perl is alive an well. i have perl scripts written some 20 years ago that just work. i can not say this about python where you need to updated and update and update 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 3.0 and ... so this means it needs less people to maintain the perl scripts then the python scripts. hopefully with python3 python is mature enough to not break compatibility with existing software all that often. still i think going with perl is a good and save choice.

this is the main point: rough guesstimate: about half of the jobs we have now are useless or harmful. that is: they do not produce something that is useful for us but only something that is useful within the capitalist system - most often to create artificial demand for something that otherwise would not be needed. a few example: advertising: only has one product: our discontent with what we have. or take planed obsolescence. most goods could easily be much more durable. and then there is "defense" and war. the easy way to create now jobs: bomb a country into oblivion so that you need to build it up from scratch. and then there is gambling and "financial products". etc.. with the ecologic footprint most products have: it would be much better if the people working in those jobs would get payed without creating useless crap. and the ratio of useless jobs vs. useful ones can only increase with more automation... this is why we need an UBI.

people say this is not new: since 150+ years we see exponential growth in productivity and still we still have a 40h work week and almost full employment. where does the extra productivity go? and will this trend continue?

1.) marx hints in the manifesto what happens with the overproduction: it creates a crisis within capitalism. "In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity—the epidemic of over-production." capitalism has learnt do deal with this but to some degree the mechanisms are still the same as 150years ago. creating extra demand via advertising. destroying the existing production. war. legally limiting access. e.g. via so called "intellectual property". as a more permanent solution: capitalism in former centuries had the opportunity to expand into other continents. but this is gone. and there is a limit to aggressive advertising. the "best" method to get rid of access production today is via war. works twice: you need weapons and you do need to rebuild what has been destroyed.

2.) so if we are not able to limit the excess productivity by shorting labour hours and installing basic income then what we will see is heading to is war and destruction. if you look today: most jobs are in areas that are useless or harmful to society: advertising (an industry that creates dissatisfaction), financial products creating fictional capital and of course war. also most products could last much longer then they do..etc.. also think of the ecological footprint of the useless crap.

3.) so if we do not want to wake up in an even more distyopian world we better make sure that we compensate the productivity gains with working less hours and demanding more money and fighting for a universal basic income..

seconded, let's spam that crap into oblivion

this!

never had the plan to submit a 'me too' post to /.
and: here you are

100% agree. its already in the manifesto: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm

.. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property

hahahah... mod parent up!!!!!

Summary godwined in first sentence.

So, Torvalds is a WIMP after all.

Seconded. You could also give solo Stephen Baxter a try. Has the reputation for writing harder than hard science fiction. Wonderful stories. I'd recommend you start at Raft. Takes place in a universe with a different gravitation constant, where people feel significant attraction force when coming near each other.

You could also give solo Stephen Baxter a try. Has the reputation for writing harder than hard science fiction. Wonderful stories.

Where are my moderator points when I *need* them?
+1 funny

Perhaps I could learn to understand some of my exes behavior in bed with this technology...