As someone who did not join live journal, friendster, orkut, myspace, etc, I too think Facebook is likely a fad.

However, these days even I am tempted to get a Facebook and/or twitter sock puppet account, if only because more and more of social interaction is moving to them. More and more of the "Hey we'll bet at X around Y" chatter is exclusively on Facebook.

And I am old enough to remember when only anti-social geeks made appointments on-line instead of IRL!

I don't recall myspace or anything ever reaching the scope and popularity Facebook has. And I am starting to wonder if Facebook is in fact NOT a fad?

There's also another story (google fails me) about a legendary IBM programmer around whom IBM built an entire team of testers, documenters, etc, all to keep this one guy's way above average productivity going. That story also makes me sad.

These stories make me sad because I know how huge a difference the environment makes to everyone's job.

The key points about the black team:

1. A few individuals that happen to be a bit above average at finding defects.

2. Bring them together, create a team.

3. Support them, but mostly just get out of their way and don't distract them with management B.S.

Very little change and support results in a huge jump in their productivity!

Same thing with the single legendary programmers, simply relive him of non-programming tedious tasks, give him enough support staff to keep up with his output and again HUGE productivity boost.

What's so sad about this is that is so rarely happens. I think most people are capable of having this productivity jump, if only they'd get the same support. OK, let me back of a bit from most and be more precise and say, you should be at least a bit above average.

But why does this so rarely happen? Sadly I think for most sizable companies minor process changes are a huge obstacle.

The bright side of this? Startups. Startups are like these kinds of teams within a behemoth like IBM, except without the behemoth. Or actually a startup up ought to be like that, because that is one of the key advantages a small business should have over the big ones.

This means I would not be surprised if we start using solar, wind, and nuclear power to generate gasoline, and most future cars become very clean running gasoline/electric hybrids.

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy): Liquefied hydrogen has lower energy density by volume than gasoline by approximately a factor of four, because of the low density of liquid hydrogen — there is actually more hydrogen in a liter of gasoline (116 grams) than there is in a liter of pure liquid hydrogen (71 grams).

But of computers enter the text and then the printing is still done by cast metal, you could have an interesting business.

I am sure that will be more expensive, but will people be willing to pay a premium?

It's very easy for kidnapping to be profitable.

All you need is a state with a pathetic justice system.

Start with a police force terrible at finding the real perpetrators of crime. This is very common in the world. It is often found in poor states, which don't have much money for any public spending including police and fire. Often the states are autocratic or formerly-autocratic, autocratic states don't really care who's actually guilty. Very often a state is both (ex-)autocratic and poor.

The next step you need is a bad judiciary and a pathetic set of laws. For example, even violent kidnapping which involved mailing fingers to the victim's family, could only earn the convicted two years in jail. I am not making this up, two years at the most, by law.

Then lastly, have incredibly messed up laws which actually make no claim on the ransom money even if you were found guilty. Thus you can do two years in jail, and they enjoy the ransom you extorted. Often the victim's families are not particularly wealthy, or if wealthy not really capable of exacting violent street style vengeance. So you can relax and enjoy your cash.

This is how kidnapping can become a real sector of the economy, look into Columbia in the 80s, and lots of other places.

The best I can do is think of Rome's slave based economy. Obviously slaves can do anything the free Romans could, and they did. The Romans were either plebes, dependent on government handouts like bread and circuses, or they were wealthy and then they mostly went into politics.

http://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Workers-Upper-South-Petersburg...

Most of 'em were working in the fields, most of the rest were serving in their masters' houses, and the majority of the rest were probably doing far worse things (working in the mines or dying as gladiators).

I agree with you, but I had to read that sentence three times to realize that.

I think what we agree on, is that a lot of white-collar jobs which often require higher education, are actually fairly easily automated.

A few white-collar jobs however would require strong AI to automate.

But perhaps we don't agree that the first one is "a lot" and the second relatively "few"?

Primary care doctors are already just fancied-up mechanics is most cases, and robotic surgery is getting pretty good!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1322098/Patient-pr...

No this is old big co. lobbying, nothing new under the sun.

Their arguments are particularly libertarian, or particularly anything, they are not intended to convince anyone, that's what the lobbying is for, and it is not aimed at the general public.

Their arguments are [not] particularly libertarian, or particularly anything, they are not intended to convince anyone, that's what the lobbying is for, and it is not aimed at the general public.

Mostly... but I think you today there are perhaps more people who can get up-in-arms ready to embrace these arguments none-the-less. I don't want to name any particular political movements (cough, cough...).

You could say the arguments on the regulation side aren't real liberal arguments any more and the arguments on the "no regulation" side aren't real conservative arguments.