Why a house is a terrible investment (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://jlcollinsnh.com/2013/05/29/why-your-house-is-a-terrible-investment/ <comment><USER2> This is awful analysis. Almost every one of the bullet points is just wrong, or at least terribly spun. I mean, one of them argues that homes are "heavily taxed" when of course they are the source of the biggest single deduction category in the whole budget, another claims with a straight face that the ability to leverage the investment via a (again, government subsidized!) loan is a _bad_ thing!

Now, obviously not all investments are winners, even if they are "good" investments in principle. And there are all sorts of very good arguments about why homes _should not_ be subsidized in the way they are, and that our government has made them "too good" in a way that harms the public as a whole. But nonetheless homes in almost all of the US are absolutely good investments. They have been for going on three quarters of a century now and certainly don't show signs of stopping.

<comment><USER3> This is excellent analysis. Every one of the bullet points is correct, and you've picked one to debate (and misinterpreted the argument): relative to virtually every other investment you can make, homes _are_ heavily taxed. Arguing that you can (possibly) deduct some of those taxes misses the point. I don't have to pay my state and local governments annual taxes on the stocks and bonds that I own.

On average, homes in the US appreciate at about the rate of inflation, and the choice to rent vs. buy is favorable in some markets, unfavorable in many others. It's nowhere near as clear-cut as the comments in this thread would lead you to believe.

<comment><USER4> I recently sold and bought a house, and as far as I know I paid no taxes on it, and I am still deducting mortgage payments. I could pay off my mortgage tomorrow (it's Sunday here, so I'd have to wait for my bank to open) but my accountant tells me that's a horrible idea.

<comment><USER5> In the USA, you would face capital gains taxes if your sales basis was greater than your cost basis.

<comment><USER6> Do I have to pay taxes on the profit I made selling my home?

It depends on how long you owned and lived in the home before the sale and how much profit you made. If you owned and lived in the place for two of the five years before the sale, then up to $250,000 of profit is tax-free.

If you are married and file a joint return, the tax-free amount doubles to $500,000. The law lets you "exclude" this much otherwise taxable profit from your taxable income. (If you sold for a loss, though, you can't take a deduction for that loss.)

<comment><USER5>
      up to $250,000 of profit is tax-free

You get that exemption _once_ in a _lifetime_. (If you are married filing together, that's once for _both parties_.)

If your profit isn't 6 figures, choose this option carefully.

<comment><USER7> Under current law, you can take the exclusion every two years: [https://www.irs.gov/publications/p523#en_US_2017_publink1000...](https://www.irs.gov/publications/p523#en_US_2017_publink10008998)

Are you referring to the over-55-once-in-a-lifetime exemption that was replaced in 1997 with the introduction of the Taxpayer Relief Act? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxpayer_Relief_Act_of_1997](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxpayer_Relief_Act_of_1997)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really fail to see how most of those points are relevant when you consider that a home is an investment you can, you know, live in. The alternative would be to rent indefinitely, which apparently we're ok with even though its not just a 0% return on investment, its an infinitely negative percent return on investment. Even if your house breaks even over 10 years, you still got to live in it for ten years for what is, functionally, the cost of interest + upkeep, which would often easily amount to less than rent.

If I stayed where I rented last year for ten years, the total cost over ten years (assuming the rent is never increased) (rent is _always_ increased) is $132,0000. Even if my house cost that much to maintain over ten years plus interest (it won't), I'll still break even on the principal and enjoy the benefits of home ownership.

That's not to say that home ownership is always the right choice for everyone in every stage of life. But to sweep a broad generality like "houses are a terrible investment"...

<comment><USER9> > I really fail to see how most of those points are relevant when you consider > that a home is an investment you can, you know, live in. The alternative > would be to rent indefinitely, which apparently we're ok with even though > its not just a 0% return on investment, its an infinitely negative percent > return on investment.

This would only make sense if you want to live in a place indefinitely. When the economy here (Alberta, Canada) tanked due to falling oil prices, people who were renting and were laid off simply gave their 1-2 month notice to their landlord and moved to Montreal or Southern Ontario for better employment opportunities. Those who owned could not do that without taking a huge loss, selling their house for less than the price they bought it for, potentially less than the remaining mortgage obligation, potentially leading to their bankruptcy. As for renting it out? Forget about finding a tenant in that economy. And even if they did, how could they manage a property from the other side of the country?

Mobility is worth more than zero. If you think the economy in the place you are living is going to be good for the rest of your life (or at least the rest of your mortgage term) and you are certain you would not want to move during this time, go ahead and buy a place. Otherwise, it makes sense to rent.

<comment><USER10> > potentially leading to their bankruptcy

Whoa, you have to go bankrupt to stop paying a mortgage in Canada? In the US, these are (in my experience) secured, non-recourse loans. That means that the bank's final option is to take the house, but if they do that, you owe them nothing else.

<comment><USER5>
      the bank's final option is to take the house

Sometimes not even _that_ , in states with homestead exemption protections.

<comment><USER10> Normally the homestead exemption would protect the homestead from creditors _other than_ the mortgage lender. Otherwise, it would be substantially impossible to induce banks to give mortgages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am generally sympathetic to the idea that homes are a bad investment. The fundamentals are terrible, as discussed in the article, the most important one probably being the lack of diversification. But I wonder how it meshes with the results proposed by the article "The Rate of Return of Everything." That article found that housing has only slightly underperformed stocks as an investment.

Now, obviously, if you're living in your house, you're not going to get nearly the same return -- this is the _total return_ on housing, so a house you're living at could be expected to provide returns on average as listed, minus the annual value of rent. But that means its overall performance as an investment is actually better than observed appreciation.

[https://www.frbsf.org/economic- research/files/wp2017-25.pdf](https://www.frbsf.org/economic- research/files/wp2017-25.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER11> "Don't worry millenials! You didn't really want a house anyway, it's a terrible idea! Keep paying those student loan payments and renting!" \-- Retired boomer with $1MM+ equity in their suburban California home purchased in 1975 for $10k.

<comment><USER12> *with 1975 property tax locked in thanks to prop 13

<comment><USER13> Is that accurate? Property taxes can change

<comment><USER14> Property taxes are locked to the purchase price of the home in California because of a law called Proposition 13. It's a been major contributor to the housing crisis but is extremely popular with everyone who currently owns property. It lets owners benefit from appreciation of their property without any increase in their tax liability while newer (and often younger) buyers must pay taxes based on the current absurd home prices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> No one has touched on

1\. Interest rates are at historic lows. Real interest rates have recently been negative. When this changes in the next decades, interesting things will occur.

2\. It is time for the baby boomers to leave their houses and move into smaller digs. There is a demographic shift on the horizon.

3\. The Republican tax legislation just hammered home deductions in many areas.

There are interesting times ahead.

</comment><comment><USER16> As a younger millennial I find myself far more interested in a home from a Maslow's hierarchy perspective than an investment at this point.

<comment><USER17> Yes! Tbh I wasn't really all that interested in buying. I finally gave in after spending a summer working with the homeless, and reading a Priceonomics article about David Raether. I got really afraid.

[https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to- fail/](https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-fail/)

<comment><USER18> This article didn't scare me just shined the light that people are truly not willing to sacrifice.

They had a $500k nest egg and living in a 4000 sqf home. The decision could have been to sell the home, downgrade to a home half the size, cut all 'future children investments' and lived a frugal life.

The best future investment that could have been made here is living within the reality of the numbers.

<comment><USER17> Absolutely agree. He should've downsized and cut expenditures, but for whatever reason (maybe hubris? Pride?) he allowed things to get out of control. For me, I know that I can get a job at Home Depot and make the mortgage payments, and that's why I stuck with something small and affordable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> When I was house-hunting, I found it really frustrating how difficult it is to truly price out the total cost of owning a house.

Many people think that renting is throwing your money away, and buying is acquiring equity. This is true as a first-order approximation, but far from the whole story. Home ownership also has ton of non-recoverable costs:

        - interest on your mortgage
        - mortgage insurance (if you have >80% LTV)
        - closing costs on your loan (2-5% when you buy)
        - property taxes
        - homeowners insurance
        - yard care / landscaping
        - HOA fees
        - home maintenance (estimated: 1%/year)
        - realtor fees (6% when you sell!)
        - excise tax (~1% when you sell, in my locale)

All of these costs come before you have contributed a single dollar of equity to pay down your loan. If you rent, your rent check covers all of the above expenses.

I'm still really happy to be a homeowner. I love my house and I love being able to do what I want to it. I just wish it was easier to price out the total cost of ownership prior to buying, so that rent vs. buy comparisons could be more enlightened. I certainly felt like I didn't have enough information to make a totally informed decision when I was choosing to rent vs. buy.

Part of what complicates this analysis is: a lot of the financial benefit arises from the house's _appreciation_ , not your accumulated equity. But betting on home appreciation is a bit of a gamble. Home values are subject to a lot of economic and political factors that you can't control. If the mortgage interest deduction went away, or mortgage interest rates rose significantly, it could devalue houses a lot.

</comment><comment><USER17> I bought a house in 2015 (at 32) and it was the best thing I ever did. Even though I had to move away, I turned it into a rental property, and it's earning $380 a month in profit. I've been using that profit to pay down the principal and add to my 401(k). My only regret is that I didn't buy a lot sooner.

<comment><USER10> I bought a house in 2013 and sold it in 2016 for a total return of probably close to 50% -- not including leverage, after factoring in avoided rents and all costs. If you include the leverage, the ROI was probably >100%. What's more, the cash I invested was at the moment of my investment significant with respect to my net worth -- something like 33%. So this was a great outcome.

However, that does not mean I made a _wise_ financial decision. I made a _lucky_ financial decision, which is very different. This article is about making wise decisions, and it's very hard to reason about this from results in a single investment.

I just want to add that a lot of people account very poorly for their real estate profits. Whether that number is good depends on how leveraged you are and the value of the property, and many other variables, like your costs and (unknowable) future vacancy rates. (If you have a lot of leverage and the property is only worth a little, that's great! It would not be very good in a scenario where the the property is paid off and worth $2M.)

<comment><USER17> My leverage wasn't that bad. To close I had to spend about $4,000. No down payment. It's an FHA 30-year fixed at 3.85%, so I bought really at the bottom of the market. I've got a great tenant and about to renew them for another year with no increase in the rent. The income from that has been a god send and I'm net positive on expenditures. I've managed to get 3 months ahead on the mortgage payments to account in case I DO have a vacancy and need time to find soenone. I just got extremely lucky. I bought out of a fear of being homeless (for whatever reason) and to secure a foudnation for myself as I grow older. It's become much more and I've learned a helluva lot.

<comment><USER10> I'm sorry, but the numbers you're putting out there indicate that you might be a person who does not understand how to value their investment property. The typical baseline number to have is one of the expected or historical cap rate. The terms of your mortgage and down payment are almost wholly irrelevant. And leverage is often considered good in real estate investing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For a lot of people the "investment" piece of owning their home is secondary to having a home to live in and raise their family in. Especially in the US, there are tax benefits to owning, and depending on the market owning could make more sense than renting.

<comment><USER21> Exactly. A house is more than an investment, it's a place to live. My sister and her family are living in their 3rd home in as many years because the owners of the places they are renting keep selling and don't renew their lease.

Then it's a hectic couple of months of finding somewhere new (but close enough to the same location so kids don't have to change schools) packing up everything in to boxes, moving and unpacking everything. It's 2-3 months of hassle they would love to avoid. Not everyone is buying a house as an investment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I own my own home and this idea being pimped to millennials that they should lease everything from car rides, music, movies, bicyles, and shelter is a fast curtain to a bad "third act." (read that as old age)

John Goodman said it best while playing a loan shark in the the film "The Gambler..."

Frank: You get up two and a half million dollars, any a-hole in the world knows what to do: you get a house with a 25-year roof, an indestructible [Japanese]-economy shit box, you put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes and that's your base, get me? That's your fortress of Fucking solitude. That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of fuck you. Somebody wants you to do something, fuck you. Boss pisses you off, fuck you! — Own your house. Have a couple bucks in the bank. Don't drink. That's all I have to say to anybody on any social level... Did your grandfather take risks?

Jim Bennett: Yes.

Frank: I guarantee he did it from a position of f __k you. A wise man's life is based around fuck you. The United States of America is based on fuck you. You have a navy? Greatest army in the history of mankind? Fuck you! Blow me. We'll fuck it up ourselves.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI)

</comment><comment><USER23> This logic is so specious.

Renting and owning from a cash flow perspective are usually pretty close, and you need to live, so a suboptimal investment with any return is better than making a landlord money and investing the scraps into 401ks.

I'm in my late 30s and missed the gogo crazy years. But everyone I know in my age cohort has had a positive, meaningful ROI in trading houses up at least once.

The supposed flexibility of renting is overrated as well. No decent landlord will take less than a 1 year lease, and some premium properties will demand a premium if you refuse a 2 year lease. Getting jammed up with buying out a lease early, or getting stuck with a high rent when the market cools is another way that renting is almost always a bad deal for the tenant.

This sounds like a corporate accounting analysis, not advice for people. People don't benefit from deducting opex.

<comment><USER24> > The supposed flexibility of renting is overrated as well.

Plus there's nothing keeping you from renting out your property and then living somewhere else.

You lose some of the nicer deductions and time spent being a landlord, and that certainly hurts ROI, but it's definitely not the case that you must live in what you own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> There was a flyer on my door yesterday. We pay cash for your home, close in 3 days. Avoid realtor fees. There is only one problem, I have to live somewhere.

I'm not huge fan of being a homeowner, but if I decided to rent, my rent would be almost twice what my mortgage is.

</comment><comment><USER26> The author makes a few good points, but IMO most others are negated by the two he conveniently skips:

1\. Your house is usually generating income (for a rental property) or offsetting the rent you would otherwise have to pay. Saying "you have to pay a lot of taxes" doesn't mean much unless you compare the numbers.

2\. He mentions that property value is tied to a specific geographical area (and that's a bad thing), but then contradicts himself by calculating appreciation based on the _national_ average. If you live in a fast-growing city then it's pretty certain that you're going to make more than inflation.

<comment><USER27> You're assuming that housing prices always increase. If they decrease, the property is not generating income but losses even if you rent it out.

<comment><USER28> That is equivalent to any investment. The difference is that the property still generates income if not capital total gain. A depreciated stock generates no dividend.

Moreover there is a floor on a value of a home unless you let it completely unmaintained or it gets bombed in a war. There is no floor on stocks. There is such a floor on some material futures. (Though probably lower.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Houses do pay dividends. You have to live somewhere, and you get to live in your house for free (in the analogy where it's discussed as an investment.)

The alternative is much worse in many markets.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is such a line of bullshit they're feeding the millennials. They want you to work without benefits in the "gig economy" and rent forever. Don't fall for it.

</comment><comment><USER31> This makes great points that shouldn't be ignored. But here's the reality: most people don't invest in anything but do pay rent. If you just shift that rent into a mortgage + repairs, at least you're investing in something that will slightly under-perform inflation (maybe).

It's lower risk / higher return when you think of it that way.

(I do not own a house nor do I plan to own one, however)

</comment><comment><USER32> I actually agree with a lot of the points made here. Still terrible advice. Youre always gonna need somewhere to live. Guess whats a better bet to invest in than an apartment? A house. If you buy though, check all your bases. Whats appreciation looked like for the last 10 years in this neighborhood? How are the schools? Hows the job market for professionals? etc.

</comment><comment><USER33> Reasons why your house is a good investment:

\- Massive tax subsidies provided by the government. Seriously apalling if you think about it hard enough, but since they're available, you should try to take advantage of them.

That list is sufficient.

</comment><comment><USER34> Homes are a bad investment except that we all need somewhere to live. Even if you're renting many of the costs and risks the article mentions are borne by the landlord and then passed on to you.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is totally a biased article against home ownership. Not one positive toward home ownership...I can't believe the author would be so biased.

<comment><USER36> One could write a similarly ridiculous article about how renting is flushing your money down the drain, you're paying someone else's mortgage, etc. Worrying about the rent going up, hoping your landlord isn't too much of a scumbag, and so on.

Sure, a house is not a great investment. But there's more to housing than investment. You have to live somewhere, and you're probably going to be paying for it one way or another. There's no perfect solution--you have to figure out what works for you.

We bought this house nine years ago, and hope that we never have to move again. Now the mortgage is about half of what it would cost to rent an apartment in this neighborhood. That's kind of a trap, too. There's no point to thinking about moving--there's no place we could go that would be cheaper than what we have unless we leave the area entirely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> My financial roadmap has "buy and live in a duplex to quadplex in Texas" on it, just for creditor protection purposes.

</comment><comment><USER38> Anyone who responds to this article by saying their particular house was a good investment didn't read the article.

</comment><comment><USER39> Every house I've ever owned has (a) cost _way_ less per month than rent (I know it will cost less, but I mean on the order of nearly 50% less) and (b) appreciated enough after a short time that it made a sale worth it. The first house we owned appreciated by about $25k in 2 years, and the house we're in now (according to comps we just ran as we're preparing to sell) has appreciated about $80k+ in 3 years.

You can make smart property choices, even for the home you occupy (i.e., not just rental properties). But "smart" includes evaluating all the criteria. If you live in an area with a ridiculous property market (e.g., the Bay Area) or a very, very slow one, then the investment isn't as enticing. I'm blessed to live in a market with a lot of movement for a variety of reasons, not just being a "hot" area to live in, but others are not so much. I'm also blessed to work remotely, so I can choose to live in an area like this. :)

tl;dr: this is probably true in a lot of America, but it's not universal by any means.

</comment><comment><USER40> The point is quality of life... Under the bridge is free...

<comment><USER41> The article doesn't say that buying a house is a bad idea — just that it's a bad investment. There's many reasonable motives for buying a house, you're just better off making sure that those motives are strong enough by themselves and you're not doing it "because it's a good investment"

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The article is basically correct. Let's explore the options.

BUYING REAL ESTATE

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

Take the average price of a home in the USA, according to a google's top result, approximately 200,000.

Take the average APR at the moment, 4.5%.

That results in a $800 payment per month for 30 years if you put 20% downpayment of 40,000. (source [https://www.dollartimes.com/loans/mortgage- rate.php?length=3...](https://www.dollartimes.com/loans/mortgage- rate.php?length=30&amount=160000))

Depending on the area, you'll most likely be able to rent a similar home for the same or lower amount.

BUYING STOCKS

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-

Take the same 40,000 downpayment and invest them in a low cost broad market index fund such as Vanguard, SPDR, etc.

Assuming an average long term return of around 9% for the stocks, after 30 years this will result in around $600,000.

(source [https://www.investor.gov/additional-resources/free- financial...](https://www.investor.gov/additional-resources/free-financial- planning-tools/compound-interest-calculator))

WHERE IT GETS INTERESTING

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

Let's look at what happens after only 5 more years. Your investment has now grown to over %933,000! If you wait 5 more years (40 years total), the sum is now $1,400,000+ !

Why? Because investments in stocks are compounded! I believe one of the reasons why people think a house is an OK investment is because they don't realize the biggest flaw of one house - it does not really compound the way liquid stocks or ETFs do. In the short run it's hard to see the difference but given a long horizon the differences become enormous.

There's reasons to own a home such a sentimental value, ability to modify it just you like it, etc. But people who believe it has been or is a great investment in the long term are deluding themselves. Look at it as something that's nice to have, or luxury if you will.

PARTING THOUGHTS

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

You can always come with an example where real estate was a great investment. You can make that argument both ways. If you bought real estate in 2009, you made great returns but if you do the above calculation for the average broad market ETF chances are the returns are even better!

In the long term, history is on the side of dynamic stocks/companies and not real estate. I don't have a crystal ball and can't promise you that choosing one or the other will be better next month/year/decade etc(aka past results do not guarantee future returns). After all, this is all facts of the past :).

<comment><USER28> I'd like to see a stock that reliably compounds in the way described. It'd be a killer. What I see is at best stable few percent smoothed compounding. Not 100%. Please consider historical variance at the very least which vastly outstrips APR. Losses get compounded to and there are major opportunity costs when you actually need cash for any of various reasons.

I have seen people get totally wiped out in a market crash. Some of them managed to keep property they owned.

History is not on anybody's side. Companies can fall too. Houses can be incorporated or stolen or get dilapidated.

<comment><USER42> You don't buy a single stock, you buy a basket of stocks which reduces the risk of some companies failing or losing value. Absolute minimum 5, preferably 10+ or an ETF which effectively combines dozens or hundreds of companies under one ticker.

It's easy to find one stock with way better returns than what I described over the long run, say 20+ years (example AAPL). It's also easy to find a stock that's way worse over 20 years (example HPQ). You have to keep up with that, sell the companies which are not good anymore, buy new ones, etc.

That's why an ETF is an "easy way out" for a small fee (usually 0.1% of the money invested or lower).

You can check the historical returns here and do the numbers for this ETF [https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0970&...](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0970&FundIntExt=INT&funds_disable_redirect=true) . You'll find it's very close to what I am describing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> _Your_ house might be a terrible investment. Rental properties not so much.</comment>


Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/ <comment><USER2> This article/researcher makes claims that: a) there is a mental health crisis among teenagers which is not parallel to other comparable generations, and b) that crisis is linked to mobile phones.

I'm not convinced by either claim.

In my experience of working with teenagers over the last couple of decades, there is a general trend that they are now better at communicating their emotional needs and emotional state. If teens are more able to clearly and openly express the fact that they are sad, does that mean they are more sad? I think not.

Teenagers face far greater economic insecurity than before, and are more acutely aware of it. What will the workforce look like when they graduate highschool? Jobs that teenagers would have been invited to do are being replaced with automated checkouts and computer vision algorithms. Teenagers are required to go into more debt than ever, to escape this lack of opportunities via education.

The article identifies that today's teenagers: get in less car accidents, have less risky sex, have a lower rate of teenage pregnancy, ingest less risky substances, are generally less violent - and presents this all as bad because it is different than what came before. Is it bad? Would people 20 years ago have thought this was bad?

The author expresses great surprise that people sleep with their phones beside their bed - whereas, it is a great surprise to me that she doesn't. It has an extremely useful function as an alarm clock.

I suspect that she would find that a vast majority of her generation of 47-year olds also sleeps with their phone within an arm's reach.

<comment><USER3> What a great summary. Tho I think the part about issues our society faces is a lot bigger than those few examples. Educated people have more than ever reasons to be depressed now:

\- pollution

\- economic stagnation

\- inflation

\- antibiotics failing

\- global warming

\- debt

\- automation and artifical intelligence

\- politics failing to tackle those issues (its a circus in some countries)

\- issues like Brexit

\- natural disasters

\- hard manipulation via mass-media

\- addiction algorithms in modern games/medias/programs

\- goverments cutting expenses on healthcare and education

And many more. Im surprised young ppl still have hope, thats very brave of them.

<comment><USER4> > automation and artifical intelligence

Isn't this supposed to be good for us and make people's lives better? If that's not the case, then it's really something to be worried about.

<comment><USER5> People still fear the "robots will take all of our jobs!" dialogue. Many societies still have work as a core component of personal value, so the idea of people having to work less doesn't translate to "Great, I can let these robots do the work and I can enjoy myself" but to "I can't find work and so I'm a worthless disgrace."

<comment><USER6> It's more that most societies have "doing work" as a core component of obtaining money, and requiring money for things like food, housing, ...

<comment><USER5> That is also true, but that is something that can be mitigated and resolved with government policies. However, that is unlikely to happen effectively in societies that have a work as a core component of personal value as they will say "they're not working? Why should we help them?" At some point the policy changes will NEED to happen, but the societies with that core value will have a very difficult time adjusting as value systems can't be changed overnight like laws can.

<comment><USER2> It _can_ be mitigated but it _isn 't_ being mitigated.

At some point those changes will need to happen, as you say, but it would be better if we didn't reach the point of needing a revolution to get there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> More than a mental health crisis or go outside more, the biggest harm that social+smartphone has ever done is end of _creating things_. The new generation is spending huge amount of time in _consumption_ and very little in creation. This is going to be a boon for the producers (book writers, movie makers etc) who will be in short supply for much larger consumption crowd. This will eventually be reflected in massive wealth gap where someone mints out large some of money out of 5 minute YouTube video becoming money sinks and while consumption crowd simply becomes money sources.

<comment><USER8> Look at the number of musicians, photographers etc complaining they can't make a living nowadays because someone else is willing to do the same thing for free.

Nobody being creative you say?

Though I share skepticism on smartphones. Off to read a book to my daughter now.

<comment><USER9> As a gigging pianist who struggles to get performances, I often think back to before recorded music. There was a musician playing or there was no music. Think of all the functions and events that automation, via recordings, has eliminated. It is not surprising, therefore, that the careers of musicians have been hollowed out and I must code to pay the bills.

<comment><USER8> True, though the same thing applies even to DJing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If/when I have kids, I think I'll be doing everything I can to keep them off smart phones (or at least, YouTube + social media + games like Fornite).

All these platforms seem explicitly designed to exploit insecurities and encourage a mindless mob mentality. It's the antithesis of individualism and I cannot see how it could possibly improve one's life (at least, before you have the maturity to be comfortable in your own skin).

The more I read articles like this, the more I think the whole thing is pure toxicity.

I don't know how realistic or practical it's going to be to ban smartphones/social media, while still encouraging programming, internet research, experimentation and so on.

<comment><USER11> If you don't give your kids smart phones you cut them off of people. It's a conundrum.

You will only be able to keep your kids off smart phones if you live in a community not using smart phones much for example the Amish. I think parents of the one percent could also create such a community for their children if they are diligent and choose the right private school.

My 6 year old son will go to a summer camp where smart phones are expressly forbidden. Not that I give him a smart phone but at least the older children won't have smart phones, too.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I suspect it really requires a community of like-minded parents.

Camp is a good start. For what it's worth, one state in Australia just announced a ban on phones during school hours - couldn't agree more.

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-25/victoria-to-ban- mobil...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-25/victoria-to-ban-mobile- phones-in-public-schools-from-first-bell/11246414)

<comment><USER11> That's not enough, I am afraid.

I think we should think holistically, this means, don't only look at school but also at family, peer relations and society at large.

In other words I propose that we should completely forbid functional smart phones for children below 10 years then officially introduce smart phones in school as a part of the school's curriculum. The curriculum also limits usage and relaxes the rules when the children get older. Children also should have a say about rules.

Also needed are places where children and teenagers can meet and these places must be autonomously accessible (for example near the school but independent from school).

Such a community allows the children to learn about internet and social media in a safe and controlled manner. I think the children would prefer to play together instead of staying alone in bedrooms anyway.

<comment><USER12> How on earth could that ever be realistically enforced?

<comment><USER11> The Amish know how to enforce their own rules.

<comment><USER12> By common values and mutual consent. What you're proposing, in the context of broader society, would have to be imposed top-down. Maybe I misunderstood and you're just saying it as a nice what-if, in which case I would agree that small children should be grounded in the physical world first.

<comment><USER11> Yes, this is a what-if, and for some lucky people even achievable (Amish and one percent).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't think it's smartphones, I think it's the fact that the entire ecosystem of our most used apps is a walled garden. Our entire experience is made up of proprietary corporate apps. We have little choice to change or create our own information flows - everything is dictated by hidden code/algorithms. If I can't see the code, I am not the one doing the controlling, I am being controlled. The most detrimental app we all use - banking and money creation, is the most hidden and unchallenged one so far. We're still using the legacy Industrial Age money and banking system.

I think it's time that we evolve to a more compassionate world.

To help build the distributed, cooperative and open source economy check out The MetaCurrency Project (Ceptr, Holochain), Secure Scuttlebutt and Manyverse, DAT, Loomio, CoBudget and others

What does the 'More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible' (Charles Eisenstein) look like to you?

Does having a closed source system for our communication, banking and governance tools help keep the 'smartest' people at the helm, or is this grandiosity and immature magician energy? Does it create an oppressor, victim and savior triangle?

<comment><USER14> I don't think it's smartphones either. I think it's a philosophical issue with digital systems in general. The over-simplified abstractions, physical distancing, and flattening of affect lead to superficiality and constant unfocused distraction.

Open/closed isn't even an issue compared to the limitations of the medium itself - because there is no such thing as a truly open digital system.

Only the smartest people can create industrial-scale digital systems _by definition_ , so the idea that opening up the source code will somehow change this is very hard to take seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Smartphones and social media have begun to represent this weird post-modern phenomena of the destruction of social relationships.

So few social experiences happen through a non-cybernetic medium now. The average number of interactions a person has online now must be higher than those offline. Platforms like Facebook or Twitter don't connect us with more people, they detach us from more people and connect us to their platform.

<comment><USER16> On the other hand.....surely there is some value to being able to communicate instantly with people from vastly different geographies and backgrounds? Like, I'm talking daily to two guys from about 4000km away, and I don't even know what they look like - we just help each other on a gamedev group. If I have an issue with my car I can go to a dedicated group for that model on FB and ask literally hundreds of owners a question - when my dad had an issue with his soviet-made MZ motorcycle the best he could do was just take the thing apart and hope for the best.

Like, when I'm away "on my phone" I frequently actually talk to someone - there is human interaction in there.

<comment><USER17> This point always gets made in any similar discussions. I think on it's face it makes sense; why wouldn't a freer flow of information be good? But I've come to believe that maybe this is too simplistic a view of the actual effects. History teaches us that people are strongly tribalistic. While it's true that disparate groups can sometimes come together and augment their success, it's also true that proximity often causes conflict. There's probably a strongly evolutionary mechanism behind this. So while it might feel like the free availability of information and the free availability of empathy are one and the same, they really aren't. And might it turn out that such a misconception could do real harm?

<comment><USER18> I agree. It's true that it is easier than ever to have instant access to just about anyone in the world, but because it's so easy, we become less interested in actually investing in people and forming lasting bonds. Why bother when we can get what we need without? What used to be genuine connections formed by necessity and shared experiences have now become quick and easy transactions. Social media and the gig economy have made interpersonal relations into fast food, and the world feels smaller and less fullfilling because of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I believe 200 years ago people were asking if books were destroying a generation.

My parents generation wondered if video games was destroying mine.

Now it's smartphones.

<comment><USER20> its the erosion of our culture

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I did not read the article, because I usually do not click such titles (only comments section), because obviously, no, the smartphone generation is not "destroyed", just different. Some changes for the better, some for the worse.

The good? The possibilities of smartphones are just awesome. It is amazing to be in touch with people all over the world. And all this huge knowledge .. avaiable in an blink. Who does even remember how it was to not be able to google just something you want to know? You needed to have books, or know expert people, or people to know which book to read. And now? Just go online and if you know how, you will find your information. Or get your amusement, your news, your need to be acnowledged.

But all of this is still brand new. So we still have to learn not to get lost in it. Be still aware that you have a physical body with needs and sensations. And people seem to forget, that doing sports or climbing a mountain is something very different, from watching a video about it. But television is even older and there it was only consumption. Now it is interaction - only, and that is sadly a bad part, mostly controlled by coorporations who wants to distract your attention as a buisness modell. Something there got really out of hand and with kids growing up with tailered ads accustomed to data from their whole online activity ever ... than this is where I see the real danger. But kids are allways much smarter than the older generation thinks they are, so I believe they will be doing fine.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've stopped using smartphones 'cause started to feel yourself like "Walking dead" personage: public transport, stores, streets - many people like zombies watching inside their screens. This is really scaring. And of course the one of the biggest factors of loneliness epidemic around the world.

<comment><USER23> And I keep repeating: with the proliferation of IMs, those "zombies watching inside their screens" are likely engaged in a much richer social life than the generations before them. Smartphones and the Internet removed the impact of space and diminished the impact of time on communication. What do you think these "zombies" are doing with their screens? In a big part, they're talking to other people!

Also, the obligatory photo: [https://cdn- images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*U36hBj8i-C7JJJxS4...](https://cdn- images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*U36hBj8i-C7JJJxS4MP2HQ.jpeg).

<comment><USER24> I can't even imagine having the conversations I have on social media with the people around me. Talking animals discussing kink gear at Pride. Julián Castro acknowledging trans people at the debate. Getting help and sharing information on a piece of software made by people on the other side of the continent (or planet). The rights of androids and holograms.

How do I even find a common language with people whose main activities are poker, racing, and sports? These are all fine activities, but I always want to go off and do _anything_ else when I try to socialize locally. We don't click.

It's not like I was more interested in them before I had an always-on internet connection. Social media and the internet in general gave me an outlet and community for the things I was drawn to before the internet entered the picture.

There aren't many people around here who would get this joke: [https://snouts.online/@Kye/102329949919207919](https://snouts.online/@Kye/102329949919207919)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Has TV destroyed a generation?

<comment><USER26> Heck, the internet, radio, movies, the telegraph have all "destroyed" generations.

People change, generations are different. That's the way the world works.

<comment><USER27> The previous generation was fighting world war. This generation is fighting with itself. What is bad? I am not so sure. To see long term effects of this we will have to wait.

One thing is sure though after world war people changed and hopefully the self destruction mode of this generation might change themselves. Maybe for good or bad. Again we will have to wait.

<comment><USER6> The generation of todays teenagers parents didn't fight a world war. Even their parents typically didn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Smartphones have not destroyed a generation.

<comment><USER29> Betteridge's Law of Headlines ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines))

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's cyclical. None of this matters, because we adapt. It was rock n roll, television, video games, now smart phones. It will be something else. Perhaps we are all mentally screwy, or perhaps it's another exaggeration. Either way, it's too big. It's like the ice age. It just crushes any and all things. It's not inherently evil. It's just new technology. We will get use to it. People are addicted, but there will be a pullback. It will come back to equilibrium. Or it won't. But life will keep ticking along.

<comment><USER31> Not necessarily, since we now live in a world where your every movement, action, relationship, and communication is intercepted and analyzed. Your thoughts are next. We don't need microchips because our phones are our microchips, but we may get them anyway, for "security" (that's security of government against its people of course). Things change when we have autonomous drone swarms flitting across our cityscapes and nanobots picking away at our insides. Do you believe it is possible to control a person's will? These are different times, and the life that "keeps ticking along" is not necessarily for any of "us".

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The article describes declines in amount of sleep. Having just finished Matthew Walker's book Why We Sleep I was surprised to discover that measurable cognitive effects and mental health problems like depression and anxiety occur when sleep drops by as little as one hour (7 instead of 8).

It's certainly believable that smart phones do affect sleep if nothing else and if so that could explain in part the increased incidences of mental health problems and other issues described in the article.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think it really have destroyed the idea of how the previous generation think that the next generation should look like. I think we're only in the beginning of a very different world the post WWII folks lived. People grow up much faster nowadays and are being exposed to things never thought of before. The next generations will do things differently, and unless we destroy ourselves, that's a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER34> >I call them iGen.

Everyone else on planet earth calls them Generation Z or Zoomers. Dammit this is that author who makes up her own words for things that already have well- established monikers isn't it. I knew she'd make it back on here at some point.

<comment><USER35> iGeneration is a long established term for Gen Z. This author among many others claims to have coined the moniker but has done so since at least 2006.

[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Generation_Z](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Generation_Z)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> We're also getting better at helping young people grow and diagnosing their issues. That may be a reason behind the numbers from health, before they were just dumped on society without a higher education.

</comment><comment><USER37> Fahrenheit 451 basically called it with the whole "people in their living rooms never alone with their neighbors seeing inside through screens" part.

</comment><comment><USER38> It is sad to see what is happening to people. Just take public transport and you will see so many people scrolling social networks and consuming useless content.

<comment><USER39> When I was young they read newspapers, books and magazines.

Nobody made eye contact, let alone talked, unless they were crazy, looking to make trouble, or both.

<comment><USER40> No one used to whip out a newspaper in the middle of the checkout line or for those thirty seconds in the elevator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Looking at most of that data, a lot of this seems to be a combination of a tanking economy/jobs market/gig economy, and a technology that allows one to feel more connected without having to spend money to go out. The iPhone has worn the continuing echoes of late stage capitalism like a glove, and in the same way the homeless use drugs to make their shitty lives more bearable, it seems to me people are doing the same with phones. You can sleep anywhere if you're drunk, and you don't have to spend money by going out (goods and transport) if you have your phone/and/or services that popped up to support the interwebs 2.0.

<comment><USER42> How is the economy tanking?

<comment><USER43> For the lower and middle classes, expenses keep getting more expensey and wages seem not to budge.

Incomes [https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2018/10/1...](https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2018/10/16/u-s- household-incomes-a-51-year-perspective)

Housing [https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/24/home-prices-rising-faster- th...](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/24/home-prices-rising-faster-than-wages- report.html)

College Tuition [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/how-much-college-tuition- has...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/how-much-college-tuition-has- increased-from-1988-to-2018.html)

Of course the economy for the millionaires and billionaires has been booming. A great time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> If a news article has a question as it's headline, then answer is almost always "no".

</comment><comment><USER45> No smartphones for my kids until they reach 18.

Human interaction cannot be replaced by a screen and a keyboard.

<comment><USER46> Human interaction outside of school is coordinated by kids with smartphones, using smartphone apps, to other kids who have smartphones.

No joke a child without a smartphone would seem weird to the rest of the group and risk alienation bases solely on the lack of that smartphone.

<comment><USER47> Seriously, even as an adult I have circles of friends who exclusively organize events through Facebook and interact with each other through Snapchat and Instagram. When I was a wee nerd I would've resented my parents intensely if they had cut me off from my AIM and ICQ accounts, hah.

Social media is like booze - social lubricant when used responsibly, but can cause problems in those with addictive personalities. Teach your children to use it responsibly, instead of forcing them to be teetotalers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Short answer: no. Long answer: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

</comment><comment><USER49> Ah, Betteridge's law: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

</comment><comment><USER50> This has got to be the most glaring instance of Betteridge's law that I've ever encountered.

</comment><comment><USER51> (2017)

</comment><comment><USER52> Betteridge's law: for any headline ending in a question, the answer is 'no'.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

<comment><USER53> It's surprising how actually effective it is when trying to determine if an article is going to be worth your time.

<comment><USER54> Combine it with Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap) and you're left with a very small subset of decent journalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> red-bob Saw a pic that Young people are growing horns from cellphone use

</comment><comment><USER55> Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." [0]

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

</comment><comment><USER56> Have smartphones destroyed a generation?

Has the internet destroyed a generation?

Have video games destroyed a generation?

Has TV destroyed a generation?

Has radio destroyed a generation?

Have novels destroyed a generation?

Each of these have been flogged ad-nauseum by the media in their time of peak popularity so that the older people can sit back with a smug quip "Kids these days..."

<comment><USER57> Did you actually read the article? Because all of the author's claims have data to match, it's not just the perennial kids these days rant. As a member of the so called iGen, I can attest anecdotally that the prevalence of anxiety and mental health issues is very real.

<comment><USER58> I help run meetups for, well, furries. Helped out with conventions too.

At least for that societal segment the prevalence of mental health is obvious, though I wonder if the rise is more that people are slowly becoming less keen to ostracise people with mental health issues and more keen to try and help them.

I sorely hope that my idle musing proves true. Because bottling it up forever didn't seem to help much.

<comment><USER57> It's hard to believe that one could hide a mental health disorder for long. I have had relationships with two girls with anxiety and its effects are easy to see. One had a nervous breakdown driving on the highway, eventually beginning SSRIs after the relationship ended, and the other needed to take medication daily to function normally. The second had started taking meds only briefly before we began dating and so it was a constant battle(? not really the right word) for her to discover that she could do things while on the medication that she was previously too afraid to do before, such as socializing in large groups and other things like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Depends if you think horns aren't cool [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/21/are- yo...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/21/are-young-people- growing-horns-because-of-mobile-phones-not-so-fast)

<comment><USER60> That was debunked: [https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/debunked-the- absurd-...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/debunked-the-absurd-story- about-smartphones-causing-kids-to-sprout-horns/)</comment></comment>


Doctor Was Removed from Federal Post After Questioning Hydroxychloroquine - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/coronavirus-live-coverage.html <comment><USER2> On par for this administration. Speaks to an aggressive approach for deploying vaccines but here's significant risk due to causing Antibody Dependent Enhancement disease (ADE) like the Dengue vaccine.</comment>


Dieter Rams: Principles For Good Design - <AUTHOR> http://www.vitsoe.com/en/gb/about/dieterrams/gooddesign

<comment><USER3> Something I realized while watching the choreography of Dawn Dippel and Revolve dance company last night: The hallmark of good design/composition is that everything is a unified, coherent whole. If your thing is composed of multiple elements, those elements add up to a unified, coherent whole. If you decompose those to their elements and look at just one piece, that piece by itself should also be a unified, coherent whole.

You can see this in good choreography. You can hear this in well composed music. You can see this in well designed software. The thing makes sense as a whole. The pieces make sense of themselves.

Why this is so is also easy to see. It comes from the way the human mind organizes information. We "chunk" information at varying levels of detail and granularity. If your application makes sense, it needs to make sense at varying levels of detail and granularity as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> He also mentions the same in the amazing documentary, "Objectified" by Gary Hustwit. Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER5> I want to respectfully disagree with "Good design is unobtrusive." I happen to be a fan of unobtrusiveness but I think it's not the only good way of doing things.

Old cathedrals are seldom unobtrusive. I don't think that they must be badly designed because of that. We can and should allow design and art to occasionally mingle, even at the price of increased obtrusiveness.

The nod to unobtrusiveness doesn't seem timeless to me. It seems like a too narrow endorsement of a particular style.

<comment><USER6> I think you might be confusing long-lived with timeless. The cathedrals are old... Almost no one builds "cathedral styled buildings," therefore the style is not timeless.

You're thinking too close to the object. That's precisely what makes Dieter Rams products so good. The design and the objects are seamless.

<comment><USER5> Cathedrals are not built anymore but neither are Rams' calculators. I don't think anything humans made was ever truly timeless – there is always context.

I would absolutely consider some cathedrals examples of good design, or some chairs made 200 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Brilliant article, well designed too.

I really want the typical 'web _designers_ ' to read it who are more busy in decoration than design.

Especially the part - _Good design is as little design as possible_. Best tip ever. When you are left with just bare minimum - that's good design. Apple's products are inspired by all these principles.

[2] Design just doesn't remain till visuals, it goes to code too. As I am diving more and more in coding - I see that everything is design. How everything is structured, how things (functions, logics etc)interact with each other and How code becomes poetry. Those are the very principles of design.

I like how Ryan Singer, 37 Signals, puts it, _'UI is software, so designers should know how to program."_ But that's another story for another day.

<comment><USER8> While I personally would prefer to follow the "good design is as little design as possible" mantra, it's not a principle that should be followed in all cases. Dieter Rams is speaking from a modernist school of design philosophy, and while many companies/brands are adherents to this school, not all are.

For example, from a graphic design or typographic design perspective, designers like David Carson (<http://www.davidcarsondesign.com/>) have demonstrated the power of postmodernist approaches for certain brands. If brands like ESPN or Wired adopted the "as little as possible" approach to graphic design, your experience with those brands would be much different to your experience today. Wired magazine would be black on white with symmetrically placed photos and no visual decoration. That's as little design as possible. For some people, this might be an improvement to Wired, but the problem is that if they delivered a magazine like that, you would have no idea that it was in fact Wired. You would forget the brand and possibly never buy their magazine again.

So this principle - and just about every other principle Dieter Rams lists as good design - is very specific to the brand he was working with when these principles were developed: Braun. That's not to say that these principles are not excellent. They are. But they are specific to their context. And the design principles that you develop for your product or brand should be specific to your context.

<comment><USER7> Decoration and Design are two different things. What 'Wired' does for it's cover, internal pages is of course 'more' but most of it is decoration. Underlaying design principle is still 'as little as possible'.

It's sort of like grid for web-design, you can decorate it no-end but grid (design) remains design.

On David Carson's work, I see it as a work of art based on design principles. Herd of rule of thirds? You can have as much 'more' in your photo / visual as you want. But the design principle of 'thirds' is as little as possible.

And for rest of the stuff and more examples you mentioned - my personal opinion is "If you hit your head with hammer long enf, it's gonna feel good when you stop." All that more & clutter is hitting your head with hammer - <USER2> is ugly. That is what designers like Massimo Vignelli and Dieter Rams see as things that need to be cured. That is what inspires design.

Design is beyond brands, it's the underlaying principle of thinking.

<comment><USER8> Yep true. You may have missed that I said "from a graphic design or typographic design perspective" in my example. There are various schools of thought to that "underlaying [sic] principle of thinking". Dieter Rams comes from one of those schools, but his is not the only school.

<comment><USER7> Hmmm, I am more into typographic designs and they follow Rams's "school" if you say so. I can let go of Graphic Design for now. More than often, they are just graphics... no design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here is a mini doc on the 10 Principles by Coolhunting: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz8m9VMYRpM></comment>


US could ask visa applicants for social media passwords - <AUTHOR> http://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/02/08/17/us-could-ask-visa-applicants-for-social-media-passwords <comment><USER2> Even if they start asking for passwords, you can almost certainly rely on them not considering the impact of 2-factor. You could give them the password knowing full well that without confiscating your phone for the duration of the trip they can't get into the account. Plus what is to stop you changing the password once you get through border control, or just denying you even have a social media account, suspend it temporarily before travelling.

This seems to me just another excuse under the guise of anti-terrorism to pry into people's private lives.</comment>


Skycons: ten animated weather icons, generated by JS using the HTML5 canvas - <AUTHOR> http://darkskyapp.github.com/skycons/ <comment><USER2> I'm going to be contrary here, not for its own sake but because I think this is kind of an important issue. What purpose does the animation serve? In what specific way is it better for these icons to be animated than to sit still? This is the question we should ask ourselves before putting motion on any user interface.

Tech-wise this is neat though, and thanks for open sourcing it.

<comment><USER3> I agree that animating the icons just for the sake of animation isn't useful. However, the precipitation rate of the rain and snow animations could change in response to the forecast.

<comment> shawn-butler Yes, spatial v object based attention. The use of animation could be used to convey information and draw the visual attention.

So for example a rain cloud for it's raining. An animated rain cloud for thunderstorm warning, draws the attention to a piece of text that might be overlooked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Jelly-Bean Aww those are cute! Nice job.

Just wanted to point out that when viewing the demo on my iPad's high resolution display they look pixel-y.

</comment><comment><USER4> The moons and the leaf have some crazy node flickering in Opera.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why canvas and not SVG? The code is gross, I know you mention it in the comments. It definitely affects who will use your library. If someone is sane about a consistent clean codebase, they would never use this lib. Cool idea and execution though, not trying to knock you.</comment>


Spotify says hello to the iPod - <AUTHOR> https://www.spotify.com/uk/blog/archives/2011/05/04/spotify-says-hello-to-the-ipod/

<comment><USER2> I've used Spotify since fall of 2008. It's hands down the most amazing music service out there. Everyone that have I've showed it to pretty much fell in love with it.

Until today Spotify's mobile apps have only been available to premium subs. With this you can throw out iTunes and sync with your iPhone, Android etc. Sync over Wi-fi and playlist management is way simpler than iTunes.

<comment><USER3> Do they have a web version, though? I'd much rather not have to download a client.

<comment><USER4> It's a peer to peer program, storing local copies of songs (in an obsfucated format you can't access), so it really needs some kind of local presence.

<comment><USER3> Why not File API with fallback to Flash?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's interesting is that now the mobile apps are available for free users, I'm sorry to say that they are going to lose I little of my money as this was my primary reason for paying for spotify.

<comment><USER6> I know this is your choice. But seriously.

Why not pay for such a great service? Why quible over such a low price?

You might be different than most people. But paying 20USD for a couple of bears and drinks is nothing yet when it comes to pay for music ad libitum people suddenly become very aware of their money.

I am not casting any blame, just interested in why people rationalize like that.

<comment><USER7> He was paying for mobile access. If mobile access is now free, that means he is donating $20 to Spotify if he keeps paying.

The question turns into, "Why is Spotify more worthy than any other organization, for-profit or non-profit, of my $20 donation?"

<comment><USER6> Because of the value they provide you?

<comment><USER8> Personally, I don't want to blur the line between paying and donating.

If you want to make business out of something, price it. I'm not going to "donate" if you are not some non-profit charity organization. But I'll gladly "pay" the same amount.

Business accepting donation feels like a convenient way for them to deny responsibility because, they didn't sell me anything, even if socially people will tell me to "donate".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sounds great. However, it seems only music you bought, and MP3's from your own computer can be synced. As far as I see you can't sync tracks offline without buying them, as you can with the mobile apps (when you are a premium subscriber). That would be awesome. It probably won't work because the iPod only plays music with no, or apple-only DRM. :(

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this officially licensed from Apple? If not..how long will Apple let it stand?

<comment><USER11> Apple's number 1 priority is getting iTunes&cruft onto every computer their products touch. It won't be long before they put an end to this blasphemy.

<comment><USER12> Apple's priority is to sell hardware. Spotify is simply another great app.

<comment><USER11> You'd think it would be wouldn't you? It's not. It's all about iTunes for Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Spotify seems to really focus on playlists in their marketing, but I don't see people around me using them that much. They just see Spotify as their iTunes catalogue, but just with a lot more music in it.

<comment><USER14> Playlists are horrible, Spotify still lack a Genre > Artist > Album view.

<comment><USER15> I agree completely. This is the main issue that keeps me using iTunes even though I'm a Spotify Premium subscriber. Somebody added a ticket about this on Spotify's Get Satisfaction page: [http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/more_advanced_libr...](http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/more_advanced_library) \-- let's go there and vote/like! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Spotify is one of two applications that my family have discovered and use regularly without me recommending it. The other is Dropbox.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is the app available to people in the US? Last I heard, Spotify was having issues reaching a deal with US record labels.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best example of data-heavy dashboards you've seen? - <AUTHOR> I'm building some... data-heavy dashboards... and am completely lost in how to combine my various charts and tables to make them. I am not a designer and not creative and am looking for some inspiration! <comment><USER2> I was a developer at Feathr and thought theirs were data-dense and usable, but you have to be a customer to actually see the dashboard.</comment>


SaaSHub Open - <AUTHOR> https://www.saashub.com/open <comment><AUTHOR> SaaSHub's founder here. I've decided to join the #openstartup movement. Let's see how it goes.

What other data would you be interested to see?

<comment><USER2> The story behind the current graphs looks like it could be interesting</comment></comment>


Show HN: a blog search engine - <AUTHOR> http://sotosearch.com/

<comment><USER2> Nice! As much as I like the minimalistic approach, I feel this need a bit more explanation. What does "blog search" mean? Does it search for blogs or within blogs? What is the definition of a blog? Which blogs does it search? How does it determine whether something is a blog or not (my blog does not seem to be included) Why would I want to specifically search blogs and not just use Google? These questions matter and should be explained by the product itself :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. To answer some of your questions, soto searches within blogs, using the existence of syndication feeds as the criterion. We are currently still growing the base of blogs so naturally not all are included. I'll make sure to add some documentation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice. Though, I agree with others that an explanation would kind of be helpful. Also since you're going with the minimalist approach, maybe make everything a bit bigger?

Are you just searching within a subset of domains? If so, may I shamelessly recommend adding <http://throwww.com> to the list?

</comment><comment><USER4> What advantages does Soto Search offer over Google Blogsearch (<http://www.google.com/blogsearch>) or Icerocket (<http://www.icerocket.com/>)?

<comment><USER5> Or, for that matter, Technorati (<http://www.technorati.com>), which I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned so far in this thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice start! It's great to see small initiatives like this grow.

Question: how are results being ranked? I did a search for "creativity" and got a slew of outdated (~22 days) results. Not quite what I was expecting.

<comment><AUTHOR> The "best match" ranking does not take time into account, but if you choose "newest first" that is the main criterion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> some critics: [http://sotosearch.com/search?query=android&ordering=best](http://sotosearch.com/search?query=android&ordering=best) \- results page is a mess of many languages, it would be better to detect language of page and user (by browser language) and use it for ranking

<comment><AUTHOR> ok, that results page really is messy. The crawler does actually do language detection, but it isn't perfect. Soto currently only offers search in English actually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Honestly, the results are terrible.

</comment><comment><USER9> Use cases?

</comment><comment><USER10> Stack?

</comment><comment><USER11> Did not work for me at all. Just keeps showing the spinning search indicator. I suspect Google Blog Search is about 1e+6 times more elaborate, so hardly there are any perspectives. Kudos for doing something anyway.</comment>


A startup will motivate you to work much harder, but will you actually do better work? - <AUTHOR>

I don't think the answer is obvious.  High pressure situations can negatively impact the brain. Sure, you will work harder, but it doesn't mean that you will be a clear thinker.<p>It might be interesting to compare the performance of professors with tenure with those of similar education and ability but without tenure pursuing startups full time. <comment><USER2> It's not the pressure, it's the fact that you're on your own. You're the man with the highest experience all around. If you make a mistake, or much more common don't put your efforts in the most efficient direction the only feedback you get is the market. Which while honest is definitely not gentle.</comment>


Skulpt Aim: Device to measure muscle fitness with one touch - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/skulpt-aim-world-s-first-device-to-measure-muscle-fitness-with-one-touch <comment> jose-skulpt @wil421 The Skulpt Aim is actually unlike any other device on the market. It uses a technique called Electrical Impedance Myography that my co-founder Dr. Seward Rutkove began developing over a decade ago at Harvard Medical School. Four years ago we combined his background in neurology with my engineering background to refine this technology and develop a system that not only gives you information about your fat content, but also your muscle quality. The first system we developed is medical in nature and is being used by pharmaceutical companies and academic researchers at some of the top hospitals across the US. The Skulpt Aim leverages all of the knowledge we have gained over the last decade to provide consumers with a tool that gives them fat percentage and muscle quality for individual muscles. The device uses patent- pending sensors and algorithms licensed from Harvard and MIT and others developed internally to calculate accurate indices of muscle fitness. Because the device is placed directly on the muscle you measure, it gives you very accurate data on that specific muscle. I'm curious, when you say "sensors like these", what in particular are you referring to? Regarding your second question, this first generation embodiment is a stand alone device, but we are certainly looking at other implementations for down the line.

<comment><USER2> Please use the "reply" link under each comment to reply. It is otherwise very difficult to follow conversations.

</comment></comment><comment> jose-skulpt Hi everyone. I'm the CEO of Skulpt and happy to answer your questions:

@bcbrown The Skulpt Aim is "aimed" at anyone who wants to improve or maintain their fitness. Prior to developing this consumer device, we developed a medical one that uses some of the same core technology and is actually being used at more than 30 of the nation's top hospitals in clinical research. The Skulpt Aim, however, is not intended to diagnose any medical condition. It's the first device on the market that will allow you to measure your fat percentage and muscle quality on any part of your body.

Regarding your second question, muscle quality (MQ) is a measure of strength and definition. There is a high correlation between MQ and normalized strength (i.e. strength over weight), meaning that someone smaller with strong muscles for their size can have a similar MQ to someone larger with stronger muscles, but two people who are about the same size and strength will have similar MQs. Also, similar to your IQ, the average person has an MQ of 100 for each muscle and a pretty fit person will have MQ scores of 120-140 or even higher.

<comment><USER3> It's a lot easier to track conversations if you use the "reply" link below a question to answer it.

I want to "improve or maintain" my fitness. I'm a powerlifter who occasionally competes. I'm receptive to this device, but I simply don't understand how I would use it. I care about absolute strength. I can test my absolute strength by lifting something heavy. What does this device tell me, that I would find useful, that I can't find out by lifting something heavy? An abstract score isn't useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems like it exists just because it can. It basically does 2 things:

1\. Fat % of a area/muscle group

2\. Muscle "quality"

To address each:

1\. One of the most accepted truths in health is that you can't spot reduce fat. There's no point in determining the fat % in a part of the body instead of overall since you can't just reduce the fat in one area. You can only reduce your TOTAL body fat.

2\. I'm not sure how muscle quality is any better than just knowing how much weight you can lift. For example, if you really want to know the "quality" of your biceps, just track and measure how much you can curl. Of course everyone who lifts already does this.

<comment><USER5> I don't know if this device works or not, but I certainly see the value in being able to take quantitive measurements and automatically store them in a database.

It'd be like measuring your weight with a scale that submits the data automatically online, instead of having to go to a website to enter the numbers manually every time.

It would be particularly interesting to follow how much your muscles are decaying during a period of non-training (thus not knowing how much you can still lift).

</comment></comment><comment> jose-skulpt @biscarch All great questions. Muscle quality (MQ) is a measure of your muscle's strength and definition. Leaner, stronger muscles are characterized by having larger muscle fibers with less fatty tissue infiltrated. MQ correlates strongly to weight-normalized strength and as you exercise and get stronger and leaner, you'll see your MQ go up. At this moment, we can't tease out the differences between different types of muscle fibers, but as we gather more data we believe there is a good chance we will be able to. We think this product will be extremely useful to high-level athletes since it will allow you to optimize your training by quantitatively measuring and tracking the impact of different exercise regiments on your muscles. You'll be able to see when you're plateauing, for example, so you know it's time to incorporate some muscle confusion. We have compared the fat measurements to underwater (hydrostatic) weighing (the gold standard), Bodpods, skinfold calipers and bioimpedance scales and found that our errors were much lower than skinfold calipers and bioimpedance scales by about 3-4x. And on top of that, you get data on individual muscles in a fast, easy, and private way. As far as the availability of "raw" data, we're playing that by ear right now and it will depend on user feedback. We'll certainly consider it if there is a lot of demand. Thanks for all of your interest!

<comment><USER6> > We think this product will be extremely useful to high-level athletes since > it will allow you to optimize your training by quantitatively measuring and > tracking the impact of different exercise regiments on your muscles. You'll > be able to see when you're plateauing, for example, so you know it's time to > incorporate some muscle confusion.

You know literally nothing about strength training.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I would recommend bringing on board someone who's worked as a strength coach, or has some sort of expertise around long-term training regimens. Specifically, "muscle confusion" isn't a real thing. Have you spoken with any high-level athletes?

And it's easy to see if you're plateauing. That's when your performance plateaus. If there's any published research showing that this device has predictive power, that's a different matter. But I imagine that tracking cortisol/testosterone levels over the long term, plus the immediate hormonal response to an exercise stimulus (over the 0-48 hour window), would be much more effective than any sort of impedance-based approach. Plateaus and overtraining are more hormonal than muscular.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a neurological condition that results in me having high muscle tone - very tight muscles, tendons etc. Would this device be able to give me feedback about how tight a muscle is? I would consider that invaluable to evaluating different techniques I'm using to manage my condition!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm passing these questions on to my cousin. I know he's in a meeting right now, but will try to get an answer for you ASAP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Who is this product aimed at? People with medical conditions, or "fitness enthusiasts"? What's the relation between "muscle quality" and strength? Are there any use cases for powerlifters, for example?

</comment><comment> jose-skulpt @robertfw thanks for your thoughtful question. My co-founder, Dr. Seward Rutkove, is actually a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School who specializes in neuromuscular disorders and the core technology we use was born out of his frustration that there were no good tools for measuring muscle health and fitness. As I mentioned previously, we have developed a medical version of this technology that is being used in clinical research, but the Skulpt Aim is intended to be used to track your muscle fitness.

<comment><USER8> Translation: @robertfw, no, that is not an intended use of this product.

I understand the reason for the marketing speak, but vague non-answers like that really turn me off.

</comment></comment><comment> jose-skulpt @chadly That's a great question. The device allows for up to 6 users and a really cool feature is that the light ring is personalized for each profile. So when you turn it on, you will be able to immediately tell who's profile it's set to (e.g. blue for you, violet for your wife) and you can easily select a different user with the side buttons. You'll each have separate profiles so you can track your progress and get tailored advice.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure what's worse, the infomercial quality says-nothing marketing speak about what this thing is and does (both on the site and here -- "muscle quality"? ORLY?), or the insistence on trying to treat HN threads like twitter with top level @whoever responses.

Either way (and I appreciate my response to this may be a bit over the top), I've never wanted to downvote an HN front page story as much as I want to downvote this one.

<comment><USER3> The top-level @replies are just a symptom of someone new to the community who doesn't understand how to use this site. The content-free marketing speak is less forgiveable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure how I feel about flexible funding campaigns. I really don't want to give them my money unless I know for sure they'll have enough capital to be able to do a manufacturing run, which precludes flex funding. Conversely, if they don't need the capital, I'd rather wait until the device is released and reviewed before plunking down the money.

</comment><comment><USER11> In my experience sensors like this are inaccurate compared to calipers or a hydrostatic body testing (if you can find a place or mobile van to do this).

How would your method differ, and how would it produce more accurate results?

Edit: Does it need to be a standalone device or could it be an attachment like a case on an iPhone?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: Jose (CEO) is my cousin. I'm extremely happy and proud to finally see him turn years of effort into a great product.

Any questions you have I can forward to him, and/or will try to get him to join the conversation.

</comment><comment><USER12> Looks awesome - [http://www.skulpt.me/about.html](http://www.skulpt.me/about.html)

I'm in, and I'll share as well. Good luck to the team - seems pretty great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, thanks! Will pass this on to them. I'm hoping to get them to join the conversation at some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The 'average' guy in the definition of MQ looks like someone who goes to the gym only 4-5 times per week rather than 7-8 times.

I find it slightly offputting to show that as the baseline.

</comment><comment><USER14> This seems like a really cool idea. Would it work with multiple users? e.g. if I wanted to share one device with my spouse - would it be able to keep track of multiple people?

</comment><comment><USER15> Muscle quality. What quality are you aiming to optimize?

</comment><comment> jose-skukpt Thanks cuz! Happy to answer any questions that come up.

<comment><USER16> Hey Jose, I've already backed your project and I have a few questions.

What does "Muscle Quality" mean and what do you mean by "Muscle Fitness"?

Does MQ give me any information about type 1/2a/2b fibers?

Is this product in any way useful for someone training for high level athletics?

Can you compare the bodyfat accuracy of the product with other methods (such as calipers)?

Will I be able to access the raw data instead of the MQ reading?</comment></comment>


Average revenue per customer is meaningless - <AUTHOR> http://data.heapanalytics.com/your-average-revenue-per-customer-is-meaningless http://data.heapanalytics.com/your-average-revenue-per-customer-is-meaningless/ Your average revenue per customer is meaningless <comment><USER2> It's not that ARPU is meaningless, it's just averages by themselves can be easily misleading the same way percentages by themselves can be misleading.

> It turns out that for most businesses, revenue per customer follows a power > law distribution.

It would have been better to provide a source for that statement, the way the author provides data for Movies, Cities, and Web Traffic.

<comment><USER3> Precisely. This piece seems like an over reaction to the discovery that averages are a relatively blunt way of looking at data. They're not terribly useful in a vacuum. Looking at a distribution (histogram) of your data is a great way to understand the distribution of your data, but even then, you have to be careful about how you bin your data.

This is good advice for data analysis in general. When looking at data, I like to start with a histogram. Web server benchmarking is a great example. Developers appear to have a strong desire to boil things down to a single number.

"What's my endpoint response time?"

The answer is often an average, but the data is rarely well represented by that number. Looking at a histogram reveals that.</comment></comment>


Conway's Law - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law <comment><AUTHOR> "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler."</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best books to (re)discover philosophy? - <AUTHOR> I loved philosophy when I was in high school (Italy, 20+ years ago). I'd love to rediscover it, but in a hopefully exciting way. In other words, I am not looking for a long, boring, heavy book on philosopher X, but rather something fresh and interesting... Ideally, a SINGLE book that covers philosophy in its entirety. Any good suggestions or ideas? <comment><USER2> Sophie's World

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie%27s_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie%27s_World)

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0374530718/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0374530718/)

<comment><USER3> An excellent entry point and no doubt also a way to rekindle your thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most academic philosophers (disclaimer: I am one of them) don't think of their field in terms of important figures of the past, but in terms of unsolved philosophical problems right here right now. [Tim Williamson's Tetralogue]([https://global.oup.com/academic/product/tetralogue-978019872...](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/tetralogue-9780198728887?cc=us&lang=en&)) is a good intro to philosophy from this perspective.

</comment><comment><USER5> Look no further! I would bet a year's worth of pay this is the book you're looking for:

The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0671739166/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0671739166/)

It's by Will Durant, who wrote some of the most exceptional works of the 20th century regarding history, philosophy, and the meaning of human civilization.

</comment><comment><USER6> Mortimer Adler's "How To Think About The Great Ideas"

I got a degree in philosophy and its the single best general book I've ever read.

The book is actually a transcription of a TV show he did and its in dialogue form.

The structure is broken up into a bunch of mini chapters that are "how to think about _______". Like how to think about love, how to think about government, etc.

<comment><USER7> I second this.

I'm a big fan of Mortimer Adler. His specialty seems to be piecing together all the other works of philosophy and making it easily accessible to the commoner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged By Ayn Rand

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand)

</comment><comment><USER9> "Cracking Philosophy" 400 pages, 2/3 pages for each philosopher or philosophical idea, with illustrations.

</comment><comment><USER10> _Philosophical Investigations_</comment>


I hate calling to book appointments - <AUTHOR> https://AcuityScheduling.com Calling to schedule a meeting with a school counselor, or book a haircut, is a freaking pain. It's rude businesses waste my time with that, and theirs, when there are literally hundreds of ways to handle this online.
A while back I made Acuity Scheduling to solve this -- what do you think? What can be made better?
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> Calling to schedule a meeting with a school counselor, or book a haircut, is a freaking pain. It's rude businesses waste my time with that, and theirs, when there are literally _hundreds_ of ways to handle this online.

A while back I made Acuity Scheduling to solve this -- what do you think? What can be made better?</comment>


What happens when China's state-run media embraces AI? - <AUTHOR> https://www.cjr.org/analysis/china-xinhua-news-ai.php <comment><USER2> I'm skeptical of the quality of machine-generated news, but the sentiment is still chilling. I think this quote from the article is relavent:

> "News agencies have a huge, _huge_ role setting the tone of the > conversation, much, _much_ more than we give them credit for." (Emphasis > theirs)

So much of the global conversation is dominated by a few players, and if any one entity gets the leg up, that's a significant imbalance. This doesn't bode well if the dominant player is a state-run propaganda distributor (I'm aware of the problems that American news outlets have, but this is a whole different ballgame in terms of biased reporting). Even if Xinhua dominance doesn't affect the coverage Americans see, countries with smaller reporting capacities probably won't be so lucky.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting that this post was utterly buried. It hit the first page at most an hour ago, but now it's at the bottom of page 12.</comment>


Hive is a 3 year free higher-education school for coding - <AUTHOR> https://www.hive.fi/en/ <comment><USER2> "Hive Helsinki is a new kind of coding school that preps you to launch your future-proof career through collaborative, project-based learning."

No career is future-proof, least of all programming. As a developer, a week shouldn't pass that you didn't learn something, or improve on something or break something and learned how to fix it or etc...</comment>


The Wage Struggles of Men - <AUTHOR> http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/the-struggles-of-men/?partner=rss&emc=rss

<comment><USER3> A valid point from the comment section of the articles (In case you didn't go down that far)

You might look at workforce participation by age. The percentage of men and women under 25 had been slowly dropping long before the recession. I figured this was because more of them were going to college. It also occurred to me that, as more men had a working wife, fewer men were working, or working full- time. So men's wages might be going down, and households remaining the same, because the paid work was shifting to a more equal distribution.

\- By Lisa deGruyter Clarksburg, WV

<comment><USER4> A valid point, but the article mentions that the employment decline is disproportionately concentrated amongst low skill workers. It doesn't seem likely to me that these types of workers would be living in a household where only one of the spouses would work and the other would stay at home by choice.

<comment><USER5> What is more likely? That a low skilled man marries a medium or higher skilled wife who is likely to find a job, or more likely to delay or decide not to have children? Or he is married to a low or unskilled wife who likely couldn't find work if she wanted, or has children she has to stay home to look after?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8Z__o52sk&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8Z__o52sk&feature=related), enough said.

<comment><USER7> Minimum wage law may be debatable, but Milton's arguments here are poor. The minimum wage is a trivial amount, and noone holds skills below this rate - <USER2> severely doubt that the minimum wage stops unskilled people getting work on the basis of being too high a cost for businesses. Furthermore, increasing unemployment among the youth is based on increased education participation and a richer middle-class, not on the minimum wage being so high that businesses can't afford to employ teenagers.

<comment><USER8> >"The minimum wage is a trivial amount, and noone holds skills below this rate"

It is probably true that the minimum wage is not a binding price floor in rich white suburbs.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure what you mean here exactly, but I think you are implying that rich white suburbs don't abide by the minimum wage when hiring? Alternatively you might be saying that everyone in a rich white suburb manages to make more than the minimum wage. Either way it reeks of ad hominem by playing on the accepted racism of white people as heartless and trouble-free.

Regardless, saying people work below the minimum wage is irrelevant to my point that the minimum wage is sufficiently low that it does not deter people from hiring unskilled workers.

<comment><USER8> I mean that I have read evidence that minimum wages increase unemployment more in poor areas of the country than in wealthy ones. I'm coding all night at the moment, so I don't have time to look it up. But to say that "noone" has skills to offer the labor market that will clear at a price below the minimum wage is myopic.

<comment><USER7> Okay, so my argument is that the minimum wage shouldn't increase unemployment at all, because it is so low that any reasonable task is worth more than the low rate the wage is set at. What you say makes sense - if a minimum wage is so high that employers can't afford employees anymore then the poor areas will be hit worst, because the poor areas are the most unskilled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So low skill workers find it harder and harder to find jobs. No surprise here.

Automation, bitches.

<comment><USER10> When I was a kid I was naive (and still am, to a degree) and I thought that in the future machines/computers/automation would do what humans didn't want to or simply couldn't, not to make a few people rich and bring more comfort to upper middle class, but so that humans worldwide could go after more important things that could make us evolve as a species.

<comment><USER11> It is kind of working out. People making minimum wage have things that were sci-fi when I was a kid, better than the most expensive attempts the rich made to try to buy their way in early back in the day.

Global communicators that fit in the pocket, 40 inch high definition flat panel view screens, game systems with unimaginable processing power and graphics. Most people can't even sign up for basic cable without getting a time shifting miracle-machine or a basic cell phone account without being handed a damn tri-corder.

No argument that inequality of wealth is growing rapidly, but its good to remember that _total_ wealth is growing too and even the poorest are benefiting.

What we really need to do is pull all of the parasites out of our health-care services and allow this magic to happen down there as well before the have- nots figure out it doesn't matter whats on your giant TV if you can't afford those patented, insurance inflated, heart pills and decide maybe its time once again to dust off the guillotines for another go at the rich.

<comment><USER12> I remember a few months back seeing a homeless guy pushing a shopping cart with one hand and talking on a cell phone with the other.

But I'm not sure if he thought everything was working out...

<comment><USER11> I did say _kind of_ working out, not working out the way it should (for some definition of should I think we mostly agree on). I'm just saying that automation has made it possible for homeless guys to have cell phones, when before they couldn't.

I'm not even floating a guess as to whether or not he'd be homeless if it not for that automation. That's a much larger and more complicated debate.

On the balance, I'm still betting that more automation makes better lives for more people, even if it seems to increase inequality in the short run.

I wait patiently for the day when mankind looks at himself in a collective mirror and says, "Know what?, everything's so good now that we don't _need_ all of this inequality." I think this is an essential step in man becoming a semi-eternal space-faring species instead of one that just drives itself to extinction.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Nada – temporary email, React-Redux Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://getnada.com <comment><AUTHOR> Made a new version of AirMail which is mobile first and supports attachments and ssl, socket.io no refresh. Made with nodejs, React Redux, mongo and Haraka web server. Hexo.io for front end.

Original post : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3662380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3662380)

Comments welcome.</comment>