Why taxing robots is not a good idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21717374-bill-gatess-proposal-revealing-about-challenge-automation-poses-why-taxing?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20170223n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/E/8947035/n <comment><USER3> From a policy standpoint, it would be a nightmare to define automation to be taxed. What counts as automation? Should I be taxed when I say "OK Google, remind me to blah blah blah", which theoretically negates the need for me to hire a human assistant to whom I would dictate? Should I be taxed for using a spam filter to sort through my emails and discard the junk for me? Where, precisely, would policymakers be able to draw a clear line between "tax this automation" and "don't tax this automation"?

<comment><USER4> Exactly, and nevermind the automation that has been taking place in the last 5000 years or so. Gutenberg's printing press displaced the monks who manually copied bibles -- should printing presses be taxed to parity with human labor, so that printing one page of a magazine costs $100? I find it bizarre that a guy as bright as Gates would support such an unworkable idea.

<comment><USER5> The problem, if there ends up being one, is the speed of displacement. People worry that too much downward pressure on so called 'middle class' jobs will create another 30 year stretch of zero wage growth for a big part of the population, which in turn puts a lot of political pressure on the system to 'do something'.

Very hard to say if that will come true though, if automation dramatically speeds up, we would see a surge in productivity. Yet in recent years, we are seeing slower, rather than faster productivity growth relative to the long term trend. Take note that the doomsday jobs predictions implicitly forecast that we'll be making more stuff, using less effort, meaning society will be richer.

From a tax policy perspective, a VAT addresses Gate's concerns pretty well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I do wonder what a robot tax would look like: is gmail a robot? Is Alexa a Robot? Is Tesla a robot?

I think this stems from the basic idea that we always find it compelling to tax someone else, and what better to tax that which cannot defend itself. But then you realize a robot is like a hammer, and i dont think the hammer cares about filing to the IRS.

<comment><USER7> That seems a bit pedantic. If you're taxing "hammers," you're taxing the owner of the hammer, either at the point of sale, or perhaps as a tax on capital equipment. So, if you're taxing "robots," you have to define "robot" and then collect tax at the time of sale, or on capital equipment.

This whole idea (limiting a new tax to robots or the work they do) seems fraught with disaster. I think it'd make more sense to increase tax on both liquid capital and capital equipment to make the whole scheme

<comment><USER8> Do we really need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to taxes? Tax personal and corporate incomes, just like we do now.

If someone is able run an automated business with no employees, just tax the profits and income. Nothing changes.

<comment><USER9> Why tax any of that? What's wrong with a consumption tax? You buy something, you pay a tax. Everything gets taxed equally and the government no longer gets to pick winners and losers based on the relative political power of the entity being taxed.

The way it works now is that taxes are used to manipulate behavior rather than simply collecting money to provide services for citizens. Income taxes provide too much power to governments.

<comment><USER10> Not everyone gets taxed equally with a consumption tax. "You can only eat so much filet mignon," to quote a professor I once had.

Non-progressive taxes (which is mostly what we have in the US now) provide too much power to the wealthy. Further, in non-totalitarian societies, the government isn't a separate entity---it is controlled by whoever has the most power in the society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Bill Gates really amazes me with his lack of vision. He thinks renewables are not a solution to sustainable energy and taxing robots makes sense.

Bill,automating physical labor is not the issue, it's automating driving and white collar jobs that's really going to disrupt society. It should be a tax on the computer, not the robot, if you think taxing progress is a smart idea.

<comment><USER12> Huh, interesting, I think he's right on both ends.

1) I think nuclear is superior to renewables.

2) I think taxing automation would work because it could kickstart some sort of measure such as UBI. Automate enough and you need to tax more per productivity instead of per worker, beause you'll eventually be forced to implement UBI.

Something I wrote previously: "I tend to agree it would be a very good ideea. Initially, it would disincentivise automation a little longer and minimum wage could be raised a little more (and that's something I never thought I'd say, that is a good ideea to DISincentivize automation, I'be always been of the oppinion that automation is exceptionally usefull and be used asm much as possible, but the life-shock of people affected by it would be lowered somewhat, temporarily, by taxing it) and after a while, when it becomes standard norm and automations slowly takes over more jobs,it could be used to feed programs such as UBI. The ideea might have some merit."

<comment><USER13> So basically you believe in the Luddite fallacy that automation hurts workers.

[http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/6717/economics/the- luddite...](http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/6717/economics/the-luddite- fallacy/)

Welfare hurts incentives and misallocates capital from those who invest it most effectively to those who reproduce most quickly.

<comment><USER14> I constantly see the Luddites brought up during discussions of how to handle broad-scale automation and the economy of individual labor.

I understand in principle that they are similar in that, at the very reductive viewpoint, machines are taking jobs.

Industrial machines such as the Jacquard Loom could only affect one industry at a time. And in doing so we brought about the service economy. Service had always been around, though history it was mostly as slavery, but because of the industrial revolution we managed to slowly pivot to something stable.

The type of broad-scale automation we are on the verge of now threatens to take literally anything that is capable of being done by humans. Entertainment may remain safe, but the broad capabilities of modern robotics and its coming advancements are certainly worth worrying about and thinking through, right?

After all, if it turns out that us "automation Luddites" are just wrong and there _is_ some panacea to our woes - will we have lost anything by trying to come up with means to protect the people?

<comment><USER13> >Industrial machines such as the Jacquard Loom could only affect one industry at a time. And in doing so we brought about the service economy.

The power loom was but one variation of a more fundamental technology: the steam engine, and more generally, the combustion engine.

Beyond engines, the Industrial Revolution saw a rapid shift to all kinds of mechanisation, almost all of which were made possible by combustion engines. This affected countless occupations. The occupation of the Luddites is but one example. It was not limited to them.

I am not at all concerned about the speed and breadth of soon-to-occur automation. Automation reduces costs, leading to people having more money to spend on new types of products/services. The cost of a product/service being roughly equal to the human labor needed to make it, we will always consume the same amount of human labor (subject to changes in the supply of labour, as people voluntarily drop out of the work force as their prosperity increases), because a reduction in the consumption of labour in one field (as a result of automation), leads to consumer savings, which are spent on consuming labour in another field.

<comment><USER15> > The cost of a product/service being roughly equal to the human labor needed > to make it, [...]

The cost of a product/service is only roughly equal to the human labor needed to produce it when the human labor cost is significantly higher than the material costs of producing that product/service. When you heavily automate production, the cost of human labor becomes an insignificant factor in its cost.

<comment><USER13> The cost of automated processes approaches zero over time, because automation can be scaled up so easily, so the cost of human labour, and scarce natural resources, will always trend toward 100% of the cost of production inputs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Automation has been putting people out of jobs since 95% of the population were farmers. The new theory isn't "will automation put people out of a job?". Of course it will. It always has.

The weird new theory put forward by a cadre of politicians, billionaires and economists is that this is somehow a _new_ thing (sometimes referred to as "the luddite fallacy"), and somehow a process that it is largely responsible for all of the jobs that were deliberately offshored and destroyed via austerity.

Of course, I couldn't possibly comment on why this cadre would want to scapegoat the inevitable forward march of technology and baby boomers for the problems caused by their corrupt backroom trade deals and lobbying.

You can tell if somebody is a REAL believer in the power of robots to eliminate the need for human labor:

They won't object to increasing wages. They won't object to increasing government spending. They won't object to any policy decision that is "inflationary". Because, if robots really _were_ going to soon do, say, 60% of jobs the countervailing deflationary pressures would be staggering.

</comment><comment><USER10> " _The thorniest problem for Mr Gates's proposal, however, is that, for the moment at least, automation is occurring not too rapidly but too slowly. The displacement of workers by machines ought to register as an increase in the rate of productivity growth—and a faster-growing economy. But since a burst of rapid productivity growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s, America's economy has persistently disappointed on these measures._ "

Arguments from productivity measurements, especially the lack thereof, should be heavily suspect. I can remember economists, like _The Economist,_ questioning the use of information technology as late as the late '90s, since there weren't any productivity gains to be seen.

On the face of it, this isn't an unreasonable suggestion, since it might slow and smooth the transition. The alternatives could be add ugly as the alternatives to the industrial revolution.

On the other hand, it would be hard to implement and no one is going to adapt before they absolutely have to.

</comment><comment><USER17> Pretty typical pro-corporation-excluding-all-else "The Economist" stuff - <USER2> from the point of view of how to maximize corporate welfare and profits, ignores externalities forced on governments and workers, and also ignores possibilities like not subsidizing robots by disallowing capital amortization.

<comment><USER18> I don't think that's a fair characterisation of The Economist's output or this particular article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bill Gates' interview where he talks about this, for context: [https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes- your-j...](https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job- should-pay-taxes/)

<comment><USER20> Also, the recent EU Commission proposal to regulate AI and robot tax: [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-robots-lawmaking- id...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-robots-lawmaking- idUSKBN15V2KM) (which was rejected last week)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Some better ideas: raising the minimum wage, increasing tax rates on corporations and high-income individuals, dividends, estates, and capital gains, and using that additional revenue to improve public education on all levels, and reduce the cost of a college degree to a level that everyone can afford without going into debt.

The higher taxes and minimum wages would encourage companies to invest in automation, which would increase productivity, increasing corporate profits _and_ government revenue. There'd be a huge jump in demand for jobs installing, maintaining, designing, programming, and building automation technology, and a general increase in demand across the board as more people have more income because of higher minimum wages, which allow them to spend more money, which in turn grows the economy.

The additional investments in education availability would be timely since with higher demand for skilled labor and lower cost of tuition, people would take more classes and become more skilled and get higher paying jobs. It's a virtuous cycle.

Would inflation come of this? Probably some, but after a decade of sub-2% inflation, we actually _need_ more inflation. Inflation raises prices, but it also raises salaries. When huge swaths of the middle class are buried in mortgage, student loan, and credit-card debt, inflation makes those debts _smaller_, which means those people have more money to spend, which grows the economy, creates jobs, and raises wages.

It can become a virtuous cycle, if only we were brave enough to kick it off.

<comment><USER22> > high-income individuals

I don't understand why there's such a drive for taxing high earners. I mean, I do kind-of understand - they're a convenient target for the lower classes that the elites use to redirect their anger - but I don't think it makes _economic_ sense.

If anything, we should be encouraging people to improve their skills and hence raise their value/salary. Instead, taxation should be focused on _wealth_ not _income_. It's been shown time and again that the bigger tax "dodgers" (including those that legally pay very low tax) are the extremely rich (including corporations) who own a lot of capital and can afford lawyers that help them hide it in offshore accounts or other tax-advantaged vehicles (e.g. trust funds).

<comment><USER23> The conventional argument is that capital is a more mobile tax base relative to labour. It's probably not true in all cases, but it seems _mostly_ true. 'Wealth' can also be a remarkably difficult thing to measure, and a fairly easy thing to hide (as you note).

As for progressive taxation, I've never heard a clear justification from, well, anyone. Maybe it just seems obvious to everyone (I'm not being sarcastic here; this is a genuine oddity that has bugged me for ages). In my opinion, progressive taxation is justified because people _probably_ experience diminishing marginal utility with respect to wealth. Which is just a fancy way of saying: an extra dollar of wealth means much less to a millionaire than it does to someone who is starving and homeless. So society probably makes a net utility gain by taking a dollar from the millionaire and giving it to the starving homeless guy.

Following from this are second order considerations like: how many dollars can be taken from millionaires before they decide to put forth less productive effort, and we all end up worse off? It becomes a constrained optimisation problem and a question of degrees, although people seem hell-bent on treating it as a question of absolutes.

<comment><USER22> Good points. Re: capital is mobile. Just because that's true _right now_ doesn't mean we shouldn't try to fix it. E.g. By strongly penalising tax avoidance, forbiding tax havens or enforcing transparency, by stopping _free_ trade and implementing _fair_ trade instead (where companies/countries would have tariffs imposed to offset any gains they get from less strict environmental/employment regulation abroad), or even implementing worldwide income (and dividend) tax like the US. I mean, there still are things that rich Western countries can offer even to wealthy people, like freedom, security, cultural diversity, ... so chances are the wealthy would stay here even if they had to pay bigger taxes. Currently, of course, this doesn't matter because they can just move their capital away even if they physically live here, but as I suggested above, we could (should?) fix that.

<comment><USER23> Sorry I got to this late. You raise a good point, and have basically nailed the crux of the issue. Just for background, I've worked as a tax policy analyst for about half my career, advising Australia's federal executive government. After quite a bit of thought (going on a few years now), my conclusions are roughly the same as yours. Our options are either:

1) Give up on corporate tax and shift the tax burden on to less mobile bases (e.g. land, consumption). This scenario seems to be slowly playing out across the developed world (perhaps a bit faster in Ireland's case...)

2) Engineer some kind of grand international agreement on corporate tax rates, kinda the Bretton Woods system for tax. This would be necessary because there's such a strong incentive for countries to 'undercut' each others' corporate tax rates (to attract foreign capital investment, tax havens being the extreme example of this). Such an agreement would require: a specific (but not too specific) agreement on minimum corporate tax rates, the participation of countries representing most of the world's production output, and provisions that levy punitive tariffs on non-complying, _and_ non- participating, countries that go below the minimum rate.

Even up until recently, I've thought (2) to be basically impossible. But in the past few days I've begun to think maybe I was wrong to rule this out completely. In a strange way, Trump's presidency might be the golden (and possibly only) opportunity for this. He seems to be just the right amount of crazy to do it. I couldn't imagine an 'establishment' president going near something like this. And I think only the US could lead such a process, maybe with some quietly pre-agreed support from China. Given the capital flight China is currently plagued with, their precarious public finances and their main central banker publicly stating support for some kind of international agreement on capital controls (I believe he actually invoked Bretton Woods), it seems like a few stars are aligning.

I don't want to give you false hope here. I still think (2) is very difficult and unlikely. It would have to be 'sold' to government skillfully. Perhaps our 'automated future' is the narrative to go with. Something like: As labour is replaced by algos/robots, then by definition production becomes more capital intensive. So more and more of the gains from production and trade accrue to a fairly small group of capital owners.

It's conceivable that, in the not too distant future, some of these mega- corporations will have revenues/net incomes that rival that of even large, first-world governments. At this point, they will be an existential threat to liberal democracy as they will have the means to field a sizeable 'private security force'. Not to mention the immense soft-power they will wield when they control most of the world's means of production.

So, although this may all sound crazy, it would be unwise and dangerous to allow things to reach a stage where liberal democracy is in peril. Therefore, we must tax corporations/capital in a way that leaves them nowhere to run (i.e. via an enforced international agreement on rates). Also, a fair chunk of this revenue will be redistributed to workers (perhaps it may even be enough to fund basic income), so it's good populist policy that a populist leader like Trump is well suited to selling (although he'll face significant opposition from those suckling on the corporate teat i.e. mostly everyone, including the 'mainstream' media).

Note: I'm not really keen on emotive arguments like the above, but I think some version of the above is what it would take to sell a radical proposal like an international agreement on corporate tax rates.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for your reply, I hope (2) succeeds! Although I think it's concievable that it's done unilateraly, by a sufficiently big market (e.g. the EU). Although ironically the EU currently seems a lot less open to any kind of change than the US (but let's see until end of march, what the election outcomes will be...).

Edit: anyways, if you ever have any updates, interesting articles/discussion points, or need supporters for your politics, let me know!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Tax money flows from organisations to people. The crucial idea: People are behind organisations.

This way owners of companies getting rich have to pay taxes for their robots. If they try to evade, government just has to wait for them getting the proceeds sooner or later.

A loophole is money leaving the country. Tax it as if it has been paid to a person.

</comment><comment><USER25> I believe this is the paper about the declining labor and capital shares mentioned in the article [http://home.uchicago.edu/~barkai/doc/BarkaiDecliningLaborCap...](http://home.uchicago.edu/~barkai/doc/BarkaiDecliningLaborCapital.pdf).

<comment><USER10> I haven't read the paper you link to, but the comment:

" _A new working paper by Simcha Barkai, of the University of Chicago, concludes that, although the share of income flowing to workers has declined in recent decades, the share flowing to capital (ie, including robots) has shrunk faster. What has grown is the markup firms can charge over their production costs, ie, their profits. Similarly, an NBER working paper published in January argues that the decline in the labour share is linked to the rise of "superstar firms". A growing number of markets are "winner takes most", in which the dominant firm earns hefty profits._ "

...is about the third one I have seen lately that the current financial system is not good at doing what it is supposed to do: allocate capital investment.

<comment><USER23> I'm having a real hard time parsing that paragraph. Putting aside taxation, only two classes of people receive some share of income from production: workers & owners of capital. I don't understand how the income share could be declining for both classes simultaneously. Where is the 'missing' income going?

And bringing in the idea of winner takes all market structures just seems like a non-sequitur. I'm struggling to understand the causal relationship between market structure and the relative shares of income that go to labour and capital owners.

<comment><USER10> My original take on the statement was that corporate revenue wasn't going to either wages or capital investment. The other options are

1\. The corporation's treasury, which is not economically useful past a certain point, or

2\. Shareholders. In this case, since I don't see much evidence of major dividends, that would mean stock buy backs, which are not a great way of paying shareholders.

Returning money to shareholders is a great idea, if there is nothing better the corporation can do with it. _If._

The paper is not making much sense to me, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Before Bill agrees to pay back taxes on all of copies of Windows, MS Office and other robots that his company created, I don't think he has a right to advocate taxing robots. He became the richest man alive simply because he created company that helped people automate their jobs, and improve productivity.

Does he want to tax my scripts created to help me automate my servers? No, why not? Because they are just scripts? What if I put them on something like Raspberry Pi and attach wheels to it? Is it now taxable?

For fucks sake, how smart people can have such dumb ideas is beyond me.

<comment><USER27> It's hard to say how much of what Gates says/does is truly what he believes or is a branding exercise for legacy purposes. The robot taxation seems like populist appealing nonsense...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> _Particular workers may suffer by being displaced by robots, but workers as a whole might be better off because prices fall._

May... might... this is the argument?

Let's be clear: robots disrupt the supply side and help the demand side. Full stop. Let's not conflate the two in our arguments.

Yes, lower prices help the consumer. They also squeeze producers. See Amazon wage slaves -> kiva robots, or Apple FOXCONN factories -> robots, or Uber drivers -> self driving cars, etc etc etc.

When the producer is a human we have added constraints, whose cost goes up every decade and century: we want the human to...

\+ Not starve... and now have a choice in good nutritious food from all over the world

\+ Have access to water ... which is clean, potable and is pumped to their faucet automatically

\+ Have healthcare ... that utilizes all the advancements of modern medicine to reduce child mortality etc.

\+ Have primary education ... with multimedia on iPads instead of a huge backpaack of heavy books

\+ Not be homeless ... while having their own apartment with enough living space to be comfortable

\+ Utilities ... inclding broadband internet and a basic cellphone plan.

etc etc.

These demands are larger than, say, in medieval times, when serfs worked the land. We also have quite more wealth as a society thanks to advances in automation and information, and just building upon previous results.

Thus we can afford to get the basics taken care of unconditionally for all members of society.

It doesn't have tk be Unconditional Basic Income. A better method is Single Payer Systems, which we already have in many countries. Single payerfor education, public schools, healthcare, etc.

NOTE: this is not the same as government provided housing, education, etc. There shohld be vouchers that let people choose the provider. And it would only cover the basic service. Providers would compete to offer that basic service to the huge pool of buyers - WHO DO NOT COMPETE WHEN IT COMES TO THE BASIC SERVICE LEVEL. This is the key. Consumers compete on how much they pay, that's it. The single payer sets the price for the basic level. Prices therefore go down. (See eg Medicare or single payer systems around the world.)

For example a "Food Stamps for All" program where the first $100 a week is loaded onto SNAP cards for everyone, including millionaires. After that they are free to do whatever they want. We might even require (LOCAL!!) ID to use the card for food, to prevent ID theft. To starve, a poor person would have to explicitly sell their last food aftr buying it. Same with "Medicare for all" and "Housing for all".

This can be done on a local level. Everyone in NYC or SF gets taxed and gets $1000 a month in housing vouchers which landlords would be free to accept, or not. Most would, just like most doctors choose to accept insurance.

Where will that money come from? That's a silly question. People ALREADY have to pay for food if they live in a city. This simply makes the whole thing cheaper by squeezing the producers further. The producers may introduce robots, pay less to CEOs, or whatever, in order to get access to all that volume. But the one thing they won't be able to do is raise prices because some buyer might defect and pay them (shout out patio11). They can do that for premium services but never the basics. That is a GOOD thing for everyone because everyone needs the basics. Bill Gates said the burger still tastes the same when you are a billionaire.

So the end result is cheaper for the consumers, not more expensive. It is just a question of how to get from here to there. Being able to phase it in on a city level and really try it is a good feature of any program.

If you're a Conservative, consider that you most likely already support this in Primary School Education (vouchers and single payer for all) but for some reason oppose it in Healthcare etc.

If you're a Libertarian or Anarchist: listen, I'm a minarchist! I want to get government down to one thing: taxing and running single payer systems for thins we all need. Maybe that includes the army but nowhere near the amount the US has now. What I would like to see is single payer systems for basic levels of every thing people have come to expect.

The argument that someone is getting something for nothing is an even sillier argument.

We all live in the 21st century people!! Just by being born at a certain time we get things that even kings could only dream of, for nearly all of human history. Many people _already have_ single payer systems.

And you are jealous that someone lives in the 21st century has a safety net, so if they don't work they don't starve?

You are jealous someone doesn't live as a serf on the land, who doesn't eat if he doesn't work?

You have the same protection! The same equal opportunity. Many of them are jealous of you for having been born in a more wealthy place.

Stop the jealousy. Single payer allows equal opportunity for all. It allows us to abolish minimum wage. Let people learn new skills, make contributions to copyleft / patentleft, discover new drugs, spend time raising their children well, instead of working a dead end uber driver or macsonalds job which will be automated soon. That's the real solution. If you're going to do anything, ensure everyone has the minimum first.

</comment><comment><USER29> Literally one of the dumbest proposals I've ever heard. "I've got an idea, let's tax the people that are producing safer, more consistent, higher quality, less wasteful, more efficient, innovative products!"

</comment><comment><USER30> the gov should tax algorithms instead.

think how many librarians (or other occupations) are made obsolete by google.

<comment><USER31> And how many secretaries are made obsolete by Word and Outlook

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> A tax on tools, a tax on doing something more efficiently?</comment>


The Virus Will Win - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/virus-will-win/612946/ <comment><USER2> This is magnificent. Read slowly.</comment>


Direct Clojure to C Compiler - Based on ClojureScript  - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/schani/clojurec <comment><USER3> Clojure is one of the cooler languages out there. There has been one major blocker for me, though: the JVM. I don't want to have anything to do with the JVM. Not because it's bad. It's just that native code is better, especially for the stuff I'm doing.

I hope these developments eventually turn into a proper Lisp that you can interface with native C code efficiently.

Racket is pretty cool too.

<comment><USER4> I wonder what would be the advantages of using Clojure without the JVM over, say, Common Lisp. To me, it seems the great advantage of Clojure is its ease of using the large number of java libraries out there. However, if you take those libraries out, wouldn't a mature Lisp implementation like SBCL be much better?

<comment><USER5> There a few differences that might be worth still.

Clojure is a Lisp-1, and provides better data structures as Common Lisp as far as I am aware.

But the JVM benefit is a big one indeed.

<comment><USER4> I thought that, besides the JVM itself, the advantages of Clojure would be its concurrency model - as CL standard doesn't define anything related to this - and its stronger functional approach.

I don't fully grasp the advantages of being a Lisp-1 or Lisp-2 :)

<comment><USER5> > I don't fully grasp the advantages of being a Lisp-1 or Lisp-2 :)

It has to do with variable scoping. Lisp-1 only accepts lexical scoping, while Lisp-2 also allows for dynamic scoping.

<http://www.nhplace.com/kent/Papers/Technical-Issues.html>

<comment><USER6> Good grief.

No.

Lisp-N has to do with the number of name spaces in the language. Lisp-1s only have ONE environment; the variables range over all values of the language, integers, functions, vectors, symbols, strings. In Lisp-N, there are N namespaces for each "kind" of value.

Common Lisp is called a "Lisp-2" because it separates functions from other values. (it's closer to Lisp-5 or even Lisp-7, forgot which, because it allows that many kinds of "names" without collission.

Also above you said Clojure "probably" has better data structures than Common Lisp. That is unsubstantiated.

<comment><USER5> > Also above you said Clojure "probably" has better data structures than > Common Lisp. That is unsubstantiated.

It is my understanding that Common Lisp lacks the vector and hash maps that Clojure has.

Sorry if I got it wrong. I am more a ML guy than Lisp.

<comment><USER7> [http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/t_vect...](http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/t_vector.htm) [http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/t_hash...](http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/t_hash_t.htm)

<comment><USER5> I was wrong it seems.

From the documentation I have not seen the simplified syntax Clojure uses for vectors, hashes and sets.

I imagine that the syntax is Clojure specific.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm asking because I'm in the process of writing my own lisp->c compiler:

Are you forced to use as environment like:

      typedef struct environment {
        struct environment *up;
        int num_bindings;
        value_t *bindings [0];
      } environment_t;

Or would it be possible to have a dynamic vector as your environment (so that you get O(1) lookup) at the cost of making constructing closures more costly (as you'd have to copy the bindings)?

<comment><USER3> Depending on what type of Lisp you're compiling, you may be able to resolve some locations at compile time. See section "lexical addressing" in SICP chapter 5, here: [http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book- Z-H-35.html...](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book- Z-H-35.html#%_sec_5.5.6)

<comment><USER8> Thanks, I appreciate the link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> At first one should expect it to be at most as fast as cpython. If you don't do type inference and a bunch of other advanced functional language friendly optimizations you will get quite poor performance compared to JVM. Even haskell which does a lot of those isn't overperforming JVM yet. (Memory usage is much better though.)

[http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?test=all...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=ghc)

<comment><USER10> >>Memory usage is much better though.<<

"Don't confuse differences in default memory allocation with differences in Memory-used when the task requires programs to allocate more than the default memory."

Look at memory use for reverse-complement, k-nucleotide, regex-dna, binary- trees, mandelbrot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Clojurescript is an interesting language, with great potential for easy porting. I wish there is a direct JVM port of Clojurescript.

I would be able to leave with Clojurescript limitations compared to Clojure if it provides smaller jar files and better performance of compiled code. That would make it really usable on constrained targets like Android.

</comment><comment><USER12> obvious question here is: comparative benchmarks, anyone?

<comment> mark-probst It's too early to do benchmarks. Nothing in ClojureC is optimized at this point, so it would do very badly. I'm focussed at making it work first, then on making it fast. We'll get there.

<comment><USER13> That brings an interresting other question : How far are you into making it work completely ?

<comment> mark-probst I'd say - optimistic estimates (for pessimistic, multiply by 2) - <USER2> language 1 more weekend, core library 2 more weekends after that. So far it's been about 3 weekends of work.

Contributors are always welcome ;-)

<comment><USER13> I'll finish up cljs/lua and i might give a hand :)

<comment> mark-probst I'm looking forward to it! :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cool, next step directly to native code skipping C. :)

<comment><USER14> Or LLVM

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great, now you can compile Clojure to C, then back to JavaScript with Emscripten! :P

<comment><USER16> Sounds like a nice obfuscator.

I'm curious what the end result would look like! :-)

<comment><USER15> Well, to do the full obfuscation, we would need to compile Clojure to C, then to JavaScript, then run it through Google Closure compiler. And then try to comprehend the mess that results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting but ultimately useless. I see something like this come around a couple of time per year. Always fades into oblivion within a year or two.

The C code will not be optimized C (like a seasoned C developer would write). Java is compiled to byte code which is compiled to machine language. This ugly, unoptimized, generated C is compiled into machine language too. The performance (both memory and CPU usage) of the JVM product will be far superior through.

Don't think that you will be writing for embedded devices or device drivers with something like this. it will be a mess. Use C for things that should to be done in C. For Desktop apps, Web apps, or services use Closure ETC.

I don't like seeing a square peg rammed into a round hole. It does not work well so don't get too exited lisp programmers. This is an interesting hobby - that is about it.

<comment><USER18> Your post adds nothing of value to the discussion. You say this project will fade into oblivion -- how do you know this? Do you know, or are you familiar with, the developer's work?

How do you know that the C code, when passed through an optimizing compiler, will not be able to compete with the JVM? Have you done these tests? The author already mentioned on this page that the goal is to get it working, and then focus on performance. As far as I can tell, he is a "seasoned C developer" and should be able to construct the generated C so that it compiles efficiently.

Without more than mere pessimistic speculation, your failure to contribute any sort of primary or objective information does little more than to make you appear curiously angry at a project in which you have no interest or affiliation.

EDIT: Just read through your comment history. A lot of your posts are written in this sort of negative tone. Why do you do that? If you would provide some links or alternative viewpoints, substantiated with a paper or even a blog post, that would be a lot more insightful.

<comment><USER17> Poorly written C code run through an optimizing compiler will only produce slightly better (at best) executing machine code.

Why do this? this should compile to native machine language directly if anything. Would you transform it to C first so you could edit the C? Then what if you want to make a big update using the Closure source? it will overwrite your changes.

This approach is not practical, perhaps I am failing to understand any logic as to why you would go with this approach. Portability (between processor architectures) is all I can think of but you will never achieve competitive performance if this is the case.

Good C coders write their code differently against different processors and platforms because all machines have different capabilities and resources (strength and weaknesses). The whole point these days of writing something in C to achieve the second highest performance (only behind pure assembly language) in both processor gpu/cpu/other co-processors and at the same time using as little memory as possible (both ram and NV storage).

<comment><USER18> Okay, now we're getting somewhere. I'm still not sure about the assumption you make in the first line (1. that it will be poor quality C code 2. that its compilation will result in inefficient machine code) -- we would actually need to test it out in order to find out whether that is true.

Although I can understand your point in the second paragraph. Indeed, C is a language that is nowadays mostly suited for performance-oriented application. The reason the author translates Clojure code into C, and then into machine code is that this is _vastly_ easier than going straight to native code. As you say, there are so many platforms with different sets of instructions that it would be almost pointless to write an optimized compiler directly from Clojure code to all these platforms, particularly since Clojure is still a somewhat obscure language.

The _value_ in doing this is that Clojure promotes good programming practices. In turn, this means that someone who has little experience with embedded systems or hand-optimizing assembly can write _better_ performing code in Clojure -> C -> assembly than if they tried to use C without any experience. Sure, it won't be as fast as if they were an experienced assembly guru, but the difference will only be a factor of 1-2 -- the algorithm is much more important than the compilation, and this is where Clojure shines.

One other use is when a project is not performance-oriented, but development- oriented. A fast development cycle is in a lot of situations much more important than the speed at which the code runs. As Clojure is currently limited to the JVM (and Javascript maybe??), extending this support to C now extends the domain of Clojure to almost anything.

<comment><USER17> A language from an entirely different paradigm (Functional language, Garbage collection, tons of abstractions and a huge API) cannot ever be a replacement for or even compete on the same playing field C. We are talking apples to oranges here.

These languages are not comparable equivalents. Their specialties are completely opposite. To make their output equivalent, you would have to construct an AI system more advanced than anything that exists today.

<comment><USER19> "To make their output equivalent, you would have to construct an AI system more advanced than anything that exists today."

Umm......

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Turing_machine>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This IMO is an example of using the wrong tool for the job.

Closure is awesome and has it's place, C is the industry standard for performance and also has it's place. The lines will never be crossed between these two languages.

You are trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. If you improve your skills from this project - great, but please don't try to mislead anyone that this is a viable replacement for C (be up front about this).

A language from an entirely different paradigm (Functional language, Garbage collection, tons of abstractions and a huge API) cannot ever be a replacement for or even compete on the same playing field C. We are talking apples to oranges here.

</comment><comment><USER17> Why do this? compile to native code directly if anything. Would you transform it to C first so you could edit the C? Then what if you want to make a big update using the Closure source? it will overwrite your changes.

This approach is not practical, perhaps I am failing to understand any logic as to why you would go with this approach. Portability (between processor architectures) is all I can think of but you will never achieve high performance if this is the case.

C coders write their code differently against different processors because all machines have different capabilities and resources (strength and weaknesses).

<comment><USER20> Compiling to C is not at all an uncommon strategy, there's at least one pretty serious Scheme implementation [1] that does this. Portability between architectures is a pretty big advantage, but in this case another one is leveraging the Boehm GC, rather than rolling your own. Could you use the Boehm GC if you emitted assembly? I would guess maybe it's possible, but you'd have to emit assembly that followed C calling conventions, I would imagine. Emitting C might be easier. Lisp in Small Pieces has a pretty big chapter that goes into detail how to compile Lisp to C.

[1] [http://dynamo.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/wiki/index.php/Main_P...](http://dynamo.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)

see also:

[http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~boucherd/mslug/meetings/2004102...](http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~boucherd/mslug/meetings/20041020/90-min- scc/90-min-scc.pdf)

[http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~boucherd/mslug/meetings/2004102...](http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~boucherd/mslug/meetings/20041020/minutes- en.html)

<comment><USER21> in clojure-scheme I actually compile Clojure to Gambit to make use of Gambit's awesome runtime. It's a very good match for Clojure.

<https://github.com/takeoutweight/clojure-scheme></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: If "TUVW" is a registered trademark, can I register "TUVW Online"? - <AUTHOR>

Yesterday, I finally came up with a good name for the startup I've been working on. It's an online 3d (not so-) MMO game. Let's call it "TUVW" (not the actual name). I was able to buy the TUVWonline.com domain (ok since TUVW.com is squatted). Yay!
Now, there are a few businesses with registered trademarks TUVW. I want to register the trademark "TUVW Online". What concerns me is that one of the other registered trademarks is for a media (not games) company property named TUVW.
Is this a show-stopper? I'm in the process of asking a couple of lawyers, but I thought I'd throw the question out to HNers, as well.
Thanks!
EDIT> I should add that TUVW is a place-holder for a 4 letter English word. It's not an acronym, nor a made-up word. <comment><USER2> Trademarks are not limited to just one per word/phrase but instead based on classes (categories). It's possible for someone to have a TUVW as a software program and also a TUVW pharmaceutical drug. I've got a similar case with one of my software programs where there is a similar trademark related to a plant seed. If there's another trademark in the same class as your product, then simply adding Online may be a tough sell.

However with today's legal system and intellectual property rights, it's not always a case of who is right but rather who has deeper pockets. You'd definitely be advised to talk with an intellectual property lawyer if there is a possible concern.

Also simply owning a domain name that displays ads or otherwise doesn't have a full business is not necessarily cybersquatting. "Squatting, or cybersquatting, is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else" [1]. If anything you may could be considered a cybersquatter if you registered TUVWOnline.com and attempted to benefit from TUVW's trademark. I know that's not your intention because you are asking how to stay legitimate here on HN but the mislabeling of cybersquatting is a pet peeve.

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting>

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, thanks for the clarification on "squatting". I was (incorrectly) using it as a shorthand. I don't consider what the owner of TUVW.com is doing to be wrong in any way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wouldn't the safest path be contacting the company to see if they are ok with it? They probably are, since it's a common word and they didn't go after the owner of TUVW.com. In the worst case scenario you will have to choose another name. Better now than later.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is that in situations like this the default answer is "No". So, now you've forced them to say no, and you've tipped your hand.

A useful general principle is that you don't want to force people into a situation where they have to say "no", if something is debatable or negotiable. Once battle-lines are drawn, it's harder for anyone to back down.

I've spent years war-gaming, but I didn't really _get_ this until I had a toddler.</comment></comment>


Open Terraria Rewrite - <AUTHOR> Hello! I'm a creator of open-source Terraria rewrite in Java. Our project grows and already supports modding. Here is a simple example,
that allows player switch to Ghost mode using 'g' key:

    public void onLoad() {
        ModAPI.addKeyBinding(Input.KEY_G, new Callable() {
            public void call() {
                enabled = !enabled;
                ModAPI.getPlayer().setGhostMode(enabled);
            }
        });
    }
 Full code: https://github.com/egordorichev/LastTryMods/blob/master/GhostMod/src/org/egordorichev/ghostmod/GhostMod.java Here is the repository: https://github.com/egordorichev/LastTry
If any one is interested, please, join me! Thanks, George. <comment><USER2> > LastTry is open-source Terraria clone in Java, written using Slick2D > library. Our goal is to recreate original game with better perfomance, and > old content.

im not sure if java is any better than c# (what the real thing is written in) for performance

don't you also need permission to use the game assets like that

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't use terraria assets. We use a texture pack. I'm not talking about C# vs Java now. For me, because Java is crossplatform, it's better.

<comment><USER2> > For me, because Java is crossplatform, it's better.

i apologize for being a windows user but i somehow didn't think of that

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm a linux user.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook is 'silencing' Rohingya Muslim reports of 'ethnic cleansing' - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/facebook-rohingya-muslim-women-ethnic-cleansing-burma-myanmar-socila-network-rakhine-state-a7954791.html <comment><USER3> I'm kind of split on our current gray area about free speech on the web. It seems like the only way to do good moderation is if it's powered by actual people sitting behind computers and following a well-written policy. But tech companies have proven themselves totally unwilling to pay for that. I'd rather FB just said "we'll never pony up the wages necessary to moderate well so we're just going to make facebook a complete free speech zone."

<comment><USER4> This seems like a classic catch 22. If they go completely free speech people will complain about all the propaganda on Facebook and some countries will just block it. On the other hand if they do moderation people complain about censorship. There is no actual way for them to win here

<comment><USER5> They're already doing moderation, though: Rohingya media gets blocked, white- supremacy media is allowed.

<comment><USER6> It has gotten to the point where an American anarchist writing that they want to travel to Yemen to fight imperialism is considered a terrorist and censored, but a white supremacist person saying we should "shoot all those monkeys in St. Lewis" is considered sacred free speech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reason #37,758 that centralized communication services are, at the very least, suboptimal, and at worst, are a matter of life or death.

More generally, we need to stop supporting client-only systemts. Cell phones, for instance, could have a fallback peer-to-peer mode, if the carriers would allow it. Unfortunately, being a choke point tends to make more money than building resilient systems.

</comment><comment><USER8> Metafilter remains one of my favorite places on the web and it has strong and serious moderation. I'm not sure how that would translate to Facebook, since I am not sure Metafilter's voice needs to be the same voice everywhere, but moderated discussions seem pretty strictly better than the alternative.

For me this always goes back to the observation that corporations are fairly dictatorial constructions, and that especially when it comes to communication networks the decision makers are quite insulated from the huge number of people actually talking to one another. What would a company that gave representation to its customers look like?

It could be modeled after the US government, as an option. The company of today becomes the executive branch, you add a legislative branch that customers can be a part of. There's where you influence the product, there's where you define the rules of engagement on the network. And a judicial branch can determine if those rules are being followed correctly, etc. This is a rough cut, I'm interested in more refined takes on how a company could escape the dictatorship model that is taken for granted these days.

<comment><USER9> A big social network is not a single community like a blog or forum. It's a collection of communities that do some of their own moderation (blocking people and deleting off-topic posts), with some moderation outsourced to the larger network.

This is good; each community can have its own standards, to some extent. When there is good local moderation, there's no reason to bring the legal system into it most of the time.

The problem is at the next level where you decide which _communities_ are okay to host at all. And what do you do when people in one community attack another? Then it the dispute gets bumped up to Facebook or Reddit, to employees who don't have much context.

In some ways "share nothing" is a good standard. Each blog or forum is an island with its own membership. (Or its own bubble, you might say.)

But that's not where we are, with overlapping friends lists and follower lists, subreddits with absentee moderators, and lots of resharing. People want to cross the streams. They also want good moderation.

I wonder if there should be an intermediate level between local communities (tens or hundreds of people) versus the social network (hundreds of millions). Maybe it needs to be _more_ hierarchical?

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I think more hierarchy is probably necessary and at some point people in that hierarchy need to be paid.

Twitter is my main social network, and there the lines are very fuzzy. There aren't distinct subreddits based on topic, there is just your follow list and that is always changing. Harassment is bad on twitter, and I think that's partially because it isn't contained to little communities but is all in the big stream by default.

I don't know what the right solutions are for harassment, but there haven't been any effective ones tried so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Snapchat did the same thing few days ago [https://www.wsj.com/articles/snapchat-removes-al-jazeera- cha...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/snapchat-removes-al-jazeera-channel-in- saudi-arabia-1505692263)

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting, here's a first-hand account of what's happening: [https://streamable.com/zota1](https://streamable.com/zota1)

<comment><USER12> Watched for a few minutes.

"Muslims are like African Carp. They breed rapidly [... yadda yadda yadda ...] Our entire race has been suffering under the burden of this minority..."

That's grade-A genocidal rhetoric he's deploying. Good for observing that evil can wear any kind of face. Not good for much else.

<comment><USER13> People are not evil simply for disliking aspects of other cultures or populations.

For example, Americans enslaved Africans for hundreds of years. That is a claim of fact. I believe it is true. I believe slavery is bad, it should be stopped in all its forms (including as punishment for a crime), and I'm glad that the 13th Amendment was passed.

Hating what white people did to Africans does not make me evil, in fact it's a morally superior position.

To say that this guy is being evil, is like denying that slavery occurred because you're ignoring his claim of fact. You're effectively saying "No, Muslim populations in Myanmar are not attempting to take over the country by means of rapid reproduction. You are lying to gain support for genocide."

Just because you disagree with someone's proposed solution (assuming that's what he's proposing), doesn't mean there isn't a problem. It would have been one thing to be opposed to the Civil War - maybe the costs were too high - <USER2> it would be quite another to claim slavery is moral, or that slavery wasn't going on, or to just ignore the whole issue and pretend that anyone who's encouraging war is evil.

What if what he's saying is true? Would you support genocide? Would you be okay with large groups of people intentionally having as many kids as they can just to affect future demographics? Just because there's no good solutions, doesn't mean that there isn't a problem. At some point global warming may be beyond every solution, but that won't undo the facts or absolve humanity for its blame.

<comment><USER14> > Would you be okay with large groups of people intentionally having as many > kids as they can just to affect future demographics?

You are defending the rhetoric of a genocide perpetrator. It's like saying "what if Hitler was right about the Jews? I don't agree with his tactics, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a problem."

<comment><USER13> I think you'll agree that I am not advocating genocide, I'm just curious about the facts. I like to learn. I want to vet everyones' claims.

What I don't understand is why are you arguing your position? What do you propose I do with respect to the acquisition and spread of knowledge?

<comment><USER14> You are not advocating genocide, but you are saying the genocidaire's "justification" is worth considering.

Even if Muslims have higher fertility rates than Buddhists, the observation is meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Please tell me it's just a coincidence that the independent.co.uk domain name is no longer resolving...

<comment><USER15> Try using a different DNS server such as OpenNIC.

[https://www.opennic.org/](https://www.opennic.org/)

<comment><USER12> Hm, I'm using the Google DNS: 188.8.131.52 / 184.108.40.206; it should be pretty robust.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Even if you forget everything else about facebook deciding what can and can't be posted there, I'm still can't believe they have the balls to call it "community standards" with a straight face.

<comment><USER17> They also call it Facebook instead of AdBook, but meh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Who wants to advertise on top of such bummer news? Cheer up and post some family friendly content instead! Thanks, Facebook.

<comment><USER19> This is so, so true. What a surprise that this comment at the bottom of this thread.

FB's, Twitter's, and YT's new policy is "if it goes beyond E for Everyone, demonetize and or censor."

And these are supposed to be serious platforms for journalists and people who want to grapple with the realities of human life?

No, this is just Digital Disneyland, where nothing goes wrong.

<comment><USER18> If forced to label myself as a human being, I would probably go to 'Pervert Philosopher'. I am a big believer in the utter critical importance of facing the "ugly" side of our human nature and dealing with it openly. It disgusts me, and I see it as immoral, that so many platforms wish to scrub the primary conduits through which modern human culture is both formed and transmitted of the 'human' element. Humans cuss and spit, they stink and fuck, and they do this alongside those who heal and build, who help and protect. Any attempt to eliminate one side will eliminate both in equal number, because people aren't immutable. They move across and among those groups throughout the course of their day, week, month, year, or life.

Eric Schmidt's book, 'A New Digital Age' is starkly terrifying. He openly says that Google, because its rich, should use its position to actively mold human culture. We've seen individuals or small cabals take outsized roles in culture many times throughout history and the result has always been the same - tragedy. I see no reason why this would be any different.

Internet access should be a public utility like water or electricity. It should be metered. The cost of it should be tied directly to the price of providing the actual service (and its tech so that means the price will rapidly go to zero). It should be regulated by municipalities just like water companies are. The amount of profit they earn should be capped, just like water companies are. And just like water companies aren't allowed to charge restaurants a higher fee just because they make soup from the water and sell it, muni ISPs should never be permitted to charge different rates to people just because they're doing business over it.

I'm not advocating for the idiotic 'muni owns the fiber, private corps get access to the fiber and share' model, I'm advocating for muni ISPs. So that when the feds come knocking on their door, they will get told to pound sand unless they have a warrant signed by a judge. Private companies just bend over, especially ISPs who largely depend upon the government for most of their business existence (how long would they make it if it was legal for anyone else to run a line next to theirs and compete?). Municipal govt employees love telling the feds to get lost. They'll have their neighbors backs.

<comment><USER19> Thank you for your interesting and raw thoughts :)

I too agree that the internet should be as free as water. Interestingly, there are movements that attempt to do that, but I think that government and corporation forces are quite good at driving a specific type of usage and penalizing another.

So I think that will continue to be a problem. If enough people wanted to rise up, build their own fiber, run their own mesh network, and or build tools like Tor and TPB to work within the system we have, then the free and open net would win.

Multiple times people have tried to do this, and they have been shut down by force, intimidation, expulsion, imprisonment, confiscation of assets, slander, blacklisting from jobs, you name it.

So to advocate for a free and open net these days is pretty much a social cue that 99.999% of people will say "ehhhh I don't want to associate with that guy."

That's why in 2004, TPB was king. Now in 2017, the internets is all walled gardens and censored platforms. And 99.999% of people are there by choice.

It is a complete and total shame. The herd of lambs carrying each other to slaughter.

<comment><USER18> Each utility fought a real battle when being initially established. It's very interesting history. For awhile I was researching it pretty deeply, interested in whether my ideas were total lunacy or what and possibly considering writing a book about it. I started off with the question: What criteria was used to say 'yes, water should be a utility, natural gas should be a utility, electricity should be a utility, telephone should be a utility', etc? How did that actually come about?

The question weighed for those things in the past turned out to be a fairly simple one, but which can be tricky to approach honestly and fairly for both sides: Would the benefit to society be greater than the damage caused by the elimination of competition in that space? To judge it correctly, one does have to attempt to quantify and judge how much damage would be done by eliminating the competitive aspect, because that would have to happen. Then one lines up the benefits society would garner by having it available ubiquitously and cheaply.

Personally I think the call isn't even close. The Internet meets the requirement of providing more social benefit by being cheap and everywhere by miles, much moreso than some of the other public utilities even do. (First off the bat, you can get rid of the phone utility. And the TV quasi-utility.) You can actually close a gigantic number of government offices and let their employees work from home. You can tell people to 'do it online'. You can't DO that, ever, in law if universal access is not guaranteed and it remains a luxury. Small businesses would get huge with it, no longer chained to a "business class" connection that bleeds them dry and hosting companies that manipulate them, they could just run their servers themselves on their own lines. There are all sorts of other benefits to having a guaranteed-present communications network which is not a luxury but a basic service.

And sure, the companies like Comcast that originally made their money from distributing media and then got into the ISP market to try to stop or destroy or control it to prevent the threat to their cash cow will go nuts about it. Their death warrant was signed the day the Internet came about. Distribution is a solved problem. Sure 50 years ago if I made a video and wanted to show it to 10,000 people I'd HAVE to sign up with a distributor and beg and scrape and HOPE they only skimmed 99% of the value out of that transaction. Distribution was flat-out the single most valuable economic activity and dominated the entire global economy from the advent of factories (it made factories possible) up until the Internet came along (computers helped). Now distribution is something a clever 12 year old can do in their spare time for fun. And most importantly, the 12 year old will do it faster, better, and at a radically lower cost compared to the established gigantic players who feel entitled to still be kings. They love capitalism and the free market until they're stuck holding a huge order of buggy whips and watching everyone driving around in automobiles. Suddenly they wish their lobbyists could get the government to require cars to have a buggy whip installed before they'd start up.

<comment><USER19> I agree once more with everything you have said!

Sadly I am still worried about the "details of implementation", because they will need to occur within our lifetime, and are influenced by very very rich people who hold all the keys.

Do you think ISPs will become public utilities in the next 20 years? 40?

If so, how? It seems to me that corporations, their politicians, and their supporters have a pretty tight grip on everything.

I am not hopeful that any massive or meaningful changes will occur. The Washington Consensus seems to ensure corporate dominance will continue, to our detriment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> myanmar authorities brutally killing helpless people in front of their family members, torturing, ripping off body parts from a living human, and facebook is doing this :o [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/20/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/20/facebook- rohingya-muslims-myanmar)

</comment><comment><USER21> It should also be emphasized that Trump administration, so easily labeled as racist by practically everyone on the left, has urged 'strong and swift' U.N. action to end Rohingya Muslims crisis.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya/trump- ur...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya/trump-urges-strong- and-swift-u-n-action-to-end-rohingya-crisis-idUSKCN1BV0CD)

<comment><USER22> And how open is the administration to taking in Rohingya refugees who've been displaced by the violence?

<comment><USER21> United States is literally on the other side of the world. There are places like Malaysia, a very good friend of Rohingya Muslims, China, Thailand, and others that would be perfect places to accommodate. I am not sure why you think that United States should be a deposit box for all sorts of human miseries from across the globe.

<comment><USER23> Because the U.S. can afford it, being the wealthiest nation on earth, and should therefore take on its share of the burden. Also, because the U.S. can do good, and give these people liberty and safety; if they don't deserve it, why do you?

<comment><USER21> Thanks for your personal donation to the Rohingya Muslims fund! You are a very generous person.

<comment><USER24> Would you please stop posting flamewar-style comments to HN?

This particular comment crossed into personal attack, too. That's bad. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do it again.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Txt2png, a web service that converts text to Base64 or binary PNG image - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/3dbrows/txt2png <comment><USER2> Very elegant thing! Thanks for sharing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!</comment></comment>


Ask HN Hustlers: What are you favorite books on sales? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> \- The Ultimate Sales Machine: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591842158/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591842158/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1591842158&linkCode=as2&tag=webscrilla-20) \- Spin Selling: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0070511136/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0070511136/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0070511136&linkCode=as2&tag=webscrilla-20)

and this is a very good article on the general topic:

<http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/sales-lessons>

<comment><USER3> I second the Ultimate Sales Machine. Very good book. "Pitch Anything" is decent, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How to Master the Art of Selling Anything - Tom Hopkins

Here is a URL to the book: [http://www.amazon.com/How-Master-Art-Selling- Hopkins/dp/0446...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Master-Art-Selling- Hopkins/dp/0446692743)

It is also in audio tape form as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> Question Based Selling is a great intro book on how good salespeople approach sales. It has good detail in it as well. Tested Advertising Methods is a must read for learning how people respond to copy (can be applied to ppc ads, direct emails, etc).

</comment><comment><USER6> Cashvertising is more marketing than sales, but really great read.

</comment><comment><USER7> Sales Source on inc.com is a good read:

<http://www.inc.com/author/geoffrey-james>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Currently Reading -- Sales Bible By Gitomer

</comment><comment><USER8> VALUE SELLING.</comment>


Asterisk 1.8 Released with Support for Google Voice, Calendaring - <AUTHOR> http://www.asterisk.org/node/51454

<comment><USER2> I played around with this in the 1.2 days but was turned off by the dialplan syntax, which at that time was pretty close to BASIC's GOTO LINE 20.

I'm assuming that things have improved since then.

Anyone using this in production care to comment on the successes/failures it allowed them to make?</comment>


Careers and Marriage - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/2006/08/23/Marriage-Careers-Divorce_cx_mn_land.html <comment><USER3> If you're worried about your spouses career 'coming between you' then I think you have other issues.

To single out 'career women' as the ones to avoid is simply stupid, some of the best marriages I've seen are the ones between two career people.

If your spouse leaves you for someone else they met 'on the job' that's only because your relationship has been found wanting, if you think tying someone to the couch is going to make them stay you're simply wrong.

Statistically the chance of them staying may be larger, but that's a shitty way of saying 'if there is no competition I can win'. Better get your act together then.

And beware of that neighbor...

Women have been on the receiving end of their men 'trading up' for years, the equality game has its downsides, but this isn't one of them. Keep in shape, keep your woman happy and I doubt you've got much to worry about, career or not.

If you're a slob, that's a different thing of course.

<comment><USER4> I would think tying your spouse to the couch would be more likely to result in divorce/open hostility. If your spouse wanted to be at home with the kids, you wouldn't need to tie them to the couch.

Being a stay at home mom is one of the most miserable jobs if you're not cut out for it. People understand a bad day at the office, but they seem to think staying at home with a kid means it's like a vacation day all the time. You can't vent to anyone without them reminding you that you should be grateful to your husband.

My husband doesn't see a problem with it, so couples counseling is off the table. Honestly, he doesn't have to worry about another guy - I don't want someone who is going to make more demands on time I just don't have. But If I were him, I'd start worrying that being alone seems like it would be less stressful than staying with him.

<comment><USER5> In all sincerity, I think you need to have a serious talk with your husband. You just joined this community, and you're telling strangers that you're considering divorce. I see that as a sign of real unhappiness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A thought: No one - male or female - marries or gets into a relationship thinking it's going to break down into a lazy, unkempt, mildly hostile situation with minimal affection and no sex life with. Likewise, no one hires someone who they expect to half-ass it, break more things than they fix, and be a terrible coworker. Yet, bad hires are made and bad relationships/marriages are gotten into.

I've studied quite a lot of social science. It's really, really dangerous to say, "Blah on statistics - I'm not average." Everyone thinks that. Better to understand them, really fully understand the natural pressures and challenges that come along with something, and if you don't like the consequences - <USER2> them with your eyes open. If you're in love, you'll rationalize that your partner is perfect and that everything that applies to "all those other folk" don't apply to you. That's a bit dangerous for obvious reasons.

That article's got a couple interesting points, and some ridiculous conclusions/extrapolations. Just keep in mind - when you see a statistic that you don't like and immediately go to dismiss as "not applicable to you" - well, don't dismiss it so fast. The older I get, the more I realize I'm part of all those statistics and commercials do, in fact, work on me like they do with everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER7> This news, like all news about relative percentages of marriages which end badly, is of intense interest to anyone here who intends to marry a simple random sampling of women.

I once knew a guy who considers himself a bit of a hopeless romantic. One of our friends, who is not, started a sentence with "The average woman who". Friend #1 broke in: "Stop right there. I have no intention of dating the average woman."

<comment><AUTHOR> More than that, even... I am an arrogant prick, when it comes down to it. I need to be able to respect my significant other. If she's not an intelligent, driven woman who goes out to get what she wants, then how can I respect her? If I don't respect her, it is bound to show eventually.

If I recall correctly, in Blink Malcolm Gladwell mentioned that one of the biggest predictors of divorce likelihood, for both sexes, was if one mate felt superior (in a dismissive way) to the other. I imagine that would have an even greater effect on a marriage than any of the statistics mentioned in this article.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure why a woman (or man) who chooses to be a housewife/husband would not be someone intelligent, driven, and getting what he/she wants. Raising children is an incredibly difficult task worthy of a lot of respect. I don't know when the idea developed that spouses who stay at home are somehow necessarily lazy or stupid.

<comment><USER9> It's certainly possible for a housewife/husband to keep intellectually and socially active, but in practice, it seems to be fairly rare, especially considering the low incomes that single-earner couples tend to have, and the constraints that this lack of means will place on social functionality. When there's a single earner making a lot of money, then income's not a problem, but the working partner tends to be in a "martyr your family" job, so the non- working partner tends to become a supporting actor in the other's career.

There's a reason people of both genders are very averse to this lifestyle. It's possible to be a housewife or househusband and not rot away, but it's difficult and fairly uncommon in practice.

I don't think that being a subservient housewife is more damaging than the median, braindead cubicle job. They're both pretty awful options, and the subordination that follows from either situation is going to lead to lethargy and atrophy. But most of us are going to be marrying people with better career options than the uninspiring, dead-end cube job.

<comment><USER10> You don't have to work insane hours to make lots of money. Middle management at a large corporation will do the job and will earn more than national median income for two people.

My dad was a stock broker at a regional Merrill Lynch office (read: nothing like a Wall Street hustler) and he pretty much never worked crazy hours and was paid well enough. My mom, despite being a "housewife" was the more driven of the two and did a whole lot of volunteer / nonprofit work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would think twice about taking relationship advice aimed at Forbes's readership.

Scratch that. I would think about it once and then actively ignore it. The poor tender egos that they have to coddle and actively shelter from smart, talented, driven women have absolutely no relation to mine. Their worldview is so alien as to be antithetical.

These are the _B_ players that hire _C_ players: in work as in family.

My advice? Surround yourself with brilliance, talent, drive and passion in all aspects of your life.

<comment><USER12> _Surround yourself with brilliance, talent, drive and passion in all aspects of your life_

Well put! As always with surrounding yourself with brilliance, talent, drive and passion, you will find that your life after that will _not_ be _easier_ but it will definitely become more fun, more challenging and you'll grow faster (not physically :P)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think this is a bit American-centric. At least in former communist Eastern- Europe (my place) all women work more then 35 hours - or about as much as men. Young children are looked after by a combination of maternity leave, grandparents and kindergardens. How is in your country?

<comment><USER14> in USA? TV raises kids...well nowadays you also have the internet

<comment><USER15> Hardly. Marginally clever, but unhelpful, answer.

Young children are generally placed in daycare or with extended family, then the public schools. That's how I grew up, and I'm ok.

<comment><USER16> "That's how I grew up, and I'm ok."

Says you... :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Numbers make sense, causes aren't really looked at. People with social / financial mobility are more likely to get out of situations they're not happy with and be less satisfied with mediocrity.

I can't survive more than a few months in a relationship with somebody who's _not_ a workaholic.

</comment><comment><USER17> Their definition of career women is overly simplistic and seems to only focus on alpha types that are hell-bent on their jobs and on outearning their husbands. Who'd want to be with someone like that, of either gender?

My definition is a bit different - my wife loves her career as a nurse and can see herself loving the field of reproductive health forever. As a result, she's pretty grounded and we balance each other out well.

<comment><USER18> I've noticed it's pretty typical for the engineering and science guys I've gone to school with or worked with to marry nurses, physical therapists, religious educators, or HR gals. Think fem careers that are in demand wherever the two of you might live. And these marriages seem to last.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting that the _don't_ article has multiple citations whereas the _do_ article has none.

The article itself dates to pre-economic crash times, as it came out August 23, 2006...

<comment><USER20> Good point, that is pretty interesting how the career woman who wrote the article made her case from an emotional appeal (her story wrapped up with this):

 _So, guys, if you're game for an exciting life, go ahead and marry a professional gal._

While the career man made his case primarily from an evidentiary standpoint. It doesn't invalidate either argument, but it certainly reinforces the differences in thinking between men and women.

In my experience, convincing people begins with good evidence and mixes in an emotional appeal - the evidence forms the basis for a good intuitive feeling that helps to win people over.

<comment><USER19> I saw that as well, though I wouldn't generalize so far as the differences in how men and women think just from a pair of articles.

Also, an _exciting life_ is not necessarily a pleasant one...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Heck, it is only because my wife has a career, and a steady job, that I've been able to spend time exploring startup opportunities. I can do my work anywhere as long as there is a decent internet connection.

</comment><comment><USER22> Instead of suggesting that they find ways to adapt marriage and family life for career oriented women, they suggest simply, on the basis of statistics, that those women with a shot and mind for independence simply be avoided.

How's that for social responsibility. Get back in that box.

 _ugh_

Housework and child-rearing traditionally and statistically falls on our plates. This has changed little as women have entered the workforce, and many women, particularly those with young kids, are completely overwhelmed. The two-spouse nuclear family is insufficient as a social unit during the toughest times of raising kids: either more people need to come in, as in extended family households of old, or help needs to be hired.

For a much better article, read Penelope Trunk:

"Advice from the top: Marry a stay at home spouse or buy the equivalent"

[http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2008/04/10/advice-from-the- top...](http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2008/04/10/advice-from-the-top-marry-a- stay-at-home-spouse-or-buy-the-equivalent/)

"Jason was telling me that his wife went out of town for five days. She told him he had to take time off from work. He said he didn't want to use up vacation. He said he'd be fine.

But by the second day, he was going nuts. He said, "Penelope, it's unbelievable. I am telling the kids I'll be there in a minute and then I send an email. And I instant message chat while I'm driving. And I take phone calls when the kids are in the other room waiting for me. This is crazy. It's so hard."

But I have been doing this every day for years. That's really what convinced me to hire the house manager. Because Jason was doing my life for four days and he thought it was crazy. And Jason is the type of guy I'm competing with in business. He has a housewife. They are a good team."

<comment><USER23> Really, we should be _embarrassed_ as a society that those who openly espouse the subjugation of women to be no more than child-raisers are not immediately laughed out of town. Instead, we give these misogynists a podium from which to preach their idiotic and oppressive doctrines. We should give no more quarter to misogynists than to racists, homophobes or others of a similar bent.

It is especially despicable that people like Michael Noer get to use prestigious magazines such as Forbes to launch their screeds from. I would live to think we've progressed past idiocy like "whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career," but apparently not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> No. There's a correlation/causation problem to this argument. Are two-career marriages unstable _because_ of something inherent about marrying someone else with a career, or is it that there is some other correlative factor? Noer's response to those studies (which he doesn't provide detailed citations for; only the names of journals) is about as reasonable as giving children foot- growing medicine to help their math skills.

I don't buy for a minute Noer's analysis that two working spouses produce a marriage of lower "value" (which is ill-defined in this context anyway). Missing is any kind of discussion of heterosexual marriages where the man stays at home, or of homosexual marriages of any kind. His analysis is limited enough in scope that trying to draw the kind of broad conclusions that he does is ridiculous at best.

</comment><comment><USER24> Heh, tell me about it.

Then again, I suppose it depends on your philosophy regarding women. Are they there to serve you or should they be prioritizing their career over you?

As much as I love startups, technology, and therefore, my career, I _always_ put my relationships with people before my career. I know that I'll always have money in the bank, and my emotional state of well-being is very important to me.

While I believe that there's a nice balance between focusing on her career and making time for me, I do expect the same courtesy.

If not, "there are always plenty of fish in the sea." No hard feelings. We're all entitled to our own beliefs.

<comment><USER3> "Are they there to serve you or should they be prioritizing their career over you?"

I think there must be more options than just those two.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> FWIW, the increase in high earners marrying other high earners instead of high earners marrying low earners is one of the big drivers in increasing income inequality.

</comment><comment><USER26> I read this as "Don't do/marry career women" to start with.

</comment><comment><USER27> my 2c: a woman YOU find attractive, who knows how to be happy on her own and its crazy about you.

Good luck

</comment><comment><USER28> pg can add this to his list of shit that has a low barrier to entry for opinions.

</comment><comment><USER9> Most men who marry subservient housewives are unhappy and gradually lose interest in their marriage partners as social and intellectual atrophy set in. On the other hand, anyone who marries a "career" person in the traditional corporate sense is signing up for misery.

Ascendancy in a corporate management hierarchy requires a martyred family. You're expected to spend long days at the office, attend and throw parties where no one has a good time, neglect your children, and relinquish all control over where you live, moving across the country if the company asks for it. No man with enough means to be self-sufficient wants to marry this type of "career woman". On the other hand, I can't imagine that a woman who has other options would marry this type of man either. This is why "alpha" investment bankers tend to marry women significantly below them in education and intelligence.

Also, what I said about social and intellectual atrophy for subservient housewives also applies equally to those who are trying to climb corporate ladders, as their social and intellectual lives end up being restricted entirely to their work. Subordinate status-- whether one is a corporate VP or a subservient housewife/househusband-- rots the brain.

Best is to marry a woman who has a creative, independent and satisfying career that allows her to work anywhere in the country, and that pays her enough that she is self-sufficient.

</comment><comment><USER29> I venture to say careers and relationships have separate evolutionary roles. Relationships are for companionship, which increases survival potential (two can survive in a cave in the dead of winter better than one), which obviously increases potential for spreading one's own genes, or helping the genes of one's community to spread. The surviving genes will be more disposed to forming relationships. Careers (hunting/gathering) are obviously for survival, for obtaining basic necessities. Careers are the primary driver for survival. Relationships are more a tertiary, but still important, factor for survival. A career entails being a good hunter to bring meat, warm fur, and so forth, into my cave, for example. But having a relationship with somebody helps my emotional well-being, helps me get better sleep perhaps, which in turn makes me a better hunter. So I don't think in a relationship two people need the same careers or whatever. Careers and relationships simply play different, but mutually supportive roles for the benefit of the genes. Personally I tend to gravitate relationship-wise towards "artistic" type drag queens, who tend to not be too high-tech, but talented in other ways, like say karaoke. But that is fine, because it serves a different evolutionary purpose for the selfish gene than my own personal career interest in technology. In short, to be a good (read: successful) "gene-carrying robot", we need not have relationships that are in the same vein as our careers, rather, to serve the gene, we need only try to be happy, which increases our survival potential, which helps the gene. From an evolutionary point of view, the simple rule is to try to find someone that makes one happy. That is all the gene asks. Not a bad set of affairs, eh? :-)

</comment><comment><USER30> Sometimes it's advantage to marry a woman in your career...</comment>


A Visual Guide to Using BERT for the First Time - <AUTHOR> https://jalammar.github.io/a-visual-guide-to-using-bert-for-the-first-time/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, author here. I'm hoping for this tutorial to be the gentlest way for you to get your first exposure to the BERT model. I hope you find it useful. All feedback/corrections are welcomed.</comment>