Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study - <AUTHOR> https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shouldstorm/202008/what-if-certain-mental-disorders-are-not-disorders-all <comment><USER3> At first I viewed the depression I started fighting in my teens as a scourge, a defect, something broken to be fixed.

I have since come to see it as an important signal. When I am managing my life and mental states well, it often fades into the background. When it starts to flare up, like with some kind of physical pain, that's telling me I need to pay attention and change things up a bit.

Furthermore - and perhaps most importantly - it is a preferred failure mode to freaking out or engaging in suicidal ideation. When I'm overwhelmed by that gloom, I remind myself that I could have a stroke, aneurysm or heart attack at any moment, and I think about what the consequences would be if I did. As long as I'm in a safe situation, I can simply take my first opportunity to Just. Stop. Taking time to shut down, and to cease forcing yourself to engage with a world that would go on without you if you suddenly died, is a good idea now & then.

Yeah, at times I feel some twinges of guilt for doing this. It seems selfish on the surface. But when you compare it to the alternatives, well-- it's better than being dead, isn't it? I feel like my ability to manage my life (and depression) has improved considerably with this insight. If you need to stop, stop. Rest. Let whatever is pushing you to the brink simmer in a corner for a while, provided it is physically safe to do so. You will be better equipped to deal with it when you've had a chance to breathe, and to remind yourself that a temporary shutdown is indeed better than being dead.

<comment><USER4> This may make sense for you in particular, but it a lot of people the signal provided by depression is distinct in its persistent alarm about something that isn't really in the present. Listening to the signal and stopping to take stock of it and make changes is often what makes depression so paralyzing, since it is characteristic of it that this doesnt help. Depression for most people is that "stop, stop, rest" happening indefinitely. This is not to say that what works for you doesn't work for you. But, in general, treating depression like an important signal of something really wrong in one's life that one needs to stop and address before moving forward is pretty much depression itself.

<comment><USER5> > about something that isn't really in the present

Or is it? Therapy, especially gestalt or existential, often makes people realise that something really is off with their outlook on life, relationships with other people or other things like this — something that they had paid no attention to and perceived as "normal", that really wasn't. And in the end, what started as their fight against depression ended up as work to fix the core reason for which that depression was only a symptom.

I know this to be the case with myself and some close friends of mine. I'm not a health professional, and this is anecdotal evidence, but from talking to other people and therapists, I hear about this quite often.

<comment><USER6> Can you give an example, personal or otherwise?

<comment><USER5> This is not an anonymous nickname, so I wouldn't be able to give you an honest and full answer.

<comment><USER6> fair enough

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm most surprised to learn that this _isn't_ the current prevailing view in the medical profession. I am not a doctor, but it's always seemed more natural to me to view depression and anxiety as adaptive behaviours - albeit perhaps ones that can end up being triggered too far.

I read an article once (wish I could find it) that one advantage of mild depression was as sort a "call for help and support" from other embers of a close-knit social group, although I'm not sure how well-founded the claim was.

<comment><USER8> One thing that I learned during my psychology degrees that always stuck with me was that mildly depressed people are measurably better at judging probabilities of things happening. (Unfortunately I can't remember off the top of my head the structure of the study, or how much better they were). I wonder if that might fit into this, in that if you're mildly depressed presumably bad things are happening to you, so perhaps it's adaptive to be more realistic about your situation. Pretty hand-wavy stuff, but interesting to think about.

<comment><USER9> I remember reading an article like that. Also, it's a bit of a meme that if depression was 100% harmful then it would already be eliminated by evolution. I mean why shouldn't people prone to depression die off?

Don't make a mistake, I'm still working on improving my life and uncovering the root causes. It is a silent thief of life.

<comment><USER10> The appendix is 100% harmful but not eliminated. As is nearsightedness.

Evolution is only affected by genotypes that prevent reproduction.

<comment><USER11> Uhm, no.

[https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/35/12/2957/5112969](https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/35/12/2957/5112969)

"the strongest signals of recent human adaptation in Europe did not coincide with the Neolithic transition but with more recent changes in environment, diet, or efficiency of selection due to increases in effective population size."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Out of necessity (after existing conventional treatments offered little help) I've been conducting a 10+ year self-experiment related to this topic.

Like others have described, when I started experiencing symptoms of conditions resembling anxiety, depression, ADHD, mild bipolar, paranoia and CFS/ME, I initially sought mainstream medical psychiatric treatment and undertook talk therapy and was prescribed anti-anxiety (benzos) and antidepressant (SSRI) medications. There was some relief but there were also unpleasant side- effects, and I just had a strong feeling these treatments were not really addressing the core problems, and indeed I even felt like the symptoms were fairly normal reactions to the life experiences I'd endured.

Later I tried to heal myself with nutritional and exercise-based approaches, and relatively conventional emotional approaches like meditation. Again, some mild/temporary improvements were noticeable, but they were inadequate, and it still felt like there was something deeper I needed to connect with.

About 8 years ago, I found an approach that involves identifying and releasing traumas, attitudes, behavioural patterns, self-perceptions and defense mechanisms that are held in the subconscious mind, particularly ones that have been attained in early life and have snowballed through repetition compulsion [1] (a concept that Freud first articulated).

I've been undertaking these approaches continually since I discovered them, and bit by bit all the symptoms have resolved.

My experience has confirmed, at least to me, that these conditions are "adaptive responses to adversity" (or something else related to that concept), and that in order to heal the symptoms, I needed to understand their basis at a very deep level; as Jung said, "making the unconscious conscious" [2].

Once that had been done, adopting new, healthy attitudes and behaviours and living free of those symptoms has been fairly easy; i.e., healthier behaviours just emerged naturally once the causes of the unhealthy behaviours were identified and understood.

If any researchers or laypeople are interested to know more about the techniques I've used and the results I've experienced, I'm happy to be contacted (email address in profile). None of the approaches I've used or their underlying hypotheses are novel; it's been written/spoken about extensively by veteran experts on mind+body health including Maté and Bruce Lipton. But there doesn't seem to be much in the way formal studies into these concepts, so I'd be happy to connect with anyone working in the field or anyone else interested to explore further.

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

[2] [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/44379-until-you-make-the- un...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/44379-until-you-make-the-unconscious- conscious-it-will-direct-your)

<comment><USER13> _The Trauma of the Gifted Child_ by Alice Miller is probably a good read to throw in here if this is the direction you're looking to explore - <USER2> if you can get an early edition that hasn't been watered down. Some of her perspectives into experiences as a child that are commonly accepted as "normal" but are often experienced by the child as trauma and grow into dysfunction as adults were interesting.

<comment><USER14> Is it "Trauma" or "Drama"? The version I'm seeing on Amazon is "The Drama of the Gifted Child".

ETA: I found this interesting, too - the author's own child wrote a book about his negative childhood experiences: [https://www.haaretz.com/life/books/.premium-mother- dearest-1...](https://www.haaretz.com/life/books/.premium-mother- dearest-1.5255078)

<comment><USER15> It's "Drama"

<comment><USER14> Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > _If ADHD is not a disorder, but a mismatch with a human environment, then > suddenly it's not a medical issue. It's an issue for educational reform. And > that is a compelling thought, given the evidence that kids' focus and > cognition are improved by physical activity. Still, we need to take this > study with a grain of salt. There is a large body of research showing other > biological factors when it comes to ADHD. For instance, there is evidence > that premature birth increases rates of ADHD later._

So speaking as someone with adult ADHD who is getting by without medication with the right lifestyle choices, this sounds a bit like arguing that cardiovascular diseases are not medical issues, they're lifestyle problems.

I mean, yeah, in both cases the problems very much _are_ largely caused by our lifestyles. But these lifestyles still affects me differently than how it affects most other people. Don't get me wrong, I'd be very happy if we get rid of the _disorder_ label, not to mention societal stigmas surrounding mental illnesses and/or being neuro-atypical in general, but I don't see why we'd have to choose between (in this example) educational reform and psychiatric therapy when both seem valid options that complement each other.

EDIT: also, if you _really_ want a good example of dystopian victim blaming in psychology, I'd suggest checking out "opppositional defiant disorder" and imagining how _that_ label can be abused

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

<comment><USER17> >So speaking as someone with adult ADHD who is getting by without medication with the right lifestyle choices

How do you do it exactly? Without ADHD medication I can't function on a basic level, and even then it's pretty hard. (Yes that's just ADHD, I tried every antidepressant and mood stabilizer under the sun for years before getting diagnosed with ADHD)

<comment><USER16> Well, I have the inattentive subtype, without hyperactivity or much of the associated impulsivity. So I guess I'm already in a starting point that is easier to compensate for.

I pay a _lot_ of attention to my sleep - I'm a chronic insomniac. And keep in mind that it's not just about sleep time, it's also about sleep _quality_. So sleep hygiene is really crucial. No caffeine after lunch, and no alcohol in general (unless you know you can afford to be less well-rested the next day) because that might make you drowsy but it prevents entering the deep sleep cycle. Low-dosage melatonin seems to help me, not so much with falling asleep as it does with ensuring that once I _do_ manage to sleep, I hit that "deep sleep" cycle that is absolutely necessary to recover.

I'm very sensitive to disturbances at night, noises can drive me _nuts_. So I spent a _lot_ of time finding comfortable ear-plugs. They are essential for uninterrupted sleep for me, which again is crucial for hitting the deep sleep cycle.

Then there is the question of _falling_ asleep. If I have trouble with that (which is almost every night), I get out of bed and go read in the living room, so that my brain keeps associating the bedroom with rest. Sometimes I start having ideas just before falling asleep, I then try to write those down on paper, and maybe work them out a bit - I realized that part of why late night thinking keeps me awake is that I'm afraid to forget all the ideas, so writing it down gives me peace, and doing so by hand also calms forces me to slow down. Meditation is also good for slowing down racing thoughts, but it really depends on what the thoughts in question are.

Then there's diet. I don't know if I can generalize what works for me specifically, but lots of leafy greens in general. There is evidence that berries and other sources of polyphenols help a lot with children with ADHD, and in general those are supposedly really healthy, so I figure they won't hurt me either. Avoid things that give sugar rushes/crashes. Finally I take supplements for common deficiencies that apparently disproportionately affect people with ADHD (B, zinc, magnesium).

Exercise helps because the cerebellum is involved with regulating attention. So I try to start the day with some mild exercise (like a short run) to really activate it. I've noticed that this helps with my attention regulation throughout the day. Sitting all day programming reduces activity again, so sometimes I take short "activation breaks" where I just do ten squats or burpees or whatever, not to exercise but to wake up the cerebellum.

Therapy is important. The overlap between ADHD symptoms and co-morbid/complex PTSD symptoms is large, leading me to believe that maybe people with ADHD are just more likely to end up in traumatizing situations (in my case: other kids _loved_ to provoke temper tantrums in me) and part of their symptoms are really just a consequence of the resulting PTSD. As difficult as it was to process my past, therapy helped me a lot. It seems to have reduced some of my ADHD symptoms a bit, but even if it didn't: someone with ADHD is likely to have a lot of pain to process as a result of their condition. Doing so means having one burden less to carry, making it easier to cope with the remaining issues.

One very important thing I learned: ADHD means that _inevitably_ I will slip up at some point and forget an important appointment or something. The screw- up itself is punishment enough, so if I hate myself for always screwing up too I'm just punishing myself twice. So learn to be kind to yourself and forgive yourself when that happens, that makes it easier to pick yourself up, fix the problem, and move on when this happens.

Therapy also helped me with being better at being brutally honest about my limitations. No, I cannot plan five things in a day when I know that I can't complete more than two. If I know I'll likely forget _something_ at home when I go somewhere, even with checklists, leave early so I can go back to pick it up when I inevitably remember I forgot it five minutes after leaving the house. Try to develop good habits. More importantly, _only try to develop one habit at a time, and give it enough time to really become a habit._ And so on.

And finally: use that ADHD hyperfocus to your advantage, and do deep dives into learning as much as you can about how to ADHD works and what you can do about it.

<comment><USER17> Thanks a lot, this is very good resources. I read the whole thing several times despite having a pretty bad brainfog day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here's a personal anecdote of the moment when I realized that perhaps mental disorders are not disorders at all:

A few years ago I had a job that made me deeply unhappy. The unhappiness came about gradually, but in my last year there it was overwhelming. In my last year on the job I spent a good chunk of my working hours holding back feelings of deep frustration and anger over how things were progressing and over how I was being treated by my boss and by a few coworkers. At times I considered going to see a therapist, but in the end I opted for a more direct solution - I spontaneously quit the job.

Even though my financial situation became a lot less secure, my state of mind improved greatly. I started sleeping better, some stress related physical symptoms went away, I started working on personal projects that I had been neglecting etc.

I'm pretty sure that, had I gone to the therapist, I would have been diagnosed with some sort of depressive disorder and probably would have been prescribed some sort of medication. I probably would have still been in the job I actually hated and I wouldn't have made as much progress in understanding what I actually wanted from my life.

<comment><USER11> This is like saying people with heart disease do not have a disease because they stopped eating poorly and the heart disease went away.

You did have a metal disorder. You were just lucky to find the cause. The cause was job stress.

I have a mental disorder that was harder to find the cause. But I did as well.

<comment><USER18> > You did have a metal disorder. You were just lucky to find the cause. The > cause was job stress.

You could phrase it that way, but the fact remains that for me, I feel, there was an objective external cause to my unhappiness. It wasn't a spontaneous and inexplicable 'chemical imbalance in the brain'. It was a reasonable reaction to a shitty life experience.

> I have a mental disorder that was harder to find the cause. But I did as > well.

Indeed I may have stated my conclusion too broadly. I'm sure there are problems out there that can't be fixed by changing your lifestyle/job etc. and that may require serious effort, therapy, medication.

<comment><USER11> But you see, I was hospitalized several times for my mood disorder. I have come to find out that there was an objective external cause of that as well.

The problem is not with the psychiatric "cures", the problem is the psychiatrists. It took a test to LOOK at my brain chemistry form them to see what was going on with me. It took 25 years of convincing them to give me the test. THAt is the disorder.

Shitty life experiences, and almost every environmental input, will affect chemicals in our brain and body. I mean, how do you think saddness happens? It just appears out of no where? NOPE.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01650...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032719325388)

<comment><USER19> >Shitty life experiences, and almost every environmental input, will affect chemicals in our brain and body.

I think that is a key point many people fail to see. Our present moment (including our thoughts and beliefs in the present moment) determine what chemicals get released in the brain.

Calling something a chemical disorder is overlooking correlation is not causation. (That does not imply pills can not be helpful and should not be considered.)

Did you end up finding a cure on your end? What was it?

<comment><USER11> I was recently diagnosed with a genetic condition, GCH1 deficiency, which lowers the amount of serotonin and dopamine I make and increases the amount of trace amines. (Trace amines are similar to methamphetamines.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This feels so obvious. 30 years from now, we might very well look back at these labels we applied to people, implying something is wrong with them for responding to their negative circumstances, and feel like we were living in the dark ages.

When we see historic rises in mental disorders following an external event like the coronavirus pandemic, is it not something we should reasonably expect? I can accept that some sliver of the population has an unreasonable reaction to something like this, but for most people, it isn't a problem in their head as modern psychology tends to imply.

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/health/2...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/04/mental- health-coronavirus/%3foutputType=amp)

<comment><USER21> I hope so, and that what we now call depression will be considered as silly a moniker as hysteria or "troubled humours" back when.

<comment><USER19> Exactly. When it comes to depression the chemical imbalance theory comes from Zoloft. It is a drug that accidentally had the side effect of reducing depression in some patients. Curious scientists wanted to figure out why, so they examined it. Turns out Zoloft boosts serotonin in the brain. This created the chemical imbalance theory, but since then study after study for decades has disproved this, yet for some sort of reason the theory stays in the mainstream.

Ibuprofen can cause an ulcer. Imagine some primitive ape sees this blood loss and assumes the blood loss is what reduces inflammation. The Zoloft serotonin study follows the same faulty logic.

<comment><USER22> You might be interested in Johann Hari's _Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions_ , who really looks into this and how depression is diagnosed and treated, as well as why it may actually be the 'adaptive response' suggested above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The money quote:

> Study author Kristen Syme, a recent WSU Ph.D. graduate, compares treating > anxiety, depression, or PTSD with antidepressants to medicating someone for > a broken bone without setting the bone itself. She believes that these > problems "look more like sociocultural phenomena, so the solution is not > necessarily fixing a dysfunction in the person's brain but fixing > dysfunctions in the _social world_."

This is EXACTLY what Kaczynski said:

> The concept of 'mental health' in our society is defined largely by the > extent to which an individual behaves in accord with the needs of the system > and does so without showing signs of stress ... Instead of removing the > conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them > antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an > individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate > social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.

<comment><USER24> Kaczynski ends up positing a kind of return to the natural state as the ultimate solution (which he basis his actions on). The issue being that historically, these problems existed in earlier times even if not discussed in detail. Kaczynski blames "the state of the world" without ever listing some state where the problem didn't exist.

> "Research on depression, anxiety, and PTSD, should put greater emphasis on > mitigating conflict and adversity and less on manipulating brain chemistry."

Whereas Kaczynski blames society, the world at large, the paper sets these up as smaller addressable issues. You can identify "kid B needs extra recess" more readily than abolish schools as Kaczynski calls for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Insights from psychology today from an article originally in Forbes.

About the Author: A pediatrician and writer, Dr. Escalante is on a mission...

<comment><USER26> +1 but let's see where your comment ends up ranked in the thread at days' end.

<comment><USER11> +2

"Dr. Escalante understands because she is a recovering worried mother herself. "

I am tired of people prescribing their cure to everyone else in the world. Great, it worked for her. And I get it, the whole world is neurotic, but to say it is not a disorder is idiotic.

If I make a mess of my room, it is just disordered. It is just that simple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Honestly, this squares with personal experience. I've had long periods of anxiety, which I'd describe as perceiving outside things as greater threats than they are, excessive worry and overthinking and withdrawal from outside world. I've also endured depression, that is overmuch despair and lack of willpower to complete even simple tasks.

It plagued me for years, badly affecting much of my personal life. I had some therapy (for 3 months), and interestingly a doctor actually voiced the same view put forward in this article. I never took medication.

Latterly, after gaining more life experience and connecting some dots, I realised much of this was fed by my environment when I was growing up. I realised this comparing outcomes with others who had stabler, supportive homes. Bad circumstances leading to social ostracisation, which meant I never developed social skills well, which meant I always dreaded social contact. This fed an endless anxiety cycle.

After ten painful years, wrangling and working through it, I've eventually managed to make better friendships. As a result, my anxiety has dropped and my overall social ability improved. Nowadays, social contact has been reduced and I've been forced to stay in my childhood home thanks to "lockdown". Curiously, I've once again had more of the depression-like symptoms.

I wonder how much of these afflictions are brought on by poor family environments, and even when they are stronger the parents providing little personal input into children's lives. Lack of community generally and increased personal isolation. I'd put it forward that medicalisation isn't the answer to all of life's woes, or the problems we face individually or collectively.

</comment><comment><USER28> I would recommend people watch this lecture by Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky, who studies these things in depth and is an actual expert.

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

There is a lot of arm-chair thoughts on this matter in this thread, and I feel this lecture sets a lot of things straight.

A helpful quote from the talk: "...the single point I want to hammer in here over, and over, and over, is something that people with depression constantly battle with. Back to semantics, we all get depressed. Bad stuff happens to us. We all get depressed. We feel lousy. We feel withdrawn. We feel a sense of grief. And we're not taking much pleasure. And we withdraw. And then we get better. We cope. We heal. We deal with things in life. What's the deal with you that you can't do that? And there's this lurking sense given that all of us have periods of being depressed and come out the other end. When you look at people who instead go down and stay down there to this crippling extent, there's always this little voice between the lines there of, come on, pull yourself together. We all deal with this sort of thing. I will make the argument throughout here that depression is as real of a biological disorder as is juvenile diabetes."

</comment><comment><USER29> Trying to decide if mental disorders are disorders or adaptations is a false dichotomy. They can be both. For example, the 'dark triad', narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, can help an individual succeed. Studies have shown that women are attracted to these personality traits in men.

On a group level, anxiety in individuals may be evolutionarily advantageous to the group while being disadvantageous to the individual. If a person is hyper alert, it may help the group to become aware of danger but cause tremendous stress to the individual.

<comment><USER19> The key criteria for something to be called a psychological disorder is it has to hurt the patient in some way, causing them a disadvantage in life.

To flesh this out:

>Studies have shown that women are attracted to these personality traits in men.

Woman are attracted to men who are as successful or are more successful as them. NPDs and ASPDs (though more rare than NPDs) can fake being successful and others fall for it. This relationship is often short lived once they realize they were tricked.

The most common form of employment for someone who is ASPD (what you're calling psychopathy) is being a homeless alcoholic. The second most common is being in prison. The leading theory is ASPD is an adult who did not grow out of their terrible twos. This does not help an individual succeed in any shape or form. ASPDs do not and can not maintain relationships for a long period of time, and the few high functioning ones not in prison or homeless roam around like nomads from town to town leaving once they are no longer welcome.

Machiavellianism is a philosophy or a set of beliefs. It is not a psychological disorder. It does not harm the belief holder. Machiavellianism is a sort of game theory on a macro nationwide scale.

I can continue with NPD (narcissistic personality disorder), but I can assure you in the long run it does not benefit them. They believe manipulating people is better for them and will jump through mental hoops to justify their behavior to themselves. When someone is thought of as a con artist or a gold digger, that is most likely someone who is NPD.

>On a group level, anxiety in individuals may be evolutionarily advantageous

Anxiety is assuming (usually unconsciously) a negative outcome will happen. It's a danger feeling. When anxiety moves from a rare feeling to a disorder, it's because they're overly assuming/believing faulty futures. This can come from faulty logic, or being told incorrect beliefs during childhood, or many other situations. Anxiety as a disorder has no advantage to the user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> As someone on disability with a mood disorder I can say without reservation that that article was mostly horrible.

I will agree with them that there is a mismatch, but the mismatch is between each individuals genetics and environment. so they are still disorders, it is just that they have not found the right treatment.

And as someone who has been hospitalized several times it is amazing to me how little testing they do for people with serious mental illnesses. It was not until after I had to learn genetics and neurobiology that I forced them to give me a simple serum amino acid test that showed something atypical was going on. Turned out I have a BH4 (tetrahydrobiopterin) deficiency that limits the amount of serotonin and dopamine I make. BH4 deficiency has already been show to be a cause for anxiety and depression.

So Mood Disorders are all environmental illnesses. I am off of all my medications and I control my mental health by diet and environmental changes. But some neurological damage has been done that I might have to live with. So you youngins heed my advice, if something feels bad, don't do it.

</comment><comment><USER30> We could rationalize an opposite hypothesis as well, perhaps they are adaptive responses to lack of adversity. It would be interesting if a good experiment can be formulated to figure it out.

One rationale is that life for billions of years and humans for millions have faced harsh conditions never letting us rest and relax for long.

So if we are sitting still, relaxing, often it meant something must be wrong(physically or mentally) and in less sympathetic times mental illness would encourage culling, either by the tribe or yourself to ensure the limited resources were spent on people who are contributing more physical action.

Roles that didn't have to deal with as much adversity obviously formed eventually, but they took a long time to stabilize, likely being poorly tolerated in most ages, and if the hypothesis was true, were plagued more with the OP's issues.

<comment><USER31> I have had similar thoughts. I think that's why exercise is so much more effective than medicine - it's making your lower physiological self think that you are doing something important and exciting. It also explains why people get so invested in the drama of others. In economically developed countries, we have far fewer life and death situations that help us appreciate it when things are going well.

The other difficulty is that our higher order functions know that exercise is, in the short term, a waste of energy and time. It's not getting us any more resources. I include myself in the subset of people with impulse and procrastination issues, which makes it very difficult to invest in things that pay off over the long term. Depression for me is being stuck in that hole, knowing there may be a way to feel better, but believing the world would be better if I was dead. Maybe my evolutionary contribution would have been as a martyr if I lived in a different circumstance.

More generally, healthcare suffers from the idea that there is "a" population. Our brains and bodies are unique, and until they can identify types of brain patterns and perform studies against those, it's really throwing pills at someone and hoping for the best. Some parts of science have entered into a dangerous dogmatic phase of "this is how we've always done it" which is the opposite of the point.

I would really like to see the mental health community rally behind getting people into recovery-style support groups where people encourage each other to socialize, eat healthier, and get more exercise. That would put all three of the most effective ways to fight depression and anxiety into practice. Of course then the problem is that prescribing virtually free services isn't in the economic interest of for-profit systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This strikes me as a pretty clumsy article.

> What if mental disorders like anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress > disorder aren't mental disorders at all?

Of course they're disorders. That's why they deserve treatment. This bears no connection to the question of whether they're adaptive. Our capacity for physical pain is adaptive, but doctors still treat pain.

> With a thorough review of the evidence, they show good reasons to think of > depression or PTSD as responses to adversity rather than chemical > imbalances.

Besides clueless commentators on the Internet, who is suggesting depression is simply a matter of 'chemical imbalance'? If that were the case, it wouldn't be brought on by loneliness, and it wouldn't be treated with CBT and talking therapy.

<comment><USER33> > Besides clueless commentators on the Internet, who is suggesting depression > is simply a matter of 'chemical imbalance'? If that were the case, it > wouldn't be brought on by loneliness, and it wouldn't be treated with CBT > and talking therapy.

Most of (all?) chemical depression treatments are based on the serotoninergic depression hypothesis that has never been verified. In the recent years more and more arguments come directly against this hypothesis. Yet SSRIs are still the first line of treatment for depressive patients.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder#Path...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder#Pathophysiology)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> So much of what we think is knowledge is actually just a construct to allow someone to make some money. You cant make billions of dollars selling pills through educational reform. Carbs have a longer shelf-life, high profit margin and are hunger inducing so fat was demonised. Recycling doesnt work because its not cost effective but the plastics industry pushes it to shift responsibility away allowing them to fill our world with garbage. You cant make money with treatments out of patent so meds like chloroquine are demonised with cherry-picked research. We are swimming in an ocean of garbage presented to us as fact.

</comment><comment><USER35> So why didn't anxiety, depression and PTSD abound in historical societies that were always at risk of some bad thing (usually famine but also sometimes invasion)?

Bad stuff has always happened and always will happen. Something about modern society makes us bad at dealing with it in a healthy way.

I don't doubt that there might be some mismatch between the environment our biology is optimized for and the one we live in now but it seems like these conditions weren't common, or if they were they weren't a problem, among our ancestors who lived under different circumstances.

</comment><comment><USER36> Besides raving on and on about ADHD, the article offers little actionable stuff, dubious reasoning and outright falsehoods at places (like the fact that antidepressants are no better than placebo).

<comment><USER37> I wouldn't say that that is a false statement, there's been a bunch of research in the area, mostly started by this paper: [https://www3.nd.edu/~ghaeffel/Kirsch2002%20Prevention%20&%20...](https://www3.nd.edu/~ghaeffel/Kirsch2002%20Prevention%20&%20Treatment%20copy.pdf)

Note that the above is an analysis of the data used to approve the medications from the FDA, so likely to be optimistic.

The headline finding is that compared to an active placebo (i.e. one with similar side effects), the benefits of SSRIs are very small.

However, if you have a diagnosis of MDD, there is more evidence for an effect (although it's still pretty small).

It's a difficult subject to study correctly, because of the strong commercial pressures (like most drug studies, to be fair), but depression does seem relatively placebo responsive, which would suggest either a connection to inflammation or the body's opioid system.

This does not mean that people should stop taking anti-depressants, I'm not a medical doctor etc, but there is some research to support the assertion around SSRIs and placebo in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I used to get severely depressed, and it was often stress-related; adversity, work, even sickness would make things worse. I completely changed my lifestyle and started working out almost 3 hours a day (walking counts)in addition to removing carbohydrates from my diet almost entirely. After this change, I only get depressed for a second, then I realize I can take action, and then I take action, and it leads to happiness.

YMMV.

my personal theory is that it's related to bacteria in your gut--working out helps promote a good gut microbiome (this is well studied) and removing carbohydrates removes all those bacteria such as lactobactilla which will literally cause psychological changes, these bacteria are part of the metabolic process converting carbohydrates to blood glucose, and they are literally interacting with the nerves in your gut making you feel depressed. It's a biological thing. Psychology never helped me, instead it actively harmed me. The lectures of Robert Sapolsky and the concepts of cognitive behavioral therapy helped the most from the psychological perspective, however. This combination of advice is purely anecdotal of course, but all the steps I took have been widely studied. It's hard to create an industry around the removal of a product, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER39> _" When it comes to what labels we use, a change is welcome. Mental health recovery in part depends on whether patients believe they can get better. Telling our patients that their symptoms may be tied to a healthy response to adversity could be very encouraging."_

I find it the exact opposite. For me it seems easier to fix a mental disorder in my brain than to bring the necessary sociocultural changes in the world to mitigate my problems.

</comment><comment><USER40> This will help a lot of people avoid unnecessary anxiety and shame/guilt.

</comment><comment><USER41> It took humans thousands of years to adapt to the side-effects of the agricultural(Neolithic) revolution ([https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet- earth/the-worst-mist...](https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the- worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race)). I think we are in a similar situation—psychological revolution?—where the side-effects due to social media, globalization, and other related phenomenons are starting to change the landscape. My guess is we will soon see that the plateau we have attained in the form of psychological disorders will slowly fade away in couple more generations as people start adapting to this kind of stress. Maybe our generation is evolution's transition point? At least I hope that it is, I've never seen this at this level of intensity with my grandparents'/parents' generation and I do not want to see this with the next generation.

</comment><comment><USER42> Anxiety & depression might be useful if handled well but if not...

The problem is often on the line of you get depression & anxiety as a symtom of some other problems if you fix the problems fine. If you don't it can get out control and then you _can become conditioned to do "bad" responses to all kind of things making the symptom a illness itself_. And making it really hard to get out of it.

Or at least this is how it _often did look like to me_ when I looked at people with depression & anxiety.

Just to be clear with "bad" responses I mainly mean thinks like avoiding problems instead of fixing (or sidestepping) them making it with every time you do so harder to "fix" that underlying problem in the future.

</comment><comment><USER43> "there is little in our evolutionary history that accounts for children sitting at desks quietly while watching a teacher do math equations at a board."

In the section that discusses labels, I am particularly struck by this quote. So many things in our evolutionary history seem contrary to the way we live, learn, and interact. Perhaps this is the catalyst that ignites the evolutionary flames. I often think that we are just hitting our heads against a wall and expecting different results other than a bloody head.

</comment><comment><USER44> The ACE (adverse childhood experiences) study might be one of the most important health findings since Germ theory. In the sense that it finds a true root cause for a lot of health maladies, as well as physical mechanisms that cause these health issues in traumatized kid (all animals respond maladaptively to stress hormones introduced too early in development)

I'd recommend people read "The Deepest Well" - a great book on this topic.

</comment><comment><USER45> "Anxiety may be due to chronic activation of the fight or flight system. PTSD may occur when trauma triggers the freeze response which helps animals disconnect from pain before they die, and depression may be a chronic activation of that same freeze response." Isn't this a quite good definition of disorders? If a system is chronically activated when it should not, it seems like a disorder.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm not a psychologist but this feels pretty intuitively self evident to me. Did anyone ever think otherwise?

</comment><comment><USER47> Another thing to think about is that these responses may cross generations. i.e the anxiety someone experiences today may be due to trauma suffered by thier grandparents. The mind is a wonderful thing, but there is so much that we don't understand about it/ourselves.

<comment><USER11> This happens through epigentic changes, not through the mind or the brain.

[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/parents-emotional- tr...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/parents-emotional-trauma-may- change-their-children-s-biology-studies-mice-show-how)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Couldn't a person have a biological makeup that predisposes them to experience greater or lesser adversity? If mental disorders are adaptive responses, that doesn't seem to rule out that some people may be more prone to interpreting situations as adversarial.

<comment><USER49> Yes of course one could have more or less of a response. Situations and circumstamces (we're talking about entire lives worth of experiences) vary so much though that it would be impossible for an outsider to state _you are weaker_ based on the limited knowledge you can have about another person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Well we surely did not evolve to be happy and content, that's for sure. Sounds to me like a good bet that most mental disorders are adaptations to adversity in evolutionary time, that are often maladaptive in modern society.

</comment><comment><USER51> Younger boys who get a lot of exercise consistently perform better in school on average. The "problem" is that girls don't need as much exercise. Coordinating the difference confounds US schools.

</comment><comment><USER52> Ah yes, yet another occurence of adaptationists trying to shoehorn literally every single trait into their framework. It's basically intelligent design that doesn't say its name.

</comment><comment><USER53> when these conditions persist after the adversity has passed, that's maladaptive.

<comment><USER54> Is a leg that remains fractured after a physical shock has passed also maladaptive?

<comment><USER53> if it doesn't heal in some reasonable amount of time after the trauma and remains fractured indefinitely, then yes.

<comment><USER54> How do fractures heal without proper medical care?

The "just walk it off" method fares poorly.

Magaret Mead uses this for her exemplar of civilisation foe a reason.

<comment><USER53> for many fractures, yes.

fractured usually ribs heal by themselves.

I once had a broken, displaced rib. Nothing was done except to let it heal by itself

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> No way! /s

</comment><comment><USER56> PTSD is quite obviously a response to adversity, that is already implied by the name! What am I missing here? Why is this news?

<comment><USER32> The point is whether it's _adaptive_ , i.e. whether it has evolved because it is beneficial (such as our pain aversion), rather than arising as an unfortunate bug in the system (such as cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder which seems pretty clearly not to be adaptive).

<comment><USER57> Of course PTSD is beneficial: it gets you discharged from military, for example, so the chances of you being in the situation where someone is shooting bazooka at you drop to zero.

In general PTSD helps you avoid traumatic experience in future.

<comment><USER58> In many interpersonal relationships, a trauma response causes you to become _more_ liable to ending up in the same situation, not less. Do not underestimate how many people end up reliving their trauma over and over because they can't overcome that response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> This is an interesting read on a similar take on major depression,

[https://grasshoppermouse.github.io/2018/12/16/seven- reasons-...](https://grasshoppermouse.github.io/2018/12/16/seven-reasons-why- major-depression-is-probably-not-a-brain-disorder/)

</comment><comment><USER60> Anxiety is a disorder of the nervous system that is a by-product of civilization. We are one of the only mammals that gets anxiety, if you get anxiety in the wild you won't be alive much longer.

Depression and PTSD are not responses to adversity. If you face adversity and suffer depression or PTSD you were raised psychologically weak in a way that is dangerous to you.

There are people who have survived civil wars, drought and mass starvation all over the world that don't have these problems get out of your bubble.

<comment><USER61> > There are people who have survived civil wars, drought and mass starvation > all over the world that don't have these problems get out of your bubble.

And similarly, there are people who have been traumatized by the same events.

In fact, there are war heroes who have taken bullets for their comrades, saved platoons, jumped at the enemy, and have been stricken with PTSD - if you think these people are "weak", then you probably also consider people who get cancer to be of inferior stock, right?

<comment><USER11> It is so shocking to me that people do not think genetic diversity exists without the human species.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN:  Where do I start to learn how to develop? - <AUTHOR>

I have ZERO coding/development skills.  ZERO.  Never written a line of code in my life.
Have a great idea for a business.  But it's the same old story - finding a tech co-founder is damn near impossible.
So if I'm going to learn how to build a MVP myself, where in the hell do I start?
My product would fall into a user interface/user experience type product vs. a  super super technical.  It's more of a social community built around a game concept. <comment><USER2> You need to understand the fundamentals of a web application before diving in. For example, do you understand how a simple form works? How data is transferred from a web browser to a server and back?

I found that the when I was trying to learn the web, I was too obsessed with learning a particular language..rather understanding the basics first, like static html vs server side html, form POST/GET, Css, Js etc.

My suggestion? Write a series of static html pages with css and js. Get a simple page working with a form, then try to submit that form to a server to process.

Once you have a form posting to a server, try generating the entire static html page you wrote on the server side using a simple scripting language (php, asp.net etc)</comment>


Two New Vim Plugins - <AUTHOR> http://ithaca.arpinum.org/2011/11/22/vim-tweaking.html

<comment><USER2> Another alternative to Pathogen is Vundle (<https://github.com/gmarik/vundle>). I've been using this one for a while and really enjoy it.

<comment><USER3> ha, you beat me at it. I typed the post and got back to Campfire alerts at work and found yours :)

thing I love about Vundle is that it makes it really really simple to maintain your vim stuff. Your whole vim setup is down to just your .vimrc

<comment><AUTHOR> My initial feeling is that I prefer modular to bundled in this case. That is, I use shell scripts or small programs to mass-install or mass-update bundles, and I'm not sure I want all that information in my .vimrc. That said, I can definitely see why some people might love it, and Vundle itself looks interesting. I'll definitely take a look.

@SingAlong (I can't reply to your reply, so I'm replying here.)

> Vundle does exactly that - makes installs and updates easier.

I know. But that's what I meant by "I prefer modular to bundled in this case": I _don't want_ all of that in one place (my .vimrc). I'm not saying Vundle is bad or that this is a wrongheaded way to do things. It just don't fit my preferences.

<comment><USER3> Might be offtopic, but out of curiosity could you share your vimrc? I've only been using vim for about a year now and I have a pathetic vimrc here <https://github.com/HashNuke/dot-files/blob/master/.vimrc>

EDIT: (coz i can't reply to comments)

@johncoltrane I thought the statusline was the same as modline. When I created that file, I took someone else's vimrc and added stuff until there was no trace of borrowing (except the one you caught).

@telemachos thanks for sharing

Wondering why I'm not able to post replies to comments. @telemachos too said the same a whiie back.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Wondering why I'm not able to post replies to comments.

I think this was a switch designed to stop flame-wars or overly nested discussions. (I remember I used to be able to comment on comments.)

Still, it makes it very hard to have conversations.

<comment><USER3> Figured out how to comment. Just visit a comment's page drectly and you'll find a reply box there. So I had to use that "link" link in your comment and then use the box on that page.

<comment><USER4> There's actually code that throttles the level of nesting comments to prevent a IRC like flamewar or even just vacuous comments that have not been well thought out; the deeper the nesting, the longer you have to wait until you are allowed to comment on that post.

Edit: your way works too if you want to short circuit that delay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been trying to replicate the filetype specific bundles using pathogen's disabled bundle feature, so unbundle is a nice discovery. To allow for more flexibility such as enabling a bundle for more than one filetype but not all (e.g. just jvm languages), there can be a separate directory that contains all bundles, and these can be symlinked from ftbundle and bundle. This also allows disabling bundles that you're still testing.

</comment><comment><USER6> There's an awesome ruby gem called vimpack (<http://github.com/bramswenson/vimpack>) that makes it easy to install any VimL plugins from github directly, a la `vimpack install firstname.lastname@example.com:user/neat_vim_plugin.git` It uses pathogen on the backside to load the plugins. It also provides easily cloning your repo for use elsewhere. It's how I manage my vim configuration amongs multiple different computers / other developers can use my repo as a starting point. I <3.

</comment><comment><USER7> So, Unbundle sounds like Vim's ftplugins. Are there global plugins out there that work for a single filetype and interfere with other filetypes?</comment>


What is this all about? - Our website is officially launched. - <AUTHOR> http://qbix.com/blog/index.php/2011/03/what-is-this-all-about/

<comment><USER2> As someone who's never heard of Qbix I came away from this post with the knowledge that you make "tools to accomplish things with" that represent "a leap in social communication." Oh, and that you're out to change the world. Before clicking around the site I actually thought it was a parody.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, this is our first post on the blog. It may be a little bit grandiose. But to tell you the truth, what's written there is exactly right on. We have a technology, a capable team, we are funded, we are on a roll, and our products are doing very well on the iPhone and Mac right now (top 25 on the Mac App Store).

It will all make a lot more sense once I start writing more blog entries. I am pretty excited, and that blog is like anything else we do ... it will come together part by part, and it will all make sense.

I have a question though ... do you think the header doesn't work with the white background? We designed the rest of our site to be pleasant to look at for long periods of time, and in my experience, white isn't. I'm curious what you think

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> To be honest, I wish the blog post would have actually answered, "what is this all about?" It was all garnish, no meat.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html>

_One test of whether you're explaining your idea effectively is to ask how close the reader is to reproducing it. After reading that sentence I'm no closer than I was before, so its content is effectively zero._ -pg

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the first blog post. I admit that it doesn't give you much information right now, but in a few days it will make sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think you need to focus your product on a specific killer use case. I'm a bit lost as to what your unique core vision is beyond making the world a better place by helping people, cause I'm sure no one else in the world is trying to do that.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes, what exactly is this all about?

</comment><comment><USER7> I think they make different iPhone apps (like a Groups and Calendar management app), click through the links on top.

Wouldn't have guessed that from the blog post though.</comment>


Triple-Layer Catalyst Does Double Duty When Splitting H2O for Clean Energy - <AUTHOR> http://news.rice.edu/2017/07/26/triple-layer-catalyst-does-double-duty-2/ <comment><USER2> Full paper:

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211285517...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221128551730441X)</comment>


Boing Boing blackout message - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/503

<comment><USER2> Been checking out everyone's banners and pages, and this is my favorite. It's incredibly arresting, well written, and has good calls to action.

<comment><USER3> I disagree.

On a quick glance, I assumed there was a page error.

Their page works if you take the time to read it, but I assume most non technical users will open the page, see the page error, assume the page is down for technical reasons, and go about the rest of their day.

<comment><USER4> Hi, I'm the guy who made this page. We've been talking about SOPA for weeks, and announced that we were blacking out several days ago. I think that our readership is on top of that, but I might be persuaded to amend the message... I thought it was fairly clear.

<comment><AUTHOR> You might simply remove "503: Service Unavailable"

<comment><USER4> What about "503: Service Intentionally Unavailable"?

Edit: Actually, I don't want to change it. I don't think our readers will read three words and skip the explanation. I think much more highly of them than that.

<comment><USER5> The thing is, people are trained to skip error pages. What do you think would happen if you format it as parked domain page? It's not the users you'd perhaps think lowly of that have the most trained impulse to close error pages; it's the more technical users.

Here's a suggestion: format the page as if it was taken down by the government. Something like this: <http://corecorina.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/rippoker.jpg>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They win points for clearly stating in the first paragraph how they would be affected and why they oppose it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm honestly surprised their 503 page isn't as NASCAR with advertisements as their regular page is. This must be costing them a fortune.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love that they are doing this, BUT the big header "503: Service Unavailable" is what is first read and in my experience, most users will just stop in their tracks and return later (assuming the site is having technical issues) without reading the rest.

<comment><USER4> We made some deliberate decisions to try to make it look as little as possible like a real error code. I think most people will realize that it's not an actual technical issue, nothing else on our site looks like this and we've given them plenty of warning through posts.

<comment><USER9> Right. I wanted it to be pure apache error message except for the text. El Hamstero Mustardo here talked me down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Their execution is better than Wikipedia's in my opinion. Well done, BoingBoing.

</comment><comment><USER11> Must do: View page source. :)

<comment><USER12> also check out the php tags

       <?php .* ?>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The text was Cory, the viewsource was Dean (Mustardhamsters here at HN). Thanks, guys!</comment>


The computer virus is born, November 10, 1983 - <AUTHOR> http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4437117/The-computer-virus-is-born--November-10--1983 <comment><USER2> Nah. Here's the first computer virus, ANIMAL[1], from 1975.

[1] [http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/univac/pervade.html](http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/univac/pervade.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Inside the article there's a link to another article on the same page about the "Elk Cloner" Virus [1] with the title "1st computer virus is written, January 30, 1982". Which is only a little bit weird considering the linked article's title is "The computer virus is born, November 10, 1983".

[1]: [http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn- moments/4406021/1st...](http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn- moments/4406021/1st-computer-virus-is-written--January-30--1982)

</comment><comment><USER4> The linked paper _Computer Viruses - Theory and Experiements_ is a fascinating bit of history.

[https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~aprakash/eecs588/handouts/cohen-...](https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~aprakash/eecs588/handouts/cohen- viruses.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> And when did it die? Computer viruses are virtually extinct. Nearly all malware nowadays is trojans, not viruses.</comment>


Zen And The Art Of Programming: Beginner's Mind - <AUTHOR> http://www.agillo.net/zen-and-the-art-of-programming-beginners-mind/

<comment><USER2> Neat advice for programmers from an application writing perspective, but it made me consider something else that I think might have value as well.

I'm one of those people who started out writing code but ended up taking on more of a management role. I like to think of myself as being cut from the same cloth as Rands (randsinrepose.com), in that I'm reflective of the programmer's point of view when I engage in management practice.

One thing I've noticed in the HN community, and the technical community at large, is that "idea" people are often dismissed out of hand. Don't get me wrong, the vast majority of ideas that "beginners" pitch are ill-informed or naive to the point that the idea is just unusable, but occasionally, you'll come across a rare gem contains some insight that is outside the reach of a master.

The key is that the beginner very rarely frames their ideas in the language of the programmer, so we have a tendency to simply check out of the conversation. I like to engage idea people and use them as a springboard for ideas. They're often so excited to talk to someone who they know can make their idea happen that they'll take direction from you. Then again, they're sometimes completely hard headed and stuck in their idea rut. As the master, you get to decide who you want to engage and who you don't.

I've worked hard on building my skills at gaining trust and guiding the conversation with idea people. I find that if you open your mind and listen, you can extract the valuable parts from their ideas, reframe them in the language of the programmer, and become a facilitator of great ideas that otherwise wouldn't get traction.

</comment><comment><USER3> First, 'beginners' do worry. I worried a LOT more before I had the experience to know what would work and what wouldn't. When I come across new things, I worry like crazy until I've tried them.

As for camel case preventing you from being your best... Really? -sigh-

And as for the enterprise-y way of doing things in Java, sure, you could do it some other way first, but you'll likely end up changing it anyhow... It's much quicker to just do it that way from the start.

I'm all for improving things and doing things better, but railing against things just because they're -always- done like that is worse than pointless.

Also, don't think I'm defending Java. That isn't what this is about.

<comment><USER4> I think you are sort of missing the point here. The idea is that when you are the 3rd of 4th person down the line of "do it like $THIS, it's the best way", the $THIS has usually morphed. Most of the time that morphing is going from a generalized, loose rule to a strict procedure. But it can also take the form of dogma (goto is always bad, vs the original goto is bad except those few cases where it is the RightThing). Sometimes it is good to challenge the status quo for just that reason, the original good ideas may be lost in the noise, or the initial assumptions may have become invalid. So the point is that beginners don't know that this stuff is "always good" or "always bad", allowing them to look at it from a fresh perspective. This often allows for breakthroughs.

As for the worry thing, I submit to you this:

1\. The Beginner is an ideal beginner. As such, this Beginner is expected to make mistakes, as it is part of the learning process. (S)He is expected to struggle while grasping the difficult concepts -- they are difficult. (S)He is expected to wander down "wrong" paths, as exploration is part of the road to mastery.

2\. Worry almost always comes down to some underlying fear. Usually a fear of something being taken away, be it a job or a possession or something else tangible, or something less tangible like a reputation or a status, perhaps this is tied to one's personal estimation of self worth.

3\. An expert has to fear his expert status, or at least his respect as such, being taken away. This is the worry aboyt mistakes that the article was talking about, an expert who makes mistakes is not long for being expert.

Given these, I am of two minds on this thing you said. First, perhaps the beginner worry comes from not understanding the role of beginner, that mistakes are expected and should probably be encouraged. Second, perhaps the beginner on one thing is an expert in a related thing, and thus is worried about losing status all along. For instance, if a child is the expert at school, he worries about losing his wunderkind status, even when facing his first maths class. If a programmer is really good with Java and and has a rep for being fast a picking up new languages, but has only faced down basic OO stuff, perhaps Haskell would cause a big worry in him?

<comment><USER3> Everyone makes mistakes, but they should never be encouraged. Beginners should be encouraged to explore, though.

I disagree about fear being only of something being taken away. I don't fear for my job because I know I am good enough.

Instead, I fear what repercussions my mistakes will have on others, such as the company I work for. I suppose you could argue that it's still somehow something being taken away, but it's much less tangible and I can't put it into words if that's so.

I also worry that I'll spend more time and effort on something than it deserves. It's rather a silly worry, but it does keep me efficient at my job, so it turns out to be useful after all. (Unlike my fear of heights and water which haven't helped me at all so far.)

I agree that third-hand "That's bad!" is often misleading, but I think those things are great for beginners. It lets them avoid the most troublesome mistakes while they learn. After they learn the basics, they can start breaking those rules. Art is much the same way.

<comment><USER4> Mistakes should be encouraged, then when they are made, they should be presented as learning opportunities. As in: "this is incorrect, here are some things you can do instead, lets look at why you thought this, and how we can get you to a different frame of mind".

Please re-read my statement number 2. I said worry is usually rooted in fear of something being taken away. I never said anything regarding the nature of fear, either its causes or effects.

I'll try to put those repercussion fears into words for you: you are afraid that your mistakes will have the company go out of business and your job will be taken, that your friends and colleagues will no longer associate and respect you as a result (taking away those relationships), that future employment will be harder to find (taking away security). Is this on the right track? I have those fears too, I just try not to let them rule my life.

As for the other side of this why worry about inefficiency? Are you afraid you might have your reputation for no-nonsense constant work taken away? Do you fear you won't get enough money? Whats the big deal about learning something that takes a bunch of time but doesn't return as well as you'd hoped? Why worry about it? Sometimes inefficiency in the small leads to gains in the large, and vice-versa.

As for 3rd-hand "thats bad": I have yet to meet anyone who is both good at something and blindly accepts these "truisms". The good ones question it from the get-go, they may end up agreeing to the principle, but they don't just blindly accept and move on, instead they try to understand it. This is different than the dogma and hard rules I was talking about.

edit: When I say mistakes should be encouraged I don't mean saying "yay you made a mistake! Here is a gold star." Or "Johnny you didn't make a mistake, no star for you". Instead I mean students should be told "It's ok to make mistakes, learn from them, it is a natural result as you gain understanding" Because in the end, humans learn by experience, both positive and negative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In my previous company we experimented with "promiscuous pairing". The idea is that you swap partners every hour and a half or so. You would spend 2 time slots on each partnership, in the first you were the beginner, the second the teacher. We found this had a profound effect on both morale and velocity. We'd already beenp pairing up until this point but the partnerships tended to last for as long as it took to implement a story. In practice there were favoured partnerships and differences of opinion that had become engrained. By swapping partnerships frequently there was always someone in beginners mind. Because the top level business case was always the first thing people asked it forced people to justify every decision in that context. We found this prevented people from going down "rabbit holes" which in turn led to the dramatic increase in velocity. There's obviously other benefits such as knowledge sharing e.g. a new key shortcus would be found and round the team within hours.

If you want to know more about promiscuous programming and the beginners mind I recommend taking a look at [http://mitchlacey.com/docs/XR4PromiscuousPairingandBeginners...](http://mitchlacey.com/docs/XR4PromiscuousPairingandBeginnersMind.pdf).

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm trying to do this right now, by taking lessons from Clojure and applying them in regular Java code. The result is something I'd never expect to see in Java, but makes for better and cleaner code. Stuff like:

        schedule(this, "doStuffRegularly", 1000);

Which starts a thread that runs this.doStuffRegularly() every 10 seconds

<comment><USER7> How surprised would you be if that stuff ran every second?

<comment><USER6> Actually, I have a counter in doStuff which only executes it once every 10 times. Meh, you got me.</comment></comment></comment>


Interview With Android Boss, Sundar Pichai - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/business/2013/05/exclusive-sundar-pichai-reveals-his-plans-for-android/

<comment><USER2> I thought that the more interesting part of the interview was this answer about why Chrome OS and Android both exist:

q: But can't it be confusing having two operating systems?

a: Users care about applications and services they use, not operating systems. Very few people will ask you, "Hey, how come MacBooks are on Mac OS-X and iPhone and iPad are on iOS? Why is this?" They think of Apple as iTunes, iCloud, iPhoto...The picture may look different a year or two from from now, but in the short term, we have Android and we have Chrome, and we are not changing course.

<comment><USER3> I could readily argue that Microsoft incurs huge costs for making all their products Windows. Technology is usually a minor cost, and having one, two, or three technologies to address a wide range of use cases and markets will wash out of the costs if the technologies are appropriately used.

<comment><USER4> Microsoft announced a Windows Everywhere strategy in the 1990s, and Windows has taken its annual turnover from $1bn to $74bn. (That includes doubling under Steve Ballmer.)

Some people would call that "putting all the wood behind one arrow."

Microsoft did try developing a new and different technology for different use cases with Windows CE. That's what it's replacing with Windows 8.... <http://www.economist.com/node/107364>

<comment><USER3> Are those numbers due to The Age of PCs, or is that because Windows actually went everywhere and and is a tier 1 competitor in those categories, i.e. servers, tablets, handsets, cars, TVs, media players, etc.?

On servers, Microsoft is on a supposedly even footing with Linux, but I have not seen traffic-weighted statistics. Apart from that, where is Windows?

It looks like Microsoft has created a bottleneck for itself, where all innovation has to get stuffed through the Windows product line.

<comment><USER4> Microsoft's Servers and Tools division is a $19bn business and sales were up 12% on last year. This compares with Red Hat revenues of $1.13 billion, up 17% year-over-year.

The $19bn compares with initial expectations of zero. Linux fanboys have been telling me for more than a decade that Microsoft was going to be wiped out in the server business, but so far, it hasn't happened. Maybe next year, like the Linux desktop, eh?

Since you're not paying me to do your research, you can google (or even bing) Windows Embedded, Windows Embedded Automotive (aka Ford SYNC) and so on. Of course, it's tough competing with FREE.

> It looks like Microsoft has created a bottleneck for itself, where all > > innovation has to get stuffed through the Windows product line.

You can think what you like ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How is popularity being measured here? Sheer number of devices running Android? Is that really a good measure of popularity?

<comment><USER6> More to the point, what, exactly, is being "revealed" here? This is standard tech "journalism"; a marketing handjob thinly disguised as a story.

<comment><USER7> It was pretty hostile toward the interviewee for a "marketing handjob"</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Sets, a way to build curated lists of related links with others - <AUTHOR> http://www.makesets.com/

<comment><USER2> Very nice.

I find crowd-sourced anything very compelling. Is there any methodology for getting users? Is there some reliable way to differentiate between "I haven't yet tried hard enough to get users," and "I'm pretty confident this is simply not going to catch on"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Me too.

I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can run this forever whether or not it achieves meaningful scale. It's built for me (though it already has resonated with many).

As far as growth is concerned, it's already growing organically on its own and for the time being that's satisfactory to me. I haven't get invested serious resources in growth. Then again, I managed to grow my last product to > 50,000 users purely through and invitation model, with almost nothing spent on marketing. There's a pretty compelling reason IMO to want to build sets together, and I think a lot of the same invite driven mechanics will apply.

That being said, I'm more focused on just building a great product that I use daily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Awesome job with this Kyle. I assume you are going to open an API for this later on? I've been wanting to do a project for a while based around this type of information and this would be a great tool to use to get started on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really appreciate that! Yes, I definitely intend to provide an API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very nice! Are there any advantages of this service over one such as Kippt.com? Looking forward to the API.

</comment><comment><USER5> Very well designed.

What advantage does this have over similar services?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. It's built for me and the way I think a service like this should be.

<comment><USER6> Fine. But what advantage do you have over similar humans?

<comment><USER7> He's similar to a set of other humans with whom it will resonate. Presumably they are curator/collector archetype.

"I built it for me" was exact same decision path that I used for delicious.

I have wanted for a long time to revamp delicious's predecessor with ways to nicely present groups of things. So I guess I'm in the same set.

I think it'll do well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate that! :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there any way to produce many masks from home? - <AUTHOR> If anyone of us can do minimum 200 per day, it's going to help a lot of people.<p>But dear hackers, do you have or think of any crazy idea that will help to produce even more ? (Otherwise than help from other people) or another crazy idea that can help in this circumstance ? <comment><USER2> How about some sort of a rolling perforating machine that turns plastic shopping bags into disposable bandanas?</comment>


Homebrew CPU Home Page (2002) - <AUTHOR> http://homebrewcpu.com/ <comment><USER2> This from the P.P.P.S:

> "Do you really think I don't know when you're playing with your toys? On the > rare occasion when you are doing real work, you slouch. When you are playing > with your hobby project you get all intense. You know you can't fool me. > Never forget that."

Bear that in mind with your own pet projects and make sure that in your pet projects you are getting intense. Slouching in work is one thing, slouching in pet projects, now that is serious! We all start things and don't finish them, or buy all the gear and get no further, I think there is a lot to learn from how this guy runs his project.

<comment><USER3> Well, it could also be that this project was simply too easy for this guy. So building it was actually a form of slouching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some previous threads at [https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=homebrewcpu.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=homebrewcpu.com). We can go with 2002 because [https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://homebrewcpu.com/](https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://homebrewcpu.com/), though 'webring' suggests earlier...

</comment><comment><USER5> Yes, indeed, a ~4MHz 8-bit CPU. Like all the best. I used to run my Z80As at 4MHz (1MIPS), and currently I run my machine-learning, AES-GCM crypting, radiator valve AVRs at 1MIPS! Im still staggered that the beast still appears to be running a live HTTP server...</comment>


Python VM cross-compiled to JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://syntensity.blogspot.com/2010/12/python-demo.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Direct link to demo ( _may take a while to load, 2.6MB_ ):

<http://syntensity.com/static/python.html></comment>


Google engineer finds USB Type-C cable that's so bad it fried his Chromebook - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/02/google-engineer-finds-usb-type-c-cable-thats-so-bad-it-fried-his-chromebook-pixel/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11021665](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11021665)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not an electrical engineer, but wiring something other than ground to the ground pin is...well, I suspect it's straight-up malicious, although why you'd want to do something like this, I don't know.

<comment><USER4> > I suspect it's straight-up malicious

Hanlon's razor: "never assume malice when stupidity will suffice."

It doesn't even make rational sense for a business creating cables to intentionally damage equipment. They'd just get sued, tons of bad PR/reviews, and gain nothing obvious.

More likely they just had production line issues, lack of QA, and poor training for staff. Resulted in malfunctioning equipment being sold. Most people that build cables don't understand how the cable works, they just follow instructions they're given (e.g. "red cable into position #1, white/black cable into #2, yellow into #3," etc).

Ultimately this might just be one incorrectly assembled cable; but the issue here is that they don't QA cables before they leave the shop. Electrical testing on most cables is quick, inexpensive, and automatable. They likely saved a few cent per cable by skipping it, but in the cable industry that might be significant savings.

<comment><USER5> My money is on incompetence too, but it certainly could be malicious. For example, imagine a small company run by two frat brother entrepreneur guys. They bribe some factory supervisor in Taiwan for the designs to a product. They cant understand anything about it but they decide to tweak it to make it cheaper. Their greatly underpaid sole engineer discovers his girlfriend is cheating with the main entrepreneur guy. This is pretty disgusting because engineer man is a good guy and main guy has an underage girlfriend living in a plywood loft built inside a storage unit. One day engineer man says "fuck this I'm going to be a fucking farmer now". He modifies the designs to suck before grabbing a check from the middle of the stack in the printer and heads out the door. Six months later the factory in Taiwan wants the designs for the new product. Main guy digs around on the file system and finds the modified stuff. His new engineer just started and isnt really an engineer but rather an engineering student- he says he will "do the needful". Instead of looking over the designs new engineer plays rocket league and smokes weed. Another six months later engineer guy is growing organic carrots and heritage lambs with his new gf who has kind of fucked up feet and not great teeth but she's nice to him and is good at farm chores. At night he goes to read /r/girlsgoodatfarmchores and at some point sees a link to a video of a cable frying the shit out of the thing its plugged into. "Huh, I really ought to clean this shit out from under my fingernails" he thinks.

<comment><USER6> >This is pretty disgusting because engineer man is a good guy and main guy has an underage girlfriend living in a plywood loft built inside a storage unit. One day engineer man says "fuck this I'm going to be a fucking farmer now".

If engineer man does that, then he is _not_ a good guy.

If engineer man does that, then he is a scummy asshole.

<comment><USER7> You've mis-parsed the parent. His ...story contains an 'engineering man' and a 'main man.'

<comment><USER6> Ah, yes, I see that now. Thanks for pointing that out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone else find it concerning that our new and best technology is so fragile that even the slightest fezz-up in what should be a passive signal- cable can cause our otherwise state of the art equipment to fry itself?

Is reliability, durability and robustness _nowhere_ to be found in any single spec for our new standards?

<comment><USER9> It was not a slight fezz-up. It was miswiring in a power cable. It's like electrician wiring the live pin into ground pin and then wondering why one gets electrocuted by so many devices.

No specification can defend against a hostile, or sufficiently incompetent, implementer.

<comment><USER10> It's what fuses and diodes are used for. You know how when you write a program you never trust user-input? This should be the same thing, but physically. A well-designed USB port wouldn't fry the computer like it did.

<comment><USER9> There is a limit on how much user malice should be tolerated vs the cost (additional components used, larger devices etc etc) to implement all of that. Especially as someone can always just rip the device open and circumvent all that causing breakage. How many stops there should be versus malicious usage?

USB devices can handle things like the ground and voltage being shorted, as that can happen in normal use through wear and tear. However the flip of ground and voltage lines can only happen if it is done intentionally. As an example either by malicious user or by a factory just randomly mashing wires together and then lying to the customers that they're selling an USB cable.

<comment><USER11> Or an untrained or too-tired worker puts the assembly in the jig upside-down and pushes the button. ker-chunk. Then the worker throws the cable in the good bin because he gets paid by the kg of cables produced, and fired if the bad bin fills up.

It's 5A, they could install a polyfuse, or they could monitor the current and turn it off with a transistor.

<comment><USER12> As I already explained in the previous thread about this cable, current limiting _is_ implemented in USB hosts and chargers and it _doesn 't_ help in this case. If the powered device sinks more than 5A of reverse current, it already is dead.

For protection from reverse voltage, the powered device needs a circuit which detects negative voltage and disconnects power (which would easily consume few cm² of PCB area) or a very beefy clamping diode to shunt the negative current into ground before it reaches other circuits and pray that charger's current limiter trips before the diode overheats and vaporizes.

And even if you do that, some idiot can still make a cable which applies -5V to some data line instead of the power line, so that your whole unobtanium Intel southbridge chip goes poof. Are you going to multiply the protection circuit by the number of wires in USB3 cable and at the same time make it pass insanely fast signals without distortion?

At some point you have to give up and simply assume that cable vendors are at least _minimally_ competent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> [https://usbccompliant.com/](https://usbccompliant.com/) is one output of the engineer's work, for anyone curious

</comment><comment><USER14> I find my micro USB type-B connectors all eventually fail, and I've been combing through Amazon to find a reliable cable manufacturer, any suggestions?

<comment><USER15> Anker.

<comment><USER14> I like their charging products, but the cables have been failing at the connector...

<comment><USER16> Which kind of cable? If it's micro USB, they're designed to fail under low amounts of stress (thus sparing the much more difficult to replace port).

Unless handled with kid gloves, Micro USB cables from all manufacturer break easily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm trying to find info about SurjTech with no luck. Does this company even exist?

<comment><USER18> I've noticed that a lot of "brands" on Amazon, especially for cheap electronics, seem to only exist on Amazon. I assume people are buying things in bulk from Alibaba or similar and sticking their label on it.

<comment><USER19> Not necessarily. Here's a fascinating story about one Amazon retailer: [http://www.fastcompany.com/3021229/chaim-pikarski-the- amazon...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3021229/chaim-pikarski-the-amazon- whisperer)

<comment><USER20> This is kinda cool. At first I thought 'ugh, bottom feeder, must be cheap knockoff crap', but the more I read about the business the more respect I got for how he runs it. The fast feedback loop, the quick product iteration...he's going to eat more than one big name's margins. Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder if he will be able to recover any of his losses from this company? I know he is reviewing these cables, so hes taking a certain amount of risk, but imagine if someone bought this cable for their new device. I would be pretty pissed if I bought a new device and a new USB cord to charge it and poof out goes the magical smoke and my USB didn't work anymore.

<comment><USER9> He might have a case. It was sold as an USB cable but clearly it is not actually an USB cable. False advertisement if not anything else.

<comment><USER22> Establishing liability seems easy. Winning a judgment in small claims court ought to be straightforward. Actually collecting on that judgment could be a challenge depending on where the company is located and how they do business.

<comment><USER21> I agree. That is really what I was wondering. Will he be able to see any money from this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think this is a little far to go to try to get a new laptop outside of whatever Google's laptop upgrade/refresh policy is.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder how many of the other products using the exact same marketing copy[1] are the same part.

[1][https://www.google.com/search?q=%22The+combination+of+sturdy...](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22The+combination+of+sturdy+construction+with+a+flexible+jacket+and+USB+3.1+Type+C+connector+with+molded+strain+relief+provides+a+cable+with+reliable+performance+and+long+life.%22)

</comment><comment><USER25> Surjtech. Aka surge-tech.

It sounds like they were trying to be honest at least.

</comment><comment><USER26> I thought type-c was supposed to be the end-all compatibility design. You buy any type-c and it works to spec.

What gives?

<comment><USER22> What gives is that this was not actually a type C cable, but an evil, broken cable mislabeled as a USB-C cable.

<comment><USER27> Right... but two questions stick their head up and want answers:

First, USB outlets are supposed to have a bit of a fuse. Why was _this_ upfuckage so spectacular?

Second, why do USB type C ports/cables have 24 pins if there are only 4 wires? I can understand having a couple of extra ones for type/orientation detection and a doubling to support reversion, but 24 is a lot.

<comment><USER28> > Why was this upfuckage so spectacular?

Because it had power wired to ground. This would be incredibly absurd in ANY variety of powered cable.

This is not merely "noncompliant with spec", it's "actively dangerous because it could start a fire and kill somebody".

<comment><USER27> I see. Of course it would be very difficult to defend against that. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Sounds strange. AFAIK USB shouldn't get fried without external power source. So the Chromebook was bad, not the cable? Down votes? Did I misunderstand something? Just comment with reference that I'm wrong and I'm very happy. Why bother building 'USB Killer' if simple paper clip would fry the motherboard?

<comment><USER30> The external power source was presumably a wall outlet, since he was testing its ability to charge.

<comment><USER31> Well that is an entirely different story. I thought that the cable was plugged into a phone and his chromebook (Just like parent).

I was concerned that this might be a flaw in the chrome book, not the cable. The USB bus should be fine to use such a cable, charging is another thing.

When you add the external power source, that completely changes the game.

<comment><USER32> Best i understand, the guy involved works for Google on USB support in their software and hardware.

What got fried was a Chromebook Pixel. A Chromebook designed and sold by Google directly.

He has been using it and various test instruments to check up on A-to-C adapter cables, as they need to have a specific resistor in them to indicate their nature.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Drone footage of Reddit's major investor rounding up people for religious belief - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchRedditDie/comments/hrlwci/heres_drone_footage_of_reddit_incs_biggest/ <comment><USER2> I expect this to get deleted as HN has apparently decided that pointing out the CCP is heavily invested in Chinese Tech and directing their actions is a flaggable offense.

I'm sure the next time an NSA scandal is exposed that'll get taken down immediately too... right?

<comment><USER3> No moderator touched this post or, as far as I can tell, even saw it until I just came here. Users flagged it. The baity title would be reason enough. Reddit drama tends to get flagged here also, for obvious reasons.

HN hasn't "decided" anything like what you say. The issue is that nationalistic flamewar makes people angry and dumb (and worse). People who want to rant and post denunciatory rhetoric—whom there are a lot of, and growing—need to find another place to do that. Thoughtful, curious conversation on China-related topics is as fine here, as it is on other topics, and as it always has been.

The way we operate HN hasn't changed. What has changed are macro social and geopolitical trends. We can't expect HN to be immune from those, but certainly we need to protect it from degenerating into a flamewar site, and that is what the vast majority of this community wants from us.

<comment><USER4> > The issue is that nationalistic flamewar makes people angry and dumb (and > worse). People who want to rant and post denunciatory rhetoric—whom there > are a lot of, and growing—need to find another place to do that.

I understand and commend the taking down of nationalistic flamewars, for the most part. But that way of operating has one flaw: it gives cover for very back things being carried out, since very bad things are polarising and therefore its denouncing a "flamewar".

I apologise for the question because there is no way to ask it that isn't polarising, but I would really like to know: If Nazi Germany was putting Jews in trains right now, would a post about it get removed from HN? It's a serious question, I think your users deserve to know.

<comment><USER4> I'll take the fact you didn't answer as "yes, it absolutely would".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tencent is owned by the CCP: [https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/03/28/commentary/w...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/03/28/commentary/world- commentary/worried-huawei-take-closer-look-tencent/)

However, this isn't specifically Tencent. I don't know why the title doesn't highlight this is specifically the CCP.

</comment><comment><USER6> This was on the front page then went poof from the front page without slipping to the 2nd or 3rd page and was not flagged. Why did that happen?

<comment><USER7> It's not just Tencent. Plenty of people here have jobs or companies partially owned by China. Don't expect everyone to just be on the side of the people in the trains.

<comment><USER8> That's the unfortunate truth. Money matters more than people's lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> (It's Tencent; the title is awful.)

<comment><USER10> Is this from Xinjiang? Are they just conflating Tencent with the CCP, or does Tencent have some involvement with the camps there? IIRC, the Chinese government is attaching private business operations (e.g. factories) to the camps to use the prisoners as labor. Is there any authoritative source for this footage?

I trust reddit accounts about as far as I can throw them, and given they're just incorporeal information, I can't actually throw them at all.

<comment><USER11> If I understand it correctly, it's the CCP, which holds the same power over Tencent as it does every other company that operates in China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> rv-de Could somebody explain what is going on here? How is this related to reddit and how is it clear that people are rounded up for religious belief? I just see something that could as well be regular prisoners being transferred.

<comment><USER12> A Chinese company invested $150 million in Reddit.

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/11/18216134/reddit- tencent-i...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/11/18216134/reddit-tencent- investment-deal-memes-amount-winnie-the-pooh-tank-man-china)

<comment> rv-de Anything else? I mean taking money from Chinese corps is probably ethically problematic but that's about it. We don't know who got rounded up why and if Tencent is related to that beyond being a Chinese company, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a descendant of Polish Jews that got out in time, god damn this is disturbing.

Why was this flagged? Chinese state behavior is absolutely relevant given their involvement in western tech.

<comment><USER9> > Why was this flagged?

Likely because it attracts unsubstantive comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't have access. Could someone kindly clarify what this is about?

<comment><USER5> [https://gfycat.com/oddballfairgerbil](https://gfycat.com/oddballfairgerbil)

<comment><USER4> wtf... :-(

EDIT: any idea why this also got flagged on HN?

<comment><USER5> It happens to my posts here every now and then whenever I say something that doesn't make the CCP look good.

To be honest, I think the Chinese people are awesome and have a great culture that has given the world a lot. I am just extremely concerned about some of the crimes against humanity that the CCP does which are being normalized. Nevertheless, the USA is in the same boat, but when I am critical of our state my comments don't get flagged.

<comment><USER14> I flagged this because the title is clickbait, and not news whicj in my opinion goes against the spirit of hacker news.

If this would be just a direct link to tencent investing in Reddit, or how Reddit has not taken any strong stance against HKs new data privacy law, then I think it would fit here.

<comment><USER5> Fair enough. I don't agree with the title either. Also, outside of the CCP/Tencent connection, there is very little "tech discussion" around this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> non-entity In surprised that someone was able to get done footage of this. You would that a drone around an area like that would be taken down asap.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a mavic 2, it's rather small and inaudible above 50 meters or so. Which seems to be roughly where it's hovering based on the footage. It has a camera with optical zoom. Ironically, it's made by the Chinese company DJI.

Also, wild speculation, but maybe it did get taken down. The footage shown is a recording of the live telemetry feed streamed to the base station, not the much higher quality video stored on the SD card on board the drone itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This kind of genocides is why the yearly Holocaust remembrance posts on the internet are moot. What's the point of never forgetting a genocide if we're just going to sit by and watch others take place.

</comment><comment><USER16> Look, I'm very much against China here, but this kind of clickbaity rhetoric doesn't help. Maybe Reddit should divest, I think there's a strong argument for that, but their investors at Tencent are not themselves doing the genocide.

<comment><USER17> The nature of Chinese security law means that there is no meaningful distinction between Tencent and the Government or China when it comes to security matters.</comment></comment>