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Tim Cook Expresses Thoughts on Equality in Auburn University Award Speech
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I've no problem with Steve Job's attitude ("it's all about me, I don't care for the others"). I don't like it, but at least he didn't even try to look good.
Cook on the other hand tries to mimic the humanitarian, while at the same time being responsible (in the sense of: it's in his hand to change it) for poor working conditions among his supplier's employees. I'd like to call that dishonest. A brand that is as profitable as Apple and that claims to target the well-earning parts of the population should take responsibility here. They're sitting on huge piles of money that they don't even use. Some of it is paid by their suppliers' workers.
So: no problem with being an ******* (you can like this or not), but claiming to be a humanitarian while at the same time exploiting people to the degree that was reported in various media is dishonest. And there's no discussion if this is good or bad.
Your argument with "those jobs are better than no jobs" is just wrong. How low can we go with working conditions ?
I'm not sure what the point of this tangent is. Are you suggesting that humanity would be better off if we were still a population of about 6-10000 people living as hunter-gatherers in Africa? Leaving aside some of your claims about the amount of spare time these people had, which I would contest, I'm not sure of the relevance to the argument..
Unless you are suggesting that Apple is ultimately responsible for humanity's move from being hunter-gatherers to being an agricultural society? I'm not sure even in their most litigious fantasies that Apple have considered staking claim to a lineage going back at least 10,000 years into the Middle East....
I never said technology is all good, its obviously not. On balance it has provided better quality of life for many where human greed has deprived others of the basics for survival. Technology had provided enough for all, unfortunately greed and self interest is responsible the inequalities we witness in our world.
If you really believe that technology plays no point in 'advancing' humanity then you really ought to put down that shovel.
An important misconceptions is that anti-discrimination laws help to fight discrimination. Problem is, these laws do the opposite, and hurt the minorities that the laws were designed to protect. Anti-discrimination laws end up promoting discrimination by causing minorities to carry a heavier liability than non-minorities. Free markets punish discrimination much better, since bigoted organizations will miss out on hiring valuable individuals based on race, etc.
Hahaha, we can go MUCH, MUCH worse. Not that you would have personal experience... I guess most rich people should stop thinking of others and be *******s. Or you know, they can keep donating.
You need a source to show that anti-discrimination laws increase the liability of minorities? Anti-discrimination laws give minorities more ammunition to sue employers, which is a liability for employers, and a dream for lawyers who get rich off of lawsuits.
The source is the laws themselves...for example, equal work, equal pay for men and women. This means that if an employer has a man working for them at $50,000k per year, but at a later time, the employer wants to hire another worker, but the market value of that worker is now $40,000, it would be illegal for the employer to a hire a woman. So now the woman is out of work, and another man is hired. Let me ask you this...why do we need a law that says equal pay for men and women? Have you EVER seen a job posting that lists two different salaries, one for men, and one for women? All this law does is increase the risk and uncertainty of hiring women, thereby discouraging businesses from hiring women.
Another example: It is illegal to fire or pass up a promotion of a minority based on race, ethnicity, etc. Sounds good, and common sense, right? But what if the employer needed to fire a minority because of poor performance, ethics violations, or whatever. Now that minority has ammunition to sue the employer. So next time, the employer is going to think twice before hiring another minority, since minorities are now a greater liability as a result of anti-discrimination laws.
Now, imagine you did not have any of these laws. Suppose you had two employers, employer A and B. Suppose employer A was a biggot, didn't hire any minorities, and fired all minorities currently on payroll simply because of race. Suppose employer B was not a biggot, and hired the best person for the job, regardless of race, ethnicity, etc. Which employer would thrive? The one that passes up valuable employees, or the one that hires valuable employees?
We are improving it already. People here are suggesting Apple to make less money as a way of improving humanity. Yet the more Products they sell the more Chinese workers have a chance to live. If they don't take the job as is, then someone else will. That's the reality of the situation. Not a lot of people truly know the strife rope go through in other countries.
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This is laughable. No there are no signs for men or women, "because" of the law! Thanks for confirming it works! And I fire people based on performance. If they really suck, you have evidence right there. That is, if you are smart enough to gather it. And I don't get your last paragraph. That's obvious. That's what managers do.........
I hate to break it to you but that is not a credible source, that is just your opinion, in some hypothetical event.
Are you serious...so before equal pay acts, you saw different salaries listed for men and women??? Don't think so! So yea, again, the law does NOTHING to prevent discrimination.
And if you fire someone based on performance, you can STILL get sued, and LOSE if you fired a minority. Even if you win, the cost of litigation is expensive, and the minority has a lot of ammunition to sue thanks to antidiscrimination laws. So again, the cost associated with hiring minorities is much greater than the cost of hiring non-minorities, thereby discouraging the hiring of minorities.
The point of my last paragraph was to show that we do not need anti-discrimination laws. The free market will punish those who discriminate (thereby helping minorities), while the government HURTS minorities.
Seeing as how most liberals care only to rob liberties from others, at any cost (even if it means hurting minorities that liberals claim to protect), I doubt you will understand the simple mechanics of how the action of enacting anti-discrimination law causes the reaction of minorities being hurt.
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I don't have time to google search the issue, but it is not an opinion. Liability is a cost...that is a fact. Increasing the likelihood of being sued is a liability and thus an added cost, another fact. Employers minimize costs when hiring individuals...another fact. Therefore, increases in costs discourage hiring, another fact. Anti-discrimination laws increase an employer's liability, and thus cost, when hiring a minority. The law says that if you have a man making $50,000, you cannot hire a woman at $40,000, even if the value of the job is now $40,000. Therefore, when market conditions diminish the value of a particular job, it is illegal to hire the woman. Nothing above is even remotely close to an opinion. These provisions are in the law themselves.
If you want to ignore simple mechanics and simple facts in the name of social justice while hurting those you claim to be wanting to protect, then there is no source that will convince you anyway, just as there are those who would argue that it's not air we are breathing.
This was a response to another poster's comments. If you recall someone mentioned technology was useful for cleaning our water system, but the problem is technology is also responsible for polluting the water system to need cleaning in the first place, so that isn't much of a point, especially since we seem to be making things worse despite our technology as the years roll forward.
Then someone pointed out that well, perhaps technology is good to fight off disease and starvation, so I pointed to the anthropological record to correct that mistaken claim as well, since again technology though it has cured some issues, is also responsible for a great majority of our ills. So again that line of argumentation won't work.
My comments were merely to debunk some of the bogus claims being spewed around here. As for your incredulity regarding the work load of hunter-gatherers versus farmers and us moderns, well, be skeptical but investigate. Anthropological evidence and records of modern day hunter-gatherer societies suggest they worked on average 6 hours a day.
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Exactly, technology doesn't make things better, it depends how we use it. Also technology hasn't provided enough for all, merely the hope that it may do so.
So you have no evidence to backup your claims as required by PRSI rules.
And back in the day businesses which said "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish" survived. And before the smoking ban no pubs experimented with banning smoking - even though it seems to be popular with many pubgoers these days.
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And what's wrong that...? I'd prefer this country to going back to being the land of opportunity, where an individual, regardless of race or ethnicity, and having little to no education, can climb the ranks and succeed. I would also like to see bigotry eradicated. That's why I oppose anti-discrimination laws, and min wage laws. I completely understand that it appears to be counter-intuitive on the surface, but when you get an understanding of the mechanics of an economy, it becomes clear that min wage laws and anti-discrimination laws always hurt those they seek to protect.
I'm not going to be able to convince the masses of liberals that simply deny economic fact, and deny that an increase litigation costs, associated with anti-discrimination laws, is tied to an increase in costs associated with hiring minorities, and therefore, discourages the hiring of minorities. I am also not going to be able to convince those who deny that minimum wage laws cause low-skilled, uneducated workers to get laid off, and closes the opportunities for low-skilled, uneducated workers from gaining employment, and thereby denies these workers with a chance to enter the workforce, and climb the ranks (as evidenced by the increase in wage gap, and the increase in unemployment among African Americans, particularly teens). I'm not going to be able to explain the moral implications of infringing on private property rights to those who think it's perfectly justifiable for government to take what someone else has earned. I'm not going to be able to convince a religious nut that the government has no right to define personal relationships, and that the government has no right to tell an individual what they put in their body (both drug related substances and biological objects). I'm not going to be able to convince a committed warmonger that non-interventionalism and endless wars is destructive and damaging to our country and safety. I'm hoping only to offer an alternative viewpoint so that the reasonable handful of people can help to actually achieve equality by REDUCING government's involvement in our day-to-day lives.
There is a reason why Libertarianism has never been tried out as a form of government, it only works in theory. Even the misguided idea of communism was at least was given a chance to work, it failed miserably. But libertarianism it just hangs around like a bad smell, people talk about it but nobody puts it into practice. I wonder why that is. could it be that it is all smoke and mirrors, a castle in the air.
Of course I have evidence...the laws themselves are the evidence. The laws themselves indicate the increase in costs associated with hiring minorities. What more evidence are you looking for? Again, no way to convince someone who ignores the evidence that is right in front of them.
The "no blacks" businesses might have survived "back in the day," but how about today? Even if businesses were allowed to exclude minorities or some other group, you think they would survive today? Laws that prohibited the exclusion of minorities at restaurants did NOTHING to combat racism. It's not like a bigot suddenly became non-racist once the laws were passed. It was the civil rights movement led by people, not government and politicians, that shaped our views of equality. This also has little to do with the anti-discrimination laws of today that clearly increase the cost associated with hiring minorities, and do nothing to change the mind or values of a bigot.
As for smoking, how does that have anything to do with anti-discrimination? Anti-smoking laws aren't a point of contention here since second hand smoke clearly violates the right of those who do not wish to be exposed to smoke.
It works in practice, as it did when the country was first founded all the way through the early 1900s. During these times, america's middle class was the envy of the world. America was top in median income, education, and health. It was easy for an uneducated individual with no money to start a business, and flourish. That's what America was about. Now, you can't even start a lemonade stand without weeks of paperwork processing, permits, and fees.
As government grew, everything started to decline, and the middle class started to evaporate. Libertarianism is not popular simply because libertarian politicians tell the truth, and do not promise free stuff if elected, as democrats and republicans do. Libertarian politicians actually tell us that we have to endure pain to recover our economy, whereas dems and repubs pretend that nothing is wrong, and everything is fine as long as we keep growing the size of government. The mainstream parties sound much rosier and appealing to the ignorant masses. But thankfully, libertarianism is gaining ground as people are starting to wake up and realzie that the governement is not the answer to our problems, and is generally the source of most of our problems.
This whole discussion started when someone claimed that technology wouldn't help thirsty children in Africa - and in these places, water is often dirty not because of any pollution through technology, but because water is often naturally dirty, or is polluted by natural waste that people produce as they live. Like people and animals pissing and ********.
The problems of the "undeveloped world" (as you call it a little too arrogant for my guess) you talk about won't get better or worse with or without computers.
The world's economic and money system is causing many people to starve, while (and because) other people are getting rediculously rich.
But all the above is just not the topic here.
Nevertheless I appreciate that you seem to have instantly thought of many things much more important than electronic gadgets.