Incidentally, I think you need to read your philosophy coursebook a little more closely. An "atheist" is someone who does not believe in the existence of any gods. That is *it*. Rejection of belief in gods does not, in and of itself, require acceptance of the postulate "you should just be rational."

While it is true that many atheists would probably agree with the statement "you should just be rational," most will have very different ideas about what constitutes "rationality" in any given circumstance and some may object entirely. And in any case, accepting even this statement doesn't reject the possibility of making and honoring laws. Doing so could be considered a very rational behavior (the argument is left to the student).

Being an atheist also does not, in and itself, require rejection of a religion. Many sects of Buddhism, for example, deny the existence of any gods and as such are atheist. New-age weirdos can deny the existence of god as well and still believe in auras and energies and what-not. Again...many atheists might also reject these belief systems, but it is not a requirement of the word.

Some might try to argue that there is a chain of reasoning at work...something like rejection of god means rejection of religion which means rejection of religious codes of morality which means rejections of any code of morality which means acceptance of the only possibility left which is "you should act rationally," but such a chain of reasoning is philosophically sloppy with incorrect assumptions each step of the way. Though being an atheist doesn't automatically make someone a rigorous philosopher, so plenty of atheists might think this way.

I am also curious about how it has been "mathematically proven that there never are any rational course[s] of action." Mathematics generally deals with the modeling of quantifiable relationships, whereas "rationality" is more in the domain of psychology, sociology, economics, and perhaps philosophy. Does the proof look like this?:

Let x = .33333... (repeating infinitely)
let y = 1/3

therefore: x = y
therefore 3x = 3y
therefore (3)(.3333...) = (3)(1/3)
therefore (.9999...) = (3/3)
therefore (.9999...) = 1
therefore there is never a rational course of action.

Seems pretty unlikely to me.

He isn't stating facts so much as attempting to create them. From that perspective, everything he says makes perfect sense.

Since you could, in theory, take politically-impactful action, every person with a political agenda has a direct incentive to influence your opinions. Writing a piece that tells you what your emotional response should be is a common way of doing that.

There is nothing wrong with complaining about this, of course, but don't expect it to change. Better to maintain eternal vigilance in your guardianship of your ability to form independent conclusions, especially when confronted with such biased information sources.

Most developers I have known believe that their productivity is so much higher than their peers that they can justify slacking off. I asked in private, after establishing trust, because I found it interesting. Each member of the team considered himself superior to the other members of the team. Clearly, they couldn't all have been right.

Technicians, it seems, are inherently arrogant. Though I suspect this is true of all people, not just technicians.

But whenever I hear "I am so good I don't have to work as hard" I just assume the person is using their enormous ego to justify their sloth.

Be that as it may...it is still bullshit that people should be expected to work the equivalent of two jobs in order to pull a barely-middle-class salary. However, the labor market seems full of young-uns who are willing to accept these terms. In the long run they are harming themselves and everyone in their industry...but....they are also going home with a paycheck.

This problem is not specific to the tech industry, and it isn't caused by any particular government policy. While it is true that the high allowance of H1B visas are adding fuel to the fire, tightening the restrictions won't put the fire out.

The older, more experienced workers who can't find jobs are absolutely worth the salary that they are requesting. However, there aren't very many businesses that actually need that level of experience and quality. The market for their products will bear a lower level of quality, and in fact the customers wouldn't be willing to buy if the price tag was higher even if the quality level more than made up for it. So the businesses don't need and can't justify the cost of top-tier talent.

Also, as everyone is aware, the total number of tech businesses only shrinks over time. This is a natural progression of the free market; the winners buy up the losers and centralize efforts, meaning that a smaller number of engineers is making products that serve a bigger market.

To put it simply: you only need one team of engineers to make the iPhone in order for everyone who could afford one to be able to have one. You also only need one team of developers to make a solid office suite in order for the whole world to be able to use it.

Yes, there is still some competition in the market. We will probably never reach a state of true global monopoly. However, there is a whole lot less competition than there used to be, and that shrinkage (though asymptotic) will continue. That is, in fact, how a free market is expected to work. The winners eliminate the competition and then establish monopolies or cartels, and the need for skilled labor plummets. So we can safely predict a supply of top-tier talent that is much greater than the demand.

In theory you can respond to this problem with government and/or union intervention. In practice the end result is never as good as the theory should be.

If we invent a new wildly disruptive technology we may create some young markets with lots of demand for laborers, but in these mature markets (like software development and computer engineering) it is better to recognize the reality and make plans accordingly. If you are young and looking to enter tech, either:

1) expect to move up to management, and build your skillset and all your career decisions around this expectation. Also, actively push this agenda on your employers.

-or-

2) Find a job with long-term prospects at a company with a reputation for retaining talent, and keep your costs of living nice and low as you invest as much as you can.

I'm sorry if both options are unappealing. I didn't create the world, I am just observing it.

Government officials should be held accountable to the laws they create and enforce. This is *ESPECIALLY* true when the law is a bad law that blocks people from doing things that are completely reasonable. That helps ensure that "they" feel the same pain as "us," which in turn furthers the cause of getting the bad laws corrected.

One law for them and another for us is a basic ingredient of tyranny.

The motto is not "Do no evil," it is "Don't BE evil." That is important because a person can do a little evil now and then but still not really BE evil so long as he feels appropriately guilty afterwords (and tries to make up for it or not to continue doing it).

Not that this matters, of course. "Evil" is an ambiguous word, especially in an economic environment where everyone *must* compete over scarce resources.

What, you think being a programmer somehow cures someone of greed?

Just as businesses face real incentives to get as much work out of employees for as little money as possible, employees face real incentives to get as much money out of employers while contributing as few hours as possible.

While there are some people who are satisfied with "enough," it is human nature to want more.

The wealthy members of every nation are, naturally, united in their desire to remain wealthy. The introduction of globally-enforced artificial scarcity appears to be a great way of doing that. It isn't like the wealthy members of EU would rather see ACTA vanish, but are bowing their heads in submission to America. They are happily jumping at the chance to enter into such an agreement, because it directly benefits them. Or so they think.

Such oppression will only fan the flames of rebellion, and law enforcement will always have limits.

In theory, a user could upload all the maps to the car's computer while at home, after downloading them via an encrypted connection from a reputable source. That would need to be done maybe once a year or even less often.

Then the cars wouldn't need a wireless connection at all. They just run off of stored maps, and adapt and re-route when unexpected road closures or what-not are encountered, just like a human would.

In theory.

In practice, the cars will have wireless connections that do all kinds of routing, ostensibly to offer superior proactive route planning and event adaptation. Such a feature will allow businesses to easily harvest valuable marketing data, transmit valuable location-specific advertising, and would also grant authorities superior monitoring capacity and (best of all) the ability to remotely lock you in your car and make it drive right to the station.

All self-driving cars will have this...it will be mandated by law...and yes it will be sadly insecure and frequently hacked by criminals (of both varieties...self-employed and government-employed).

Thank you for submitting your petition. Bribery is a serious offence which threatens the stability of governance, and as such we will not tolerate this behavior and will of course prosecute anyone who is caught engaging in it. However, based on our preliminary investigation, there is not enough evidence to merit a case.

Campaign contribution is a means by which one can legally support the spreading of information about one's political ideals. In and of itself, this is not bribery. Furthermore, it is reasonable to expect a politician who represents himself as an advocate for a specific political party to openly support, and take action that directly supports, the stated political positions of that party.

Chris Dodd observed that some candidates deviated from their party's stated position. Further, he observed this after having made significant campaign contributions to the party in question. While his words may have been ill-chosen, the mere expression of frustration over such position-switching is not sufficient grounds for a bribery charge.

Thank you for your interest in governance, and please continue to share your concerns with us, whatever they may be.

The value of a unit of work entirely depends upon the perceptions of the people who benefit from said work. As such, it varies with many variables, including location, culture, material availability, labor availability, alternative benefit availability, time, etc.

It is very easy to deem that someone else is overpaid because of the low value their output has to you personally, without taking into account the high value it may have to the people who are actually paying for it. The opposite is also true.

The matter is further complicated by the possibility of economic predation, where people can position themselves so as to be able to force the extraction of pay that is way beyond the value provided in anyone's perception. Though this is the most visible and most hated issue driving income inequality, the other variables contribute just as significantly to the imbalances (or the incorrect perception thereof).

You cannot build a functional combustion engine out of any substance malleable enough to be usable by a cheap consumer-grade 3d printer.

Cars require metal parts, and metal parts require more powerful equipment to forge.

If a man has a sex-change operation and becomes a woman, can she then marry a man? Or is that still homosexual?
And if she can't marry a man because genetically she is still a man...does that mean she can marry a woman?

Or are post-ops only allowed to marry complementary post-ops?

And who can hermaphrodites marry? Anyone but other hermaphrodites?

Corporate domination of politics has made America effectively a Fascist nation.

In this particular case, one corporation happens to be lobbying in favor of a very important civil liberty....but ideally Microsoft would have no power to do this and ordinary people would be championing this cause through voting and letter-writing campaigns and so on.