There, fixed it for ya

The Basic Income guarantee is something getting more discussion in German-speaking Europe. Because it makes increasing sense in the 21st century in developed countries.

Consider that most "work" in Germany, the UK and the US is what could be labeled as "bullshit jobs" (see www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/). People want to create and build, but modern economies have evolved in a perverse way such that most corporate jobs are essentially courtiers and actors. The real value is added by machines and 3rd world labor. The typical white collar worker's main task is to *appear* useful, necessary, and above all busy and stressed, while somehow evading metrics that actually hold them accountable for specific units of something. The key of course is not whether such a corporate drone produces anything, but whether his manager thinks he's necessary, in some way. This is the province of MBAs and culture consultants and so on.

But freed of the empty, value-subtracting exercise of faking hard work to aquire money credits, people would tend to gravitate toward whatever they're best at. Widespread ownership, or VAT taxes, of machines/robots will keep the funds flowing and get most of the work done, while humans do what they're best at. People get bored, research has found, and it's actually very hard to be a true "moocher." Even if it's creating beer can hats in Texas, people from all cultures are driven to create and build.

The Swiss are first to come to widespread awareness of this, and will vote soon on a small Basic Income for every citizen. My guess is it will not pass this election, but the insight will spread, rather like the awareness of a round planet or the existence of bacteria. So we'll probably see a Citizen's Income in Northern Europe and Japan first, then the English speaking countries.

It is also part of the "steady state economics" framework which humanity will be forced to adopt by the end of this century, if math prevails.

I hate to say it, but from my experience in America this is like a "laundry list" of things that American conservatives condemn: - empathy - social tolerance - critical thinking If I recall correctly the conservatives in the state of Texas proposed an educational code that literally sought to prevent critical thinking. I loved my time in Mountain View and my friends there but for the U.S. as a whole, this sort of thing is going to be a tough sell.

This is not surprising. A consistent theme of conservatives is they get off by making other people suffer, preferably by inflicting physical pain.

Super summarized.

The problem may self correct after a few more years.

If you have the chance, go back and look at what Gartner has condescendingly pontificated on as "inevitable" over the years. Gartner's track record is abysmal. If they were a stockbroker, you'd make a mint just by being contrarian to their advice.

Religion is bad but scientology is even worse.

Java is evolving nicely. JVM languages, such as Scala and Clojure, are booming, and awesome to work with. C# , and .NET, are going the way of the Soviet Union.

That guy's blood pressure must be something else these days.

Man, if there is a consistent theme with MS it is this: 1) Partner with established successful player in a space new to Microsoft 2) Learn the space and what makes it tick 3) Stab partner from step #1 in the back Quite honestly if HTC goes for Windows on its phones, I'd give HTC 5 to 7 years max before they're gone.

Yes indeed, the only good thing with a Lumia currently is the camera. Put Android on that hardware and you'd have a fairly compelling package.

Someone years ago put it best: Microsoft Research was really conceived as an intellectual roach motel. The idea was to use the enormous amounts of cash generated 20 years ago by Microsoft's monopoly to essentially pay top talent to not produce anything for the public domain. If you could lure a top CS researcher to MS Research and then pay him craploads of $$$ to spin stuff that would never see the light of day, that was one less high IQ guy contributing to potential MS competitors. It almost worked. The flaw was that creative men are not creative in response to money, they are creative because it is in their DNA, like artists. They create because they have to, it is who they are. Ayn Rand and Bill Gates and their kind never seem to get this.

I will be surprised if there is not soon some quiet legislation enacted in the U.S. and the U.K. to effectively kill crowdfunding (eg Kickstarter).

Consider that a typical ownership cut demanded by venture capitalists in California (3000 Sand Hill Road types) is 30 to 50 percent. Kickstarter or Kickstarter clones could do very well just by saying if you (the individual) invest in XYZ and it pans out, you'll get your share of the 10 percent equity slice reserved for investors. So it could be easy for knowledgeable engineers, technicians and scientists to "play" the investment game via Kickstarter, using their insights from work experience, and do pretty well over the long haul. For start up founders, giving up 10% via Kickstarter is hella better than giving up 50% to 3000 Sand Hill Road folks. Why torture yourself trying to impress plump VC guys to give you 10 minutes and take 50% of your future profits, when you can just lay out your idea on Kickstarter and let the subject matter experts vote with their dollars?

Crowdfunding is therefore to the Anglo-Saxon financial elites what the comet was to the dinosaurs.

Therefore it would make sense that chaps such as Mitt Romney and friends are working quietly but very hard on getting crowdfunding outlawed or marginalized. Watch what happens in the next few years. This will of course only accelerate the decline of R&D and technological leadership in the U.S., but for the $$$ elites, that is some future generation's problem.

Dear Dice Holdings, This is getting lame, and utterly predictable. The point of a Facebook funded astroturf campaign is to be *subtle*, not blatant. Get some good K Street lobbyists, they'll tell ya how the game is played.