At some point all that employment is going to plateau for the people creating all the shit for people (arguably now, or in the next 20 years). To use the GP's point, if a machine replaces 3 workers (that only requires 1 worker for machine maintenance), then that leaves 2 people unemployed. And your point is spot on here too; those 2 displaced workers will generally have to find work in another industry (services), as all the ex-farmers and ex-factory workers have had to do in the last 100 years or so.

But at some point, what we refer to as "jobs" now are diminishing. The numbers of human laborers needed for general manufacturing or farming is at an all time low and generally sufficient for the population in developed countries. Look at how much stuff we have already; the demand for more luxuries isn't going to increase (at least, not as much as it will displace workers. We'll probably see some increase in services, but this will eventually plateau too.

I guess the point I was trying to get at, was what's considered a "job" (at least the GPs definition) will be scarcer at some point in history, and there aren't going to be replacement jobs. There's only so many doctors, nurses, dentists, assistants, other service jobs necessary to keep the population comfortable and happy, while the lion's share of production and transportation will be done by robots. Maybe we'll see people keeping themselves busy with more volunteering, creating art or music, playing sports, or just playing video games & socializing. But those aren't "jobs" by today's definition (maybe for the 0.1% of artists and athletes that can actually make a living at it). So yeah, maybe if we have a basic income and everyone can live somewhat comfortably on that, then we can redefine what those "jobs" are (I'd love to do this and just play / create music, personally). But there won't be enough of those jobs out there by today's definition.

If you have any doubts to the validity of this statement, see video game releases over the last decade (Arkham Knight, Assassin's Creed Unity, etc..). Except now instead of just not being able to play a game, your primary method of transportation might be disabled now. Or maybe the likeliness of an accident has been increased substantially.

So, basically he set up a scenario where people taking the subway couldn't use their cell phones. Or as I like to call it, "When I used to take the subway a decade ago".

The horror of denying access to electronic communication in a location! Throw the book at him!

Aside from many of the privacy issues (already mentioned here by other) was that fact that you needed an invite in order to initially register for an account. When there was some buzz about google + I thought I'd check it out, but couldn't. This was there for at least 3 months and if you somehow got one, you were limited to sending out 15 invites! I don't think I know a single person on Facebook with less than 15 "friends".

That was the real suicide for G+ in my opinion. Most people generally don't give a crap about their privacy (at least non-tech types); that's why they're on Facebook in the first place; to tell the world what they're up to and see what they're up to. But if the entire point of a social networking site is to get you and your friends using it, then why the hell would you restrict that or limit that? Maybe google thought this would word because Facebook was initially college-exclusive. Or maybe because gmail was initially invite only; they didn't think much of it. But this was the far bigger nail in the coffin in my opinion. They needed to get as many people as possible to jump ship from Facebook (or at least try it out, or have accounts on both) in order to get it to work, but they put in an artificial scarcity on access. Surprise surprise; if you got an invite and did join, you found it was a ghost town after a month and went back to Facebook where all your friends are.

Personally, I like to call that time frame selection "Sportscaster statistics". If you're ever watching or listening to highlights or pre-game hype, you'll always hear the most convenient data sampling selection to fit the narrative of a winning or losing streak. "They've won 3 of their last 4!" means they won 3 of the last 5. "Dropped 7 of the last 9" almost certainly indicates they lost 7 of the last 10 games, or maybe 7 out of 11. For some reason, a team never seems to be just average, they're always on a hot or cold streak.

If that number isn't rounded to 5 or 10, or a multiple of 10 (for a fairly low sampling size greater than 10 but less than 100), you should be skeptical of the data and immediately assume the number was picked to fit a narrative.

How do you know it's GMOs causing it? You said yourself that when you switched to "organic, grass fed, no pesticides, no herbicides milk" - suddenly no problem. You've just lumped GMO into the same category as "organic" and assume the health results are a result of it being GMO.

You realize that it may just be the pesticides and not necessarily the GMO-ness of the food? You're aware that food can be *both* GMO and organic, right? Organic simply means that no pesticides or chemical fertilizers were used in the production.

Could be lots of things :

- Genetically engineered airborne supervirus (think 12 Monkeys movie plot)
- Self replicating nano-bot swarm / grey goo
- Actual AI replacing humans
- Nukes
- New type of super-weapon (like a hydrogen bomb) that requires significantly less effect or difficult materials to create

This concept really isn't new; it's one of the ideas of why we haven't seen any evidence of life outside Earth (fermi paradox); that civilizations eventually destroy themselves via technology before they establish bases on other planets. Humans are certainly in that category right now; there's enough nukes out there in existence to do that. The point being made, is that scientific advancements will make it easier for a single individual to kill more other people (possibly wipe out the whole human race) than in any other point in history.

As long as we have a concept of individuality (meaning not a hive mind), there's a risk that some individuals will trigger the downfall of civilization as we know it, and kill all humans (fulfilling the wishes of Bender Rodriguez). This is especially true with the current social and political situations we have now. Whether it's a nutty eco-terrorist looking to wipe out all humans to return to a "natural" state, or a religious fanatic hoping to trigger the apocalypse, or just someone mentally ill - scientific progress will continue to increase the likeliness for a single individual (or a handful) to wipe out humanity. Pretty sure that was the point

Sadly, this is probably the only way the NSA is ever going to be dismantled - when the biggest supporters and cheerleaders from the NSA realize their own conversations are being recorded.

Hey NSA employees! Are you concerned about the overreach of the spying capabilities of your organization? Would you like to do something about it, but not face prison time like Manning, or live a live of exile like Snowden? Well here's your chance to start Operation Dirty Laundry! Find some juicy tidbits from important people out there and stick 'em on the interwebs! Perhaps some sort of exchange between Obama and his doctor, discussing his hemorrhoid problem. Or perhaps a nice conversation between Rubio and Mitch McConnel discussing what a sea cow Angela Merkel is. Maybe a conversation between Paul Ryan and his wife about how she caught one of their kids with pornography. Or how about a tech-heavy conversation between Hillary and one of her aides over her smart phone? Boy I'd love to hear that last one - is she truly tech-ignorant about her private server, or is she playing dumb? Either way, great!

But anyway, it's not time to play party favorites here - try to be equally fair here to both parties here. And don't post anything career-ending for them; just mildly embarrassing content that you wouldn't want your co-workers to know about. They can't take action if their careers are over. Ideally we want the most vocal congressmen and presidential candidates still in the running. Now get to it!

I came across this gem recently : http://www.wisdomofchopra.com/

So, instead of having at least a chance of being home to answer the door with a human driver knocking / ringing the doorbell - the drone is going to drop off the package on my doorstep with no notice? Sure, I suppose you could integrate some app / notification system on a smartphone or something - but that's not going to help if I don't have a smartphone (or it's not around when the package is delivered).

Imagine for a minute that certain drinks with no added salt / sugar were forced to have a label (WARNING: Conatains electrolytes). Or perhaps some like (Contains Di-hydrogen monoxide). How many ignorant people would change their buying patterns based on that? What benefit would this provide for your average consumer?

That's the issue here. Today the anti-GMO argument is "Well, if there's nothing wrong with GMOs, then why don't you label them?" If labeling is enforced, then 10 years from now the anti-GMO movement will be saying "Oh yeah, well if there's nothing bad about GMOs, why are they forced to label them?"

Cab prices are high and fares are inflated because of artificial scarcity via taxi medallions. That's the real issue here. This is why you wait over an hour on a late weekend night, or 3+ hours on new year's eve for a taxi. Cab drivers either have to buy a medallion at a ridiculously inflated price (via a 2nd mortgage or something) OR they have to lease one out from $$richowner$$ who makes money by doing absolutely nothing (at the expense of every cab patron, who pays slightly more).

. Oh, the irony in your post. I'm surprised you didn't mention the "parasitical senior executives of craigslist taking away jobs from pawn shop owners that can't support their families".

If you're going to criticize anything Uber does, it should be the blatant disregard for local regulations that put taxis at a disadvantage. Force them to adhere to the same standards that taxis have to do (passenger insurance, proper bookkeeping to ensure drivers pay income tax, sales tax if applicable on fares, etc..) Once they're all on the same playing field, then there's nothing legitimate for taxis to complain about.

And finally, your "race to the bottom of the wage barrel" doesn't really apply here. If prices drop and your average uber driver makes less, then the consumers and passengers benefit! If the level field is completely even and your average cab fare is much lower, then the cab drivers were making far more than they would have via normal supply and demand . The only losers are those that own the medallions (and the taxi drivers who provide shitty customer service; who are forced to clean up their cabs, play music that the customer wants to hear, and clear their cars more frequently. Boo hoo).

I don't know about you, but I don't think He-Man and his crew sought to discourage women from employment in certain fields. His actions appeared to be fairly progressive for the mid-80's. After all, his twin sister had basically the same job in a male-dominated career of villain foiling and he seemed perfectly fine with that.

No, YOU are talking about harassment. Harassment != Offense. Comments or actions that aren't directed towards specific individuals or organizations don't qualify as harassment. Read the link here; this isn't about harassment. Colleges and campuses are classifying statements like "I believe the most qualified individual should get the job" as offensive microaggressions. As soon as anyone becomes offended by a statement, then it's censored.

That's the issue we are talking about here. Harassment still isn't tolerated on campuses, and it's not the topic of conversation here.

You're right in that air conditioning is technically a subset of refrigeration, but I don't think that air conditioning really revolutionized society (or disrupted) in the same sense here, so that's why it's not included or mentioned here. Having air conditioning is more of a luxury, being able to enjoy a slightly cooler room in the heat. Having a small compartment between -20 and 5 degrees radically altered socialization, commerce, food preparation, etc..