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Comment Not a new problem (Score 1) 899

People of retirement age have been asking this same question on a personal level since time immemorial. Do I take my pension/investments and quit this mind numbing job, or do I keep working because I donâ(TM)t know what Iâ(TM)d do with myself outside of work. Some people are creative and independent, other people need a structure applied from externally. Some people make their best contributions to society outside of the structure of a paycheck, and some people have no internal motivation to accomplish anything unless forced to. Would Tesla have invented as prolifically without wealthy patronage giving him a basic income for free, outside of the structure of a paycheck? Would Jeff Bezos have created the second biggest company in the history of the known Universe had he not quit his job? ... Would Ford have created the assembly line system as an abstract thing without doing it for profit? Would Eisenhower have found leadership skills outside of the structure of the Army? Different strokes for different folks. But we shouldnâ(TM)t demonize one or the other group just because we reside in the other one. This of course sets aside the moral proposition of prioritizing spending in ways that may or may not minimize suffering.

Comment Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo (Score 5, Interesting) 541

It's not welfare, per se; it's paying people to pursue their own goals. It provides a safe income for artists, musicians, and entertainers to be able to create new media without going through the creativity killing workforce. When people are free of a financial burden they will be free to innovate and pursue their dreams. The reason why modern Americans don't use their free time to do this already is because the American capitalist economy is a burden, not a release. People don't have time or energy to innovate because they're a cog in the wheel. If we release them from the machine, they'll be working for their own joy and not for the bottom line of some giant corporation.

Comment Re:"people largely irrelevant" (Score 1) 541

I'll ask this question, which has come up before: If nobody has a job, then where the [bad language redacted] will they find CUSTOMERS?

Customers are the people that install, repair, and maintain the machines and technology that automate our lives. People are going to have to shift from flipping burgers (which doesn't pay hardly enough to make anyone a consumer of any choice, it only shifts money down and then back up in an endless and meaningless cycle) to the logistics involved behind the technology.

Comment Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo (Score 4, Insightful) 541

Better be ready to be beat up when layed off workers find out it's better to be in lock up then out on the street.

This is why the principle of automation and machine intelligence goes hand in hand with the concept of the Universal Basic Income and free education. So we can create an educated workforce, and those who cannot work have a strong societal safety net that's easy to administrate.

Comment 'Refill with water every 200 mi' (Score 1) 247

So the battery supposedly has a 1,000 mile range, but you have to stop every 100 to 200 miles to refill it with water? ... So it only has a 100-200 mile range. And on top of that, it's a disposable (recyclable) battery, not a rechargable one ... pros and cons to that, but it does require an infrastructure of replacement battery stations. Certainly better in my opinion than a charging station, but at least charging stations exist.

Comment Re:Knows and Presumes are not the same thing (Score 2) 473

This actually raises interesting questions about stereotypes and whether or not they are true, which I think would be a bane in the opinion of most minority groups. Stereotypes, after all, are just statistical observations. This study would seem to provide significant evidence to support stereotypes, and I think that's even more impactful on society than any privacy concerns you may have about how your public actions (in this case, 'Liking' on Facebook) portray your personal beliefs.

Comment Re:Barbara Streisand Effect? (Score 1) 700

You may not have heard about it, but plenty of other people did when Tesla's stock price plummeted 2.5% moments after the review was uploaded to New York Times's website. The damage was immediate. In other words, Tesla lost $100 Million in capital in a matter of minutes because of the New York Times's review. That could be a devastating libel claim, but in the mean time, Tesla has to deal with $100 million fewer dollars.

Comment Re:Problem? (Score 4, Funny) 644

Not that I would intuitively think Germany actually gets more sunlight than the U.S., but when a scientist (such as myself) says I used a model to extrapolate something, or normalized to conditions, it basically means I performed transformative maths to make the data look good enough to get grant money so I can get tenure because my stats program shot out more asterisks at me, all while being as obtusely transparent about it as I need to be to feel a sufficient amount of moral ambiguity.

Comment Aside from hype, Apple's real policy... (Score 3, Informative) 601

... is merely to ban apps that contain checkpoint information that is not publicly available. A Checkpoint app that uses data from public police information is still acceptable, and nearly every police department in the nation not only publishes their checkpoint dates and locations, but ADVERTISES THEM on TV and the local news.

Everybody wants so much drama where there actually isn't any. It's annoying.

Comment Re:Tell the person (Score 1) 619

I also have received a few mistyped emails, where my email address contains no period between my names, someone else's is the same but does contain a period. I have not received important information, just friends of this other person typing in the wrong address. I've simply responded letting them know and I have not gotten them in a long time, but if you're getting important stuff like bank data, then email the person they are supposed to be going to to let them know. I RECOMMEND NOT FORWARDING THE EMAILS, i.e. the emails with bank account information, because that will probably upset someone possibly into suing you for hacking or something dumb like that. People are paranoid these days.

In addition, I have filled out my online profiles to include state of residence and a photo picture just in case anyone is searching for a person they know they can verify very quickly that I am not that person. It helps.

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