Most definitely, I think work sharing is the way forward as a means.

But again, it means addressing labor unions, 'forcing' or 'assigning' people to work while still somehow making sure they are productive.

It's a socially difficult thing to do.

Like many utopias, it is the how you get there that is the issue.

I would venture to say we could have had a post-scarcity economy ever since 1920s or so (plus or minus a few decades) . I would suggest communism became a reality precisely because people could see that we could organize society and create adequate production and distribution for all.

The hard part is getting there.
As long as there is a single human job that needs doing, it will be hard to get there.

As long as you need people to do jobs that are not of their interest, it will be hard to get there.

This is a big one. It is relatively easy to imagine a world of people doing things out of their interest if you're an academic or doing something you love. It is much harder when you think of jobs you'd rather not do.

Even something like a doctor, which would be a job that might exist just out of interest. You'd have to ask, if you'd want to be that doctor working the 3 AM midnight shift in the ER instead of lounging off the state?

Already in the Western world, we have the mentality that some jobs should be done by immigrants or overseas? We don't want to work our own farms, take care of our own elderly in old homes...

Already we have issues with labor unions wanting a better standard of living than the rest. We have rich people who want to keep more of their money. Already we have homelessness. We have people who demand more of the state than the state can afford. We have monetary issues...

I'm not saying some government won't come up with way of solving this. I'm just saying, it is the how we get there that is the hard part. We'd had the technical means for quite some time.

I agree it is a horrible idea.

On a more general note, there is this huge push in government to find 'revenue tools'

I use that word because it is the word they use now. I'm in Ontario, Canada and this is the new word of the day to find ways to pay for new infrastructure or healthcare or whatever.

The issue is that these revenue tools are just meant to hide reality or to shove the costs onto a group of people as if there is a moral reason they deserve it!

Probably the most obvious case for this is taxing drivers to fund transit, and this is 'moral' because cars are 'bad'. I have nothing against more transit, but I do have a beef that drivers should pay for transit. In many cases, it is the rich who live downtown near a subway and then won't have to pay a darn thing. Meanwhile, it is the poor and middle class who live in areas where you need a car. It's just not a moral cause to take transit. We'd all take transit if we lived near it and our work was near a stop as well and we could get there in a timely manner. It's just many people don't and so they drive.

We already have all the taxes in place to fund these things. We have income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, estate taxes...
There is no need for any other form of revenue tool. Just raise the rates for the current ones if you think society needs to. Otherwise, make the program cheaper or don't do it.

The day software is repetitive as the wall builder is the day we can offer such a guarantee.

Lucky for us, the compiler is pretty darn good and repetitive that we could do it for such a task.

I will guarantee that the same code compiled over and over again will perform the same.

The answer to the boss is really that the compiler is the builder.
I am not a manufacturing worker. I am the mechanical engineer.
I am not a construction worker. I am a civil engineer.
I am not a compiler. I am a designer.

How often do designers of any kind offer guarantees? It is rare.
If they do it it is for routine things. I could offer a guarantee for a simple SQL select statement!

That is the perspective your boss needs.

I'm also often amazed how people miss this rather obvious point. So much of education IS to differentiate students. I wouldn't say it's the whole of it, but it's a very big part of how our society operates.

Who gets into med school?
Who gets into law school?
How do you justify some jobs getting paid more than others in areas that are not ruled by the free market (governement jobs, professions...)
Who gets some great grad school spot
Who gets a professional job after graduation?
Who gets the high end law articling position? ...

All these things are very much based on education and what grades you get.

Take that away, and 90% of the population would end up being a doctor/lawyer and no doubt we'd introduce some silliness to stop that from happening.

What evidence do you have that teachers are underpaid in America relative to other countries?

America spends more per student on education than most countries.

http://www.businessinsider.com...

That's one link, but almost any other will show the same result.

Even comparing teacher salaries to other jobs results in them being paid well in the United States.

I think preference is a big part of it.

However, this does not mean systemic issues cannot be a factor. There are a lot of things about STEM that are not inherent to STEM or anyone being interested in STEM.

1. Be willing to be on call 24/7... why should this be the case? Maybe this should change.
2. Spend free time researching and learning? Really... I need this for my job? No I don't and companies can train people.
3. Forgoing human contact? There is no reason for this again. Many tech jobs heavily involve communication be it for product planning, support, design meetings... ...

I would dare say these are issues for many men as well.
Many more woman have become doctors as well for example. It has been documented they don't work as hard or as crazy as their male counterparts.
http://www.schoolofpublicpolic...

But is that a problem? Sure, they can and probably are paid less. Yet, they still serve patients very well.
I'm sure there are many young men as well who would want to be a less overworked doctor as well.

There is nothing intrinsic about being a doctor that involves working crazy hours or 24 hour shifts in the ER.

The same is true for software/engineering.

We can and we should be legislating and addressing these lifestyle issues in regards to careers. If after that is all done people still choose gender like jobs... well that is all fine and dandy.

Bad projects get dumped on other teams and contractors all the time. As a regular employee, you sometimes have little choice in the matter. You simply voice your opinion to your manager and hope they can side line it. Alternatively, you move around internally and try and work on good projects.

But as a contractor, I am curious why you don't approach this as every other contractor you deal with in other fields. Ever tried to hire a home renovator, repair person...

1. Look at the job
2. If the current software is a mess, just like every other home renovator or auto mechanic, it's not something you want to work on for your regular price. You're going to have to charge more and take more time to fix various things. So make a note of what needs to change and the risks...
3. Present that to your client without judgment. Who knows why it got in this state. The superstar developer could be a superstar, but just rushed something as a prototype that management decided to put into production for example. Then see if they're want to do and if they're willing to put in the time and effort to fix it.

But just remember your status as a contractor like any other. If you renovate basements, but someone didn't do the foundation properly, the walls were leaking, the insulation was missing, someone already tried to patch it up with filler and left all kinds of bumps on the wall... you're not going to just do it for the regular fee.

Treat software the same way.

The 'cloud' business will see a lot more embracing of 'open source' and sharing because the business is not so dependent on them.

Microsoft's play in cloud service is going to be based on its business clout, huge cash balance to spend on infrastructure, integration and management overlays...

None of this depends on the underlying technologies of the servers in the farms. It is in everyone's best interest to share whatever designs and optimizations they can in this area. Maybe a new design for cooling comes out of it...reducing power usage and what not.

All true, but it doesn't make the study any less valid.

That smaller sample group for say Indians tends to have those 'superior' attitudes, as well strive to prove themselves, and self control. The same was true as other have pointed out of the original American founders...

It might be that these values correlate to success. It just so happens that most Indians do not have these values. On this point it is very true.

There are a billion Indians. Their values and culture are more diverse than comparing any part of the US. Full of educated, elitists, old money, hicks, religious nutjobs... But the successful, educated one... the ones who form the successful groups in the US, they might very well subscribe to the triple package.

That point is still very valid. It might mean that other groups and subcultures might need a bit more of the triple package and we shouldn't be afraid to push for such change in society to encourage things like self-control, striving for success... Instead of ignoring cultures where these are not dominant values and pretending like they should automatically achieve the same success.

To put it rather crudely, if your culture is about grinding a man genitals against a woman's buttocks, and keeping it real by not holding back for civil behavior, and there is little shame in having multiple baby mammas... you're probably not going to be a very successful group of people. You might end up with a lot of unwed couples and a lack of leaders. You might need to actually change that culture. People actually might need to change their ways.

On this, I find it disturbing the Western World doesn't push it more. It used to be British culture to be polite and patient and wait in line... These values are not taught any more in Britain. Values used to be pushed into society. They are not anymore. That unfortunately is a shame.

You don't seem to understand the modern progressive outlook for the Western World.

Western people should only do interesting work or government work.

Everything else is built upon mass immigration from the developing world who will do the work Western people don't want to do (for a variety of reason... low pay, too much technical training for the pay, no job security, too much risk...).

Then you tax the immigrants and use it to provide welfare for the Western people unable to do interesting or government work.

This is the same pattern from Michigan, California, to Canada to Europe.

I'm not even saying this to knock it, but it's pretty darn apparent that is how they envision life. In some ways, if they can make it work, it works quite well. The immigrants win by supposedly taking on a better job and moving to a better area.
The western society wins by gaining a tax base and jobs.
And hopefully the left overs in the Western world are able to be supported by enough of a tax base created by the immigrant population to make it a win-win-win.

Now of course, I don't see it as particularly workable. But that's the theory that much of the progressive Western World has been based on for the past few decades.

Well no, the solution to the problem if you want to be all libertarian about it is for the workers to collude as much as the owners collude.

A union is a really good idea for workers and are perfectly in line with libertarian ideals (aside from the special protection they get from government and the public sector).

While I understand your distinction of freeloaders who are ideologically opposed to contributing, I would hesitate very much to push them to use their own proprietary software.

One of the many benefits of open source is that you can get common implementations, which makes interoperability so much better. It also means you do get newer and better products for society as they're not spending time rebuilding the wheel.

It's not a bad idea... except $50/year is a bit much for something without too many changes :P

You can't charge ownership level prices for subscriptions.

Something like $20/year would be better.

I'm not wise enough to know the answer to all questions. But I do wonder why people have some weird loyalty to 'public schools'. In my world, the goal of education is to make sure that children are educated.

If a student can get that education at a public school or charter school or private school... I personally have no issue with that.

But some people hold onto some notion of the 'public' in 'public' school and think it is better. Some common arguments and my counter arguments are below.

1. Public schools makes children play together.
This is perhaps the biggest farce in history. Throughout the world, and I've lived in 3 countries (South Africa, Canada, and the US a few years back). In every country, parents will literally move to a 'good' neighborhood to let their kids go to a 'good' school. I'm pretty sure you could make an equally compelling argument that public schools segregate people more by making entire families move to new neighborhoods. This happened in Detroit as the biggest example. But I'm in Canada now and its pretty much the same. Public schools are not diverse. People self-segregate based on neighborhood.

2. Public schools can ensure standards of education.
Maybe at one point they might have had a case. But with lowering standards, just passing kids to get rid of them... you can't really make this case anymore. Besides standardized tests tend to ensure some minimal level of standards.

3. Something to do with money.
Right now, the rich can just send their kid to a private school if they want. If the poor/middle class want to, they probably can't afford it. Vouchers or having the government pay for it would help equalize things a bit.

4. Something to do with 'for-profit' schools.
This one can be easily solved by making sure independent schools are non-profit.

Canada is actually a pretty interesting study as schools are under provincial control, so we can see different models.

Canada has school choice for BC and Alberta. I could be wrong, but I think BC requires schools to be non-profit and both require fully qualified teachers.

What's interesting of course is that you can't really make a compelling argument that charter/independent schools bring about all the bad stuff people talk about.
On all the social stuff, BC/Alberta are pretty much the same as Ontario or any other province.

Heck, even Sweden has school choice.

So what's the harm in giving people choice to go to another school? The evidence would indicate, at least in a country like Canada, that society doesn't crumble and it allows various forms of experimentation and maybe it makes things better... who knows.

Rather than asking charter schools to prove they are so much better than public schools, why not ask if public schools are so much better that it justifies the government monopoly/tax dollars used exclusively for it.

The default position should be freedom of choice, Freedom can of course be restricted for a variety of reasons. But right now, based on the evidence, I don't see a compelling case that would justify it.