We don't really know what new jobs will be created or what the net balance will be. But it's a silly leap of faith to think that old patterns will simply repeat themselves. We do know that AI and robotics are going to eliminate many existing jobs--most jobs don't require much intelligence or dexterity, after all. Whole new economic sectors may emerge. Or not. Dystopia isn't inevitable, but unless we figure out how to finance a safety net, it remains a possibility.

I would have done it in the reverse--which would you give up last? I don't use Facebook, so that was an easy pick for first. I do use Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. If I had to choose last, it would be Google.

Nick Bostrom's warnings have this as an implicit assumption. Bostrom claims that once a "super-intelligence" is created, it could improve on itself so rapidly that no other competing attempt will have a chance to catch up. For this to be true, there would need to be no limit.

Spaceballs was the only good reason to have seen Star Wars.

Yep, even the BIOS code was published by IBM back in the beginning. Microsoft discouraged going to the BIOS directly as it could lead to creating software that competed with Microsoft's. Nothing prevented it, though. Hardware resources were limited, but with a little effort you could understand how things worked and take that into account when designing programs that performed well.

I learned to program with FORTRAN IV on mainframes. While I was impressed with the power of abstraction, the process was so tedious (punch cards, turn the deck over to the operators, wait 24 hours to get the first syntax error back and repeat over and over) that I never considered becoming a professional. That all changed when I got my hands on my first microcomputer. It was all mine and completely under my control. The feedback was immediate. It completely changed my experience and led to a long and mostly happy career in IT.

I was in college at the time and frankly, don't remember it in much detail. (If you remember the 60s, you weren't living in the 60s). I didn't watch television, so I must have learned of it by word of mouth or the press. I thought it was sad, but also probably an inevitable consequence of pushing the limits. The shuttle losses had a greater impact on me personally. I suspect that's because the videos of the events made them seem more immediate. Maybe also because by the time they happened success had made us jaded about the risks.

Yes, that was my thought exactly. Remember Nosedive? This would be even worse.

President Trump is proof that we are living in a simulation and the programmers are fucking with us.

Good to hear from someone who knows what's actually going on. One question: the Medical Center (hospitals and clinics) used to have a totally separate department from the teaching and research side. Are both sides outsourcing or only one? I used to work for Med Center IT and we were under very different funding rules, as the Med Center was (in theory) self-supporting.

The vast majority of the accounts probably were fake accounts used by spammers. Oh, well...

I've been a Msft user since the earliest versions of MS-DOS, which means that I've put up with a lot of crap but kept on as things slowly improved. I have been burned by a number of updates over the years, so I install them manually after checking them out one by one. It's a pain, and some destructive stuff has slipped through from time to time, but I could always uninstall or fall back to a restore point if necessary. It would be nice if I could just trust Msft not to screw up my machine, but sadly, they haven't earned that trust. The choices are rather grim, as I don't want to forego security updates. I'm hoping there will be a large enough outcry that they back off before I have to move to another platform.

Not more in absolute terms, but more as a percentage of income. Most of the rich do not spend all of their income; all of the poor do. So if the VAT is, say, 10%, the poor are paying a 10% tax on their income, while most of the rich are paying less (in VAT). That's why I claim it's a regressive tax.

Financing UBI with VAT is still regressive and a flat tax would have to exclude UBI or it would simply be idiotic. A more rational approach would impose new taxes on capital itself, not income. The long-term trend is that labor will have ever decreasing importance in the creation of wealth as robotics and AI become more productive and widespread. The creation of wealth will largely be a function of capital alone, directed by a tiny minority of the world's population. While UBI may offer some short-term efficiencies compared to current disjointed redistribution programs, its main advantage is that it addresses the long-term problem.

It has become increasingly hard to distinguish satire from reality. I've read various versions about the origin of this petition, but I tend to believe it started as a provocation and (like Donald Trump) has become real.

If they don't allow guns, he Reds are gonna have some 'splainin to do to the faithful. Let's see:

Cruz: I agree that everyone should carry a gun, and in Texas, we're going to make it mandatory, unless you're Mexican of course. But the Secret Service won't allow it at the convention. Elect me and we'll make sure nobody has to take orders from Washington ever again. Only from Jesus, amen.

Trump: My gun is bigger than your gun. (pulls out gold .357 magnum, tries to shoot Cruz, but hits Cruz's wife instead). Hey, Ted, don't say I never did you no favors, OK? Now can we get on with the inauguration?

If they do allow guns, they're even crazier than they appear.

A great language for introducing yourself to the object paradigm, but not widely used for real-world applications. I imagine most people will choose BASIC, ignoring the real-world history of its impact.