Yes, in the financial context they have a low risk profession. They can have greater than 90% confidence that if they do the same thing they did the previous year (likely, working very hard at a task they are very skilled in), that they will earn about the same amount they earned that year, usually adjusted up for inflation. Do you disagree, or are you using some other definition of risk?
If you don't know much about a given job it looks low risk. But a successful doctor, etc. have taken many risky decisions, with not enough information.
Bearing in mind that we are talking strictly in the financial sense — and not, for example, about risky medical decisions — can you explain what you're talking about further? What major risky investments do doctors make on a regular basis?
1. "But to break the 99th percentile - I think that was $342K/year for 99.5th percentile of single filers - you need to take on some risk. Like ... taking on high-visibility, high-impact projects that may fail - often at the cost of your regular duties - within your day job."
This is the OP.
2. Taking a bad important medical decision will have bad financial consequences - lower reputation, not so good references, patient complains leading to big losses of time - lower income in the future. Also there's stuff like which team do you join, what new technical skills do you get, which part of the world you work in. You take a lot of risk, you can expect higher rewards on success.
Personal risk, yes. Malpractice is covered by insurance. Bankers risk their clients' money, not their own (for the most part). As long as they perform their job competently, there is little risk compared to an entrepreneur who has had to quit their job and invest their personal funds into their venture.
Really? How about the risk, that one won't be able to complete his degree, after investing a lot of money and time? Or that he'll make a mistake, which will get him blacklisted from good jobs.
One knows all the risks involved in his job, and few in other's jobs.
>> mitigate their risk because of familial support mechanisms
Or society support mechanisms - many ppl in say Scandinavia use the two or more years of high unemployment benefits to start a business risk-free. Actually in Norway, to stimulate entrepreneurship, they would pay those benefits for the 1st six month of new company operation (to the owner).
They are hands down the most reliable cell voice provider with the greatest coverage. Their customer support is not great, their prices are too expensive but they are reliable.
I don't have a smart phone and use my cell only for voice so Verizon works great for me. Sometimes I travel in US and my wife's AT&T phone loses coverage while Verizon still has a strong signal. It is almost never the other way around.
Hardware-wise, I believe, Verizon own most towers as well. Often other carriers rent space on a VZ tower.
If by "cover traffic" you mean there are other users on the system then you are correct. If by "cover traffic" you mean internally generated traffic that can be used to obscure traffic between any two links (e.g. keep a fixed size bandwidth pipe full even when not in use) then you are incorrect. The former is of little value in thwarting traffic analysis and the latter is costly in terms of already limited system performance and imposes costs on participants that few are willing to bear.
>>As private industry and a world society I hope we can take care of this ourselves before it gets so out of control Congress tries to figure out how to do it and we end up with some horrible mess of a “National ID and Digital Identity Act” that looks at it only from the perspective of the USA and makes it very difficult for non-US citizens to do anything online (as most of the major Internet properties are US based) creating a whole new barrier for 3rd world citizens to overcome.
Major internet properties are international - Facebook, Paypal, Skype, Google, Microsoft's, Groupon, etc. Most countries have the technical talent to create clones of successful US startups. The problem is local governments will be able to control those local forums and social networks. So killing online freedom in US will kill it worldwide.
It was an extremely efficient monolith, while Bill Gates was managing everything. But than he concentrated on the Sun anti-monopoly suit and MS become a regular stupid corp.
That's pretty obvious. Just in a few month government and every established corp will require those for it's online services. Online banking, paypal&co, all app stores, gaming, taxes, healtcare, insurance ...
Prediction: it'll start with the gov't allowing safe harbor for sites that use these IDs, when questions regarding copyright, pr0n, etc., come up.
If your users post copyrighted material, e.g., then you'll be offered safe harbor only if you enforce registration via the national ID. Same deal for people posting "naughty" content -- which is more insidious than it sounds, because of the overlap between (a) sexual content and privacy concerns in discussions about, e.g., STDs; or (b) in the wake of wikileaks, being hassled about publication of, or support for those publishing, "leaked" data be it from government or from industry.
It's necessary that we provide a way for people to maintain anonymity, but the government wants to offer enough carrots to divert our horse from that path.
How about because ppl prefer religion over science. And security over freedom. Federal government getting more corrupt and more powerful with each year.
Uh what? I'd prefer that most Americans sat and watched sitcoms and left the mental lifting to the rest of us. Sadly, the religious folk think they have a seat at the intellectual table as well.
No their function is not to divine when did Noah leave the ark and how did all those animals and humans repopulate the earth in 4k and something years.
Their job is to ask "stupid" questions. Their job is to analyse the results of science through spiritual and theological lens. In short role of religion in society is same as role of CEO in a company - to provide strategy, vision and guidance. Sadly both are increasingly failing us.
True problem of religions nowadays is not that there is no place for them - but that they outright refuse to re evaluate their positions, instead demanding their rights of old. Just like RIAA, MPAA, etc..,
But indeed that would mean they had to work and be creative - maybe even expose themselves to some risk, but that would be too hard. Better to cling to old birthrights and refuse to cooperate.
LOL. I love that I get downvoted and the child comment gets upvoted. ITT Religious people are sad that their ilk are ignorant and are holding back social progress.
It's all about the tone. If you'd expressed concern that religious powers are holding us back in terms of scientific progress (stem cells, attempts at creationism in schools, etc), I think you'd have wide agreement. Instead, you said it in a more "reddit" mocking way, which rarely goes over well here.
I guess I just assumed it was implied. I generally don't like typing out my dissertation on how religion has held back social progress since the birth of America and the fact that that includes everything from cutting funding for scientific research, education, grants, etc to telling gay people they can't get married. It's all fundamentally anti-intellectual. Expressing it usually just gets me in a fit of rage.
I guess " religious folk think they have a seat at the intellectual table as well" is mocking, but I still stand by it. It's a succinct indictment of people who by definition don't adhere to reason having way too much power over those of us with the intelligence and ideas to do REAL GOOD in politics and science and society.
Now my moaning reply was just silly, but I was annoyed. Probably because I spent a lot of yesterday arguing with a Baptist.
> How about because ppl prefer religion over science. And security over freedom. Federal government getting more corrupt and more powerful with each year.
When do you think that each of those became true?
Or is it that they've finally crossed a tipping point?
I agree that they're all true, but they've been true since before 1776. And, as bad as the US is on an absolute scale, I'm having trouble finding some place better. Suggestions?
>And, as bad as the US is on an absolute scale, I'm having trouble finding some place better.
Then you're either putting impossible requirements on the new place (e.g. "and my friends have to all live there") or you're simply not looking. Throw a dart at western Europe. Any of those places will provide a better quality of living for most people.
Irrelevant. Look at any standard of living study. They'll all have most of western Europe above the US for the average person. Most western European countries have more incoming migration than they are comfortable with.
I also think you'll find that migration pressure to the US has started to slow. You may still have a large amount from Mexico but that is about opportunity, not a testament of the US being the place to be.
> Irrelevant. Look at any standard of living study.
Hmm. You don't think that people's preferences tell us anything?
> They'll all have most of western Europe above the US for the average person.
American poor people are stereotypically obese and have multiple cars and big screen TVs. While those things are bad for them....
Oh, and they have free healthcare too. (Never confuse insurance with healthcare.)
It is true that the gap between the poor and the rich is greater in the US, but by that measure, hunter-gatherers were better off than modern europeans.
> Most western European countries have more incoming migration than they are comfortable with.
As does the US. However, immigration pressure comes from everywhere.
Why is comparing the pressure between {your favorite western European country} and the US irrelevant?
> I also think you'll find that migration pressure to the US has started to slow. You may still have a large amount from Mexico but that is about opportunity, not a testament of the US being the place to be.
Huh? Opportunity is surely one factor in "place to be".
That said, I agree Mexico vs the US doesn't tell us anything about US vs western Europe, just as Turkey vs Germany doesn't tell us anything about US vs Germany.
>Hmm. You don't think that people's preferences tell us anything?
It's irrelevant because it's an incredibly over-simplistic metric and it's subject to manipulation (i.e. everyone hearing 2nd and 3rd hand the US is the greatest country in the world, which in some ways it was some decades back and deciding to go there).
>American poor people are stereotypically obese and have multiple cars and big screen TVs.
Done with credit. You could have the same thing in Romania if they let everyone had 5 credit cards, different credit for their house, difference credit for their car and different credit for the place where they buy their TV.
Being fat doesn't mean they're getting more food, it means they're getting more bad food. A better thing to look for would be a place where the poor are not hungry and not malnourished.
>Oh, and they have free healthcare too.
What are you talking about here, ER care? Can they get a hip replacement for "free" like they could in e.g. Sweden? Why are cancer patients divorcing their spouses to ensure said spouse wont end up losing his/her retirement money paying medical costs of a dead person?
>Why is comparing the pressure between {your favorite western European country} and the US irrelevant?
Because it's impossible to quantify why this pressure is happening. Is it because of coincidence? Misinformation? Informed choice? Opportunity (e.g. "we can walk to the US but can't afford to get to where we really want, and anywhere seems like it would be better than here")? Given that we can't say with even the slightest amount of confidence, this number is almost completely meaningless.
A number that would have more meaning would be if some place had no or negative immigration but that's not the case in any first world country as far as I'm aware.
>Huh? Opportunity is surely one factor in "place to be".
But it speaks to the location of the actor, not how good the country he's going to since he is choosing the new country over less than the whole set (i.e. if someone leaves mexico to go to the US that is more likely to mean that he/she chose to go the US over staying in mexico or going somewhere else in middle america than to mean that he chose it over France).
In the 50s, 60s, 70s children have dreamed of becoming astronauts, programmers, engineers, scientists. But nowadays the cool jobs are in sports, TV, finance.
I'd bet around 1776 the majority of ppl in the colonies were willing to take care of themselves. Today the power of federal government cannot be ignored by anyone, so it's part of every big problem/solution.
IMHO we'll see some global changes in the next years. The best place to live would be the one, where your chances of survival are the highest.
> In the 50s, 60s, 70s children have dreamed of becoming astronauts, programmers, engineers, scientists. But nowadays the cool jobs are in sports, TV, finance.
More dreamed of becoming cowboys, police, and firemen.
Also, kids during the 50s dreamed of becoming professional athletes. The only that has changed in that respect is which sports.
In any event, that doesn't have anything to do with "How about because ppl prefer religion over science. And security over freedom. Federal government getting more corrupt and more powerful with each year."
