Agenda driven shitheads now with the power of demi-gods, what could possibly go wrong?

Who are you with, the STASI? What a real Freedom and privacy loving Conservative you must be. Joe McCarthy's rotting corpse must be crawling out of his grave, on the way to shake your hand, you true Amerikan, you.

It's the free market, do you hate freedom?

You know, I've never been in a market where anything was free that I really wanted. Just sayin'.

So you have no problem stealing things

Who said anything about stealing? What you are attempting to refer to is called copyright infringement or copying. And yes, I'd download a car. Much good it would do me without a magic matter replicator doohickey. I do do have a couple of magic data replicators I use on occasion.

... and I wonder how you afford Internet access and a computer/smartphone to post on Slashdot.

That one is easy, I don't waste money on movie tickets, DVD's or CD's and I use the savings to pay for an internet connection and mostly second hand computer gear. Doesn't make me immoral, just smart. Used the way I use them, they become the Tardis Time-shifting DVR. It's just I can time shift stuff that will be on TV or Radio or whatever backwards from the future to whenever I want to watch it. If it's legal to time shift stuff from the past to watch in the future, why the hell can't I do it the other way too? All this stuff gets broadcast sooner or later anyway, it's just TV the Timelord way. Maybe I should apply for a patent.

Tonight, we program in HELL!

You get Skynet anyway. The only question is who gets there first: The Western democracies, or China.

So it's bad regardless of who develops it first. No, I didn't forget the question mark in the previous sentence. It's a statement, not a question. Not that real A.I. is necessarily bad, it's just that the authors that are likely to develop it ( US MIC, Chinese MIC, and/or various sociopathic multinational corporations ) are likely to fuck it up royally.

"Clean, natural coal" It's pretty rare, clean coal, there's a lot more pixie dust and unicorn tears available that we could find ways to get energy out of.

Pepperidge Farm rememebers.

The Oligarchs usually insist on better work.

Make IT work a Guild. Make much of it secret. Do not reveal to or instruct non-Guild members. Companies that oppose it get their information infrastructure hit with the Mother of All Ban Hammers. The cure will of course have all manner of long term drawbacks that reach far beyond the immediate problem, but what the Hell.

"Para Bellum" ?? Should be more like Belladonna.

Sweeeeeeet!

Shucks, we turned one into a president twice.

"It's how a car is made, not how it's driven, that determines how many jobs there are." They're being made by automated machinery, of course. My other thought, about self driving vehicles is this, No more cop cars. No need for them, not really. Vehicles with police personnel in them would have right of way, just like now, it's just that all the other vehicles on the road would know this and would adjust the flow of traffic to give them precedence over the regular flow. And after a quick look at years of statistics, there's no way in hell they would ever let the cops have manual control, hell there won't BE any manual controls, that'd be crazy. There will, of course, be the traditional cop car paint schemes, flashing light and sirens, these will only be sop to their manhood, ( Not truly serving any other real purpose.) to make them feel a little bit better about not being allowed to manually drive their former penis substitutes. I think it'll be great.