The problem with getting rid of cities is the high environmental impact of people spreading out.

Is there still an obligation to not violate an NDA if in doing so keeps evidence of a crime a secret? Can an NDA bar one from reporting a crime?

Just as the 2008 recession could have been avoided if only people with a formal education in finance had been making the big decisions?

Or could it be that companies don't care about risks with external costs?

Seems most companies are not concerned with information security unless it directly impacts their bottom line. Therefore we need to make incidences such as this extremely painful, even to the point of criminal prosecution and corporate dissolution with assets seized, to push shareholders and board members to start demanding due care and not just paying lip service to compliance.

A big problem with distributing resources in areas most in need is that you have to protect it, or the resources will disappear because corrupt local governments and war lords will hoard it for their own gain.

Education and birth control may be counter to local sentiment and culture, and may be violently opposed. Good or bad, imposing such a huge change could be considered imperialistic and may come across as "Us white people need to save those brown/black people from themselves," and still ultimately require force to implement.

One does not simply establish rule of law (or a new set of laws), but you'd pretty much have to if you want to make these changes and feed people. Given recent examples, such an endeavor is a multi-decade commitment, because leaving too early risks leaving a power vacuum, possibly compounding the problem. It takes at least a couple generations to learn the process of running a democratic society. And what do we do if they keep voting in the same corrupt government over and over? Overthrow it and restore "democracy" each time? As Turkey has shown, that's not viable in the long run.

I'm eager to learn of any viable plan to bring these countries into the modern era without force, in any reasonable timescale. I'm very conflicted on the choice to use force in this way, but I believe it's necessary to accomplish the stated goals within one lifetime.

That is a huge assumption. If it's not the case it could have a chilling effect on the employer to pay the employee proportionally the value they bring the company.

Like the militant movement in the 60s?

http://www.economist.com/news/...

How dare the Bourgeois care for other people's welfare!

Why are people born into poverty generally stay poor? Why are people born into wealth generally stay wealthy? "Poor people teach their children to be poor; rich people teach their children to be rich." You could blame the parents, but it's generally poor people all the way down.

There are outliers, but to a large extent people are a product of their environment. The parents are christian; the person is probably christian. The community is conservative; the person is probably conservative. That's the reason elections (in many places) are intentionally not based on majority votes; people who live near one another generally have similar views.

Parents do what they can to give their children the best chance of success. But if "you did it all on your own," are you saying that all the effort your parents, teachers, and anyone who happened to help you along the way, was wasting their time on you? You would still be just as successful without their efforts?

http://www.economist.com/news/...

I don't know, you seem pretty smug in your assertion. /s

Is there a reason to punish the mentally incompetent beyond what is required to ensure public safety? Confining them to a mental institution seems like a better option than prison.

Quoting the bible is a bold strategy.

Apparently the god of abraham didn't think much of the principles of freedom when he killed 14 thousand people that chose not to blindly follow moses. numbers 16:1-30

Or one can be torn apart if you don't obey god's law. isaiah 5:24-25 (What is the democratic process for changing "god's law?")

It only took two minutes to find a couple passages that demonstrate how incompatible christian fundamentalism is with democratic principles. We've been fortunate that very few take the bible that seriously, but who knows when that could change.

The butt hurt must be strong on Slashdot for a comment whining about a joke to get +5.

I think the idea is that the original code is more of a proof of concept; it only needs to identify a need and how feasible is it to meet that need. It doesn't have to be salvageable to do that. If the terrible code increases productivity by a significant margin, there may be a business case for hiring experts to re-implement or salvage at their discretion.

The real problem here is management being oblivious to critical dependencies. It's management's negligence that's allowing their department to become more and more dependent on something that wasn't designed from the ground up to be maintainable.

That's also covered under "failure of management." If there wasn't an existing proof of concept, written terribly, would this same management even allow the expert to "create a good, appropriate solution to the original problem," or would they tie the expert's hands and force them down a poor design path? I believe so.

The solution to bad management isn't more qualified experts, it's better management. Good management not only knows when to bring in the experts, but to also heed their advice and guidance, because they know to do otherwise would be a waste of resources.