Four Outrages Techies Need To Know About the State of the Union 489
Mr.Intel writes "Last night's State of the Union Address contained ten things (and four outrages) technical professionals need to know about the President's plans, and how his policies might affect you, your employer, and your family well into the future."
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the article, I don't see anything specific to techies. Actually that whole article headline sounds like an article out of People magazine. What's going on here?
Re:Huh? (Score:1, Insightful)
How can we out-innovate? (Score:3, Insightful)
Outrage 8? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just loved the fact the headline was written as if they were facts, and then it was really just that guy's take on things. Blah not worth the time to click all 3 short pages
Re:Blah blah blah (Score:5, Insightful)
The same old tired promises we've been hearing since 1790.
FTFY.
One Outrage I agree on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How can we out-innovate? (Score:5, Insightful)
The logic that we need to compete with workers who are poorly paid, who live and work in an environmental nightmare, is ridiculous.
sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't news (Score:5, Insightful)
That article is an opinion piece. Just because that crap is on ZDnet doesn't make it news of nerds.
Using Education as an Economic Scapegoat (Score:4, Insightful)
Education has two functions:
(1) Give children sufficient information to make them better (as people and citizens of communities, cities, states, nations, and the world) than the prior generation.
(2) Give children the information required to enter the job market.
Education, and the children and teachers within, are not nor have they ever been tasked with shouldering the burden of the most in-debt and luxury-addicted nation in the world. They way education is being sold today, and now solidified by a president who's desperate to get support from the money-minded, is that we can create a Uber-WorkForce by hyper-educating, hyper-tracking, and hyper-testing our children.
"Invest in the most profitable areas of education now and we'll be rich in the future! MONEY!!!! LUXURY!!!"
This is genuinely impossible. Education cannot be treated as a competition ("Race to the Top", "Pay According to Results") and be expected to stay honest. Without honesty, we can't tell if new ideas are working. Moreover, children will eventually become normal, ordinary people with interests in love, humor, entertainment, politics, history, music, and so on... their K-12 over-education in science, technology, engineering, and math will not change them into a new generation of work-slaves.
Putting the pressure, money, and focus on such a goal will be a complete waste. Focus on making them good *people* first and foremost (education in *real* history, philosophy [including religion], sociology) while also educating them in the various ways they can earn sufficient money to live their happy lives and the rest takes care of itself.
And for the sake of cutting off some argument at the pass, I'm not advocating the cutting of STEM funding-- I'm saying that STEM subjects should not be over-invested... particularly at the cost of the education that is there to create a better society. Maybe one that doesn't allow itself to get into the mess we're in right now.
The goal of education is make good people who can be productive in the job market, not workers who are passable human beings.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
TSA pat-downs are less necessary for trains than planes simply because trains can't be redirected into, say, large office buildings or nuclear plants. They're kind of stuck on the rails.
The above is not to say there can't be plenty of trouble a dedicated terrorist can cause with a passenger train (I could probably come up with a couple of dozen "train hijacking" films), but external damage is a bit more limited. High-speed trains, in particular, are going to need dedicated rail lines, so it would be hard to even crash them into freight trains with hazardous chemicals, say.
Re:A modest proposal (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Riduculous (Score:5, Insightful)
You have an awfully low opinion of assembly line workers. I would encourage you to meet one. Then you'd appreciate the physical effort required to meet an extremely strict work schedule, and maintain attention and energy for an entire work day in less than comfortable conditions.
Sure, it's not an intellectually demanding field, and we suffer an intelligence deficit as a result of most jobs not stimulating intellect, but these people worked hard for their meager pay.
The real issue with manufacturing jobs is labor rights -- in other countries. By allowing manufacturing to go overseas we lose control over employers and they are free to create sweatshop conditions. There have been some good signs in that this issue is becoming an item often addressed in trade agreements, but keeping a manufacturing base here in this country is important so that we can continue to be good example of how to employ physical/dexterity labor without abusing workers.
If we just let other countries with low standards completely take over manufacturing, there will be no progress towards more complex automation. Slaves are still cheaper for most tasks than either autonomous or piloted robot labor -- automation itself has not reached the economy of scale needed to truly end the need for "industrial revolution" style jobs. And AI will take longer than scaling up robot production, so there will be a need for piloting, and the world won't starve for lack of a few good "button pushers."
Re:A modest proposal (Score:2, Insightful)
Got news for you. Boomers are paying for their parents Social Security and their own Social Security. The much beloved (not by me) President Ronald Reagan raised SS taxes so that baby boomers pay for their parents and themselves. Recall that SS is not a retirement plan, it's a redistribution plan; the current working generation pays for the current retired generation. So before you start taking anything away, make sure you know the situation.
Secondly, SS is just fine. It's running a surplus and can pay full benefits for the next 27 years. It can easily go further if they raise the top level of income for contribution to $200,000 or higher. Bu then, we can't tax the rich, can we?
I'm a Jones generation (late babyboomer). I followed the main crest my whole life. When I got to the schools, they were run down and out of money. When I looked for a job, the boomers held the high positions (I'm now I'm too old for many of those jobs). College is too expensive, but I saw my tuition rise from $300 a quarter to $1200 a credit.
Blame that on the big business who wants to recruit the "cream of the crop" from the world. That's just another way of saying, "We don't want to invest in our country, its infrastructure or its citizens." No jobs is more due to off-shoring than boomers not retiring (which is kind of what you want to prevent by taking away SS).
You, as a "millennial" actually have it better. I've seen that many boomers have been willing to invest in public schools when you were attending. You'll see more boomers retire or die than I will.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure that's a problem, though. You can't fly a plane into a building any more. The door is locked, and neither passengers or pilots will ever again believe you're merely looking to head to Cuba. By the time you get through the door, they've either landed, crashed, or been shot down. It would be horrific, but no more horrific than blowing up a crowded train. You might even manage to kill more people on the train, especially if you derailed a crowded one at rush hour.
Both al Qaeda and the TSA seem to have an unhealthy fixation on planes, rather than turning their attentions elsewhere. Until recently, I think a lot of Americans had joined them on that, though I think that "don't touch my junk" has finally caused a backlash.
Re:Using Education as an Economic Scapegoat (Score:4, Insightful)
How much can education do for the half of the population with below average intelligence? Is it cheaper to put these people on welfare than to provide them with decent labor/manufacturing jobs?
Re:A modest proposal (Score:2, Insightful)
The biggest problem with this is that we've already spent it all on other projects, to make the deficit look like a mere catastrophe. There's pretty much nothing left in those accounts except IOUs. And last year they fell into the red.
Like every other Ponzi scheme, social security was doomed to go broke from the day they implemented it. That's why it was only intended to be a temporary emergency program.
They only have two options. 1) Cut the budget completely to the bone (as in, quit doing pretty much anything else) to pay back the IOUs or 2) Crank up the printing presses, which means more inflation.
So far the rest of the world's willing to keep extending our credit. Mainly because the global economy's all hitched together...when we go over the cliff, we're taking everyone else with us. Except possibly China.
Grandpa thanks you for being stupid enough to pay for his retirement. I feel obligated to keep contributing to the people who were stupid enough to trust the government to keep the scam going...as long as we can start talking very seriously about bringing the government back under control. Anyone Gen X or younger who counts on seeing a penny of that tribute money deserves what he gets.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Both al Qaeda and the TSA seem to have an unhealthy fixation on planes
i think the only reason al qaeda still even targets planes is just to keep the TSA alive, knowing that all the scanning/pat-downs are just a miserable experience, basically playing the "if you are scared, the terrorists have won" game, rather then genuinely trying to kill people.
Non-story, shock-jock-journalism with no insight (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is this listed as news? This is entertainment at best, and pretty poor entertainment at that. If I wanted useless drivle like this, I would be watching any of the major TV channel tabloidainment shows instead of reading slashdot.
Cmdr Taco owes me 10 minutes.
Re:A modest proposal (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
The point he was making was that the president was trying to score funny points on it - and "pointing out something we all think," when it's his own administration that has foisted these new rules on us that he's cracking jokes about.
If Pres. Obama feels that these pat-downs are ridiculous and laughable, perhaps he should... oh, I don't know... direct his administration to change the requirement that calls for them?