I'm not sure what anyone can do for you.

"...- there's a difference between good people and qualified people. As a working programmer, when I complain about finding qualified managers, I mean people that can show, in an interview, that they have a basic comprehension of the technologies being used by the people they are attempting to manage."

No. There's no "shortage." There's a shortage of STEM workers who will work for slave wages like all the MBA's and foreign CEOs would like.

Engineers. We're so.... uppity.

"About the same" is my choice.

We're not *anywhere* near either. We are still laughably dependent on hydrocarbon energy and lack the political will to build enough sustainable nuclear (fission or fusion) to sustain our current industrial society much beyond this century. Without that power, other hard limits like phosphate depletion for agriculture will eventually constrain our ability to feed 7 billion people worldwide.

It's not hopeless. There's a natural, normal population bottleneck coming, as it does for all species as they run themseles out of natural resources. The survivors in the 2150s should start living fairly comfortably as the Earth starts cooling down.

I suggest reading a book in protest. Voltaire anyone?

First Guy: Look, I made this incredible communication device!
Other Guys: Wow. Cool! Can we use it?
First Guy: Sure!
Other Guys: OK, but we own it now, OK?
First Guy: Uh......

Our society now runs on technology that requires extremely intelligent people to design, build and maintain it.

The politicians who want to regulate or even use this technology are elected by the lowest common denominator of Americans. Moreover, most of those politicians are scientifically illiterate and therefore, incompetent to do so (e.g. Sebellius and the healthcare.gov site) .

It's nice to think that in a democracy, anyone can get elected to office without regard to IQ or education. How's that been working out lately?

I mean, certainly no politician or local police "authority" would ever silence an entire area just to stop the public from filming the latest police atrocity. Heavens, no.

And the tech community says, "Ouchie" and runs back to their offices. I've been lecturing developers on this for years, and gotten little but hostility back. When you tell them "The fucking computer DOES NOT MATTER" they just look at you blankly.

The computer. It's a toaster, OK? It should turn on immediately. Do what the fuck I tell it to do and stay out of my face. It's not even a servant. It's *less* than a servant. It deserves no regard whatsoever.

More to the point, the toaster should not ask me a bunch of questions, steal my input focus, wait for it's little processes to complete in the foreground before moving on, take minutes to start, or stop, refresh my screen randomly, puke out unhelpful pointless error messages that require my attention, and so on. Aside from all of this being a sign of lazy, careless design and programming, all of this will drive consumers to devices that *don't* do this, or do it less. This is one reason among many why Android is taking over the world, while Windows is dying a well deserved death from it's ossified, well preserved stupidity.

Feel free to point to a single employment ad for open source code that "pays well."

Programming. Not "using." Whoosh!

I too would like a strong role model for someone using it to make money. Anybody? Anybody?

Money is power. Government is power. In a broader sense, unions are an attempt to equalize the power playing field. Naturally, this is why they are fought tooth and nail by monetary power (i.e. wealthy owners).

Tyranny by government dictators: Bad.
Tyranny by corporate dictators: Good.

Any questions?