Computers, Unemployment and Wealth Creation

Andy Oram writes "Anyone who writes programs or plans system deployment should start thinking, "What can I do to bring average people back into the process of wealth creation?" A few suggestions."

wealth creation

[Anonymous Coward]

You need a printer with very good resolution for that.

That's easy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Grow a pair of big ass titties like Danni Ashe. Then:

1. Take off clothes
2. Buy webcam
3. Profit!

Wealth creation is overrated

[Ikeya]

I tried creating wealth with my scanner and ink-jet printer once, but the government didn't like that very much.

Re:The problem is not with "lack of wealth"

[icebones]

Techies ought to focus on how to take money from the wealthy and decrease the world's dependency on corporations

Hacking bank accounts comes to mind

HUMOR: Steps techies can take in job creation

[crazyphilman]

Step 1: Wealthy techies start using deep-sea robots purchased with their stock-options money to cut the trans-pacific and trans-atlantic data cables at random times and random locations, approximately once a week. This in turn prevents the offshoring/outsourcing industry from communicating with their sweatshops overseas, resulting in the hiring of thousands of local programmers to pick up the slack. The economy sees a slight rebound. Some companies continue to offshore using satellite technology. So...

2. Even wealthier techies finish designing a space plane which can cheaply get up into orbit and back down to earth. They build a fleet of twenty, hide them in widely-spaced mountain retreats staffed with Linux geeks, stock them with thousands of pounds of ramen noodles, coffee, videogames, and porno, and start sending missions up into orbit to de-orbit satellites used by offshoring companies. Bored teenagers pilot the space planes, marvelling that "Man, it's even better than Descent -- Freespace!" The economy rebounds a little more. But, then -- damnnit! -- the offshoring companies start using sneakernet and mules to courier work back and forth. So...

3. The two groups of techies, determined to save the economy, begin to resort to black-bag techniques to foil the mule's attempts. Some switch bags on the couriers, replacing the suitcases full of cd-roms with suitcases full of scat-fetish pr0n. Others simply mug the couriers, dragging them into the airport restrooms for a quick beating and a swirly. Some, truly getting carried away, have a Quake III flashback and detonate the couriers. This, unfortunately, is misinterpereted by the Office of Homeland Security and all hell breaks loose. America declares war on France. By the time it is revealed that the Quake III fanatic was actually Belgian, it is too late... Paris is in ruins, its people reduced to eating air-dropped big macs. Millions commit suicide. So then...

Despondent at having caused the big-mac-induced suicides of millions of people and wishing for some good to come out of it, the belgian Quake III fanatic issues a statement that he did it all for the MPAA/RIAA. The remaining French declare war on those two organizations and send the French Foreign legion to the U.S. to retaliate. They infiltrate coffee shops throughout L.A. It becomes impossible for record-company execs to get a decent cup of coffee without a heaping helping of attitude. Unable to understand why the waitstaff isn't nice to them anymore, the entire recording industry commits suicide en mass. LA is briefly caught in a panic, but when they realize just what has happened, ten million people shrug and go about their business.

End result: things are kinda cool again! Hooray!

So get busy, techie geeks! We're counting on you!

Opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

While tools could be created to help people run a business, if they don't know how, they don't know how.

Sounds like a good idea for an O'Reilly Book: Running a Business in a Nutshell.

Re:The same thing everybody else should do

[Hentai]

Unfortunately, whenever you privatize, you provide corporations with the opportunity to grab the power that you supposedly intended to go to the people. Whenever you subsidize, you provide the government with the opportunity to grab the power that you supposedly intended to go to the people. In EITHER CASE - "private" or "public" control - those with more power will invariably use their power to ensure that they get the lion's share of the new power to be had. The little guy can't get anything BUT screwed, because he simply doesn't have the resources to compete.

If you want to "level the playing field" and let people get what they actually need, rather than what their social ties will let them get away with, you need to kill off the top 10% every 5 years and let the proletariat scramble to fill the power vacuum. Anything else is a recipe for oligarchy.