I mentioned before that places like Sears in my neck of the woods had gone to shit. It is sad for the employees, but ultimately these stores were destined to fail. Like it or not, online transactions have cut into these businesses. If we don't like how Amazon runs its warehouses, or Blue Apron runs its prep facilities, then it's time to legislate minimum standards.

Online retail and the support structure that comes with it aren't new anymore. We can't ignore them on a legislative level. The Wild West has come to a close and it's time to recognize that this is a fully established and substantial industry, not some crazy new age experiment.

If we don't like what automation is doing to us, we could restrict or heavily tax automation, or do the truly progressive thing and legislate short working days to force a need for more employees, and increase the social safety net. We can feed everyone whether they work or not because we throw away most of our food. We can house everyone whether they work or not because we already pay more than that cost to keep them homeless. We refuse to. It is time for the Protestant work ethic, the moralization of poverty, to die.

When Bernie Sanders supporters made these arguments in other posts, you decried us for pursuing perfection and misrepresented our arguments as being only about student loan forgiveness. When I recommended Steele's Neoliberal Reading List to you (which is chock full of examples on how the Democratic party has become a classist, technocratic organization that is contributing to and preventing us from fixing the very problems you describe) you said:

No thank you. I won't have someone else pick my reading list or tell me how to view the world.

Thanks though.

So, yeah. Thanks though.

My issue was your student loan forgiveness and your desire for drastic, immediate results. A project of this nature takes a decade. It's not something that changes in one election.

Hate Clinton all you want, but she would have been a competent President and she did change her platform for you.

If catering to special interests is what you call presidential competency, then Yes. Clinton was your gal.

not trying to suck steele's reading list's dick, but its sorta right

Because what we ended up with is sooooo much better.

Another chance in 4 years? Yeah, it is.

On the other hand, 4 years is more than enough time to wreck the economy, start or expand numerous wars, and dismantle most social services and protections.

What makes you think Clinton could forever prevent Republicans from getting that opportunity? May as well rip off the bandaid.

Yeah, cause that's not hyperbole.

In case you hadn't noticed, we're kind of now in a post-hyperbole world.

What makes you think Clinton wasn't a war monger?

Hey I'll acknowledge her problematic history in this area, but at least the had some diplomatic and policy experience to draw on as commander-in-chief.
Meanwhile the current leadership, lacking such experience or insight, is already escalating and expanding conflicts without regard to consequences.

White House weighs deeper U.S. military involvement in Yemen war

Panic spreads in Iraq, Syria as record numbers of civilians are reported killed in U.S. strikes

Speculate all you want about whether Clinton is a warmonger. What difference does it make now? Pretty clear that we ended up with a definite warmonger.

No doubt there... I'm just saying we are in the same place regardless of the winner. I don't say that to validate Trump as I hate the fucker.

The false dichotomy is a pretty old concept, but I guess it's possible they hadn't discovered it yet when you were in school.

In the end there were only two candidates who could actually be elected president, each with a clearly divergent path. How is that a false dichotomy?

It's a false dichotomy because you keep trying to insinuate that people critical of Clinton are happy with Trump. It's possible to dislike Clinton and still dislike Trump even more, but that seems difficult for you to grasp.

It's not that I think people critical of Clinton (from the left obviously) are happy with Trump, more the sense that many view them with a sort of equivalency, or that maybe we got the president we deserve because of Clinton, or that Clinton would somehow have been as bad. There certainly seems to be a kind of smirking 'told you so' satisfaction among some folks about how it turned out.

It's not a smirking satisfaction, it's that we have no hope of moving forward until you people understand how we got here. You've been wrong, wrong, wrong, and now many of you are still making predictions with the same misinformed assuredness that led you to be wrong before. What do you think is going to happen when you continue to do that? How can we possibly have any hope when the barriers to progress are both you and the right?

Many of you are acting completely oblivious to how Clinton lost mathematically. You think that by continuing to preach to the choir you're going to gain more electoral votes? It doesn't matter how much more the Democrats win the popular vote, until you understand that you have to reach out to everyone in this country the republicans are going to win. And I'm not seeing that understanding coming from many of the Hillary supporters on this site. Many of you are carrying on like the election didn't even happen, as if you weren't wrong, as if the Democratic party hasn't been getting utterly decimated out there.

That's not smirking satisfaction, that's pure terror and disbelief that you people think staying the course is even an option.

Platforms aren't binding. She wouldn't have made any concrete change, and certainly not taken any action against those who have bought and paid for her.

Obama promised you change, but anyone who's been paying attention knew big change would not happen. We got a neutered ACA, which was pretty good. "Persistence and incremental change" isn't a good slogan. Sanders would have been no more able to change things and by your logic his platform was not binding either. This will be won in every election but the Presidential one.

What we could have had was a woman who would not be an idiot, someone who wouldn't ensure we'd wait a long time for another female President, someone vowing to continue Obama's serviceable work. We could have had everyone not just believe but know a woman could occupy the highest office, creating an end argument about women not being leadership material or being unproven.

That symbolic victory would have been a huge change for the woman of this country. I don't think anyone here will understand what women lost versus what Sanders supporters lost.

Vote in all other elections if you want the change he promised you. He never could have delivered it.

"Persistence and incremental change" is just a delaying tactic. Do better or step aside.

Sanders was trustworthy. Clinton was very much not. If Sanders said he would attempt something, I'd believe him. If Clinton did, I'd just see it as manipulation.

If having a woman in the Oval Office was so important, you should have pushed Warren harder. She could have won. We told you Hilary couldn't, and because you insisted, Trump is there.

Aren't you Canadian? You live in Canada? Dafuq do you care whether Hillary or Bernie were elected?
I'm Canadian, but I'm actually here living in the US, dealing with the results. just start saving you nickles for that legal pot Trudeau is promising.

Yeah, it won't have any effect on my life. *eyeroll*

it doesn't, unless you were one of those poor saps turned away at the border when they told CBP they were "going to protest" Fuck, I live here, and the new administration has had very little impact on my day to day, other than I am now super glad that Obama never got to ban Assault Rifles and Oregon has some very lax rules. I fully intend to spend some of my tax return on some AR15s.

I much would have preferred a Dem victory, and I feel that Clinton and the Dem party generally weren't paranoid enough about Trump, but honestly it didn't matter to me who won the Dem nomination. Given what actually went down Election day, I don't believe a Sanders led ticket would have fared any better. the blue States went blue, the red States went red, and the rust belt said "Fuck NAFTA". Neither Bernie or Hillary had a talking point around NAFTA and they both soft-balled the TPP. If you think a non-practicing Jew had better chances than a Women to win the racist white yokel vote... Something something bridge to sell you.

Sanders performed in the primaries exactly where Hillary didn't in the General Election. Remember, just 4 and 8 years ago these areas voted for a black, secret muslim, terrorist. It wasn't a matter of changing minds, it was a matter of mobilizing voters. Getting people to vote is the core of Sander's philosophy and was completely ignored by Clinton's campaign team. Hillary Clinton was a flawed, compromised candidate that never stood a chance, Sanders would have wiped the floor with Trump.

well, he can always try in 2020?

It'd be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. He'll be another 4 years older and much of the Democratic Party would still probably fall over themselves to vote for Clinton again.

Or the people they've been turning away simply because of the colour of their skin.

Cite your sources. Context is as a Canadian, living in Canada, crossing to the US. all that I've seen /read is people getting racially profiled and delayed, not turned away. Travel ban notwithstanding.

Don't get me wrong, I have no love for the current administration, but the root question to you was: why do you care who the Democrat party *elected* to represent them? You feel that somehow if Sanders had been the nominee things would have turned out differently, but I don't see any data to support that. Poll data indicated that less people turned out to vote for Hillary than Obama, true, but she still had the popular vote and lost anyhow. Sanders maybe could have made the blue States bluer, but I don't see any evidence that he could have kept the rust belt States. feel free to elucidate.

Here and here

Don't pretend your system is even vaguely democratic. As you point out, the person who won the election does not hold office, and the first stage has been shown to be shockingly corrupt.

Clinton faced every criticism little girls trying to be somebody face. If they're themselves, they're wrong. If they change for the public, they're fake. If they take charge, they're bossy. If they have ambition, they're a witch, not a go-getter.

In the face of endless investigation, $40million worth of it, they found nothing substantial. In the face of relentless hatred that started long before she could have done anything to deserve it, she persisted.

She was everything little girls in my time were viciously punished for being, everything little boys were encouraged to be. She was a symbol. Having never grown up as a little girl in the south in the U.S., I understand why she didn't matter to you.

Not just any woman would suffice. It had to be Clinton to prove that women facing endless slander could succeed, that the world could not bring us down.

She means a lot to me and to other young women she inspired to not back down and not limit our dreams just because "no woman's ever done that before" . Maybe you don't need symbols, maybe you get to see yourself reflected as a leader and virtuous in media. Girls are only just starting to get that and Hillary Clinton helped pave the way.

I get that. I do sympathise. The kick of it is, she's a symbol for me and my generation too, but just a very different one. She represents the selfishness and duplicity of her generation. She represents those that would pretend to progress, but call all black people "superpredators". She represents those that pretend to support the arts, but would try to ban video games outright.

Worst of all, from the perspective of me and mine, she represents all the mediocre boomers who have so much, yet earned none of it.

"Persistence [in stubbornly refusing to learn] and incremental change" is how we lost the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, two-thirds of the states and over 900 legislative seats in eight years. It's not just a bad slogan, it's not good strategy either.

We got the ACA. We got gay marriage. We got the feds to deprioritize soft drugs. We got Trans use of bathrooms. Those incremental changes probably mean nothing to you because they don't all directly benefit you, but for many people, it meant living free from fear of recrimination for being who they were born to be.

If that's nothing, I don't know what to say to you.

Obama can't lay claim to gay marriage. He didn't lift a finger to help there. You have a Republican health plan that still directs vast sums of money away from health care, and simply throws it away to the investor class. Assuming, of course, they can't manage to repeal it over four years. Nor is there any real protection for trans people or permanent defanging of the DEA.

I think it's entirely fair to call that nothing.

Gay marriage is actually a perfect example of where incrementalism failed. It was the people who refused to accept civil unions, who refused to accept that some states would get it before others, who forced the issue and made the Supreme Court rule on it, that won the day. And thanks to them, gay marriage is one of the few gains that will be hard for the Republicans to roll back. Trump reversed the Obama policy on transgender access to bathrooms one month after he got inaugurated.

It's also a perfect example of a significant issue where Clinton failed to provide anything remotely resembling leadership.

Also, how long do you plan to harp on this? I find a title like "Listen Liberal" patronizing and off-putting. If you want me to read your shitty book, it's called marketing.

Harping! How long! Not two weeks ago you posted an article from november 9th blaming everything on misogyny. I'll harp on this until you get it through your skull that your unwillingness to acknowledge mistakes of the past makes you a part of the problem. Seven books, 4 of them directly related to your comment, and all you've got is a complaint on the title of one of them. Get real.

Hillary Clinton would've been a slow slide towards another disaster that you still wouldn't acknowledge while accusing us all of being sexist. You think they would've have been marching in the streets for the poor while Hillary "fixed social security" in a way that resulted in privatization, but FoxNews called socialist? Right now is our best chance to rebuild a progressive movement in this country because the last election demonstrated just how much of a fraud your version of progressivism has been.

I don't like being condescended to. Your reading list was pure condescension. All of it. I don't need to be told what to read and that you think I do speaks volumes.

Your progressivism benefited young, college educated males. Forgive me if I don't leap for joy.

You don't like being told that you're wrong, which is continuing to make it very hard for you to understand why things went wrong.

What makes you different? You won't even consider that I might be right. You shout me down in a group while I stand alone against you. Tell me you're a big damn hero again. It never gets old.

The day you listen to me, maybe I'll listen to you, but until then, you don't deserve it.

That's the thing. We are listening.

Then listen to this: you don't know Sanders would have won. You don't have a magic looking glass into an alternate timeline. An America that would vote for Trump might not have voted for Sanders. Clinton won the popular vote and it wasn't enough.

I am sick of hearing about this and if you're all listening, not only are you not understanding, but I keep getting spoken down to and told things are going over my head. I don't take that from anyone.

You did know Clinton wouldn't. Progressives were pretty clear that they wouldn't come out for her.

I am listening, and doing my best to understand. I just won't place the same value on electing any woman, no matter how fundamentally opposed to my values, as you do.

Listening to people like you - Clinton zealots who refuse to consider that you may be wrong - cost us the White House and the fucking Supreme Court. So maybe it's your turn to listen for a change.

Openness is a two way street. If you don't understand the death of hope women across America experienced, your opinions aren't worth my time. I will not listen to you.

Now bend over.

Please, elaborate? Because over and over I've had conversations with people on this website expressing misinformed knowledge over topics that they've barely touched more than a Wikipedia article on. MY LIST was an attempt to encourage people to expand their knowledgebase and break through the site's echochamber. Instead, from all but a few people that actually read some of the books, I'm treated like an elitist by people who in turn are also claiming to be experts. If the list, which was requested btw, is condescending, perhaps that's because it was a direct response to the conversations on this site.

Don't take this as criticism of you. It's other users who are aggressively pushing the list like bible salesmen. It is unwanted and after being told no once, they ought to back off.

Yeah, but here's the thing, I push it too. Because the reason I wrote it still applies. See: this thread and every other thread related to automation, ai, or social media. Raph may be a bit too agressive right now, but he's not wrong about how we got here.

Despite, from the looks of it, agreeing with me about the retail situation, raph chose to make this about Sanders and then attack my credibility as a progressive. Somehow it's my fault progressivism is fractured...

I agree with some of his goals but the President doesn't do those things. Congress, Senate, and State Houses do, and it won't be determined in one election. His means and timeline for change are unrealistic.

To be fair, you've not held back on turning a fight for control over the democratic party between progressives and the third way into one on sexism.

Would you say that about racism? Maybe I just want women to finally after over a century get equality before I want to see another man advance. I am tired of waiting my turn like a good little girl. I'm tired of being told to shut up while men are talking. If you lived this way every day, you'd be fed up too.

Yeah, I can empathise with that. It's not fair, and it needs to be addressed.

But, like you point out, it's a project of decades that won't be fixed with one presidential candidate. Especially one as problematic as Clinton, and who is straight out unacceptable to a large and necessary part of the left wing base for reasons which have nothing to do with her gender.

I don't agree with you about Clinton being problematic. It is that fundamental. What we call "baggage" would be "experience" in a male candidate. If she seems "fake" it's because we don't tolerate women being real. Everything she is she became to survive and excel in our system. I won't fault her for that. She become what we asked and we crucify her for it.

Decades? Let's talk centuries. We're nearing 100 years of the vote and we're still not equal. We're half the population. That should give us priority.

Let's be honest; she seems fake because she is. She says one thing to her bosses at Goldman Sachs, and another publically. Yeah, that is how you get by as a third way candidate, but I wouldn't accept that in a man, either.

She isn't what we asked for. Quite the opposite, she's exactly what we very clearly said we would not accept.

Whattya mean "we" Mr. Bob & Doug McKenzie?

Well, you get to run your own affairs when you stick to them. Until then, the rest of us get to interfere however we like.

Ha, you sound like Putin!

I mean really, America is the last country that gets to bitch about that. You've done far more to far more.

Oh, so now it's 'you'.
Anyway two wrongs...etc etc

Nah. You don't get to complain about something you're actively doing right now.

Sez you.

How, exactly, does a $15 minimum wage benefit the college educated?

My progressivism benefited everyone. YOU made it about the student loan forgiveness which was the Green party platform, not Sanders. Sanders wanted free schooling, in addition to a myriad of other economic equalizers that would've benefited us all. YOU harped on the student loans and accused people of being sexist and selfish, alternating whenever convenient. YOU continue to ignore the causes of our woes and then preach edicts from on high after spending a year demonizing people who were fighting for solutions.

I haven't even been here a year. This is going nowhere. You think I'm a regressive monster. Maybe I am. Guess I'll start acting like it. Or would you rather tell me what to think and how to vote since my lady brain can't handle itself?

According to your profile you've been here a year and two days. I'll refrain from further commenting because you'll probably try to make it about your sex again.

Good. Maybe now you'll stop making everything about your failed Sanders run.

This entire thread has gone over your head hasn't it? It's not about the Sanders run, it's about how again and again you demonized the people offering solutions, and now can't seem to understand how we got here.

Where did I say that I don't understand how we got here? Where in my original comment did I say anything about Sanders? That was all you, Buddy. You found a way to agree with me while being a prick about it. Kudos.

Maybe that's the conclusion I've come to in the past year of dealing with you. Maybe its everything I've stated in this thread. I'm not being subtle with my accusations here, eidolon.

I think I don't care what you think anymore.

If only you ever had.

Show me where you treat sanepride the way you treat me and then I won't think gender has anything to do with it. You are pompous and obnoxious.

Hahahahahahahaha!!!!

sanepride, what do you think?

Needs more downmods.

But if it helps, I'll vouch for your being pompous and obnoxious without regard to gender.

Did you used to come here under a different name or something? I could have sworn you'd been around forever.

Nope.

True that a slow slide towards disaster is a lot less exciting than the uncontrolled plummet we ended up with.

I didn't see you resisting the slow slide these past 8 years. Just making excuses.

Just a reminder that eight years ago the economy was in the toilet. Unemployment was approaching 10% and personal wealth was evaporating. In every measurable way things for most people have improved these past 8 years. It has in fact been a slow climb. True we've climbed out of a deep hole, and have yet to achieve solid gains seen by previous generations, but despite the encouragingly resurgent progressive movement, it ain't happening anytime soon, thanks to the current regime.

It wasn't happening soon anyway. I'll take the resurgence.

I would have preferred the slow steady climb, I'll take the resurgence now because it's our only hope.

That was only an option in the imagination of people like you that spent the last 8 years making excuses. Yet, here we are.

If you can't even rise to the challenge of reading a book with a title that doesn't stroke your ego enough, you'll never rise to any of the real challenges involved in working toward political change. No one who writes books trying to convince people to do stuff is going to bother writing them for you, because you'd be just as useless to their side as you would to any other; in whichever church you join you won't even get as far as preaching to the choir, you'll be too busy yelling at them whenever they sing about someone other than you.

An important part of marketing is identifying your target audience, and apparently for "Listen, Liberal" at least, whiny self-absorbed slacktivists didn't make the cut.

I choose my own reading lists. I don't let other people choose them for me. You're just as bad as my grandfather insisting I'm ignorant until I read his far right reading list.

"The big bad wolf keeps blowing my house down!"
"It might be because you keep building it out of straw. Here's a book on brick house construction that might help."
"NO ONE TELLS ME WHAT TO READ!!!"

I think it is pretty much a settled issue that consumers like Amazon quite a bit. Here is Canada, Sears Canada shed its physical stores awhile back and is pretty much just a large warehouse and a website.

Holding back the tide of digital disruption is not even something King Canute could legislate.

I have a friend who's brother just moved to BC from rural Quebec with almost no English. He was stuck with really rather terrible minimum wage dishwashing type jobs until the Amazon warehouse opened around the holidays. They are apparently treating him with at least a modicum of decency and more than the minimum they can legally pay him.

We need to watch Amazon, but I'm not sure there's an argument for them making things worse. It seems rather more like Uber; terrible if you own a taxi company, but much better for everyone else.

Yes, but much like Uber, they're offering short term perks while coring out the social protections we'll need when they no longer need us. They've got us bent over a barrel and thankful for the opportunities to work towards our own demise.

Um, what social protections are you imagining come from a Walmart retail position?

Like I said, we do need to watch them, and there are issues to address, but they seem to be better than what they're replacing. I mean, that was a low bar, but still.

Not many, my concerns are in their corporate tax reform efforts they pursue while benefitting from the subsidies that we pay for. We're basically paying for the infrastructure they're building to remove our future employment opportunities, while at the same time they're lobbying to pay less taxes. We're going to need some sort of safety net in place and they're doing everything they can to make sure they're not going to have to pay for it, while they cause the need for it.

On top of that, Bezos own The Washington Post, which has not been very kind to the non-establishment, income inequality candidates.

I'm not sure how that differs from any other business.

As to the Post, while it is right leaning it does at least produce solid journalism. That's really needed here and now.

I haven't been disagree with you. But, the majority of businesses out there aren't in the process of wiping out entire industries. And just because something is the status quo doesn't mean we shouldn't be fighting it. For example, if people had been organizing against Walmart's practices at an earlier stage, perhaps things would be different now. The fact is we are heading for a leap in unemployment and somebody is going to have to pay for the programs necessary to keep society stable. Shouldn't it be the organizations that contributed to the instability and require a stable society for their profits?

Sure, but I don't think you can fault them for lobbying against that.

What I'm having trouble seeing, is what is the ask from Amazon?

Of course I can. Asking them to be socially responsible, to not kill off the host of which they are a parasite is not some radical idea. It's good business not to bankrupt your customer base.

I'm still not seeing an ask that can be responded to.

I don't think a voluntary tax system would work that well.

UBI, lobbying for the closing of tax loopholes, lobbying for single payer. We as a society have let businesses sell us on the idea that corporations can have a moral opinion on gay marriage and other social issues, it's a bit weird that we draw the line at asking them to be responsible for the impact their greed has on society.

Amazon hasn't done that. Are you arguing that Hobby Lobby was in the right?

Seriously? Amazon, Microsoft, Nike join business coalition for anti-discrimination LGBT bill

Tech companies have been at the forefront of LGBT lobbying in america for quite a while. But even beyond that, you've got when companies do things like boycott North Carolina, or run ad campaigns like insert business name Cares for whatever hotbutton social issue happens to be big. So, if a business is going to tell me that they as a company morally give a shit about me and my neighbors' right to bang whoever we want without discrimination, I don't think it's out of the question to expect and ultimately demand some moral decency when it comes to them economically bankrupting a large part of the country. "But they're a business, we shouldn't expect them to act like anything but one." doesn't cut it for me anymore. They've spent a lot of money trying to make us think that corporations are people, that should come with the associated responsibility.

That's directly in their business interest, though. Cutting off access to ~10% or so of top talent hits them right in the bottom line. They don't morally care about who you bang. They just still want to be able to hire you if you're also someone they need.

It's Hobby Lobby et al that should be hit with breach of fiduciary duty charges for taking a stance that doesn't involve them.

Do you really want corporations setting social policy?

What? Their lobbying and boycotting is literally the act of setting social policy. Their lobbying is forcing other companies to hire people regardless of sexual preferences. And I'm for non-discrimination legislation! Nobody was stopping them from hiring who they want, but them. Matter of fact, the big tech companies are notoriously known for having private no-poaching attitudes towards each others employees even after California outright banned non-competes because Silicon Valley abused them.

"These business leaders are showing true leadership and fighting to end a shameful status quo that leaves LGBT people at risk in a majority of states for being denied services or fired because of who they are or who they love," said Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign.

And I didn't say they were doing it to be moral, I said they were claiming to be moral while doing it. They're just as much a part of the third way politics scam as the politicians they buy off.

What part of not destroying the economics of an entire country with their unchecked greed do you not find to be in their business interest? They don't make money if people can't afford to buy their shit. A wealthier lower class spends more money on their products. That's why walmart stopped lobbying against and instead lobbies for food stamps, because they saw it was cutting into their bottom line.

You might as well be arguing for supply side economics here.

Here's my two cent rant:

In order to send my children to university without them amassing a massive amount of debt, I have a second part-time job. I work 18 hours a week for Loblaws in the dairy department, schlepping around 50LBS boxes of butter and 40LBS crates of milk, in their busiest, largest store in Canada. What's good about it is I can work the hours that work for me and the location means I don't have to spend hours to commute.

The downside. The pay is shit. It is unionized. While I make a whopping 20 cents more than minimum wage, once union dues are deducted I make 37 cents below minimum.
Benefits kick in after 3 years provided you work 600 hours a year. The benefits are limited.

My wife works full time for Home Depot. Not unionized. She makes almost $7 above minimum and has comprehensive family benefits. Another story...

So what I find out recently, the Union, (UFCW) has a vested interest allowing Loblaws to replace full time workers with 2 or 3 part time workers. As a part timer, making slightly above minimum, I paid over $500 last year in dues; full timers who make about $7 to 10 above minimum, pay $600. The Union earns a minimum twice as much per 40 hour week from part-timers as they do full timers. Which is why according to the union contract, it is so fucking hard to get a full time position at Loblaws.

Sure, pay attention to the social contract that the new retailers apply.... and watch the union even closer.

*if we had a functioning government

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin on automation displacing jobs:
What, me worry?

I probably got this from an earlier entry here.

Humans Need Not Apply

It's okay though, because more Americans than ever have petty spending money for shopping!

Plus, all those workers will be retrained as computer programmers because that's how this works, right?

This line never fails to elicit a hearty guffaw from my dev team.

Right?! #ThisIsWhatTheyActuallyBelieve

possibly because they still believe computers to be programmed via punch cards.

No, I know like actual people in the IT field who claim that my worries about automation created unemployment are unfounded. Because there will always be new jobs, people can be retrained. Honestly, I don't know if they actually believe it or it's just something they say to avoid thinking about their contribution to the process and the sacrifices they might have to make if the situation is ever to be rectified.

I blame a lethal cocktail of Star Trek and Ayn Rand.

Techno-libertarians seem to think that once computers and robots take over all the menial jobs everyone will live happy lives of leisure going rock hounding for petroglyphs on Mars and taking their solar yachts out to the Transneptunian Regatta. It doesn't ever seem to occur to them that the owners of the robots will have no incentive to share the free labor and no use for all the newly redundant meatsacks (which means it's only matter of time before Tastee Ghoul becomes a reality). I think their subconscious recognizes the problem, though (thanks to the Terminator and the Matrix), which explains The Walking Dead and the whole pop culture zombie craze which refuses to die out: it's a metaphor for the techno-libertarian nightmare, a near future where hordes of refugees, plague victims, and other wretches roam the landscape while the few formerly well-off people jealously guard supplies of food and medicine with guns.

The zombie metaphor is good. I've been leaning towards Elysium.

Elysium TRAILER 1 (2013) - Matt Damon Movie HD

Upmod for Underground reference.

dude... that is scarily sad. its obvious a form of self denial. probably trying to assauge their own fears their jobs will become automated, because its on the virge

I'd like to think better of people, but I lean heavily towards the sacrifices they'd be required to make by fixing it. We've become an 'I got mine' tribalistic society and people are a bit apprehensive about helping others outside their tribes. Even if in the long run, helping others outside your tribe actually helps your tribe. It doesn't help that they spend the majority of their life immersed in a nonstop fear, stress, sex, and materialism based media onslaught. There's been quite a few studies that have found that people trying to build new habits like exercising and quitting smoking are statistically more likely to default back to old habits when exposed to the combination of adrenaline and cortisol, aka fear and stress. Is it any wonder racism and religious discrimination pop up every few years like herpes?

#Preachysteele ;)

youre preaching to the choir brother steele. i do love hearing your message tho

Your point is better than you might think. Models which are generally applied to examine the benefits of structural shifts usually run assumptions on what is likely to happen to labour 'freed up' by the changes. It is generally assumed that they will get jobs at around the same money, but we know that is often not the case. It can be even less the case when it is looked at from regional perspectives.

There is a similar issue around the benefits of trade; the country will be better off and those who find their jobs exported will soon find another one at around the same money. Empirically this is often not the case. I am a fan of trade and its benefits (and I am a fan of what automation can deliver for us, too) but we do need to manage the impacts. That means taxes and horizontal transfers and all those other things so many have been conned into thinking is socialism. The alternative seems to be a period of headline numbers looking good while while people sense they are being scammed and then the toys really come out of the pram.

Weirdly enough, it is then all blamed on liberals...

Oh, no, very aware. ;)

The reason it's often blamed on liberals is actually the basis of the reading list discussed elsewhere in this thread. long version | short version. Democrats push innovation and trade agreements while making the claim of retraining, but then don't actually do anything to help the retraining happen. Areas outside "innovation centers" are treated by politicians as economic and emotional blights as the innovation pulls all the jobs out of the area.

Not exactly unexpected. Kind of sad about Sears for both practical and nostalgic reasons. Seems like they could have survived if they had the foresight to abandon the 'department store' model and focus on a specialty they still can be competitive with- like major appliances. My last trip to a local Sears store was to get a new Refrigerator. The appliance section was bustling with customers. The rest of the store was a barren wasteland (in terms of customers, staff, and inventory).

My employer started as a Sears contractor to support their Websphere shit. When I started, Sears was the company's only client, and was enough business to support 3 offices. Sears is now my office's smallest client, but still the main client for the other 2. People are shitting bricks there. Sears has been down to their big brands and appliance sales for a while, and only trying to grow their online presence. Now they're selling their big brands, and who the hell buys an appliance from Sears online? My office offers condolences, and to the bigger assholes reminding them we've been saying diversify their client base for the last 6 years.

Yeah, call me old-fashioned, but if I'm buying a new fridge I'm wanna check it out in person. Seems like Sears is the only place to see a fairly wide selection of such appliances, at least around here.

Ok, you're old fashioned. Why?

Home Depot, Loews, Walmart, Costco, Best Buy....

yeah, all those places have major appliances, none with the selection of Sears, at least in-store.

i think we got enough stuff already.

Things I would buy online.
Books
Music
Electronics
Tinned Food
Hotel accommodations
Travel Arrangements

Everything else I need to see, touch, and smell.

So, prostitutes.

I've yet to be disappointed by a shoe purchase made through zappos. Body scanners like this thing could exacerbate the current trend to favor online retailers. For a while ive been talking to my friends about how a bunch of different trends meant that there would be an opening for a store that sold consumables, like food and drink, but acted like showroom. The meatspace version of a portal site.

I cannot buy shoes online. The fact that shoe sizing varies from one brand to another is one issue, that I have wide feet is another, And finally, I need to see the leather to determine the quality.

Having wide feet is actually the reason why i buy from zappos, they have a larger selection than a typical brick and mortar. Returning a shoe because of sizing issues is also not that much of an ordeal. As for quality, well youd have to have faith in the brand i guess.

Dobis PR could save these malls.