Ever seen a non-compete clause in a contract? They are standard operating procedure now and companies will actively threaten you with them. So my point stands.

I don't think you have a very good grasp on what slavery is. You seem to have the Hollywood definition in your head when the reality is very different. Most slaves were indentured servants and still are. This is a temporary situation, usually remedied in time when the agreement is done. Historically in the middle east slaves were set free every 7 year cycle along with debt. Even in the US most slaves weren't working fields, most worked in households as maids and nannies. Many of which were paid for their work and had the opportunity to buy their freedom in time.

Now we're slaves to corporations who actively seek to ruin our careers and future prospects should we want to change "owners".

My father worked for Cisco. Amazingly, every place he applied for while still there, would refuse to interview him, when only 5 years before he was one of the most sought after engineers in his field. Eventually he left Cisco and opened his own small business outside of Engineering because he simply couldn't even get interviewed anywhere. He nearly went broke trying.

I have two friends, one who worked for Google and another for Apple. Both left Engineering and went into the Accounting sector because they were untouchable by anyone.The only jobs they would get interviewed for were paying half what they used to make at small shops with virtually no health benefits.

In fact almost everyone I know that worked as an Engineer/software dev has now left the industry. In no small part because of this, coupled with a bit of age discrimination.

So a bunch of leftist execs screw people over and then you decide to jump over and become a leftist? Every single one of these execs is a major Democrat donor, whether its Marrissa Mayer or Eric Schmidt giving max contributions to Dem candidates, going so far as to actually host the parties at their homes or Steve Jobs being best buds with Bill Clinton and Al Gore. In fact every single one of these companies is directly hostile to Republican and Libertarian campaigns and causes.

Your leftists are the problem here with their crony capitalism and constant meddling in the free market. Republicans aren't innocent here but you're so bass akwards on this it's comical. You really think leftism is the solution to this? Sad.

Is it that far off really? Many engineers come out of school with 100k+ in debt. They go to work for one of these companies and can never leave because of secret agreements from the execs. Their wages are kept artificially low in a high cost of living area. Between rent/mortgage and other costs of living, they simply can't afford to drop the job and go elsewhere without having another job in the wings.

This isn't much different from indentured servitude. Only with indentured servants there is typically a contract up front, after X number of years you're free to move on. In Silicon Valley its all backroom deals, under the table and out of sight from the public. Your "owners" own you without you explicitly knowing it, there is no end date and there is serious direct career consequences if you try to change it.

They may not be subjected to beatings but they are certainly subject to economic ruin if they try to change or improve their station. I've seen it happen. I've seen good engineers leave engineering altogether because they became untouchable simply because of who they once worked for.

But should he? I worked with a guy (Mormon) who had 5 autisitc kids. He and his wife just kept pumping them out, one after the other, even after finding out they were pretty much guaranteed to all be autistic. They weren't done at 5 either. Now if they could afford to take care of all of them without help I'd be fine with that but they were on so many government assistance plans I couldn't keep count of them all.

There is an ethical question of whether someone should pass on bad genes or whether those genes are even bad to begin with. No doubt people have the right, but just because you have a right to do something doesn't ethically obligate you to do it.

Not likely. You can already see most people moving to Arch, Gentoo or one of the RPM based distros in greater numbers. Linux Mint is just a slightly less ugly Ubuntu and the Debian edition doesn't offer any compelling benefits over the Ubuntu edition for end users. I'm sorry to say but apt/dpkg really haven't aged well and are replaced nicely by yum/pacman and other tools.

Its sad that these days it is easier to theme Windows than it is Linux. It's also sad after so many years of mocking Windows users for their unstable desktop experience that we're now stuck with Unity, GNOME 3 and KDE 4 which are less stable than Windows ME. It's like Linux on the desktop is going backwards instead of forwards. I have all my hopes on Wayland but if I don't see major improvement in Linux desktop distro's within the next year I'm just going to give up and move to FreeBSD for servers and Mac OSX for desktops. Enough with the endless beta test.

I saw something like this coming. As soon as Carmack joined the Oculus team I knew it would die somehow. Everything he touches turns to shit.

I'm against gay marriage. I think it's ridiculous that people who aren't religious want to engage in a religious institution. That said, the type of attitude you have is much much worse than anything you could possibly ascribe to me. You wish not to discriminate against gays, fine, but then turn around and want to discriminate against people like Eich and myself.

You're a hypocrite of the worst kind. Eich is free to disagree with gay marriage all he likes. If he breaks a law then you can kick and scream and stamp your feet like a fucking child, until then piss off.

No capitalism involved in this example because the telcos are government granted monopolies.

Not capitalism because the team is granted a monopoly in their area by the city. This is good and bad. Good because it keeps teams from sprouting up stadiums all over the place. Bad because they can then charge whatever they want and sports morons will pay it.

There is zero capitalism in medicine today because the FDA controls everything from drugs to medical devices and states grant monopolies to insurance providers. I can't by out of state insurance to compete with the fuckers that are ripping me off.

No, YOU need to take your head out of your ass and stop blaming Fox News for all of your very real liberal inadequacy.

I'll give you a simple example of what the Telcos want this to be like:

My wife and I went to a new wine tasting place here in town. They touted the fact they have more wine tasting machines than anywhere else in the world. You walk up to it, insert your payment and choose the oz you want and the type and you get it in a little tasting cup. Sounds simple right? It should be except that you can't use your debit or credit card and the machines don't take cash. You have to purchase a card from them to use the machines. Just the card, you have to then put money on the card after you've purchased it.

AT&T want you to think of the connection they give you as that card. They then want to charge you per site or service beyond that. You pay for the priviledge of being their customer. It's the same racket gym's have been doing for decades with their "initiation" fees they claim they need to process your paperwork and somehow cost 100$+.

Want to be their customer? You have to pay for it. Then you get to pay for it some more.

I always found it drained the hell out of my battery. On a laptop or desktop I doubt it would be that bad but on a cell phone or tablet it was very difficult to get through the day with it on.

No it doesn't. No one but Canonical will be supporting Mir and Xorg will go away. Leaving Wayland for the adults. No one besides Canonical gives two shits about Mir and once Wayland is stable enough for primary use people will switch to it faster than they did to systemd.

I'm a user and I care.

The executives essentially formed their own union. The gentlemen's agreement (which is anything but. A crony capitalists agreement is a better name for it) is simply their by-laws.

To counter this, every tech worker in the entire valley should form their own union and stick it to the fucking executives for a change. I moved from the valley 15 years ago because of shit like this. I'll never return but would love to see these mother fuckers get what is coming to them.