Commissioning in the US armed forces today (historical exceptions notwithstanding) requires a bachelors degree. Few have that at 19 years old.

Think the GP was describing/conflating the plot from Aliens (the second movie with Bill "Game over, man, game over" Paxton).

That's why I included (parts of). A Rhoomba fits this model. But it's harder to quantify how many skilled laborers were replaced by VisiCalc.

Agreed. There is no perfect definition. Robots are easy because they vaguely look like (parts of) people, but any form of automation could fall into this category. The outrage/fear appears to center more on the obsolescence of skilled jobs that used to pay family-supporting wages, which may be permanently shrinking the middle class.

So, what's fair to offset this trend? Razor-thin margin companies such as food distributors can lower their costs through automation to stay competitive, but they're still not very profitable. But a high-margin company like Apple can increase their CxO pay for every employee they replace. Is it fair to charge the former the same robot tax as the latter? What about software companies that have a tiny physical footprint that can automate their process in the cloud? They might have a huge profit-margin that can't be tied to anything we might call a robot.

In the end I think this will just turn into a UBI tax for high-profit corporations. It will be easy to measure compliance by the IRS if they use robots.

Yes. I bought a Gateway in Jan. 95. Pentium 90, 16 MB RAM, 1 GB hard drive. I was the first of my friends and co-workers who had a 1 GB drive for a home computer.

If you had 64 MB and two 1 GB drives in 93 you definitely spent some $$

First thing I thought of, too.

I was bummed to find out that the the USS Enterprise in the movie was actually played by the USS Ranger, temporarily re-branded.

I was envisioning corporate taxes on business robots. Not consumer goods.

I get that tech has displaced workers for decades, but we are entering an era where new, well-paying jobs are not replacing the old. Basic Income is gaining traction as a response to this reality, and taxing automation seems like a logical means for corporations to contribute.

Robots should be taxed to cover the universal basic income for those whose jobs they are taking.

There is no such thing as "off the record". Anyone working PR knows this.

Yes, racial tension have gone up, not because Obama fueled them, but because he revealed them.

The fact the question is being asked so openly at a large, public corporation is proof that Trump has little chance in the general election.

The Dark Side clouded everything in the prequels, according to Yoda. It brings to mind vulgar images of what Sidious and Maul were doing in the back room in the lead up to the trade disputes.

That's a good plan for most games. Just like binging on entire seasons of TV shows on Netflix where you get to skip commercials and don't have to wait a week to see how a cliffhanger resolves.

The downside is you aren't part of the conversation at the time of release. Like following sports, there is social currency value in playing at release time. For popular multi-player titles, waiting means you might miss out on the peak crowds, and the fun of discovering things on your own before all the walk-throughs, builds, maps, and cheats are posted online. Your friends may have moved on just as you're getting into a game and looking for a group.

Just playing devil's advocate here. For the most part I do as you describe and wait for a 75% off Steam sale on an already discounted price. It's great to pay $5 to play a game that released at $60 the previous year.

Great post.

William Shatner's greatest role.