the first, due to happen right now, is a bunch of smug posts claiming that programmers are too smart and talented for anything like that to happen to them. obsolescence is for the merit-less poor, people doing crappy non-programming, non-geek jobs - people who actually deserve to be treated like shit. it could never happen to them, they're far too important.

in a few years, when it is actually happening to them, there'll be a bunch of whining posts about how unfair it is that programmers have to compete with machines for their jobs, that was never supposed to happen to the super-smart, super-talented entitled rich white dudes...they'll all be crying something like "Google, why hast thou forsaken me?"

even then, these stupid entitled fucks will cling to their idiotic libertarian beliefs and refuse to believe that the owner class, the 1%, the bosses, the venture capitalists don't give a fuck about them and never have - if they think of programmers at all it's with resentment that they currently need some people who are difficult to replace....all worker units are meant to be slot-in replacements for each other, and they'll invest large sums of money to make sure that's the case for everyone.

it's bullshit. they're not "democratizing" anything, because selling a product and democracy are completely unrelated.

the word they should have used was "commercialise". or perhaps "commoditise". either of those are far more appropriate in that context, and actually make sense.

but they sound like grubby self-centred commercialism in comparison to something noble and uplifting like democratise.

you know what the problem is with the "everyone else is an arsehole so i have to be an arsehole too" excuse?

the problem is that you're still an arsehole. and a lame excuse is still just a lame fucking excuse.

wrong. on multiple counts.

firstly, i have no objection at all to laws banning smoking inside buildings - even dens of stupidity like casinos. but not because second-hand smoke is harmful to passersby and others who experience short-term or casual exposure, but because *workers* shouldn't have to spend hours trapped in *prolonged* exposure - unlike casual exposure there is some evidence of that causing health problems. employers have an obligation to provide a safe workplace for their employees and that includes reducing or eliminating the risk of toxic exposure. customers and other visitors can leave whenever they want. employees can't, not if they want to eat or pay their bills or rent.

as for vaping, there's no harm from that so there's absolutely no justification for banning it anywhere - it doesn't even smell bad.

secondly, i'm not a smoker, i'm an ex-smoker. unlike many ex-smokers, i don't need to bolster my will-power by demonising cigarettes or smokers. i don't like the smell of cigarette smoke any more, but that's MY problem...same as it's my problem that i can't stand most perfumes including the ghastly crap in stuff like shampoo, and absolutely loathe the smell of petrol and, even worse, diesel. i wouldn't want to be trapped in an enclosed space with any of them but out in the open I don't have any right to impose my preferences on anyone else, especially not by redefining the law merely so that i don't have to smell bad smells.

So take your sanctimonious bullshit attitude and shove that up your fucking arse.

ps: casinos are for fucking idiot losers who refuse to understand even the most basic statistics so who gives a shit what happens to them, anyway? in that situation, any health problems from second hand smoke are merely evolution in action.

it's also useless for 99.99999% of the illnesses that those pharmaceuticals are used for. cannabis is a useful treatment for some diseases. it's not a panacea. nothing is.

"natural" is not a synonym for "better" or "harmless". those who think it is are idiots - for example, i once knew one idiot hippy who routinely kept her child sedated with valerian and thought it was OK because "valerian is natural"

you know what else is "natural"? strychnine from the nux vomica plant is fucking natural.

so by your "logic", we should ban cars and trucks that use petrol or diesel - both of which cause far more damage to people forced to breathe the exhaust fumes than smoking or especially vaping. diesel exhaust is especially dangerous - highly carcinogenic.

btw, even for actual smoking, second-hand smoke has no health effect on casual exposure. there has been a small effect proven for people forced to work for long hours in extremely smoky environments (like bars were before smoking bans) - workplace regulations enforcing adequate ventilation would have been at least as effective as smoking bans.

and anyone who cares that much about corporate branding exercises is a fucking moron.

you may as well stop wasting your time - he thinks that because some marketing vermin use "exponential" to mean "magical and amazing" that that actually supercedes the word's real meaning.

this kind of idiocy is. of course, a triumph of image over substance...marketing can redefine reality to suit itself and where reality disagrees, it is reality that is wrong.

now lets see him release audio and video recordings of every meeting and informal chat that lobbyists and corporate representatives have with him, and all correspondence to and from them too.

i'm sick of sites that require javascript just to read the content of the site or for simple navigation. javascript is for optional bells and whistles, not for basic functionality.

my attitude is that if they demand the ability to run scripts on MY computer then they are inherently untrustworthy and untrustable.

that's what the close tab or close window button is for.

you're not very good at this thinking thing, are you?

here, i'll explain it in simple terms for you:

because cocaine use was perceived (rightly or wrongly) as being mostly used by blacks, marijuana by mexicans, opium by the chinese. the original banning of cocaine, for example, was "justified" with lots of propaganda about cocaine-fueled blacks raping white women.

it demonises the users (and their entire race or subculture - "dirty hippies") and gives the cops an excuse to arrest them and the courts an excuse to convict and sentence them....and for the last few decades with for-profit privatised prisons it's a way to legally enslave them.

(it's not just corrupt cops and politicians and high-level drug dealers who are against legalisation of drugs, the private prison lobby is dead set against it because legalising drugs would greatly reduce the number of potential slaves)

it's not the USE of the drugs that suppresses people, it's the fact that certain drugs associated with particular subcultures were made illegal - the same way, for example, that banning rap or hiphop music (while laudable in itself) would disproportionately affect black people. or, for a real world example, the refusal to play black music like jazz on radio until whites like presley started appropriating it in the 1950s.

Most voters are deeply reactionary (in the sense that they are very reluctant to accept any change from status quo, whether good or bad), and the current view of most ordinary people is that 'drugs are bad'.

that's largely because of nearly a century of anti-drug propaganda.

same as socialism is now a dirty word in america, but up until the 1940s it was still a large and fairly mainstream political movement.

non-stop propaganda is effective.

Drug barons

a very loaded propaganda term in itself, guilt by association with your monopolist robber barons.

Legalising drugs in any form would hurt their business

which, of course, is one the many reasons why drugs should be legalised. it's reason enough in itself, without even considering the human rights issues involved.

you know, nobody in the entire history of the world has EVER seen or heard drug dealers talk or act like that outside of moronic american movies and TV. it just doesn't happen, ever.

that's because addiction doesn't fucking work like that. it takes a lot more than a few hits of ANY drug to addict someone - and even then the addiction potential has a lot more to do with social and environmental conditions (like poverty, or hopelessness) than it has to do with the drugs themselves.

get yourself fucking educated on the topic before opening your idiot mouth.

no, your government bans drugs because it's a useful way of suppressing blacks, mexicans, chinese, hippies, dissidents and other undesirables.

it's also a great way of disenfranchising them from their vote when posession is treated as a felony.

it's nice to see the americans in the crowd demonstrating their unrivaled capacity for insightful and witty commentary. thank you for your valuable contribution to the discussion.