PythonicAlpha

To make it short: Privacy is about protecting Democracy!

As the newest information, we see that we are not only spied on, but there are also stealth techniques to mute bothersome people. It can go thus far, that you will become jailed for something you did not do.

This way, anybody that becomes bothersome to mighty people (and I don't speak about any president here) can become a target. People that are against atomic plants or against chemical fertilizers, or against ... you name it.

This thing can become worse to the democratic nations than killing random people by drones.

Sometimes laziness beneficial for the world. Maybe not for the agency.

Very good idea. Timestamps do not reveal how many hotfixes are made and are chronological by default. To be sure, there could of course be a central instance providing the stamps and ensuring that no two fixes get the same ... (when several fixes could be made in parallel)

I don't know Ayn Rand. I also don't claim that my opinion is in any way new.

And: The financial sector are our new rulers, even when you are not afraid. Ignorance does not save from the truth.

Just look into the news. The Occupy movement was suppressed by the police, because the finance sector paid for it. The political system in most western countries is totally under control of the finance sector.

We are slaves, but we don't know it (yet).

Edit: In second reading your answer, I see that I misinterpreted your statements ... sorry! But for arguments sake, I leave the comment intact.

Financial sector is our new aristocratic system. Those will be and are now our rulers with the blue blood of money and we others have to sweat to pay for their living.

They tell us, that they are needed (as the aristocrats did in the middle ages to the farmers), since we can not go without (system relevant). But the thing is, that by manipulating our democratic systems, they made them self system relevant and they hinder that things can change. What they do is, they take the wealth of the earth away from the 99% and give it to themselves and the other riches. This system will one day kill of any creativity and any living resources of the earth.

They are the real anti-socials of the world.

I agree that there are parallels. I also think, that even when the Stasi was (still) worse than that what is done by the US and the UK ... a start is made and the so often proclaimed "Freedom" of the western nations is undermined more and more. There was also a news that according to a worldwide Liberty organization, the US is now ranking below Romania as much as I remember when it comes to freedom of the press.

Given the state of our societies, I think we are in desperate need of some wealth-bashing.

With our technology, nearly nobody should need to live without health-care or in poverty. But so many do. And what is even more alarming: So many people do in the rich countries.

How is this justified by the thesis that the wealth of some people make the others richer too.

It is a myth of capitalism. That's it.

What is left to the 99%: Charities of the wealthy people that earn more by just stupid investing than most of the others with good ideas or entrepreneurship can ever hope to make.

Also those here hoping to rise up to the top should know that -- it is a lottery game and most of us will simply not win. Do we really, really want a world, where the "Winners take it all" and the others have to fall?

I know, in such a world, Human kind has lost.

Only partly true. Buy "investing" the wealth increases -- and thus the inequality in the world.

Of course in the brochures of Capitalism you see only the positives. But more and more the negatives are available too. VC companies roaming the world for land to buy and press out for investments. Local farmers can not anymore afford the prices for land and thus have to surrender -- and become paid employees. Many people become slaves of these VC companies -- they by companies for profit and when the profit is gone, they dump the companies. It is happening all over the world. The profit margin has to increase ever more to appease the investors.

This profit sensation has brought us thus far, that wealth gets more and more unequal divided and many people are exploited in sweat-shops in poor companies but more and more also in rich countries as in Germany.

Please don't tell us about the high-colored brochure Capitalism!

Because wealth that someone possesses can not be possessed by another person. If one person has 99% of all money in the world, everybody else will have to less to live on. The one person will be able to buy anything else on the world -- thus depleting the others. Or another scenario: Because money is hoarded in few hands, the value of the money goes down ... thus everybody else will loose their wealth.

Things are of course more complicated. But it is a fact, that the resources of the world are limited. Thus if few people hoard things, the others have less ... this effect might come sooner or later, but it will come.

Inequality can not be corrected by charities. It is just a band-aid for the conscience.

When Roosevelt launched the New Deal in the 30s, he prepared the country for new chances for many (if not to say most) of the people and thus for a decades of wealth for all. Reagan and his successors on the other hand dumped the country into an era of greed and misfortune for the 99%.

Eric is plainly right.

I once heard of a developer that wanted to make programming more interesting to himself, by using just three names for all his variables. They where banana, apple and another fruit. He used only those names. I am not sure what he did, when he needed more than three, but that was what he did.

It might have made the thing more interesting for him, but made the things far more difficult for us others of the "pack".

Software development is about complexity. To manage complexity is the highest form of software development and the real challenge. Not the clever ideas, the talented implementation -- manage complexity can make your project, even your company succeed or fall.

The stock exchange has just become the ultimate casino today. Yesterday, stock exchange helped to build companies, to have some security against bad crops and so on ... but that has changed. More and more money is just made by gambling and the more money is made, the more money is again put into the big gambling machine. It is legal, but just gambling and we all have to pay the price, because the gamblers carry the wealth of the Earth away -- and the others are left empty.

It is right, that in continental Europe, there is less freedom to judges interpreting the law. In theory they are bound to the law and have no own judging freedom as in the US.

BUT: This is theory. When you see the details of many decisions (I did not look into this one), there is still plenty of freedom to "interpret" the law. Also what they have to do is, analyse the situation to interpret the law. When the analysis is wrong, the decision comes out wrong. In many cases, the analysis just showed up plenty of disregard of computer reality.

One example lately happened, when a judge thought, that it would be possible to prohibit the viewing of images without the surrounding html file. Everybody with some knowledge of internet knows, that it is not! Thus the judging came out ridiculous ... it must still be challenged.

I don't want to defend German laws of course -- they are oftentimes ridiculous to! But there are just plenty of cases, where no law regarding computer techniques plainly exist. Then judges have to go by common law and interpret it for computer usage ... and there the situation analysis is crucial.

As other people here addressed correctly: That ruling is not final.

But it is true, that particularly lower German courts (some names are in the news again and again) have a long record of decisions that just show one thing: Many German judges have completely not understood computers and the internet. While judges might not needed to in general, they at least should take advice -- possibly by their own grandson? -- before they just make that kind of decisions.

Yes, it is.

But that is not the point. The point is, that the manual labor gets less and less earnings, but the possession of the properties. How many creative products with high value are in the hands of their creators?

In reality, the high earnings are not made by the inventors or creators of things, but by those that have acquired them in any way. In corporations, it is normal, that inventors just get some small fixed amounts for their inventions. Even in the music business, the musicians have the smallest part of the earnings. Often time, the musicians have to sell the rights to the companies, so the companies are earning most of the money. Only very few musicians can make extra-deals and get rich.

To answer your second question: No, it is absolutely not the intent! By making "intellectual property" the same level as other property, the intent is not, that the inventors should have them (as normal copyright once was intended), but the intention is, that it is a trade-able good, that can be accumulated by the wealthy and used against those that are creative (something, that money is not, so creativity must kept cheap).

He will not get it. Since the real kings of the world will prevent it.

They will provide, that more likely a terrorist or mass-murder will get it. Or even somebody that orders unethical kills of people by drones.

The problem are not the patent trolls. If you think, the patent trolls are the patent system biggest trouble, than you are victim of the brain washing, the big corporations give to us all.

Please read my other post in the same forum about "intellectual property" to understand.

All the patent system by itself also does not end human civilization (I did not want to imply that), but the patent system is another symptom of the current state of human civilization and the state of human greed that drives western civilizations down.

It is clearly America's downfall -- and America is pulling the world with itself.

So called "intellectual property" is an other way to decrease the value of manual work and increase the income of pure "possessions".

By making creative work "property" that can be owned and making minimal creative acts "possessable" in a way, that other creativity is inhibited or at least "billed", actual work is diminished for pure "property" holding.

The only way, non-possessing people can climb up "from rags to riches" is by their work. But working is less and less valued in this system.

And with the patent system, the true inventors are getting very limited money (in big companies, it is most often just a fixed amount per patent) -- the rest of the value goes to lawyers, the companies investors and the buyers of the patents when the company goes bankrupt or looses interest. Thus creating a system, where part of the mobile phone or the software or whatever gadgets price must pay the royalties for the patent owner (not the inventor!). Thus this amount goes away from the money that can be paid to workers and inventors. The whole system improves income generated by possessions, but reduces income possibilities for workers and creative people.

You are right, that the problem lies within. The problem is greed. Pure egoism.

Our current system also bases on growth. But every mathematician can tell you, that endless growth is not possible. The Earth can only provide limited resources and even now, the Earth is under heavy pressure because of the Human kind. We are able to exterminate humanity just be our greed. We need to change our system.

I also wish a pistol on somebodies heads ... but I don't think, that it must be all humans. 1% of the humans would suffice.

Maybe I should have clarified: Patent lawyers ;)

I think, there is just a difference between high earning lawyers and those that are not. It is difficult to get into a position, where the high rates are earned. But I think, it is at least more likely, that you can earn real big money as lawyer (without starting an own company) than as a programmer.

The point is not, who is President of the US, but who says what the President of the US has to do.

In all industry, the trend goes one way: The wages of working people (including white-collar, I hope, that is the right word) have to go down, and the earnings from investments (pure money makes money business) have to climb.

There are only very few exceptions: One are lawyers, as mentioned in an other thread, and the other are people that work in the investment business (investment bankers, traders, ...). The reason for the second exception is obvious: their work is needed to make even more money from the money and every trick is played, to have the smartest, best guys getting the job done ... and get it done better and better.

Problem is: The whole thing breaks our society. Middle classes are already melting massively in many countries. The possessions of the worlds are concentrating in the hands of very few people more and more. Those people make our laws! The other people become poorer, even in the situation that the overall worlds possessions expand massively. The countries are already so much in dept, that many of them can not pay even the interest. Even the US is so much in dept, that there seems to be no possibility to get ever rid of it.

Nobody seems to realize, that while we are talking, investment companies are roaming the world for land, for houses, for companies to buy them, exploit them and throw it away when not needed (and not useful) any more. The wealth of the world gets accumulated in the hand of investment companies and the super-rich.

By rising the value of pure money investments, the value of human labor (to a more and more extend even high-paid and high-value labor) is degrading.

The Carlin quote makes a good point here. Also #3 really summarizes what I think about the American dream. I think, historically, the American dream makes some sense, when people had to flee from Europe, to have any possibility at all to live a free and content life. But even in this time, this dream did not come true for everybody.

Today, we have a different setting: The American dream is hold on, to appease the masses of people that never have any chance to get in reach of the American dream at all.

I would say, that you are right, but I would define the "fence+dog" one as not the original "American dream", even when many people are content with fence+dog.

I would not say, that the American dream is dead completely, but I would say, that it is dead for very big parts of the US people in practice, even if they still dream the American dream.

I don't think, that pressing down wages because so many want to work for Google does the company real good. Happier (content) programmers are better programmers.

It's all times the same thing, I guess:

I have seen similar things (from an outsiders view). When you sell your ideas or company to a big corporation, it will be integrated into the corporation structure somehow. And whatever promises you got before, your ideas will get under the wheels of corporation politics.

I have seen it once, where young idealists sold their ideas to a corporation and worked on the idea. Some months later, the whole idea was swallowed by a different department and thus closed down. What was left, was the workforce of the idealists and maybe some little money.

Somebody already complained, that the wage possibilities of software engineers are limited.

I would take it further: In all industry, the trend goes one way: The wages of working people (including white-collar, I hope, that is the right word) have to go down, and the earnings from investments (pure money makes money business) have to climb.

There are only very few exceptions: One are lawyers, as mentioned in an other thread, and the other are people that work in the investment business (investment bankers, traders, ...). The reason for the second exception is obvious: their work is needed to make even more money from the money and every trick is played, to have the smartest, best guys getting the job done ... and get it done better and better.

Problem is: The whole thing breaks our society. Middle classes are already melting massively in many countries. The possessions of the worlds are concentrating in the hands of very few people more and more. Those people make our laws! The other people become poorer, even in the situation that the overall worlds possessions expand massively. The countries are already so much in dept, that many of them can not pay even the interest. Even the US is so much in dept, that there seems to be no possibility to get ever rid of it.

Nobody seems to realize, that while we are talking, investment companies are roaming the world for land, for houses, for companies to buy them, exploit them and throw it away when not needed (and not useful) any more. The wealth of the world gets accumulated in the hand of investment companies and the super-rich.

By rising the value of pure money investments, the value of human labor (to a more and more extend even high-paid and high-value labor) is degrading.

The reason is "free market" is only for the big people -- not for the "human capital". Free market is just an illusion that is fixed that people believe in. It was never meant to be free and much more it was never be meant to be just.

Remember the case, an engineer got lower wages just because he was from India? Also his boss was not allowed to offer him higher wages from the upper management.

The existing free market system is only free, if you understand it as "law of the jungle".