Exactly, which is why GMOs, like antibiotics, should be used very judiciously, not strewn about all over the place!

That depends on what the "new economic opportunities in an area for certain kinds of people" actually are. If we're talking about gentrification in Silicon Valley because of high programmer salaries then that's probably OK. If we're talking about gentrification in South Africa because of apartheid then that's not OK. Gentrification in historically-black neighborhoods in US cities is somewhere between, and the degree to which it's OK depends on how much of the difference in affluence can be attributed to the lingering effects of segregation.

Does anyone have a plan for this?

Your phrasing implies that we need to have some sort of centrally managed plan to handle the fallout of disruptive technologies. We don't, and realistically, can't.


It's fine to say; "Well, just learn something new" when it's not you with a family and a tight budget having to jump into the marketplace and retrain while competing with people who've done that task their entire life

I run the risk of someone creating a "real" AI today that can out-code any human on the planet. That would instantly put my entire profession on the unemployment line. I have hedged against that threat by choosing positions that allow me to diversify my skillset (both in terms of experience and education), making me qualified to work in any of a dozen broad categories of "professional" positions.

I would recommend cabbies (and Uber drivers, as you point out) start doing the same today - They can already see the writing on the wall, and still have time to act accordingly.

The world changes around us. We need to adapt, or die - Simple as that, really.

Wait... Some companies actually give programmers a drug test?

And they actually manage to find any? Wow, impressive! Or rather, can I get a list of these companies so I can short their stock, since they apparently resort to people that desperate for a job?

Our (illegal) drugs-of-choice vary, but I can count the number of programmers I know who don't use anything on one finger (and even she has "tried" weed, "back in college").

Every instance of NSA surveillance that affects even a single person within the borders of the United States is illegitimate and illegal (specifically, a violation of the Fourth Amendment).

dimwit, how else will people pay attention? inconveniencing the idle rich IS THE WHOLE POINT of non-violent protesting.

"Non-violent protest" doesn't include flipping cars, burning tires, beating up drivers, and blocking emergency vehicles,

As for "the whole point" - Yeah, look how well shutting down critical infrastructure worked for PATCO.

I feel sympathetic toward cabbies, I really do - Their industry basically died overnight because someone came up with an alternative that makes them irrelevant. All the world's protectionist systems of placards and medallions and special licensing, "poof", suddenly worthless.

Finding new lines of work sucks, no doubt. But when you manufacture buggy-whips, you implicitly depend on the continued use of horse-based transportation to make your living. Similarly, when you deliver low quality rudely-delivered service at a high price and with upcharges for the top 90% of destinations - You implicitly depend on a complete lack of any viable alternatives.

I believe GP was talking about home users, and it seems pretty obvious that he was.

I am the GGP, and specifically mentioned "coworkers". The GP said nothing to change that context.

California's rolling blackouts were caused by Enron manipulating the deregulated market, not lack of generation capacity.

1. 1. Offer sub-prime mortgages to people, enticing them to buy houses they can't afford them long term. Profit.
2. 2. Repackage the bad parts of the debt and sell it off to chumps (like the retirement plans of the mortgagees from step #1). Profit again.
3. 3. Foreclose on the mortgagees when they stop being able to pay. Profit a third time.
4. 4. Use the huge losses on paper (because the foreclosed houses are now worth less) to get a gigantic bailout from the government. Profit a fourth time.
5. 5. Incorporate an REIT and buy up almost all of those houses at below-market value. Profit a fifth time.
6. 6. Rent them back out (at inflated "post-recovery" market rates) to the same poor chumps whose life savings you stole in steps #2 and #3. Profit a sixth time, and again and again, and then profit some more!

Unlike so many Slashdot business plans, this one requires no ellipses.

Screw the computer stuff; I'm excited to hear about this new technology that lets gigantic cargo ships sail to Wyoming!

They had a perfect opportunity to use a bottle inside a paper bag as their project logo, but no, they had to use a stupid yellow square instead!

Or would you claim that the video game industry is itself unacceptably narrow?

Yes, it is.

I certainly don't recommend going into that industry, but if you insist, you could try Atlanta. Georgia has a tax credit that's caused some companies to locate here. They're not making AAA games and they're startups that'll fail in a year or so, but at least you can get experience in a city with reasonable rent.

(I know this because my wife worked in that industry as an artist for several years, at a series of startups. She got laid off once a year, on average. When the tax credit expired the work dried up and she switched to graphic design. Even though the tax credit was renewed, she hasn't been able to find another gaming industry job.)

The point is that it's a problem when people who were born and raised in an area can't buy there

This can happen due to

1. land monopolists/collusioninsts, and

Of course, that point #1 is in fact what's happening. First the investor class made a bunch of money off mortgage-backed securities, then when the bubble burst they got bailed out by the government while normal people lost their homes to foreclosure, then they formed REITs and bought up all the devalued homes, and now they're making tons more money renting them back to their victims.

Yeah, fantastic suggestion! Say, could you just convince my boss, his boss, and three more layers up, that we need to:

• Scrap $300k in MS licensing and established server deployments,
• Spend a year or two rewriting everything we have in production that depends on Windows or IIS,
• Replace or retrain our entire netops, infosec, and helpdesk with people who know Linux,
• Retrain 15k users and watch their productivity drop to a crawl for at least six months...

...Just so we can switch to an OS that "cares"? ;)

I like Linux. I run Linux at home. But I make my living putting up with Windows.

This. People just looove it when their homepage or search provider changes. Why, just the other day, a coworker told me how much he loved Bing coming back after every round of Windows updates.

Oh, no, wait, he switched to Chrome because he hated it so much. Take the hint, Marissa.

As an aside, though - Does anyone actually allow Java to update itself? Of all the common self-updating software out there, Java easily wins as the single most obnoxious. Aside from hijacking the top result when I type "update" in the start menu's search bar... Aside from running all the fucking time rather than just when Java starts... Aside from nagging the user more relentlessly than even the far more legitimate Windows update (Bing aside) - It actively breaks shit every time it updates. You had one job, Larry...