Judge Rules Terrorism Watchlist Violates Constitutional Rights - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/us/politics/terrorism-watchlist-constitution.html <comment><USER2> Good riddance. It only took 16 years longer than it should have. A secret government list that the public can't audit, has no means of due process, and prevents you from going about your life has no business in a free society.

<comment><USER3> It doesn't mean the list is going away, it just means people proven to be US citizens will be expunged (rightfully so). Anyone NOT proven to be US citizens (and located outside the US), and thus not protected by US Constitutional rights will likely remain on the list.

<comment><USER4> I've commented on this before. It's a myth that the US constitution only protects citizens.

The constitution explicitly delineates between rules that apply to "people" and rules that apply to "citizens." Some rights apply to one group and some both.

<comment><USER5> From the article:

'A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that a federal government database that compiles people deemed to be "known or suspected terrorists" violates the rights of American citizens who are on the watchlist'

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> * watch lists

* red flag laws

* no fly lists

All well intentioned. All ripe for abuse. All unconstitutional. All rights require due process before they can be be removed.

<comment><USER7> I see nothing wrong with denying anyone guns for a limited period of time because their state of mind is in question. I don't see who is losing out when this happens.

<comment><USER8> Personally I don't see anything wrong with denying people guns. <\- that's a full stop ;-) _However_ in the US it is your constitutional right to bear arms. This has been widely (virtually universally in the US) regarded to mean that it is your right to _not_ be denied a gun (without due process). Questioning someone's state of mind is not due process. It really doesn't matter if we are talking about guns or we are talking about hamsters _: if you have a right enshrined by your constitution it 's pretty darn important that you don't have that right stripped away simply because someone levels an accusation at you.

_ It would be pretty weird to have a right to bear hamsters...

<comment><USER9> > However in the US it is your constitutional right to bear arms.

Only established by the supreme court in 2008.

Abortion is a "constitutional right" likewise. And the american right see no issues with extreme restrictions.

There is no amendment saying either people have an individual right to possess a firearm, nor an individual right to have an abortion. These are inferences.

What the second amendment says is that _because_ the US needs defence (given _no contemporary standing army_ ), the right to bear arms is necessary in general.

An individual right in the time of standing armies is _not_ written anywhere in the constitution and was derived, by interpretation, only in 2008.

My point is that what counts as a "constitutional right" is a matter of history, precedent and agreement -- they are _conventional_ not just written in some stone tablet. And it is quite reasonable to contest these conventions.

<comment><USER10> Were individual gun ownership restrictions or even considerations of restrictions ever done in any manner in colonial America? Not that I've ever heard. Which makes me believe the 2nd amendment was not about individual gun ownership as you say.

<comment><USER11> Yes, colonial British subjects had restrictions on ownership of weapons. They had soldiers quartered in their homes. They had taxes without representation. They had their right of free assembly restricted. They had their religious freedoms restricted.

The founding fathers wrote the bill of rights specifically to cover these things that British rule had done to the people who left Britain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Files released by the F.B.I. in 2011 under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the F.B.I. was permitted to include people on the watchlist even if they had been acquitted of terrorism-related offenses or the charges are dropped."

This sounds like an open shut case of abuse by the executive branch. It's the judicial branch's job to determine guilt, to still effectively sentence someone who's been cleared in court must be a huge overreach of the executive branch.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good. There is no excuse for treating citizens this way. None. Not 9/11\. Not the Boston bombings. Not anything else. They are citizens. If the government thinks they were criminals it should indict and put them on trial. Otherwise leave them alone. And if another attack ten times worse than 9/11 happens? So be it. The government should figure out another way that's not unconstitutional and doesn't treat people like animals to conduct their operations. Better thousands die under freedom than thousands live under tyranny. After all, as others have said and we have seen especially since 9/11, those who are willing to give up freedom for security will have neither.

<comment><USER14> I don't understand. What's "Freedom" and how do I, as a US citizen, actually have it?

"Freedom" and "Liberty" are all great, noble words that make for great talking points and sound bites. They're also just sort of vague concepts and opinions more than absolute, specific things. You say this isn't what freedom looks like. If 51% of the population disagrees with you, who's right?

Fact of the matter is, you can't have both "freedom" and "democracy" (or really any government) in any real way. It's all trade offs.

Best bet isn't "freedom" or "liberty" since those are extremes that presumably exist solely in a binary (it's either free, or it's not, no shades of gray) and instead aim for "fair" and "consensus". At least those are possible.

<comment><USER15> These are the more abstract philosophical meanings of freedom and liberty:

> the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed > by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views

> the absence of arbitrary restraints, taking into account the rights of all > involved

> to be free is to be self-determining, autonomous

And the more concrete applicability is that of:

> "giving oneself their own laws", and with having rights and the civil > liberties with which to exercise them without undue interference by the > state

Fundamentally, it is the idea of rights. Things that you are allowed, and that no one can take away from you, even if democratically ruled against by the majority. Such as: the freedom of conscience, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, the right to security and liberty, freedom of speech, the right to privacy, the right to equal treatment under the law and due process, the right to a fair trial, and the right to life.

Democracy in that system isn't supposed to supersede liberty and freedom. What happens is that free people can come together, and if they agree, they can be governed by the rule of law, laws which must be clearly laid out, which can not take away fundamental rights, and which are enacted fairly and with due process. If the individual does not agree to this, they should be free to branch out and have different laws to be governed under. That last part is the idea of the states retaining power over themselves, with the possibility to even decide to remove themselves from the US if they so wish.

All this is very much possible. Though some people argue it necessitates a virtuous culture as a prerequisite. In the sense that it requires people to be reasonable, rationale and of the same belief that freedom and liberty matters most.

<comment><USER14> There are exceptions put in place by the state against literally every right you listed (except maybe "conscience" since IDK what specifically you're getting at there, but it's not really important).

Democracy has to, by it's nature as a collective institution, impede the freedom of individuals to do what they themselves want for the social good. If it's a scale, and democracy is "more free" anarchy would be "most free" (not a concept I believe in, again I'm posing that freedom is a binary concept, not a scale itself).

My point is that when it comes to the governing of large groups, you cannot have a free society. You cannot have freedom, and also have private ownership and capitalism and all the things we currently have. You can pay service to "liberty" all you want, but I can't "give myself my own laws" that allow me to go against the state. The state will always serve as an impediment against freedom and true self determination. And I don't think that's a bad thing (To be clear, I'm a socialist not an anarchist, which is also why I think societal requirements are more important than individual liberty).

<comment><USER15> There are fundamental rights, and they have to be black/white, because they protect the minority against the majority. For everything else, it is decided on by elected representatives.

If you operate in a political system where democracy can overrule all rights, it is not a liberal democracy. The US is a liberal democracy, and that is why the judge ruled that it was not constitutional, even though the democratically elected representatives put in place the watch-list. So here is a great example of liberty at play, even though the majority ruled to have a watch- list, it was ruled out because it went against the fundamental rights of a minority.

> You can pay service to "liberty" all you want, but I can't "give myself my > own laws" that allow me to go against the state.

You can! You can freely renounce your citizenship and freely move elsewhere. The state is not allowed to hold you back from doing that.

Now, when it comes to secession, it gets more complicated. Some people argue it is a fundamental right, as per the constitution, that said, the wording is very vague and unclear about it. So we could say the constitution doesn't really guarantee that you are free to secede. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be a guaranteed right though! Some people think it should, and if it isn't there in the constitution, maybe it should be added.

> The state will always serve as an impediment against freedom and true self > determination

That's the thing though. The state are just the powers that be. The idea of liberty and freedom are moral, which is why it requires a culture of it. While democracy is a system, not a moral. People who believe in liberty fight for it. That's fundamental to preserve freedom. The freedom to "give myself my own laws" should exist. Any person should be allowed to take their private property and secede from the US, and make it a new self-ruled region. If California wants out for example, they should be allowed to leave the union. Such would dictate the idea of liberty. But, it would work similar to copy- left open source licenses. In their new found independence, they need to continue to uphold liberty. If they do not, then it is a fundamental right that the newly governed should similarly fight for it until they have it.

So you see, it is much more an ideology. __People should not be allowed to restrain your freedoms, unless what you are doing is forcing theirs to be restrained. __

And this can work quite easily within a democracy. Basically, people assemble for all kind of matters, and decisions and rules are put in place in agreement with the majority, with the idea that it will benefit most. Once in a while though, it affects an individual negatively. It is that person 's right to come forward and say that their liberty is being restrained from the ruling of the majority. If true, then the ruling should be abolished, even though it was beneficial to most people.

<comment><USER14> We disagree fundamentally on basically every point you've made. I do not have the time or energy to debate you on any of this. You have no convinced me of the existence of liberty or freedom actually existing outside of the minds of men, and have continued to show what I believe to be the logistic contortions needed to continue to believe in these concepts actually being implemented in the real world. None of this makes you a bad person, and I wish you well in life.

<comment><USER15> Hey, no hard feelings whatsoever. By the way, I'm not saying that that's the right or best ideology. I'm just saying that there's a definition issue. You take freedom at face value, as in, I can do whatever I want without anyone trying to stop me. But people who support freedom and liberty aren't saying that. They're saying that liberty trumps all, even the rule of the majority. That there are no good reason to justify taking away someone's freedom except to protect someone else's. And that this rule is above the rule of democracy. Democracy is used only to decide on things that don't affect people's freedoms. If it does, it is overstepping its bounds, and the courts are there to judge on that. And if the system fails to uphold the liberty of its people, that the people should fight to have it back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here's a direct link to the ruling. This is a PDF.

[https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1689-terror- watchlis...](https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1689-terror-watchlist- ruling/75cd50557652ad0bfa2a/optimized/full.pdf#page=1)

</comment><comment><USER17> Hopefully we are now following the UK's lead and starting to face our demons. Finally, a judge with an iota of common sense! Why did it take so long to call the government out on something which is, so clearly, a violation of due process? Let's get this judge on the supreme court, he or she clearly knows how to do the job!

<comment><USER18> > Hopefully we are now following the UK's lead and starting to face our > demons.

The UK passed a law to make bulk surveillance legal. It took a European court to object to it.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/extreme- survei...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/extreme-surveillance- becomes-uk-law-with-barely-a-whimper)

[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/13/gchq-data- co...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/13/gchq-data-collection- violated-human-rights-strasbourg-court-rules)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The cynical view of this would be that a large number of online domestic white people have reached the threshold that had been used to add people to the terrorist watchlist, or that there's an anticipation of pressure in this direction. If incel reddit has to be added to the terrorist watchlist, a lot of people from what are considered very nice families would be getting turned down at the gate.

Nothing has changed in the arguments against the watchlist during the period it has been in existence.

<comment><USER20> Perhaps, the NRA has been already declared a domestic terrorist organization by San Francisco. I think everyone wants to avoid TSA agents questioning passengers when the last time they had sexual intercourse was and pulling out a taser and handcuffs if it's too long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hope it sticks. The patriot act that inspired this list is also anathema, I can't wait until it stricken from the law books as well.

</comment><comment><USER22> Likely to be reversed on appeal. Good or bad, I don't think it's going away any time soon.

</comment><comment><USER23> Took them long enough.

</comment><comment><USER24> Yes, because non-citizen residents still pay sales taxes. Many of them have jobs and pay income taxes. One of the core tenants of the US experiment in democracy is no taxation without representation. This holds pretty true unless you happen to live in Washington D.C. or in Puerto Rico where they have no voting powers in congress.

<comment><USER21> That's nonsense, no where in the bill of rights does it stipulate "if you pay taxes..."

<comment><USER25> The bill of rights doesn't mention anything about citizenship either. Lots of people at the time it was written wouldn't even have recognized that as a valid concept.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> 2nd amendment being an absolute guarantee of freedom is up for interpretation.

What well regulated militia are you a part of?

<comment><USER27> It's a "debate" created for political reasons. If the right to bear arms was a right people like Larry Tribe believed in, they'd never engage in the contortions they do with the text.

If I say "for X purposes, do Y" I'm telling you to do Y. You can't do Z just because you think that serves X purposes better.

And even if you believe the right must be connected to militias, those aren't necessarily formal organizations. The Minutemen, for example, where self- organizing independent militias that were composed of just whoever brought a gun with them. They comprised 1/4 of the militias that fought in the Revolution. Many of the state militias, too, were BYOG. You think the framers just forgot how they won the war they had just fought? The point obviously is to protect the possibility of such militias being formed by preventing the government from disarming ordinary citizens.

Now, if you're a "living Constitution" guy and think that the constitution means whatever you want it to mean in the present time, that's fine. But then you don't need to rely on the tortured reading of the "militia" phrasing. Just say it's an outmoded right that we are not going to enforce.

<comment><USER28> >Just say it's an outmoded right that we are not going to enforce.

Just remove it.

<comment><USER29> Ok, then do that instead of trying to subvert it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Experts say Tesla has repeated car industry mistakes from the 1980s - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/experts-say-tesla-has-repeated-car-industry-mistakes-from-the-1980s/ <comment><USER2> Anyone who has had to do with the manufacturing side of car makers (German ones anyway) knows how highly optimized from end-to-end their processes are. It seems doubtful that anyone could leapfrog this amount of accumulated process knowledge and optimization simply by way of being new.

Automation is not a black-and-white thing, either, as it is often portrayed. Sure, some things are fully automated (e.g. assembling the car body), but many things are partially automated. For example, there is a tool which is essentially 5/6/7 torque wrenches coupled to a lifting arm. This tool allows a line worker to mount a tire with little physical exertion in seconds. You see this sort of thing all the time at car assembly lines; offloading mechanical power to the machine, while having a human line up and steer things. (This also avoids a whole bunch of safety concerns you normally have when operating autonomous equipment in the same physical space occupied by humans)

Another example: The body of virtually any car is self-supporting (there is no frame), so getting it right is rather critical. To achieve both the high strength and low weight of a modern car body the steel is deformed very closely to the maximum deformation it can withstand. This needs very good matching of the process to the steel. So, the manufacturer of the steel coil tests each coil individually for its exact properties. For mass production lines only coils meeting very tight tolerances are used. For low volume lines the process is adjusted individually for each coil based on the manufacturers testing and some in-house testing.

<comment><USER3> It's also shocking to anybody who had studied Toyota's history. Toyota spent decades honing their processes, but are notoriously automation-averse [1], as automation locks in a (hoped-for) short-term productivity gain but prevents the human-driven continuous improvement that has made them highly productive. [2]

In some ways, I think the long software-is-eating-the-world boom has been bad for us as an industry. We have been so successful with "throw tech at it" solutions that we don't know when that isn't a good idea. E.g., the Silicon- Valley-reinvents-grilled-cheese flop The Melt [3], or the $120m clown show that was Juicero [4].

American car companies spent decades trying and failing to learn Toyota's approach. They even had enthusiastic help from Toyota, who even went so far as to take GM's worst plant and redo it as a joint venture. (Interestingly, it's the same plant that Tesla now uses. [5]) For those unfamiliar with the story, I strongly recommend This American Life's episode on it. [6] But my takeaway was that executive arrogance kept GM from learning that there was a much better way to make cars. That sounds more and more familiar these days.

[1] [https://www.fastcompany.com/40461624/how-toyota-is- putting-h...](https://www.fastcompany.com/40461624/how-toyota-is-putting- humans-first-in-an-era-of-increasing-automation)

[2] [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18960044/ns/business- autos/t/study...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18960044/ns/business- autos/t/study-toyota-most-productive-automaker/)

[3] [https://www.wired.com/story/how-the-trendiest-grilled- cheese...](https://www.wired.com/story/how-the-trendiest-grilled-cheese- venture-got-burnt/)

[4] [https://blog.bolt.io/heres-why-juicero-s-press-is-so- expensi...](https://blog.bolt.io/heres-why-juicero-s-press-is-so- expensive-6add74594e50)

[5] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI)

[6] [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015)

<comment><USER4> I have a friend who worked at Juicero, so unlike 99% of the people here on HN, I have a lot of info on it, and didn't just read the headlines. In fact, I had more than a few glasses of Juicero drinks whenever I visited her place (generally hated it, but I'm not their target demo).

Overall, I never liked the idea, and I told her that. I said it was way too expensive and they would have to decrease the price by 80% for it to be viable. But for the people who got it, mainly celebrities and millionaires, they loved it. I think I remember that Beyonce or Katy Perry or Britney got it for all of her dancers, etc.

The entire "green juice" industry is large, and the founder made his first millions by selling chains of these types of juices. The target was to make a glass of green juice less expensive than what you would find at a high-end gym or juice shop. The plan was to build it out with the people who were willing to pay for them, like celebrities and influencers, and then make them mass- market. The biggest expense was getting the food chain up and running, trying to get enough local farmers, etc, and getting the freshest ingredients possible. The internet connection, while ridiculous on the surface, was necessary to ensure that the ingredients were still fresh, because they literally had no preservatives. They wanted to avoid having people drinking a glass of mold or worse especially if they weren't mindful of expiration dates. This could also help if they sold these presses to juice shops (a later business strategy) and the person selling the juice might have old expired stock.

But once it was set up, the plan was to scale out and lower prices through higher volume. Unfortunately, the bad press hit just as they were doing a round of funding and went bankrupt soon after because funding dried up.

Do I think it would have been a hit? Probably not. But the idea wasn't absolutely stupid. It's about the same as any other Silicon Valley idea I've heard. Cater to a very select market of influencers first, and then scale out and create a new market based on green juices. The company absolutely believed that green juices would help the world, because it's a lot healthier, etc, so if you buy into that mindset that they could create a new industry, then it made sense.

Did they make pure business strategy mistake? Yes, just like other companies. Did the founder have too much of a Steve-Jobs-Deity complex by trying to over- design the press? Yes. But it's not nearly as bad as people believe from the headlines. The goal was to create a new market, like how Uber created a market by lowering prices for ridesharing. If you could lower the price of green juice to the price of a Starbucks latte from $15, then they really felt like this company would be a tremendous success.

<comment><USER5> Juicero was ridiculous even if only because the machine was ridiculously overengineered. They should have used two steel rollers, I bet the machine could be made for $20. Instead they made an absurd contraption that crushes the bag between two plates.

<comment><USER2> There's a highly entertaining teardown by AvE on youtube of the machine.

<comment><USER6> you should be linking to the video!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp- BGQfpHQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it comes from a basic lack of respect or understanding of the actual skill requires to work an assembly line properly. Highly educated creative class are trained their whole life to look down with disgust on the people who do repetitive labor. The name shows it.. They call it unskilled. And yet how many of them could do it?

It takes an enormous amount of focus and concentration, the ability to learn complex routines quickly, to create efficiencies without breaking rythyms or rules. All while being payed less and treated like a second class employee.

Why is toyota different? Because they dont think like this. Line workers are thought of highly. Their ideas are integrated into the system. Most of all they are not disposable cogs

<comment><USER2> > The name shows it.. They call it unskilled.

Fun fact: This seems like a very American thing to me (that is being imported into my culture). Where I live apprenticeships (2/3/4 years work _and_ school) are frequently required for assembly work and the like, and has usually been seen as a solid way to make a good living. In the last 10-15 years there has been a pronounced rise of arrogance against journeyman ("Gesellen" i.e. those who completed an apprenticeship) and state-certified technicians ("Techniker" i.e. those who completed an extra two years of school on top of an apprenticeship; this usually entails a bunch of other additional qualifications and certifications); parents act like their children are failures if they don't manage to study at an university and put immense pressure on them.

Rationally speaking that doesn't make any sense; Gesellen and Techniker work full-time _years_ earlier than anyone who goes to university and often climbed the pay ladder quite a few steps in those years as well. Depending on the profession they make good money. In some professions even a lot (e.g. industrial field service can pay six figures all things considered).

University and Abitur (the highest level of secondary school) aren't for everyone, but parents act as if it were so, often with detrimental effects to their children.

<comment><USER8> 50% of all German school students graduating this year will be awarded with an Abitur. The changed view of learning a trade isn't just in the peoples minds, it's actually encouraged by the government. Thanks to the Bologna reform, the old way of going to a trade school is being looked down upon and graduating from college is the new default. Even when you are completing trade school, you are nowadays often awarded with a "Fachabitur" which again encourages people to go to college.

In my city for example the number of college students doubled within the last 10 years. Rents for small apartments got raised accordingly, obviously, and this put more pressure on blue collar workers to put their children into college.

<comment><USER9> Likewise the latest fetish for teaching CS to all school kids.

<comment><USER10> Nothing wrong with exposing as many children as possible to coding. Forcing them isn't good, but making sure that in grades 1-4 they get to play good logic/coding games in computer lab time is a plus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I agree entirely with the sentiment of the article, and I think Elon and Tesla are hopelessly deluding themselves with belief in their superior engineering and product design. But...

Just because a few companies failed at factory automation in 1980 doesn't mean it couldn't succeed in 2018. It's patently absurd to knock Tesla for trying it again in the era of ultra-high resolution cameras and advanced machine learning algorithms.

<comment><USER12> This is true. But a key point: Tesla doesn't actually have to beat state of the art in automation to be profitable. Their cars are already great, electric cars are simpler, they've streamlined the sales process in a way that already gives them at least 10% greater cost advantage if everything else is equivalent (while also eliminating a major pain point for consumers).

But it goes beyond just the fact that technology has advanced: Tesla is willing to pursue alternative approaches where others have long stopped (and this is a point the author of this article makes later on). The fact that Tesla doesn't have the conservative culture of other car makers means that they'll make mistakes like this, but also that they'll find new solutions (or recognize existing solutions in similar fields that haven't become industry standard) whereas others would not.

You cannot automate EXISTING car designs much. And Model 3 does make improvements, but in many ways is built similar. It's like trying to automate soldering components by hand. Automation of electronics required a change in the fundamental way electronics were built. Through-hole is hard to automate but relatively easy to build by hand. Surface mount is simple to automate and ultimately better in several ways, but is super annoying to build by hand. Tesla needs to find the surface mount of car manufacturing. And I think they're trying.

Something particularly hard to automate for automobiles is the wire harness. There are many degrees of freedom; it's kind of like tying your shoe: easy for humans, hard for machines. The Model 3 uses less wire than the Model S/X, but only by a factor of 2 or so. Model Y, on the other hand, is supposed to use like an order of magnitude less. This is like optimizing a circuit board for automation by only using a few through-hole components, relying mostly on surface mount.

So Tesla is going to have to continually redesign their vehicles to be more and more amenable to automation. They can't do this as a step function, and Musk has realized that now. (This is another good point the author makes.)

<comment><USER13> Tesla has yet to sell a car at a profit (using standard accounting practices, known as GAAP, for the auto industry or even in general). They're still losing money on a per-car basis, so the more they sell...the more money they lose.

And don't give me that crap about R&D blah blah blah. Other car makers include R&D and other related capex in their per-car profit accounting.

<comment><USER14> This doesn't sound right. As far as I heard they make something like 20% or more profit on sold cars but due to constant heavy investment they burn through cash reserves.

<comment><USER13> Tesla makes a 20% profit per car if you ignore standard auto industry accounting practices and use magic voodoo accounting and ignore the capex that goes into developing and building those cars. Notably, the only sites claiming that Tesla realizes per-car profits are tech companies which defend the use of non-standard accounting practices.

Note: Most other car companies make hundreds of thousands of cars at each of their factories, and sell hundreds of thousands to millions of cars each year, which substantially reduces the per-car capex. Tesla sells comparatively very few cars, so its per-car capex dwarfs the rest of the industry.

<comment><USER12> Except that Tesla is now producing at a weekly rate equivalent to hundreds of thousands of cars per year at their Fremont factory, comparable to other car companies.

But they're still ramping up. The factory will be outputting something like 500,000 to 700,000 cars per year after they're done ramping. They'll need Model Y and/or Semi and at least another factory before they're going to be comparable to other mid-range manufacturers. They'll need at least half a dozen factories to be a major manufacturer. Or they'll need to change how cars are made entirely.

If they can get millions of cars from a single factory, then the high automation that they're shooting for (and which Model 3 had to back off of) might make sense (and is required for getting that kind of production from a single line). But even that will likely need multiple factories to justify the R&D into the factory line itself.

<comment><USER15> _Tesla is now producing at a weekly rate equivalent to hundreds of thousands of cars per year_

That's only true if you're a time traveler from the future. But it's only April 2018 here, and Tesla is producing about 2600 cars a week. They produced 12000 cars during the first 3 months of the year.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla- tracker/](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/)

Also it would be very difficult to get millions of cars out of the Fremont facility.. they already ran out of space there over a year ago.

<comment><USER16> It's an annualized rate of hundreds of thousands if you include all the models. For the model 3, 2600/wk makes for well over 100k/yr. Model S and X combined are going at an annualized rate of about 100k/yr, extrapolating from last quarter's 24,728 number. Altogether it's over 200k annualized.

<comment><USER15> you're right.. I missed that it said model 3.

although q1 production was 34k x 4 = 136k.. so they still have some growth before it's hundredS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > "Far from leapfrogging the techniques of conventional automakers, Tesla is > now struggling just to match the efficiency of its more established rivals."

I don't think this is true any more. Tesla switched Model 3 from high automation approach at the end of 2017 to a more conventional approach using human labor where appropriate, but still is ramping up quickly and seems to find using human labor very effectively. That doesn't sound like they're struggling with the more traditional approach, but rather embracing it successfully (for Model 3).

But I thought this line was good:

> "Instead of easing robots onto the line a few at a time, providing for > inevitable debugging problems with redundant equipment, GM bet the entire > Hamtramck production system on the proposition that leading-edge automation > would work instantaneously."

Tesla does seem to be learning this lesson. And this is the right takeaway: learn respect for the way things are done, without losing the realization that something far better is possible. That reminds me of the ramp up of Falcon 9.

> "Musk likely could have spared himself a lot of short-term headaches if he > had relied more heavily on auto industry veterans to warn him against > repeating mistakes made by other car companies in previous decades. But if > he had done that, he would also be less likely to discover ways to optimize > the manufacturing process—particularly optimizations that work particularly > well for a company specializing entirely in electric vehicles."

This is a good insight as well. Good article.

<comment><USER17> 1) Consider an assembly line where all tasks and material movements are done by humans. Over years, line operations are tuned to improve faster & better production. Even the vehicle designs are influenced by the capabilities of the line.

2) Machinery is introduced incrementally, supplementing or replacing each human task or material movement. Operations and designs continue to be tuned.

3) Eventually, a line has no humans - but the line design was created around humans, and still inherits constraints for human interaction.

4) Now, imagine a line where the entire line is designed for robots from the start. No humans doing production tasks at all, ever. Even the vehicles being produced are designed to facilitate robotic production.

Henry Ford was level 1. Most modern US production is level 2, hoping to reach level 3. Tesla hoped to reach level 4, settled for available tech at level 3, and is having to fall back to level 2 in some areas. (IMHO).

Is anyone manufacturing entire cars at level 4? How about major components (engines, transmssions, drivetrains)?

edit: 1..3 are evolutionary, 4 is revolutionary.

<comment><USER2> > How about major components (engines, transmssions, drivetrains)?

Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Musk said he wants all parts of the company ready to prepare 6,000 Model 3 > cars per week by the end of June, triple the rate Tesla has achieved in the > recent weeks.

This sounds like madness, and I wonder if anyone believes them.

Has anyone made a timeline or visualisation of Tesla's promised production rates vs reality? They appear to be constantly off, and now they're apparently doubling down and promising a production target that seems even less realistic than the ones they already failed to achieve.

<comment><USER19> Moreover, even if they achieve 6k/week, it'd take about 83 weeks to go through the 500k+ model 3 reservations.

<comment><USER12> Only if you (strangely) assume they won't keep ramping up.

<comment><USER20> Are they planning on opening other assembly plants? Their facility is going to hit a hard limit at some point, even if they do get their act together.

<comment><USER12> Yes, they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > At the same time, it's rarely a good idea to underestimate Musk. Musk has a > long history of setting optimistic deadlines for his companies and then > failing to meet them.

What? Don't underestimate him because he can't do what he says?

<comment><USER22> Maybe you should quote the entire paragraph instead of truncating it in a way that makes it look ridiculous. As I said in the next sentence, "Musk is persistent and a quick learner."

And then as I write later in the piece:

"Musk ignored the conventional wisdom, and he has gotten much further than anyone expected. He has sold hundreds of thousands of cars and has hundreds of thousands more people eager to buy the Model 3 as soon as it's available. Moreover, Tesla has had a huge influence on the broader car industry, forcing every major carmaker to take battery electric vehicles seriously."

<comment><USER21> I didn't think the rest of the paragraph helped your cause in any way. You appear to admit he fails at his objectives, but threw in an unsubstantiated claim that he's a quick learner. If he was a quick learner, he would have learned he makes outrageous claims, and tempered his statements.

<comment><USER23> Failing at your objectives is different than consistently succeeding later than you expected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Although the article is focused on automation, I'd say almost all of the software industry is in a 20 year period of failing to learn much from TPS/lean (with no end in sight).

</comment><comment><USER25> A friend of mine who worked at one of Elon's companies for a number of years was often flabbergasted by the hubris involved in a culture that seemed to insist on repeating almost every single mistake of the past in search of solutions known to those skilled in the art. Valuable time and very large amounts of money are being wasted on engaging in a constant game of reinventing the wheel.

I was told many people brought this up to Elon internally, often with materially negative effect for them. My friend never did, BTW, because he saw what happened and didn't want any part of it. He kept his mouth shut and moved-on on to a competitor where engineers don't waste time and money reinventing every last thing.

He said that Elon is a very smart and truly remarkable guy, but one who lives in an echo chamber within which nobody has the balls to oppose him. Elon seems to be known for unleashing verbal hell in meetings at anyone who dares, insulting them and generally chopping them up in front of their colleagues. Very soon nobody wants to say anything more than necessary, if that. Everyone is in fear of going into a meeting with Elon and getting shredded.

The above is an account I heard from a third party. I have no clue as to the veracity of these statements. The reader is advised to assume them to be false and conduct their own research.

</comment><comment><USER26> >Musk is discovering that large-scale car manufacturing is really hard, and it's not easy to improve on the methods of conventional automakers. And while automation obviously plays an important role in car manufacturing, it's not the magic bullet Musk imagined a couple of years ago. Far from leapfrogging the techniques of conventional automakers, Tesla is now struggling just to match the efficiency of its more established rivals.

This was the money quote for me. Maybe this dose of humble pie will be good. Not for Musk but for the legion of hero-worshippers who believe that some guy who founded PayPal can just "think from first principles" and outwit nearly a century of manufacturing and industrial innovation.

<comment><USER9> Then again that is what W. Edwards Deming did for Japanese industry after being rebuffed by Ford etal

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "... automation works best when it's added incrementally to a production process that's already working smoothly. And Musk seems to have made the same mistake Smith did: bringing in way too many robots, way too quickly, leaving little time for testing and refining the process."

There's a certain naivete to the Tesla story. It has both strengths and weaknesses. I think Tesla will eventually be sold to an existing major car maker or just shut down.

<comment><USER28> "I think Tesla will eventually be sold to an existing major car maker or just shut down."

I think Musk will lose interest once EVs are fully commoditized, progress slows down and Tesla needs to be optimized to every detail. He seems to be more interested in "heroic" achievements and big steps. Maybe they'll find a manager who is willing to run a regular company and then Tesla will just be another manufacturer.

<comment><USER29> That fits with Tesla's stated plan, which is "to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible." Tesla doesn't have to be the #1 auto manufacturer, nor does it even need to survive. As long as EVs are "fully commoditized," the company achieved its mission.

<comment><USER28> I hope the investors have read this.

<comment><USER27> yes. so true.

and, beyond merely selling off their shares, investors who could prove that management pursued a goal which significantly obstructed a reasonable return on investment probably have a viable lawsuit against management.

the managers of publicly traded companies are supposed to pursue providing a return on investment. they aren't entitled to _exclusively_ pursue other _obstructive_ goals, even goals generally beneficial to society, company workers, the poor, etc. that's not what investors are buying into.

of course, that doesn't mean investors _would_ sue and it doesn't mean the government _would necessarily_ investigate such a company. but there would be reasonable grounds for a lawsuit...

<comment><USER30> This isn't true at all. A company can pursue any not-profit related goal it likes.

All that is required is that this information is clearly disclosed to investors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "that if Musk had listened to the experts, he probably wouldn't have started Tesla in the first place"

Except he didn't start Tesla, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning did. Musk soon joined, but that's not what was implied.

I honestly expect better from Ars Technica. To me this is just more glorification of personality to god-like status. Yes he's an impressive guy, but he's never the only one singlehandedly making all the decisions, innovations, or executing the work.

<comment><USER32> Technically those other two filed the incorporation papers and started noodling around. It's easy to imagine Tesla with Elon but impossible without. The "founders" didn't get very far and the future was bleak.

<comment><USER31> I'm not saying he wasn't important. He's considered a founder by Tesla. I'm just taking issue with the statement that he wouldn't have started it if... because he didn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> A common story in manufacturing is an anti-union story: labour pricing itself above what capital wants to spend. And a common sub-story in this story, is trying to use automation as a big cudgel to beat labour, especially organized labour with.

And, Elon Musk is said (by unionists) to be pretty anti union. Silicon Valley is said to be pretty anti-union. New capital, the Ayn Randeans, they're pretty anti-union.

So, I suspect there is another side to this story: If you want to try and use robots to avoid confronting your labour issues, you need to understand the value labour brings to an endevour. There is no dumb labour, there is only expensive and cheap labour. Cheap labour is rarely worth it. Expensive labour is often necessary.

Cutting corners includes trying to avoid having to employ people.

Jeff Bizos is also very anti unions. But, he automated very slowly. I think his work floor practices in the packing mills he runs is very bad, but if we discount that, it is perhaps far more sensible: learn how to run supply chain logistics with the minimum sensible automation, then slowly increase.

I suspect had Musk swallowed his pride, and his anti union and anti labour views, and employed people, and organised labour, he might have avoided this problem. Of course, he would have walked into another problem: organised labour is not cheap.

But then, a tesla isn't cheap either.

How does he make rockets? Does he use robots, or people, or a blend of both?

</comment><comment><USER34> I have devoted my professional live to manufacturing automation.

From my point of view, what Musk tries to do is very hard, but if someone could do it it is him.

There are differences between the 1880 and the 2018, in particular AI(artificial intelligence) today is "out of this world" tech compared to 1880s. Today you could solve things just by brute force AI that was simply impossible in the past. And Musk will probably do just that. If I had hundreds of millions of dollars I will do too.

The great thing about automation is that once you solve something, it works forever. It takes way more work, of course getting it to work in the first place.

Musk has as his best gift his total lack of doubt like young people that believe that nothing is impossible. It is very typical for this young people to crash over walls as they repeat the mistakes others have done. At the same time, it is young people who change the world when conditions change(and making the same mistakes do not yield the same output).

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm confused that Tesla did not hire these experts. I see Munro & Associates dropping criticism, and am baffled, given so much expert knowledge available that no one hired these guys or their competition.

<comment><USER32> Why would you hire a bunch of critics? "Experts" are stuck in the past. It's hard to find experts willing or able to let go of their baggage and apply their expertise to a current situation.

<comment><USER36> If you're trying to diagnose and fix problems, aren't critics exactly the kinds of people you want to to hire? Having a bunch of uncritical yes-men won't help you improve. When I watched the Munroe video, there's only one or two of their criticisms that I think a reasonable person would disagree with. Janky weatherstripping and doors that rub against the body of the car are bad regardless of any personal baggage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > _" Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake," Musk tweeted recently. > "Humans are underrated."_

Ironic to hear this from a company that is aiming to build autonomous vehicles.

</comment><comment><USER38> In an alternative universe Elon-5000 is slowly figuring out that his plan to fully autoprimate his vehicle plants using the latest in primate tech- humans; slow and weak swarm entities that are extremely cognitively flexible, cheap, energy efficient (fueld by almost anything green), with built in error checking, is not working out. A mix of traditional robotics from the 80s and advanced primate tech will be most efficient.

</comment><comment><USER39> I think it's reasonable to hypothesize that robotics has improved enough thirty years to try it again. Just didn't work out.

<comment><USER40> Exactly, it weren't probably the same mistakes that were made, but new ones -- related to automation, yes, with similar robot-tech, no.

I'm also guessing that he's probably going to try again. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The exact problems are not listed, moreover highly likely just a robot control program bugs.

</comment><comment><USER42> Well at least they aren't repeating mistakes from the 1920s

</comment><comment><USER43> What happens to customer owned Tesla cars IF Tesla fails?

<comment><USER44> My guess, based on the history of thousands of bankrupt companies past, is that a legacy auto manufacturer will buy Tesla's assets at an enormous discount and will serve Tesla's existing customer base as long as it's profitable to do so.

Large companies rarely die, even in "failure" \-- they just become part of a different company or are resurrected by hedge fund investors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Yeah, but .. that was the 80's, wasn't it? Its not like we haven't advanced things in the state of the art massively, since then - or?

I mean, the Internet was really hard in the 80's too. But now look at it!

</comment><comment><USER46> I pulled behind a Model C a couple of days ago. Coukdn't believe how poor the body panel alignment is, visible from 10' away. There are no cars with these issues, not even economy cars.

</comment><comment><USER47> TL;DR the time and investment it takes to perfect fully automated car production is still prohibitive and has a poor return on investment. GM learned this the hard way in the 80s and Tesla is getting the same hard lesson now.

<comment><USER12> You didn't read until the end of the article. For instance:

> "Musk likely could have spared himself a lot of short-term headaches if he > had relied more heavily on auto industry veterans to warn him against > repeating mistakes made by other car companies in previous decades. But if > he had done that, he would also be less likely to discover ways to optimize > the manufacturing process—particularly optimizations that work particularly > well for a company specializing entirely in electric vehicles."

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Seriously. I sometimes thing if these articles are doing for Elon Musk.

So Mr Musk is attempting something, let us call this X. If he simply do it, no one else notices, and the future potential investors might fail to notice...Same if he fails.

So he has to make sure that they notice when he succeeds. What better way than to make a bunch of articles that says what he is trying to do is impossible. Then if he succeeds, then the (artificial) voices that were saying what he is doing is impossible, ends up amplifying his success 100 fold. If he fails, then not much of his current reputation is changed.

So if you are handling PR for Elon Musk. Why wouldn't you make these articles happen?

</comment><comment><USER49> Same topic already discussed:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16891651](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16891651)

</comment><comment><USER50> "Experts".

Experts in . . . what?</comment>


Google Fails to Provide "One Account. All of Google." - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@buro9/one-account-all-of-google-4d2929066951 <comment> m-p-3 The issue here is that if Google adds official supports to some of these things in G Suite account, they'll likely have to put some kind of SLAs on them to satisfies the businesses requirements.

I guess Google is not ready to make those commitments on the business side of things, so they simply avoid them for now.</comment>


New Arduino Yún Connects to 100+ APIs with Temboo - <AUTHOR> http://blog.arduino.cc/2013/09/11/the-power-of-temboo-connect-the-yun-to-100-apis/

<comment><USER2> This is pretty neat. I didn't know the new Arduino would have WiFi and bundling with that service (Temboo) makes it look like it shouldn't take much to get a lot of common things working. It's a nice step in Arduino's evolution.

</comment><comment><USER3> FTA: "Don't know what an API is or how to use one? Don't worry. You don't need to."

How many people are there who tinker with an Arduino, but don't know what an API is?? Reading this kind of stuff just makes me feel like its not targeted to me.

<comment><USER4> A LOT of artists are learning hardware and no high level scripting or concepts. They know how to get LEDs and servos to react to you but have no clue what an object really is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How does one buy one of these? I live in the U.S. and visited a handful of the designated USA distributors but couldn't find a site that had one.

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately they're not expected in the U.S. until around Sept. 30.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks cool, can't wait to rig up a display (maybe a flashing light) for the office whenever a new customer signs up!</comment>


What's your most productive vim shortcut? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-most-productive-shortcut-with-vim?rq=1

<comment><USER2> how often does this stackoverflow thread gets reposted on HN?</comment>


NRA gives Ajit Pai "courage award" and gun for "saving the Internet" - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/02/nra-gives-ajit-pai-courage-award-and-gun-for-saving-the-internet/ <comment><USER2> The logic is simple. Obama talked about net neutrality. And Obama wanted to take our guns away. So net neutrality is bad. Q.E.D.

No really, after reading the article a second time, I still can't come up with a better explanation for their motives. If you think you have a better explanation, please reply. This truly baffles me and it bothers me that I can't understand how some of my fellow Americans think.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can understand and even sympathise a lot of positions conservatives and Republicans have but this type of shit baffles me.

Part of me figures it's nice PR to cover over that it's just a power play but then again, Hanlon's Razor[1] makes me wonder if they genuinely think net neutrality is bad

[1]: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

<comment><USER4> I often wonder about these dynamics. I've been genuinely befuddled to learn that some people believe political arguments that I perceived to be so stupid that they _had_ to be part of a cynical political narrative. But lo and behold, some people who I otherwise knew to be reasonable still believed them.

My suspicion is that it only takes a very small minority of a political group to understand the landscape of an issue, initiate a narrative around a power play and have it spread like wildfire within the group.

In short, I think both of your explanations can be correct at the same time. A small subset initiates, the rest of the group genuinely adopts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Schneider did not explain how eliminating net neutrality rules preserved anyone 's "free speech rights."_

I'm just having visions of every facepalm ascii, pic and gif I've ever seen.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's funny to note that the reason he couldn't be presented with his rifle at the event is because the Conservative Political Action Conference is a gun- free zone.</comment>


What it takes to get great after you've got good. - <AUTHOR> http://ddr0.github.com/discussions/Beyond%20Practise.html

<comment><USER2> This sounds like a discussion of Deliberate Practice by someone who's never heard of Deliberate Practice. "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_(learning_method)#Deli...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_\(learning_method\)#Deliberate_practice)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd never heard of that definition of it. I think the text linked is a bit more approachable, and emphasizes the feedback part of Deliberate Practise to a greater degree. The Wikipedia is dense, to say the least.</comment></comment>


SpaceX in Talks to Raise Funds at $44B Valuation - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-23/musk-s-spacex-in-talks-to-raise-funds-at-44-billion-valuation <comment><USER2> [https://outline.com/kF2zDX](https://outline.com/kF2zDX)</comment>


Modern C++: Variadic template parameters and tuples - <AUTHOR> http://www.murrayc.com/permalink/2015/12/05/modern-c-variadic-template-parameters-and-tuples/ <comment><USER2> I've never found a use for std::tuple. It comes with a lot of inconvenience without providing much power.

Boost Fusion on the other hand is extremely powerful. It's relatively straightforward, for example, to write a function that takes a std::function<R(A,B,C) and returns a new function<R(vector<string>) that performs argument count checking and lexical interpretation before invoking it. Doing that with std::tuple would be a mission.

<comment><USER3> Tuples are useful for writing fairly low level features such as marshalling between threads. std::bind is another way, if you need to marshal arguments with a function...but if you don't have a function to call, it's just a tuple.

<comment><USER4> Lambda captures are great for that too, especially since C++14, where you can use move semantics with the captures (e.g. marshal std::unique_ptr)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember Murray's blog from the old Gtkmm days, boy it was a long time ago.</comment>


Man and Superman - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2013/09/09/130909crat_atlarge_gladwell <comment><USER2> People overestimate the effect of genetic advantages in sport. I have two examples.

1) The first example is identical twins Otto and Ewald, who pursued different sports and developed rather different physiques through their sports training.

[http://thesameffect.com/check-out-identical-twins-otto- and-e...](http://thesameffect.com/check-out-identical-twins-otto-and-ewald/)

(I learned about this case from a local professor who teaches courses in human behavior genetics. He uses this case as an example to correct misunderstandings about genetics.)

2) The second example is that Usain Bolt was once thought to be too tall to be a successful sprinter.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00v9bs4/profiles/usain- bolt](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00v9bs4/profiles/usain-bolt)

[http://bleacherreport.com/articles/49040-usain-bolt-why- the-...](http://bleacherreport.com/articles/49040-usain-bolt-why-the-fastest- man-alive-is-in-the-wrong-business)

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/recycled/200...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/recycled/2009/08/taking_sprinting_to_new_heights.html)

The simple fact is that athletic training reshapes bodies and makes what seems impossible possible after all.

<comment><USER3> This Atlantic article suggests that you will never win an Olympic medal in sprinting unless you come from West Africa[1]. This same population is bad at distance running, where Kenyans dominate. There appears to be strong genetic components at work here.

[1] [http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the...](http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the- urgency-and-the-challenge-of-connecting-sports-race-and-genetics/278345/)

<comment><USER4> Distance running is the national sport in Kenya. They spend money on it like the US spends money on football. Of course, not to quite the same degree, but the point is still that it is their national sports focus. If Kenyan's are genetically superior at marathons, then Americans are genetically superior at football.

Countries as large as the US, India, China, etc., have large enough populations that _someone_ in them should match the "genetic ideal" to excel at a certain sport. It is economics that prevents them from doing so. Either their country or culture doesn't value the sport and thus doesn't spend money on it, or they must spend too much time earning to feed themselves that they can't train.

Or that particular person has just never tried the sport. Or there are people who are actually more genetically suited to the particular sport but are discouraged from trying because they hear the current theories on what makes a genetically suitable athlete for that sport.

All we know is that Kenya as a country has the ability to produce excellent marathon runners. To heap all of that on "genetics" is grossly short-sited.

<comment><USER3> We know that subpopulations of humans vary drastically by phenotypes relevant to athletic performance. The Dutch average adult male height is the highest on the planet at 6'1". African pygmies separated from their Bantu relatives 4,000 - 5,000 years ago, and have since evolved to have an average male height of 4'11". Others are intermediate - the Japanese have an average male height of 5'7".

Within a breeding population, height tends to follow a normal distribution. Depending on the standard deviation, there will be a few Japanese taller than the average Dutch. But there will be far more Dutch than Japanese among the very tallest men. This is a simple example, but in a sport where height matters, like basketball, there will be far more Dutch who are good at it than Japanese, and far more Japanese than pygmies.

Certainly culture matters, especially in sports where intelligence matters more and raw physical talents matter less. But genetics also matter.

<comment><USER5> It doesn't seem that height has everything to do with genetics, if we observe the average heights of taller countries in the past. Things like diet and perhaps healthcare are also factors. When it comes to the Dutch, they didn't always use to be the tallest:

\- [http://suite101.com/article/why-are-the-dutch-so- tall-a55753](http://suite101.com/article/why-are-the-dutch-so-tall-a55753)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a very interesting article. I ran D1 track & field and cross-country a couple of years ago, so I've put a lot of thought into this.

Personally, I think there are huge genetic variations between individuals. I could never possibly train hard/effectively enough to compete with someone like Bekele or Gebrselassie. I also think it is kind of hard for most people (non-athletes) to understand this fact unless they have _personally_ spent years training hard themselves.

That said, these huge genetic variations only set the ceiling of what you are capable of. This is why I think that for the majority of people who participate in sports, it is in fact a very fair endeavor. Even up through the D1 level, I think hard work can more than compensate for most genetic disadvantages. It becomes more difficult as you start to approach world-class, but for 99% of people who are athletes of some form, anyone you would locally compete against can be defeated simply by working harder.

It may not be fair in the sense that I might have to run 80 miles a week vs my competitor running 30 miles a week to achieve the same result, but in the end, all that matters is who has a faster time or a better score. Maybe that bothers some people, but it doesn't bother me.

<comment><USER7> _these huge genetic variations only set the ceiling of what you are capable of._

It also sets how fast you can get there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In the sport of bodybuilding, genetic advantages do make it "unfair" because you are most definitely constrained by it (zipper abs, unaesthetic chest insertions).

But I wouldn't subscribe to this definition of fairness. Fairness seems more about everyone playing by the same set of rules in the sport. If you start including genetics into the rules then it would become unfair, purely by defining it that way.

<comment><USER9> In bodybuilding, you are confusing genetics with steroids.

<comment><USER10> you can't get good bone and muscle structure from a needle!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> No more so than any other advantage. Some kids get good diets, encouragement, the best teachers. Others get an abusive gym teacher, crap microwaved meals, and parents who don't give a toss about them.

Honestly, looking at the sacrifices some sportspeople have to make in other areas of their lives, I'm not sure I'd even want the advantages if they were offered me. I mean I love martial arts, dancing, swimming, archery... but I'm not sure I'd want to live the sort of life necessary to become the best in the world in any of them. When did sports become about winning, rather than having fun and making friends?

<comment><USER12> _When did sports become about winning_

Two thousand years ago or so (maybe more), when prize money and sponsorship deals became a thing.

<comment><USER13> Not 2000, in antiquity, they only earned some laurel (and it was as common as today). Gold and silver medails started to be given 150 years ago. But now it's finished, they only get worthless gold plated medails, plus e sponsorship deals.

<comment><USER12> Valuable prizes in sport goes back to at least 500 BC. And even for events that didn't have prize money, leveraging the fame that came with being the winner of a great event into money and fortune was as common then as it is now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Do Genetic Advantages make sport unfair?

Our LIVES are determined by 2 factors:

1\. Genetics

2\. The environment in which our genetics are applied (social, economic, ecologic, etc.)

Everything in our lives is caused by these two. So no, there is no real free will and nobody is ever treated fairly.

And yes, our entire culture is still medieval with regards to accepting this fact and taking it into account.

</comment><comment><USER15> Every example is of an individual sport. If one looks at team sports, the advantage of any one phenotype over others begins to disappear: most tellingly in the world's most popular sport. Top footballers range from Messi to Ronaldo to Cech. "Third lung" is from the Korean penninsula, not 2000 meters.

<comment><USER16> You're just cherry-picking. Pick another sport: basketball. Here you'll find a collection of players _way above_ average height. In fact, players who are average height are the extreme outliers in basketball.

<comment><USER15> Other than basketball, there are few team sports where stature is a specific advantage (and stature is not a unique genetic characteristic like long Achilles tendons or elevated red blood cells. Thus cricket, rugby, and American football allow for a wide range of physiques at the elite level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sports competitions are about finding the best athlete, not purely the best training regimen - and genes are part of the definition of who that athlete is.

On the other hand, an interesting question would be about improved homo sapiens - we will start to improve ourselves as a species at some point (simply because there are so many imperfect things to improve), and at that point 'unupgraded' athletes probably won't be competitive at all.

<comment><USER18> People overestimate the role of genetic advantages in individuals.

Usually these advantages can't be quantified, they can hardly be predicted. It takes a lot of math to do that for a population of athletes... and then the top performer gets injured.

<comment><USER16> _People overestimate the role of genetic advantages in individuals._

No, they don't. In fact, we're so aware of it that we have an entirely separate category for athletes that lack a Y chromosome.

<comment><USER19> I'm trying to understand the argument you are making, but it seems logically correct only if the previous comment were "underestimate" instead of "overestimate".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There wouldn't be the Paralypmics if genetics were fair.

</comment><comment><USER13> Of course. Let's equalize it all. Same genes, same education, same training, same food. 120% pure clones. And then let's who's able to stick his head ahead of the others. We can dig out our beloved Guillotine to see it that no one ends first.</irony mode="dang">

<comment><USER21> If we did equalize everything, then the result would be random luck, which is also unfairm - sort of like how genetics are random luck.

Why don't we just change the rules so everyone wins?

<comment><USER22> The article is about fairness in terms of equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. It's not luck if one identical twin trains more than the other and thus can run faster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Nothing in life is fair. Why would sports be any different?

</comment><comment><USER24> Let's not allow competitive sports other than between people with identical genomes and identical doping regimes. Then we can be confident that in most instances the winner tried hardest. We already have lab standard rats with identical DNA, so it shouldn't be too hard to clone a race of identical competitive athletes.

</comment><comment><USER25> Gladwell seems to be making the point that doping in sports is a sort of reverse Harrison Bergeron, with the have-nots needing to "cheat" to get to the same level as the genetically gifted haves.

What happens, though, when the most innately talented (Armstrong, Rodriguez, Barry Bonds) also go in for enhancement?

</comment><comment><USER26> Relevant XKCD. [http://xkcd.com/1173/](http://xkcd.com/1173/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Exercise and training make sport unfair! Top athletes spend hours and hours at it, every day, often forsaking a normal life and education, sometimes even ruining their bodies in the process. And in doing so they gain a decisive advantage over those who don't spend so long training.

</comment><comment><USER28> This article brings to mind the story of Harrison Bergeron, a short story set in a dystopian future US that attempts to remove all possible sources of inequality.

[http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html](http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> I guess you can start talking about unfair genetic advantages when you have zero doping...

Also I don't believe it matters at the top level. Even with high heritabilities, the top performers will probably share the same "genetic" advantages.

<comment><USER29> _Hamilton was eventually caught and was suspended from professional cycling. He became one of the first in his circle to implicate Lance Armstrong, testifying before federal investigators and appearing on "60 Minutes." He says that he regrets his years of using performance-enhancing drugs. The lies and duplicity became an unbearable burden. His marriage fell apart. He sank into a depression. His book is supposed to serve as his apology. At that task, it fails. Try as he might—and sometimes he doesn't seem to be trying very hard—Hamilton cannot explain why a sport that has no problem with the voluntary induction of anorexia as a performance-enhancing measure is so upset about athletes infusing themselves with their own blood._

Did you even read the article? Sometimes it feels like when the headline is simple like that people feel like they can skip the thing completely and just post the most concise, one-up retort they can muster.

<comment><USER30> Some people are just wired to post quick retorts. For the rest of us it takes years of painstaking practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The bigger question is - why does sport exist anymore? It comes from a time before movies,books,tv,video games,facebook,pinterest.

Want to stay fit? Do some bodybuilding and some swimming.

Want to focus your mind tactically? Plan your app empire.

Hackers need to find creative ways to destroy the sport industry, just as PG urges us to find creative ways to destroy Hollywood.

<comment><USER23> A lot of hackers play sports. Why would we try to destroy them?

Sports exist because some people find them fun. If you don't, don't worry. They're purely optional.

<comment><USER32> Huge budgets at state universities are sunk into the traditional american sport of handegg. Usually it is at a loss, but considered neccessary to draw more students. I don't mind casual sports... its the bullshit of proffesional sports that has a more direct negative inpact via decreased funding for education.

<comment><USER23> Oh yes, I totally agree with that thought. I didn't consider that because I don't spectate sports. I only play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "We want sports to be fair and we take elaborate measures to make sure that no one competitor has an advantage over any other."

That is incorrect. If sports were fair, then everyone would win. Sports are specifically _not_ meant to be fair, the entire point of the competition is to reveal which competitor is superior to the others.

The rules that we have against performance enhancing drugs are not about having an advantage over other competitors. We don't have similar rules governing how much weight training a particular athlete may do, or how clean their diet may be. They are about establishing rules by which universal play can be governed. The rules of the game define the game. If you play by a different set of rules, you are playing a different game. If the Tour de France did not have a rule against excessive[1] steroid use, then using steroids would not be cheating. But, the Tour de France with steroids is not the Tour de France, it's a different race entirely.

As a culture, we associate healthful living with physical fitness, and we associate sports accomplishment with physical fitness, therefore we make the huge leap of associating sports accomplishment with healthful living. Even sans-drugs, sports accomplishment doesn't necessarily equal healthful living, especially in the cases of ultra-marathons increasing risk of heart attack and the head trauma of American football increasing the chance of dementia. But we still make that association, so as a culture we tend to value sports that at least pay lip service to maintaining the image of athletes as healthy. Though, it's important to point at that we are inconsistent in that regard: certain performance enhancing drugs are allowed in horse racing, and why shouldn't pain killers be considered performance enhancing, if they allow the athlete to perform better than they would without them?

Our culture shapes the rules we choose for our games, the rules define the game. Cheating is not about "gaining an unfair advantage". It is an unfair advantage for the New York Yankees to have the very best sports doctors in the league, but it is within the rules of the game, therefor it is not cheating. Much of sports strategy is about finding ways to find unconventional play within the rules to give oneself an unfair advantage. Cheating is violating the social contract of the game: "we've come here today to engage in a competition and these are the rules by which we will evaluate the competition".

[1] steroid use rules are often defined in terms of testosterone levels, and the limits are frequently well, well above the levels expected for a healthy male. The rule is thus, "no high testosterone", not actually "no steroids", and it has become standard practice in many sports to try to cycle a steroid usage to peak testosterone levels just below the limit. This takes _significant_ personal experimentation and blood testing to see exactly how the individual body reacts to the drugs and over what time frame. But don't expect the difficulty to mean that people aren't doing it: they are. When you see an athlete testing positive for steroids, it is not a question whether or not they were using steroids or that others were also using it, it's a matter of them not following their regimen properly.

<comment><USER22> _If sports were fair, then everyone would win._

The way he's using "fair" is more like "If sports were fair, then the guy who works hardest would win." Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.

<comment><USER4> The concept of greater effort only holds for amateur sports, and only at the low levels of the sport. Professional athletes _all_ (well with the exception of primadonna athletes) work as absolutely hard as they possibly can. If there were a way to work harder to have a better chance victory, they would.

Sports are fair in the sense that everyone has the opportunity to do everything they can within the rules. The rules are numerous enough and vague enough (being that they are written by people in human languages) that there are a variety of interpretations and paths through which one can play. No one person can explore the entire depths of the rulebook.

But it is not fair in the sense that any one particular path through the rulebook will be as effective as any other path.

<comment><USER22> _Professional athletes all (well with the exception of primadonna athletes) work as absolutely hard as they possibly can. If there were a way to work harder to have a better chance victory, they would._

That seems very obviously not true, unless by "primadonna athletes" you mean "the vast majority of athletes". Athletes face opportunity costs just like the rest of us, and different athletes come to different priorities. They aren't robots.

For instance, stories about pro athletes coming to training camp out of shape are very common. An article I recently read about Andre Miller comes to mind. Andre Miller is a basketball player that most would say fits the archetype of "wily veteran" rather than "primadonna". How does he train? [http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/15542/the- secrets...](http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/15542/the-secrets-of- the-nbas-iron-man)

 _" I have no regimen," Miller says. After the season ends, so does Miller's working out -- no weights, no cardio, no nothing. "I really don't pick up a basketball." Eating right also falls by the wayside. "(My diet) isn't healthy at all," Miller says. "Hamburgers, hot links on the Fourth of July, all that." To control his weight, however, Miller uses old-fashioned discipline. "I starve myself," he says. Seriously? "Yeah, I'm just starting to learn about calories and all that."_

Yep, that's the guy who owns the active NBA record for consecutive games played. And he competes against players like Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash who are famous for their impeccable training regimens.

Another example... literally every female athlete who gets pregnant is hurting her chances for victory. Yet tons of them do it.

<comment><USER33> _" every female athlete who gets pregnant is hurting her chances for victory. Yet tons of them do it."_

That isn't clear-cut. There are rumours that getting pregnat was used as a form of doping. See [http://www.snopes.com/politics/sexuality/doping.asp](http://www.snopes.com/politics/sexuality/doping.asp), [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_doping](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_doping)

<comment><USER22> Interesting, I'd never heard of that before. Then change it to "gets pregnant and doesn't have an abortion" and it's definitely true, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Yes.

Read about myostatin. It's a protein that inhibits muscle growth.</comment>


Google login now requires Google+ Account - <AUTHOR> Today, I went to login to a service that I signed up for many months ago using my Google account. In the past, clicking the 'sign in with Google' button with authenticate against my Google account and immediately log me in. However, today, I was prompted to create a Google+ profile with no other  option. In other words, either I could create a Google+ account, or I could fuck off and never use the service again... Anyone else encountering this? <comment><USER2> What's with the Google Derangement Syndrome on HN recently? Any change in any Google service prompts the same "I'm taking all my toys and going home" response.

Google used to have a separate profile system just like profiles.yahoo.com, and like Yahoo, having lots of disparate services with weak unification was a problem. G+ is that unifying profile layer. Is it really beyond the pale for a service to prompt you to enter some optional information about yourself? Yes, optional, as in, I have hundreds of followers on G+ with obviously bogus profiles. You don't have to use G+'s social feed, you don't have to friend anyone.

I personally barely use Twitter or Facebook, mostly as single-sign-on to forums and other sites.

<comment><USER3> > Google used to have a separate profile system just like profiles.yahoo.com, > and like Yahoo, having lots of disparate services with weak unification was > a problem.

No, it wasn't. It was very simple. You want an account for youtube, sign up on youtube, you want an account for something else - sign up there. You want your accounts to be the same login across all the services? Use the same login across all the services.

It wasn't confusing, it wasn't complex, it didn't present any problems to anyone of even moderate intelligence.

> Is it really beyond the pale for a service to prompt you to enter some > optional information about yourself?

It's not really optional when they start tying everything together. I don't want my real name tied to any of my online activities - but if my google accounts were stuck together through google+ it would be, because I use my real name on my phone.

It's possible to lie of course, and tell a different lie with a different email address for every time you want to limit the degree to which different portions of your data contaminate other things. But it's a pain in the arse and only realistically possible because they're not enforcing their single sign on policy that strongly yet.

They're made it far more complicated to keep your privacy than it was before.

<comment><USER2> Having to create a separate account on N services with the same credentials is simpler than having a unified account? And what if your login is already taken on one of the other services, now you're forced to have multiple credentials. And then when you need to update something, like change an email address, 2factor authentication, or some other feature, you've now got to edit settings on many services.

If you want an anonymous Google account, simply create one, which is what everyone has been doing for a long time, even for gmail prior to G+, people would create multiple accounts.

The model isn't K identities and N services, you need O(K*N) credentials in the worse case. It's K identities and N services is O(K) credentials.

<comment><USER4> > If you want an anonymous Google account, simply create one

I did. I had to sign up with a "backup" email address though, for which I entered my primary email address. Now, whenever Gmail users send an email to my primary email address, they see the bogus name that I created the anonymous Google account with. Crap.

And Youtube, please stop asking me to use my "real" name. Is it that hard to remember my preferences?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this was already in place for quite a while. Google has slowly been trying to move away form pseudonyms altogether and force Real Name policies like Facebook and things like YouTube, Blogger, Docs etc... were all slowly tied to one login system.

This was a problem for me at first because I ended up with multiple accounts with no way to merge them together. But I believe they started with YouTube.

I got an email saying they will deactivate/delete the account without verifying it (in this case "verify" was to create a Google account). I'm guessing this was only sent to accounts that hadn't uploaded any videos and mine had none at the time. A friend of mine also got the same email and she had no videos at the time either.

It makes sense from their end to create one account, but adding Google+ seems to be a case of forced adoption. I've used multiple gmail addresses and they've all prompted me to create a new G+ account whenever I logged in just to check the inbox. If I wanted to add another service, I've been hit with some sort of conflict message. I think Google is able to tell when the same person uses multiple gmail addresses.

<comment><USER6> The scary part is that the coercive push for Real Name, single identity is advantageous to both private sector (Google, Facebook, etc) and government (NSA, etc). The former get better tracking and ad revenues. The latter improved surveillance and control of the public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow. This is the worst thing that could happen.

Creating a Google+ account is such a travesty.

It's such a waste of time and effort that could be better spent ranting on Hacker News.

You should avoid everything Google.

In principle, avoid any site that displays Google ads. By visiting ads, you're enabling Google to do all these evil things.

<comment><USER8> I'll better avoid advices, based on blind hate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is super stupid. I have two business accounts and a personal account. Google now forced me to have 3 Google Plus profiles - and yes, I did discover exactly the same.

I'm actively trying to replace Google with other things. They clearly lost their sense of quality.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's just so they can brag about having more "active users" than Twitter/Facebook/whatever.

<comment><USER11> That's not really fair. Google has been pretty good about defining activity on G+, much more so than either Twitter or Facebook. For example, they give individual numbers for total users visiting G+ on web/mobile, people using G+ features across all products (+1s, shares, comments), and total number of accounts.

<comment><USER12> Source? (all I've ever heard is that Google considers someone an "active" G+ user if they have a G+ account and have used any Google product over the period in question)

<comment><USER11> [http://marketingland.com/google-hits-135-million- users-27904](http://marketingland.com/google-hits-135-million-users-27904)

"According to new Google figures, Google+ now has 135 million active users, with 235 million active users when counting Google properties with Google+ features, and 500 million with Google+ enabled accounts."

<comment><USER12> Thanks, that's interesting, I've only seen the "active users when counting Google properties with Google+ features" type numbers but nice to see a number (135m) for actually using G+ (probably higher now since that link is a few months old). Though I disagree with your [original] statement that Google is "defining activity" much more so than Facebook [http://newsroom.fb.com/content/default.aspx?NewsAreaId=22](http://newsroom.fb.com/content/default.aspx?NewsAreaId=22)

<comment><USER11> It is nice that they break up mobile from the total and that they provide daily active users. That said, I didn't see anything on that page that actually defined what they mean by 'active', so I think my point still stands. Then again, it's known Facebook usage is, for the time being at least, significantly higher than G+, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Note to web services businesses: give your users the option to have a local account, and give them an option to change from one 3rd party authenticator to another or to a local account.

<comment><AUTHOR> This would be an ideal solution for this situation, but the problem remains: if I cannot authenticate via the 3rd party initially, the service has no way of knowing that I am actually the owner of the account. I am not sure what the working implementation of this looks like.

<comment><USER14> Email verification with a newly generated local password. That's what Meetup did after I quit Facebook, and it was only 3-4 minutes of friction.

<comment><AUTHOR> Doh. Of course - that would have been easy and effective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I used to review apps on the play store before it switched over to google+, and a number of the comment systems on websites I go to use it now so I don't comment on them anymore.

<comment><USER15> I noticed this also. Why should I give my real name to post a review of a game I play on my Android for 5 minutes?

Some of this forced Google plus integrations they're doing are just getting ridiculous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's time to dump Google. Alternatives: [http://prism-break.org](http://prism- break.org)

</comment><comment><USER17> Most of my family members will sooner dump Gmail than create a Google+ account.

<comment><USER2> Some would say having your family members avoid G+ is one of the primary benefits of G+. So instead of being barraged by a stream of photos of cousins and aunts you haven't seen in decades, or discussing family gossip, you get to engage in interesting conversations based on people with similar strong interests in particular topics.

None of the people I follow on G+ are 'friends' with the exception of co- workers, instead, they are people who have very interesting things to say and who I like interacting with. Twitter would be a comparable use case, but it is too annoying to have long form stream discussions with followers like this.

<comment><USER12> That doesn't sound like a very good "primary benefit" since Google's strategy is clearly to get as many people to use G+ as possible. Either a) they'll be successful and your G+ stream will be barraged by "photos of cousins and aunts" anyway or b) it's not successful and they pull the plug.

<comment><USER2> I don't think it's either-or. Even if they show up, G+ is by default, an asymmetric model. And G+ isn't just about the "stream". Google would have done something like G+ anyway to unify 40+ services. You might be right that they want more than a niche audience, on the other hand, Google does want to elevate the public square.

Having a segmented by interest social network is a primary benefit. I come to HackerNews not because I'm friends with anyone here, but because I can interact with interesting people here. It's also why I go to G+ every. The level of dialogue on G+ is much better than Facebook on average, and the G+ communities are a lot better than Facebook pages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> the problem is that I may want a gmail account or I may want to use google hangouts to videochat with friends or I may want or need to use google calendar ... but I do NOT want to have a social network account. Google has made it so I have no choice.

<comment><USER11> I'm curious, why are you so vehemently opposed to having an account? You could very easily just not provide public profile information, never post, and never add anyone.

<comment><USER18> which begs the question ... why do I need a G+ account?

It's not like I am asking google to implement some ability that has previously been not implemented... rather google has decided to eliminate a little piece of choice ... or freedom ... or whatever you want to call it ... for their users. Why? Because it's better for them.

Which brings one back to something that has been posted many many times ... you are not the customer, you are the product. As long as you're OK with that, go for it... but my bet is that the vast majority of google's users have little concept of the issue of customer vs product.

I'm just a little sad to see google take another step towards being a faceboob instead of taking one step away from them.

<comment><USER11> "why do I need a G+ account?" "Because it's better for them."

You've answered your own question. I also believe that the customer vs product issue is much more nuanced than most people portray it to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yes, I was required to set up a Google+ account some time ago to re-log-in to YouTube or Picasa Web Albums - I don't remember which. The description of what was going on didn't make it clear to me that following the prescribed steps would create a Google+ account, but that was the effect.

However, there was a saving grace, as far as I'm concerned. I was allowed to remove my real name from my Google account and use my ancient on-line alias instead. That's all I ever wanted.

<comment><USER20> I think its picasa

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> you should try google plus.. try communities and follow some googlers :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Finally! Google as a company unifying their user login. Its about time.

For privacy freaks like me: share only what you want. If you dont like this, you have the freedom to leave the service at anytime (along with deleting all your data also)

</comment><comment><USER22> Can I ask which service it was where this happened? It's possible this is a bug or an OAuth setting that's specific to the site in question. Feel free to email if you prefer (address in profile)

edit: grammar

</comment><comment><USER23> I just tested this and was able to sign into userstyles.org just fine on a blank account with no G+ profile. Are you sure it wasn't an option that the third-party service was enabling?

</comment><comment><USER24> Google Apps allows domain owners to disable G+.

Will this option vanish?</comment>