Evidence, anecdotes and Congressional appointments.

"Lies from the Pit of Hell", you know.

They cash in the options before it all tanks.

Plus the options are generally issued at a discount or flat-out given.

It's those little things that make it so profitable to be a dismal failure as a CEO.

I dunno. Wasn't what they did to the French nobles back arount 1789?

I do not want "cheap stuff".

I want good value.

Seems like people these days have forgotten that cheap trash is still trash.

Lots of things once were not "presently compelling economic options". Among them, computers that could be afforded by small businesses, digital television and offshoring information-handling jobs to foreign countries via high-speed data channels.

Things change. Sometimes they get kickstarted by government subsidies. Sometimes by a private concern with deep pockets and high expectations. Sometimes just by the onward march of technology.

"presently economically compelling" is about the WORST reason for not considering doing something I can think of.

If you have strong people skills, you'll be one of the last ones standing, But strong technical skills? One reason what there's so much total crap software is that the people who hire software people could care less about technical skills if they can save money.

Sure, they DEMAND heavy skillsets, but when it comes to hiring decisions...

Automation isn't offshoring, but what's the point in getting an offshore-proof job if it gets automated out from under you?

1. In our town, except for the self-driving part, it already has been. And at the rate things are going...

2. True. But anti-social as I am, that's one place I don't go. Not only will I not use the self-checkout, I'll avoid stores that even have self-checkouts.

3. Politicians have the ultimate union. Even the anti-union ones.

4. Actually, I'm not so sure. In fact, it's quite possible that a nimble enough robot might have better luck getting things done than people with relatively fat finders do.

Some time many years back, Sony (I think) advertised a TV with "works in a drawer". Basically, the electronics - excepting the actual high-voltage parts - were on phenolic circuit boards maybe something like 4x6 inches (give or take a meter). The idea was that a repairman could slot in a new one as easily as the older sets did with blown tubes.

I'm suspecting that in most actual cases, however, it was the high-voltage stuff that was most likely to fail once everything went solid-state.

In any event, higher-quality electronics are now so inexpensive that it's cheaper to wave-solder everything onto one motherboard and not even bother with motherboard replacements. Because even though the motherboard, fully ready-to-go might only cost $5, it's still cheaper to toss the entire set and replace it than to pay $65/hr or so to have someone do the replacing.

But if you're as bad a salesman as I am, you'll starve trying to get customers.

Automating surgery is actually harder. People are made up of squishy things that won't stay still or even have the decency to be the right size, shape, and location as in the textbooks.

Automating a datacenter is trivial. 19-inch standard racks made to hold boxes in multiples of "U" height. All you need is standard power and data bus points to avoid having to do custom wiring. Robots can easily slot in units or racks. Just back up an automated truck to the loading dock 2 or 3 times a week to deliver automatically-built new units and haul off the dead/obsolete ones to be disposed of.

It even scales to things like Wal-Mart. Just send the automated fleet in with pallets of merchandise and have robots tug them to the sales banks. All you'd need for employees is the obligatory 6 levels of security guards before and after the self-service checkout. Since Wal-Mart is one of those stores that assumes that the majority of their customers are thieves anyway.

I went to burger joints in the 70's where people shoved raw patties in one side of a machine and they came cooked out the other. These days we could easily even automate the process of pulling them from pallets and wrapping buns around them. Don't be surprised if in the not-too-distant future that the only employee in most burger joints is the manager. And even that only to pull the alarm if the machine goes down.

Certainly, given what we've got, if we even bother with humans taking orders, they'll probably be working out of a call center in Pune or Kolkata.

Automated construction has been an ongoing thing for decades. A lot of houses are extensively pre-fab even without robots to handle the final assembly and fill-in work.

Well, I see one little snowflake hasn't hit the griddle.

Yet.

Computer education is pointless. Why be trained in any profession if that profession is going to end up extinct in the areas that need employed people to patronize the local businesses, pay the taxes, and so forth?

If they were serious about making a sustainable economy, they'd ditch the whole drone-level skill training program and focus on how to start your own business and thus avoid the layoff treadmill. After all, isn't that what we're told? The only job that's safe is the one you make yourself?

That means teaching kids at an early age how to meet prospective clients (this does not come naturally or easily to us introverts), negotiate favorable contracts (ditto), manage the various legal and financial aspects of running a company, manage staff - for those who washed out on the whole run-your-own-company deal, and ... if you're fortunate, learn a constructive skill to sell in whatever spare time remains.

That's basically what the local business dynasties do anyway. They're brought up learning how to lead, how to negotiate, how to deal with people, then sent to schools of like-minded people so that they'll have all the right connections.

Some of the listed pollutants are the results of incomplete combustion. It's worthwhile to include CO2, since there's a very good chance that the offending vehicles may therefore be releasing less waste in CO2 form.