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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (March 15, 2017)
2 Wednesday, March 15, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N Rachel Marsden American Voices Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let- ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday. To the Editor: Since the election of President Trump it’s been exciting to see democracy in action throughout the nation; even here in Sisters expressed in our Nugget Newspaper. Understandably disappointed in the loss of their candidate, people spoke out through words and actions and that is their right. It is disappointing however to see one term in par- ticular used indiscriminately to express per- sonal feelings: “Nazi.” Okay, how many Democrats/liberals, gays, immigrants, women, transsexuals, Jews, or Muslims has Trump slaughtered, gassed, or tortured since being elected? ZERO? How many unborn babies have been slaughtered since Roe vs. Wade? 55 million-plus. While I support the millions of women that marched, I believe expressing their need for dignity would have been much better served had they not worn the vaginas, some really huge, on their heads. I don’t even want to envision a similarly orchestrated men’s march for dignity! When President Trump sought to imple- ment tighter vetting for immigrants from seven countries designed as high risk for ISIS infil- trators by President Obama, the extent of rage instigated by the liberal press and Democrats in Congress in my opinion was over the top. Seems logical that we’d want to prevent those that wish to kill us from sneaking into our country. Approximately 109 individuals were inconvenienced in the initial rollout. As a vet- eran all that rage, to me, appears someone misplaced given 425,000 vets are unemployed and 39,400 of those homeless. Where is the rage for that “inconvenience”? See LETTERS on page 27 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Rain Mostly sunny Mostly cloudy Chance rain Partly sunny Cloudy 54/32 51/29 55/40 57/32 52/30 50/na The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Fax: 541-549-9940 | editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Publisher - Editor: Kiki Dolson News Editor: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Williver Classifieds & Circulation: Teresa Mahnken Advertising: Karen Kassy Graphic Design: Jess Draper Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Accounting: Erin Bordonaro The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $45; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55. Published Weekly. ©2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as uncondition- ally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. PARIS — It’s often by listening for the vibrations in the muck that one can pick up on the big moral con- flicts looming ahead. And this one’s a doozy, involv- ing nothing less than the next industrial revolution. Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai last month, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk suggested that humans and machines are likely to merge in the future. “Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence,” Musk said. He noted that such a merger between man and machine would enable humans to maintain control over artificial intelligence. Musk cited the example of driverless cars, which threaten the livelihoods of taxi drivers. Much has been made of the “sharing economy” and the digital entrepreneurs who are disrupting the status quo in various industries, but an even more significant revolu- tion lies ahead as technology improves and an increasing number of workers can be replaced by robot labor. In recent years, attack drones have often substituted for U.S. Special Forces in military operations. While combat deaths have decreased as a result, the increased reli- ance on technology has often left these warriors on the sidelines. Robots are now performing surgeries in place of trained surgeons. And Japan has been developing “carebots” for elderly care. French presidential can- didate Benoit Hamon of the Socialist Party has proposed a universal basic income of 750 euros a month, partly under the guise of protecting work- ers as they are increasingly displaced by robots. True to socialist form, Hamon has also proposed a robot tax to pay for it: Revenue generated by robots and automated sys- tems would be taxed. Hamon has cited the example of auto- mated checkouts in super- markets, which in many cases have replaced cashiers. Just thinking of the check- out example makes it difficult not to take the robots’ side in this showdown. Supermar- kets in Paris that don’t have automated checkouts are almost always understaffed, resulting in lines so long that I’ve more than once aban- doned my basket to try my luck elsewhere. This is the sort of thing that happens when the state forces employ- ers to pay exceedingly high taxes on employee salaries. Hiring becomes a burden that one seeks to minimize. Hamon’s plan to pay everyone a monthly salary for doing nothing raises signifi- cant moral issues. Granted, the relationship between work value and earnings isn’t always logical. The fact that entertainers and pro athletes earn more money than sur- geons is a classic example. However, the current system is better than the communist alternative in which there is no correlation between effort and reward. The two extremes cap- tured in a snapshot: capital- ist Musk’s idea of merging man and machine to achieve superhuman capacity vs. socialist Hamon’s idea of letting man spend the day watching television while machine does all the work. B e twe e n the s e two extremes lies the human being who exists today, who wants to continue to strive to fulfill human potential with- out either robotic modifica- tions or government hand- outs. How can modern man ensure his own survival? It may come down to the choices made by different countries. Western nations can’t continue to insist on burdening employers with absurdly high taxes to pay for government waste and mismanagement. Last month, the European Parliament voted in favor of developing EU-wide rules for artificial intelligence and robots. Nevertheless, a con- servative coalition within European Parliament rejected a proposal for a robot tax and made it clear that it doesn’t view robots as a potential threat to human labor. While a purely moral stand is admirable, reforming socialist economic policies by reducing the tax burden on businesses and workers is just as critical if humans are to have any hope of surviving this new industrial revolution. © 2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.