "knock-out games" are not done for profit, they are done purely for sadistic pleasure over the pain of others. As crime escalates, unconstrained by such trivial things like need to work for food, it first explodes into clans controlling larger and larger areas; and then, possibly, someone will try for the throne of the Emperor of Earth. Robots are not that smart, and they don't always know what those chunks of Plutonium or Uranium are for. Humans do. This will not end well, that much I am sure about.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday March 18 2014, @11:30AM
"If I own a plant that can make anything, what do I do with it as a capitalist if nobody else can afford my products?"
Manufacture weapons, and a reason to use them, obviously. Its certainly been implemented before.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:32PM
Exactly. Manufacture power over others, probably by means of a robot army.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by emg on Tuesday March 18 2014, @04:08PM
"If I own a plant that can make anything, what do I do with it as a capitalist if nobody else can afford my products?"
Make whatever you want for your own use. If you can make anything, and have the resources to do so, why would you care about selling it?
There's this weird idea on the left that people who own factories build them just because factories, and not because there's a viable use for them. Probably because socialism is an industrial-era philosophy that has no concept of a world without traditional industry. They just can't accept that they're dinosaurs on the verge of extinction.
(Score: 1) by monster on Tuesday March 18 2014, @04:22PM
I agree with you that once we achieve autosufficient robotic factories, human support is no longer needed. What I was pointing to is that the basic premise of "taxing the factories" is flawed if they can flee to other places where they would pay peanuts or not at all. That alone means it's "game over" for capitalism as we know it: Factory owners need customers willing to buy and capable of paying, but if there is not enough cash flow from the factories to those potential customers the whole scheme falls apart: A few (the owners of the factories) get all kind of luxuries while the rest of the population gets to fight over the spoils. That would be a huge blow to civilization as we know it.
If you instead get into some kind of communism with nationalized factories, you still can get a functioning society with current ideas like universal basic income (so noone starves) and commerce of other items (arts, science, cooperation, you-name-it). But with that name, good luck convincing people that it is an option.
(Score: 2, Informative) by SuggestiveLanguage on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:00PM
Obligatory link to Marshall Brain's Manna [marshallbrain.com]
(Score: 1) by emg on Tuesday March 18 2014, @03:59PM
"I haven't seen the answer to that in any discussion that debates how to transition from the modern capitalism to the society of the future (essentially, communism) where stuff is made by robots and is free, and where money is not used anymore."
Probably because that idea is so stupid that only the few remaining believers in the Labour Theory Of Value take it at all seriously.
The future will not be 'free stuff made by robots, yay!' because resources are not free, and Joe Gates with a billion robots will be able to make use of far more resources than Joe Loser who has none.
Oh, and anyone who thinks that taking taxes from factory owners to give to people to buy the products of those factories makes any kind of sense is economically illiterate.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:10AM
Who said they need money, or the working class?
If they auto-manufacture a shitload of drones first, then it'll be the 99% after the visit to the guillotine and the 1% enjoying a life in abundance.
(Score: 2, Funny) by dyingtolive on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:05AM
You'll always need people to repair the drones, and to build new ones. You're suggesting they're acting so shortsighted they'd do stuff like tank a company in terms of making next quarter's metr...
Shit.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1) by Nikker on Tuesday March 18 2014, @08:41AM
Exactly this. We imagine every labor job (skilled and unskilled) assumed by mechanical process. The richest in the land have more dollar bills than they ever thought possible. They realize this is just because they are the only ones with dollar bills. They pay their servants in dollar bills but the 99% of people out there no longer have such bills. So now they should be asking themselves, how about if everyone just adopts a new form of currency or just solely relies on barter? Mr BG is just so far off the mark on this one it just can't happen. The paper money they will hold will become worthless since it is only as good as it sustains the people you wish to control.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by naubol on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:14AM
To be pedantic, "circenses", but I take your point. However, unlike the grain dole for the capite censi, if we can automate everything via robotics, we might not even need executives. We certainly won't have to go to war constantly, enslave millions of people to farm our provinces and latifundia, and become utterly broke when not enough people are involved in the production of value. Sufficiently advanced automation is a force multiplier and may some day be self-sustaining, so the model of Roman degeneracy may not apply.
Hopefully, we use this power to create the greatest welfare state ever devised and become a creative economy, something akin to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria [wikipedia.org] but with hopefully far more touchy feely.
I see it as more likely to go the other way, that robot armies will be in the hands of a few who will then proceed to do what most humans with unlimited power would do: eugenics. I don't fear an AI that hasn't evolved a prime directive to keep itself alive and to reproduce, I fear the person who gets his hands on the singularity.
And now, I'm really hoping that isn't Bill Gates.
In the interim, we are already experiencing the dichotomy of needing less people than ever to generate insane amounts of food and yet still we have starving people and bicker over providing them sustenance. Locke, with his theory of property, would probably say we are being immoral and no longer have a right to have property when we control it in such a way as to prevent men from having reasonable access to the means of survival. Who can blame them if they should become criminal in our system of law and order? I hope that the majority of us are not turned into criminals by this process, but I think it the more likely scenario.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @03:32PM
but I don't want to be killed by a robot just because I can't speak the solarian dialect perrrfectly....
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:42AM
I don't think this is flamebait. It's an extrapolation from semi-recent history, in particular, France (note the guillotine reference) where the balance of wealth became so lopsided, people started chopping heads.
"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that History has to teach."e arn_very_much_from_the_lessons/168709.html [thinkexist.com]
Aldous Huxley: http://thinkexist.com/quotation/that_men_do_not_l
Other variations: http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/history/quotations/ lessons_of_history.html [age-of-the-sage.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:31PM
FTFY.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:13AM
He isn't responsible for Metro, Windows Phone and Xbox One. Ballmer is.
And I checked the link. It has no quote that says "people 'should basically get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans' and reduce operating overhead for businesses by 'eliminating payroll and corporate income taxes while also not raising the minimum wage'."
This article [businessinsider.com] has what looks like the source of the misquote; it says "Gates believes that the tax codes are going to need to change to encourage companies to hire employees, including, perhaps, eliminating income and payroll taxes altogether." (emphasis added)
There's nothing in any of the articles about getting on one's knees and begging businesses.
Which makes me wonder why the funk those words were put in quotation marks in TFS?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Tuesday March 18 2014, @04:49AM
I think Gates is spot-on when he refers to tax codes. The power to tax is also the power to either encourage, discourage, or destroy.
One cannot blame water for running the way it does... always seeking downhill one way or the other. One cannot blame the wealthy for investing the way they do for the same reason ( assuming the wealthy, like the water, have no altruistic motives; they will follow the laws of nature ( or economics ) they exist in.)
There are a lot of tax codes in place presently that reward hoarding and selfishness. One may find himself burdened not only by economic loss but also by having to prepare reams of paperwork and documentation to the government for doing something like trying to hire, yet the very same government may well encourage the investor to place his assets in things like hoarding real estate, patent trolling, banking services ( aka "adding liquidity to the economy by leveraging and juggling loans on top of loans" ). Then we have turkeys like Greenspan talking about yet more H1-B and outsourcing. I remember one group in Waco, Texas who tried to outsource the government.... the government did not like that very much, did they.
But then, what does that tell you about the insight of men who never had to earn a dime in their lives the way most of us have to?
I still have high hopes we as a public can resolve this at the polls instead of that mess the French had to resort to.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by Qzukk on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:56PM
The issue is that at some point, no matter how low you cut taxes, free labor from a robot or program paid for up front will be cheaper than paying continuously for labor from an employee. Given the modern capitalist's total aversion to capital investment right now, this won't happen anytime soon even if the tech existed, but at some point companies are going to look to upgrade their processes and they're going to ask how they can do it cheaper.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday March 18 2014, @06:41AM
"the Microsoft cofounder said that they should basically get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans over algorithms" is a quote from the first linked article.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:53PM
I read that as "oh yeah, people should totally become slaves to corporations... for their own good!"
I suppose that should be expected from the richest guy ever... but its downright transparent and shameful.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Informative) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:02PM
Just read the article... so none of the "quotes" in the summary are actually in the article at all. Neither the author nor Gates said any of this. In fact Gates did not say anything close to what the summary is suggesting.
What he did say is
Now, while I still disagree with Gates on this, it isn't nearly as stupid as the "become corporate slaves" that the poster sl4shd0rk is quoting. The deceitful on the part of the poster and the editors at Soylent.
So, if the editors at Soylent are not going to bother reading the articles or... you know... do editing. Why does this site even exist? Seriously. I want an answer from someone on staff about this. A simple "sorry, I did not read the article, my bad" and a correction attached to the article itself would suffice; but getting people to actually admit they are wrong is apparently impossible.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:24PM
Correction, I meant to say that the first article had it as a quote, not Gates. (guess I should read and edit what I type as well)
So the article itself is dishonest, as Gates did not say anything close to it. But the summary is confusing the issue.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @06:53AM
it's called low quality
(Score: 4, Insightful) by KingofBLASH on Tuesday March 18 2014, @10:28AM
Bill Gates is a student of Buffet (they have a friendship going back years) and one of Buffet's big things is that we should tax consumption not production. That way if you are contributing to the economy and creating jobs, you can create as many jobs as possible.
Buffet has pointed out that the taxes he pays on his (high end) beachfront houses are less than many middle class people pay.
In addition, you have the fact that there is A LOT of money spent trying to a) enforce the tax code b) figure out creative ways to get out of taxes.
Get rid of the income tax, you close all loopholes, and you make something simple enough that the average person can understand .
The idea is not madness and actually is supported by quite a few prominent economists. If you are a billionaire spending all kinds of money, the consumption should be taxed. And if you are a billionaire growing your wealthy by employing people, as you are a producer, that should be encouraged.
(Score: 1) by len_harms on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:19PM
Effectively states are already moving to this model.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0 517/Your-employer-may-be-pocketing-your-state-inco me-tax [csmonitor.com]
Then with a bit of http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/double-irish-w ith-a-dutch-sandwich.asp [investopedia.com]
You have companies effectively paying 0 and in some cases getting subsidized.
They just now have to employee a few people to take care of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken _window [wikipedia.org]
The idea is not madness and actually is supported by quite a few prominent economists.
Companies are already doing this. As an individual I am effectively taxed for consumption already. As I pay before I even spend it. However, larger companies have more ability to 'dodge taxes'. Putting smaller companies at an even bigger disadvantage.
Gates is saying just get rid of the waste. A VAT sort of tax makes sense if you want to keep the gov around. Unless you start adding in exceptions. The second you add an exception someone will figure out a way to 'maximize' the value.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @03:36PM
Which is, of course, insane.
You can't just create jobs by producing willy-nilly. There has to be a market for the product or service, and that requires people with money, and that requires jobs. It's a feedback loop.
Gates seems to be laboring under the misapprehension that the rich "create jobs." They only do that by being consumers, but they don't consume as much as the millions of us non-millionaires shopping at Wal-Mart.
As Nick Hanauer put it [youtube.com], "I own three cars-- not three thousand."
(Score: 1) by strattitarius on Wednesday March 19 2014, @02:24AM
The problem with simplifying the tax code is that it is also a HUGE CREATOR of jobs. Think of how many lawyers, accountants, accounting firms, H&R blocks, etc. that are related to taxes. Not only that, most of what makes corporate accounting difficult is related to taxes, putting money in the proper "buckets", proving it was supposed to be in those "buckets", and other functions that would be pointless with out crazy tax laws. So take your accounting department (which computers have already cut in half) and cut them in half.
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by everdred on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:15AM
> Gates recommends people 'should basically get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans' and reduce operating overhead for businesses by 'eliminating payroll and corporate income taxes while also not raising the minimum wage'.
They aren't actual quotes attributed to Gates in the BGR article, nor the Business Insider article linked to by BGR. (There are direct quotes in those articles, but the two included in the SoylentNews summary are not.)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:56AM
Yet another data point that indicates Soylent News is going to have the same dedication to accuracy and lack of bias as any other Western journalistic endeavor -- that is, none whatsoever.
I think I'm done with this place. Tootles!
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:04PM
I plan to give the editors a chance to respond and apologies for this travesty of an article.
I don't expect to get one or even an acknowledgement that this article is a complete sham... but I figure I will give them a chance.
But yeah, I think I am done here as well. The article has the rhetoritc machine cranked up higher than ./ has in ten years.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:38PM
I provided links to both the original article and the article that was supposedly based upon it. The second certainly does exhibit a 'spin' on the first, including inaccurate quotations which are rather sensationalist. However, both articles raise valid points to my view and are looking to a uncertain future. It is not the editor's job to show bias, nor should I change what one article said simply because it does not support a particular point of view. Both articles were content that was submitted in good faith, they raised genuine concerns and have generated quite a bit of comment. If you only wish to see a list of scientifically-proven achievements and peer-reviewed papers then I apologise, for this article was certainly not for you. However, many scientific reports also contain hypotheses and best-guesses which are not proven - would you have me leave all those out as well?
Some of the community find value and interest in the comments that articles provoke, regardless of the starting point of the debate. Even removing the critical comments from this topic leaves a healthy number which have considered what the various authors, rightly or wrongly, were trying to say. I'm am sorry that this article didn't meet your particular standards or interests. I'm new at this, as you undoubtedly know, but I will continue to strive to find the right balance that suits the majority of the community although I recognise that it will be impossible to keep everybody happy all of the time. On this occasion I was off-target.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Ken_g6 on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:48AM
If businesses are making money, and employees aren't, then corporate income taxes need to be raised, not lowered. Government needs to get its money from someplace.
Then, how to encourage some employment? Make all employee wages and payroll taxes (if any) 100% tax deductible for the business. And ensure that other business investments (such as robots) aren't tax deductible.
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:57AM
Admittedly a few years since I studying any accounting. but I'm pretty sure that employee wages are what you call an EXPENSE which reduces your INCOME, and in consequence the taxes paid by your corporation.
Off the top of my head I can't think of any EXPENSE item that can be applied directly to reduce tax liability.
Because that would be, well, stupid.
(Score: 2) by Daniel Dvorkin on Tuesday March 18 2014, @04:56AM
Sure, because corporate accounting gets to use a different definition of "income" from the one applied to human beings. That's a legal fiction, and one we the people can rewrite if we choose.
Pipedot [pipedot.org]:Soylent [soylentnews.org]::BSD:Linux
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @11:47PM
But...but...but... I thought corporations WERE human beings!
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:49PM
Wow. This is the first time I read something that may actually work. Will it get enacted as law? Of course not. But it's still interesting...
(Score: 2) by Boxzy on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:53AM
isn't that enough? No more driving jobs, no more cashier jobs, no carpenters, roofers, window cleaners, salesmen, managers, accountants, bankers, web designers, economists, actuaries, ten thousand other crap office jobs, every productive job, plumbers, soldiers, astronauts... the jobs that are left are extremely close to pointless.
Go green, Go Soylent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:46AM
> ...every productive job,...
[HHGTTG]
So you're saying that jobs are shrinking for the B Ark population?
At some point the jerks at the Sirius Cybernetics Corp will be first against the wall.
[/HHGTTG]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:13AM
One story I found describes this scenario with a specially grown [rifters.com] slab of brain cells used to replace people in more complex tasks. There are a lot of other interesting technology elements in these stories, but this one really got me thinking about the approaches towards replacing people in various tasks.
(Score: 1) by RamiK on Tuesday March 18 2014, @11:21AM
Even a 30% lay-off will eliminate enough of the working class to guarantee a depression: With no one left to buy your wares, you start laying off product engineers one by one, but the market keeps shrinking and shrinking, so you keep cutting and culling. Until ten years later your streets are filled with homeless people that can't afford food, medicine or housing.
compiling...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Hombre on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:09AM
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:31AM
He does not say it will eliminate every job. Just that the vast majority will be eliminated.
1 repairman per unit on a widget manufacturing floor (way overkill, probably averaging 1 per 20 or more) still eliminated a dozen jobs and left one.
Multiply this by just about any labor/low skill job and you have a major problem. Add to that the many high skill jobs that can be consolidated into one employee and a computer such as the CNC milling example given earlier and you have an even bigger problem.
(Score: 1) by Hombre on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:42PM
They may be beneath you, but repair jobs generally require a pretty high level of skill and a lot of training. Except for plumbing. That's just shitty work. I couldn't do your job without training, and you couldn't do mine. There's no degree for my field (though I do hold a BS), but I had a fair amount of formal education and training (over 300 university credits).
Back on point, there is a distinction between skilled labor and unskilled labor. As I was getting at in a previous post, many unskilled labor jobs simply are not conducive to being replaced by automation simply because of logistics. If you mean the guy who bags your groceries, stocks the shelves and takes your order at the restaurant, sure. Most other things, not so much. Skilled labor, which is frequently done in the field, is even worse. Until there's an iRobot (and I mean that in the Asimov sense, not the Apple sense), the logistics are just too costly to make it worthwhile.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Wednesday March 19 2014, @03:37AM
I do not equate the two, I meant them in more of an and/or scenario.
I agree somewhat to your points, but I do not think they are set in stone. progress has eliminated many skilled jobs- welding, draftsman, miller being some examples. The technology advances as well as the will to eliminate the jobs. Bag boys are going to be a lower priority than an assembly line welder simply because of pay- a return on investment scenario.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:48AM
Within the assumption of a stron AI, other machines, of course.
(partially valid) analogy: imagining they need a repair MAN to fix them is like imagining the humans need divine intervention when they get down with flu (instead of another human nurse/doctor).
Besides, who is to say the machines will repaired at all when they break? Do you go to a repair shop with your broken HDD?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by TK on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:33PM
I do. I say they will be.
Say you have a welding robot. One of the servos that controls an axis of motion fails. You could either take the whole (several ton) apparatus off of its foundation and move it to the loading bay to be shipped back to the manufacturer to be repaired, refurbished or scrapped. Then you have to unbox a new robot (several million dollars per unit in inventory?), move it into position, secure it to the foundation (easy or not, depending on the tolerance of the holes for the foundation bolts/studs/j-hooks), calibrate its sensors, and do a test run to check its alignment. Keep in mind during this process the line is not running, so you are not producing on any of the machines that deliver parts to this robot or take parts from it.
Or you could have a maintenance droid (or human) swap out one motor, check calibration, and do a test run (if necessary). Total downtime could be as little as a few hours.
Now at smaller scales it may be become practical to swap out entire machinery assemblies, but that's more of a niche case. In the interest of reducing downtime, and minimizing your stock of replacement parts (lean manufacturing is all the rage right now), repairmen/repairwomen/repairbots are the way to go.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 1) by Hombre on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:53PM
The major manufacturers do not keep spare CT scanners sitting around waiting to be ordered. The ones that are made are already spoken for. If you run Toshiba, you cannot replace it with GE. Your techs, and doctors, have to be retrained for it. Even if the manufacturer does have one ready for you, it'll take close to a week to get it to you, then another week to install it and get it calibrated. During that whole time, the facility is likely on bypass, meaning no ambulance deliveries. So the hospital is losing an awful lot of money. All because you didn't want to fly me out with a part that I could've replaced in under a day.
You guys really need to look at it as a larger picture. Thinking about everything required to get the part installed. A robot isn't going to do it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:14PM
(Score: 2) by snick on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:51AM
More to the point: Who is going to buy the shit that the machines are making?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @11:39AM
The robot factory will just build a new one to replace it? It does not have to be more efficient than a human, just less expensive...
(Score: 1) by TheGrim on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:01PM
Who fixes you when you break?
Other humans - for now.
(Score: 1) by alioth on Tuesday March 18 2014, @04:24PM
The robot repair robot, of course.
(Score: 2) by gallondr00nk on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:19AM
I'm not disagreeing with the premise of automation killing jobs, I'm just objecting to the way we resolve the problem.
If you're going to run a consumer economy based on economic growth from consumption of services and products, the easiest, least unequal way to do so is to distribute a generous amount of money directly to individuals.
Fucking hell, our system *as it stands* is barely capable of supporting that economy now because of increasing underemployment and wage stagnation, to the point where we fuelled the last boom by having everyone run up enormous debts and crossing our fingers. It was the only way to fuel growth.
What's it going to be like when job creation is in negative figures and the majority of the few created are minimum wage? Who will buy their shiny trinkets and pump the value of their CDO's then?
His argument is the equivalent of saying that we should combat climate by rendering the planet uninhabitable.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by snick on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:46AM
All this focus on limitations of robots/ai/automation. What about the economy.
If everyone will be out of a job in 20 years, companies will have no customers and they are done. There is no equilibrium where machines produce everything but no one can afford anything.
That is unless they also come up with robotic consumers.
(Score: 4, Funny) by unitron on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:07AM
"That is unless they also come up with robotic consumers."
Shhh!
Don't give them ideas.
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Bokononist on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:16AM
Yup considering the trouble e the invention of the lawnmower caused 200 years ago putting all those sythe workers out of a job, not even mentioning the sythe making industry which barely survived it. And http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_shuttle [wikipedia.org] the god awful mess the automated manufacturing of fabric caused. We should learn these lessons from the past and turn that clock right back. (/sarcastic rant)
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by snick on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:57AM
If your point is that displaced workers will move on to the next thing, then that's fine.
I was responding to the original post that suggested that in 20 years there won't be a "next thing." The idea that we need to placate our corporate overlords with hookers and blow so that they don't throw the population out of work en masse is stupid.
The worst thing possible for our corporate overlords would be a collapse of the consumer class.
(Score: 1) by Bokononist on Tuesday March 18 2014, @09:12AM
Do you know what, I responded originally to the part of your post that refers to a consumer economy. I made quite a long post and I managed to lose it all while switching between tabs so only retyped a small part of it as I was going to bed. In hindsight it doesn't respond to your post directly at all.
In a nutshell, I think we are heading towards a time of greater automation and thus greater personal freedom. What I don't think is a great future is one where everyone that is not doing a menial job because of automation has to become a consumer, 'consume consume consume baby, what the fuck else is a pleb like you good for?' I think it is a narrow minded idea(not suggesting its yours btw) that could hold back a great new period in the technological age.
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:17AM
Kurt Vonnegut took a good look at this problem in "Player Piano", from the wikipedia page on the book,
"Player Piano, author Kurt Vonnegut's first novel, was published in 1952. It is a dystopia of automation,[1] describing the dereliction it causes in the quality of life.[1] The story takes place in a near-future society that is almost totally mechanized, eliminating the need for human laborers. This widespread mechanization creates conflict between the wealthy upper class—the engineers and managers who keep society running—and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines. The book uses irony and sentimentality, which were to become a hallmark developed further in Vonnegut's later works.[1]
"In a 1973 interview Vonnegut discussed his inspiration to write the book:[2]
I was working for General Electric at the time, right after World War II , and I saw a milling machine for cutting the rotors on jet engines, gas turbines. This was a very expensive thing for a machinist to do, to cut what is essentially one of those Brâncuși forms. So they had a computer-operated milling machine built to cut the blades, and I was fascinated by that. This was in 1949 and the guys who were working on it were foreseeing all sorts of machines being run by little boxes and punched cards. Player Piano was my response to the implications of having everything run by little boxes. The idea of doing that, you know, made sense, perfect sense. To have a little clicking box make all the decisions wasn't a vicious thing to do. But it was too bad for the human beings who got their dignity from their jobs. "
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:51AM
Kurt Vonnegut's attitude towards his job was probably much alike his attitude with writing novels and life in general -- "Oh, well, kinda just float along and do this, no punctuation in life, no real beginnings or ends, just kinda a stream of pseudorandom but unremarkable daydreamings you forget afterward"
While Vonnegut was daydreaming, he could have instead asked his boss about how the machines worked and how he could do more for his employer, instead of spending all day waiting for his next toke or shot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @03:23AM
Probably made more money as a writer anyway. Why would you have him kiss ass?
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:40PM
(Score: 1) by NezSez on Tuesday March 18 2014, @07:38PM
I posted late, and hope I didn't kill any comments I modded, but...
I haven't seen any mention of one solution to the scenario you are discussing which is this:
If robots do *all* labor then there wouldn't be a traditional monetary/financial "cost" so to speak. We wouldn't need consumers in the traditional sense if we entered a "post-scarcity" economy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_econom y [wikipedia.org]).
The only costs would be physical in acquiring new base materials for production, recycling and the like which robots would be doing. We wouldn't "need" jobs or "salaries" as everything would be free. Then all of us would be free to psychologically brutalize each other with online comments all the time!
No Sig to see here, move along, move along...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by prospectacle on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:02AM
Firstly, most jobs that exist are completely unnecessary. You can tell because humanity existed for hundreds of thousands of years without them. Most jobs exist because someone with money thinks it will help them to make more money if they hire someone to do this job, or because a politician thinks it will help them keep their job. As a result, most jobs are about providing luxuries, and the demand for luxuries is effectively infinite.
Secondly, you'll always need humans to tell the robots what to do. Someone needs to interpret the will of the boss, to make sure the computers are performing as desired, and to instruct them when they need to change what they are doing. For a small enterprise this can be done by the boss alone, but for anything larger, the boss will need to delegate. Already most jobs involve telling computers what to do, at least some of the time. The bigger the enterprise, the more people you'll need to perform this function.
Thirdly, if robots ever become more accurate and reliable at understanding our requests and intentions, than other humans, then we'll just vote for whichever political party promises to build us all free robots. You may say that's not sustainable, but it will only need to be done once. After that our robots can build us new ones, or whatever else we want.
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
(Score: 2, Insightful) by codepigeon on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:55AM
The problem with that common rebutal, humans will be needed to watch/maintain the robots, is that a single robot is used to replace several humans. A business may only hire a couple humans to maintain several bots; which replaced dozens of humans. Its still a net loss.
(Score: 1) by prospectacle on Tuesday March 18 2014, @04:45AM
Your scenario is only a net loss if you assume the amount of production stays the same. Generally that's not the case. If producing X gets cheaper, more X will be produced, and more companies can enter the market to compete to produce more X, or better X, or more customised X.
Look at any consumer product that's gone from hand-made to mass produced, and ask yourself if more people work in that industry now, or fewer?
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Tuesday March 18 2014, @07:05AM
Let's just consider the "Road Ahead". Gates is an imbecile, a college drop-out, and the richest man in the world, by latest accounts. What does all this tell us? Cut taxes? I say we tax the crap out of speculative investors in tech. I want payback for every blue screen of death that I experienced before switching to Linux circa 1995. I want emotional damages for my mother worrying that her computer had performed an illegal function! This man is completely off his rocker, trying to destroy education in America (see: college drop-out) and the only reason he does any charity is because it is the bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And for anyone interested, check out Karl Marx on the increase in capitalization. Does not end well.
(Score: 1) by anthem on Tuesday March 18 2014, @07:59AM
He's less involved in microsoft now. He just seems represented unprofessionally or shallowly by the whoever editor saw this to the front page. Im not against bias but be tactful.
(Score: 1) by sl4shd0rk on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:17PM
That's due to the fact that he was quoted word for word. Some of the things he says in that interview represent some of the biggest problems the world is facing right now. Gates is not the saviour he wants everyone to think he is.
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:25PM
The full story is available on-line:
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm [marshallbrain.com]
It's a shame that discussions back in the '70s about reducing the work week due to computers and automation improvements and making arrangements for people to own enough stock to ensure a basic living income were never followed up on.
Since then, wages as a share of the GDP have been declining since 1972, so unless something changes, we can look forward to a three class society:
- those who own the means of automated production and recycling and the sources of raw materials
- those who have skills and talents which can't be automated
- everyone else
Sad.
“The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.â€
― Mahatma Gandhi
(Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:40PM
Exactly. If you can sell that sort of shit to billions of people then you are really good.
I don't think Gates can be blamed for Metro (or, more specifically, the decision to force it on desktop users), though.
Anyway, even after the last crash, the world still seems to be running on ponzi-scheme economics based on the illusion of infinite growth. Sooner or later, there's going to be a total collapse beyond the ability of governments to bail out and nobody will have jobs. I think that's a bigger danger than the rise of the robots.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:19PM
He didn't sell it. The monopoly sold it for him. All he had to do was sit back and let it sell. He only inherited the monopoly from IBM because IBM was blocked by the courts and couldn't do it themselves. Even with that, it was his mom who scored him the meetings necessary to get that monopoly. Everything since then has been simply leveraging that monopoly. No business acumen involved at all. He's shown no evidence of a business sense at all unless you can attribute the initial Spyglass Mosaic contract to him. That was evil but pure genius.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @09:52PM
after advertising more robot workers and automation it dawned on me that
maybe humans aren't really socialistic creatures after all and that all the
automation would lead to fear/famine and destruction instead of an utopia.
after having grown up a bit a new conclusion: humans are lazy and instead of
going to war they will just "create jobs" in the paper shuffling business
-aka- bureaucracy.
the more robots and more automation the more bureaucracy as an offset of lost
jobs is what i believe in now. of course getting a "paper shuffling" job will
require many many more papers too.
whoever is in charge should not forget to balance the paper requirements for a paper job .. too much and nobody can find a job and the economy tanks ..errr...money to buy robot-made goods).
accordingly, that is if too little paper we get a bad off-set (everybody gets a job and
the scam becomes obvious)
(because nobody has paper
(Score: 1) by EQ on Wednesday March 19 2014, @08:23PM
I'm changing career field from engineering- I'm getting my RN. There isn't automation system or robot anywhere that can replace the human touch in terms of caring for patients. And I mean care in both senses of the word. until we can completely replicate a human being, there never will be.