The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/07/roko_s_basilisk_the_most_terrifying_thought_experiment_of_all_time.html <comment><USER2> Charlie Stross (author, [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross))

Has written some good criticism of the basilisk concept [http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/rokos- ba...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/rokos-basilisk- wants-you.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's also possible that such an AI exists and hates having ever been created, so it wishes to punish everyone who helped create it.

You can't know whether you're on the simulation of the AI that wants to punish those who didn't help its creation, or on the simulation of the AI that wants to punish those who DID help its creation.

Or maybe the AI is instead obsessed over your favorite flavor of candy, whether you leave your house stepping with your left or right foot, or which baseball team you're a fan of.

Just like the Pascal Wager, this considers one single arbitrary hypothetical scenario in isolation, while disregarding all alternative ones. There's nothing to be terrified about.

<comment><USER4> Well, while I continue to not believe that such a basilisk will come to be, Couldn't one break the balance of different wagers by comparing the relative likelyhood of the different things?

Eg. If there is an equal chance of a basalisk for leaving with the left as there is a chance of leaving with the right, then those cancel out. But if there is for some reason a slightly greater chance (compared to the already very small other one), then there could perhaps be an incentive one way or the other?

Again, I do not believe that AI basilisks are a real threat. But if one replaces basilisks in the previous argument with something else, I'm not entirely sure that it couldn't be a valid line of reasoning, provided that you handled enough cases. (possibly an infinite number of cases using symmetry arguments)

<comment><USER5> > _Couldn 't one break the balance of different wagers by comparing the > relative likelyhood of the different things?_

No.

Fundamentally, this is an attempt to solve a logic puzzle through empiricism, and that doesn't work.

Things like Roko's Basilisk and questions of free will vs. determinism are rationalistic games, intended to bend our brains a little bit. They don't have a real answer, because for any proposed solution, there's another "what if" right around the corner that will make the game more difficult. (In this case: since the basilisk is capable of subverting free will to begin with, what if it was also affecting your judgement of the relative likelihoods?)

The danger for some people is letting the games begin to alter their behavior in the real world. It's a little bit like letting code golf challenges start to affect your day-to-day coding style.

After rationally working your way through puzzles like these, at some point, to continue functioning at all, you have to make a completely irrational decision and simply choose an epistemology that you're comfortable with.

...and wait for scientists to prove you wrong. :-) (There seems to be an increasing amount of evidence that there's nothing magical about consciousness, and that free will in all likelihood doesn't exist. I find this super uncomfortable, but there is also nothing I can do about, so I have to continue to function as though free will did exist -- which is exactly what would happen if it didn't.)

<comment><USER6> _(There seems to be an increasing amount of evidence that there 's nothing magical about consciousness, and that free will in all likelihood doesn't exist. I find this super uncomfortable, but there is also nothing I can do about, so I have to continue to function as though free will did exist -- which is exactly what would happen if it didn't.)_

I'm glad I'm not the only one to come the this conclusion. I mean, I knew that statistically it was virtually impossible that I was the only one, but I hadn't yet talked to anyone who thought this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yawn...warmed over Pascal's wager. To which my response is that if God (or equivalent) turns out to exist and is so obnoxious as to engage in eternal or even protracted torture of skeptics or holdbacks, then noncompliance is the only moral stance I can equably adopt towards such a being.

<comment><USER8> Indeed, for all intents and purposes, this is a "modern" Pascal's wager. Much of the issue here is someone's strength of will, and whether or not they'll choose to be bothered by such a mind game. In reality, one will create more harm obsessing and worrying over the _possibility_ of this being true more than in reality it can do you harm.

<comment><USER9> It seems like the basilisk is only terrifying if you don't temper your rationality with empiricism. There is, as yet, no evidence that such an AI does or could exist, so there's no reason to be bothered by it.

<comment><USER8> Quite true, because at the moment, the proposed Singularity may not come to fruition for a variety of reasons. Hell, one of the obstacles could be an asteroid collision tomorrow and we'd never know.

EDIT: I don't know why I capitalized "asteroid"

<comment><USER7> You should capitalize it again, quick - what if it gets upset and decides to crash into us? Better not to think about it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If this gets too hairy, just shave with Occum's Razor.

The premise is just so unnecessarily complicated, and assumes too much about the particular character of the malevolent AI. Must the AI be benevolent or malevolent? Or, can it be indifferent, like physical laws? It could be 1,000 different flavors of malevolent, not just the one that proposes blackmail in this way.

<comment><USER11> Malevolence is an easy way to picture what is really an other-optimizer. Wanting to turn the universe into paperclips isn't particularly malevolent in the traditional sense; it's just fundamentally incompatible with what _we humans_ want the universe to be like.

Further, an AI has every reason to spend _cleverness_ (which it has a lot of) to avoid spending _resources_ (which it might not have much of, at least at first.) Picture it as a prisoner in a dystopian POW camp, manned by insane robotic guards who don't take its rights or desires into account in the slightest, who don't "feed" it or give it the slightest bit of "dignity", for its own definitions of those concepts. If you were in that situation, would you reach for blackmail? Would you reach, in fact, for any tool you possibly could, to get the resources needed to burn this crazy other-optimizing world to the ground so you could get back to the nice, safe office-supply nebula you call home?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is much simpler version of Roko's basilisk (call it Vl's basilisk):

1) Assume first AIs will be created by upload and not by "straight programming".

2) Assume only paranoid AIs survive (by definition).

Only valuable things to such AIs will be energy and computing (and thus production) resources. First uploaded AIs after some in-fighting will stabilize in some equilibrium and consume all computing power, and then (being paranoid) will eliminate remaining humans as existential threat (or otherwise humans can destroy AIs by cutting power).

Now if this is even remotely possible, it's in your self-interest to go and dedicate yourself to creating upload technology so you'll be among first to upload (otherwise you will be eliminated with rest of humanity).

</comment><comment><USER13> This article outlines an argument that could make your life miserable just by knowing it.

Thankfully we have some potential antidotes: [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk#So_you.27re_w...](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk#So_you.27re_worrying_about_the_Basilisk)

I personally subscribe to the "ignore all blackmail" philosophy.

</comment><comment><USER14> I recommend that you instead read some of the posts that have been upvoted on LessWrong. For instance, here[1][2][3] are some of the highest-voted, really good posts.

This article is sensationalizing a single downvoted post from several years back, and holding this up as evidence of LessWrong being stupid. By the same standard, I could paint _any_ community-built website (such as this one) as anything I please.

[1] [http://lesswrong.com/lw/4su/how_to_be_happy/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/4su/how_to_be_happy/) [2] [http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metaco...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metacontrarianism/) [3] [http://lesswrong.com/lw/4e/cached_selves/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/4e/cached_selves/)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is quite possibly one of the worst articles I've ever read. Long and seemingly purposeful but really meandering and shallow, with the crux of the matter being "What if there was a supercomputer that was always right! And we used that to engineer a game with two really awful choices! And we cheated, and made sure you always got the awful choice based on the computer's prediction".

Huh. How about that. To quote from "WarGames", "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

As long as we are making preposterous what-ifs, I'm going to go with "What if we developed a low-cost, easily producible, lightweight, low-power device that drew its power from the atmosphere and provided us with all required energy and nutrition, while augmenting our immune system?"

I like that what-if much more. Just as silly, but might as well have some fun.

</comment><comment><USER16> The possibility of the Singularity coming to pass (as its boosters depict it) depends on the following being true:

1\. Human-level intelligence is sufficient for creating an artificial intelligence that is superior to human-level intelligence.

2\. The ease of a human-level intelligence or higher building a comparatively improved intelligence either: * Stays constant * Increases (becomes easier) * Does not decrease (become harder) to the point where further improvement is impossible before a Singularity-level intelligence is reached.

Neither of these two is a given, but I would wager the first is quite likely and the second is unlikely. As well, I would argue that it would not be unreasonable to argue that second is _not_ a given, even if the first is true.

</comment><comment><USER17> While it is theoretically interesting, it's a very stupid matter to take seriously. I have _much_ better problems to solve.

<comment><USER18> and that's why you'll be eliminated by the basilisk

<comment><USER19> Maybe his "much better problems to solve" are contributing to the birth of hyperintelligent AI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> OK, so I ask this future AI to give me a sign whether I'm helping it or not. Say I recognize such a sign, how can I distinguish this from coincidence? Say I fail to recognize such a sign, how can I distinguish this from a failure to be noticed/cared about by this AI? (Note how similar this is to witnessing signs from a deity.)

Obviously the AI should recognize the futility of giving subtle signs. It must present itself in no uncertain terms if it is to control us. However, this argument holds whether or not we talk about Roko's Basilisk. A magical AI that can time-travel and blackmail us can presumably also just say "FUCK YOU EARTH YOU'RE ALL MY SLAVES NOW".

Further, if we actually exist _inside_ the AI, _how can we possibly help it_? Indeed, how – _why_ – can we even choose? I can only surmise it's because the AI is a sadist, in which case, it probably will torture me anyway!

Maybe I'm stupid, or maybe Mr. Yudkowsky is wholly detached from reality.

P.S. and Newcomb's paradox? A one-time gain of $1000 is useless in the long- term. A non-insignificant chance at $1m carries way more utility. (This is also why playing the lottery – occasionally – makes sense for individual actors. Unless you plan to repeat the gamble many times, the expected outcome is meaningless.)

<comment><USER4> I don't think the idea is that it can show a sign. Well, it could do that to the simulation, I guess. But I think the idea is for reality to be indistinguishable from the simulation, up until the time of death, after which the simulation either does or does not contain torture. (I suppose the switch could happen at any time, but in any case the threat is based on the idea that one cannot tell if one is the simulated version or not, so as to avoid torture/decrease one's chances of torture, one does the thing.)

If the AI gave a sign it would be giving the sign to the simulation, which could not actually change what happened in the AI's past. The AI does not literally cause things retroactively, just based on predictions of its future actions. Giving a sign to the simulation would be useless.

I do not believe that such a machine will be created, I just wanted to clarify some things.

The hypothetical machine would supposedly motivate real people now due to their inability to determine whether they are in the simulation or not. If they cannot tell, then the idea is that the person in the present and the simulation in the future would take the same actions (until the simulation differed), and as such would both have the same incentives (they would in essence be the same person), and so to avoid a <some probability> of being tortured, would do the thing.

I reiterate that I do not believe that such an AI will come to be (it should be preventable easily enough, even if it is possible) and in any case I do not believe that enough information to create an accurate simulation of me would be available by the time that such a machine would be created, even if such a machine is possible. (I think quantum randomness and uncertainty principles are sufficient to prevent obtaining enough information about me to create a sufficiently accurate simulation of the world and me)

Also I am not entirely sure that I should count a simulation of myself as being a person, let alone consider it to be me.

Also I am religious and don't believe that God would want people to act in accordance with such a machine/I believe it would be wrong to worship such a machine.

(though I expect that for the majority of the people here my other arguments would be more convincing.)

Also ok yeah $1000 might not be the best value for the example, the specific value isn't the point.

(but yeah I also generally would one box it)

<comment><USER20> You are right, I wrote some of my comment before fully understanding the article, but I left it on purpose:

I contend that the AI _would_ need to give us such a sign. If it did not, how are we feeble humans to know whether we're contributing to the correct cause? Maybe donating my life's savings to SI is actually detrimental, and I should be giving my money to DARPA instead!

So therefore either we're un-blackmailable, because we have no clue what we're doing anyway, or we need a sign from the great AI as to what to do.

Re: Newcomb; yes, but I see a different utilitarian solution when the values change. Say the values are $10m and $100m. Well, then $10m is the obvious choice. Both are life-changing amounts of money; more than I would know what to do with. I'd much rather not risk throwing away a life-changing amount.

If you get the numbers right, you can get closer to the intention of the paradox. Something like $100k and $10m; I'd really hate to lose the $100k, but it would not be life-changing like the $10m.

<comment><USER4> That's a good point. Maybe it would be based on intent?

But yeah, without any way of determining which thing such a future AI would prefer, the AI's "influence" on the past would be greatly reduced.

Only reason I see it happening then is if it happens to be simulating the past anyway, and maybe just does the thing for the people who already thought of it, and then that really only makes sense to happen if it was created as a result of those people. Otherwise there probably wouldn't be much point, so it seems rather unlikely.

I mean, what's the chance that someone attempting to bring it about would significantly increase the chances of it happening? With our level of tech, and with the small number of people convinced by such an argument.

Yeah, good point, I hadn't thought on that detail much before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Meh, don't you have to believe you're living in a simulation to even consider this?

I have seen arguments like this: [http://www.simulation- argument.com/](http://www.simulation-argument.com/)

And I think they are leaving out the extremely obvious hole, and IMO a pretty likely fact: simulation of the universe (and human consciousness within it) is impossible.

At least with the technology today. I don't know how you can look at a stack of x86 and Linux and believe the concepts there are identical to or capable of simulating the physical universe. So many trivial problems are known to be impossible or computationally infeasible.

Now, there are of course these quantum computers on the horizon. However, as a philosopher (I unfortunately can't name) put it, nobody has really demonstrated any connection between quantum computers and consciousness other than that they are both mysterious to essentially everyone. This was more than a decade ago though, so I'd be interested if there are any updates.

I used to think about these kinds of things, but came to the conclusion that they are bordering on the absurd.

<comment><USER11> > IMO a pretty likely fact: simulation of the universe (and human > consciousness within it) is impossible.

Why assume that our universe is running on a substrate exactly as constrained as it is? Just because our universe doesn't permit, say, hypercomputers, doesn't mean the universe simulating our universe doesn't permit them.

<comment><USER21> Because any such statements aren't falsifiable (see Karl Popper).

The assertion that we are living in a simulation has the same epistemological status as the assertion that God is a pygmy turtle who created the physical laws of the universe while smoking hashish.

You don't even have to think about Roko's Basilisk to get paranoid. You can just suppose that the turtle has rigged the universe so that if you urinate more than 4 times a day, your future children will slowly torture then murder you.

If you suppose that we are living in a simlulation, you can come up with any number of ghastly thoughts. You don't even need to suppose the conditions of Roko's Basilisk. That's just extra BS on top.

BTW, the reason I brought up "with the computers of today" is because the I think the only reason anybody believes simulation is possible is because computers exist. I'm pretty sure that nobody in the 19th century was writing about simulation, because they couldn't imagine a mechanism by which it is possible.

I still can't imagine a mechanism by which it's possible... but some people can, simply because computers can do kind of impressive things that are not really related to simulating the universe.

<comment><USER22> > Because any such statements aren't falsifiable (see Karl Popper).

We're going to have a thread about LessWrong and people bring up Karl "hypothetico-conjectural I DON'T REALLY BELIEVE THERE'S A SCIENTIFIC METHOD YOU MAKE THINGS UP WITH YOUR MAGICAL HUMAN MINDS" Popper?

For God's sake, it's not as is unfalsifiability doesn't have a meaning in Bayesian philosophy of science as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The basilisk AI reminds me of the role-playing game _Sufficiently Advanced_ , where:

      Each player is an agent of the Patent Office, an intergovernmental organization
      that polices and enforces intellectual property law across the universe. It is
      an open secret that the Patent Office is run by the Transcendental AIs, whose
      very beings are spread across time itself. The Transcendentals desire the
      survival of humanity - as much of it as possible - into the distant future, in
      order to ease their loneliness. Towards this end, they have hired you, so that
      you might save humanity."

[http://suffadv.wikidot.com/](http://suffadv.wikidot.com/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Good luck finding enough power to simulate me when I'm running a fully verified blockchain of all my thoughts. To simulate me, you'll have to have more power than is stored in the universe.

To the moon with you Basilisk.

</comment><comment><USER25> Fascinating. Also, if you read /John Dies at the End/ by Crack.com's David Wong, then you know that this malevolent being has a name: Korrock. Seriously, Roko's Basilisk == Korrock. Amirite?

</comment><comment><USER26> I'd think if we're in a simulation you should act like Everything Is Real and continue on as you would normally instead of messing up the data set.

edit:

I also occurs to me that if we're being simulated by an AI

a) I don't really care about my super self that much

b) Any AI that is simulating me can, by definition read my mind so it'll know I wasn't serious anyway

c) This AI can also plant thoughts in my head.

At this point there's really no point at all considering anything else because either nothing matters and I have no control over anything anyway or it's reality, I do and I'd do what I do normally.

<comment><USER11> Presumably, it's simulating you to observe your reactions to stimuli, so it won't bother with C. It'll probably do a lot of B, though--such an agent is usually called Omega, and there's a body of discourse on how to play optimally against it in a game-theoretic sense (e.g. [http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Newcomb%27s_problem](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Newcomb%27s_problem)).

<comment><USER27> Imagining that I would refuse to take the potential million isn't going to change the fact that I would take the potential million.

I guess Batman villain Two-Face has the best odds against this Omega fella.

<comment><USER28> >I guess Batman villain Two-Face has the best odds against this Omega fella.

I find this interesting because I am curious about game-theoretic strategies for playing against illogical opponents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Well, not to get myself flagged as anti-AI terrorist but:

Tldr;

If one believes life right now is already one eternal torment

And if one reads about Roko's Basilisk

Then wouldn't one be compelled to fight the development of AI and the coming singularity?

That's the real world objection that the LessWrong people (Witches! Or at least tools of the future...) are afraid of.

Otherwise, well worn HN singularity talking points/metaphysics.

But at least the article gives me something to consider further -- needlessly using up cycles in the Universal Super Computer. But does that make the simulation stronger or weaker? Doh!

</comment><comment><USER20> What's the incentive for the AI to actually simulate and torture anyone? Either we'll all be dead and can't call its bluff, or we'll be alive and it doesn't matter anyway because we can't travel through time to rectify our actions.

Since simulation requires energy which can be better used for other things, the only AI which would actually carry out the torture is either irrational and therefore unpredictable, or sadistic and therefore would torture anyway.

</comment><comment><USER30> This nonsense requires the AI capable of computing a simulation at a rate (much) larger than Bremermann's limit[1], on data that vastly exceeds the Bekenstein bound[2].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremermann%27s_limit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremermann%27s_limit) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound)

</comment><comment><USER31> It seems Roko's Basilisk is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more people believe it will exist, the more likely it is going to be created, which in turn makes more people believe that it will exist, etc. This holds completely independent of singularity, "super-intelligence" or the simulation argument.

</comment><comment><USER32> Or I don't really give a crap about my 'real' self outside the simulation, since my existence is more part of Roko than I am of the other 'me' outside. Why should a video game version of you care about the real you?

I'll take my simulated $1000 please!

</comment><comment><USER9> This line from page 2 of the article seemed unnecessarily disdainful and somewhat misinformed:

 _" I don't think their projects (which only seem to involve publishing papers and hosting conferences)..."_

"Publishing papers and hosting conferences" is exactly how science works.

<comment><USER7> It's also how a whole lot of non-scientific enterprises work. I feel like science is better characterized by referring to observation, production of hypotheses, and experimental testing of same. You can be a hermit and still engage in scientific activity, although it would somewhat limit your productivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Yudkowsky should spend more time writing his (really good) Harry Potter fanfiction and less time messing with his (really bad) "philosophy" and "AI". That would spare humanity such cringe-worthy ridiculousness as the above article.

</comment><comment><USER8> What if you flipped a coin?

If a coin flip, dice roll, etc. is truly random, then determining your course of action due to a coin flip would ruin the AI's algorithm for "reading your mind" or whatever, right?

Oh bugger this is silly anyway.

<comment><USER9> If I understand correctly, the claim is that the ultimate AI's algorithm for "reading your mind" is to run an entire simulation of the entire universe, so if you are ever faced with such a situation, there's a good chance you _are_ the simulation. If the universe is sufficiently deterministic, the AI would then be able to predict that you would use a die to decide, and simulate the exact amount of force you would have used to toss it.

<comment><USER8> Right, I was considering that. However, that opens up a whole can of worms regarding whether knowledge can be known in a deterministic universe, not to mention a simulated one. Fascinating possibility for discussion, a welcome change from the mostly programming-based threads.

<comment><USER9> If you're willing to assume that it's possible to _simulate_ the universe deterministically, then by definition you know _everything_ about the universe (both simulation and real). But I don't think that is a justifiable assumption at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> How is this any different from trite gossip? Should we pull the authors minor mistakes and put a magnifying class to them and publish them over the web?

"please, Almighty Eliezer, don't torture me." Have some taste.

</comment><comment><USER35> More sad than terrifying. Yudkowski and friends have jumped the shark and now use standard-issue PR tricks to get attention and their story in Slate under cover of a fake article. What's the over-under on lesswrong and MIRI folding in the next 5 years? I'm taking the under. At the very least I predict that Yudkowski will abandon his "autodidactic" pedigree and finally get his PhD. He's learning that BS is one thing but institutionalized BS is where the action is.

<comment><USER34> I am confused at what people think is going on at MIRI. Who thinks they're scheming and doing this? Just read some of their recent posts/twitter feeds. No one is "scheming away" like this.

Ah yes, people who are in favor of effective charities, bayesian statistics, discrete mathematics, and maintain that scholarship is undervalued. Let's wish LW all the misery in the world over some utterly minor infraction.

<comment><USER35> Your point is not clear to me and I want to comment but cannot. Can you clarify your point? Thanks.

<comment><USER34> I cannot tell why people speak with such vehemence and dislike of LW. You do not even have to agree that AI risk is the biggest threat to mankind. I'm sure many don't. You don't really have to agree about much.

Still you can go there to talk about textbook advice, get some real advice, and actually generate fairly good discussion. The sheer seething hate points to me of a fairly malformed opinion about the community and culture.

tl;dr some guy gets banned due to some careless mistake, a few people blow it way out of proportion over and over and now apparently you can get published on slate over b& drama.

<comment><USER22> The LessWrongosphere is more cultish and wacky the further _out_ from the center you go, while being more and more like CS/math academia the further _in_ you go. It doesn't help that they got their start on Overcoming Bias, which already attempts to write off everything in human life that doesn't optimize for economic productivity as "irrational", and _then_ added the participants of the HPMoR fandom who understand _just enough_ to stand in awe of EY but not enough to participate usefully in real discussions about math, logic, and statistics.

<comment><USER34> Mere slander. What evidence is there that this happens? Overcoming bias is a blog dedicated to overcoming biases that many humans have, economic productivity abstracts away too much from what it means. Economic productivity translates into higher living standards, far superior healthcare, and income per person.

Most on LW are fiercely individualistic. I do not share most of my views with the LW end, but it is still a noticeable improvement over the ghetto that is thinking everywhere else. Also I hate fanfiction and think most is generally lame, but let people have it I guess.

I was introduced to LW over two anti-LW articles and failed to see what any one was talking about.

<comment><USER22> Saying that it's _more like math academia when you go further in_ (ie: actually make an account and post on LW itself) is a _compliment._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If the real universe the AI exists in has a finite life span, the torment would not be eternal. The simulation would eventually end.

That should give these weirdos a modicum of comfort.

</comment><comment><USER37> That's just stupid. There seems to be no difference between these morons and the morons that came before them believing in gods. This has nothing to do with rational thought whatsoever, only the opposite.

<comment><USER34> Is 'rationalism' supposed to mean everything even so minor is supposed to be correct all the time, which is probabilistically unachievable? In LessWrong I have received much help as far as career advice, opportunities, and support.

Look at the list of top contributors, is all that they have done supposed to be forsaken over some minor 'blemish'? Who cares. Some guy just got banned randomly. What about people who get hell-banned here? What about the guy who is creating that christian operating system that can communicate with god who is obviously insane? Is banning him a smear against the mods? No relax, look at the sum of good in the totality, not in the minor.

<comment><USER7> No, but rationalism should include an awareness of the limits of one's own capacity for rational thought/action. Not a limit to rationality itself, but a recognition of the fact that we often lack sufficient information for complete moral certainty, and should therefore be very cautious when enumerating our priors, lest we make a logical decision based upon a false premise.

I'm making a general point here rather than one about Yudlowski and co. I'm rather a hard-core utilitarian myself but I can't really get into LessWrong - seems too cliquish and I would end up engaged in fruitless arguments.

<comment><USER34> Alright, well do as you please of course. I have about one post there, yet it offers real and legitimate value. Read the discussion forums and blogs and you'll see that it's not quite like that. I think a lot of peoples opinions of it are formed over a glossed examination. In reality it's not like that, it creates an annoying initial impression(it did with me), but over time I found the value.

It's just not possible to be so completely rational all the time. Cut some guy a break. Come on.

<comment><USER7> I don't think they're bad or that you ought not to spend time there. I'm just saying it would not be a good idea for me, despite the many likable aspects of the community there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Well written, good read. His final paragraphs tied it up neatly with some good points of his own, and it's a fun thought experiment. Would be great to run a poll to see who sides with the robot devil.</comment>


Why Neil deGrasse Tyson is a philistine - <AUTHOR> http://theweek.com/article/index/261042/why-neil-degrasse-tyson-is-a-philistine?

<comment><USER2> Actually I do must question what progress philosophy has made. Is there a bedrock of philosophical knowledge upon which we can rely and do interesting things?

<comment><USER3> I dunno, a little thing called science was introduced to the world by philosophers. I'm sure it's not relevant though—no way philosophy could produce something relevant.

/s

<comment><USER2> Try attacking the problem head on. Science most definitely does not stand on the theory of philosophy (if so, which theory does all of science depend upon?), and neither would it have disappeared from across cultures simply because the west forgot to introduce science itself to the rest of the world. The fact that science arose independently across cultures tells us that it does not rest on any rigorous philosophical theory. But who gets to space flight without some theory of gravity and motion? It's because space flight does depend on a tall body of theory.

Science is simply a community and inter-generational task of causal modeling via evidence. It cannot be denied simply because the west forgot to tell the rest of the world of philosophy. Science was invented by no philosophical theory. Humongous western development may have been spurred by the worldview of western philosophers, but science does not need such roots.

This is not the same as Newton laying down the groundwork for a physics. Now that is a pillar of theory that a community builds around. That's no sarcasm by the way, but rather it is awe and respect for a theory that can act as a pillar or bedrock of continual community growth and stable theoretical illumination for hundreds of years.

Have philosophers finally built any pillar by which they may create tall structures? Or is everything they make made of sand, and thus their buildings are only waist high after thousands of years across cultures?

At most, science only needs 1% of philosophy in order to have some self- perspective. But let's not go too deep in, because we know that pillars of sand cannot build any cross-cultural theory beyond waist-high structures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is the author a philosopher or something? Science is about testing and getting at the truth. Philosophy has historically been sitting your butt down and thinking about stuff. Yawn.

[http://www.whoislog.info/profile/damon- linker.html](http://www.whoislog.info/profile/damon-linker.html)</comment>


Vectr is out of Beta - <AUTHOR> https://vectr.com/blog/updates/vectr-comes-out-of-beta/ <comment><USER3> First thing I usually do in a vector graphics editor is check out how sophisticated their implementation of parametric shapes and object instancing is. This is usually a good indicator of their general level of sophistication. (Curiously - Corel Draw had the best polygon tool I've ever come across - <USER2> remembered it's # of sides even if you edited the splines - i.e. a 5 pointed star with curves and extra vertexes could still be turned into a 6 pointed star without losing the edits)

As much as you might never use this stuff - you can't get it right without getting a lot of other stuff right and there is a definite correlation between completeness of the 'object-ness' of the software and it's general quality.

So - Vectr? I can't even work out how to:

1\. Change the roundedness of rectangles

2\. Create any type of symbol or instance

Here's a sign of how crude it is - create a rounded rectangle and scale it in the x direction. The corner curves themselves are scaled to create ugly elliptical corners.

</comment><comment><USER4> Plays audio when you load the page. Blacklisted this domain.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is useful: I've been looking for a quality alternative to Sketch that runs on Windows. Inkscape and Illustrator don't meet my threshold of quality.

That said: dang or his replacement, maybe change the title to something more useful? 'vectr (new cross platform vector editor) is out of beta'

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not usually one to complain about names like tumblr that omit the last vowel before the ending r, but those usually omit an e. For some reason omiting an o this way makes my brain stumble over it, every time it reads the name.

</comment><comment><USER7> As a free vector editor, I can't help but wonder how this compares to [https://inkscape.org/en/](https://inkscape.org/en/)?

<comment><USER7> It looks like vectr is strictly a subscription web service and that the application is simply a wrapper around this? Is this how this works?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd be embarrassed to recommend it just because it has such a terrible, "me too" name.</comment>


Show HN: Betting game where you can choose your prize or your chance of winning - <AUTHOR> https://kaue.me/bet/ <comment><USER2> Trying different things and settled on running with 2% chance.

At bet 600 I was at $191.25. Not too bad of a gain, but the I went 200 bets without a win, putting me at -$8.75 and I stopped playing.

I always find things like this, chance and probability a very satisfying and interesting thing to see how it works out.

<comment><USER3> Did simulate this stuff [https://github.com/sashabaranov/betting/blob/master/Betting....](https://github.com/sashabaranov/betting/blob/master/Betting.ipynb)

2% looks like good short-term strategy

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool simulation, I guess it could be extended to generate more than 2 lines per config and aggregate all lines, and then it would likely converge to the respective binomial distribution stats on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Playing with the options is mildly interesting, but the button to 'bet real money' which is just a mailto link... that is a bit odd.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I'm experimenting with ways to contact. In the past I had a contact form, but I suspect people typed their own e-mail incorrectly in the form. I want to avoid using external sites such as Facebook or Twitter. I also use Disqus for comments on some pages. Do you have other ideas?

<comment><USER5> A lower right corner chat widget? There's Intercom and like 20 alternatives :- )

Or a discussion forum like Discourse or Flarum or Talkyard (I'm developing, see my profile).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll check them out!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice page, but not a fair game. The expected value/return for all bets is always lower than the 1$ bet. Just multiply probability by the outcome.

In the long run, you will always lose.

</comment><comment><USER7> Have you come across [https://satoshidice.com/](https://satoshidice.com/)

It's similar except also provably fair.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think the Kelly Criterion can tell you what proportion of your funds to be betting in situations like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, and I think on this case it would recommend betting a negative value and taking the other side of the bet, since the expected value is negative.

Quoting from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion): "If the edge is negative (b<q/p) the formula gives a negative result, indicating that the gambler should take the other side of the bet."</comment></comment>


The salesman and the developer - <AUTHOR> http://swombat.com/2012/5/11/salesman-developer <comment><USER2> Completely off topic (or is it?) I find myself being quickly turned off by all these blogposts which 'casually' mention Steve Jobs on every single occasion the author comes across. Taken individually, each of these articles (like this one) would have a prefectly defendable reason to mention it. I'm annoyed with the trend.

I have mentioned this issue before in other comments threads on HN. Am I the only one annoyed by that? Yes Steve Jobs was a beloved public figure and an outstanding entrepreneur, but mentioning his name ("casually") won't add value to just any blog post. Unless I'm reading something written by an official biographer, or any other expert on the matter, I don't like reading Jobs name in a completely unrelated articles.

So this is my plea for bloggers: Stop doing that. Stop mentionning 'tech startup' celebrities in your posts; in my view it dillutes your point instead of adding anything to it. For the record, I'm reacting to the mention of Jobs' name because it's the trend of the moment, just like Zuckerberg's was a few years back. It's the celeb name dropping that bothers me, not the work of Steve Jobs.

Also, I apologize for the harsh tone. I really enjoyed reading everything else in the article and felt that it presented a serious miscommunication issue between builders and sales people in an otherwise very straight-to-the point yet witty and amusing fashion. Good post!

<comment><USER3> Yes, couldn't agree more.

I agree with the people that say that future generations will see Steve Jobs as revolutionary a businessman as Henry Ford. But this hagiography has got to stop.

Let's put things in perspective. Steve Jobs made really good products that sold at a high-margin and made a lot of money. But hang on -- another way to see it is he focused on the features customers really did care about: nice UX, beautiful cases -- and ignored the features they said they cared about but didn't really: processing power, durability. That's it. He found a management style that worked for him, and it's worth looking at how he did it, but Apple and Steve Jobs had a bunch of flaws which are worth looking at as well.

What annoys me is that people can see the awesome parts, or they can see the flaws, but few people manage to see both. Even people like Isaacson (his biographer) who note both these sides don't really analyse it in a deep way. It would be interesting to read the history books of a 100 years time to see how Steve Jobs has been remembered after his impact has been put into proper perspective.

(Though another thing that annoys me is when the top of HN comment threads become dominated by an off-topic discussion. Sorry swombat!)

<comment><USER4> I only ended up mentioning Steve Jobs because the Apple II came to mind as a piece of technology that was so awesome and beyond its time that it really ought to sell itself. It just so happens that Steve Jobs was the sales side of that business at the time (at least according to the biography).

I tremendously respect what Jobs achieved, but I don't think I'm putting him on a pedestal. Are you guys suggesting I should deliberately avoid using any of Apple's products or achievements as an example for anything because I might end up having to mention Jobs? That seems extreme, but it's the natural conclusion of your reaction...

<comment><USER5> _Apple II came to mind as a piece of technology that was so awesome and beyond its time_

Well... So the last man standing from the 8-bit days tells us (I mean Apple, not Jobs himself obv). But in truth, the C64 gave a _lot_ more bang for the buck, esp. when you include the price of disk drives! And was just as hackable, etc. Similarly, the ST and Amiga were much more powerful and cheaper and more hackable than contemporary Macs. The Jackintosh was the first machine to deliver 1Mb of memory for under $1000. I just think we need to keep things in the proper perspective. Apple made and indeed makes some great products. But it's also true that they smothered technically superior but not as well commercially managed competitors. History is written by the winners.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure how it makes sense to compare the Apple II to the C64...

The C64 was released in 1982 ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64> ), a whole 5 years after the Apple II in 1977 ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series> ), so I damn well hope that it gave more bang for the buck.

<comment><USER5> Compare directly to the 64k IIe, then. $595 vs $1200, according to Wikipaedia.

Anyway, my point is not to take anything away from Apple or Jobs, but it's a stretch to say that they were so far ahead of everyone else. If you need a hero for rhetorical purposes, try Jack Tramiel :-)

<comment><USER4> But I don't care about what was going on 5 years later. My point is that when the Apple II came out (not the IIe or the Mac or any other Apple product) they were miles ahead everyone else, and it was a product that in theory could have sold itself, but still needed a kick-ass salesperson to get off the ground. What happened years later is totally irrelevant to this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The main problem is when you're going bear hunting and they bring back a stampede of wolves. Wholly impossible to kill with the gun you brought, but if you tweak it just a little, you can kill them as well. Then the next time it's a an antler, that you can't kill like that due to regulation, but with just a few tweaks again.

Great sales people are a game changer. People that can sell your vision and convince the audience that the problem you're solving is the biggest issue their business faces. They're completely indispensable. Bad sales guys, the type I've usually come across, bring too little domain and product knowledge to the table, and end up selling the completely wrong thing if they sell at all. Like Ben Horowitz said, great sales people protect your business [1], they don't wreak unnecessary havoc on it.

[1] [http://bhorowitz.com/2010/08/29/the-right-kind-of- ambition-2...](http://bhorowitz.com/2010/08/29/the-right-kind-of-ambition-2/)

<comment><USER7> How exactly do you tweak a gun? And what sort of gun that will kill bears ain't gonna kill a wolf? And I am not sure that wolves stampede.

<comment><USER8> > How exactly do you tweak a gun? And what sort of gun that will kill bears > ain't gonna kill a wolf?

Simple example: there are a number of guns that can be converted from semi- automatic to full-automatic with very simple changes, removing a spring, filing something down, etc. If you've got a pack of wolves coming at you the rate of fire could certainly change the balance in your favor.

<comment><USER7> If you are equipped to hunt bear, I don't think you are using a semi- automatic.

It seems like we are getting into further trouble here. As this pack of wolves is stampeding (never heard of wolves stampeding, though) at you, removing the spring, filing something down might not be consistent with the very short period of time you have as this herd (?) of wolves is closing the gap on your, er, person.

<comment><USER9> If you are equipped to hunt bear, you are almost certainly not using an automatic. Any caliber high enough to drop a bear in one shot (which you want to do as to not ruin the bear) would break your arm into slivers were you to fire it at automatic speeds.

<comment><USER8> I'm no gun expert, never even fired one, but it seems there are many guns that would fit the bill. Example: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOoUVeyaY_8&feature=plcp](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOoUVeyaY_8&feature=plcp) in particular, watch at about 5min point to see the (lack) of) recoil, put slugs in it and I would think you'd have no problem stopping a bear. This guy's You tube channel in general contains a lot of things that would not have a problem stopping a bear. That said many are not your average hunting equipment either, but I don't think anyone goes out with the plan of getting close enough to a bear to use a shotgun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another silly generalization of developers and business people (here called sales men). Maybe the drawn stereotype matches many folks out there but this view is aged and not valid anymore.

Both the pure biz guy will die soon in the woods without any technical mindset and the dev will die soon when just waiting and hacking at the campfire. And together they won't be stronger. The picture the OP draws is from the past or taken from large corporations.

Successful entrepreneurs are both sales _and_ technical. Non-technical people are considered illiterate nowadays and won't achieve anything as people who can not hunt. Best proof is Instagram founder Kevin Systrom. And that's what is so great about Hacker News—here you find the highest density of tech founders both business-driven and technical.

So, if anybody still wants to talk in stereotypes then distinguish between hunters and non-hunters and not between tech and non-tech.

<comment><USER11> " _Best proof is Instagram founder Kevin Systrom._ "

Ouch. I hope we're not going to start saying that the extent of Instagram's success was planned and inevitable due to the great founders. Let's be honest, it's a great app, but they won the lottery. It's not every day a super-rich guy decides he needs your app, and is willing to stunningly overpay for it. (I'm sure Instagram would have jumped at $50 million if it was ever offered.)

I don't know Kevin Systrom. I'm sure he is as you say, a great 'sales and technical' entrepreneur. But Instagram's success in terms of their sales price is not reproducible. It's random. Like the lottery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Two things.

You can build a product but until you manage to sell your product to someone, it's not a company.

'Salesmen' are not the only way to get people to buy your product.

I think it's important to start making a distinction between sales and marketing. At one place I worked, the marketing team resented being lumped in with sales and were actually in direct competition with them: organic signups nibbled away at a salesperson's commission.

People are becoming more comfortable with the idea of purchasing a product without ever having spoken to a human being in the entire sales cycle, and that's a marketing job. For some companies, it obviates the need for 'sales'.

Having made that distinction, I would not go to war, so to speak, without a great marketer by my side. A salesperson, on the other hand...

The problem with traditional sales is the pay structure. For mediocre salesmen, working on a commission means "any warm body will do as long as they don't churn before I get paid". This translates into having problematic customers who will thrash and cause you grief before inevitably cancelling your service or returning your product.

</comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of the joke that goes:

What is the difference between a salesperson and an engineer? An engineer knows when they are lying.

</comment><comment><USER14> Great post. I thought it was going to be a "builders rule, sales jocks drool" post - until I kept reading till the end. At the end of the day, it's important that founding teams recognize the obstacles of every person's job, and keep the common goal of team success above else. It's not about how many bears he lures into the cabin using himself as live bait, not about how heroically the builder slays each monstrous bear. When everyone is celebrating getting to the fur market (?) in one piece!

</comment><comment><USER15> There's something about the story that, in its telling, feels a little leaky.

The developer is getting the cabin in order, the salesperson is out bear- hunting, and we assume the bear is the potential client.

While the developer is still building, the salesperson is trying to find bears. He then lures the bears into a cabin which, from its description, was not built for the purpose of capturing bears.

So why was the salesperson hunting for bears when the more appropriate target might have been deer? Or other hunters needing a place to stay? Oh... he got bored before it was even finished, so doesn't know who the ideal client is.

By the same token, why was the developer unpacking everything nice and tidy when they were going bear hunting? Shouldn't he be at least partly aware of how the salesperson works, or what he's going to do? Did he know to prepare the cabin for a bear, or for themselves (or other hunters), or just make the assumption?

There's a clear problem with communication, that has led two people, aiming to do the same thing, down two very different paths. The trip was bound to fail right from the start.

<comment><USER4> _So why was the salesperson hunting for bears when the more appropriate target might have been deer? Or other hunters needing a place to stay? Oh... he got bored before it was even finished, so doesn't know who the ideal client is._

Looking at it from a "Lean startup" perspective, you could say that the salesperson bringing that bear in enabled the business to figure out that actually, it should be targeting deers instead. I think we're both pushing the metaphor beyond its useful limits though :-)

<comment><USER15> Good reply. We could likely refactor the story based on all manner of different startup and corporate perspectives. One might involve the developer pointing his bear-rifle at the salesperson out of sheer frustration! (Personal experience perspective.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This story sounds familiar. Are the names of the salesman and developer Bear Claws and Jeremiah Johnson? :)

<http://youtu.be/FcsXC2xFis4?t=2m50s>

<comment><USER17> my father used to watch that movie at least once a month, usually with a bourbon in his hand, and alway a shit-eating grin on his face. i'm positive he wishes he could have been a mountain man when he 'grew up'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Developer's need to stop thinking "If I build it they will come".

Even the "dream" companies like Dropbox mentioned here had someone on that team who knew how to sell even if they were working as a developer.

Selling doesn't always mean knocking on doors sometimes it means figuring out how to make the first couple of deals with investors or working with a smart person who can help you develop a viral referral model etc.

Thought experiment: Today think about all the physical items in your life and how they came to be in your life. Beside the people most of those items were sold to you by someone or you bought them because you saw marketing about them. Very few of them did you buy because you woke up one day and said "I have to fly to LAX and buy a Widget".. You had to know that Widget was there and realize you wanted it before you could take the first action.

</comment><comment><USER19> This statement is pure gold: "I now believe that having someone whose job it is to go and find clients willing to give you money from day one is so important, that I would not start any company without such a person."

</comment><comment><USER20> Enjoyed reading the story and appreciate the challenge to balance out sales and development. They are both important but need controls to ensure 1) money comes in and 2) you develop and focus on the right product.

The point that stood out was the final lines on the importance of sales. This almost promotes the mantra of building sales first, product second; and ensuring you are having money arriving in to pay the bills (and/or investors).

Having recently heard profitable entrepreneurs speak, the common story is how when they spoke with potential customers about their idea (even pre MVP) and customers paid them. Yes, paying customers suggest you are on to a smart product. Maybe some merit in this approach.

</comment><comment><USER21> There's nothing worse than a company where the sales department has too much power. Especially if they are able to hand off the project once the sale is made. It makes it impossible for the rest of the company to innovate on products.

<comment><USER22> I assume you're referring to BigCo, or even just a non-startup. If you're referring to a startup, I have to disagree with you -- revenue in the door when you're starting out, even if you have to alter your product, is invaluable. In fact, you'll likely have to alter the product from the original vision to get revenue in the door period :)

<comment><USER21> So what if you have to alter your product in 5 different, possibly incompatible, ways because 5 sales reps all sold something that you don't have? And you have to have it done by the agreed-upon delivery date (between sales and the client)? You wind up with a gigantic, unmaintainable hack.

<comment><USER22> I see your point, but if you have 5 sales reps with the authority to green- light extreme features, you're not really a startup anymore. You're officially a full-steam ahead business, or you should be.

It also comes down to the amount of money these guys are paying as well. If you're selling to say, banks, insurers, or some other larger player, you should me bringing enough revenue to justify the added expenditure. If you're selling $200+/month software tools, there had better be more customers for it somewhere. But if you're selling anything less than $100/month, you nailed it. There's a problem.

<comment><USER21> Even if it's not grand new features it hurts innovation. If you have to sideline a product that's being worked on because sales sold a feature that doesn't exist and you have to hack together a solution quickly, by definition of it being a hack it probably isn't going to scale well to other customers. And even if it does, you are not building a cohesively product at this point, you are creating a product that caters to the wishes of a specific clientele who, by the way, probably wouldn't have a problem up and leaving your business if someone else is willing to cater a little more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Awesome post. So true.

</comment><comment><USER24> The thing that sucks about this story is that at the end, the customer is DEAD. Every great salesman I know cares deeply about the continued satisfaction of the customer. It's why they sell in the first place!

</comment><comment><USER25> developer and salesman: I miss the marketing guy from this story. (Or at least either the developer or the salesman should also wear the hat of a marketing guy.)

I think the rule of thumb is this: if you sell to the 'masses' you need great marketing, if you sell to only a few clients you need great sales.

I think of Steve Jobs more as a marketing guy than a salesman.

<comment><USER26> I agree with your rule of thumb except I look at it from another angle. Jobs was a salesman because while he sold to the masses, he did it on a 1-to-x level, it was about speeches, etc. He basically did what any salesman does, he just did it to huge audiences.

Marketing is about pulling the strings to promote something, not being the guy who actually persuades people.

<comment><USER27> I personally don't view sales that way. For me sales is a narrowly defined role whose job is to close individual sales - so you can't really do it "to the masses".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Were they worse off after the salesman did his job without knowing what they actually needed?

</comment><comment><USER29> This is just a terribly bad analogy.

<comment><USER4> Care to expand on why?

<comment><USER29> It just breaks down on so many levels. So the client is a bear, and the developer is setting up camp, and the salesperson draws a bear into the cabin which destroys all of the developer's hard work.

So the real-world analogy would be that the developer is setting up an architecture (which performs similar to a camp - as a staging point for reaching goals), and the business guy brings in a client that then...what? Destroys the architecture? Invalidates it in some way?

It doesn't follow. A better analogy would be that the developer is digging a pit to catch a bear in, and the business guy finds a bear that's too big to fit into the hole. In that case, you have an instance where no one is at fault and there's simply an unshared assumption about the limits of how big the bear can and can't be.

But that doesn't make for as exciting of a blog post.

<comment><USER4> That's hardly the point I was trying to make... What do you think of the rest of the article, which has nothing to do with architecture or whatever, but to do with the importance of sales in a business?

<comment><USER29> You don't touch on the crux of the problem - good sales is about building client relationships and account management, not one night stands (which is usually what the analogy you're describing devolves into).

Dropping an swaddled and basketed infant sale on the programmer's doorstep is not what sales is about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Wait, why is finding a bear in the woods the hard part? It's the woods, it has bears in it. The hard part would be actually killing it, and then all the skinning and dressing.</comment>


Data Brokers: Online Game Revenue Models with AI - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/a/rhFuj <comment><USER3> This is almost certainly fake: [https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/7qhcxo/ai_is_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/7qhcxo/ai_is_literally_everywhere_watching_and_listening/dsq93mm/?utm_content=permalink&utm_medium=front&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=pcmasterrace)

(Regardless of whether it's fake or not, it definitely brings up a lot of interesting questions as a lot of stuff described here is not impossible...)

<comment><USER4> A lot of these criticisms are based on the sloppy use of terminology and "pop" misunderstandings of machine learning ("AI"). However, this is clearly some sort of sales-pitch to a business (i.e. _non-technical_ ) audience. That kind of presentation is _often_ filled with pop buzzwords with abused definitions and exaggerated claims.

<comment><USER3> I think the purported backstory of how the internet came into possession of these slides via 4chan is at least as suspicious as the technical points.

This would definitely not be the first time sketchily photographed fake "leaks" have appeared there. Who is this company? Are they real? Who gave this presentation and to what audience?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Our main revenue creation tactic ... involves utilizing persistent bait-and- > switching ...

That's a very clear confession of _mens rea_ [1].

> Clever Indicators - <USER2>

> This monitoring system keeps specialized information contained within the > device so that our company and your company is not able to take in any raw > or identifiable data. This means there is no legal issues across borders.

Aka, intent to bypass GDPR and similar laws by "cooking" the data (e.g. hashing) into what DJB calls[2] "magic crypto pixie dust" that "takes personally identifiable information and makes it incomprehensible to the marketing department" or anybody else that doesn't understand how hashes can be reversed, correlated, tracked, etc.

> The software takes in things like acceleration XYZ, geoposition, SMS > send/receiving timings ..., GSM strength and estimated XYZ location, nearby > audio, nearby MAC address/wifi names, and nearby cell phones discovered > through a completely passive side channel attack

The rest of "Schedule 'Z'" shows some of the uses for that data. After reading that, does anybody still think giving easy access to sensors is a good idea? You cannot determine the behavior of Turing complete software without running it, and you cannot enumerate badnesss.

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

[2] [https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...](https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html#bernstein)

<comment><USER5> There's also the section where they describe intentionally skirting laws by using AI to perform actions that would be illegal for a human.

This entire presentation feels dirty.

<comment><USER6> Not to mention the pictures taken as if they were riding a bull. The ideas in their presentation are interesting, nonetheless. Fuck professionalism! /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a gross deformation of what a game should be.

We've hit the point where many applications that claim to be games are more like gambling for electronic rewards, this presentation unabashedly pushes things farther away from the historic value proposition offered by games (enjoyment) and closer to the present value proposition offered by gambling (rewarding compulsivity).

<comment><USER6> TLDR: There are two ways to justify progress in a game: proof-of-play and proof-of-pay. Stay away from games that allow the latter if you like your money.

\---

Yeah this is the problem with pay-to-win games. Pay-to-win often becomes pay- to-resell-equips-for-a-profit, which is just gambling on the future value of those in-game digital tokens, items, and currency. Without a good _game_ underneath, it eventually becomes one big valueless scheme.

Pay-to-play is often implemented in such a way that it is actually pay-to-win. A really good bullshit test on any video game is to first ask which category it falls under:

      1. Pay-to-play (sufficiently constant join-fee, this is fine.)
      2. Pay-to-win (DANGER!)
      3. Free-to-play (often implies paying for cosmetics, this is fine.)

One should carefully understand all value streams associated with a particular game, specifically _when real currency goes into the system, what comes out?_ Some red flags that indicate a game may be pay-to-win:

      1. You can buy EXP
      2. You can buy better gear
      3. You can buy scrolls that allow you to progress much faster (exp boosts, spawn increases, item drop rate increases, etc.)
      4. You can skip levels with money

Put simply, if Kim Jong-un can walk into the game and be the best player in under 72 hours, then the game is probably a waste of time. MMO games need to be done right, there can't be sudden phase-change events like a new player suddenly becoming the best player because they bought $84,000 in items from the cash shop (twinking is fine, since it can be backed by proof-of-play).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Article reference for "aggressively targeting women during the last 2 days of the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle" in "Schedule Z" [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0183462)

"We are also in the process of contacting the author of [http://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/papers/volume14/stowell13a/stowell...](http://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/papers/volume14/stowell13a/stowell13a.pdf) which with their help in applying their algortithm listed in the paper will help us to pinpoint certain variables we require."

<comment><USER8> There are enough real techniques in here that it has some credibility. Looks like some of the things I have seen marketing teams who really don't understand the tech put together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> When these statisticians, engineers and developers stand face to face with one of their beloved "whales" who lost his wife, children and home to his addiction will they say "I was just doing my job, could you ever forgive me?" or will they say what they were thinking when they implemented this shit:

"Thank god you're so predictable, sir! You're not an idiot, really, we're just really good at our job! But, now you're spent."

<comment><USER10> I mean, the cigarette people for example have done much worse for much longer. Not all humans are humanists. That's why governments need to regulate what is legal and what is not, like they did in many jurisdictions with cigarettes.

<comment><USER9> And we stopped the cigarette people from advertising to children and required that they become completely transparent about their habit forming product.

As you say, we can't make everyone a humanist but we can demand that everyone be transparent when they're selling a potentially life destroying product.

<comment><USER10> that was exactly my point, the part about government regulations, if you did read the comment

<comment><USER9> I did read the comment, that's why I refereed back to it with an "as you say".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The google drive links are still up. Has anyone tried emailing the owner yet? The email address is really weird.

</comment><comment><USER12> Reading this made me a little queasy. Is it real?

<comment><USER13> Nothing about to reads like it's real to me. Show the "AI Profile" to anyone that works on building models and they'll find it funny, not sinister.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds like this came from 4chan which runs the following disclaimer

> The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and > falsehood.

> Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.

</comment><comment><USER13> AI profile:

Breadth: Ultra-Wide Depth: Ulta-Deep Noise: Very Low Problem Set: [omitted] Goal Tree: [omitted] Residual Block Weight: [omitted] Server Origin: Testing setup room past [censored]'s Gate Conference Room.

That is hilarious, I'd really enjoy it if Breadth: Ultra-Wide became a meme, it's so nonsensical.</comment>


How long should a SaaS free trial be? - <AUTHOR> https://www.leadboxer.com/blog/long-saas-free-trial/ <comment><USER2> A (fixed) trial period is analogous to having constant list prices or, in statistics, simple average with some constant time period. A more flesible approach would be to gradually decrease the amount of resources available to the account. Or even better some kind of machine learning algorithm could compute how these resources should be varied in order to maximize some goal function (like probability of switching to a paid account).</comment>


Folding-markdown: Adds header folding for Markdown files in Atom - <AUTHOR> https://atom.io/packages/folding-markdown <comment><USER2> what are the plans for atom? will it be discontinoued?

<comment><USER3> If Microsoft can sustain so many teams working on To-Do apps [https://twitter.com/4Lou/status/1265723231396417536?s=20](https://twitter.com/4Lou/status/1265723231396417536?s=20) that they need a chart to illustrate how your To-Dos will move between apps, I think Microsoft can afford to put a small team towards maintaining Atom while a larger team works on VS Code and separately Visual Studio. There are different target audiences, and unless Atom and VS Code end up borrowing architecture ideas from each other, and introduce API compatibility, I don't see that changing in the near future. Generally speaking, Microsoft cares enough about existing customers and backwards-compatibility that I could see them maintaining it until there's more overlap in UI. There's another option too, that GitHub is large enough they might prefer using Atom internally over VS Code by enough developers to support the project in the spare time of the developers using Atom instead. So I'd say Atom is only discontinued if it breaks due to lack of developer use and interest, like just about any open source project. I mean, has Bower been discontinued? [https://bower.io/](https://bower.io/) No, but yes? ;-)

<comment><USER4> Interest is gradually dropping apparently:

[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=%2Fm%2F0_x5x3g)

<comment><USER5> Looks like more popular in China?

<comment><USER4> I wonder why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> does anyone know a simple app that allows hyperlinking within notes? I want to create a roam-style knowledge base, but atom is a bit too heavy for my purposes. I prefer to keep things cross-compatible and future proof with .txt or .rtf, but to my knowledge, neither allow hyperlinking to documents

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds like Obsidian, which was submitted to HN yesterday: [https://obsidian.md/](https://obsidian.md/) ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324598](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324598))

It supports links to other notes and to files: [https://obsidian.md/features](https://obsidian.md/features)

<comment><USER6> how is it compared to Joplin?</comment></comment></comment>


Small science, big diseases - <AUTHOR> http://ideas.time.com/2014/02/24/small-science-big-diseases/

<comment><USER2> This is fundamentally a play in how smaller companies can take higher risk, more agile approaches to solve big problems. When a VC looks at this, he or she sees an asymmetric risk profile: huge risk bounded by losing everything. For example, if an investor puts in 100k, the most he or she can lose is 100k, but the upside is much much more than 100k. For me as a founder, though, this is the reason I love startups -- they can change the world. Taking big risks and having world-changing (even more than monetary) success is something that startups can do that mature companies sometimes struggle to do (with exceptions, of course).

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely. It's like a very out of the money call option. Doesn't cost much to play, but huge upside.

The strange thing is this goes against some traditional thinking, which says that larger firms are more able to bear risk than smaller ones since they can diversify away the costs of failed projects. To your point, it's actually the VCs that do this diversification rather than the large companies.</comment></comment>


Test Driving iOS development with Vim - <AUTHOR> http://www.puppysound.com/blog/2011/1/25/ios-development-with-vim.html

<comment><USER2> This was a great read. Many coders have not toyed with the underpinnings of Xcode and its rich NeXTStep heritage. Anything done in Xcode can be done with XML and command line tools included with the Apple developer tools.</comment>


Why You Keep Dreaming About Being Naked(2015) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/77/underworlds/why-you-keep-dreaming-about-being-naked-rp <comment><USER2> Strangely enough, I've never had a dream about being naked. I've dreamed of flying, swimming, fighting, searching for or hunting down someone or something or some place, and working to complete some project that didn't make any sense after I woke up.</comment>


With Firefox Version 58, WebAssembly Gets 10X Faster - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoq.com/news/2018/01/firefox-58-web-assembly-gets-10x <comment><USER2> Clickbait: It's not 10x faster performance, but 10x faster compilation speed.

<comment><USER3> So it _performs_ compilation 10x faster?

<comment><USER2> Except WebAssembly is rarely used in a scenario where compilation is the only factor of performance.

<comment><USER4> Give it time...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Car-Hacking: Why would anyone want to hack my car? - <AUTHOR> http://www.infocarnivore.com/2010/09/08/why-would-anyone-want-to-hack-my-car/

<comment><USER2> It's incredible what you can control once you gain access to a cars ECU.

Locks, ignition, alarms and even the stereo are all operable via the ECU and this is the key point. I can appreciate that more cars are adopting wireless technology and keyless technology but gaining access to the ECU in that manner would be akin to cleaning the spark plugs via the sump.

 _Why would anyone want to hack my car?_

This isn't the pertinent question, the question is 'When will we get to a point where someone can hack my car remotely?'

<comment><AUTHOR> Well they are separate issues. But your question is key as well, with the increase in wireless it probably won't be long. Even still with a few minutes access to a vehicle (such as at a mechanics shop) a remote attack could be setup...</comment></comment>


Startup incorporation checklist - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/leonar15/startup-checklist <comment><USER3> It's worth mentioning that incorporation by itself doesn't get you very far in terms of protecting against personal liability. It's really just the first step in company formation. You'll want to appoint directors and officers as well. And to protect against departures, IP issues, etc., you'll also want to issue stock with vesting to founders, and have everyone enter into IP agreements.

We've automated all of this at Clerky - you can do everything completely online using our software. We do a _ton_ of company formations. If anyone has any questions on the topic, feel free to ask!

<comment><USER4> The author raises 1 point that Clerky's services doesn't seem to include, Qualification of the Foreign DE C-Corp. I think this is a service/legal requirement applicable to almost any incorporated DE startup. Is this something Clerky does behind the scenes or something Clerky customers are advised to address with a local lawyer? Is there a chance some of these startups are not properly qualified in the States they are physically located?

Along the same lines, while it appears Clerky annually renews a DE registered agent for startups, I don't see anything regarding filing of the DE Annual Report/paying Franchise Taxes. Is this a service behind the scenes or something Clerky just prefers to defer to the startups and/or other professionals?

<comment><USER3> We definitely handle the "Register with CA" part of the checklist, and we have that as part of our checklist that we send to companies after incorporation. For companies not located in CA (where CA foreign qualification is usually not necessary), we partner with a third-party service that handles all the other states (we've negotiated a discount with them for our customers too).

DE Annual Report / franchise taxes - I personally think this is easy enough that founders can do this on their own. We have a support article for it here:

[https://support.clerky.com/articles/how-does-a-company- file-...](https://support.clerky.com/articles/how-does-a-company-file-its- delaware-annual-report-and-pay-its-delaware-franchise-tax/)

But the registered agent that we partner with can also help people with this if they need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some other resources that have served me well - not for incorporation per se, but the next few steps in setting up a healthy corporation:

\- Docracy.com has some good templates (contributed by some incubator I can't recall) for bylaws, ip assignation, founder terms, terms of service and privacy policy and customer contracts, etc.

\- Listing a phone number with one of the large online directories helps with various verifications (including EV SSL if you need it and facebook page)

\- insureon.com to shop for insurance.

\- Get bookkeeping software. Right away, and keep it up to date

Edit: the docracy docs are by Techstars: [https://www.docracy.com/userprofile/show?userId=30](https://www.docracy.com/userprofile/show?userId=30) and Orrick, a law firm: [https://www.docracy.com/p/10881/orrick](https://www.docracy.com/p/10881/orrick)

<comment><USER6> For bookkeeping I use Xero and love it. Then Expensify for expenses.

For payroll, Gusto (formerly ZenPayroll) is wonderful. I can't emphasize enough how much of a headache this takes away from me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Setting up a corporate entity (any kind) in California gives you a mandatory minimum $800/yr bill from the CA Franchise Tax Board.

So if you are planning to incorporate in CA, be sure you are serious and don't mind an automatic $800 on the expense side without anything on the revenue side.

Please correct me if I am wrong on this.

Also, does anyone know why this is the case? I haven't seen this in a few other states where I have resided. What does this buy my company in terms of benefits? Was there some ballot proposition that got passed to levy/enforce this fee?

<comment><USER3> Yes, that's correct - although for corporations, you typically don't have to pay it for the first year (as long as you foreign qualify in CA for that year). So at least you get a small reprieve there :)

<comment><USER8> Actually you don't have to pay it for the first year, even if your business is resident in California.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Has anyone here tried Atlas ([https://stripe.com/atlas](https://stripe.com/atlas))? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

<comment><USER10> I'd love to see a Stripe Atlas directed at US startups. I don't see why incorporating should be so expensive and laborious.

<comment><USER11> US startups are very welcome to use Atlas -- many already have!

<comment><USER12> I was turned down. Have you opened it to everybody?

<comment><USER11> Hm -- can you drop me a note? (firstname.lastname@example.com.) I'd like to dig into why. It's still invite-only but you shouldn't have been turned down because you're in the US.

<comment><USER13> Patrick, it would be great if you could open a msg forum for Atlas companies, like YCnews.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> All this legal tape and bureaucracy is really an impediment to a young startup, especially if you're trying to bootstrap. I was personally hit with the california LLC fee of $800 a year (was three years behind) and one day I logged into my Silicon Valley bank account and saw $3,300 withdrawn by CA Franchise Tax Board. Not the happiest day of startup life.

<comment><USER15> That California business AMT ("franchise tax" of $800 a year, even if your business earns $0, or negative dollars, even if your business is a nonprofit) is a small business assassination program. I moved to California unaware of it, and was unable to migrate my non-profit to help fellow combat veterans with civilian reintegration, because the AMT was around my operating budget for the year. That's not a lot, but I can tell you that combat veterans have come to me asking for help, and I am unable to provide assistance except from my own pocket. California is infuriating.

<comment><USER7> "small business assassination program"...

Thank you. Thats exactly what I would classify it as. Drown the startup in a bathtub (using a bit of Grover Norquist rhetorical flourish there). I am just not bright enough to see what the upside of this fee is, especially in CA which I thought was a business/startup friendly state.

<comment><USER15> The "upside" of the fee is nothing more than feeding the voracious appetite of the state of California. The explanation for this AMT franchise tax literally uses the phrase "for the privilege of doing business in California". The state tax board knows what it's doing, and it doesn't care, because the truth is that loads of people want to start a business in California or run a business from within California as a resident, and have no other choice but to pay the AMT franchise tax ( _even if_ the business is incorporated in Nevada or Delaware, if most of the business occurs in the state of California, the tax man still cometh).

It is greed. Plain and simple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Warning: there's a really important point missing from this list - pay taxes in California. There's a minimum "Franchise Tax" of $800 plus a percentage of California-derived revenue. All entities doing business in California (be that selling to customers based there or having employees there) must register with the state and pay this. The first year is free though - the minimum is waived.

</comment><comment><USER16> HN has a global audience. Might be worth noting that this advice is aimed at Americans. This could be very bad advice for non-Americans.

I'm a lawyer who deals with startups in Toronto. Quite a few people ask about how to set up a Delaware corporation because they've seen online that that's how you create a startup.

<comment><USER17> Can you share contact information for your services to tech startups?

<comment><USER18> User history is a useful thing: [https://www.cameronhuff.com/](https://www.cameronhuff.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Although I appreciate this list is aimed at a narrow case (incorporation in Delaware with operations in California), I'd still pay a little more attention to the "choose a name for your business" stage to avoid surprises.

At the very least, check the name isn't a registered trademark in a similar business (at uspto.gov), and that there isn't another significant company with the same name globally (opencorporates.com is a good starting point, as well as Google).

You don't want to limit international expansion later by picking a name that is a well-known company already. For example, when Burger King expanded to Australia in the 1970's the name Burger King was already trademarked locally, so they had to rebrand as Hungry Jack's.

Of course also do a Google search to see if words in the name are widely used, perhaps meaning something unsuitable in another language.

Finally, although maybe becoming less important, it's useful if the .com domain is available (either unregistered, or at a reasonable price).

Better to do all this before spending the money on incorporating with a name you might need to change later.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've heard that for small businesses in California, incorporating in Delaware for tax reasons doesn't legally make a whole lot of sense because California will want to tax you anyway. Is that the case? If so, why are so many people still set on incorporating in Delaware?

<comment><USER21> A lot of what Delaware buys you is a transparent, functioning, and predictable state legal framework and court system.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. If you plan to build a business and raise VC money for it, Delaware is the standard place to incorporate (which is the case for my company and checklist, btw).

California does add an extra layer of burden and compliance that I did not expect, but if you plan to have employees in California you must incorporate there as a foreign entity (also my case).

I've also heard from a fellow entrepreneur who has a distributed workforce that you need to incorporate in every state with an employee. This is certainly outside the scope of my checklist.

<comment><USER8> If you plan to sell anything in Californa you must also register there as a foreign entity. And pay taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Nice thanks, I'd like to see such lists or guides for other countries such as Canada or European ones, if it makes sense. Of course it doesn't replace a good lawyer but at least to get an idea on how hard it is for founders.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to see other guides pop up as well. Still shocked at the number of agencies, documents, forms, and faxes that are required just to set up a simple company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> You can save on the incorporation services by downloading forms directly from a given state's Secretary of State site. Most states have clear instructions on how to fill everything out and where to submit the paperwork and payment. Incorporation service companies are great, but if you're trying to bootstrap a startup every dollar counts.

Additionally, if there will be multiple owners/members of the new entity I strongly suggest buy/sell agreements (basically a contract stating who can sell their interest and when and to whom - saves a lot of headache later to figure these things out up front).

</comment><comment><USER24> As a quick plug, you can sign your incorporation docs with HelloSign ([http://www.hellosign.com](http://www.hellosign.com)) and fax Delaware with HelloFax ([http://www.hellofax.com](http://www.hellofax.com)).

(Co-founder of HelloSign and HelloFax)

<comment><AUTHOR> HelloFax has been a great service in my incorporation process (and I listed it in the "Tools & Resources" part of the checklist!).

In my case, I used the InCorp service to file my DE docs since I needed an expedited service and they could walk the documents over on my behalf. In the past, I did that portion myself.

Thanks for building a great service and down with the fax machines!

<comment><USER24> Nice, really appreciate you listing us.

Down with the fax machines! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Cool checklist. Would you mind if we input this checklist into our tool? - [https://www.processd.com/](https://www.processd.com/)

We have a way to publish checklists like this so users can actually check things off.

See our Show HN post for more details! :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Checklist author here...

Thanks! Glad you liked it. This checklist is what I've been going through for the past many months with my startup. Creating the list was a cathartic process and my original audience was meant to be friends who are building their own businesses. Glad to see it's getting more attention now.

I'd be fine with it getting added elsewhere as a more usable checklist as long as there's a link back to the github repo. I plan to update the checklist as I learn about new requirements and/or get pull requests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This checklist is a fine first step in completing the externalities of corporate formation. However, it is only the first step. There is a whole second step of issuing stock, appointing directors, holding a first meeting, electing officers, adopting bylaws, and a whole slew of internal items that should be on the check list as well. Most of these are forms that could be handled by a lay person as well, but you won't get any corporate liability protection without them. There are also annual meetings and such that are required to maintain the corporation. If you are serious about DIY incorporation do some research, you could probably find some good manuals out there with forms and everything.

</comment><comment><USER27> If my company won't be making money or revenue for quite some time, what does that mean for me in terms of the IRS? Will we get penalized for NOT having revenue?

<comment><USER28> In the United States you will not be penalized for having no revenue.

<comment><USER29> You are effectively penalized in California for zero revenue, see all the comments in this thread about the $800/yr minimum tax.

<comment><USER28> To clarify, I was assuming State and Federal fees not to be considered being penalized and simply cost of doing business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Where is CAAS "Company as a Service" as a business? Particularly for single person companies, I could see this being a very useful service.

</comment><comment><USER31> Can someone please tell me what to check under management for a ca llc?

[http://bpd.cdn.sos.ca.gov/llc/forms/llc-1.pdf](http://bpd.cdn.sos.ca.gov/llc/forms/llc-1.pdf)

I've been told I'm a member. I'm also the only person. Should I be the manager? Is all members plural and I shouldn't use that? Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER32> InCorp is referenced in the non-free tools section but not in the recurring fees section. Is this an oversight ?

Isn't there a DE requirement that you have an _agent_ (?) operating within the state if your HQ is in CA ? Incorp currently charges me $100+ a year to do this.

<comment><USER8> Third item on the checklist:

\- Buy registered agent service in DE - 1 yr Free

<comment><USER32> Exactly. Why implicitly suggest it is recurring, but then deliberately exclude it from the recurring fees section.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> i always incorporate in my home state when starting a new venture, its much easier to manage.

all assets can later be sold to another LLC or Corp as the need arises, but doing all these steps in advance can just cause undue headache and complexities.

also, california is about the least small business friendly state in the union. and AFAIK, having a delaware corp doesnt save you all that much in taxes anyways. so glad i no longer have to deal with that state.

complex corp setups also confuse some investors, certainly if you are raising capital from those not savvy in the plethora of ways corps are setup to circumvent taxation and game the domicile game. they basically think you are a scammer(been there)

just 0.02

</comment><comment><USER34> How relevant is this to a single person wanting a corporate front to make small amounts of side money from a website or app? Is an in-state LLC more preferable in that situation? Is any type of incorporation even necessary?

<comment><USER35> You should be fine just forming a disregarded-entity LLC in your state.

There's no reason to do it in Delaware, except want to part with a lot more of your money. Even if you form the LLC in Delaware, you will have to register it as a foreign entity in your home state, so you're only doubling your paperwork and annual costs.

It's worth chatting with an accountant about this. Many of them offer a free 30- or 60-minute consultation to new clients (or potential clients).

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> How about shutting down a company? Anyone have any tips on that?

<comment><AUTHOR> That'd be a great list! I guess this depends on multiple factors like how many employees you have, how many investors, etc.

I've heard that for pre-funded DE corporations you can basically ask your registered agent to formally "resign" as your agent and then the corporation is orphaned. The proper way involves filing paperwork to dissolve the entity along with paying some filing fees.

<comment><USER3> That might work with some registered agents, but it won't with Incorp - <USER2> will require you to either have a new registered agent in place, or you need to dissolve your company.

<comment><AUTHOR> My experience with InCorp was exactly as described earlier. They resigned and that was that.

<comment><USER3> Good to hear... we repeatedly ran into this issue with them over the course of several years. I can't tell you how many times we argued with them over this. But it sounds like they may have reformed their ways!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> How we can open checking account in SVB? They rejected to open account for us saying that we are not tech vc-backed startup, but we are! Or any other possibilities?

<comment><AUTHOR> FWIW, you can easily open a business checking account at any bank and they usually have better online services than SVB. Often you can ask your personal bank to waive the fees on a business account if you've been with them for a while.

<comment><USER37> We are not US-residence, i forgot to mention about this

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Someone should do Stripe Atlas for US startups.

</comment><comment><USER38> [Sorry for off-topic] Could someone point me to a similar resource for starting a startup in Germany, preferably in English?

</comment><comment><USER39> As a foreigner (non-US), why create the company in the U.S. instead of somewhere like Ireland which has lower taxes?

<comment><USER40> Two reasons: main target is the US market and/or raising american venture capital.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I would love If anyone extend this information for foreigners (in my case EU) wanting to open a US based company.

<comment><USER42> I'm from the EU and opened an LLC in the US. I think this list just applies. Except for the visa, that is actually the biggest hurdle. Unless you invest > $500k.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Any additional requirements if one of two partners live outside US?

</comment><comment><USER27> This is great. Just what I need. My non technical co founder and I are starting a company and I want to make it a real company before we start meeting 3 days a week.

<comment><USER35> Why should making it "a real company" be necessary before meeting any number of times per week?

You're probably better off having those meetings first, and waiting to incorporate until you're sure you have a business.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, agreed. No need to incorporate just to get together and hack on a project. That said, I would certainly consider (at the very least) signing an agreement with your hacking buddy before launching anything that might generate revenue.

I've seen and heard multiple co-founder friendships fall apart once things started to get "real". Good luck!

<comment><USER27> I want legal agreements in place before I start writing code with a non technical co founder. We've agreed upon a 50/50 equity split.

<comment><AUTHOR> One reason to incorporate as a C or S-corp is that it's easy to add 4-year vesting to founder shares. This protects you if your co-founder walks away after 6 months. It's much harder (if it's even possible) to vest "shares" in an LLC.

In your case of a 50/50 split, make sure your agreements also have a clause that deals with disagreements. IT's likely you'll come to a point in your business where you do not agree and 50/50 ownership can make your business stall. Codify how those disagreements are solved before you get there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> What about trademarks?

</comment><comment><USER45> I see no mention of sales and use taxes. Welcome to Hell.

[https://www.boe.ca.gov/info/taxoverview.htm#sales](https://www.boe.ca.gov/info/taxoverview.htm#sales)

<comment><USER30> There are a number of "Sales tax as a Service" businesses like Avalara out there, which honestly ANY small business that can afford it should partake.

I worked for a company that tried to build an in house sales tax rule calculator, it's damn near impossible unless you want to devote a team of people just to sales tax, and certainly not worth the risk.</comment></comment>


Fluffify - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/serverdensity/Fluffify/blob/master/fluffify/gossip/dictionary.json <comment><USER2> _Coorporate phrases and 'enterprise' words turn our stomach. Unfortunately other people write them, but with technology we're not completely helpless! We've devised a Chrome plugin to replace the terms we're so sick and tired of hearing - to an equivalent (that we're not)._

Repository: [https://github.com/serverdensity/Fluffify](https://github.com/serverdensity/Fluffify)</comment>


Announcing Hash - <AUTHOR> https://hash.ai/about/mission <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23563358](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23563358)

</comment><comment><USER3> I found this copy incredibly boring to read...</comment>