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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Does Automation Take Jobs Away?
Organization: The Armory
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 1994 04:28:43 GMT
Message-ID: <Ctu9rz.2wt@armory.com>
References: <Ct8z84.np1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <CtMDG2.E1D@armory.com> <31cgig$cit@tribune.usask.ca> <31fm8c$4tg@access1.digex.net>
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In article <31fm8c$4tg@access1.digex.net>, rjc <rjc@access1.digex.net> wrote:
>>Richard Steven Walz (rstevew@armory.com) wrote:
>> Again you push me to categorize you with those who give "nerd" a bad name,
>> for your apparent ignorance of the human equation in all of this. If they
>> had all been raised with your advantages, and if people were rational
>> despite being abused as children and their parents not knowing how to read,
>> because they were either assumed to be too ignorant or were told they
>> were stupid over and over, and weren't unlike you, then your equation
>> works.
>
>   Neither of my parents graduated high school. I grew up poor (my
>father actually had to support us as a janitor after he got layed off
>in the defense industry in the 70s), wore hand-me-downs for clothes in
>school, and had to suffer 300 baud and 8-bit computers when everyone
>else had 2400 baud and 16-bit, simply because I couldn't afford
>anything better. My father was also an alcoholic so a sizable portion
>of his paycheck was blown on alcohol. Everyone in my house was also
>verbally abused nightly (when he came home from the bar) such as being
>called stupid or a freeloader. Despite all these "advantages", I
>managed to do quite well.  Because I didn't have a computer capable of
>giving me a nice development environment, I was forced to learn
>assembly and hack hardware. Because I had few friends with similar
>interests (most of the neighborhood kids out robbing and getting
>blasted), I had plenty of time to read math, physics, and history
>books. Now I have my own software company. I learned my skills because
>I was forced too, because I never had it easy. (my friends on
>the network can substatiate my tale if you need proof)
--------------------------------------
My Dad's family were dirt farmers who lived and died on 17 acres. He went
to school and became a draftsman after a stint killing Nazi tanks in the
paratroops (101st Airborne) at Bastogne and in Belgium and Germany. I had
it luckier in that respect, but when he got out he took a government loan
and bought a cheap small house and paid most of our money into that for 20
years, until he worked his way up to mechanical engineering technician. I
had almost no toys as a kid, I had to mow lawns like crazy and plow the
neighbor's fields to make enough money for materials and tools to work
with. I built all my OWN toys and devices. I read my way through our small
town public library for five hours a night, three days a week, and whenever
I could find someone to bring me into town. My grandfather let me use his
card, as we were not in the city and he was. The librarian was "informed"
by my grandffather, that no adult books were to be barred from me, and she
understood him instantly. He had these deep set eyes like mine that can be
made to look like you are dangerous! I read all the science and the science
fiction in the place and then started on philosophy and biology, and native
americans (called indians then), and countless other things. I learned
technology from the ground up, making traps and huts and bows and arrows
and knapping flint and starting fires, and using and making spears. I lived
in that woods when I wasn't working or in school. I built or repaired from
junk virtually everything I have. I hunted and studied the stars and wished
for a telesope all my life till my whole family and I sprung for a cheap 3"
reflector when I was a senior in high school. I don't remember hardly any
other toys. My clothes were mostly purchased used, and still are. I still
find my best pieces of equipment from junk, and I am still as frugal as
hell! Ask *my* friends on the net if I would spend a quarter more for
anything than I had to!!! You're not alone. where do you think socialists
come from!!!
>
>  Oh, I understand the "human equation" too well, since my sister is
>a also crack addict, and one of my childhood friends is dying from AIDS
>because
>of IV drug use. I saw people with far more than me squander away their
>life every day. I saw people quit school simply because they didn't care.
>I saw friends go through drug rehab 5 times and still come out screwed up.
>
>  I don't see what this has to do with socialism. I do see what it has
>to do with the "human equation" Namely, that even the children of the
>rich and pampered can screw up their lives, ignore their education, 
>and lead a meaningless existence. 
>
>   Your assumptions are a convenient fantasy which allows you to conclude
>that there is an easy answer. Well buddy, you're not the first. The
>guilt-ridden middle-class liberals of the 60s and 70s thought the
>answer was simply writing checks to the poor, simply throwing money
>at the problem. Reality check, a trillion dollars later, people are
>no better off now. The Great Society was a failure.
-----------------------------------
We made fun of them at the time for that too. It has nothing to do with
what *I'M" talking about! It was a guilt-ridden response by an unfair
society who thought to salve their consciences rather than actually run a
fair society!!!
-S

>    Where did the money go? Hint: Remember my sister? She declared
>she was disabled because of her addiction and now receives $500/mo
>from SSI. My greatuncle, who worked 50 years, receives a smaller amount,
>and for obvious reasons, was pissed. The government is now subsidizing
>my sister's habit.
-------------------------------
$500 don't buy much crack. I believe you, but $500 is barely enough to live
on in a one room cabin in the backwoods of Missouri! I wouldn't assume
that's where she gets the money for it. And you sound like you hate her,
but I'd say feel sorry for her, she's not doing as well as you. Whatever
the reason, nobody WANTS to live that way. They're just messed up. You know
as well as I what she was screwed up by. Some people need to numb the pain.
In a socialist society she could numb it a lot cheaper with non-dangerous
drugs instead, and maybe even get treatment. Crack makes you nuts!
-S
 
>    I suspect that more than likely, it is you who grew up with
>all the advantages you are deriding in other posts.  That you have
>no real conception of what it means to truly be a "have not"
-------------------------------
Well, I have to admit that I had it better than you emotionally. If that's
true, then maybe you'd do yourself well trying to see people as the most
important thing. The quest after just more and more money, or bitterness
against others about money is a dangerous and hateful thing for your
insides. If it's true that I got off better emotionally, if not
economically, then I'd say maybe you could take a hint from me about caring
a bit more than you do. You have a lot to be bitter about. Me, I wasn't
abused or unloved. I was just poor! And the reason today that I feel people
need socialism is the number of people I have seen die in misery and
poverty without proper care, just because they worked all their lives and
weren't paid properly for it, while somebody else is whoopin' it up with
what should have been theirs. I worked as an EMT in-house emergency tech
and procedures specialist for three and a half years. I was the one who
always saw poor desparate people come in to emergency too late either from
the country or from just across town, and when it's too late for something
that shouldn't have been too late, YOU KNOW it! It messes with your head
for the rest of your life. Kids who've never worked in hospitals in their
early teens never get to see that side of things, or they'd vote and live a
LOT differently! Then I went to school in Physics, and I paid for it
myself. I didn't finish till I was 31! I had lots of jobs in the mean time,
and I raised a son on a whole lot of hustling after not a lot of money. I'd
like kids not to have to worry about their folks like I did and my son did
with us. I'd like people to discover each other again, and stop the money
wars. I'm willing to fight for it. But don't worry. I doubt that your
company is not paying its fair share of tax. You'd have to be exceptionally
successful right now for that to possibly be true, and I don't think you'd
have time for the net if that was true. Be nice to people. They're in pain,
like you are. Like lot of us are.
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

