1. Lots of Windows users never upgraded past XP (>15%) and have no UAC at all
2. Lots of Windows users have disabled UAC prompting because it's so annoying (seriously, do a Google search for UAC and the top results are about how to disable it)
3. Nobody uses the Windows backup options
4. Malware can't delete a Time Machine backups

Theoretically Macs could be at just as much risk as PCs, but in practice it isn't anywhere close. There are well over 50 millions Mac users in the world, and they have plenty of money, but for some reason they are nowhere near as infected as PCs.

All good ideas.

The Mac would have warned the hell out of you about running unsigned code downloaded from the Internet--you have to jump through several hoops (no just click & go). Mac Applications on the App Store are vetted and run sandboxed and users are naturally wary of any Application that isn't downloaded from the App Store--it's just not part of the Mac culture (even for nontechnical users) to click on random crap.

There are trivial backup solutions for Mac (Time Machine + Time Capsule/NAS, or iCloud) which make this sort of problem trivial to clean up after. On my Macs it would be a simple matter of running Time Machine and turning the date back a few days--I could literally do it one handed while yawning.

And nearly every Mac is running a recent version of OS X because Apple makes upgrading cheap, simple, and non-destructive. Any new vulnerability doesn't last very long before it is annihilated from nearly every Mac on the planet. For all these reasons virus authors just don't bother targeting Macs for the most part.

In theory Macs and Linux could be just as overrun with viruses and malware as Windows boxes but in practice both platforms are nearly perfectly immune to these sorts of attacks for a variety of reasons, including technical things (Macs warn the hell out of you before letting you run unsigned code downloaded from the internet, and nearly all Macs are running very recent versions of OS X) and cultural things (Macs and Linux users have no culture of randomly clicking on executable attachments--that's not part of the non-Windows zeitgeist).

It's really not that complicated.

Obviously this means that society is in decline.

Exclusively polling people over 50 each generation over the last several thousand years would lead us to believe that society has been in steady decline during that entire period of time--which obviously contradicts the trends of every objective measure of human quality of life & productivity. This itself is the single most compelling evidence I've seen that people get stupider as they age.

As someone pushing 40 I can say without equivocation that I've seen no evidence which suggests a decline in the intellectual capacity, work ethic, or general productivity in younger generations--I'm consistently impressed by most young people I meet and in particular by how well prepared they are for the world they live in, which isn't the same as the world 50 years ago so I'm not sure why we're surprised that some new skills are emphasized while others have atrophied.

Who do you think buys their products?

Competition benefits the consumer directly. Free-market capitalism is not equivalent to unconstrained (i.e. stupid) libertarianism--it only works properly with laws/regulations setting boundaries. Laws need to: (a) prevent the abuse of monopolies, (b) protect workers, (c) prevent collusion, and (d) ensure some limited monopoly on new technology to create an incentive for R&D.

There are some industries where the laws aren't working properly or the nature of the industry prevents competition (like cable tv providers)--the competition in electronics works perfectly--what is failing in the electronics industry is the 'laws protecting workers' part.

You and everyone else knows it--the mental contortions required by Android fans to criticize Apple for something that is worse in Android-land is transparent and ridiculous.

then they could charge more for their services. If the company that designs and retails the product is getting overpaid for their value, then a competitor will undercut them and they'll lose in the market.

That's how the free market works--no other economic system has ever come anywhere close to mimicking the efficiency of free-market capitalism (when there is actually competition as there obviously is in the electronics industry)--but hey, yeah, maybe you'll invent a new economic system within a Slashdot comment that'll change the world.

The real problem here is that there are no laws preventing the exploitation of Chinese workers, or those laws are insufficiently enforced.

and we are all humbled before your uncompromising integrity.

Do you have a solution to the problem to propose?

Most phones that are manufactured in these places are Android phones--yet we only here about Apple failing to protect workers. Cisco, Nintendo, Sony, Amazon, etc. all use these companies (Pegatron, Foxconn, etc.).

But it's okay because those companies never pretended to try to enforce higher standards--that's what you're saying, right? with a straight face and everything.

Learn something new every day.

Except for your overall impotence as a human being.

So...we good?

and wealthy country in the world.