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• A comment on Talk: Adam Davidson: What we learned from teetering on the fiscal cliff

  Dec 29 2012: wise talk.
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  A comment on Talk: Andrew McAfee: Are droids taking our jobs?

  Sep 29 2012: great subject in this talk. i share the position of those who believe that we must analyze carefully what's going on in the next few decades. some scenario's can be scary, but generally talking technology is definitely a good thing, it's up to all of us to keep it going this way even in the future. the key point couldn't be easier (theoretically). technology improves productivity => wealth. who should be entitled to capitalize this wealth? some people claim that always in the past the increased benefits derived from an arose productivity has been made available to the vast majority. true '900 especially. in which way? what kind of benefits? i'd say better, cheaper, more abundant....food, clothing, transport means, communication possibilities, but also better job conditions (less working hours better paid, payed vacations, getting paid while you're ill, retirement...), better education and more rights (only after WWII we've had a western global extended voting rights). all these things are the fruits of a generalized REDISTRIBUTION OF THE IMPROVED PRODUCTIVITY DUE TO TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS. did these things show up on their own? reading some comments it would seem like that: the wealthier have decided spontaneously to share this increased wealth with everybody and did propose the reduction of the working week, the extension of rights and so on....., or, things went that way automagically, nobody had to fight and die for that.
  unfortunately technology only gives us the indispensable means by which global wealth increases, because it allows to fulfill better our needs or to satisfy new ones. technology discloses new horizons, but who is entitled to capitalize all this is an open game. technology and wealth are not ethical for themselves, they provide material conditions but it's only society and all the individuals who compose this whole who're entitled to decide who'll capitalize'em.

• A reply on Talk: Andrew McAfee: Are droids taking our jobs?

  Sep 29 2012: >1. if we will run out of jobs someday, why this did not happen 50 years ago, 200 years ago?
  
  because the big switch from agricolture to industry and services still NEEDED the work of millions of workers. and because of epical cultural and political battles. that's so easy. today we're in a situation where the work of people to produce goods and service for those who can afford to pay for them are less and less needed (did you hear about the possibility to substitute ten of thousand workers in foxxcon with robots? just google around). things are accelerating so much that there is a serious risk that the number of people left behind will increase dramatically if nothing is done.
  
  >2. maybe what happened back then can happen tomorrow too?
  
  this depends a lot on how the situation will be managed. of course theoretically every increment of productivity is greatly welcome, the issue is how this productivity will be made available to the masses when there is the serious risk many people are left out. wealth has NEVER been spread from up to down alone, it's like violating the second principle of thermodynamics. i'll be happy to state i was wrong if things will develop as you suggest.
  
  >nobody cared about "fair" distribution of goods 100 years ago, yet, we did not observe the masses getting poorer and poorer, or unemployment increasing. the opposite happened, people were getting richer and richer.
  
  it's an answer you gave to another guy in the same thread but i couldn't help answering here.
  
  this is one of the less intellectually honest statements i've ever read. i do understand that you're have the total free market religion in your blood and that nobody else than entrepreneurs are to be thanked for everything good in the world, but to "forget" to remember that thousands of workers (with the indispensable help of some illuminated elites) spitted blood to get their (and ours) working conditions improved is really really unfair.

• A reply on Talk: Andrew McAfee: Are droids taking our jobs?

  Sep 29 2012: such an idea to work needs a relatively global acceptance of this obvious solution, especially today in a globalized world. the reduction of the working week in the first decades has been possible because of the union of the strength of millions of workers, who where absolutely indispensable to the owners of the factories (delocalization was unthinkable), and who paid a huge "blood bill" aided by some illuminated elites so that we can have today in many western countries those that we call "indefeasible rights", 8h/day work, sat and sun off, paid vacations, getting paid even when you're ill and so on, in a few words REDISTRIBUTION OF INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY DUE TO TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS to the masses. pure and simple. today things are more difficult, if you strike (or even if you don't) they take the whole factory in china or somewhere else where people work for a cup of rice, many non skilled workers or general-purpose employees are simply no longer needed, so they "can look for another job", or better "invent" a new one. there's really much at stake and several scenarios available. it's up to us to avoid that something absolutely positive as technological progress actually is, will continue to improve the life conditions of the huge large majority of the world population. it won't happen as "for magic", there is no invisible hand fixing everything as adam smith claimed
  , there are laws that need to be changed to help to spread the increased productivity due to technological progress, to make so that nobody will be left behind.

• A comment on Conversation: One International Online Public School K - Doctorate, Universally Expected to Provide Mediocre Education.

  Sep 27 2012: i'm definitely for encouraging this kind of learning, but i don't agree that necessarily it will or should turn out in mediocre education. it depends on how it will be developed. for instance you could still keep traditional schools to provide environments for experimenting and directly exchange experiences after you've learned the concepts at your own pace at home (and discussed some topics on forums for instance) it wouldn't be necessary to go to school every given day and in the same time you could use some of the taxes saved to increase overall quality (more/better equipped laboratories, computers and so on). this way you could also save the direct human connection and avoid the sort of "hikikomori" effect. as for quality why should it lower? it lowers only if you waste an opportunity to employ resources in a better way to increase quality. anyway it's something wonderful in my opinion that will have inimaginable consequences in the next few decades.
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  A reply on Conversation: Will Automation Lead to Economic Collapse?

  Sep 11 2012: love this one!

• A reply on Conversation: Trickle Down Economics - Where is it successfully practiced?

  Sep 11 2012: "I hear this kind of talk from neo-libertarians all over the place. Everything good about society comes from the free market and everything bad is because of government. Whenever deregulation and lower taxes fail to create the prosperity that was promised, they always say "it was not deregulated enough!" Government is the face of tyranny and private corporations are the face of freedom for all."
  
  it's like a mantra they wish all of us to believe blindly (mustn't be casual that the base of the republican party is full of bigots who believe in the literal interpretation of the bible), as so far there isn't a single example where this perfect free market has eradicated poverty allowing the huge majority of a big society (little fiscal paradises who live robbing the taxes that belong to nations whose people sweated for that can not be considered an example) to live a decent life without having to struggle to reach the end of the month (common expression we use here in italy). the nations where the best living conditions are spread among the largest number of people are in nord europe and in scandinavia particularly, where there is free market indeed, but the intervention of government makes so that through the payment of taxes (amongst the highest rates in the world!!) nobody stays behind. a friend of mine is living in denmark since 5 years and will never come back to italy if not to visit his parents and relatives: he's happy despite the cold weather :). i do agree on every single point of your post, especially when you talk about the strength of lobbies with a huge economical power to push the laws who serve their selfish interests. so far, recognizing the positive aspects of free market, i do strongly oppose their nearly total lack of empathy, their hate for the weak and their pretense that any individual must struggle alone, thats the opposite of what makes us human: belonging to a social species.

• A reply on Conversation: Trickle Down Economics - Where is it successfully practiced?

  Sep 11 2012: "Now you are really going off the deep end. The government did not force private companies to dish out bad loans and sell the debt as secure investments. The government did not force private companies to charge interest rates below prime, or give out loans with no money up front. Those companies did that because they knew they could sell the debt and not have to worry about the risk of the loan. The only thing the government is responsible for is not regulating them enough to prevent it from happening. The deed was done by Wall Street, that's why they bare the blame."
  
  i would have spent the same words.
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  A reply on Conversation: Will Automation Lead to Economic Collapse?

  Sep 10 2012: i do agree so much with you scott, and your fears are mine and many many million people around the world. if you don't have read it already have a look at jeremy rifkin's "the end of work" that deals exactly with this topic and gives a gleam of hope. i'm worried as you're about an excess of automation as i don't believe that there is a solution with mass-employment in view of the loss of so many working places. my parents have greatly enhanced their living conditions compared to the condition of my grandparents. they'd got better salary, incredibly more rights (as payed vacation, they were payed if they got ill ecc..) while i belong to a generation that's swimming in a swamp, with little or no guaranties at all, nor for working conditions nor for retirement, it's the first generation since many decades where the sons get it worse than their parents.

• A comment on Conversation: Is it possible for an individual to be without ethnocentrism?

  Sep 10 2012: in this time and space it's unavoidable in my opinion, though educated and intelligent people are at least aware of it. i think that during the many years we grow up in a certain environment, we absorb its culture, made of believes (what we believe is what motivates us to act) expected behaviors, knowledge, ways to interpret the world that surrounds us and ways to look at it. we create our own scale of values and compare everything we get in touch with to this scale. i think of myself as being a very open and not judgmental person, but when i see, let's say, a report where a taleban is kicking in the ass a woman, or a woman being lapidated (just to make two examples but it could be also something i judge bad, happening in a western country like discrimination based on race or religion) i can't help comparing these acts to my scale of values. i do agree with you that in some circumstances ethnocentrism can be a serious obstacle for marriages, the more the difference, the more the difficulty even if hubby and wife are both open minded, as the problem is extended to relatives and friends. i think though that the trend will be a gradual, slow (i think it will take a few centuries) loss of importance of ethnocentrism and it's effects, as we will become again one human nation, as it was at the beginning.