Actually that's not true. India and China did very well out of being a cheap place to manufacture things because of the low labour cost. Now, factories that are almost entirely automated are replacing those staffed by unskilled workers. This means that no one is building them in developing countries and creating jobs there. The only reason that companies like Foxconn have for picking places in Africa for manufacturing now is the the lack of environmental regulation: a few politicians get paid off, but the local economy doesn't benefit and the local environment gets polluted. The path Japan took, of cheaply copying things, being a cheap place to build factories, developing local skills, and then competing internationally with original products, doesn't exist anymore.

Exactly. Few workers would complain about automation if they owned a share in the company proportionate to their contribution to the profits. If a robot means that the company can produce more without their going to work then their income would go up and so would their leisure time. Instead, they become redundant in a shrinking job market and the owners get richer.

Java doesn't require you to catch every exception, it requires that, for every exception that cam be generated in a method, you must either catch it or advertise that your method can throw it. This makes static analysis and reasoning about exception much easier, because you know exactly what exceptions a particular method can throw. Handling exceptions at the wrong place is a problem with the programmers, not with the language or VM.

Actually, Rolex and a lot of others care deeply about that. In Italy, the Guardia Finanzia has units financed by Gucci, D&G, et al. that go after counterfeiters from the top on down to chasing street peddlers. It's all about how much you care about your reputation.

>That said, reprisals are a terrible idea.

Who needs reprisals? They're stuck in North Korea. What could be worse? The Dear Leader is a bat-shit crazy reincarnation of Stalin. Half the country is starving to death. Even if your are relatively well off, you could be taken out and shot any minute, and every known relative of yours hauled off to a camp for generations.

Of course they have top notch cyber techs. The Dear Leader needs access to the latest in 4K pron video.

Well, now you're just replying as if I had implied the opposite to an obvious portion of the rant, rather than the assumption, which was clearly my point. And, just in case it wasn't obvious to you, the assumption portion I'm referring to is "It might make you feel safer to have one as well, but it doesn't actually MAKE you any safer." No go back under your rock.

Hahahahahaha you think tax money goes to pay for water and highways. No. Tax money goes to pay for stuff like this, this and this.

Haven't you noticed that America's infrastructure is crumbling? Now why is that?

Giving more tax income for the government is no better than giving a crackhead more money. It has been a long time since the US government has made effective use of its money. Besides - all tax revenue is barely enough to cover the INTEREST on the deficit (even at these low low rates) - let alone the deficit. A few hundred million here or there will make zero difference to the ocean of pork.

How do we have to threaten to get all of these movies nuked?

Yes, because the terrifying North Korean hit squads will nuke the theatre in Whitefish, Montana as soon as the movie starts. They will also hit every other theatre in the US at the same time. Since there are maybe two movie theaters in all of PRNK, they probably think it's the same here.

The insurance company would win that battle in court.

Welcome to Detroit.

You've obviously never experienced a situation where you'd actually need to defend yourself. I've lived in areas where I've had shots fired in the apartment upstairs in one instance, a TV stolen from our house in another, and a multitude of crime in the area. If you think it's irrational, then you're an idiot.

Your assumptions are not backed up by the facts.

The only places where it's "civilized" enough in the U.S. would be very rural, and lack jobs.