Walking into any casino and betting it all on black, twice. There is no difference between speculation and gambling.

I think machine learning and expert systems are going to take over much of the decision-making that is today done by humans.
1. They'll be better than humans, statistically. We already see this in e.g. cancer diagnosis.
2. They'll be cheaper than humans.
Expert systems will control or play a major role in healthcare, insurance, employment, tax, social benefits, courts..

The problem is, already today algorithms created by ML are too complex to follow. We can only test and simulate to ensure they're at least more reliable than humans - in the end we'll just have to accept they're almost always right.
That's a bloody scary thing when your doctor says "Well, the computer says you need surgery so we'll just have to let it do that", but the reasons are too complicated for both your doctor and you to understand.

I used to think like that when I was younger, but I don't any more.
Guess I've listened to enough of people feeling genuinely hurt by that kind of name calling - eventually, I decided to stop. I don't feel like it's cost me anything.

I second this (if you're not already organised - sounds like you're not).
Minimum wage is nice in theory, but risk becoming the default wage.

Seeing your final observation, I'm surprised and a bit saddened to see you so strongly assert that you're not a socialist.
You see a minority owning the majority of assets, consider yourself as a slave (your words) - and still you're mindfucked to believe that unions and socialism is somehow bad for you?

Of course they can pay a proper wage - they just rather keep the money. Simple as that.

That may be part of the truth.
Another part is that it encourages/forces phone manufacturers to have factories in Brazil - providing jobs and investing in national infrastructure - as import tax is so high that imported phones can't compete.
I worked several years with a major brand phone manufacturer. All their factories were in low cost / high tech Asian countries - plus one Brazil.

It's always strange to hear Americans talk about their government like it's an entity removed from themselves.

Most of us here in Scandinavia trust the government. We think it's on our side, against the drawbacks of capitalism.
We see that businesses are excellent at providing goods and services, but also that that's a by-product of their primary purpose: making money.
Left unchecked, businesses will do bad things to maximize profit.
Not because we, their owners, are evil capitalists, or that we, their employees, are without conscience.
It's just the way that humans - and by extension businesses, our most perfectly egoistic creations - work.

I don't mean to troll, but this is what I experience:
I hear your arguments against a strong government, and most of them don't make sense to me.
I see private citizens open their mouths, and out come the words of business representatives. It's like some darn spooky ventriloquism trick.
You identify yourselves with businesses and not with your government.
Truly, to me many Americans seem indoctrinated to mistrust and want to minimize their government (i.e. their own power, as I see it).
It's the only way I can make sense of it.

I think one stumbling block of evolutionary studies is the notion to consider anything to be perfected.
The reason that altruism does not always make sense (according to a pure 'selfish gene' standpoint), may well be that it doesn't.

We've developed a few genes that makes part our brain mirror what our fellow beings experience. If we see someone suffer, we feel bad too.
Most of the time, that makes sense from an egoistic standpoint. Some of the time, it doesn't.
Altruism is no more a mystery that our preference for certain kinds of food.
Enjoying sweet, fat and protein-rich food is good for humans - except for when it isn't.

Come on, you're asking the wrong question!
The sun doesn't revolve around you or me.
Those here who answer "I don't care" are halfway right.
None of us will be betrayed by Google or Amazon - that's bad business.
NSA won't post your private stuff or steal your money - they just want to do their job, damn the consequences.

However, after the next economic depression and mass unemployment, or after the next great war,
when we elect our Führers, or support revolutions ending in a totalitarian states,
they will find it convenient that our governments have built the infrastructure for their tyranny.

To answer the question that your should have asked:
* Voice your opinion.
* Support EFF https://www.eff.org/action and similar organisations.
* Contact your representative.
* Vote with your head and your heart - not your wallet.

Are those examples supposed to work as a reality check?
Many countries have progressive taxing. The result is a soft limit on how much an individual can earn.

However, an arbitrary limit is stupid, because it encourages envy.
It is not a problem that people can earn a lot - it's nice to be rich.
It is IMHO a problem when money is spent on luxuries (yachts, sports cars, mansions) instead of necessities (education, healthcare, infrastructure).
The point of progressive taxing is not to limit wages - it's to generate taxes fairly.
If you earn x times more than the next guy, you can spare some.

I second that.
For exploring / achieving GW2 is probably the best game I've played.
At least as good as WoW, which I played for many years (and will probably play it again some, come next expansion).
WvW (large scale PvP against other servers) is also fun, even though I'm not much of a PvPer.

Only thing that concerns me is how they're able to make money, considering there's no subscription once you've bought the game, and the real money store is mainly fluff.
But I guess enough people like funny hats to keep it going.

This is what really makes me worry about the US economy. If it gets bad enough (and I'm not talking about the current situation), what stops you from invading other countries to claim their assets?
I don't mean some apocalyptic scenario where US citizens are starving either. All it takes is enough corporations not making sufficient profit, and you'll be fed enough propaganda to think some resource-rich country is conspiring with the communists or al-Qaida or whatever scares you enough, and the war is on.

Oh man, I get so bothered when someone presents interesting data - only to append a theory that isn't connected to it.
Why is that? Don't you get to publish unless you have a theory, no matter how unrelated an implausible it is?
Human sciences especially - it's understandable though, as it's hard to read people's minds.

Neurons firing? Really?? Does fantasizing about objects we can actually see and touch suddenly make it science?
If the study included brains scans or something, sure. But all they did was look at numbers.

If you don't have a theory that's related to your study, just post your data and spare us your fantasies. Thank you.

I'm guessing Google picked up on how several of my family members (and many, many other computer users I'm afraid) actually enter URLs:
1. Click browser home button, arrive at google.com
2. Type URL in search box, then click first link (for advanced users: click "I'm feeling lucky")
No matter how I try to explain how backwards this is, they keep doing it. Take away the search bar and I can't even argue the sane alternative.

More hits for google.com - more data, ads and more money for them. Only makes sense, really.