I wonder if one of the existing interpreted languages (python/javascript/ruby/whatever) could maintain a patch for llmv/gcc which did exactly that and in the process make the most incredible seamless integration ever between itself and C (and also C++ now with its ABI stabilizing!)
This looks like a ridiculous strawman's argument. For example, there's a large difference between stealing food from a produce stand (which I would certainly do if the alternative was to starve) and "carjacking people."
I agree with the OP - as a society, we should look more at aligning incentives rather than instilling morals.
Another huge area this comes up is the war on drugs - if you're caught with drugs, we slap you with a felony that ensures you can't get a real job... pushing you right back to drugs.
>if you're caught with drugs, we slap you with a felony that ensures you can't get a real job... pushing you right back to drugs.
I could say the same thing for any sort of crime. If you're an accountant, and you get put in jail for embezzling, that conviction is going to prevent you from getting another job as an accountant.
While there have been a few controversies about jobs that the law excludes felons from, in a lot of cases there's nothing preventing you from hiring a felony drug criminal. If you personally are fine with drugs and you think that committing the crime doesn't make him a danger to your business, go ahead and hire him. If you won't, it isn't the conviction that's keeping him from being hired, it's the crime; the conviction just lets you know that he committed a crime.
Your last paragraph and comment down-thread I think discounts both the many ways the legal system and drug use are entangled, and the reality of how job hiring works.
It has been my anecdotal observation that it is more common for small, local businesses to "look past" prior convictions when hiring and be more willing to take chances on their neighbors.
Large corporations with big HR and legal departments typically have a dimmer view of things however.
Right or wrong, it is harder to get a job with a past conviction. Without a job, it is difficult to earn a living, feed and house yourself and your family. When people are desperate and unable to survive through legal means, they resort to whatever it takes to survival. It's human nature.
If you believe that privately consuming drugs doesn't reflect negatively on someone, you can hire them. If you don't hire them and nobody else hires them either, the drug use is keeping them from being hired. It's misleading to claim that the conviction keeps them from being hired rather than the drug use.
> It's misleading to claim that the conviction keeps them from being hired rather than the drug use.
If I'm understanding you correctly, you're arguing that a drug user is less employable (perhaps because you believe drug users are untrustworthy or unreliable), and this is the reason they aren't hired.
But a conviction for a drug crime years ago does not mean someone is a drug user today. It is the conviction, not drug use, keeping them from being hired. A drug test would make more sense if you want to determine whether someone is a current drug user.
And besides, without the conviction you may be unaware of their drug use. If someone has a drug habit, but nobody can tell, what exactly is the problem? There are plenty of "functioning alcoholics" in the workforce.
That's nonsense. If you have a private drug habit and don't get caught, that won't come up on a background check. Lots of people consume recreationally without being addicts or messing up the rest of their lives. A conviction (sometimes just an arrest record) that comes up on a background check will automatically put applicants in the reject pile in many jobs. This is such a common problem some US states (eg California) have passed laws to prevent employers demanding this information of applicants.
I like the text at the bottom of the page if you don't have javascript enabled:
> Hey NoScript peeps, (or other users without Javascript), I dig the way you roll. That's why this page is mostly static and doesn't generate the list dynamically. The only things you're missing are a progressive descent into darkness and a happy face who gets sicker and sicker as you go on. Oh, and there's a total at the bottom, but anyone who uses NoScript can surely count for themselves.
Because of my misbelieve in capitalism and the belief in the corruption of governments. Or as the saying goes: “All power corrupts” and all that. On top of that, I am no believer in meritocracy (that is I don’t believe people advance in position based on merit).
Now lets do some thought statistics. I—as a bayesean—assign the uniform distribution as a prior to competence, that is I assume that competence is equally distributed across occupations and positions independent of responsibility. Now, lets allow some movement between positions and assume correlation between responsibility and salaries (that is people being payed more are responsible for a greater proportion of the system). Now assume there is not a 100% correlation between competence and being moved into a greater position with a greater salary (that is we assume some level of corruption; people moved into greater position because of favors, family ties, wealth, gender, etc. Even misattributed skills of those promoted [i.e. incompetence of those responsible promoting and hiring; i.e. suspect positive feedback of incompetence]).
Finally we acknowledge the fact that being moved into a position with more responsibility and you don’t gain skills as you are moved, your competence will decrease (that is competence is a function of responsibility and skill).
It should be easy to see that your posterior distribution of competence to salaries and the posterior distribution of competence to responsibility should both be skewed towards the right. That is you as you increase responsibility and salaries, you will find relatively fewer people competent at their jobs.
Why would someone do an experiment without a theory to test? How would they know that a particular result was interesting without a theory about the expected result?
