Perhaps ideas like a Universal Basic Income become relevant in a future society devoid of meaningful work.

The world will *always* need ditch diggers....

I felt that way until my child's teacher decided FB was the right way to disseminate information about classroom activities

Wouldn't that discriminate against families, maybe poor ones that don't have an internet connection...maybe not even a computer in the house.

It isn't like the internet/FB is a right....

We could also redirect some of that 85 billion a month going to Wall Street right now.

Are you talking about $$ from private investors into private/public businesses?

Who is it to decide to take money from private individuals and companies in the US???

I don't mind the govt giving money...but I don't see it in the US constitution for the govt to start taking money from its citizens to do this type thing??

actually I have to disagree. It is so much easier to stay connected to friends that have long moved away and to reconnect with friends that move back. Of course I am older than most people on Slashdot so yes I have friends that moved away 15 years ago and then move back to town that I want to reconnect with. It is makes me feel more connected with my brother that lives 3 hours away to see his posts daily on facebook. I do call and talk with him a couple of times a month but with facebook it is daily. Of course I used to do the same thing with email but email is less popular than it once was.

See...I pretty much email, text, phone daily with my friends around the country...the ones that live near me, I do same and see them personally as much as I want to....and I don't have FB snooping on me and my activities and relationships.

I know I can be tracked with my other methods, but at least I'm not making easy for the corps and govt. to do so.

He's just the face and the bullseye on the target.

To busy reviewing the Apple/Microsoft bling to realize that computer OSes really shouldn't be about what color the drapes are.

I've never been on one (don't really consider /. to be one), am not missing anything. I still interact with my many friends in meatspace, or the occasional phone call, text or email.

So what you're saying then is that it's fine to break the law, and put other people's lives at risk by speeding through a junction as the lights change, as long as your car is powerful?

Yep!!

You know, most of the time, the truth lies right in the middle of the fighting sides. Having seen two kids fighting over a toy a time or two, it is the toy that ends up suffering (broken, destroyed, damaged etc). Slapping the kids across the back of the head, and taking away the toy is often the only "real solution". Being a parent isn't easy, but the grownups sometimes need to simply smack the back of heads and issue a timeout.

And when it is the grownups are acting like children, the parent role becomes the easy target. "Don't tell me how to think or what to do". Please don't make excuses.

Note: I'm not taking sides in the GG debate. I have no idea what it actually is. Except that it involves Gamers who often act like little children.

Somalia!

Generally speaking, hurt feelings strike a nerve. Barking dogs don't strike a nerve, therefore don't hurt feelings. However trolls telling tramps that they are sluts hits a nerve. Hell, even my using those terms will get me in trouble because they elicit a certain negative connotation on the female gender (and done to illustrate a point). If a girl is secure in their sexuality, then no hurt feelings, but if a girl is not comfortable with their sexuality hurt feelings ensue.

Just to make it clear, I don't care about who people sleep with, that is their own fucking (pun intended) business.

The real defense to "hurt feelings" is thicker skin. Which can be learned. But instead, we've become a society of victims of "hurt feelings" and the outrage that is a result.

What is real, is that troll exist. Have existed for ever, and will exist into the foreseeable future. It would be much better use of time and energy helping people ignore trolls, than letting them get the best of us with their trolling.

queue the tumblrina's with "just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's not real"

Which is false, that's exactly what it means. A random internet meanie saying something that bothers you is kind of like letting a barking dog hurt your feelings. =/

A barking dog might not hurt anyone's feelings, but one that's growling and running at you is a legitimate cause to assume you are in danger and react accordingly. Lots of trolls aren't saying "your mom's fat", they're saying "I'm coming to kill you in your home at Hummingbird Line 1".

Another problem with your analogy is that a dog barking at you doesn't affect how any dogs you might meet in the future interact with you. On the other hand, humans take their cues about how to behave and even how to think from their environment. A random internet meanie saying something that bothers me makes the ideas they expressed seem more acceptable to anyone who hears him, thus shifting the culture into a direction I don't like. That's how propaganda (and brainwashing) works: if people hear something repeated often enough, they start accepting it as truth, or at the very least accept it as something the group believes and thus they must at least pretend to least they get excluded, no matter how absurd it might be.

So, whether the Internet is a magical wonderland outside of reality or not, and whether people using it have or should have the emotional sensitivity of rocks and the willingness to be virtual punching bags, it doesn't matter, since the crap you take on others there will stink up reality too. And that means its going to stop, the only question being whether it stops because people stop acting like crazy assholes, or because all the crazy assholes are busy making Bubba the Prison Rapist an insanely happy man.

It's one thing to be insulted online. It's another altogether to be stalked online.

My original post:

Geez, grow a pair, eh? I mean, it is just words. If some online troll's comments are gonna ruin your day, get ready for the real world in a few years, where no one gives a damn about your self esteem, and you have to grow up, grow a bit thicker skin and get on with your life and fight to succeed.

I'm not talking about real threats of death or harm, but just someone spewing off online or even in person. Life is not all "touchy-feely", unicorns and kittens. Growing up, you learn to deal with idiots, asshole and those who don't like you (Yes, there always will be some that do not like you and are not your friend)....you learn to ignore that, shake it off and stick with the people that do love and care for you and move on through your life.

Seriously, thicken that skin and get on with your life and don't worry what the idiots say. You shouldn't have time for them.

You can see I said I wasn't talking about people actually threatening your life in meatspace from online....

But that brings up another question due to your answer. What exactly is ONLINE stalking? I know what it is in meatspace, someone physically following you, etc. But online? Who gives a shit? That stuff isn't real. If your whole world online is your *real* world, then you have more problems that just some troll giving you a hard time on FB or forums.

If someone is threatening your life in meatspace, from any medium, there are already laws on the books about that.

But for just to your panties in a wad over what an internet troll does or says about you, shows you really need to have a bit thicker skin.

Internet is not real life.

Wealth is created by the production of goods and services, not by "keeping people busy". So if we can produce more, with less labor, that is a good thing.

It's good for those who get to fire workers and pocket their wages as profit, yes. It's bad for those workers who now have to make do with miserly unemployment benefits, and demonized for it by both their former employers and peers. It's bad for the remaining employees, who get worse pay and more crap due to fiercer competition for the remaining available jobs. And it's bad for everyone once there's enough people getting the short end of the stick that they'll just grab it and beat their masters to death with it.

Then you fix the imbalance.

You can't, because the culture won't allow that. Any attempt to either narrow the income gap or make it possible for the unemployed to live an independent middle-class life will be instantly declared "socialist", and rightly so. Automation is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism, or at least a version of capitalism where people are expected to "earn" their income by working. Just look at how much hate "welfare queens" get, despite that being the only alternative to busywork that doesn't result in social collapse.

Basically, a post-industrial society will either unconditionally pay its citizens their upkeep with no strings attached, be a more or less horrible dystopia where that upkeep comes with submitting to arbitrary rules like taking drug tests or doing pointless busywork, or collapse in a violent uprising. And I think we all know which one Americans will never, ever, under any circumstances allow their neighbours, even if that means denying it to themselves.

It's a pity, really. Once upon the time American Dream was a plot of land, since that's what it took to be independent. Then it became a pot of gold, because again that's what it takes to be free from having to bow to your local Count von Bastardessen to get food. And now, with everything getting automated, everyone could have their virtual plot of land - their share of the automated manufacturing resources, granted in the form of citizen pay - but that's not going to happen. But perhaps the developing countries will take note, and avoid the collapse ahead of us.

I think you mean "superior to", because "better than" is based on a judgement by others. You could make an objective judgement based on numbers of some sort, there.