That hasn't been the case for ages

Thanks to shrill environmentalists. It still took a decade after the ozone threat was identified to defeat the chemical lobby, and probably only happened because DuPont was already sitting on patents to alternate technology.

You're ignoring the fact that because polystyrene degrades so slowly, it is one of the worst litters and is a large component of the ocean garbage patches.

I'd happily live on top of a former Styrofoam dump.

I'm sure. Prices are so cheap, you're crazy if you're not already living on a dump.

It is an inexorable truth that you are going to die. Therefore, murdering you is not evil, since you were going to die anyway.

Without some kind of external restriction, like the VISA system

It's not an acronym.

Now you're confusing the demand curve with the supply curve. The restrictions that cause shortages are almost always price controls, and there are no price controls, just people whining that the price is too damn high.

Sure, your finite supply can be exhausted, but last time I checked, there are still tens of thousands of people of people who could be programmers who aren't, instead they are doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, CEOs, etc. It takes about five years to become a competent programmer, but people have been screaming "shortage" for fifteen. Clearly the incentives aren't high enough.

Unless you mean to say the availability of this foreign market is the variable influencing the demand curve, as if the very reason people deny the market price for programmers is that they are all waiting on the government to increase supply for them. Though then you would have to admit that the very purpose of the visa program is the surpress existing wages.

But if there is a shortage of IT workers then most companies just hold off on upgrading their old systems because they would have to pay too much.

You're deliberately conflating the wealth creating profession of software development with the maintenance profession of information technology administration to hide the emptiness of your argument.

And I'm wondering what an actual economist would say of your characterization. You've explicitly described the demand curve as elastic - raise the price, they buy fewer programmers, lower the price, they buy more. But almost by definition, shortages are impossible in that situation without some kind of external restriction. They want more, more, more, but for some reason they're unwilling to pay the higher price such vociferous demand requires.

It's not like they planned on using it after 2012.

If you eat or drink anything red, you're probably eating ground up insects.

So brave.

Sweet motherfucking Jebus, can people not recognize sarcasm anymore? Apparently Poe's Law applies to left-wing crazy just as well as right-wing crazy.

Correlation != causation.

People only succeed because of privilege. If they read well at age seven, it is because of privilege.

I see what you did there.

One might deem it a good thing to do this, but it is not a step toward a tolerant and diverse society.

Ah, you sound like a rational fellow! Will you write to the Department of Justice and complain about the harassment and surveillance inflicted on those reading "Inspire Magazine"? I'm very concerned about the abridgment of free speech in this infidel country, and I think that if enough of you rally to our cause, it might be corrected with minimal losses.

That's what I said when I wanted to read the Al Qaeda magazine "Inspire". (I really love their "Humor in Hijab" section.) But some liberal muckety-muck from the State Department said it was supporting terrorism, and I'd be going to Gitmo if I kept up my subscription.

I mean, just because I advocate the execution of all Christians and homosexuals doesn't mean I'm personally going kill them. Allah's will will be done, whether I am involved or not.

Yet I'm the bad guy with my so-called "hate speech". It's funny to see how quickly that liberal idealism turns to sanctimonious hypocrisy when deeply held religious belief comes into play.

We didn't change, OSC did. Well, actually, he didn't change, he just stopped hiding the crazy and became an embarrassment.

The seven digit crowd grew up only knowing OSC to be a horrible little shit, so Ender's Game doesn't have the same influence for them.

Is it pronounced MAC-a-fee or Muh-CAF-ee?

Clearly this lawyer is pointing out how people who suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect get into positions they shouldn't.

Clearly the lawyer is a buffoon. You'll deny if from me, but perhaps you would listen to the patent lawyers commenting on the original blog.

I would say at least 40% of my industry is laced with people who are barely able to work fast food.

Ah, the whole hiding false assertions behind hyperbole trick.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you aren't afflicted with the D-G. So who is the bigger fool, the incompetent who gets paid like the competent, or the competent complainer who continues to work in an organization that can't distinguish them?