It's Time You Got Familiar with Code – Doesn't Matter Who You Are - <AUTHOR> http://www.techvibes.com/blog/doesnt-matter-who-you-are-or-what-you-do-its-time-you-got-familiar-with-code-2014-02-04

<comment><USER2> No, why not familiarize yourself with operating system concepts. It will be a lot more use. Maybe after that learn to code.

I am a developer. If I am installing a piece of third party software and it doesn't work, the last thing I am going to do is to dig into the code. It more likely that an environmental variable needs set, or a library is missing. No coding knowledge required to fix these things, but an understanding of how everything fits together is.

(Getting bored of these kind of statements from Obama and the likes).

<comment><AUTHOR> You're a developer, so for you learning OS concepts is more useful. If you look at comments from non-developers who have learned the very basics of coding, you'll see their minds have been opened up to dimensions they never before considered possible. Looking at an OS after you have a rudimentary understanding of the building blocks is totally different than trying to learn each black box independently.

I used to think like you, I don't anymore. We (Axiom Zen) co-organized the HTML500, Canada's largest free learn-to-code event. In one day, 500 people came together and learned the very basics. The response was overwhelming, check it out for yourself: [https://twitter.com/search?q=%23html500](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23html500)

These folks are looking with totally fresh sets of eyes at what you and I take for granted. Learning the basics gives them the same appreciation you and i have for the abstractions that can be built on top.

<comment><USER2> I had done a number of basic programming classes well before I went to university to study it. The stuff they teach you is not especially useful. For loops, and if staments. Its easy. Learning to structure a larger scale project is a lot more difficult, and that requires at least some experience that you aren't going to learn in a beginers coding class.

<comment><USER3> I took a number of basic math classes well before I went to university to study it. The stuff they teach you is not especially useful. Addition, multiplication tables, and trig identities. It's easy. Learning to model large systems is a lot more difficult, and that requires at least some experience that you aren't going to learn in a beginner's math class.

Should I do the physics version as well?

<comment><USER2> you don't find addition useful?

<comment><USER3> Addition is as useful as the logic of an if statement.

<comment><USER2> The point I intended to make is that after various beginner level programming classes, I still couldn't create anything especially useful to anyone else. I could draw something on screen, but I couldn't ship it as a standalone.

I am fairly certain that you will use basic addition / multiplication in everyday life without having to be a maths expert, and have it be useful, even essential to you.

Anyway, nice strawman argument you are creating. On you go with the physics one.... (funnily enough I don't find myself using my school pyhsics in everyday life the way I use maths)

<comment><USER3> Then the physics version:

I took a couple of basic physics classes well before I went to university. The stuff they teach you is not especially useful. Elastic and inelastic collisions, deceleration from friction, F=ma. It's easy. Learning to model large systems is a lot more difficult, and that requires at least some experience that you aren't going to learn in a beginner's physics class.

<comment><USER2> So what do you use your high school physics for in day to day life?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think many developers are missing out on an opportunity to further their field.

With understanding comes respect. With respect comes the opportunity to have an informed discussion about ex. a project and why it's going wrong. A discussion where you as a developer do not feel like you are speaking to a black hole.

I never understood why so many developers are against this. Overall it's to your benefit.

<comment><USER2> I have had to deal with self taught bioinformaticians code. Basically it needed a rewrite. It was painful. Functions within functions, not for some elegant functional programming style, but because they didn't know classes or modules (she almost seemed proud when she claimed she didn't know object oriented programming). "Indexes" and "indexes" used as variable names in these same functions. Thats my reason for wanting people to learn it properly.

Crappy annalogy. You are ill you go to your doctor, or someone that dropped out of med school after a few weeks - they know the basics?

<comment><USER4> You set up false choice.

The real question you should ask yourself is would you rather se a person who had no medical training what so ever or someone who dropped out but get the basics.

Thats the relevant analogy.

<comment><USER2> In that case the code was bad enough, it would have probably been quicker writing from scratch, if I had a decent spec to go with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I actually disagree. Maybe this sounds like nitpicking, but I think it would be much more beneficial for non-technical people to be familiar with high- level, commercially used concepts in computing such as servers, databases, how the web works, and how data is managed in general. At least to me, learning 'code' has the connotation of learning the bare minimum to make a web app. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what most of these 'learn to code' initiatives seem to push and it gives people the wrong idea on how much they've really learned.

<comment><AUTHOR> all these comments are all like saying "i think it would be better if electricity conducted faster through plastic than copper" \- regardless of your reasoning of where is the "better" place to start, the reality is if you spend time talking to non-technical folks they don't give a hoot about servers and databases, they get excited about the possibility of just _building something_. after they've built something simple, and overcome the hump of seeing all of this as magic, they are ready to dig into everything else.

spend time talking to your customers before prescribing solutions to their ills - it applies to startups as well as social good projects.

<comment><USER5> Yeah I don't think we're talking about the same 'customers'. I would not consider people who want to build something as a subset of the people we're talking about when we say 'everyone should learn code'. People who are actually motivated have bountiful, free resources to learn how to program online. People who want general knowledge of the technology landscape, at least enough to contribute in a career setting, might not benefit from skimming through a zed shaw book or doing codecademy for a week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Coding is not the literacy of the future, nor will knowing how to code let you use many software products easier to use. If you have to know how to code to use software products, then we as programmers have failed. One does not need to be a mechanic to drive, to be a doctor to be healthy, or an director to enjoy a movie. Can it help you be more analytical, sure, and that might be a reason to learn to code.

</comment><comment><USER7> My 2 cents... This is not easy. Understanding coding has a much higher barrier to entry than simple proficiency in other under-utilized fields like Statistics and Economics. It is very hard to say this is something EVERYONE needs to know.

<comment><USER8> I have to disagree. Both statistics and economics requires understanding of Math, which lives on the same side of the brain that's needed for understanding logic, thus coding falls into the same bucket. Though I suspect you're refering to "understand coding" as "understand complex algorithm". In which case, I agree because there are many type of coder, and some of which doesnt neccessarily needs to "understand and/or write complex algorithm".

<comment><USER7> Here's the context... Someone with moderate statistics can take a Microeconomics class and with a few hours a week of studying can get conversational, and apply it. With only introductory calculus, they can take a second and third class, and know enough to be professionally employed in the field. 90% of the folks who start the first class can take the 2nd and 3rd.

3 classes isn't enough for competence in coding, and much less than 90% get out of the first class.

<comment><USER3> That's because we have 12 years (in the US) of general math studies to prepare us for stats and calculus. Integrate programming into the sciences and math courses (physics and geometry have obvious points for integration, I'm less certain about the others) and a first course in programming will actually be able to get students much further than they often do today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord Basically an article that says a lot without saying anything at all. Learn to code if you want to or if you need to, but stop pretending that knowing how to write some markup, trying out a REPL or writing some quick scripts will give you some mystical insight as to how software works. Then of course "coding" by itself doesn't mean anything without elaborating on the particular paradigm and language properties.

 _At Axiom Zen we use tools such as Google Analytics for tracking interactions with our material, GitHub for internal collaboration and project management, and Intercom to connect with our users as well as monitor their use of our products. Without a foundation in coding, it would have taken me much longer to adopt these tools._

Really? At best, when it comes to Git, you're just learning a file system model and basic use of a shell. Assuming you're not using a GUI or GitHub's browser interface, which is likely.

I like people learning to code by their own volition. I don't like vapid fluff.

<comment><USER4> I think you are death wrong about this.

Learning code even pseudo code will teach you to think about how you solve something, it will allow you to think with the developer and most importantly you will be able to have informed opinions about the development phase.

The world would be a much better place if more people knew about coding, what it is and what it isn't.

Thats at least my experience from working with developers and being able to do some coding without ever calling myself a developer.

<comment><USER9> My sister is a nurse, and makes very similar arguments about everybody learning some biology. I imagine a physicist thinks everybody should learn about quantum mechanics.

Philosophers think we need philosopher-kings; warriors want a warrior-king; and on and on.

Lets let one another be; learn coding if you like, and let my sister continue nursing as she is so very capable of doing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah! Everyone would indeed benefit from learning some biology, quantum mechanics, philosophy, and fighting! This is the principle upon which the US higher education system is based - and as someone who came to the US for higher education, I have to say it's the best setup in the world (as compared to the silo'd, short-sighted, and quickly obsolete teachings you pick up as an undergrad anywhere else). Were you kidding?

<comment><USER9> No, not really kidding. I resent having to study some superficial biology to satisfy somebody's notion of a good rounded education. I grew up in a University town with a large teaching hospital. We had biology inflicted upon us by well-meaning folk who wrote curriculum and were all related to the University in some capacity.

I'm not anti-learning. I object to somebody else dictating the set of superficial knowledge I need to learn.

<comment><USER4> It's not a demand it's advice. Advice that I believe is very valuable and have been for me as I am working as a designer i a technology driven industry.

Each to their own but you seem to be against this for the wrong reasons.

<comment><USER9> SOrry, I meant the well-meaning curriculum writers in my hometown. No offense!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Running Arch Linux on the Lenovo Yoga 910 - <AUTHOR> http://chaos-reins.com/2016-11-14-arch-yoga-910/ <comment><USER2> > Function keys are inverted by default and I have not established how to flip > that at a system wide level

Not sure about this specific Lenovo laptop, but if anyone else is having a similar issue on a Lenovo, I'd suggest checking the BIOS settings; my Ideapad 700 had a setting there called something like "legacy function keys", which made the function keys act like function keys by default (and required using the "Fn" modifier key in combination with a function key to change the backlight, volume, etc.)</comment>


Rome: An experimental JavaScript toolchain - <AUTHOR> https://romejs.dev/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22430682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22430682)

<comment><USER3> Same jokes too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe this is intuitive to JS devs, but what are the advantages of "zero third-party dependencies" and "being a comprehensive tool for the processing of anything JS related" or any of the other selling points of Rome? It seems like an impressive project, but it's not obvious to me what its actual benefits are.

<comment><USER5> It's not intuitive to me as a JS dev too... Are you guys gonna re-implement typescript for example? Where does 'no deps' line get drawn?

<comment><USER6> "No dependencies" isn't quite accurate. There are a couple, and they are TypeScript and related packages: [https://github.com/facebookexperimental/rome/tree/master/nod...](https://github.com/facebookexperimental/rome/tree/master/node_modules)

But everything else is on track to be reimplemented within Rome.

<comment><USER7> Note that the TypeScript dependency is not used at runtime. It's only used to type check the Rome source code.

Source [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22431169](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22431169)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this meant to replace Webpack + some list of plugins, does this get added to Webpack, or is this meant to go somewhere else entirely in the JS toolchain?

If this replaces Webpack, can someone please list a combination of popular plugins that this compares to. (Or even a few lists - would it replace Grunt + something?)

If not, can you tell me what other software this compares to, so that I can better understand it?

I am sure that I am not the only one who has some familiarity, but doesn't live in the system. Having a point of comparison would be extremely helpful.

<comment><USER7> The scope is even broader! Webpack is just a bundler. Rome is a bundler, linter, test runner, typescript compiler, and formatter. The proper comparison would be Webpack + ESLint + Jest + TSC + Prettier.

<comment><USER8> Thank you!

So, this is a bundler with built in plugins?

Is there is a way to add Babel etc, that I would have used with Webpack? Does it handle CSS?

And why would I prefer this over that chain (simpler to set up? Trust in Facebook over the people at js.foundation?)

<comment><USER7> The selling point is that you don't need plugins at all. Rome is the entire toolchain in one tool. For example, you don't need to add Babel because Rome handles transpilation.

The question is - will Rome perform as well as all the tools it intends to replace. Can it be a better Babel than Babel is? (There's a good chance it could since the creator of Rome is the creator of Babel)

<comment><USER9> I would bet on it performing better too, since Webpack/Babel/ESLint/TSC/Terser/Prettier all have to parse/process/pretty- print the code, using Javascript as the intermediate representation between each tool. That's very wasteful.

With a unified tool you can use a single AST. Or even better: an intermediate representation. You only need to parse and pretty-print once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have been following the progress of this project on Twitter for months. However I'm very skeptical to see this project used in a production app.

Re-implementing the entire JS toolchain for a modern SPA is a HUGE task, just checkout CRA dependencies : [https://github.com/facebook/create-react- app/blob/master/pac...](https://github.com/facebook/create-react- app/blob/master/packages/react-scripts/package.json)

<comment><USER11> It looks like Rome is a Facebook Open Source project, so there's reasons to believe a huge amount of resources is being put into it (probably the only way something like this is feasible).

(This is not a statement either pro or against FB, just a neutral one :)

<comment><USER12> It was mostly built by one guy at least until very recently and not during company time from what I hear for the most part. Perhaps it was, but either way it doesn't have huge firepower as of yet.

Then again, even React itself only has a small core team, same with lots of Facebook projects. I think they should hire more aggressively and become more of a tech-driven company (they should be fighting for the web platform too a lot stronger).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The premise is attractive, but the challenge will be keeping up with a rapidly-changing ecosystem. The advantage of letting Webpack and Babel be separate, having both as singular community focal-points for their respective tasks, and having both be extensible via plugins (the TypeScript team can work independently from the Babel team, for example), is that the leg-work of adding new JS features, parsing new syntaxes, keeping up with the spec, etc. can be distributed in the most efficient way possible. A single team trying to do _everything_ in-house, duplicating the work of all of the above communities, will have a very hard time keeping up. But I wish them luck.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't know if want this or if I really just want create-react-app for things that aren't react. A lot of tools do things Good Enough (which everyone disagrees on and will always fragment the ecosystem). But I do loathe setting up all the plumbing from scratch.

<comment><USER10> A lot of JS projects now have create-$X-app. Not all are as well thought out as CRA but its a good start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Rome seems fine but I find this approach to be a bit more interesting [https://github.com/swc-project/swc](https://github.com/swc-project/swc) — though Rome seems potentially broader in scope.

</comment><comment><USER16> > Rome has a logo of an ancient Greek spartan helmet. It's not very relevant > since it's not Roman, but it looks cooler than a Galea.

It's OK. JavaScript has very little to do with Java, so it fits.

<comment><USER17> Never mind that they're wrong, this isn't even a proper spartan helmet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Zero third party dependencies or how to market the [NIH /reinventing the wheel syndrome] ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here))

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a really exciting idea to me, but this website is pretty anemic (guessing it's a work in progress?). Kinda surprising to me, given the 7K stars on github. Maybe it should be submitted when it's a little more filled in?

<comment><USER20> As a person who's getting ready to drop a project: what about the docs site is "anemic"? It's using docusaurus which is pretty snazzy as far as docs sites go. Do you mean the amount of content on the site?

<comment><USER19> Content. It had like a single page, which didn't give me too much information...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What does it compile JavaScript to? WebAssembly or machine code or something else?

<comment><USER22> Probably ES6 to ES5

<comment><USER21> Oh right a transpiler.

<comment><USER23> It's perfectly valid to call that a compiler.

<comment><USER21> Yeah I know it's just extra useful context to add that it's a transpiler. Otherwise you're left confused about what it's compiling to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What a very 'interesting' name for a project that is an integrated and consistent Javascript toolchain that aims to replace existing third party libraries and tools. It may be too early to see if this is a good idea or not but who knows, at least no one can say that this was built in a day.

</comment><comment><USER25> Does it work with Deno? I'd love to burn down the existing JS world and move to a better one.

</comment><comment><USER26> An alternative lightweight and fast JavaScript buildchain using Snowpack: [https://github.com/garage11/vuepack- demo](https://github.com/garage11/vuepack-demo)

</comment><comment><USER27> It says "No Third Party Dependencies" but 95% of the code is written in TypeScript, so it isn't even JavaScript and the entire thing is built on top of one big dependency.

Would not be a problem if it didn't sell itself as "zero third party dependencies" while being built on top of one that is not even JavaScript... Might as well built the tool in any other language that would have been better for the task.

<comment><USER28> typescript is just a language, how is that a dependency? by that logic, nothing is dependency free.

<comment><USER29> But the end users can't run the typescript, whereas they can run javascript directly. So, an external tool is required by the developer.

A similar comparison would be shipping a program to end users, saying that 'no dependencies required', but instead of giving them a binary to run, you hand them a c++ file. I think everyone would agree that a C++ compiler is clearly a required dependency in that case.

<comment><USER30> Nobody says a C file has a "dependency" because you have to compile it.

<comment><USER31> Like that point is fair, but almost no C code has no dependencies. Like just a basic application that returns 0 and nothing else from main will need to link to crt0. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crt0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crt0)

However, you can compile C code as a bin file (just instructions). More common in the embedded world or you need to bootstrap an OS ect...

<comment><USER30> Static binaries do not have any dependency, and those that are not static typically depend on libc etc., regardless of the language being C, JavaScript (the browser) or anything else. So we don't count them as "dependencies".

But my point above was to counter the "C compiler is a dependency" claim. Nobody counts that way when discussing running programs, and that was my point.

<comment><USER31> There are dependencies to build a program, and dependencies to run it. Sure a static binary can run without any _run time dependencies_ if written to run on bare metal (without an OS). Although, you could go further down that rabbit hole and say the hardware is a dependency. ( _better start writing stuff in VHDL and Verilog /s_)

Both types of dependencies do come up. However, most people don't consider language dependencies. However, if you for instances need to port your code to a lot systems such dependencies can suddenly be very important. Especially if you have to do the porting. So to say: "Nobody says a C file has a "dependency" because you have to compile it." is a bit disingenuous. There is a lot of C code that require features only available in certain compilers. At which point that code now depends on that compiler.

However, JS seems to have problem with too many dependencies, at times these dependencies can be trivial that is makes someone ask why...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> From the Getting Started Guide:

> Then, navigate into it and build rome:

> cd rome; ./scripts/build-release dist

Be aware that this command might take a long time to complete. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day.

<comment><USER33> I know they said in the GitHub readme, but I still chuckled. Good chance I'm just losing my mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I mean, clarifying that it's in-progress is important.

After all, Rome wasn't built in a day.

<comment><USER27> For more information about the name, the README elaborates:

> Rome gets its name from proverbs such as "All Roads Lead to Rome", "Rome > wasn't built in a day" and "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". This refers > to the expansive scope and the desire for conformity across the project. It > started as a joke at the office.

[https://github.com/facebookexperimental/rome#history](https://github.com/facebookexperimental/rome#history)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Who is going to maintain all of this in a few months or years when Facebook has moved on?

<comment><USER36> If they end up using Rome internally that should be a good sign that it will be supported for years to come. React has been very well maintained for the past 5+ years.

<comment><USER35> I don't know. I don't think they stopped testing, but their open-source javascript testing framework jest has been unmaintained for a little while.

<comment><USER37> Jest had a new release 5 days ago, so "a little while" is quite literally a very short while.

<comment><USER35> My bad. It feels unmaintained though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The primary dependency I'd like to get rid of when developing JS would be the big corporations. Between my compiler, my linter and my frontend tool, there's quite an empire of evil.</comment>


A Map That Made Los Angeles Make Sense - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/08/thomas-guide-los-angeles-history-street-map-google-waze-app/591721/ <comment><USER2> Wow, reading this made me realize how not-unique my experience was. I too learned to read a Thomas Map long before I could drive. I too helped navigate from the back seat (and then the front seat). I too knew what Thomas page my house was on, and my grandparents, and my school, etc. And in fact, I too rode in the back of a Mitsubishi Galant!

I also agree with the author -- people today are losing their spacial sense of the geography around them. With mapping apps they no longer get the greater context. There's nothing like a huge map that's 48 inches in each direction that gives you both granular detail as well as an overall picture.

You can't get that from an app. You either have detail or you zoom way out.

When I bought my first car in 1999, the very first thing I did was buy an SF Bay Area Thomas Guide and study it. I knew that I was going to be driving in the Bay Area I better learn all the major streets and freeways. I don't think new drivers today do that. They just rely on apps.

To be fair, I too _usually_ rely on apps, but it's my extra knowledge that allows me to use the map app as a tool to enhance my driving, instead of as a crutch necessary to get around.

<comment><USER3> > When I bought my first car in 1999, the very first thing I did was buy an SF > Bay Area Thomas Guide and study it. I knew that I was going to be driving in > the Bay Area I better learn all the major streets and freeways. I don't > think new drivers today do that. They just rely on apps.

I don't think most _old_ drivers did that. I didn't. I got my license in 1997. I don't recall ever looking at a map for where I grew up (Norther Virginia, DC suburbs). I navigated based on memory, landmarks and street signs learned from watching my parents drive.

I didn't start looking at maps until I moved to places I did not intuitively know. Consequently, I had a much better understanding of basic geography in those places than I did where I grew up. Since I imagine more people were like me than like you, I'm willing to bet that with the advent of smarthpones with map apps, more people have better geographic knowledge of the places they are in, not less.

<comment><USER4> > I don't think most old drivers did that. I didn't.

It may have been regional. In Los Angeles, where I was in high school in he early 1990s, literally every kid I knew with a car had a Thomas Guide.

When standalone GPS units appeared (e.g., TomTom, Garmin), I wondered why there wasn't a Thomas Guide brand GPS, because Thomas Guide was the dominant brand for the thing that helped you get around LA. If Thomas Guide was only a regional success, that would explain why that never happened.

<comment><USER5> I think it's one of those things you learn from your parents by riding in the car with them, and the relative age one starts driving vs moving far from their childhood home.

I did both - learning names of roads, landmarks and routes from the back seat, then later studying their Gregory's (Sydney street directory), more than my parents ever did, and navigating for them from the back seat.

To this day some of my friends think I'm some crazy human GPS for being able to remember how to get somewhere after traveling there only once, sometimes 10+ years earlier.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I learned my way around that way as well. The Thomas Guide was for getting to new places I hadn't been, or finding an efficient route home.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I started a real estate startup, it was because I had gotten the wall version of the Thomas Bros. map — of course! — and plotted LA's median home prices, crime and school stats.

My idea was, wow, wouldn't it be great to give other people this kind of expansive knowledge about Los Angeles? If they could only understand what I see on this map!

But of course, it's not necessary to understand the entirety of a map if you have a tool that zeroes in on what you really want. Google doesn't exist for you to understand the whole web, but to mine it precisely. Finding a home is hard to do the same way, but giving people a zeitgeist is always inferior to giving them a tool that lets them understand the _least_ about something. It's a hard lesson for an infovore to learn, I'll say that.

So, of course, now LA drivers know too much, while they themselves know very little. In the 2000s there were "hidden shortcuts" and alternate routes that were risky. Now, the risk is hedged and nothing is hidden. It is a marketplace of nearly perfect information, where saving a minute of someone's life in traffic is treated with the respect it actually deserves.

Yet now the big problem is that people have locked in their commute route years ago, and it gets slower and slower with no escape. They drive from their far-away apartment, guided by synthesized voices, past the landed aristocracy of Los Angeles with the favor of Prop. 13 whose lawn signs chide land-use refugees to drive like their non-existent kids lived there.

Ultimately, the era of broad knowledge was also an era of choice. Both are leaving us at the same velocity. There is little need for a giant book of colleges when you can't get into or afford the ones you're interested in. Who cares about a directory of reviewed doctors when your crummy insurance will not let you see any of the ones you would choose? The time of the Thomas Bros. map was before the closing of the urban frontier. Now, you just take the only thing on the shelf.

</comment><comment><USER7> I hadn't heard that NIMBY's are also NOMS (not on my streets) but it doesn't surprise me they're trying to keep cars from driving down the public streets they live on. Is there anything the affluent won't do to try to exclude themselves from society at large?

I recently started motorcycling and don't want a phone mount to distract myself while driving. This has turned Maps apps into a "Thomas guide" for me. I examine the maps and chart the route of my ride the night before, memorizing which turns I want to take and surrounding streets in case I miss a turn. Of course, if I do get lost I can open my digital "Thomas guide" back up and figure out where I am. It has given me a different level of confidence in my ability to navigate that simply relying on GPS routing for the past 15 years has. But it's hard to get lost in the West LA area, there's so many major streets that are memorable and as long as you know what cardinal directions they run in, it's not really a big deal. If you just drive in one direction long enough you're bound to find something that orients you in space.

<comment><USER8> I'm quite happy to bash the rich, but I think they have a legitimate concern here. Freeways are for long-distance travel past areas. Surface streets are for local travel in the area. When Google Maps tries to throw me onto surface streets, I mostly don't let it do it, because I think a bunch of people zooming through somebody's neighborhood is rude and often dangerous.

<comment><USER9> Its more efficient overall to use the available roads. As an LA native, taking the surface streets is a way of life.

<comment><USER10> More efficient for drivers. But it results in much less efficient land use overall, because more space is now taken up by cars.

<comment><USER11> Then they should be interested in making the overuse of cars "less of a problem" instead of "not my problem".

<comment><USER8> I mean, on HN the solution to badly considered comments is to grumpily reply to them, not to work to solve the societal problem of poor education in critical thinking. So I don't think we can really expect much more of others.

<comment><USER11> Sure, we can't all think big picture all the time. That's part of what discussion is for. And even if it's okay to be narrow minded or flat out wrong on occasion, we are well within our rights to try to adjust people's mindset if we are so inclined. Even if somewhat grumpily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A big problem I have with things like Google Maps is how it turns me into a peripheral of the system. As the author points out, it not only doesn't expect me to know anything, it avoids educating me on anything.

Now if I'm going anywhere I don't know well, I try to take some time and at least look around the map as I would with a paper map, so that I can contextualize things. And if possible, I'll use Google Earth to get a non-map sense for position and visibility of landmarks. But I'd love to see Google Maps work toward educating me as part of what it does.

<comment><USER12> Google Maps isn't _preventing_ you from using it or Earth to spend your own time educating yourself. But sometimes you don't have time and you just need to get from point A to B, or you'd just prefer to spend your limited time educating yourself on other things rather than geography.

But I'm genuinely curious: what would Maps look like, for you, if it "educated" you? You can already look at the route and pan/zoom around it to understand it however much you want, and different zoom levels make it clear what are major vs minor roads.

I'm struggling to imagine what automated "education" that comes along with directions would _look_ like in some way that could be scalable/automated and interesting to the general public? Is it a brief description of the endpoints of each road, or tourist attractions or cities passed along the way, or population levels, or the name of the mayor, or what?

<comment><USER13> For instance: "First, we need to take the I-10W". "Ok I know this part". <stops giving directions>

<comment><USER14> But what if the route you normally take to I-10W has an accident and traffic is backed up for miles? in my experience, it's always valuable to keep Google maps running all the time so you're aware of slow downs long before you hit them.

<comment><USER13> Well, in that case, Google Maps would wake up and suggest an alternative route.

The point I'm trying to make is that Google Maps (actually, all navigators) is biased towards shutting the brain down and just focusing on next turn. It could do much better in describing the overall route, and even letting you drive by yourselves parts of the route you already know -- it can still tell you to do alternates routes if there's traffic though.

Obviously the workaround is to skim the overall route and decide by yourself what to do, whether to follow directions or not on certain parts. This is what I always do -- just because I want to make sure that I still know my way without a navigator and it's also a good way to learn new parts of the city (or new cities) that you don't know. At the same time, Google Maps isn't really helping on this.

<comment><USER8> Yes, exactly. The problem is the brain-shutting-down part. It treats you as a dumb peripheral. But we know that learning doesn't happen best that way. [1] I would love to see it be more helpful in the ways you suggest.

[1] E.g., [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >I don't know of any equivalent street atlas that exists for the half-million L.A. households that use buses, trains, and bikes to get around instead of cars.

Google Maps already does this; there are 'public transit', 'walking', and 'biking' directions. The public transit option gives you a few different options, including transfers and how late the buses are if the city provides that data. There's a dedicated 'transit' overlay which traces major routes and adds bus stops to the map.

It's great if you weren't aware of nearby express routes or need to get somewhere at odd hours, but I guess it does also increase bus congestion by funneling more people into the bus routes. It stinks not always getting a seat, maybe I should sue Google.

<comment><USER16> I believe the author was talking about her not knowing of any atlases for non- driving LA residents _from the days before ubiquitous smartphones with GPS_.

I didn't drive during the decade I lived in LA, and I _still_ had a Thomas Guide. Supplemented with bus route maps and the county's route planning website, but the Guide was definitely still earning the space it took up in my backpack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ah, yes. The old "I have more right to this road than you" argument.

The apps don't increase congestion, piss-poor infrastructure does. Apps spread it out.

<comment><USER18> > The old "I have more right to this road than you" argument.

The argument that motorists have used for decades to claim that they have sole right to use the asphalt to drive fast and park their cars, and everyone else (cyclists, pedestrians, "sunday drivers", etc...) have to get out of their way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A big key to driving in LA is recognizing and knowing where the mountains/buildings are. With that GPS and compass aren't required to have a very good feel for where you are and are headed. You still need to know streets (and which go through, have lights, traffic), but it's very reasonable to know which way to get to a major street/highway even from an "unknown" location.

<comment><USER20> Kevin Lynch notes as much in "The Image of the City", his book about urban form:

> Paths proved to be the dominant element [of orientation] in terms of > quantity [...] The single exception was the shift in attention from paths > and edges to landmarks, which was noted in Los Angeles. This was an striking > change for an automobile-oriented city, but it may perhaps have been due to > the lack of differentiation in the gridiron streets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I owned a Thomas Guide before I owned a car, it honestly greatly expanded my spacial awareness, even now, I can drive thru the LA basin and not get lost, even though I've not lived there in almost 15 years.

The issue with GPS is you dont internalize the routings and learn the ability to generate your own routings over time.

<comment><USER22> I disagree. If you pay attention to where you're being routed you can totally learn special awareness and routing in your city. Some people don't, but those are the same type of people that were always lost in the age of paper maps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have noticed that younger uber drivers trust their apps even to do incredibly stupid things like: make a massive loop over a bridge to turn around and go back to where they came when they were already parked on a two- way street with no traffic in front of my apartment building. Older people will actually listen to me when I tell them they should ignore the app. Younger people get upset at the very suggestion, like not following the app is dangerous or against the law or something.

<comment><USER24> I think the apps don't help themselves; if it said something along the lines of "You need to turn around - you can do so safely by <making a massive loop over a bridge>" this would inform people of the need to turn around _and_ tell them how to do so in the event that they cannot do so safely simply by throwing a handbrake turn at speed this very second.

As it is, they sometimes even obscure the fact that they're guiding the user to turn around. I've definitely found myself guided to turn around via an awkward route in the past and found myself surprised when I realised that's what the game was.

<comment><USER25> This, so much! I'm continually shocked by how bad the UX is in GPS apps in 2019.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> In the Bay Area, there was an even more detailed, local binder-style map producer -- Barclay Maps, perhaps? They were the best for ongoing local navigation, popular with salesfolk and Realtors alike.

Later, when I did voter data and precinct boundaries for some campaigns; they provided detail others did not.

I just tossed out what may have been my last set of Thomas Bros maps a couple of months ago. I couldn't envision a legitimate need, but it hurt to just toss them.

</comment><comment><USER27> Maybe this is what progress looks like...

I think the reason people learned much more about the geography before was because it was a byproduct of doing the work needed to get around. Those Thomas guides weren't easy. Of course, I like that kind of thing. Not everyone wants to spend mental energy on this.

I have thought about, without success, how to make a mapping app that would be good for someone who liked to think about where they were going.

</comment><comment> mark-r I always assumed every metro area would have something like this. In Minneapolis it was the Hudson's map book: [http://hudsonmap.com/hudsons-twin- cities-steet-atlas.html](http://hudsonmap.com/hudsons-twin-cities-steet- atlas.html)

I too lament the lack of the big picture that comes with Google maps.

</comment><comment><USER28> My wife and I were chuckling the other day about using the Thomas Bros map of old, while plugging our destination into the car's GPS nav system. Something else my kids will never know about.

<comment><USER29> I get really stressed out driving without knowing the area/route ahead of time. With so much poor city planning out there, whenever I wing it I tend to end up in dead ends or winding cul-de-sac heavy areas where you can see where you need to be across a few feet of someone's yard. I've never really adapted to using phone/gps nav either for some reason as it feels so distracting and myopic. I still only use GMaps etc for preplanning. Give me a paper map and orientation to major streets any day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Thomas Brothers Guide, San Diego 1986. Otherwise I was doomed.</comment>


Show HN: Workout planner - <AUTHOR> http://intro.thryv.com/home.html

<comment><USER3> * Add activity could use a text input search box that filters the activities.

\+ If you're going to show Exercise + Variation, it might simplify things to not include the variations in the Exercises column.

\- For example, Barbell Shoulder Press (4), Barbell Close-Grip Shoulder Press(1), Barbell Wide-Grip Shoulder Press(1), and Barbell Reverse-Grip Shoulder Press(1) are all listed under exercise. No matter which I choose, I have to choose it again in the variation. Seems to me like you shouldn't include a variation in the exercises list if it's a variation of an exercise already in the list.

* Add Exercise through Journal>History: I should be able to tab between lbs, sets, reps, mins. I have to click each to edit.

* Let's say I want to add my workout history to this. Adding my historical data is difficult. I have to go day by day in the journal and then click Add Day from Plan or Add Exercise. Can you handled any kind of CSV import?

* I see I can track my body weight, but can I track my weight gain/progress per exercise? How many lbs have I added to my squat this year? What did I bench press during my last workout? Similarly, when I lift weights I look back at my previous workouts in my workout log (which is currently a thread of emails) to know how much weight I should be lifting for my workout.

* I added individual exercises to my journal for yesterday, but they don't show up on the calendar. Only activities show up on the calendar.

* When I click the activity on the calendar view, I'd like to be able to see what I did. It doesn't show me the exercises in the popup.

* There's not great support for me missing a rep. Let's say I'm squatting 3 sets, 5 reps each. That's easy enough to plan, but what happens if I miss a rep on the last set? For me to enter that data I have to change the exercise to 2 sets, 5 reps each, and then add a new exercise with 1 set, 4 reps. But that doesn't seem right because I didn't plan to do 4 reps on that third set. I planned to do 5 and I failed.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the feedback! Most of what you shared is in the pipeline for development.

We're in the process of redesigning the exercise search experience. We'll be adding in more granular analytics over time (i.e, measuring your performance over time tied to a specific exercise). Selecting a day in the calendar and viewing the exercises completed for the day is also planned. We understand this is incredibly helpful when viewing your exercise history too.

To your last point, this issue is solved by making a round of the exercise and treating each round as a set. When you get to round 3 (aka set 3) of your exercise, you can change the # of reps from 5 to 4, specific to set 3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The site (for now) caters too much to those who already have a set routine. I would develop standard plans that users can pivot from. (Those standard plans should based at minimum on gender, weight, and current fitness to be usable.)

Personally, I would love to use something like this since I find myself floundering at the gym and picking random exercises when I am not on the treadmill. But as a woman, I don't want a suggested routine of 100 x 50 lb bicep curls.

<comment><USER4> We don't currently have a database of plans to choose from.

We did enable google doc sharing and collaboration capabilities for workouts so those who did not have a set plan could use plans shared to them by friends or access a publicly created plan to try.

Feel free to customize your own workout and share it :)

<comment><AUTHOR> ty gailwinds, we'll add your ideas to our discussions on how to handle public workout plans

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks good. You should think about adding Facebook Connect for registrations... especially with how much a lot of people like to announce how motivated they are to look after their health, and after all, "it's a good thing that you told everyone you went to the Gym, otherwise that session would have been totally pointless".

You should also make it clearly what your business model/pricing/fees/plans/what to expect once you sign up. This information is really difficult to discover without subscription.

<comment><AUTHOR> So it's free for personal use, with the paid accounts in the works.

As far as FB connect, it's in the plans.

BTW, hijacking this post to say we're having sign up issues right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm CTO of Thryv. It is so exciting to finally launch! :-)

The last few days have been really hectic, trying to make the servers strong enough to handle the heavy anticipated traffic from HN.

Now we have 250 active visitors our website, yet the apdex score is 0.98!

To put in a nutshell, we did all that is needed to handle heavy traffic - <USER2> caching to moving static assets to CDN.

I will write a detailed post later on what we did and how we did!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We've been working off personal assumptions and need to get external feedback, so we appreciate any comments on everything from the landing page to the tools themselves.

I found that when it comes to workouts I have a set plan that I follow, but other trackers are limited to tracking <= today and don't handle > today very well, so my friends and I are building this web workout planner, with mobile apps to come.

The way it works is you create a workout plan, with however many days you want, then put it on your calendar (ex: recurring weekly). Each day, all the scheduled exercises are given to you in a list that you check off. It lets you change fields if you deviate (or add stuff if you're ambitious), but for the most part when we're in the gym we just focus on completing the workout.

In the backend, activities are isolated from their plan as soon as you start tracking so you can deviate from the plan without affecting goals or update the plan without affecting history.

We also gave the workout planner Google doc like collaboration / sharing capabilities, although right now you won't see changes made by others at the same time until you refresh.

Thanks in advance.

</comment><comment><USER8> I saw this the last time it was (briefly) posted here. A couple of things I noticed:

* It'd be nice to have some sort of search feature for adding activities (incremental search or otherwise)

* On a similar note: if you don't see the exercise you're looking for on the exercise database, it'd be nice to be able to add the exercise from the same modal.

* it seems like there are a lot of missing workouts for strength. I know it's not easy to find a centralized database for exercise listings, but common things like 'squats' shouldn't be too hard to add in.

Definitely would like to see some sort of FitBit/Withings/Myfitnesspal/LoseIt! integration. It'd also be lovely to have charts documenting progress, and an ability to export to csv.

I think once the mobile apps come, this could be fantastic--I always have my phone at the gym for music, but will occasionally forget to bring a journal for tracking.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, our servers were not ready then so we deleted the post within 10 minutes to not waste people's time.

Thanks for the suggestions, one idea with the exercise db we had is to allow users to submit new ones / update existing ones. We would have to approve it, so our db would stay clean. Thoughts?

<comment><USER8> I think an admin approval would be a nightmare in terms of scalability. Why not crowdsource the approval system, with some sort of voting feature for user-submitted exercises?

check out myfitnesspal; they have user-submitted recipes. the recipes can either be private, or public with user-submitted confirmation on the ingredients/accuracy.

<comment><USER9> Howdy, Kyle here (4th co-founder, designer on the team). Just to add to this, initially the Plans page was intended to be a Plans database with differing tabs of Plan related content and I think your comment solidifies the need for it. I love the idea of user-submitted voting and I think that would fit the bill for a tab within the 'Plans' page that shows publicly shared plans. Thank you for the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is really cool. I'd recommend seeding Thryv with some "curated" workouts such as StrongLifts and/or Starting Strength. I'm not sure if those plans are copyrighted, but that would be an easy way to onboard folks with a ready-to-go plan waiting for them.

Maybe your plan is to have users create these "workout plans" and then share them, which would be pretty solid and might simplify matters.

Promoting a ready-to-use SL/SS plan on /r/fitness would be a great way to build an immediate audience. You'd be removing all of the friction, enabling beginners to move directly into the workouts without worrying about setting up their routines or tracking their progress.

Quick note: I found the "birthdate" field in the sign-up flow to be a bit annoying. In this day and age, just have me type mm/dd/yyyy instead of going back through a calendar widget.

<comment><AUTHOR> noted, thanks for the marketing + date tip

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Signed up.

I'm working on something in the 'quantified self' space, so I love seeing projects like this launch.

As someone who has lost > 100 lbs through completely obsessive data tracking, I'd be happy to give you some feedback over the next few weeks. Feel free to reach out via the contact in my profile.

Initial impressions: good job on launching! Next, I'd say that the initial page could be improved by drawing focus to the center in the headline area. Right now, it feels a bit out of balance with both the left and right sides competing for attention. Instead, try using the 5-6 word version of Thryv in big, bold, centered text. Maybe: "Plan your fitness lifestyle in one place. Use Thryv."

Concerning the product itself, I'll have to use it for a bit.

<comment><USER4> Thanks! (and big congrats on losing 100+ lbs)

co-founder here, i'll def get in touch with you after the craziness of the launch settles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm curious to learn what drove you to do this, when it seems much more convenient and conducive for people to take advantage of services like several others have mentioned (Runkeeper, Runtastic, MyFitnessPal, even Nike+) that combine a web app with a mobile app. You get largely the same functionality on the web that you provide, plus social options (sharing workout plans & achievements, etc) and curated regimens put together by experts/professionals, _and_ you get the convenience of a mobile app with an ultra-simple touch UI to carry around in the gym for guiding you through each exercise & recording the results.

<comment><AUTHOR> We do plan on making a mobile app. We just didn't agree with the direction the existing services were headed, we have a bigger vision for Thryv..this is just our initial release. One hint at where we are headed is the support for connecting with personal trainers that we're working on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Congrats on the launch! A few notes:

* Let me export my historical data as a CSV file. The data I record in your app is too important to me to lock up in a single app.

* Let me link to Runkeeper so that my daily aerobic exercise gets crossed off the list automatically.

* Let me link to LoseIt! so that when I check off an exercise LoseIt! learns about it and adjusts my daily calorie budget accordingly.

* Let me link to Withings so that when I step on the scale Thryv automatically learns my weight for the day.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. In the plans 2\. we haven't decided how to interact with other services yet, but we def want to 3\. I actually haven't looked at LoseIt! myself, i'll do that

The problem with #2 is that we don't want to start having to juggle multiple APIs. There are so many fitness services out there, so we might start with the most popular such as Runkeeper

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This looks like a good idea. When I actually used to work out, I used a notebook to track everything and it was pretty annoying.

The one thing about your site, the landing page in particular, that stood out to me is how there's no strong statement on the page, so my eyes just wondered around.

I would recommend making the "Learn to Thryv" bold as well as the bullet points below to guide the user to your message quickly.

<comment><USER4> Will do, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The site looks beautiful. I'm a runner so I would like to see some sort of Runkeeper integration.

My only complaint would be the name. What does it mean? How do I pronounce it? Is it supposed to be "thrive"? because it took me a good 5 minutes to guess at that. Maybe some caption should be added "We help you thryv at your workout goals" to give better context?

<comment><USER4> Thanks! We plan to integrate with other services in the future.

Noted and yes, "thrive" would be correct :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Like pkfrank said, make some "curated" workouts, and make the mobile apps FAST. I wrote <https://routinetap.com>, which is in a similar space, albeit different enough, and those two problems were the biggest ones. Then there's social, marketing, etc but I'm pretty sure you got that covered.

Happy workouts!

<comment><AUTHOR> For the mobile apps we agree that speed is important. We actually debated using phonegap or titanium studio but after playing with apps built on those platforms we decided to go with the native routes for both.

edit: i'm taking a look at RoutineTap, i'll give you some feedback once I get more time (olark + comments here are blowing us up)

<comment><USER16> You guys are on a different league, I made routinetap in spare time and I just don't have the time to spend on it as I want to. So much to do, so little time... In fact, I'm so cheap that I have a jvm running on the same linode for other stuff, I couldn't get enough traction to invest more time on it. Only now I found a guy to help me out with the android app, because I was so disappointed with phonegap-like solutions (tried trigger.io but performance is still lousy comparing to native, nevermind the css3 hw transition quirks...).

Anyway, I hope you guys can get things going, I think there's some things to be done in that area, specially in combination with statistics and social/gamification.

The best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Playing with it now, it's simple and straight forward. I'll see if it'll convince me to get more sleep. A couple things that I found odd: 1\. What does the password color rectangle thing on signup mean? I know it had to do with password strength but the colors didn't make any sense.

2\. I am doing a simple yes no question, it wasn't clear that checking the box = yes, and unchecked = no. I thought it was just missing a yes checkbox at first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks really good. But, when I create a workout routine in the Workout Planner, I would want to edit the names of the Rounds and add more information like number of reps and not just number of sets. It'll also be cool, if I could log the amount of weight I'm using for the Round in the Journal and you can do some analytics on that as well.

<comment><USER4> You're still able to input the number of reps per exercise within a round. The reason why only sets is included in the Round header is because a round is considered as a collection of exercises (i.e., circuit training). So 1 set would equal completing all the exercises within a round (where you set the reps you want to complete for each exercise).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd love to use this, looks like something that'd suit me. Unfortunately I'm getting

"We're sorry, but something went wrong.

We've been notified about this issue and we'll take a look at it shortly."

when I try and sign up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Just curious what's your monetization plan? (I noticed it's free right now.)

<comment><AUTHOR> We plan to charge professional services you connect to. It will be always be free for personal use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> How about some standardized workout routines such as the wendler 5/3/1 or a form of the conjugate system. Also since you can share workouts can you share results? Can you share workouts with entire groups?

<comment><USER4> We don't have a public database of plans yet, but we do allow plans to be shared publicly. I'd be more than happy to create a wendler 5/3/1, SS/SL and send you the workout URL if you'd like.

Sharing workout results and sharing workouts with groups are in the pipeline.

You can share a workout to a group currently but you have to add each individual person to the workout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Congratulations!

Is there any way to change lbs to kg?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet but it's in the plans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> There's a definite need for this, but what's the business model? I'm wary of ad-supported services, because they tend not to last.

<comment><USER4> We found this workflow fits really well with personal trainers, so they'll receive the same tools with some added PT powers for a fee (SaaS).

Ads aren't our focus for making money and we feel it ruins the experience.

<comment><USER22> Good. If you make it clear that the business plan is to sell it to PTs then it's a selling point for me. I admit I am in a very weird Hacker News type demographic though, maybe normal people are just like "free is good".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This clearly started from procrastination instead of getting out to work out!! Just kidding, congrats on the launch : )

<comment><AUTHOR> It's funny because I haven't been able to workout this week because of server prep to handle HN traffic

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It certainly looks nice from the outside; I'm getting rails errors when I sign up however :)

<comment><AUTHOR> We think we fixed it

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> bvsatyaram and kbouw are my fellow co founders.</comment>


The final column of a Yale 2012 grad who died in a car accident - <AUTHOR> http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/may/27/keegan-opposite-loneliness/?cross-campus <comment><USER2> I had read "Even artichokes have doubts" a while ago and had really enjoyed it ([http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2011/sep/30/even- artichoke...](http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2011/sep/30/even-artichokes- have-doubts/))

This piece is much less convincing. What's so frightening with loneliness? I would say with Pascal that the inability of the human race to deal with loneliness is the source of most of its problems. We try to distract ourselves with TV, and now Twitter and Facebook -- what are we trying to run away from? What she describes is not friendliness, it's life in a support group.

Her death is tragic of course -- all the more so because now we can't argue with her.

</comment><comment><USER3> .</comment>


Leaked Emails: Norwegian Pressures Sales Team to Lie About Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/coronavirus-norwegian-cruise-line-leaked-emails-show-booking-strategy-11590056 <comment><USER3> Meta point: do we have to accept deception as a necessary part of sales? It seems strange that we accept deception and manipulation as necessary ingredients in the market, and that its on the buyer when they "get duped".

But couldn't we have a standard where literally anything anyone says to a customer must be true, or was not false to the knowledge of the person saying it? Scammy warranties, timeshares, and other "gotcha" products would be a thing of the past. To make money, providing honest value with a product that matches the expectation of the customer would be required.

In these situations, cruise lines will of course lose money in the short term. But the alternative is that we accept the risk to human life to people taking these cruises, all in the name of short-term capital gain. What if instead we had to either "eat the loss", or invest in true safety (we can take 50% of normal passenger load, add these safety measures, these cleaning routines, etc).

<comment><USER4> Advertising fraud is already illegal. The situations where case law dictates what is illegal are varied and nuanced. As a side note, there are many categories of claims that fall in neither "provably true" nor "provably untrue", and enforcing upon these claims is tricky.

You can google for "advertising fraud precedent" "advertising fraud case law" and "advertising fraud case studies" for more information.

<comment><USER5> Right... That's why you have an "unlimited" data plan that is "guaranteed" or it's "free"...

There is no such thing as truth in advertising. There is only a Make Lawyers Rich lawsuit..

<comment><USER4> Don't those unlimited plans state that data may be throttled, etc? Unless you cite a specific example it's pretty tough to argue against.

To argue against your theoretical case: If there is a data plan that advertises unlimited data without giving any fine print describing the throttling behavior, or other strange details after high data usage, then yes, they should be able to have false advertising claims pressed against them successfully.

<comment><USER5> Come on. In theory, with "unlimited" legal resources, you can take such matters to trial and onward to a victory...

<comment><USER4> What mechanism other than litigation and the consumer protection bureau do you think should enforce against false advertising? How much resources should be expended to fight it? Do you have an alternative to propose, or do you prefer instead to attack a known-to-be-imperfect system?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is about Norwegian Cruise Line, and not the airline Norwegian.

<comment><USER7> Alternative confusion:

I assumed it was a weirdly worded title about the country... but then I wondered why they had a 'Sales Team'.

<comment><USER8> Depending on the target market and customer's place in the sales funnel, a country's sales team is called "ministry of culture", "ministry of foreign affairs" or "army".

<comment><USER9> A lot of countries have a "Ministry of Tourism" and a Tourism Minister.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a Norwegian I want to point out that there are no Norwegian owners of Norwegian Cruise Lines. It is to my knowledge fully American owned. It was Norwegian long time ago.

Sorry just don't want to get us associated with such extremely unethical behavior.

Frankly it ought to be punishable in the justice system.

<comment><USER11> Good point!

I can add that the name Norwegian is associated with the Airline company here in the nordics. So using just Norwegian in the headline is unfortunate.

<comment><USER12> I would think that association holds all over Europe. They are the 9th largest European airline, with 130 destinations.

<comment><USER13> And to their (Norwegian Air) honor they provide WiFi at no extra cost (at least I had it anytime I was flying from Helsinki to London or the reverse). Fantastic airline. I wish they could expand more and take some routes from Wizz/Ryan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's borderline criminal. To blatantly lie about the risks - <USER2> elderly passengers - people are taking should be actionable in some way. These emails will come back to haunt them if family of future casualties sues them. I sincerely hope they go out of business.

<comment><USER15> Then again, who is stupid enough take medical advice from a vacation salesman? These customers have agency and are ultimately the decision makers. What this company is doing is unethical, but we all need to be responsible for the decisions we make. If I decide to go on a cruise right now, knowing what has been going on, it's not the company's fault if I get sick.

<comment><USER16> Sure, but scamming the gullible is still both criminal and immoral. And similarly intentional dangerous misrepresentation of facts like this should be criminal (and maybe already is, I do not know American law that well) even if you would have to be an idiot to actually believe it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> s/Norwegian/Cruise line "Norwegian"/ ?

<comment><USER18> Yes, this is not about the airline but the American cruise line called Norwegian Cruise Lines for some reason.

I guess it was owned by Norwegians at one point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > "Scientists and medical professionals have confirmed that the warm weather > of the spring will be the end of the Coronavirus," a second says

That wasn't a "scientist", that was the President of the US of A.

His lies are going to get people killed.

</comment><comment><USER20> Miami New Times is unreadable: [https://i.imgur.com/jBCtyvS.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/jBCtyvS.jpg)

<comment><USER21> Just disable javascript - solves my readability problems with 9/10 websites.

<comment><USER22> Or just use uBlock Origin and continue to enjoy functional websites: [https://imgur.com/a/SgBJGjk](https://imgur.com/a/SgBJGjk)

<comment><USER23> uBlock Origin is awesome, but those workarounds are temporary. The web has an usability problem that is worsening every year.

<comment><USER24> uBO is temporary in the way Debian is temporary - i.e., in the short term, not at all. 80% of the top websites are going to be ad-free and working 80% of the time, for some value of 80%. It's true that some fraction will not work, but is any consumer software 100% reliable?

<comment><USER23> I'm calling uBO temporary because adTech is evolving to evade adBlockers (in- domain tracking and ad obfuscation). Surfing the web is a nightmare for the average user, and the tech industry barely notices. The web has an unsustainable business model, and we need to address the issue.

<comment><USER24> In-domain tracking and ad obfuscation have both been around for years. And uBO has evolved to address them. There is content-based blocking/filtering for in- domain, and script injection to defuse obfuscation. I'll agree there's an arms race between ads and ad blockers, but it's like DRM, in that the home team (ad blockers in this case) always wins eventually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can we change the title to reflect that this is a company called NCL, Norwegian Cruise Lines, not Norwegian, the Norwegian airline?

</comment><comment><USER26> This is of course all horrible, but I seriously wonder who at this point thinks: "Let's book a trip on a cruise ship right now!"

<comment><USER27> Lots of the people booked on cruise ships right now probably made their reservations months ago. That's how we did it on the cruise we went on last year. Put down a deposit to reserve a room in September, paid in April, sailed in August.

<comment><USER28> Cruises mostly get more expensive towards the date of departure, so booking in advance is the thing to do if your ability to take the time for a cruise is predictable. I have a cruise scheduled for March 2022. If a cruise price does go down it is because they overestimated demand, and cruisers will be watching for when the price of new bookings drops below the price they paid. The deposit, so far in advance, can be both tiny and fully refundable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have a Caribbean cruise scheduled for mid April. Royal Caribbean is offering free rescheduling up to 48hrs before boarding.

Haven't taken up on it yet but likely will. Cancelling the test of the trip is going to be tough, financially, so I'm looking on how this progresses.

</comment><comment><USER30> Time for the health department to put some big red notices up on the office and the ships.

<comment><USER31> The CDC already called out cruises specifically [https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/covid-19-cruise- ship](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/covid-19-cruise-ship)

<comment><USER30> Called out is not the same as walking over and saying "you're shut down".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> These emails leaking might have something to do with the layoffs yesterday.

</comment><comment><USER33> Good thing we're not inducing this emotional behavior at scale.

Surely it would be insanity to drum into people's heads "profits before species!"

I'm sure this is an isolated incident.

<comment><USER34> Ummmmm I love the smell of sarcasm in the morning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> .

<comment><USER36> Wikipedia seems to suggest this passage is entirely correct [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019)

"Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),"

and it is backed up by a WHO factsheet [https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel- coronavirus-2...](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel- coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus- disease-\(covid-2019\)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This recent coronavirus outbreak has been very enlightening, cause it gaves us more information on why cruises are a bad idea, and perfect for an epidemic. The same air is recirculating among all cabins.

However, it does not explain why we haven't heard of flu outbreaks in cruises before this coronavirus. It seems cruises are perfect for the proliferation of any airborne virus.

<comment><USER17> I'm interested in what the known spreading instances on ships and at conferences tell us about how the virus is transmitted.

As I understand it, the message from CDC etc is, roughly: It's transmitted through droplets coughed or sneezed from one person that then end up through common touching of not-cleaned surfaces and thence into the body through face- touching.

My gut feel is that if that's how transmission occurs, we shouldn't see infection spread between large numbers of people who were simply present in the same room as each other for a few days.

Which makes me wonder if all the hand washing is just "Epidemiology Theater".

<comment> barry-cotter > My gut feel is that if that's how transmission occurs, we shouldn't see > infection spread between large numbers of people who were simply present in > the same room as each other for a few days.

People cough and sneeze all the time, even healthy people, and the droplets of saliva from that land on surfaces that other people touch and then they touch their faces, rub their eyes and pick their noses. So the virus will spread in the air and also by transmission onto mucus membranes from your hands. It's not airborne but there is droplet transmission. The danger is relatively small if people don't touch, like shaking hands, hugging or kissing, and if surfaces are wiped down with disinfectants regularly and everyone washes their hands but that does not describe most people's experience of being in a room with other people for a few days.

<comment><USER17> I read in another thread that sneezing aerosolizes the payload such that it will stay in suspension in a large volume of air (a large room for example) for hours. I'd call that "airborne transmission" but it seems that means something different. That being the case, could it be that the hand washing is more to do with reducing the surface area onto which a droplet can land and make it into the target's body? This would explain quite well how someone can infect 50 other people in a large room, and also why hand washing is helpful (but not a 100% protection since droplets can still float in through the nose and mouth).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Adobe Acquires Behance For More Than $150 Million. - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/21/adobe-acquired-portfolio-service-behance-for-more-than-150-million-in-cash-and-stock/ <comment><USER2> Indeed a big news for Designer community. Behance has the power to put all the designers at one place. I am sure, they love Adobe as well.</comment>


The Game Boy, a hardware autopsy – Part 2: memory mapping - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecTQVa42sJc <comment><AUTHOR> Part 1 previously submitted: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11160346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11160346)</comment>


Principles of Programming Languages (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://feederio.com/book/34/principles-of-programming-languages <comment><USER2> Another good book on this subject [http://papl.cs.brown.edu/2014/](http://papl.cs.brown.edu/2014/) It's less profound but easier to understand. Good fit for PLT beginners.

</comment><comment><USER3> A newer version is available elsewhere.

[http://pl.cs.jhu.edu/pl/book/dist/book/book.pdf](http://pl.cs.jhu.edu/pl/book/dist/book/book.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> Not even a mention of functional programming? Makes me wonder

<comment><USER5> How do come to that conclusion? The bulk of the book uses OCaml for examples and defines a simple language called F-flat:

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--- 2.3 The F[ Programming Language Now that we have seen how to define and understand operational semantics, we will begin to study our first programming language: F[.

F[ is a shrunk (flattened) pure functional programming language. \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

Sorry about the missing flat symbol, it didn't survive copy and paste from the pdf.</comment>


Workism Is Making Americans Miserable - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-workism-making-americans-miserable/583441/ <comment><USER2> Just yesterday, I was watching an episode of "This Week in Startups" [0]. At about 12:20, the conversation turns to jobs, UBI, etc. and his guest, Rabios, starts going on about how depressed people would be without jobs, with statements like this:

> _" The by-product of your toil is what makes you human in many ways, and if > you pay people not to work, you're actually destroying their self-worth."_

My first thought was "well, that's convenient, coming from a guy who makes his living from the work of others".

But, of course, it's also likely that he and the "investor-class"\--as well as a broad segment of people, including much of startup culture--really are so disconnected from reality, that they can't fathom that not everyone is in a position to "create", "find fulfillment", or otherwise change the world through their labor.

But, do they not notice when they see people cleaning toilets, etc? Or is it just those people's moral failing?

Calacanis then goes on to make the case that young men become despondent and start riots, turn to terrorism, etc because they are unemployed. This, as if their despondency in unemployment has everything to do with not having access to work as the sole means of fulfillment; and nothing to do with the fact that we've structured society in such a way that we cannot subsist at any level of decency, except through our labor.

I think these people have convinced themselves of the inherent truth of workism, because it serves them and because it is their experience. But, with this increasing disconnect and the mounting pressures faced by workers, the situation will ultimately be untenable.

[0] [https://youtu.be/fOS9K4UU50A](https://youtu.be/fOS9K4UU50A)

<comment><USER3> Was there ever a time when a human being could subsist at any level of decency except through labor?

Why then would you expect humans to be adapted to such a situation?

<comment> daniel-cussen Hunting. Gathering. You have to do things, but it's not labor. Tribes cared for their sick and old, and they would watch the children.

For what you said to be true, even chewing food would have to be considered labor.

<comment><USER3> It's not labor? What is your definition of labor?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This workism sounds exactly like the puritanical ideological bullshit that's been going around in America for hundreds of years fueling all types of hideous cultural practices like the current obsession with work and productivity. This is clearly a culture pushed by the business owners who undoubtedly would be happy to have slavery back if it applied to everyone but themselves. It's sick, disgusting, and oppressive. It's the sign of a seriously broken culture and society that no longer meets the needs of workers but only of their masters.

I don't know how you fix this at the societal level because such stupid ideology has been around for so long, but at the individual level it's possible. Individuals can start to recognize and see through the bullshit of this ideology. Some will even be able to disconnect further from work and focus on what they value rather than what their masters value. The more disconnected, the more disengaged, and the less work people put in for their overlords, the happier they will be. One promising avenue is remote work. In a remote setting it's much easier to reject this stupidity and just focus on doing a reasonable amount of work, then moving on to non work stuff. Some management of appearances is necessary, of course, as the corporate overlords would be unhappy if they found out their employees were not 100% invested even if they did all the work asked on time with great quality.

This is one of the worst aspects of American culture. It's almost like the slavery mindset never died. Instead, the new wage slaves have taken the mindset and co-opted it for their own identities. If I had to guess why, it'd probably be because our society does not provide much else for most people. Money is such a focus, most people never think of anything else, even when they have plenty of money. Or perhaps in a society where any little accident can bankrupt a person and send them to skid row homeless, there's no such thing as enough money and people are too scared to do anything but work and earn money. I know this last thing keeps me up at night, and I have to consciously remind myself that there is more to life than preparing for disaster.

<comment><USER5> For me, I will not have children.

I would never subject another human to this kind of life.

<comment><USER6> Same. I don't want to birth a human into a life of slavery. If I secure enough wealth that I don't have to work, and my children wouldn't have to work, only then would I have kids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is also a meta to this. He is telling people in the past that their children will not have to work as long/hard. In doing this he gives people a dream to think about while they slog away in their own work. It is an escapism fantasy. I've worked at places where they lay people off, half of the group and the other half has to pick up the pieces. a few months later when it gets really bad and people are burning out, a Senior VP comes in to "listen" to people and put up a front that the company cares and tries to sell the employees on the idea that it will get better and that the company only want to keep people occupied 73% of the time. Their numbers I don't know how they came up with that 73%, but people ate it up and still got burned out, all the while talking about how things will get better and somehow that 73% will happen. It never did.

<comment><USER8> The bigger issue is what will happen if our children don't need to work hard. A world where 95% of people don't need to work at all sounds great until we factor in wealth inequality.

<comment><USER9> Is wealth inequality inherently bad? I've heard of numerous studies that point out that people's happiness and wealth don't correlate much past a certain point. Is that 'certain point' a moving goal post?

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds like a case _against_ wealth inequality, since there's no increase in happiness for the very rich.

<comment><USER10> > That sounds like a case against wealth inequality, since there's no increase > in happiness for the very rich.

Not necessarily. Inequality seems to bring unhappiness independently of wealth.

You may have more than others. But if you get way less for your work than others, most people will be unhappy. That is why millionaires want more when they see the billionaires.

This video helps to illustrate my point: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In reality we all work too much. 8 hours a day is extreme, we should strive for 2-4 hours.

<comment><USER12> I wonder what inspires such thoughts. I mean I would love to only work 2-4 hours. I can however not see how it would work if the majority of people did this.

I also do not know of any period or place in time where 2-4 hours of work were sufficient for the majority of people.

So maybe I'm misunderstanding you but why do you think 8 hours is extreme/too much and why 2-4h should be sufficient.

<comment><USER13> the right wing would never settle for it

<comment><USER14> Thank goodness they wouldn't. These calls for short work days "just because" are careless statements that don't take into account the complex realities of our incredibly diverse economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It also makes them poor.

Not only because the most valuable resource is time (and they are not getting those extra work time back, at least not while they're as young to enjoy them), but also because if companies depend on the marginal benefits of working more hours, then the workplace is a race to the bottom.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a fine discussion of the culture of workism, but it's not complete without a discussion of the economics. Keynes' prediction of shorter work weeks would have been much closer to the mark if the gains in productivity in the latter part of the century had been reflected in commensurately higher per-hour compensation.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's funny how relative this is. My American friends tell me: we work, you Germans live. My Italian friends say: we live, you Germans work.

<comment><USER18> I heard it slightly different:

French people work to live and German people live to work.

<comment><USER19> What rubbish. Germans are fiercely protective of their work/life balance.

<comment><USER20> I worked I Germany for 4 years.

At some point, a German colleague and I went on a visit to a French Institute. Their schedule:

9.00am everybody arrived.

9.30-10.30 coffee/chat time

10.30-12.00 do sone work

12.00-1.30 lunch time

1.30-3.30 some more work.

3.30-4.30 coffee/chat time.

4.30-5.00 wrap up work for the day

5.00 everybody left.

After 3 weeks working with this schedule, my German co-worker commented that she had no idea how French managed to get anything done.

<comment><USER21> That institute is probably high on the exception scale. My mother has 20minutes to eat and there's no restaurant in her company.

That said French people don't have the work 101% mentality but slacking off is not the norm either.

<comment><USER22> Here's how work supposedly looks like in a French factory

[https://www.cnbc.com/id/100474481](https://www.cnbc.com/id/100474481)

<comment><USER21> I remember that affair.. I'm sure taylor is an innocent person telling the truth and only the truth ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's interesting to see the range of perspectives on work put forth in this thread. I'd only point out how strange it is that the question of what is being worked towards isn't more often in these discussions. I can only imagine that is because there is predominate perception of individuals as competitors rather than allies. Unfortunately such a perception keeps the masses grasping for their share rather than promoting a common drive towards abundance.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think America would be better if you had 5-6 weeks of vacation and/or 4 days workweek and a year of parental. Then you would have better work life balance and be happier in general!

<comment><USER25> Especially a minimum amount of vacation time would also be market friendly because everybody could compete on the same level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Curious, I just red "It doesn't have to be crazy at work" by David Heinemeier Hansson. Could not be more true, we have created a toxic amoral culture that is making everyone miserable.

This work thing, the whole point is to make our life better, not worse.

</comment><comment><USER27> "Not getting paidism" is killing Americans. Does anyone remember houses? Honestly I barely remember living in a house. I probably never will again.

<comment><USER28> This exposes to me how privileged I really am. I have lived almost exclusively in houses my whole life. There are exceptions like college, but for the most part I've enjoyed a detached house on suburbia.

<comment><USER29> Meh, most people can afford a house somewhere in the US. I have a friend that does gas station convenience store attendant level work and owns a house in Iowa. It isn't much but it has a yard, was in decent shape at purchase and only cost him about 100K.

What most people mean when they say they can't afford a house is they can't afford a house in or near Boston, NYC, Seattle, SF, DC or some other hot and important urban market. That's an entitlement problem not an affordability problem. People feel entitled to live in certain locations.

<comment><USER4> It's so entitled that all these people want to live in places that have jobs. How unbelievably elitist they are to want to work for a living. /s

<comment><USER30> Living in an area and owning a house are not the same thing. I 100% understand the desire and angst/emotion but don't get the entitlement, that one deserves this, it can never work out for everybody. Living in SF area I want to understand this point of view, plz point me at a good articulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Not a new idea. See "Stakhanovite_movement".[1] Capitalism does it better than Communism did, by pushing competitiveness down to the individual. The destruction of unions made this possible.

It's so much more cost effective than slavery. Slavery doesn't provide a just in time workforce. Slaves are a capital expense and an ongoing operating cost. Capitalist workers are disposable.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement)

</comment><comment><USER32> > There is new enthusiasm for universal policies—like universal basic income, > parental leave, subsidized child care, and a child allowance—which would > make long working hours less necessary for all Americans.

These universal policies will only exacerbate the load on those who work. Remember that when ever the government spends money on "someone" that money comes from someone who had to work to produce it.

Universal income that dismantles the bureaucracy and keeps the budget status quo could be a better system, but one that increases the budget will just put more labor on the shoulders of those who work.

</comment><comment><USER33> 47 1/2 years as a wage slave, by choice, and never heard of such non sense. I have known co-workers over time who may believe this theory. I treated time off, every minute, as a mini vacation be it weekends, paid holidays, paid vacation, paid sick leave and time off during labor strikes during which I would work part time to keep fiscally healthy. How time off is managed is key. If the job has no 'percs', sickness will result.

</comment><comment><USER34> When Kaynes madd these predictions the world pop wa about 2 billion. With that pop it may be possible to achieve a 1940x level of leisure for everyone. But at 7 billion I'm pessimistic and think it's unfair to anchor the article on something envisioned 80 years ago.

I'd like to know what the author expects people to do with their free time?

Get immersed in social media/games ?

Get involved in hobbies?

Lifelong learning?

Consumerism/travel?

Just what exactly?

<comment><USER35> Why would population change the picture?

<comment><USER7> If we are talking about modern people only working 2 days a week and still being as productive as people were in the past while working a whole week, then you have to see that 3.5 times the population increases the number of people able to do work. So either the work is divided among more people and people work even less and are able to live, or the bosses keep all the cash and make people work a full week and give them a marginal percent of what they brought in and everyone is worse off.

<comment><USER35> I think you are close to falling into the "lump of labour" fallacy. Work is generally done to service consumer demand that scales with the number of people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> _> In 1980, the highest-earning men actually worked fewer hours per week than middle-class and low-income men, according to a survey by the Minneapolis Fed. But that's changed. By 2005, the richest 10 percent of married men had the longest average workweek._

Surprise, a 70% marginal tax rate makes people reluctant to work when making dollars at that rate.

</comment><comment><USER37> I would say those things that gave most Americans a sense of identity like community, religion or whatever are completely eroding. People move away to colleges, move away for jobs, i think we live in an era where the world looks so vast and chaotic, so people look for meaning in things they feel that are in their control, their work.

</comment><comment><USER38> No shit. Our government has engineered a culture of fear to coerce the average person to work themselves as hard as they can, increasing the governments power and posh lifestyles for its elite, president, congresspeople, senior officials etc...

</comment><comment><USER39> Keep in mind this is a result of great powers applying simultaneous asset inflation and wage suppression to destroy this country.

</comment><comment><USER40> If I was a capitalistic billionaire, "Workism" is a religion that I would definitely encourage in my serfs.

</comment><comment><USER41> > But everybody worships something.

Bullshit. This meme needs to die. People may desire meaning in their lives, but that's generally a sign they have ascended higher on Maslow's pyramid.

And finding meaning in certain kinds of work is still considered noble: education, small scale agriculture, charity, etc. Perhaps other industries could be equally fulfilling if workers gained a larger share of the spoils of their labor.

<comment><USER42> This statement is actually what stood out the most to me because I disagree with it. But, I actually disagree with you that people at the bottom of Maslow's pyramid don't need meaning. If anything, these people need meaning in their lives far more than the people at the top of the pyramid - otherwise, how does one justify all the suffering they must go through on a day to day basis. If you're struggling to make ends meet, having some meaning in your life such as children to raise and feed will make the struggle feel justified. You're not just working those long hours for low pay so you can go home and eat, sleep and repeat, you're doing it for your family and hopefully your children will have a better future as a result of your hard work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> For the American Natives, when the landscape was lush and the population was low, almost all time was spent in leisure. Then settlers came and made farms which were massively more productive, but they had to work a lot more because they were feeding a city of people doing other things. In the city, people can't farm, so they have to buy food and shelter by inventing goods and services to trade for it which previously had no value. Then in these markets too, productivity increases so that a small number of people are working very hard to provide a low-value product to a large number of people. As productivity increases, so must scale, and workers are displaced, who must then find a way to sustain themselves by creating a new product that is even less necessary to survival and well-being.

This basic economic cycle is immutable regardless of the political system or label you place on it, and I believe that Keynes was a charlatan to deny it. A time traveler from the past might assume that we are all in some kind of penal colony being forced to do absolutely nothing and stressed out about random punishments for meaningless transgressions.

There is one thing that breaks the cycle: population decline. It was the plague that broke the pointless misery of the feudal system. In our world, even voluntary population decline is considered such a crisis that leaders are eager to sacrifice all forms of sustainability for any kind of growth. Unwise.

<comment><USER44> _For the American Natives, when the landscape was lush and the population was low, almost all time was spent in leisure._

I would heartily recommend reading _anything_ about the native american peoples written in this millennium, the world you're imagining never existed.

<comment><USER43> Despite the utter uselessness of this comment, there is some merit in the sense that there are differing opinions from reputable sources. Thus I will present my second-person account of the Amish.

They work very hard and what they do is very physically demanding. But most of their work is of their own choosing, with some small fraction required for sustenance. The women knit more quilts than they know what to do with them (unfortunately exploited by charity scams). They cut down trees to make new furniture just because. Kids make a game out of collecting rocks from the fields. I get the sense that it's pleasurable and community-oriented.

All Amish young adults must spend at least two years living in the 'english' world and decide whether to return. The vast majority do. Tech workers might happily pay for such an experience. Is that leisure? Well, sort of. The point is that it's optional and uncoerced. Make your own conclusion.

I'm sure you can find a differing opinion, but I don't care to. This is direct from someone I know very well.

<comment><USER45> I don't really think of Amish as American Natives.

The Amish are actually an example of hypercivilization, not indigenous culture. They took all of the learnings from civilization and edited, edited, edited.

They use even the most modern technologies if they are deemed useful to their civilization. It's more like Western Society, gameified, than a pre-colonial society.</comment></comment></comment></comment>