The American dream worked quite well for baby boomers, and the post WWII generation. The only reason it doesn't work any more is because the systems we need in place to make it a real possibility for people have been systematically attacked and removed, because that system requires that we collectively pay for it. In a system geared toward the concentration of wealth (like all market driven economies), it starts to feel like a small group (people who are good at getting money into their pockets) are being picked on, and have to pay more than their fair share, and other forms of whining. In reality, the whole system has to work for any part to be stable. Keynes knew that, but modern neoliberals just want to believe they don't have to pay for a nice society - or they are just callous pricks who don't care. Either way, the American dream seems like a sham to those under 40 today, but it hasn't always been that way, and it doesn't always have to be that way. We just need to correct the system, just like we routinely have to do (check your older history books).

Social security insurance is just an insurance pool. The specific numbers written down are always meant to deal with the math of the time (and try to project forward), but they need to be updated once in a while. The system has been stable for over 80 years, and with only a small amount of effort can be stable for the next 80. It's not a complex system, though it would be nice if politicians (mostly Republicans) would stop messing with it for ideological reasons.

Stable insurance systems are all about scale, and no one scales better than government. The fed is actually quite good at insurance.

In capitalism, there are two important classes - employer/owner and employee/worker. In the US we have only 2 viable political parties (and really only one that can effectively set policy) - both represent different sets of owners/employers. It should be no surprise then that in a country with no working class political party, workers (and that includes workers with advanced degrees) get left behind or even worse, exploited.

Well it's that, but it's also the "stupid objectivity" problem. There is always an underlying op-ed position - even that is simply empiricism, as well as unspoken moral foundations, such as secularism, pluralism, etc. Edgar R. Murrows did certainly not give equal weight to two sides of a lynching disagreement the way CNN does give to torture today.

Genetic design will solve this. Once we start doing it on a large scale, adaptive evolution will be a thing of the past!

Or maybe he's now a very powerful person and that's intimidating? nah, let's go with the conspiracy theory!

Concepts of ownership don't have to remain they way they are now though. These concepts in the history of the human race are actually quite young, and capitalism is barely a zygote. For most of our existence, we didn't have such nonsense restraining us. What happens if automation leaves us with no more scarcity?

First, economists are little more than apologists for whatever the political class wants to do with the economy. Economics is far more voodoo than it is science, and especially in it's current culturally enforced scarcity constraints. Second, Milton Friedman was an especially harmful apologist. Third, it would great if machines did all the hard work, so we could have more leisure. I'm all for it. Fourth, you are right! We would still find things to do, but we wouldn't necessarily have to deal with the abuses of markets when we don't have the artificially imposed scarcity constraint any more (which will look increasingly silly as machines produce so much excess), which in the long thousands of years of history of mankind aren't that old anyway, and aren't even all that great, having been criticized even by the ancients like Plato and Socrates, who had no love for that particular method of wealth distribution.

All of this is to say he's even right - iPhones are still mostly made by hand...

All that money they own only has value when society agrees it does - who are they going to spend that with, if the value of whatever currency they hold collapses? The 0.01% are in the same system with the rest of us, whether they like it or not.

Why? Are capitalism (which can basically only be defined by your relationship with an employer) and markets the only way we can think of to distribute goods and services? Are our imaginations so limited?

Well not yet, but machine intelligence will be able to program itself eventually, and they'll do it better than you or me. You think your brain is anything more than a biological machine?

That's all beside the point. It's not the automation or the AI that's causing all this unemployment pain - it's the system surrounding them. Mechanization, automation, AI - these things can all be used to solve every human problem we've ever faced, yet, all we get are warnings of impending doom from our visionless "leaders". Give me a break.

We should be discussing how to configure our political and economic systems to distribute the benefits of these things in some fair way, rather than just trying to scare people senseless. We should also be discussing how to create machine intelligence that won't try to kill us. Both of these things are possible with enough imagination and vision.

Democrats are generally far too sensitive about what their opponents say about them. Look at all the things the Democratic side says about Republicans - does that ever modulate their behavior? No. And they are winning everywhere (partly) because of it.

I agree in principle - but it's only better if Trump replaces a policy he kills with something better. I have no confidence he can or will do that with TPP or ObamaCare, or anything else.

I completely agree - this is more of a successor for the 3DS and the DS family in general, which has had it's lunch eaten by iPad.

Someone at Nintendo made a statement about how the tech is ready to remove the distinction between mobile gaming and living room gaming, and I think they were right (graphics are good enough on iPad/iPhone and higher end Android devices). This device makes tablet gaming look more like traditional tactile gaming, with it's funky built in controllers, and it's powerfull enough (as was the Wii U - which as a side note should have been named something more distinct).

What this console doesn't solve is the content pipeline - AAA studios are going to continue to produce content for the more powerfull standard bearers on XBox and PS4 (and PC). They're not going to want to port to the smaller market share of Nintendo Switch. We may see iOS and Android ports, but in order for this to really be successful Nintendo will either need to produce a TON of content in house, or find some other way to get third party support for this directly. Being a successor for the 3DS may provide the necessary market share to incentivize proper game development on the platform.

Nintendo does need to solve their ridiculous single console game install policy though, I don't want to re-buy my virtual console games for a third or fourth time. Steam, Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store are the right model. Nintendo needs to stop fooling around.

If you think big companies and governments are truly separate, then I have a bridge to sell you. ;-)